Saturday, January 29, 2011
Distractions
Friday, January 28, 2011
Sleepless nights
All day I listen to my kids laughing, crying, screaming, and deal with the constant mommy, mommy, mommy! With Bubby cutting nearly all his back teeth at one time he has become the little hulk. You don't want to make little hulk angry. He follows me around screaming at me, pulling and pinching my legs, and just being an out right little terror child. As I type, he is pulling my papers from my desk drawer... Ahem, excuse me...
So at night, after the kids are in bed, and the house is silent, I am finally able to hear my thoughts. Unfortunately, I cant get them to shut up long enough to get to sleep, and after so many nights of catching only four hours of shut eye, the thoughts are incoherent and hard to understand.
I think in our new home I will sound proof the walls of my office so that when my hubby comes home I can escape for an hour to unwind my mind...
On a very positive note, I want to congratulate the fabulous Leigh Fallon, an Inkpopper I admire, for getting published by HarperCollins!
Check out the article here http://ow.ly/3LW3t
and Leigh's inkpop project to be published here http://www.inkpop.com/projects/5971/the-carrier-of-the-mark/
What a wonderful way to start off the weekend!
Again, CONGRATS LEIGH!!! WHOOOO!!!!
Ta!
A.McBay
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Things we Thay
Since my post this morning I have had a terrible time not replacing all my S's with th. After I mentioned this to my husband, he laughed at me, until he started doing it too. We are accustomed to this type of talk, since our three year old speaks this way. Not only does she have difficulty pronouncing her S's, but her J's as well. All J's are pronounced with a D. Tonight my hubby had a blast getting her to say funny things, like "I like to jump on the couch," which came out, "I like to dump on the couch."
Yep, thilly thuff there!
I have worked with her pronunciation, but her S's, J's, and L's still come out wrong. At times I have to have her repeat a sentence, because it had sounded like something else. Hopefully this is just a phase and will soon be grown out of.
Great news today! We got final approval on our house we are buying! Woot! That's right, I wooted. We are so incredibly excited to be moving! This is like a dream house. Allyssa is ecstatic too. Earlier today when we told her we bought a new house she asked me to go get it, and where was her new house. She helped a lot in the picking out of a new home. Next week will be full of packing and prepping. Bring on the boxes! I can't wait for us to be moved, and unpacked!
We are thuper exthited!
Ok, I'm done.
Ta!
A.McBay
Thuper Thursday
Yeah, I just made this up today. I thought it was cute, since this is the way my daughter says super and I really needed something to dedicate my Thursdays to.
That's it. Now I need to go write down a list of stars and why they are so fabulous for future posts. Stars names will then be drawn from a hat, so it will be completely random as to who it will be. Don't worry, I will attempt to contact my star of the week for permission to star them on my page before I post anything about them and to award them their button. Maybe we could even get a few Q&A from our star. This is going to be such fun!
Check back next week to see who will be my first star of the week.
Ta!
A.McBay
Update: The I'm Thuper badge:
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
My yearly dose of dragons
Friday, January 21, 2011
Flashback Friday: Just couldn’t wait
At the time her Dad was deployed, and I was still in the military stationed in Hawaii. I had yet to go on maternity leave, and was trying to get away with as much fitness as I could during PT, though I always got caught and was made to walk the track. It was my nephew's birthday. Cramps had started in the afternoon, getting steadily worse throughout the day. I just thought it was something I ate and dealt with it. Women in my family have a very high tolerance for pain, and having no clue what to look out for I didn't know that these were contractions, not cramps. That evening after talking to my mom and getting plenty worried I decided to get my tush to the hospital.
I wasn't able to drive at this point, so I called a co-worker and good friend Mac. Did I mention all my friends were guys and I worked only with guys? Yeah. After Mac had picked me up, he managed to get us lost on the way to the hospital. We finally made it and I got settled in for an exam by one of the military doctors. Have I mentioned what idiots they are? The Doc checked me out, yelled "Oh Bleep!" and ran out of the room leaving me scared to death. A few minutes passed before the nurse came in just as calm as can be, and told me that the doctor had seen a foot and we were going in for an emergency c-section. My mom was contacted and on a plane within a few hours. Having no one else I signed for my friend Mac to be present in the room so I didn't have to be with a bunch of strangers. He had a blast taking photos for my hubby, including a dozen of him in the restroom with scrubs on. He held my hand throughout the whole procedure, until Allyssa was at last out and being cleaned.
To this day he says he will never have children.
I got to see Allyssa briefly, before she was taken to the NICU. I pestered the nurses for hours to see my daughter even though I couldn't even stand to go to the restroom. They finally wheeled me down the hall, and I got to sit beside her for a few minutes. She was so tiny, weighing only 3.2 pounds, and no bigger than a half of loaf of bread. To this day her uncle calls her little baby half-a-loaf. She was hooked up to several monitor, and an IV. Wires ran everywhere. It was a heartbreaking sight for a new mom.
I had visitors from my guys at the shop, my best friends (brothers), the squadron commander and first shirt, and finally my mom. I was so happy to finally have my mom there.
After three days, I got discharged, but Allyssa had to stay for another month in the NICU. Mom stayed that whole time, helping me get back and forth to the hospital three times a day. In Honolulu traffic, that is a chore.
At last I got to bring her home.
Every mom has their birthing stories. It's a grand adventure becoming a parent!
Ta!
A.McBay
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Full Moons and Emergency Rooms
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
My Writing Spot
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Lefty
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The Chair


This could be the one!
One was a flip house. Meaning the owner bought it, made it purdy, and is now trying to make a profit from it. The downside to a flip house is that most of the work was cosmetic and the things that really needed fixing went without. Like the ancient AC unit, the hole in the window, and so on...

So it's safe to say, I think we have found our new home. Let's see if everything goes well for us this week as we put in our bid! Fingers crossed!
Ta!
A.McBay
Monday, January 10, 2011
New Adult
Though I have no intention on targeting this new genre with WF, it does give the book a place to settle. I don't have to make it YA or Adult. I can target the 19-25yr olds who are unhappy with the highschool drama books, but are not quite ready to move on to full blown Adult books. I can make WF a happy medium for that age range.
It's a relief for me to not have to revise the book once more for a specific genre.
Now if I could ever finish the book.
A plus about WF. Chapter 24 has been finished, and passed the inspection of the Alpha Beta aka Mom. She says it flows from 23 so well, and the chapter itself is perfect. A huge relief on my part, since the first time around the chapter was a disaster. I could only salvage bits of the old writing, and had to completely change the out come of the MC to not only flow better with the latter chapter, but to continue through the rest of the story without confusing the readers. It troubled me for nearly a month, until like all great ideas, it just came to me one day and flowed effortlessly into Word. Happy days! I'm back to writing. On to the next chapter.
Ta!
A.McBay
Friday, January 7, 2011
Flashback Friday
Today's flashback was a toss up between Mom took my brother and I to pet baby tigers, or my Air Force Graduation. I chose the graduation.
This was a very proud day for me. After weeks of drills, starvation, and dun dun dunnnnn, running, I had finally made it to graduation day! My TI still had no clue who I was (a good thing, and something I tried very hard at), my family was there, and in a few hours I would leave San Antonio for my training base in Witchita Falls. How did I celebrate? Well, the first thing I did was run off to the barber shop and chop off my hair. After all those weeks of having to pull it up into a perfect bun (and my hair is very thick and heavy), It was a relief to have all of that weight off the back of my skull.
I got to enjoy having my family with me. My dad (the long haired hippie) and my Granny Net drove 5 hours to see me. That's quite a trip for Granny. Mom, my step-dad Danny, and my baby brother flew.
I introduced them to my TI, who looked at me in confusion and asked for the millionth time "Who are you? You were here the whole time?", and then we walked the river walk. We were talking about my experiences when we walked under one of the many bridges on the river walk, and a pigeon crapped on me. It slid down my blues cap, and dripped down the front of my dress shirt. I hate birds to this day...
It took the rest of my free time for mom to get the poop from my clothes, and dry them at the hotel. By the time it was clean I had to go back to base.
And that is my flashback Friday presented by Tia's blog.
Join us in our flashback fun!
Ta!
A.McBay
Thursday, January 6, 2011
YA or Adult
Wild Fire started off as a YA book. YA have really taken off, and for those of us that like more story, less steamy, it's been a relief. The downside? Sometimes the author can go a little overboard on the teen drama. There are almost always triangle relationships where the MC must choose who they want to be with between two love interests. I read a lot of YA these days, the latest being Paranormalcy by Kiersten White (great read) but have been caught up in some more mature books since that read.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Finally meeting
Nanowrimo was a failure for me. With the pressures of life, I just wasn't able to make the word count I needed to succeed, but the challenge did reward me with a few things, a new friend, and she introduced me to my TPR friends. We would chat online everyday for a few months, though we live only minutes away. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting her face to face. It was so exciting to finally meet someone so much like myself.
While we monitored our kids in a little coffee shop downtown, we sipped our coffee, and got to know each other (Occasionally having to stop midsentence for a few stern words to a child). We talked for an hour without pause, or awkward silence of the newly acquainted. It was great! I'm so happy to have made a new friend here in Abilene where I have only a few. Not only that, but my first writer friend!
As for writing, I am back on track. I have nearly finished chapter 24. It needed some major reworking that I really had to brainstorm in order to revise it to work better with the story and not confuse my readers. I'm happy to be back to work on it, and can't wait to have it finished so I can share the full first draft with all my betas out there. Thankfully, I have a lot of people supporting this adventure!
I have a dozen designs to do today before the next TPR session. It's been a busy day, though I'm still in jammies. It's nice working at home!
Ta!
A.McBay
Monday, January 3, 2011
Nanana!
When I was growing up, I was always the weird kid. I had bullies, and people who just loved to take their bad days out on me. Back then it hurt as you can imagine, and drove me to be quiet and demur. Some people even asked if I was going to blow up the school. I had few friends and major self esteem issues. I hate that side of myself. After joining the military, I shoved that little girl deep down. I became respected, feared, and loved. I got stronger, and learned how to deal with my shyness. Before I got out of the military I had tons of friends, I could scare the crap out of people who wronged me or those I loved, I had visited places my school bullies were too chicken to go to, and I had declared my weirdness of the artistic sort.
Today I watch those people who were mean to me on facebook. They seek me out, add me as a friend, and realize that the weird kid has experienced life far beyond what they could ever have. I have beautiful kids, a loving handsome hubby, great well behaved pets to keep me company, and a supportive family waiting in Oklahoma and now in Arkansas too. I have graphic arts skills, and have even done something with the book nerd side of me by writing. It's rewarding to see those that have done nothing with their life. Karma people, I'm just sayin.
So I think I'm well deserved to say to all my classmates who tormented me throughout school and made my life hell, "Na na na na na! Thanks for helping to make me who I am today."
:P
Ta!
A.McBay