Inching Along, Making Progress on the Bingo Venture

Here's the mock up for the 7 x 5 inch "post card" style media flier that I will send to bookstores for my Bingo's Big Adventure book.

Here's the front side.


This is the back side.


Now would this advertisement make you interested in buying this book?

Comments welcome. Feed back positive or critical would be greatly appreciated.

If you are interested in advanced purchase of Bingo's Big Adventure hop over to the Bingo book sale site HERE. As soon as the boxes containing books hit my porch I'll be ripping them open, packaging books up and sending them out. Also, I promise to sign your book too!

Hope you're having a great Memorial Day weekend.

p.s. I am looking for independent books stores in your area. If you have any to suggest, send me the names!! I'm building my list of stores to send my media packages. I can do the San Francisco bay area easily. I need to start creating my out-of-state independent book store lists now too.

Thanks, thanks!

Random, random, random. Yes, I said Random.

This hodge-podge mess of a post is random stuff. It's totally unrelated jibberish, but what the hey. . .

We got a new play structure. YEAH!!

I've been wanting to get a new play structure for the kids for years, but have stalled on the whopping, rip-your-heart-out, suck you dry, leave you in poverty price they want for them at Costco. LUCKILY . . . a friend of ours did not want theirs any more and gave us one!! So what is old is new again!

I am really glad to be able to recycle this great playground and give it a new life.

BUT

The kids totally hate the thing.

They are just miserable playing on the tandem swing.

Just kidding!!!!

The kids are near brawling over this swing they love it so much. But from the looks on their faces you'd never guess they were quarreling only moments before.


How can one kid be so happy? I'm in awe. Pure unadulterated joy is hard to find. I think Wyatt can claim the title of happiest kid in town.

Our Menagerie Grows.

Meet the newest member of our always amazing family. I introduce "Doggie" to you.


Note the jump rope "leash" attached to a common household step stool. How a plastic stool becomes a dog I will never know, but Ella has been dragging this plastic stool around the house calling it her "DOG."

Yeah.

I was sitting in the kitchen with SIL Suzi and nephew Luke while Ella pulled "her dog" across the linoleum making a rather obscene noise most comparable to some rude form of a flatulence.

Luke chimes in, "Hey Ella, your dog sounds like he farts a lot." We all giggled and laughed a his ass-tute observation.

But Ella's quick reply in her high pitch toddler voice, "Doggie can fart morning, noon and night," put us in stitches as she chortled down the hall way with doggie in tow, farting.

Where did she learn that phrase? Where!!!

Much too much information.

I wear cotton jockey underwear. I love them. They give full coverage to my hind end. I can't stand anything going up my buttock. You can keep your butt floss and skimpy underwear. They just aren't comfortable.

But what is all this underwear talk about?

Well, I was going to the bathroom the other day (at the end of the day) and I noticed I was wearing my underwear inside out. This has never happened before that I can recall.

Basically, I wore my underwear inside out all day long and did not notice. Agggghhh!!!!

I attribute it to the fact that comfortable cotton underwear looks almost the same from either direction. Getting dressed in a hurry in darkish conditions could cause this random miss application of my undergarment. Right? Right!

Tell me someone has worn their underwear inside out before beside me. . .

Or I'm gonna have to go to inside out underwear anonymous over this incident. I think I may suffer permanently psychological damage over this one.

More Bathroom Humor

True.

More on Ella. My big girl, independent daughter, sassy pants, lady-girl has been wiping her own butt for many months. I am proud of the fact that I am no longer responsible for either of my children's potty hygiene . . .

However, today I hear her voice call me from the bowels of the bathroom where she asked, "Mom! Mom! Come wipe my butt."

The only sensible response was a flat refusal. "No Ella. No way!" I replied. "We're not going backward here."

Then from the bathroom she calls back, "I want to go backwards. Mom. I'll pay you 100 dollars to wipe my butt!"

I. Am. Not. Kidding.

File This Under Old Things that Should be Thrown Away.


I can NOT throw out these ratty jeans. Why do they have to disintegrate on me? Oh why do my favorite jeans always succumb to entropy?

Sob.

My Cat Should be Arrested for his Obscene Behavior.

There is cat love.


(put on your best Barry White voice)

And there is cat LOVE.

"Get a room."

A Parting Note.

Two headed monsters really exist.

That's all folks!

The Striped Cat with the Green Eyes has an Easy Life

Really. . .

Do I have to open my eyes? Can I not just stay inside my cave a wee bit longer? What? I have obligations to fulfill? What? People have expectations of me?


I will open my eyes, but I can't help feeling like I'd prefer climbing into the cat's house, then take a nap for a week. Or two. Bingo landed in the right place at the right time. When is that going to happen to me? For Bingo he had no choice in his path, I chose him to join our chaos. I however, must pilot my landing and my own course through life. No rest for the weary.

I feel tired.
I feel anxious.
I feel unsettled.

Bingo is obviously unaffected.

Maybe it's just the rotovirus which has left me feeling dizzy and confused. I'm still nauseous from that evil little bug. My stomach seems to be irreversibly queasy.

Maybe it's the fact that this week I went final on the Bingo book and the count down for many boxes of books arriving at my house is for real.

My mind was spinning uncontrollably like a rogue galaxy last night as I was mulling through marketing and selling my little, meager children's book. I could not fall asleep as I ping-ponged from idea to idea, each of my thoughts threaded together weaving some strange, ugly looking macrame wall hanging. Not clean, not orderly, not something I want to hang on my wall, but something I am committed to and that I can not throw away.

For seven months I have been working on my book creation. Now I have to make "it" happen. I am a new author and a new independent publisher. It's all up to me now. It's my job to show off my book, to visit independent book stores, to tell folks why they should and need to sell my book, to tell the big book stores why they should sell my book, and more.

I am excited and scared. Nervous and happy. Worried and but confident.

A dichotomy of emotions are to be expected I am sure. This is all perfectly normal. Right?

There is so much to do in the next 30 days, but so much of what I need to do can't begin until the books arrive. Me oh my. Oh Me Oh My. I've got my work cut out for me.

What have I got myself into?

I'm Showing Our Dirty Laundry

Yep, it's come to this.


This pile of blankets, towels and clothing are the result of 36+ hrs of vomiting between two children. Thankfully, I was able to make it to the lavatory and/or shower for my vomiting and dry heaves. But since I spent several hours sleeping on the bathroom floor this was not so difficult.

Why such disgusting illness?

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Roto Virus's and all their beautiful friends and family. And I think they call them rotovirus's not because they are round, but because they basically clean you out from the inside out. Rotorotooter virus is a better name I think.


And a computer enhanced image just cause . . .


It all began Thursday 4 am with an early wake up call from Ella complaining of a upset tummy and intermittent crying. Okay. I crawled into bed with her and she went back to sleep until 6.

All day long there were intermittent complaints of stomach pain . . .

Then Friday, more stomach aches from Ella. Then Wyatt joined in with complaints of his own.

This is a slow build up to the pile of laundry but just wait.

Saturday morning dawned quietly with requests for breakfast from my dear and loving husband. I was not feeling tip top, but just figured I was in a bad mood or something. I made our favorite buttermilk waffles and Wyatt took one bite and said he did not feel well. Usually he's a whole-waffle kind of boy.

We had some errands to run and I got ready to go and Wyatt started whining that his belly hurt. I told him to lay on the couch and rest since I had to get parts. As I was getting in the truck Wyatt sat on the steps to our house and started bawling in total anguish. I could see the tears flowing down his whitened face in my side view mirror and I had to stop.

He looked miserable.

I quickly put the parking break on and went back to give him a hug and figure out what to do. Daddy Mike was grading a pad with the tractor . . .

As I looked over to Mike thinking of my options, Wyatt exploded. He vomited all over the base rock while screaming.

Thus the beginning began.

After the first projectile vomiting it was a race to see who could barf the next fastest. About two hours later I was vomiting. And about four hours later Ella joined in the festivities. This thing hit hard and fast.

For the next 24 hrs it was barf fest 2010. Seeing as I could not stand up without upchucking, I spent a considerable amount of time in the hall way next to the bathroom in between vomit attacks.

Crawling from my room to the bathroom really made me reconsider a bunch of things about life. Maybe it's a good thing that my house is small. It's a close crawl to barf from every location in the house. I definitely can't ever be pregnant again cause this is what it feels like. The bathroom floor is too cold. Towels make good blankets. The shower is just as good of a place to vomit as the toilet. If not better. Cold water dripping off the shower curtain onto my back feels really bad. A woman's body is really not meant to lie on a hard surface. We just don't bend flat properly. Somebody has made a voodoo doll just for me and is sticking needles in my stomach for fun.

Wyatt, similarly indisposed shared time with me at the bathroom, but found opportunities to destroy my comforter, the carpet in the hall and in the living room. Ella mostly barfed on towels since she showed some warning signs before heaving and could be contained somewhat.

While I was corpse like on the hard, freezing linoleum, Mike took his share of punishment with the kids alternately crying for help throughout the night. How he did not succumb is beyond me.

This morning I was curled on the couch. Ella was sleeping on a towel on the floor beside me. And Wyatt was on the couch too with his pile of blankets and towels. Twas a pretty sight.

And I left out the details about the "back door," if you know what I mean. We're still battling that. . . But a least the whomiting has stopped. I can also say it's truly possible to loose 5 lbs in 24 hrs.

Biological warfare anyone?

Yeah. Just spread new forms of this virus and you can conquer any enemy. For real.

And on a parting note I was in San Diego for work Monday through Wednesday and can leave you with this lovely photo of the Pacific Ocean to cleanse your mind from the unsightly images above.


You're welcome.

A Battle of Pigtail Proportions

Somebody decided to stop fighting me on my attempts at "hair control."

Finally.


And finding out that pigtails are not the end of the universe, that same someone might even LIKE them!


The battle really begins when we start to brush Ella's hair. No matter how carefully, no mater how slowly I tease out little tangles, I would hear a screaming, screeching, hissing fit. I think I've finally wore her down.

Maybe those hair follicles have toughened up a little. Or something.

I take my tiny victories where ever they occur. Whoo hoo!!!

I Love Poppies. What can I say?

Time for change. Time for new sights and visions to represent the seasons that whirl past so quickly every year.

I always think to myself, "Don't blink. . . "

Thus, the new background.

What's Been Cookin'?

Long time no blog! Boiled volley ball? Anyone? Anyone?


Volleyball stew complements of my daughter Ella . . . I think this is where the term, "Taste's like shoe leather" comes from. No takers?

How does my girl come up with these things?


Now, on to Wyatt.

How about Lima bean sprouts?

First you'd have to wrestle it away from this little farmer-man. . .


Let's not make any comments about the grape pop-sickle face, shall we?

He's mighty proud of his bean sprout and the joy of seeing it grow brings a certain sparkle to his eye that borders on amazing with a dash of naughty. Why is that???

Then here's a check up with Bingo the Mighty Adventurer . . .


Bingo said, "Sniff, sniff. I sniff all in my territory. Especially these strange flashy things in my garden personal litter box. The Tall Lady really hates me near the garden, but I just tell her that I am "weeding" for her. Who cares if I take out a few carrot seedlings or kill the radishes. . . I am a cat. I can do these things."


"I can also sleep in absurd positions on the Tall Ladies bed. There is a rule in the feline world, if you did not know . . . 'Sleep in those areas where you are not desired, and sleep with commitment.' I think I do both splendidly. After all, I need all the rest I can get. My book was sent to the printers last week and I will hopefully be famous soon. Well, I can aspire to greatness can't I?"

Enough from that spoiled cat!!

And on that note, I will intercept the fully bound hardback and softback proofs from the printer next Monday. Hopefully it will be perfect and I will be able to push the GO button on Bingo's BIG Adventure so it will be available for shipping in about 35 days!!

The final blood, sweat, and tears to get that little book to print-ready status was arduous last week.

Time for a little break. A breather. Or something like that.

Bye for now!!!