VT

I'm having a hard time concentrating on anything today, in light of VT. The bad thing about living here and reading American news is that you get breaking news right when you're going to bed, and so you either stay up waiting for updates, or you go to bed and can't sleep because you keep thinking about it. And then when you're awake, everyone else is sleeping and there is no news. Not that I should have read any of it past the headlines. I'm married to a German professor. We don't know the German professor who was killed, but it's still not the news you want to read about. Along with everyone else, I'm praying for the people involved.

I actually have other things to write about, but I think I'll put them in a separate post. Complaining about toddlers giving up naps seems whiny in the face of violent tragedy.

random, not VT

I'm trying to make progress in my draft, and even though I have an outline of things overall, there is a setting that I need to make firm, and I'm just not getting it. It needs to be outside, unromantic, and at 5 am, and a setting for repeat encounters between characters. I've got important character development and foreshadowing that needs to go on, and I need a setting to drop it into. I haven't had more than 60 seconds of uninterrupted time in the past three weeks (and the littlest has not only given up naps, but started going to bed at 10 pm and waking up for another round at 11:30); there might be a reason why I can't come up with a simple setting!

My husband's grant is sponsored by the German government, and our whole family has been invited to a conference in Berlin this summer to meet the German president. Do you think the school will mind if our kids miss a few days? Do you think the president is ready for this encounter??

And finally, DH went to get ketchup today and came home with this: