Favorite Vacation Spot Blog Hop

It's time to highlight our favorite vacation spots!

This blog hop is hosted by Lexa Cain, Melanie Karsak, T.F. Walsh, Vanessa Morgan, Jolie Du Pre, and Stuart R. West.

My favorite vacation spot is Tuscany.  All of Italy is beautiful (at least the parts of it I've seen), but Tuscany is particularly picturesque.

When I was there, I wasn't technically on vacation.  The trip was an educational one, and there wasn't much time for relaxation.  Still, if I were to choose a place to take my family to kick back and relax, this is the place I would choose.

Unfortunately, while I took a lot of pictures while I was there, they've managed to get lost in the shuffle over the years.  I hope I'll eventually find them, but I managed to find a few pictures online that should give you an idea of how gorgeous the area is.

Where is your favorite vacation spot?

Celebrate the Small Things and Express Yourself: May 29, 2015

It's Friday!  Let's Celebrate the Small Things with Lexa Cain!  TheCyborgMom and I are her co-hosts.

I'd like to celebrate the life of my Great Grandma Inez.  She died from cancer this week. She would have been 100 on July 17th, so no one can say she didn't live a good long life.  I have a lot of fond childhood memories of going over to her house.  She always had the best homemade pickles waiting for us.  She also spent a lot of time in the garden.

The kids love T-ball so far.  It's entertaining watching a group of energetic little kids learn to play the game for the first time.  So much enthusiasm!

My husband and I will have been married for 8 years on June 2nd.  Where has the time gone?

What would you like to celebrate?

The Express Yourself Weekly Meme is hosted by Jackie @ Bouquet of Books and Dani @ Entertaining Interests.

The prompt for this week is:  Name a few things you like to eat while writing.

Well, I always have to have a cup of either tea or coffee, so any snacks need to go well with either of those beverages.  Chocolate in any variation is a good thing to eat while writing.  I also like freshly made cookies or brownies.  On the healthy side of things, a good salad is always a great thing for me to eat while writing.  I like going to coffee shops to write, and when I do, a good strong coffee and a side salad are requirements!

What do you like to eat while writing?

Celebrate the Small Things and Express Yourself

It's Friday!  Let's Celebrate the Small Things with Lexa Cain!  TheCyborgMom and I are her co-hosts.

I just finished grocery shopping, and the store had a lot of good deals going on, so that's always nice.  Who doesn't like to save money?

The kids are starting T-ball in the next week.  They're definitely excited about that!

We have two birthday parties to attend this weekend.  We'll be busy, but it should be fun!

Three day weekend!  Who doesn't enjoy a holiday spent with family?  Unless you don't like your family, of course.  Fortunately, I like mine.  Most of the time, anyway.

I also got a cool idea for a short story.  I'll try to find time to work on that this weekend.

What would you like to celebrate?

The Express Yourself Weekly Meme is hosted by Jackie @ Bouquet of Books and Dani @ Entertaining Interests.

The question for this week is:  What quirks does your BFF have that you adore, because it makes them unique?

Well, my BFF Chelsea and I have a few quirks in common that have helped us remain friends for about two decades.  We enjoy the same British comedies, we both enjoy Doctor Who, and we both have a strong love of Oolong tea.

Chelsea is also super creative.  She's a great artist (I am not), and she can draw inspiration from just about anything.  And as we all know, artists are often quirky, but it keeps things entertaining.

Blood, Boobs & Carnage Blogfest

It's time for the awesome Blood, Boobs & Carnage Blogfest!  You can't hear the title of this one and not be intrigued.  It is hosted by the inimitable Alex J. Cavanaugh and the amazing Heather Gardner.

The film I chose for today has all three components. and it's also a little nostalgic for me.  I get to the reason why in a minute.

High Tension is a French film, and it was released in the United States in June 2005. It's the movie my parents went to see for their anniversary, and that was the night my now-husband came over to my house to officially ask me out.  When the movie came out on DVD months later, my mom said that he and I should watch it together.

We ended up watching it six or seven times that weekend with various groups of friends.  We wanted to see how they reacted to it.  The reactions were always dramatic. I wish we had some of them on camera.

There is blood.  We're dealing with a psycho killer here, and there's a scene with a saw that had me cringing.  It was a literal blood bath.

There are boobs.  Our main characters are two college-age girls.  They aren't naked, but their clothes are tight, and the one girl is in her cute little pajamas.

There is carnage.  People die, and no one seems to be safe.

This twisted little film also has a twist ending that makes subsequent re-viewings all the more enjoyable.  Upon our second and third viewings, my husband was pointing out how certain shots and the way scenes were constructed hinted at the twist ending.

I feel nostalgic when I remember watching this movie with my husband in his parents' basement for the fifth time while he says things like "Oh, I never noticed that shot before.  That was brilliant."  Good times.

Celebrate the Small Things and Express Yourself

Today I have a double post for you.  I hope none of you mind.

It's Friday.  Let's Celebrate the Small Things with Lexa Cain.  TheCyborgMom and I are her co-hosts.

My husband and I met ten years ago as of May 13th.  It's crazy to think that it's been ten years since he randomly showed up at my front door with one of my friends from high school.  Life definitely would have turned out far differently if he hadn't.

Lyle had a great birthday.  He took cupcakes to school to celebrate, and he got a birthday sticker from his teacher.  For a four-year-old, that's a pretty awesome day.

What would you like to celebrate?

The Express Yourself Weekly Meme is hosted by Jackie @ Bouquet of Books and Dani @ Entertaining Interests.

I have a little catching up to do.

May 4th-8th: Tell us about something you haven't tried yet, but would like to.

I would love to try skydiving.  I would also love to learn to fly a plane.  I'm torn between the two.  Perhaps I would learn to fly a plane since that's a somewhat useful skill.  I'm already pretty good at falling already.  I've just never tried it from such great heights.

May 11th-15th:  We are 1/3 of the way through the year. Name something you have achieved thus far.

I've lost 20 pounds.  I still need to lose more, but it's a start.  I want to be as healthy as possible for my kids (or at least, as healthy as I can possibly be without adding jogging into the equation), so that's why I started this.  While it's nice to hear people tell me I'm looking good, that never would have been enough to motivate me.  Health, however, is.

I have to tell you this.  I wish I could go back in time and slap my high school self who thought she was fat.  She had no idea what she was talking about.

Celebrate the Small Things-May 8, 2015

It's Friday!  Let's Celebrate the Small Things with Lexa Cain!  TheCyborgMom and I are her co-hosts.

This weekend we'll be celebrating Lyle's birthday.  He turns four on Monday.  I can hardly believe he's going to be four already.  

Though his birthday isn't for another couple of days, he already got his present from us.  My husband is the type of guy that buys you a present and gives it to you right away because he can't wait to see your face when you open it.  We got him a Disney Cars electric scooter, and he's been zooming around on it almost nonstop.  It's a good thing that it tops out at 1.75 miles per hour.  If it didn't, we'd never catch him.

I'm also celebrating because I got a Harry Potter t-shirt today.  That's always an awesome thing.

What would you like to celebrate?

The Insecure Writer's Support Group: May 2015

It's the first Wednesday of the month!  Let's gather round of another meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group.  Our fearless leader is the Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh.  His co-hosts for this month are: Eva Solar, Melanie Schulz, Lisa Buie-Collard, and Stephen Tremp.

This month I'm struggling with story structure.  Even though I know prologues can be problematic, I wrote one for my WIP.  It was my main character looking back on past events, kind of foreshadowing what's to come.  I ended up getting rid of it, but the good news is I think it helped me get into that character's head.  It helped get me psyched about writing the story, so perhaps the deleted writing was valuable in that way.

I'm also trying to decide how to develop the relationships between characters.  There's a lot going on, and while there needs to be a few quiet moments, too many would slow the narrative down.  That means developing them in the midst of the action.  That's a great place to show just how much these people mean to each other, of course, and the best way to see who someone really is would be to throw them into a situation where everyone is in danger.  Still, I want to strike the right balance between action and feeling, which can be challenging.  It's a challenge that I'm enjoying, of course.  When you're a writer, struggles like this are part of the territory.

Celebrate the Small Things-May 1, 2015

It's Friday!  Let's Celebrate the Small Things with Lexa Cain.  TheCyborgMom and I are your co-hosts.

I'm posting late because I had a crazy busy day.  We bought a car today.  It's a used car, but it's in pretty good shape.  There was a lot of running around when it came to licensing it, and then there were other assorted errands to run.  I'm exhausted, but it's the good kind that comes from getting a lot of things done.

We also got a big sectional couch this week.  A friend got new furniture and offered it to us for free.  All we had to do was haul it.  It's in good shape and it's super comfortable. Lyle likes taking naps on it.

I successfully completed the A to Z Challenge on two blogs!  Yay!  I had a good time with it this year.

What would you like to celebrate?