Sob! I know I should be excited at the chance to spend quality time with my three children, however 70 days of ‘Mom I’m bored.’, ‘Mom she touched me.’, ‘Mom! Mom! Mom!’ leave me looking for a place to hide. One of my tricks I used when the sound of my mommy title makes me cringe is I smile at them and say, ‘I’ve changed my name. I’ll listen to you once you figure it out.’ Dumbfounded looks usually greet me at this declaration along with, ‘But your name is mommy, you can’t change it.’  Sigh, no kidding.

Not only are my little darlings home spilling cereal, juice and foods they don’t actually eat, but I’ve got My Secretary, My Mistress coming out July 16th, edits coming for Chance’s Game, Alien Mate 2 and Wickedest Witch hitting any day now. Not to mention, my muse hasn’t shut up. Apparently the voices in my head have ignored the fact summer vacation is here and the amount of time I have to write has drastically diminished.

But, I will muddle through-I hope. I will hit the Dollarama and stock up on bubbles, chalk and other crap to keep them entertained. I will find cheap-aka free- day trips for us to go on, and if all else fails, threaten daddy with no nookie if he doesn’t take them for a few hours on the weekend so I can remember what silence sounds like.

How do you cope with summertime and kids? I’ve heard duct tape can come in handy lol.

Moment of disbelief an hour ago as my house and desk all began to shake. No it wasn’t a big truck, a train or even the cement factory blasting again, it was an honest to goodness earthquake. Of course, I wasn’t sure until I finally convinced my little one to change her cartoons as my usual online news networks were down. But once I wrestled the remote away and flipped to CP24, I found yes indeed, I’d experienced my first earthly tremor.

Cool.

Yes, I know, not something to joke about, but for a person who’s never felt one before, it’s quite interesting and somewhat awing. I mean think of the power involved in shaking not just my whole house but hundreds of miles of rock, earth and human detritus. It makes me want to write a story about it.

Major earthquake rumbles and Canada splits down the middle. A huge chasm of darkness appears. Out of the depths of the pit pours… Demons? Monsters? Super handsome albino men looking for mates?

LOL. See you never know when an idea will hit, kind of like an earthquake.

Did you feel it? And if yes, what does it make you think of? Jules Vern? The end of the world?  …

So, the plan was to let Daddy–my hubby–sleep in ’cause he likes that usually having to get up at five thirty during the week. Of course the three children, as if synchronized, decided to wake up at six thirty, but that was okay, I kept them away from their father so he could snore happily away. We’d almost made it to eight o’clock before the cat–our very fat and lazy cat I might add–brought in the LIVE mouse. Needless to say, the screaming of ‘Catch the mouse!’ woke Daddy up. I almost had the sucker caught too when he swooped in to save the day. But, his morning wasn’t yet over. He opened his homemade gifts, put on the bright green shirt proclaiming his Daddy status and managed to down a cup of coffee. During the french toast breakfast however, he had to dispose of one very large spider and one icky bug. He did so with faint grumbles, but as we smilingly reminded him, those were Daddy jobs. After a few minor chores–vacuuming the pool, backwashing it, resetting the clock that just won’t keep time–he finally relaxed on the pool deck, shirtless. He had a grand old time swimming with the kids, starting a water fight, and in general being a Dad. He enjoyed his supper of steak, stuffed baked potato and caesar salad followed by butterscotch ice cream. It wasn’t ’til we put the children to bed that he noticed–while I howled with laughter–his very wicked sunburn. Arms, shoulders, chest and belly, all were a bright red that for some reason only appeared when we got him out of natural daylight. Once seen, the pain of course set in, and so we scrambled for the polysporin and lanacane cream whereupon he greased himself up royally. By eight thirty, he was happily snoring on the couch, the remote clutched tightly one hand.

And that was our Father’s Day. Luv you baby, hope you don’t peel too bad!

Muah! Eve

Please allow me to do a song and dance for my novella Wickedest Witch has found a home with Liquid Silver. WW, for short, is about an actual witch and she’s not very nice. She’s got attitude and magic, best of all she’s not afraid to use either. Ryker is a big cat shifter. He’s sarcastic and cocky, in other words a total alpha. When these two meet it’s the war of the words–and tongues.

I’ll admit this story, like Lucifer’s Daughter, was super fun to write. There’s something about having characters that tread the path of borderline evil–sometimes stepping off that path into the darkness-that is refreshing and entertaining. With a bad girl, one never knows what she will do or say next.  This is a case where the characters truly took over the story with interesting results.

I hope you’ll let me know what you think of bad heroines, the ones no one should bring home to their mommy’s. Don’t you wish you were that girl sometimes? LOL. They do seem to have more fun. ;P

It all started when the toilet upstairs wouldn’t flush completely. We plunged, we snaked, we cursed, we blamed the children. But no matter what we did the damned toilet wouldn’t flush and the water kept rising perilously high. So we took the sucker off .My hubbie pulled out his tools and his gloves–he doesn’t like icky poop things–and he unbolted the tank and toilet from the plumbing. Sticking it in the tub to avoid icky water on the floor, we looked in the hole with a flashlight. I even bravely stuck my hands in the holes to no avail–and yes I scrubbed vigorously with napalm after. LOL. We could detect no object. But we are nothing if not stubborn, so we poured water in it one way and dislodged some scale. We forced water the other and flipping the toilet back and forth, we watered, plunged and did all kinds of things to the poor toilet for about 45 minutes.

Then on a flip it happened. We broke the toilet. I of course laughed uproariously while my hubby shook his head at the time we’d wasted. With no other choice, we bundled up the 3 children and off we went to Home Depot to browse the row of gleaming toilets. I immediately zoned in on the one at $88–cheap, 6L and could handle 1000 grams of waste, which begs the question how much do we poop at a time? But I digress. My husband was quite enamored of the dual flush toilets, but at a $100 more a toilet and with children who would no doubt be confused by this advanced technology thus requiring two flushes, I hemmed and hawed. My husband, ever the one to make me laugh–as he embarrasses me–sat on a few of the models and asked for a newspaper. The children thinking this was great fun copied him and I smiled with blushing cheeks at shoppers as they wandered by my children and hubbie who obviously don’t get out much.

Fun and games over with, I won the argument and we got the toilet I wanted–the cheap one. We picked up the wax ring and new toilet seat, paid for our purchases and off to home we went to install our new porcelain friend. The installation itself took only about 45 minutes and voila, our new low flush toilet was installed. It even stood the test of the family all taking a turn on it–yes, even I succumbed.

Now the problem with the new addition. My previous toilet matched the tub and sink–an appalling shade of brown that I doubt was ever even popular in the 70′s when they installed it. Our new toilet is a gorgeous gleaming white. Are you seeing where I’m going with this yet? I know the ladies are. It doesn’t match. And even though it hasn’t even been 24hrs, each time I look into that bathroom there is only one thought runnning through my head–”We need to change the tub and sink!” Never mind that they’re not broken. Never mind that we don’t have the money. They don’t match!

And here’s the snowball effect, what started as a simple unclog of a blocked toilet will now probably result in a whole bathroom makeover sometime in the next 6months. Crazy? Probably. Needed, yes. I posted my dilemma on facebook and already several ladies have suggested ‘accidentally’ breaking the offending items with a sledgehammer. Think my hubby will notice? LOL, a smart hubby won’t say a word, just head over to Home Depot and get the matching white sink and tub. And while he’s at there old cabinet painted a million times needs to be changed, as does the broken pharmacy above the sink and while we’re at it, the floor could use updating and…

Woo, look at that snowball rolling down that hill. Wheee!

LOL