So Excited!!

This is my absolute favorite musical, ever! I've watched this at least ten times already. Can't get enough.



Christmas is too far away. :(

Share the Lubov Critique Giveaway

I know it seems like I'm running the I ♥ Karen Show lately, but what can I say? I'm super excited for her. Plus she's having an awesome giveaway to celebrate her book deal, so I have to share.

Up for grabs:

A full manuscript critique from Karen--this alone makes the contest awesome, but then she added this...

A FIRST THREE CHAPTERS CRITIQUE from her agent, Victoria Marini!!!

Contest ends June 1st, so hurry over and check it out!

Congrats, Karen! Wait, didn't I write this post already?

Seems like I was just congratulating crit buddy Karen Akins on getting an agent and now she has a two-book deal! How freaking awesome is that? Way to go, Karen! You're the bomb diggity, yo!*

*This last bit is for my twelve-year-old daughter who is sitting here, watching me write this. She hates when I say that in front of her friends, so of course, it needed to find its way into a blog post for the whole world to see. ;)

Still Alive

Almost three months without a single blog post? I don't think that has ever happened. Well, for those of you who are still around, I haven't completely fallen off the face of the earth, just a little buried lately.

We moved into a new house in March--new to us, anyway. It's been a huge blessing, but there's still so much work to do. It's a bit of a fixer-upper. And how do we have so much stuff? This house is considerably bigger than our last house, but it's already full and we have a very full two car garage without any cars in it. I think sunlight might be causing my junk to multiply. Obviously, the solution is to just seal off the garage and never go in there again. ;) I'm hoping to have it all unpacked by 2014 or whenever.

Awesome things are happening at work. That's all I can say on that for now... But I can say I've been very lucky to find a job I love, working with some pretty great people.

And I'm querying again, so I'm extremely busy refreshing my email every five seconds. It's all about priorities. ;)

So between the house, work, the kids (you'd think they'd require less of my time as they get older--totally not the case), and the major case of strep throat we've all had for the last week, it's a struggle to find time to write, much less blog, but I'm determined to do better. I'm going to shoot for once a week with at least one Word Tip Wednesday post a month. Feel free to chastise me if I'm slacking. :)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Congrats, Karen!

Fabulous writer friend and crit partner Karen Akins got herself one of them fancy literary agents! She just signed with Victoria Marini! So awesome, right? Head on over and congratulate her. :)

Blog Chain: Pieces of Me

It's blog chain time again and I'm late. Despite being a short week thanks to the holiday, it's been a very long week.

This round was started by Jon.

Imagine the home(s) where you grew up, and start drawing a floor plan. As you draw, memories will surface. Grab onto one of those memories and tell us a story.

I tried to come up with one particular story, something to capture the essence of my childhood, but whenever I think of that house, it's a collage of small moments, a thousand little things.

Sharing a tiny bedroom with my three younger sisters. Torture for a teenage girl, but I survived.

Sitting in my older (and only) brother's room, planning a novel for which we never came up with a premise, much less any sort of plot. But it was going to make us rich and famous, of course.

Kittens, kittens, and more kittens. So very many kittens.

The summer monsoons followed by a plague of baby toads, which we gathered in buckets and brought home. I always loved those tiny toads.

Rain coming down in buckets. I used to sit at the window and watch it flood the road in front of our house until it flowed over the edge of the sidewalk. An Arizona thunderstorm is still one of my favorite things to watch.

The smell of orange blossoms from the groves that surrounded our street. We loved to play hide and seek (and whatever else we could think of) in those orange groves--totally against the rules--and never got in trouble because we never got caught.

Or hopping the fence to swim in the irrigation ditch behind our house--also against the rules and we did get caught a few times but that didn't stop us. I mean, it was an irrigation ditch. Hours of endless fun.

Hanging out in the kitchen with my mom, learning to make bread, and fudge, and pies. For being the diet queen, my mom always made the best fattening foods.

Many hours at the kitchen table with my mom, learning to sew, or just talking for hours about anything and everything.

And late nights with my mom and sisters spent laughing at nothing. A sound that still echoes in my thoughts whenever I think about that house.

What about you? Anything about your childhood home you want to share?

Be sure to check out Michelle's post from Wednesday and Amparo's post today. :)