Paper in a cake

‘Paper in a cake’
Charlotte came running into the kitchen from watching her latest library pickup – a video called Oakie Doke (a ‘jolly helpful woodland chap’): “I want to put paper in a cake!!”. She loves baking and she often wants to make and bake things she’s seen on TV… this time it was apparently ‘paper in a cake’. I tried to clarify, and from what I could work out, someone on the video had put notes into a cake mix … assuming they would pick them out once cooked..?

I have just watched the video with her myself.. “here it comes mum, this is where they make a cake with paper in it!”…

They had a bowl and some flour and water and were mixing the two together.. then adding paper to make papier mache!

So, after explaining that it wasn’t actually cake mixture… today I’ve promised we’ll make something out of papier mache. What would we do without the internet – I wouldn’t have a CLUE how to get started, but a quick googling did the trick….

I’m going to try and get through the day without mentioning the word that starts with ‘e’ and ends with ‘bay’ – I have realised that not a day goes past without me mentioning it to someone!

Cancelling is the new Turning Up

Cancelling is the new Turning Up
Have you noticed how everyone’s cancelling these days? If not cancelling, people are turning up very very late!
In just the last week, we’ve had the following cancellations and late arrivals:

• a (much looked forward to) play date after ballet


• a catch up with a family member (who double booked)


• a dinner party here with close friends (not well)


• a couple of computer training clients (postponing)


• a yellow pages directory salesperson (was an hour and a half late, so *I* called her and cancelled.. couldn’t be putting up with that!)


• even the editor of my revised book cancelled her involvement (due to large workload, NOT due to me being difficult!!) and has handed me on to a colleage.

I know a couple of people who are acute cancellers – you can pretty much ASSUME from the get-go that the event won’t happen, so don’t even block the time out.. is that bad?
It’s so much easier to cancel when you have kids – you’ve got (insert number of kids here) extra reasons you can use to get out of things…

Triumph!

v. v. excited – the book has finally been finished and will be submitted tomorrow.
I really was determined that I wouldn’t let another day go by where I have to answer ‘no’ to the dreaded question everyone is asking ‘did you finish the book yet’
So, c’mon – ask me… yes yes yes.
What happens next? The publisher appoints an editor/proofreader and they go through it with a fine toothed comb which will take a couple of months… then it goes to typesetting where they do all the layout and graphics and then it goes to the printer around Christmas time…. Too exciting!

this time i'm actually WORKING on the book and blogging at the same time. is it possible.. well yes - because the section of the book i'm writing is about an awesome photo management program by Google called picasa - one of the many many things you can do with it is to send one of your photos to your blog.. and here I am!

Hooray for email

Emails are becoming a welcome distraction from finishing the last chapter. How frustrating am I!? ‘ding’ – the new email chime and I’m thinking ‘yippeee.. another reason to NOT get started today!’
I wonder if anyone is reading this blog!? Are you out there..!?

One chapter to go

One chapter to go, one chapter to go… ho ho, ho ho, ho ho, ho ho, ho hooooooo – theres only one chapter to go… the book revision is almost complete.. yays!
It’s 60 A4 pages already which adds up to about 18,000 words.. and this is just the revision! The original book is about 20,000 words in itself – so its going to be a whopper.
Mr Megabyte has been bringing me tea, apple, anzac cookies and massages to fuel me up all night.. but I truly can’t believe it’s still going (the book that is!)
I had planned to get up at 6am on Saturday morning to write for 7 hours straight.. before the family arose… but the little guy (10 weeks!) woke at 4:30, fed for an hour – THEN I got up and started writing and still didn’t finish the damn thing!
How on earth do real writers do it? I mean fiction writers..? I’m just writing about something technical.. I’m teaching. Imagine a writer who has to work out what’s going to happen next?
What did we do before eBay? The Byte (3) hasn’t been talking to me since I taped over Disney’s Mulan by accident… as soon as I realised I’d done it, I jumped online and esniped a new video for about $4. The postage cost more than the video. Should have seen the look on her face… ‘mum, thaaaaannnkks!’