S.M. Johnson's Blog, page 18

SM Johnson ~Total Meltdown~

It is impossible to be a anything but waitress/mother/daughter/worker-bee right now, so fuck it. No writing, no blogging, no nothing that gives me personal fulfillment until further notice.
Thanks for visiting me now and again.

I'll be back, hopefully sooner than later.
And yes, I'm crabby as hell about everything.

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning coffee ~

Good morning, darlings, and happy Thursday! I am STILL in a world of chaos, so coffee this morning will be short and sweet.

The kitchen floor looks absolutely fabulous, although we still need to get to the painting and the decorating. And the bathroom - oh, sigh. It is gutted. Which means a dash up the stairs when one needs to use the facilities.

We have picked out wall tile, though, and are coming up with a plan. I'll have to post some pictures later of what a mess the wall is where the old, odd-sized tub used to be. Ugh. I'm glad I'm not the one who has to figure out how to fix THAT. Yikes.

Fixing walls, then paint, a new toilet, and re-install the vanity that's just a couple of years old. I'd like a new mirror/medicine cabinet, hubby has some reservations on that. Ah well, we will get there.

Meanwhile, the downstairs portion of our house is just a wreck of closet and bathroom stuff piled everywhere. Somewhere in the mess my Kindle is sleeping, which makes me sad because before I misplaced it, I'd downloaded a whole bunch of new books.

To compensate for the downstairs disaster, I have spent two full days upstairs organizing, recycling, and tossing stuff, because I just can't function with the whole house in chaos. The upstairs is looking pretty good. The art room is available for art. Yay! And by the end of the day today, the guest room might even be ready for a guest. Not that there's a guest on the horizon, but one never knows.

IzzyG has had karate almost every day for the last two weeks, trying to catch up on classes so she can test for her advanced orange belt. We were 8 classes short - that's never happened before. The end of the summer was busy, indeed.

But she will test - on Saturday! And then one week later, she'll be in her first Karate tournament. We shall find out what that is like. Other than that - it's all about getting back into the routine of getting to bed on time, getting up on time, bus or no bus (she HATES the bus), and getting homework done. Man, September is exhausting.

I have two short impossible romances taking up space in my head, so one of them might be my next project. I have not heard from my publisher about a release date for DeVante's Choice yet, so for the moment the final edit of that baby is on hold.

The other huge thing going on is that my mom put her house on the market, and has accepted an offer. OMG. Which means she needs to find a place to live ASAP. So I'm helping her out - mostly offering moral support more than anything.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about NaNoWriMo this year - I want to be available to help my mom move to wherever she ends up moving.

Then again - IzzyG goes to karate almost every day, so there's a full hour of writing time just sitting around available if I want to take it. Perhaps I won't shoot for 50,000 words - perhaps I'll try to get full drafts of one or both of the impossible romances written. That would be kind of cool.

Me and IzzyG and Samantha saw the most amazing rainbow last Friday night. It was just after 7 pm, and it hadn't even rained in the previous hour or two, but there it was. It was the brightest, most glow-y rainbow I have ever seen in my life. I had to pull the car over and take some pictures with my phone.

Even the phone pictures are amazing, aren't they?

I am still being pretty well-behaved - wearing nicotine patches for approximately 12 (awake) hours per day, which cuts down on the smoking a lot. At least I can breathe when I wake up in the morning. I do notice my trigger times are in the morning while having coffee (no duh, right?), and while I'm talking on the phone. So I've been taking it off at bed time - although still having really vivid and wild dreams - and putting it on in the late morning after I'm done with coffee and phone stuff and am ready to get my day going.

It's not exactly quitting, but it's better than the more-than-pack-a-day that I've been smoking. Sigh.

That's all I've got today.

I'm off to hopefully look at some apartments and condos. Have a great weekend!

SM Johnson ~ Bloody Monday ~ Finder(s) keepers

Good morning, darlings. Hope your week is starting out well.

I had a goofy morning last week. Not exactly an "if anything can go wrong, it will" day, but more like if anything else delays me from leaving this house, I'm going to be late for work. But it's not like the coffee maker overflowed and dripped ground-filled water everywhere, or that the hot water was glitchy, or that my scrubs were still wet in the dryer - so basically, I'm saying it could have been a lot worse.

The cat sneaked out the door while I was fastening the dog to her chain. (And yes, "sneaked out" is grammatically correct, even though "snuck out" sounds much better).

And while I was sitting there pondering how I was going to coax him back inside, I realized the part of the dog chain that clips to the dog's collar was sitting on the ground by my feet. With no dog in sight.

So I was like, "Oh, shit! I've lost all of our animals at once. Nice job, mama."

I went inside and grabbed a cup of joe. Then I went back out and sat on the porch, and whistled for the dog (which never works, by the way).

Then I was ever so surprised. The CAT bounded out of the bushes and came right to me, twining around my calves and doing the meow-purr that he does, the one that makes him sound grateful and aggravated at the same time.

I think it's actually his "please give me more food" vocalization. Which, I guess, could surely contain elements of grateful aggravation.

But anyway, I was going to talk about Finder, not losing things.

Author Joseph Finder, to be more specific.

See, I found this discussion on Goodreads and it was a sort of "I love Lee Child and Jack Reacher, what else do you think I'd like?" kind of question.

And there was a whole slew of recommendations, many of them books and authors I haven't read. So I was pretty much... rubbing my hands together with glee and creating a list in Word to talk to my library, because I can't get enough of Jack Reacher. And since I believe Child still writes his own books (rather than going corporate and having a team do the writing), there is some waiting for the next Reacher installment to be released.

Damn it. I hate waiting.

The best thing a reader can do while waiting is... read. And it's nice to have a place to start.

I read a Bob Swagger (character) book by Stephen Hunter, and the story was good, but the dialogue was weird and stilted, and bothered me.

So next on my list was Joseph Finder. I read Power Play. Well... it blew me away. I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, because there was no way I was going to bed before finishing this book.

The main character was Jake Landry, and the author did a great job of giving Jake the past experiences and unusual skill-set that he needed to get through a really tough situation.

Finder also used an interesting flashback technique, that wove Jake's past experiences into the narrative. I won't say they were woven in seamlessly - you knew you were going into a flashback, there was no subtlety about that - and the flashbacks were non-linear, but they were interesting. They followed two different story lines - Jake's rocky childhood and adolescence, and his adult relationship with ex-girlfriend, Ali. And since Ali is a current character in the main story line, their history together raises the stakes in the current badness going on, and definitely gets the reader rooting for Jake.

Actually, I started rooting for Jake at the beginning of the book, when he gave a second chance to someone who deserved to be fired. That whole scene sets us up to like Jake, who's a down-to-earth guy who has a good sense of human nature, and even though he may be brilliant, he doesn't shove his brilliance in other people's faces.

I just started reading another Finder book, called Paranoia. Not altogether sure where it's headed, but I can hardly wait to find out.

So okay, I'll say it... fans of Lee Child will probably like Joseph Finder.

Have a great week, darlings!

SM Johnson ~ A Year of Sundays ~ ch 15 pt 2

Chapter 15 – Sunday, August 7thPart 2
~Jessamine~
We all stared at Liz, waiting for the rest of the story.
Eric was a high-level administrator at the big medical center in town. And by high-level, I mean pretty much the highest. Like CEO.
There was a reason Liz was able to devote forty hours a week to her church – her small salary was pocket change.
"You can't stop there," Sam said. "You gotta tell us the rest."
Liz closed her eyes, sighed, and slumped in her chair, shaking her head. "It's absolutely awful. I mean, I can hardly believe it."
"Come on, Liz," I said, "you have to tell us more."
She nodded, but it wasn't a strong nod. "We should clean up, first."
Cleaning up took all of nine minutes. I'd gone to town on paper products – plates, utensils, – so all we really had to do was toss everything in the trash, wash some milk glasses, and wipe the dining room table.
When we were done, we went into the living room, where Liz dropped right onto the floor, lying on her stomach with her face buried in her arms.
Her shoulders were shaking and I thought she was crying again.
But when she rolled over, her eyes were dry.
She sat up and scooted toward the couch, leaned her back against it and curled her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
It was the pose she'd always taken when confessing some big-girl secret to me and Melanie, when she was going to impart 'important, life-changing information' to her little sisters. Like when she was fourteen and Mel was eleven, and I was ten, and the topic was how parents really make babies.
"Spill it," I said, mostly because I knew she was going to.
She sighed. "The story sort of ends with me bailing Eric out of jail, so I'm just trying to figure out where it starts. Maybe with Eric's son getting sick. He didn't even tell me any of that part until this morning, but his middle son, Jacob, has always struggled with depression, and every few years he tries to commit suicide."
Huh. That was news to me. Eric, apparently, has all kinds of secrets. But while I was feeling insulted about being kept in the dark, Elizabeth was still talking. "So last week Jacob took a month's worth of his meds, got real lethargic, and ended up in the emergency room, drinking charcoal until he started puking and shitting himself, and eventually getting transferred to inpatient psych."
"Like myinpatient psych?" Melanie asked.
Liz nodded. "Yeah. But not the easy unit you were on."
Melanie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, like I started out on the easy unit. Come on, you know better."
"My story, right?" Liz said.
"Yeah, okay." Melanie agreed.
"I don't know all the details," Liz went on. "But I guess we can assume Eric was under a fair amount of stress." She raised her eyebrows and shrugged, and I almost laughed.
"He went to visit his son and have a family meeting. You know, like we had with Joe. And he didn't do it the way we do when we visit Mel, either. He let himself onto the unit with his security badge."
"So he basically snuck onto the unit?" I said.
"Well…" her mouth twisted into a wry smile. "He does have security access, you know, so maybe he didn't think on it too hard. I don't know. Whether it was appropriate or not, that's what happened. Jacob turned on him during the family meeting, blamed all his failures on Eric, said he wasn't present even when he was home, always obsessed with work, reading reports, researching processes at other hospitals, and, especially after the divorce, the only time Eric showed Jacob that he gave a shit was after Jacob tried to commit suicide. So Jacob told Eric to get the fuck out and just forget about him, since that's pretty much what Eric did most of the time anyway."
"Ouch," Josie said. "Can you imagine? I mean, there were so many of us, but we never had to do anything extreme to get attention."
"Eric stormed out of the meeting, let himself off the unit, and was going to go back to his office. But then he thought of something important he wanted to say to Jacob, which, hysterically, he can't remember now, so he turned around and went back."
"Obviously that was a bad idea." Sam, being a smart-ass.
Liz frowned at him. "Who's telling this story, anyway?"
I was distracted for a minute, remembering… something mom journaled, about Eric seeming nice and fine and upstanding, but that she always thought he was evasive, maybe even shady, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Just the fact that he never talked all that much. I couldn't remember exactly.
Liz was still relaying the minutia of Eric's thought process, using his badge to let himself back into the locked unit, storming down the hall (okay, so whatever he'd planned to say to Jacob couldn't have been all that nice), and barging into Jacob's room.
Where he found Jacob's roommate having sex with someone. 
He backed out of the room, letting the door swing shut again, and stood in the hallway in shock.
I imagined the scene, and almost started laughing. All I could picture was Eric's round owl eyes even rounder behind his glasses, steam on the lenses even, hair standing on end, and Eric speechless the way Liz had been when Silas announced he was gay.
But that's not what happened, according to Liz.
What happened was that mild-mannered, administrative big-wig Eric Peoples flipped right the fuck out.
Now, understandably, he'd been under a "fair amount of strain," or whatever, as Liz had so delicately phrased it.
But an assault charge? Liz didn't explain how that came about.
She didn't get a chance.
Because Silas showed up. And he knew more about it than she did.

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee ~ Breathe

Good morning, darlings, and happy Thursday!

It is a really happy Thursday, because it's my weekend off.

Once in a while when I'm in an on-line writers forum, or a group, or on Facebook... somebody asks kind of randomly, "What's your favorite word?"

I used to have to stop and really think about it, because I love a lot of words, and I especially love the way words fit together to create a phrase that resonates with my heart or my intellect.

But I time or two ago, I did pick a favorite word: Breathe.

I realized that quite a few of my favorite songs are centered around the words breathe or breathing.

The first song I discovered by Lifehouse is about love (or obsession). I want nothing more than to sit outside your door and listen to you breathing... Oh, yeah, it's also about breathing.



Another song that I think is phenomenal (and is about the all important function of breathing) is Breathe In, Breathe Out by Mat Kearnwy. Dude has an AMAZING voice. Gray's Anatomy fans might have heard this one, as I believe it was the title song for a season or two. Here's the video. It's the "official video" - so please bear with the annoying commercial at the beginning.



I'm always obsessing with the way my characters are breathing - whether it's Master Roman controlling the breathing of a submissive, or the vampire DeVante  making a point to breathe "out loud," so to speak.

I have other favorite words, but this one has some significance this morning as I woke up this morning beyond 40 and unable to breathe.

Seriously? How can I smoke this much and cough this much and not be flirting with lung cancer and shortening my life, and fucking with my ability to breathe? It's absolutely ridiculous. I've been a smoker for a long, long time. I love it. I love the social part, I love how a break at work really feels like a break, I love the way you can use cigarettes to measure time - or to kill time when you're waiting. I like to smoke in transition - like in between doing the dishes and vacuuming the floor.

When I do quit, I suffer obsessive thinking about cigarettes, I get so cranky and bitchy that I'm hard to live with. And, of course, there's always the excuse that I gain weight... but guess what? I'm gaining weight anyway right now. Probably because I can't breathe well enough to exercise.

Good god, this breathing thing feels awfully important.

I've quit before - a few weeks here and there, and even, long ago, a stint of four years.

My brother, also a die-hard smoker, is doing great with nicotine patches and e-cigarettes.

Even my husband has used the e-cigarette to cut his smoking down from 2 packs a day to 1. Seems like everybody's making progress here but me.

Blah.

I hate quitting.

But I like breathing.

So I got a couple of e-cigarettes for my birthday, and I guess I'm going to buy some patches today and see if I can't make some progress, too.

But don't hold your breath or anything.

Have a great weekend, darlings!

SM Johnson ~Bloody Monday~ House of Night

For quite some time now - like three years - my friend Cassidy (also known as my granddaughter's mother) has been telling me I should read a YA vampire series called House of Night by author P.C. Cast and her daughter, Kristin Cast.

I found the series at my library, but book one, Marked, was never available.

I finally got my hands on it, though.

see it at AmazonSo. For the most part, I enjoyed Marked.

The first book was interesting, and I liked the concept of a vampire finishing school. I do get tired of the whole "queen B" girl who hates the protagonist story-line, but in this book at least that girl (Aphrodite) has some hidden depths, so it's not as cliched as it could be.

The MC is Zoey Redbird, and she gets marked as a vampire fledgling, and has to move into and attend school at the House of Night. Her parents are not only not supportive, they're members of a religious sect and might rather see Zoey dead than see her become a vampire.

The House of Night world borrows a little bit from the Men In Black films, in that the most accomplished and talented actors and musicians in the world are vampires.

Zoey quickly falls in with her roommate, Stevie Rae, and Stevie Rae's friends. The supporting cast of characters are pretty cool, although not fleshed out a whole bunch.

The story moves fairly quickly. Zoey is not the average fledgling - she's special. Other fledglings have a Mark on their foreheads that is the outline of a crescent moon. Zoey's Mark gets filled in with blue shortly between the time she's Marked and the time she arrives at the House of Night.

Of course, the MC being special is not unusual in stories - after all, that's what makes the MC more interesting. Think Harry Potter. Even though he wasn't the most studious character, he was the one with talent leaps and bounds above the rest.

Same with Zoey. She's the only known fledgling, and perhaps the only known vampire, who has an affinity with all five elements - air, fire, water, earth, and spirit. She's destined to become a High Priestess.

So there's your set-up. And of course the hottest boy in school is attracted to her. That's all I'm really going to say about Marked.

Overall - the world-building was steady and the story tripped along pretty nicely.

see it at AmazonOkay, so then I started book, Betrayed. I'm just barely at the beginning, but so far the villain girl is turning out to have a lot of depth. Our MC Zoey is pretty steady with the hottest boy in school, and of course, continues to be extraordinarily talented. Also, apparently, the hottest teacher in school is falling in love with her, too. And her boyfriend-less friends are still friendly and super-supportive and not jealous. Hmm.

As I was looking for book 2, I read the back of book 3, and in that one it sets us up for Zoey to have THREE almost-boyfriends. I supposed #3 is the most talented Warlock of the land?

So I find myself wondering... oy, how long can I stick with this series? I mean, the super-extra-talented MC who has no flaws and can have her pick of any available love interest is going to start to be a bore, you know what I mean?

Has anyone read up to date on the series? Am I on the wrong track? Am I about to be pleasantly surprised?

SM Johnson ~A Year of Sundays ~Ch 15 pt 1

Chapter 15 – August 7th
Part 1
~Jessamine~
Well, other than the really big things like our parents dying and Melanie getting kidnapped, abused, hospitalized and stalked, last week might have been the most eventful week in the history of our family.
Okay, well, I might be exaggerating, but you know – between Elizabeth's bomb drop, Silas's name drop, and Eric's explosion, last Sunday's drama is pretty hard to beat.
Except the Eric part kept getting more weird.
Elizabeth called me and said she knew she'd offered to cook for my turn, but did I mind if she bailed? Her voice was totally strange, high-pitched with a sing-song almost too-cheerful chirpy tone.
"You sound weird," I said. "What's up? I mean, not that I have a problem taking my turn with dinner."I could almost hear her hesitation over the phone. "Come on, Liz."
She sighed in my ear. "I don't think I can talk about it without falling apart. And if I start crying, I'll have to re-do my make-up, and I don't have time for that. I have to get downtown to the police station."
I was bowled over. "What? Oh, come on, you have to tell me now."
"I don't actually know much," she said. "I have to bail Eric out of jail, and I'm not even sure what for."
For a second I thought she'd rendered me speechless, but I found the words after only a short pause. "I'd think you'd want to know why he was in before getting him out."
"What are you saying, Jess?" Liz sounded tense. "Do you know something I don't know?"
"Wow, no," I said. "I mean… if he killed his mother, bailing him out could be a really bad idea."
"Oh Jess, always so dramatic. He said it was an assault charge, but that, really, the whole thing is just a big misunderstanding."
"Your boring husband Eric assaulted someone?" I was completely surprised. I was thinking embezzlement, or insurance fraud or something nice and clean like that.
"Nice, Jessamine. Super helpful."
I had a sudden thought. "He didn't assault Dean, did he?"
"Oh, Lord no," Liz gasped. "It was someone at work."
I had nothing to say, honestly. I mean, that was almost worse. He probably wouldn't get fired for assaulting Dean Johnson. But someone at work? Oh, shit. Liz's life was about to change.
"Jesus, Liz. Okay. I'll pick up some fried chicken. Is Eric coming?"
"I doubt it," Liz said. "In fact, if he didn't need me to bail him out, I suspect he wouldn't be talking to be yet."
So the mood on Sunday was decidedly… well, awkward, I guess. 
Silas and Jeremy were absent, but Sam came along just in case there was more good drama. Josie, Mel, and I had the chicken on the table when Liz breezed in at five minutes after five without a word about Eric, school, or unbelievably, her newly gravid state.
"I see Jessie's specialty," she said, surveying the table.
"I didn't marry her because she's Betty Crocker," Sam said, which is something he says whenever I cook something that turns out barely edible.
I rolled my eyes. "Super One's specialty, you mean," referring to the local grocer. "But even so, it's my favorite."
Liz shrugged. "KFC is better."
Huh. That was almost…mean.
"You're out of line, Liz," Melanie said, grabbing a chicken leg. "Now, let's eat."
"Yeah, doggie," Sam said, and started loading his plate.
Sam was the only non-sister present. After the unpleasantness last Sunday, we'd decided Annabelle could visit Sam's mom.
 We ate in an uncomfortable silence for way too long, so I finally asked Melanie, "Have you heard from Craig?" desperate for the sound of something, anything, aside from forks clanging against plates.
"Oh, yeah," she said. "We took Caleb school shopping."
"And how was that?"
"Well, a funny thing happened at the mall…" she gave an exaggerated shiver, and something about was alarming.
"It wasn't him, was it?" I asked, totally creeped out.
"No. But Craig had wandered away from us with half the list, determined to speed up the chore. So Caleb and I were looking at clothes, and Caleb was saying "Fine" to everything I picked up, even a pair of tow-truck print toddler's pajamas.
"So then this guy comes over near us. I'd seen him four aisles back, or so, and gave him that smile you gives strangers, the one that says we're all in the same boat here. And then he said to me, 'Man, kids hate shopping so much, you know? They get positively gloomy about it.'
"Maybe I agreed, maybe it was just one of those polite noises you make, you know? Whatever.
"He keeps talking. He says, 'I'm just picking up some blue jeans for my boy, 'bout the same age as yours, eleven, right? That's pretty old. I sent mine over to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. How about I take yours and you can meet us there when you're done shopping.'"
"Whoa," I said. "Did you flip out?"
All eyes were on Melanie now, eagerly waiting for the rest of the story.
Mel shook her head. "I didn't flip out. I actually laughed. The sheer audacity of the guy. And then I said, and this is a direct quote, by the way…'Are you fucking high on crack, or actually so stupid you think I'd send my son to the DQ with a complete stranger?' And then I pulled my phone out of my purse and called 9-1-1. He got out of there, but quick. And I hope they found him and chewed his ass."
"Holy crap," Josie breathed softly into the silence that followed. "That was like a close call. Way to go, Mel."
Mel smiled at Josie. "Thanks, little sis. I must be on the road to recovery. I feel more strong than scared."
"What did Caleb think?" I asked.
"I can quote him, too," Melanie said. "'Jeez, mom, you didn't have to be rude about it. He was just being nice. And why can't I go to the DQ, anyway? I'm not a baby in footie pajamas, you know.'
"And I told him maybe the guy was so nice because he doesn't have a son and he figured he could steal mine.
"Then Craig showed up and we tag-teamed Caleb, who was still arguing that the guy was nice, not creepy, and we did the whole safety quiz all over again. And I explained that no, I didn't have to be rude, but on the other hand, why should I have to be nice? That man, that stranger, approached us and started a conversation fro no other reason than to separate my son from me, and that was pretty rude, too."
"Did he pass the safety quiz?" Josie asked.
"Well sure," Melanie said. "He knows all the answers, but he still expects pedophiles to look and act like creepers, and doesn't quite understand that they can look like anyone."
I shuddered. "I need to quiz Annabelle."
"Make sure you ask her the puppy questions," Mel said.
Sam laughed out loud. "Puppy questions?"
"Yeah, like 'Hey little girl, will you help me find my lost puppy?' or 'Hey little girl, I just got a new puppy. He's in my car. Do you want to see him?'"
Sam looked like he was going to vomit. "What, puppies are the new candy?"
"Yeah," Melanie said. "Like pink is the new black. Telling kids not to accept candy from strangers is old news."
Sam thought about it. "Yeah, I guess it would work with a lot of kids. Most kids, even."
Mel's eyes were glued to the chicken bones on her plate. "I fell for it," she said in a flat voice, and a hush settled over the room because no one wanted to know, and no one knew what to say.
A few seconds went by. Then Josie said, "Hey, where's Silas?"
Silence descended again, equally as awkward as the previous silence.
I finally said, "Liz banned him, remember?"
"Oh, come on," Josie exclaimed. "She didn't mean it to be, like, forever."
No one answered.
"Did you, Sissy?" Josie asked, turning big round eyes on Liz.
Liz sighed, shrugged, and said, "I won't have him disrespecting me in my mother's house."
"Liz," I said, using my most reasonable voice. "You can't ban him forever."
She was shaking her head. "He can't treat me like the whore of Babylon."
"Even if it's true?" Mel asked softly. "Pots and kettles, Sissy. You've been pretty awful to him. And it's our mother's house, too, and Silas is our brother. You don’t get to make all the rules."
"I might be a sinner, but I am not a whore," Liz said through clenched teeth, her arms raising to un-plait and re-plait her braid.
"No one's calling you a whore," Josie said. "And we're all sinners, you know? Human beings, I mean. So you screwed up. We've all screwed up. We'll deal."
"But Silas," she sputtered. "He was enjoying it. It was like a circus to him."
"Only because you act so pious and perfect, Liz," I said. Because  I felt it, too, it was Liz's Ms. Perfect act that made it almost fun to see her fall. Even if saying it out loud was too cruel.
"What' s Eric's deal, anyway?" Sam asked, throwing in a nice change of subject. "I mean, he seemed awfully sure he didn't knock you up. And you were as shocked as the rest of us by his reaction."
Liz sighed. "I don't want to get into it. Do we have to?"
"Of course not," I said quickly, giving Sam a glare. "It's not our business." But then I saw the silent tears trailing along her cheek. "But you might feel better. You know we love you, Sissy, even if we've been assholes."
She started crying harder. "He lied to me. He was lying the whole time."
"About what?" Melanie asked, her voice soft and soothing, and as if on cue, we the sisterhood, scooted our chairs toward the head of the table so we could lay hand son her and offer sister-therapy.
"About wanting kids," she sobbed. "About his plumbing being in working order. He got a vasectomy right after his first divorce, and he never thought to mention it."
"What a rat-bastard," Sam said."
"And I've been trying so hard to get pregnant, and taking all these tests, charting ovulation, giving myself hormone shots, everything – and he knew, he always knew it was never going to happen."
"He really is a rat-bastard," Melanie said. "No wonder he was so quiet all the time. He couldn't open is mouth for fear of the truth falling out.
I almost started laughing. "Yeah, but Karma's a bitch."
Liz flashed me the sort of look that said I'd just spoken out of turn, but too late, and I felt my cheeks get hot. "Sorry," I mouthed to her. She sniffled and hiccupped while Josie and Mel exchanged puzzled looks.
"What does that mean?" Josie asked.
"I had to bail him out of jail today," Liz said. "Apparently he assaulted a nurse at the hospital."
"Are you fucking kidding?" Sam said, his eyes wide.
"Really Sam, language?" Liz said, but her tears had stopped and her mouth looked like it almost wanted to smile. "Oh, Lord, help us. There's a lot going on right now." She sighed the exhausted sigh of the long-suffering, and her fingers crept toward her braid again.
Eric, it turns out, is quite a lot more interesting than we'd ever dreamed.

SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee~ Chaos in my Kitchen

So yes, I have been a lightweight blogger this week. Yikes! Again I must put it all into perspective that sometimes life gets in the way, and that's that. The more you rail against it, the more crazy you'll get. So it's much better to just submit.

So I thought I would share some pictures of the craziness around here.

I mentioned on Sunday that everything we're up to right now is directly related to the bathroom remodel we started back in 2009.

rotted woodThis is what we saw when we tore up 5 layers of flooring on Saturday.

Eek! That looks totally nasty, doesn't it?

original holeAnd so I know that I reported that we hired a carpenter on Sunday, right? Yep. He was here and he was very pleasant and worked had all day.

But the whole carpenter thing is really weird. He said he had a job to finish on Monday, but he expected to be here around noon. So hubby came home from work five hours early and then... the carpenter was waiting for someone he had to talk to, but he'd be on his way soon. And he'd definitely be here by 2 pm, no worries.

At 4 pm my husband called him and said, "Well, I can't sit around here anymore, so I'm going to start without you." (My husband has two speeds - full-speed ahead, or asleep on the couch. Once in a while there's an in-between stage of watching television).

So when my husband was done working all by himself Monday, we ended up with the kitchen stripped down to the basic support system. We have a crawl-space, not a basement, so walking across the floor joists isn't dangerous, but still, a bit perilous at 5 am Tuesday morning carrying my coffee out to the garage to add cream and sugar.


Yeppers. See the edge of the counter in the picture on the right? The coffee pot was there. Then that big hole stretched all the way across the kitchen, and out the door way, which is out of view to the far left. So yeah, only 3 joists to traverse. But still.

The best part was when I got to the garage, added milk to my coffee, and discovered that my cup was full of hot milky water. Because I get a little screwy when I have to get up at 5 am during a time when my routine is disrupted by chaos, so when I set up the coffee pot Monday night, I filled the water well, I emptied the carafe, I put the filter in place, and I set the timer.

And somehow I neglected to put actual coffee in the filter.

Trust me when I say... it was a complicated morning.

I mean, seriously, look at my dining room!

But when I got home from work Tuesday afternoon, things were looking better.

Not sure exactly who this dude is in the picture - but it's not my husband.

(Oh, and FYI - we thought maybe the carpenter just takes Mondays off, but no, he was a no-call/no-show on Tuesday, as well. Apparently this is common with carpenters and contractors. O-kaaaaay - not sure how these people expect to make any money that way, but whatever).

almost ready for tile Look ma, tile!
My husband, who owns a business, called the office and said, "HELP!" And the guys came through. Whew!

So Tuesday afternoon/evening, my husband started putting down the tile.

So... yay! Tons and tons of progress.

Today, Wednesday, my granddaughter and her mother came to visit, so I got to ditch the home improvement project and go to the beach. I am SO not complaining about that. Even though garage cooking has been a bit of a challenge. We had hoagies and cold-cuts twice. A rotisserie chicken one night. Chinese last night. Tonight we had rotisserie chicken soup that cooked all day in the crock-pot. Our gas grill has a burner, so that came in handy for cooking the soup noodles.

Help! The beer fridge is full of food.Oh, except IzzyG. She hates my chicken soup (WTF?) so she trucked over to the neighbor's house with a can of chef-boy-ar-dee and they hooked her up with a microwave.
pretty new door
We got home from the beach, and I discovered we have a new door. Whoa. I had no idea we were replacing the door. But I'm good with it. It's not framed in yet, and I took this picture in the dark, but it's a really nice door.

No more beam-walkingTa-da! New floor! (I took a two hour break from writing to sit and chat with my granddaughter's mother - who is one of my favorite people). And no, I am not old enough to be a grandmother - IzzyG is only 9. It's my husband's son from his first marriage who supplied us with a grandchild when he was 17 years old. I'll snap some pictures tomorrow of the cutest grandchild in the world. I think her mama is the coolest chic around, and although she and my step-son's romance didn't work out, they have learned a great deal about co-parenting, and are even becoming good friends.

Which is awesome. It is tricky business to find an appropriate middle-of-the-road when your granddaughter's parents are breaking up. I know that emotionally, we're supposed to automatically support our son. And it doesn't help when my husband's ex-wife seems to enjoy ramping up the drama - any kind of drama - but I had a candid conversation with my step-son in which I told him quite clearly that while I love him to pieces, I also adore his daughter's mother and fully intend to maintain a relationship with her. And he basically gave his blessing.

And I won't say that they never complain about one another, or share rumors they've heard and what not, but we're pretty good at not getting sucked into gossip, although we do listen to a certain mount of venting. Besides - these kids are 20 years younger than us and live in different cities - it really hasn't been all that hard to not take sides. I mean, we are grown-ups.

My tiny peanut granddaughter Alexz is about to turn FOUR! Whoa! How trippy is that? Wait till you see how far we've come! (Here's the "then" picture, I'll add a "now" picture by tomorrow evening).

daddy, baby, mommy, in the NICU

Happy Thursday, darlings. I hope you have a fantabulous weekend!

SM Johnson ~Bloody Monday~ True Blood?

Image from eonlineSo, in the interest of my life being crazy, I thought I'd pose the question...

Do you watch True Blood?

I was never able to get into the books, and the TV series hasn't captured me either.

I'd love to hear from vampire fans - if you do watch it, what is it about the series that engages you?

And how come I don't get it?

I love Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series, I love Anne Rice's vampires, I like some of Kim Harrison's Witch books, I tolerated the Twilight trilogy, umm.... I don't know. True Blood has a huge following, so I feel like I'm missing something.

What am I missing?

SM Johnson ~A Year of Sundays~ Hiatus this week

I am sorry, my darlings, but Sundays is on hiatus this week. My kitchen is mid-construction, all my kitcheny appliances (including the washer and dryer) are in the dining room, and life is markedly chaotic.

It was, initially, a simple project.

Back in 2009, I wanted to replace my crappy, peeling downstairs bathtub with a walk in shower.

The old heavy tub sledgehammered into large heavy pieces (which can still be found beneath the carport, actually). The new shower was purchased. The plumbing was updated. The new vanity installed. But before we could finish the shower install, we decided we needed a new floor.

A guy was hired. He did 3/4 of the floor, then hunting season arrived. He hunted. He got served with divorce papers. He never returned.

We were going to finish laying the floor ourselves, but then the dog's claws immediately ruined the new floor. It never got finished.

Fast-forward a couple (okay, three) really buys years, during which Hubby learned how to lay ceramic tile.

Yes! We ordered enough ceramic tile to do the kitchen, bathroom, and mud room. Yay!

Tore up the cheap, scratched wood floor. Tore up the vinyl underneath that, and the vinyl underneath that and whatever was beneath THAT... and discovered parts of the original base, the part directly over the crawl space is.... dun-dun-dun-dunnnnnnnnnn - ROTTING. Oh crap.

Okay, so we hired a carpenter.

I expect life will be chaos for at least a week.

But maybe I'll end up with a downstairs walk-in shower one of these days. Bwahahahahahaha!

In the meantime...

I will do my best to write an extra-long, tension-filled installment for next Sunday.

I mean, you are never going to BELIEVE what Eric does... it really is quite shocking...

~SM