YA Fantasy Showdow

So I saw a link to this on one of the book review sites I read, and I thought it was hilarious. The YA Fantasy Showdown.

Basically what it is is a list of characters from young adult fiction. They are paired against each other in a fight. The website people write a scenario of how they think the fight would go down. Then you can vote on who you think would win. Then the winners from the first round are paired against each other, and so on.

It's the last round, and Wizard Howl (a.k.a., Howell Jenkins, Wizard Jenkins, Wizard Pendragon, one of my favorite characters ever) from Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones is against Eugenides from the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. The scenario is pretty funny. I've never read the Queen's Thief series but I have read the Howl books, so it probably could have been funnier, but it was still good.

Hands down, my favorite was the Hermione Granger (from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling) vs. Christopher Chant (from the Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones) fight. The scenario is hilarious (possibly because I'm a huge fan of the Chrestomanci books).

And looking through the list made me feel really good about myself, because I'm buddies with a lot of the characters on the list from reading their books. It makes me feel like I can honestly say I'm a YA fantasy/fiction author, because I'm familiar with the field. Huzzah.

New

So, I just redid our blog design, and since it took me a while, I'd appreciate it if you all took a second to examine my handiwork and told me how nice it looks. It would make me feel very gratified, even if you're lying.

But why, you might wonder, did I bother spending so much time making our blog look beautiful, since we only update once a month, if that? Well, my friends, you'll find out soon enough. And we'll be updating more than once a month. For the same undisclosed reason. And maybe I'll even get in the habit of updating relatively frequently and you'll actually know what the heck we're up to. Miracles can happen, right?

XOXO,

Holly (or, as I've taken to calling myself whenever I want a giggle, H-Kizzle)

My Super Fun Adventure

One of the funnest things about our Honda CR-V is that the gas gauge lies [and p.s., isn't gauge the weirdest word ever? It totally isn't spelled the way it's pronounced]. Basically, when the little needle thing points to a quarter tank, that means it's empty. Once upon a time the fuel light would turn on when things got dangerous, but about a year ago it rebelled, meaning we now have to play the safe-so-we're-not-sorry game with our car and gas stations.

[I know--talk about heavy foreshadowing for disaster right there.]

Many times in the past [and by many I mean maybe twice], Sam has felt the need to push the needle to the limit, so to speak, and has ended up parked on the side of the road and walking to the nearest gas station. For quite some time, we had a handy little gas container thing in the trunk for just such occasions.

Well, last night was my turn.

I'm part of a writers group that meets every Thursday [except when we don't, like when no one's submitted anything], and when I was just about there last night I noticed that the gas gauge was at the precarious "1/4 tank" position. [This is more foreshadowing right here, in case you missed it.]

I thought, "No problem. I'll get gas on my way home."

So I went to my group and had a wonderful time, all the while being blissfully unaware of the tragedy about to befall me. We were only meeting in Orem, so I thought, "I should have enough gas to get to the station by my house. No problem. I don't need to go to the gas station so conveniently located right around the corner from my friend's house, where we're meeting. I'll be fine."

In case you haven't guessed it, I was not, in fact, fine.

I was driving on 2200 N, just before it became 900 E, when the CR-V lurched the first time. And I thought, "Oh no. I still have 7 or 8 minutes of driving time. No way I'm making it home." But then I thought, "There's sort of a gas station around here. I can probably make it there."

Not so much.

I made it to the MTC, then decided the car would go no further. And if it did, I'd be on a road with no emergency shoulder thing to pull on to when it decided it would go no further, and I didn't think anyone would appreciate my car being stopped in the middle of traffic. And I did not want to get out and push.

And let me tell you, the MTC parking lot? Totally the most awkward place in the world to be stranded without gas. I felt like everyone who looked at me as I was sitting in my car, trying to call Sam, thought I was there to try and corrupt the innocent missionaries who were just trying to train to do the Lord's work. But still, that was better than being stopped in the middle of a road.

So once I made it safely to a 30-minute parking spot, I tried calling Sam. Why didn't I just get out and walk? 1) The gas container was no longer in the trunk, so I would have had to get a new one. 2) I wasn't entirely sure of where the nearest gas station was. 3) Even if I'd had the gas can and known where the nearest station was, I didn't have any idea of what to do when I got there. 4) The flip-flops I was wearing would have given me a very uncomfortable feeling on the way there and definite, probably huge, blisters on the way back.

So, really, calling Sam seemed to be my best option. Only he didn't pick up the phone. By the time I ended the fourth call--all the while thinking of the supposed usefulness of cell phones--I determined that he was sitting outside, which he's been known to do when the weather is nice, and had left his phone inside. In desperation I called our landlady, who lives above us, but she wasn't home. And then, in utter desperation, I called our next-door neighbor.

Thankfully, she was home. And by "she" I mean one of my former Beehives (though, technically, she was never my Beehive, as she turned 14 before I was called, but I still consider her one of my girls) who happens to be my next-door neighbor. This is approximately how our conversation went:

Me: Hi. It's Holly.
Her: *surprised* Hi.
Me: So . . . can you go outside and look to see if Sam's there? I've been trying to call him, but I don't think he has his phone with him.
Her: *slight pause as she processes my statement and totally random request* Oh. Sure. Hold on. Yeah, here's there.
Me: *sighing in relief* Good. Can you ask him to call me?
Her: Sure.
Me: Thanks. You just saved my life.

The rest of the story isn't that interesting. Sam called me back and then got to be my hero and come to my rescue with a full gas can, and I made it home finally--after stopping at the closest gas station [which, p.s., was not where I thought it was at all] and filling up. And that, folks, was the end of my super fun and exciting adventure.

Though, to compensate for my traumatic experience [Does anyone else ever have problems with that word? Traumatic? I never spell it right the first time--that and tragedy. They ruin my life.], I watched the first two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from Netflix on my TV via my Wii [which is a whole other kind of exciting that I won't go into here--watching things on my TV from Netflix via my Wii, I mean]. So I guess that was the real end of my adventure.

So now you know--Sam's not the only one in the family who's gotten stranded somewhere with an empty gas tank. I'll just hang my head in shame right now. I deserve to be shunned.

Star Wars Medley

So, having branded myself a nerd via my last two posts, I feel no shame in posting this video:

There are a couple of versions of this, and I think he's just lip-syncing it, but I like this one because it has the words at the bottom. Which make this video even more awesome.

Hilarious. Especially if you love Star Wars. Which I do.

And . . . I'm not doing further damage to my questionable coolness by posting anything else tonight.

I care about this Alot

At the risk of being branded a total nerd for writing about something editor-related twice in a row, I'm going to share something that totally made my day today.

This blog post. Right here.

As an editor--and I'm sure my OCD perfectionist personality has something to do with it, too--there are some things that bother me that don't bother most people. Spelling errors. Comma abuse. Your when you're was clearly meant. There are also things that make me shudder. Like when people use semicolons [since, let's be honest, most people don't know what the heck a semicolon is and just stick it wherever they think it looks nicest].

But this blog post [yes, you're right, I did just give it to you a third time, in case you missed it the first two times] showed me how narrow-minded I've been. I obviously need to think more creatively and give people the benefit of the doubt.

And, as a reward for actually reading this post [and for reading this post, since you're obviously going to / already have, since I gave it to you four times], here is one of the lovely pictures from the post [my favorite, actually]:

New Baby Nephew Wesley

Michelle and Stew had their baby! We're so excited!!!!

I'm the youngest in my family, so I never experienced the birth of a sibling. When Naomi, my niece, was born, I was on a mission for the LDS church in Portugal, so I didn't exactly get to be a part of the real-time experience (but it was still soooo cool to get the emails about it). So this was the first time I've been able to experience a birth in my immediate family. Of course, when Matt and Tyrelle, my cousin and cousin in-law, had Ellie, they let us be around for a lot of that, and when Angela and Jayson had both Abigail and Brianna, we got to be involved with that too (they're not technically family, but close enough, since we share the same last name and Angela is like Holly's sister). But this was actual immediate family.

OK, so we weren't actually there for this one either, but my Mom and Dad kept us updated with real-time text messages. It was sooooo cool. Stew told me that they would be naming the baby Sam, but I guess they decided that might get confusing since they already have a dog named Sammy and because we already have some duplicate names in the family. :) So my new nephew's name is Wesley. And we're soooo excited.

Family is such a wonderful thing. It makes sense that families are eternal. It is such a beautiful plan that calls for a man and women to come together in the eternal bond of marriage. That they become one in purpose and love. That in that love they have children and teach them in the way they should go, providing a fortress of joy and peace, which is what family should be. It is so awesome that they in turn find their own eternal spouses and continue the beautiful cycle of family. There truly is no place like home. Of course, there are the rough times and sometimes heartbreaks, but time, patience, persistence, and love can heal them all. This is all possible because of our divine nature as children of God and because of the eternal sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ. Hold on to family, make it work, and you will have joy.

I'm so grateful for the family I grew up in the strength of those bonds. They're such good, happy people that give me awesome examples to try to follow. I'm grateful for the awesome women my brothers have married and the friends they have become to me. I'm grateful for the family that I married into and the incredible people they are. Most of all I'm so grateful for my eternal sweetheart and for our little family. No one else could inspire me to be the man I should be like she does. She is my best and dearest friend and a beautiful woman.

Copyeditors

So, as you may know, I am an editor by profession. I like editing. I like thinking that, after a thorough edit by yours truly, English language speakers seems slightly less illiterate than they did before my intervention.

And, being an overzealous [probably] editing nerd, I have a few editing sites [support groups] that feed into my Google Reader [which, really, is the only way to follow blogs]. And today one of them posted this lovely analysis of the basic copyeditor.

Now, I can't claim to actually having laughed out loud [due to me being at work and not wanting to disrupt my coworkers], but it certainly provoked several chuckles. Especially because there's a lot of it that's true [at least in relation to me].

So . . . you should check it out. And have a few chuckles yourself.

XOXO,

Holly