Fifteen Minutes of Delusion

Today I have the privilege of hosting a virtual book tour stop for Kathi Oram Peterson's novel The Forgotten Warrior . Forgiveness has never been an attribute of sixteen-year-old Sydney Morgan's. Loyal and loving to her mother and sister, a crisis forces her to find her absent father, which in turn begins a chain of events leading her to the last place and time she would have ever expected. The Forgotten Warrior follows Syd as she is transported back to Book of Mormon times by touching a mysterious clear stone. She meets Chief Captain Helaman; nursemaid, Mariah; and the stripling warriors. They believe Syd to be a boy, and worse yet, Helaman's second-in-command, Tarik, thinks Syd is a Lamanite spy and threatens to kill her. Come follow Sydney as she desperately tries to find her way back home, fights to gain Helaman's respect, and despite herself, falls in love with Tarik. I'm glad I was asked to be a part of this book tour. I enjoyed reading The Forgotten Warrior...

As part of today's Virtual Book Tour, I am including an interview with the author of The Forgotten Warrior , Kathi Oram Peterson. Have you always wanted to be a writer? I have always enjoyed reading novels, but the writing bug didn’t bite until after I’d had my first child. My first book was dreadful. I’ve written many unpublished books and with each one I’ve learned more. Tell us a little bit about your book/s. Which ones are your favorites if you have more than one, and briefly let us know what they are about. Pay particular attention to your most recent book and/or your first book: The first few books I wrote were romantic suspense. I love the challenge of plotting a good suspense and I’ve always been partial to romance. When the time comes, I hope I can revisit those books and make them marketable. The Forgotten Warrior, which is my debut young-adult novel, was a pleasure to write. My son suggested I write about the stripling warriors. I wanted to have a young woman as my prot...

This past week while I was visiting Utah for work, I carved a few hours out of my Saturday morning to attend the annual Life, the Universe, and Everything symposium at BYU. It was very well worth the time and effort. I regret that I only got to spend 4 hours in what was a 3-day event. L. E. Modesitt, Dave Wolverton (aka David Farland), Brandon Sanderson, and Eric James Stone. It appears that successful SciFi/Fantasy writer guys need to wear black shirts and stare authorially into the distance. Laura Hickman, James Dashner, L. E. Modesitt, Dave Wolverton, Brandon Sanderson, Mette Ivie Harrison, and Paul Genesse. Someone needs to give the Dashner Dude that black shirt memo. (Apparently girls can get away with turtlenecks) Tracy Hickman gave the day's main address. Jessica Day George, Clint Johnson, Laura Swift, Stacy Whitman, Dan Wells, Aprilynne Pike, Julie Wright.

I think it might have been a mistake to fast on Sunday. I was already wiped out from the trip I took last week, and could barely get myself out of bed Sunday morning. But it was a special ward fast, so I decided to go ahead and participate. I was very tired all through church, but didn't really have a problem until I was on the way home. As we get off the freeway a mile from our house, there are two gas stations on the corner, and things can get rather chaotic. This is the situation I found myself in Sunday afternoon. A car was coming out of the gas station on the right, and the lady was rolling and looking the other way. I thought to myself, She's going to hit me if she doesn't pay attention. Unfortunately, with my low blood sugar and fatigue I wasn't able to process the whole situation as quickly as needed, and I noticed too late that the car in front of me had stopped to turn left into the other gas station. I stomped on the brakes, but didn't manage to stop in t...

I got a chance to see my sister Jen and a couple of her girls the other night. Quincy and McKenna were both very sweet.

Last night my dad took my sister and I to Greg's restaurant at UVU . Greg's is a Culinary Arts Institute student-run restaurant located in the McKay Events Center at UVU. Last night's menu was Creole. I had the breaded catfish. Dad had the alligator. I was quite impressed. It was a great meal for just $20, and it was kinda fun knowing that the food was all coming from people doing their college work.

We had a family get together last night. Here are some pictures. My sister Noreen and niece Rachael. Noreen and I. Sisters Karra, Marri, Noreen and I. Some of the cousins. My mom, the master chef. Aunt Irene, Uncle Frank, and my brother-in-law, Dale.

The pump truck came to empty our septic tank and bank account. (Sigh.) Oh, well. I got my clothes washed, dried, and packed, and made it to Utah Monday night. Alyssa cried and cried before I left, insisting that she was coming with me. I was packed early enough to give her nearly an hour of snuggle time before I had to leave, and that calmed her down. However, I'm told that shortly after I left she had another melt down and began stuffing clothes into a bag so she could go with me. Fortunately, Anna came home not long after that and Kara convinced them to make a paper chain counting down the days until I get home. Wow, do I feel special. Yesterday was a productive day. The printer people I'm in the office to work with come today. We'll have a meeting and figure out a schedule, and then I'll know what the rest of my week looks like. During the evenings, my week is booked. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone tonight. I'll be sure and post pictures tomorrow.

I like President's Day. I have the day off from work, but the girls are still in school. Perfect! This year, the day is not quite so perfect. Alyssa has a cold. She's staying home from school. Kara has a cold, too. Shari has a cold, too One of Kara's friends had to leave the place she was staying Saturday. She's been sleeping on our couch the last few nights. She now has a cold, too. I'm getting ready to leave on a trip to the home office, and I'm all packed except for a few things that need to be washed. However, we can't run the washing machine (or anything else that uses water) because the septic system is almost backed up. The pump truck is on the way. They should be here in 90 minutes or so. Yes, this is turning out to be a most interesting President's Day.

I hope everyone is having a great Valentine's Day. Alyssa invited me to come to her party at school yesterday. She's been talking about this party for weeks! Here are a couple of pictures with her and her friends. She made Valentines for Kara and I. On my Valentine, she did all of the lettering herself. That's quite a milestone for her.

I've been doing a pretty good job at exercising every morning, at least a little bit. I've decided to mix it up a little, and have added the Raving Rabbids TV Party dance numbers to my routine. This has been both good and bad. For those unfamiliar with these mini-games, the idea is that you are shown a series of dance moves that you need to follow in time, using the Wii controllers and the balance board. The game screen looks something like this: It's a lot of fun, and really gets me working. I imagine doing the dances I look something like this: Unfortunately, the other day Anna decided to pull out the video camera and record what I really look like. Talk about a blow to the ol' delusion! And to make matters worse, shortly after she turned on the camera, my sweaty hand sent the nunchuk sailing through the air. Anna and Kara got a big laugh, and it's all caught on video. If I didn't look like a fat old man without any rhythm waving his hands in the air, I'd...

Tucker has a new friend. We have reason to believe it's a lady friend, although she hasn't made it especially easy for us to tell. The fact that he doesn't try to kill her is one good indication. She showed up about a month ago, and now we see her more than Tucker. I'm afraid she's adopted us, although she won't let anyone near her. I think she says her name is Jiji. Unfortunately, the arrival of a little girl cat in our garage tends to complicate the "unofficial pet" situation somewhat. I fear the complications will probably increase in the near future. (Sigh)

OK, so I'm not as close to 500 posts as I thought. It seems Blogger was counting a bunch of unpublished, abandoned entries, and now that I've deleted them I'm firmly in the middle of the 480's. However, there still will be a contest at post 500, so watch for it. I'll see what I can do to post a little more regular like and hurry things along.

Oh, my aching back! And neck, and shoulder, and legs, and butt. This getting older thing is for the birds. Actually, it's not the aches I mind so much - I earned my latest batch by biking to Alyssa's school to play on the playground, and toasting Anna's cookies at Wii baseball and bowling. Yeah, that was fun. The growing crop of gray hairs isn't really so bad, either. No, what's making me crazy are the hairs growing in my ears. Double yuck! I'm bearing down on 41 with great rapidity, and it's showing. But I still have a month before hitting that milestone. There's another, happier milestone coming up even sooner than my birthday. (I remember when birthdays used to be the happiest day of the year. Hah!) That milestone is the 500th entry on this blog! Isn't that exciting? (Nod your head, please.) I'm still a few posts away, but I wanted to give you a heads up because to celebrate, I'm going to have a contest! That's right - a real contest w...

It seems like there's nothing to blog about for a long time, and then all of a sudden everything happens at once. Here are a few bloggy tidbits from the last few days: I went running today. Outside. It was nice. I ran a mile. My time (13+ minutes) was absolutely pathetic. But it felt good. I got the State Inspection done on the truck yesterday. This is significant, as the truck has sat in the driveway since the sticker expired last May. We just haven't had much need for a second car, and I didn't think it would pass with a cracked windshield, but fortunately it did. We will need a second car the week after next, so I can drive it to the airport. I will be going in to the home office in Utah for a week to work on a variety of projects. This trip to Utah coincides somewhat with Life, the Universe, and Everything: The Marion K. “Doc” Smith Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy at BYU. Since it's free, I'll slip into a couple of the Saturday morning workshops befor...

Not me this time. Today it's Alyssa. During dinner, Alyssa announced that she was tired and wanted to go to sleep. Well, 7:00 pm is a little late for a nap, so we told her no. But I guess she really needed the rest. She has been sleeping like this for the last 15 minutes or so. I'd move her, but I'm afraid she would get too comfortable and sleep all the way until bed time.

Wow - I can't believe how totally wiped out I was last night (and this morning). Granted, it was a busy day, but not so busy as some others that didn't leave me feeling like I'd swallowed a few too many sleeping pills. And I didn't have any sleeping pills or antihistamines or anything else like that. The only thing I can figure is that it's "that time of the month," the part in the Lyme lifecycle where the little bugs are more susceptible to the antibiotics, and my body gets bogged down processing all the dead bacteria. It's a theory, anyway. Of course, I was fairly busy yesterday. My main task was for the day was getting Kara's metal sauna hooked up and ready to run. I needed a few screws to mount the heater, and some little plastic grommets to keep the power cord safe from sharp metal edges, so that meant a trip to Home Depot. I also needed to try and offgas the power cord, which meant a trip to the liquor store for cheap Vodka. I also went to t...