Another Review and an Interview!

Well, that trip to Seattle is paying off.  :) 

Kim Derting, fabulous author of The Body Finder, took time in the middle of her crazy schedule writing, revising and book releasing, to read Some Kind of Normal. And, as if it wasn't enough that we got to discuss the book over wine and pizza, she went and wrote a FANTASTIC review!  These gals can make a debut author blush.

And to boot, she wanted to interview me. Which was so cool. Totally not easy, but very cool!

So if you feel like meandering over there, here's the link.  And I promise, that's the way my kitchen really looks. Just don't go snooping around the rest of my house.

In Which I Stop Writing

I started a new blog. Yeah. Because I need more things I can't keep up with.

This one is for my photography. One photo a day. Very little commentary, if any. You have no idea how hard it is to shut me up on the computer, so this is rare. But I'm trying to let the photos speak for themselves.

The point, for me, is to see if I can stop whining about all the gorgeous photos people who travel widely get to take, and learn to find the beautiful things in the strip-mall laden, traffic-light jammed, concrete suburban world I live in.

Beautiful things, even if you have to use a macro to find them, are my Friday Good Thing.

If you like photos, stop by. Be the first to follow and make me feel not so lonely over there. :)

www.whereilivephotos.blogspot.com

Silliness Abounds

This is a post of total randomness and silliness.

If you've been on facebook any length of time, you've probably heard of flair. The first day I joined, a friend from college found me and sent me what she called my 'starter flair kit." I had no idea what it was.

Since then, I occassionally get sucked into obsessive flair reading. It makes me laugh. And tonight I was showing my son some of them and we were laughing so hard I had tears on my cheeks.

It was probably too much birthday cake and the subsequent sugar high. But I'm going to share a few with you anyway, and hope you get a giggle too.

Let's just start with the one that fits my every morning:

And then there's this one:

Yeah. I relate.

These made me bust out laughing the first time I saw them, and every time since:

This one is probably disturbing, but I'm from Virginia and I see this license plate style everywhere, and for some reason I think it's hilarious. Don't send hate mail... I don't agree. I just think it's funny.

Here's one that totally fits me that my husband doesn't find that funny (true, but not funny):

There are of course the more pointed author ones:

And my personal favorite. I laugh out loud just thinking about it. It's a running joke in our family. It will make the worst day better. I don't know why, I just love love love it.

I imagine myself writing this on my 9th grade geometry test. Even as I write this I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe. I tell myself to stop it; I'm an idiot. Then I start laughing again. Find X. Here it is!  I don't know if it gets funnier than that for me.

Okay, time to get off the internet and get back to writing.

Why I Love You

I've been thinking about moms a lot lately. It was Easter that got me thinking about them – about many of you. Church services on Easter morning were predictably crowded, and though our family got to the church early (prior experience taught us that was necessary... a hard lesson to learn by experience!), there were many, many others scrambling for seats. There was hardly a single seat left, so when a mom and her two kids came down the aisle and saw two seats in the row in front of us and the one next to me, she (rightly) figured this might be as good as they got. Unfortunately, her kids were young and neither wanted to sit by themselves, and she didn't want to leave them to sit by themselves. So they took the two seats and put one child on her lap.

We had seven people in our family. Splitting up wouldn't really feel like splitting up. Besides, we feel very at home in our church, which clearly this mom didn't. So my husband and I left our kids with the grandparents so she could have three seats together, and he and I sat in their seats.

In front of us, then, was a new family. A mom with three kids. And I started looking around, and I realized how many moms were there with kids without dads. And I wondered, where did all the dads go? We live in a highly military area, so it's likely there are quite a few overseas. But maybe some of the dads just didn't want to go to church. Maybe some of these are single moms.

And I couldn't help but watch these moms all alone, struggling to juggle the kids and their crayons and the trips to the bathroom at the most inopportune time and keep them quiet and in their seats. I thought about all of the moms I know who do this every day at home, husbands or not. Us moms who stay up until our eyelids can't stay open to sew costumes for school or shop for posterboard for projects thought up at the last minute. Who have to juggle six schedules and be three places at once. Us moms who give up precious writing time to take forgotten gym clothes to school or pick up drum sticks to replace the lost ones. Us moms who bake cupcakes for school parties or buy cookies to send in because there just isn't time to bake. Who feed their broods three meals a day and keep the drawers full of clean clothes and moderate fights and still manage to play outside a little when they beg. Moms whose hearts ache for their kids when they cry and fight the urge to go beat up the kid who broke their hearts. Moms who sleep on the cold floor when their kids are sick all night.

Moms totally rock.

And somewhere in there, I realized this is why I write what I do. Some of you are YA/MG writers, because you have a heart for kids. I get this, because I taught middle school and led Campus Life groups and taught Sunday School. I love kids.

But as I've gotten older, I find myself constantly reassuring other moms that what they do is important, that they aren't alone, that they are AMAZING for doing the things no one notices but everyone needs. For the sacrifices they give every day in putting others first.

I love moms.

Yesterday our family went to see How to Train Your Dragon. Among our discussions afterward (because that's our family's favorite part of seeing a movie - talking about it over ice cream!), I remarked, "It's not even Disney and they still killed off the mom!  What is it with kid's movies always having a dead mom!!"  (This has always really bugged me...).

And my husband said something that seemed utterly profound.

It's because with a mom, there wouldn't be the story, because the mom would do anything to protect her child, would make sure they knew they weren't alone, would nurture them and love them and talk with them when everything looked black. A mother would deal with the overbearing or demanding dad. In other words, a mom would let the air out of the pressing crisis.

Okay. Wow.

So I know it was Easter and not Mother's Day, but this is what was on my mind. I love you moms. I get how hard it is. And every little thing you do matters. Even if no one notices. It matters.

You totally rock!

Book Review: The Body Finder

The Body Finder is first and foremost a love story, and secondly a paranormal suspense. Except when it’s the other way around. Because one of the things Ms. Derting does exceptionally well is keep the reader in the moment, balancing the light, airy feeling of first loves with the dark foreboding of a serial killer on the loose with the perfect touch, so that at any page you find yourself on, you feel the same emotions of the main character, Violet.

The story is, in short, about a girl who can find dead bodies – human or otherwise – and so naturally she finds herself in the center of the investigation of a string of murders. Also, she is falling in love with the boy who has been her best friend practically since birth and wrestling with the fear that he will only ever see her as a friend.

Violet is the kind of leading character every teenage girl should read. She is smart and independent, strong and determined, yet still vulnerable. She doesn’t need a boyfriend, but her longing for more than a friendship with Jay is so palpable my heart hurt. When she is confronted with the first dead girl’s body, she is both horrified and sickened, yet she knows she alone might be able to find the killer, and she wants to do this, so much so that she finds her own life on the line to save another.

While I’m not normally drawn to paranormal stories, Vi’s story is so unique and intriguing it’s hard to imagine anyone not liking it. Her gift is unlike any other I’ve read about or seen in movies, and definitely not your run-of-the-mill medium. She doesn’t hear dead people speak; she senses the unique echo each leaves behind. Some people leave smells, some leave tastes, some leave visions, some leave tastes. And when they die, not only does their own echo remain on their body (an oily sheen, a chorus of bells, a buttery garlic), it also sticks to the one who killed them. And so, by knowing the echo of the murdered girls, she knows their murderer …even if that person is the person she least expects.

The Body Finder is a book that will have you itching to turn the page faster and unable to put it down until you’ve gotten to the last one. You will find yourself holding your breath, chewing your nails, and cheering Violet on. Let’s hope this is just the beginning of a long career for Ms. Derting!

YA Advisories: language, sexuality, murders

April Fools Day Reux: What To Do When The Joke Involves A White Horse

Today is April Fool's Day. I love this day. Not because of the fool part of it (I am way too gullible to enjoy that part of the day). I love it because seventeen years ago today, my then boyfriend proposed.

Yes. I got engaged on April Fool's Day.

My husband likes to say that he asked on April's Fools so that if I said no, he could say, "I was just kidding anyway."

So every April first I get to revisit one of my favorite stories: the engagement story.

He'd been asking me to marry him almost as long as I'd known him. It was a joke between us, every time he asked, that I would say, "How am I going to know when you are serious?" He'd always answer, "You'll know because I'll come riding up on a white horse." He was in the army when we met, just back from the gulf war, and the visual image stuck.

So seventeen years ago today, we both arranged to take the day off work and spend the afternoon together. He'd been working in New York as a broker for a few months after leaving the military and had been back in Austin for a few weeks, feet to the grindstone, so to speak, and we'd barely seen each other since before Christmas.

He didn't tell me where we were going, but packed a picnic for us and picked me up midmorning. We drove out into the hill country to a horse ranch where he had arranged a day of riding for us.

The hilarious thing is he'd spent a month combing the Texas countryside for white horses, and couldn't find any. Not one. Seriously. There are no white horses in central Texas. Finally he finds this place and goes to visit ahead of time to pick out the horses, the picnic spot, and ask the owners to spray for ants (how thoughtful can a guy get???). So he sees this white horse way out in the field. He's not being ridden by anyone, or in the stables with the rest of the horses, but the owner's assure him that "Wild Thing" is good for at least a few more rides.

Let me set the scene here. I am five-three. At the time, I weighed about as much as a few feathers. My husband is six foot four. And he has really broad shoulders.

When we arrive, they bring out my horse: a huge brown stallion that I literally use a step-ladder to get on. My feet are a good three feet off the ground.

Then they bring out Wild Thing.

Wild Thing is two days away from a glue factory. He is no bigger than a mule. He is sway backed, severely. My husband can throw his leg over his back without his other foot even leaving the ground. He looks like a thirteen year old on a toddler's bike. His knees are in his chin. When we go up the rocky trail, he almost has to get off and carry Wild Thing up the hills.

I turned around and pointed at Wild Thing, totally clueless about this set up, and say, "Hey, look! A white horse!" I think my husband laughed, although it might have been a choking sound. I wonder the entire ride why I get the huge horse and my boyfriend is on the one that clearly should be retired.

The rest is simply romantic. A picnic by a babbling brook, not an ant in sight; a gorgeous ring in a Cracker Jack box; a poem he read on one knee. The usual.

But now, everytime we pass a white horse, I make sure to point it out. Especially the big, strong ones. Look at all these white horses! And you're telling me you hunted and hunted and the best you could come up with was Wild Thing? And he always rolls his eyes and says, "Yeah. Wild Thing looked like that from a distance too."

Maybe. Or maybe he just wanted to make sure I knew he'd keep his promises, even if he had to ride a 100 year old horse to do it.

And who could say no to that?