Tag: Meme

Thursday Thirteen: Diva-versary

 

13 Things I’ve Learned as a Diva

 

I’ve been a member of the Romance Divas for a year now. I was looking for information on writing and found this place last summer as I was just starting to get serious about trying this writing thing again. I knew I had a lot to learn and I needed someplace that was going to be supportive yet honest. The forums are active and the group of people there are amazing. All the Divas (and the DivaDudes too) are creative, funny, thoughtful people who believe in the pay it forward principle. The site is one of those rare entities – a strictly enforced flame-free zone.

1. Pink feather boas are an attitude and pink isn’t ALL evil.
2. Bria‘s right, Flantastic is a perfectly good word!
3. Cup o’ Noodles is very good at making me think.
4. The dark side has cookies, but they just might be (theoretically) burned. Just kidding, Dana!
5. I’m not alone. Or if the chat room’s empty, just wait a bit someone will show up.
6. I can write around 40k words in a month if I put my mind to it and if I know EXACTLY what I’m passionate about, I can write 1200 words in a half hour.
7. We’re all a little unhinged in our own ways and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
8. Nothing is written in stone and you can’t fix a blank page.
9. Hitting refresh doesn’t help people post faster.
10. Back up more often and in more places than you think you need to.
11. Just sayin’… covers a multitude of situations.
12. Plotters and pantsers are very different critters.
13. “What Gwen said.” is always a good answer no matter the question.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Nicholas 2 Tink 3 On a limb with Claudia
4 SandyCarlson 5 Carol 6 The Pink Flamingo
7 Nadia Lee 8 Alice Audrey 9 Tempest Knight
10 Nina Pierce 11 marcia@joyismygoal 12 Talk About My Favorite Authors
13 Jennifer McKenzie 14 Paige Tyler 15 Chris
16 Moondancerdrake 17 18

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Grrrr!

 

13 Things That Irritated Me Today

 

Sorry, no pretty pictures today. I’m stuck on my old, slow desktop and I now get why my kids complain when I tell them they can use it to look up something instead of commandeering my laptop when I’m trying to use it. *grumble*

1. My laptop refuses to boot.
2. This meant I couldn’t do my morning rounds of checking email, sites, forums to wake up.
3. I also couldn’t jump straight into my journal entry for the day and save it in the usual spot.
4. Getting to camp and realizing DD forgot a towel for their water games today and that I’ve already put 230 miles on my van since Monday. Good thing I got those new tires, huh?
5. When I tried to make a restoration CD, the DVD drive on my desktop went AWOL.
6. After several hours of not doing anything different (yes, I tried reseating the cables earlier too) it worked fine.
7. Realizing that the restoration CD that finally burned was the wrong one.
8. Realizing that MAX speed isn’t most reliable speed. Anyone need coasters? AOL doesn’t send any these days.
9. Getting screwed by the guy at Staples (Yeah… that was EASY!) because he doesn’t know what specials they’re running in their weekly flier. He gave me $3 back for 2 recycled ink cartridges that I was replacing, but when I argued it was supposed to be $15 each he got confused and left the original $6 credit and gave me one more for $15 and realizing I won’t see that $21 anyway, because it was on DH’s company rewards card.
10. Getting whined at that I didn’t rip the desired Pokémon songs all day because of the stupid DVD drive.
11. Apple’s crappy support forums and troubleshooting guides are just sad. And unhelpful.
12. Wasting several hours on all this and having to pick up my office and do dishes instead.
13. My laptop still refuses to boot.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Talk About My Favorite Authors 2 SJ Reidhead 3 Tempest Knight
4 Paige Tyler 5 Jennifer McKenzie 6 Alice Audrey

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!</a

Thursday Thirteen: Ritzy!

Thursday Thirteen Banner
New In Stores

 

13 Things to be Puttin’ on the Ritz

 

I found the coolest thing at the grocery store yesterday. I know I paid too much for it, but it made sense for our house. You know how Ritz crackers come in those huge sleeves that are supposed to feed like 10 people? Ok, so either the whole thing gets eaten or only a handful get taken out and then the rest go stale. This new packaging is probably not the most environmentally friendly, but I bet we waste a lot fewer crackers!

My favorite thing to put on Ritz crackers is Philadelphia Cream Cheese. It can have other stuff like strawberry jam OR pepperoni or a variety of things. No olives though… Bleah.

Anyway, having a whole box of Ritz crackers in nice little convenient packs, I decided to look around for some ideas to put something different on top of them. These are all form the Nabisco site, enjoy!

1. RITZ Cheesy-Crab Topper
2. Creamy Apple Bites
3. RITZ Hot Cheese Snacks
4. Blueberry Cracker Bites
5. RITZ® “Bruschetta”
6. Buffalo Chicken Bites
7. Mini Cracker Sandwiches
8. Zesty Roast Beef Bites
9. Ham and Cheddar Snacks
10. Peanut Butter and Apple RITZ
11. Fiesta Topper
12. RITZ Cheese Nachos
13. RITZ®-y Bitsy Cheeseburgers

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Tuffy the chihuahua 2 SandyCarlson 3 Shannon
4 sobeit 5 Diana M 6 SJ Reidhead
7 marcia@joyismygoal 8 Carol 9 kim
10 Talk About My Favorite Authors 11 Paige Tyler 12 Tempest Knight
13 Marina Berryman 14 Alice Audrey 15 Rae
16 Karen of Sillymonkeez 17 Myrtle Beached Whale 18

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Owls

 

13 Owls My Daughter Likes

 

DD is crazy about owls. For nine years she has collected owls: stuffed owls, puppets, ceramic, carved stone, ones made of gourds, rings, necklaces, any kind really. She is a walking encyclopedia of owl specific knowledge. She loves explaining how you can tell male and female Snowy owls apart, especially if someone refers to her first owl as a “he”.

Her favorites are Snowy Owls because when she was two, DH brought her back one from Seattle. Snowy has been just about everywhere DD has been: school, camping, the doctor’s, the Zoo and several other places. She’s a well-traveled little owl. Unfortunately, she looks it too. Her beak has been replaced, her wing resewn on, and she survived major neck surgery when her head popped off at one point.

BTW: IE 7 sucks and may completely undo my careful formatting. Firefox is much better for you anyway. =P Go get it. Now. Kthxbye.

1. Barn Owl – these guys have white heart-shaped facial disks. Soren from the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series is a barn owl.
2. Boreal Owl
3. Burrowing Owl – You probably recognize these owls from the movie and book, “Hoot” written by Carl Hiaasen. They are different from other owls, because of living above the ground in trees or cacti, they will take over abandoned fox dens or holes in the ground to live in.
4. Elf Owl – These cute little guys live in catci in the desert.
5. Great Grey Owl – the mothers are VERY protective of their chicks.
6. Great Horned Owl
7. Northern Hawk Owl
8. Northern Sawhet Owl
9. Pygmy Owl – these little guys weigh around 3 ounces and are between 2 and 4 inches tall.
10. Short-eared Owl
11. Spotted Owl
12. Spotted Wood Owl
13. Snowy Owl – You can tell this is a female because she has spots. Male Snowy Owls are pure white. The chicks start out grey and as they get older they gain more white feathers.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 gdaybloke 2 Lilibeth 3 Allison
4 Susan Helene Gottfried 5 Carol 6 Di
7 sobeit 8 SandyCarlson 9 Stephanie Secrest
10 Talk About My Favorite Authors 11 Ava Rose Johnson 12

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Apps

Thursday Thirteen

 

The 13 Applications I Use Most

 

What computer programs do you use that you just couldn’t get through the week without? Yes, this is a biased Mac user’s list. Anyway, mine are, in no real order of preference:

1. Microsoft Word

I use this on a daily basis. My journal entries have been kept in this as my handwriting has deteriorated to an unreadable scrawl because of typing everything and a decided lack of practice. I can also type faster than I write so, it seemed no contest. I’ve learned to use many of the features that I’d never touched before. I’ve learned to merge files, use the comments and revision tracking, set up different styles and even how to set up a concordance file to generate an index. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to jump to those indexed entries automatically within the program. One of the joys of using a Mac is not everything is as advertised for PC.

2. Microsoft Excel

I’m a spreadsheet junkie. I have one set up to track how many words and how much time I’ve been spending on a project. I’ve used this mostly during WriMos to chart my progress. I also use it a lot for Cub Scouts.

3. Microsoft Entourage

E-Mail. Can’t live with spam and can’t live without the cheap, fast communication. I subscribe to far too many mailing lists and newsletters. I would not survive without all my rules for sorting the deluge into separate folders that I can check based on priority or curiousity. I’ve also been using the calendar function and it’s made getting events onto DH’s calendar at work much easier as well. I also use this to organize contacts over the default address book.

4. FireFox

I only use the above Micro$oft products because there aren’t alternatives with which I’m willing to spend the time it would to familiarize myself and not lose productivity. Firefox is just plain better than IE in many ways. It’s not just a religious war, it’s a practical thing as well, since things render correctly in Firefox and NOT IE. *grumble* That and they’ve even stopped supporting IE on the mac, at least the banks and other finicky places are mostly allowing FireFox access now.

5. Online-Stopwatch

Ah, this is my friend for chat challenges. I wore out my kitchen timer last fall. My laptop doesn’t like it as much as I do. It tends to make it run even warmer than usual. You can use this little flash applet on the webpage or download your own. Twenty-minutes of focus, coming up!

6. Adobe Photoshop

Why don’t Macs come with a basic paint progra any more? Oh yeah, they expect people to be more hardcore. I’m learning all sorts of stuff with this one as well. I finally broke down and put it on my laptop.

7. iTunes

I often forget I have music at my fingertips. I used to listen to music all the time, but lately it’s been an after thought. On the laptop I’ve limited song choices to instrumental pieces as I find lyrics very distracting as I’m trying to write.

8. A Cook’s Books

I love collecting recipes. I may never fix some of the ones I’ve got, but I love reading them and getting ideas. This is as powerful, if not moreso, as MasterCook for the PC. What’s better is that it reads MasterCook and several other formats and has a great developer who cares about what he’s making and good food as well.

9. Adium

Ahh… another time sink. This is basically an instant messenger client that talks to all the different servers. You can use AIM, GoogleTalk, yahoo and several others. Everything’s in one place and you don’t have to think about who’s on which service.

10. BBedit

This is a mac text editor. I use it for composing html, Thursday Thirteens and anything that needs sorting lists that aren’t already in excel. This is a holdover from the text game days, but I love it.

11. Quicken Personal Finances 2007 for Mac

Quicken. Yup. I have a bachelor’s in Business Administration and Economics. I hate balancing my checkbook. This at least makes it kind of fun with the fast reports and pretty graphs. They just need to support the Mac better. C’mon, guys!

12. Delicious Library

This is a fairly new tool for me. I haven’t used it enough as I need to. My laptop came with a camera in it. You can use this program and the camera to scan the barcodes on books, CDs, DVDs and computer games to keep track of what you have. I got one bookshelf done. Phew. We have WAY too many pieces of media that need to go in here.

13. Adobe Reader

This is my reader of choice over the mac’s Preview. There’s just something about it’s two-page up view that makes reading e-books on my laptop more comfortable.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Lanie Fuller 2 Heather 3 Carol –
4 Talk About My Favorite Authors 5 Savannah Chase 6 amy
7 Susan Helene Gottfried 8 Tempest Knight 9 Paige Tyler
10 Los Angeles Traveler 11 Bernie 12 Winter

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Tagged! Twice!

Life’s been crazy again with all the end of the school year stuff going on. The monsters are in school until June 12th, and you better believe I’m counting the days. Why does life always have to happen at once? Hrm.

Seems while I wasn’t looking, I got tagged twice. Ok… catching up with those first!

 

Meme #1

We’re playing Telephone again, only this time Alice is calling it “Whisper.” So you can’t pound the keys–type lightly or the spell will be broken.

The rules:

1. Make a change in the paragraph below. It can be as little as a single word or almost every word, so long as we can still recognize the paragraph you received from the person who tagged you ( me, Kaige), not the original paragraph (by Alice).

The paragraph I wrote based on Andi’s:

He came from the bathroom, a plunger in one hand and a tool chest in the other. His name was Mario, but she’d always called him El Cabron. She said he could ¡vete a la mierda! Instead of cursing her, he took her in his arms and plumbed her depths.

The paragraph I wrote based Dana Belfry, Kelsey Simmons and Jennifer Leeland

3. Also link to the person who tagged you ( me ) so the chain will not be broken.

4. Go to the original paragraph at Alice’s Restaurant and let her know you did it so she can link back to you. For extra credit, head over to http://AliceAudrey.wordpress.com around June 9th for the contest based on this meme.

You could win a $20 gift certificate!

 

Meme #2

Dana added to my obligations today. But it seems like a quick easy one and to do it, I had to do the other one first.

This one is called the 1-2-3 tag (hey, stop complaining it’s a short one!) and it goes like this:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people: Bethanne, Kat Oxley, Gina Ardito, Dayna Hart and Andi (hey, fair’s fair).

From Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother

Dad was driving me nuts, though.
“You’re being paranoid, Marcus,” he told me over breakfast one dayy as I told him about the guys I’d seen the cops shaking down on the BART the day before.
“Dad, it’s ridiculous. They’re not catching any terrorists, are they? It’s just making people scared.”

Luckily, I was a bit farther into the book than this. I’m really enjoying this read — very techie and very liberal, but the narrator’s voice flows so smoothly through the minefields of current politics.

Thursday Thirteen: Icecream!

 

13 Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Flavors

 

April 30th is/was 31 Cent Scoop Night at Baskin Robbins. We didn’t event try to buy 13 flavors, but we could have for only about $4.36! There was a limit of 10 scoops per person. And there were about 80 people outside the shop waiting to get inside!

Anyway, here’s some of the flavors we COULD didn’t want to stand in line for. DS got mint chocolate chip, DD got bubblegum, and I had butter pecan from Dairy Queen.

1. Oreo Cookies & Cream
2. Very Berry Strawberry
3. Chocolate
4. Chocolate Chip
5. Pralines & Cream
6. Cookie Dough
7. Rocky Road
8. Peanut Butter ‘n Chocolate
9. Pistachio Almond
10. Gold Medal Ribbon
11. Nutty Coconut
12. Chocolate Fudge
13. Pink Bubblegum

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 kay 2 Meg Cypher 3 Kimberly Menozzi
4 Debbie Mumford 5 Nina Pierce 6 Jennifer McKenzie
7 Paige Tyler 8 TLC 9 Susan Helene Gottfried
10 Robin L. Rotham 11 12

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Old Friends

 

13 Repeatedly Reread Books

 

I’m sort of borrowing this idea from Nicholas over at A Gentleman’s Domain. I’m sure there will be little overlap.

When he posted his list the other week, I commented saying how some books were like comfort food. It’s just comforting to curl up with them and spend some time with old friends. Some may be familiar to you, many may not. I’ll curl up with them any time.

1. Joan D. Vinge, The Snow Queen: Definitely from my sci-fi/fantasy period. This book is battered and worn from all the times I read it in high school. I’m also ashamed to say, the edges of the pages are garishly colored with marker. I knew it was mine though!
2. Marion Zimmer Bradley, Hawkmistress: I think I scoured every local bookstore, new and used, looking for Darkover books. I’ve reread many of them, but these two are my favorites. In this one a young girl with a talent for telepathy with birds ends up caring for three monstrous banshee birds and doing her part in the war.
3. Marion Zimmer Bradley, Stormqueen: This one graphically illustrates what happens when uncontrolled hormones are unleashed. It’s your every nightmare about the teenage years, multiplied a thousand-fold because the heroine controls the weather. Except for the part about the weather, I could relate.
4. Madeleine L’Engle, The Moon by Night: Yep, I read all the Murray books (A Wrinkle In Time et al), but I was always partial to the Austins for some reason. I still use the word “zuggy” to describe the richness of lobster and how you can only eat so much of it before feeling sick. Zachary fascinated me with his older, more sophisticated ways just like he did poor Vicky.
5. Madeleine L’Engle, A Ring of Endless Light: Zach’s back and he’s still flirting with death. However, Vicky has a new friend, Adam (from Arm of the Starfish also well worn). This one never fails to make me cry, yet overall it is uplifting. It definitely sits at the crossroads of hard science, philosophy and science fiction.
6. Anne McCaffrey, The Lady: Another coming of age story. With horses. I think this actually belonged to DH (his family loved Pern too). It’s become a close friend of mine as well, along with The Year of the Lucy.
7. Anne McCaffrey, Three Women: Three novellas in one. Horses, dogs and back to Ireland. Ring of Fear is probably my favorite of the three, followed closely by Mark of Merlin which is actually a WWII set story. The Kilternan Legacy rounds out the volume and is a fun but at times too realistic a look at dysfunctional people. Ring of Fear has its share of those as well, but I’m a sucker for the horses and I love Orfeo (the horse) and Eurydice (the Maine coon cat).
8. Debra Dier, Scoundrel: Even after knowing the “mystery” I keep going back to this one. There’s something about the characters that keep pulling me back to them.
9. Kat Martin, Gyspy Lord: I was on a Gypsy obsession for a while trying to find a book I’d read in the 80s. It was about a Lord who had grown up with his Gypsy mother and ended up fighting for Romany rights in the House of Lords. This isn’t that book. It’s good in its own way, but I wish I could find the other again.
10. Shirley Busbee, Gypsy Lady: This time the girl’s raised by the gypsies and focuses on her story as she must decide between her two worlds.
11. Marguerite Henry, Misty of Chincoteague: Did I mention I was horse mad when I was younger? We owned several Appaloosas at one point. I think I’ve read just about every Marguerite Henry book in print numerous times. This and King of the Wind were two of my favorites. It always impressed me that those Spanish ponies survived on Assateague as long as they did.
12. Suzanne Enoch, England’s Perfect Hero: Post Traumatic Stress Regency style. This is the second in a series and my heart breaks for this poor guy trying to rejoin the world he fought to preserve. Amazing read.
13. Julia Quinn, The Viscount Who Loved Me: I had a hard time picking between the first several Bridgerton books for a representative one. I picked this one because I’m allergic to bees as well. Thankfully not as tragically as Anthony’s father. I also have a soft spot in my heart for Kate, and what a wicked game of Pall Mall. I’d love to have been there.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Susan Helene Gottfried 2 marcia v 3 storyteller
4 On a Limb with Claudia 5 Nicholas 6 Jennifer McKenzie
7 Debora Dennis 8 Kimberly Menozzi 9 December
10 Bethanie 11 Maribeth 12 Imogen Howson
13 Bethanne 14 Winter 15 Paige Tyler
16 Robin L. Rotham 17 Di 18 Debbie Mumford
19 Kathleen Oxley 20 21

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Most Played

 

13 Most Played Songs in My iTunes

 

Below is list of my top 13 played songs on my desktop’s iTunes. Wow. I like really depressing music. I hadn’t realized how dismal the outlook in many of these songs was until I looked up the lyrics for all of them. I think “Flower In A Rocky Land” is the exception.

See the problem is, I can learn all the words to a song, read the lyrics even and not always “get” what the song’s about. DH laughs at me for this all the time. Good thing I was never one for calling in dedication requests. Although I did find it hysterical that people would dedicate the Heart song about finding a baby daddy and having a one night stand with him to their boyfriends. Hunh?? Whatever.

Anyway… here’s what are apparently the songs I listen to the most.

1. Duncan Sheik Barely Breathing (Acoustic version — link isn’t that one)
This poor guy keeps going back for more. He knows the relationship’s a bad deal, and yet he’s still gonna repeat the same old pattern again.

2. Sting Tempted (Live Version, Cover of the Squeeze classic tune — link is to Squeeze video)
Nothing like a little ditty about an affair to liven up the day.

3. Talking Heads And She Was
Phew. Not so depressing, but proof of better living through chemistry. I prefer to think she’s high on life, but hey, this is David Byrne we’re talking bout.

4. Alejandro Escovedo Castanets (link is to a live show in Austin. I miss Austin. The sound’s kinda iffy, but definitely shows off the energy of the song).
Rockin’ tune about a guy who likes her better when she walks away. Why she keeps coming back to him, I don’t know.

5. Billie Myers Kiss the Rain
Another little ditty about the other side of the affair. She’s begging him to go out and stand in the rain instead of cheating on her.

6. Kirsty MacColl In These Shoes?
She doesn’t like to walk, she can’t ride a horse, but the way she dances, it’s a scandal! A real shame we lost this artist’s sense of humor.

7. Amanda Marshall Sunday Morning After
This song always cracks me up. Alcholic blackout episodes shouldn’t be so amusing.

8. Dana Cooper Flower In A Rocky Land
The one truly hopeful song in the bunch. We’ve known Dana for a long time now and he’s an amazing song writer. I couldn’t find a video of this song, but here’s another great song of his, Great Day in the Morning.

9. Emmylou Harris I don’t Wanna Talk About It Now
I had to laugh when I saw the offer for a free ringtone of this song. Too funny.

10. Jack Johnson Drink The Water
Dark, eerie and mesmorizing. I’m still not quite sure what it’s about.

11. Patty Griffin Every Little Bit
Amazing singer/songwriter. Another song about a relationship gone horribly wrong and the haunting memories of it.

12. a-Ha Minor Earth Major Sky
Its all about perspective. How inconsequential we are in the universe.

13. Evanesence Bring Me To Life
Yes, this proves how eclectic my tastes in music truly are. She’s got an amazing voice. This one’s about feeling numb and lost inside and yearning to feel alive again.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Irishcoda 2 SandyCarlson 3 Sandier Pastures
4 Debora Dennis 5 Alice Audrey 6 R.G. Alexander
7 Robin L. Rotham 8 Kat’s Krackerbox 9 Paige Tyler

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Tagged!

I’ve been tagged again. This time by Dana Belfry.

You’re feeling: lazy and unmotivated

To your left: the fireplace, I’m on the laptop in the living room

On your mind: since DH took today off work, what we’re going to do this weekend that’s fun and impulsive as opposed to what we SHOULD do this weekend that’s not so fun — DS voted for Vegas, go figure. Don’t know how much writing I’m going to get done this weekend.

Last meal included: Breakfast was Stonyfield Farms Chocolate Truffle yogurt

You sometimes find it hard to: do all the things I’m supposed to be doing instead of all the things I want to be doing

The weather: clear, breezy and heading for the upper 80s this weekend

Something you have a collection of: all of my own? Hmmm. that leaves out the books, CDs, DVDs, video games for every console known to man… cookbooks and Longaberger baskets!

A smell that cheers you up: hot chocolate

A smell that can ruin your mood: burnt popcorn

How long since you last shaved: if DH doesn’t have to, why should I? *halo*

The current state of your hair: pulled back in a ponytail

The largest item on your desk/workspace (not computer): Desk? Where’s that? Oh yeah… it’s that big thing I rarely sit at since I got a laptop for Christmas. Biggest thing on it would be our HP Officejet 9130 printer.

Your skill with chopsticks: decent, but rice and noodles still often escape me

Which section do you head for first in a bookstore: if I’m not drug off to the kids section: romance, then F/SF/Mystery

Something you’re craving: chocolate, always…

Your general thoughts on the presidential race: NEXT!

How many times have you been hospitalized this year: zero!

Favorite place to go for a quiet moment: the bathroom — I’m a mom, but it doesn’t always work

You’ve always secretly thought you’d be a good: romance writer…. hmmm… guess that one’s not so secret any more! And the jury’s still out…

Something that freaks you out a little: TMI and how much some people are willing to share with complete strangers

Something you’ve eaten too much of lately: chocolate

You have never: had a professional manicure — I should

You never want to: get up early in the morning

The four people I’m tagging: MJ Fierstein, Unhinged, Morgan St. John, and Gina Ardito