I got one of those ridiculous upside down tomato planters. It's kind of ugly. May move it to the back and get another hanging basket. But I planted that and the impatien and a ___ and realized I'd reached the poor decision making side of hunger :a few strawberries and a bite of someone else's muffin are not sufficient fuel for a day involving market, 3 mile walk, 1.5 mile swim and gardening. So inhaled an empanada and I'm too tired to make salad so I'm eating spinach from the bag and strawberries.

I've got dirt and glitter everywhere (discovered the bottle of soap I took to the pool is glittery. )

I'm grilling lamb chops for dinner. I made a quickie marinade of olive oil, fresh, minced garlic, salt, pepper and white vinegar and tossed in a bag with the chops.

They are on the grill with some sliced zucchini and red potatoes with purple onions.

Dirt and glitter--IMO, that shows a well-rounded individual.

We bought a new gas grill which is J's birthday present (and a mighty big present it is, too!). We have a gas hook-up outside already, so it seemed a shame not to use it. Grilling outside may help us with our summer habit of having sandwiches or salads almost every night for dinner, as it always seems too dang hot to cook in the kitchen. And unlike our ancient charcoal grill, you don't have to prep things for an hour beforehand.

It's this: [link]

Also, I'll be interviewing him by email so if you have any Cheech and Chong questions let me know.

Can you ask how many takes their scenes opposite Roy Dotrice in The Corsican Brothers took before they could get their lines out with a straight face?

I get Bad Parent Demerits. It's hovering just about 50 and I only made it through 45 minutes of Ben's first baseball game before coming home.

That's OK Amy, my mom never attended more than one night of my theatrical performances (all the other parents came every night), but I am just fine!

Also, I have a round about thank you to msbelle-- who introduced me to the SImple Dollar. Hx some I like. e often annoys me because he is prescriptive, but ultimately, he has good advice. He often talks about starting hobbies with the simplest possible tools to see if you like them. Well, I have been thinking about how much I loved drawing and painting as a child, especially how I loved to draw mountains and color them in with various colors. I had shades of blue moutains, and brown mountains and green mountains, and even red mountains. Because I love playing with color. So I was thinking I could do that again, but maybe with paint. And I looked at all these art supplies and found myself wanting all sorts of fancy stuff that was expensive. And then I said, self, you know what I have laying around... cardboard boxes. So why don't I paint on cardboard boxes? And you know what else I love... colors, so why don't I just try and mix them, because it will be fun! So now I am just going to buy gesso to coat the cardboard, and the primary colors, plus black and white, and see what I can get. That will be less than $20 to see if I enjoy it! So thank you msbelle!

Sophia, you made my day brighter.

I packed 5 boxes today. Had chicken and slaw for dinner, spaghetti and red sauce for mac. We are half-way through with the hummingbird cake, I've got my eye on a cherry cheescake-like thing to make next. Maybe will do that tomorrow night. Over/under on mac taking his bath tonight?

Olivia can now sing the opening bars to "Iron Man." She has the beat perfectly. I think the things that make me proud are definitely different.

Sophia, if you can find scrap wood around, it's also a great material to use for painting!

Well... just made my reservations for the SCBWI conference in LA in late July. Conference is being held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, so that's also where I'm staying. I'm coming in on the 29th and leaving early on the 3rd.

So excited! Haven't been to LA in SO long.

I was up stupidly late writing, slept stupidly late, but still managed to do three loads of laundry, a load of dishes, cleaned, lifted weights, and sorted through an epic amount of paperwork I found hiding under the bed. All while burning through shows backlogged on my TiVo.

Now I just need to clean the bathroom and shred a new pile of paperwork. And write a hell of a lot more.