Okay, it's time for the Christmas edition of MY FAVORITE THINGS:

1. Picking out Christmas cards. I hate buying cards in general. You go into the card store and there's six zillion cards to choose from and they all suck. But then the holidays draw near and the Christmas cards come out with their foil and glitter and I am utterly seduced. It becomes a challenge for me to only purchase what I need. I got this year's cards at Target and I swear I was standing in that aisle for thirty minutes going "OOH!"

2. Christmas Music. Whenever someone asks me what my favorite music is I tell them "Christmas music, what else?" Then they usually look at me like I've sprouted a third eye. I don't know, maybe they were expecting rock or opera or something? But I love the stuff. I even break it out in July sometimes.

3. Wrapping Presents. Okay, okay, I can feel the eye rolls already. Seriously, I love to wrap stuff up. And I'm pretty good at it too--I can get hospital corners on just about any shape package. But it's more than that. It's the pretty wrapping paper--way prettier than any other kind--and the bows and ribbons and the cute little to-from cards... someone stop me.

4. The tree. Everything about it. Picking it out, setting it up, decorating it (while listening to Christmas music, of course), putting the village under it, putting presents under it, turning the lights on, even taking it down. But two things most especially:

5. The scent of the tree. Wonderful, refreshing, homey.

6. Getting up early and turning the lights on and sipping my coffee next to the tree. The lights cast a warm glow into the darkness and I always experience such a feeling of peace. It's awesome.

7. Christmas cookies. One word: YUMMY!!!

8. TV Specials. I don't mean the new stuff or those Hallmark movies (though some of the new things are okay.) I mean the stuff I grew up with. Like Charlie Brown and Rudolph and It's a Wonderful Life and stuff. The Heat Miser and the Cold Miser and the Abominable Snowmonster of the North (otherwise known as "The Bumble"). The theme song to Garfield's Christmas ("Gimme, Gimme, Gimme") that always makes me laugh. National Lampoon's Christmas with the giant tree and the squirrel!

9. Watching people open presents I bought for them. This may sound weird, but it's actually very fulfilling and heartwarming.

10. Watching the snow fall when I don't have to drive in it. This is why we host the Christmas party every year. I don't like driving in the snow.

Calling all techies!!! Calling all techies!!!

Or, at least, someone who is more savvy than me with blogger...

I want to add smilies to my comment box. I've made several attempts to download/load/html/yadda yadda, but my results have been less than stellar. So far less than stellar that not only do I not have smilies, I've got one big frownie on my face!!

HELP!!!

"Mom, I need a chicken wing for school."

"You need a what?"

"A chicken wing. For science class."

That explains everything. Not.

"So what kind of chicken wing do you need?"

"I dunno."

"A cooked one?" (Digging furiously in the freezer)

"Nope."

"Voila!" I produce a bag of frozen chicken wings, wave it in Son's face. "You're saved!"

"It has to be fresh."

"Oh." Hero to zero, three seconds flat.

"And it has to be all in one piece."

So I'm in the grocery store at 7 a.m., unshowered, my pj top under a sweatshirt, digging through the poultry case and wondering what happened to the gross, squishy worms and nasty frogs in formaldehyde.

Ahh, the good old days...

These are pretty funny, and mostly Hollywood true:

40 Things That Only Happen In The Movies

It's 8 a.m.

I'm sitting here typing because sweetheart is trying to change his work email to away.

And I'm silently simmering.

We were supposed to be out of the house by now.

We're supposed to be driving our happy little way to Chicago.

Why he couldn't do this last night I don't know.

Why he had to wait until the last possible second to do something that now is giving him problems, I don't know.

Why does this happen? Does anyone else experience this? What is it with men that when you tell them you want to be out of the house by X time, they manage to make sure you're not?

Grrrrrr...

ARCHIE MCPHEE

As you may know (or not), there's a nifty little website out there with some of the weirdest, grooviest stuff on the planet. The website is found at www.mcphee.com. Go take a look!

Right now Archie is running a contest for websites and bloggers. Make a christmas list out of items from his website, link each item back to his website, then send him a link to your site to look at it. If he picks your list, you win all the items on the list! So here goes:

My Archie McPhee Christmas List

1. Horrified B Movie Victims
2. Blackbeard's Flag
3. Parasite Pals Bedbug
4. Chicken Chucker
5. Itty Bitty Rubber Chickens (for the chicken chucker)
6. What Would a Pirate Do Spinner
7. Cocktail Clock
8. Lil' Edgar Figure
9. Devil Duckie
10. The Illustrated Librarian Tattoos

Can't wait to see what's in my stocking! What did you pick?

FIVE THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT ME
(otherwise known as "Tag! You're It!"


I just got tagged from Robyn & Missie so here is my list:

Five things you didn't know about me:

1. I can drive a tractor.

2. I've taken a camel ride, in Egypt, at the pyramids. I got spit on, but it totally rocked.

3. My dog's official name is Black Bart, Scourge of The Great Lakes. His nickname is Mr. Lovey.

4. I won my first and only spelling bee in 4th grade with the word "sincere". My prize? A lousy pack of markers. But I won. I won I won I won I won I won!!!

5. The first time I got behind the wheel of a car, I crashed into the birdhouse and mowed it down. It was either that or a head-on with the maple tree.

Hey, this is fun! Jill and Spyscribbler, how about it?? TAG!!!

On author Jill Shalvis' blog today she is praying for patience. Why, you ask? Well, it seems that her entire family is descending on her home for Thanksgiving, and there might be more than one personality clash happening over there.

What is it about holiday gatherings that can, and often does, bring out the worst in people? Why is it that when people who rarely/never see each other get in a group setting, it's only a matter of time before the digs about this one's weight or how frumpy that one is or how cheap uncle charlie is begins? Is it simply stress changing the air? Is there something besides seratonin in the turkey? Is it listening to so many christmas carols that if you hear 'It's the most wonderful time of the year' one more time you'll put an icepick through your brain?

I lucked out for the most part. My family when I was growing up all got along. I don't remember anyone having arguments during the holidays--I think part of this has to do with my family's "stiff upper lip" heritage. My sisters and I might squabble a bit but it was never anything of import. To this day there is rarely, if ever, a cross word between us.

While I was married holidays inevitably were at my MIL's house. I got on with her just fine, but there was definitely more drama in that family than I was used to. The kids (my ex included) would be squabbling over insults going all the way back to childhood while their kids were running wild in the house and it was only a matter of time before my FIL would get fed up and start shouting "EVERYBODY GO HOME!"

Now, my sweetheart's family gets together sporadically and mostly everything goes well. No one argues, though his one nephew gets seriously worked up about sports and politics so we avoid those topics if possible. Sweetheart's mom is a bit scattered, and she always brings pie. LOTS of pie. Like six of them when you just asked for one. But we haven't had a bad holiday yet even though this year we'll be living it up in Chicago instead of sitting down to turkey with them.

I can't wait.

Since I attended my romance writer's conference, significant doubt has crept in to my conscious.

Not that I think I suck. I actually think I write rather well for the most part. But it's more of an insidious, shadowy doubt that was born during the conference. We had a guest author, and agents/publishers, etc... there and they all gave speeches as part of the day. The common thread I noticed in all the talk was that it's not how well you do it, it's how much you can do. Apparently the reading public has gotten so fickle that if I, the author, cannot commit to publish several books a year, they'll forget all about me. Then my publisher will dump me and my career will crash and burn.

No, they didn't say it quite so dramatically. But the point was made, more than once that you need to crank out those stories like a house on fire.

I'm no Nora Roberts. I haven't even been published yet. And inevitably the thoughts work their nasty little way into my mind: What if I can't produce? If it's taking me so long just to finish a book and get it ready for production, will I ever be ready? And, stupidly, I suppose--Will my conscience let me get away with producing crap if I'm actually making money at it? And worst: How long do I do this unsuccessfully before I give it up for a loss?

I want my stories to be memorable. I want my readers to recommend me to their friends. I find that this is a problem with a lot of things I've read: they may be entertaining, but they don't stick with me at all. A week later I can't even remember the title. What does that say about me? (That I'm fickle, I suppose.) On the other hand, what does that say about the book?

For real, could this guy get any hotter?

Hard to believe he spends his days "making up ways to kill people" for his movies. He's just too cute.

But what the heck-- since I'm having a literary midlife crisis, he (and my overactive perimenopausal imagination) makes it worthwhile!

The Sex Basket


So there I was, minding my own business...

Seriously. I attended a writer's conference this weekend for my local RWA chapter. It was loads of fun; I got to hobnob with my fellow writers and meet Cherry Adair, the T-FLAC books author. She was a pip! See, she sounds all proper with her British accent but then she tells it like it is, dirty jokes, the f-word, cradle and all.

Part of the conference includes raffle baskets. Let me tell you, if you haven't been to one of our conferences, you ain't seen a raffle basket!! There were probably 50 baskets in all, with a wide variety of subjects, including a lovely advent calendar made by Yours Truly that I titled "25 Days of Love". So what we do is buy tickets and place them in the bags of the raffle baskets we'd like to win. Then they draw names. Naturally I bought a bunch of tickets and was happily placing them in bags when I saw it.

The Sex Basket.

Of course, it wasn't called that. It was called "Indulgence". But it was full of chocolate of all different kinds, a bottle of wine with two gorgeous crystal glasses, different teas, candles, and a super-soft chenille blanket. And the kicker: a gift certificate from a local love shop. I kid you not.

It took me approximately 1.5 seconds to drop my last tickets in that bag.

So the conference goes on and blah blah blah and after lunch they do the drawing. And who wins that basket? ME!! (let's all pause and say woo hoo!)

So I drag this huge basket home and sweetheart was pretty excited; after all, I'd been pretty lucky.

And later that evening, after we'd had some of that wine, I got lucky, too.

(still smiling)

Movie Monster Madness

My NaNoWriMo story is tripping the Memory Lane circuit. I didn't intend it; it just happened.

See, I got to thinking a little too much about my characters. And what forces shaped them from childhood to who they have become at this moment in my story. For example, my hero's early career aspirations started from watching Monster Movie Matinee on Saturdays.

And I got to thinking...

Does anybody else remember this show besides me? It was on at 1:00 in the afternoon, every Saturday. They played this scary organ/bassoon music while the camera slowly shot over a really lame stage set with a haunted house surrounded by creepy, craggy trees and a steaming moat. Then they'd fade to inside the house where Igor, a scruffy guy with an eyepatch, was talking to Dr. Witty, the mysterious host of the show who sat in a wing chair in front of the fireplace. Dr. Witty talked like Dracula and the only thing you ever saw of him was his hand, long and bony and white, with a big ring on his index finger. I think his nails might have been painted black, but I can't recall.

Anyway, I saw my first scary movie ever on MMM. It was a black & white B-flick called The Screaming Skull. It was about a man who murders his wife in order to marry his girlfriend. Then the wife's skull somehow manages to dig itself out of the grave and starts haunting them. I remember one scene where the skull is in the heroine's bedroom and she throws it out the window. Then, just when all seems to be well and she's drifting off the sleep...

knock, knock, knock...

There's someone at the door. She goes to answer it in her slinky nightgown and satin robe(the preferred getup of monster movie heroines everywhere). She opens the door and---aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! IT'S THE SKULL!!!!! Of course she faints dead away, and that pesky little skull rolls into the house and stops right next to her.

In retrospect, it's pretty funny! I'm sitting here laughing, remembering how scary I thought that movie was (hey! I was seven!) and how I had a nightmare that night and my mother told me I couldn't watch MMM any more.

Then we have our intrepid heroine, who is afraid of the dark. Trust me, she's no baby. She just had a nasty troll of a brother who liked to lock her in the back stairwell (the enclosed, windowless, pitch black back stairwell) and jump out of her closet in the middle of the night screaming "Boo!" for kicks.

No, I didn't have a nasty brother, but I definitely had issues with the dark. The beasts that lurked under my bed defied ordinary description; I absolutely would not look out my bedroom window when it was dark out--I still, to this day, look away from the window when I'm closing the drapes at night--and I would get serious, wicked chills down my spine if I had to walk the hall from my bedroom door to the living room door at night. You know what I mean, when the hair on the back of your neck literally lifts and you know if you turn around... The interesting thing about this is that each of my siblings has tales to tell about the house we grew up in, so at least I feel validated about what may or may not have been walking our floors after the lights went out.

Anyway, all this thinking's got me curious. Do you remember your first scary movie? What's the best one you ever saw? The one that kept you awake at night? The one that was beyond lame? Come on, this'll be fun.

First: The Screaming Skull--see above
Best: The Haunting (original version; haven't seen the remake yet) --especially when the lights go on and Eleanor's holding on to nobody! Creepy classic! Psycho is great too.
Scariest: Halloween still rocks. The Exorcist freaks me completely out, too.
Lame: Friday the 13th--of course, the first time I saw this I was an adult. Maybe it would have been scarier as a teen.

I'm about 5,000 words into NaNoWriMo as of today. Woo hoo for me!

I know what you're thinking. What's the big deal about that? The goal for the month is 50,000!

Well, last year my creative muse up and left me for a better venue and I bowed out before the month was over. I can't remember how many words I got written, but it wasn't much. So this year, having 5,000 down in the first week is, to me, an accomplishment.

My story is going well; it is an unlikely romance between the director of a horror film and an attorney who stumbles on to his set and then proceeds to send a wrecking ball through the rest of his well-laid plans. They have a lot in common; they're both very focused professionals who don't give any time or thought to love and fulfillment until it up and whacks them with a stick. Or, in this situation, a briefcase. She's 40, never married, with two dogs and a nice little career in the trust and testament business. She's a sort of conglomeration of me and other women I know (as most of my heroines are). He's 36, never married and a driving force in the horror films industry. I modeled him after Eli Roth, fright king extraordinaire and a smoking hot guy besides.

(chuckling) Yeah, a younger guy. I must be having a midlife crisis.

Back to my imagination now...

Okay, so what's the problem with hair?

Just asking. I mean, I have been, am currently, and will always be a fan of body hair on a man. I truly do not understand why a woman, in a romance novel or not, would prefer a smooth guy over a hairy one. There's something, to me, just so oogy about a guy with no hair on his chest.

Let's draw some lines here. I'm not into the guys that are so hairy they could pass for apes. I don't like it when a man has a carpet on his back as well as his chest. I may like the tuft of hair sticking out of the FRONT of a guys shirt, but not the back. And really hairy knuckles just kind of freak me out. But chest hair, arm hair, leg hair... grrr!!!!

It's just so damned fun to play with, okay???

The funny thing is, I am not a fan of facial hair. I don't mind shaggy eyebrows, but I have never been a huge fan of beards, and I absolutely hate goatees. I do not understand the whole concept of a goatee. Is he trying to look like a goat? Or can he not decide between a beard and nothing?

I realize goatees are popular right now. I expect to get some flack for this.

Anyway, time to return to my sweetie. And, yes, he has a nice crop of chest hair(thank goodness!).

Whew! It's two days into NaNoWriMo and, job and family time aside, I've actually managed to write something! Not alot, only 2000 words or so, but it's a start. I like my characters and the idea is a good start. So this weekend I plan to flesh out my details some more so I know where I'm going.

Meanwhile, I posted my first blog on the work site and that turned out okay. I can't really write about anything much since the actual site isn't up and running yet, but once it does that will be another obligation I need attend to on a regular basis. Should be interesting.

In other news... hmm... well, there isn't any other news. Except that it's snowing.

First and foremost, thanks for responding to my blog name request. After some additional surfing around the company website, I realized that the blog space isn't going to be anything like my blogspot one. My "name" will only be a small blip at the bottom of my blog entry, and the big title spot is reserved for what I call my blog entry. So my blogging name is simple: StoryTeller, because that's what I do.

This arrangement does leave me with possibilities, though, I can get super creative with my titles for my posts! Hmm... (evil thoughts brewing)

Anyhow, we got a grand total of 7 kids for Halloween. Apparently our street wasn't a hot spot. But son came home from his sojourn, mask falling apart, brand new shoes soaking wet (grrr) with a nice stash. Sweetie met him at the door with "Hey look! The candy's home!"