9,307!

Now I know it doesn't sound like a huge deal or anything, but I'd set this little goal inside my head that Bound on Earth would dip below 10,000 on the Amazon.com list . . . and it did!

There are books all the way up into the million territory (and granted, lots of those are books that came out a long time ago and have since fallen off of anybody's radar). When my book isn't getting any action, I usually hover around 150,000 or so. The lowest it's dropped is a couple of days after it first came out, when I'd emailed practically everyone I knew to tell them about it, and that was around 12,000. I figured that might be as low as it went, but I secretly wanted to get below that 10,000 mark. Well I've been bopping around the last week or so from 35,000 then up to 150,000, then down to 60,000 or so. But then yesterday, I scored a review on the LDS blog Times & Seasons (and I'd also recently gotten some good reviews on the Segullah blog as well as on the Association for Mormon Letters message board. If you want to read any of them, there are links on my website.) Times & Seasons is one of the big daddies of the bloggernacle, and getting a good review there is a pretty cool thing, especially since it's directly reaching the audience that I think might like my book. And today I checked my Amazon site, and I was at 9,307. Whoop! So that was exciting.

I also drove a bit of traffic to Drew's Normal Mormon Husbands blog by posting on the Segullah sidebar. Then it got picked up by the "Mormon Mommy Wars" blog (a great blog if you've never checked it out) and I guess he's gotten a lot more hits. Which is cool, because he deserves it. He's a bloggin' rock star, imo. If you haven't read his most recent post, you need to. It's hilarious. Go Bishop Sweat!

Then we have Mr. Tony Sweat (artist/PhD scholar/teacher/scriptorian/carpenter/father of almost-5), who has a book coming out soon with Deseret Book called "Why?" He's co-authoring with a pretty popular Deseret Book writer and fellow CES employee, John Hilton. It's aimed at teens and is meant to help them understand the whys behind the commandments. I guess "Because I told you so!" isn't always the best answer, so Tone's gonna help us out. So lots of writing going on in the Sweat family right now.

That means that Amy and Dave, it looks like the two of you are going to have to put your heads together and co-author a math book. (I think the title should also be "Why?" Kidding!!!)

And now the kids are in the basement, yowling and bonking into things. They sound happy but slightly crazed, and I'm sure that any minute I'm going to have to go down there and take everything down a notch.

Ha! Here is the dialogue going on right now:

"Elise! Elise, get off of him!"

"I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING!"

"Get off! Get off!"

Silence.

Okay. Now they're giggling again.

"Ethan! It's an attacker. AN ATTACKER!"

"Whooa! What the?"

"Ethan, over here! Over here!"

Uggh. Groan.

"Oh. Let's stop."

Crying. It's Jonas. He's mournfully trudging up the stairs right this minute.

Me: "Come here Joe."

Jonas: "Thanks a lot Ethan!!" He's standing at the top of the steps, still crying.

Me: "Joe. I'm in the office. C'mere!"

Jonas mournfully trudges into the office. Now he is going to tell you what happened:

"We were playing this ball game and I was trying to get the ball and right when I got the ball, Ethan just stole it from me. Right when I got it!"

Now I'm asking Jonas what he wants to say about Ethan:

"Don't ever play ball with Ethan!"

(Now he's smiling.)

"Now, Mother, I must give you this quiz. It's all about your smartness. Can I have some fruit snacks? Tic, toc, tic, toc. Ooh, I'm sweaty. Mom, stop typing and answer me. You're taking 2 million five hundred and sixty two years."

"Yes, you can have some fruit snacks."

"Hooray!" He wipes some snot with the back of his hand and skips away.

And that is life at my house.

New look?

So I put the cover of my book up on the sidebar, and that led me to a complete blog redesign, purely based on the fact that the colors weren't matching. I'm kinda enjoying this new look. It's like moving the furniture around. Hope you like it too!

Candy Manager

I've decided that a big part of the job description of being a mom is simply candy management. It starts at Halloween and doesn't let up until late spring: you have your October Halloween candy nightmare, then that morphs into the Christmas candy situation, which slides into the Valentine's candy ordeal, until the cycle completes itself with the Easter candy conundrum. And each holiday has its specific candy related challenges.

Halloween: The sheer quantity. You have the class parties. The church trunk or treats. THEN you have the actual Halloween trick or treating, not to mention all the leftover candy from your own candy bucket to hand out that night. I usually end up simply throwing the remaining vestiges of Halloween candy away sometime near the end of November.

Christmas: Christmas it's not so much all the little candies (although the kids do get a few in their stocking). It's the neighbor gifts of cookies and the little tins of fudge and the boxes of See's from the mall, and the question becomes, "Where do I put all this stuff?" Throughout most of the month of January I had a big pile of Christmas candy/chocolates/etc etc sitting in the corner by the fridge. Not to mention all the cookies that went hard before we could eat them . . .

Valentines: So right now, I'm dealing with the school Valentine's Day Party detritus that descends on the house every Feb. 14th. You have each kid's Valentine's box and all the candy therein, but you also have all the little cards attached--little cards which I've found stuck to the bottom of my bare foot while walking through the kitchen TWICE, just today. The problem is, how do I consolidate all this? What is the appropriate waiting time before I junk all the little Shrek and Spiderman and Hello Kitty Valentines so carefully penned by their friends, and pull off the Hersey's Kisses and mini Snickers and dump them all in a big bowl that I can hide in the pantry? Can't do it yet, that's all I know--the kids wouldn't want me to disgrace their Valentines in such a way, but hopefully by the middle of the week they will have moved on.

Easter: Can I just say Easter Grass? I know this, technically, doesn't have to do with candy directly, but is it just me, or do you find little green Easter grass strings sucked up into your vacuum chamber for MONTHS after Easter? Not to mention all the little plastic eggs. They get put in the toy box, under the couch, everywhere, and for the longest time I meant to save them and keep them for subsequent Easters, but now I've decided that a bag of the things are like, $1.99, so now I just gather the things up and chuck 'em when I find 'em, and buy a new bag the next year. Much easier. Also, I must say that I am a sucker for the Easter candy, myself. I think it's all the pretty pastel colors. And I've already mentioned on this blog my love of the Easter delicacy Chicks and Rabbits (little marshmallowy candies--NOT Peeps--with the consistency of Circus Peanuts). They are decidedly gross and I love them so. A big no no.

So there's my candy rant. Now for a weekly update:

-I eked my way up to 12,000 on the Amazon.com bestseller's list, and I know it doesn't sound like much, but the rankings go all the way to a million or so, so I'll take 12,000! My publisher was really happily surprised. I know I owe a lot of it to so many of my friends and family and neighbors and other associates who have been so supportive and bought the book. Thank you all!!! I'm now back to 100,000 or so, but that's to be expected after the first big push. Hopefully as we get some press now that the book is out (we are expecting some reviews online, as well as in BYU Magazine, and the book review guy at the Des News even requested a copy . . . but it wasn't a sure thing he'd review it . . . but still hopeful!) and if there is some good word of mouth, we'll see some more sales continue. Some of you have asked about bookstores, and here's the skinny: We are "under review" for Barnes and Noble (they need to have a hard copy in hand in order to review it, and it takes about a month). We are trying to work our way into Deseret Book and Seagull, but it is very hard to do if you don't publish with them. But we're trying to be positive about it. It should be available for sure in a smattering of smallish LDS bookstores around the country (like Best Books and Gifts in MN), and we're also hoping some independent bookstores here in Utah like Sam Wellers and King's English will carry it. (They need to see a hard copy too.) It will be available in both the SL City and County libraries.

-Last Saturday was Jonas's last basketball game. The ended the season 0-6, and a humiliating 0-6 at that. But the kids were little troupers and learned a lot from the beginning of the season to the end. Here's a picture of my basketball boy:




His second front tooth is still struggling to grow in, and we've become so accustomed to calling him Mr. Can Opener Tooth that it will be kind of a shock to see him with TWO great big teeth up front.

-Ethan is doing his science fair as we speak. It's a study of how music affects concentration. Part of the experiment had to do with playing a variety of music (classical, polka, country, rock) while trying to do a times table test, and I am humiliated at how poorly I performed. Embarrassing is the only way to describe it. It gives me much sympathy for my poor Lou Lou who has to endure those stupid tests on a near daily basis. Bah on times tables, I say. He also had a class party with a Medieval theme, and he was (guess?) the Court Jester, and regaled the class with a new stand up routine. As always, he was nervous the morning of, but apparently delivered and got lots of laughs.

-Elise got the part of one of Ariel's sisters (named Madrigal) in a play that her Children's Theater group is doing. She has a few lines, so she's excited. It will be fun to see. She also created a bee-u-tiful Valentine's box--and I risked my life by going out in a super extreme blizzard to buy various doodads with which to decorate it (and yes, yes I realize that I wouldn't have been in that situation if I hadn't procrastinated buying said doodads until the day before Valentine's at 4:00 p.m., right about the exact hour that the super duper storm hit, but hey, at least I wasn't one of the half dozen or so strained looking mothers hoping to find Valentine's for their kids' classes only to discover that they were ALL SOLD OUT! Back out into the howling sleet and to Wal-Mart you go, my dear, and have a fun night talking your 1st grader into writing little teeny tiny names in pen on slippery paper 25 times.) But Elise loved the box and got many glowing compliments from friends and even strangers on the bus. Made her day.

-Forrest is looking more and more babealicious as he continues his "year of discipline." Lean and mean, that's my man. Plus he's been trimming his goatee regularly, my favorite look of his, and I think makes him look super suave, especially when he's wearing his sunglasses and leather coat. We skipped out last night after we put Wyatt down to bed (it's so awesome to put him down at 7:30 and then leave Ethan in charge and go to a movie--the theater's 5 min away and Wyatt usually zonks once we put him down, so skipping out for a movie is heavenly.) We went and saw a new romantic comedy called "Definitely, Maybe" and it was pretty good. Didn't like it as much as I liked "Juno," but it was good. We also just saw (rated R alert, sorry for all those of you who are better at that element of obedience than I am--you can just pray for me. Does it help that we are very discerning in the rated R movies we do see? Probably not) "There Will Be Blood" with Daneil Day Lewis. Very very powerful, emotionally exhausting film. Most of the movie I was wondering why in the world it was R (not a lot of swearing, no sex of any kind, very little violence throughout most of it) but then at the end somebody gets his head bashed in with a bowling pin and I figured that was the clincher. But some amazing acting, and the kind of movie you think about for a long time afterward. I do love movies. And I do love our brand new movie theater with the cushie chairs and the refillable mugs we bought (only .75 per refill, not bad for a movie drink!) and the kickin sound system. And, on a related note, can I just say how glad I am that the writers are no longer on strike, mainly so I can watch The Office and 30 Rock again???

-Finally, the Wy-Man is growing and growing and growing. He almost runs around the house now, and his vocabulary is really growing. He says, "Whassat??" "Hiya!" (so cute), "Uh-oh!" "Ow!" and "Da Da" quite regularly. He particularly likes saying "Ow" while he hits me in the face and/or pulls my hair, and then laughs maniacally. But he's cute enough that I forgive him. Plus he's sleeping better, and has moved into the one nap a day schedule, which I really like because I can count on at least a 2-3 hour block of quiet time in the middle of the day. Bliss. So, to end this way too long post, here's a video of our crazy baby with a pair of Pooh ears on his head:

An interview on Motley Vision

One of the blogs in the bloggernacle (the big gaggle of LDS themed group blogs) called A Motley Vision just did an interview with me about the book. If you want to take a look at it, it's here.

And thanks, everybody, for all your amazing support! Love you!

Bound on Earth is here!

Okay, guys--it's ready to roll. Even though I haven't seen the final version of it yet (they are being shipped to me right now), I'm up on Amazon and the Parables site can take orders. So . . . if you're interested, check out www.parablespub.com or Amazon
and thar 'tis! (The cover picture isn't up yet on Amazon, though, but it should be shortly. And all my blurbs are running together with no punctuation, but hopefully that can be fixed!)

I'm hoping to put together a little book celebration here in Utah, maybe at Barnes and Noble or another store, so I'll let you know if that's a possibility.

Whoop!

My Celebrity Look Alikes

So I just found this nifty website that does facial recognition scans and tells you what celebrity you look like, and apparently I'm way hotter than I ever imagined. I look 97% like a super sexy Slovakian model married to a famous soccer player (I googled her, and considered putting up some of the various shots I found of her in assorted swimwear, but then decided against it, since the pictures of me at Yuba lake last summer in my skirted, "tummy control" swimsuit would just reinforce that this is a FACIAL recognition program, not an abdominal recognition program.)

I'm also happy to see that I look 86% like the teen aged indestructible cheerleader from Heroes; as well as 86% like the pretty lady from that movie with Brad Pitt where he's playing death, but Claire Forlani falls in love with him anyway; 83% like Ellen DeGeneres' life partner; and 80% like a model named Nikki.

And here I am toiling away at home, making peanut butter sandwiches and grading freshman comp essays. I coulda been a stah!



Then I thought it would be fun to do Forrest's face. I've always thought he looks a little bit like Julia Roberts, and a little bit like the lead singer of Smashing Pumpkins, but no. Apparently, I married way below my station, because my husband looks most of all like Cory Feldman, failed child actor of the 80s and famous drug addict, with a smattering of gay Broadway star, hunky Dirty Dancer, well-respected African-American actor and voice over artist (Luke, I am you fatha!"), foppish British romantic comedy star, female rapper (who's lost a lot of weight!), and our favorite silent movie celebrity. Who knew he had all that in him? So now if we're wondering what Missy Elliot, Corey Feldman and Charlie Chaplin have in common, well, it's Forrest.

Hilarious.

If you want to try it, go to myheritage.com. It's fun.

The Year of Discipline

Forrest has decided that 2008 is the year of discipline, and has exercised almost every single day since Jan 1. He's even dropped to the floor to do his push-ups and sit-ups when we're exhausted and it's near midnight, so I have to give him props. And he's lost 10 pounds in just about 4 weeks. A part of me is proud of him, and a part of me is jealous. Although I have finally reached the weight I was when I first went to the Dr., pregnant with Wyatt (but that weight was probably about 5 pounds heavier than I had been, since I was about 10 weeks pregnant.) But the "official" weight gain that the doctor kept track of has all been lost. Now I just have all the unofficial weight to contend with.

So Forrest can lose 10 pounds in 4 weeks, and I lose 4 pounds in 5 months. That sounds about right :-).

For my own year of discipline, I've been trying to read my scriptures and floss consistently. So my track record has been a little spotty, but I'm doing better than last year, at least!

We've had a lot going on this week, so here's a quick rundown of the highlights:

-Elise and Forrest had a Daddy/Daughter night for her Activity Days at church. They had a little tailgate meal and wore their favorite team jerseys. (Forrest and Elise were Ute fans.) Here's a cute shot of the two of them:



-We enjoyed watching President Hinckley's funeral as a family on Saturday. I was surprised at how emotional I felt--of course, I knew that I would be sad, but I was also happy for President Hinckley, that he got to have a little rest after 97 years of hard work, and see his wife again. But all of us were emotional as we sat listening to the talks (well, okay, Jonas wandered away and started playing WebKinz on the computer after a while, but I'll give him a break since he's six.) But Forrest and Ethan and Elise and I all watched the whole thing, and it was a very spiritual experience. I'm glad I got to share it with the kids.

-Saturday night, we had a big party with some friends in the neighborhood. We had ten couples (counting Forrest and me), and even though the kitchen was a little squishy, everybody seemed to have a ball. We did some SingStar (and can I just say how talented my family is?? Twenty people, and hardly anybody broke 5,000--when my family plays it, we're all battling it out in the 8,000 and 9,000 range!!) but everybody was a really good sport, even those who were decidedly tone deaf. We also played Taboo. It's such a hilarious game, especially when you have people who are kind of clueless but are unembarassed about it, so you can all laugh while they cringe and say, "Uh, um, in the air! A parking lot!" (The answer to that one was "skydive." He misread it and thought it was "skydrive." Hilarious.) A fun night, though. And the bonus of doing a party like that is that, after spending all day on Saturday cleaning, now my house is wonderfully spic an span!

-On Sunday, we got a HUGE snowstorm. It's been snowing so much this winter, it's been unreal, but yesterday we got almost 14 inches in South Jordan. We woke up in the morning and got all ready to drive down the road to 9:00 church, but at a quarter to we got a call that church had been cancelled. That's quite a rarity, especially when the church is so close, but there were lots of people who couldn't get out of their driveways and the parking lot was a mess. So we had a nice snowy day at home, capped off by my Mom and Dad and Tony and Cindy dropping by to catch some Superbowl action. And I did watch the last 10 minutes, which were very exciting (did you see that Giants guy catch the pass with his head?).

-Wyatt has started saying, "Whassat?" and pointing everywhere. It's hilarious. I don't know if he really knows what "Whassat?" means, or if he's just copying us, but it seems like he's grown a couple of months in just a couple of weeks. Doesn't hurt that he's walking everywhere now. Big boy.

So now I've successfully avoided grading papers for long enough. Gotta get to work!