Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Two For Tuesday

Things have been frighteningly busy the last few weeks and I am finally starting to catch my breath. Here’s a quick recap of recent events:

We are gearing up for a new major exhibit at work, so I am snowed under there.

Friday was my birthday and it was an extremely good and extremely bad day. My wonderful hubby hid cards and presents for me all over the house, but part of my family and most of my friends forgot it was even my birthday, and hubby was out of town. But, on the same day we received our adoption certification. We are now officially approved by the state to adopt not one, but two children. Yay us! My amazing little brother (and I use that term loosely because he is now at least 6 feet tall) took me to a horrible movie. We went to see Drag Me To Hell, and let me tell you now, the scary parts are only when someone is jumping out at you, otherwise, it is very funny. We laughed a lot, but were disappointed. We both love a good scary movie.

Saturday, hubby and I attended a friend’s wedding. She used to be one of my very best friends, and hubby actually had dated her a couple of times in college, but now, I hardly ever see or hear from her. It made me sad.

Sunday, we cleaned house, sorta, and were generally bums.

Yesterday was the big day for my brother-in-law and his wife. The doctors induced her labor and in just over three hours, we had a new addition to our family. Things didn’t go so well from there though. The baby aspirated during delivery and his lungs weren’t working well at all. Late yesterday afternoon, they intubated him. Scary stuff. He has been on the ventilator all night, but at around midnight my brother-in-law called and they are weaning the baby off oxygen, so hopefully they will take the tube out sometime this afternoon.

So, that’s it on the home front. Now on to the reading and writing portion of the day’s entertainment. Right now I am reading Whispered Lies by Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dianna Love. I’m a freak for anything Sherrilyn Kenyon/Kinley MacGregor. So, here are the last two lines I read:

Carlos slipped his knife from its sheath and entered silently. He moved two whispered steps and reached for a fist of thick, black hair. As he whipped the man’s head back, exposing his throat to the razor-sharp blade, Carlos got a clear shot of the young woman lying still as death – Mandy – her wrists bleeding profusely. Merde.

I love the tension in these sentences. Love it. And here are a couple of sentences from a freelance project I am working on:

Nobody ever told me growing up that sometimes the one you think is your one true love might not really be. No one ever told me that I might have to start looking again after I turned forty.

Now, I’m not forty, I’m (ahem) thirty something. This was written from a man’s point of view in first person. That was a challenge for me. I’m not so great at first person, I always want to slip into third, but the hardest part was writing about a forty year old man! There came a point of desperation late last night that I almost called my dad and asked him how he would react to certain situations, but I toughed it out and made it through, and I think it turned out pretty well. We’ll see if I get paid for it though, right!

Hope everyone is having a great day, and for more two sentence fun, drop by the Women of Mystery.

6 comments:

Leah J. Utas said...

Congrats on the birthday and adoption news.
Good for you for writing something that stretches you. Your sentences make me wonder what happens to your protag that he needs to look and it conveys sadness.

Laura K. Curtis said...

Happy birthday and what an excellent present the adoption certificate makes!!

Travis Erwin said...

Happy Birthday. I had no idea when you birthday is so I guess count me amongst those slacker friends.

And while I'm not yet 40, but fast approaching I am a man so if you need a set of male eyes to check things out let me know.

David Cranmer said...

Congrats on the wonderful adoption news and belated happy b-day!

Lois Karlin said...

The adoption approval must be a stupendous joy. I can't even begin to imagine.

Happy B'day. I just had one also and was surprised to find that a facebook fairy had announced it to my little world of 'friends', so I got a small shower of happy happies from a surprising group of folks. Your husband and little brother are the ones who count. Forgive the ones who are too busy to remember, I've done that myself.

I can't tell you that you're doing a great job with the man-over-forty bit because I've had no such experience, but it sounds about right...we've all got something in common, right? We're human, and we crave relationships.

- Lois, womenofmysery.net

Clare2e said...

Crystal- What an exciting time for your whole family. New (potential) people everywhere!

I like your sad but wiser hero.