Combat Computing: Beware of Kids and Pets!

Those of you with toddlers or pets know my pain.

I’m not talking about the pain of 10 hours of Elmo each week…I kinda like the little red guy. Nor am I addressing the pain of watching Finding Nemo for the 117th time. I dig Dory (played by Ellen DeGeneres).

No, the pain I’m whining about is trying to use your computer on a peaceful Sunday morning to catch up on your reading from the week while Baby Girl watches the aforementioned videos. Maybe for you, you’re subsituting the word “cat” or “puppy” for “Baby Girl.” The pain is all the same and goes something like this…

Baby Girl crawls over to the couch where I’m scanning blogs while she and Daddy play on the floor in front of me. She reaches her grubby pudgy little fingers toward the power button with the accurate stealth of a heat seeking missile.

Just as my hubby and I shout out a simulaneous “Stop!” my screen goes dead.

I think really unkind thoughts about everyone in the room and stand up and move to the kitchen to fire things up there. But she’s a baby on a mission and she finds me and tries the whole routine again, but this time I stand up before her little Digits of Destruction can connect.

I move to the living room and my husband and I discuss this new fascination with computers. He keeps an eagle eye on her for the next 20 minutes while I catch up a little more.

He goes to the bathroom and Baby Girl sends me a sunny smile. She pats my leg and tilts her head. She follows up with a giggling growl and a cheerful coo. She climbs on to the couch and slinks scootches toward me with a sweet smile on her face. “I love you, Mommy” shines in her eyes.

She reaches for my laptop with her right hand and I shake my head and say, “Stop.”

She climbs up me and gives me a huge hug, burying her face in my chest. I think how sweet my baby is. When I lift my head from smelling her newly-washed hair, her left hand is hovering over my power button.

Click.

I’m telling you, combat training is required to use the computer around Baby Girl these days.

I have a friend who says her cat has the same M.O. I’m afraid to go back and look at a few of the tweets and comments that went out yesterday for fear of what exactly got trasmitted when I pressed Send.

If you had anything that looked like 2w4rgb q266f, I can only offer my sincerest apologies.

What was I reading and commenting on?

Quite a lot, actually. There’s some amazing writing going on in the blogosphere right now, plus I’m going through a synopsis from one of my critique partners.

The posts, in no particular order, were:

• My Life List Club Friday post, called Playing To Your Strengths. We had some great energy going over at Gene Lempp’s place on Friday.
• A new Saturday column called Risky Baby Business launched this weekend at More Cowbell and received way more response than I expected. (It was awesome! Thanks, y’all…especially to Laura Drake for the title, since it will carry over to the book. 🙂 )
• Speaking of Laura, she took on plot-driven writing last Wednesday in Plot vs Character: Which Side Are You On? and the links are AMAZING. Fae Rowen’s is answering the throw down today over at Writers In The Storm and her links are wowza too.
• Roni Loren’s Fill-Me-In Friday post gave me RIP the Author Book Tour–and why you shouldn’t be sad to see it go by Anne R. Allen and a really sexy picture of Jake Gyllenhaal. (Yum.)
• Jessica R. Patch made me have a coffee-on-the-keyboard accident with So I Ran Over A Guy…So What?
• Kate McNicol’s hilarious post, Deceitful Me, shows just how far a girl will go to attend one of Kristen Lamb’s classes. (p.s. If you haven’t been to Kristen’s blog lately, you are missing out! She was on serious fire all last week.)
• Grasping For the Wind – Geek Media Round-up – this one is a week old but dang, these Sci Fi/fantasy writers gather a really cool eclectic bunch of links!
• After our month of Dirty Fighting, it was interesting to see this post called There is More To Writing Action Than Meets the Fist. This wonderful post was written by the Naked Editor, who just happens to be Tiffany Lawson Inman, Margie Lawson’s talented daughter. Stay tuned…Tiffany will be visiting us here on More Cowbell soon!
• I try never to miss Elizabeth Craig’s Twitterific posts – every weekend she lists all her writing links from the week. It is incredible and has become my weekend writing seminar whenever I can find the time.

I tend to catch up on my pals blogs over the weekend too – a few each week. This week included:

• Tiffany White’s Friday post, Beat The Heat With Movie Madness
• K.B. Owen’s The Sporting Life for 19^th Century Women: Bicycling
• Piper Bayard’s Labor of Love Day: The Hussy Conundrum (I just LOVE the word “hussy,” don’t you?)
• Amy Shojai explores the concept of “Do Over…Would You?”
• I went through Gene Lempp’s Blog Treasures 8/27 and Barbara McDowell’s Sharing Is Caring – Weekly Finds. These two manage to find the BEST links.
• This one on Blog tours snuck in before I went to bed, also from Elizabeth Craig’s blog, Mystery Writing Is Murder.

What posts really grabbed your attention this week? And how do you deal with the stealth bombers in your life that won’t leave you and your computer in peace? Enquiring minds always want to know here at More Cowbell!

See you tomorrow,
Jenny

TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS:

1. We’re finishing our series on Dirty Fighting here tomorrow with 22 magnificent techniques listed for you. To date, I haven’t received any quick short dirty fighting scenes from you! Yoo-hoooooo…I know you have some. Please sent to JennyHansensMail (AT) aol (dot) com. I will take the top three and post them on my site. I don’t care if they’re pubbed, non-pubbed, or belong to someone else (as long as you give them credit). I will post my three faves in a blog post – rules can be found at the bottom when you click here.
2. I have not forgotten about my latest round of webinar winners! I’ll be sending out an email this week so we can get together for an hour and gab train together.