She Swallowed the Cat to Catch the Bird

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter Sunday or a lovely regular Sunday, which ever you prefer.

Today the sun is shining! OMG! I KNOW! (See this post.) And I am, of course, outside enjoying every minute of it. I bought myself some pink hyacinth the other day and finally had a nice enough day to plant it outside in my flowerbed.

I haven't worked in those beds for a full year and they needed some dirt. Dirt is in the garden shed. Garden shed is always full of spiders in the spring. I braced myself for this as I unlocked the door. Snakes, rodents, I can handle any of them. But spiders? My brain completely cuts off and I go in to freak-out mode. I have been known to slap myself pink if there is a spider on me.

*Pulled open the door*

Spiders scattered everywhere! Well, okay, like three of them crawled away. And I bent over to grab a big bag of dirt and I see the mess. Rats have moved in to my garden shed.

If you've followed my blog (or twitter of facebook even) you know I have these in my house.

And they are completely spoiled and I love them very much. But you can see even from this photo that they like to make messes. They love to dig and rip things apart, like newspaper and fabrics and wood. The unwelcome rats in the garden shed dug into two 50lbs bags of garden soil, and shredded countless unused trash bags, pulling the pieces inside my bags of dirt. And they also ate holes in the back wall and the floor.

I had a "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" moment, wondering if I could rent a snake to chase the rats away. Somehow I doubt a pet store would let me rent a snake. I can't kill them (see above picture) but how do I get rid of them? I'm going to try some "Critter Ridder" which is basically black pepper. Squirrels cant stand the smell of it, so maybe it'll work on these guys too. If not, I'll try peppermint oil.

And now I'm rambling.

In other news! My Scribe Sisters and I will be hosting a fabulous contest over at our blog, www.sistersinscribe.com to celebrate hitting 500 fabulous followers! We'll have something awesome for writers, but also some great YA reads for you readers that follow us. Details to come at the SIS blog. You will have to be a followers there to enter. :)

It's Not Procrastination!

I swear it's not!

When I get stumped in a project, or just need to get back in touch with my characters, I turn to music and www.weheartit.com

If you haven't wasted spent some time browsing the collection of images there, you totally should! I've found so many that are PERFECT representation for my wip. Like this one, for example:

That is so completely Jack and Charlie! Really, this post was an excuse for me to share that picture with you. The downside is that I have no idea who the owner is. Is it yours? :D

What's your favorite procrastination inspiration exercise?

Sweet Summertime

Summer seriously needs to move its arse over to NYC. It's cold. It's wet. And squirrels are claiming the nuts they buried in my flowerbed. Thankfully, I have not yet planted my petunias.

I've been listening to a lot of summery songs lately on my music player--mainly country music because I'm cool like that--to help me get into the spirit. Maybe I can coax Summer my way by thinking about her. She's a vain one, that Summer.

Last year my family and I went camping with my folks over in Pennsylvania, my home state. We spent the day at a nearby amusement park--ferris wheels are WAY less fun than I remember--our evenings sitting around a campfire toasting marshmallows, and somewhere in between we caught crawfish in the river. We are proud country folk. It was heavenly. And I want to do it again, but it feels like that warm weather is never coming back! Melodramatic, I know. We had a nice day last week, sunny and close to 80 degrees, but it was just a tease. Summer, you tease.

Has summer weather graced your state with her golden, glowing, t-shirt-wearing presence? So jealous.

Sisters in Scribe

We've changed our web address over at Sisters in Scribe, and can now be found at www.sistersinscribe.com! If you're following us at our old address, don't worry. You don't need to do anything. ;)

And if your not following us, well get to it! We're planning a 500 followers celebration and we're only TWO away from our goal!