My Life

If you haven’t been tuning in to a legitimate news source, there is bigger news out there than the thing I keep seeing on the covers of the grocery store magazines [something about Jon and Kate and some kids]. The people of Iran are demonstrating in the streets in the largest numbers since the Islamic Revolution. This time they are standing for freedom and the right to free and fair elections, as opposed to this country where some of us riot when our team wins a basketball game.

It is an exciting and dangerous time over there and I wish the demonstrators success and safety.

For some good pics of this and many other news items that don’t deal with pseudo-celebs try the Boston Globe’s Big Picture

This weekend we went camping. If you want pics you should check out Melynda’s Blog. She may or may not have time to post them in the next couple of weeks.

Saturday was a pretty good day, dawning clear and cool. We packed up the kids and headed over to Ennis to see Mummo(sp?). Anders wandered around and played in the dirt pile while Finn and the rest of us played in the Big House. Finn even deigned to let Mummo hold him without crying. In fact, he kinda enjoyed it. This is new for him. Usually, its mommy or nothin’.

After a bountiful lunch prepared by Mummo, we spied the rain clouds moving in to our south. We spit in the face of rain and headed south anyway to Cliff and Wade lakes.

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None of us had been there before and it was a really nice surprise. These two relatively large lakes nestled into the hills. As we arrived it started to rain, not unexpectedly. Finn was still asleep and Anders was itching to get out, until he got out and realized how many mosquitoes there were.

This, we had not counted on. What we had counted on was using Melynda’s new tent that she got from Kelty[Basecamp Green River 6]. This thing was meant for this kind of car camping and is pretty heavy. I began to set it up while she got Finn ready for rain and made sure the dogs didn’t run off to steal picnic baskets. I pulled out a huge piece of material and assumed it was the tent only to realize it was the fly (actually I think Melynda pointed it out.) We took out the huge poles and got the tent up despite spitting rain and hungry mosquitoes. When it was finally up and we could step inside, it was shock to be able to stand up inside without touching my head. This thing is bigger than my truck. Seriously. Its immense. The kids loved it because they could run around inside and jump onto the sleeping bags. That’s why we loved it too. It also had a techy venting system and a vestibule big enough for a small tea party (not the political kind).

To spare you the math, that’s 9ft by 13.5ft or 121 sqr feet. That is bigger than my office.

The next day we took a two mile hike trying to outrun mosquitoes and keep Rigby out of campsites. [in his defense, these sites were not bear safe] Poor Diesel still has a bare patch on his rump from surgery and got pretty chewed up. He had a stick so he was happy though. Then we came home stopping at the Grizzly Discovery center in W. Yellowstone and drive through the park in which Anders talked the whole way. All in all a pretty good weekend. Hope yours was too.

I’ve been avoiding this blog b/c Its a pain to upload the pictures and b/c Melynda’s blog is so much better and consistent. But then, while some fly tying patterns were rendering I read half of a New York Time’s article about the high failure rate of blogs (there may be more to it but I haven’t gotten that far yet). Anyhoo, I thought, hey, I don’t want to be one of the lazy people so I’m writing this post and leaving pics for another time.

Today, it snowed and rained so we decided to go for a hike up Pine Creek. As it turned out, it was incredibly beautiful and I had one of those moments when I think “Wow, I’m so glad I moved here". There was snow and rain and mist all mixed in with spring greenery. The trail had straight sections which gave a nice perspective into the trees and made me wish I had a nice camera along. We got to the falls and had a snack and the snow mixed with the mist of the falls with evergreens as a backdrop and it was just incredible. Anders had his oversized rain shell and rain boots on and he and I stood in the water at the base of the falls and then I took Finn over and he watched raptly for a few minutes before squirming back in the direction of Melynda. All in all is was pretty cool. The dogs loved it and everyone was happy until the hike back when Anders decided he would rather be inside and started the lamentations.

Now we have some mixed sun in town and little people are napping. I’m posting though, b/c I’m not lazy. Now back to that article.

A Good friend of mine has her first mystery novel out. She’s made it to the quarterfinals of Amazon’s breakthrough novel award and needs your help, or at least your attention. See her email below:

Hi!
…
So….about a month and a half ago, on a super-late night whim, I entered my debut novel Others May Die in Amazon.com’s Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Others May Die is a thriller about a girl and her search dog who get embroiled in the hunt for a serial killer. And this week I got an email telling me that out of thousands of entries, I made the quarterfinals! Well, 500 novels made the quarterfinals, but a girl can dream, right? Or, better yet, she can throw her dignity out the window and send an email plea for help.

After the shock (and corresponding dizziness and slight nausea) wore off, I had to go back and read the contest rules to figure out what comes next. And that’s where you come in. You can download an excerpt of my book for free by going to this link on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG3CPS (the button to download is on the right of the screen)

And then, if you think it’s wonderful (and if you have ever ordered anything on Amazon and have a customer account with them), you can RATE my excerpt and give it a review. The more positive reviews and ratings I get, the better my chance to make it to the semifinals. I think the deadline is April 15th – and don’t forget how time flies!

So imagine me pleading, cajoling, begging (and typing, all at the same time!) and take pity and help me. It’s a fun story (um, in a serial killer kind of way) and I believe it’s good enough to deserve a shot. Feel free to forward this to everyone you’ve ever met, and even people you haven’t. Post it to your blog, post this to your friend’s blog! Facebook and Twitter away! A friend has even created an iPhone app about me, so really there’s no escape.

Of course, please email me if you have any questions.

And (just to get a bit mushy) THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Regards,

Sarah Smith Chapman

www.sarahchapmanbooks.com

I’ve read the excerpt myself and really liked it. Hope you can take the time to do the same.
Thanks

The compression takes away a lot and the lighting was tough (when isn’t it), but it was a paid gig and my first “celebrity". The Author and his family were quite nice and very accomodating.
Random House Christopher Paolini Holiday Greeting