Just call me Sleeping Beauty. 9:30, last night, could no longer keep eyes open. Something's screwy here, that's just not natural.
Haven't been blogging, partly because Blogger's been down regularly this past week and partly because I'm jigggered if I know where the week's gone. Been sitting at the computer madly typing and sending stuff off, looking up intermittently to notice what a state the house is in and then turning straight back. Can't remember how many stories I've written but it's at least four this week, and I've subbed off ten pieces so far this month. Thankfully I keep a spreadsheet of what goes out or I wouldn't have a clue.
The rate of return on these things is rising nicely. The last big push some months ago gave a rate of one in ten. (Of having something accepted of getting some sort of placing in a competition). This morning I just heard from the “New Sun Rising” anthology for Japan and they've taken two of my three subs for that one, bringing the recent submissions strike-rate up to about one in five. Which is pretty damn good, by any standards – by MY standards it's insane. Have noticed, however, that one gets 'short story burnout' much more quickly than when typing out a novel... it's much more labour-intensive to produce 1k words of flash fiction 500 words long each than 1k words of novel narrative. Really must get away from this competition mania and get to EDITING, been putting it off for six years, it's truly time.
Face Painting of an Evening Play (Sophie got the gold medal for finishing dinner first)
Between this, there have been endless streams of kids trooping in and out of the house. Well that's a bit unfair, we just had Sophie and Ruby on Wednesday and Nieve on Thursday, but with one thing and another the only day we didn't do something after school was Monday. Plus Ruby and Sophie stayed to dinner so it was a little longer playdate than usual... they only left at about 7:30. Had a lovely time, ate stuff really nicely (I'd asked what they wanted and they all said Spaghetti and Meatballs! So spaghetti and meatballs it was – oh the culinary exertions). I was glad they stayed on longer because the Littles started out the date by being a bit over-excited and loud, but after a while calmed down nicely and the last few hours were markedly better than the first, which is always encouraging. Compared to that the Thursday play with Neive was so easy-peasy... I just hung around and did my ironing in the background. Oh, and the Littles had asked for 'carrot cake with pink icing' for treat time, and I didn't have any bananas for the usual recipe I had to look up a new one. This turned out to be a great find,and everyone loves it, so rather fortuitous. (Random internet search, first thing that popped up).
Yesterday was a beautiful blue day, as indeed it has been all week. We packed a lunch and went to Blackbutt for a few hours. All the usual stuff, plus we took the new tennis-on-a-pole scenario and they did tennis and soccer for a while. And we had sausage sandwiches but no kookaburras stole them (though they did look on rather closely).
Beady-eyed Birds, and bouncy tennis at Blackbutt
The new monitor lizards are feeling the chill: one of them's actually climbing into the heating element
Blue skies it may be but it's COLD these days. Ugh, SO wish we had moved by now, but what can one do. We go to bed with hot water bottles on a regular basis, and the Littles has two duvets and two blankets: she's going to be locating peas in her bead any day now. I sit and freeze all day in front of the screen, wrapped in blankets like a keyboard-bound Arctic explorer, shifting the hot water bottle from knees to feet and back to knees again.
Oh, and the landlord has said that no, they don't want a snake in the house so no pythons. Both the Non and I really would prefer a snake so it's a bit of a downer, but if there's a nice lizard available it's still a possibility: a beardie, blue-tongue or a shingleback. I'd got for the beardie myself because they're super-hardy and don't bite. Well, don't have killer jaws, put it that way. We'll see. Another reason to move.
(I think this was the 15th... at the farmer's market of a Sunday. Random pony rides.)
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