Happy Bunny always has the best quotes! So inappropriate that it always brightens my day!

:) I liked this picture... I'm such a kid. Everyone always has all these beautiful pictures and here I am putting on the happy bunny. But I like this one!

So I started reading the second book... which is taking me forever! I find that I read hard core mystery books much slower, taking in all the facts so that in my head I can put all the pieces together. So yeah, not even half way through! I'm working on it though. And between the reading, the working and the house hunting my weekends is packed!

I'll keep you guys posted on everything. Next day off is Thursday - by which time I should be done with these books and back to my second edits. Yup, my goal... and sticking to it! (Yes Christine! You are a great influence ;)

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Psycho dog... meet psycho cat. :)

All right... I just started reading the next book in the competition. Yay! But, I have a serious bone to pick with the last one. Have you ever read a book and thought to yourself 'Self, where have I read this before?' Well... I can officially say it was my first, and hopefully (I might add) my last!

You all know Janet Evanovich is one of my favourite authors... well... lets just say I love the Plum Series, in all honesty I could do without the rest of them. Anyways, the first book I read for the competition was shockingly the same type of Plum character (different name of course) who had a side kick type (Hero ;) whose name... drumroll please... was Ranger Rick! If you've read the Plum series... you know why I was screaming in my living room when I first read this. The main character is the same ditsy blonde who screws up just about everything she touches and finds dead bodies as if they fell out of the sky.

Every time I forced myself to get over it... I would stumble upon yet another similarity! And I won't lie to you, at one point it just began to piss me off! I don't mean to be rude (okay, maybe just a tinge) but was there an original thought in this persons brain? And didn't she have the, "Wow, this is a great story, I must be brilliant to come up with it - I wonder where I could have come up with such cool idea' moment?

It would have been such a great story if it weren't for those damn similarities that kept throwing me off and getting my panties in a bunch. So, author A from book A... psycho dog is in your honour!

Have a great day everyone!

Setting me some goals... maybe Christine's organizational and goal setting skills are finally rubbing off on me! :)

Okay... enough stalling! I woke up determined today... with voices yelling in my head! I have to finish the second round of edits! Then I thought... holy _____ (fill in the blanks) I still have the competition to judge - which by the way I still have only read the first two pages (many times - because I keep starting over!) I love the Kiss of Death competitions! I get introduced to so many wonderful new authors - yet... I'm in no rush to get started! WHY?!!

So I decided today on three damn commitments for May. Three! I figured I should take baby steps since I haven't been keeping any of them for the past three months! Okay so here they are...

1. Come hell or high water I will be at the May meeting! Seriously! I feel like it's been ages since I've seen all of you! Wait - it has been! I haven't seen you guys since the Test The Nation taping. Which by the way, does anyone know the airing date? Anyways I was looking up the meeting details, and noticed that this meeting is being hosted by a screenwriter... hmmm... interesting. Does anyone know this Nika person? Is she part of TRW? It will definitely be interesting hearing someone other than book authors talk about characterization. I'm intrigued. Who's going to be there? Tell me you all will!

2. I will finish (and start) reading these damn books by the end of next week! April 28. There! I will then give myself 2 days to get my comments on paper... and then that's it! I'm sending the suckers off!

3. I know the above goal was technically for April, but if I can finish it by then I can concentrate on my real May goal! TRYING (yes Amy it's that important, and in all honesty I don't know how well I'll succeed with my concentration level ;) to finish the second round edits on Mafia Blood. It's killing me that I don't even know where I stashed the 300 some odd pages of print outs and edits for the book (and yes... before anyone starts with me... I know I kill trees!) I cleaned my house for the real estate agent thinking that I probably wouldn't even be touching them until October... I hid them so well I don't even know where to begin! So step one is finding them. Cross your fingers I can concentrate for more than five minutes without wanting to scream and pull my hair out!

Now you see me... now you don't! Sorry... not funny!

I'm sorry I haven't been posting! I totally suck - I know! :) But between the Daphne competition - which in all honesty I haven't even opened the first book to judge - :( Yeah... have been meaning to do that! But I have been so busy trying to get my house spotless so that we can put it out on the market! Yay! (Can I just say - for very selfish reasons, I am so glad we're selling the house now when I'm preggers because my husband has to do the painting! :) I always paint... and never abuse his services... paybacks a... well you know. :)

So right now I'm working, cleaning, dealing with real estate agents and of course trying to find a house for all of us to live in... yeah, that would be nice if we all had a home. I'm so excited to be adopting my sister... we're very close and since my parents won't live in Ontario anymore it'll be great to have my only other family member with us... so close. Remind me of this post... when I'm crying 6 months from now because we're going to kill each other living under the same roof! :) (Love you Editor Jen!)

So once my life gets somewhat settled I'll be back posting all the time again, until then it might be off and on... hopefully more on than off!

I have been reading everyone elses post because I can't even pull myself away from you guys for more than a day... I miss you all too much! Speaking of which, I'm so upset I wasn't able to go to the TRW meeting this month... but I'm living vicariously through your stories! :)

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

Opening my e-mail today... Hello Sex!!!

So today at around 5ish in the morning I slowly get out of bed... half asleep, but unfortunately too awake (you all know what I'm talking about) and stumble to my laptop for something to do at this ungodly hour. Check my e-mails... yeah!

I see an e-mail from Christine (you all know where this is going now don't you?) I open the e-mail to find an excited 'Got the cover.' So slowly but surely I wait until the file uploads and opens... and... Holy Sex! Seriously... you need contraception to just look at the picture! (We'll not me... but you! :D) I seriously don't know what to say... it is so amazingly sexy you need to turn on the air conditioning... or maybe a swim in the lake... yeah... that would cool you off at this time of the year. Except you know you'd look at the picture again... you can't help yourself from looking again and again... and then you're back at square one. Gee... what I'm trying to say is it is truly hot!

Congratulations Christine! And if you haven't already seen the cover... where have you been? Check it out on Christine's blog. Can't wait to read it! Between Wylie's and Christine's books this is going to be one HOT summer! Congrats to both of you. Did I mention that I can't wait?

Oh, and by the way... I'm awake now! :) Better than coffee!

You're all sooooo amazing!

:) You guys are all so amazing!!! Your comments have absolutely made my day! :)

Michelle - Thank you! And I'm counting on getting some of those brain cells back... I have to! I need them! I feel bad when I forget peoples names - which tends to be all the time! :)

Thomma Lyn - Thank you! We'll see if the kitty is as excited as we are... she's a jealous little girl, and in all honesty she's slightly psycho - I think she was abused or something before we adopted her and she gets evil sometimes. I'm slightly afraid of her reaction to a baby, but I guess all we can do is cross our fingers and hope for the best. :)

Amy - :) Yes... I was pregnant at TTN. Which is also why A) I was late, B) I forgot my makeup (how the hell does someone forget makeup when they're going to be on TV?) C) Why I yelled at my husband all the way there to step on it! :) I'm really looking forward to your psychic ability in telling me if it's a boy or girl. I remember you telling me that you have a 100% accuracy rate! :) And yeah, I really am hoping that some brain cells come back. At least I'm starting to get some more energy. I swear to you... this was the first time since being a child that I was conked out every night by 8! :)

Wylie - You so funny! Yeah... I swear to you I work 12 hour days - which is normal... the problem was I slept the other 12 hours! There was no time to do anything else! ;) And yeah... the mommy brain - My doctor laughed at me when my answer to her - What symptoms have you been seeing - I said "I'm getting stupid! Help me!" :) I blame my TTN score on this :) Plus... my eyes are getting bad (which in my opinion is just about the oddest pregnancy symptom I have ever heard of) I'm friggin' going blind! And everyone just says... it will go away. I won't be at the next TRW meeting. :( I still haven't found a friggin' part time assistant manager and unless I leave my full time assistant in the store on a Saturday by herself - which I would never do because somewhere inside my body there is a heart. :) But I'm hoping to have one by the May meeting... I need a Saturday off! As for how far... not far... just a little over 3 months... but for some reason, I swear it's not my eating since I haven't had an appetite, I already feel like I'm the size of a mac truck! ;)

Thank you guys for everything! We're really happy and excited, and I was really happy to finally let this secret out of the bag! Amy - you sent out a meme in late February - the 50 things about me... which I will do tomorrow... because I really wanted to do it and I couldn't honestly do it when you sent it out! I stopped drinking coffee and diet Pepsi - which in all honesty were my lifelines and I couldn't write it because if anyone read this who knew me would have totally known right away! That's kind of how my sister found out... we went to Starbucks together and I ordered a hot chocolate... now picture a huge line behind us... a huge line of people waiting for their drinks in front... my sister turns to me and YELLS - Am I going to be an aunt? :)

Okay... now I'm going to sleep... although I have to proudly say it's 12:58am! :) Yay! I'll talk to you all tomorrow and thanks again for all your kind and supportive words everyone!

Confessions...

So as always I wanted to start off with a picture... but in all honesty I'm too tired physically and emotionally drained to even bother. So here are some confessions.

A little while ago my husband and I found out that we were expecting our first. So excited! So emotional. (me mostly.) Which is also why I can't concentrate on my writing. I feel like I dropped down a hundred notches in the brain cells department and I find myself only getting frustrated and irritated. Did anyone else ever feel like this? And how the heck do I get over it? Any suggestions and secrets would be much appreciate because although I've accepted it... it upsets me that I can't concentrate long enough.

Clearly knowing that my mom was not just pulling an April fools on us kills me the most... because it turns out that they did buy a house in Alberta. Which, in all honesty makes me happy if it turns out to make them happy, but I'm sooooooo crushed that although my mom told me that they weren't thinking about moving until October/November (after the baby's due.) Turns out the house they bought will be theirs in August so they'll probably end up leaving then or earlier. :(

This is the last (hopefully) I'll talk about this house/ Alberta thing because it's just too depressing, and I promise to work on some happy posts for the next little while. For you poor guys who actually read my ramblings and for me because my wonderful sister - nurse Jenny - informs me that it's bad for the baby. :)

On a happy note... Wylie... the cover of your book looks amazing! And I can't wait to read it. If you haven't already checked it out do it! What are you waiting for?

Taking me some couple of days off!

So I'm abandoning the blogging world for a couple of days... I'll be back around Friday - just about the time everyone else will be abandoning it for the Easter holidays! :) Yeah, I know, I got great timing.

As for the 'prank', so far it turns out it isn't one so I'm just a smidgen sad. Just a smidgen! *wailing* :)

If you'll be off for some Easter time - I'll miss you and hope you have a great Easter and a wonderful weekend. I'll see you all next week!

My obsessions...

Christine tagged me to reveal five things I obsess over. And although right now my main focus is to find a way to get even with my mom... I still had a list of 5 to put in here... a list that sadly I didn't even need to think about. :)

1.... Facebook. I don't know when I became such a loser... but it feels like it happened over night. One day I was telling my friend that the only reason I signed up to the damn thing was so that I could have yet another way to publicly traumatize him... now I open my e-mail a thousand times just to see if there's an e-mail from facebook. I'm sooooo embarrassed!

2.... Work. I hate travelling to and from work, but when I'm there good luck getting me to leave! An 8 hour day turns into a 9 hour day... turns into a 12 hour day... and yet I still have a million things to do!

3.... Blogging. Something I have once again got back into... although if you notice I have nothing writery to say... nothing writing related. I apologize for this, but lately (for the past 2 months) I haven't been able to concentrate on my writing. It's so sad... and I know some of you might tell me to get back into it... I can't. My brain no longer functions the same way... and I'm not even going to fight it! More of this on Friday.

4.... Sleeping. Obsession? Can't be... right? Wrong! The way I treat my sleep lately can only fall into the obsession department... NOTHING can keep me from my sleep... not my afternoon naps on my days off and not my nightly sleep... wake me and die!

5.... Baking... I hate store bought crap... it never tastes as good as what your craving. Take for instance that damn chocolate cupcake at TTN... I'm still trying to perfect one that's just as good! I'm making a cake version on Friday for Easter. I'm crossing my fingers that it tastes the same... I've been craving it since licking the icing off my fingers!

So that's it! Thanks Christine, for this it was a lot of fun. Now everyone knows how slightly and just slightly :) crazy I am!

April Fu@%in' Fools Day!

Remember how I told you all that my mom is notorious for being flat out EVIL on April Fools? Well... my parents are in Alberta right now. They wanted to go down for a week and see if they want to move down later on in the year. :( Which I wasn't even going to complain about... but last night my mom e-mails me a house that they are going to buy today!

I want my parents to be happy... no matter where they are. So last night I'm crying to my husband about how I can't believe they are planning it sooooo quickly and he looks at me and says... and I quote 'Honey, I wouldn't believe anything your mom has to say today. Remember that it's April fools.'

How did I forget? And if that was a practical joke it's going to be one friggin' quiet Easter because I sure as HELL am not talking to her! Please tell me that all mom's aren't this cruel on this damn day. Please tell me that the rest of you are all normal! And lastly, please tell me how to get even! ;)