And I'm Off

Twill be radio silence until Sunday. Today I have to pack up my begs and shave me legs. Honestly, that's like a twelve hour undertaking. Oh, and I get to go have my eyebrows done. I had to BEG my old eyebrow lady to take me on again. This woman is a magician with wax, but I boged her so many times she stopped taking my calls. I spent a year going to other places searching for someone who wouldn't make me look like a surprised skunk or pull my forehead off along with the excess eyebrow hair, leaving me with that trendy open skull look. No luck though, and when I went to my last hair appointment, I did the shame thing... I begged the eyebrow lady with my hair lady standing there. SO I CANNOT miss my appointment today.

Packing with my teenage daughter is tons of fun. She sits on the bed and makes comments like, "That is NOT cute." Or "Mom, you really need to get some new underwear." Considering I get my "lingerie" at bi-mart so she can get wrap her tight little 17 year old tush in lacy Victoria Secret panties, it's a touchy subject.

That's okay. She doesn't know it yet, but I'm taking the curling iron and the flat iron with me. That'll teach her.

Beyond Excited!

I am so excited about the RWA nationals, I can't even believe it! I finished most of my shopping yesterday ... found the perfect shirt to go with my skirt and I couldn't believe what I looked like in the outfit. Honestly, I cried. 34 pounds makes a heck of a difference.

Many of my friends are flying in tomorrow, but I get in weds morning. I will be at the literacy signing on Weds, so if you are going to be there, please look me up.

There's going to be some fabulous workshops that I am excited to attend and my schedule is filling up with lunch with friends and industry people. I'll probably sleep for a week.

On the writing front, chances are I won't have Laguna in before I take off, but thsat's okay, my agent is going too and won't be reading anything anyway. But it's coming along nicely, so I can't complain. And I got everything else, done, so hey...

And my skinny clothes! I told my husband, this isn't me just getting new clothes for a conference, I NEED them, because I have nothing that fits!

YAY!

Oh, and you might want to check out the 2k8 blog this week. We're doing a week on how a story becomes a book and will have both agent and editor guests!

Mama Mia

Bff Ann and I went and saw this movie last night and it was atrocious. Seriously. But. It made me laugh (especially when the formerly sexy Peirce Brosnan sang) The scenery was beautiful, and of course, Meryl makes me believe anything she does. MAKES ME BELIEVE.

My friend Ann hated it, but I think that is partially because she didn't know it was a Broadway play first. (I know, she lives under a rock) There were some seriously funny moments and ABBA proved that their music is infectious, no matter how badly sung:)

And seeings how we went out for drinks afterward, I had a very, very good time. It's a perfect movie for girlfriends to see together. That way you can all groan when the Colin Firth character turns out to be gay. You could almost hear illusions shattering:)

Christian the Lion

My son sent me this video and I thought I would share it. The story started in 1969 London when these two guys bought a baby lion at Herrods. After introducing him into the wild, they went to visit him a year later. You can read about it here. Or you can watch the video. Caution. Tissue needed.



Here's another one with more of the story and pix:

Getting Ready for Nationals...

Seven days! I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself!

I still have a lot to do, but am getting there. Here's my list:

1. Finish making out my schedule and downloading handouts
2. Manicure and pedicure
3. Eyebrows waxed
4. Shopping for the last of my clothes
5. Facial?
6. Finish last article
7. Finish revisions on Laguna and get it sent out to CP's
8. Put all my cosmetics into small clear jars
9. Pick up some tinted moisturizer.
10. Lose five more pounds. (yeah right!)

That's about it. My kids are old enough that they can get around on their own and work their own schedule. Right? Right?

My First Signing!

Went so well! I crawled into a dress my Mom bought for the event (it was actually cute, go figure!) and went to my first signing. Actually, first I made a mad dashing run for a minimiser bra, a pair of shoes, and new lip gloss. I made it in and out of Macy's in 26 minutes... how's that for a record? The bra Gods were smiling at me, because I liked the first one I got. The dress was a little snug across the chest, so i figured a minimiser would do the trick. It didn't. I was seriously afraid that if I took a deep breath the button would pop off and hit the person in the front row! It didn't, but I still couldn't breathe. Turns out I had to give a talk and a reading.

I so wasn't prepared. I heard that it went pretty well, (from bff) but the other BFF told me she would send me critique notes. HA! I've heard that the average number of books sold is six and I sold sixteen and had about twelve people in the audience. Another five or six showed up at the end, so I did pretty well.

Stayed another hour afterwards and had coffee with one of the BFF's. It was nice and relaxing after all the excitement.

Later that night, the dh and I went and celebrated at JAX. One of our friends was playing on the rooftop that night. You can see the river and MT Hood from the roof and we had a blast. All in all a nice weekend.

Thanks to my wonderful CP's I am almost done revising one of my proposals and will send it to the agent today. I have one more article to do and a chapter and a half on my other proposal and then I am done for a while. YAY! Some pix!








Thanks to everyone who came out to support me!

First Signing, Books I Love, Etc.

I was finally able to run again... have been out due to an injury for the last couple of days. I Only ran a mile and a half, but hey, I am up and running again, so I can't complain. Especially when I hopped on the scale today and had lost another 3 pounds bringing my total up to 31. Go me!

My first book signing is today at 1:00. So if you happen to be by the Tanasbourne Barnes and Noble, please drop by and say hi. Please. Really.

And I stole this from Sara Hantz. I couldn't figure out how to make bloger underline the ones I loved, but there are plenty. And there are a few I read and couldn't stand. The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. I have definitely topped that.


1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Shopping, Writing and Other Fun Stuff

So I couldn't wait to start my shopping and I bought this:



And then I bought shoes to match. But the size of the dress people, the size... four sizes smaller than I would have worn three months ago. Happy sigh.

I also ordered this:


And it was even a size smaller! Woot!

Am beyond excited. Now I just need tops and accessories and of course, shoes!

On the writing front: I finished an article yesterday and just have two more to do before I am done with that for July. I'm waiting for my cp's to finish up critiquing Soap so I can revise and get that in and I finished chapter one of the new Laguna proposal and am working on chapter two. I hope to have that done and sent by the time I leave for nationals, as well.

Life is good. Writing is good. Shopping after losing a bunch of weight.... priceless people, priceless.

Rough Draft Done!

Yay! I got something checked off my list. The rough draft of proposal one is done! Now all I have to do is revise it and send it off to my Cp's. Phew!

Next up is an article (due today) and I have to get started on the next proposal. But hey, I got something done.

Have been checking out clothes for nationals. Last week I went and tried on a skirt... had to get it in a smaller size! Then my daughter grabbed a shirt to go with it. I get it buttoned up and can't believe it. I yelled for my daughter. She walked in and her jaw dropped. "OMG Mom! You look so skinny! Look at you!" (as if I could have done anything else. Because I look cute.) I can wear cute clothes again! The skirt is Khaki and slender cut and buttons up the front. The shirt was long sleeve and Had a great cut and I looked darn cute. The first time in YEARS that I truly thought I looked cute.

The 29th I go shopping for all the clothes and shoes I am going to wear at nationals. Am truly excited. Am concerned about the type though... I mean, Can I get away with wearing the same cocktail dress to the agent party and the awards dinner?

Decisions, decisions!

Camping

Camping was actually fun... and I generally don't like camping. My dh was overjoyed that I actually went, so he made sure my work was a minimal, which is what I hate most about camping. It's like you do all the same work you do at home only it's way harder. I don't do roughing it. That's why we have dishwashers.

The campground actually had hot showers and bathrooms, so my daughter was able to shower and put on her makeup every day and her boyfriend, who had never been camping, had a blast.

I read and read and read. No writing, but that's okay. I needed a break. Of course, now I have a ton to do.

I made my writing goals for last week and then some. I am about six pages from finishing up one of my proposals so I want to wrap that up today.

Also need to do an article, help my daughter with her online history project and get to my next proposal this week. Plus grocery shopping and yard work. Who says summer is relaxing?

I'm Out

In a few hours I will be headed here:



I'm not much into camping, but I think this is going to be fun and relaxing. I'm going to read books, magazines and write. Oh, and I'll try to run, but since it's in the mountains, not sure how I'll do!

I leave you with these...

Quickies

On the Writing Front
Wrote seven pages yesterday and more than halfway thgrough chapter two. Just realized I am going camping tomorrow so will have to continue my writing by hand.

On the Running Front
I ran an eleven minute mile yesterday. YAY me!

On the Blog Front
Haven't had a lot of time to catch up with reading and commenting on blogs. Will do so soon and remember I adore you all!

Oh, oh, oh! Sharon Pajka West has a blog where she reviews YA books with deaf characters... And today, she posted mine! Check it out here!

Real quick awesome stuff:)

I wrote five new pages yesterday! Five!

I was lucky enough(if that's the term for it) to be interviewed by the fabulously trailer trashy Kelly Couric on Barrie Summy's blog. You can win one of my books, so check it out here.

I ran an eleven minute mile today. I was sore from yesterday's run and weight training so I knew I couldn't make two miles so I decided to see how fast I could actually do one. Not that bad for an out of shape newbie!

Okay, must run. My BFF is coming over for breakfast drinks. She says it's pretty sad when we invite one another over for smoothies instead of martinis.

I have to agree.

How did I do?

How did I do you ask? My new found goal of making and keeping goals?

I didn't write a damn word! Not one! Well, I typed up all six pages of my husband's work presentation, if that counts as words. It doesn't? I didn't think so. Hours of deciphering his chicken scratch and trying to figure out technical terms.

He owes me. He really, really owes me. And considering the other errands I had to do and the nap(ahem) I snuck in... I didn't write anything.

I could still make my weekly goal.

Right after I go run. HA!

Well Darn!

I had this big long amusing post about my trip to downtown portland to hear Laurie Notaro speak, and my trip downtown to hear Joe Bonamassa play at the Portland Blues Festival on the water front, but as luck would have it, blogger ate it. Trust me, it was pretty funny (if I do say so myself) and included the strange guy who I think took a pix of my butt (see what exersising will do for you?) walking to the max after the Notaro talk, and a guy who looked like Ken Kesey's brother dancing at the festival.

Ah well.

I also have to say I am very disappointed in my lack of output lately. So I'm making goals to be held accountable. I want the first chapters of Laguna and two chapters in Soap done by the end of the week. And I will post every morning on how I have done.

Must. Finish. Proposals.

Recipe! Lauri Notaro

Though my best friend and I risked life and limb (not really, but it makes for a better story and it was kind of weird for us suburbia gals) to see Laurie Notaro in downtown Portland, I thought I would help everyone get ready for the fourth of July by posting a recipe. The most awesome Barrie Summy, came up with this recipe tour and I think it's a most fab idea! Happy fourth people!


Roasted pepper salad

4 or 5 red/green/orange peppers (I like to combine them)
Olive oil
garlic cloves
vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Pour a quarter cup of olive oil into a large bowl.
Add two crushed garlic cloves
sprinkle in some salt and pepper
Wash and slice the pepper. I slice them into eighths.(You get too small and they can slip through the bbq grate)
Add to the bowl and mix with the dressing
After well mixed, place peppers onto bbq and roast. Save the bowl with the dressing in it.
Roast pappers for about five minutes. you want them to have chared lines, but not be too soft.
When done, put back into the bowl and mix with the dressing again.
drizzle vineger over the top.

I don't have exact measurements because I make this one so often. It's nummy!

If there's leftovers, I usually add them to a leaf salad the next day.

Enjoy!