This month, two of my essays came out in the local parenting magazine, ParentWise:Austin. I wrote one about my mother-in-law Liz, who passed away over six years ago (leaving an enormous hole in my life) and one about my own mother, who is still around and just LOVES it when I tell funny stories about her in such a public way.

Yeah, right. Sure.

Seriously, people. Be careful when and if you have kids. You never know if one of them might turn out to be a writer, and then you’ll be in trouble. If my kids ever grow up and decide to rat out my poor parenting skills in print, they’ll have material for decades. Here’s a couple of quotes from me just this week. “Two words, kid: Foster Care.” and “I have a knife, and if you touch me one more time, I swear I will cut off your little finger.”

Yeah, I’m really not gunning for mom of the year. I’m actually a lot better off than I was a few years back, when I used to dream about calling anonymous false abuse reports in to CPS so I could get a weekend away.*

In unrelated news, I sent my Blessing in Disguise manuscript to a new set of Betas yesterday (yay) and Raymond Mahaney’s Wrong Moves went out on sub on Monday (super yay!) sent by L’Agent Extraordinaire, Miss Suzie. I have a personal goal of finishing the Gingerbread WIP by June 1, which would be a bit tricky, since that means writing, like, 8,000 words a week! But it might happen. We’ll see.

Whoever you are, have a good weekend. Write well, and if you have a mother you love, who still speaks to you even after you’ve sold the stories of all the embarrassing things she did when you were a child, and who has an excellent sense of humor about it all, congratulations. Tell her you love her so much you can’t help but write about her, and buy her a margarita with your ill-gotten gains. That’s the plan chez moi, anyway. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

*This is the part where I say I’m kidding, so no one actually does call CPS on me. Seriously, it was years ago. And I only thought it, like, a few dozen times. Wait! I mean, never. Just a joke. Move along, move along, nothing to see here.