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Could I be anticipating spring any more? No, I could not. February is the coldest month and it's always the time when I feel like I've been activating my Warming Plan forever. Boots and knee socks every day just wear on the soul, even if my socks are fun Juno style ones. The thing is, even a negative situation has a positive side. One good thing about it being brutal out is that I have a lot of work to do, so I'm not missing outside time. I am in revision mode. And I'm enjoying quality time in my workspace.

I'm always interested to see other authors' offices. Everyone has such different ways of working. Some offices are inspirational. Some make me want to bust in and organize everything. Some authors don't have a whole office, more like an area where they work at home. I belong to this group. Calling my workspace a "home office" would be a stretch. I mean, I have a new desk and file cabinets and my sexy iMac. And I'm feeling so much better with my new chair. Talk about lumbar support! But everything is crammed into like four square feet. This is the main part of my workspace:



There are lots of changes I want to make, all of which require a larger apartment. I want to be facing a window while I work. With an awesome view. Maybe even a window box for flowers. My goal is to have an actual home office that's a separate room from the rest of my place, instead of a desk against the living room wall. More importantly, I want to stay in my neighborhood, so the new apartment will probably have to wait. The West Village has excellent energy, but crazy expensive real estate prices. There's this whole long story about me searching for a bigger place recently that I won't bore you with. I was waiting to get my new desk and chair and everything until I moved into my new place. But then I was like, What am I waiting for? My life is happening now! So I decided to go ahead and create a better workspace. Even though it's not ideal, I'm so happy that I did. It's comfortable and it works. And yes, that is a Dunder Mifflin mousepad.

Living in the Now is the key to happiness. So instead of focusing on what I don't have, I'm working on appreciating the things that I do. Creative visualization is a continuous process. I've put my goals out into the Universe and I'm working toward achieving them every day. That's the best we can do, right?

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by this sweet sunset I watched in Mykonos. I spent part of today learning iMovie. Clearly, I have a lot more to learn. This video is jumpy in parts and the framing could be better. But I am learning.

One thing I'm learning is that, even though I perfectly edited "Orange Sky" by Alexi Murdoch as background music and it is the only acceptable sound for this video and I should be allowed to freaking use it because I am not doing anything evil, YouTube is not feeling any of that. So if you want to hear "Orange Sky" over the video, you can start the sound clip below first, then start playing the video.

I hope you enjoy this moment of Zen.

Thank God it's Monday.

I never thought I see myself saying, thinking or writing that. I usually long for the weekend. I spend my weekdays in my office slaving at the computer, storytelling, and I really enjoy turning my brain off on Friday. However this weekend...yeesh.

It all started Saturday afternoon.

Actually, to tell this story properly, I have to give you a little backstory. I'll try to keep it short because, well, I don't want to lose my reader. Nevertheless, setting and history is important. Here it is: We live in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has snakes. Lots of snakes. Poisonous snakes. Scary snakes.

My background: I grew up in Indianapolis. Hardly any snakes. In fact, at the Indiana Dunes near Michigan City, IN, they hand out a pamphlet on What to do when you see the elusive, Indian rattlesnake (this is a real animal): 1) Determine your location, preferably via GPS; 2) Call the local park hotline and let them know where the snake is; 3) try not to scare said snake.
Reaction by Oklahomans to above description about what to do when you see a rattler in Indiana: Bursts of uncontrollable laughter.

Husband's background: He grew up in Germany. No snakes. Well, okay, there is this one thing that's like a snake that lives in Germany, but it's more like a lizard, slow, sweet, entirely harmless.

End of backstory.

It all started Saturday afternoon. The family had just finished our first heavy yardwork day in the flowerbeds. My husband and I were sitting on the front steps, nursing our sore muscles and drinking a beer. My kids were instantly bored.

Kids: "We're bored."
Me: "Go see your friends."
Kids: "Nobody's around."
Me: "Play with each other."
Kids: Glares and pained expressions.
Husband: "You can go to the creek."
Kids: "YEAY!!!!!"
Me: Refrain from killing husbad. I hate the creek. Houses that back up to it and that have pools regularly have water moccasins. Don't get me wrong. I went creek stomping as a kid, but I never saw a snake in a creek until I moved to Oklahoma, and they've all be water moccasins.
Me: Not wanting to scare children witless but maybe dissuade husband. "They have to take a phone in case something happens." (Important: our kids don't have cell phones).
Husband: Unperturbed. "They can take your phone."
Me: Refrain from walloping husband on head with beer bottle. There is, after all, still beer in it. "It was your idea. Give them your phone."
Husband: Fatal error number 1. "Okay."
Me: Fatal error number 2. "Fine."
Kids: "YEAY!!!!"
Kids take off to creek with dire upon-pain-of-death warning that they are not to lose said phone or go into creek with phone. Kids swear up and down on each other's lives they will follow this one little rule.
Fatal error number 3. We believe them.

7:15 kids lose phone...in creek.

We of course don't know this until Sunday morning after spending hours at the creek both before and after dark wading through water, rushes, tall grasses - with all the water moccasins and God knows what else - looking for said phone. I found it the next morning as I'm having my daughter retrace her steps, step for step, along the bank and then jumping from rock to rock in the middle of the creek (she's 10, she could have known better, I think). It was lying in the middle of the creek bed still shorting out.

Needless to say, the creek is now off-limits until adulthood for them (secretly, I'm relieved. No more snakes). We are paying for our stupidity by having to buy my husband a second phone (it was an iPhone, the lost one). My kids had the scare of their lives because they had to tell us they lost the phone. The oldest, the one who actually lost it, is grounded from technology of all sorts until her birthday, her 18th birthday (okay, not really, just her upcoming one in May). They both spent Sunday grounded, which means I had to stay home and finally got a chance to relax. And I've learned how to extract water from a phone. There's this nifty little trick that involves a plastic bag, phone and rice (or coffee beans), and/or a dryer with a drying rack you can put in the middle of it. Didn't work, but hey, I could share nifty information.

What a weekend. Thank God it's Monday (TGIM).

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by The Holiday. This movie is so good. I love this scene in which Jack Black takes Kate Winslet into a Blockbuster and shows her some stuff. Note: his character composes music for movies. Sassy!

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by my fave cupcake shop, Crumbs. Allison and I are loving their Halloween cupcake assortment. We went a little crazy:

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by the most excellent film Office Space.  If you have not seen Office Space, you need to do that immediately if not sooner.  If you have seen it, then you'll totally remember this scene where the boys beat up the fax machine.  "PC load letter?!  What the f@#! does that mean?"  And it's nice to see Berger doing something productive instead of leaving a sorry Post-It note on Carrie's computer.

This is for everyone out there who's feeling some career frustration on a Monday, everyone who knows what it feels like to have their computer eat their book, and everyone whose printer decided to stop working right when you're on deadline.  Cheers, baby.

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by this dude who takes vegetables and turns them into instruments. You will not even believe the broccoli one! Thanks for this, Solomon.

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by our dirty musical secrets.  Why?  Because when I admit something about how dorky I am, it tends to make other people feel better (i.e. possessing less relative dorkiness).  And if you share something embarrassing with me, then I can have a good laugh on a Monday.  Sweet deal!

So.  Let's get down to our dirty musical secrets.

Mine:  Okay.  Um...I liked New Kids on the Block.  As if that's not mortifying enough, I liked them when I was too old to like them.  I was sixteen and all the other NKOTB fans were like eleven.  But that did not stop me.  I even had their door poster.  And this was my boy:



Yours:  ?

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by Improv Everywhere.  They had agents freeze in place at the same second for five minutes in the middle of Grand Central Station.  I have a sneaky feeling Michael Scarn would approve.

Here's what it looked like:

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by the astounding Meg Cabot megcabot .  Her blog entry totally explains Why Tim Riggins Didn't Ask You Out. 

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by The Compulsive Reader.  Her blog has cool features, like Book of the Month and author interviews.  I'm stoked that Take Me There and When It Happens will both be featured as a Book of the Month in May!

You can read her review of Take Me There here.

Read on, Tirzah.

Your TGIM thought of the day is brought to you by The Magic Garden. Remember the place where lollipop sticks grew on trees? And the Story Box? Yeah! Since it's 62 degrees here in NYC, I was inspired today by nostalgic warm outside memories. Here's this in case you forgot how the theme song goes:



And if you're a younger neighbor who was not alive and / or old enough to watch this show in the 70's and early 80's, it's coming out on DVD!

IN the days when furniture was defined as “that which may be carried about,” the natural bookcase was a chest with a strong lock. These chests, packed with precious manuscripts, followed the prince or noble from one castle to another, and were even carried after him into camp. Before the invention of printing, when twenty or thirty books formed an exceptionally large library, and many great personages were content with the possession of one volume, such ambulant bookcases were sufficient for the requirements of the most eager bibliophile.

I enjoyed Henry Petroski’s treatise on book shelving called The Book on the Book Shelf. I am also enjoying Edith Wharton’s 1897 chapter on a smilar topic. [thanks will!]

How to make a bookshelf out of an old set of World Book encyclopedias from the always-interesting Instructables.