First things first:
This is a reminder that we will be in Austin at Texas Book Festival. Here is a link to our schedule. We are on two panels, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. There will be an hour-long signing after each panel.
We have gotten questions about it, and we can’t answer any of them because we don’t know. We’ve never been and we have no idea how this event works. We don’t know how soon you should arrive or how to get to the panels, etc. We don’t even know if they will let us hand out swag. We’ve been told that attendance is free and on a first come first served basis.
To help alleviate some concerns, we are having an after-party, complete with signing session, at Finney’s Books. Finney’s will have This Kingdom in stock for signing, and they do accept online orders with personalization.
Saturday, November 14, 2026, at 7:00 PM CT
Finney’s Books
3823 Airport Blvd, Suite D
Austin, TX 78722
As Mod R said, “Please RSVP in advance so our lovely hosts can plan for the gathering.”
We had tried another vellum printer as an experiment, and it did not go well, so we will be dragging free vellum to this event.
The Not The Plan
Tuesday was the greatest cover reveal in House Andrews history. Shocking Instagram views happened. Stunning blog view stats. The banners unfurled and war horns sounded as the Book Devouring Horde marched, triumphant.
Normally, I would follow this up with a newsletter and congratulatory post and general yay. That was the plan as of Tuesday evening.
Tuesday late at night:
Kid 1 calls. Apparently, there is a vivarium with a tree frog, and it’s in a horrible shape. This frog needs to be urgently rescued, and Kid 1 can’t rescue him. It’s too much for her to take care of, and also Noctis doesn’t play nice with anything caged.
Noctis started out as a tiny black kitten that walked out of the rain and crawled into Kid 1’s car. Noctis is larger than Tuna now. He and Paula… Okay, let me back up. At some point many years ago, the kids bought a tarantula. I was told that the tarantula would live 2 years. I agreed to the short term tarantula, because spiders are neat. The tarantula was named Paul.
Yeah. The tarantula is almost as old as Tubby now. It was determined that she is female, her name is Paula, and she lives with Kid 1.
Noctis and Paula finally reached some sort of stalemate, but adding a vivarium to this uneasy peace alliance is not an option.
What do I know about frogs? Nothing. Except that they need live prey because they are hardwired to register movement.
If I had a dollar for every time we somehow ended up with an animal that needed to be “urgently rescued…” Anyway.
Me, thinking: This is a tree frog. He needs tropical environment. He needs a vivarium with water and moisture. And plants. And I would need a live culture… But I do know how to do the water filtration…
Me: I don’t know… Can I see this vivarium?
Warning: awful pictures below.
Me: … …. … Yes. I’ll take it.
No animal can be left in that.
I found a tutorial video. I bought the terrarium in the video. I bought black aquarium silicone, and corrugated water proof plastic board, and foam, and cork. And sphagnum moss.
There is a waterfall structure, and a pump structure, and a ventilation structure – they are using a pc fan, because apparently it’s moisture tolerant. And all of this needs to be made out of plastic and glued to the terrarium with black silicon caulk substance from hell.
Do you know what I suck at? I suck at decorating cakes. That line in Kate Daniels where she says that her pies look like she buried a dead body in them? That’s me. I finally mastered the pies, but I cannot frost things for crap. My cakes taste delicious and look atrocious. Frosting is my nemesis.
This black silicone crap is like frosting. It goes everywhere. It drips. I tried to open it, and Gordon told me that it’s actually caulk, and then he and Kid 1’s fiancé drove to Lowe’s and came back with a caulk gun and window mesh.
I spent yesterday covered in black aquarium safe silicon and expanding pond foam. The silicon gets everywhere. Everything has to be sealed to waterproof it. I would squeeze it, and try to attach the cork, and the cork would fall off. I now know that it was the wrong kind of cork. This cork is huge. I ordered what they listed in the video, but I should have gotten a flat cork sheet instead and broken that to pieces.
I’ve mixed high quality aqua soil with reptile eco substrate and threw a bit of coconut fiber in there. I’ve rehydrated the live moss. I slept 5 hours. And apparently, I didn’t get all of the black goo off myself with acetone because I saw this this morning when brushing my teeth.
Nothing else happened yesterday except me and that vivarium. Tor is going to kill me because I spent all day on that instead of copyediting.
I have more driftwood coming. Thank you, nature, for sphagnum moss, for it covers a magnitude of sins.
And I don’t even know if the frog is alive. Kid 1 says she saw it. I have not seen it. I ordered live crickets. I am hoping to coax him out. And my live culture and crickets just arrived.
Phew.
Here is a video of a 75% finished vivarium. At least the stupid fountain works. If you are reading this in your inbox, there is a video on the blog. Oy.
So I am going to finish this, and hope that the poor frog is alive. I need to figure out which plants are safe to go in there.
And then I will copyedit like the wind.
I will report on the condition of the frog. Hopefully it is alive.
First?
Now for my real comment: you are a stellar mom and human being. Wish I could see you guys in Austin!
Certified!
I generally do not have that much love for frogs but OMG I hope this frog survives!
Not the poor frog! I hope he is alive and loves what you created.
Best wishes for future frogdom, and better copy editing.
Oh so close to first for the 1st time!
Oh dear. I hope the frog is okay. You are amazing for even trying to take this on!
Wow! That’s amazing! Good luck with the frog. We somehow ended up with a snake that way. It was fine til my son came in from the garden holding another snake (possibly a copperhead, I was too traumatized to tell as it was hanging OVER MY LAP) as a friend for Mr. Tumnus. Nope, just nope. No more reptiles.
Should have said fine, not find.🤦♀️
Has someone that has 3 urgent recue cats, I totally understand!!
Fixed! 🙂
There’s a lovely couple who run a plant business in Ohio and they have the most spectacular vivariums. Their shop is called My Green Obsession (.net website) and they have a section dedicated to terrarium/vivarium plants. Maybe that could give you ideas &/or be a supply.
…This viarium will not frog you?
Omg 😂😂😂 Froggy the Undying!
Good luck, froggy!
Thank you for rescuing your new friend. I know nothing about frogs and would also start with YouTube lol. I can’t imagine how you said yes, but also as a mom I know that if my kid asked me to rescue someone or something in distress my answer would be yes. Thankfully they are still little so we have “rescued” pine cones and dandelions so far. My good friend just showed me a picture of a GSW dog that needs a new home and is at the shelter and I was looking at my three kids (5 and under) two GSW mix breed dogs and was trying to figure out how to make it work. Lol the circus is chaos and I love it. I’m off to call my friend back now.
… well now I want to know what you’re going to name the frog.
Seems like a good time to note that live crickets can be their own mess with this Internet classic (originally written on Twitter):
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article223737955.html
For what it’s worth, the habitat you made looks beautiful. I really hope your frog is alive. I also love how your kids know to come to you for animal rescue.
I don’t know anything about vivariums or frogs (well, except that they’re amphibians and many of them make cool sounds and some of them are poisonous-the frogs, not the vivariums) but that vivarium looks like a froggy paradise to me. And I’m so beyond impressed that you managed a little waterfall. It’s so cute!
Wow. I hope the tree frog is ok. I had a lot of wild ones when I lived in Florida. I was always happy to see them because they eat mosquitos, etc. That is a beautiful set up, Ilona!
Thank you for being such a loving person to all creatures. Sending positive energy to your frog who will be living in the lap of luxury. Can’t wait to hear what you name him/her.
If you should find yourself in need of rescuing a reptile or amphibian in the future, there are reputable resues just like for dogs and cats. Here is the one in Dallas we used. Kid 2 had major life changes that required several snakes, geckos, and a frog to go into the rescue system. I, mom, won’t care for snakes. After 18 months of caring for the frog, it stopped eating, and I couldn’t figure out how to make it happy enough to eat. Then I had a breast cancer diagnosis and didn’t want to have to care for the geckos while going through chemo, surgery, and radiation.Therefore, we’ve dealt with the reptile rescue in Dallas. they were great people who sent us information and pictures about the people who adopted them. Austin is large enough, they probably have one as well. here’s the link to the dallas one we worked with. https://www.facebook.com/share/1Pf51eM8RW/
Oh, and your habitat is beautiful!
I know about dealing with kiddos’ rescues. Good luck 🍀 with the frog and the copy edits.
Omg! I loved that story, it is also so very me. I once rescued a tiny, bald, blind rodent from the garden early spring. I mean it was obvious it would not survive, right? The kind thing to do would be to find a large enough rock, right? Alternatively show it to my Pointer or even one of my cats. Instead I took it, it was cool to the touch but still breathing. What do I know about rodents? Not a thing! But logic says cool is the wrong body temperature so I hid it underneath my sweater. Got home, boiled water and filled a glass jar with it, covered jar with a towel, found a box, some dried grass, put the rodent in. Researched what kind of milk formula it should get. It was a Sunday and I live in the middle of nowhere. So I decided to ignore my research. Had a dried cow milk at home, added some warm water, fed the baby rodent that with a syringe. It ate! From then on out I went to it every two hours and fed it and changed the water bottle, including during the night. Oh joy!
Astonishingly it survived! Nearly two months later, when it was eating dry foods for over two weeks, I set it free in a safe space, in the neighbours garden. I left it with food and went there daily to give more but it stopped coming there after about a week. I hope it’s fine. Still don’t know what kind of a mouse’ish thing it was but I have a ton of pictures :-D. I planned to keep it but it was a wild animal and despite being raised by me, empathically wanted NOTHING to do with me. I decided life in a cage was a poor gift, so I released it.
I keep a tight hold on that story in my mind because it goes to show, you never know what the outcome will be unless you try.
Do you know how many pets we have because one of us brought it home until we could find it a better place? Pretty much all of them. Currently at four dogs, only one cat she is 17 on stresses over new ones and five horses. All but one of the horses are rescues. Can’t have barn cats anymore because of the coyotes.
Awww! I think it looks pretty!
You are a hero and scholar!! ( bastardized quote) 💜💜
Now I know where the Innkeeper inspiration came from.
Best wishes for the frog. Mineral oil left on for a bit will remove caulk. You have to leave it for a while though.
You. Are. Amazing. Period.
You’re probably drowning in comments by now but I really like SerpaDesign on YouTube. He loves building all kinds of terrarium and vivarium. Maybe that might help a little bit? He’s also very into frogs.
That said: you are awesome. I hope sir Croak is alive and well (and hasn’t, indeed, croaked) and will hopefully be a delightful little housemate. It nothing else you tried and that was a better fate than it was facing. I’ve struggled a little raising toads from eggs to spawn that could be released back into the wild, in the spirit of showing my kids the toadpole transformation. Keeping the freaking walking Darwin awards alive was not easy. I’m hoping it’ll be a lot easier with this kind.
I love that the kid felt confident reaching out for help. Clearly that trust is deserved.
Wow. That’s all I can say right now.
Good luck with doing the edits. Hopefully you don’t have MS Outlook to send the revisions back to Tor. Right now, MS Outlook is down with no resolution to when it will be back up. 🤦♀️
Memories. My mom told me when she was teaching us to bake that the women in our family had a condition. If we made cakes they could either look good or taste good but not both, although neither was a possibility. It has proved to be true for me.
My favorite story was when she first realized that my dad was special. She baked “her best TASTING cake ever to take to a college party. It it was moist and uneven and the frosting was runny, so the top layer broke into three pieces and started sliding off. She had to pin the pieces in place with dried spaghetti and tried filling the low spot with walnuts.
She showed it to her date (my dad) and he said, “Nobody will care as long as it tastes good. It’s a college party.” She put it in a cake box so the still soft frosting wouldn’t get everywhere and off they went. When the arrived my dad “tripped” over the threshold, dropped the box and proclaimed, “Oh Mary! I’ve ruined your beautiful cake!”
PS He was right. Nobody cared what it looked like.
Daughter owes you BIG
This vivarium will not kill me!
You are such a good and kind mom!! That Vivarium is amazing!! I hope that Froggy is ok 💚