random ramblings

It went from 78 degrees and raining on Thursday, to 48 degrees and sunny yesterday.  Yuck.  Too cold for the imp to want to play outside for long.  Dang it.

I did get the kids to help me clean up the yard.  The pixie helped me gather sticks in the front (she carried them over to the parking pad and stacked them up), and the imp picked up the toys in the back.  They did a pretty good job, and got a little extra for their piggy banks: a shiny, golden dollar coin.  Talk about some happy kids!

Since it's Saturday, and there's nothing on, the kids are watching volume 4 of season 1 of The Avengers cartoon.  Because superheroes! 

Although, the pixie is getting restless.  Odysseus still  hasn't shown any signs of being awake, so I'm keeping the kids corralled on the couch, and the pixie would rather go play.  I'm getting irritated enough that I'm about to go get him up.

Shadow the cat got very, very angry with me, earlier this week.  It has become routine for me to go find a little black cat, and carry her back to the bedroom when I go to bed.  Kitty projects sleepy vibes, and purrs, which helps me get to sleep quickly.  Earlier this week, on one of Odysseus's nights off, we went to bed at the same time.  Instead of carrying a little black cat back to sleep on the bed, I carried her back to the pantry, where we shut the pets overnight because the cats tend to beat on doors or climb door facings--and they particularly like the pixie's door (probably because she's one of two light sleepers). 

The next day saw Shadow snubbing me all day long.  I made Odysseus take her back to the pantry the next night he came to bed with me.  She's used to him doing that.

Cricket is Cricket.  She's been going crazy with one of her newly re-found tinkle balls.  Although last night nearly saw me skinning me a cat: she decided she wanted in the window.  And she knocked my laptop off the table, because it was in the way of that.  If it had been damaged, then I'd have damaged her. 

The dog...has been pretending to be Snoopy over the last week: she spends a lot of her time on top of her dog house, either sleeping or keeping watch over her yard and those surrounding. 

My classes are working on research, this week.  They've got one more free day to go collect their research, and then we'll talk about how to integrate it into their papers without having it go from support to plagiarism.  When to quote, when to paraphrase, how much to use in proportion to their thoughts and work.  How to cite it. 

This is their last paper.  We have four weeks left of class, and this will be due to me two weeks from Tuesday.  And then, we'll do the blogging assignment. 

Some of my students are really looking forward to that.

I have my classes assigned for next semester: I'll be back to MWF, teaching at 11 and noon.  I'll have office hours from 9:00 to 11:00, on those days.  I need to know if I'm the first in my classroom.  If I am, I'll just hold my office hours there, again.  I'm more productive that way.

As for the writing...I'm waiting for two things before I publish the children's book--feedback from my last two beta readers, and the cover art from my friend who did the cover art for the Modern Gods books and for Survivors.  

I'm 32 pages into the revision (out of 131) for Pendragon Resurgent.  I'm debating whether or not to post The Last Pendragon up for free...I honestly don't know.