This month a book is being published that I edited:

It’s a middle-grade fantasty novel. Here’s the book description from the back cover (which I also had to write):

After a baffling car accident left him fatherless and his mother without memory, fourteen-year-old Xander Sparks was taken in by his “Uncle” Cristo. One night Xander and his best friend Shane are attacked by strange, deadly creatures that swarm into the house, leading Uncle Cristo to reveal a secret magical gate that opens to a far-away world called Ardan. Tragically, Cristo is critically wounded, and only the most powerful magic in Ardan may save his fading life—a rare dragon tear from the Dragon Tower. Xander, Shane, and their new friend Princess Allana undertake the dangerous journey into fantastical wilderness where they must overcome the trials that guard the tear and threaten to thwart their desperate purpose. Their adventures uncover magic and mysteries they never expected that will ultimately change their lives forever.

Dramatic sounding, eh? It’s really a fun book to read. I’d edited a couple other books before, but this is my first for the fiction market. It took a long time (because I was also working full-time) and it was a lot of work. But worth it.

My mom shared this with me and said I could share it with you.

My folks live on a farm with woods in their backyard. It’s not uncommon for random wild animals to show up in their yard or on their doorstep. They knew that a possum regularly visits their outdoor cat’s food bowl because my dad has caught it in the act several times. One time he opened the door and surprised it so much that it fell over and almost ran into the house. Normally, though, it just runs around to the opposite side of the house and waits for my folks to leave.

One night this week when my dad opened the front door the possum, in its hurry to escape and hide, ran up what it probably thought was a tree growing on the front porch but was, in fact, a walking stick. Nevertheless, it ran up to the end of the stick and proceeded to “play possum.” When my mom walked out it was still there and remained there as she stood looking at it. When my dad came out next to my mom to take pictures, it was still there. When they walked over to the van and got in, it was still there. As they drove down their street, they looked back and, yes, it was still there. But it was gone when they returned a couple hours later. But the cat food was gone. Smart possum.

We used to have other things to post about on our blog before Wes was born. Honest. I can’t seem to remember what those things were . . . but I know they were there.

So, in other news, here are some things that have been happening around here that don’t necessarily involve our baby.

1. John and I went skiing last week at Sundance. It was John’s annual company Christmas party wherein the employees and their significant others bundled up and spent all day in sub-freezing temperatures just to strap on thin metal deathtraps and slide helplessly down the side of a mountain. Well, a lot of the others were sliding a bit more in gracefully than I was. Let’s just say skiing doesn’t make sense to me and I’m not sure why people pay money to do it. But John enjoys it and so I try to. At the end of the day we ate a yummy dinner catered by Sundance and exchanged white elephant gifts. John and I ended up with a $25 Applebees gift card and a neat-o vacuum. But we were nearly stuck with a box of golf balls (thankfully one of the men exchanged his vacuum for it).

2. I have begun to learn the art of coupon clipping. It’s exhilerating. Really. I live for the part of shopping where the sales clerk hands me my receipt and it says at the bottom: “You saved $-.–“. The best savings come when you use a coupon on an item that’s already deeply discounted by the store. Double savings. I added up my receipts this morning, and since I started using coupons in November I’ve saved $56.44.

3. Did you know we have a kitten? He’s Grayson and he terrorizes our older cat, Kyra. We brought him home in July and he’s grown like crazy since then. He’s almost as big as Kyra now.

4. After a nine-year hiatus I’ve started playing the cello again. I played from the age of nine until I left for BYU at seventeen. My cello stayed at home in Iowa because it’s the family’s. But my parents brought it out to me this summer, and I’ve been playing it ever since. I gave myself a reason to practice by volunteering to do a musical number in sacrament meeting the week after Christmas. The song was Silent Night. A teenage boy sang, a woman played the piano, and it was a lovely arrangement. It’s refreshing to be playing again.

5. John is working on his writing again. He’s been studying Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces and learning a ton about archetypes and how to structure a hero’s journey in literature. We were watching Star Wars the other night (George Lucas wrote the script after reading Campbell’s book), and John pointed out to me each stage of Luke Skywalker’s journey. Really interesting.

Just a picture of what it’s like outside our windows these days.