Wednesday, October 17, 2007

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."

Saturday, October 13, 2007

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!

Friday, October 12, 2007

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.