random ramblings

I'm only just now starting my coffee, so I might seem more disjointed than usual.  Fair warning.

I discovered something about the kids, last week.  I, at my absolute wits' end, was racking my brain for a new song to sing, at the pixie's request, so I started in on "Little Bunny Foo-Foo."  And, every time the bunny would bop the field mice, she'd cloud up.  When the good faerie threatened the bunny, her eyes would go wide, and she'd shake her head (not good, as she was nursing at the time).  When the faerie carried out her threat...the pixie started to cry.  I had to sing a half a dozen of her usual song before she'd calm down.

The imp, on the other hand, laughed his fool head off with every smack, and every threat, and approved of the faerie turning Foo-Foo into a goon.  He didn't get the awful pun, but I wasn't really expecting him to, yet. 

The washer is working again.  Odysseus and I got the backlog of laundry, piled up for almost two weeks, done.  Now, we just have to put it away.    I didn't get anything done yesterday, beyond getting the dishwasher loaded.  And got the imp's overnight bag packed for his night at Grandma's and Grandpa's last night. 

Speaking of yesterday, Odysseus had a birthday.  We spent a lot of it at his parents' house, and ate lasagna, garlic bread, and chocolate cake with whip cream type frosting with cherry pie filling on top of the cake.  The imp said "This is much better than the other not-cake." 

The not-cake?  That was a pineapple upside-down cake.  Apparently, the only cake that is cake is chocolate, according to the kids.  Kind of funny, huh?

The puppy was a very good girl, yesterday.  She refused to go poop on the walks before we left, and spent the day between 9:30 and 3:30 in her crate.  And she didn't go poop in her crate, despite refusing before we left. 

She did go immediately upon being walked.  And she ate a big ol' bowl of puppy food immediately afterward. 

The cats were...cats.  They didn't destroy anything, and probably spent the day either sleeping or hunting mousies.  Both of them are incredible mousers--Shadow for snacks, and Cricket for independently-mobile toys. 

Today's chores include grading busy work for my students.  It's hard to explain to them that an assignment isn't busy work when you, as the teacher, consider it busy work, and don't see the point behind it.  I cannot wait until I'm done with this crap, the first week of May.

On the bright side, my first paycheck comes through next week.  I start working in January, in the Spring semester, and first paycheck comes on the last working days of February, March, April, and May.  I'm not working the Summer semester, and will pick up the second or third week of August.  Then, I'll get paid the last working days of September, October, November, and December.

I'm about a third of the way through with revising Pendragon again.  I'm hoping to be done in time for a mid-April publication date.  I'm working on writing a sort of cliched plot novel, right now--a twenty-year-old vampire hires a human to help her with home maintenance, and they realize that the vampire that turned her (unintentionally--he'd meant to just rape and murder her) was doing the same thing in her town.  And decide to try to track him down.  I think this might be a two or three book series.  I should be finished writing the first one sometime during early midsummer.  Anyone interested in being a beta reader?