I turned my completed rough draft into some of my readers and so far they like it! Woo-hoo! Doesn’t that just make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Obviously, it needs a lot of work, but I had (another) shower epiphany about how to make the world-building smoother. Why didn’t I think of this before? It seems so duh now.
I’m so excited! (And I just can’t hide it) I really want to dive into the book right this second, but I’m home for the holidays — duty calls (dangit!)

P.S. Grandma’s home from the hospital. I picked her up yesterday morning and she’s doing much better. Of course, she has to take it easy for a while and I intend to play “Nurse Nazi” until I leave. Mwah-ha-ha-ha!

Sound rude? Believe me, it was.

Yesterday, I flew from Knoxville, TN to Houston, TX on my way to Sacramento, CA. Did I get to Sacramento? Yeah, this afternoon! The airplane coming out of Knoxville was an hour and a half late because of a mechanical error during refueling. The gate attendant told us this, the pilot told us this when we finally got on the plane, and the flight attendant told us this when most of us missed our connecting flights. Including yours truly. We were told to see the ticket counter in Houston and they would get us on other flights to our destinations and put us up in a hotel for the night.

Two and a half hours of standing in line resulted in me getting booked on another flight for this morning and being informed that there had been no mechanical error — no, no, the weather had kept us sitting on the runway for an hour and a half. And weather is not their problem so I get no hotel room. Huh, that’s funny. I don’t recall sitting on the runway at all, but rather in the terminal. And weather? Not a drop of rain anywhere and not a wiggle of turbulence the whole flight.

When I protested, as did the entire line of people who were also on my airplane, I was given an 800 number to call and told they could help me. 45 minutes of my life was wasted on that call. I honestly thought a riot could ensue right there in the airport with all of the angry passengers. Now, not only was I exhausted, I was scared.

I met a girl, Amy, who was also trying to get to Sacramento and we bonded over shared delays. One call home to tell them to expect me the following day and my good, and extremely indignant, friend Tonya insisted on buying me and Amy a hotel room for the night (or what was left of it). Did I mention I love Tonya? Well, I do.

A half hour later a shuttle van pulls up to the terminal to take us to the hotel. Once inside the driver not only eyeballs the two of us lecherously (eeww), but he proceeds to blast unintelligible rap music. But we arrived and got a good 5 hour nap before checking out again. We bummed complimentary toiletries from the hotel because after refusing us a hotel room, Continental held our bags hostage for transfer onto our morning flight. *&^$%^$!!! One more ride in the ghetto hoopty mo-van and we make it safely back to the airport. Only to be selected for thorough security inspection. Yes, I really look suspicious.

“Maybe I can nap on the plane,” I thought.

Then the plane was delayed for a half an hour. Of course. When the plane finally showed up, I was in the very last row next to the toilets. Figures. I got seated next to an unaccompanied 9-year-old named Courtney who didn’t shut up the entire time and was obviously an unashamed attention hussy. I almost expected it at this point. She was afraid to fly, needed to get up exactly 15 times during the flight (I counted), was scared she’d be trapped in the toilet so I had to stand and hold the door closed so she wouldn’t have to lock it, she wanted a pillow, a blanket, more soda, some milk. And they wonder why I don’t want to breed. She finally fell asleep on my arm and I was so grateful for the silence I didn’t even mind that I couldn’t feel my arm from the bicep down. On the way out of the plane the flight attendants thanked me profusely for looking after Courtney. Apparently, a few thought she was actually with me because we both have blonde curly hair. Still, at this point I almost expected to find out my baggage had safely landed in Singapore instead of Sacramento, but that, at least, went well. I’m home now. Gotta run.

Here are some visuals of how this trip went down:

This is me when I arrived in Sacramento after dealing with 2 days of no sleep, little food, crabby holiday travelers, demanding children, and recycled airplane air.

And not only in my dreams, either!

I fly home today. California, here I come — right back where I started from! Yeay! By the time you read this post, I’ll be at my layover in Houston or maybe somewhere over Nevada, circling for a landing in Sacramento. Woo-hoo!

Plans for the holidays:
-Visit mom/step-dad on x-mas eve
-Have breakfast with grandparents on x-mas morning
-Visit dad/step-mom on x-mas (Hey, children of divorce have to multitask)
-Go on mini road trip with best buds for birthday (Dec. 28th, baby!)
-Sleep through New Year as I must fly out early Jan. 1

P.S. Grandma’s going to be okay! She’s not great, but we think she’ll be home from the hospital by Christmas. Yeay!!

My grandma is in the hospital. She’s having trouble breathing and the EKG showed something is wrong with her heart. I’m no medical professional, but that ain’t good. I don’t really have anything fun or amusing to say, I’m just tensely waiting for some news — this, this, is why I hate living so far from home. I can’t even be there to hold her hand or drive grandpa to the hospital for visits.

Thank God, I’m flying home tomorrow.

I’m putting a quiz up that I hope you will all find amusing. Goodness knows we could all use a laugh today, right?

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Cult Classic

Quirky, offbeat, and even a little campy – your life appeals to a select few. But if someone’s obsessed with you, look out! Your fans are downright freaky. Your best movie matches: Office Space, Showgirls, The Big Lebowski

(And I’ve actually seen all those movies. If you haven’t checked out Office Space, go rent it, like, right now!)

There is such a thing as too many options. I stopped in at my local Walmart (I hate shopping there, but that’s all there is to this teensy town) to pick up some D-Con to kill the bad rodents. I found the pest removal section and I couldn’t find the D-Con at first. I found about 80 gadzillion other options though. Too many frickin’ options! There were electrocuting traps, ergonomic traps, snap traps that looked like big chip-baggy clips. And then there were twelve different kinds of poison. I counted.

Who knew they put this much thought into killing pests?

I got two of the non-poison ergonomic traps. No snap noise, so I should be okay. But, when I looked at all those poisons I freaked out a little thinking that Horatio might somehow finally manage to open the kitchen door and instead of dead mice I’d have a dead cat.

And I just could not deal with that.

Hands down, my favorite do-dad was the plug-in sonic noise pest repellent. Part of me was cracking up at the thought of a noise machine scary away the big bad mice. Another part of me (the part connected to my hand) thought “well, why not?” and put it in the cart anyway.

No sign of mice this morning, but nothing in the traps either. So far, the noise makers are doing their jobs. Crazy, huh?

Eeeek!

I do not do rodents. Or snakes. Or spiders. Or cockroaches. Everything else I can handle. We all have phobias and these are mine, people.

The funny thing about this is: I have a cat. And he’s a really good mouser. So, the rooms of the apartment he’s allowed into bear no evidence of the amazing invasion. Just my kitchen has signs of mice. Horatio, the demon mouse-hunter, is not allowed in the kitchen because he eats my house plants and flips over the trash can. (That’s him lounging in my bathroom sink while I furiously cleaned up before Thanksgiving.)

Now that I have to get some mice poison Horatio is really not going to be allowed in the kitchen. I can’t do mousetraps. I just can’t. We had mice when I was a teenager and I could hear the distinctive “snap!” noise at 4am and I knew what had happened.

Not that I mind killing the rodents. Die, mousy, die. (Did I mention that I don’t do rodents?) But, it’s the snapping noise I can’t take. I had one mouse who got snapped run screeching in agony under my bed. Picture that sound accompanied by teen-me standing in the middle of my bed shrieking until my younger brother fished the mouse out and finished it off.

So, yeah. No snappity mousetraps. Must get poison.

The day after Thanksgiving is my personal favorite part of this holiday. No cooking, no dishes, most of the annoying relations have gone home. All that remains is: shopping and leftovers.

How fan-freaking-tastic is that? Seriously!

Unfortunately, by the end of the weekend, I’m sick of turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey hash, turkey bake, etc. And I’m even ready to drop-kick the relatives that I actually like who stayed all weekend. Picture scary fluffy-bunny slipper wearing Crystal waving a stripped wishbone in one hand and a dirty frying pan in the other, screaming “Out! Out! Damn Spot! And don’t come back!”

(PS- Just for the record, I don’t really own fluffy-bunny slippers)

My cousin and her roommate and her roommate’s boyfriend are coming to my apartment for Thanksgiving. I’m relieved that this is a smaller party than I usually have (hey, I just moved here). Unfortunately, I had planned to clean my place tonight after work and tomorrow morning — but my cuz may be arriving tonight while I’m at work. Isn’t that lovely? Crap, crap, crappity, crap!

I adore my cousin and I’m glad she’s coming, but I at least wanted a semi-clean house before some boyfriend I’ve never met gets an eyeful of my bras hanging over the shower rod. Ah, well. They want to see me and not my house, right? Right?

My dear family has heard more about my characters and book ideas than they have about me in the past month. They have been tolerant, thus far; but, how long can I possibly expect that to last?

The family has also given me some truly hideous ideas when I mistakenly asked for suggestions. Oh, dear. I hope they don’t expect to read about them when I send my rough drafts out for corrections.

I recently moved to a town so teeny tiny, with very little in the way of writers, that I have decided to use select members of my family/friends as my critique group. They like romance and have read broadly in the genre. Most importantly, I trust their opinions — so, for now, I think that’s the best I can do. I have no clue whether or not this is a good idea, but I’m stickin’ to it until I have proof it’s a bad one.

My friend Elia has recently added herself to the list who will receive the RD. I love to torture her and she hates romance. Mwah-ha-ha! I figure she’ll be good for a brutal outside opinion.

Is it totally normal to be almost done with the rough draft and go “this is the dumbest thing that’s ever been written, what were you thinking, no one in their right mind would even use this as toilet tissue, let alone actually READ it?” And that includes my family and friends who love me enough to read anything I write. Because that’s where I’m at today. I want to stop.

This sucks.

Then I called my grandma, queen of all romance novels, who introduced me to the joy of contemporary romance (mom is strictly historical). I returned the favor by showing her paranormal romance. We have a very fine relationship, grams and me.

But, this is beside the point. I called and told her that I was not going to finish my story and I wasn’t having fun anymore. She gave me the hairy eyeball and told me to get my a** back to it. We were on the phone and I may be in Tennessee and she may be in California, but I felt the hairy eyeball upon me.

The hairy eyeball is only one step below the death-ray glare. Grams’ hairy eyeball puts the fear of God into some people, but the death-ray glare has made grown men cry. Really. Grams is a sweet and soft-hearted woman, but you don’t mess with her. She will kill you and make it look like an accident.

So, I will continue to write and deny all knowledge of this incident in the future.

I don’t want to be cosmically b*tch-slapped by the death-ray glare.