This evening we went to Precious Princess's graduation-from-preschool picnic. As usual, it was held at Hudson Mills Metropark, about 45 minutes or so out of town.
About 50 yards from the picnic pavilion was a nice playstructure area, and after eating, my kids hightailed it over there and proceeded to get dirty. (That's what they do; I'm used to it.) I wandered over to keep half an eye on them, and after a bit I noticed that about 50 yards further still, there were some gigantormous birds pecking away near the edge of a meadow. Then I noticed what looked like maybe a chicken scampering along near their feet.
And then I realized they were a pair of sandhill cranes, with a baby! They must have had their nest nearby. I had never seen a baby one before, so I whipped out my camera and used the zoom feature to get a closer look.
Right about then I could hear my father's voice in my head, saying, "Where's your monopod?" But, since I don't have one, I just had to make do with holding the camera as steadily as I could by hand. That was a challenge, believe me, with the zoom feature.
But anyway, here are my favorite shots of the sandhill crane family.
Last night I finally broke through my block on my problem story.
Yeah! Now I like it again. I'm just... just gonna sit on it for a few days at least, to make sure the new pieces I added yesterday seem smoothly integrated into the whole, not chunked in at the last minute (even though they were).
That's the trouble with editing. You write a couple hundred new words here, cut out a hundred or two words there... and even though the story as a whole has been through umpteen iterations, you still have the NEW pieces that need to be reviewed and (possibly) edited AGAIN. Usually I'm okay with cutting off this process, at least enough to send it off for a friend to review, but with THIS story, somehow...
I feel, right now, that it's ready to send out. (Version 8, good gravy!) But, I've been sorry before for sending out something too soon. Or as one of the published authors who led last fall's Conclave Writers' Workshop put it, "Don't serve undercooked food." (What fabulous words; no wonder he's published!) Don't serve undercooked food. I tell myself that every time I'm tempted to send something out the VERY SECOND I finish it. It's tough to hold back sometimes (like now), but it's a form of self-discipline.
And now I can move on to something new, while I let that one bake for a bit. Something I've been wanting to finish.
Onward!
Finally downloaded my camera, and now have shots illustrating some of my recent posts. So, what follows is a whirlwind tour of my life in May; for more details, scroll down to earlier posts! ;-)
(1) Portrait of the Artist. Mentioned Eldest Son had a first-grade artwork chosen for the all-district art show. His is the fancy letter "A".
(2) Eldest Son's Rainforest display. Only two of MANY projects related to the rainforest unit, but these are the most photogenic. (He refused to pose in front of his poster.) Note, he specified in the poster that we must save the rainforestS (plural) because, as he pointed out, there are many of them, all over the world. Little Mr. Precision, that's him...
(3) Tidy Kitchen Counters!!! Yeah!!
(Note the Macaw mask in the center of this shot -- yet another rainforest project!)
(4) Memorial Day (Today), at the parade. Clearly, I should have stayed out of this shot... But the kids are cute!! :-)
(5) Precious Princess teaching her dinosaurs about addition. Note that they have each been issued with a blank sheet of paper and a sharpened pencil. The teacher of these students is prepared!
On this day that we set aside in honor of all those who have served our country, so that scenes like these can continue to occur in peace and safety,
I dedicate this post to you.
Thank you.
Just got back from seeing THIS movie:
And much to my amazement, given that I've read mixed reviews of this film, I loved it! It was great fun, and every bit as good as Indiana Jones 1 and 3. In my humble opinion.
Harrison Ford pulled off a 20-years-older Indy just fine. He's still got it. (At least when fully dressed -- I noticed there were no shirtless scenes in this one.) He put in a rousing performance -- definitely wasn't phoning it in like Tommy Lee Jones did in "Men In Black II." (Which was a movie I really, really WANTED to like, a whole lot more than I actually DID like it.)
What's-her-name, the one who played Marion Ravenwood in the first film and is back for a 20-years-older reprise of the Marion role in this film, is WAY, WAY LESS IRRITATING in the current flick. Downright bearable, even. Eh -- twenty years seemed to have mellowed her character out some. That, and single motherhood (in the movie).
And, I am astounded to report (I, for whom Indiana Jones and Han Solo were the sardonic swashbuckling heroes of my formative years -- everything a man ought to be ) that Shia LeBoeuf (despite his sissy name and pretty-boy good looks) turned out to be able to hold his own in this film. Astounded, I was. His first scene in the film didn't impress me (seemed quite the lightweight), but he got better as he went along. And, I was looking for a reason to detest him, to sniff that he was not up to snuff as the heir-apparent to the Indy franchise. But, he surprised me.
Y'see, I'm at the age where the heroes of my youth are moving off the stage. Replaced by someone younger. This is a very weird time for me. When the movie heroes start looking younger than me.
And we can't go home again. We can't go back to our childhoods and relive those original heroic fantasies as if for the first time.
That's what we want to do. That's what we're secretly yearning for, there in the dark theater. Make me believe, we whisper in our secret hearts. Make me feel ten years old again, wide-eyed in hero-worship. Make me believe the good guys can win, armed primarily with a battered fedora and a lopsided grin.
And, for me at least, this one worked, far better than, say, the Star Wars prequels did.
I'm still not ten years old again. But it was fun.
Everybody's all healthy now. Just been busy lately, extremely busy.
Had a riproaring week, though not in a bad way. But enough so that Dear Husband was exceedingly relieved when he asked me what was on the agenda for tomorrow night, and I said, "Nothing. You're grilling chicken breasts for dinner, and we're hanging out at home."
And enough so that I was exceedingly relieved, nay, blissed-out, when he reminded me that he is off work tomorrow. His generous employer observes Memorial Day as a 4-day holiday instead of 3, and he gets tomorrow off as well as Monday.
O.M.G., I feel like me again! I've been depressed for so long (even with the medication, I now realize -- it just made me bearable, didn't make me me), and now I'm finally, finally me again!
I got so flippin' much done this week! It's unbelievable. I actually organized the kitchen counters! On top of everything else we did this week! Now, that may not seem like much, but, come on, you all saw my kitchen counter back in February when I posted about my 15th wedding anniversary, complete with photo of my roses on my kitchen counter. And it only got worse since then, believe me.
When I found myself preparing my family's meals on the 8 or 10 inches closest to the counter's edge, because the rest of the counter was entirely covered in a foot-high mound of crap (metaphorically speaking), I said, "Girl, something's got to change."
So, hah! DID that. Check!
(I love to make lists, and check them off. It is the most deliciously satisfying feeling, making that little check mark!)
Okay, Big Kid Items since last update:
- Littlest Brother has been moved to a Big Boy Bed!
His crib and dresser/changing table having been schlepped off to Aunt J's parents, who are, even as I type, schlepping off down to Tennessee (a roughly 8-hour drive from hereabouts) to deliver said furniture along with all of the baby shower gifts to J & B in anticipation of MY FIRST NIECE's arrival next month. Yippee!!
Although I must admit to a pang as I was contemplating L.B.'s "last night in the crib" and "last nap in the crib" and so on -- the crib which has seen continual hard use by my children over the past 7-1/2 years. It served us well and truly is NOT much worse for the wear! I would definitely recommend the Childcraft brand of baby furniture.
- Continuing with the Big Boy theme, L.B. has taken to sitting on the toilet and attempting to go "peedle" first thing in the morning after we take his diaper off. And this morning he actually did it! Peedled into the potty! He was absolutely bursting with pride. So, I'm thinking potty training is on the horizon. I really detest potty training, on the whole, but I think L.B. MAY be easier than the older two were. He's SO motivated to be Big Boy.
- Eldest Son got a set of Bunk Beds! His old twin bed having been handed down to Littlest Brother. He of course insists on sleeping on the top bunk, and loves it. Absolutely adores it. Couldn't be happier.
- Also, tonight was Eldest Son's class "Rainforest" event. Their entire classroom has been decorated as a rainforest, complete with paper vines and animals, for the past month, and the children have been busy learning about, you guessed it, rainforests. They each chose an animal to become an expert on, and he chose the Macaw. He did a fabulous job at tonight's presentation, telling about the Macaw.
And, I noticed several important areas of progress for him during the related projects leading up to tonight's event. He showed new capacity for accepting adult advice, for changing his plan mid-stream when the first plan didn't work out, for continuing on a project even after he got frustrated with it -- for coming back to it after a cooling-off period and solving the problem. All of these things are tremendously encouraging for me to witness, because I know only too well from past experience how much it could have gone differently (read: worse).
And finally -- I got my first rejection from my most recent bout of story-submitting! Yeah!
And know what I did? I revamped the opening a tad bit, hoping to sharpen up the "hook". And I sent it out AGAIN, to a DIFFERENT publication! Yeah!
And I'm going to KEEP submitting it until either I use up my list of pubs that I think would be a good fit for it (in which case I'll retire it temporarily, let it rest a bit and work on some other things), OR one of them buys it! YEAH!
So THERE!
AND, last week Friday I submitted what I think is maybe my best bet yet. So, we'll see how that goes.
So, I still have 5 stories out there at this point.
And I'm wallowing in the mire of this one darned story that just keeps getting worse and worse.
Six months ago, it seemed like my best story yet. Seemed like it really didn't need much polishing in order to send it out. And then, and then everything I tried just made it WORSE. And I just got SO SICK OF IT, I literally couldn't stand the sight of it. I became completely incapable of judging whether the latest changes were in any way an improvement over the previous version, or if the entire thing was just a load of crap. Gee, maybe I should change it to present tense. Gee, maybe I should rewrite it from the point-of-view of the ficus tree. Gee, maybe I should write it in second person. And finally I decided to just take a fresh approach, and start over again on a blank sheet of paper.
No, no, no, don't worry, I didn't junk it. What, 're you kidding? I am constitutionally UNABLE to throw ANYTHING away, even when my entire house is being drowned in clutter. (Think: Tribbles. Made out of paper. Stacks and stacks of paper. And toys. Floods and floods of brightly-colored chunks of plastic, knee-deep in places.) Never mind my hard drive. My hard drive is essentially boundless for the kind of files I keep, and at least old computer files don't pile up in the meatspace, and threaten to topple over, burying small children under an avalanche of paper and Barbie-doll shoes. No, of course I changed the file name and still have ALL of the versions of this story -- all 7 of them to date, PLUS the all-new one.
So, I'm behind on my self-imposed deadline for getting this story in shape for submission, but I think it'll be worth it.
Okay, I've GOT to got to bed.
Toodle-oo!!
Feeling some better. Didn't break out in hives at Littlest Brother's swimming lesson today, so that weird skin-sensitivity thing seems to have gone away. Pretty much just dealing with stuffed-up head and a cough, which seem to be minutely better from one day to the next, so not really impacting my life any.
L.B. got the stomach-fever-gas thing, but he's better now too, and nobody else got that. Yay.
Eldest Son's Recent Accomplishments:
(Just to show you it's not all challenge and no reward...)
- Piano Recital a week and a day ago (the day of the night I got sick, so didn't blog about it)
- Had a piece of artwork chosen for the all-school-district art show that was held this past weekend over at the High School. (He had a piece chosen last year during kindergarten, too. There are things chosen from maybe 5 or so kids in each classroom at the elementary grades.) We all piled into the car and went to see that on Friday night, which was a big hit. Big Daddy got a cute Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man in front of his work, which I will post one of these days once I get the camera downloaded. The kids all really dug the quite-impressive works of the high-school art students, too.
- Is doing well at swimming lessons. Learning to dive into the deep end! "12 feet 3 inches deep," as he explained with precision later.
- Provided this completely adorable Mother's Day book which had me yelping in laughter as I read it. This book was where the children were provided with fill-in-the-blank sentences which they could complete as appropriate for their own mother, plus space where they could illustrate said fact.
My personal favorite was the page where Eldest Son had written,
My mother is very good at staying calm."
The little stick-figure-me above was smiling, and a speak-bubble impaling her head contained these enigmatic glyphs: "Huuuu. Huuuu."
"What am I saying here, honey?"
"Oh, that. You're taking deep breaths."
*giggle*
Well, I guess I OUGHTA be; goodness knows I get enough opportunities to practice!!!
;-)
Happy Belated Mother's Day to everyone to whom that applies!
Been sick. Not violently sick, just feeling bleh. I think I've got some combination of 3 things going on...
- Some kind of weird virus that has been going around all the (other) kids lately; I assumed it was just a matter of time before it made its way into my house, but was not expecting to be the first victim -- I'm usually the last. I'd share the weird symptoms with you, but -- TMI. Includes fever & tiredness, plus.
- Sinus infection.
- Some kind of bizarre chemical-sensitivity thing that started about a week ago (after I spent a night sleeping in a room with new carpet... window open all night, but no breeze...) that has me breaking out in hives all over from (a) Wet-wipes (which we use CONSTANTLY -- see first item above, related to germs), (b) my own sweat (during & after Aerobics Boot Camp -- and how bizarre is that????), and (c) pool chlorine during Littlest Brother's swimming lesson today (Parent & Preschooler -- I have to go in, too).
Bleh.
The answer to yesterday's movie-trivia question is...
Drum roll please...
"Captain Ron"!
Possibly one of the funniest movies, EVER.
But, strangely enough, only people who like to sail seem to "get" this movie.
If you dig sailing -- especially, long-distance cruising -- and you haven't seen this movie, I highly recommend it.
My family (the one I was born to, not my own little urchins) used to watch this movie together every time we got together. We know all the lines. And I mean ALL the lines.
And really, the lines in this movie can be applied to, pretty much, any life situation you might find yourself in.
"Anything's gonna happen, it's gonna happen out there."
"Ah, they'll get out of your way, Boss, they always do. --Learned that driving the Saratoga."
"Oh, incentives are important. --Learned that in rehab."
"That's okay, Boss, it could happen to anybody."
"--A sixty-four page instruction manual. I've read the entire thing. Have you?"
"Stay on the path, Boss, there's g'rillas in the woods."
"GER... GOR... HUGE difference!"
"It's this total macho trip, Dad, just ignore it."
"You don't understand -- he's EATING my BRAIN!"
"We were worried sick about you, the whole time we were in jail!"
ANYWAY.
The line referenced yesterday was preceded by this:
Family of four, enduring a Chicago winter. The father just got word that he inherited a boat from his crazy uncle. It is presently located at a Caribbean island nobody's ever heard of, Saint Pomme-de-Terre. ("Honey, it means Saint Potato." "No it doesn't." "Yes it does, it means Saint Potato!") The father is trying to convince the mother that it would be a great family adventure to fly down to Saint Pomme-de-Terre and sail the boat up to Miami themselves and sell it there. He thinks this will be a fabulous bonding experience and important enough to take their kids out of school. The eight-year-old son is hopping about trying to help his father win this argument.
The mother puts her foot down.
"There is NOTHING that ANYBODY could say, that would convince me to DROP EVERYTHING and fly off to someplace halfway around the world that nobody's ever even HEARD of!!!"
Enter sixteen-year-old daughter in black leather jacket and mini-skirt, grungy pin-studded stubbly boyfriend in tow.
"You guys, GUESS WHAT??" she burbles. Thrusting her hand out to show a ring, she gushes, "We got engaged!"
Utterly unsavory boyfriend drapes his arm around the daughter's shoulders, and addresses the parents in a monotone and total deadpan: "Yo, Mom; Dad."
CUT TO: Family standing on rickety dock, somewhere in the Caribbean. Daughter obstinately still wearing her black leather jacket, fanning herself.
Well, I guess you had to see it, but trust me, it's funny.
:-)
The following is the line which provides the motivation for the entire rest of the film.
Without this line, there would BE no film:
"Yo, Mom; Dad."
QUICK!!! NAME THAT MOVIE!!!
(And Tom, you're not eligible to enter.)
:-)
