Partner in Crime Position Filled by Mr. Kerrie on July 20, 1995

Almost 20 years later, Mr. Kerrie is still on the job. I don't need anyone else. Position filled! (except his morals are about 99% spot-on and I'm pretty happy about that one!)

One Crazy Week At My House: Funeral, New Van, Sick, Podcast

A fellow writer just wrote me asking when I might have my print version of Make Money to Write About Your Kids in the print version because she would buy it in a second. I wrote her back that a lot has come up and that I would not bore her with the details of my life. I will bore you instead because, dang, I gotta vent!

When you are the middle of chaos, you just keep moving. It's like when you're in the middle of childbirth and you have no choice but to keep going. There is no AROUND THE PAIN, there is only THROUGH the pain. You signed up for this and you gotta deal with this. Yep, that's my life in a nutshell. And most of the time I can laugh at it and stay relatively cool. Sometimes I need my lavender oil to chill and sometimes I need my newly discovered friend MOSCATO. Did I say "need"? No, that's not what I meant! Moving on.

So my grandfather died. My mom's dad. We were not super close but it was still a very sad event. It was a visitation and a funeral on a 10-degree day. It was my husband putting off a business trip to be a pallbearer. It was my 13-year-old son being a pallbearer as well. It was surreal. I feel guilty that I am excited for my grandma and mentally challenged aunt to move to my town instead of 1.5 hours away. I will miss their country home. I will miss my grandpa.

this is where i inappropriately (can i do things any other way?) put in a plug for teefey's flowers in kansas city

The very next day we bought a van. A MAJOR purchase. A 12-passenger van. Yes, I dream of a Mustang someday but for the last year I have been dreaming of THIS beauty! This also meant a weird kind of stress called Trying to Fit the Van Into the Garage and Learning How to Back it Out Without Causing Damage. (this is where I put in the plug for Olathe Ford Lincoln in Kansas City ... John Kennedy rocks and Matt the finance guy was super cool)

someday ... a car to run errands in and only 3 kids can fit

the big rig

the kids were angels at the dealership for hours

and they love the space!

Saturday was the end-of-month rush in my businesses (Younique and Jamberry). It's nice to have those to fall back on when I have a large van payment coming up!

During all this, I was sick with a cold. It sure did not keep me in bed, though.

Today my podcast interview about my ebook (see above and click the link to the left if you are dying to hear my voice) went live and my dad heard it and told me he was proud of me. I told my daughter how, even at the age of 43, that makes me so happy to hear when my parents are proud of me. So wonderful.

My husband is now traveling for work and I am here dealing with a zillion kid-related and work-related things and missing my daily hugs and snuggles and kisses from Mr. Kerrie. The coming week is almost just as insane, and I thank you for taking the time to read my little vent. It's not griping when I'm happy to be busy, happy to be living in chaos, happy to be living the life my husband and I always wanted to live. We are having so much fun with this life and I am so grateful for everyone and everything in it.

yay for the new camera for v-day from mr. kerrie! he knows what i like!

Catch you on the next post!

The Big News At My House Right Now!!!

No, I am not pregnant. Let's just get that out of the way.

But I did kinda give birth, in my own little writer world. I got the 6th edition of my ebook of parenting and family writing markets and helps uploaded to Amazon.com as the Kindle edition. It feels good to have it done! Here's the info about it here.

I found about 50 new markets and got rid of the ones that had folded or were not reliable for paying. The ebook still includes regional parenting magazine information for publications like San Diego Family, Kansas City Parent, Houston Family, Pittsburgh Parent and a ton more. It also has publications like all the Cricket Magazine Group publications (Spider, Ladybug, etc.), homeschooling publications and other nationals like Working Mother, Parents, FamilyFun and so many more. There are also online opportunities like Babble.com, The Dabbling Mum, blogging for Brain, Child and so on!

As a lot of you know, I have been writing for magazines since about 2006 and in 2009 put together the first edition of this ebook to help others do the same. I'm happy people still use it to get published, and I have been in over 140 publications and am getting ready to add more in March! In fact, the bigger news is that I'm working on getting it into a print version. It will be a fabulous reference book for those wanting to get published in magazines, complete with guidelines, websites and email addresses. There is even a table at the back of both versions with all 285 market names with email addresses.

Tell your writer friends, please, and leave me a review on Amazon, please!