I didn't make an entry yesterday. It was a boring Saturday just hanging around the casa not being able to do the outside stuff I wanted to do because of the rain. Ok, I did go grocery shopping and I did help Ed put some new drip sprinklers in my veggie garden and we went to the church talent show but that was it. By my usual writing time, I had a haranguing headache so I went to bed. It was a rare night for me to get to bed before midnight.

I dreamed last night about my mom. I dreamt she was alive yet dead. Seems my last few dreams of her have been in that category--she's back after a long absence and we've all missed her so we're so glad to see her but we know she's dead so her visit will be short. It's very strange. So in this dream, we're all at my dad's house and my mom is there. There's nothing extraordinary happening--we're just talking, walking around the house, doing things, and then I find a tray of my mother's incredible chocolate drop cookies (they're like little chocolate cakes). I take a bite of one and start to cry realizing that I haven't had those cookies since my mother died. I look over at her and while I'm eating the cookie and crying, she starts to fade away and then disappears. I just cry and cry. I woke up after that because I was too hot in my bed. I've felt sad and wistful much of the day when I think of that dream.

Joey's on a sass-a-thon lately. I read the book Backtalk which is, as it may sound, like a book on curbing backtalk. We instituted the 4-fold approach today: RECOGNIZE the backtalk, CHOOSE an appropriate, logical and instant consequence (no second chances), ENACT the consequence, and DISENGAGE. It was hard, but it definitely got the point across. Joey lost the use of some art supplies that she wouldn't put away properly and then sassed about and spent the next hour or so trying to get us to change our minds about how long the things would be in time out (24 hours, non-negotiable). It lasted a long time, then got nasty and then it was over almost as suddenly as it began. She's a tough one to figure out. But she learned an important lesson today--backtalk will not be tolerated in any fashion. She is free to express herself civilly and respectfully but when it leaves that realm, the party's over.

I've been expending a lot of brain energy on my novel lately. This weekend, I've been mulling over how I want to approach a scene that I need to write. I posted a question in the Writer's Forum on Compuserve and didn't make myself clear so I got a wide range of responses. One person went on a big didactic tangent about how emotions were the story and why would I want to avoid them. She clearly did not understand where I was coming from. I wasn't saying that I wanted to avoid emotion but rather, I was trying to ask if it was ok to sometimes minimize the protagonist's emotions (but not get rid of them entirely) for the sake of the action and then let her dwell on the feelings later when she's sorting it out. I'm writing in first person and I'm trying to find the right balance between action and interior monologue. Anyway, in defending my stance, I realized that I did have the right balance and that I really didn't need their advice after all, if I'd have just trusted myself. This probably makes no sense out of context but it felt good to ramble on about it a minute.

I need to read read read the next 2 days because I'm hosting my bookgroup on Tuesday and I haven't finished the book! Ack! The problem is that I have a chemistry test on Monday and a lab final on Tuesday. How am I going to manage that? Clearly I won't be doing a lot of sleeping in the next 2 days.

Dinner alert: I made a delicious pasta sauce tonight for dinner. I removed the casing from 2 spicy Italian sausages and cooked them, breaking up the sausage into tiny pieces. I added a big fat clove of garlic, some extra virgin olive oil, about a cup of dry white wine, about a half cup of marinara sauce and about a half cup of the starchy pasta water and cooked it a bit more. I added a few slivers of frozen pesto sauce for flavor and about a cup of steamed small pieces of brocolli florets then tossed the spaghetti noodles in it. (If it's too tight (dry), add a bit more pasta water.) Garnish with parmagiano reggiano and pepper. It was delish!

Well, I need to either go read or study or both. I'll try to squeeze in an entry tomorrow but there are no guarantees.

Later...

--L