Blessing in Disguise

One morning last week I was in my room trying to put Sophie to sleep. Now, a mother's ears are fine-tuned. She can tell exactly what her...

Oops!

I guess I was so excited about shamelessly promoting myself that I gave out the wrong link to vote for the purple prose tracker over at Quer...

Shameless Self-Promotion

I was so excited this morning to see that my sentence in the purple prose contest over at Query Tracker Carnival was in the final 15. Yes, ...

WIP Wednesday: More Packing, Less Writing

Not too much writing going on around here lately. My mom was in town until yesterday (slaving away at my housework) and I used self-control ...

Top Five Reaons to Buy a Chinese Darth Vader Mask

My friend Marilyn sums it up here . And she models the masks as well, which is a bonus for those in other countries who may have not even be...

Want One? I Do!

My sister Michelle is a creative lady. She uses her amazing sense of style (which must be genetic, but somehow I missed it when I was swimmi...

A Cup for My Water

Tonight we suppered at TGI Friday's to celebrate Aaron's homecoming from Guilin. Ahh, Fridays. A tidbit of America in the heart of T...

FitG Update: Dark Fire, Sovereign

I'm finally able to cross two books off my Fill-in-the-Gaps Project list: Dark Fire and Sovereign . I've been a little bit of a slo...

Psycho Week, Super Mom

This week has been psycho. But very nice in some ways, too. My mom is visiting us. I have her slaving away for me 24 hours a day. If I dare ...

WIP Wednesday: The Road

Revisions are like smoothing a road. You've hacked through the jungle, cleared the space. You pound down the big lumps, spread the grave...

Perma-Dirt

My friend Megan and I were discussing the joys of perma-dirt last night; how the bottoms of our feet are consistently black. Soap doesn'...

Query Tracker Carnival

Okay, I just sat down after doing my happy dance (check the post below if you have no idea why I'm dancing). I'm back in business, b...

Blahg!

This is a test that I don't think is going to work. If you've noticed that I've been a little more quiet than usual lately, it...

I Recommend: Callie Cat, Ice Skater

When I saw Callie Cat, Ice Skater at our school library, I thought it would be a cute book for my girls to read. A cat that likes to ice sk...

WIP Wednesday: Almost Done

Great news! I'm almost done with the first draft of my work in progress . I'm at 54,000 words and at the beginning of chapter ninete...

Then There Was Light

Simple pleasures. I finally got around to asking our maintenance guy to buy a new flourescent bulb for our kitchen. Six kuai later (roughly ...

Beauty

My heart was full this morning when I walked out of our building complex and down to the main road pushing my double stroller. I saw everyth...

Mother's Day

A Very Happy Day to all you mothers out there. I spent a long time in bed this morning, waiting for the breakfast in bed I knew was coming. ...

All About Anna

Three years ago today, Aaron and I were heading to the Beijing hospital on a bus to have our little Anna. And she was little ! Six and a ha...

WIP Wednesday: Fits and Starts

After our miserable sick week last week, I slipped back into writing like a swimmer slips into water on a hot day. Ahhhh.... But in my zest ...

Tooth Brush Time

Sophie obviously already knows the importance of oral hygiene.

Gum Head

Yeah, we had to cut the gum out. Instant bangs. On the way to the bathroom to cut her hair, Anna wailed, "But I won't look like a ...

Bare Necessities

It's hard to fit eight years into eleven suitcases. Hard for adults; potentially traumatic for kids. Today we started the purging proces...

The Trials and Tribulations of Quotation Marks

If you're not a punctuation and grammar nerd like I am, stop reading immediately. This post will bore you to death. For the last few mon...