Hi! I know that you are reading this blog because the large sign outside your business stated that you are a psychic advisor. Therefore, I feel certain that you could feel the grave disturbance in the force that occurred when I saw your sign proclaiming, "Walk-in's Welcome!"

Now, because you are psychic, please either read my mind and/or look into your crystal ball and repair this crime against grammar. I can't trust you to advise me on how to best live my life if you can't fix this. Thanks!

Final exam is submitted. Cookies are baked and decorated. Flour has been removed from the floor. Some cookies look suspiciously like blobs with icing squiggles, but it was our first time using a rolling pin and cookie cutters for dough rather than play-doh.

Waiting on an author to fill in some blanks.

A shower is looking like a real possibility.

I'm very full of Mort tales, apparently.

Mort walks into a bar...except it was really the living room of our house and he and Duke were wearing vampire teeth. Duke decided that given the choice, he would not want to be a vampire because he wouldn't want to drink blood.

"But if you were a vampire," Mort explained earnestly, "you would think blood tasted really yummy!"

Correct, as usual, King Friday.

Another Mort-ism.

He wanted to know what my job was and he wasn't pleased when I replied, "Mommy."

"No," he said with exasperation, "your real job."

"That is my real job. That's my most important job. Ever."

Stony silence.

"The one I get paid for?" I asked.

"Yes."

So, I tried to explain to him what I did as an editor and how I fixed other people's words.

Mort was nodding sagely. "Like if someone wrote 'dog' but they meant 'cat,' you would put a red X over 'dog.'"

And so I agreed that that was pretty much the gist of it.

A couple of months later, Mort was telling people he was an author (he's very busy writing books that have chapters, so I'm going to have to agree with him on this one).

"You're a writer like your Mommy!" a lovely grown-up said to him.

"No. My Mommy is a fixer."

Duke and I had an event to attend this weekend that required us to don dress-up clothes. Mort studied me for a bit and then asked, "Why do you look so beautiful? And clean?"

I am so close to finishing my current job, so close to finishing my last exam before the final...I know that this is true because I am wearing my glasses and working on this year's Christmas card. And checking to see if the Foo Fighters are touring anytime soon.

I must take a moment to post a note of happiness. You may suspect that this is because I'm thinking I can convince everyone to have pizza for dinner. You would be partially correct.

I am happy because I have a job that I love. A job in which I can work whatever hours I choose so long as I get said work accomplished. And that means that today I got to help out in Mort's classroom. And I love doing that. I love the kids that pass me in the hallway yelling, "Hi, Mort's Mommy!" I love the kids who respond so joyously to the slightest amount of encouragement and praise. I love the kids who look worried and watch their faces shine when they realize they have correctly sounded out and spelled every word on their own with no hinting on my part. I love their sticky little hands waving good-bye. I know that I do not have what it takes to be a teacher, but when everything goes as it should, what a rewarding job that must be.

And then I went shopping for the 742 upcoming birthday parties Mort is attending. And then I received the results of my latest exam and I finally did well. Maybe because it was the closest thing to actual editing that we have done this semester and I wasn't required to identity any phrase or clauses or parts of speech. The professor actually wrote "Good job" on my exam. You are never too old to be immune to the smiley face sticker equivalent. And as much as I've wrung my hands over this course, it has absolutely improved my skill set.

And then I worked. I caught errors and rewrote sentences and marveled at my good fortune. I'm nearly done with this particular job and I'm feeling confident that I will be hired again by this client. At least I feel that way today. Because today is the day that I shall suggest pizza for dinner. A very good day indeed.

wow. Wacky tired today. went grocery shopping and then worked my editing arse off for hours upon hours. I honestly thought at one point that the book I'm editing was a joke, like maybe it's really some kind of editing test. because that is the only reasonable explanation. and the when I was done, I went to pick-up Mort. We drove home behind a car that bore a sticker reading: Jesus May Come Today. Were will you be?

Apparently my life is one bad editing joke today.

1)It's WHERE, not were.

2) Do they mean to say "where will you be going?"

Because if Jesus came right then, I would be sitting in the car behind someone lacking in basic English and I would probably get to see Him shake His head in disbelief.

And while I was laughing, Mort, of course, wanted to know what was so funny. So, I tried to convey my amusement to him, ie, I read the bumper sticker and explained that it wasn't even close to proper English and I had been editing all day and it struck me as funny. As in , on the verge of hysteria funny.

Mort thought it over for a bit and then said"Oh! I know; you'd be going to Heaven. Is that what they're asking?"

I agreed that pretty much, yes it was. I left out the part where the person who has that kind of sticker on their car obviously feels that THEY are going to Heaven; the rest of us, probably not so much.

"Why do they have that on their car?" Mort asked. How much do I love my son?

I actually tried to explain about fanaticism before just downgrading it to a lyric in a Beck song: Some people just like to get crazy with the cheeze whiz.

And then we went home and cut back the fall foliage and made a turkey-in-disguise for school.

Have I shared with you all my dictionary woes?

I have had the same dictionary since I received it for Christmas when I was in...7th grade or so? To be more accurate, let's just note that is a fourth edition and currently they are up to the fifteenth edition. Which I needed for my class. I've been wanting to invest in a new dictionary anyway, as mine is in two halves since the spine fell off. A couple of pages have floated away as a result of this, as well. But really, who wants to buy a dictionary when there are much better ways to spend your money? yes, I know that in my line of work, a dictionary is a tax write-off. I still don't want to spend $42 on one when I could buy a new outfit and pair of earrings, magazines, 12 pack of socks, and giant coffee at Target for the same price.

Anyway, I had to have an updated edition for my class. So I went to Amazon. Because I'm lazy. Plus, it's fun to have things delivered to your house. Breaks up the monotony of the day and is like receiving presents. A secondary bookseller on Amazon offered a slightly damaged/used dictionary for significantly less. As the damage was a mangled corner, I accepted. Hell, I've lived with a dictionary that is in two separate halves. I can handle a dented corner.

So, I was flipping through the new slightly banged-up dictionary trying to determine if the word I thought I wanted to use was the correct one, and I came across a picture shoved into the middle of the pages. It was obviously from someone's vacation as everyone was wearing those wrist bands you sometimes have to wear at certain resorts so that you can eat at the buffet and get into the comedy club and use the snorkeling equipment. And apparently it was a "clothes-optional" resort because all the people were enjoying their water sports sans bathing suits.

Needless to say, Duke and I got weeks of entertainment by hiding that picture in each other's shoes and under the toothpaste and on each other's windshields.

Today, I went to look up a word in my dictionary and it wasn't listed. It wasn't listed because it falls somewhere between page 281 and page 344, all of which are missing.

If I am able to successfully have the secondary seller pay my shipping and handling costs and refund me my money, I will be buying a new dictionary at full price. Or at least out of the discount bin where I can scan it for miscellaneous pictures and missing pages before I buy it.

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that perhaps caterpillars were not meant to live with our family. That's right all; we lost FuzzBall. And by lost I mean that when I picked-up his jar today to change his grass and leaves, he was lying on his back with all his grossy legs pointing in the air.