Six-month olds:

• laugh at your jokes simply for the joy of laughing with you
• make you feel both young and old at the same time
• let you know exactly how they are feeling
• have no fear (of putting anything in their mouth)
• eat when hungry, sleep when sleepy, play while energetic, and smile while happy
• make the most wonderful and horrible faces

Month in Review:

• Finished the last third of Jumper: Griffin’s Story
• Critiqued 12,000 words for my writing critique group
• My baby got an ear infection
• Read The Lightning Thief
• Lost 8 days of my life to a sinus infection
• Spent one weekend gathering letters of recommendation (thank you for the contributors) and writing essays for a grad school application
• Critiqued 92,000 words for an anthology project
• Didn’t get a chance to write anything fictional

Over this last month I have learned that:

• I don’t like it when my baby has an ear infection
• Babies become, um, explosive when antibiotics are involved
• Sinus infections are awful
• Critiquing 104,000 words in one month is a large amount, and trying to get a group of people to critique that much is stressful
• It is difficult to get letters of reference and transcripts in a timely fashion
• I miss writing when I don’t get to do it

• Babies take a lot of patience… and I don’t know where they put it.  I’m still trying to find mine.
• If it were only possible to speak after you thought something through, some people wouldn’t talk at all.
• Practice makes perfect, but some people need more practice than others.
• It is easier to succeed if you focus on the goal rather than the distance.
• Stress takes a large, physical toll on the body.

• Everyone needs to take a break – even from their breaks
• A sleeping baby is a good baby
• A smart stray cat is an evil stray cat
• Our perception of the magnitude of problems is proportional to the percentage of sleep we have missed
• It is impossible to write while the Backyardigans is on my TV
• Good friends stay close, even when they are far away

• It is hard to work while others play
• Sometimes a rejection letter isn’t a bad thing
• There’s never a camera available to capture the best moments
• Double check your equipment
• The speed of the clock arm is inversely proportional to the number of times you look at it
• A phrase by Ellen DeGeneres that can really come back to bite you: “Procrastinate today, don’t put it off until tomorrow!”
• Just because I know it doesn’t mean I always get it right (no matter how much I wish it did)
• Babies’ two-month birthdays are not very nice

• From pressure can come productivity.
• Patience and perseverance are close neighbors.
• There is such a thing as too much description.
• Aways have an proff readder too catch thee little mis-takes;
• Indigent does not always refer to need of money.
• Readers can see more than what was intended, and sometimes that is a good thing.
• It is difficult to get people to comment on my blog.
• Babies take a lot of time.
• Sometimes silence is the hardest lie of them all.

I meant to write this section earlier but Donovan has altered my timelines.  I also meant for this to be specifically about writing, but Donovan…  Anyhow, here are things I have learned this month:

• Some of the best things come in small packages (babies, visits, premade meals, and unexpected moments of silence)
• A quiet place is a luxury, not a necessity (in-laws are over – huge help, very noisy – but I did get to read and am going to try writing)
• I still need to work on “who” instead of “that” when speaking/writing of about people (man, I just keep saying, “Thanks to those that…”)
• Jump ahead on projects because time can escape without you, especially when you get those small packages (for a year I have wanted an anthology, for six months I have been prodding people to try and make one happen, now that I have them geared up, I’m behind on the deadlines – I might miss out on an anthology project that was my idea)
• Personal space? (babies, in-laws, close friends, and writing critiques)
• The most active in their pursuit of a dream have the best chance at achieving it (C. Michael Fontes is making worlds of opportunity for himself – I wish the world for him)