Silver

Our dog, Silver, died yesterday.

She was a beautiful, happy dog and had always been so gentle with the kids. The day before she died, she was perfectly fine, and on Sunday, she got to run around outside with the other dogs.

She died suddenly of a hidden tumor that filled her heart with fluid, which caused the rest of her body to shut down over the course of the day. By early afternoon, she died, in Jim's arms at the vet office. It was very sad and very shocking.

Poetry Friday

My first poetry friday post:

The Cicada

Pure of heart and therefore hungry,
All night long you have sung in vain –
Oh, this final broken indrawn breath
Among the green indifferent trees!
Yes, I have gone like a piece of driftwood,
I have let my garden fill with weeds....
I bless you for your true advice
To live as pure a life as yours.

by Li Shangyin, in the 9th Century

(discovered this in today's research)

Writing, out and about

I'm at Panera and on my new macbook! This is so much fun. Both kids are in daycare, which was just too easy. I mean, dropping E off at preschool isn't difficult, but I'd never dropped H off before. He seemed happy enough and the ladies were assuring. They didn't complain about the breast milk bottles (which I'd heard people say daycare providers do sometimes) and they were just happy they got a kid whose name they could pronounce. (What other names do they get?? I'm sure there aren't a lot of Aleksandrs around. Aren't all the boys named Jack?) I'm going back in exactly three hours to pick him up, but then I'm leaving E there and having hubby pick her up when he gets off work. (It's so she doesn't miss nap time there.)

So. Now I am here, ready to work. I best get off. Oh, here's a pic of me, right now:

Slow Progress

There's a bit of Arabian horse racing in my work-in-progress, so I've been doing some research and doing the usual... You know, pretending to be a young Arabian prince.

So now I have to study charts, like this:


And I have to imagine myself here, dressed like this:

(Yes, I have to imagine myself a young man atop a fringed horse.)

It's nice to know that my year and a half in Bahrain and my seven months in Baghdad will come in handy. At least in Bahrain, I rode horses for six months, and they were Arabian at that. (My favorite was Clyde, a brown gelding. Cleopatra, an old mare, stepped on my foot on purpose, so she will be immortalized in my book.) In Baghdad, I only rode helicopters, which wouldn't be in my book. But wait...hmm...

Other things to research:
1. mythological creatures from the Arabian Nights
2. 9th century oceanic travel
3. 9th century music
4. how to Twitter for gold and rainbows*

*Ok, not really. There's my one attempt at celebrating St. Patty's Day. But did you notice, oh Twitter fans, how Twitter seems to deliver anything you desire? It's like a...oh, that thing in Star Trek that generates any food item you wish.

Your Feel-Good Movie of the Day

I just saw this video and have to show it to you. It just made me happy and certainly shows you that the world can be united, at least for a little dancing.

Ms. Hale is Quite Smart

I'm too tired to think of anything intelligent or witty to say. In fact, I'm going to bed before 7. But since you're here, you must not be that tired...so I shall redirect you to Shannon Hale's most recent post.

She makes a good point.

Writing in the Darkness of Morning

Catchy title, no? Wish I could come up with titles like that for my books!

Last night, just after the kids were asleep, I moaned and groaned about how I haven't had any time to write lately. Hubby said, "why not write now?" and I complained that I was too tired. Then he said, "well, if you go to bed now and wake up at 4:30, you'll have eight hours of sleep." I agreed, but only with his math.

Then I checked my email, got lost for a bit in facebook, and then decided I should be determined and write this book. Even if it means I need to wake up at 4:30 in the morning. (I had just read Laini Taylor's blog about determination and writing.)

It took a while to fall asleep, and I was up at least three times with the baby (but just barely...I don't think I wake up all the way). Then, just before the alarm went off, I woke up. When it started beeping, I pushed hubby out of the bed (baby was on the other side of me and I was NOT going to risk waking him up), made myself some tea and a bottle just in case my husband needed to feed the baby. By a quarter-to-five, I was at my desk.

Did I get much written? Well, no, but I did scan through my last written chapter and kept my internet time limited to information directly related to my book. Today was practice.

But I will get it done. There's something beautiful and sacred about writing in the last shards of shadows.