This looks almost suggestive....

1. Will disappear into the BC mountains next week. Again.

2. Wrote an article about our last trip and it's getting pubbed in a local magazine

3. Superson and I are going to write a snail story on the long drive out to BC

4. Must get to tri training. Have been slacking off..Swimming today...

5. Started watching Alias Season 1 with the hub. What a convoluted plot.

6. Decided to re-write Losing It with a new story line to appeal to boy readers more. I'm torn between Kickboxing and Skiing.

7. Still working on the Paranormal WIP. This book is like extracting wisdom teeth for some reason. Well. With painkillers working perhaps....

Hello friendy friends.

Is there anyone out there in LJ land who lives in or around Minneapolis and woulnd't mind answering some stupid questions?

I think I want to use it as a setting but I want to make sure I remember it right. I was there a long time ago.

J

1. I have 3 tons of expensive blue stone in my backyard.

2. I hate the color.

3. It is not returnable.

4. I screwed up when picking it out. All my fault.

5. I am now investigating ways to try and stain it enough that I am okay with the color. Will try iron sulfate first. Not sure what after that.

Tags: house tales
Current Mood: cranky

1. I have the best gig today, at a test kitchen where a chef will cook for us. After, we talk about the food. Two hours’ "work" = $125. 

2. That’s $62.50 an hour. Considering the number of hours it takes me to write and revise a book, I’m probably lucky if I earn 62.5 cents an hour. Reminder to self: never keep track.

2. Foods I’ve loved this week: edamame and Cheesecake Factory’s Lemoncello Cream Torte, direct opposites on the calorie and nutrition charts. 

3. So glad I got out early to walk my two miles – before the real heat rolled in – and also because I timed it right for a near-celebrity sighting. Jogging the other way past me? A Sid Fleischman look-alike. 

4. Am I the last person on earth to have finally finished HP7? 

5. And now that I have, I’m free to read what I need to read. Each time I go to a conference, I try and read representative books from the presenters. With SCBWI-LA just two weeks away, I think I’d better get crackin’.

Current Mood: amused

Chris is going to be working long shifts over the next three weeks, so I'm on cooking duty. Since he's usually in charge of dinner, my repertoire of appropriate meals is pretty small. I know a bunch of people on my Friends list are foodies, so perhaps you can assist me!

I'm looking for dinner-type recipes (main course--I can figure out sides if need be) that are relatively easy and quick to prepare (half an hour or less is best, though there can be simmering/baking time as well) and use relatively common ingredients. No rice (Chris is not fond) and no peppers (I will not eat). Otherwise, we're pretty open. Help?


(I realize the cookies icon is not entirely appropriate, but it is the only icon with food I have.)

To start preparing for our move, I've been going through the books on the shelves and in the few boxes we kept in the apartment (there are several more in the storage locker that I'm not going to bother with quite yet), deciding which ones I really want to haul with us to the new place. Deciding which to keep and which to put up on BookMooch or sell or give away has been an interesting process.

These are the sorts of books I keep:

-books I love, or at least like a great deal, that I will likely read over again (if I haven't already)

-any nonfiction that relates to novel ideas I've had in the last several years (even those that never got past the planning stage--I really hate losing potential reference materials, and considering how often I come back to old ideas, this is a good thing)

-books I liked at least moderately, that did something I'd like to do in my own writing really well (might want to reread to study those elements)

-books that are really popular in a genre I write in/hope to write in (this includes a few books I didn't even like enough to finish) to reference for market considerations

-and, of course, books I mean to read but haven't gotten around to doing it yet

Which still makes for an awful lot of books. And honestly, I'd like to keep every book I even liked moderately, whether it's relevant to my own writing or not... but we just don't have space for that. When we have a whole house to fill, I'm sure my book-pack-rat tendencies will come back in full force. :)

How about you? Do you hold on to books, or give them away easily? Which books do you keep after you've read them?

Current Mood: thoughtful

Here are a few thoughts that have been floating around in my grey matter this morning...

1. Checking email obsessively doesn't make messages come any quicker.
2. Ripe cherries on the tree are one of the most beautiful sights in the world.
3. The much-maligned starling is quite pretty if you stop & look at one. And, they can fly - which makes them utterly amazing!
4. Cinnamon is one of the most delicious spices in the world.
5. Often my first impressions are correct.
6. It's alright if my first draft rambles - a lot of it will be cut anyway.
7. A hot cup of tea is one of life's great comforts.
8. I make mistakes - it's okay.
9. Not everyone is going to like me - that's okay, too.
10. The golden rule is, indeed, golden!

What sorts of thoughts are running around inside your head today? I'd love to hear about them. =^)

Tags: friday fritters
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: beach boys (brain radio)

The Friday Five!

1. The Emmy nominations were announced today, and I have to say I'm a little unsettled that so many of the shows nominated I've never seen. Which I think is kind of insane, considering how much TV I watch. Maybe it says something about quality, not quantity? I don't watch The Closer or Burn Notice or Saving Grace, or really any of the basic cable shows that got noticed this year. But I DO love Tina Fey, who got tons of noms for herself and 30 Rock, although I hate to see her up against Mary Louise Parker in Weeds. They're both so good! Just like Rainn Wilson having to be up against Jeremy Piven. Decisions, decisions. I guess it's good I'm not an Emmy voter. I would be agonizing even more than normal.

2. I CAN now say that I've seen Mad Men, as I watched the first episode last night. I'm a little nervous, because it didn't totally blow my doors off, and I worry that it was hyped SO much that there's no way it can ever live up. Then again, I know better than to judge by just one episode, so I will certainly be diving back in, probably tonight. I have to say that I really like the look of the show. The clothes make you want to buy strappy shoes and pencil skirts and tease up your hair. Although I have to say the anti-tobacco folks must hate this show. EVERYBODY smokes. I want to cough just watching it. Still, I'm in. At least for the first whole disc.

3. It's watermelon time of year again, and I am reminded how much I really love this sweet, pink fruity snack. Last summer, while hugely pregnant, I was ADDICTED to watermelon. I ate it every night after dinner, and looked forward to it all day. Equally fun was going to buy the little seedless ones I loved at the grocery store, where I always got a little kick when they were rung up as "Personal Melon." I always thought that would be a GREAT name for a band. Maybe I should form one just to use it? Oh, right. No musical talent. Oh, well.

4. Today, I took one step closer towards the life of suburbia: we bought a station wagon. Not one of the wood-paneled, huge boat-like things of my childhood (although Courtney thought that was a great idea) but a nice, small used one that gets good gas mileage. It's very sporty and nice. But I still had that weird pang. Station wagon? Us? Really? Aren't we still, like, sixteen? Apparently not. Still, it seems like only yesterday we were just hanging out, listening to Personal Melon records....

5. It was five years ago today that How to Deal, the movie made from my first two books, was released. It was a crazy time for me, but I had just so much fun. So of course I'm feeling nostalgic, so I went looking on the web and sure enough, on the IMDB page, you can watch the original preview. Which I saw for the first time, I remember, on TRL one afternoon when it world premiered. Totally surreal. Anyway, just to celebrate, or at least note it, here's the link. I'm such a loser. I'm going to watch it again.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

I had a completely different image in mind for sour, but life got in the way of my finishing the drawings, so I did a combination again this week. I kind of like combining topics anyway-- you think of the words differently than you might with either one separately. In this case, the image that came to mind was a lemon orchard on a frosty night-- and all the people out there keeping the crop warm.

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Music: crickets