Coming this Summer

I received good news recently. Ellora's Cave is planning to release a print anthology of the Jewels of Ursus series this summer. There is no date yet, but the three stories will be combined into one print book. The current plan is to release it under the Jewels of Ursus title.

I had the afternoon off today due to a small case of eating something that did not agree with me the night before. So Z and I went to the mall to walk about and look for Mother's Day cards for grandmas. Unfortunately it turned into a traumatic experience for Z. Right out side of the Sears is a pet store. This pet store has been trying to sell this batch of bunnies since before Easter. A few weeks ago I took one of the bunnies out and held it down for him. So I had no reason to think there would be any problem with seeing the bunnies again.

The little rabbits were chasing each other around the cage so I picked Z up to see them. As soon as we get next to the cage he starts to scream in terror. My son...scared of the bunnies. He was probably more afraid of the bouncey, jumpy things but that they were bunnies is the makings of a story that will embarass him greatly in upcoming years.

And I must say, with pride, my son has decided he prefers Mom's cooking to the jarred baby food. We'd started him on sweet potatoes and bought a small jar of organic prepared food to let him try it. He was less than thrilled, but today when he ate the momma prepared sweet potato (a baked sweet potato, sans peel, pureed with a bit of water) he got very excited. He's been trying the sweet potatoes for a week so we will be trying carrots next.

And, I've been quite hooked on the trailer maker from one true media. It's been a blast playing with the options.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Feedback requested

I've tried my hand at creating a trailer for Soul Stone. Let me know what you think.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

All Hail Mother Nature

We had a doozy of a storm roll through last evening. It had us sitting on our stairs (the farthest place in our house from windows that we could all fit)and hoping the cars were okay. The wind was really strong for a few minutes, but the hail seemed to last forever. The worst part was we didn't get a warning for the hail.

Normally when we know it's going to hail, we put our cars in the garage. It's a 1 ½ car garage so it's a tight fit that requires some fancy maneuvering. One car has to angle into the work room in the back and it takes both of us to make sure we clear all the obstacles. But last night the hail started and we’d not heard any warnings so our poor cars were left to the mercy of the storm.

No broken glass that I’ve seen so far and my little Red doesn’t have any visible denting. I think it’s more likely that the Prelude will have born the brunt of the denting. It seems to be made of thinner material.

Z was completely bored by the whole thing. The thunder, lightening, barking dogs, all the excitement seemed to him to be just another day. He sat on Mommy’s lap and sipped from his bottle while looking at us like, “What’s the big deal?”

Our cocker spaniel Shiloh on the other hand is a mess during storms. The thunder and lightening don’t bother her, it’s the sirens. A funnel was spotted in our county and so we waited for the sirens. They never sounded. We would have known it even in a dead sleep. Shiloh would have woken us. We trained her early on to respond to the sirens.

Silly us, we were raised that a civil defense siren meant a tornado had been sighted get your arse to cover now! Not so here in Georgia. Here in Metro Atlanta the siren goes off for any weather warning. In the early days we would grab the pups and head for the basement (garage) and they have a crate there they go into. Now when Shi hears the sirens she starts trying to herd everyone down into the garage. She’s brilliant, insane but brilliant.

I hope your evening was better. Our cable held up, but our internet was down for a while. And this after we just finally bit the bullet and got Comcast cable, internet and phone.

(All photos courtesy of 11 Alive news. My camera chose that moment to run out of charge.)

Inspiration

I've been fairly bogged down with a serious case of blahs lately and haven't written anything new in about four months. But I've written 1500 words today on a new story.

I credit standardized testing. During standardized testing, students must sit in their homeroom from 8:05am to 11:22am and take the all important TEST. Now during that time, the teacher cannot sit at their desk, read, do work or anything else productive. We are not allowed to look at student answers or test questions. We have to "monitor". Yes, that's right. We have to walk around the room (don't dare sit down or it will be a testing irregularity) and make sure the children haven't suddenly forgotten how to darken in little bubbles with their No. 2 pencils.

What better time for a mind to start to wonder and begin creating stories that entertain the bored. We did not test today so during homeroom and my planning I mangaged to get 1500 words written.

Mad as Hell...

Amazon.com has recently demonstrated the most ridiculous and the most offensive behavior that I've seen from a large company. Amazon has recently (as in the past few hours) started removing erotic books and GLBT books from their rankings and their definition of what constitutes "adult" seems very arbitrary. Books with heterosexual sexuality in graphic terms, but where the book is not released by an "erotic" publisher are being kept.

And no announcement was made. This has come to attention only because a handful of authors noticed their books had been stripped of their rankings. Amazon's only response is that:

"In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature."

This means books like Ruby Fruit Jungle, Bastard Out of Carolina and Running with Scissors have been stripped of their rankings while explict books like American Psycho, Wifey and mulitple Playboy photo books remain acceptable.


Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-deranks-gayfriendly-books-the-twitterverse-notices.html

All of this crap and yet you can still buy adult toys on Amazon. ( http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=vibrator&x=13&y=23 )

And Adult Videos ( http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=adult+video )

Back Home

We are back from our Florida trip! While I have nothing against Florida, except the alligators that freak me out, I am very glad to be home and hope that we won’t have to return soon. Let’s just say it wasn’t a “fun” time. The weather was colder than it had been for weeks, so no swimming or beach. My MIL was her usual self. She managed to insult my SO before the first five minutes had passed and I think she mentioned Nutrisystem about 10 times in the 4 days. Sigh.

Z had his first big ouchie. It was my fault. I set him on the table in his car seat and turned around. He kicked himself out of his car seat and onto the tile floor. Not even a red spot, bump or bruise. Thank God because we discovered how worthless our health insurance was. There was a pediatric urgent care center two blocks from my MIL’s house but the insurance company wanted us to take him forty minutes away to the next town to find an in system provider.

Of course my MIL used this incident to fuel the fire all week, speculating on how many brain cells we killed. Grrrrrrr. I finally turned around and told her she wasn’t helping. In the past, I’ve let her go. She’s not my mom. But not this weekend. I finally told her to shut up, she wasn’t helping things and she was in fact making it worse.

The highlight was that Grandma took Z for a few hours while we went out to dinner and a movie. It was our first Z free time since he was born. She said he threw one of his screaming fits for her and she put him down in his pack and play and started to walk away but Wendell (who came with us) wasn’t having it. He kept herding her back to the baby and making it perfectly clear that she was doing it wrong and she wasn’t allowed to leave the baby to cry. She wasn’t sure who was angrier with her, Wendell or Z.

I held my tongue. It didn’t hurt Z to cry a bit, but while we don’t pick him up whenever he cries, we don’t put him down and let him scream for 40 minutes. When he fusses at night and doesn’t calm down we might go in and talk to him, then walk away. He’s only 4 months old. He doesn’t understand yet.

Now Z does have this “I’m mad” shriek that is pure temper. Nothing is wrong with him. We are starting to set some limits, like Momma will not hold him if he shrieks for no reason. When he makes that particular noise, I say “No, we don’t do that,” and I put him down and sit down where he can still see me. He eventually stops the shriek and I pick him up. That’s different than letting him scream when he wakes up with someone who isn’t his parent or his sitter and is confused and upset.

Z enjoyed the visit, mostly, except for the long, long, long car ride. He did pretty well and only had one absolute melt down. Our main outings were to malls, but the malls in the Estero area are mostly outdoor malls. We did get some great bargains at the Carters and Osh Kosh outlets. We are pretty proud of the fact that except for his baptism suit, the suit he came home from the hospital in and his Christmas suit, we haven’t purchased any of his clothes at retail. We do the thrift store and clearance sales. When we told my sister-in-law this, she was obviously horrified.

That was one of the nice parts of our visit. We got to see our new niece. She’s beautiful but I have no idea how to spell her name.

The most fun? When we got home, Z opened his baptism present from his Uncle Steve.

I've never seen the like. They are "Mary" and "Moses" dolls from Kaplan Early Learning Company. My only problem is figuring out if it's a sin to let Z chew on the Blessed Virgin? Moses I'm pretty sure is safe munching, but Mary?

Big Day

It was a big day here in the Roth house.

The little news was a nice review for Circle of Wolves. Thanks to Debra Gaynor for ReviewYourBook.com who gave Circle of Wolves 4 stars.

“Jacqueline Roth takes readers deep into the world of magic as she shares theculture of werewolves. What makes this book stand out above other books inthis genre is the depth of the werewolf culture. Roth has created her ownworld and history and allowed us to peek inside.”

The big news:

Z was baptized today. We went to 8:30 am mass and Z was good as gold. The baptism after mass was not so angelic an experience. Z was less than thrilled at the experience and managed to scream his way through the entire ceremony.

Prior to the baptism he was sitting, talking and happy. The minute the ceremony started he became upset. He was so upset the deacon did an "abbreviated" version. I'm not even sure what the readings were because he was crying so loud.

He didn't stop until it was over. The octopus was made for him by a friend of ours. I love the little white hat that came with the suit.

Once back home we had to try on the present that was waiting for us all the way from England. Our friend Pip had promised him a little goth hoodie and delivered. It's a bit big, but she knitted it by hand to be for 6mo-12mo. I was disappointed in the pictures because I couldn't capture the pattern she knitted into the sweater. It's a skull. On the front and back is a skull knitted intot he pattern of the fabric. We love it. It will go perfectly with is Linkin Park hoodie.