How do I market a local/regional travel book to a national audience for a writer's conference or online?

Restarting...hopefully

I've been absent from here, but I'm trying to make this my professional blog.

Please bear with me and check back.

I'd like to start out with weekly entries/posts. I'll see how things go.

It's a New Year. I hope it's a successful one.

Picking Up Your Socks

I was relaying a story tonight, and thought I would share it with you.

I came home from being out almost all day, running errands (which started with breakfast) and when I arrived, my daughter had on one green sock and there was a blue sock, lying on the floor. I said to her, "Could you put the blue sock in the laundry?" She responded with, "It's not dirty."

"Why's it on the floor?"

"Cause Daddy won't give me milk."

Of course, why didn't I figure that out on my own?

Buying School Supplies

These are the school supplies I got at Staples yesterday for $8.62.
There are:
10 two-pocket folders
2 packs of 8 pencils
1 four pack of pens
1 pack of 15 colored pencils
2 rolls of invisible Scotch tape
1 pink spiral one-subject notebook (guess who that's for)
2 packs of 25 peel&stick seal envelopes
2 packs of 2 each fancy shaped post-it notes (these are normally over $3 each)

This would normally be around $22.

This is the time to buy school supplies.  Check the Staples ad.  Every week for this month, they should have penny/dollar items that are very useful just to have.  Actually, they also have a ream of paper for one penny - that you have to pay for though and then wait for a rebate.  Also, you should remember to pay attention to the limits.  Many of these items were limit of two and the specials are only good until Saturday.  Target is starting to get their back to school section in order and there sale will probably start next Sunday.

My worst problem is that my older son hasn't gotten his list from school yet, and in middle school, those are the most expensive items.

With the economy, when items run out, they probably won't be replaced, so don't wait for a specialty item to go on sale.  If you need a mutli-funcitonal calculator or a scientific one, buy it now and keep the receipt.  Many stores, including Target will give you a price guarantee on an unopened item within 14 days if it should go on sale in that time.  If it's longer, the return policy is usually 90 days, so you can rebuy it cheaper and return the more expensive one.  Just KEEP YOUR RECEIPTS.

Since Staples is in our neighborhood, within six miles, I will go back at least twice more to get those pencils for a penny.  We're over near the store anyway, so we're not wasting gas and the kids go through pencils like water.

Everything in the picture I bought because they were on sale.  I didn't look at any supply lists from school, but those are all items we will use either for school or in the house.

Philosophy from a Five Year Old

I thought I would post about my middle son. Usually, it's my oldest or my daughter who get the blog space, but child #2 was really on a roll yesterday, and repeating the stories to two friends of mine made me laugh again, so I thought I would share.

Yesterday was a day for him to philosophize.

First, was my daughter wanting her birthday to be on St. Patrick's Day. She wants a St. Patrick's Day birthday, but her birthday is in January. Birthdays are on the brain because my husband just had a birthday and I'm putting together thanfiction's gift, and they were listing all the days that you get presents.

She was complaining about her birthday not being on St. Patrick's Day, and my son said, "When you're born, that's when your birthday is, and you stick to that."

Makes sense to me.

Then, he says, "It's funny how the thing has the same name that it is."

We pondered this, and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well," he stated very matter-of-factly, "a lion...is...a...lion."

We nodded in agreement. Yes, it is.

"And do you know, that there is a chicken that is an animal. And there's a chicken that you eat."

My husband looked at me, and said, "This is that time - do we make him a vegetarian because the wrong word now..."

My son also has some trouble with some words because of his speech, but we like the way he says them, so we're really bad about correcting them.

He'll say: maglet instead of magnet.
He'll say: merote instead of remote.
He'll say: whore instead of or. (This one's a bit embarrasing.)
He'll say: Machanukah instead of Chanukah.

You know, typing it out, it looks like he may be hearing too many 'm's.

He's very logical, and this was a very entertaining car ride.

Posting from my phone. Not sure how this will work.

...Here Be Dragons...

I wear this cute little guy on my pocket book. He doesn't have a name yet. Where he sits on the bag, it ends up that he also sits on my shoulder. It's very cute.

I went to the post office the other day to mail a letter, and the window clerk noticed him, and said, "Oh, is he a Red Dragon from Oneonta?"

I was surprised. No one's ever asked me that before. In fact, I've been asked if he's a dog.

I said, "No, he's a Red Dragon from Wales. But I graduated from Oneonta."

We laughed, and I really thought it was funny that I never put it together. The Oneonta Red Dragon was always separate in my mind from Y Ddraig Goch.

Another connection. Fate is a funny thing.

Free Ice Cream

Friendly's will be giving out free ice cream on Saturday, June 5th from 12 to 5. I'm sure there are some disclaimers about participating locations, but really, how many don't participate. I think it's either a cone or a cup, but the sign didn't specify. That's only two Saturdays from today!

Happy Mother's Day, 2010

Mother's Day was lovely this past weekend. It really began on Saturday with a couple of errands. I had been told to expect a package (from my close friend) on Saturday, so a quick trip to the post office (more on the package later) and then the bank. After that was the usual Saturday, except on our ride north, we took a wrong turn and ended up going around Saratoga Lake:

And yes, we were really driving that close to the water.

Everyone was very excited and it was a very pleasant drive.

Prior to this, we were at the comic store. I stayed in the car, and decided to open my package. I knew what it was, but even the mail clerk warned me that it was very heavy, and I should be careful. He was right. Fourteen pounds. Who knew that ginger weighed so much?

I opened the top and was greeted by the sight of flower petals. This was the cushioning material. Very creative. And messy, I realized very quickly, so I decided that I would wait until I got home to finish the opening.

Unfortunately, the earwig that was crawling out had other ideas.

Freaked would be a good description.

I got it out of the car without too much trouble, and I didn't kill it either. No one would know.

Husband and kids got back in the car and off we went. My husband looked over at the partially opened box and asked, "What is that?"

"The present."

"No," he said. "That," gesturing with a nod of his head.

Another earwig. This one went out the window. I'm sure it was fine other than being so far from home.

We ended up running errands at Target, and while he and the kids went inside to get diapers, I was informed with the handing of a garbage bag that the flower petals had to go.

I moved them into the bag, but since there were no other critters, I decided to keep the petals and possibly make sachets out of them. Either way, the yummy ginger was perfectly fine. There was crystallized ginger, ginger chips, hard ginger candy, ginger syrup and ginger sugar. All homemade. All delicious. The card made me cry.

We got home and I decided to transfer the petals to a ziploc bag and let them dry properly to use them for other things.

They were still soft and smelled really nice (I think that if I didn't have this cold, they would have smelled even better.) As I was transferring the petals, I found another critter. A tiny snail.

I deposited this into my garden and resumed the transfer.

But wait.

There's more.

A second snail.


What was this? Noah's Ark?!

The mail came soon after this, and my mother in law had sent a card with a gift card for Chili's Restaurant, so dinner for Sunday was decided. I actually love Chili's and had just said that was where I wanted to go as one of my choices, so it was perfect.

The next morning, I was greeted in bed by the kids and the things they made in school. My littlest made a handprint flower with her picture in the middle and my middle guy made a star photo frame with a carrot (his favorite vegetable) and the Star Trek comm badge glued onto the frame with his photo in the center. From everyone, I got the one thing I said that I wanted: an MP3 player. The one I had broke a couple of months ago, and this one really was a good one. It also has an FM radio and it holds pictures and videos as well as audiobooks, so A+ to my husband for choosing the perfect player and keeping it affordable.

On the way to dinner, we realized that we were following the Batmobile. It was very exciting. It's not as fast as one would think, but we still got a couple of pictures and the kids were very excited.

I have a great family.

It was a really nice weekend.

Chick-Whispering

Many of you know that my youngest child goes to a cooperative nursery school. Despite choosing our kids' preschools based on money decisions and our lack of it, we've actually been very lucky in the quality of our children's preschool education. For those of you who don't know what a cooperative nursery school is, it is a nursery school where the parents are responsible for the running and upkeep of it. We have a teacher (two plus an assistant) plus there is always a parent helper. Each parent, in addition to a regular job, must participate (or provide someone else) in the classroom approximately once per month. The timing all depends on the amount of days in the school year and how many kids in the class. I think this year, I've been required once every two months.

My last parent helper day was yesterday and I was horrified to learn that the teacher expected me to wrangle the chicks. Yes, they have chicks. They get the eggs locally, put them in an incubator for 21 days and hatch chicks. They, then go to a farm to live happily, and this is an actual farm, not the euphemistic farm that other animals go to.

"You want me to...what?"

So, I talked to the teacher and the assistant, and was equally horrified to learn that the kids were NOT going to hold the chicks.

"What?!"

But...they're chicks. I brought my camera. The teacher was on my side, and the assistant was talking about the other teacher's concerns (the 4yo teacher, who usually runs the school/classroom procedures), but I prevailed, was told not to lose any chicks and that was that.

They were all put into a plastic swimming pool, and wandered around peeping. I've done this before - not the chick whisperer part, just the knowing what to do part. I told the kids that they could pet the chicks using one finger and to keep it to the chicks backs, avoid their heads. They were excellent listeners. One girl was a little rough, but I kept her close to me. I did manage to get a couple of pictures, which I will print out for those kids over the weekend.

And we only lost one chick. He jumped out of one of the kids' hands and ran in a circle before I scooped him up and dropped him gently into the pool. We had a good laugh and we agreed not to tell the teacher assistant.

They ended up with a total of 13 chicks, all black except one yellow one. This one happened to be the one that ran away. He is the true black sheep of the family apparently. All of the black ones had yellow markings in places, mostly on their faces, although one had a yellow belly and a couple had a tiny stripe on the tops of their heads. In fact, my favorite and the most cooperative with the kids was a little black one with a tiny yellow splotch on his head. Their feet are huge. Their beaks are also quite large compared to the rest of their faces and their bodies. Their faces are very owl-like, so I wonder if all birds have similar faces.

Two funny stories:One of the boys is a bit rough, and he likes to bang things. He was banging a wooden block against another (in another area of the classroom) and it sounded as though he were hammering a nail. All of the chicks stopped what they were doing, lifted their heads and looked towards the sound and became silent while they listened. It was something to see.

For cleaning up, the teacher puts on the Mary Poppins song, A Spoonful of Sugar, and I thought the chicks were cheeping along. We had to really listen to hear the music over the loud peeps.

And lastly, after being in the pool (don't worry - no water) for quite sometime, the chicks huddled together in groups to keep warm. Once they were put back in their brooder (box with a heatlamp), they all pretty much collapsed from exhaustion. It looked like the morning after at a frat party.