Santa's putting an office in my stocking this year!

I'm so excited! My husband and I have been sharing the den and it's been getting cramped! Now that I've been getting serious about writing for children the office has been a disaster; Paper everywhere, things getting mixed up, clutter etc. The room isn't big enough for the two of us. We've decided to turn our guest room into an office. MY office! It will still have a bed for guests, but most of the time it will be office space.

So Good-by old guest furniture!! Buh-bye!!!!!

"Hello" even OLDER furniture. (these two pieces are items that I kept from my childhood bedroom)

And I'm going to fill the room with all the colors that I love! In addition to some of my childhood things I'll have things from my kids; the things they have made and will make. And I'll put up pictures and all kinds of other things that inspire my creativity and help me to connect back to childhood.

more pictures to come as updates are made . . . . .

Artsy Schmartsy Priorities: The Promise Necklace

Recently my six year old daughter was excited about the arrival of a weekend visitor. She prepared for our guest by planning a special necklace making project for them to do together. My daughter was jumping out of her skin with anticipation.
The visitor came, the weekend passed and our guest went home without making a necklace and my daughter was heartbroken.
So, I told her I would make a necklace with her.
The day passed and I was about to leave for work early that evening when my daughter reminded me about my promise to make a necklace. I decided to take that extra 10 minutes to make the necklace instead of having the extra time to set up at work. I couldn't break her heart too.
It was well worth it. You would have thought I had taken her to Disney World by how excited she was and quite frankly, it ended up being the best part of my day.
I made a necklace for her and she made a necklace for me.
I hung the necklace that she made for me in my car as a reminder of how important it is
to keep our promises to each other
and how important it is to take time to do things with the people we love.

I hope my children will look back on today
And see a mother who had time to play.
Dusting and scrubbing can wait 'till tomorrow
For babies grow fast we learn to our sorrow.
Cleaning and cooking won't go away
But children grow bigger day after day
So quiet down cobwebs and dust go to sleep
I'll play with my children 'cause children don't keep.
anon poem adapted by me

Cluck Kent and Lois Path

This time of year brings back memories of the writing experience that first cultivated the "love of writing" in me.

I was in 5th grade and in white chalk (this was the day of black boards) the teacher wrote:

Write a story starting with this sentence "One day I was face to face with a musket . . . "

I wish I had the foresight to keep that piece, but I didn't. I do, however, remember a little bit of how it goes.


One day I was face to face with a musket . . .

I went on to tell the story of a young and strong turkey named Cluck Kent. World famous Bawkporter Lois Path found herself looking down the barrel of a musket. Cluck Kent sensed trouble was afoot and our hero dashed into the nearest hollow log to emerge none-other than Super Hero extrodinaire SUPER TURKEY!!!!!!!! Super Turkey was able to get the musket away from the hunter and saved the day. THE END


I had so much fun writing the story, and the teacher and my parents gushed over my paper and Voila! The seeds of "writing-joy" were planted.


Thanks Super Turkey and Mrs. Whatsyourname for my my 5th grade Thanksgiving writing assignment.

Book Review: Holes

Wow! I loved this book! I expected it to be good since it is a Newberry winner and they made a movie out of it. But I must admit, I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. I never saw the movie or heard much about it so the whole story was new to me. It's a great book all around. It's funny, easy to read yet interesting. I love the way Louis Sachar laced so many elements of the story together and tied them all up. Almost everything he included ended up being crucial somehow.

This is a great book to read for those who don't have much time for reading. The Chapters are short and easy to digest. My reading time was cut short this month, but I was able to knock out a chapter by chapter while waiting in the school pick up lines for the kids, and even while waiting in line for my coffee at Starbucks!

There's no excuse to not read this one!

Eye candy for aratsy schmartsy people. Check out Mr. November!

So, I turn my calendar to November, (all Monet if you couldn't guess) and much to my delight, November's picture is my FAVORITE Monet of all times. I get to look at it all month! :0)

I love Monet in general (is there anyone who doesn't?) But out of them all, this is the one that most makes me feel like I'm there. I can feel the breeze and hear the ocean in the distance. I enjoy the sultry whisper of the leaves stirring in the wind; the sun warms my skin as I escape the energy of the city below.

~sigh~ I hope I can see this in person some day.

The countdown to Halloween is over: How I tortured my toddler

No more picture of dogs in costumes.

I'm not the responsible party for dressing up the dogs in my earlier posts. I am , however, responsible for torturing my child and dressing her up like a chicken.
She was not happy with me. But what could I do? They had the costume on sale for $5 at The Children's Place. How could I resist?

The only time she let us keep her hat on was while she ate some yogurt. Otherwise, she pulled it off and screamed if we tried to put it on her head.

ahhhh. . . . the memories parents make for their young--
Priceless.

I'm a toddler!

I've know that I've wanted to write for children for about 5 years. this past year was the first year that I decided to get serious about it and treat it as something more than just a hobby. Since I've made that decision, I've seen a huge improvement in my skills, and my writing credits are slowly but surely adding up. At first, I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, but then I sat down and looked at the few accomplishments that I've had, and though they may be small baby steps, I feel good about it. I'm heading in the right direction. This past year has made a huge difference. And as the New Year lurks behind the approaching Holiday Season, I'm excited to see what kind of progress will come with it.

Here's a small break down of my journey:

All my life (the fetal stage)= I've loved to write. I keep journals upon journals and wrote all kinds of stories as a kid. I was accused of plaigiarism by my 7th grade teacher, which scared the tar out of me. It made me a little scared to try too hard and it took a little of the joy of writing away. If only I had known what a compliment that really was, maybe I would've tried harder and stuck with it. Oh well. Live and learn.

Year 1 (newborn)= Read lots of picture books to my first child and thought "I'd like to do that" I wrote a story, got a rejection letter and thought "Oh, that's not as easy as I thought it would be." But I still wanted to write for children and decided to figure out how to do it. I bought books on how to write for children and decided to take a class.

Year 2 and 3 (baby)= I took a correspondence writing course with the Institute of Children's Literature. My mentor was Connie Heckert. She was wonderful and I learned a TON about writing for children and the industry in general. I started out thinking that I only wanted to write books, but found that writing articles was fun too.

Year 4 (first steps)= My course ended, I joined SCBWI carolina's, went to my first writers conference, joined a critique group and sent out a submission or two -- then received a rejection letter or two. My first success was winning a small writing contest with SCBWI.

Year 5 (I'm toddling!)= I subscribed to the Children's Writer Newsletter, which has been a huge help. This is the year I started getting some of my articles accepted. I think all of them, or almost all of them were leads from the Children's Writer Newsletter.
I went to my 2nd Writer's Conference this year and had a critique done by Caitlyn Dloughy at Atheneum. It was a great critique. She had a lot of good things to say. I'm going to send my MS to her when my revisions are complete.
This year I also committed to reading, reading, reading. With 3 young children, I thought this would be a hard commitment. However, I take a book with me wherever I go, and instead of watching t.v. I crack open a book. Not to mention audio books. This is another practice that has improved my skills (if I may say so myself). :0P

Year 6 = Will I be ready for preschool this year? Look at me now! I'm a toddler taking baby steps! Pretty soon I'll be running and getting into all kinds of messes. Oh, wait -- I maybe taking the analogy too far. Here's hoping I'll be running, without the messes. :0)

It's nice to look back and see some growth.

My goals for this year:
keep reading
Keep writing
submit more MS's
enter some contests
Keep on keepin' on . . . .