Baby's room is (mostly) finally done!

So here's Hunter's room! Took me weeks to get those darn trees finished, but...ta-daaaa!  There's still some little things to get done; new lampshades, buy a curtain, get new comforter set for the bed, some artwork for the walls that don't have trees, maybe a rug, but the hard part is over! Huzzah!  Now I can get to work on his baby blanket, which will be a green similar to the green on his walls, a Dallas-Cowboys blue, and a middle-shade or gray.

My baby shower is also on Sunday, which I'm getting excited about. Yay, presents, lol!! :D

We also bought a new (to us) car last weekend, so THAT'S out of the way. Our current car has been great, but it doesn't have an air conditioner, and you can't have a baby in a car sans A/C here in Texas.  Hopefully I'll be able to sell the old car for not too much less than we spent on the new one, and we can use that money to cover the bills while I'm off work after the baby's born.

Baby's room & my 9th anniversary!

This is wall #1 of the baby's room, finally finished after like a month (well, aside from all the touch-ups it needs, which you mercifully can't see in the picture).  But being pregnant and standing up on a stepladder with a can of paint in one hand for extended amounts of time don't mix so well, so I've been taking my time with it.  On the opposite wall, I'm going to do one more tree, a big one up the middle of the wall, and then I'll be done! Well, you know, aside from having the carpets cleaned, hanging curtains, etc., and getting all the furniture put where it needs to go, lol.

 Also, today is our 9th wedding anniversary! I can't believe it's been so long, but in a way, it feels like it hasn't been that long at all.  I love you so much, David! It's been the best 9 years ever, and I can't wait for many more happy years to come. You're the best husband in the world, and you'll be the best Daddy in the world very soon!

LOVE YOU!!!

Indie book promo!!

A friend/coworker of mine--who is also a pastor--recently published his very first non-fiction ebook on scribd! Huzzah!

It's called:

"Near Miss--A Supernatural Experience" by Don Dakin. 

"Sometimes we need a story to remind us of the greatness of God and the miracles He can deliver. Near Miss is one of those stories."

Check out the first 9 pages for free here, and if you like what you see, you can buy the rest and support a brand spankin' new indie author for only $2.

Congrats, Don, and may you enjoy the success we other aspiring authors hope to achieve ourselves one day!! :)
 

New baby pictures!

Yay, new baby pictures! He looks like a real baby now, not so much like an alien anymore, lol!  You can even see his little nose!  And the foot picture tickled me so I had to put that up. :D

Everything's going good, according to the doctor. All his organs are good, and he weighs 15 ounces.

Now on to the baby shower, which my mother-in-law has been busy planning, lol. 

IT'S A BOY!!!

Say "hello" to Hunter Joel Regalado! Currently 17 weeks and 3 days "old," lol.  Still due February 11, 2013; at least as far as we know!  We're so excited!  :D :D :D

First baby pictures!!

Our every first baby pictures!  Yaaaay!!  Our sonographer said he/she was "cute," so our baby has officially been complimented already, lol.  It was so cool!!  We could even see him/her wiggling around and everything, which the sonographer said was pretty rare to see this early (I am 9 weeks along today!).  So I guess that means he/she will be hyper, lol. 

It was such a cool experience!! My husband teared up (we knew he would; he's such a softie!).

I have to go buy a baby book soon...

Arguing with my embryo

Embryo:  I have decided that sleep is for chumps, and I won't have a chump for a mother. You're welcome.

Me:  What do you know?  You're the size of a jelly bean.  Go. To. Sleep.

Embryo:  Um, no. Also, I rather enjoy this peeing thing, so you'll be doing that more often. Probably instead of sleeping.

Me:  You know, you're not too small for me to come in there and spank you.

Embryo:  Is that SASS I hear?  Are you SASSING me?  Just for that, beef is going to smell like hot garbage and week-old roadkill for at least the next week and a half.

Me:  Don't test me. If you're old enough argue with me, then maybe you don't need those stinky prenatal vitamins that give me the fish burps for three hours anymore.

Embryo:  Hey, if you want a half-retarded baby, that's on you.

Me:  If you're going to keep me up anyway, then maybe I'll take up drinking coffee and tequila. I bet you'll fall asleep if you're drunk.

Embryo:  Guess what?  You're going to crave cat food at some point during your pregnancy. I'm not going to say when or for how long, but it's happening.  Brace yourself.  Also, I'm going to love Dad the most. 

Me:  This is what I get for taking those expensive vitamins. An evil genius jelly bean baby.  Awesome.

Embryo:  Ain't it though?

Me:  "Ain't" is not a word.  You will use correct grammar while in the womb.  I won't have my offspring sounding like an ignoramus.

Embryo:  Don't make me take away ice cream.

How hot is too hot?

Alright, I have a question for all of you, as even my not unremarkable researching skills have failed me.

As you may know, I live in Texas, where summers are HOT. Like I hear northerners complaining about 90 degrees and I laugh at them.  It's not unusual to have the hottest days of the year reach over 110, and that's before the heat index adds another 5-10 degrees. Last year alone, we had over 100 days at over 100 degrees.

This doesn't usually bother me. My car doesn't even have air conditioning, and when my cars HAVE had it, I almost never used it. My motto is, "suck it up and roll down the windows."  We don't even turn the air conditioning on in our house until the daily highs are well over 80 degrees, and we turn it back off and open up the windows as soon as the temperature drops back below 78 (which is the lowest we ever run our A/C).

But now there's a fetus involved, and I'd very much like it to not die from heatstroke on the drive home from work.   My husband's truck has air conditioning, but it's a gas guzzler and I'd prefer not to use it unless it's necessary.

So my question to you is...HOW HOT IS TOO HOT??  There's no doubt that I'll take the gas-chugging truck to work on days when the high will be 105 degrees, but what about 95 degrees? 98?  I have a 1/2 hour commute (barring traffic, etc.), I'm inside the car so I'm out of direct sunlight, and I have the windows down while I cruise along at anywhere from 40-75 miles per hour.

The only information I found online about pregnant women and heat was to avoid hot showers, baths, and spas, which has surprisingly little to do with my daily commute.  I'm fairly used to the heat, but I don't want the baby to be missing an arm or half its face or something because I picked the wrong day to drive my gas-sipping Aveo to work instead of the air-conditioned boat of a truck.

So, what's the cutoff?  What is the "danger zone?"  Not what's comfy or convenient; I can live with a little discomfort in the face of such high gas prices, but what is the UNSAFE temperature for a pregnant woman to be driving in an un-air-conditioned car for about 1/2 an hour?

Any thoughts?

Happy time is Baby time!!

In case you missed the exciting news via Twitter & Facebook, I'm pregnant! YAAAY!!!  I'm about 5 weeks along (according to their weird calendar, anyway.  The baby was conceived 3 weeks ago, but that's not how they measure it; go figure), probably due in February.

We just told the Grandmas 9and everyone else) this weekend.  I made these crystal bracelets (for the girls) and keychains (for the boys) for each family member that said things like "Nana," Grandma," "Hello, my name is Uncle Bobby," etc. We have them their presents and waited for the gasps!  This will be the first grandbaby for everyone, so everyone is SUPER excited! My mom cried all day, told everyone we saw all about it, lol. 

The crazy thing is that my sister is also pregnant, just about as far along as I am, so we'll be racing to see who will REALLY give Nana the first grandchild.  I told her no having them on the same day, because we live over an hour apart and of course Mom can't be both places at once!  It'll be kind of nice, since I was beginning to despair that my kids would ever have any cousins, or if they did, they'd be so far apart in age that they wouldn't be interested in one another.

There sure does seem to be something in the water, though; my best friend is pregnant (5 months along), and one of my husband's best friends' wife is, too, also 5 weeks along. Craziness!

I;m going to try and stick to my low-carb diet for the most part.  not TOTALLY, of course; it wouldn't be safe for the baby for me to only eat 20 carbs a day, so I'm bumping it up to around 60-70 carbs a day, which is the "maintenance level" of the low-carb diet, and I'll try to get those mostly from fruits and veggies.  I won't lose any more weight, but I shouldn't gain too much, either.  Everything I've looked at online seems to back up my belief that this will be fine for the baby. After all, I can't imagine that I'll be denying my baby any real nutrition by abstaining from sugar, bread, and pasta.

My first prenatal visit will be July 2nd.  We're so excited!!

Fixing your Broken Smartphone

My husband dropped his EXTREMELY expensive, 1-month-old, Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone a couple of weeks ago.  And yes, it broke.  It was now a $600 brick, and we sure didn't have the money to replace it.  After waiting a few days to make sure it really was broken and not just "sick" or something (because androids can repair themselves, right? RIGHT? No? DANGIT!!), we started looking around for repair options.

Replacing it with a new phone of similar abilities was out of the question, and the 48 hours he'd been using one of our old phones that only makes phone calls and sends text messages had convinced him that he could likely die from technological starvation if he had to use it for another 2 years.  So we started poking around on the internet looking for anyone who might be able to repair smartphones.

Lo and behold, we stumbled across MobileTechVideos.  They gave us a quote that was $100 less than anywhere else, and they have some spiffy YouTube videos showing how they can "unbrick" your phone.  With no small amount of trepidation, we sent them my husband's broken phone, $200, and prayed.

About 2 weeks later, it came back to us in brand spankin' new condition, and my husband claims it works even better now than it did before he broke it.  The staff there was very helpful and communicative, and they assured us that it only took as long as it did because they didn't keep the necessary parts for that phone in stock and had to wait for it to arrive from Samsung.

We couldn't find any reviews of MobileTechVideos.com before we used them, so we were understandably nervous about sending our phone to them, but we did it, and they did a fantastic job.  So if you need your phone fixed, I highly recommend them.  They were quick to reply to our questions, cheaper than anyone else I'd found, and they did a really great job.  They repair many types of phones, and you can always email them to ask about yours.

Yay! I won a contest! :D

It's been a good writing news kinda week!

I found out last night that I won the Utica Writer's Club's critique contest! Yaaaay!  They made their decisions based on the query letter and first 250 words of the entrants' manuscripts.  I'm so excited that they chose mine as the winner in the fantasy category!

So now I've won a critique of the first 5 pages of my book by a published author.  I'm so excited! 

You can read all the winning entries in all 10 categories on Jordan Mierek's blog.  And feel free to comment on them; you all know how we aspiring authors love constructive criticism! 

And thank you so much, to Jordan and to the Utica Writer's Club!  This is the first writing contest I've won, and I'm SO excited! :D

Huzzahs to Wes Chu!!

Handstands all around for one of my fellow Anxious Appliances, Wes Chu, who just signed his *first* book deal with Angry Robot Books!  Wes, like myself, had his manuscript passed up to the angry robot overlord editors during last year's Open Door month. 

And, having beta-read his manuscript, "The Lives of Tao," I can assure you it's brilliant, so everyone should buy it immediately upon its release.

I insist you check out all the details at the Angry Robot Books website, because they've already said it better than I can.

Congrats, Wes! I can't wait to buy it! :D

HUZZAHS!

Ace/Roc Publishing just asked to read my full manuscript!  SQUEEEEEEEEEEE!!  Happy dances all over the internet!!  I'm SO EXCITED!! 

That is all. :)

Fairness for Struggling Students Act

Anyone else out there struggling under the Sisyphus-like burden of student loan debt?

Then check THIS OUT!!

I don't know what your situation might be, but mine is a result of my school telling me to borrow as much money as I could as often as I could--including living expenses--because I simply COULD NOT expect to work and ever graduate from their school.  Or so they told me, over and over and over again.

Should I have known better?  Yep.  Should I have ignored their constant nagging and the incredible pressure to borrow another $10k? You betcha. But I was 20 and stupid and I borrowed and borrowed and borrowed some more.  When I had doubts, they told me not to worry, because when I was done with school I was going to make so much money that I'd barely even feel those student loan payments.  They brought in the court reporters from the O.J. Simpson trials who went on and on about how they made over $1 million apiece.  They brought in closed captioners who worked for NBC and made HALF A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.  They brought in people who only worked 3 months a year, remotely, from their mansions in Hawaii or Alaska or France.  I was enthralled.  I believed them, and I borrowed more money.

What they didn't tell me is that court reporting is something that either you can do or you can't. Either you have it hardwired inside of you the ability to write at 250 words per minute, or you don't.  But nobody told me that until I was too deep in to just walk away.  They told me before I enrolled that the average graduation time is 2 years.

Five years later, when my money ran out at last, they told me that court reporting just wasn't for me, that I was one of those unlucky few who just couldn't do it, and that the time had come for me to quit. 

Horrified, in shock, and half-blinded with tears, I had to quit, because I'd exhausted both my federal and private student loans.

Unable to even THINK about paying off my nearly-6-figure-high student loan debt, I enrolled in my local community college and paid tuition out of pocket, and found out that none of the classes I'd taken transferred. Not even the normal ones, like English, Psychology, or Medical Terminology, because they were labeled as "English 1401- FOR COURT REPORTERS." "Psychology 2106 - FOR COURT REPORTERS," etc.  So I had to start all over.

All the while, my debt was (and still is) incurring interest at a rate that I can't think about without throwing up.  There was no hope.  You can't discharge student loans through bankruptcy and they never go away like bad credit card debts will after 7 years.  And even when I'm eventually done with my Master's degree in Library Science (probably still about 7 years away because I'm paying everything out of pocket and I can only afford 2 classes at a time), I can only look forward to making about $45-55k a year. My student loan debt will easily be three times that amount by then; probably more.

Yes, I was young and stupid and I should have known better, but in my defense, I was young and stupid and dozens of teachers and administrators knew that.  They took advantage of it, and they urged me to keep on borrowing for five years, and when I was  all dried out, they cast me aside.

But now there's a ray of hope on the horizon!!  There's a bill before Congress called the "Fairness for Struggling Students Act" that would allow students to discharge their student loans (at least the private ones) through bankruptcy! Is bankruptcy ideal?  Heck, no! But it would mean a fresh start for millions of students who had to borrow money to pay for degrees that they can't use or don't pay enough, because their families were too poor to pay for their college tuition out of pocket.

So please, please, please consider signing this petition to show your support for the Fairness for Struggling Students Act.

Puppy time!!

My blogging has shrieked to a halt lately, and I do apologize for that. It's been...oh, just a hellish couple of months, for the most part. My brother-in-law's girlfriend is a crazy person, and let's just leave it at that for now.

On the upside, I've lost over 30 pounds (thank you, Mr. Bacon), and it would have been so much more if I wasn't also on these damnable birth control pills (only a month and a half left on them, at least!).  My doctor says "they don't work that way," but when I'm consuming less than 10 carbs/1400 calories per day and walking 6 miles a day 6 days a week (burning almost 1000 calories a day) but gaining weight for 3 weeks out of the month, then losing 12 pounds in the 7 days I'm not on the hormone pills, I'm inclined to disagree with her.

Anyway, my husband has been joining me and the puppies on our walks for the last couple of weeks, and on Saturday we took a new path down one of the many country roads near our house.  On our way back, we passed a pasture with 3 horses in it, who were utterly fascinated with our dogs. It was the cutest, coolest thing I've ever seen!

 That's Punkin, who is always brave.  Went right up and sniffed them like she'd met a thousand horses.

And the little brown dog is Turtles, who put the "weenie" in "chiweenie."  It took him a few minutes to stop freaking out about the giant animals he thought wanted to eat him, but I was so proud of him for getting up the courage to get close to the horses!  Although he kept darting back and forth so fast that it was hard to get a good picture of him that wasn't all blurry, lol.

And that's David, petting one of the horses.

It was one of the coolest walks we've ever taken.  Next time we'll bring some carrots for the horses, too.  Yay, ponies! :D

HUZZAHS to Lexcade!!!

HUZZAHS to my dear friend Cate Peace, aka Lexcade, for making it to the quarter-finals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest!  W00t!!! W00t!!! I'm so happy for her and proud of her!!  I beta-read this a long, long time ago, before it was as awesome as it is now, even, so I can assure you it's worth a read.

Everyone go read the first two chapters of her amazing, soon-to-be-award-winning sci-fi novel, Duality, on Amazon for FREE here:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007GEC0OC/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_alp_c-JApb1RP07NW

And don’t forget to “like” it and write a review.

Well, what are you waiting for?  It’s free, and it’s awesome.  Go; go now!  Be a part of ABNA by helping choose the winner!  Yaaaay!!

Updates and such

Has it really been over two weeks since I blogged? My apologies; I neglect you all shockingly.  Although, in my defense, I was totally oinking on self-hatred and cake, as Goblin's Humiliator so aptly suggests.  But, at long last, I have dragged myself out of the trench of disappointment, self-hatred, and cake I'd immersed myself in since my heartbreaking rejection letter, and I am now back on that querying horse.

So, updates. It’s been a crazy few weeks, that’s for true.  Our old roommates moved back in (huzzah!), I got a raise (DOUBLE HUZZAH!), my father-in-law popped in for a surprise visit, and I found out that I have PCOS, which has bestowed upon me both acne and insulin resistance (frowny face).  Which, in a way, is good.  I knew I didn't eat enough to be as overweight as I am, but you can't say that, because no one ever believes you.  But now I can, because a doctor told me so.  I was not overeating, at least not to the degree that my waistline would suggest.  It was my ovaries all along.  My poor, cyst-ridden, hateful ovaries, sending out their dirty little hormonal signals for my body to produce copious amounts of insulin and facial oils.

My doctor suggested I go on a low-carb diet, which I started last week and I LOOOOVE. The last time I went on it, I lost 60 pounds in 3 months and felt better than I had in years. Let me say that again. 60 pounds in 3 months. You read that right. The only reason I quit the diet last time was because it’s expensive. But, thankfully, now that I’ve gotten a raise, we can afford for me to do it again. I’ve been on it for about a week now, and I’ve already lost 5 pounds. It would be more, but I had to take that stupid glucose tolerance test earlier in the week, which threw my diet off for a couple of days. Ah, well.

Before you even ask:  It raises GOOD cholesterol, not bad, because without carbohydrates your body can’t hold on to saturated fats (in most cases; in a few instances it slightly raises bad cholesterol, but it’s completely overridden by how much it boosts good cholesterol). It’s also good for your triglycerides and lowers blood pressure, not to mention the staggering weight loss and, in some cases, the fact that it can almost eradicate Type 2 diabetes.

Yes, I do eat bacon and steak and eggs and cheese, but I also eat chicken and turkey and tons of vegetables. I eat broccoli, salad, cucumbers, mushrooms, green beans, asparagus, and/or black olives every day. I never eat so many veggies as I when I’m on the Atkins diet. The best part, though, is that I don’t have to starve myself or exercise like a demon in order to slowly (if I’m lucky) lose a piddling 1-2 pounds per week. I’m never hungry and even if I don’t work out, I still lose weight. Although I should work out. And I will. When it gets warmer outside.

As for cravings…I never much cared for bread and I can live without pasta, though I did enjoy potatoes. The one thing I REALLY miss is sugar, because I LOVE me some sweets. But at least there are some awesome sugar-free candies etc. out there to help satisfy my sweet tooth.

And, last but certainly not least, I got a partial request from an agent for Eyes of Stone! WOO-HOO and TRIPLE HUZZAH!!  I also sent a query to a publisher, although it was with my previous, less-awesome query letter. That older one was was ok, but I think the new one better represents the feel of the book.  I haven't hear back yet, of course, but we'll see.  Also, I learned that not everyone in QLH knows what the duck they’re talking about.

Alright. I didn’t mean for this post to degenerate into a post about dieting, but it happened anyway. I’m going to go eat some more meat and wait for my pants to get looser.

Have a great weekend!! :D

Rejected, Again.

I awoke this morning to the typical shriek of my alarm clock, groped for my phone (naturally), and…yep, there it was, at long last. My rejection letter from Angry Robot Books. Something to the effect of “the writing was good, characters were good, but it just didn’t quite have that AR feel, and yes, it really is just that vague, but please feel free to query any future works with us,” blah, blah, blah. It took all my strength just to get out of bed.

I knew it was coming. When the editor posted on the main AR thread over at AW that anyone from Open Door Month who hadn’t heard back should email him, I knew it didn’t bode well for me. When he sent out mass emails saying we'd hear back in a few days, I figured that was pretty much it. I doubted I was going to get an email that read, “We loved it so much we completely forgot about it.” Yeah…no. But that didn’t keep my heart from plummeting when I read the actual rejection email.

I carefully avoided the subject with my husband when I got up, because I’m a grouch and a half anyway in the mornings and bursting into tears or somehow blaming it all on him was surely not going to help things. He still doesn’t know, and I’m sorry about that, David. I love you! So I got into my car, put “Someone Like You” on repeat, and damned to Hell every car I saw all the way to work.

I suck, you suck, everybody sucks but me, %$#&$ ^#$@*$ EVERYBODY!!!!

So I’m blogging about my pain and my (for the moment) utter conviction that I’m a hack and I’ll never write again, and trying to refrain from deleting everything I’ve ever written, including that biology paper I’ve been working on.

You see, real-life Becky is an even-keeled, dispassionate automaton, but virtual Becky has extreme emotional knee-jerk reactions all over the internet that she regrets ten minutes later. Real-life Becky sits very still and keeps her trap shut when she’s upset. Virtual Becky goes on rampages and killing sprees and makes bad decisions. So real-life Becky is trying very hard to keep her foul-mouthed and impulsive alter-ego under control until she calms down.

I don’t suck. I know that. Except, you know, I TOTALLY DO SUCK and I should stop submitting anything to anyone ever again. I can’t even get a short story published. I mean…I have, but not for months, and not for pay. But the version AR rejected was almost a year old, and it’s been through several betas and revisions since then, including some by the other Anxious Appliances, who are all literary geniuses. Heck, when I change a minor spelling error I look back in disgust on the previous version and hate myself for ever sending it out. I gave EoS to my coworker to read yesterday, as she is a fantasy reader. She put it on her Nook, opened it up, and didn’t move for twenty minutes. So it can’t be THAT bad, right? RIGHT?

WRONG! It SUCKS and you KNOW IT! It’s cliché and stupid and tropic and everybody hates it except non-writer people who don’t know any better. AAH! Give me that hard drive, I’m going to KILL IT IN THE FACE!!

Now I have to decide whether I want to rework EoS into a YA or submit it again as is. I don’t know yet, and as I mentioned before, virtual Becky makes very hasty and often very bad decisions when she's upset. So I’m going to give myself a couple of days to be sad and hate myself, and then I’ll do…I don’t know, something.

I wish I drank.

New Addition to my Writing Pantheon

We welcome and beg mercy from Titivillus, the lord of typographical errors, delinquent letters, and superfluous language!

Legends say he lurks in monasteries, whispering into scribes' ears and filling his sack with the errors they make. No doubt we've all had run-ins with this mischievous "patron demon of writing errors," but perhaps by including him in my list of patron saints, gods, and spirits of writing, he will be appeased and leave us in peace?

He is known by other names throughout the world as well:


Chochlik Drukarski - Poland;
Tryckfelsnisse - Sweden;
Trykkleif - Norway;
Sætternissen - Denmark;
Painovirhepaholainen - Finland;
Gazapos - Spain;
A Nyomda ördöge - Hungary;
and Druckfehlerteufelchen - Germany.

No wonder, with crazy, unpronounceable words like those!!

Check out my whole list HERE, and, as always, feel free to contact me if you know of a writing-related patron, deity, etc. that I've left out.

Or read more about Titivillus at these sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titivillus

http://www.waywarde.com/titivillus/titivillus.html

Boycott Game of Thrones??

Boycott Game of Thrones!? 

Did that get your attention?  It sure grabbed mine.

I don’t believe I’ve ever been so impressed.  As I read this incredible article—and there’s simply no other word for it—I couldn’t help but answer some of the outstanding questions it posed.  

Yes, the article is on a satirical website.  But I’ve heard too many arguments just like this, and once I got going, I couldn’t shut myself off.  And—frankly—I’d already written it.  

It’s not that far off the mark from what so many crazies out there really do believe, so I decided to put it up anyway, with the disclaimer that this is a satire of a satire.  I got a whole “Inception” thing going on.

Enjoy.

(Read the whole article here:  www.Christwire.com - 12 Reasons to Boycott Game of Thrones in 2010)

 12 Reasons to Boycott Game of Thrones in 2012


“1. Sexual abnormality, including incest and lesbianism, appears in graphic detail.
From casual rape to group orgies, each episode of Game of Thrones has something astonishing for viewers. For many children, this will be the first time they are introduced to wanton fornication. Will they choose to experiment like this in real life?”

You just ignore that MA rating on a premium cable channel.  Turn off those parental controls so the children don’t miss out on this early morning preschool adventure. Because even though Mom & Dad encourage the kids to watch any old HBO original series, this is surely the first time they’ve been exposed to “wanton fornication.”  And kids never experiment without gratuitous and explicit prompting.  And if HBO is going to market this show as a sexier "Dora the Explorer," who am I to prevent the children from watching it?

Also, I never knew that the words “appear” and “glorify” were synonyms. Thanks for clearing this up.

“2. Witchcraft is presented as empowering while Christian values are utterly insulted.
Deadly potions and menacing spirits dominate the storyline, but there is no mention of Jesus despite the fact that His love was the backbone of wisdom in the Middle Ages.”

At first I, too, thought this show was set in Europe.  I can suspend my disbelief and accept that zombies, dragons, giant wolves, decade-long-summers/winters, fictional countries, and even the thousand-foot-tall wall of ice were (and are) a part of everyday European life.  But the idea that any overland travel through one country in Europe could take a month?  Please.  I wasn’t born yesterday.

“3. There is far too much violence and this prevents the overall plot from ever becoming compelling. Do we really need to see all these bloody close-ups of beheadings and elaborate jousts? It just doesn’t contribute anything educational to the viewing experience.”

If you’re watching HBO for educational reasons, you’re doing it wrong.  Although I’ve always found jousting obscene.  If the Lord wanted us to ride horses, why did He invent spaceships?

“4. Emilia Clarke is such an untalented actress that her only role in the show is to be eye candy for pedophiles.  This pretty young girl unfortunately lacks the intellect or the sophistication to appear on prime time television. The producers seem to know this and require her to disrobe in every scene. Her gentle, undeveloped teenage body does not evoke womanhood, but the innocence of a lost child, alone on the side of a highway and ripe for the picking.”

Daenarys?  An innocent child ripe for the picking?  Ridiculous.  Every legal-age young woman longs for the day when her abusive older brother will force her to marry a foreign warlord in exchange for a chance to reclaim the home she cares nothing about.  And those two or three scenes where she was topless totally turned me into a lesbian for a full three weeks.  I was halfway through the divorce proceedings before its demonic effects wore off.

“5. By depicting the traditional heterosexual family unit as dysfunctional and a socialistic revolutionary army as an ideal alternative, the show reveals its underlying communist bias.
Should it come as any surprise that author George R. R. Martin, a power broker in liberal Hollywood, named the dominating spirit of these soldiers “The Red God”?”

Yes, all those homosexual families were WAY too happy and loving—TOTALLY unbelievable—and those Starks were absolute monsters.  I mean, come on…what cheated-on wife HASN’T welcomed her husband’s bastard into her home with open arms?  And are we really supposed to believe that heterosexual marriages—especially politically-arranged ones—don’t result in deliriously happy families every single time? 

“6. Actor Peter Dinklage, who plays a dwarf on the show, has become the poster child for sodomy amongst America’s youths.  Children identify with Dinklage because of his small size and comical accent, but his obsession with anal penetration crosses the boundaries into pure propaganda. How many children will watch the little man and want to try his grunty thrusts at home?”

This poses an interesting argument about whether he really is a dwarf, or if he just plays one on TV.  And I, too, share these concerns that several seconds of iffy, soft-core, maybe-sodomy-but-probably-just-doggy-style dwarf lovin’ will transform an entire generation of America’s youth into orgy-starved catamites. 

“7. At times, the series appears to be little more than an excuse to display illicit homosexual scenarios. Flamboyant costumes, effeminate longhaired men, boys shaving each other’s armpits… Add to this the voluptuous, swarmy acting style of gay porn star Kit Harington (who plays sycophant Jon Snow) and you’ll feel like you’ve been transported to a San Francisco bathhouse full of the apes from Star Trek.”

From dictionary.com:  Syc·o·phant: noun: a self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite.

I didn’t know that “sycophant” describes someone who forswears ever having a family so he can commit himself to a lifetime of service defending his country. Although I’m sure no one in Middle Age Europe (where this story totally takes place) ever had long hair or flamboyant costumes. Codpieces, shimmering suits of armor, lacy cravats, and jester’s motley were only invented to humiliate the red man. I’m pretty sure that’s right.

Although that comment about being “transported to a San Francisco bathhouse full of the apes from Star Trek” is exquisite.  And absolutely correct. The entire Game of Thrones series is, scene-for-scene, no different than watching gay orangutans in Star Trek costumes have drunken orgies in a San Francisco bathhouse.

“8. The Irish actors willfully glamorize severe alcoholism.  The ignominy of Ireland has always been the weakness of its people when it comes to alcohol indulgence. Why must Games of Thrones attempt to find humor in such a national disgrace?”

First, I shouldn’t be surprised that someone who feels comfortable making fun of dwarves in a public forum would also be a racist.  Second, I’m getting sick of saying that this show did not take place in Europe, so there are no Irish characters in Game of Thrones.  Third, you’re right.  Every alcoholic in the show was a paragon of morality and virtue.  Drinking was never once portrayed as a vice, and it never EVER came back to bite them later.  King Robert’s death could in no way be attributed to the fact that he was stumbling-down drunk during a boar hunt. 

“9. Pet wolves and dragons mirror demonic spirit guides in pagan cosmology.
When you pair up children with conduits of divination, you are inviting them to experiment in spiritually reckless ways. Sadly, atheism and Satanism await them down this path.”

Look, you have to start teaching kids early on that pets are only to be used in Satanic rituals.  How else will they become the world’s youngest and most powerful atheist warlocks?  I can’t do this alone, people. 

“10. The show is incredibly difficult for adults to understand.  Most parents will find the thick European accents of the actors confusing. The story, vamped up from the original book, is frustrating for its leaps of logic and implausible romantic scenes. The producers of Games seem to understand this and have crafted the series so that it intentionally turns away older viewers. Should we be suspicious that they have worked so hard to have some private alone time with America’s children?”

It’s all so clear to me now.  This show must be aimed at children, because it’s just too smart and challenging for adults.  No adult wants to think.  No adult believes in implausible romance (there’s nothing more realistic than a Harlequin novel or the first few minutes of a porno).  And the British accent is harder to understand than ancient Egyptian calculus.

But you show me a child who says he doesn’t enjoy multiple convoluted plotlines, dozens of characters, hours of dialogue, and beautiful scenery, and I’ll show you a liar.  Game of Thrones might as well be a Spongebob Christmas special.

“11. There are no positive role models.  It may sound a bit old fashioned, but what ever happened to the strong male figures we had on shows like Little House on the Prairie and Touched by an Angel? Instead we have Littlefinger and androgynous Joffrey Baratheon prancing about as heroes for today’s confused young men who appear to be insanely obsessed with this outrageous series.”

And why isn’t watching “Dexter” more like grocery shopping?  Why isn’t the song “Get Low” more like washing my hair?  Why do twelve-year-old-boys look like twelve-year-old boys, instead of like Sean Connery?  Why isn’t my child learning more life lessons from pizza boxes?


“12. The moody, dark cinematography will make teens depressed.  Many youth subculture groups, including Goths and Skinheads, prefer to inhabit the world of the night. In darkness they find convenient cover to master their addiction to drugs and sexual violence. Does Games of Thrones actively promote marijuana usage and rape? Should parents really sit idly by as we await the answer to this important question?”

That’s right, because teenagers have to find excuses for being depressed and smoking weed.  Most of them were super happy and not at all rebellious until this show came along—a show clearly better aimed at preteens than Twilight—and none of them knew what rape was until Game of Thrones made it look so darn fun.  But you couldn’t swing a direwolf familiar at a gay family orgy/birthday party without hitting a Satanist who's sodomizing a pre-teen while toking up some Hawaii Skunk.  They call it Hawaii Skunk, too, because this show is totally set in Europe.



For the record, I am a devout Christian and there are things on the show I could do without.  I don’t enjoy looking at women’s breasts or watching simulated sex of any kind, gay or otherwise.  And I would never let my children watch this show.  But that’s the difference between being a child and being an adult, now isn’t it?  Grown-ups can do things that kids can’t. You don’t want your kids to see you having sex with your spouse, but that doesn’t mean you should stop doing it.  I can enjoy a movie, TV show, or book series without insisting they be Bible stories.  And if I was going to talk about how horrible a television show is, I’d at least watch it first.

(Once again, I must reiterate that this is a satirical reply to a satirical article, but it’s so realistic that I couldn’t resist answering it as though it were real!)

Finally back!

My apologies, everyone, for ignoring my blog (and all of you) so shockingly. You know how it goes; holidays, parties, work, watching reruns of Squidbillies and Dexter. Busy, busy, busy.

So here’s a quick recap of the last few weeks:

My mother-in-law bought us a shed! Huzzah! Then David and his brother put it together, which allowed us to move the lawnmower etc. out of the garage/bar/billiard room, so we could finally finish painting & hanging up bar/billiard room-related décor. Below is a picture of the shed, a glorious little resin bug/weatherproof number. Yes, I know the placement in the yard looks random, but it’s actually the flattest part of our backyard. When I’m feeling less lazy we’ll go buy some boards and cinder blocks and move it somewhere more appropriate.

Also, I decorated both our guest bedroom & bathroom. Until now, they’ve been unadorned and uninhabited, filled with mismatched towels and excess furniture. But then I got 2 weeks off work and a free bed & desk, and I got to work. So I painted and raided several Wal-Marts’s and Hobby Lobbys's clearance sections, and ta-da! Here they are now, all blue and inviting and pretty!  They're not completely done yet (are they ever?), but that, of course, requires more money, which I do not have right now.  I especially like the rhomboid flash of light on the wall from that mirror on the bed, which I still haven't hung yet.

Also, my Mom got me a Kindle Fire for Christmas! SQUEEEEEEEE! I put the full Office app on there, so now I can work on my books whenever and wherever I like. Tis awesome. J My husband spend a few days networking it to our home computer, too, so I can watch movies/listen to music etc. on my pretty little Kindle Fire anytime I like.

I got a little more work done on Book 2. I don’t even hate it as much as I thought I did, which is nice. I’ve also discovered that there may be 4 books in the series rather than 3. Now I’m even more annoyed at Book 2, because I have SO MANY IDEAS for Book 3, but I can’t think about them too much until Book 2 is at least halfway done.

No word yet from the Angry Robots (sigh). I’ve decided that if they do pass, I’m going to do some tweaking and rework it into a YA book. I don’t think it’ll take too much tinkering, as most people who’ve read say it has something of a YA voice as it is. I just need to make it a little less sexy and make my MC a little younger.

Ok, that's all I can think of to say for the time being.  Have a great week!  :D