Because it is Amazing!

For some reason only half of the picture shows when it plays. If you click on the video itself, you can watch it on YouTube and see the whole picture.

Does anyone know how old this boy is?

Because It is Amazing...

I love this story! Who would have thought an elephant and a dog could become best buddies?

This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version.

I was working hard on my manuscript (cough) when I came across this video that Christy Lenzi posted today on facebook. It is AWESOME! So I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

Truth and Lies and a $10 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway!

I have been fortunate this week to have Marcia Hoehne send me a blog award (Because, you know, it's all about the blog bling!). Thank you, Marcia!

To accept this award I must:
*Thank the person who gave me the award and link to her.
*Add the award to my blog.
*Tell six outrageous lies about myself and One Truth.
*Nominate six creative liars...er, writers, and link to them.
*Let my nominees know they have been nominated.

Just to make this interesting, I'm adding a $10 gift card to Amazon.com as a prize! Like Marcia, I'm a bit of a rebel and plan to change the rules. I'm telling two truths and four lies. Choose your two truths and enter them in one comment. For each truth you guess correctly, your name will be placed in a drawing for the gift card. You have until midnight Friday, March 12th to enter. Winners (and truths) will be announced March 14th.

*For an additional entry, become a follower, and tell me so (or that you already are one) in a second comment.

*For an additional entry, post a link to this contest and then post a comment giving the URL. For the sake of my own organization, if you post a contest link in more than one location, please give each URL in a separate comment. In this category, you can enter as many times as you have cyber-places to post the contest.

Time to unleash the bald-faced-liar creative writer in me. Can you tell? Truth or lie?

1. When I was 15, I found 47 four-leaf clovers in one summer. I still have them. They're pressed in wax paper and stored in a Dr. Suess "Go, Dog Go" book.

2. I once fed 35 Texans chili so hot it'd burn a hole in your cheek and make your tongue drop out, but they still added their own habanero peppers that they carried in their pockets; ran into Kris Kristofferson's belt buckle (he's really tall); chatted up with Johnny Cash (he was a true gentleman), and talked to Johnny Paycheck on the phone - all in one day.

3. I rode the Tilt-A-Whirl 42 times in a row at Coney Island in Cincinnati, because I love my daughter.

4. My husband and I were arrested on our first date.

5. I sang a singing saw part in Aram Khachaturian's "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra" with the Dayton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. The guy who was supposed to play the saw got sick, and there was no back-up saw player. I was the only one who could sing that high.

6. I competed at the Grape Stomp Competition at the Hollister Grape and Fall Festival in Branson, Missouri. It was over a week before my toes were no longer blue.


There you have it - 2 truths and 4 lies. Good luck! And now, my creative liar nominees...

1. Rena
2. Christina Farley
3. Carrie Harris
4. Julia Karr
5. Chocolateer
6. Sara McClung

What's Your Color IQ?

Thank you, Bish, for the Sunshine Award! I can't wait until my garden has color like this again...

Cindy Pon, author of Silver Phoenix, posted this Color IQ test on facebook. The closer to zero you score, the better your color acuity. I scored 11. What's your score? Good luck!

New WIP, Haircicles, and Snow Forts

I've started writing a new novel, and I'm having a blast! This one is YA fantasy. I have a rough outline of the plot and sketches of the major characters. They are quite fun. I have so much trouble to send their way... I have three chapters written so far at 5600 words. The fourth chapter is where the subplots diverge, so I've spent time today mulling things over a bit.

My favorite part of a new novel is the brainstorming. I tend to go over the top when I'm throwing down ideas. Eventually I'll have to rein it all in to make it believable. But for now, if you hear a wild cackle come through your monitor, it's probably me. I've spent today "upping the stakes." Not just for my MC, but for all my characters. It makes a huge difference when I write if I know before hand the "what's in it for me" of everyone involved.

I just got the phone call telling me I have another snow day tomorrow, so I'll have a big block of time to write. Woot!

While I'm glad for the time off, I'm quite tired of snow. We got another 9 inches today. We're expecting another 2 inches by midnight, and another 2-3 inches through the day tomorrow. Today I waited until we had about 7 inches before I decided to shovel the driveway. I had finished the front deck and half the drive when my wonderful neighbor came down my sidewalk with his snowblower. He cleared my walk and my driveway too. When he finished, he shut off the snowblower and said, "I noticed you were icing up." I put my hand in my hair, and he was right! I had icicles all through my hair and didn't know it.

Although I'm feeling weather weary, my daughter is loving it. This evening she dug out an igloo fort in the snow piles around the front deck and the driveway. She made a tunnel that goes all the way through the drift and out the other side. Robb stood by, ready to yank her out by her feet if the ceiling collapsed. What a good dad!

I'll leave you with a few more snow pictures. The quality isn't great. I'm not camera savvy, and somehow the settings have changed. I'm going to have to pull out the manual. Stay warm! Keep writing!

There's a War in my Basement

There's a war in my basement.

I didn't know it, but it's true. I have four, 12-year-old girls spending the night. They have been non-stop gigglers and outright belly laughers for hours. But in the last hour it suddenly got quiet. My mom radar turned on in a flash. I listened, and listened harder. I was beginning to believe that maybe they had decided to watch a movie or partake in some other civilized endeavor. I was wrong.

The screams, thumps and crashes started without warning. I flew down the stairs to see who was grievously injured - or worse. I was greeted by this:


That would be "The South." This is "The North."


The blur of pink is one of my daughter's friends dodging an "incoming." I must say that I think the North has much better defenses. The South is definitely louder.

I just heard the word "CAKE!" so I think that a cease fire has been called. Time to go feed the troops.

A Jungle Adventure

My daughter and I decided to live dangerously today and shop in the Jungle.

A mere 15 minutes north of my home in Fairfield, Ohio is a place called Jungle Jim's International Market. It's an incredible grocery shopping experience, and yes, it's dangerous. If I don't walk in the door with a specific list of items, I can easily rack up a $300+ grocery bill. Why? Because everything you can think of is in that store. Everything. I try not to go unless I need something I know I can't get anywhere else.

Need a 10 pound prickly fruit from Thailand? They've got it. Got a hankering for sugar cane - still in the cane? It's there. Need dried sardines for that Asian dish you want to make? Yup. They've got that too. The sardines made my daughter laugh. They were in large plastic see-through bags. They still had their eyes, and the drying process made their ribs stick out.

The first thing we saw was fresh sushi from the onsite cooking school. Beautiful presentations, but I don't think I could eat it. The olive bar and salsa bar is located near the cheese shoppe. They have over 1200 kinds of hard to find cheeses from countries all over the world. They purchase huge wheels of cheese. It's quite a sight.

Right next to the cheese shoppe is the wine cellar with more than 12,000 wine labels from around the world. They have tasting events and an annual International Wine Festival too.

One of the things I like about their deli department is the huge selection of meats that are free of antibiotics, gluten, casein and growth hormones. My family and I have food allergies and preservative allergies. Cooking for everyone can sometimes be a challenge. There are things I'd rather not see in the deli too. Like the whole hog's head at the end of the meat counter, the purple cow's tongue, and the pig's intestines. Ew -to each their own.

The produce department is one full acre. Nuf said.

The absolute most dangerous part of the entire trip is the trek through the bakery. It's a full-line bakery. They make every kind of product you can imagine, and the SMELL is heavenly! The cakes and pastries are beautiful. They bake all kinds of old world breads. Daughter and I made it out of there with a fresh baguette for our spaghetti dinner tonight, and a bacon-cheddar pretzel roll that never made it home...

Daughter's favorite part of the trip is the 1000 gallon tank of live fish, lobsters, and crabs. Love seafood? Live, fresh, smoked, canned, frozen, dried... it's there.

My favorite part of the market is the back half of the store. It's divided into regions including Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America. They have over 50,000 imported grocery items from more than 75 countries and regions around the world. It reminded me somewhat of our recent trip to Disney World (a future blog topic), because in every isle you traveled a different language was spoken. The International Market is one of the reasons Daughter and I went to Jungle Jim's. She has a school project about Denmark, and she needed an item to share. I was a little worried when we got to the Scandinavian section. It was mostly full of Swedish products, but we did find something from Denmark. A fish sauce.

I love going to Jungle Jim's, and I almost always find whatever I need. If you come to the Cincinnati area, you should check it out. It's worth the visit!

Sew Much Fun...

My daughter loves Pirates of the Caribbean. Especially Elizabeth Swan. So it was no surprise when she announced last August that she wanted to be Elizabeth for Halloween, and would I PLEASE make her a costume??? Sure. Why not? I had plenty of time. What did it matter that my sewing experience was limited to an octopus pillow I made in Jr. High home economics, a crib cover for my son (who will be 20 in December), a pair of pj's that I made in a sewing class I took 3 years ago, and a quilt square? As long as I was able to take my time, it should be fine. Right?

I agreed to make her a costume then promptly forgot about it. She reminded me last Sunday that Halloween was only six days away, and that I hadn't started her gown yet. No panic necessary, I thought. I can work on it a little each day. I had lots of wedding satin left on a bolt in the closet. I'd had my gown made. The bolt had sat in the closet for 24 years waiting for a good project. This one would do. We went to the fabric store, chose a pattern, bought some brocade, lace and notions, and headed home. I planned to cut out the fabric that night and start sewing Monday. Everything was going as planned until I laid out the pattern to cut the skirt. I was 1/2 yard short of satin. No problem. I'll go back to the fabric store tomorrow after school and pick up something that will work.

I found what I needed - costume satin! Big mistake. It frays, runs, and is ridiculously slippery. I melted the first seam I tried to press. I suppose you get what you pay for... I worked diligently on the bodice. My seam ripper and I became good friends. Better friends than necessary, actually. When it was all said and done, I was glad to see him go back to the sewing box.

It took the entire week's worth of evenings to complete the dress. I finished the final hem 10 minutes before Trick-or-treat. I don't know if I'll ever attempt to sew something this hard again, but daughter loves it. And that's what counts!

The Fun Theory...

I saw this video today and it got me thinking. The premise is that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people's behavior for the better. In this case -taking the stairs instead of the escalator.

It's true, isn't it? As a math teacher I do it all the time. It's not always easy to turn around a bad attitude regarding math, but bring out the jump ropes, paints, and blocks (and I'm not talking about for the little kids), and suddenly I'm hearing "When can we do this again?" We hope our toddlers get out of diapers by giving them a target to hit or rewarding them with M&Ms. We sit down to fold laundry and turn on a good movie to keep us entertained. Even Cinderella whistled while she worked.

I think Volkswagen has it right: If you want make a change in people's behavior, make it fun!

This is Truly AMAZING!!!

This video features Cecilia Siqueira and Fernando Lima (Duo Siqueira Lima) performing TICO TICO NO FUBA (Zequinha de Abreu) during the Brazilian Music Institute in Gainesville, FL. The performance took place at Santa Fe Community College, May 8 - 2009.

I've never seen anything like this before! Sure would make practicing a lot of fun...

Drat That Cat!

I was supposed to be able to sleep in today. You know, no alarm clock, sweet dreams and all that. But promptly at 7 A.M. my dear fat cat, Buttercup, decided she had waited long enough for breakfast. She cried outside my door for five minutes before I finally let her in and hopped back into bed. Then she cried at the foot of the bed. I pulled the covers over my ears, but she refused to be ignored. She promptly knocked over my glass of water next to the bed and then thumped me on the head. Hard.

I can recognize a losing battle, so I dragged myself out of bed once again to make the long (yawn) trek to the basement to feed the starving, fat cat. When I reached the bottom of the stairs I was greeted by a pile of dirty socks not so neatly stacked in front of the laundry room door and the very large lid of the litter box upside down in the middle of the room. Both are probably compliments of this cat, Angel- who, by the way, does not live up to her name.



When Angel was younger I would come home from work each day to a pile of dirty socks stacked right in front of the entryway door. It must be too much of an effort in her middle age to drag them up two half-flights of stairs. The laundry room door will have to do. As for the litter box lid, Angel delights in scaring the fur off Buttercup - especially when she's in the litter box. More than once I've seen her whack the living daylights out of Buttercup's tail as it sticks out of the box. Buttercup probably jumped high enough to knock the lid off. I have no idea how it got in the middle of the room. Must have been some party.

Back to Buttercup. I decided that since I'm up it would be a good time to get some writing done. House is quiet. Kids are still in bed. Perfect. Except the fat cat decides she still needs attention. Meow. In my lap. Meow. Down to the floor. Meow. In my lap. Meow... you get the picture. It's very hard to concentrate on a new story line with 15 1/2 pounds of feline in your face. Thankfully, all that exercise has now worn her out. She is napping at my feet, and she'll probably stay in that spot for the rest of the day.

Time to get back to the manuscript...

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightening Thief

For all of you who are Percy Jackson fans, you can watch the movie trailer here!