The Problem with Facebook

It's been over a month now since I've written here.  And it's all facebook's fault.  

When I have 2.5 minutes, I can log on, check what everyone is up to, post one sentence about my life, and feel like I have communicated with the world.  No more complete thoughts.  We need Paul Harvey and the rest of the story.

So, for those of you who have been keeping up with my little blurbs on facebook, but who wonder, What has she really been doing this summer?  Here  is the rest of the story...

Driving.

No seriously.  My new address is KEZ 1332.  I have a 6 CD changer, a pretty comfortable chair, AC, and a cool cup holder.  

But when I'm not in the car (which does happen sometimes!) I have been at my family reunion, traveling to Utah, and pulling up carpet and knocking holes in my wall.

The reunion was great.  My parents, all my siblings, and all my siblings' kids came out to our area and we went to Mt. Vernon, visited DC, went to the top of the Washington Monument, rode paddle boats around the tidal basin, and watched the fireworks from the lawn of the Pentagon.  We also celebrated my birthday, and all my family pitched in to make a book for me of stories and poems, compiled by Elizabeth and published by Lulu.  They were SO awesome!  The first story is by my Dad, the last by my Mom.  Elizabeth illustrated the cover.  Wonderful.  Really very well done and amazing all around.  (One poem by Casey still makes me laugh every time I think of it.  I should ask him if I can post it here.  Aahh... facebook.  Just the place fir such things.)

Right after the reunion my house started smelling like formaldehyde, and to make a very long story short, we ripped up the family room carpet and knocked a sizable hole in the wall to figure out what was going on.  (know that this was at the advice of Everyone, including the EPA, lest you think us crazy.)  We have since solved the problem (sub-flooring) and have not fixed either the hole or the floor.  We're working on that.  (Much of that driving has been to Home Depot.)

The trip to Utah was great.  I went with Bethany and we had a blast.  First, I went to the doctor with my mom, and we got some better-than-expected news.  Then we just had fun-- Alpine Slide, Brick Oven, BYU campus, Lara and her babies, and more BYU campus.  My parent's house is beautiful and calm, and I'd forgotten what real grass looks like!  That stuff does not grow in Virginia.  Everywhere I went I exclaimed over the grass.  And I converted.  not to Mormonism.  I already did that.  To Crossfit.  A gym.  For the first time in my life, exercising is not boring and pointless!   What an amazing concept!  You should all look into it right now.  Really.  

http://www.crossfit.com

The we came home and... I drove some more.  Moved back into my house at KEZ 1332.  It's small, but cute.    I took Rachel and Elizabeth both to the cardiologist.  Rachel's heart is fine, thank you very much.  And Elizabeth DOES NOT have heart failure!  WOO HOO!!!  =)  This is good news.  We've done that twice already, and really do not need to do it again. 

And I've been writing.  Some.  I finally received a rejection from a publisher who held my book, asking fro more time and more copies for a year, just last week.  I went from shocked, to angry, to thoughtful, to grateful all in about 24 hours.  She made some very specific comments, and I have to say, some of them are right on the mark.  And so I am making changes accordingly.  I was sort of working on two other novels (the sort of is because of a lack of time) but they have been set aside until I get JP whipped into shape.  A friend who knows about these things has been kind enough to agree to help me out with the fight scenes and other writing.   (Thank you!)  And somehow that is a catalyst for me to get moving.  That, and the rejection, of course.  But rejections can be positive.  (I keep telling myself that.)

So, that is my summer.  Friends are moving-- or have moved-- out here.  But even my friends who live here I seldom see.  Except on facebook, that is.

Rebecca  =)