Too Much on the Brain

I'm trying really hard to finish my current WIP. I have another 20k words to go, but my concentration has been off lately, so it's been a challenge. On the positive side, a looming health issue for DH panned out well. He's fine - nuff said. Now that the health issue is resolved, there's DD's 15 year old attitude to cope with, not an easy task. I'm particularly worried now with the budget shortfall in Florida. Her school plans to cut a whopping 50 teachers next year - that's out of 200. Yes - they will be forced to lay off a quarter of their teachers! I've been writing letters to every politician I can, but I'm not hopeful. Her friends are mostly planning to bail from the public school system and go the private route, but that just isn't a viable option for us. For the life of me, I don't understand why our idiotic state legislators refuse to pass a higher tax on cigarettes and bottled water. I'd even go for the dreaded hike in the sales tax. Since this state relies on tourist tax dollars and tourism is down, we're severely short. I know some of my neighbors would shoot me for even suggesting this, but I'd even be okay with a state income tax, although I doubt it will ever happen.
Kids are our future and if we don't educate them properly, they will be dropouts. What do dropouts do? Many of them commit crimes and end up in our jails and prisons. Some others become burdens on the systems, adding to the social services rolls. What it comes down to is pay now, or pay later. Do we want our kids to reap the benefits of a good education and become productive members of society or do we want them to choke the life out of the future?

Thanks so much to the writers at Red Sage Revealed for a Premio Dardas Award! This award acknowledges the values that every blogger shows in his/her effort to transmit cultural, ethical, literary and personal values every day.
The rules to follow are:
1) Accept the award, then post it on your blog together with the name of the person that has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2) Pass the award to another 15(or however many you deem worthy) blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment. Remember to contact each of them to let them know they have been chosen for this award.The winners of our Premio Dardas ceremony, in no particular order, are:

Katie Reus for her blog about her journey as a writer.

Terry Odell for her blog, Terry's Place, where she showcases lessons on craft as
well as police procedure.

Bluechocolate Diaries where writer Chudney DeFreitas-Thomas discusses her
personal and writing life while chastising herself for not doing it more often;-)

Jax's Artistic Journey, author Jax Cassidy's informative blog about the many hats she wears.

Jenna's Romantic Notions for author Jenna Bayley-Burke announcements of contests, events and anything else to do with writing romance.

Writers Gone Wild where 3 romance authors hold contests and give great info to other authors and aspiring writers.

Americana

I interrupt this blog to share a couple moments of pure fun. My daughter and her friend love the rope swing near our house. They were having such a good time, I decided to capture it. As we walked the short distance home, we watched the space shuttle cross the sky with the backdrop a beautiful sunset. Sometimes, I love living in Florida, other times I don't. Can you guess which kind of day it was today?

Barbie's Office

I spent two days last week painting my office. I did it all myself, from moving most of the furniture (with a little help from DH) to set up, clean up, everything. Gone is the dingy sage green so past its prime. I picked out a lovely shade of dusty rose that looked absolutely perfect on the chip. Well, let me tell you - it's worth investing in those $3.99 sample bottles of paint. Rather than dusty rose, the paint dried to a cotton candy pink that would make a lovely color for clothing. (I love pink and actually have jeans, a jacket and many shirts this color). But it's not what I'd envisioned for my office. What it is, however, is clean and fresh. And it looks great with my green accessories.

So, what do you think? I will say, that part of my Barbie collection does seem very much at home now - more than before, particularly Wedgewood Barbie, my fave. Now - will it help the creative process? I'll get back to you on that.

Tweet Tweet

Okay, so I jumped on the bandwagon. I joined Twitter to see what all the fuss is about. But honestly, I'm still not sure. It's hard to figure out what people are responding to when they post things sometimes and I'm not totally sure if it's a good networking tool or yet another site to waste large chunks of time. I'll let you know when I figure it out. Hint: I've spent like an hour and a half of my writing time finding people I know and reading posts.
However, I did get in my word count goal today, which is more than I can say for the last couple of weeks. My folks just left after their yearly snowbird stay of 6 weeks. I didn't write as much as I should have during their visit, but I got in loads of daughter points;-)
In other news, Girl Scout cookie season is over - thank goodness! Between the parental visit (AKA food fest) and GS cookie hell, I gained like 5 pounds!! I'm off to the gym tomorrow morning for a double time workout, rather than my usual one.
So what's new in your world? Are you twittering yet?