Yeah…Uh, me neither. But wouldn’t that be a pretty awful thing to do?

Sometimes, however, laziness bites me right on the meatiest part of my backside. I took Aidan to run a few errands today and we made it to our last stop, Barnes & Noble, without incident (I wanted to pick up a book of crossword puzzles for our upcoming vacation. What has four letters and fits this sentence: Erika is a huge ____. Hint: The third letter is an R).

I was tired from schlepping him in and out of multiple stores, and when I saw that his stroller was way back in the third row seat, just out of reach, I decided to just carry him. It was going to be a quick stop, in and out. No need for a stroller,

Or so I thought.

I decided to make use of the restroom facilities before completing our shopping, so I set Aidan down in the handicapped stall with me and tried to do my business as quickly as I could. Fiendishly fast troublemaker he is, though, he managed to dip his hand into the toilet water of the public restroom in the .00025 seconds it took me to undo the top button on my pants.

His hand. Was in. The toilet.

Public bathroom.

UNKNOWN FECES CONTRIBUTORS.

You know that screen that comes on the television when they’re testing the emergency broadcasting signal? That’s what flashed through my brain the instant his hand touched the water. It was all I could do not to improvise a Silkwood Shower for him on the spot. My brain was screaming “Bleach his hand! Bleach it! Bleach it good!” But my common sense was there too, so I settled for good old-fashioned soap, water, and some more soap and water.

So now all I can hear in my head is George Bluth’s voice telling me, “And that’s why you always bring a stroller.”

W00t!

Book talk aside, things have been going swimmingly here at Casa de Mitchell. Wes is wrapping up a whole slew of year-end projects, Aidan is cutting some new molars (by golly, that looks painful) and I’m down to 175 pounds and feeling pretty happy about it. I can run for two miles without stopping, none of my clothes fit, and I feel light and springy like a deer.

Granted, I’m the kind of deer a hunter probably wouldn’t shoot at what with my crazy eyes and unkempt hair, but still. A deer.

Let’s see, what else is up? We started watching Better Off Ted recently and it’s hilarious (and not just because Lindsay Bluth is in it). Aidan walked into a lake on Sunday and would have just kept on walking had I not saved him from drowning himself. Consequently, I’ve signed him up for swimming classes. Wes and I get to go to a shooting class in two weeks, after which we get to go on vacation. Alas, we probably won’t shoot anything while we’re on vacation.

Man, I’m out of practice blogging about stuff that isn’t book-related. Let’s see, how do I normally wrap things up? Mention gnomes or cupcakes, ask an inane rhetorical question, and then conclude with a nonsensical statement. So here goes:

I haven’t eaten nearly enough cupcakes lately, what with my quest to not be rotund. But that’s the thing with losing weight, isn’t it? You become uncomfortably aware of how many opportunities you have each day to make poor decisions. Ignorance really is bliss when it comes to calories. But not when it comes to toilet paper on your shoe.

And now it’s June 13, and the release date of my first book is a week away, and I’m so excited that I’m vibrating like a toy poodle and it has nothing to do with how much coffee I’ve drunk this morning. I emailed the final version of the book to my publisher this morning, and in one week it’ll be sitting out on virtual bookshelves.

I’ll be a published author.

I feel like Neo from The Matrix. Whoa.

So what does a nearly-published author do the weekend before her book is released? Clean a whole heckuva lot of red wine off her white carpet. That’s what.

Wes’s parents came over for dinner on Saturday and I made the mistake of sitting on the floor with a glass of red wine while we were chatting. Aidan, the little monkey he is, came right up to me and, in that freakishly fast way only toddlers seem capable of, batted the glass of wine right out of my hand.

I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes as those red droplets of carpet mayhem went sailing down to the floor. I watched my abnormally large safety deposit never come back to me. I watched my landlord burst into flames of rage. But mostly I just saw Aidan, smiling at the delightful pattern he made on the floor.

Lucky for me, my mother-in-law and I are carpet-stain-removing ninjas. You can’t even tell that a bottle of wine has ever even graced our house, that’s how nice the carpet looks now. But it was a long, laborious road to get there.

We had to deforest an entire acre of pristine jungle in order to create the quantities of paper towels required to clean up a mess of that magnitude. We had to use enough carpet cleaner to remove a dalmatian’s spots, and then keep the baby from rolling around in all that chemical-y goodness.

Needless to say, when you come over to our house, we know how to show you a good time. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to clean our carpets. If you’re really lucky, we might just let you change a diaper.

So that was my glamorous weekend. Oh sure, there were steaks and burgers, I found out I lost a pound last week (huzzah!) and I baked a coffee cake so good it literally knocked Aidan’s socks off. But what sticks out is the wine.

Because if you’re going to perpetrate a party foul? Go big or go home. Don’t just interrupt the party. Put your guests to work and then send them home!

Speaking of which, does anyone want to come over for dinner? There’s some silverware that needs polishing…

• Taking Aidan to the Seattle Aquarium for the first time. A lot of the displays and tanks are very low to the ground, which was great since Aidan wants to walk everywhere by himself now. Watching him do his little cowboy swagger around the aquarium, peeking in on fish and octopus, filled my heart with joy.
• Wes making me French toast for Mother’s Day. With bacon. I got to eat it in peace, watching the new episodes of The Office and 30 Rock, and this, too, brought me joy.
• Spending Cinco de Mayo with excellent friends, eating delicious chicken enchiladas, drinking margaritas and White Russians, and watching The Big Lebowski in honor of my late father. I was able to watch the spreading-Donnie’s-ashes scene without crying, which to me is a sign of good progress.
• Watching Aidan chase after his cousins on Sunday, hearing the three of them laughing and playing and imagining a day in the not-too-distant-future when Aidan will be able to run fast enough to actually catch them.

I’ve had a very happy (very fattening) few days, and as I head into a very busy week I do so with a smile on my face. Also, here’s a picture of a chicken I saw crossing the road last night:

This chicken crossed the road at the exact right moment to win me an argument. It was a Mother’s Day miracle! I made Wes stop the car and then back up just so I could take a picture of this chicken for the purposes of emailing it to my sister-in-law, who didn’t believe me when I said I’d be able to find a chicken to eat in the event of a natural disaster of some kind.

Before you ask, I can’t provide you with the context for this argument without risk of soiling my sterling normal public persona. On the plus side, I might just take a chance and soil my public persona later this week, so look forward to that, I guess?

It’s the reason I’m curious about learning how to hunt. Why every time I go to the grocery store it reminds me that I really should learn how to cultivate and harvest my own food already. Why I waited until Aidan was one to wean him (call me crazy, but I didn’t want to have a starving baby and no formula if our little family had to hit the road in a hurry).

We actually do have a plan, should the zombie apocalypse ever occur. We know exactly where we’ll go, and how we’ll get there, and what we’ll do when we arrive. I’m lucky in that I have a husband who will entertain these kinds of thoughts with me, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. The last thing you want is to be that chick who gets herself a gun and then can’t get the safety off the thing in time to defend herself against something that’s trying to eat her face.

All that to say (and a full half of you wondering wherever I misplaced my marbles) I found a house that is so cool, so perfect it needs must be shared. Check it out:

It’s a house in Warsaw, Poland that was built by KWK Promes. Their intention was to make inhabitants feel as safe as possible. Some highlights:

• Second-floor drawbridge entry
• All the windows and doors can be covered by giant slabs of concrete and metal safety mesh at a moment’s notice
• Indoor swimming pool, so you can work on your fitness without worrying whether there’s a raging zombie waiting to tear your face off

Seriously, go check it out. The pictures alone will blow your mind. I vote we take up a collection and build one in the US, and then move to it in the event of a zombie apocalypse. All in favor?

Do you know what I’m talking about? How, after a week of feeling like complete, unmitigated crap, you feel better and suddenly the world is an all-you-can-eat buffet and you’re slavering over rolls, and candies, and MOAR MEAT RAR.

My goodness, but I’m having a difficult time sticking to my newly forged healthy eating habits! I just want to celebrate life. With French toast. And peanut butter cups.

Lunches that would normally fill me up have me hungry again in an hour. It’s like the second trimester of pregnancy all over again, only this time there’s no ravenous fetus to blame. Just a newfound appetite and zest for life.

Regardless, I still must stick to my goals. This is not the time to get sloppy. I’m fifteen pounds away from my goal weight (a goal weight which I can’t actually ever remember being, though I’m sure I was once. I mean, it’s not like I skipped 170 lbs on my way to 217, is it?). Fifteen. Well, technically 14.4 pounds. But still. So close!

So even though I have my energy back and I rocked my workout at the gym yesterday morning and I feel like I could bench press school buses with my mind powers, I shall be reasonable. Stay on track. Not shovel tortilla chips into my mouth on Cinco do Mayo even though they go so perfectly with the too many margaritas I’m going to drink after Aidan goes to bed.

Now is not the time for foolishness. Now is the time for perseverence.

After I lose the weight, though? FOOLISHNESS. You can bet your sweet bippy that Wes is taking me out for some French freaking toast after I hit my goal weight.

You can tell how far apart the pictures have been taken by examining the length of my roots...

I have to make this post quick because I have a baby with a cold who’s decided a thirty minute nap is sufficient even though it is NOT. I can’t state that unequivocally enough. Thirty minutes? Is insufficient.

Anyway, I lost weight this week, almost called it quits on the whole eating well thing because apparently I am insufficient, and then I blogged about the whole thing for the Fitness Together Sammamish blog. If you feel like finding out how that whole shindig shook out, maybe you’d like to take a little trip over to their blog?

It’s here. And below? A penguin getting tickled. You’re welcome.

EMBED-Ticklish Penguin – Watch more free videos

Contrary to feeling jubilant, this leaves me feeling…aimless.  I quit my job (granted, it was my four hour per week job) in order to pursue my dream of getting published.  When Aidan goes down for a nap, I fire up my laptop and stare at the most infuriating sight in the world: an insistent, blinking cursor.

I’ve got nothing!  I came up with a possible novel idea last week, but when I sat down to start it I felt like I couldn’t quit get a handle on my approach to the story.  First person or third person?  Set before or after or during the inciting incident?

Grrrrrrrr.

Everything I started was awful.  Just awful.  So then I started a short story based on another idea I’d had, but I hated that one too.  Suddenly I was feeling less “wannabe novelist” and more “idiotic idea-less person”.

So, I reckon I just need to keep writing, even if I hate every single thing that I come up with right now.  It’s just such a dismal prospect after the ease with which I wrote Petra.  I swear that novel wrote itself.  Everything about it worked for me.

Now I’m in the creative doldrums, which is a horrible place to be.  You know what, though?  Maybe you guys can help me come up with my next idea!

These polls will be open for one week, and then I’ll take the winner of each category and write a brief excerpt of the novel you helped me write and publish it on my blog for you to enjoy.

Thanks for your help!

I’d like to present a plea for understanding.  I fully admit that minivan drivers are not always the best drivers, but I’d like to temper this admission with the proposal that maybe everyone else on the road isn’t always the best driver either.  And maybe even for less legitimate reasons than minivan drivers.

Because as sexy as minivans are (RAWR), we’re not driving them for their aesthetics.  If you see someone tooling around town in one of these mammoth vehicles, chances are excellent it’s because they have at least one child.

Why does this qualify minivan drivers for special treatment?  Well, in case you’ve never had the pleasure of driving with a child of any age, let me explain just a few of the on-the-road situations the average minivan driver may be experiencing even while you cut them off in traffic:

• It’s baby’s nap time, and he or she is screaming an unholy banshee wail that is destroying the driver’s eardrums to pitiful mush.  The driver, depending on how far away from home he or she is and therefore how desperate he or she has become, may or may not be trying to sing nursery rhymes, distract baby with toys dangled from an arm painfully extended backward and around, or propel the minivan up a ramp and over the cars separating him or her from a crib for wailing, miserable baby.
• Car-sick child in the back who is threatening to vomit.  The back windows of a minivan don’t open and, as such, desperate driver is trying to rummage around for a barf receptacle all while trying to avoid running car into a ditch.
• Houdini child has liberated him or herself from safety restraints and is giving the driver a small heart attack as he or she watches the child cavorting around the backseat.  Driver then has to alternately cajole or threaten child back into car seat while trying to merge through traffic (past people who won’t let him or her into their lane) to look for a safe place to pull over.
• Driver hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep since…Well, it’s been so long that if you ask him or her a blank look will likely replace any cogent answer.  If you don’t think this merits the driver some understanding, you’ve obviously never been sleep deprived.
• Siblings in the back seat are fighting/singing obnoxious songs/rubbing muddy feet on their clothes or the seats/annoying the stuffing out of you.  They say that no one knows how to push your buttons quite like your kids.  And they are absolutely right.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that minivan drivers are definitely not the best drivers out there (that honor probably goes to ambulance drivers) but we may have the most legitimate excuse for our poor driving.

So if you see a minivan driver pulling up close behind you, her crazy eyes willing you to merge out of her way because you’re not even going the speed limit, just do her a favor and let her pass.  She’s probably got at least one bodily fluid to clean up when she gets home, and she could probably use a break.