Mix tape memories: The Memorial Day edition

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Yes, it’s another mix tape post.  Have you ever heard the song “Sullivan” by Caroline’s Spine?  It’s a great song.  I was driving home from work one day a couple of months ago, one of my high school mix tapes blaring over the two screaming toddlers in my back seat, and this song came on.  I did a little happy dance in my seat as the opening chords sounded through the speakers, remembering the first time I’d heard the song.

I was with my friend, Christy, and we were driving…somewhere.  To the Rollerdrome, maybe?  Or cruising Uni?  Or maybe we were just bored and cruising the loop one day after school – I dunno.  Regardless, we were together because we did everything together back then.  Christy had recorded the song off the radio.  One minute we were rockin’ out to “Save Yourself” by Stabbing Westward and the next, Caroline’s Spine was singing about the five Sullivan brothers.   To this day, I find the placement of those two songs rather ironic.

Where’s an ark when you need one?

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I shot this picture of a submerged field through the window of our truck as we were heading down to visit Seymour’s parents for the weekend. The rain bands on the window blurred the image and gave it the neat effect; the only processing I did to this was adding Instagram’s Lo-Fi filter to make the blue of the water pop out a little more. Even without it, the grass still glowed that green.

I love this image, but…

Pitch-tastic!

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Yep, that’s right, I’ve been working on my pitch for The Lokana Chronicles again.  Though (as far as I’m aware, having not checked Twitter in the last couple of hours) the Query Kombat picks haven’t yet been announced, I’m not holding my breath that I’ll get in They’ve announced the picks for Query Kombat and I didn’t get in, but I’m not surprised because what I submitted for a query was, well, not very good.  Even I knew it, but I crossed my fingers and hit submit anyway.  Huge congrats to everyone who made it in, though – out of something like 210 kontestants, only 64 made it through to the next round and I think 32 are being eliminated in the first cut.  Pretty brutal, but pretty awesome, too.  Good luck to everybody who made it in!

Anyway, as I was trolling Twitter the other day (and by trolling, I mean more like scrolling through my feeds, not being a troll), I happened across this from the lovely Stacey Trombley:

So I took her up on it! Read all about it behind the cut. Come on, you know you want to. Clicky clicky! 🙂

Progress!

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Yes, that’s right, I’m making progress!  My synopsis-writing project is almost at an end (meaning I hope to be finished with it by tomorrow or the next day) and if you follow me on Facebook, you’ll know that I started a new short story.  I plan to post it here when I’m finished.  I’m really excited about it – it’ll be my first foray into sci-fi, but it’s not hardcore.  At least, I don’t think it will be.

I was inspired by the news I heard over the weekend that a Dutch company plans to launch an expedition to colonize Mars within the next decade.  I started writing late last night and kept at it today.   As I was driving home tonight…

Garage sale thirty

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Score one for the savvy garage saler!

Score one for the savvy garage saler!

So today was the City-Wide Garage Sale in Reinbeck.  No, we didn’t have one, as we’ve done in years past, but I had planned to actually go this year.  It started off as such a glorious morning: I slept in, then woke up to find that Seymour bought the kids an old (and by old, I mean antique) school desk to keep their coloring books and things in for a decent price.  When I realized that it was garage sale day and that he was out looking at things instead of working, I decided to get the boys up and do the same.  I haven’t gone garage saling in years and it was a beautiful morning for a walk.

And that’s where things went downhill.  Seymour found a train table that he wanted me to look at, so I tried to get the boys ready in a hurry so I could go look at it.  Bubbles packed some milk and cereal to go for the boys and we were off…till Thumper dropped his all over the bottom of the stroller.  The back seat of the stroller has a crossbar instead of a tray, so when he tried to set his cereal container down on it, it tipped over (and he refused to hold onto it).  Then he screamed all the way to the sale and half the time we were there.

I finally managed to calm him down, and then Miss Tadpole tried to give him back his cereal, which started the whole thing over again.  By then I wanted to scream, so we ended up going home.  Seymour had some errands to run out of town and promised to stay with the kids when he got back so that I could still hit some garage sales early this afternoon, but by the time he got home, the garage sales were only scheduled to go for another half hour and at that point, either people have closed up or they’re starting to. *sigh*   So much for my glorious garage sale adventure.

Outlining, synopsis-style

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He crossed the room slowly as the unseen hand of his tutor banged on the door again. The knocking had a tone and texture all its own, not unlike a voice. It was at once demanding, frustrated, and annoyed, as if the person knocking would much rather be somewhere, anywhere, else. Michael had never noticed such a thing in a knock before; he wondered what else he’d missed as he had sailed through life trying to engage fully with a half dozen different things all at once.

-The Lokana Chronicles: Fog of War

I’ve been working on my story again. It’s been a while, though, and I’ve lost touch with what I’d written before, so I’m rereading it and creating a synopsis so that I have something to look back at any time I need a bit of a refresher. The quote above is from Chapter 7.

Of course, the problem is…

Foggy Trees

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Foggy Trees

Here’s a little experimental photography for you.  Something tells me the sky will look a lot like this a little later today (read: on my drive home). *sigh*

Stupid weather.  I’m supposed to go to the park for a play date!  Go rain elsewhere!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the picture.  Let me know what you think below!

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

Ich bin ein liebster!

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Hiya!  I know it’s been a few days, but after all those haiku I posted last month, I needed a bit of a break.  Also, I’ve been fighting off a migraine for the last few days, so my time doing much of anything productive has been pretty limited.  But now I’m back, more exhausted than ever, and ready to…uh…well, maybe not wow you, exactly, but hopefully keep you entertained with my stunning ability to trip over flat surfaces.

That should do nicely, yes?

No?  What do you mean, no?

What do you mean, you want substance?  Why on Earth are you here, then?  Wait!  Don’t leave me!

Okay, that was a little pathetic.  Well, if it’s substance you want instead of slapstick, how about this?  I was nominated for the Liebster Award earlier today by the lovely G. Edward Smith.  He’s got a very nice blog and it’s well worth checking out.

As usual, we’ve got some rules for this puppy. They be as follows (and you know you want to follow, right? Right!):

Scenes from the courthouse

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Only in Iowa can it be 80° one day and snowing the next.  While it wasn’t 80° where I was yesterday, it was in other parts of the state, according to two of my friends down in southern Iowa.  And rumor has it that the temperature dropped 40 degrees in four hours.  That’s pretty quick!

So, to recap: The weekend and the first part of the week were sunny, warm, and absolutely gorgeous, leaving us all thinking that winter skipped spring altogether and decided that summer should just follow directly this year.  But now Winter, she’s a-back.  With a vengeance.

Me no likey.

I took all these – and a few others – over the course of the morning.