A Whole Bunch Of Nothing

My diamond on my engagement ring keeps snagging on things, and I'm afraid of losing it. I lost my original diamond when I was five months pregnant with Daughter 1. It killed me because I just knew that people would think I was some knocked-up, unwed teenage mother--never mind that I was thirty-years-old. So, I'm currently wearing my anniversary band, which I love, but it makes me feel like I'm being unfaithful to Brian. Like I'm advertising I'm not married, but I do celebrate anniversaries or something like that. Who knows why my brain operates the way it does.

I know! I know! My brain operates the way it does because I don't get enough sleep. I just don't. For reasons I'd rather not disclose and unfortunately have nothing to do with covert activities or state secrets, I'm waking up every night/morning at three and staying up for about a half hour. Then it takes me another half hour to go back to sleep. Then I wake up two hours later. I wish I could be a glamorous spy like Jammie Lee Curtis in True Lies. I already know how to do a strip tease. C'mon, CIA, gimme a chance!

I had lunch last week with two of my favorite bloggers, Stephanie of Hugs, Kisses and Snot and Sabine of Sabine of Suburbia. If y'all aren't reading them, you should be. They were both in the cast of Listen To Your Mother | Oklahoma City. You'll love their stories--and those stories go live tomorrow on YouTube! I've had a post-lunch, thank you message started to them but every time I get on Facebook to finish it and send it, someone else bongs a message to me and I get distracted. Y'all owe Stephanie and Sabine an apology for my tardiness.

This week, I dropped Daughter 1 off at another Summer STEM Academy. She's already having so much fun. It's just weird leaving your child in a college dorm. Just. Weird. There's no possible way that the baby who crawled out of her baby bed at eleven months is old enough to be left on a college campus. But, that's exactly where she is ... learning about food. Having a great time.  Instagramming pictures of her "second ever dorm room." Whatever, kid. Your room will always be in my house, you got it??!?

And finally, my cousins are coming today! Our moms are sisters. We grew up doing a lot of stuff together--trips to St. Louis, heckling our moms when they had a car wreck, you know stuff like that. I have a big chunk of my book Crazy On Board devoted to our antics. In fact, my own momma is currently reading the book and laughing as we speak. (It makes me feel weird when people read my book while I'm around.) I can only imagine that my mom is reading about the time my cousin Whitney and I busted a mob ring in St. Louis. We went to KFC afterwards. It was a big party. In honor of Courtney and Whitney being here, we're eating fried chicken. You only wish your cousins were as cool as mine are.

I'm hoping they let me dress them alike this week.

#OWFI14

Last weekend I was privileged to get to speak at the #OWFI14 conference, which was put together and run by my fabulous friend, The Resident Heretic, aka Denise; aka Christine; aka CD; aka Past President.

I had three presentations. Those are on slide share, and anyone can access them:

The Best Blog in the Blogosphere

Being Everywhere

Balance In Your Writing Life

If you are a writer or would like to be a writer or think you'd like to be a writer, I suggest you go to an OWFI conference. You'll meet cool people who are in the same stage in their writing career, and you'll find a mentor(s) who would love nothing more than to help you pursue your writing dreams.

Also, you can enter the writing contest and whether you win or not, you could get a really helpful (not to mention cool) critique back from the judge! I brought home awards in the categories of Feature Article (second place) and Picture Book (first place!). My picture book is actually sitting in the hands of my wonderful agent, Clelia Gore of Martin Literary. But, the most exciting new of it all was this: TMI Mom Getting Lucky was named 2014 Nonfiction book of the year!

My fabulous editor, Mari Farthing, spooned me!

I'd like to say that I took the day on Sunday to bask in the glory of the weekend. But, alas, there's no rest of the wicked. And on Sunday, my Boos, Julie, Misti and I put on a wicked groovy show. More about that later...