I always knew I had almost too many interests in my life: sewing, painting, writing, reading, singing, and so on.  It's often a major balancing act to give each interest enough attention to succeed, on top of the day job, upkeep of the home (thankfully shared with E), and being social online and in person.
( Lately, I feel like the plate is wobbling around, tossing things aside as I try to balance it. )
I've managed to do a little painting and writing in the past few months: I reworked an older painting, wrote a short poem that I'm shopping around, and I'm revisiting my urban fantasy crime novel, slowly making edits.  But I haven't created any new major works since wrapping up Broken Legacy this winter.  Another thing that has dropped from that plate is sharing news of my life here. I'm not even posting much on FB.  I think it all stems from being overwhelmed to the point where I've run out of time to get my thoughts together enough to blog about them.  But I am still visiting from time to time, to at least catch up on all the things that keep my friends crazy busy too.  And once life re-balances, I can look back at this post and remind myself: in the buffet of life activities, sometimes you just have to step away and take care of what's on your plate before loading  it up with more.

We got Dexter back in August 2010, and our main rationale (besides wanting to give a rescued kitten a home) was to bring in a companion for Miss Bonkers.  Ever since we brought Bonkers home from the humane society in 2006, Miss Orlando basically ignored her (apparently, no other cat could replace Orlando's one true love, Miss Lucy).  Consequently, poor Bonkers became lazy, overweight, and anti-social.

When we first brought the little man home, Bonkers was pretty upset.  But little by little, Dexter won her over...mainly by following her wherever she went, constantly trying to get her to play, and sneaking up to cuddle with her whenever she slept.  They started playing together - which mostly consisted of Dexter jumping on Bonkers until she started biting him in the head while he latched on and purred.

Then Dexter grew - and oh, did he grow:

Dexter when we first brought him home...

Dexter around 8 months...

He's now built like a bull-moose, with freakishly long, muscular legs that make him at least an inch taller than Bonkers.  Their playtime is now reversed: Dexter lying on the ground and using his legs to kick Bonkers around while she tries to jump on him.  Eventually she gets through, nips him in the head, and then chases him all over the house. At first, we worried that she was hurting him, but he just keeps coming back for more, egging her on every chance he gets. During nap time, Bonkers settles in, and then Dexter comes over, wraps those gangly legs around her, and starts grooming her face. He'll pause, press his forehead against her and wait for her to groom him.  They take turns grooming each other until they both fall asleep, curled up in an embrace.

Although Dexter is not a lap cat in any way, I am thankful that he and Bonkers have bonded so much.  She's lost weight (she actually has a waist now), and her energy level is so much higher. Now Bonkers makes occasional attempts to be lovey with us, and will sometimes grace our laps with her presence -- but her heart clearly belongs to Dexter.  Given their ages, I guess this now makes her a cougar?

I haven't posted about the kitty antics for quite some time, mainly because there has been some sad news.  Miss Orlando passed away in early November. 

( The whole story...warning! It's really sad, but I felt I needed to record it somewhere. )

Here's one of our favorite pictures of Miss O in healthier times - we called this her "Schmoo face."


Since she mostly ignored Dexter and Miss Bonkers, they didn't really notice her absence (more on those two in a happier post).  However, they've both avoided the papazan that was Orlando's territory, even after all the pillows and the cushion were cleaned.  Dexter recently started checking it out and he now occasionally curls up there, since it is a major sunbeam spot during the day. 

For my part, I miss her most at bedtime - she used to come up and demand some love every night when I went to bed.  It was time for just the two of us.  I had her since she was four months old, and she lived to 14 1/2 years old - she was one of my two longest furry companions in my life and was loved dearly.

I've already posted this all over Facebook, but figured I might as well share it here, too.
After all the toil and tribulations that went into my third Tevious novel, Broken Legacy, I finally finished it and turned it into Tyree at Sam's Dot Publishing!

Here's the cover art, by my very own husband, Eric:



At this point, it's scheduled for a March release.  I'll post exact dates and release party information once I have those firmed up for sure. It's funny: I've certainly had projects that took more time than this one did, but the revisions still felt like they were never-ending! That said, it was totally worth the extra work that went into those revisions. I'm very happy with how the novel turned out.

Ever since then, I've been trying to reboot my writing brain.  I submitted my first short story ("When the Bogeyman Comes") to yet another online magazine and I'm waiting to hear back on that.  I've had some starts/stops on a second short story, but haven't gotten far.  Then, after watching a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode involving zombies and reading some of Rob Callahan's awesome and funny short stories, A zombie apocalypse poem invaded my head!  I wrote it all down - now we'll see what my critique group thinks of it.  :)

The last three months have seen their share of events, but I haven't found the time to recount them in the form of a longer blog post.  So I shall try to catch up by topic - starting with the biggest news on the home front...

Yep, Eric and I finally got married all legal-like.  Our first date was on November 10, 2001, and we'd always joked that we wouldn't bother thinking about marriage until we had been together ten years.  Eventually we realized that our ten year anniversary landed on November 10, 2011, which meant the next day would be 11/11/11. All those elevens on the first day of our 11th year together -- and a Friday night to boot.  We thought "that would be kinda cool" but never really made plans. 

Then, just a couple of weeks after Fest this year, we finally looked at each other and said, "what the heck, let's do it." We told Jill, my best friend from the Court Revelers, and she showed up at our doorstep with a bottle of champagne and a note book - thus, the planning began. With only three weeks, we knew we had no chance of finding a reasonable place to rent, so we decided to just have it at home with family and a (relatively) small group of friends. Even then, we packed the house -- it's not a big place!  We did our own food and drinks, and I think it turned out pretty well for a last minute deal.

The officiant was the one sure thing from the start: Our good friend, Rich Shepardson, has performed weddings for years - as various characters (a troll, the Mad Hatter, a bishop). Apparently, he and Eric already had an agreement that he'd marry us if we ever decided to take the plunge.  For our wedding, he dressed as the Cat in the Hat, and had us read "Suess-ified" vows.  It rocked!



Another good friend of ours, Brain Murphy, is an amazing poet (and played William Shakespeare out at Fest for years).  He wrote a sonnet for us that he read aloud. It was beautiful:
( Read the sonnet's full text. )
The night was pretty much a blur for me, but I do remember being very happy and grinning a lot. 

Life's moving along at it's usual busy Renaissance Festival pace. We're coming up on the third weekend of Fest, and the Court Revelers are having a blast this year already.  Our three new rookies are not only enthusiastic, but very talented and able to roll with anything we throw at them.  Our hazing is generally mild - things like singing an older song they don't know and invoking the rule that they have to do an interpretive dance if they don't know the song - but these three have managed to turn our mischievous tricks into some very funny moments.

Last weekend, a group called Musical Blades visited from the Kansas City Fest.  What a bunch of talented and friendly people!  I hung out with them briefly, and it felt like talking to old friends.  At the end of the day music jam, they played a couple of songs, and totally rocked. 

On the home front, the garden continues to yield an obscene amount of tomatoes and cucumbers.  We've been using the tomatoes for homemade sauce for pizzas and marinara, and have canned tomatoes and frozen plain sauce for later use.  I've been using the cucumbers to make "refrigerator pickles," also known as "marinated cucumbers."  So far, I've been able to bring out a jar for the Revelers lunches every weekend, and have given away a few jars.  The latest round of lettuce and spinach we planted a few weeks ago is close to harvestable, so I suspect we'll be enjoying salads again, now with cucs, and some radishes we also recently planted.

( Recipe for the refrigerator pickles )


My writing is always a bit slow this time of year, but I finally have all of Editor Ed's changes in Broken Legacy and have started the final read-through before giving it to my proofreading team.  I will be sooo happy when this project is done and I can move on to the next thing. 

I might try my hand at more short stories. I really enjoyed writing my first short, "When the Bogeyman Comes."  It's still looking for a home, but I have to say, the submission process for short stories is significantly less painful than the process for novels.  So far, I've submitted it to three magazines, and even though the first two have rejected it, the rejections came quickly (20 days and two days), and didn't sting so much. I just shrugged and moved on to the next choice on my list.  I think it's because I haven't invested the same amount of time - writing or waiting for submission responses - with this story as I have with my novels.  I could get addicted to the instant-gratification nature of writing shorts.

I'm sure there is more going on in my life, but this is long enough for now.  :-)

Ah, summer - that magical time in Minnesota when we can enjoy fresh-picked local fruit and vegetables...

This year, Eric and I decided to try our luck planting a vegetable garden, and the yields are starting to really come in.  We've been harvesting Bibb lettuce and "Musclin" garden greens in small bits for salads since early June, but both crops have really taken off recently - to the point of becoming overgrown - especially the arugula and mizuna. 

Sadly, the overgrown lettuce came under attack by slugs, beetles, and grasshoppers, so it looks a bit rough.  That's going to a friend who owns a bunny rabbit, since the bun isn't a snob about leaves that have been partly gnawed. Another friend gave us a recipe for a natural pest deterrent, so we'll give that a shot to protect the second planting of lettuce and greens that's coming up right now.

For the overgrown arugula, we found out that it can be harvested (leaves, stems, flowers and all), and turned into a really nice pesto, according to a recipe I found online.  We ended up adding spinach, using sesame seeds instead of pine nuts (because that's what we had on hand), and we really piled on the garlic (because we're garlic fiends). It was delicious with pasta, and we had enough left over to freeze some for the future.

The mizuna doesn't keep too well, but I found a good recipe for a noodle salad that I could make in a big batch for this week's lunches:



I found fresh blueberries and cantaloupe on sale to compliment my salad.  The cantaloupe is at the height of sweetness right now, and those blueberries were a perfect balance of tart and sweet combined.  I admit, I liked packing up two fruits of complimentary colors - yeah, I'm an art geek.

The rest of the mizuna went into salads and cooked pastas over the course of the week.

( Recipe for Noodle Salad with Mizuna under the cut )


After the harvest, I tilled the area and planted some more rows of greens last weekend.  It's been five days, and I'm already seeing sprouts.  That stuff grows fast!  And now, the rest of the garden's taking off too: the tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, carrots, and bell peppers all shot up in the past week.  Jack might get jealous of our beanstalks, and the cucumbers are starting to invade the walking space. We should also see a ridiculous number of tomatoes - which will result in trying something else that's new: canning tomato sauce and maybe pickles for the winter.  For someone who was never particularly domestic in the past, I'm really enjoying this gardening thing.  Eric still has to mow the lawn, though.

( Here's where I'll be surfin' in the chaos that is CONvergence )

Aside from the panels I'm on, I'll likely attend quite a few panels and readings, to hear the wisdom of others as usual.  This year, I might just try and dive into the party zone a little instead of sitting at the outskirts.  I guess I'm feeling brave.

There's so much going on right now, it's hard for me to keep track of what day it is.

- I'm still stuck in revision purgatory for Broken Legacy, with notes for the final five chapters from Editor Ed sitting in my in box, taunting me.  It feels like yet another slump in a series of slumps in this project.
- In an effort to stretch my writing muscles outside the Tevious world (in part to keep my sanity intact), I wrote my first short story.  I think it turned out well and it was kind of fun - I could get addicted to this, but I have to focus on getting Broken Legacy done.
- Renfest is right around the corner.  I have one sewing client's costume in process, and two or three more potential clients left to confirm. I haven't even given much thought to my own costume, so I'd better do a status check on that soon.
- This is also that time of the year where there are two back-to-back conventions.  The 4th St. Fantasy Conversation was this weekend, and was awesome as usual.  I got an overall positive and energetic vibe (not that it hasn't been that way in the past - this year just felt extra friendly and chipper, if that makes sense), and filled my brain with "much writer-y goodness."  CONvergence begins in a couple days, so I'll need to rest up for the fun craziness to come.  (I'll post my schedule for that later). I really enjoy these conventions, but they get my excitement level up for writing while distracting me from it at the same time.
- I also have an art project that should have been completed a long time ago (to be gifts for family). As it languishes, my personal sense of guilt grows. I really need to get that done, too.

It's all a bit overwhelming, but then a colleague and friend I respect says something nice about my work, and now I feel ready to tackle this third book again.  Thanks, jasondwittman for the kind words!

This week's lunches lean toward the Mediterranean.  I had found a recipe for Lentil Snacks on one of the bento sites, but my first attempt to make them didn't turn out very well.  (They were really dry and awfully heavy on the cumin.)  I found another variant that uses tomato paste, and I cut waaayyyy back on the cumin, and now have something I enjoy eating for lunch:



I eat them with a bit of dipping sauce.  I've used plain yogurt with dill & garlic before, and that's really good. This time, I mixed up some ranch dressing and sour cream.  And grapes for fruity goodness, because the first pound was free at Cub.  :-)

( Recipe for Spicy Lentil Snacks under the cut )

The only real downside is prep time (there are a bunch of steps involved, and as with many things that get rolled into balls, there's that stupid "chilling in the fridge" period that sometimes drives me nuts.)  But I think it's worth it.