B&E, Thunderstorms & Title Changes

Emmett Hunter (FC: Kyle Schmid), Sarah Barker (FC: Evan Rachel Wood), and Jean-Claude de Beaufort (FC: Matt Bomer)

Watching the Following during my break from school is kind of a bad idea because it gives me all sorts of ideas, but none of these ideas are productive in the way of school. I thought I'd come on here and post a little somethin' somethin'. It's been a pretty weird week - and it's only Wednesday.

I let our neighbors' dogs out every day and this week has been no different. On Monday I went over to let our immediate neighbors' Maltese and Golden Retriever out and got a text that I would have to let the Collie/Shepard mix in the next house too. I was only planning on being out of the house for like five minutes letting "the boys" (the Maltese and Golden) out so I'm in my green felt-ish pajama pants and a Universal Studios sweatshirt. I hadn't taken a shower yet so I had my pink Steelers beanie on. I looked a bit... homeless. I looked suspicious at the least. I was walking back to our house when I couldn't remember unlocking the door. I'd managed to lock myself out of the house. I nearly had a meltdown as I rummaged through my neighbor's abundance of cords to find a charger for my iPhone, which had chosen that moment to die a horrible death. The neighbors didn't have a spare key so I was out of ways to avoid the last resort. My sister - who owns the house - called me and said, "You're going to have be McGuyver." I'm thinking, "Where am I going to find a toothpick, a rubberband, and a paperclip at a time like this?" Obviously she wasn't talking about concocting a way of jimmying the door. No. She told me to get the ladder from the garage and try to get into the window. I had never climbed a ladder before, let alone into a second-story window. I got both ladders out, but one of them is a heavy-duty, industrial type ladder that I couldn't even figure out which way to turn it and I had a hard time lifting it up. The other ladder was much smaller, about a foot taller than me, and much lighter. I opened it up underneath the window and began my ascent. I managed to get the screen out, which I honestly didn't think I'd be able to do. Adrenaline kicked in at that point because without really thinking about it, I hoisted myself up into the window. The first thing I did when I got in was unlock every door and attach my neighbors' keys to my house keys. So that was Monday.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was a pretty good day. It was freakishly hot for Illinois, but it's about time the all-powerful Mother Nature caught up with the seasons and stopped dropping snow on us in our shorts-and-tank-top-filled closets. It began to cool off drastically as we ate our White Castle and the rains began to move in. A couple claps of thunder and some drizzle didn't seem so bad. I finished eating so I headed downstairs to get some work done. It was about ten minutes before my sister and her husband were running around the house closing windows and wiping things dry. The light drizzle had erupted into the full thunderstorm they'd warned us about during Dancing with the Stars. Everything was fine, other than my sister's bowling ball, which got soaked. The power flickered rather violently a couple times and then just went out. The three of us scurried about trying to find candles. Our light sources as we did this were one flashlight, one of those big lighters, and my iPhone flashlight. Go figure that my phone wasn't dead, huh? My nephew gets pretty anxious during storms and he's not fond of the dark so I ended up sitting with him while he played on the Kindle, which luckily had been fully charged before the power went out. We all sat in the living room, which at that point had begun to smell like Yankee Candle, and listened to the rain, hail, and thunder. My nephew said, "Now I know how you guys did it in the old days." Yes, the old days of no Kindle during a power outage. Those were the days. My sister and I agreed that the electronic-less silence was kind of nice. My other sister was on her way home from work and actually saw the Jewel-Osco right down the street get struck by lightning and the entire store and parking lot go black. She got home safely and yes, we did let her in. As soon as the rains let up, the raccoons made their move on our garbage cans, successfully tipping at least one. My nephew's bedtime approached so we all retired to our darker-than-usual ends of the house. I watched a bit of Rome on my portable DVD player as my laptop brought my phone back from the brink of yet another horrible death.

I woke up today to the news that my nephew had no school due to flooding. Lying in bed, the sound of Keeping Up with the Kardashians coming from the living room let me know that the power was back on. My nephew - who I'll call Bubba - is lying on the couch in his TMNT footie pajamas, watching Minecraft videos on the Kindle. It shouldn't rain today and the rain has cooled everything down so as soon as the driveway is clear, I'm going to try to pull him outside to play some basketball or something.

The first book of the Galoria Hunter Series was first published through Lulu by me as Blood Red Roses. When I got with my former publisher, it was changed to Glory Fades. I've tentatively been calling in Glory of the Nephilim in my head and on the mock cover I did out of boredom the other day. I've decided to combine the first two books, Blood Red Roses/Glory Fades and Nephilim, so naturally I thought I'd combine the titles. I won't post the mock cover yet because I've jumped the gun before and the rewrite's far from finished. I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't forgotten about it. It's still very much in my mind and I'm dying to get back into it fully, but I had to focus on school.