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I wrote this post a month ago.  More storytelling stuff has happened.  More books have been read and more wizard stories have been acted out.  I am NOT just twiddling my thumbs... 

If you pay attention, you will note that I posted over a month ago.  Well, it has been quite the month.  Personal stuff:
1.  Son and his family moved home; bought a house; son got new job; found a day care for the little one; lived in our apartment for two long, eventful and adorable weeks.
2. Nope.  No.  #1 is quite enough.

 Storytelling stuff:
1.  Group performance in Woodbury NJ. Thanks to good tellerfriend, Ingrid Bohn,
for driving
2.  Arts Day at Thos. Jefferson Elementary.  So much fun!

Reading:
1.  The Princess in Black books by Shannon Hale; many other picture books; and "A Chinese Fairy Tale" from the Junior Classics - all of these out loud.
2. Some Charlotte MacLeod Sarah Kelling/ Max Bittersohn mysteries.  It is wonderful to revisit old favorites as if I never read them at all.  Memory loss has an upside.
3.  Wishing Day by Lauren Myracle.  Just closed the book half an hour ago.  Lovely writing.  Thoughtful look at the confusion of young teenager hood and the pull to always believe in magic.  The book mirrors how I feel after having the little girl here from early morning until bedtime and then, poof!.  Honestly, I don't know what to do with myself or what is real anymore.


Writing:
Well, we play a lot of make believe, the little girl and I.  I tell her stories that pop into my head and if she likes them, we act them out - over and over and over again.

There has been a rash of foolish wizards turning fairies into flowers and animals because they love animals and flowers and have no idea how those things occur in the REAL world.  We have reached chapter 13 or 14. I am sure I missed one or two when I wrote them down.  The last chapter was the best.  Tell you more later.

Hey, hey, hey...

That's supposed to be Fat Albert greeting you to another long-overdue post on the nearly defunct-ness that is my blog, Tappity Tappity. Thanks for stopping in.

Truth be told, I'm feeling like Fat Albert these days. Raising these kids is really knocking me off my working out gameplan. Really. It's sooo dang tough nowadays to get out of the house for a little bit and do that whole Gold's Gym thing. But...it's only a matter of time. Laura and I are gonna work out a gameplane that's gonna let both of us rotate and go...somehow, someway.

But enough about me, how are you?

Hey, that's great!

Well, a few things have happened as of late and I'd be a complete d-bag not to at least touch on some of 'em, so here goes.

Library Visit - Wouldn't it be funny if this was just about me going to the library and checking out a couple o' books? Well, maybe not. But, I had my first author reading/library visit a few Saturdays back. It's been in the hopper for a while, but it just never came to be. So...about a year and a month after the release of Patrick's Super Socks, I hit the ol' Woodbury library and did a good ol' fashioned reading. I had some copies of PSS to sell, along with my newest release, Mount Rushmore.

Apparently the library put an ad in the paper and everything. I'm just glad I put an event thing in Facebook. I had a bunch of peeps from my family along with friends and firefighting pals show up with their kids. It was a good thing. Otherwise, it would've been like Spinal Tap doing their record signing.

Well that's nit-picking, isn't it?

The best part? That's Travis in the light blue sweater.
He's tired of Patrick and his dumb super socks.

Two TKTs for the price of...one?

Big Jake - If you can believe it, our little(st) guy is almost 2 months old. Really. To compound the craziness, he's A GIANT BABY. He was wearing a shirt that was made for 9 month olds. He clocks in (according to his check-up today) at a whopping 14 pounds. I weighed that when I was 6 months, according to the Mom Almanac. He's also 26 inches long. So, in the space of under two months, the little dude has gained 5 pounds and grew 5 inches. Ummm...is that even possible?

Our meaty little man.

Books, Y'all - In other exciting author news, I'm done with my 3 newest books, which will be released with the If I Were a Firefighter book next spring. They're the ones tenatively titled Fairy Tale Stars and there's a Trolls, Elves, & Dragon installment. Pretty crazy. I still find it hard to believe that I've got two books out now and that by this time next year, I'll have 8 out. Good times! They're fun to do, but a part of me is pretty stoked to have them done so I can get back to work on my other projects.

Twitter - I've joined what I used to call 'Blogging for Lazy People' (look who's calling the kettle black!) and I thought I'd give Twitter a try. Find me, uh...twitting at www.twitter.com/tktroupe.

Movies and such - As I mentioned a few posts back, I'm INHALING movies and shows. It's all one can do when you've got a big ol' baby to cool out with at night. So, I won't bore you with details, but here's some crap I've been watching.

Pan's Labyrinth - Stellar! My first movie on BluRay. After seeing this I'm confident that 'The Hobbit' is going to rock the pants right off of me.

Storytelling - I like controversial movies, but this one was a turd of the highest caliber.

Quarantine - I really liked this movie. Not for the easily squeamish or people who get motion sickness. Zombies, face-biting and just plain awesomeness.

Persepolis - Eh... I think it won some awards and it was visually pretty cool, but overall it didn't do a whole heck of a lot for me.

Spellbound - A documentary about the National Spelling Bee. Well done and oddly riveting!

Zombie (also known as Zombi 2) - A crappy old zombie movie that was done in the late 70's. Absolutely hilarious for all the wrong reasons. Over-acted scenes, gratutious nudity, and people getting their faces eaten. Also, shark vs. zombie. I'm not even kidding. So, naturally, I loved it.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - Dude. Maybe I'm a simple man who likes simple things, but I REALLY dug this flick. It's all time-twisty and awesome and also has Albert Finney in it who is the closest thing to god in my book.

Website - I think this is the year I get a website built. I sort of need to do some research and see what I want to have done, but I'm putting the feelers out there. I know a couple peeps and if I can round up a few dollars, I think something wicked cool is on the horizon. I'm hoping for a GOODHALO-esqe site, chock full of zombies and such. It'd be one part promotion, another part awesome. How can it lose?

Anyway...I'm going to do my best to be more post-er-ific. Maybe having that dumb ol' Twitter thing going will sort of give me the atomic kick in the pants I need. Plus, these long-winded 'hey everybody here's what I've been doing all month' posts are for the birds.

Thanks for shopping! See you in the emergency room.

Ha ha ha! *trip*