Thirteen Of My Favorite Things

Thirteen things I can’t live without

1. My 3rd arm – Dell Inspiron 9300. It’s never far from my side.

2. High-speed wireless Internet connection. If the connection goes down, I’m Jonesing within an hour.

3. Ebookwise 1150

4. iLap laptop stand

5. Lots of great E-books from Ellora’s Cave and Samhain Publishing

6. My DVR so I can record the shows I like and fast-forward through the annoying commercials

7. Coffee

8. A fast car to appease my inner speed demon

9. My radar detector so I don’t get tickets in my fast car

10. Online banking—I loathe sitting in line at the bank drive-thru

11. Online shopping—I despise the mall!

12. Central air condition. I live in Florida. Enough said.

12. Oreos and milk

13. Earplugs—essential for all daytime sleepers

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

 

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! 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!
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Okay, so its a pre-formatted Quickie cover, but it’s still exciting! Woohoo! I love getting emails like this one.

 

     

One of my readers insisted that I read the Virgin River Trilogy by Robyn Carr, and I’m very glad she did. Thanks again, Christine! This is a great set of books about a group of people coming together in a small northern California town, and conquering the heartbreak and traumas of their lives.

While each book’s primary focus is on one couple, the ongoing stories of many characters are intertwined through all 3. At times this can become overwhelming and I felt like I was reading several different books at once. It was also somewhat confusing when the author changed from one point of view to another without any indication or warning.

Those minor annoyances aside, I recommend you pick up these captivating, heartwarming books. Within moment of picking up the first story, I was emeshed in the lives of the characters and the charming town.

You can find Virgin River, Shelter Mountain, and Whispering Rock at Amazon.

This week I’m discussing turning the bedroom into a love nest. Come on over to the Hussy Blog and find out how.

 

Thirteen Halloween Pranks

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Dressing up as someone else, running around the neighborhood in the dark, people giving you candy—what’s not to love. My friends and I used to go to all the neighborhood houses, using pillow cases to collect our candy in, then race home to change costumes, revisiting the homes giving out the best treats. We also had some fun playing tricks. Here are 13 Halloween pranks I have participated in, some of which I’m not real proud of.

1. There is a street in my neighborhood lined with trees. One year, my friends and I hooked up different items (grapefruit, fake ghosts, etc.) to some fishing line and hung it over the telephone lines where they crossed the street. Then we climbed up in the trees and took turns lowering the items in front of cars and trick-or-treaters in an attempt to startle them.

2. Another fishing line trick was to measure out a length of fishing line, hook empty cans to both ends and string it at bumper height across the street between shrubs. The line would catch on passing cars and they’d nosily drag the cans down the street. I’m ashamed to admit that we didn’t think this through very well and caused a kid riding a bike to crash.

3. Many times we dressed up as trees, bushes, lawn ornaments, etc. and hid in different places around the neighborhood to see how many people we could scare. If you did a good enough job scaring the kids, they’d drop their candy.

4. I took a pair of jeans and stuffed them with newspaper and sewed the cuff to an old pair of sneakers. I laid these out in the driveway with one leg bent at the knee then closed the garage door over the hips. This one even attracted the attention of the police who drove by and shone a spotlight on the fake body.

5. We had some neighbors no one liked. On Halloween they had a bunch of really cool carved pumpkins, which we stole and redistributed around the neighborhood.

6. Lord only knows where our teen minds came up with this one, but we made exploding pumpkins filled with firecrackers. We placed the pumpkins at front doors and one of us would ring the bell while another lit the protruding fuse. Needless to say it was loud and messy.

7. A kid in our neighborhood was silly enough to have a Halloween sleepover. We waited until around 2 am and went over with scary masks and flash lights. Holding the lights to illuminate our masks, we banged on the windows and scared the heck out of them.

8. This didn’t start out as a prank. As an adult, I rather convincingly dressed as a man. I think it was probably 1990 when society was a bit less accepting of gay couples. My boyfriend didn’t dress up, but took me out to lunch, and as was our habit, we sat on the same side of the booth. He put one arm around my shoulders until our food arrived, and we’d kissed several times. Neither one of us realized it at first, but we freaked out a lot of homophobic people. LOL!

9. This one got us in the most trouble. We dressed up and used make-up to look like accident victims. We’d put a black lump of rolled up cloths in the street. Cars would hit it and stop. As the driver walked around the car, one of us snuck out of the bushes and lay down in the road, acting as if they’d run us over. All our parents were called (by now the neighbors knew who the pranksters were) and most of us ended up on restriction.

10. Of course, we did the standard toilet papering, egging, etc. One time we sat in one of the kids driveways with a big plastic bowl. The trick-or-treaters came up and we dropped golf balls into their bags and plastic buckets. When nobody showed up at the front door for candy, the parent shrugged it off and gave it to us.

11. The time we went around the neighborhood smearing cheap shaving cream on car windows backfired. We got caught and spent the next day cleaning car windows.

12. Here’s one that was pulled on me. I answered the door and found a cute little girl in a princess outfit. Alone. After giving her some candy, I followed her down the walkway to make sure a parent was with her. Dressed in a gruesome costume, her father jumped out from behind one of my bushes and scared the heck out of me. The kid was laughing because she’d known what was going to happen.

13. One year when we were no longer into getting the candy, we went trick-or-treating and gave treats to our neighbors who were staying home to pass out candy. This one was actually an apology for some of our pranks.

Tips:

If you set out to perpetrate some tricks, keep a few things in mind. Leave the little kids alone. It’s just bad form to scare or mess with the little kids, and you don’t want to mess with a pissed off mom. Think your prank through—getting arrested takes all the fun out of it! Make sure your prank can’t cause any real harm or damage to property or trick-or-treaters. While your out springing your prank remember that someone may be setting up their own prank for you.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 

 

 Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! 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!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

I just got the news from my editor. Restless, sequel to Enough, has a release date. WOOHOO! Enough releases 11/21/07 and Restless will release on 1/9/08. Yay! I’m so excited. I’d be hoping we could keep the release dates close so there wasn’t a lot of time between the two books.

Check out my latest installment of Gettin’ Naughty with Nic on the Hussy Blog. This week I’m discussing sexual confidence.

Thirteen Things About My Vacation

Whew, what an amazing trip! My friends and I played tourist non-stop and had a blast. There were only a few things on my to do list we didn’t have time for.

 This is a picture of Lombard Street, which is very narrow and snakes its way down a steep hill. Driving in San Francisco is insane! The streets are really steep and the lanes of traffic are narrow. Add in cable car tracks and traffic and its enough to drive your blood pressure through the roof!
  The Golden Gate Bridge is incredible to see in person. We got our first glimpse of it from a high vantage point after driving up the coast. The second picture is of me and co-author TK Winters.
 Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco has nothing to do with a wharf other than seafood restaurants. It was very crowded, but still a fun experience.
 The sea lions at the wharf are a sight not to miss. They bark at each other over prime spots on the floating docks and frolic in the water to the delight of the tourists like me.
 We went to San Francisco on a week day to avoid the large crowds expected for Fleet Week on the weekend, but still got to see the Blue Angels practicing. It’s very difficult to get a good picture because they are moving so fast, and man are they ever loud.
 The train ride through the redwoods was not operating so we took a drive to the Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Pictures really don’t do the trees justice.
 Navigating on a trip is always fun. In fact, my navigators didn’t give me a lot of confidence when they kept turning the map one direction and then another. We had a GPS unit in the rental van, but she sometimes took us in circles and gave weird directions, hence her nickname “the GPS Bitch”. Lol!
 We did a lot of driving along the coast around Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel, etc. The coast is beautiful. We saw incredible juniper trees sprouting out of rocks and pampas grass almost twice as tall as we are.

 In Santa Cruz, an eclectic little town, we found a Borders that had a copy of Savannah’s Vision. I signed it and put it back on the shelf for some lucky reader.
 The Winchester Mystery House is a trip! We couldn’t decided if Mrs. Winchester was more than a bit touched in the head or a genius. The rambling house is full of oddities, but also some innovative efforts at conservation. The tour is fun for both kids and adults.
 We bought a star map and drove around Beverly Hills but didn’t see anyone famous. Of course, we had to see the walk of fame and Hollywood sign, Rodeo Drive, and went on the Warner Brothers VIP Studio Tour. I highly recommend the tour. We went on the back lots where ER was filming at the time, saw the coffee shop from Friends, the outside ambulance bay set for ER, and went in the sound stage for Two and a Half Men.
  In Buena Park we went to the Pirate Dinner Adventure. It was a lot of fun. The pirates sang, danced, fought with swords, swung on ropes, etc. We rooted for our pirate and had a nice dinner.
 In Long Beach, we went to the aquarium, and the very cool area of Rainbow Harbor. Even saw the Queen Mary where the 1930’s luxury cruise ship is docked and has been turned into a hotel.
 My trip to California was wonderful and I hated to see it come to an end. I miss my friends so much that we are already planning another joint vacation for next year. This one will be in the Smoky Mountains.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! 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!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

My wonderful webmistress had just finished revamping my website. WOOHOO! It is so gorgeous. I love all the cool new features, like the way excerpts have the same background and how the books are sorted into categories. Clicking on the book covers takes you to all the information on each book. Oooh, and on the links page there are these cool navigation buttons … well, I’ll shut up and let you go check it out.:D

And thoroughly exhausted. Whew, this was such an amazing vacation. I spent time in the San Jose area and Anaheim. We did something every day. Drove along the coast and visited Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel and Pacific Grove. Went to Fisherman’s Wharf in both Monterey and San Francisco. Driving the streets in San Fran is insane! We went to the Long Beach Aquarium, the Winchester Mystery House and the Pirates Dinner Adventure.

I think that I need a vacation to recover from my vacation. lol! I’ll post pictures on my TT this week.