The Horrifying Oatmeal Monster

/ Shane / 2 Comments

This morning Evie was helping me make oatmeal for breakfast. She was standing on a chair next to the stove, getting ready to put the oatmeal into the boiling milk.

Being the excellent chef that I am, I saw that the milk was just about to boil over. I picked up the pot to get it off the heat, hoping that it would settle before boiling over. It didn’t, and instead it came bubbling over the sides from the height of about my head, hissing against the hot stove and extinguishing the flame.

I don’t know if it was the sound, the unexpectedness, or the thought of ruining the oatmeal, but Evie completely lost her mind. She threw her hands up in the air and screamed at the top of her lungs, like a kid in a movie.

By the time I had set the pot down she was running full speed down the hall, screaming her lungs out. I ran after her saying, “itsokayitsokayitsokay” but she was gone. Sara came sprinting out of the bedroom thinking, “Forsooth, my daughter has suffered a mortal blow!” As I ran by the bedroom I could see by her face that the amazing racket Evie was sending up had made her think Evie was seriously hurt, so I tried to reassure her that “itsokay”, but I’m not sure if I was successful or not.

I finally got a hold of Evie and calmed her down and returned the house to some semblance of order. I never was able to ascertain what had frightened her so badly, but I have never seen her so afraid, or heard her scream so loud and for so long.

I can only assume she is terrified of the Quaker Oats man.

Quote Monday, back with a vengeance

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie: “I heard a clip-cloping in the hallway…I think it was a dinosaur!”

We’ve been having some difficulty lately with Evie and her L’s. Like any kid her age, she pronounces them like a W. This can lead to some confusion:

Evie: “I have wemon pee pee.”
Sara: “Women pee pee?”
Evie: “Wemon. It’s yewow.”

Me: “We have to wash your face, it’s all messy.”
Evie: “Why?”
Me: “Well, you were in the dirt and you were eating smores and doggies were giving you smooches.”
Evie: “They wicked it.”
Me: “What? Wicked it?”
Evie: “Wick. Wicked it.”
Me: “…wicked it?”
Evie, patiently: “With an ‘L’.”

She’ll probably be able to spell it before she can pronounce it!

The Big Trip, Part III – The Rest of the Story

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Finally, vacation was at an end, and it was time to go home. It was going to be a pretty long trip, so we decided to stop and go to a u-pick fruit place and get some raspberries.

The whole thing was sort of a disaster, from start to finish. It was really, really hot and the kids were tired and in a bad mood. We were there later in the day and the raspberries were pretty picked over, so it was tough to get many berries. Eventually, Sara took Evie over to pick peaches and I just tried to amass as many raspberries as I possibly could in a short time. We ended up getting a decent amount of raspberries, some peaches, and a big bucket of cherries, pre-picked and pre-pitted.

Later that night, after we were home and the kids were in bed, Sara and I made a big batch of raspberry freezer jam. Our strawberry freezer jam was quite delicious, so we have high hopes for the raspberry variety. It was actually quite simple to do.

This was followed the next night by a big batch of (sort of) cherry pie filling, with the fresh cherries. Our previous canning experience had been very successful and had left us with a lot of confidence and a lot of canning supplies. This time was no different, everything went smashingly. So we’re looking forward to our next canning experience as well as the delicious cherry deserts in our future.

In terms of what I was up to while the family was gone, it wasn’t all fun and games. Usually when something like this happens, I get excited thinking about all the free time I’m going to have. By the time it gets here, I have a big list of things to do, and I end up being busier than I usually am. So I said to myself, “I’m going to get all of this stuff done early in the week, so I can relax at the end of the week. The problem was, Sara called and updated the list midweek!

Sara: “I thought of some other things you could add to the list!”
Me: “I wasn’t really looking for more things…”
Sara: “I know, but it’s just stuff that we never have time to do.”
Me: “You know what else I never have time to do? Relax!”

The exciting thing about not having Sara there is eating all the things I don’t normally get to eat. In this case, that meant venison burgers and ham and noodles. Ham and noodles is one of my all time favorite meals, and is simply fried ham with slightly crunchy fried noodles. It was so good, I ate it twice.

There were two stories that I didn’t manage to fit anywhere else in these blog posts, so I am including them here:

  1. After I dropped the family off in Michigan and was driving back to Chicago, I ran into one of the worst rain storms I’ve ever seen in my life. I couldn’t see anything except the tail lights in front of me. That was all fine and well until about 5 cars in front of me simultaneously pulled over to the side of the road. After that I couldn’t see anything at all, so I pulled over as well. It was raining so hard (just rain, no wind) that even parked I couldn’t see out of my windshield. After sitting for 20 minutes or so, I decided to keep going. Just to occupy myself, I started counting the number of cars pulled over on the side of the road, waiting it out. I passed 52 cars! I can only imagine how many were pulled over at the height of the storm. Basically, the entire highway was shut down.
  2. When I was loading the car, I put the suitcases in the trunk and then went back for another load, leaving the trunk open. When I came back, I discovered that a bird had pooped into the trunk and onto the suitcases. Thanks a lot, universe.

The Long Short Story

/ Shane / Leave a comment

I have a story that weighs in at about 12,700 words, and I am really having some trouble finding a home for it.

There are a lot of venues that take long stories in certain genres, such as literary, high fantasy or straight up science fiction magazines. However, I would classify this particular story as horror or dark fantasy, and these are apparently genres that are not very friendly to novelettes.

After sending it to a small handful of pro markets who accept longer pieces, I’m looking at token payment or “for the love” (i.e. non-paying) markets to find someone who will entertain the length. The thing is, I think this is one of my stronger stories, and I’m not ready for it to sink all the way down to token or no payment already! For some genres, like short science fiction, there are so many pro and semi-pro markets, that even my very first stories are circulating at high pay magazines. Stories that I don’t consider as good as this particular story.

So what do I do? I’m not completely sure yet. I’d hate to trunk a story after just a few submissions. On the other hand, I’d hate to sell the story for little or nothing if it never really got a fair shake at a higher pay rate.

In the meantime, I’m trying to be a little more inventive in my searches, looking for outside-the-box markets that I don’t normally submit to. For example, literary magazines that aren’t specifically genre magazines. I feel like this makes the most sense in this case, and is also the advice I would probably get from long selling pros. I might be at a disadvantage being that they might not look favorably on genre stories, but on the other hand, my genre story might be the only one in the slush, and might be a welcome change of pace.

You never know if you never try. I know for sure I won’t sell it if I stop sending it out.

The Big Trip, Part II – 4th of July, Now with More Daddy!

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Finally, I came up to meet everyone in Michigan on Friday. I didn’t arrive until after Evie was in bed, so I think she was a little surprised to see me sleeping next to her when she woke up in the morning! (Even though she was told I would be there)

We were staying with Sara’s cousins and Evie had a blast there. By the end Evie was begging to “stay here forever and ever” and even offered to stay there without us. She particularly liked playing with 2nd cousins Kaycee and later Randi (and all of their old toys).

The one part she didn’t like about the whole thing was their dogs. It was kind of funny because they were three tiny long haired dachshunds, much, much smaller than Evie. Even still, she did NOT like them licking her or really being around her at all. She demanded to be picked up and carried any time they came close to her at all. She would say things to them which really cracked me up like, “calm down boys, shhh! shhh!” She also described one of the dogs as “sitting solemnly”. Anyway, this isn’t a Mouth of Babes post, so I won’t get side tracked.

Some of the other highlights:

  • Watching the Little Mermaid – She loves all of the songs, but as soon as the movie started she got very nervous about seeing the sea witch. She started yelling, “Turn it off! Turn it off!” and then eventually just ran away screaming, “I’m going upstairs!” So we ended up just watching a few scenes to see the songs. She did like that though, at one point she said with wonder, “I’m hearing it with my ears and I’m seeing it with my eyes!”
  • Going swimming, and cooking hot dogs and smores – she was quite the daredevil in the pool; she kept asking me to let go of her so she could swim by herself.
  • Playing in the tree house with Kaycee and making Bean Pudding – There was real, actual food in there to play with. Evie was a little confused if we were just playing, or if we were really going to eat the food. Bean Pudding is mostly cold, uncooked beans, crushed up chicken-in-a-biscuit crackers, cut up apples, and a lot of seasoning including lemon zest, pepper, and Louisiana hot sauce.
  • Laying in a hammock for the first time

For the 4th of July, we went to Sara’s Aunt and Uncle’s house, which is on a lake. It was a really hot day, but there was a breeze and it wasn’t too bad in the shade. Good food, family, swimming, boat rides (we didn’t do any tubing)…basically, everything the 4th of July is for!

Once again Evie was very adventurous with the swimming. My favorite part of the whole week was seeing her jump in the water from the dock. (She was wearing a life jacket) When she was standing on the edge, I think my heart was pounding faster than hers! Ultimately she cried and didn’t like it much, because the water went in her ears. I’m sure this was quite a surprise, because on the 3 or 4 practice jumps, Uncle Ben held her and her head didn’t go under.

I think her favorite part was the boat rides. Orlan even let her drive! She liked sitting in the very front of the boat, where it goes up out of the water, with the wind blowing her hair.

She also enjoyed playing with her 2nd cousins Justin and Trevor. I was very impressed that they seemed to enjoy her company. I figured a couple of boys their age wouldn’t want to hang out with a “baby” but they actually seemed to enjoy playing with her (this was mostly the next day at Lisa and Orlan’s, though they did interact a little bit at the lake).

Oliver again enjoyed the great outdoors. He was somehow the only one not to get a little “color” from the sun. He enjoyed rocking in the porch swing and laying on a blanket looking up at the trees. He was a little young for the boat and we didn’t take him swimming. I think pretty much everybody got a chance to hold him.

Unfortunately, the kids had to be in bed pretty early, so we didn’t catch any fireworks or anything. Maybe someday. I’m hopeful, because I really like fireworks!

So, it was a great trip, a great 4th, and a great vacation overall. Evie had a lot of fun. She will be talking about it for a long, long time.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion!