One last week

This is my last week before I have to go back to work. There are two weeks of teacher preparation (Okay, truly there are about 2 days of classroom preparations and 8 days of meetings) before the kids arrive the day after Labor Day. Now it’s crunch time, and my goal is to reach page 200 by Sunday. I’m on page 167, in case you were wondering. So that’s 33 pages in 6-7 days. I can do this. If I stop surfing the Internet, watching television, and taking naps that is. That’s the one downside of pregnancy at this stage. I swear, if they had an Olympic event in napping, I could take home the gold. I’m also getting huge. I’m about 6 1/2 months along, and my little munchkin is kicking the stew out of me.

During this past summer, my five-year-old son has been staying home with me. It’s been fun. The other day, we were both writing–he in his little notebook, and me on the laptop. I have to tell you, it’s an absolute scream to see what a five-year-old writes about. I have come across the most random, stream-of-consciousness writing you’ve ever seen. I think my favorite was: Dead butterfly. I love my mom. Happy Birthday. I have no idea where the dead butterfly came from, but apparently this was a key plot point for him. Ooookay.

My youngest is trying to learn how to read. She knows most of her letter sounds, and we’re working on sounding out basic words. For the longest time, she wouldn’t let me read to her. SHE had to do it. Literally, she would wrestle the book out of my hands and demand to tell the story her way. The other day, I finally had a break-through. I agreed to take turns. I would read the page to her first, and then she would read it back to me. (And let me tell you, I have another budding fiction writer, based on the stories she made up from the pictures.)

Yesterday at church, she just cracked me up. The previous week, there were about six babies who were christened. My girl was fascinated by this and thought it was the most amazing event ever. So this Sunday when she saw a parent and infant, she demanded, “Mommy, are they going to appetize the babies today?”

Trying New Things

I’ll admit it. I’m an adventurous cook. I have been known to cook without recipes, throwing together whatever seasonings sound good to me (to my husband’s dismay at times). Oh, I’ve created some true disasters, but along the way, every once in a while I come up with a winner. Then the challenge is remembering what I did.

Tonight I cooked shrimp for the very first time. I know. That’s like saying, “Hey! I cooked chicken today!” Not much of a big deal. But I’ve never been a fan of seafood. It tastes fishy, and the texture just doesn’t seem right. My husband and children would sell their souls for lobster, and I learned to tolerate it. Gradually, they convinced me to try steamed snow crab, which also lacked the fishy flavor that I despise. Although it wasn’t a favorite of mine, at least I found a form of seafood that wasn’t too bad.

Now that we’re into the 100 degree southern Virginia weather, the idea of cooking heavy foods is completely unappealing. I was getting bored with the same-old, same-old foods. For whatever reason (maybe strange pregnancy cravings), I decided to try grilling shrimp. My kids love shrimp. Any time we get spring rolls when we order Chinese, I always give them whatever shrimp I find inside. They tend to fight over it.

So, with a bit of trepidation, I headed to the grocery store and asked the seafood saleslady to help me pick out some snow crab (my dinner) and shrimp for dinner. She recommended the easy-peel type of shrimp. When I got home, I finished peeling them, and my husband began searching the Internet for marinade recipes. In my ignorance, I thought I could skewer them, throw salt and pepper on, and just toss them on the grill for a few minutes. Apparently it’s more complicated than that.

My darling husband was appalled that we didn’t have something called Old Bay Seasoning. I had no clue what it was. He also thought we should have cocktail sauce on hand, and again, I’d forgotten to buy any. So while he read off different marinade recipes, I finished peeling the shrimp and began experimenting.

Here’s the recipe I came up with: 1/4 cup olive oil, three generous squirts of lemon juice, about a teaspoon of sea salt, a few shakes of cracked pepper, a few shakes of basil, several generous shakes of garlic powder, a bit of water to thin it out, and about a tablespoon of melted butter. I tossed the shrimp in the mixture, put it on metal skewers, and grilled them for about 5 minutes total, flipping them once in the middle.

I made cocktail sauce out of ketchup, horseradish sauce, crushed garlic, a bit of cayenne, and a bit of chili powder. I think it came close, but seeing as how I’ve never tasted real cocktail sauce, I can’t be sure.

Anyway, we had our seafood feast, and at the end, I decided to try a single shrimp. I was prepared to hate and despise it, as usual. I’ve never had a decent shrimp in my life–they’ve all tasted AWFUL. Do you know, it was actually pretty darn good? I tasted mostly garlic, butter, and basil, and the shrimp had no fish flavor whatsoever. Huh. I guess trying new things can be a good thing, once in a while. Now I’m wondering what I’ve missed out on, all these years!

Has that ever happened to you, where you learned to like a food you once hated? If not, what are some foods you can’t bring yourself to eat?

A cool commercial

My brother-in-law Jim writes a marketing blog, and a while back he showed this commercial. I’ll admit, when I first started watching it, I thought it was a bit weird. But the ending was one I never saw coming. And then when I look back, the entire commercial made sense. It reminds me of reading a great book where–pow! Out of nowhere the author changes the ending on you, and you think, WOW that was good. Unpredictability is a favorite of mine. Watch the ad and let me know what you think!

I’ve been delinquent about putting together my August contest. Here’s my dilemma. I have a ton of fabulous books from the RWA conference that I want to give away, I have copies of Her Irish Warrior and The Warrior’s Touch up for grabs, and I just haven’t decided what to give away this month. What do you think? Should I give away signed copies of my own books or make it a readers’ choice of a blend of romance novels? What are your favorite kinds of author contests to win?

Just for grins

My husband introduced me to a very irreverent website that spoofs Star Wars. Some of you may have heard of Adult Swim. I’ve linked specifically to their Star Wars clips, but there are other shows they make fun of as well. The difference is, George Lucas actually gave permission for them to do these skits.

Here are some of my favorites:

The Emperor’s Phone Call.

The Death Star Orientation.

and Luke learns the Truth.

There are more funny clips up there, but I thought I’d share a few just for grins.

The Holy Grail of School Supplies

On Friday, I dragged my son out to Wal-Mart on our tax-free weekend to get school supplies. This was my first time ever buying supplies for my own child. I’ve always bought miscellaneous school supplies for my classroom. Long ago, I got frustrated at the number of students who didn’t come prepared to class with scissors or colored pencils, so I used some of my classroom funds to just buy a class set. I haven’t regretted that for a moment–it’s much easier!

Armed with my list at 7:00 in the morning, I hoped to avoid the crowds. There were actually more people there than I expected at that hour. I wandered through the aisles, happily buying the SIX boxes of crayons , and searching for primary composition notebooks. I learned a few things on that trip. One, primary composition notebooks were nowhere to be found. For those of you who don’t have small kids, these are the composition notebooks where the top half of the page is empty for pictures, and the bottom half has the extra large handwriting spaces, for students who are just learning to form letters. Regular composition notebooks don’t work since kindergarteners don’t have the fine motor skills to write that small. Believe it or not, Wal-Mart hadn’t ordered any.

So, I tried OfficeMax. You’d think that an office supply store would have them. Like before, the clerk knew what I meant, but they didn’t have them either. At this point, my son was starting to self-destruct. “Why is this taking so long? Why can’t we go home?” After casting him a look of death, I took him out for a breakfast snack. Nothing like a little fast food to make a boy happy. At this point, I was beginning to feel like a knight in search of the Holy Grail. Ordering online was beginning to look better and better.

Finally, it hit me. The teacher store! Of course. They would have them. So, I dragged him across the county…only to find that they weren’t open until 11:00 a.m. You can imagine the litany of words going through my mind at this point. K-Mart was next door, so I decided to give it a shot. I spoke with one of the ladies stocking supplies, and both of us struck out. At that point, I decided I needed to console myself by buying a book. Whom should I find at the book aisle? The goddess of all books…the Levy’s distributor! She was busy putting out all of the new Harlequin titles. We had the nicest chat about books, and she promised to call me when my book is out in the stores next month so I can sign them.

Eventually, I came home, looked them up online and found that Office Depot carried them. I bribed my son with the promise of pizza for lunch, and I bought what we needed. It took almost the entire day.

I think back to when my own school days and I remember having a plastic Garfield lunch box with a thermos (mine was yellow). Do you know that almost no one sells Thermoses (sp.?) anymore? They seem to be extinct.

What kind of lunch box did you have growing up? Were you the coolest person in school or what?

Romance Novel TV and July Contest Winner!

When I first heard of Romance Novel TV, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But if you love romances, the interviews are just plain fun to watch. I have recently become a JR Ward junkie fan, and Romance Novel TV has several interviews with her about the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. There are also interviews with Nora Roberts, Sophia Nash, and a lot of my favorite authors to read. Check it out!

I also sweet-talked them into putting up an excerpt of The Warrior’s Touch on their books page, so take a look! By the way, I have determined that there is a little black cloud that hovers over me when it comes to Internet excerpts. I’m learning to develop a sense of humor about it. Every single Amazon excerpt, Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc. has been butchered. With the excerpt for Her Irish Warrior, the second line of the story was chopped off and dialogue was smashed together. We tried to get it fixed, but once it’s in The System, apparently it takes an act of God to change it. For The Warrior’s Touch, it’s a blood bath. There are missing lines, misspelled Gaelic last names, and sentences that make me think that there’s an evil copyeditor out there who really is having too much fun. So, please, if you run across the computer-corrupted versions, know that these errors are NOT IN THE ACTUAL BOOK, and it’s just glitches. My excerpt on my website and the one on Romance Novel TV are correct. But oh, it hurts my eyes to see what’s on Amazon. Chocolate consumed in vast quantities tends to help.

Okay, so it’s time to announce the winner of the July contest…and the person selected is Barbara Brunson! Congratulations, Barbara! I’ll be mailing you an autographed copy of The Warrior’s Touch. Hope you enjoy it!

I took the above photo on a trip to the Aran Islands. One of the things I love about Ireland is all the stories waiting to be told. These are church ruins from about a thousand years ago. I can almost imagine the people, can’t you?