Animal Kingdom

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Do you remember watching Mutual of Omaha's Animal Kingdom with Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler? It started before I was born, but I remember watching it as I grew up. We really enjoyed that show. Now when people say Animal Kingdom, many think of Disney World!

Still recovering. A few things to do today, but not a lot. Looking forward to some more down time.

Hope you have a nice Monday!

Happy Memorial Day!

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This picture reminds so much of Yoda when he was smaller. He still will lie down anywhere, including places he shouldn't!

Hope you are enjoying the holiday weekend! A big thank you to all who have served our country and especially those who paid the ultimate price. Thanks and prayers to their families, too.

I'm taking it easy today and trying to get rid of this sinus infection once and for all. Hope to be back to normal and blog hopping sometime this week! Fingers crossed!

Hugs

So sweet!

Hope you have a great Friday! I'll be finishing up my AAs on Firefighter Under the Mistletoe and seeing if I can get a different medication. The second one worked the way I hoped :(

Dibs and AI

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This LOLcat made me smile! I haven't said "dibs" in a long time, but I remember when it used to be a word used almost daily when I was younger. What about you?

My three kidlets are thrilled Scotty won last night on American Idol. I don't know how many times they voted, but I know it was more than once until I made them go to bed on Tuesday night. Wednesday is a sleep-in late day so they got to stay up a little longer to watch the show and get their votes cast. They've never listened to country music before, but my oldest has all of Scott's songs on her iTouch.

Did you watch AI? Who did you want to win?

Princess Leia Kitty

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The things our furbabies put up with. I must admit we have put a Yoda hat/hood on ours. Rose wore it as part of a Halloween costume when she was two. Now she was a seriously cute Yoda!

Spirit is feeling a little better. She's found herself a place away from everyone, but within eyesight of me to rest. Smart kitty since Yoda just jumped off the bed and on top of Smalls when she walked by the bed. Guess he's practicing his Ninja moves.

Today is the last day of the classes I teach at church. I enjoy them, but am ready for the break until fall.

Still can't beat this sinus thing. The late night at the vet hospital has not helped. I'll give the new medicine a couple more days to kick in then I'm calling for something else. I wan to feel better!

This morning I'll be preparing for the last class and then tonight I'm reading through the page proofs of Firefighter Under the Mistletoe. What are you up to?

Sick Spirit

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I got home for the 24 hour emergency vet hospital at 2 am. One of my cats, 14 yo Spirit was not feeling well last night. Of course, I don't realize this until way too late when I should be going to bed. But I was concerned enough to call. And they were concerned that she could have a blockage so off we went.

Fortunately, it's only a UTI. Huge sigh of relief. They told me she was in great shape for her age. They gave her an injection of antibiotic and gave me pills to give her at home. She's resting now. I'll be taking a nap later!

How's your day going?

Falling asleep with a good book...

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The last book I fell asleep with was my own. I was writing it. Oops. How about you?

Hope you have a good Monday!

Sleeping in late...

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This LOLcat describes what's going on in the house right now perfectly. Only Yoda and I are awake. We were out late because of an evening swim meet. A very casual, chilly meet. I get cold just thinking about it, but fortunately the rain stayed away until we were walking out to the car.

We usually go to early Mass, but not this morning. I knew the kids needed to sleep in. Me, too!

Not much on the agenda today. I'm thankful about that.

I did start reading the AAs for my November release, Firefighter Under the Mistletoe. A few lines are jumping out to me. I marked them and will go to my original copy and see if I wrote them or if the CE made some changes. I don't think a lot about "voice" as I write, but it's funny how obvious it is when something clearly doesn't sound right or like me!

Hope you have a great rest of the weekend!

Ahhhh...

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So sweet! One of my fave things about waking up from a nap is to see who joined me while I was sleeping. I usually have a few furbabies lying next to or on me.

I have new medication. Fingers crossed it works. I'm so far behind on stuff and hate feeling this way! I'm still trying to take it easy as much as I can.

We do have a little fun on the agenda today. A friend of Finn's who is also in one of my Wednesday classes turns 11 today so we're taking him out to lunch! Do you have any plans?

Random Thursday

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You know you're a crazy cat lady when seeing the above pic makes you want to put clear containers around the house to see exactly how your cats do it!

I'm heading off to the doctor's today. Hoping to get something else that will get this sinus infection out of here once and for all. I've had a headache now for a couple of days. So not fun! I was going to have Yoda blog for me yesterday, but it was just too much!

Not much to say, except one of my blog readers and very good friend, Dru, alerted me to this post on Daily Cheap Reads. The kindle version of my RITA finalist book, Christmas Magic on the Mountain, is on sale for $1.24. The paperback version at Amazon is only $2.46. The large print version is even less, $1.30. Okay, sales pitch over!

On the writing front, I'm giving my hero a conflict redo. Heard back from my editor and she likes the new direction. Huge sigh of relief since the book is due a month from today!

Other than that, I head back to the doctor this morning. Anything going on with you?

Also don't forget to comment if you want to enter the contest to win a $10 gift certificate to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I don't think I've posted info about it under the contest tab yet, but there's a post below about it.

Tiny cats

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My kitties think they are tiny kittens. Only Smalls, however, is on the smaller size. The rest are bigger. Yoda still think he's a teeny weenie little thing. His favorite spots are small Amazon boxes and even smaller baskets. It's cute, but sure looks uncomfortable. He doesn't seem to mind though.

I'm trying to get words written before blogging or blog hopping. I've had to up my daily word count, too. Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays are going to be my hardest days for writing and getting online so I'm posting this even though I'm not near where I should be. I really need to be disciplined right now. The book is due in a little over a month. And my stupid sinus infection seems to be coming back. Bloody noses have returned and headaches, too. Argh! Hate this!

Last night watching The Event was bittersweet. Only one more episode to go (on NBC at least.) The episode brought together two pairs of characters which was cool. It felt more like a build up to next week's show than a standalone show though. A few juicy tidbits were learned, but I wonder if we'll get a satisfying ending to the series if it isn't picked up by someone.

I keep getting this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that it'll be just like when ABC canceled Invasion. I even wrote letters about that one! After that, it was a long time before I got attached to a new series. I think it'll be a long time before it happens again.

Did your fave shows get renewed or canceled?

Kid Free

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For once, I don't have any kids with me. Just cats and a dog. That means uninterrupted writing time.

Because of the kidlets, I didn't get as much done yesterday as I hoped to do. Fingers crossed today will be different. I already wrote 1205 words as part of a #1hr1k on twitter. Just a couple hundred more and I'll be ahead for the day!

What are you up to?

Shredding paper

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I don't make my kitties shred my scrap paper though sometimes they have fun with it. I leave all my no longer in use pages on the floor. No one is allowed to touch them until the book is complete in case I need to find something. Messy, but it works. Needless to say, this LOLcat definitely fits where I am now. Knee deep in rewrites of the first three chapters and trying to get the rest of the first draft written.

I'm finally feeling human again, too. Not 100%, but better than I've felt in almost a month. Yay! But I'm not going to overdo it. Really. I mean it this time!

Hope you're enjoying your weekend. I am. Yesterday I watched my youngest play soccer. Today I saw 4 current students in the first Wednesday class I teach and a former one make their First Holy Communion down in Portland. Now it's "me" time. I'm going to spend the rest of the day writing (and possibly sneak in a nap!)

Talk to you on Monday!

A long night...

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So this blog is late going up this morning. I have to admit it would have been late even if Blogger hadn't been down. I spent last night at the ER with my son Finn. He fell at soccer and put his right arm out to break his fall. He ended up hurting his wrist. Fortunately it's only a sprain. The ER doc turned out to be his former Little League coach. Needless to say, it was a late night and I got zero writing done. I feel like the LOL kitty above.

Because of that, and the fact a nap is looking like a must-have before lunchtime, I'm going to leave you with this link. It'll take you to a blog of pictures containing writers and their kitties! Enjoy!

Fire Alarm

Yesterday while hubby cooked lunch, Chaos started acting very strange. Her curled tail uncurled. She walked around the downstairs as if lost. I told hubby that she was afraid the smoke detector was going to go off. He laughed, saying I was crazy.

Last night the same thing happened when he was fixing dinner. Chaos looked so nervous. And then the smoke detector went off. The dog freaked as she usually does when that happened. She was on my lap, cowering and trembling so much we wrapped her in a blanket. It was heartbreaking to see her so scared. I tried to get her to go upstairs, but she wouldn't budge. It took over an hour for her to settle down. Poor baby!

I started thinking about her actions prior to the alarm going off. I wonder if she smelled something ahead of time or knows when daddy turns on the fan on the stove the chances of the loud noise sounding goes up. Maybe it was simply the noise from the fan. She doesn't like the vacuum cleaner, either. She obviously knew something was up.

It'll be interesting to see how she acts today during meal time prep!

Still dragging a bit here. I hope to get back to more online stuff soon, but right now trying to rest as much as I can when I have free time.

Hope you have a great Thursday. I keep hoping the rain will go away, but it returned again! I want sunshine! What's the weather like where you are?

Nap Attack!

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This was me yesterday! I would sit down to write only to start nodding off. I had at least two, maybe three naps, in between some errands and writing. The naps helped me stay awake long enough to watch The Voice. Some good battles last night! I'm looking forward to next week's episode. Since I've been watching that show, I've stopped watching Glee. I just don't have that much time to spend in from of the television.

So the more I look at the LOLcat above, I can't help but wonder if pirate kitty grew weary of being dressed in pirate garb and decided sleep was a better alternative. What do you think?

Have a nice Wednesday!

New Contest!

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I'm still not feeling all that great and realized I haven't put up a prize for this month's contest. I haven't even posted it on the contest page!

I'm going to do the old stand-by. A $10 gift card only this time you can choose whether you want Amazon or Barnes & Noble, who now do eCards.

All comments posted in May (the time stamp will be what shows up on MY computer) will be entered. Multiple entries allowed so comment away. Check back at the beginning of June to see if you won. The winner's name will be posted on the blog! Good luck!

Hope you have a great day!

Off we go!

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The little kitty in the pic above reminds me of Yoda when he was younger! So sweet!

I spent yesterday exactly the way I wanted—resting and writing. I wrote over 4000 words, a chapter's worth of pages! A very nice Mother's Day present to myself. Mackenna took care of Rose for me (and also kept Chaos away) so I didn't have a care in the world. The kidlets made me cards (and ones from the cats and dog) and hubby got me a card, too. A very quiet, low-key holiday.

Too bad the week couldn't be that way, but that's not how things work around here! I did cancel the kids' piano lesson. They have testing and trying to find a time to fit it in was too hard. At least I have one less place to be.

A couple of people asked to see pics from the First Communion, but I haven't uploaded them yet. Yesterday was all about me! It was so cute to see Rose all dressed up in white, only to come home after celebrating, change into her soccer uniform and cleats and get covered in mud during the game. From one extreme to the other!

Today begins the new soccer season 2011-2012 for Finn. Only a week off because he's switched to a team that's closer to where we live. We really liked his old club, but it was in Oregon and just too far a drive. It wasn't an easy decision since the development at the old club is really good, but I'm at the point in my life where I'm all about making things convenient. I took him to kickarounds at clubs to see what he thought about the various teams. I was worried he would just want to go back to the old club, and I really didn't want to have to keep doing that commute a couple times a week. But fortunately he really liked one of them and wanted to play there instead. Yay!

This weekend he swam his first long course meet of the year. The pool is 50 meters. It always looks so much bigger when I see it after the short course season. He aged up due to his recent birthday. That means he must qualify at 11 year old times this season. He managed to beat an A time in the 400 meter by 4.5 seconds on Friday night. We were all very happy about that. He skipped Saturday's races due to the First Communion, but was back at the pool yesterday. He just missed his A time on the 50 Fly by a couple tenths and beat all the B times for his other two races! A very good meet for him. Hubby kept sending me texts to let me know what was going on!

Tonight after the soccer practice, I'll be watching The Event! (I still need to catch up on last week's episode. I was too busy writing.) It's a show I really like (the only one I watch regularly), but fear will be canceled. A friend just became a Nielsen family and I told them to please watch it. Turns out they already do!

Anything on your Must See TV list tonight?

Happy Mother's Day!

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I want to wish all you moms out there a Happy Mother's Day!

Hubby asked what I wanted. I told him a day where I didn't have to do anything but write! He said okay! We went to the early Mass at a different parish first thing this morning. Now he's taking Finn to the swim meet. Mackenna is going to watch Rose. And I'm free to write! The cats are already staking their places next to me!

Hope everyone, whether a mom or not, has a nice Sunday! I'm really looking forward to mine!

First Communion!

Today, my youngest makes her First Communion. Needless to say, lots of excitement in the McClone household. There's no time to blog right now!

Hope you have a great Saturday!

TGIF

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Lately I feel like the evil side of my furbabies has been out more than the good side. At least with two of them. I hope that changes!

I'm so happy it's Friday! This weekend my youngest makes her First Communion. She looks so sweet in her white dress and veil. Best yet, only three things remain on my To Do list for it: buy her white tights, put together the favors for her celebration afterward and pick up the cake! Not bad considering how busy and badly I've been feeling this week. But the medicine is finally are helping. Boy, it took a while!

Anything big happening this weekend with you?

A Quickie

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It's been a crazy week. Still trying to recover from the sinus infection and catch up on stuff, especially with an upcoming First Communion for Rose this weekend. I'd rather just sleep and write, though!

Sorry I haven't posted a new contest. Still trying to figure out the prize and get all the past winners theirs. At this point I may just go with the old standard, a gift card, unless someone has some other ideas. What are your favorite prizes to win? Any ideas for the contest here?

Thanks!

May the Fourth be with You!

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In honor of Star Wars day, I thought I'd give you a couple of links and some pics. This is an unofficial day. Some fans celebrate on May 25th. My thought is something this epic can be celebrated twice!


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The first link is from Lonely Planet. The title of the article is What Star Wars can teach you about travel. Click here to read.


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Today, Lucusfilm announced details about the is about the saga's release on Blu-ray. This article on DVDTOWN has all the info.

Hope you have a Happy Star Wars Day!

It's off!

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I emailed my proposal last night. Considering I started over with it right before Easter, I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief. Writing the synopsis is always painful, but with this one not so much thanks to my Story Mastery template and Blake Snyder Beat Sheet. Both the chapters and the synopsis came in shorter than I usually send, but with the rewrite and a sinus infection I'm satisfied with it. Of course, I have to wait to see what my editor says. I might be singing a different tune then!

I was working so hard last night I missed The Event! Oh, well. I'll catch it on line sometime today. I have lots of little things to do that will be perfect to keep my hands busy while I watch the show.

Speaking of shows, did you catch The Voice on NBC last week? I was curious after the endless slew of ads so tuned in. It had already started, but I enjoyed what I saw. It's not a carbon copy of American Idol, so if you like that kind of reality show you might want to check out The Voice tonight.

Okay, time to hang with the kidlets! Have a great day!

Contest Winner!

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Sorry for the delay in posting a contest winner. I forgot it was May 1 yesterday morning then after I got home last night from my son's final soccer game for the season and the team pizza party, I needed to write!

The random generator I use to pick the winner sometimes surprises me. I don't know why or what that says about me since it's supposed to be random. But with over 90 comments for the month of April, it selected #1.

The winner of the $10 Amazon gift certificate is Sarita who commented on the first of April on my post titled, "Ouch!" Sarita, please send me your email via the Contact link on the menu bar above.

As soon as I get this proposal off, I'll figure out the May contest. But all May comments will count towards it!

Thanks for commenting and keeping me company here. It means alot! xoxox

Same as the last!

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This LOLcat cracks me up!

Today will be just like yesterday with the addition of Mass and an end of soccer season pizza party and even more writing. Just need to subtract one game.

Better get writing! The proposal still isn't where I want it to be, and I'm still sick.

Have a great day!

UPDATE: I just realized it's May 1st. I totally forgot about the contest. I'll draw a winner and post the name tonight. Can't do it right now. So sorry I didn't do it this morning!