It's the time of year when people make resolutions or make goals. I prefer to set goals. A few of mine are as follows:
1. Get baseboards put down in my house (don't ask) and paint (inside and out).
2. Write "the end" at the end of a book...and mean it.
3. Get a passport (and maybe use it).
4. Take bigger chances in my personal life...go out on a limb once in a while.
5. Host at least one party in my home.
6. Cook more - at least once a week - and try new foods and recipes.
7. Reach my next personal goal weight.
So, those are a few of mine. What about you? Goals or resolutions? And how will you bring in the new year? Me, I'll probably be watching my favorite movie of all time. :-)
Monday, December 31, 2007
Happy New Year
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Thank God I Touch My Country Boy Self
I've blogged before about getting a song stuck in my head at inopportune moments. Well, it happened again this past week while I was visiting my step-father. It's usually not so bad if there is background noise to keep my mind occupied. But that was the thing...we didn't have the TV or radio going very much of the time I was there. So all of the days I was up there (four full days) except one (my dog was "missing" - but eventually made it home, so all's well - so my brain was full of, shall we say, other things that day), my brain was filled with songs. That wanted to come out of me. One way or another. Two of those days the song stuck in my head was I Touch Myself. I'd never heard it before a few weeks ago until Amanda Ashby added it to her blog. Yet when I'm visiting my 80 year old step-father, I can't get it out of my head.
The other day I was up there the song stuck in my head was Thank God I'm a Country Boy.
So there I was, fighting to keep from humming and, heaven forbid, singing these songs during my visit.
Oh yeah, good times. LOL
In other news, I was told that the possible boy-toy/research material guy from work that asked me out is married. He told me he wasn't (I asked him point blank the day I met him because one person at work told me he was and another said he wasn't and I wanted the straight scoop from the source) and I haven't seen him since I talked (again) to the co-worker who had told me he told her he was married. Sealing the deal was that he has three kids (a seven year old and twin 5 year olds) and he'd told the co-worker that the seven year old was his wife's from a previous marriage. So it would seem he's a liar (no matter how you look at it - he lied to one of us) and possibly a cheat. A definite deal breaker for me but I'd like to know - from him - the truth.
The other day I was up there the song stuck in my head was Thank God I'm a Country Boy.
So there I was, fighting to keep from humming and, heaven forbid, singing these songs during my visit.
Oh yeah, good times. LOL
In other news, I was told that the possible boy-toy/research material guy from work that asked me out is married. He told me he wasn't (I asked him point blank the day I met him because one person at work told me he was and another said he wasn't and I wanted the straight scoop from the source) and I haven't seen him since I talked (again) to the co-worker who had told me he told her he was married. Sealing the deal was that he has three kids (a seven year old and twin 5 year olds) and he'd told the co-worker that the seven year old was his wife's from a previous marriage. So it would seem he's a liar (no matter how you look at it - he lied to one of us) and possibly a cheat. A definite deal breaker for me but I'd like to know - from him - the truth.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
I've lost my mind!
Okay, I'm hoping that everyone that has ever read my blog will read it this evening and offer words of ...I don't know, whatever I need. I did something today that I still cannot believe. I'm just in shock. Heck, send your friends over here to offer their advice/comments too - I'll take what I can get.
Anyway, to give you a bit of background, I've always been told I look younger than I actually am. Most people think I'm about ten years younger than I really am. It's one of those things that I think people are nuts when they say that because I look in the mirror and see an old person but enough people have told me I look (ten years) younger, that I have to believe that maybe I do - at least at times.
I'm 46 (just turned) by the way.
So anyway, I was out of the office the last two and a half weeks. During that time they hired a temporary worker to help out. It was a man (which is a bit surprising but that's another story and not relevant to this one).
Monday was my first day back in the office and when I first met this man. He seems nice and all, very gentlemanly. But very quiet, soft spoken.
Today he sent me an email, subject line of "Question". Body of the email says something to the effect of "I want to asking you something. It's personal but it's driving me insane. It would need to be just between the two of us though. If you can't do that, that's okay. Let me know."
Now, he's in the office next to mine. When I've needed him over the last few days I just yell for him. He sends an email asking if he can ask a question. Ohhhh...kay.
I walked over to his office and our conversation went something like this:
Me: Yes? You had a question?
Him: Well, I wanted to put it in an email. (this was kind of weird to me because he has a question for me and I'm standing right there!) I just didn't know if I should.
Me: (law background piping in) If you're not sure you should, you probably wouldn't want to put whatever it is in writing.
Him: Oh. Okay.
Me: What was the question?
Him: I don't know if I should ask it.
Me: Why not? What is it? (because now I'm curious)
Him: Um, well, uh, how old are you?
Me: Why are you asking? (just curious...not suspicious or trying to be secretive or anything)
Him: I don't want to say.
Me: No really, why are you asking?
Him: Well, I wanted to know if you were available and would be interested in going out with me.
Me: (recalling how old he told us he was yesterday but wanting to confirm) How old are you again?
Him: Twenty-four.
It was at this point that I officially lost my mind. I believe it was about 2:08 Central Standard Time today. I'm a bit embarrassed to tell you my reaction but if I want honest feedback, I guess I have to give a full disclosure so here goes (taking deep breath).
Me: You know, I'm almost twice your age. I'm forty-six. (continuing talking without a break so that he can't voice anything negative, as the clock strikes 2:08 CST) But that's not a problem for me...the age difference. I don't have a problem with that. (did I really just say that???)
Him: It doesn't bother me either. (big grin on his face) (pause) and the other thing?
Me: That would be nice. (wait...did I really just agree to go out with someone HALF my age???)
Him: Okay. (he stopped talking here)
Me: Anything else? (thinking he might want to follow up on the question here)
Him: No, that's it.
Me: Okay. (goes back into my office, looks for brain and wonders what just happened)
I re-read his email and saw the "driving me insane" comment so I went back to his office to ask what he meant by that. When I stepped in the door he had a grin on his face and said, "I just sent you an email."
It was at this time that I pointed out that others could read my email and he might want to keep that in mind with anything he sent me. He appreciated the tip and I don't recall if I got an answer to MY question (although I did ask it).
When I went back into my office I had an email with the subject line of "Free" and body that said something like "When will you be free?" (which could be an innocent comment, if you didn't know the context of it, considering he's our "helper")
I gave no response before I left for the day (an hour or so later). Plus, it dawned on me he was born the year I got married!!! Not to mention that after the initial conversation and first email, I almost feel like he's trying internet date me. Anyway...
Am I nuts? Should I even consider going out with him? Please stop laughing long enough to leave comments/advice. And don't forget, send your friends. I need all the help I can get! LOL
Anyway, to give you a bit of background, I've always been told I look younger than I actually am. Most people think I'm about ten years younger than I really am. It's one of those things that I think people are nuts when they say that because I look in the mirror and see an old person but enough people have told me I look (ten years) younger, that I have to believe that maybe I do - at least at times.
I'm 46 (just turned) by the way.
So anyway, I was out of the office the last two and a half weeks. During that time they hired a temporary worker to help out. It was a man (which is a bit surprising but that's another story and not relevant to this one).
Monday was my first day back in the office and when I first met this man. He seems nice and all, very gentlemanly. But very quiet, soft spoken.
Today he sent me an email, subject line of "Question". Body of the email says something to the effect of "I want to asking you something. It's personal but it's driving me insane. It would need to be just between the two of us though. If you can't do that, that's okay. Let me know."
Now, he's in the office next to mine. When I've needed him over the last few days I just yell for him. He sends an email asking if he can ask a question. Ohhhh...kay.
I walked over to his office and our conversation went something like this:
Me: Yes? You had a question?
Him: Well, I wanted to put it in an email. (this was kind of weird to me because he has a question for me and I'm standing right there!) I just didn't know if I should.
Me: (law background piping in) If you're not sure you should, you probably wouldn't want to put whatever it is in writing.
Him: Oh. Okay.
Me: What was the question?
Him: I don't know if I should ask it.
Me: Why not? What is it? (because now I'm curious)
Him: Um, well, uh, how old are you?
Me: Why are you asking? (just curious...not suspicious or trying to be secretive or anything)
Him: I don't want to say.
Me: No really, why are you asking?
Him: Well, I wanted to know if you were available and would be interested in going out with me.
Me: (recalling how old he told us he was yesterday but wanting to confirm) How old are you again?
Him: Twenty-four.
It was at this point that I officially lost my mind. I believe it was about 2:08 Central Standard Time today. I'm a bit embarrassed to tell you my reaction but if I want honest feedback, I guess I have to give a full disclosure so here goes (taking deep breath).
Me: You know, I'm almost twice your age. I'm forty-six. (continuing talking without a break so that he can't voice anything negative, as the clock strikes 2:08 CST) But that's not a problem for me...the age difference. I don't have a problem with that. (did I really just say that???)
Him: It doesn't bother me either. (big grin on his face) (pause) and the other thing?
Me: That would be nice. (wait...did I really just agree to go out with someone HALF my age???)
Him: Okay. (he stopped talking here)
Me: Anything else? (thinking he might want to follow up on the question here)
Him: No, that's it.
Me: Okay. (goes back into my office, looks for brain and wonders what just happened)
I re-read his email and saw the "driving me insane" comment so I went back to his office to ask what he meant by that. When I stepped in the door he had a grin on his face and said, "I just sent you an email."
It was at this time that I pointed out that others could read my email and he might want to keep that in mind with anything he sent me. He appreciated the tip and I don't recall if I got an answer to MY question (although I did ask it).
When I went back into my office I had an email with the subject line of "Free" and body that said something like "When will you be free?" (which could be an innocent comment, if you didn't know the context of it, considering he's our "helper")
I gave no response before I left for the day (an hour or so later). Plus, it dawned on me he was born the year I got married!!! Not to mention that after the initial conversation and first email, I almost feel like he's trying internet date me. Anyway...
Am I nuts? Should I even consider going out with him? Please stop laughing long enough to leave comments/advice. And don't forget, send your friends. I need all the help I can get! LOL
Friday, December 14, 2007
Not that I'm disorganized or anything...
Tuesday evening my local chapter had their Christmas party. It was a lot of fun and I spent some time visiting with Alyssa Goodnight.
Well, since there were going to be a lot of authors there, I grabbed all my books (that hadn't previously been signed) by the chapter members and put them in my car. Only I couldn't find one author's book, which was pretty annoying since I'd ridden around with it in my car for months, hoping I'd see her, and I didn't remember taking it out. Anyway, I tore my house apart looking for that book. I even went out to my car and looked under the seats and everything. Couldn't find it to save my life. I mentioned this to Alyssa (whose book I had with me and she graciously autographed - thank you) at the party and she said "weren't you the one who blogged about finding a book on their nightstand". Um, well, yes but it was a cookbook. I don't keep books for reading on my nightstand. But thanks for bringing up the fact that I find things in weird places. ;-)
So, I come home and the next day I decided to blog about the party and tease Alyssa a bit. But when I posted the blog, weird things happened to my blog, so I took it (the post) down. Which didn't help. I shut off my computer a couple of times and it still was doing weird things so I shut it down one more time and went to bed. Yesterday morning everything seemed fine.
Yesterday afternoon was a different story though. Weird things started happening with the blog again and with my personal email so I was trying to get online tech support. It said I was next in line and that the wait would be approximately 7m and 58s. I foolishly thought it meant 7 minutes but apparently it meant months. I eventually disconnected and started messing with things on my own. Now, I've mentioned before that I'm technologically challenged so doing things on my own is never a good thing...just so you know.
I started deleting programs that I didn't recognize in the "add/remove" section of my computer. Let's just say, I don't recommend that unless you know what you're doing...which obviously I don't. My computer was even more off after that. I shut it down and rebooted a number of times and reinstalled Internet Explorer (not one I'd deleted but one I thought needed to be "repaired"). Still had problems. Again, shut it down for the night only this time I still had the problems in the morning.
Eventually I installed something that seemed to do the trick, so all was good. But after I did all that, I decided to play with my playlist (sorry you can't see it Maria...I don't know what I did to make it invisible...it certainly wasn't intentional and well, being technologically challenged, I don't know how to change it!). I was looking for a particular song but wasn't confident that I knew the name of it. I figured it would come to me if I saw it - but I was wrong.
I finally broke down and went to my car to pull my CD to get the name of the song. Guess what I found in the little cubby I keep my CDs in...my author friend's book!!!!!
After all, where else would it be? *sigh* LOL
Well, since there were going to be a lot of authors there, I grabbed all my books (that hadn't previously been signed) by the chapter members and put them in my car. Only I couldn't find one author's book, which was pretty annoying since I'd ridden around with it in my car for months, hoping I'd see her, and I didn't remember taking it out. Anyway, I tore my house apart looking for that book. I even went out to my car and looked under the seats and everything. Couldn't find it to save my life. I mentioned this to Alyssa (whose book I had with me and she graciously autographed - thank you) at the party and she said "weren't you the one who blogged about finding a book on their nightstand". Um, well, yes but it was a cookbook. I don't keep books for reading on my nightstand. But thanks for bringing up the fact that I find things in weird places. ;-)
So, I come home and the next day I decided to blog about the party and tease Alyssa a bit. But when I posted the blog, weird things happened to my blog, so I took it (the post) down. Which didn't help. I shut off my computer a couple of times and it still was doing weird things so I shut it down one more time and went to bed. Yesterday morning everything seemed fine.
Yesterday afternoon was a different story though. Weird things started happening with the blog again and with my personal email so I was trying to get online tech support. It said I was next in line and that the wait would be approximately 7m and 58s. I foolishly thought it meant 7 minutes but apparently it meant months. I eventually disconnected and started messing with things on my own. Now, I've mentioned before that I'm technologically challenged so doing things on my own is never a good thing...just so you know.
I started deleting programs that I didn't recognize in the "add/remove" section of my computer. Let's just say, I don't recommend that unless you know what you're doing...which obviously I don't. My computer was even more off after that. I shut it down and rebooted a number of times and reinstalled Internet Explorer (not one I'd deleted but one I thought needed to be "repaired"). Still had problems. Again, shut it down for the night only this time I still had the problems in the morning.
Eventually I installed something that seemed to do the trick, so all was good. But after I did all that, I decided to play with my playlist (sorry you can't see it Maria...I don't know what I did to make it invisible...it certainly wasn't intentional and well, being technologically challenged, I don't know how to change it!). I was looking for a particular song but wasn't confident that I knew the name of it. I figured it would come to me if I saw it - but I was wrong.
I finally broke down and went to my car to pull my CD to get the name of the song. Guess what I found in the little cubby I keep my CDs in...my author friend's book!!!!!
After all, where else would it be? *sigh* LOL
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Tagged again...
Alyssa tagged me again so here we go...
Two Men I’d Love to Date if I Were Single (and they were single)
Do I have to limit myself to two since I AM single? Okay okay...
My secret crush at work
Brad Pitt
I Am Wearing Right Now
Pajamas (If I'd had to list two things, underwear would've had to been the other...I know TMI)
Two Things I Would Want in a Relationship
Honesty
Laughter
Two of My Favorite Things to do
Reading
Having a massage
Two Things I Want Very Badly At the Moment
Winning lottery ticket
extended paid leave of absence
Two things I did recently
Added a playlist for my blog
Finished my last newsletter for my local chapter
Two things I ate today
Eggs (scrambled with cheese)
Biscuits
Two people I most recently talked to
My friend Lara
My co-worker Christine
Two things I’m doing tomorrow
Going to work (ugh! see things I want!)
Making dish for Tuesday's party
Two Favorite Holidays
I'm not a holiday person but I'll say Christmas and Thanksgiving because we get more days off work for those holidays.
Two Favorite Beverages
Strawberry Margarita (no salt, please)
Water
Two Things about me, things you may not have known
I used to teach sign language at the local college
Growing up I was very athletic and very much the tomboy
Two places I have lived
Pasadena, Texas
Baytown, Texas
Two of my Favorite Foods
Most Italian dishes
chocolate
Two Places I’d rather be right now (again, see things I want)
Vacationing on a beach with a stack of good books
Vacationing in the mountains with a stack of good books
4 people I think will respond
Mel
Honey
Laura Drewry
Kim
Two Men I’d Love to Date if I Were Single (and they were single)
Do I have to limit myself to two since I AM single? Okay okay...
My secret crush at work
Brad Pitt
I Am Wearing Right Now
Pajamas (If I'd had to list two things, underwear would've had to been the other...I know TMI)
Two Things I Would Want in a Relationship
Honesty
Laughter
Two of My Favorite Things to do
Reading
Having a massage
Two Things I Want Very Badly At the Moment
Winning lottery ticket
extended paid leave of absence
Two things I did recently
Added a playlist for my blog
Finished my last newsletter for my local chapter
Two things I ate today
Eggs (scrambled with cheese)
Biscuits
Two people I most recently talked to
My friend Lara
My co-worker Christine
Two things I’m doing tomorrow
Going to work (ugh! see things I want!)
Making dish for Tuesday's party
Two Favorite Holidays
I'm not a holiday person but I'll say Christmas and Thanksgiving because we get more days off work for those holidays.
Two Favorite Beverages
Strawberry Margarita (no salt, please)
Water
Two Things about me, things you may not have known
I used to teach sign language at the local college
Growing up I was very athletic and very much the tomboy
Two places I have lived
Pasadena, Texas
Baytown, Texas
Two of my Favorite Foods
Most Italian dishes
chocolate
Two Places I’d rather be right now (again, see things I want)
Vacationing on a beach with a stack of good books
Vacationing in the mountains with a stack of good books
4 people I think will respond
Mel
Honey
Laura Drewry
Kim
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Building Characters
I think it was Laura Drewry who said she buys magazines to clip out pictures for visuals for her stories. I think it was mainly for the characters but it may have been more.
Her idea sounded great but I couldn't see spending a ton of money on magazines if I didn't want to read them too. Kind of put the idea on the back burner. Well, I subscribe to exactly two magazines...People and Soap Opera Digest. I share People with a friend of mine so if I saw something I liked in it, I wouldn't want to cut it out (guess I could always scan it, now that I think about it) and never expected to see anything in the Soap Opera Digest.
Anyway, I've been kind of behind on my magazine reading (did you know Britney and Kevin Federline were having marital problems? yeah, I read about it a week or so ago...but I digress). So, yesterday I was reading my Soap Opera Digest and I came across this great picture of Crystal Chappell that I had to cut out. It's a picture of my new heroine. It's great. I finally know what she looks like. And now I want to go get something to stick/glue it to so I can work on a collage for the story to put other things on (when I find them) so I have the visuals for my story.
But I'm curious, what methods to you use to put your story together and how do you figure out what your characters look like? Inquiring minds want to know.
Her idea sounded great but I couldn't see spending a ton of money on magazines if I didn't want to read them too. Kind of put the idea on the back burner. Well, I subscribe to exactly two magazines...People and Soap Opera Digest. I share People with a friend of mine so if I saw something I liked in it, I wouldn't want to cut it out (guess I could always scan it, now that I think about it) and never expected to see anything in the Soap Opera Digest.
Anyway, I've been kind of behind on my magazine reading (did you know Britney and Kevin Federline were having marital problems? yeah, I read about it a week or so ago...but I digress). So, yesterday I was reading my Soap Opera Digest and I came across this great picture of Crystal Chappell that I had to cut out. It's a picture of my new heroine. It's great. I finally know what she looks like. And now I want to go get something to stick/glue it to so I can work on a collage for the story to put other things on (when I find them) so I have the visuals for my story.
But I'm curious, what methods to you use to put your story together and how do you figure out what your characters look like? Inquiring minds want to know.
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