I asked my son’s girlfriend for permission to post her dog’s picture.  And here is the little beauty, clearly ready for her close up!

This is Cookie.  The vet said she’s all chihuahua, although we wonder about that.  From what I understand, Cookie was living in a small business, then the business closed or relocated. So my son’s girlfriend took her in. Now Cookie has her forever home and is thriving. I think she’s around eight months old.

Doesn’t she look like she should be in commercials? In case you can’t tell, she has really pretty green eyes.

P.S. I need to visit Bailey and get some new pictures of him to post so he doesn’t get jealous that I put Cookie on my blog

So Wizard and I were having dinner and talking when the subject of candy came up.

Okay, I brought it up. See, this weekend, Wizard decided that I didn’t have a freaking clue how to buy Halloween candy.  Since I’ve only done it for our entire marriage and have yet to turn away kids candy-less on Halloween night, his assumption makes sense.

IF YOU’RE A MAN!

Just saying…

Anyway,  Wizard came home with a HUMONGOUS  bag of candy to supplement the two bags of candy I had already bought.  I was busy so I didn’t pay much attention other than to tease him about the sheer quantity of candy he bought. So last night at  dinner, I  asked, “Are there any Heath bars in that bag of candy you bought?”

“No, they didn’t have Heath bars.”

“Hmm, really. So in the entire store, they didn’t have Heath bars? The one candy I asked you to be sure to get?”

Now Wizard know has figured out he probably screwed up.  “No I meant they didn’t have any variety bags with Heath Bars.”

I shrugged it off. Cuz, you know, I’m totally easy going like that. (Are you laughing?) And then, with total innocence, I said, “You know what I was thinking about today?”

Wizard, very wary now, replied,  “Murder?”

I smiled reassuringly, “Well yes, but that had nothing to do with you.”

“Promise? Swear to me on Bailey’s life?” I think Wizard might have been sweating a little bit.

I laughed. “Yes I promise on Bailey’s life I was not thinking about murdering you, just a character in a book.”

Clearly relieved, he asked, “So what were you thinking about?”

I said, “Neccos. You know, these candies.”

“Damn it, Witch! Now I’m thinking about Neccos. You knew I’d want them as soon as you said it.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I knew. I’m thinking about Heath bars and you’re thinking about Neccos. We’re both suffering.”

“Well played, Witch. Well played.”

Shh, don’t tell Wizard, but I’ll probably go out and buy him Neccos this week. While I am thinking about Heath bars (not sure why I fixated on those), I really don’t want to eat them right now and Wizard knows it. I’ll save my candy splurge for Halloween night. But it was fun to mess with him!

What candy do you tend to fixate on? If any…

I get this email from my son:

Subject: Where is Bailey?

And in the body of the email this picture:

Can you find him?

That totally cracked me up! Bailey is such a character! When he gets cold, he burrows.  Of course it helps that my lazy sons don’t make their beds because, they claim, that’s how Bailey likes it.

My sons are FAILS! for laziness. But not Bailey, he rocks!

In other news, Wizard left me alone again last night. I had this big plan to go out and get dinner.  But then I remembered I had pasta and fresh vegetables and made myself such a good dinner.  My favorite kind of meal. Add a nice Merlot, and it totally improved my mood after a day of cleaning.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

I  was single for a night. Wizard was off on business and I was on my own.

I went to the gym early in the morning, came home and did laundry then spent the rest of the day working. I cooked a quick dinner at five and had a glass of wine. Cooking and wine usually relaxes me but it’s not the same without Wizard there to cause trouble.

Although he did call twice.

Then I went back to work until 8 pm. And the highlight of my night? Watching Dancing With The Stars.

And that was my night as a single woman.  How embarrassing is that? I’m going to blame it on being Monday. It’s hard to be wild and fun and get into much trouble on a Monday.

But I need to plan to spice up my next single night. Any suggestions?

I worked all weekend, isn’t there a rule against that? But it was a good weekend! I finished my synopsis and the chat was awesome…after some technical difficulties. My Firefox browser on my desktop would not get me into the chat. I was frantic, calling poor Carla of Book Monster Reviews, and with her help, I finally managed to get in on my laptop with IE.

I felt so bad, but the ladies there were so sweet and wonderful! I had a great time, once I was there. The chat was full of typos because I don’t work on my laptop much.

Plus I’d dosed up on a mega non-fat latte.

Anyway, my thanks to Literal Addiction and Book Monster Reviews!

How was your weekend?

When I uploaded the pictures from my camera after my local chapter birthday bash weekend and showed Wizard, he was struck my one particular picture.

Let’s call that picture Self Portrait of a Twit. And I’m staring in the pic.

Wizard said, “Uh, what’s this one? I know you didn’t wear that top at the Birthday Bash Mini Conference.”

“Crap,”  I said.  “I thought I deleted those.”

Wizard gets that stupid magic-eating grin of his. “Missed one, did you?”

“Shut up.”

He crosses his arms, trying to looking intimidating.  “Fess up, Witch.”

I went with the tried and true method of blaming someone else. “Remember when you screwed up taking the picture of me wearing my new jeans?”

“Like I’d forget that. You pouted for an hour.”

“Hey! I don’t pout. I contemplate.”

“Whatever, do you have a point or are just blaming me because you did something that’s going to make me laugh?”

He knows me so well. “Fine, I tried to take my own picture of my jeans…while I was wearing them.”

Wizard shifted his gaze to the picture on the computer. And as embarrassing as this is, here’s what he saw:

Then, naturally, he burst out laughing.

Then he doubled over laughing harder.

Yeah, I wasn’t even close to my jeans.  And that doesn’t even look like me, or I don’t think it does. And sadly? This wasn’t even the worst attempt.  In my defense, I’m pretty sure I was in huge procrastination mode.  I’ve been known to take pictures of lizards when I’m trying to avoid work.

Dying of embarrassment I said, “I thought I deleted them all!”

When he was able to stand up straight, he hugged me and said, “I like the picture…” he said other stuff I’m editing because…he’s just weird.

Anything YOU want to confess? Or am I the only one who does these inexplicably stupid things when I’m procrastinating?

This weekend was Freaking Fantastic! I went to the Orange County Chapter of RWA’s Birthday Bash, with NYT’s Bestselling author Susan Mallery and Executive Editor of Harlequin Books, Mary-Theresa Hussey as the speakers.

AWESOME!

Mary-Theresa talked about all the things Harlequin is doing, and frankly it made my head spin. But what really caught my attention as an author was when she talked about all the work the editors there do learning the craft of writing.  They attend intensive workshops on writing, they read selected writing books and discuss them, they also read fiction books and analyze them in meetings. They do the same with movies. I hope I’m remembering this all correctly. But it was very surprising to me.

At one point,  some friends and I were having breakfast with Mary-Theresa and I asked her why they do that, and how they use it.  I was intensely curious. And she had a fantastic answer–it gives them the language to explain to authors what is working, and what needs some revising in their manuscripts.  Let me tell you, as an author who has worked with four different editors to date–that is BRILLIANT.  It makes complete sense to me.  And it shows their ongoing commitment to really grow and develop authors and careers.

Harlequin is doing many amazing things, and truly trying to be on the cutting edge of the dramatically shifting tides of publishing.

The afternoon speaker was Susan Mallery.  Susan’s latest book, ONLY HIS, hit #3 on the NYT’s in it’s debut week. GO SUSAN!!! Susan has written over a 100 books and has built a truly amazing career by always putting her readers first.  I was tremendously inspired by her speech, and wish I’d taken notes.  Her main point was Don’t Give Up! She illustrated that beautifully. Then she went on to talking about  setting goals and not getting side tracked. One of the “sidetracks” might be  an contract offer that takes you off the path to your true goal.  Those are the two that come to my overloaded brain at the moment. They were much more powerful in the context of her speech.  I could have listened to her for hours.

And I hung out with my friends.

From left to right: Susan Mallery, Kate Carlisle and Maureen Child (aka Regan Hastings)

Me and Mindy Neff

Okay, I have more pics–but I’m in those and wish to spare you all

How was your weekend?