Too Many Books

Awhile back, Ashley at A Matter of Opinion started working with CSN Stores -- CSN has over 200 online stores where you can find lovely items for your home -- like modern extra tall bar stools or quality, affordable cookware. Or, if you're like me... if you don't cook dinner but are cooking a baby-bean... you can scour the internets for hours and hours looking at CSN Baby. Anywaddle, ( <-- pregnancy sound effect) Ashley has paved the way for me to work with CSN Stores, too -- and I'm excited that I will soon be reviewing a product on my very own little blog! I have been looking for a lamp for the nursery, as hubs and I have very little overhead lighting in our home... so I can't wait to receive the lamp below in the mail from CSN! P.S.  Musings of Amber Murphy is now accepting any and all offers which include gratis-baby-plunder. This is going to look sooo perfect in the nursery. Let there be Lightspi...

You know how all the cool kids say "FML" now? (In case you didn't know, that stands for "fuc "profanity my life.") Well, for the last week or so I've caught myself saying it under my breath, but because it's so crass, I've been adding an A on the end. Imagine it: I just dropped something, and I have to bend over to pick it up. (The pregnant belly does not love these moments.) So, I look at the item on the floor, sigh heavily and say, "FMLA." I, personally, think it's hilar. I told my co-worker about it today and I was all, "Yeah! I've been sitting on that for like a week, just entertaining myself in my own mind." I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm off my rockerspice.

This afternoon, I lulled away the day. Yes, I'm off work again... I have to be there this Saturday, so I was entitled to the shedding of a few hours today, an attempt to keep overtime to a minimum. That's just fine with me. I meant to come home and take a nap. (That's always on my agenda. Clearly.) Instead, I caught up on my google reader -- or at least made a hell of an attempt to do so -- read a bit of a novel, watched obscene amounts of a three-hour-long, DVR-ed episode of Big Brother After Dark on SHO-time . (This was, in fact, so mind-numbing that it was almost like napping.) So is the story of my life: watch hours tick away while I make little progress: maternal, writerly, or otherwise. It occurs to me that I probably need to learn how to do things, like, I don't know, install a car seat. Or perhaps start a babyspice-registry. Or scope out day-care centers. Instead, I just made a king-sized Snickers my bitch and poured myself a Sweet Tea. Ahh, m...

My middle is sagging. For all you non-writerly types, I am not referring to my recent affinity for (nor the obvious repercussions of) Panera Bread breakfasts. No, instead (or, in addition) it's the middle of my book that is sagging. (Sadly, it's not even quite the middle. It's chapter four.) I've written subsequent chapters already, because chapter four is a cruel and an unusual beast of a chapter. Nothing very interesting is happening to my main character, Laurel, during her freshman year while she's away at college. She's acting miserably depressed and spending the majority of her time mooning over a boy who still lives in her hometown. I'm just so ready to get through this section -- things pick up when Laurel goes home and her first year of college is behind her. But, I'm frustrated. If I'm picking my way through this part of the story -- bored to tears while writing it -- then how will my readers feel when they are re...

Participating in The Beta Club yesterday was so much more fantastic than I could have imagined. The critiques I received were heartfelt, constructive, and inspiring. (The compliments made me blush a little, but also caused me to wear a giddy grin for the majority of the day.) If you did read it, thank you. Thank you! THANK YOU! (If you didn't, what the what?! Go here and read it, like I told you to yesterday.) I plan to post my rewrite here soon. (Get excitedspice!) Moving on. Since I was a little giddy yesterday, I decided to take a leap and integrate "spice" into casual conversation... in addition to my (completely addicting!) use of the word as an amplifier in my blogwriting. So, when I came back from lunch, I gave the following weather report to my work husband coworker: "It's very hot and humid outside. Also, it's windyspice!" He was all, "WTF?" So I explained spice -- how I use it writing to magnify things. "For ins...

This Saturday evening, the coolest ever thing happened. I Skyped. Not only did I skype, but I skyped with the lovely, talented, wonderful, awesomespice Tina Sandoval . (It was only the conference-call kind of Skype... no video feed. Thankfully. I am pretty sure I was wearing some ratty t-shirt at the time.) Hearing my Sweetest Niblet's voice from the speakers of my little laptop, I felt like I was taking to a gal pal who was right down the street -- not time zones away in Arizona. It. was. divine. We talked about our writing, we chatted about blog posts of the past... we talked for an hour. She, of course, wanted to know when I am going to make good on the vloggy part of her giveaway win, and asked when I would be posting my karaoke-dedication. (I quickly changed the subject.) (But it will happen eventually.) (And by eventually, I clearly mean: don't hold your breath. I have to gear up for it, which means finding just the right song and rehearsing it until I s...

I got tagged in a fun blog meme, because ND at Delicious Ambiguity thinks I am a fun blogger. We do have some important things in common, since I think she is a fun blogger, too. For instance, last Friday she was feeling a bit prickly and wrote a list of her greivances of the week, including this wrongspice boy she once, I assume, quasi-dated. I sent my former rebound flame a really nicely thought out birthday card in hopes that he has gotten less hateful in the 6 months since we last spoke, and he responded via email, "Thanks for the birthday card. I have no desire to reconnect with you right now. I hope things are well." Don't you just love her already?! You must check out her blog! So, the rules of the meme are to post a list of things you like/love/hate, and then link to three bloggers who you admire! All you have to do is fill in your likes/loves/hates after the bolded words! :) Have fun! I like the cool side of the pillow. I like sleeping in on Sund...

I must be a girl. Several things made me cry -- like actual wet tears on face -- today. I am not ashamed to admit the first thing that opened up my tear ducts (faster than chopping an onion) was American Idol. Finding out who makes it to the Top 24 (i.e. the-performance-round-which-is-all-that-really-matters) is one of the highlights of the Idol season. Tonight's episode revealed 7 of the lucky 12 guys and the lucky 12 gals who are younger than me have the chance of a lifetime. When that gal Didi found out she made it? Yup, I went all sobspice. Cause her friend died and stuff. And, she had on a cute hat. And, she sang a Kara Dioguardi song during Hollywood week. I heart her! Secondly, I cried when I noticed the state of disorder which is my checkbook. (Bankers sometimes get overdrawn, too.) Luckily, I have that credit line which spots me in fifty dollar increments. So it isn't like I got any transactional overdraft fees. (If that had happened, I'd probably s...

Sleepyspice. That's the story of my life, I guess. I stayed up too late last night watching the Grammys. (There were some super weird performances and some moving ones. Enough said.) Can you believe February is here? I'm proud to say that I am well on my way in the 100 book reading challenge for 2010. I just started my ninth book of the year -- Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD. I'm 70 pages in, and it is so devistatingly good. Here's what I've read so far this year: THE LITTLE FRIEND by Donna Tartt EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE by Jonathan S. Foer NO WAY TO TREAT A FIRST LADY by Christopher Buckley THE MIDDLE PLACE by Kelly Corrigan MIDDLESEX by Jeffrey Eugenides LOST IN THE FOREST by Sue Miller THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING by Milan Kundera HOW TO BE GOOD by Nick Hornby (I'm pretty sure I blogged all these titles after I purchased them all at 1/2 Price Books, but you certainly needed a refresher, right?) I signed up for Goodreads ...

I'm home for lunch. It's such a treat to get to compose a blog post during the day. Oh, wait. I don't know what to write about. I need a topic. There are several things I could tell you about -- my new job, the amount of money I have spent in the last two weeks due to  not coming home for lunch, how cold it is in Kentucky today, and (in related news) about the snowstorm that we may or may not get tonight or tomorrow morning. So, there's plenty to choose from. Let's start with the new job -- I love it. I have really clicked with the staff, the customers are all friendly, and it's been an easy transition (with the expception of the 8:15 a.m. arrival.) However, I'm still really glad it's Friday. I'll be even happier when it's time to lock the bank doors at 6:05 tonight. I am looking forward to the weekend, and the possibility of being snowed-in is, which is quite appealing. I will watch movies and college basketball and read books a...