2. I'm not sure if anyone is actually watching the game.
3. Random cheers go up when someone scores. Wait, was that our team?
4. I'm super proud of my 8 y.o. (previously only a rabid baseball watcher) for giving baseball a go despite his struggles with coordination and low muscle tone. He is giving it his all. A shining example to the rest of us to follow our passion.
4 1/2. How's your spring?
One of the highlights for me was meeting children's author Audrey Vernick at the Hall of Fame where she was signing her new picture book, She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story. It's a true story about the only woman inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. My son and I enjoyed reading it.
We also visited nearby Howe Caverns. We took an elevator 15 stories down under a dairy farm to tour a prehistoric cave with an underground river running through it. Not only did we hike through the cave, but we also took a boat ride on the river. Our guide moved the boat along by pushing off a series of metal rods hammered into the cave walls. We had to move slowly one at a time on and off the boat so it wouldn't tip over. Our boat ride ended when we reached a rushing waterfall, stopped only by a flimsy rusty chain. Um...this was scarier than a thrill ride at any amusement park. We were then instructed to move one row at a time to face the opposite direction where we were pushed back to where we started. My kids were unfazed. I was eager to go above ground again. But not before we hiked/squeezed through a windy narrow trail back to the entrance!
On the last day of our vacation, we visited a living history farm circa 1865. It was set up like a small village with a farm, school, general store, pharmacy, and doctor's office. I felt queasy looking at medical instruments from the 1860s and felt immediately thankful for modern medicine with anesthetics and hand washing. Perhaps 100 years from now someone will feel queasy looking at our 21st century doctor's instruments. After my 5 y.o. visited with farm animals up close for the first time, I asked him what he thought about the farm. He said, "I didn't like it. The chickens went to the bathroom OUTSIDE. And I almost stepped on it." There's a city slicker in the making!
Hope you all enjoyed your spring break!
2. We just got Friday Night Lights on DVD, the final season. I am so hooked on Texas football and these characters. It's interesting to me that each year they allow the characters to move up a year in high school, graduate, leave the show, and bring on new characters. They keep the heart of the show Eric and Tammi Taylor.
3. After reading this post on romance by S. Jae Jones, I'm looking at a rewrite for my YA romantic comedy. Thanks,
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=3){kind=small}
kellyrfineman, for that link!4. Have a great weekend!!!
4 1/2. Happy Spring!!!
2. We're getting signs of spring over here--Little League and soccer are starting up, and then there's these little beauties:
3. Daffodils!!!
4. I recently found my 2011 goals (they were hiding under a pile of papers. Ahem.), and discovered I have kept up with all my writing and reading goals, and none of my cleaning/organizing/exercising goals.
4 1/2. Clearly, I need to make a shorter list next year.
2. I just got back from the Whispering Pines Writers Retreat, which was fantastic. Great setting, great food, great company. I'm totally inspired!
3. I didn't take any pictures this year, but if you're curious about Whispering Pines read this lovely post by Betsy Devaney
4. Hope it feels like spring where you live!
4 1/2. Ooh, I did get one picture from last year. Doesn't the mantel say it all?
2. Which means it's now time for my no sugar/high fitness routine to get back in place
3. BWA-HA-HA!!!
3 1/2. Have a great weekend everyone!
Today, at the end of their workout, the teacher pulled out a beach ball, attached a string across the pool for the net, and let them play volleyball. Suddenly, these tired, bored, gray-haired seventy somethings were bouncing around, hitting the ball, high-fiving teammates. Laughing.
And let's just say...things jiggled, arm wings flapped, rolls of fat popped out of swimsuits. It wasn't pretty. Yet, you could imagine them playing ball as kids. Like that part of them was still in there, waiting to come out and play. And that was, quite simply, beautiful.
OI was five years old when I saw their show for the first time, and I was in L-O-V-E. The funny crazy episodes, the catchy songs, the cute guys. I asked my mom if Davy Jones would wait for me to grow up, so I could marry him. She didn't stop laughing long enough to answer, but I put two and two together and figured out that being five was a curse. I saved my allowance and bought their album, which I played religiously day after day, singing and dancing my heart out. "Come on won't you sing and play? We're the young generation and we've got something to say." (And that something is simply that they are the Monkees.) Also, "I'm a believer!" (Doesn't matter in what, really).
I still listen to them, though now they're on my iPod. And it's not their looks or their crazy, kooky storylines, it's their music. It sounds like they're having fun with it. And their fun is contagious. That's how I want my writing to read, like I'm having fun with it. Because I am*.
I just finished reading Kristin Walker's A Match Made in High School,
walkwrite, and I smiled my way through it. It reads like she had a blast writing it, and it's great fun to read. Meg Cabot has that same fun factor in her stories. I hope one day some reader somewhere will smile through my stories.*Except for those days when I'm pulling my hair out over that something that's missing, but what is it, I just don't know. Bam. Bam. Bam. Headdesk.
2. I did say, Mom can be right. To which he said...
3. Sometimes.
4. Tough crowd here.
4 1/2. I'm working on a new genre, YA romantic comedy, and having the best time watching romantic comedies and reading romantic comedies.
4 3/4. It's such fun to start a new story! Tell me where you're at in the writing process.
