I just ordered a proof copy of my book, CHENDA and the Airship Brofman! That means the book could be available as soon as next week!

YEA!  It IS the happiest place on Earth!

So – the Daniel fast was a success. I feel better. I’m about 15 pounds lighter. I’m converted.

I’m thinking about being a vegan for a while more. Vegan with a caveat. For so many reasons, I see meat as being on the way out. Meat three meals a day – it’s not good for me. I’m really not happy with the idea of the American meat,  egg and dairy agricultural systems. God didn’t give animals to the world for us humans to treat them so heartlessly. So, Vegan*.

Oh, you’ve noticed the *, huh? I like meat. Tastes good, you know? Lots of protein. I think meat – in and of itself – is a good thing. I love me an omlet. Cheese makes the world go round. BUT. But. I don’t approve of the factory farm. So, no farm meats, eggs or dairy.  I do not, however, have a problem with wild caught fish. I think a fish out in the world, has a pretty decent life, and – possibly – its last few moments might suck when caught by a fisherman, but I think it would be little different if it was caught by a wild Kodiak. Know what I mean? I feel the same way about wild game of most types: deer, duck, whatnot.  I suspect I would also happily eat the eggs and / or chicken from my friends who have nice, roomy chicken tractors – chickens who are given a protected happy, healthy life. I also won’t be one of these rude butt-munches who are wildly painful to go out with. Please – I don’t mind if you eat a cheese burger across the table from me. Your life – your choice – your food.  I can eat vegan just about anywhere; most meat heavy places offer a salad or a plain baked potato. I don’t mind bringing my own food to places. No one need be bothered to accomodate me.

I’m going to try it for a while. I’m going to see if I can live this way.  I think it’s the right thing to do.

I gots the shot today. I am covered – assuming I don’t already have the disease swarming in my body already. The girls gots the stick in the arm, too. The doctor is concerned about Saralyn’s weight. Too heavy. What do I do about it?

What’s new with me – I’m grooving on a spiritual fast. It’s really been going very well.  I’m on day 6 of a 21 day fast and am very happy.

Why? Good question. I’m tired of being angry all the time, and needed to refocus. I’m tired of being tired all the time and having my clothes not fit. I’m too busy to be unhappy – so a friend suggested the Daniel Fast, and I took a leap of faith, and started it on a whim last Friday Morning.

To sum it up, you give up just about everything except for water, fruits, veggies and whole grains. I’ve made some changes to the rules to suit my life and body, but that’s hardly the point. On a fast, one spends one’s time in reflection, the food is just a conduit for that focus. It’s really nice to be in touch with the Lord that way.

What are my variations? I eat fish every other day. I just know me and I need the protein and essential fatty acids. I’ve given up bread in exchange.  It’s a trade off that works for my body.

I feel focused. I feel happy. I knew I needed something to get me through the Halloween season without feeling ashamed of myself.  It’s doing that. I thought I would try it for 10 days, but the traditional fast is 21 days or 40 days. Now, on day 6 – 21 doesn’t seem like too far of a goal. Really – I feel great! I love any challenge that breaks me out of a rut, or challenges my skills as a cook. (I just made up a vegan avocado cream to top the Veg Chili for to night. Awesome!)

Before you all ask, no, I’m not taking the family along with me on this one. I make food for them that suits them: meats and cereal and sandwiches. I enjoy my (mostly) vegan meals and everyone is great.

By the way – I’m losing about a pound a day. That’s a sweet payoff. Hoping that my pants will loosen up by day 21, because I’m NOT going to buy new fat pants.  Uh-uh. No way. Praise the Lord to that. Amen.

PS – read the article in June’s O magazine on relaxing yourself thin. It helps soooo much.

I know you have been waiting with baited breath for the podcast of the first two episodes of Chenda and the Airship Brofman! WAIT NO MORE!  The adventure awaits at CoalCitySteam.com! Go on, go! I’ll wait!

Enjoy.

To Do:

• Call a roofer: woke again this morning to the sound of the roof leaking – again.
• Call the doctor: I want to see if we all can get the H1N1 Vaccine today or sometime soon.
• Post office: I need to mail my parents mail to my parents. Long story.
• Gym: see my butt. Also, as Eleanor is out of school today, I think this may be my only opportunity to be kid free.
• Grocery: I need some supplies for the Fall Festival bake sale this weekend.
• Put away my mountain of laundry: before it crushes me to death.

I hate Monday.  I miss my husband all day…

Sigh – it’s the ghost  of the Little Cabin in the Woods coming back one more time to hit me with a toaster.

If you recall – last week the seller’s agent said the house was “unsaleable”.

NOW the agent contacts our rep and says the first bank holding the property has agreed to our offer ONLY if we can close by the end of the month (and if the second mortgage holder agrees to their piddly share.) And are we still interested?

Here are the foreseeable problems:

1. The house next door flooded during the giant rainstorms of a few weeks ago. We’d like to take a look at it, but when we went with our realtor, the lockbox was gone – as was the sign saying it was for sale. Since the seller’s agent is no longer ACTUALLY representing the property, I’m not sure if the place is trashed or not.  I asked to see the house TODAY, but no action. Not much confidence.
2. The way mortgages are so backed up, it’s likely to take 8-12 weeks to get cleared for a loan these days, even when you have extraordinary credit.
3. and then there is that pesky second bank that could hold everything up or perhaps negate the whole thing.  Why should I pay $400 to have the house inspected (again – see the key issue), when the odds are that the whole thing would grind to a halt and come to nothing.

Uh, sure.  We’re still interested, but why hold our breath? If there were another house even close to that location at a reasonable price, I would tell them to go perform an aeronautical anatomical impossibility in a mobile perforated pastry*. However, location, Location, LOCATION. Everything else is negotiable.

Somehow I keep thinking of that joke about the guy in the flood and he’s on the roof claiming that the Lord will save him and he turns away the guy in the canoe and the rowboat and the helicopter and he drowns. He get’s to heaven and says, “Hey God! Why didn’t you save me?”  God says, “I sent two boats and a chopper. What more did you want?”  Has God sent me my own series of watercraft here? Am I just not picking up what He’s laying down?  Or do I just need to be patient and persevere? Hope for the best or run for the hills?

I spent the whole morning cleaning out Saralyn’s closets – sorting the piles into Consign – Goodwill and Junk.  I took a whole diaper box of too small clothes to the consignment store, lugged them in, got a gash of a paper cut from the box and found out that they don’t do kids clothes any more. What they did have – balloons out front.  Guess who cried all the way to the next consignment store because she wanted a balloon but couldn’t have one? Sorry, Saralyn… The other store made it feel like giving up a kidney. They said 40 times I was entering a BINDING contract. Whatever. The next stop is Goodwill for these clothes if you don’t take them.  They did. I was happy – now – how much will I get for them? I guess I don’t really care.

It’s seams really unfair that ALL I did today was fold, sort and organize clothes, and MY laundry is still in giant piles on top of my dresser waiting to be put away!  It is nice that all the girls’ clothes now have room to live in their dressers.  But mommy “burnt toasted” herself again. (You know that mommy syndrome – where you make breakfast for everyone, and you get left with the burnt toast? It’s the mommy way…)

Tomorrow is picture day at school – Eleanor got to pick what she wanted to wear this year and she picked her overalls. “My very own favorite,” she says. Now, if I can get her up and moving in the morning in the direction of the shower… that will be a miracle.

Who want’s to see the cover of my book?

I love it!  What do you think?
It will be available soon – VERY soon – In time for ALL your Christmas shopping soon…

Do you ever have SO much to do that you sit down and do nothing.  I just parked Sara in front of Curious George (a PBS show I HATE) just so I could NOT start the dishes, deliver my daughters lunch and backpack to her at school (guess what daddy forgot…), go to the gym, to work, to the bank, to the grocery store, finish the quilt for the fall festival, make spats and a raygun holster or work on my second novel.

But, I missed you.  I’ve been cheating on my blog with my other blog. But I want to bring you flowers, and whisper sweet nothings. I want to catch up.

About Chenda – The book is in the hands of a capable and wonderful technical editor – and I hope to have it on Amazon and Kindle by October 20th.  I’ve tweaked it for the last time. It’s a wonderful and strange feeling.  I’m gonna see my book in ACTUAL print – very soon. I am excited.  I know I wrote it an all, but its a really good story. Fun. Funny. I am pleased.

Eleanor is going to school like a trooper 5 days a week now. YEA! She is getting much better at writing her name. She starts with a small uppercase E and then the letters get bigger through the A and then get smaller again. Her name is a mountain. Not bad for a just turned 4-year old. This week’s theme at school was the letter C – she went to school as a cowgirl this week and loved it.

Saralyn is the cuddliest baby ever. I love this girl. Sweet, but messy. Demanding of food CONSTANTLY.  Loves Beauty and the Beast, Elmo, and her baby doll.  Favorite Food: Strawberries. Favorite Song: Abney Park’s “Airship Pirates”. Favorite Parent Manipulation: velociraptor screech.

Our housing situation: Man Alive – we’re still living HERE! To make a very long story short – we lost another one. We are officially back at square one. Which is fine I guess. The good Lord has put us right where we are supposed to be. I keep telling Him that if He wants our efforts to move to fail, then make them fail.  When we find the right move, He will make it happen.  But… What to do? Get the stuff out of storage? Find a new realtor? Give up till January?  It’s hard to say…

Well – the day wears on and I have a LONG list of stuff to do and a big weekend ahead. Catch you later.