Career Plans for the New Year

2009 is approaching rapidly. And while I know that we haven’t even ‘done’ Christmas yet, my mind is already moving towards the new year.

In January, I plan to begin querying agents for The 15 Date Rule. While I am querying, I will work on two of my works in progress that are currently in the editing stage. 2009 will be my year. It’s time to take the next step. I can feel it. I’m ready.

In case you need some ‘science’ to back up my feelings check out my January horoscope:

“There’s new hope for a project of relationship you almost gave up on last year. Your expectations–whatever they are–will be met.” (From Chatelaine, January 2009. Holiday Mathis.)

I know it’s a horoscope, but it gives me a strange sense of ‘yes, this will work’. 

What are your career goals for the upcoming new year?

Mommy Might Have Kissed Santa Claus, But I Saw His Reindeer

This summer, a funny thing happened on the Oram family travels. I noticed that not all deer signs along the highway are created equal. There are indeed regional differences. So, in the spirit of Christmas, Santa Claus and his posse, here’s a little something for you all. Season’s Greetings!

Now Dasher:

Now Dancer:

Now Prancer:

And Vixen:

On Comet (he’s a fast one and hard to photograph):

On Cupid (gosh, he’s chubby, huh? His poor little stick legs):

On Donner (he used to be called Dunder, kind of like the paper company, Dunder Mifflin, in The Office):

And Blitzen (used to be called Blixem, but it sounded too much like he’d been drinking until everything took on an over-exposed sort of feel):

And don’t forget the most famous reindeer of all, Rudolph:

In case you were wondering about Olive, ‘the other reindeer’, and her kid sister, I saw them too:

Here’s the real thing, in case you feared I was being too goofy (his reindeer lounging and getting fat at his summer cottage):

On a final note, I also saw a sign for Santa’s summer crossing:

Hello, Welcome, Thank You

Hello!

To all of you new to my blog, I want to welcome you and thank you. In the past two weeks, I’ve had over 4000 visitors! So, I want to say, thank you for stopping by and I hope you enjoy my blog. If you have comments, by all means drop me a line.

Here’s a little treat to keep you warm:

And if you are from a warmer climate, something to keep you cool:

If you want to have some goofy fun, pop over to the Pristines and make a nomination for something that makes your everyday life better, or cast your vote. It’s a romping good time.

Book Review: The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle

By Jeannette Walls

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That line pretty much sums up this memoir. I have to admit that the first page had me hooked in this story. It started with a woman driving to a fancy party and spots her mother dumpster diving. She feels ashamed and worries that someone might figure out that it is her mother living on the streets, so she turns around and goes back to her Upper East Side apartment. You know this is going to be quite the tale.

You might be thinking that this is going to be a whiny story or a story about huge family fall-outs and hard times and tough decisions. And in part, it is. But on the other side of the spectrum, Walls describes it all with such simplicity and such clarity and removal that it just moves you along, half believing, half disbelieving. Someone described her voice having a ‘childlike innocence’ and there is a touch of that. But there is also a voice that is very reasoned. Very seeing. Very telling.

When I wasn’t reading this story, I was thinking about it. At one point, a little over half way through, the book became an addiction. I wanted to read it and when I wasn’t, I was thinking about reading it. I would wonder where the story would take me over the next few unread pages. To make the addiction worse, every scene is short. Only a few pages, which allows you fall into the, ‘just until the next scene break’. Only you know you’re going to read more. You can’t help yourself. You reach the end of the scene and you getting wondering about the next one, so you have to read on.

Walls grew up doing the skedaddle (leaving in the middle of the night, breaking out of hospitals before the bill came due, etc), moving around (usually when money really, really ran out), finding her own food, adventuring and doing more living and growing up than the average North American child. A family of six, the Wall’s were never rich and often lived on very little. Jeannette’s father, a brilliant entrepreneur who like many like him, had trouble hanging onto a long term job, and eventually became an alcoholic and gambler, leaving the family for nights and days at a time while he tried to earn enough money so he could make his inventions some to fruition or to root out union corruption. Her mother, an artist with a free spirit and a firm belief that everyone should make their own path and look out for themselves, was occasionally pushed back into her teaching career by her hungry and frustrated children.

The adventures the Wall’s family had are incredible. When I began reading the story, I was shaking my head and thinking, this is unbelievable. Then I began thinking about my own childhood and came to realize that really, it wasn’t that her life was so incredible, it was simply the amount of incredible things that happened to her. In other words, she had more than her fair share. It’s like taking chunks of Maya Angelou’s childhood, a touch of Dave Peltzer’s, a smidgen of Antwone Fisher’s, a thread of Malika Oufkir’s and a sprinkling of one’s own and rolling it all into one. To say the book was interesting is an understatement.

When you look at the individual pieces of Wall’s life, it isn’t that different. We all struggle in our own ways. The local librarian, who also read the book (book club), said Wall’s childhood was similar to her own in many ways. We compared the bits that were like our own and in which we could identify. For her, the parents were reversed. For me, there were several parallels, such as living in an unusual building, having a father who made bunk-beds for me and my brother, I might have burned down part of a shred (purely by accident) and other such events.

Really, we aren’t all that different. And as for Jeannette Walls, I think I’d like to meet her.

The Pristines

Looking for something to do? How about popping over to the Oram family Christmas website? The Christmasy part isn’t really done yet. It might not even get finished if past years serve as an example. We tend to get distracted, bored and wander off. However, one year we did a nice photo journal of the turkey being cooked on Christmas day. So you never know.

Oops, got distracted. The Pristines! How could I forget? The Pristines are like the Nobel Prize for everyday items that make one’s life better. And the best part is that ‘better’ is defined by the nominator. So, go on over there and nominate something worthy of a Pristine. Or simply drop by and vote for the 8 lucky nominees.