I'm taking a couple of days off from visiting my ever healthier mother, and today I'm playing catchup, which includes paying a visit to my blog (hi blog) and letting everyone else who visits here (hi everyone else) how things are going.
We'll start (that's the regal we) with my ever healthier mother. She can get out of chairs all by herself and use her walker to get around and generally seems to be in fine fettle. There's an official talk about her future meeting scheduled for Tuesday morning, and I'd be surprised if the consensus isn't that she should return to her apartment and her life. That's certainly what I want the consensus to be. When I was visiting her yesterday, she got a lovely little present from my goddaughter and her mother in the mail, and an unexpected visit from Marci, who brought beautiful flowers.
My mother asked me to thank all of you for your get well wishes, here and in emails. She's really appreciated all your good thoughts.
I have a small amount of career news. First off, Life As We Knew It has passed the 100 Amazon review mark, making it all the way to 101. The little stars of approval have been going down though, so I haven't read the past few reviews, taking pleasure in the quantity if not the quality.
Speaking of LAWKI, I learned earlier this week that the German audio rights have been sold. My share of the advance goes to lower the book advance, so I won't be seeing any Euros from it (at least not directly). But this is the first time a novel of mine has been recorded in a language not my own, so I'm naturally quite excited. And since Pfeffer is a German word, I'm not concerned about mispronunciations (although now that I think about it, they could screw up Susan and Beth. Le multilingual sigh).
I got an email yesterday from my editor saying that whoever makes these decisions (not her, not me) has agreed to use the scene I want as the tease for This World We Live In in the paperback of the dead and the gone. I posted that scene over at thirdmoonbook for any of you that are curious.
I have a very busy autumn ahead of me, with trips to Virginia, Massachusetts, Illinois. Texas, and Connecticut (plus a family weekend in South Carolina) in store. I am a very small part of the Fall For The Book event in Fairfax County, VA. If any of you live around there, you might want to go to some of their many programs.
I went to the movies for the first time in forever and saw Julie and Julia. I really enjoyed it, more for the writing a blog part than the cooking up a storm part. My idea of cooking is to put frozen fish in the oven and frozen vegetables in the microwave and have them both for dinner (I did that last week, a personal best). But I guess the cooking part of the movie inspired me also, since I bought new dishes (which turned out to be a celebratory German audio rights purchase, only I didn't know I'd sold the German audio rights when I bought the dishes, so I guess it was a prescient celebratory purchase, which is practically the best kind). The only problem with my new dishes is they're bigger than my old dishes and too big to fit into my kitchen cabinets as they're now arranged, so I have to rearrange my cabinets, which I've been meaning to do ever since I'd had the revelation that the vast majority of my spices are over five years old and never used and thus taking up a lot of unnecessary cabinet space, which is how I differ from both Julie and Julia, who most likely wouldn't have bought little jars of spices from the supermarket anyway so what do they know.
So now that I've caught you up on everything (except Scooter, who is extremely cute, and has gotten much better about letting me sleep in the mornings, although he still does like to attack my ankles and drag my underwear around the apartment and rip papers on my printer), I'm off to throw out unused spices and see if I can get the new dishes to fit in my cabinets.
Life certainly is easier without crises!
We'll start (that's the regal we) with my ever healthier mother. She can get out of chairs all by herself and use her walker to get around and generally seems to be in fine fettle. There's an official talk about her future meeting scheduled for Tuesday morning, and I'd be surprised if the consensus isn't that she should return to her apartment and her life. That's certainly what I want the consensus to be. When I was visiting her yesterday, she got a lovely little present from my goddaughter and her mother in the mail, and an unexpected visit from Marci, who brought beautiful flowers.
My mother asked me to thank all of you for your get well wishes, here and in emails. She's really appreciated all your good thoughts.
I have a small amount of career news. First off, Life As We Knew It has passed the 100 Amazon review mark, making it all the way to 101. The little stars of approval have been going down though, so I haven't read the past few reviews, taking pleasure in the quantity if not the quality.
Speaking of LAWKI, I learned earlier this week that the German audio rights have been sold. My share of the advance goes to lower the book advance, so I won't be seeing any Euros from it (at least not directly). But this is the first time a novel of mine has been recorded in a language not my own, so I'm naturally quite excited. And since Pfeffer is a German word, I'm not concerned about mispronunciations (although now that I think about it, they could screw up Susan and Beth. Le multilingual sigh).
I got an email yesterday from my editor saying that whoever makes these decisions (not her, not me) has agreed to use the scene I want as the tease for This World We Live In in the paperback of the dead and the gone. I posted that scene over at thirdmoonbook for any of you that are curious.
I have a very busy autumn ahead of me, with trips to Virginia, Massachusetts, Illinois. Texas, and Connecticut (plus a family weekend in South Carolina) in store. I am a very small part of the Fall For The Book event in Fairfax County, VA. If any of you live around there, you might want to go to some of their many programs.
I went to the movies for the first time in forever and saw Julie and Julia. I really enjoyed it, more for the writing a blog part than the cooking up a storm part. My idea of cooking is to put frozen fish in the oven and frozen vegetables in the microwave and have them both for dinner (I did that last week, a personal best). But I guess the cooking part of the movie inspired me also, since I bought new dishes (which turned out to be a celebratory German audio rights purchase, only I didn't know I'd sold the German audio rights when I bought the dishes, so I guess it was a prescient celebratory purchase, which is practically the best kind). The only problem with my new dishes is they're bigger than my old dishes and too big to fit into my kitchen cabinets as they're now arranged, so I have to rearrange my cabinets, which I've been meaning to do ever since I'd had the revelation that the vast majority of my spices are over five years old and never used and thus taking up a lot of unnecessary cabinet space, which is how I differ from both Julie and Julia, who most likely wouldn't have bought little jars of spices from the supermarket anyway so what do they know.
So now that I've caught you up on everything (except Scooter, who is extremely cute, and has gotten much better about letting me sleep in the mornings, although he still does like to attack my ankles and drag my underwear around the apartment and rip papers on my printer), I'm off to throw out unused spices and see if I can get the new dishes to fit in my cabinets.
Life certainly is easier without crises!
10 comments:
Good news about your mom! Mine had a procedure to ease her compression fracture pain and has moved into a rehab facility until they feel she can live independently in her own condo again.
Re: Spices. I still have some that I bought, one a week, when I first got married 38 years ago! Think they are any good!
Good morning Linda Jacobs-
Aging parents and aging spices. What exciting lives we lead!
I tried to print something this morning and the printer wouldn't work, because Scooter had left so many shreds of paper in it, the printer went on strike. When I finally got all the shreds out, it still wouldn't work, so I felt around some more and discovered my little Gonzo The Great inspirational figure had fallen into the paper feeder when I wasn't looking.
I'm relieved to report it now works.
The spices are currently on the kitchen counter. The new dishes are much bigger than my old ones, which is going to make using the dishwasher a little more challenging (but I think the cabinet rearrangement will work).
Life is so complex!
PS- My word verification was the very cool "bednes" but I forgot to type it in, so it got replaced by the totally meaningless and much harder "zyismau."
Told you life was complex!
So glad to hear your mother is feeling better!
Hi Nora and thank you-
I'll be seeing my mother later today, partly just to visit and partly to see if her hearing aid is still working. It made an unfortunate trip to the laundry room and hasn't been the same ever since.
My mother is completely deaf in one ear and partly deaf in the other, so conversation is a little tricky without the hearing aid working.
Oh well. As my mother often says, we're charter members of the Never A Dull Moment Society (although at this point, I'd gladly give up my membership!).
Ah, but it is in the crises that we are given the opportunities to shine.
Jean
http://www.jeanmatthewhallwords.blogspot.com
Hi Jean-
Trust me, I'd rather be dull!
Where in Illinois are you going to be?
Emily
Hi Emily-
I'm going to be doing a program for the Niles Public Library District Sunday, Oct. 18 at 2:00 PM.
If you're in the area, I hope you'll come!
are you doing an event in massachusetts? what area?
Hi em.ily-
I'll be visiting the high school in Sandwich, MA, towards the end of September (I'd tell you when but that would involve getting up and walking to my calendar, and it's easiser to sit, especially since Scooter is taking a bath right by my left foot).
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