Mote Academy

Working on a book. Working title is, can you guess? Mote academy tada! 

What is it about you ask? I am glad you asked!

What if magic was the manipulation of motes of energy, motes that had an aspect of fire, water, earth, air, light... And it's opposite, some call it darkness, but no one knows. 

Motes gather around those who have an affinity for the elements inside. When activated, the motes shine, giving off a spark of color letting you know which element has been woken. 

Ages passed, a great civilization stood, from its heart poured wonders wrought buy mote magic. Then disaster struck and the civilization vanish with almost no trace. All that's left is The Academy. A building found later a new civilization, who built their nation around it, over the ruins of the past. Secrets are still hidden within; doors no one has yet been able to open. Lore not yet understood. 

The start of a new age beckons, wonders of old, and wonders of new await, but will it lead to a second great devastation?

Child...ren?

My hubs and I talk about what it would be like to have a second child, joke about names we would name him or her, but our current plan involves getting a second IUD. Any child will come later, or not at all. I am sad, and glad about this. Our first child, my sweet love bug, is so close to perfection, she makes having a kid seem easy. Lulling me into the belief that raising children is easy. SHE is easy to raise. Eminently loveable, strangers find her cute and praise her, but she is not vain, merely accepting of their praise and happy. Like all kids she does get in trouble, refuses to do things, argues with me. Always though in the end she does as she is told and says sorry or please or thank you. She yearns to be praised, so she tries to please. 

it seems almost greedy to want another one. Surely a second child cannot possibly be as easy, as sweet, gently, kind, helpful, and obedient. I cannot be that lucky. This is my fear and what really keeps me from wanting a second child.

I know I have to capacity to love both my children as much as each other, but if my second child is not as easy to raise as my first, if she does not measure up to the high standard my love bug has set before them, how can I truly love her, or him, as much? 

a second child might make her less easy as well, as perhaps she will be jealous of her sibling, not wanting to share mom, her toys, her room, her cat... Her center of attention. Because always she likes to be paid attention. Look at me, listen to me, see what I am doing. To have a second child, would mean less focus on her.

Perhaps that would be good, I know already as she has entered school she must already experience this to a degree, the teachers must pay equal amounts of attention to the children in their class, but also I know from my own experience, that if the teacher is made to notice you, to remember you, you do better, so perhaps this strong desire to be paid attention to will help her drive her self into the spotlight so that she will have the attention she desires, perhaps that will fuel her to succeed. 

ultimately I believe this choice to renew the IUD to mean will will remain a three member family. To much longer and the gap between the two children would be to wide. Plus I am getting older, only four more safe years left. Oh it can be done after 40, but the risks are higher. Every year I wait now for a second child increases the risks.

I am happy with one child, the dream I had som many years ago of me and my three children in front of the temple is so long ago. I feel no great desire to have another, I miss nursing, but I revel in the way my life is now. I cannot imagine being happier with a second than I am with my one. With one I can be sure we can give her all those things we would like, we can save and provide her with them, but it would be much harder with two.

Hubby lunch

I imagined myself, now a stay at home mom and wife, making cute lunches for my husband and child. Reality is far from that. I made lunch for my kid. Which she ignored in favor of school lunch. So I don't make her lunch anymore, why bother when it doesn't get eaten? My poor hubs, without the additional enticement of feeding the kid, my enthusiasm for making bento lunches for him is inversely proportional to how cold I am. I still think of neat lunches for him, but after putting the kid to bed, watching some shows or playing online, I go down to figure out his lunch and go aha! This will work. 

Tomorrow he is getting left over ravioli and pizza. 

At least it is food he likes and I did remember to pack it for him. Maybe tomorrow once I finish the laundry I will make something more creative for Thursday. There are still two slices of pizza though...

Snow week

First off, I was prepared for a four day weekend. Kid had Friday and Monday off for Presidents' Day and a staff day. Then it snowed. Okay Tuesday off because plows were working at clearing the road and many were nasty. Then Wednesday off, ice and still some roads closed. Ditto Thursday. Now tomorrow is also a snow day. Part of it might be why make the kids come to school for one day. I agree with that. Plus, if the outlying areas are still unplowed or iced I would not want kids in busses on them. 

Luckily mom in law made it home from jersey. There are worse fates than being stuck in jersey, she could have been stuck in Utah. 

I don't think I would have liked several days snowed in Utah unable to travel yikes. Sorry Utah family, I know you like it there but personally I'do rather just about any other state.

I could get stuck inoregon, they have been have 60 degree weather. With our overnight low looking to be near or in the negatives, 60 sounds like tropical paradise. My house is running at about 65, but that feels really really cold. 

And I am in layers.

Back to the kid.

She is all happy that she gets to stay home, again. She likes it. What is not to like, you sleep in (I like that too) you get to eat breakfast with mom, which she finished today wonder of wonders, then you play and possible do some of the worksheets mom printed out. Yesterday I was mean and made her do like ten worksheets. My neighbor friend said that snow days are suppose to be fun days. I liked the worksheets. While she did her homework, I did mine. And by homework I mean of course housework. I have much organizing to do around here! 

Tomorrow mom in law is going to take the kid swimming. Maybe I can stay home and re-organize the corner I stole the coffee table now kid desk from. I need another cubby storage shelf thingy.

Bento lunch

Played some d3 and then when we got done, we being online friends as hubs had already gone to bed, went down to make hubs his lunch. Luckily I had checked earlier and found the bread had decided it wanted to be green, so I had rice cooking while I played. Cleaned the wok, got the oil going and mixed up five eggs, mirin, soy sauce, rice vinegar up, poured that into the now warm oil and fried up the eggs. I love frying eggs in the wok. Happy shhh sounds. Fills me with joy. Fried up some spam, turkey flavored this time. Don't judge, it's cheap, but yummmmmm. Separated half my rice so kiddo can have her plain rice, silly child does not know what she is missing out on by not eating my egg and ham rice! Then dumped the rice in and fried that up. Once it was looking all nice and golden brown I added soy sauce. Now, who hubs bought the soy sauce this time he did not buy it in the glass jar like I had gotten used to using, but I a plastic jug which I had no prior experience using to season with. So. Extra sauce. Stole some of the kids white rice to make it less soy saucey. She will live I saved too much for her anyway. Mixed it all up, though I can still see some lighter rice. Added in some mirin fishey sauce, and rice vinegar. Poured in the eggs and ham I had set aside from earlier. Chopped up the egg. Mixed it in. It looks great. Three containers later hubs has the choice of portion size, small, med, large. The small is not that much less than the medium, but the large is almost twice the medium. Oh well.

I might watch something I am now to wound up to sleep.

Snow day

We started off with a four day weekend, Friday was off was was Monday. Then Monday night the snow fell, and so school was closed today. Tomorrow school is also closed, but little to my kids knowledge, mom has been happily browsing education.com's various workbooks and work sheets and planing a curriculum to keep her off the computer and working on homework instead. Her hand writing is terrible, so I am mostly focused on ones that have writing involved. I also got some fun things to do like coloring and games and a maze. 

When the man gave kiddo his old computer I also had him haul up the coffe table we were using as a bench/ paperwork storage area upstairs to be her desk. So she has his computer to goof off on, though as yet she has not been able to get it started by herself. I am going to get some of the learning games from education.com on there so that she can play them as part of her homework. 

I have lots to do myself that I have been procrastinating, so my goal is to be productive tomorrow; re-organize the mess from the moving of the coffee table and keeping kiddo involved in homework. She will learn, the house will look better, and by the time hubs gets home she will be more than willing to do anything but homework 😁 sometimes I really do feel mean. My plan will be good for both of us.

Atlantis world review

The third and final book in the Atlantis gene series pulls all the threads together and wraps it up nicely. While there could be room for a follow up book, how does humanity adjust after so many changes, the ended does leave you with a good conclusion. No plot holes, nothing left hanging. 

I found the authors writing style to be very clean, both in language and in execution. Even though the books contain violence, it was not gorey in detail. 

I would read these again, and look forward to finding more from this author to read.

Distracted by Diablo 3

I was planning to finish reading Atlantis World today but last night got sucked completely into Diablo 3. Got help from a clan mate in the gaming mommies to get my witch doctor to 70 and 27 levels of paragon. Now I have been running around doing rift levels, which, for those who do not know, are like special bonus levels that grant special items. Hard to do sometimes depending on how hard you set it. The rewards are good though.

I will get back to my book though, I do want to finish it soon.

Atlantis plague

Finished reading "The Atlantis Gene" second in the series. Enjoyed it. The premise in this series starts out very similar to the Andy McDermot series, with an Atlantis gene being the stimulus to stopping a world wide epidemic. The two are quite differs in the cause of the disease and the reasons for its creation and dispersal. I won't go into specifics because both series we quite enjoyable and I encourage you to read them. 

There is adventure, some romance, plenty of intrege and a rush to save humanity. All in all an enjoyable read.

I have now started reading the third and final book in the series and will update when finished.

Re- vamping my blog

No one reads this, and that is okay. Last night as I settled into bed I realized that writing, in whatever form I do, really is just for me. If it helps someone else than great but really the point of writing is to get it out. To write here is, let out my fears and worries and hopes and dreams. If someone comes across this and it can help them than so much the better.

I read once from and author explaining the process of writing a book, that you need to write, every day even if it is not on your book, just getting the thoughts flowing can help you write your story. Write every day, and keep reading too.

Right now I am reading 'the Atlantis virus' second book following after the Atlantis gene. I am enjoying it on this winter day. Staying warm and reading while my aches yell at me that I really shouldn't be up and about. My knee in particular much prefers me staying in the warm bed. Amelia was jealous that I got to stay home; she loves staying home with me she asserted. Still, she must go to school so off she went even though the bus was late and flakes of snow were falling and melting, and home I went to burrow under blankets and read.

I do not blame her for her wish to stay home. It is cold out there, and being warm and cozy is much preferable. We're she to stay home however she would miss out on socialization and learning, and she is progressing so well at school. 

I have lost my phone. I heard it's alarms going off this morning but could not locate it. Hopefully no one will need me until the man comes home and he and I will find it.

I am going back to my book now. Tootles.