The final chapter begins...

Dh Preview One - Funny bloopers R us

I'm a winner

After 30 grueling days of writing, ignoring my husband, and abandoning my friends, NaNoWriMo has come to an end. And with it my 50,091 words. I've still got a long way to go (about another 30,000 words) but I'm well on my way to having two completed novels under my belt. Yea me!

Poor Graham

So far he's been concussed, given a black eye and knocked on his ass by his best friend only to fall on a stick that got pushed a few inches into his back. He's having a rough book.

Team "We'll Take What We Can Get"

I wouldn't be a midnight movie premiere without crazy fangirl antics. And we pulled out all the stops. Team Threesome shirt (Erin), Team Carlisle shirt (Lindsay) and me with my Twilight Scrabble neckace (Thanks, Karen!). We had New Moon cake, Vampire wine and a host of other goodies to help us bide our time until midnight.

With a quick trip to the airport to pick up Suzanne, we were back at the theater with fifteen minutes to spare before the premiere. Despite the second row, neck-breaking seats, we had a blast.

Then we went and did it all again the next day.

I beg to differ...

My kitties are totally impressed by cupcakes.

Vampire fever

Just had a woman take a picture of my "Stupid Lamb" sticker while stopped at a red light.

Ghosts of Halloween past

It's always a challenge to pick the "right" costumes for Halloween. We attempt to out-do ourselves and this year, I think we most definitely have. Introducing Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. With a little Tonks thrown in for fun. We do a good drugged-out half-dead couple. Am I right?

Halloween: Twilight fangirl style

Set your water on fire

I drink vitaminwater everyday at work. Formula 50 (when I can find it), Energy, Multi-V and XXX. So when I found their new contest to name the next flavor - Black Cherry Lime - and write the copy for the bottle I was stoked. My first entry used their Mad-Lib style format to create the copy and I named it Verve. My second, however, I thought up on my drive home from work tonight. Though I can't seem to draft decent copy at work to save my life, I think I nailed this one. Maybe it's the tone. The sacrastic, snarky, wittiness that comes with vitaminwater. But I'm damn proud of Ignite and think I should win. Wouldn't you agree?

"Some days it's a struggle to do...well anything. We know you'd rather curl up with the fuzzy animal of your choice and the latest How-Well-Do-You-Know-X quiz on Facebook. But let's face it, life's hard. You have to go to school or work or whatever it is that the day demands of you. But the full range of vitamins A to Zinc plus caffeine in this very bottle can be the spark to set your world on fire. So get your mitts on Ignite and get your butt out the door."

Scanning for cats is no cheap venture

I go in for a cat scan tomorrow. My thyroid levels are off. One protein level doubled in the last six months. Not good. While a scan is better than than a biopsy with all its needles and the poking, it's not going to live up to the cost. $1,800. I'll give you a minute to let that sink in.


Long enough? They said it should only take 15 minutes or so. That's $120 a minute. Yes, that's right. A minute. The really bad part, that's the after-insurance cost. What I actually owe. And they want as much up front as I can give. Too bad I can't give anything.

A cross-country movie premiere extravaganza

Tickets for New Moon are selling out in pre-sales online all across the country. Luckily, my friends and I already have our tickets. So when I emailed Suzanne in Colorado last week to let her know, this is (roughly) what transpired over multiple emails:

Me: Tickets are on sale if you want to come with us.
Suz: I don't know if you were serious or not, but I looked into flights to Wilmington and they're not too bad. I could come visit if you wouldn't mind.
Me: Of course I'm serious. Please come visit!
Suz: I'm serious if you're serious. I'll call you tonight and we'll work out the details.

Later that night we got stupidly excited on the phone as she purchased a ticket to fly in on Thursday, Nov. 19 (the day of our New Moon midnight showing) and leave Sunday morning. She also secured her movie ticket so we can get all geeky and fangirly with the rest of the girls for drinks before the premiere. Cannot wait!

Vampires and werewolves and fangirls, oh my

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Backyard bliss

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month starts in November. And I just signed up.

The challenge: write a 50,000-word novel in a month.
The stats: 1,667-words/day or approx. 6 pages/day
The book: a story about sisters and cupcakes and the men they love

I think I'm up for the challenge.

I didn't like the wolf til now

OK. I'm kinda impressed Jacob. Kinda. Don't let it go to your head. I'm still Team Edward all the way.

I'm in love with The Time Traveler's Wife...

I cannot wait for this movie. I'm only 120ish pages into the novel and it is FANTASTIC. So fantastic that all I want to do is read. Devour it until it is done. Why have I not read this before? Someone please tell me why no one told me to read this exquisite novel?

As soon as I finish reading it I am going to see this!

Harry Potter & The Fangirls of Won Won

Man it's nice to have such dorky fangirl friends. We got to geek out over our love of "Won Won" at the midnight premiere of Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince last night. We took pictures with our tickets, the movie poster out front, the life size display inside, and of course with Krysti's Griffindor scarf. The boys even managed to have a good time despite our craziness.

The movie itself was fantastic! They had to cut a considerable amount from the book, but they still ended up with a strong, cohesive movie that was visually stunning. And they kept one of my favorites scenes from the whole series: Hermione sicking the birds on Ron when he and Lavender hook up. Despite the dark nature of the story, the movie managed to achieve many laugh out loud moments. I kinda want to go see it again. Like now.

Book title freak out

Over the past few months, I've been furiously working on "the book". Copyediting, rewriting, cutting, rearranging. I've been reading books on structure, scene, character, how to get published, what not to do, etc. Now I've hit the proverbial wall. The book has had a name for eight plus years. And I love the name. But after all of my reading, I'm not sure the name is doing the book any favors. It may be time to edit it too. Would any of these names capture your attention on the book shelf?

• Reminders Of Them
• Dwell
• The Nature of Things Come & Gone
• Tended
• Kindred
• The Weight of Silence
• The Downside of Love
• The Color of Solitude
• Placeholders
  

We have neices and nephews?

So after traveling to TN and arriving at 3:00 am for a action-packed weekend of family fun, we ended up with more pictures of Stewart and Olive (Karen's new kittens) and fourth of July fireworks than of the family. Sad.

A Wax Lion of my very own

A few months ago I found the quirky, lovable, incredibly fantastic show, Wonderfalls. Like all of the shows I adore, it was canceled well before its time. (Only three episodes aired, but luckily a full 13-episode season was released on DVD.)

While browsing ebay, I came across a Wax Lion, one of the main figurines from the show that talks to main character Jaye and convinces her to do things to help people. I immediately plunked down the money and snatched this little gem up. Then I received an email from the seller to tell me when it would ship. This is what his email said:

"Your lion will be shipped via USPS First Class Mail first thing in the morning. However, should he start talking to you when he gets there, I would strongly suggest that you seek professional help immediately!"

Rocking our socks off

Paramore and No doubt were phenomenal in concert last night. Since Krysti was unable to go with us at the last minute, Erin had a genius idea of making a sock puppet of her to bring her "effervescent" personality with us. Thus Sock Krysti was born.

Erin, her brother Joe, Sock Krysti and I braved the mud and the teenagers to rock out to some seriously good tunes.