Sugar Low

What's with all the sugar that's given away on Get on Board Day?

How can I possibly get anything done if I have passed out from too much of it?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

Sorry. I passed out. 

Good news though. 

I did score some awesome swag because of the best day of the year (UA-wise).

A Taco Casa long-sleeve t-shirt, a BCM plastic cup that changes color,

 a coupon book, and a can handle.

You saw me correctly...a can handle. 

Probably my favorite find of the day.

Almost done with my new book.

I will hopefully be able to tell you about it tomorrow. 

I know I said today, but it just didn't happen...

And one more question:

It's only Wednesday??

via

I speak general American English, Y'all!

Having a fun visit with my friend, Mizz Baker, 

for the whole week!

Congrats to her for her perseverance

and the great things that are coming her way!

Haven: Sanctuary of Style

Whelp, getting back into tutoring again this fall...

that'll be interesting after a summer away

not...tutoring. 

Hopefully, I'll be able to maintain a nice balance (a la Liz Gilbert)

in my life with everything that's happening in my life lately. 

All good things, I assure you. 

AND 

I got a new book yesterday, about which 

you must be so excited to read.

It's called Love on a Dime.

You're already compelled, I know. 

I probably shouldn't even have to say more, 

but I will just because I want to do so.

Isn't the cover just so nice?

And to answer your question, 

yes.

I do judge books by their covers ALL THE TIME.

Summary:

Same ol' chestnut of a tale.

Boy falls in love with girl and

vice versa.

Family disapproves of match. 

Boy leaves girl to claim fortune. 

Girl becomes secret author and 

not-so-secret women's shelter volunteer. 

Boy returns a man with enough money to support woman.

Woman with new guy... who doesn't know she's a dime novelist. 

Duhn, duhn, duhn... what is going to happen?

Find out tomorrow... if you dare. 

Your love is like a hot panini....

Reading practice questions for Miller Analogies Test, which is a

"high level mental ability test requiring the solution of problems stated as analogies." 

Sounds fun, yes?

Beginning the process today of registering for the test, so I can

apply to the School Counseling program in Education.

(Perhaps for the spring semester)

Thanks to Vicki, I now have the song,
 "On the Cover of Rolling Stone,"
in my head.



I will pass it along to you.
You're welcome.

Yesterday, a couple of the girls and I went to see
Eat, Pray, Love
with the fabulous Julia Roberts.

The scenes from Italy, India, and Bali
were filmed beautifully, especially Italy
(must go there).

And if you didn't know,
through her travels,
Liz Gilbert concluded that
God is in you, as you.

So, you are God.
Is that blasphemous?

I thought so.

images via

Crisis Management

I am the key master. 

No, seriously.

I have about 20 sets of keys 

on my desk.

No use putting them away,

someone else will probably need a copy 

at some point today. 

And thanks, E-Liz, 

I now have "Ooh De Lally"

in my head. 

It'll probably be there 

for the remainder of the day. 

Haha. 

Once again, Tres was fabulous!

BJ, Jenny, and Dave did a great job during worship 

and Wally's sermon chat was exactly 

what I needed to hear, 

warm and fuzzy included.

(Just sayin')

I finished my book. 

It was great. 

You did good, DH. 

Story summary:

A girl moves to Nantucket after she finds out that

her father (who left her when she was young)

and stepmother are killed in an accident, leaving 3 children behind.

She takes on the responsibility of guardian of her half-siblings

AND proprietor of The Summer Place, the B & B, her father left to her.

She has every intention of bringing the place up to code in order to sell it and move

back to St. Louis with the children, however, their uncle

comes back in secret to see if he can gain custody of the children

by finding something wrong with their new sister.

Guess what? They fall in love. 

Shock there. 

So cute though. 

(prints via)

Chortle

Ever had a day where you absolutely needed to laugh?

Or hear an encouraging word from someone?

I'm definitely having one of those kind of days.

It's certainly gotten better though, so that's good. 

On a different note, I visited the ol' Barnes and Noble yesterday 

and purchased a new book by one of my favorite authors 

in Christian Fiction, Denise Hunter.

Driftwood Lane

Not a bad read from what I got through this morning before work. 

The preliminary story is forming nicely, as per usual in DH's books. 

Also saw a new book called Emma and the Vampires.

And let me go ahead and say, yes, this is Jane Austen's Emma with vampires.

There is also Paul is Undead,

 a book about the Beatles as zombies 

and their rise to fame.

I've added them to my reading list. 

I'm hoping this afternoon I can get back 

into my regular schedule of walking/biking.

I planned to wake up this morning at 5:45am, 

but that didn't happen...haha.

Hope you're having a great Tuesday.

Welcome back, Tracie.

I have re-incorporated Tracie Peterson back into my reading rotation. I have begun reading the series, Brides of Gallatin County. I started with book 3 and just finished book 1... and I should finish book 2 by tomorrow.

Good stuff. Whenever I read her books, I am never disappointed with the ending. She knows how to add drama, but not too much so that it's just ridiculous. She has love stories, but not ones that happen overnight. She is a great storyteller. Kudos to you, Tracie.

Dork

Oh yeah, that's right. I am cataloguing all of my books for my own personal library. And when people borrow my books, I will know who has them and when they were borrowed. Yes, I realize this makes me a little more than obsessed, but I absolutely loved going to the library when I was little and filling out the card and getting it stamped and returning it to repeat the process... nothing like the nerdiness of a child.

Let me know if you want to borrow a book!

Organ-y

I finished reading Beyond the Moment last night. Another winner from Tamera Alexander!! 

I also talked to my old roommate yesterday about the sort-of thesis that I am working on... if I could get some "me" time, I could compile the list of books that I would need to get this project off of the ground. I think I will use the librarian here to look up a lot of the books I need because they are awesome like that. Also, the bookstores around here are kind of bare when it comes to researching the topics that I want so what the heck...

If you know of any books on Alabama culture and religion in the early 20th century besides the obvious ones that were recently released (by the lady whose children I babysit, btw), please let me know. Also, if you have read any books or know of any that have anything to do with sermon styles in the early 20th century, pass those along as well!

Stop slurping the coffee!

I read another book yesterday...I am sure you are so excited to hear what I do almost everyday...no, but anyway this book was SUPER great. And I know yes, I don't really sound like a regular reviewer of books...more like a semi-intelligent Valley girl that reads a lot and doesn't know how to express her thoughts very well...

Ok, I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It's a newly released book that I saw advertised on one of my many emails from Barnes and Noble...and lucky for me my library had a copy of it for me! I wasn't really sure I wanted to read it...as I am sure you have figured out from my previous reviews and synopses that I read...chick lit. This book, however, is not chick lit. It's like women's fiction/civil rights fiction/non-fiction all rolled into one.

I am a history buff and could not resist the story of black women who serve white households in the early 60s in Jackson, MS. A very moving, compelling narrative split into 3 different POVs--Aibileen, Minny, and Miss Skeeter. Aibileen and Minny are black women living in the colored part of town, who make their living serving the families of upper class Jackson. Aibileen takes care of Mae Mobley and the home of her mother, Elizabeth and her husband, Raleigh. Minny is in the employ of a woman, who is put into a home by her daughter Hilly Holcomb, and then blacklisted by Hilly for "terrible awful thing". However, a new woman in town, Celia Foote, hires Minny on to clean and cook at her house in secret so her husband will think she can take care of them. Miss Skeeter is a white woman, a recent graduate of Ole Miss, who wants to be a writer.

The premise of Miss Skeeter's story in the book is the basic premise of the book... Skeeter, whose name is actually Eugenia, is trying to get a job at Harper & Row in New York, encouraged by a female editor there, Elaine Stein, who sees potential and asks her to write something worth looking at for the publishing company.

Skeeter enlists the help of Aibileen and Minny to recruit other maids around Jackson to interview for this story that she has come up with to write about...colored maids and the white households where they work. The interview question deal with how the maids are treated by the white women who employ them, how many times they have been accused of something they did not do, how many times they have been fired, etc. etc... and this started when Hilly Holcomb, a supposed friend to Skeeter, proposed a bill to Congress for Home Sanitation...a bill that would encourage women who employed black women as maids to build another bathroom for their help so that white people would not be exposed to the diseases that black people spread around.

It takes about a year or two in which to write the book and send it off to the publisher and in this span of time Skeeter finally meets a man who she thinks she will spend the rest of her life with...Minny becomes friends with her employer and helps Celia deal with some harsh truths, and Aibileen teaches Mae Mobley how to love all people, including herself. In the end, however, things become heated when the book is published and people start to suspect the book is based on Jackson. Hilly Holcomb begins to point fingers and encourages her "friends' to fire their maids due to some of the stories that were written. However, when Hilly finally finishes the book and recognizes the story about herself, she quickly recants and claims the book isn't about Jackson after all... the last story in the book called Help is about the "terrible awful thing" that Minny does to Hilly. You will have to read it to find out though...I won't give that away...

All in all...great book. A wonderfully told story about the struggles of women, all over, black and white, living in the South in the early 60s, dealing with segregation and the many changes that are happening around them.

Singles Awareness Day...sad...

Haha. In the tradition of being a single lady, I did what every stereotypical woman does that doesn't have a date for Valentine's Day...I bought my favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (Karamel Sutra) and watched 27 Dresses, which by the way I can only watch certain parts of not including the parts with the jerky sister. Oh valentine's day... hahaha.

I finished another book this weekend... the sequel to The Guy I'm Not Dating...called Too Good to Be True. It was pretty good. About a divorced woman whose husband cheated on her and had another child with his mistress... yikes.

She meets a new fella a year later who "rescues" her after she faints at a Walmart. Their courtship starts out slowly, progresses quickly and then comes to a stop when both of their mother's interferences reveal internal problems with each other. They finally confront both of their mothers and resolve problems with some slight hindrances... Altogether a good weekend read and I am looking forward to picking up #3 in this series Beach Dreams about a friend of the woman from this book. La-ti-da.

This evening I am beginning my tutoring sessions in Trig, Geometry, and other various maths... for a woman who is studying for the GMAT.... unfortunately she will not be taking this test until the fall... maybe with the tutoring sessions she will be ready at a quicker pace...and I won't have to tutor through the summer. That would really not be good. Messing with my vacation times...I am looking forward to tutoring someone in English... maybe some writing help.


AND I am finally planning a research trip somewhere in Alabama...maybe Eutaw or another good small town in Bama... for my heroine to run away to and open up her own coffee/music/book shop. Yeah.

Convenience isn't always convenient

So finished another book today, this one by one of my favorite authors, Denise Hunter. Sweetwater Gap is the story of a girl who comes home to her family's apple orchard to help her pregnant-with-twins sister run the place with the orchard foreman, Grady Mackenzie. Of course, she left the orchard because of inward demons and has come back only to help and then run away again...but alas destiny has better plans and all that jazz...

And I talked out some of my "novel" ideas yesterday with my snarky roommate...after she commented on my last blog with her not-appreciated comments :). I do agree with her on why I can't make the two characters end up together because I can't see them together in real life. It would bother me to no end. Someone with less drama needs to enter my life so I have some more inspiration... know anyone that fits that bill?

Tangent

It seems I forgot what I really wanted to write about lately... writing about trivial events and petty arguments, instead of updating my "novel" ideas. Well, no more trivialities. It's back to titles that truly make no sense whatsoever and story ideas that may or may not come to fruition.

This morning I finished reading Meg Cabot's newest book (as written by Mia Thermopolis) called Ransom My Heart. It was not bad considering it was a historical romance novel written by a fictional character from a teen series written by an author who loves writing sappy romance. I very much enjoy Meg Cabot, especially her non-Princess Diaries books. Her "boys" series is wonderful and She Went All the Way was an excellent story as well.

Because I am so into reading books like Meg Cabot's, I am torn as to what kind of book I should start with in my career. Should I start in romantic fiction? Or will that ruin my credibility when I want to go into Christian fiction? (Refer to Stealing Adda by Tamara Leigh) Should I write a non-fiction snarky girl book giving advice to guys? I just don't know.

Lately, I have wanted to continue with my original story, but include more aggression in the first scene, maybe a punch or two. Seriously, in everything that I have seen or read the past couple of weeks has convinced me that not enough people express their true emotions and let everything fester until it goes beyond a punch or two. Or even a hair pull or strong yank.
I mean really, wouldn't that first scene from blog 1 be more improved when that witch walks in to try and steal the groom if the bride-to-be just rares back and lets the girl have it in the nose? And then runs out. Yeah. Much better. I feel better now. haha.

Also, I don't know if I want the two main characters to end up together anymore. Why you ask? Well, because these two characters are based on real people of course. You think I have that much of an imagination that I can just conjure fake people out of thin air? I think not. I would just seem weird these two being together now. I don't know. I liked the additional guy to be added later... maybe the groom stays with the intruder and marries her after the bride flees. Maybe she finds this out a couple of years later when they cross paths and he is still unhappy and she is able to find closure... hmm... good? no? This girl needs a fella with NO drama. No past girlfriends that would want to ruin someone's wedding day. No apprehension whatsoever.

I still don't know where I want to set this novel. Any ideas? I was thinking somewhere out West...maybe Colorado or Oregon? Any thoughts on those?

Be back later.

Passenger

So I have thought up another story line to add to my first novel idea...seeing as it is "National Novel Writing Month"... so yesterday I commented saying that I would not be continuing with the present story line as is because it has been mirroring my own life way too much. So after having some "girl time" with some of my friends and talking about our several guy friends that serve no potential whatsoever to any of us other than "friends" I decided to add another guy to mix....I know, original. Whatever.

Anywho... in order to insure that everyone can be a winner although I don't think everyone will be a winner in my book... it's my book I can make someone lose if I want to... I will be adding another guy to confuse matters further between our two main characters that have been ripped apart by doubt...and the past... idk. It's a work in progress... I will not have 50,000 words written on this book by the end of the month... I would say I won't have 50,000 words written by the end of next year...

It may not be a very original story line...but frankly what is these days? These are the types of things that happen in real life so I will be writing about them and really don't care if you think I can think of something better than I what I already have. It's really not like people actually read this blog anyway so I can write whatever the heck I want...right?






So in my first blog attempt I included some synopsis material from my book..."wip" that it is.
Extension of first book...take 31.

3 years later our main female character is in "hiding" from those who she felt most betrayed by...that is the main male character, who she thinks has married the intrusive hussy who interrupted her wedding and caused so much of a ruckus that the main female character is now in hiding.......(heavy breathing).

Still deciding whether to give our main female character some middle of the road job like at Starbucks or some flower shop or something or give her a more substantial career.

New fellow shows up at her place of work (TBD) and flirts and asks her on a date...new unknown to her triangle begins... as the main male character is still searching for her. The new fellow and she get along really well and like many of the same things...she feels herself giving a little more of her heart to him each day...but is still holding back that part of her past that may or may not scare him away.

Now here's where it can start to look too much like some Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook plagiarism... the main male character finally finds her... but in the arms of another man...Dah duh duh!

Does he go back home to get over her or does he interfere and try to win her back and convince her there is no one else in the world but her for him? Find out next time. If you dare...

Too cheesy for you? Not cheesy enough?
I guess there's no pleasing anyone these days...


And unlike Stephenie Meyer I am not listening to Muse... who I find to be a mediocre and uninspiring band. Sorry.

I am however listening to Coldplay. They don't necessarily inspire scenes from me but the songs are really nice to listen to when I am typing...so there.

Jiffy Padded

Settling down...getting into a routine and becoming a regular part of my workplace is a nice feeling. And being appreciated is also nice. Today, one of my co-workers said that the curator commented on my seeming like a "happy camper". I hope that was a compliment. She said he meant it as one so I will take it as one. So there. Apparently, it pays to laugh all of the time. I am more than willing to laugh all day if no one objects. And if it does not scare away the students...
We'll see.

I have developed an extensive itunes library at my computer desk. Bad idea. A lot of it was music I had previously acquired, but having this new privilege on my computer will deplete my checking account faster than anything else I will do. Even rent. Seriously. It's a problem that I am living with...without remedy. An intervention will do no good.

So I read the book The Graduate the other day. Didn't really like it. Not that it wasn't witty or well written, it was. I guess I just didn't like the characters... too influenced although they thought they were the outsiders. Blah blah blah...

Skimmed the sequel Home School, which was about Benjamin and Elaine Braddock living in NY home schooling their 2 sons and dealing with the fact that apparently no one in the community approves of their decision to take their sons out of the school system. They fight back by inviting old Mrs. Robinson over to take care of things... and all she manages to do is alienate herself further from her family. Major...major...character flaws. No one is learning anything besides don't trust the old hussy...ever.

Still trying to figure out which storyline I want to go with for my first story. I think when I move to Portland next fall I will look for jobs only dealing with publishing companies and the like. That way I can get more experience with looking for good and bad ways to present writings and good and bad ways to actually write. The story I really want to start with is starting to feel a little too real... like it might actually happen to me...that I don't want to start it for fear I will have to finish it on how it actually happens...which probably won't be in my favor. If you want to know which story I am referring to please go back to my first blog and the synopsis will be there.