Clover Autrey

My twelve year old is definitely a Millennial.  

He loves technology, understands, takes it apart and rewires it. After myself, my husband, and my two oldest boys have all tried to simply get the TV back onto the TV after watching Netflix here on the Wii, we must eventually call T down to fix it, which he does with a I-can't-believe-you-can't-do-this shake of his head and two seconds later it's done. Of course since he has rewired everything where only a Mage of the Thirteenth Level can figure it out, I'm thinking it's not because I'm too old to get it. He's even gone to his friend's house where their cable has been out for days and inspects their router and fixes the problem. His brain functioning in this is a little frightening. I only hope he learns to use his power for good.

Anyway, the gamer's ultimate game Minecraft is T's passion. He loves it. I've heard him explaining how to set things up in there with the exasperation of an old man. He has his own Minecraft server.

"What is a server?" I ask.

"So people can go to my server and play the game through my server even when I'm not there."

"And why is that important?"

"Ah, Mom. You just don't get it."

He's right. I don't get it at all. But I helped him get his server. He's thrilled with it and feels important.

Needless to say, he's on his server, playing Minecraft alot, leading his friends through the worlds as they play together through their headphones.

So hearing him talking in his headphones is a normal occurrence at our house. However, yesterday, the talking seemed different, less action, more monotone when I passed. So being the nosy-must-know-everything-that-my-kid-is-doing-on-the-Internet type Mom, I ducked my head in.

He was reading.

About four of his friends were all on CreepyPasta (at their own homes with headphones) taking turns reading these scary stories.

My son who doesn't like reading.
My son who has dyslexia.
My son was taking the lead, reading out loud to his friends who were all reading along together because "reading the stories alone is too scary". Like one of his friends could reach through the monitor and save him.

I'm thrilled. Yes, reading. I want my kids to have a love of reading! Does it matter that it is urban legend scare-your-pants-off stuff? No. Who doesn't like those? Am I ready to start thrusting books in T's face like Nightlife because if he likes Jeff the Killer, he'd love Slashback. Then again, I know I can't get too pushy, too let's-bond-over-this right this second, kay, kay?

So I closed the door, did a quiet knuckle-tap (which I know, yeah, yeah, fifty-year-olds aren't suppose to do--not cool) and am letting the bond-over-this opportunities come natural as I  leave my copies of Rob Thurman's book out in surreptitious locations. Oh that? It's just a book about monsters with sharp metal teeth who can open up doorways to other worlds... Kinda scary though.
 

Too Good to Be True by Kristan Higgins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Kristan Higgins walked up to the podium and exclaimed "Behold the Power of Spanks". Throughout her luncheon address, she was charming and hilarious and at one point even made me tear up. Of course after that I'm going to read her book. Not to mention there was a free one right there placed on my chair. Score!

I got a lot of free books at the conference but Too Good to Be True was the first one I wanted to read, and it was just as charming and hilarious as Kristan, and yes, at one point I teared up. Okay, maybe at two or three points.

I love this book and I love this writer.

There's a truckload of reviews on here so I won't bother to sum up the story, except to say, every time Grace struck Callahan with a lethal hockey stick or rake, it was the funniest thing ever. Then she backs up into his truck...wow.

He's an ex-con and she's a big fat liar and I love them both, felt so bad for Grace when it looked like things weren't going to work out. Sigh.

Now, even though I have a pile of books at my disposal, I'm kinda thinking of digging into another Kristan Higgins book.


View all my reviews

Okay, maybe not flying flying, but as close as you can get besides free-falling from an airplane.
My big sis Bekie has been skydiving for 30 plus years and as been on all sorts of teams and traveled the world to join in skydiving competitions. That's her below, the farthest to the right.



 That's me above. I'm holding my own position without anyone holding me in place. I impressed myself.


Kyle above, twisting and turning as though he's been doing it for years. Show off. And Tate's below looking like he's about to sprout wings.






Anyway, if you're out in Arizona between Tucson and Phoenix stop in at the wind tunnel at SkyVentureArizona   They were great.

While visiting my sister in Tucson, we just had to go to the PIMA Air and Space Museum since all my guys are "plane guys".

Note to travelers: Don't hit Arizona in July. It's hot, really really hot. Even though the museum yard boasts more than 250 aircraft, we pretty much stayed around the ones in the 3 huge hangars where the fans were blowing. What? I'm not an idiot. Go ahead and walk around the acreage beneath the blazing Arizona sun in 110 degrees. I'll wait for you right here in the air conditioning.

It was fun to watch the way everyone wanted to take on the museum. Bekie and Pat strolled along with the guided tour, listening to the old aviator's every word.

Pat in his Happy Place

Kyle & Sam

Bekie

Tate and the Wright Flyer

 The guide was too slow for the boys, so Kyle and Sam wandered around, climbing into the planes they could and pushing buttons, and then running ahead to the other hangers. Bekie seemed a little disappointed that the boys didn't want to listen slowly to the guides, until my guys pointed out to her some of the aircraft by name and capabilities. She just got a big dose of how this younger generation soaks up info they're interested in within nanoseconds like little computers, before zipping on to the next thing.

Tate wandered around the planes by himself, giving me the look as I lagged behind, trying to sneak his picture. Mr. Grumpy Poser was not tolerant so most my shots are of his back side or blurred as he caught me and streaked away. Rotten child. His focus was less on the planes and more on the technology.

During the first hanger tour, the boys and I were hungry and bored, waiting on the "tourists and the guide" so we schlepped into the little cafe and ordered fries. Whoa, they had good fries. We went through 3 of the 4 boxes before Pat and Bekie were finished with their tour.

F 100 or maybe F150

Then we went into the WWII Hangers. Now, these I really enjoyed, mainly because I'd just written a story centered around WWII and am planning on extending that into a series, so I took a lot of pictures. This seems as good as place to store them for research so bear with me for a second as I go photo crazy:

Fieseler Aerial Camera

Hawker Hurricane. Look at at all the Swastikas along the edge.

Summer Navy Flight Suit in Guam

P51 Mustang WWII

Tate looking through the scope to drop a bomb

Bomber Escort

WWII ammo

Bomber Bay doors

DC 3 (I think)

Mounted WWII machine gun

WWII Bomber side view

Crew used to crawl through this tube to get one from end of the bomber to the other.

WWII Mess Kit

Nazi Paraphernalia

Flight Jacket WWII

Undercarriage

This one took a lot of tweaking. I started out with this stock photo from Dreamstime. Well, minus the modesty slash. I saw it months and months ago while I was looking for another cover and just fell in love with this model's hair and facial expression. I bought it right then. In fact, this is the only cover model that I've ever written a character to match. Usually I just see the characters in my mind, but Bekah I wrote seeing this picture. This is her. That's a first for me.


However, even though Bekah is naked quite a bit throughout the book since time traveling doesn't allow anything material, like clothes or weapons, to go through, half-nekked people on covers gives a different impression for what's inside the book. I don't want to be misleading, so the search for a cover up ensued. That was really hard to find something that fit the way her body is twisted kind of sideways.
Finally I settled on this poncho.  And it kind of fit on her. It was fun getting her arm in front of it.

I also had to get rid of the hot red jalapeno key chain she was holding since, like I said, nothing material can travel through time rifts, including red key chains. That would have come in useful in the 13th Century though now that I think about it. Too bad.
Added the purple saturation.