Merry Whatever: It's Time for a Contest

It doesn't matter what you're celebrating this time of year, one thing we can all get excited about is a contest... and it's been a while since I've had one. So with just enough time to squeeze one more fantastic give away in before the new year rolls around I'm going to be giving away a piece of original artwork.

I hope you want to win it for yourself, but even if you don't, just imagine the regifting possibilities. Up for grabs is "Lone Chickadee", an original painting on vintage paper from the late 1800s (shown above).

To Enter: all you have to do is to leave me a comment below telling me what present you would buy if you had unlimited funds and who you'd give it to. (Today I was wishing I could buy a new car for my favorite checkout girl at Fresh Market.)

All of you new followers, don't forget to mention that you're new to my blog and I'll throw in an extra entry for you.

As always, I'll give extra entries for spreading the word. So if you blog about my contest, post it on facebook or tweet about it, I'll throw in an extra entry for you too. Just don't forget to tell me that you did it so that I can give you credit.

The contest will end on the stroke of midnight December 31st. And I'll be posting the winner on New Year's Day.

Christmas Cheer and a Few Swear Words

Yesterday I almost turned into one of those parents whose children grow up to lament them. For a moment the future flashed before my eyes (if such a thing can really happen, although I assure you I saw it vividly) as I imagined my children telling the story about the time their mother ruined Christmas by taking a chainsaw to the tree.

I didn't intend to spoil things. We were all happily gathering in the living room to decorate the tree. My oldest daughter was in the kitchen fixing hot chocolate and my husband was picking out Christmas music on the stereo (well, really ipod, but that sounds less romantic).

And everything was going fine. I'd been put in charge of stringing the lights on the tree, which I suppose we all should have had the foresight to know might not end well, but... there I was anyway, untangling lights and checking to make sure that they worked before I put them up. 

It seemed like everything was going well. I'd asked my husband to find an extension cord so that I could plug all the lights together and turn them on while I put them on the tree so that it would be easier to see where I was placing them, but for some reason (maybe the music selection was distracting him), he didn't get me one.

Well, by the time I got to the bottom of the tree I'd royally messed things up. Somewhere along the line I'd plugged in the wrong end of a strand so when I got to the bottom we were left with the socket end instead of the prong end. Of course my initial reaction was to roll my eyes and blame the person who was supposed to have gotten me an extension cord. Said person then became angry at being blamed and stormed out of the room for a "time out".

After much cursing underneath my breath (and maybe over top my breath too), I finally stormed out too and went to lay on my bed to contemplate divorce during the holidays. Luckily, when I came back my twelve year old son had fixed all the lights and the happy evening that we'd been imagining commenced along with some cups of hot chocolate and a heaping helping of apologies from me.

The moral of the story is: don't attempt to put up the lights. Some things are better left to more competent people.

My Top Ten Favorite YA Books of 2011

Okay, so I know that the year isn't over yet and I could probably still fit in anther few books before 2012 rolls around, but I thought I'd post a list of some of the best YA books I've read this year.

I always love finding lists of other people's favorite books, especially if I see that they share my same tastes. And we all know how much I love me a good, tasty list.

I must preface my list by saying that although many of the books I read this year were also published in 2011, the books from my list are compiled from books that I read this year, regardless of the year they were published. Man, there were a LOT of good ones, but here are my top ten (in no particular order).

So many amazing books to choose from. I hope you love some of these as much as I did. And if you read something great that I just HAVE to read. Please let me know. I'll add it to my list of what I must read next year (or if I can sneak it in, maybe this one).

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Yes, it's true. After almost a full month of crazy non-stop writing I have finally accomplished my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). And while it's true that I did complete the YA novel I set out to write, I still have a lot of work to do.

Reading through my novel feels a bit like looking in the mirror after getting dressed in the dark. My story might be wearing some clashing colors as well as an embarrassing mix of stripes and plaids. It might have accidentally put on the size 6 pants when really the size 12 would have fit a whole lot better and I don't want to make it blush, but it appears that maybe my story forgot to put on its underwear.

So, it's true, my story is written, but I'm hoping that December will bring not only some well deserved long underwear for my dear manuscript, but also plenty of time for rewrites.

Grateful

The world is richer when you stop for a moment to think of all the things you have to be grateful for. Almost anyone living in our country has an immense amount to be thankful for: clean water, shelter, food…all those things that we take for granted every day.

I could list all those things, but so could you. We know what they are already, don't we? I thought instead I’d focus on the smaller things, the things that are unique to me. Maybe you’ll recognize some of the items on my list as things that you’re grateful for too, or maybe you'll just be thankful that you have better things on your list this Thanksgiving.

·         Closing my eyes at night and not opening them again until morning       

·         Apples that shock me with their crispness

·         Cold milk

·         Laughing so hard with my kids that I cry

·         Making things with my hands

·         New ideas that make me itch to start them

·         Finishing when it isn’t easy

·         Creating

·         People who write beautiful words that make me jealous and excited all at once

·         A husband who does the small things, like turning on my bed warmer so that my toes will be snugglywhen I climb into bed

·         Hot showers

·         Music that makes me want to sing at the top of my lungs

·         Paper

·         Clean laundry when it’s folded and all put away

·         Sitting around the dinner table with my family

·         Rain against the windows

·         Warm socks

·         The freedom to have my own opinion

·         Coconut ice cream

·         Sunlight shining through leaves

·         Good morning hugs

·         The minutes when the words come easily

·         My fuzzy down blanket

·         A clean kitchen floor

·         Red stoplights at dusk

·         Major and minor chords

·         The smell of soap and freshly washed hair

·         The promise of someday soon

On Your Mark...

Yes, it's true, I'm totally a sucker for anything with a built in timer. That is why today, when I discovered the Write or Die app, I fell in love at first click.

I'm in the thick of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and even though I've done a pretty adequate job keeping up with the daily word count, today I realized that with a little nudge (and fifteen minutes on the clock) my writing goals went right through the roof.

The key is getting the fingers moving and getting rid of the internal editor. And believe me, Write or Die won't let you lollygag. If your fingers start hovering over the keypad for too long without typing, the screen starts changing color to let you know that you've slumped into one of those writing comas. And if you need a real kick in the pants you can set it to alarm you with annoying sounds if you start slacking off.

Now I just need to find an app that can do this same sort of thing for folding laundry and my life will really be looking bright.

The Creative Insomniac

You probably fell asleep just fine, but now your eyes have popped open and you've tossed and turned for the last fifteen minutes, glancing at the clock again and again to see the red numbers mocking you. What? You didn't fall back asleep for another hour. The clock still says 1:42. It just said 1:42 an eternity ago. It might be that you're stuck in some strange time warp where the minutes really do click by like millenia, or maybe you're an insomniac.

Don't fret. All is not lost. Sure you may feel like the only thing that's keeping you from the sweet taste of sleep is your own sick mind which keeps alerting you to the fact that your mouth seems too dry and your eyeballs actually hurt. But don't focus on the BAD stuff. Just think of all the terrific things you can do with your new found time. Weren't you just saying the other day that you wish you had more hours in the day? Well here you go.

With your insomnia you could...

1. Search the internet for all the diseases you may or may not have based on your particular symptoms for the day.

2. Flip through all the catalogues that have been sent to you in the past week and decide that not one piece of clothing would look good on you until you go on a diet.

3. Research all the different diets on the internet. Imagine how good you'll look after you finish: Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, e diets, Nutrisystem...

4. Find the bag of trailmix you left on the coffee table and pick out all the pieces of chocolate and anything that might be a cashew.

5. Facebook stalk all the people who are probably peacefully sleeping at the moment and flip through all their pictures. Decide that maybe they could stand to research e diets too.

6. Listen to the ticking of the clock and bemoan the fact that you're wide awake.

7. Scroll through pinterest. Laugh at all the lame quotes and pin all the pictures of country kitchens that you can find.

8. Consider working on the project you left sitting out on the kitchen table but then realize that it would require turning on the light, which you are very opposed to at this hour. No matter what.

9. Sit in the dark and concentrate on being sleepy.

10. Check your email, even though the only ones you'll be getting at this time of night are from Groupon or your kind friend in Belarus who would like to bequeath a large sum of money to you.

11. Learn a language. Just think, if you keep this insomnia thing up you could be ordering croissants in Paris at two in the morning.

12. Invent some tremendously brilliant and useful gadget that will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. Never mind that when you wake up in the morning your so-called "brilliant gadget" will seem either mundane or idiotic by light of day.

13. Work on your novel. After all, doesn't it seem like all your good ideas come to you in dreams. Well this is happening at the same time that you should be having those dreams so your ideas will probably be fantastic.

Oh, what the heck, maybe after all this you'll just try lying back in bed again and see what happens. Maybe you'll even surprise yourself.