If you’ve friended me on Facebook, you might have seen my message yesterday regarding my new Facebook page. As more of my family has discovered Facebook, I’ve struggled with the intermingling of personal and professional, so the time has come to separate them. If you’re Facebook friends with “author me”, I’d greatly appreciate it if you became a “fan” of my new page. (That feels so pretentious, but it’s Facebook’s terminology so I’m stuck with it.) I’m going to wait a few days before changing my regular profile back to family only. In the meantime I’ll have to think of something good to give away in a Facebook fans contest!

I’m reading Dear John by Nicholas Sparks, despite knowing I’m probably going to want to chuck the Sony Reader at the wall and throw myself off a bridge at the end of it. How did Mister Anti-HEA end up on my Reader? I’ve been seeing the trailers for the movie for a bit, admiring young Mr. Tatum. Due to a couple of free books at the Sony eBookstore, I ended up shopping there and Dear John just sort of jumped into my cart.

Even worse—after impulse buying a book I’m probably not even going to enjoy for $9.99 at the Sony store, I found out it was only $4.39 for Kindle, which is my preferred way to read. Yes, that royally pissed me off.

Had a little adventure this morning I could have lived without. It started raining during the night and, while it didn’t freeze, it washed away the protection of packed snow and crud built up over old ice. The roads were fine taking TK to school, but then I backed into our driveway. It’s got a good slope to it, and I parked at the top where the tar was bare so SK and I could get out without slipping and sliding as we did trying to get it in. Our truck’s an access-cab, which means my door has to stay open to open the back door, which opens backwards. I opened that and, as I helped SK out, the truck started moving backward.

Oh, hello.

So I sort of tossed SK (who’s a bit heavy) toward the neighbor’s driveway and reached in to push the brake, which stopped the truck. Not realizing it was my weight against the open door that actually stopped it, I reached my right hand up to the steering column to make sure it was in park. Then I switched hands so I could push down the e-brake. I moved a little bit. So did the truck. Shitshitshitshit.

SK: Do you want me to put a rock behind the tire?

Sure, ’cause having my child crouch down behind 3000 pounds of rolling vehicle is an awesome idea!

Me: No! Stay in the neighbor’s driveway until I tell you to move.

SK: Maybe you should call Dad.

Thanks a lot, kid. I’d rather Dad not know anything about this, but since he’s more often than not greeted at the door with “Dad! Guess what Mom did today!”, that’s not going to happen.

So with few options, I walked the truck back a little bit, until it seemed to grab and it stopped. Okay. But now I’ve got to get SK behind the truck to the door so, just to be safe, I pushed a little on the door. The truck took off backwards down the ice like there was an Olympic gold metal at the bottom.

I had a split second to choose between me trying to stop it or sacrificing the front porch. About the time I was drafting my “Honey, about the porch…” speech, the truck stopped again, a few feet shy of the house.

I threw some blocks behind the wheels and called it good at that point. Of course, now I’m wondering if I should have thrown it in four-wheel-drive up at the top, while the front tires were on clean tar. I know that makes all four wheels turn, but I don’t know if it makes all four wheels not turn in park.

Anyway, it was an interesting adventure for 7:30 on a Monday morning. Now I have SK—who’s home with a stomach ache—looking out the front window every two minutes to tell me if the truck’s moved.

And how’s your Monday?