My sister is the technology director for a school district and she about fell off her chair laughing at this video. I hope you enjoy it, too!
10. When I pour a bowl of cereal and there’s only enough milk to fill the bowl halfway.
9. When, after said cereal bowl incident, I remember that I was supposed to do X and Y before work.
8. When I arrive at work late because X and Y took longer than expected.
7. When my boss notices that I arrive late.
6. When, breathless, I finally get to my desk and see notes from the day before reminding me of all the work I was going to do when I got to work early.
5. When the printer breaks, and it keeps saying, “Tray 2 Open.” And Tray 2 is not open, damn it!
4. When the copier has a paper misfeed, and there is not a scrap of paper anywhere in G2 or A5 or any of the other crevices it tells me to search.
3. When I get 10 minutes to eat lunch because I spend the rest of the time trying to fix the copier.
2. When someone tells me the copier has been broken since yesterday.
1. When I stop by the store after work (Finally! I can make those copies on Monday. I’ll just get there early.) to buy batteries for a portable radio I’m bringing to a picnic the next day. And then I get home and realize that I need 8 C batteries, not 8 D.
Ever had a day like this?
Week before last my mother and I went on a road trip. She was going with me to the RT conference and well, I had figured Pittsburgh was roughly 10 hours from my house so we should drive it instead of fly because it would be a beautiful drive and we’d save some money. Okay, this idea of mine game before gas became the price of gold, but you know it was still cheaper than flying. In any case the more we planned the trip, the more I thought that if we added a day or two we could do some extra things. You see for whatever reason, my mother has always been fascinated by the Amish culture and has always wanted to see Amish country. I figured everything out and realized that the drive to get to Amish country wouldn’t take us any longer on the way up and would only add 4 hours to get from there to Pittsburgh. So I started looking at everything I could find on Lancaster county PA, trying to find a hotel and everything and I ran across this one website that seemed to be go-to site for all things Amish country.
I told my mom about what I’d found and the name of some of the cities, Intercourse being my favorite. Well, really, how can you not enjoy that irony? So I slyly suggest we stay in the lovely Intercourse and my mom says nope, she just can’t do it. How will she tell my father? 
But I’m thinking it’s a perfect phase 1 before an RT conference. Needless to say I found this instead. http://www.800padutch.com/lancastercity.shtml Go ahead, go look at it, I’ll wait.
Are you back? Great. Sounds like a quaint village, don’t you think? Now if any of you are from PA, I’m sure you’re laughing by now. It’s okay, I deserve it, but this website is misleading. So we book our night at the historic Hotel Brunswick in historic downtown Lancaster - presidents have stayed here, it’s a classic. As we’re driving into Lancaster, my mom’s eyes are glued to the windows.
“I don’t see any Amish,” she says.
“No,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Not really what I expected.”
“Let’s just get to the hotel, I’m sure downtown will be charming.”
Thank God we had brought my GPS unit in the rental car, she kept us going in the right direction as we’d never have found half of the right places. But she steered us straight to Hotel Brunswick in the heart of Lancaster, which incidentally is a city. Like a real city, and the hotel was nestled right in the inner city fully equipped with loud music, sirens and stinky streets. Did y’all know this? There are no Amish in the city of Lancaster. And that charming prison built to resemble a castle in Lancashire, England, looks like something from a giant miniature golf set - yes, it’s that cheesy.
The day actually got worse from here, suffice it to say we ended up eating at a Bob Evans because we wanted to get back to our hotel before it got dark. The following day we did head east instead of going straight to Pittsburgh, and we eventually found the Amish, with the gentle rolling hills spotted with their farms and the buggies driving alongside the cars.
We walked through a quilt museum and went to a farmer’s market where they sold amazing looking fruits and vegetables and homemade breads and pastries. We drove through the countryside and looked at their farms with their clothes hanging on the line to drive. And it was charming and beautiful and my mother totally loved it. Wanna know where we were? Yep, you guessed it. Intercourse.
So how about you? Ever take a trip that wasn’t quite what you’d expected?
I’m so thrilled to visit with you today. I appreciate Cindy inviting me!
My first book, a Steeple Hill Love Inspired titled Her Unlikely Family, just came out in February, and two things about this journey recently occurred to me:
1. I started writing when my middle child was nursing—holding him in one arm while typing with the other hand. He’s now 13.
2. When I used to need writing time, I would bribe my three children by telling them if they would let Mommy write, then I would use money from my first advance to buy them a swing set. Hmmm. My oldest is about to graduate from high school, and my youngest is now 11. She’s almost as tall as I am, and her feet would drag the ground on an old-fashioned swing set.
Obviously, it took much longer than expected.
When I started on the road to publication, I never, ever would have imagined waiting this long. In fact, when I sat down and first started to act as a professional and wrote down goals, my number one goal was to be published in 5 years.
Okay, you can quit laughing now. I realize how silly that was, not because it can’t be done in 5 years, but because it’s not something I can control. And yes, I was very naïve, then.
This business isn’t for the faint of heart. And it isn’t for those who give up easily. Stubbornness can be an asset (and luckily, I have those stubborn genes). I’ve also been blessed with lots of writing friends in my local RWA chapter and also online writing groups. They’ve kept me going through the years. As well as my children who kept cheering me on, hoping for that swing set. And my husband, who wondered when I would ever quit spending his paycheck on books, conferences, and contests and actually make some money.
But maybe taking this long wasn’t such a bad thing after all. For one, I believe it happened in God’s perfect timing. But, also, my children are now old enough to really enjoy the thrill with me. When that wonderful box came from Harlequin in December, after everyone cheered for me, my 13-year-old, a reader like me, grabbed one out of the box and took off to his room to devour it. He also grabbed one for his lit teacher. My oldest took one to church to show it off. And my youngest picked up my Alpha-smart to continue writing her own story. And then in February, our whole family made a trip to Walmart to see it on the shelf and to celebrate. All well worth the wait!
So what’s your dream, and how long have you been pursuing it? (Not necessarily writing related.) If you’ll leave a comment with contact info, I’ll enter you in a drawing for a copy of Her Unlikely Family!
The new buzzword is green, as in earth-friendly. I’m all for it. For curbside recycling we separate our paper, metal, plastic, glass, and the yard debris that can’t go on our compost pile. Daniel wears cloth diapers instead of disposables, we try to remember to take canvas tote bags to the grocery store, and recycle and/or re-use the plastic and paper bags when we forget. We combine errands, plan our route to minimize backtracking, and try to go at off-peak hours when we’re less likely to add to traffic congestion. Most of our light bulbs are compact fluorescents (even though they don’t last anywhere near as long as the packaging claims). We went to the Rebuilding Center and bought an old bathroom cabinet for $5 in order to use its hardware and solid oak doors for the cabinet we were building, instead of buying all new material.
To get more ideas on how we can do more or do better, I recently watched a show on HGTV about making your house more green. Color me perplexed.
For example, the homeowners had the ubiquitous plastic vertical blinds on their patio slider, as do we. I looked forward to seeing the decorator’s idea, which turned out to be blinds made of bamboo and sea grass. Very cool. (And if you know where to buy them, please let me know - we need better window coverings in the baby’s room.) Up went the natural material that looks good and is made from renewable, earth-friendly material, and the plastic blinds … went in the trash.
Um… exactly how is this good for the planet? Yes, vertical blinds are not especially attractive, but resources had already been expended to produce and transport them, and they were still functioning well in the purpose for which they were intended. Maybe the HGTV people had a recycling solution for them and they just didn’t tell us about it.
There are several other examples where they changed something that was already doing its job –- and not using any more resources to do so — to replace it with something “green” for the sake of being green. How is that good for the planet?
I read a disturbing article about how huge swaths of the rain forest are being cut down – where the trees had been doing their part to clean Earth’s air, not to mention being habitat for untold numbers of species of flora and fauna – in order to grow crops used in bio-fuels. Doesn’t this seem like cutting off your nose to spite your face? Or some such metaphor.
My husband and I are perplexed by people we know who bought a hybrid with the thought they’re going to save money on transportation. Okay, let’s do the math. They spent $22,000 for a new Prius so they could get 45 mpg and pay $120 a month for gas instead of $240 per month for gas for a traditional Camry they owned free and clear or nearly so, that only gets 22 mpg. It will take 183 months to make back their investment, or more than 15 years to recoup their expenditure and reach the point where they are actually saving money. Most people don’t keep the same vehicle even half that long.
And that’s without even discussing the resources that were expended to produce the special vehicle, which are way above and beyond what it requires to manufacture an old-fashioned car. Some research even suggests a hybrid may never make back it’s investment in the resources it took to build it vs. what it saves on fossil fuels. (I know, that’s not a popular statement — please don’t throw tomatoes.)
My point is, if you’re in the market to buy a new vehicle or window blinds or whatever because you don’t have what you need or what you have is no longer doing what you need, then yes, it certainly makes sense to buy green and take advantage of new technology. Go for it! Do your part! But if you already have something that’s doing its job and you replace it just to be “green” I think that’s whacked.
Or do you think I’m off base here?
… is that when they’re done, you have all of summer to look forward to. At home.
I’m back from my whirlwind trip to Paris (7 days) and London (3 days) and I think we saw everything. No matter which way you looked in Pars, there was always something to see. The opera house, the Eiffel Tower, the basilica of Sacre Coeur high on a hill, the Moulin Rouge the Arc de Triumph … this place is so steeped in history, it’s difficult to absorb it all.
We spent the first day exploring the Eiffel Tower and the vicinity around it.There are apartments and markets all around the area, which you wouldn’t really guess from seeing the photos. It was cold and windy when we were up there (not at the top - I’m not crazy about heights) but from the second actual floor of the tower. Seems like you can see forever from there. We spent a day wandering around Montmarche, where the huge church of Sacre Coeur is located, but it’s also one of the few “village” type areas of Paris, with little lanes and pretty alleyways. It’s where Picasso’s studio was, and there are still painters there in the square near the basilica.
We climbed the steps of the Arch of Triumph …
And I found it very interesting that the “shrine” to Napoleon is like twice the size of the arch that was built in England for Wellington’s victory at Waterloo.
Not calling anyone a megalomaniac, but …
We used the Metro (subway) to get around. It was amazingly easy to use - you just have to check the map and know which line you want to ride, and then check your end destination. Once you know that - you can get on the right train.
We even took the train to Versailles, which is about 30 minutes outside the city. Now this is a place that truly embodies excess. We walked through the main palace and everywhere you looked there was some magnificent piece of art or furniture. Even the ceilings were painted.
And then the grounds … We rented bicycles in order to get around to see everything. And I kept thinking this must be like Michael Jackson’s “Wonderland.” Something for everyone, including a man-made lake where Louis XVI’s pals could ride in gondolas driven by gondoleres from Venice (he housed them in a little village on the grounds).
We saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo at the Louvre, walked through the Tuilleries gardens and the saw the square where the guillotine stood. Went to the Conciergerie where Marie Antoinette and other revolution prisoners were kept. Saw Notre Dame and lit a candle for my aunt who is in poor health.
Whew … and I haven’t even mentioned London yet!
Maybe I’ll save that for later.
It’s great to be home. 
Well, I finally got it. I brought her home the Wednesday before I left for RT (which I’ll tell you about soon), and man-oh-man was she ever worth the wait. The whole Mac store was a great experience. I set up a personal shopping appointment since The Professor and I were buying two computers, we felt we needed the personal attention for any questions we had.
About an hour later we walked out of the mall with an shiny new iMAC and my beautiful, sexy new machine. It even came in its own special bag just for the Air. Now you’ll remember that I’m a PC user - or I was - and I’ve always been pretty handy on a PC able to do things above and beyond the general user. So when we came home and I unpacked my lovely, you can imagine my surprise when I didn’t have to do any of the stuff I’m used to doing in order to get the computer up and running. There was no typing in all the email smtp.whatevers, my baby knew just what to do based on my email address. I didn’t have to tell it where to go to find my router, nope, she found it straight away.
The move from Windows to Mac OS X-Leopard has been very smooth, so far no significant issues for me. I’m able to easily navigate it and have worked through my issues with the programs not docking like windows do - with all the other perks that come with this operating system, that’s an issue I can totally deal with. I’m loving the uber cool touchpad with the scrolling/finger swipe things you can do. The keyboard has a great touch and lights up beautifully when the overhead lights are off. The screen is so bright, frankly I’m surprised I didn’t go blind working on my old laptop. Yes, it’s super light and thin and sleek, but those are just aesthetics, the machine itself is more than I need and so far is a perfect writing companion.
So my big question for you, what should I name her? I figure she’s a girl, although all my previous computers have had boy names. So she should have a sleek name that fits, something elegant, yet hip. Any thoughts? Y’all name your computers too, right?
I love this time of year. In my part of the world, the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, the temperature is perfect.
And it’s time to plan for summer vacation.
This year Ultimate Sportsfan and I had planned a two-prong vacation. My grandparents and my brother live in Michigan, so we planned to fly up and see them for three or four days. This was my part of the vacation. Then we were going to fly to Las Vegas and play there for three or four days. This was USF’s part of the vacation.
Then I finaled in the Rita.
For those of you who don’t know, the Rita is like the Oscar’s of romance writing. Authors and books are nominated in various categories and the awards are given the last night of the Romance Writers of America’s annual conference. I am extremely blessed to have finaled once before in the Best First Book category (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Men I’ve Dated). Now I’ve finaled in the Regency Historical category. My competition is fierce: Julia Quinn, Anna Campbell has two nominations, and Nicola Cornick. The odds of me winning are only 1 in 5, and yet I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to be there. It’s so much fun to be a finalist, even when you don’t win.
Well, we couldn’t give up our trip to Michigan. How can you tell your grandparents you’re not coming for a visit? So Las Vegas had to go, and San Francisco took its place.
Wow. I think Vegas definitely would have been cheaper. But san Francisco, here we come!
Anyone been there? We thought we’d see Alcatraz and the Golden gate Bridge, but what else should we see?
And what vacation plans do you have? Or are you staying home this summer?
Raccoons, opossums, deer, rabbits…neighborhood pests can often be classified by what gets into your trash, your vegetables, or your begonias. But there is a more foul foe about — the mockingbird. Oh, this little bird may look small and sweet, but inside it packs the lungs of a first tier opera singer, one of those shrieking eels from The Princess Bride, and a jackhammer. “Look at the pretty bird!” you might say. Or, “Oh, what a beautiful melody!” But put one of those feathery sociopaths outside your window at 12am and have it sing nonstop for 10 hours, and we’ll see how lovely you find it!
When we first moved here it was fall, and the street was blessedly silent at night. Perhaps the hoot of an owl, the rustle of the trees, or the sporadic noise of a car might sound at night. Then spring came. Mating season. Mockingbird season. Our first guy lasted from February to June laboring in 12 hour shifts from 11pm to 11am. Sometimes he would sing longer. And his vocal range! Truly a talented little featherbrain. He had at least 60 different songs that lasted for a mere 5 seconds each - every one of them loud enough to pierce your soul. A never ending buffet that promised heaping plates of stinging variety. One can never grow bored of a mockingbird.
I nearly pulled my hair out that spring. 
Last year we were spared a mockingbird (blissful silence!), but this year they were on the rebound and we were gifted with one that I have to assume is an immature. He only has a handful of songs, and he bops from one place to another. He is ours from 4:30am to 5:15. I had started to think unkind thoughts about the fluffball until the other night when a terrible ruckus was raised and all of a sudden we had a fully matured piercer singing his three dozen tunes outside our window. He stayed ALL night. The horror! He had chased away our pre-pubescent mockingbird! Needless to say, darkness descended.
But thankfully the little guy is back! Our little 45 minute wonder is at it again and boy, am I relieved. Because at least with him on duty we get two or three song repeats (much easier to lull to sleep) and 45 minute shifts. So rock on, little mockingbird. I hope you soon find a young mockingbird lady friend to date! 
I’ve taken the tactic of just enjoying him - I can do that for 45 minutes. But honestly, I do not want one of those hundred song singing wonders again! And as they are protected by law, there is not much to be done other than to do this - 
or 
Anyone else have experience with mockingbirds? Or other pesky beasties? Any tricks to tame them? Or ways you’ve learned to coexist peacefully?
In my current WIP (work-in-progress) my heroine is searching for her bliss
Before I started writing, I had a good life. I had a nice family, good friends, and a career I enjoyed. But it wasn’t until I started making up stories and putting the words down on paper that I found my bliss.
I absolutely love to make up stories and it gives me the greatest of pleasure when a story comes together just right, when a phrase conveys exactly what I meant for it to convey, when the characters become real to me.
It was hard for me to put myself out there and attempt to write a book. It took me 3 1/2 years to sell to Harlequin and I picked up more than my share of rejections along the way. But once I began writing I realized I’d found my bliss.
I’m not a good cook. Flowers and plants do not flourish under my care, they die. And I’m not handy or craft-y at all. But writing, well, from the time I’ve been small I’ve made up stories. Until recently I thought everyone did. Wow, was I out of touch with reality.
The reason I brought this subject up is that last night a friend of mine told me she was looking for something more in life, some passion of her own to pursue. It got me to wondering what your passion is?? Is it writing or something totally different? Or, do you feel your life is full enough without passion mucking it up. Inquiring minds want to know. 
