Friday Fun

Not much to offer today, except for YAY FRIDAY!  I'm still writing away on Shadow Rising, my house is still covered in Chewie's fur...actually, he went to get groomed today because he desperately needs it.  Here is His Highness begging for a potato chip:

I was directed to this clip yesterday, and since it made me laugh (I was a big He-Man fan back in the day, and...well, I was always pretty sure this is the kind of thing he would participate in behind the scenes), I figured I'd share it.  It's pretty fabulous:)  Have a great day!

Book Club Day!

I'll be at the Forever Romance facebook page from 12-2 EDT today chatting about DARK AWAKENING, and I hope to see some of you there!  We're already debating about the hottest vampire in book, TV and film.  I voted for Spike, because...I love me some Spike. 

It's the Billy Idol thing he has going on.  So never going to get over it.  But it's awfully hard to pick.  I mean, I'm still missing Mick St. John.  WHY did they cancel Moonlight!?  That's why I'm leery of starting to watch new television shows.  Every time I decide to like one, it gets canceled.  I'm going to try again, though, and start watching Grimm on NBC this fall.  I put the trailer up on my facebook...it looks REALLY good!  Of course, if you throw fairy tales into anything I'm probably going to try it out.  And then, of course, there is my renewed obsession with the Thundercats.  I was a child of the 80s, so I used to watch the original series religiously.  And now...they've rebooted it for Cartoon Network and actually made it BETTER! 

My husband is excited for The Walking Dead to start again.  I just can't do it.  I'm zombie-phobic.  No, really. 

So what are you watching this fall?  Have you seen anything good coming up?  Have a great day, and I hope some of you can join me for the chat!

In Which the Intrepid Author is Almost Hit by a Tornado

Okay, not exactly.  But I worried for a while.

It was was a wild night here!  The sky turned pale green (a bit paler than this picture, but green nonetheless...this is just the best representation I could find on the web), the clouds overhead were visibly rotating, and we had lightning hit the yard.  I only caught the flash out of the corner of my eye while I was out on the porch watching the storm crank up, but the hiss and snap was unmistakable.  No tornados, incredibly, but this is the sort of thunderstorm that spawns them.  We do get the occasional small tornado here in Southern Maryland...I have no desire to see one, but I really thought I was going to.  The power in the entire county was out for probably a half hour/forty-five minutes, and one of the houses in the neighborhood was hit by lightning.  We had about six fire trucks come wailing in here, firemen crawling all over that house with flashlights...apparently, there were sparks shooting from the eaves or the gutters, and they were worried there was fire inside the walls.  Considering the tarp on the back of that house today, I'd say the lightning put a hole in the back of the house somewhere.  That or they had to open up the wall to make sure nothing was on fire.  Anyway, it was interesting (I'm willing to be the homeowners with the new hole in their wall found it less so).  I have NEVER seen a sky that color before.

Heading for the Finger Lakes tomorrow, so I'll be blogging from there all next week, provided the wi-fi works as well as advertised.  We've never taken a vacation involving a rental cottage and all the mutts before (cue ominous music...dun-dun-DUNNNNN).  Hopefully, the place will still be intact when we leave it.  My mother-in-law is bringing lots of wine, and we'll be celebrating my birthday there on Tuesday.  Yeah, I'm going to be 34.  I think I'm officially in my mid-thirties now. *sob*

Anyway, I'm going to load up my Nook with books to read today, and I have plans to park it on the deck, enjoy the lake, and read.  Okay, and I have to work, too.  Boo.  Hiss.  But there's no rest for the wicked:-)

To close my morning babbling, I do want to say thanks to all the readers who have already read and enjoyed Dark Awakening and are posting their love around the internets.  You all get a big *MWAH!* from me!  Release day is so soon, and it means a LOT that people are already enjoying the book enough to sing its praises publicly.  I love this book.  I really, really do.  And Ty, as has been stated in various places, is really more of an anti-hero in some ways...but his journey was a fascinating one to write, and I love that people seem to "get" him, that they rooted for him.  I've got linkies to the reviews on my facebook page and my twitter feed, and I believe most are linked through Goodreads as well, so if you haven't already, please come friend me here, there, and everywhere:-)

'Kay, I'm off...I have a zillion packing-related things to do today (ugh).  Hope you all have a great weekend!  Please keep your fingers crossed for me that the Newfs don't destroy anything, and I'll keep you posted on my doings up on Cayuga Lake.  And I'm curious, because that storm last night is still very much on my mind...have any of you actually SEEN a tornado?  Because even just seeing the clouds spinning freaked me the hell out.  I just wonder what it's like actually being present for a real funnel cloud.

Happy Friday!   

On the Mend/Puppy Fever

How is it Monday again already? I spent the better part of last week nursing yet another child through bronchitis, hence my finally giving up on posting at the end of the week. Hearing about dosages of prednisone and albuterol and antibiotic is just really not all that interesting.

HOWEVER, I'm back (insert golf clap here)! The vampire/werewolf forbidden romance continues apace. Got a little behind in the plague breakout, but working on catching up. I'm still doing P90X, shockingly...I did a month of the Lean version of the program, but at the end of it I knew I could step it up, so have switched to Classic and restarted on Week 1. It has added an extra month onto this workout journey of 90 days, but it's cool. I was in such incredibly lousy shape I had to start with something a little easier. There is this...thing...called Plyometrics. It's an hour of "jump training", very aerobic, lots of hopping and jump squats and you name it. The demonstrators are dying by the end of it, so you know what a beast this thing is. Anyway, it's not in the Lean program, but is in the Classic, and it's one of the big reasons I'm glad I waited. I would NOT have made it through that just starting out. Now I can, just soaked in sweat. I am, at present, in probably the best shape of my life. Ever. And I have a ways to go yet! Last night was Yoga. I'm getting quite bendy:-)

On to the Puppy Fever portion of the program. We found out this weekend which puppy will be ours! We had been down to two, and the breeder feels this one is much more what we're looking for, very friendly and interactive. She's certainly bright-eyed! I'm probably in for it.

We aren't sure what to name her.  Again.  It was going to be Stella, but I'm not really sure she looks like a Stella.  Because of her distinctive off-side blaze, we're actually thinking of just naming her...Blaze.  A friend told me that sounds like the name of a sassy saloon girl:-)  We'll figure it out.  I'm just really glad we know who's coming home!  She's a cutie...I liked the look of her from very early on.  We go get her a week from Friday.  I think I need to catch up on my sleep before then!

Have a great Monday!