Don't shower more than necessary.

This is one of the mottoes I choose to live by. And by more than necessary, I mean to never violate my cardinal rule of showering: never shower on consecutive days.

Showering is a pain. Drying and straightening my hair is an effort. And doing so every day is not a worthwhile use of my time—and I'm way too lazy for that. Every other day is sufficient for me. But sometimes, because I need to realign my shower schedule to the right days of the week, I have to go two days without showering (in order to avoid breaking the cardinal rule). I think the rest of my body can handle it, but it's my hair that usually suffers.

Like today. It's a curly phase, which usually covers up Day 3 quite nicely, but I went swimming yesterday and now I'm one step away from dreadlocks. Do I regret not showering today? No. Did I count swimming as somewhat of a shower? Maybe. Is my hair totally wild and out of control today, as a result? Yes. Do I care? No. Because above all else, I won't shower more than necessary.

On writing a book: The first month...ish

Since you, my seven blog readers, are now my obligated book fans, here's an update on how the book writing is going. I feel like it's been a roller coaster ride already, with undoubtedly more changes and extremes to come. But here are a few things I've learned thus far.

It's fun.
I was all excitement the first couple of weeks. I made relatively fast progress, spewing out everything I had been thinking about for the past four years. And I did not anticipate the sudden increase in new ideas. It was as though my brain was waiting for the first ideas to get down on the page so that there was room for more. That was great.

It's hard work.
That said, there have been some challenging times. Sometimes the words just come and I'm happy with them. Other times I know what I want to say but I feel like I have to climb way up into the treetops of my brain and painstakingly pick them one by one after careful selection. And other times, I know I need to say something more but I don't know what it is yet and my fingers just sit on home row, waiting and waiting for direction that never comes.

When I set out to write this thing, I don't think I understood how carefully I was going to have to plan every little detail, how thorough I would have to be, and how I was going to have to build this house of a book brick by little tiny brick. Imagining the completed house is much easier than building the whole thing from the ground up. And it's overwhelming to think that I've probably only scratched the surface. So overwhelming that sometimes my laptop stays closed and I try to give it some distance when I walk by it.

Filter, filter, filter.
I have to do so much hard thinking about the story and the characters that sometimes I think too much. Sometimes my mind will go a little crazy and try to tie EVERYTHING to the book. I've had to fine tune my ability to filter these thoughts so that when I think "Oh, I should include that funny little bit I just came up with about the raspberry jam!" I can say, "No. Stop right there. It wasn't that funny." Not every thought that crosses my mind needs to go in the book. It's "write what you know," not "write everything you've ever known."

I am my own worst enemy.
Sometimes I'm like, hey, I have thirty seconds, I'll just open up the laptop and squeeze in a bit of writing because it's just itching to come out. Other times I feel like I want to write, but there are so many other distractions. Like the other night. I told myself that I would just check my email and then start writing; I wasn't allowed anything else. But when my one email was about something posted on Facebook, I had to go check it out, right? And then I found myself halfway down that slippery slope thirty minutes later, not having written anything but up to date on several friends and several blogs I had been wanting to catch up on. Geez. So I now find myself creating little rewards or mini deadlines to make myself accomplish something (like, finish writing this scene and then I can work on my blog post about writing a book).

There's a delicate balance between planning and flying by the seat of my pants.
What a great expression that is, by the way. Anyway, these past few weeks have been an interesting experiment in both planning and flying in this manner, for me. I'm a pretty organized person, for the most part. And, if this amateur can say so, organization is very important in book writing. So I have planned and plotted and made many lists about many things, but you can't plan everything. There are times when I just sit down and start a scene without a care in the world and it's so fun to see where it takes me. I'll be going along, kind of sort of knowing the direction I'm heading, and then I'll be like, "Whoa. I just created a new character. I like it." And off I go.

Anyway, it's been an experience. Sometimes I get scared that this book will be my practice novel, that writing it will be the way I learn how to write a real one. I'm scared it will be terrible because it's my first. I want this one to be good. I'm very tied to it. So I guess I'll keep trying to make it good, but seriously, keeping Self-Doubt at bay is a full-time job. Sometimes I succeed and have a stellar night like tonight, where ideas come and words flow and holes are filled and I think I can actually make something good out of this. And other times I warily eye my laptop like a scared animal, frightened that I'll sit down and nothing will come and I'll realize that I've been foolish to think I could do this. But I'm still committed. The nights like tonight keep me going, and I'll keep writing, hoping for more of them. Five more months to go.

Cooking for the weekend

I made this flat bread recently (a recipe I found in Real Simple a while ago), and I have to say it was delish. Very simple, so you know it's the ingredients that make it good and not the cook. I did not serve it with a side of greens, like the recipe says, because that seemed kind of wimpy. Instead, we had a tortellini pasta salad and a broccoli bacon salad, which made for a very summery meal.

About this recipe: I only used one shallot, which seemed like plenty, and you can also make your own pizza dough. Obviously. I did not, however, because I was lazy. I instead used some fresh scone/bread dough from the local grocery store bakery. Also, most people probably already do this, but it's a good idea to remove the thyme leaves from the sprigs because the sprigs get a little twig-like. Maybe mine was just super dry, but I did not want to be eating flat bread with twigs on it, pure and simple.

Sweet Potato and Brie Flat Bread

Ingredients

• 1 pound frozen pizza dough, thawed 
• cornmeal for the baking sheet
• 1 medium sweet potato, peeled, halved, and thinly sliced
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• 8 sprigs fresh thyme
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 4 ounces Brie, sliced
• 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• 4 cups mixed greens (about 3 ounces)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 425° F. Shape the dough into a large oval and place on a cornmeal-dusted baking sheet.
2. In a medium bowl, toss the sweet potato, shallots, thyme, 3 tablespoons of the oil, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper.
3. Scatter the potato mixture over the dough and top with the Brie. Bake until golden brown and crisp, 20 to 25 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk together the vinegar, remaining tablespoon of oil, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper.
5. Toss the dressing with the greens. Serve with the flat bread.

The last and final birthday post, I promise.

Just a few pictures to record all of the birthday hullabaloo. We started out the day with breakfast and presents. Anna had to try a few of them out right then and there.

Imagine some pink cowgirl boots with this outfit and you'll have a complete picture of this preciousness.

She was so cute when she opened her presents. Here are some things she said:

"Goggles! What I've always wanted!" (This just made me laugh, that these words actually came out of her mouth.)

"This is such good!"

Then she got all sweet and quiet . . . and melodramatic: "I just love everything. You're too nice. I don't know how to thank you. I'm going to cry. BWAH! Ha ha!"

Later, we had her birthday party. Ten little girls makes for a lot of . . . fun. Mostly.

They . . .

played group tag

painted butterfly magnets

learned to hula

ate these

These cupcakes were kind of labor intensive but so bright and fun. You can read me the riot act about food dyes later.

and drank strawberry daiquiris out of fancy glasses and watched Anna open some presents.

Anna got a lot of presents that day, probably too many. But when the girl can get this excited over a bottle of bubbles, you can't really complain too much, can you?

All of the adorable little ladies with their treasure boxes we found at the end of the treasure hunt.

Later that night, we ate some cake, which Anna marked by making a succession of really great faces.

Making a wish...

Happy birthday, Anna!

The birthday timeline

After yesterday's party and hullabaloo, I'm just about birthdayed out. But not quite yet. I don't think I've ever done a birthday picture timeline for Anna, so age 5 seems a good time to start.

BIRTH DAY

AGE 1

I also had to add this one because she looks like such a little elf or munchkin or elfkin.

AGE 2

AGE 3

AGE 4

AGE 5

I like how the backgrounds in this one and her 4th birthday are nearly identical. Those may have been the very same bananas from last year . . .

But I don't like how fast she went from 5 to a sultry 16.

More to come on the party and all that. It was fun, it was exhausting, it was very cute — which means it's worth reporting on, I think. I'll get to it right after I stop feeling like I got beat up yesterday.

Who does Anna look like?

When I was pregnant, we thought for sure Anna would be a shoo-in as a toe head, just like both of her parents were as kids. (Our ultra blond hair was seriously more white than blond, sometimes.) But I guess we underestimated the redhead gene recessing its way through both of our families, though, because out came Anna with hair that was a delightful combination of the two colors — an authentic strawberry blond.

But what about the rest of her features? She's a bit of a mystery to me. But before I share my opinion on who she looks like, I'll show you some pictures and let you decide for yourselves.

Does Anna . . .

(a picture, just in case you've forgotten what she looks like)

a close-up to help you make your decision

. . . look more like her dad . . .

or her mom?

Yep, that's right. That IS a cabbage patch kid on my shirt.

So what do you think? Let's put it to a vote.

Here's what I think. I see similarities from both sides, but I think, on the whole, Anna looks like Trevor or at least his side of the family. I can see it a lot in this picture of the two of them (nevermind that they're sitting in the mouth of a blowup dragon):

Anyway, Anna especially looks like his two sisters, I think, who also happen to be redheads. But every once in a while, Anna will get a look on her face that kind of reminds me of myself.

I've seen these looks on her face several times.

For anyone who has been privy to Anna's "nostril face," I believe we can see partly where it came from. I don't know if I should be proud or not.

Okay, the nostril face AND this face:

See a resemblance?