The Five Randoms: The After-Christmas Edition

1) Sledding is all fun and games until it reminds you you're no longer 10 years old. We went out on Christmas Day to sled down the hill that makes up part of our backyard. The snow was still two-feet deep and crusty, making the sled swoosh down the hill with surprising speed. I, of course, couldn't navigate the sled very well (the downside of being an Arizona baby) and ended up flopping to the side, screwing up my knee and shoulder in the process. Above is an ode to a great sledding scene from the Griswald's family Christmas. I didn't go THAT fast, but it sure felt like it.

2) I'm thinking of keeping our lights up until March 21. Seriously. Since we moved to the East, I've noticed everyone has an electric candle in their windows at Christmas time. (In the West, we put chili lights on the palm trees--no candles in the windows.) Because it gets dark here at 4 p.m. and everyone's warning me about the Winter Blahs, I'm seriously considering keeping those lights up until the first day of spring. It's not like I'm keeping a red-nosed Rudolph on the roof until Labor Day or anything, so stop with the face already.

3) I didn't watch as many Christmas movies as I should have, and I saw WAY too many bad versions of A Christmas Carol. I only saw Elf and about the first 10 minutes of three versions of A Christmas Carol (the George C. Scott version, the Patrick Stewart version, and one Lifetime version that was so bad I only had it on for about 28.2 seconds). I'm very persnickety when it comes to A Christmas Carol, or any book that was turned into a movie for that matter. I hate the Harry Potter films, since none of them give me the same warm fuzzy bubblies as the books. Same with A Christmas Carol--none are dark enough for me.

4) Not only are the lights staying up a bit longer, but so is the Christmas tree. My husband's mom and sister are coming out the first week of January, and we thought it would be festive to keep up the tree and decorations until they leave. So in other words, it's going to be Christmas around here until, oh, Martin Luther King Day.

5) I'm still full from Christmas Dinner. To be fair, Christmas Dinner was served Christmas Eve, and I made sure I had one-and-a-half plates of turkey, stuffing, yams, sweet potatoes, onion casserole, and the like. Then, there were leftovers to be eaten on Christmas Day, along with goodies from the stockings and fattening delicacies the neighbors had brought over--fudge, zucchini bread, peppermint bark. My stomach would like to have a word with my mouth one of these days...

The Five Randoms: The Pre-Christmas Edition

1. I'm thinking happy thoughts about a White Christmas! It snowed on Nov. 20 and on and off for a couple of weeks, and there's still at least five inches on the ground. Hang in there, little flurries, only 13 more days to go!

2. The Food Network is to me what crystal meth is to others. It's addicting. Appetizers, main courses, desserts, tablescapes...you name it, and I'm glued to the idiot box, salivating. I even tried out a recipe that turned out awesomely; you can find it here.

3. My Christmas shopping is D-O-N-E. I even have mailed out my Christmas cards and two boxes of gifts to my brothers. I have three more boxes to go, and probably another $60 in shipping fees. Oy. And the post office thinks it needs to raise the cost of a stamp every couple of years? I'm sure my money is paying for someone's six-week vacation just fine.

4. I'm purposely including holidays in my next book. There's something warm and tingly about reading a scene with three people dressed as a Playboy bunny, a kitty cat, and what looks like a mouse (a la Mean Girls, see above). Plus, I love the delicious discomfort you get as a reader as the girl in the book worries if her guy of two weeks has gotten her a Christmas present.

5. Lastly, a shout out for Desert Dreams. This conference happens in Arizona every other year, and my old writing club is putting it on. You can find out more about it here.

The Five Randoms: The Leftovers Edition

1. Actually, we have no leftovers. No, we're not big pigs. We went to a nice restaurant for T-day, and since I would've felt weird asking the cook to put some turkey, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes into Tupperware containers, we have no leftovers. A neighbor did bring over some pumpkin cheesecake, which was gone by the next morning. Maybe it WAS a good idea we didn't have leftovers.

2. No Christmas decorations yet. I usually put them up the day after T-Day, like 99.9% of Americans. And I will not put up decorations until I've met my writing goal this weekend. It helps that we haven't bought a tree yet (we get the artificial kind since we have cats--the needles can cause digestive problems, a very real problem since our cats like eating lint off the ground, much less a pine needle--and our last tree got left behind in The Great Move of 2006).

3. It snowed! For a day. It melted after two days. But it snowed! Last year, we had to wait until late January for our first snow flurries.

4. After it snowed, I was a bad mommy. I put the munchkin in her snowsuit, deposited her in the snow, moved her arms and legs about, and took a picture of her and her snow angel. She had a "What the hell?" look on her face the entire time.

5. This will be the munchkin's first Christmas. Said munchkin will only be five-and-a-half months old when she has this Christmas. Will she know if she has presents or not? Nope. Will Mommy still buy presents? Yep. But they're all books (like the one above). Most kids would hate books for Christmas. So I better get them out of the way now before she has a memory.

The Five Randoms: The Tired Edition

1) The commercial's right: A baby changes everything. In a wonderful way. In a tiring way. In an unexpected way. Did I say in a wonderful way?

2) Thinking you can multitask with a baby is just plain delusional. Being superbusy in college is one thing; I was pre-husband and pre-baby then. I could study for two tests, write a paper, work eight hours at the local bookstore, go to the movies with some friends, paint a picture, and work out for two hours, all the while getting four hours of sleep per night. Now? I just try to dodge the spit-up and call that a successful day.

3) Enough about babies--I had my first library visit for Black Tuesday! Three librarians showed up. In my book, I say three is a successful visit! (Hey, I'm no J.K. Rowling or, at the very least, I'm no Stephanie Meyers--yet.)

4) Speaking of whom, I'm finally reading Eclipse. Stephanie has a great way of writing a guy that reminds me of the good ol' alpha males I used to read in historical romances back in junior high.* I loved these heroes then and I love them now.

5) I'm finishing up the first 100 pages of my next book! I'm still fine-tuning it before attaching it to an e-mail and hitting "send" to my agent. This book has a great story--actually, several great stories involving Reggie, Sara, and Bridget--and I want to make sure I tell those stories as best as I humanly can.

*I used to put grocery-bag bookcovers on my romances when I was 12. First, I wasn't supposed to be reading them, second, it was embarrassing to be seen reading a book with two half-naked people on the cover. My mom told me years later that I wasn't fooling anyone with those brown paper covers.

The Five Randoms: From Plagues to Spit Up

1) Today I come home to find a house swarming with...ladybugs. Yep. That's right. I come home to find about 2000 ladybugs atwittering and afluttering about the house. At first I thought it was cute. Then they started getting into my ponytail and under my armpits. In about thirty seconds, I went from "Wow" to "Eww. Eww, eww, eww!"

2) Got the flu shot today. The hubby and I were about 40 years younger than the youngest person there. Okay, well we weren't the youngest youngest. The baby was the youngest by seven decades. Not that anyone saw her. We had her in her carrier, which fit into her stroller, which was locked up tighter than Fort Knox against the germy hands the gray hairs like to pinch her chubby cheeks with.

3) Yes, I end sentences with prepositions. It ain't a grammatical faux pas anymore. And if you're Southern, "ain't" isn't either. (Being from Arizona makes me Southern, right?)

4) The 200 or so moving boxes were finally thrown away today--five months after we moved in. We have a basement again! Not like I'm going down there anytime soon. Basements, like a swarm of ladybugs, are creepy.

5) Usually, I'm not one to write about the day-to-day things that everyone's experienced--such as spit up. But when that spit up launches from your baby's mouth and hits your own mouth, that's something to write about. And follow up with an "EWWWWWWW."

One Random: Congrats to Derya in New Jersey!

After three weeks of trying to figure out how to get into my website to update it, I've admitted defeat (for now, my pretty, for now).

So that contest I had? Well, Derya in New Jersey won! How did I pick my winner, you may ask? Well, I assigned numbers to each person who entered, and then I asked my daughter's godfather to randomly pick a number. So, Derya, you can thank Gene in Wells, ME for your win. ;o)

But stay tuned. I'm thinking up another contest. And this time, I may even ask for help with my next book! (No, you will not win part of my royalties...)

Hope you're reading a great book today!

The Five Randoms: Inaugural Edition

Remember how I said earlier I'd have to steal in order to be good about this blog? Well, steal was such an ugly word. I tried to get around it, come up with original posts on my own.

Forget it. My brain just can't handle it nowadays. I told some friends the other day that I feel like my life is a treadmill just going a tiny bit too fast. And I ain't wearing a bra.

So, anyway, back to my theft. Sarah Dessen does a Friday Five thing on her blog, where she randomly picks five things she wants to discuss. So that's going to be me. But mine will be...what. The Fantastic Five? The Fantabulous Five? The Five Randoms?

Hey, I think I'm onto something. So here we are, the inaugural issue of The Five Randoms. And I'll put them in question form (I just finished watching Jeopardy about ten minutes ago):

1) What's up with New England's obsession with mums (as in chrysanthemums)? They're everywhere--decorating the front of homes, libraries, banks, dentists, vets... I even saw a home with a display of chrysanthemums the other day. Yes, a display. With floodlights and everything. Makes me feel like I'm not being a good American by not having this same obsession (although I was peer pressured into paying $6 for some mums the other day...but then I was peeved when I found out I could've bought the same size mum for $3 about 200 yards further up the road).

2) How random does it seem that the Nobel Peace Prize went to Al Gore? Who knew that fixing global warming could lead to world peace? According to Nobelprize.org, "[T]he Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind." Hmm.

3) Did you know that I went to the Nobel Prize Awards? The ones in Stockholm, where they give out the awards for economics, literature, and the like. The peace prize is handed out in Oslo (that's in Norway--Stockholm's in Sweden, by the way). I wore a black top I had sewn myself. It was ugly, but the gut reaction over how ugly it was and the nerve I had to wear it is a great way to remember the memory.

4) Why, Britney? Why oh so help me why?

5) Is the person who invented the DVR/Tivo Satan? He/she has to be. Otherwise, I'd be doing a lot more productive/philanthropic things to help mankind instead of watching a backlog of Heroes/CSI/Law & Order SVU/Desperate Housewives/Reaper/Pushing Daisies/Aliens in America/Top Chef/I Wanna Be a Soapstar. I guess I'll have to leave saving mankind to Al Gore. I have too much stuff to watch.

Drumming My Fingers, Finding a Topic

When I procrastinate from writing, cleaning, or anything else that isn't reading/watching TV, I look at other authors' blogs--a lot--both adult and young adult. Tess Gerritsen's, Jennifer Weiner's, Meg Cabot's, Sarah Dessen's, Robyn Schneider's. Some of them post sporadically (Gerritsen, Weiner, Schneider), others what seems every day (Cabot, Dessen). I want to be a Cabot-Dessen, but I end up being a Gerritsen-Weiner-Schneider. Life gets too busy or else I wonder, what is there to talk about that wouldn't act like the blog equivalent of a sleeping pill?

One thing to talk about is humidity. And how much I hate it. I've been living in the East for close to a year now after 30 years in Arizona and, boy, I sure do miss a dry heat. And no bugs.

Snoring yet?

I'll come up with better stuff. I may even pilfer a few topics from Gerritsen, Weiner, Cabot, Dessen, or Schneider a la Kaavya Viswanathan. :o)

Back in the Saddle Again

I've been a bit remiss with the blog lately (just like 99% of the blogger population, it seems like). But I had a good excuse. Well, many. The top three? I moved. I brought a new human being into the world. The cable company hasn't come in two months and I've been forced to wrestle with dial-up. (Just pulling up this Blogger page took 10 minutes.)

But I'm here. Finally. All the boxes have been unpacked. The human being is on a good feeding schedule. And cable...still no cable, but "they" say we'll have it next week. I'm not holding my breath. "They" have been saying this for two months now.

Life on the writing front is good. I'm writing a short story for an anthology. Tentative title? The Treehouse War. Then it's off to write book #2 for Dutton, this time revolving around the lottery. Yeah, it's as fun as it sounds.

Noooooooooooo!

Gilmore Girls has been canceled.

Let's take a moment to remember why this was such a terrific show.

Moment of silence, please.

Guilty Pleasures

So, I have a few vices in life when it comes to dumb TV. And I consider Dumb TV synonymous with Reality TV. Right now, "dumb" includes America's Next Top Model, Sweet Sixteen, The Girls Next Door, and American Idol. (Okay, and sometimes Wife Swap. I told you, when I like dumb things, the dumber the better.)

So far, this has been the best guilty pleasure I've seen: Blake Lewis TOTALLY improving on a Jon Bon Jovi song. Watch. You'll agree.

New, Convoluted Ways to Cheat

I was just reading an article on CNN about how high school students have gone beyond baseball cap brims and water bottle labels to cheat. They're now downloading audio files onto their iPods and sneaking the earbud through their shirt, around their ear, and into their tiny ear canal.

Isn't studying the faster, easier way to get the same result?

The odd thing? Teachers who let their students bring iPods to use in class. Is ADHD really so rampant that homework and books and other "I'm done with the test, now I need to pass the time" opportunities seem passe?

Bonding over Blume

So I'm in Target looking for a particular book by Laurie Halse Anderson and I see a name that instantly sends electric currents of warm fuzzies straight to my stomach (the way a homemade batch of oatmeal raisin cookies does or a repeat of a Brenda-years 90210 does).

Judy Blume.

Judy Blume wasn't really my generation. I read her as a seven-year-old in the early eighties, and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret had come out in 1970.

The topic of bras and periods were foreign to me until AYTGIMM. I was seven when I read it, for goodness sake! But I loved the book.

That's not to say there aren't other great Judy Blume titles. Today, the Target cashier saw I was buying Just as Long as We're Together, and she gushed, "That was my favorite book as a kid." Seeing as how she was maybe 16, I guess she meant "elementary school kid." (When you're 30, you start to understand why the term "whippersnapper" is still be used by those with less-than-limber joints who were last called "kid" 50 years ago.)

But it was nice standing across from one another, a beloved book being scanned between us, and know that a whippersnapper 14 years younger than me has the same comfort-food reaction to Blume that I have.

Read of the Month: ALONE

I actually read a few books this month, a first for me since the calendar's had a year starting with a "2" in it. A good book by Lisa Gardner, a speaker at many of the writing conferences I go to. When you meet Lisa, you would never think her brain holds the creepy twists that show up in this kind of book.

If you're in the mood for a good psychological thriller with a female who may or may not be the bad guy, this is the read for you. (And a MUCH better read than James Patterson's Honeymoon, the last book I read with a female villain.)

Weathering the Blog

The speed of light is 299 792 458 m/s.

The speed of sound is 340.29 m/s.

The speed at which I post my blog? Once a month. I have my reasons for the turtle-like pace. One of which my book isn't out for another two months. Then I'll have to be more responsible. Maybe post two times a month.

:o)

So I just survived my first Class 2 Hurricane AND an evacuation. In Arizona, I had experienced neither. Sure, there was the time my high school canceled classes for the day when the air conditioner broke. But other than that, weather hasn't played a big role in my life. That's sorta why I decided to move to New England, for weather. And trees. And 120-degree-less days.

I sure got it. As well as the ocean shoving past the houses across the street and slushing past the front of this house.

While this was happening here, Boston was pelted with the storm. And the Boston Marathon hailed a winner. Somehow, I don't think Kenya's Robert Cheruiyot has dealt with New England weather too much, either.

Ode to the Pegster*

And another blizzard rages outside today. It's considered a "wintery mix," meaning snow mixed with freezing rain. Awesome. I definitely didn't see this kind of world in Arizona. We never had school cancelled because of snow in the land of 120 degrees. We did, however, get school cancelled once because the air conditioner died. I'm sure these kids here in Maine don't get THAT sort of perk. So, uh, nyah, nyah, nah, nyah, nyah.

It's just before 6 a.m. Not my normal wake-up hour. But I got up to go to the bathroom and couldn't get back to sleep. The brain wouldn't shut the heck up. So here I am, on the computer, wishing I was still snuggled under the down comforter during this "wintery mix." I'm going to get you yet, Brain! (I'm waving my fist in the air. Can you picture it? Or me in my coat and a hat in this room that gets no heat? Laughing yet?)

Above is a pic from the area we visited last weekend, pre-blizzard. We took a road trip into New Hampshire, looking for houses. Pretty, ain't it? No? That's just because you're still picturing me in my coat and beanie typing on a computer before 6 a.m.

*Told you I'd dedicate this to you.

Blizzards and Writing, Oh My

I told you I was bad with updating the blog. But I'm here again, two months later. The picture to the right might clue you in to the kind of weather we're having here in the Northeast. Being a former West Coast gal, this is new territory for me: blizzards, getting stuck in the snow, shoveling to get out of said snow.

So there is my excuse...now it's on to the writing talk. I just finished a partial for a new suspense I'm working on, HIDING. I had fun with it, but who knows if I'm going in the right direction or not. The agent who has it will, I'm sure, let me know.

Speaking of blizzards...the windows are rattling from the wind and it's close to the midnight hour. The perfect time to read! Tonight's selection is Natural Born Charmer, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. SEP, don't let me down!