It’s five o’clock somewhere…

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It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?  Why the heck can’t it be five o’clock here?  I just want to go home and sit in my lovely air-conditioned living room and relax with my guys. *sigh*

Also, check out The Page Turner!  It’s a super cool blog run by a great gal and one of yesterday’s posts featured The Lokana Chronicles!  Needless to say, I was pretty stoked.  Be sure to check out the pages 105 Tips for Writers and A Page Turner for a look at the awesome Page Turner software.  The software isn’t live yet, but it sounds like they hope to start beta testing pretty soon.  I personally can’t wait to start playing around with it.

And now, I think I’ll try to rest my poor sun-fried brain.  It’s another scorcher out there today and another one of my kids has another ballgame tonight.  Tadpole played a doubleheader last night (won one, lost one) and Tomcat has a game tonight (not a doubleheader, thank goodness).  I missed out last night because it was too hot for Cricket and Thumper to be outside and I think I’m going to miss out tonight, too, because it’s actually hotter today than yesterday (mid-nineties for temps, heat indices in the lower triple digits, humidity levels approaching 100% – yesterday was pretty similar, but with 30-40 mph winds all day long on top of all that).  Blargh.

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

Of editors and rejections and hope, oh my!

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This morning I was perusing Chuck Wendig’s awesome blog, the way I do every weekday morning.  As usual, it was freaking awesome.  In today’s post, he compared editors to MacGyver and the A-Team:

Then she gathers up the crumbled story-boulders and pages caught on cactus spines and she again mounts her steed and rides to the next ridge.  There she sits, alone.  For hours.  Maybe days.  Pulling pages apart.  Seeing what she has.  Shining a light into dark corners.  Finding sense.  Fixing errors.  Bringing sanity back to madness, chaos back to order, context back to content.  Her red pen dances bloodily upon the page.

And when the time is right, she rides again.

Anyway, I know that little tidbit references neither MacGyver nor the A-Team, but to find those two particular bits, go here.  Read the whole thing – it’s totally worth it, I promise you.  Guy knows his stuff.  Also?  He usually makes me laugh because he’s funny in a way I can’t quite describe.  Maybe that’s because I have a weird sense of humor, but maybe not.

And now for the rejection part. Luckily, it’s not rejection Simon Cowell-style. That means there’s still reason to hope! And since I’m an optimist, you know I will.

Hear ye! Hear ye!

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Watch this space!  Something special this way comes.  The week of June 25, I’ll be featuring posts related to the release of a new book, Love at the Speed of Email by the very talented Lisa McKay.  I’ve read the first chapter, “Spinsters Abroad,” which is available here, and was thoroughly entertained.  But don’t take my word for it; check out what others had to say:

“Love at the Speed of Email is part grand romance, part travel memoir, and part essay on life’s most precious gifts.  Lisa McKay is a phenomenal writer; clever and comedic, poignant and pitch-perfect.  You will love this love story.”  -Susan Meissner, award-winning author of The Shape of Mercy and A Sound Among the Trees

“Love at the Speed of Email, Lisa McKay’s engrossing memoir about life and love and home, is a wild ride that spans the globe.  At turns funny, contemplative, and romantic, Lisa’s story resonated on many different levels and kept me eagerly turning pages, hoping for a happily-ever-after ending to this modern day fairy tale.  I can’t recommend this extraordinary book highly enough!”  -Nicole Baart, bestselling author of Far From Here and After the Leaves Fall

“A travel memoir with a deep soul, Love at the Speed of Email takes us takes us around the world but always brings us back to the heart of the matter: humanity’s longing for place, purpose, faith.  Lisa McKay’s seamless storytelling helps us find ourselves in every corner of her globetrotting and even learn a little about love along the way.  A true pleasure for the journeyer in all of us!”  -Leeana Tankersley, author of Found Art: Discovering Beauty in Foreign Places

So don’t forget to stop back the week of June 25 to find out more about this exciting new book and this fantastic author!  I guarantee you won’t want to miss this great event!

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

Phlog along, folks!

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The beautiful, if shallow, Upper Iowa River
Photo by Kay Kauffman

Once again, it’s Friday.  Once again, it’s been a crazy week.  Did I say crazy?  I think maybe cray-zay might suit a little better.  It all started Sunday.  Sunday began the first-ever Kauffman Family Camping Extravaganza.  Our adventure did not exactly get off to an auspicious start. For one thing, Seymour wanted to leave our house by 10:00 a.m. as the campground we were heading to was three hours away.  His parents were going to go with us, but they live a good hour and a half south of us, so we couldn’t leave till they arrived at our house, and they were late.  Seymour’s mama wasn’t feeling well, so his papa let her sleep in a little late and it was nearly noon by the time they made it to our house.  I think we pulled out of our driveway somewhere around 12:30 p.m.

About an hour or so into the trip, possibly a little more, one of the tires on our camper blew out in spectacular fashion.  There was no fixing this tire – it was in pieces all over the road.  I should have taken a picture of it, but I didn’t think of it at the time.  And apparently campers don’t come with spares standard the way cars do, but Seymour is a smart one and bought one when he picked up the camper, so he got the tire changed and we were soon back on the road.

The excitement continues behind the cut! Will we catch any fish? Or only weeds? Hmm, seems I’ve left that part out. Oh, well – the answer was no fish, only weeds.

A short farewell, but not really

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Are you confused yet?  Worry not.  What I mean is, I’ll be gone for a few days.  After the week we’ve had, the fam and I need some time away from it all, so we’ve loaded up the trailer and we’re heading for the hills.  It’s our first-ever family camping trip, something we’ve been planning for months and looking forward to since last fall.  It will be four glorious days and three marvelous nights with no electronics, no diapers, no formula, no baby food, and somewhat less whining than normal as Cricket and Thumper will be staying with the world’s best ex-wife.  Once they’re potty-trained, they can start coming with us but until then, I’m looking forward to a few days without diaper duty.

I plan to do a little fishing, a little writing, a little marshmallow-roasting, and have an all-around awesome time with my family.  This week’s events served as a reminder of just how important family is.  I love my family so very much and I am really looking forward to this time with them.

In the meantime, I’ve scheduled a few posts to tide you all over till I get back.  Have a great week!

(c) 2012.  All rights reserved.

A fly-by for a flyboy

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Mike Wenger holding his nephew Mark
Photo courtesy of Sharri Wenger

Today has been a sad day. Today we celebrated the life life of Michael William Wenger, whose life was cut short Monday evening when his ultralight airplane crashed in a field. Left to cherish his memory are his devoted wife, Pam; his sons, Justin, Matt, and Will; his parents, Bonnie and Bill; three brothers; two sisters; his maternal grandmother; and a host of aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.

More pictures lurk behind the cut.

All you need is love

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Today, I’m feeling the love.  And for some reason, as I was thinking the words, “Feel the love,” I heard them in Peter Griffin’s voice.  You know, from the episode where he spends time with Meg?  No?  Okay, fine:

I haven’t watched Family Guy in years, so I have no idea why that particular scene popped into my head this morning, but you can’t unsee it! Muahahaaaa! 🙂

Anyway, I wanted to share a bit of blog love today. And, you know, make up for the clip I just shared. 🙂

Summer lovin’

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Ah, summer.  It is June, after all.  How the heck that happened, I’ll never know.  I could swear that only yesterday it was January.  Anyway, Kristen Lamb shared summertime memories of her youth in a post this afternoon and it made me smile.  I remembered some of the same years she described, but I remembered them through the eyes of a child instead of the eyes of a young woman.   Sure, by the time I was five, the Russians were no longer our enemies, but I still remember slip ‘n’ slides, spending more time outside than in, and never locking our doors. Ever.