1. Thanks to Laura for getting me on here today.

2. It’s been a busyish  month since I’ve last been on.

3. Christmas and New Years have passed.

4. My dear Grandpa Tolbert passed away on 1/09.

5. The newest addition to our family was born on 1/13. Hi Zo-Zo…Auntie Jen LOVES you!

6. A death and birth within a 4 day period causes considerable reflection.

7. K, onto books. I mean book. The most recent I’ve read I finished before Christmas…don’t all gasp at once now. I read Wolf Hall and in the midst of it I noted on my Facebook status “plodding joylessly through Wolf Hall“. It took me a few weeks to read. The writer’s style is such that fast reading is just not an option. Some of it was daily grind stuff. Some of it was convoluted, wasn’t really sure what was going on at the time. Some of it I had to reflect on who “he” was. She’d be talking about another character and “he” would come up and one sentence later you’d realize she’s talking about Thomas Cromwell, the main character. So if you read it, just know that “he” is almost always Cromwell. It will save you time. So after I gave this tepid (that’s putting it mildly, I suppose) review on FB, I finished the book. And it stuck. And that’s how you know a book is really good. I researched the Tudors, the queens, Cromwell, etc. online. And it stuck some more. And then I started watching the Tudors on Netflix. And I knew what was going on, the back stories, etc. Then I realized what all the reviewers tried to tell me, that Wolf Hall is actually genius. I really think that the author slowed my reading down on purpose. So here’s to you, Hilary Mantel. Now every one go out and read Wolf Hall. Pls and Thx.

8. All I want for Easter is my two front teeth.

9. The sound is BAD but you have to check out my kiddo’s first comedy set. I may be biased, but I think he’s rockin’ hilarious!

10. Max is reading!!! And Patrick Star’s shadow visits his room.

Patrick Star!!!!!

11. Pants on the Ground. ‘Nuff said.

12. If you’re Lizzing and pulling a Lemon, you’re in bad shape.

13. Don’t get Jersey Shore. Can someone please explain?

14. Working on a short story at the moment. Only taking me months. Again.

15. Hooray for 70 degree mid-January days. Me loves.

All of us at Kirsten's house before the event

Picture it- the AMC in downtown Ft. Worth – two rows of maturish women (all who know each other) and Jacob Black’s abs. Why would you want to visualize this scene? I don’t know…let’s break it down.

1. We all rode in a parking garage elevator together and the cables didn’t break.

2. Amber wore popcorn within the first 10 minutes of being seated.

3. It felt like a premiere with all the camera flashes.

4. Kirsten let me pose.

5. We collectively held our breath the first time Jacob lost his shirt.

6. We weren’t allowed to discuss the movie until we arrived at our dessert destination.

7. When we were finally allowed to open the floodgates we analyzed every portion of the movie.

8. The consensus on my side of the table: New Moon was better than Twilight, they all took acting lessons, Bella’s mannerisms still tweak us a bit but not as much as last time, the chemistry between Bella and Jacob was excellent (and we’re all team Edward at heart), it was rude of the director to strip Edward’s shirt off AFTER we saw Jake’s bare tum.

9. I’m sure there’s much more (we hung out for a couple of hours after the fact)…but that’s the gist.

More musings on twilight–read about my odd obsession.

1. Ah, fever…chills how I hate thee.

2. What Ann Curry tweeted earlier: “Here we go. Last week of August flu cases rose sharply. H1N1 is believed to be most of those cases. Wash your hands.”

3. Been working on my query all day for  this contest…

4. Another embarrassing video.  I love to humiliate myself…why?

5. Thanks to Jolyn Palliata for letting me beta read her awesome novel, Amber Eyes…watch out for this one.

6. Um, Danae (pronounced Dani) Ayusso is one of the most interesting people I have ever “met”.  She can write 10,000 words, send out 75 query letters–twitter and email all in ONE day…not kidding.  And she just got a request for a full!  Way to go Danae!

7. @johannaharness wants everyone to take a pic of their workspaces and tweet to #amwriting, she was so nice to say something positive about mine.

8. Am I trying to be the queen of links?  No, but you can call me the princess if you want.

9. OMK (kittens) I haven’t read a published book all week…weird.

10. Gonna remedy that with my 40% off coupon to Borders!

11. Not adding pics today…so sorry.

12. My oldest caught the video bug and started filming a 6 min. video for each of our pets.  They are surprisingly funny.

13. The animals aren’t as funny as my son’s comments.

14. What I want to read ASAP: The Hunger Games

15. Comment people–I get lonely.

That is a question crossing a lot of minds these days.  My husband talked me into joining late last May.  He hasn’t made a comment SINCE May.  I, on the other hand have had 267 – one-hundred and forty characters or less comments.

Reasons NOT to Join Twitter:

1.  You may become addicted. Seriously, no kidding here.

2.  You start thinking and talking in 140 characters or less.  I’ve always been that way–but I can see how it would be problematic for some.  Hey, I think there are a couple of people I might invite to join. **scratching chin in a knowing way**

3.  It’s yet another place to regret what you’ve said.

4.  When the site is down, there is a possibility for adverse effects on your sanity.

5.  You have to learn a whole new jargon… hashtags (#), RT (re-tweet), DM (direct message), FF (follow Friday) and many, many more!

Reasons TO join Twitter

1.  You get to meet fantastic people that you otherwise would never meet.  I’ve met about five people who are really cool and helpful writers and they’re NICE on top of it all.

2.  There’s the possibility that someone famous will like what you say and repeat it to the masses, giving you credit, of course.

3.  It’s a great way to advertise your blog, product, service.

4.  Everyone understands when you state that “you need to take a social networking break”.

5.  People share the coolest things they find online, commiserate with each other…basically communicate.

This is all considering that you do what I do and only follow people that you’ve checked out fairly well.  If they have a blog, look at it and see if they are compatible with your standards or you may end up with unwanted trash in your tweets.  If that does happen there’s hope, you can always unfollow them.

Okay, okay…I will explain that last cryptic post.  If you clicked on it you would…well, never mind.  It still wouldn’t make much sense.

I was just messing around with my camera’s ( ‘s to show possession, i.e. the camera has features; therefore, it owns the feature(s)) video feature and found out that it was a lot of fun.  While watching the clips (no apostrophe–no possession and not a contraction with ‘is’)  back it really sounded like I had a lisp.  So I talked about this new affliction and posted it.  Strange, huh?  Then I sent the link to my husband who thought I was actually affecting a lisp.  In other words, it’s ( ‘s contraction–it is) all the camera’s (possession) fault.

This happens much more than you think it would.  It sounds sort of niche, right?  If you’d read my about page (ahem, *clears throat*) you’d know that I work with teenagers, girls more specifically.  This means I’m privy to all kinds of useful as well as useless fads and slang.  Most notably, the term beast (or beastly).  Did you know that means awesome, only something more awesome than awesome?  It’s usage is reserved for the very coolest of cool things, such as Amelia making a B on her final…that was beastly.  I promised to only use the term once and I’m pretty sure it would get caught in my throat if I actually tried to say it out loud.

I mention all of the above to introduce the current thing that is taking up way too much time in my head.  So much, in fact, that I had to pull out my camera and test it for myself.  I don’t know the correct term for this new way of posing for cameras, so I will just call it the smoosh mouth pose.  The pic above and to the left is my lame attempt at said pose.  I just can’t get the eyes right.  I’m ashamed to say that I’ve deleted at least a dozen pics of myself testing the look.  I’m supposed to have an “I dare you to come hither” look on my face, squinty eyes to go along with the smooshy mouth.

I guess I’ll stick with a smile. Sis gave me an idea…send me your best attempt at a smoosh mouth pic with a comment if’n ya can.