This actually happened several days ago and I intended to blog about it, but with so much else going on in our lives, it’s hard to sit down and tell you about the funny stuff that happens around here.

First, the roaches. No, we don’t live in a garbage dump, but the lovely, genteel South, home of roaches that have no regard for personal space. My personal space! My HOME, for crying out loud!

I love Baton Rouge more than I thought I would when we moved down here almost three years ago. I miss my Delaware County friends, coffeefests and being able to relate to their emails to the group, but I do love it here. I don’t miss snow all that much, except for the picturesque idea of sitting at a winter window with a cup of hot chocolate watching the quiet snow falling outside, cuz, you know, I did that A LOT in PA!

I love my house and I love the friends I’ve met and I go out for coffee with my friends more here than I did in PA.

I HATE ROACHES!

They get into the house and usually die but sometimes we’ll see one alive. The Terminix guy comes every other month and will come if we see them often inside between visits. The Girl has become a bit phobic about them after getting into the shower and seeing one crawling on the shower curtain on the other side. They like water, see? And if we don’t keep the plugs in the drain, they can get in that way.

They also like the cool so when it gets hot out they like to come into the house.

Well, the Boy is phobic, too, about them and will NOT go into the main bathroom without an adult nearby, especially if the “bug spray” is in there. See, Beloved discovered that roaches “hate to be clean” so a mixture of Ivory dish soap and water is a non-toxic way to kill them. It’s gotten so the smell of Ivory is a dead giveaway that a roach was seen in the house.

Now onto the  Robots

The Boy is a BIG fan of Doctor Who. We have 30+ episodes DVR’d and can’t erase any because the Girl wants to have a Doctor Who viewing party with her friends – has since September…but it hasn’t happened yet, but heaven forbid we erase any just in case!!!!

One of the episodes has the fellow pictured above in it. He’s trying to find Madame de Pompadour at age 37. The episode is called “The Girl in the Fireplace,” and it’s not a bad episode. Some logic flaws (me thinking like writer) but entertaining.

It’s the latest episode we’ve taped (not counting of course the new season which starts tonight) and the Boy has watched it OVER AND OVER AND OVER!! You know, no matter how good something it or cute or whatever, after it’s been watched 352, 897 times in one week, it tends to lose a bit of its appeal. Talk to me someday about the nightmare that IS The Polar Express!!!

Oh, did I mention, he found the button on the remote that goes back about 15 seconds? He will rewind the same 15 seconds over and over and over. He does this with live TV, too. He once did it so much with Little Bear that after an hour, the cable box went live, since it can only pause live TV for an hour. The Boy raced to me in the kitchen and told me the TV was broken because it stopped rewinding Little Bear!!

Anyway, a few mornings ago, he was getting ready for school and as always happens, the moment I get his pajamas off, he has to go to the potty. Only, he won’t go into the bathroom because:

“There are Robots in the bathroom.”

I tried to tell him that there are no robots, but he wanted me to promise and I’m trying to teach him not to just use the word promise without knowing what it means (Mommy, I promise I will get a green – and he comes home with a red), so I said I wasn’t going to promise, but I know there are no robots.

He wouldn’t go in. I asked him if he was Madame de Pompadour and if  he isn’t, then why would the robots be there? Beloved laughed at my trying to use insane logic on an insane kid!

When he was convinced there were no robots, he started freaking because there might be roaches. We told him there weren’t any, so he slowly, carefully went into the bathroom, only to come screaming back into his bedroom (across the hall where I was waiting) saying he saw one.

You know the story of “The Boy who Cried Wolf?” The Boy in our house sees roaches and robots and monsters everywhere, so Beloved told him there was no roach.

There was something in the way he was crying, I thought maybe he’d actually seen something.

It’s not out of the question. We’re in the South, after all.

Beloved was a little irritated but he went in and sure enough found a dead roach on the bathroom floor.

Only, it was still moving.

Dancing, the Boy called it. See, he freaks about them but when his dad is handling it (killing it and taking it away so Mommy doesn’t have to even SEE it), he thinks “it’s a cute little roach” and starts talking baby talk to it.

Some days I want to say in bed and let the robots and roaches go on without me!

I have another great book to share with you, Searching for Spice by Megan DiMaria.

From the back cover:

Linda Revere longs to have a sizzling affair . . . with her husband – a practical, no-nonsense community college science teacher. Unfortunately, life isn’t scripted, and nothing goes according to plan. From having a demanding boss and at times a frustrating job to helping her family and friends with their troubles, life seems to be preventing Linda from achieving her goal of an exciting and passionate marriage. Linda hopes God will answer her prayers to jazz up her marriage, but is she ready for what happens next?

This is the debut book for Ms. DiMaria and I think she hit it out of the park!

Linda’s desire, after many years of marriage, a son in college and a daughter in high school, to find the romantic man she married, is one many women can relate to. Linda takes matters into her own hands and starts a well-organized plan to bring the romance and spice back into her marriage.

However, her daughter makes a dumb mistake that threatens to tear the family apart and Linda has reason to fear for her own health and possibly her life. All this puts the romance plan on hold and also makes her question whether there is even a marriage to save.

Ms. DiMaria writes in such an authentically emotional way that I found myself being worried and stressed for no reason and realizing that I was empathizing with Linda so much it affected me even when the book was closed.

I was pleasantly surprised when my fear that the worries would be dealt with in a simple, cliche way were completely unfounded. Her solution to things was creative, surprising and real.

I definitely look forward to reading whatever Ms. DiMaria is working on next!

Okay, maybe not clamor as such, but recently, I’ve begun to wonder if God is trying to tell me something.

I know God is always trying to tell me something! If there is anyone on this earth that needs to be told “something” by our Creator, it’s certainly me! I’m probably the slowest person to learn lessons.

However, today, I’m thinking more about in terms of my writing. In January 2004, my book Fabric of Faith was published by Wings Press. My friends in PA had a booksigning for me and one of them even started reading her Bible again after reading the book, so I’m humbled and pleased by the reception of this book.

To be honest, I don’t believe it’s the best book I could write, but God has used it for His glory and that’s all I need.

However, about a year or so ago, a friend here in Baton Rouge bought a bunch of copies to give out to friends and family for Christmas, even though she hadn’t read it yet. When she did, she asked if I was going to write another book about these characters.

I hadn’t considered doing that. This is a story God gave me and I feel it’s finished.  I’m in the middle of writing the sequel to Attack of the Queen, a book that screamed for a sequel.

Now, a friend of my daughter’s has read Fabric a second time and she’s been sending me messages via my Facebook page asking me to write another book about these characters. AND a woman who bought Fabric at a booksigning sent me a note saying she loved it and is letting all her friends read it and wants to be informed with I publish something else.

Granted, that last one isn’t a “clamor” but I’m wondering if I should think about a sequel. I’m in the middle of this book and have several I need to work on. Do I really want to revisit Mary Grace and Chance?

I don’t know. I prayed about it last night and I can think of some things I do with them, now that I’ve matured in my writing.

I never wanted to disrupt their happy little family before, but now I realize that I might have to make things tough on them to write another story for them.

Do any of you that have read Fabric of Faith (is there anyone out there?) want more about these people? Do you generally want to read more about characters you like?

If you’re a writer, have you ever faced the idea of writing a sequel when you hadn’t planned on it?

I will say this is kinda one of my writing dreams:  to have fans ask more more.

I love guinea pigs. We’ve had piggies since the Girl was about five years old. We now have two, a male – Muffin and a female – Pepper. We really need to get him fixed so they can share the same cage again, and no that’s not them in the above picture.

Yesterday I was feeling kinda down. It has a lot to do with getting older and trying to lose weight (see – Lowering the Feed Limit). I interviewed with Weight Watchers on Saturday and they offered me a receptionist position and I’m looking forward to the training and actually working meetings.

However, deep down, I want to be a leader and I need to get down to my goal weight- or within 10 pounds of it – before I can do that. Last week I worked very hard and still gained 2.2 pounds. I’m sure it was a fluke but I was still kinda depressed about it yesterday.

Our piggies needed new food so I was happy that the PetSmart near us finally opened so I don’t have to drive so far to get them food. Target used to have guinea pig food but I can’t rely on the, and their associate who tried to help me just kept saying “Well, we have Gerbil food.” With a hard G like in Goal! Sorry, buddy, Gerbils aren’t the same as Guinea pigs!

Anyway, I went in to the PetSmart and right near the small animal aisle, they had two big glass boxes with out 6-7 baby male piggies. Oh, they were so cute and I wanted to buy another one. It did help my mood a bit.

Well, I noticed that these piggies had been eating oranges because there were peels all over the cage. This morning as I made my smoothie for breakfast, I saw we had some oranges so I thought I’d give my babies a treat.

I cut the small orange up into six pieces and gave them each three.

They both moved to the opposite side of their cage and acted like I’d put something scary there. When I made my salad for lunch, they happily ate cucumber peels and lettuce, but man, we won’t touch those oranges!

I could see if one didn’t like oranges or something, but both?

I must have the pickiest piggies ever. Or maybe, as I’ve always suspected, they just aren’t too bright!