Spirit

This is Spirit. Hubby took the picture with his Blackberry tonight and emailed it for me. She stands up here and meows when she wants something. If no one comes right away she makes her way down the stairs. The farther she descends, the louder she gets.

She is the queen of the household. The other two allow her to eat first and choose her sleeping position first. It's amazing how that pecking order works and Chaos has bought right into it. He is scared to death of Spirit and continues to give her a wide berth! It just cracks me up how she will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid that cat!

I managed to get all the Valentine's done last night. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to do the craft prototypes so I need to do those today. But the reason I ran out of time is a good one! I finally know what my other Harlequin Romance will be. Okay, I still need editorial approval and won't write the book until summer or fall, but I've been toying with an idea for a month now. Things finally fell into place during my morning shower. I couldn't wait to write it all down and talk to my critique partner, Virginia Kantra about it.

I'm so happy I didn't send my editor my first idea for this book. I think this is so much stronger! And it features a hero who appeared in Rescued by the Magic of Christmas. Fingers crossed my editor likes the idea because I love it! I want to start the book right now I love it so much! But I don't want to jinx it so I'll work on my idea pitch instead and wait to see what my editor says first.

I'm off to Portland this morning, but will be able to stick around home in the early afternoon and do a little crafting! I also finished all my RITA books so can finally input all the scores. That will be a huge check on my To Do list.

Hope you have a great Friday and managed to do all you had planned for Thursday.

Crossfit Challenge Day 6

Today do:

6 sit ups, 6 pushups (or sub exercise) and6 air squats.

Post to comments when you've done it!

Can I just say you all are so wonderful joining me in this challenge! I might actually make it to the end of this one. My hands forced me out of the 100 day Burpee Challenge. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. And my bottom, abs and arms also thank you!

Time

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I saw this LOLcat and immediately thought of my three furbabies. Ever had a case of missing time? When you were sure you had time only to realize you were late for something?

I have. It's very disconcerting. Where did the time go? I have an overactive imagination so images of missing time, alien abductions or something you would see on X-Files tend to spring to mind. But now I think I'll just blame the cats the next time this happens. One of my cats stepping on my digital clock seems a more plausible reason, don't you think?

At least I won't have to worry about my cats playing with my clock and making me late today. I get to stay home all day! I've had two days of running around so am so happy about that. What's on my agenda? I have to write a dear reader letter for my September release, make 25 Valentine's for the girls' group I help lead once a month and make samples of Valentine's crafts we'll be doing next Friday at a Valentine's party. Since I like being crafty, it should be a fun day.

What are you up to?

Crossfit Challenge Day 5

Today do:

5 sit ups, 5 pushups (or sub exercise) and 5 air squats.

Post to comments when you've done it!

Hugs to catslady on her toe, but kudos for going after it! Welcome to housemouse88!

Keep it up everyone! We're doing great!


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Crossfit Challenge Day 4

Today do:

4 sit ups, 4 pushups (or sub exercise) and 4 air squats.

Post to comments when you've done it!

Marianne has joined us in the challenge. If you're still thinking about doing it, it's not too late! You'd just need to do today's 4 and 6 more of each exercise to catch up. Come on, what do you say?

Flowers and romance

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It's all over the blogosphere, but I was taken aback (that's putting it nicely) by the Teleflora commercial that not only disses romance readers, but owners of fat cats. Considering I not only read but write romance novels, and my beloved Rocket would more than qualify as a "fat cat," I can tell you I won't ever be buying flowers from Teleflora again. I told hubby not to, either. And I'll ask you to please consider buying your flowers elsewhere, too.

Sarah at SB blogged about this and included a video of the commercial. Click here, if you missed it.

Hubby asked me if I was overreacting. Um, no. I don't think I am. What do you think?

Crossfit Challenge Day 3

Today do:

3 sit ups, 3 pushups (or sub exercise) and 3 air squats.

Post to comments when you've done it!

Crossfit Challenge Day 2

Today do:

2 situps, 2 pushups (or other exercise) and 2 air squats.

A few more have joined: Dru is in and Virginia may give some of it a try! Yay!

I will make sure to set a post to publish at midnight so people know what to do. This first month is easy. Just do the number of the date each day. Today's the 2nd of February so just do two of each!

Contest Winner!

Sorry for the late post. I have been so busy I don't have a lot of time to be on-line right now. Here are your random numbers:

106
Timestamp: 2009-02-03 06:07:30 UTC

This week's free book winner is Jane. She won with a comment on the post Crossfit Challenge Day 1. Jane, please choose one book from the list here. Email me your choice along with your snail address. You can use the contact form on my website.

Last week's winner Virginia chose Sophie Nash's A Dangerous Beauty. Amy, the winner from a couple of weeks ago, chose Heather Webber's Digging up emailed me her choice, but I can't find it so please check your inbox Amy and resend me your choice.

If you're new here all you have to do to enter the contest is make a comment here on the blog. Every comment you make gives you one entry into the weekly free book contest, so comment often!

Crossfit Challenge Day 1

Long day. I just got home from my parents. My entire family showed up to watch the Super Bowl game. I'm bummed the Cardinals lost. I used to live in Arizona so was rooting them on. I had to run my oldest to 7:30 pm Mass just as the game was ending, and by the time we got back to my parents' house everyone was gone except my family. We said our goodbyes and made the drive home. Chaos slept on my lap the entire way!

I'll post the contest winner tomorrow. I still have something to get ready to email tonight to Harlequin, and it can't wait!

Okay, the Crossfit Challenge. So far I have the following participating: Sarita, catslady, Brandy, Jane, limecello, Cheri and me. If I missed you, just speak up. I'm very tired right now. And if anyone wants to join us, just let me know. All you have to do is catch up. (See below how to do that.)

Today (Sunday) you need to do: 1 sit up, 1 push up (any kind wall, bench, knee, or substitute lunge or other exercise of your choice) and 1 air squat. If you don't know the proper form for an exercise, you can go here to see how to do them.

If you miss a day, you must do that days exercises plus the current days so if you missed today, tomorrow you would do 3 of each. Does that make sense? Right now it's not a big deal if you miss a day, but when you're at 50 or 60, it's brutal. But you can break up the exercises through the day so you don't have to do all at once.

I'll keep the Crossfit Challege posts separate for the normal blog posts. Post what you did in the comment section so we can cheer each other on. And if you're not competing feel free to comment and give us moral support. As the days go on, we'll need all the cheerleading we can get!

No more excuses

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I can so relate to Winston in this picture! Okay, I can get still get through the door, but I feel like a total sloth who's bottom half has, shall we say, spread out a bit in the the last few months. And I really am dragging energy wise.

Needless to say, I can't wait to start the Crossfit challenge on Sunday. I'm even planning to climb that day. Just waiting to confirm with my climbing part. I've really had enough sitting around and not working out. No more excuses.

On Sunday, the challenge calls for 1 pushup, 1 sit up and 1 air squat. Each day you add one more until you reach 100 of each exercise.

Who's in?

Friday Links

I went to bed early and woke up late so am scrambling this morning!

Here are a couple links for you:

Harlequin is celebrating it's 60th anniversary this year. Check out Harlequin Celebrates where you can download free books!

I'm guest blogging today at The Wedding Planners. Another post on a recent wedding with an out-of-this-world wedding theme.

Hope you have a great Friday!

Back to Crossfit

I've been a total slackard when it comes to working out. That means I haven't been. I had a good reason. For the past six months, my hand issues made Crossfit and climbing difficult and painful, but my hands are so much better now. Nearly good as new so it's time to stop being such a couch potato (or in my case a chair potato) and start working out again.

To get back into working out, I'm going to be joining in with Crossfit Washougal to do a 100 day challenge. I tried the 100 day burpee challenge this fall, but due to my hands only made it to day forty-something. This new challenge consists of Push ups, Sit ups and air squats. The first day, February 1, will be one of each. By day 100 we'll be doing 100 of each. The kidlets who do Crossfit Kids twice a week are joining in, too. Hubby wants to give it a try, too, but we'll see how he does with his knee!

Wish me luck please. I'm going to need it! I have a feeling the kidlets are going to kick my butt!

Organizing

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Tonight Mackenna's drama class did a bunch of improv exercises at an Open House. One of them had the kids acting like statues in a store you could turn on to see if you wanted to buy them. Mackenna and a friend were a pair of statues. When you turned them on, one slapped the other saying, "He likes me!" The other slapped back saying, "He likes me!" It was so funny. The entire room was laughing.

The only one not totally amused was hubby. The idea of boys and his daughter do not go over well. He's finally cool with the Jonas Brothers, but that's about it. The next ten to twenty years are going to be really difficult for him!

Today I worked some on the continuity. A cool 3 in 1 book with the first three Wedding Planners books arrived from England. And I started putting stuff together for our taxes. The info is starting to arrive in the mail so I thought I'd get organized. 2009 is my year of organization. It wasn't a resolution per se, but a goal.

I'll admit the organizing isn't going that great so far, but it's only January. There are still eleven more months for me to get my act together. I bought a nifty chore list calendar from Motivated Moms to help me stay (okay, get) on track. I'd do better with it though if I could remember where I put it!

Yes, I need to organize my organizing tools. Pretty sad, but what can I say?

So who out there is totally organized? And who is more like me?

Computer Woes

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Ever have one of those days when it feels as if your computer is conspiring against you? My mac has been doing it all weekend. Today was no better. The original post I had planned for today was swallowed up into the abyss. This after two different phone calls with IT help guys at Stanford to get my account there working. Not a good computer day so I'll just get on to the contest...

Here are your random numbers:

23
Timestamp: 2009-01-27 02:03:25 UTC

This week's free book winner is Virginia. She won with a comment on the post Random Thursday. Virginia, please choose one book from the list here. Email me your choice along with your snail address. You can use the contact form on my website.

Last week's winner Brandy chose Sexiest Man Alive by Diana Holquist. The week before's winner Amy sent me the title of the book she wanted, but I can't find the email for some reason. So Amy please check your inbox!

If you're new here and want to enter the contest, just comment on the blog. Every comment you make gives you one entry into the weekly free book contest, so comment often!

Busy weekend!

We woke up to snow on the ground and falling from the sky. It was so pretty. But that wasn't about to stop our plans for today. The day was almost as jampacked as yesterday. I've had zero time to jump on the computer. Lots of stuff going on to keep me hopping. Though today I spent most of the day sitting at Mount Hood Community College watching a swimming championship meet. I did manage to read all of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey for my Jane Austen Book Club that will be meeting soon and see my oldest win her heat in the freestyle and do well in her other races. A very good day.

Tonight was spent with Mr. Tumnus. He's been the topic of conversation this weekend so we watched The Chronicles of Narnia tonight. My kids play Narnia all the time. I could read them C.S. Lewis' series over and over again. They never grow tired of the tale of the Pevensey children.

And now I'm ready to call it an early night. I'll post the contest winner tomorrow. Hope you had a nice weekend!

Lesson Not Learned

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Last night, I was unloading my minivan. I'd done my big grocery shopping trip which meant stops at three different stores: Costco, Fred Meyer and Winco. Lots of bags and an ice chest needed to be carried in. Chaos was in the backyard so I didn't have to worry about her getting out front, but guess who kept hanging out by the front door?

Spirit.

You'd think she would have learned her lesson the last time I was carrying in groceries like this, but no. She kept moving closer and closer to the door. I had to keep chasing her away so she wouldn't run out. She didn't care that I told her next time she got out she might not be so lucky. I finally tired of her games and ran her upstairs, but I still kept the door closed. No way did I want her out again all night, especially with the temperatures so low.

I didn't know if she was bored or what, but then she sat on the steps and meowed. I knew exactly what was wrong then. She was hungry. The meows kept increasing in volume and frequency until I walked up the steps. She darted into the bathroom where her food and water are kept.

I can't believe how spoiled these animals are. And, yes, I know, it's all my fault.

Spirit must be served her food with no spills or mess. She turns up her nose if any of the food falls out of the bowl when I pour. She must always eat before the other two cats, and they give her a wide berth until she's finished even if she only takes a nibble. She's the exact opposite of Smalls who is just like the kitty in the pic below. Smalls will eat out of the bag and drink out of the toilet. She eats of dishes and checks out the garbage if the door is left open. But then again, Smalls lived outside for the majority of her life and learned to fend for herself.


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But at least Spirit was inside tonight. I did a kitty count like catlady posted about just to make sure before I went to bed and all three were accounted for. I think the next time I'll lock her in my room to be on the safe side.

Hope you have a good Friday! Mine looks busy as usual with a few appointments and such. What about you?

Random Thursday

I've finished four of my eight RITA books as my reading binge continues. It's a mixed bag of genres with a couple of authors I've been meaning to read so am happy to finally do so. Thanks for letting me know what you're reading in the comment section. I will be looking into a couple of those books once I finish the rest of my RITA pile!

On the writing front, we (the four continuity authors) should hear something about the new continuity soon. Maybe as soon as tomorrow! And when that happens, my JaNoWriMo book will go on the backburner completely. But not working on it this past couple of weeks has actually given me a lot of insight into the 10K words I have on it. I now know how I want to open it and how to make those beginning chapters so much stronger!

My burn is feeling better. Thanks for the well-wishes! I was putting something into the oven (not my oven) and burned the top of my hand. I've been putting stuff on it and, fingers crossed, hope it's looking better this morning.

Sad news from Mount Hood again. A thirty-one year old woman, who was climbing with her husband, got hit with a chunk of ice, fell four hundred feet and died yesterday. According to news reports, the accident happened near the spot where the same thing happened to my friend on Saturday. Ice fall was one of the things the PMR guys who helped me with research told me could have taken out the two climbers in the prologue of Rescued by the Magic of Christmas.

Any random things from your corner of the world you want to share?

Reading Time

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That picture just cracked me up! Last night I burned the top of my left hand. It's pretty nasty looking with a nickel sized blister. A good thing I'm on a reading binge right now rather than a writing one!

My RITA books arrived. Every year the Romance Writers of America put on a contest for published authors called the RITA. The judges are published authors. I like to get them done right away, especially when I know I'll be working toward a deadline very, very soon.

So far I've read two books, both new to me authors. I'm on my third and enjoying my reading time so much! Usually reading turns into a low priority when I'm really into working on a book.

I can't say what books I've read, but what about you? What are you reading right now?

Home and a new winner

The trip to Sacramento went great. My daughter placed first in two dances. She needs a certain amount of firsts to move up from Prizewinner to Preliminary Championship. Best of all I got to spend some one on one time with Mackenna. We also got to have dinner with my friend, Deb. A great time for sure!

When I came home, I had an email from a friend telling me that her brother, the mountain rescuer who helped me research three of my books and became a friend in the process, had fallen on Mount Hood on Saturday. I can't tell you how reading the first sentence of that email felt. He's been very open about some of the close calls he's had, but those were in the past. I was just hoping his luck had held out this time, too! And it had.

He's in the hospital and is pretty banged up, but his injuries could have been a lot worse. This is the same guy who let me write about his skydiving proposal on the Wedding Planners blog and got married on New Years Eve. If you could say a prayer for Michael and Linda as he recovers, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Now without any further ado:

Here are your random numbers:

8
Timestamp: 2009-01-20 04:12:44 UTC

This week's free book winner is Brandy. She won with a comment on the post Contest Time! Brandy, please choose one book from the list here. Email me your choice along with your snail address. You can use the contact form on my website.

I never heard from last week's winner Amy.

To enter the contest, just make a comment here on the blog. Every comment you make gives you one entry into the weekly free book contest, so comment often!

Going Feising

My oldest and I will be leaving shortly for an Irish dance feis in Sacramento, California. She competes tomorrow so don't expect another post until Monday evening when I'll announce this week's free book winner! My best friend since college, Deb, who we stayed with this summer when we were down in San Jose, is driving up to see us!

Hubby and the younger two kidlets are staying home. This weekend happens to be the championship swim meet for my son's age group. He missed it last year due to our Disneyland vacation, and we didn't want him to miss it again. I'm wondering if life is going to be like this until the kids go to college!

What are you up to this weekend? I hope whatever you've got planned or even if you're just relaxing, you have a wonderful time. Take care and talk to you on Monday!

The Birth of a Thespian

Last night my oldest was in the drama production of The Princess and the Pauper. The ages of the kids ranged from around 10-14. They did an awesome job as did their teacher who is so amazing with the students.

Mackenna was one of the ladies of the court, Lady St. John, and even had lines to say. It was so cool to see her on stage, looking so poised. She was wonderful. Though I must admit, I'm totally biased.

Needless to say, she can't wait to do another play. She loves every minute of her drama class. Princess and the Pauper was our first "play" experience of this sort of magnitude and it was very fun. Though she and hubby didn't get home from Wednesday's dress rehearsal until after ten o'clock in the evening. But it was all worth it.

I've only been in one play, The Merchant of Venice, when I was in college. What about you? Have you ever acted in anything?

Creative Overload

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I feel a lot like the picture above! Except it's my creativity that's leaking out all over the place since I usually just work on one thing at a time, but that's not what my January has been like so far.

I'm supposed to be writing my JaNoWriMo book, but if you've noticed the counter over on the right it hasn't budged in a while. I've got too many projects right now. We, the new group of continuity authors I am now one of, just submitted three ideas for the four book series. I had so many ideas running in my head for that I had to put the JaNoWriMo book on hold. And while we wait to hear back, I finally figured out what I want my next HR to be after the continuity so I'm trying to get that on paper before the ideas vanish.

Of course, my hero and heroine from my JaNoWriMo feel a like like this LOLcat:


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They don't want to be alone now that they've met each other.

What's a writer to do? So many Romances and so little time! But the ones that are already sold take priority so they may have to wait a little while!

The Second Best Birthday Ever

Rose thanks everyone for their birthday wishes. She announced that this was her second best birthday right after her one in Disneyland last year. She qualified her statement by saying at Disneyland she got to go on fun ride, sleep in a hotel and see real princesses which is why it was the better one.

So what does a six year old think is second best to a birthday at Disneyland?

Well, she ate cheese pizza for dinner, decorated her cupcakes, blew out a #6 candle after her brother played Happy Birthday on his guitar, ate cupcakes, opened gifts (a High School Musical sleeping bag, a knee length button down brown sweater, kid makeup kit, a singing High School Musical pen and a Camp Rock nail polish set) and watched American Idol until ten o'clock with the family (the kidlets never watch prime time TV unless it's Clone Wars or stay up that late on a weeknight so it was a huge treat though they had to keep covering their eyes during ads for scary movies and shows.)

Of course, the two older ones wanted to know if they got to pick a show to watch on their birthdays. Hubby glanced my way with a now-see-what-you've-started-look. In case you haven't guessed already, our TV is not on much. Clone Wars is the only thing that is never missed.

I just hope all the birthdays this year go off as well as Rose's did. Mackenna is thinking about hers coming up in May, but Finn already told me he wants a Clone Wars birthday in April. Now that one will be a blast to put on! Light saber duels, anyone?

What was your best birthday ever? What would your ideal best birthday ever be?

Six!

Today is my youngest's six birthday. Six just sounds so old to me. Granted it's not ten or eight like the other two, but she's the one we still call the baby. Not so much a baby any more!

I still remember being at the hospital six years ago. They were inducing me early because they thought she would be too big if they didn't. Her brother came a few days before his due date and surprised everyone by being 9 lbs 6 oz.

As I was waiting for the contractions to start, I had my Alphasmart with me and was writing a scene for Santa Brought A Son since I would not only have a newborn (along with a 4 1/2 and 2 1/2 year olds) but an upcoming deadline in the next few weeks. Oh, what had I been thinking back then????

But I survived. We all did. And now our Rose is six!

I'll be honest, she's the one who's more work than the other two kidlets combined. All of us, including the other kidlets, have spoiled her. Being the third kid, she learned early on to speak up for what she wants. She also has no problem going for what she wants herself. It's a trait that will serve her will in adulthood, but makes parenting her a little challenging! But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Last night, Rose told us she wanted to make her own cupcakes for her birthday. So she and hubby made cupcakes from scratch. She was mixing the batter and needed a spatula. Hubby grabbed one from the container on the counter, but she pulled her own from a pocket on her apron. It was so cute. And she knew exactly how to use it! Of course we got the whole thing on tape!!! We will ice and decorate the cupcakes today.

She's also set the menu for today. Breakfast is orange juice, fruit salad (made by her sister recipe courtesy of The Wiggles song) and hot from the oven sweet rolls. Lunch is meatballs and a side of carrot sticks and ranch dressing. Dinner is cheese pizza followed by her cupcakes.

My day will be all about Rose! What about yours?

Contest Time!

I'm late again! I actually have a somewhat decent reason. I was asked to participate in another continuity so the authors involved were brainstorming today. I also had two different sets of kids over for playdates at various times. So now the house is relatively quiet. My youngest turns six tomorrow, and she decided tonight she wanted to make her own cupcakes for tomorrow so that's what she's doing with hubby right now.

And I finally have a free moment so without any further ado...

Here are your random numbers:

27
Timestamp: 2009-01-13 03:37:04 UTC

This week's free book winner is Amy. She won with a comment on the post Kitty's Night Out. Amy, please choose one book from the list here. Email me your choice along with your snail address. You can use the contact form on my website.

Last week's winner Limecello chose Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Nobody's Baby But Mine and This Heart of Mine, a two in one trade size book that's autographed. Hope you like the book, limecello!

To enter the contest, just make a comment here on the blog. Every comment you make gives you one entry into the weekly free book contest, so comment often!

Today I was blogging on The Wedding Planners. It was about men and gift buying! You can read the post here.

Sigh of Relief

Dinner is over. Everyone ate. The dishes are done! Everyone said it was good, even the kidlets. Huge sigh of relief.

But I'm wiped out from a morning out, then I had to take my oldest to practice (she's completing in the RCC Challenge-think Catholic student Jeopardy) all while trying to get food on the table. The only problem happened when the warming drawer got turned on and somehow the oven got turned off. That delayed the fingerling potatoes being done on time. (I found them finally at Costco this morning!)

I'll post the contest winner tomorrow. In the meanwhile, here are a couple LOLcats for you.

This one had me LOLing since I collect Department 56 Villages:

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And Spirit so wants one of these for her birthday in April. Watch out Chaos!

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So what did you have for dinner? I'll post what we had in the comment section!

Home at last!

I've been gone since 6:50 am this morning. Zero words written, but I made my kidlets very happy by cheering them on at the last regular season swim meet. Of course there are three more meets considered championships and/or allstars, but who's counting?

Tomorrow night I'm having my friend Karen over for dinner. I must admit I'm nervous. She is an amazing cook and owns her own place that does catering and special events. It's where we hosted Finn's First Communion dinner. She also did Mackenna's First Communion dinner. And if I can talk her into it, she'll do Rose's in two years!

But cooking for an amazing chef is, in a word, intimidating. I've got the menu all planned and when I should fix what. Several items will be done in the morning. I am missing one ingredient, but not for lack of trying. Three stores though are sold out of the fingerling potatoes I need so I'll have to run out tomorrow to find them. Wish me luck!

But for now, I'd better try to get a few more words in on my JaNoWriMo project. I think we're suppose to report numbers and I haven't done that yet!

What was your Saturday like?

Feeling Better

I woke up feeling almost as good as new! The key to staying healthy for me is going to be reasonable bedtimes. Even if it means I don't make 50K with JaNoWriMo. But my health is much more important than words! I'll save the late nights for when it really matters...right before deadline!

I'm headed out the door to drive down to Portland and will be gone most of the day!

Hope you have a great Friday.

Sick

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I made it through my class yesterday. I did bring hubby with me to help out since I wasn't feeling all that great, but did okay. The kids really made me feel better. I'd missed them after three weeks of no class.

Of course on the drive home, hubby reached over to hold my hand. He couldn't believe how warm my hands were. They are always cold just like my feet.

Needless to say, I'm still feeling under the weather so will be laying low today. I should qualify that by saying as much as I can. Don't know if I'll blog hop or not, but if I do, it'll be later. Hubby is donating platelets which means if he doesn't make it back home in time, I have to drive down to Portland for my son's speech therapy session. Fingers crossed he does.

What are you up to today?

P.S. if you're a dog lover and haven't seen the furry beast limecello is dogsitting, go to the comment section from a couple of days ago and follow her link. The dog is adorable! The kidlets loved it!

Kitty's Night Out

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My three cats are indoor cats. Smalls was originally an outdoor cat who came with your first house, but now she only goes out occasionally and not in winter.

Well, last night I was bringing in groceries. I locked Chaos in the backyard. Both Spirit and Rocket came downstairs. I shooed them away from the door. The last time I saw Spirit she was walking back to the stairs.

I haven't been feeling all that great since yesterday so I decided to go to bed early. I asked hubby to feed the cats and crawled into bed. Smalls jumped up with me for a little while as did Rocket. I never saw Spirit, but thought nothing of it since she's been hanging out under the Christmas tree for the last couple of weeks. But it was weird that she wasn't sleeping on my feet when Chaos wanted out this morning.

I stayed in bed this morning. Hubby had an early PT appointment. Guess what he heard as he was unlocking the front door when he got home? Meowing. Lots and lots of meowing, coming from our backyard.

He went out there and found Spirit under a bush. It had been raining most of the night. Luckily we have been having warmer temperatures.

Poor kitty.

She must have been terrified. I held her close and dried her with a towel. She's right next to me grooming herself now.

I feel bad that I didn't realize she was missing. If I had been the one to feed them, I would have known right away since they have a pecking order and she's the one who has to take a bite first before the other three. But luckily all turned out well, and maybe this will keep her inside the next time she sees an open door. Of course, she did it when she was a year old on Fourth of July. We found her under our front deck, but that was in 1998. Maybe it's a once every ten years kind of thing.

Has something like this ever happened to you and one of your pets?

Gratitude

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Last night, another mom and I taught a lesson on gratitude to a group of girls ages 10 to almost 13. I remember years ago hearing about a Gratitude Journal on Oprah, buying one and doing it every single night. In case you missed that, it was a pretty book and you could buy a matching journal to write five things you were grateful for each day. Somewhere along the line I either misplaced the book or got out of the habit. Probably about the time I got pregnant or had a baby.

But talking to the girls last night reminded me how much I take for granted. That is, I don't always express my gratitude as much as I should. A heartfelt word of thanks can go a long way.

We all had to make resolutions to do in the next three days. Here's one of mine:

I want to thank all of you who read this blog. I know how precious time is and I appreciate you stopping by to my little spec in the vast cyberworld.

To those who post comments, thank you, thank you, thank you! I love hearing what you think and what's going in on your life. I often speak of you to my family. You're known as mommy's blog friends!

Love,
Melissa

The first contest of 2009

It's hard to believe the first week of January is already over. We haven't done a lot, but the days just flew by.

Today we get back into the normal routine of activities except hubby is off for one more week. The company he works for had a three week shutdown over the holidays so he has one week left to go. He's managed to get a couple little things done around the house for me which has been great. I think I may have to come up with a few more Honey, dos for him to keep him busy so I can work on my JaNoWriMo project.

It's going well so far. Of course, the writing is quick and dirty. It'll need a lot of work once I'm done, but the point is getting the story on paper not making it perfect. And that I can do!

Okay, free book time! Here are your random numbers:

42
Timestamp: 2009-01-05 17:03:28 UTC

This week's free book winner, the first of 2009, is limecello. She won with a comment on the post My Side of the Bed. Fitting considering all she's been going through dogsitting the "beast." Limecello, please choose one book from the list here. Email me your choice along with your snail address. You can use the contact form on my website.

Last week's winner Virgina chose Julia Justiss' Most Unconventional Match. Hope you like the book, Virginia!

To enter the contest, just make a comment here on the blog. Every comment you make gives you one entry into the weekly free book contest, so comment often!

Priorities

more animals

Today we finally celebrated my side of the family's twice delayed Christmas Eve celebration and the December birthdays. The Christmas celebration took place at my house. The birthdays at a restaurant in Portland. It was starting to snow as we left for dinner. It kept snowing and snowing and snowing. We needed chains to get home.

Needless to say, the drive took a long time.

So...I need to work on my JaNoWriMo book so I'm not up until all hours of the night. I'll post the contest winner tomorrow! Hope you had a nice weekend!

My Side of the Bed

Here are three of my four furbabies sleeping on my side of the bed while I write. Rocket, Spirit and Choas' version of peace on Earth. If only they would always get along so well! Someday!!!!

In case you're wondering, I sit about two feet to the right of where Rocket is lying when I write. That's why they all congregate on my side. Smalls, our third cat, sits underneath the bed skirt as close to me as she can get without being seen if Chaos is around. If the dog isn't, she joins the other two kitties on the bed. And yes, the cats are thrilled I'm writing again!

Another productive writing day on Friday though I struggled a bit because I was tired. I took my oldest daughter and a dance friend of hers who slept over to the mall to meet other Irish dancers for lunch, ice skating and shopping. I got to chat with the other moms for a couple of hours. It was really fun.

What did you do?

A Good Start

I got a late start on my JaNoWriMo effort, but the words flowed and I ended up with more than I expected. You can track my progress with the counter over on the right hand side of the blog. My goal is 50,000 words by November 30.

I never did write down my resolutions for 2009 so here they are:

1. Exercise more
2. Eat healthier
3. Write consistently
4. Follow the Total Money Makeover program and stay within the budget all year long
5. Make all my deadlines this year.

I'm sure I'll think of more, but that's a good start. I also need to go back to see what I wrote down for 2008, but I'm too tried tonight.

I thought this picture was so cute. One of my cats likes to give kisses to both felines and humans. It's very sweet.


more animals

Hope you have a great day. I'm so messed up as to what day of the week it is. It feels like a perpetual weekend right now!

Welcome 2009

Chaos and I wish you a very Happy New Year!!!

I'm praying your year is filled with love, laugher and dreams that come true!

Love,
Melissa

New Year's Eve

Yesterday didn't turn out the way I'd planned. My sister's family got sick so our Christmas celebration had to be rescheduled. Of course, we were also planning to celebrate birthdays that night with dinner out. That meant some scrambling on my part to put together a birthday for my hubby.

I asked him to take our son to speech therapy so I could have a couple of hours to plan something. While he was gone, I baked his favorite kind of cake...devil's food chocolate. I wrapped his gifts and came up with a plan for his birthday. So that evening we drove to Portland to visit the Grotto and see the lights, puppet show, petting zoo and music performances. After that we went to the Laurelwood brewpub for dinner. We hadn't been out to eat like that in over a month so it was a nice treat and they brew great beer there so a nice treat for my hubby. We went home for cake and presents. A really nice birthday!

Today I'm blogging at The Wedding Planners. I also posted on the JanNoWriMo blog.

I'll be preparing for tomorrow's kick off of an intense writing month (aka JaNoWriMo), finishing work on our budget and menu, setting up our envelope system and getting caught up on a few things that need to be done. Tonight will be pretty mellow. I hope to talk hubby into taking the kids to either Zoolights or Portland International Raceway to see the lights. It's the last night for both. Then we'll use the east coast's countdown at 9 o'clock our time to usher in the new year with them. I've got sparkling cider and a box with hats, tiaras, leis and noisemakers to open.

Do you have special plans for tonight?

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Today is the day we will finally celebrate our weather-delayed Christmas with my family. It's also hubby's birthday! And yesterday was my nephew Connor's fourteenth birthday. Needless to say there will be much celebrating!

UPDATE: I just got home from piano lessons with the kids. My sister's family is sick so we have to cancel our plans today. We're hoping to reschedule for Sunday.

One thing I've noticed is so many people act as if Christmas is over. We take the twelve days of Christmas to heart around here. December 1- 24 were Advent, the preparation to Christmas. I didn't get my Department 56 villages up until Christmas Eve! The 25th until Epiphany is the actual time to celebrate the holiday.

I've been trying to teach this to the kidlets, too. Each child picks one of their gift from under the Christmas tree on the 25th to put aside until Epiphany, the day symbolizing the visit of the three Wise men/kings/magi when they gave gifts to Jesus. My dad called this Little Christmas when I was growing up though we never exchanged gifts on that day. But I figured saving the gifts might help the kids understand better why I have us do what we do. Time will tell if I succeeded.

One family I know puts up their lights a couple of weeks before Christmas, but doesn't turn them on until Christmas day. They celebrate the twelve days of Christmas by leaving little gifts in the stockings each of the twelve days. I thought that was a neat idea and was so happy that my oldest got to hear that we're not the only ones who do things a little differently.

Of course, the rest of my family takes down their trees and decorations on the 26th which is why we're hosting Christmas today since our decorations stay up until after Epiphany. And now that we have an artificial tree, I won't have to worry about it turning into a matchstick by the first week of January!

What about you? Is Christmas over for you? Or do you continue the celebration until Epiphany?

The last contest winner of 2008...

I took a couple of days off from the computer. Not doing that much, just having fun with the family and doing things that needed to be done. We also went to dinner at friends' house last night and enjoyed a tasty Mexican feast. We had to cancel the original time due to the snow. As for the snow...

The rains have come, washing away most of the snow and making the Portland area look, well, more like Portland. We can now get around fine, too, so I'll be packaging up the most recent winners and shipping them off this week.

Here are your random numbers:

15
Timestamp: 2008-12-29 16:58:32 UTC

This week's free book winner, the last of 2008, is Virginia. She won with a comment on the post Snowflakes and Gingerbread. Virginia, please choose one book from the list here. Email me your choice along with your snail address. You can use the contact form on my website.

Last week's winner Marianne chose Kerrelyn Sparks' Vamps and the City. Enjoy!

And don't worry, I have plenty of books to giveaway in 2009. Every comment you make on the blog gives you one entry into the weekly free book contest, so comment often!

As 2008 comes to an end, I've been busy trying to get ready for the new year. I've been busy setting up a monthly budget and a monthly menu plan.

We've decided to implement Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. I've heard him on the radio and bought his book earlier this month. For over a year now, I've thought about-okay, dreamed about-being debt free. Imagine no credit card bills or a house payment ever again! I listened to what Dave had to say and he says makes a lot of sense so we're going to a cash only system. No more credit cards. And we'll be using an envelope system for several things in our budget such as food, clothing and gas.

I really like Marianne's Tightwad Tuesday posts. They've given me some great ideas. The hardest thing is going to be implementing and sticking on budget. My income comes in very randomly. There's a sheet for irregular income as part of the budget, but we rely on my income for things like the kid's classes which are monthly expenses. So I've been trying to figure out how to make my irregular income come out more regular.

I've also been trying to get ready for JaNoWriMo. I'll be posting on that blog about my efforts along with several other offers so if you want to follow along during the month, you might want to add it to your google reader or bookmark the blog.

So that's what I've been up to. What about you?

I haz sick kidlets

Hope you had a nice Christmas! Ours was wonderful. The kidlets loved all their gifts. We had a very relaxing day just the five of us, three cats and dog. Santa was good to everyone! Even the furbabies!

Today, we decided to venture out. The roads are still horrible in our neighborhood, but the only place the kids have gone in over a week is church yesterday. They were getting a bit cabin crazy. We hit the stores to buy wrapping paper, tags, bows and white elephant gifts for our rescheduled family Christmas Eve celebration that'll be at my house on Tuesday.

The littlest one was not a happy camper while we were out. Okay, she was downright miserable and a real pain to tell the truth. I looked at her glassy eyes and knew. Her croupy cold has turned into something more. My oldest is also coming down with something. To make it a hat trick today, my middle hit his foot on something in the garage helping me out there and now has a very bruised toe and a bad limp.

Needless to say, I wish I could turn the clock back to our peaceful, wonderful Christmas day! Instead, I got to take care of sick kidlets. We took it really easy this afternoon. When the little one woke up from her nap, we all watched Beauty and the Beast's Enchanted Christmas. I have a feeling there will be lots of movie watching, napping and cuddling until they feel better.

How was your Christmas? Did you go out to find any bargains today?

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas! I hope you have a wonderful day with friends and family!

Hope Santa brought you exactly what you wanted!

Love,
Melissa

The Night Before Christmas

I first saw this when I was a little girl. I just loved this Christmas special so much when I was growing up. It's the story of how Clement Moore came to write Twas the Night Before Christmas. I haven't seen it in years, but found it on YouTube. You can watch it in high quality there, but here it is:

Looks like a White Christmas

I've been dreaming of a white Christmas ever since 1998. That was the last time we had one. It snowed so much on the 23rd that we had to put chains on the car to make the drive to the airport the morning of the 24th. We were flying to NY to spend Mackenna's first Christmas with hubby's family.

Ten years later, we'll be having another white Christmas except this time the weather will keep us at home. I already spoke to my mom. She's disappointed we won't be driving down today, but better safe than sorry. After watching the news reports, I don't want to be on the roads with all that ice. Especially when the weather report says it's only going to get worse. Snow has been falling all morning again.

We usually spend today with my family and Christmas day with hubby's brother. But his brother moved to New York so this will be our first Christmas all alone since our very first Christmas together back in 1995. Though then we had friends over for brunch and then others for dinner so not quite all alone.

It should be nice and quiet and very, very white!

What are your plans for today and tomorrow?

Also, Myrna Mackenzie posted a really romantic Christmas montage video at the Wedding Planners blog. Check it out here!

Snowflakes and Gingerbread

This was out street before the last snow hit on Sunday. As you can see, we already had full coverage so the extra just added inches and ice. Chaos was jumping through the street and running around the street yesterday. On leash, of course, but she was having a blast. The snow came up to her chest!

More snow is predicted for tomorrow. If that's the case, we won't be making the hour and a half drive south to attend my family's Christmas Eve gathering. The kids are bummed about that, but we can do it once the weather improves. I went ahead and bought a ham just in case I have to cook for us.

Here's the before shot of the gingerbread house we made. It was a kit we bought at Costco. You put the house together yourself. The kids did most of it themselves with just a little help from us!

Here's the finished product. We waited a day for the house to set before decorating it. The kids did everything except the wreath on the front of the house, the green around the doors and windows and the green on the big tree. It took us a couple of hours with lots of candy eating! I think they may have added more gum drops around the outside, but by then I'd put away the camera. We do a house every year. One of those tradition things that is not, fortunately, weather dependent!

I managed to get my Christmas cards yesterday. It was quite the experience. Even with chains and hubby behind the wheel, we spun out getting onto the freeway on-ramp. But at least I can get the cards done and hopefully in the mail later today! What are you doing today?

More snow and a contest winner...

This is my cat Spirit lying under our Christmas tree. As you can see from all the fur, she's not the only one who likes to nap there. I really need to sweep and vacuum daily with long haired cats and a Norwegian Elkhound!

I took yesterday off. We're still snowed in (it's even worse today) so I just hung out with the family and had fun. Sorry for not announcing this week's free book winner. Here are your random numbers:

28
Timestamp: 2008-12-22 19:24:23 UTC

This week's free book winner is Marianne. She won with a comment on the post Neglected Kitties. Marianne, please choose one book from the list here. Email me your choice along with your snail address. You can use the contact form on my website.

The last winner rottie_mom chose Kerrelyn Sparks' How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire

I've been snowed in so haven't been able to get out so don't expect anything to be mailed until after Christmas! I'm still trying to figure out how to pick up my order of Christmas cards sitting at Costco. It's not looking good right now!

How's the weather where you are?

An Early Morning

This was me and my youngest around five am this morning. Except we were sitting in the bathroom with the shower going and steam surrounded us.

I woke up thinking a seal had decided to move in. The barking, croupy cough dragged me out of bed and down the hall. The poor thing sounded miserable. Having been through this before, I knew what could happen so had hubby steam up the bathroom while I carried her in. We sat there, just like the cats in the picture. Through coughing, tears and yawns, I had her breathing in the steam and soon she was feeling better.

She wanted to go back to her own bed, but I took her to ours instead. It was a little crowded with all the four-footed babies on there, too, but she finally fell asleep. So did I.

Anyway, I haven't uploaded the gingerbread house pics yet, but will. The kidlets did a great job.

I also managed to get my Christmas cards ordered at Costco. I also do a photo card and this year they had ones with more than one picture. I picked the one with four pictures. I know they'll be small, but I chose pictures from January (Disneyland), March (Smith Rock), August (Leavenworth) and October (Halloween.) We never got around to getting a family photo around the tree so I'll have to have one snapped sometime soon.

Now to figure out when I can get out to get them. It snowed last night again. I haven't peeked out the window yet so have no idea what we'll be facing today. My goal is to have them out by Dec. 24th.

Cats and guest blogging

I'll be blogging at The Wedding Planners today. The topic: More Wedding Movies. I found one that's coming on Lifetime tomorrow and one that's premiering at theaters in January. Hope you have time to stop by and say hi!

I did want to leave you something here. I found this on YouTube. It's an old Christmas commercial:



I just love to hear a cat purr! Did you know they've done studies and found the frequency of purring helps heal broken bones and things? Not sure how scientific the studies were, but that's pretty cool. I know my cats would lie near my hands and arms and purr when they were really hurting me!

I'm slowly getting through my To Do list. I sat down to figure out Christmas cards, but my inbox was really bugging me. So last night I went through over 2000 unread emails on one of my email accounts. You can't believe how good it feels to have all those gone! Many I just ended up deleted, but I found a couple I couldn't believe I'd missed. I baked chocolate chip cookies, and we put together a gingerbread house so we can decorate it today! And I also talked to a friend of mine on the telephone and caught up on what's been going on. Something I haven't done much of lately. It's so great to have my life back!

Before I forget, all the gift cards from the November contest have been sent according to the various websites I ordered from. I've heard back from two of the winners so I'm hoping the third also got her prize! Please let me know if you didn't.

Hope you have a great Friday! It'll be interesting to see what kind of weather we end up with today!

O Christmas Tree

Okay, I finally got pictures of the tree. Here are some before and after shots:



Another angle:



And finally, here it is with the flash turned off so you can see the lights:



I still have decorations to put up. I decided to watch Surviving Christmas instead of decorate last night. So my Dept. 56 houses remain in the closet. I ran out of Commando strips so only got the cat and dog stockings up on the staircase, not ours on the fireplace. But there's still time. Though Christmas cards have me a little worried. I'll try to figure those out tonight!

How are you doing with Christmas stuff?

Neglected Kitties

I've been wrapping presents, checking things off my To Do list, etc. The cats are not happy. It's not as if I'm ignoring them, but I have errands to run, holiday movies to watch, you get the idea.

I walked in the door last night to be greeted with meowing. My gray cat, Spirit, almost sounded like she was saying Maaaama. My brother in law swore she called for me by name when he stayed with them once. Spirit is the one who misses me the most. She'll hide under the bed if I go away and not come out. Sometimes for days if I'll be gone a long time.

How much did she miss me yesterday? Well, when I decided I'd earned a bath last night, my first soak in forever, she actually jumped up on the edge of the tub and sat with me the entire time I was in there. Since then I've been carrying her around and loving her as much as possible.

The only good thing to all of this is that the kitty - dog war seems to be lessening. They all want a piece of me so are sharing territory better. Spirit came within a couple of inches of Chaos and didn't hiss. That's a huge improvement. Fingers crossed it continues.

More snow is falling today so we won't be going anywhere when Wednesday is usually one of our busiest days out and about! I'm looking forward to the down time. More time with my kitties and doggy!

I'll post the tree pics tomorrow. I took before pictures, but forgot to do the after ones!

Hope you have a great day and stay warm if you have cold temperatures like us!

Snow Day!

I finally downloaded pictures! Here are a couple from Sunday when the snow fell! The kids on our end of the court all came out to play! Of course, Chaos couldn't understand why no one wanted to play football with her!




More snow is expected to fall tomorrow! The kids can't wait. I'm just happy most of my Christmas shopping is done. The rest can be accomplished in about an hour. Hope you have a great day!

A Chilly Night Contest Winner...

Bhhrrr. The wind chill had the temperature at 3 deg F early this afternoon. Snow remains everywhere and on everything. Chains are required on all vehicles in the Portland Metro Area. All schools in the area seemed to have already cancelled classes for tomorrow!

And now on to this week's winner:

Here are your random numbers:

2
Timestamp: 2008-12-15 04:24:19 UTC

This week's free book winner is rottie_mom. She won with a comment on the post Free Book Winner is. Rottie_mom, please choose one book from the list here. Email me your choice along with your snail address. You can use the contact form on my website.

The last winner we had, Catslady, chose Unmasked by Nicola Cornick.

All the books from all the weekly contests are off! The prizes are now alphabetized so that should make things easier. Though I don't know if I'll be waiting in anymore long holiday post office lines! I had to make a couple trips this week.

Hope you enjoyed your Sunday! I loved staying at home and just getting some things done around here. I watched one of the Lifetime Christmas movies last night and think I'll do the same tonight!

Take care and stay warm!

I has snow!

We walked into church a little before eight this morning. No snow, just cold temperatures. We walked out to find a dusting of snow on the ground and snowflakes falling from the sky. The kidlets were, in a word, gleeful!

A storm is expected to hit the PNW today with temperatures dropping this week. That could mean ice storm, but we'll take the snow today! Of course it means the kidlets won't be spending the night at my parents' house as planned. I wanted a kidfree night to wrap gifts. Oh, well...

I'll be posting the contest winner later. Just wanted to say hi now!

Bad Kitties

My three cats are not happy this holiday season. You see, they are the only three in the household who love when mommy is on a writing deadline. When I descend into my cave, the cats are right there with me the entire time I'm working. And they love it!

They love that mommy sits in one place for along time so they can curl at my feet or nap on the bed and know when they open their eyes they'll see me. When I was proofing my revisions, I was up at 5 am one morning. I went downstairs to work. Chaos remained in bed with hubby. All three cats came downstairs with me. One sat on the ottoman, the other on the floor and the third on the couch behind my head.

So they are going through mommy-withdrawal right now. Spirit sits at the top of the stairs, sticks her head through the banister and meows. Loudly. Rocket will do the same thing. Sometimes they'll both sit halfway down the stairs, especially when I come back after being out of the house. The look on their faces say, "Where have you been? You're not supposed to go anywhere."

The kitties really don't like that I'm downstairs so much any more. No impromptu cat naps with them. And they hate when I leave the house. They have already gotten into a little mischief and I have a feeling more might be in store like the picture above. A good thing I've got at least two more books to write in 2009!

At least they'll be happy!

Hope you have a good Saturday. Hubby will handle the swim meet today for the older two. I'm taking the youngest to a birthday party. Plus, we're going to decorate the tree. Finally! I'll post pictures of the pre and post decorating tree.

What are you up to? Oh, and before I forget...good luck to limecello with all her finals! Take care!

To Do or Not To Do

Sarita mentioned she had a big To Do list in her blog yesterday. I have an enormous one myself with stuff dating back to August and so many emails I haven't replied to in months it's scary. But rather than get overwhelmed (if you haven't figured it out yet, I'd fall into the ranks of overachiever), I decided to just do one or two things a day. It might be make phone calls, declutter a certain area of the house, check ten of my unread emails, etc. Not the fastest way to get through the items, but for me, probably the best way since I can get totally freaked out when I have too much to do. I'm really trying not to get caught up in the must-get-it-done mentality. So far it's been working. The tree still isn't decorated, and I have a ton of green and red containers and tubs sitting all around my downstairs! Best yet, I'm not worried about it! And the kids are using the buckets to build forts and having a blast with them! I keep reminding myself that Advent, the period of the church calendar we're in now, is all about preparing for the Feast of the Nativity aka Christmas. The preparation is supposed to take weeks. There's nothing that says I have to get it all done now! I used to spend the weekend of Thanksgiving getting all my decorations and houses up. The revisions this year and the deadline on Rescued by the Magic of Christmas last year, put an end to that. I could just go and do all my decorating, and spend a couple days knocking off a dozen or so things off my list each day, but I'm really having fun with the family and relaxing to do that. We had a great time at the Wizard of Oz. The kids were thrilled that they used a real dog for Toto! Afterwards, the actors (many children) stayed on stage and answered questions. Yesterday's task was to get caught up on all of my contest wins. All but one (the person didn't send me her address) are now finished. I'll be heading to the post office today. I also sent all the winners their e-gift certificates for the November contest: 1st Prize - Marianne - a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate 2nd Prize - Sarita - a $15 Wild Rose Press gift certificate 3rd Prize - Tori - a $10 Books-in-a-Million gift certificate. Last night while I worked, I watched television. The first time in a long while. I watched The Year with out a Santa Claus with the family and Hallmark's Moonlight and Mistletoe with hubby. The movie ending was a little predictable, even hubby told me what would happen and was right, but sweet. It definitely reminded me of a category romance novel! Have you seen any good Christmas movies lately?

Cat Burglar

Here's a fun read for all you cat lover's out there. Even if you don't like cats, it's worth checking out. The pictures are so cute. And even though stealing is wrong, you gotta love a kitty who goes after what he wants. I wonder what's so special about those stuffed leopards!

Hope you have a great day! We're going to see a children's production of The Wizard of Oz!

Cookies, Cats and Dogs

I've started thinking about my next book. Emphasis on the thinking part.

I've gotta admit, I am having such a fun week! I haven't been blogging (or blog hopping) much, sorry, but I really have ignored my family the last six or so weeks. And the kids are pretty much attached at my hip. If I do hop on the computer they sit or stand behind me. They just want their mom and that's cool!

I'm totally getting into the holiday mode. I made dinner again for the family, baked a couple of dozen cookies (my first baking of the season) and all five of us plus Chaos sat on the couch together to read Tale of Desperaux. Although two of the kidlets have already read it, the youngest hasn't so we're doing a family read-aloud. Next week we'll be attending a Desperaux Pre-premiere party since they are making it into a movie so I thought it was worth having everyone read/hear it again.

So my furbabies are at it again. It was the funniest thing the night I sent off my revisions. Rocket and Chaos have an odd sort of friendship. They will both sleep on the bed at the same time. They will sniff each other (sometimes without hissing.) All the kids say Rocket is Chaos' friend.

Well, Rocket was out in the hall when Chaos and I came upstairs. Chaos ran around and jumped over the space where the cat could have attacked him should the cat have been in a bad move. I've never seen the dog move so fast, not even for food. It was pretty funny (given the size difference between the two), but Chaos truly was frightened of that cat. You could see it on her face, but she mustered her courage so she could be with me. Sweet doggie. But if that's how Chaos feels around her "friend" I'd hate to see her with her enemies!

What's going on in your corner of the world? We may get snow this weekend or early next week. Fingers crossed!!!!!

Christmas Spirit

The revisions were accepted! I got an email this morning from my editor. Huge sigh of relief. She said she was thrilled with the changes. Since I changed almost every page and added four new scenes that made me feel very, very good!

To celebrate, the kidlets and I went and saw Scrooge, the musical. We'd had tickets for a couple months now, but the timing was perfect. I am now officially in the Christmas Spirit. In the last couple of days, I've almost knocked off my Christmas shopping, too. Not bad!

The family came home from Irish dance and I had dinner ready for them: chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. Hubby looked at me and said who are you? He told the kids I looked like their mother, but I was an impostor named Lola.

I'd also come back from a Costco run and we now have a freezer full of food. A pantry full, too, as I've been clipping coupons and grocery shopping after taking a break for a couple of months and letting hubby deal with it. This means we had enough food for one meal and that's it. Not fun when you're hungry and want something now! Anyway the kids are thrilled.

Now I finally get to work on the tree. We've got it set up, but I need to go to each branch and fix it so it looks more real. I'm about a third of the way done. So that's my job tonight so we can finally decorate it!

How are you're Christmas preparations going?

Free Book Winner is...

The weekly free book giveaway is back on. To enter, just post a comment and check back to see if you won. Sorry for the delay in posting. I enjoyed today. Mass this morning, time with family during the day and Christmas shopping tonight. It doesn't get much better than that!


Here are your random numbers:

34
Timestamp: 2008-12-09 05:14:26 UTC

This week's free book winner is catslady. She won with a comment on the post Revising. catslady, please choose one book from the list here. Email me your choice along with your snail address. You can use the contact form on my website.

Some of you have various personal email addresses of mine. If you win a contest, please oh please, use the contact form on my website to send me your prize choice. It's killing me to have to check in four different places to pull all this together. I know I said it was okay awhile ago, but I just can't do it. I keep losing them and it's taking way too much time. If they are all in one place (ie where my website email goes) it will make life easier and you'll get your book(s) faster. A couple of those personal address have over a thousand unread messages due to deadline and revisions so I may be missing some there. Thanks!

The last winner we had, Virginia, chose The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Ann Long.

I haven't heard back from all of the gift card winners. When I have, I'll post what they got!

Okay, off to see what's on television! I think the last time I sit down to watch something for more than 15 minutes may have been election night.

Out of the Cave

I have a cave, too. I've been in there for weeks except for a few days here and there, but not anymore. I just emailed my revisions! I am out of the cave and free.

The only problem, I'm sad about saying goodbye to my hero. I really loved this one. Oh, well, I'm sure I'll come up with a new one soon!

I'm pretty wiped out right now so I'm going to wait to post the free book winner until tomorrow! Hope you understand, but I really need to spend some time with the hubby! Plus I kinda over did it with my hands today so need a rest.

Thanks so much for all your support!

Love,
Melissa

Happy St. Nicholas Day

It's the day to awake with gold covered chocolate coins and a gift in your shoes! I figured I'd celebrate on my blog by mentioning my current book for sale.

Rescued By the Magic of Christmas is only on the shelves for another few days though it will be available on-line after that. The story behind the story is on my website, but I haven't spent a lot of time talking about the book since I've been so busy with finishing and revising my current project. I thought I'd revisit a couple of things for any of you who might have be new to the blog and/or this story!

The Book Soundtrack: These are the songs I listened to over and over again while writing the book. It helped me get a feel for both the story and the characters so I could dive right into writing.

Carly's song: Where are you, Christmas? I remember watching the newscast of the missing climbers in 2006 and seeing Brian Hall's sister talking to reporters. I couldn't imagine what she was going through. Of course, that led to a what if question. What if she wasn't just the sister of one of the climbers, but the fiance of another. The first time I heard this song by Faith Hill, I immediately thought of my heroine Carly who not only lost her fiance and brother on the mountain, but also her dreams and Christmas.



Jake's song: First Time This song by Lighthouse seemed perfect for my mountain rescue hero. The lyrics really fit him and how he feels about Carly. I usually always have a Lighthouse song in every book soundtrack. I just love them!



Carly and Jake Romance song: Keep Holding On I couldn't find the official music video so went with my old X-Files standby. This song was very popular when the three climbers went missing on Mount Hood and from the time I started coming up with my romance novel knew it would part of the soundtrack.



Iain's song for Carly and Nick's song for Hannah: Wherever you will go I was driving in the car when this song came on the radio. I was trying to find a pencil and pen to write down some lyrics so I could google the title. I was also crying because the lyrics were perfect for what Iain and Nick would be thinking about Carly and Hannah.



A funny fictional Mountain Rescue newscast that still cracks me up:


Plight Of Missing Hikers Will Make Great Movie

Oh, yeah. If you want to know which tree I ended up buying, check yesterday's comments. Thanks for all your opinions!

Light Dilemma

My climbing partner started volunteering at the local Humane Society. Yesterday when we were climbing, she was trying to convince me I needed another animal. I explained why I didn't, but man, hearing the stories she had to tell made me wish I did. There are so many animals who need a home out there.


I have a Christmas tree dilemma and want some input. We've always had multi-colored lights on the tree. But with hubby on crutches I thought we might try an artificial one this year. Next year we could put it in front of an arched window up in the playroom and go back to a real tree. But the ones on 50% off at Lowes all have white lights. I don't know that I can justify paying full price for the same tree just to get multi-colored lights when I suppose I could always add some strands of color if I had to. Hubby says at that price white lights are fine. Any thoughts?

Revising

A quick post to say good morning. I'm working on the book still. The story of my life.

Check out these Christmas kitties...



Don't know about you, but a couple of them look as if they are plotting their revenge. I don't blame them! Poor costumed kitties!

Me doing revisions...

Yep, that was me yesterday doing revisions. Though when I explode I'm not so soft and furry and cute looking.

The Revision Tally so far:

New words typed in: almost 5000
New pages added: 17
New scenes written: 4
Naps taken yesterday: 2
Number of "he/she smiled" deleted: lost count though I did leave a couple in.
Silliest line found yesterday: She thought once he'd shaved her beard... Cover art for a bearded heroine. Now that would be something!
Revised chapters left to type in: 3
Chocolate eaten: 2 kisses and 3 chocolate chip cookies (hubby did some baking last night!)
Hands: No pain and only a few tingles while I slept!

Oh, yeah, the book has a new title. The working title had been The Billionaire's Playground. The new title is The Billionaire's Proposal. That works for me!

I have my class to teach, but other than that I'll be working on revisions. What are you doing or working on today?

Guest Blogging again!

My post for today is at The Pink Heart Society. It's about one of my favorite topics...holiday food and cooking! There are links to some tasty recipes, too!

Someone asked in the comment section about the books from the contest! Yes, they are going out. Slowly, but surely. It's just a matter of getting them all packaged and sent out. I made the mistake of not organizing the books so I have three boxes to go through to find each title. I plan to pay the kidlets $$$ to alphabetize them for me! I haven't had time.

I forgot to mention, the book giveaway is back on. So comment away. I'll go back to announcing a weekly winner on Sundays. I think I still have one book to cross off the list from our last winner back in October, Virginia, but will do that soon! There's still quite a few books left for you to choose from!

I'm still trying to get my revisions done. I ended up rewriting a lot of the book that wasn't mentioned in the revision letter. It was just something I felt had to be done, and I'm so pleased with the changes. I know I'll be even happier once they are all typed in!

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

November Contest Winners

Here's how I picked the winners. Since there was only one prize per person, I used all the comments for the 1st prize and picked a random number. Then I deleted all the comments by that person and picked another random number from the comments that were left for the 2nd prize. And did the same with that winner to pick the third prize.

First prize - Here are your random numbers:

216
Timestamp: 2008-12-01 15:34:47 UTC


Marianne Arkins is the winner of the first prize with her comment on my post Caught in the Vortex. Marianne wins a $25 gift certificate (your choice of any website that offers email gift card/certificates).

Second Prize - Here are your random numbers:

32
Timestamp: 2008-12-01 15:39:47 UTC

Sarita Leone is the winner of the second prize with her comment on my post One of those days. Sarita wins a $15 gift certificate (your choice of any website that offers email gift card/ certificates)

Third Prize - Here are your random numbers:

178
Timestamp: 2008-12-01 15:42:35 UTC

Tori Lennox is the winner of the third prize with her comment on my post Thanksgiving Day. Tori wins a $10 gift certificate (your choice of any website that offers email gift card/certificates)

Winners, please send me the website you'd like your gift certificate from and your email address. You can use the contact form on my website to email me.

Thanks to everyone who entered. In case you were wondering, it paid to post multiple comments. Our winners had each posted between 8 and 21 comments during the month!

Guest blogging at The Wedding Planners

My post for today is at The Wedding Planners blog. A Christmas wedding, actually the one I dreamed of having, is the topic. Stop by if you have time.

I'll be posting the winners of the contest here sometime today!

Have a great Monday!