Busy busy!

 It has been busy around here lately!

I have been finishing another book entitled Longbourn Inheritance.  It will be published in a few weeks.

Naomi and Lydia are gearing up to MOVE OUT!  They are going to share an apartment. It is very exciting for everyone. I will miss them, but I am also thankful that they can move out and be independent. 

Isaac got a part time job at Goodwill.  He isn't driving yet so we have to run him back and forth, but this is really good for him.  He is only taking two college classes this semester so he has time for working.  So far he is doing fine with it.  They keep scheduling him for the morning shift which means the first couple of hours are kind of boring; he grabs donations out of people's cars, and most people aren't swinging by Goodwill at 8 a.m.  But at 10, everything picks up. 

I am dealing with College Credit Plus, which is a lovely program where the state of Ohio pays for high school students to go to college.  Our older 3 children took advantage of the program and Isaac will use CCP this coming year at Wright State University.  I would like Joseph to take a couple of classes at Clark State in 2021-2022, but I have to jump through additional hoops to get him signed up.  They have tightened up the requirements a bit because, I presume, a bunch of people were getting credits who then couldn't actually do college work?  So he has to take a standardized test soon before he will be accepted.

Spring is springing, which is lovely.  We had a huge snowstorm a couple of weeks ago but it has all melted now and yesterday there was a high of 60 or so.  Delightful.

Deep breaths, deep breaths.  I feel a little frazzled with so much going on, but I need to remember that what needs done will get done.  

The Enigmatic Mr. Collins

 The is the title of my last book.  Yes, it is an odd title.

It is the first time I published a sequel, as it is a follow up to my previous book, A Fortuitous Fall.

It was so much fun to write. The basic idea in A Fortuitous Fall is that Mr. Collins, who is a bumbling idiot in the original Pride and Prejudice, takes a hard fall in MY book and wakes up a genius.  

The Enigmatic Mr. Collins takes place after Darcy and Elizabeth are married, and combines more romance (for other side characters) with a bunch of fun science of the early 1800's.

It has been, compared to my other books, rather a flop, which is to say it hasn't sold well.  People who read it like it (currently sitting at 4.8 out of 5 in the ratings, which is great!) but it is a strange book and obviously a lot of people don't want to read it.

That is, truthfully, fine.  I enjoyed writing it so much as it is light and fun, and gave me an excuse to study up a bit on ballooning and locomotives and steam engines in the early 1800's.

It is also a reminder that in general, I have been quite successful as a new author. My other books did so well that I was thinking, hmmm, maybe it isn't that hard to make quite a bit of money!  The truth is apparently that if I wander off script, it is hard to find readers.  Off script being away from Darcy and Elizabeth falling in love!  My latest story, which is more than halfway done, is focused on Darcy and Elizabeth so will probably do better.

Family Pictures

 

The Boys

The parents

The girls

All of us!

Cucumbers

 I really like cucumbers a lot. They are also low carb so, yeah, good for a diabetic!

Until this year, I was always disappointed with store bought cucumbers in winter. They were inevitably mushy.  I hate mushy cucumbers.

We discovered that Sam's Club sells "baby cucumbers" that are excellent.  

What kind of crazy world do I live in where I can have cucumbers throughout the year? Good cucumbers???

What a blessing.

Busy

 

I think this is adorable.  Oldest and youngest children playing Minecraft.

Angela has braces!  She got them on Monday.

I gave Rose and Sarah a ball of yarn and this happened.  Obstacle course.

We got a LITTLE snow.  Rose and Daniel approved!

Rose made a cute little house for herself in the sun room.

Rose and Sarah enjoyed painting.

In other news, Kevin is back to work finally.  I mean, he has been working from home for months and months, but is now going into work.  It is easier for him to concentrate there.  Who would have known??

We had a tragedy yesterday.  One of our older cats, maybe THE oldest cat, was hit by a car.  We have been really fortunate about cats and cars.  Our house is set back from the road and it is not a busy road, but Lloyd was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The kids were very sad, of course.  I am sad too.

I finished a book this week.  I have always been a goal oriented person and when I am near the end of a project, I just want to get it done. So I have been writing like a crazy person the last few weeks.  Now it is all in the publishing team's hands -- namely Kevin, Naomi, and Lydia.  

We have been making a surprising amount of money writing.  I mean, I am shocked.  At least $4000 a month, which is CRAZY.  But I am also pushing books out very frequently.  The last book was published in early November and before that, I was managing a new book every 7 weeks. Since COVID interfered, this one took longer.  Very few new authors do this well but then I do write fast, PLUS I had a built in fan base from fan fiction writing PLUS I am writing in a niche genre (Pride and Prejudice) with a lot of built in enthusiasts.  So yeah.  And if I don't keep publishing new books, the royalties drop quickly.  For a good three weeks in late November, early December, I was making like $200+  a day on royalties, which is crazy.  Lately my royalties have hovered around $100-$130.

Kevin has been doing a lot of marketing stuff too.  I am incredibly blessed to have a husband who just loves this kind of thing. He is very smart, obviously, and has learned a ton about how to market successfully.

So yes, I am a good writer, but I also have a bunch of really competent people in the family who can help in this whole enterprise.

I am kind of frazzled right now, I admit it, because I have been writing a lot and life has been busy with doctor and orthodontic appointments and the cat died and Kevin has been back to work...

But what a blessing that I CAN write well. What a blessing that we can afford to take our kiddos to an orthodontist.  What a blessing that I can get a shingles vaccination except I didn't, because I sat in the parking lot yesterday for half an hour having to pee but they were way backed up so I called and cancelled.

Oh well.

Pictures from the last few weeks

 

Teaching Rose to Read

 Rose was six last summer.  Many children her age are reading well but honestly, she is not.

And I truly am fine with that. However, I know from experience that she could be making more progress with reading than she has and that is mostly my fault.  The end of last year was pretty exhausting what with COVID (or whatever it was) and then the busyness and excitement of the Christmas holiday plus three birthdays.

This week, we were back to regular homeschooling and I decided that Rose and I were going to work on reading faithfully. Sure enough, she made significant progress just in the last week.

Now as ya'all know, I have a LOT of kids.  I have kids with all kinds of temperaments and characters. Rose is the youngest, but she has a very strong will. That is truly a gift from God, I know that.  It is hard work for Kevin and me in some ways, but she is not the type of kid to sway back and forth in the winds. She knows her mind!

She is pretty crabby about learning to read, which is sort of amusing and sort of frustrating.  She has said more than once that "she will never learn to read" which is hilarious. Also, she announced this week that she will be a Nook.

What, you may ask, is a Nook?

Well, that comes from the book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Doctor Seuss.

We took a look.

We saw a Nook.

On his head

he had a hook.

On his hook

he had a book.

On his book

was "How to Cook."

We saw him sit 

and try to cook.

He took a look

at the book on the hook.

But a Nook can't read,

so a Nook can't cook.

SO...

what good to a Nook

is a hook cook book?

She independently concluded that a Nook is "an old person who can't read" and therefore she was going to be a "Nook" when she grew up.

Obviously the child is both imaginative and smart.

She will learn to read in time.