 I'm in the middle of some heavy edits and rewrites, and I find I work best right after my kids are lovingly tucked into bed for the night (awake kids + writing = no good). Go figure.
I call this my "me" time and the kids know not to mess around with mama's "me" time. They're good kids and usually go right to sleep (kids not going to bed + screwing around during mama's "me" time = one pissed off mama). They know better. So last night I was working on said edits when I looked at the clock and was like, "Holy crap! It's 1:30 in the morning!" Because I have to get up early every morning to get kids ready and out the door, I decided that even though the ideas were flowing and rewrites were progressing at a relatively awesome pace, I should go to bed. "I will wake up refreshed and work on these rewrites in the morning and all will be right in the universe." So that's what I did. I put a cap on my creativity, went to bed, slept well (thank you) and have now sent kids off to school. I am alone. Now it is time to put on my creativity hat and get down to work... except my brain is no longer cooperating. All those amazing ideas I had last night, all those twists and turns I'd worked out in my mind right before succumbing to unconsciousness... gone. I can't quite remember a dang one and as I stare at my blinking cursor all I can think about is why? Why did I go to bed? Sleep is for pansy's. You idiot! You've experienced this before. You should've known better! But it is too late and so now, while I fight to remember all the goodness I thought up last night, I will do what normal people do under such circumstances and will watch a little HULU. I may even pop over to Netflix for a bit. Youtube sounds intriguing as well. Darn you stupid brain! We had a good thing going last night and you ruined it! Does this ever happen to you? Do you have a solution for stupid brain syndrome? What's your favorite show on Netflix?
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 Today as I wandered up and down aisles of my local grocery store, grabbing nothing for my cart, and becoming more and more frustrated, I stopped among the produce section, tossed my hands in the air, and said, "I HATE cooking for this family!" Is it because my cooking skills sucks...No (though I must admit that my cooking skills are severely lacking). It's because of my crazy family and their various eating styles. I'm not talking picky eaters, I'm talking insanely picky eaters.
My husband who I've been married to for 18 years is a vegan. My nine year old daughter is vegetarian and I have two boys who think I'm trying to kill them if I attempt to feed them a vegetable. They actually declare themselves meatetarians, "Give me steak!". Seriously, every time someone asks me what's for dinner, I die a little inside. Most nights I'm making at least two different meals for my family. Two. Sometimes three. It sucks. I can make meals like pasta or tacos and make adaptions to the meal so everyone is happy. But here's the problem: we eat tacos and pasta ALL the time. They are my go-to meals. Whenever I break out the refried beans or put on a pot of water to boil, the groans can be heard throughout the house, "Ahhh, not THAT again!" I hate cooking for this family. I really, really do. So in that moment at the store, with my hands in the air, I instantly thought of Rachael Ray. I watch her show ALL the time and love her personality. But for the most part, when she cooks a meal, I think, "That looks delicious. Too bad no one in my family would eat it." I would love to find new recipes, something that would make all those little buggers happy, that also doesn't cause me to panic and cry when it comes to cooking. I'm seriously going to contact her. I'm going to put forth this challenge to her--HELP ME FEED MY FAMILY! I hope she hears me (wouldn't that be awesome if she did?). If you, Rachael Ray, can find a couple of meals my family will both eat and enjoy, I will FOREVER shout your name from the rooftop. I will tell everyone what a miracle worker you are. Please help me. Thanks, one desperate wife and mother :) What does this have to do with writing, you may ask? Why a post on cooking for weird people? Because I'm spending far too much time at the grocery store and far too much time in the kitchen (a place I dread) instead of writing. TA-DA... a connection *rim shot*. Help me retweet this post. Help me connect with Rachael Ray (who I adore) or, if nothing else, give me some of your recipe ideas, or I'm just going to start throwing packages of Top Ramen at my family and say, "There! Enjoy! I'm done!"  What an awesome day! Just found out WANTED: Dead or Undead won The League of Utah Writers Golden Quill Award. I even got a cool gold pen! I will probably never use it, but just look at it in awe and reverence.
I know for some this might not sound like a big deal, but for me it's huge. I've been a member of The League of Utah Writers for several years and have watched other writers/authors, some who I admire greatly (James Dashner, Anita Stansfield...) receive this same award. So this feels pretty awesome to me. I just wanted to share my happiness this day :)  So it is no secret that I LOVE zombies. I even have a sticker on the back of my minivan that says, I LOVE ZOMBIES (oh, yeah) and a set of family stickers that portrays my entire family, including the dog, as zombies that says, WE ATE YOUR STICK FAMILY (for those of you who don't live in Utah, putting vinyl family stickers on your car is a big thing. I hate it. So dumb. But the zombie stickers called to me). Anyway, I've seen these zombie shoes online for like forever and would LOVE to own a pair. So cool, but I could never wrap my mind around the idea of where in the world would I ever get a chance to wear them. Church? School? Grocery shopping? Well, the other day I had to travel into SLC to the state PTA office (Parent, Teacher, Association, because guess what crazy lady decided to say yes to being PTA president at her kids school this year? Yeah, me). I went in to pick up supplies and this cute little receptionist girl stood up to go get my things and low and behold--ZOMBIE HIGH HEELS. These very ones. So cool. So of course I had to comment, "I love your high heels. I so want a pair." Then I told her about how I love zombies and how I've written a zombie western series. And guess what? She's a writer of zombie stories as well. Her name is Candace Gleave (click on her name to check her out) and she has several zombie short stories out there. Who would've guessed that it be PTA moms and receptionists IN UTAH no less, writing about zombies? We Utah PTA women are a crazy bunch :) I totally should've worn my zombie necklace (I totally own this) to the WALK YOUR KIDS TO SCHOOL MORNING PTA BREAKFAST this morning. Don't you think? Now, I'm off to get me a pair of zombie shoes. A must have for any good Utah Mom PTA zombie writer. 
 Anytime you open your mailbox and it's filled with books...that's a good day. Yippee. And I got me some AWESOME books that I can't wait to dive into. These Sir Nathan books are super fun. We've read the first and can't wait to read the second book in the series SIR NATHAN and the TROUBLESOME TASK. Super cute books with fun and vivid characters. They are wonderful for both boys and girls alike (I have a son and daughter who love both love the story. So I say this with confidence).  Then I got this lovely package as well from my good writing pal Emlyn Chand. I haven't read either of these books yet, but I have heard amazing things about them--especially her latest OPEN HEART. I can't wait to dive into them. Yay for books! now to find the time to crack them open and read. Who needs to write and edit anyway, right? If you've read any of these books, give me your opinion without giving anything away. Also, I've heard a ton about OPEN HEART and almost want to skip right to reading that one before FARSIGHTED, but I'm not sure that I should. What do you think?  My son just "hanging" out at the Halloween store. I LOVE Halloween. It is by far my most favorite holiday. I just love creepy scary stuff. Always have. So my son and I went into the Spirit Halloween store near us to check things out. Holy crap! So creepy. So awesome! I was walking around the store, looking at all the creepy zombie stuff (so much new stuff out this year...amazing) and my son just did his best to avoid the fake monsters that jump out at ya. He hates those (he had a bad experience when he was younger. We were in the Halloween store, he accidentally stepped on a hidden button and a skeleton jumped out of the side and scared him into throwing up all over the floor. Take that Halloween store. That'll show you. ). Anyway, anything that pops out at ya, he's not having it.  I probably looked like a weirdo with my big ol' cheesy grin, walking around and testing out the zombie robot girl from THE WALKING DEAD. For $149 this little piece of magical fun can be yours. You make noise and this scary girl will follow you around the store. My kid had a blast with this one. It is kind of terrifying at first. She looks pretty dang real and is about the size of a regular child.  This zombie girl sings a pretty terrifying song to you while she swings back and forth. La, la, la, la, la, la. I thought she was pretty dang cool and on a creepiness factor of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 9 for sure. My kid HATED her. "Zombies shouldn't sing," he said, and I would have to agree. They shouldn't. But my favorite HAD to be the zombie baby display. Zombie babies...come on! Nothing better than that. Creepy factor...a ten all the way. Just look at how much fun you can have with your own zombie baby. Doesn't my kid look thrilled? :) Anyway, I can't wait until Halloween and to break out the decorations. This year, I'm getting me a zombie baby. Enough is enough. I need to add one to my collection.  Yesterday a friend sent me this picture. I'd never seen anything like it and when I read the words in bold I was surprised, kinda shocked, then totally amazed. There's a coolness factor to a grave cage and the idea they were placed around graves to keep the dead trapped should they rise really intrigued me. Why in the world had I not heard of this practice before? This is freakin' awesome! I write about zombies and so this is one of the coolest things I'd ever seen, and I wanted to know more about it. So I started doing some digging around (unintended pun--yet cool) to find out more about the history and background of caged graves.  These iron cages are actually called MORTSAFES and date back to the early 18th century. And as cool as it sounds to think that they were used to keep the undead trapped so they couldn't eat your brains, that's just not the case for these contraptions. Darn it. It would be cool to think that even WAY back then, they had a fear and superstition of reanimation (zombies and vampires). I can totally see why people would think that Mortsafes were used for that purpose.  I mean, think about it. All through out history people had weird beliefs and ideas about things--burning people at the stake for witchcraft (big time) for one, tobacco smoke enemas for another (oh, yeah. That's a real thing). So the idea of people in the early 18th century believing in reanimation isn't crazy. You'd almost expect it. But in this case, it isn't true. In actuality, these cages were used to prevent body snatching. It was a HUGE problem especially in areas where medical schools were prevalent (Scotland had a huge problem with body snatching).  The practice of allowing students to learn anatomy by dissecting bodies was finally allowed in the 18th century. Prior to that, they only watched teachers and instructors without having hands on experience themselves. But as soon as they were giving the go-ahead, bodies starting disappearing from graveyards like crazy. Lots and lots of bodies. Gangs of body snatchers were "employed" to remove bodies from graves. Many of these gangs fought one another over the "cadaver trade" because it was a pretty good money making business. Many nights, the body snatchers would steal as many as 6 bodies. They would even ship bodies over sea--it was THAT great of a business. (Some gangs even started killing people just so they could get more bodies to sell). Well, as you can imagine, it created quite an uproar among the citizens who lost the bodies of loved ones. It caused riots and fighting in the graveyards, and several men found robbing a grave were lynched on the spot. But people demanded more as the practice of body snatching worsened.  Picture source: Wikipedia So graveyards became FORTIFIED (oh, yeah) and underwent some major changes. Seriously, people built watch towers, they hired armed men to patrol the cemeteries (called watchmen societies--some having over 2,000 members). Many cemeteries even went so far as to use land mines and spring guns. There were even cases in history in which family members would rig their loved ones coffin with traps that would kill anyone trying to remove the coffin. Gun powder. Kaboom! Those families who could afford it built the metal cages or placed large stones over the graves of their loved ones. This helped to preserve the grave and deter grave robbers.(A lot of these examples of cages and devices are found near Scottish medical schools--go figure).
So as cool as it sounded that the cages were built to keep the rising dead from roaming the streets and eating us (could you imagine walking along a graveyard and seeing a zombie inside one of these cages? That just gives me the shivers) they were actually intended to keep people from getting INSIDE the graves. Not out. Darn it. Still, the whole look of the mortesafes and idea of them is incredible. Now if only I could convince my loved ones to put one of these over my grave, not because I fear someone would snatch my body and use it for science, but because it looks super cool (I'm a zombie writer after all) AND no one in my home town has one of these--it would be the talk of the town. Even better, if someone could have a zombie hand sticking out of the ground and holding to the bars from the inside...that would be even better.  Of course there are a lot of CONS to a zombie apocalypse: 1) Zombies are scary 2) The whole "I want to eat your brains for dinner and then munch your face for dessert is a big turn off 3) Most of your friends and family will die and you will have to become friends with people who actually prepared for this kind of thing--weirdos with bunkers, body odor, and who also have some CRAZY ideas about how the world should now be ruled. So yeah, I get it, but as with everything in life there is also a bright side to things as well (ever see Life of Brian? SEE CLIP BELOW). If you find yourself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, do not despair, think of it like this: 1) You get to travel! Look at all the places you now get to see because you will need to keep moving.Collecting various postcards and mementos will be a blast (pun intended). 2) No more lines! The population of people will have been reduced significantly, making it no longer necessary. 3) Have maxed out credit cards or owe on your home or vehicles? Guess what? Not anymore. 4) Lots of free time (in between scrounging up food and killing zombies of course). There will be no more going to work for 40 hours a week. You could go fishing or camping or take up photography or scrap booking--do things you've always wanted to do, but never had the time because of your pesky job schedule. 5) Want a new car or a bigger house or even just want to make improvements (zombie-fy your existing place of living or add spikes and grills to your car)? No having to get approved by a bank for a loan. No need to apply of building permits. JUST DO IT...And do it for FREE! 6) To go a bit in line with #5 EVERYTHING IS FREE! Free is pretty cool. 7) Be thankful we're only dealing with zombies. Yeah, they want to eat your brains. Yeah, they're gross. BUT at least they're not vampires. A vampire apocalypse would be horrible. You can't kill vampires easily--not with a bat or a pitchfork or even a gun. And aliens? Ahh, yeah...totally not going survive that. I know, I know...there are movies that say we will, but come on! Aliens would be equally impossible to kill. So be grateful for the slow moving, dumb zombies. We at least have a chance with zombies. It's all about the attitude. Keeping your chin up during an apocalypse is half the battle toward survival. Can you think of any other pros? (Enjoy this lovely video below--so funny) |
My Face...Enjoy!
Ahh, the fruits of my labors...
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