Pizzaface Time

Biscuit     Oil on Canvas,  by Mix Hart

This is Biscuit. He's a yellow-bellied marmot and a character in my middle years fiction novel. He  makes an appearance in all three novels of the Peter Not- Pizzaface series. He is the pet of a character named Hippy. The novels are fantasy, action, adventure and humour. They take place in the wondrous and thrilling, BC wilderness. The protagonist is an eleven year old boy and the other main characters are strong girls and women.

I've had a crazy month of writing day and night and attending writing conferences, meeting with agents etc. My literary novel, Queen of the Godforsaken is finished. So now I am moving on to self-editing my middle years novels.

I am not using my paintings in my middle years novels. However,  I painted portraits of a few of the characters to breathe life into the fantasy world I've created. The portraits are painted in black and white (for possible publishing).

Life is about selling myself, lately. I am selling my talents, my novels, my Club Zen class.
I am going to reward myself with time to paint again soon too. Once my middle years series are edited, I am completing my picture book,  A Pug Named Pru. It is a very beautiful picture book with elaborate, oil painting illustrations (by moi).  All of my children's books have themes of the sacredness of nature, human kindness, feminism and adventure throughout them.
As hard as it is, I love this whole writing world. I'm really enjoying the process. 

You Give Me Butterflies

Butterflies--a Zumba cool-down song to tryout. Choreography by Mix Hart (me) song by Michael Jackson. I edited the song, so this is only a taste of it.

I had a great  Zumba class tonight. I was called to sub a class. It was small but rewarding because I got to try out 4 new songs I've been working on. I am the teacher who introduces a new song weekly at least. I tell my students to be patient with me as this is a new song and I might blank out on occasion! I love new. I need to challenge myself as I get bored of my songs after dancing to them  about 5 times a week. So, thesis out of the way, I've gone nuts learning songs this week. I have one more salsa song to learn and then I am taking a break and perfecting all of them--I'll have the most awesome dance line-up for next fall.

The song above is called  Butterflies by Michael Jackson. When I trained with Gina Grant in Portland, she used this song in her line-up. I didn't know the name but I recognized the artist as Michael. I found it on itunes and choreographed some cool-down moves and stretches to it. It was a hit tonight. It is the cool-down song and the last song before we start the floor stretches. I do major stretching, with my class, after my hour of Zumba. Zumba is really hard on the hips, legs and butt and I like to protect these muscles as much as possible. I just love the song--it's a little addicting.
I'm also editing my novel--it is slow going as it is one LONG novel. But I am on the last 50 pages of a 500 page novel. This is the 100th edit by the way :P

April proving to be a busy month with several music festival appointments for my older girls: piano and choir as well as soccer starting next week also for Tabs and Pip.
One step at a time. 

Hot PINK!

All Dress-up and Ready For The PINK Party!

Host Pippi Greets Her Guests in a Unique Dancing Greeting

(Forgive the cheesy grin--what can I say, I was excited to be at the party!)

Peter Gets into Party Mood Schmoozing with the other Guests

More Schmoozing...

My turn to Schmooze... 

Party Host Pippi, Not One to Miss a Pose For the Paparazzi

Entertainment Included The Game of Life (Tabs and Pip setting it up)

Sunday night I was handed an invitation to a Pink party--it was to commence immediately after supper in Pip's room. I was to dress in pink. Later, the party location was changed to the rec room for more space. Pip was a lovely hostess and her family attended except big sis Mist because she had a lot of home work. Pip and I won The Game of Life, 3 millions dollars +. We were a team--lesbian veterinarians with one son and a dog. Veterinarian was our second career, at first we were super-star Zumba instructors based in Paris. Now that was a fun job ;) I like that my kids automatically assume when they land on the "get married" square that they can choose a gay wedding or not. Pip decided we were going to be a two woman couple. I thank Canada for being a country that this idea based on equality is the norm.

BTW, Mirror Mirror was entertaining. I liked Julia Roberts and the 7 dwarfs. It was most definitely for kids but I didn't mind it. I always applaud the retelling of fairy tales with the princess being strong and in control of her own destiny.

So, I have one month to finish editing my novel and get it e-published. Can I do it? I need an editor who is efficient and fast. Will research this. This is my priority--publishing my two novels within the spring deadline. Must not take on too much at this time as this will take up most of my days. Editing the novels to comply with e-Book standards will be a lot of boring, fiddly tech work. Formatting is nothing like a traditional novel. The writing was the easy part. So, I will know within a few weeks if I can do the journalism class at the end of the month--it depends on how advanced I am with the publishing.

Possibly teaching more Zumba classes with a gym closer to my house :) Subbing for sure and they may have a class for me in the summer. Looks like I have 4 classes for sure this spring. I want to taper down to one over the summer.

Must spend some time training my 5 month Old Boston Bulldog puppy Pablo. I can hardly keep upright when he pulls on walks. He is big(this is relative, I know--he's big compared to Fernando his pug brother), strong and agile. He finally took on Fernando the other morning when Fernando tried to steal his breakfast. He went after him so aggressively, I feared little Fernando might get hurt. Though, on inspection, his dear little black velvet ear was wet but not bitten. Usually its Fernando attacking the Pabs so don't feel too sorry for the little pug (he's not as innocent as he pretends to be).
- Pip has just announced she is starting a day care for dogs in the kitchen at this very moment--good. She was complaining she was bored and wanted me to attend a "Green Party." I'm still tuckered from last night's Pink Party! She's herding them into their kennel for "nap time." Pablo is resisting. Trying to be a human-alpha dog is exhausting! I always must intervene to make sure he doesn't get aggressive with the Pip. She's just announced after sleep time is dog snack time--they'll be happy now!

September Summer

Pip and Artemis at the apple orchard.

I finally had a good dream--to erase all the nasty reoccurring ones I've had lately. It involved a room full of all of my closest girl friends from over my life time. And we were all on good terms :)

BTW, I love my new LG dishwasher. It has improved the cleanliness of our kitchen ten fold.

I can not put down my novel. I am working on my thesis. But I take breaks and head back into my novel to edit/rewrite. My mind is on fire--I cannot go anywhere without a pen and paper to collect new sentences that constantly come to mind. I love writing fiction--nothing thrills me more in the way of work.

Little girls are down the hill at the park with a friend. Mist is home watching a DVD. The big girls have a piano recital tomorrow evening and then Mist a sleep over party. Pip is very excited about PJ day at preschool tomorrow. She's mentioned it several times today. Tabs has her final soccer jamboree of the season on Saturday. So many activities to attend and it is going to be near 30 oC tomorrow! All I want to do is pack a picnic supper tomorrow night and head into the mountains for a hike.
I have a ethics review to submit next week. I need an external committee member by tomorrow for everything to go as planned :s

Friday night is supposed to be adult sports night. I think a hike or bike or tennis is in order. Problem with the Kettle Valley railway is that by the time we get up there after Peter's work--the sun will be starting to set :( Maybe an early, early morning bike before the soccer jamboree. Nah--that means biking in the dark on narrow ledges on high mountain cliffs to get back home  in time. Rats. The kids and their activities can sure take all the fun out of a hot, fall weekend!

I am so looking forward to my favorite novel coming to the big screen, "Never Let Me Go," is one of my all time favorite novels and it should be making its way to little old Kelowna soon :)

We are off next weekend to Nelson, BC for Thanksgiving at my sister Theresa's house.