Watch Out For Exploding Phones

After living in a country with such a grand tradition of piracy for eight years, it's good medicine for me to read a cautionary tale.......

WIP Wednesday: What WIP?

Work in Progress? Do I have a Work in Progress? Let's see. I have a son with pink eye. A teething baby. Two daughters with colds. A sore...

Silver Phoenix Contest

Did you know that when I was a little girl I wanted to be a kung fu princess on a Chinese soap opera? It's true. That dream died a long ...

The People in Our Neighborhood

Just to add to my original The People in Our Neighborhood post .... These are our wonderful, neighborhood vegetable sellers. Their stall is ...

Why I Love My Husband

Well, this is one of the many reasons I love my husband. Yes, this is a five-kid pile on with one more ready to spring. I kept asking, ...

Teletubbies in China

Whether you love or hate these four little people toddling around on fake grass in spacesuits is not the point of this blog post. Whether or...

WIP Wednesday: Lessons in Self Doubt....

Look where self doubt will get you. I made a pact with myself a month or two ago that I wouldn't query any more agents until after we go...

Good Day

Today's my 32nd birthday. So far, it's a great day. My kids drew pictures for me before they went to school. I opened the birthday p...

China Kids

I'm having a stab of conscience about the post I wrote yesterday. I know it was negative. I'm going to leave it there, though, becau...

Culture Clash

It's been warm these last few days. Blue sky. A bite of spring in the air, but temperate. Gabe's running around in his flip-flops an...

WIP Wednesday: Contest week....

It's Thursday, not Wednesday. I got so excited about the Secret Agent contest going live on Miss Snark's First Victim last night t...

Child's Play

Olivia came into our room at 3:30 a.m. I was having one of those sleeps where as you start to wake up you think,"Oh, I am sleeping so ...

Mom the Trash Can

Lying in bed nursing Sophie just now, I had this internal conversation with myself: Me: I'm hungry. Me2: That's because you didn...

La Vida Loca

It's been the crazy life around here lately. No sooner had I pressed "Publish Post" about my helper never missing a day of wor...

One of the Risks of Living Overseas 2

"Anna, eat your squash or there will be no chicken head for dessert."

Why Easter is So Important

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed -- In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump...

Our Garden in Spring

This is the view from our back pingtai (enclosed balcony) window.

Good Friday

How can we call good This innocent man Torn to pieces Broken, bloodied Stabbed Suffocating? What can possibly be good About God's only S...

She's Got the Beat

Poor child. She takes after her mother.

WIP Wednesday: Introducing....

I said I would do this, so here it goes. Part of releasing myself from the confines of closet writing , I guess. This is my first Work-In-Pr...

One of the Risks Of Living Overseas

"Drop it, Sophie! Drop it!"

The People in Our Neighborhood

Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, in your neighborhood? Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood? The...

Fill in the Gaps 100 Project

I'm super excited about this. I found out through Editorial Ass (a blog I follow; it stands for Editorial Assistant, so don't freak...

Shiny

My toenails. They're shiny. Not just regular, fresh-from-a-pedicure shiny. Twinkling shiny. The lady at the pedicure place put rows of t...

Great Family, Great Wall

We have visitors. Aaron's brother, Benji, and his lovely wife, Christina, are here visiting us for one week. We spent Monday and Tuesday...