So how’re things? What’s new? Who has the good stuff to share?

I crawled so far into the work pit the past few weeks, I wasn’t sure I’d find my way back out. Unfortunately it has not been writing work. Graphic work, and golf work, have each been near full time jobs lately. That means me working 60+ hour weeks.

It’s all good - it pays the bills, and then some, when we’re this busy. But man, could I use a vacation.

After our 300 golfer insanity last weekend, and back-to-back 5:30am til the-sun-is-down days of work, I was glad when hubby told me he won’t need me at this weekends event. I can’t squeeze in a vacation, but maybe I can at least sleep in past sunrise?

How happy am I that spring is here?
So happy, I’m giving away a book!
Come comment at Beyond The Veil before 9am est Monday for a chance to win. Or drop me an email at ember @ embercase . com to be entered.
I’m off to enjoy a spring morning on the golf course. Hope spring showed up to visit where ever you are are!

You’re feeling: productive. 8:45, and the bathrooms are already cleaned.

To your left: a snuggly five year old.

On your mind: whether I want to work from the desktop or laptop when I get to it.

Last meal included: Fried shrimp, wheat pasta, vodka sauce, steamed broccoli, corn, and a glass of Cabernet.

You sometimes find it hard to: shut off the work and play

The weather: warm (today may be the day the air conditioning goes on), with a chance of thunderstorms later

Something you have a collection of: books, boxes, books

A smell that cheers you up: Tide

A smell that can ruin your mood: dirty dog

How long since you last shaved: we’re getting way to personal with these questions.

The current state of your hair: Long and root free.

The largest item on your desk/workspace (not computer): week-at-a-glance desk pad

Your skill with chopsticks: bigger than a single grain of rice, smaller than a kernel of corn

Which section you head for first in a bookstore: sale tables

Something you’re craving: coffee. Has it cooled off yet? >slurp<

Your general thoughts on the presidential race: do you really want one more person's opinion? This is entertaining, but not work safe!

My baby boy (he’s 13, and would be mortified to be called my baby anything) is on a bus headed North. 14 hours after he left me blinking back a tear, he’ll be disembarking in Washington D.C., one of a gaggle of teenagers off to tour our capital city. I left him with firm instructions not to crack jokes about exploding items, people with terror intentions, or threats of ill will toward Republicans while in the city. The things we have to teach our children to keep them out of the hands of our national “protectors”.* I’m pretty sure that a mere 8 years ago, the talk about how disgusting the bus toilet facilities would become by the end of the trip would have been the only real warning I would have felt I had to give him. How far we’ve come.

Live Moment Update - My daughter just turned to me and said “Mommy, we need to start getting Green Bags so that we can keep our fruit and vegetables fresh, and stop throwing away our money. 10 bags! That’s how many they send you. Do you want the bad fruit, or the good fruit? I choose the good fruit.” Thankfully, Superman came back on before I was required to give her an answer.

Some nasty crud has snuck into my lungs and has me hacking, gagging, coughing, sneezing, and occasionally sniffing. It must be spring.

I don’t watch reality shows, but damn if David Cook isn’t awesome. Every week he takes some old, I’m tired of it song (Billie Jean, anyone?) and twists it and makes me sit up and go damn, wish that song was on the radio now. And if you don’t know who David Cook is, you don’t watch reality tv either, so you can just pretend you didn’t just read something here implying that maybe I have done more than flip past Fox when American Idol is on.

I almost cast a vote last night. Scary.

*(Wonder if I worded that carefully enough to keep me off the watch lists?)

There is much to be mad about in March. Not the screaming, red faced, five-year-old-who-lost-her-cool kind of mad, but the crazy ’bout kind.

Here’s the best one - Smart Bitches “DABWAHA”.
64 books. Only one will win. Can your brackets be the one to predict that winner?

It beats basketball.

“Obsession can change the world”
That’s the tagline for season 2 of The Tudors, Showtimes very hot portrayal of King Henry and his many wives. I’ve been rewatching Season 1 on Netflix, and it is every bit as good the second time around as it was the first. Here’s hoping season 2 is just as entertaining.

I’ve also become coupon obsessed. I swung from “can’t be bothered” to “buy multiple Sunday papers to get triple coupons” in about 30 minutes when I was looking over my recent grocery bills and saw how much more I’m spending than I was just a year ago. And have you seen the way wheat and corn prices are heading up? Yikes. Scary stuff for someone who loves their carbs as much as I love mine. Figure in rising produce bills from uncertain climate changes and rising meat prices being driven up by higher production (it goes back to the corn) and transportation costs, and unless you’re going to grow your own food - I’m not ready for much more than a few tomato plants on that front - we’re all going to be paying more for less.

One final obsession. This site’s shampoo bars are amazing. All natural, delicious smelling, and I’m loving them. I don’t think the condition of my hair is going to save the world, but it’s making my corner of it a happier place.

I’m over at the Samhain blog today, with a bit on famous procrastinators.
How did I come up with such a fabulous topic, you ask? Why, by waiting until the last minute and letting inspiration whack me on the ass as it ran by.
Come over and tell me how you get things done on time!

This is one of the best things I’ve read this year. Fantastic stuff; can’t wait for more.

Roofers are supposed to start on the tear off tomorrow. Knock on wood for fair Florida weather this week.

The bathroom is > < close to being done. Dark paint on the trimwork; need to find a new mirror; the shower rod was installed wrong and I've got to pin the installer down on the why’s of that Oh, and I’ve got to make curtains. That one may take the longest; needle, thread, and I don’t often appear together.

Messy house. Messy laundry room. Messy yard.

Must be Monday.

When my Sony eReader made its way into my hands back in December, I thought nothing could make me love it more. Finally, I had a way to have hundreds of books always at my fingertips, in my purse, on my nightstand, in my car - anywhere, any time.

Over the months I’ve been using it, a few things have interfered with my deep love for this gadget. First, the complete clusterf*(& that is the Sony Reader software. What a piss of complete crap. And second, the limitations of native Adobe PDF files in the reader. The Sony will not enlarge native PDF’s to a size that is comfortable for me to read.

The PDF problem I resolved by converting my ebooks to RTF before importing them. Thanks to the Adobe Batch converter, it’s a pretty quick and painless process. But that clunky, difficult to navigate Reader software - ouch. Every time I want to add books to the reader I cringe, knowing I had to fire up that software. And this weekend when I decided I wanted to move all my “adult” books onto the memory card, so I could pop it out and not worry when my teenage son was using my reader for his Star Trek books, I was driven to drink.

And to Google. Where I found libprs500.

Here is the software I’ve been looking for!

Still in development, so there’s a few kinks, but it comes so much closer to what I want my reader software to do. The biggest is letting me rename the files, and tag them so all the novellas, or all the books from Samhain, are easy to find at one click.

The geek in me is very, very happy.

I needed to move my site to a friendlier host, and it ended up taking (through no fault of the new company) much longer than anticipated. Sorry for the days of dull nothingness and non-posting while that happened.

But the bytes have been moved, and the hostess paid, and all is right in my web world. I’ll try to return to regularly scheduled writing - just not today. It’s a kids-off-from-school day, but not a non-work day, which makes me twice as busy as my usual working from home mom self.

Hope you’re having a great President’s Day!