Tuesday Tidbits

To my surprise, Carl and I only got one anniversary card this year. I'm not complaining, certainly, because all we ever do with cards is display them on the mantle for a few days (or weeks if I'm feeling lazy) and then toss them. Still, we usually get several in the mail, from family at least, so now I'm wondering if once you pass that five-year mark people don't send cards?

These are the questions that occupy my mind, and (one of) the reason(s) my husband thinks I am strange.

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Yesterday I sent a query letter re. "Frozen Dreams" (I have obviously been writing too much Narnia fic lately - my fingers automatically put an "s" in Frozen instead of a "z," which means I have been doing British spelling more than US recently) to a new agent. I also emailed a cover letter and first ten pages of "The Magic Garden" to Carl to print out at work (our home printer has decided it doesn't like us and doesn't want to play anymore), so I can mail that off to the next publisher on my list. I feel pretty good about getting to that! Once I get word back from my beta readers on my most recently finished MS (tentatively titled "The Eldest Sister") I'll do the final edit and start looking into agents/publishers for that one. This is the part of writing I don't like, but there are bits in every job that are unpleasant, and one cannot expect everything to be simple and fun.

That's my philosophy, anyway.

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Once I am finished with the quilt I'm currently putting together, I am going to take a break from doing projects, and actually organize (organise) them. I'm going to get a bunch of plastic totes and sort out all my sewing, knitting and scrapbooking supplies, putting them in totes according to whether they are unfinished projects, free fabric (or yarn) (or paper), and any projects that I don't think I'm likely to ever finish are either going to be given away or thrown out. My closet is stuffed full of disorganized bags and boxes of crafting supplies, and if there's one thing I have learned from four moves in six years, it is that disorganization is bad. When we leave here in (hopefully) three years, I don't want to have to mess with it all then. My goal right now is to organize it, and then finish all my current projects before we leave, and before starting any new ones.

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Remember, a while back, how I wrote that we've been calling the girls "Doodles and Noodles"? Well, Joy now calls half of her toys "Oodles" (or sometimes "Poodles") when talking to them: "Let's go, Oodles. Oodles ... listen. Come here right now!"

She cracks me up.

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Gracie took her first unassisted steps on Saturday, and in true Gracie form, didn't just take one or two, but calmly walked about half a dozen paces across the living room before losing her balance. She hasn't gone it alone again since, but she now thoroughly loves holding our hands to walk. Baby's growing up!

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And Joy has been bringing me stories for the last twenty minutes, so rather than keep interrupting this to read to her, I'll just end it now. No offense to you all, but reading to my kid is even more fun than blogging random bits of my life!