In an effort to avoid a dry blog post about being thankful for friends, family, shelter, books, book-lovers, and an 11-inch pecan pie baked (not by me) to perfection,  I’m continuing my tradition of posting a non-traditional list of other, less commonly mentioned things I’m thankful for.  (Don’t get me wrong…VERY thankful for the above list!)  In no particular order:

Ten Things I’m Thankful For in 2010

* Strawberry Fruit Roll-ups.  Swear they put crack in these.

* My iPhone. (Yes, it was on last year’s list but it’s my security blanket, my connection to the world, my almost-everything materialistic and tangible.)

* Vodka.  Less hangovers than wine, gluten-free, and with a little cranberry…it’s all good. 

* Rewards Programs.  People want to reward me for shopping?  Perfect.

* Facebook.  As a reclusive, older-than-30 chick who works at home, it IS my social life.  (No comments about whether that’s sad or not.)

* Bloom Bake Shop.  2 blocks from my front door.  At least one gluten-free selection (and one vegan) daily.  Cupcakes are to die for.

* Clumping litter.  We have 5 cats.  Enough said.

* Renters.  Fifteen months of paying two house payments was PLENTY. 

* Melatonin.  Otherwise I’d be up till 3am every day.

* Mad City Romance Writers.  Awesome local chapter (to be-ish) of RWA.  Fabulous people who write excellent books.

I’m blessed ten times over.    Make it 11.  I’m grateful for anyone who visits my blog, so thank you! 

Your turn.  Besides the usuals, what off-beat thing can you add to the list? 

Happy Turkey Day to all!

Good news:  Our 16.75 year-old marriage has outlasted most of the gifts we got for the wedding.  Bad news:  Three quarters of the things in our house need to be replaced.

The crockpot?  Is no longer anything close to non-stick.  Every time we use it, we have to soak it, scrub it, put it through the dishwasher, then scrub it again with cream of tartar, which, with a lot of elbow grease, finally gets the remaining yuck off.

The kitchen dishes bit the dust a long time ago, as have most of the set we bought to replace them.  (We can’t have guests for dinner.  We only have 5 dinner plates.)

The antique toaster still works but it’s on its last legs.  Two slots.  Not extra wide.  Doesn’t really matter what setting you have it on, it all comes out the same.  And the cord is hot to the touch after just one round of bread.  I like firefighters but I really don’t want to meet some as they try to extinguish my toaster.

The towels are threadbare, sheets…I don’t even know.  Griddle, long gone.  Spice rack, lost in a move.  Glassware, ha!  In this house? 

Amid all the devastation, though, there is a bright spot.  My kids don’t know what it is or how it works, but the iron is still going strong.

I just turned in the final print out, also known as the galley or the author approval copy, of Burning Ambition (April 2011 Superromance).  YAY!  All that’s left is the anticipation of the back cover copy, the cover, and of course the release.  But that’s a long wait.  I’m waiting to hear back from my editor on multiple new projects, so in the meantime…Yes, I’m still working.

I’m working on a …we’ll call it a “fun” project, though when you get down to it, though it’s a story idea I love and have been brewing for more than a year, plotting time is never fun for me. 

Except…some days things fall together.  Sometimes my plot holes fill in when I least expect it.  Some moments I actually believe that I may someday have a book in a different genre to send out into the big world to try to find a publishing home.  Some days.

For those of you who questioned my productivity at my most recent “working” weekend in Indianapolis (you know who you are! ) here’s a photo to A) show you what I’ve accomplished in the past week and B) give you a glimpse of how my pained and strained brain comes up with a book.  This is my plot board.  It’s divided into 24 chapters, though you’ll notice I don’t do very well at keeping things in the lines.  The colored post-it concept is from author Cherry Adair’s plotting method.  Each color  means something, represents a thread or a character or a concept.  For instance, the orange is the bad guy.  The pink is the heroine.  The white is what Cherry calls WITFITPOT, which stands for whatinthef*ckisthepointofthis?  (White is the color that keeps me on task and makes me think hard about every single scene. I try to have at least 3 purposes for each scene and this post it is my big test.)

So anyway, this board isn’t done but it’s a personal record. It’s the fullest I’ve ever gotten a plot before starting.  For my last book (Burning Ambition) I made it through the first half of the board well but then the post its became…few and far between.  But it helped me a lot to do as much as I did. Many of the post its on this board ask more questions than they answer but…it’s all good.  And it looks like I’ve accomplished lots.

I know, I know…it’s not even technically the holiday season yet but tell that to the catalog makers.  My mailbox is already overflowing with them, and I, being a sucker and an optimist, can’t help but look through them all, just in case that Perfect Gift is in there.

I haven’t found any perfect gifts yet, but I’ve rolled my eyes at several options and wondered who the hell buys this stuff.  Because I’m an unselfish girl, I’m offering this vital information to you as a public service.  You can thank me later, when the gifts you give aren’t stupid, annoying, offensive or a general waste of money.

Gifts on the Do Not Buy List

1. Darth Vader Clock Radio – Maybe my 9yo would think this is cool but…who really needs to wake up to the voice of Darth?  I rode from Wisconsin to Ohio with Larissa’s Darth Vader GPS and trust me, I was ready to kill Darth by about Chicago. And this is when I was already awake and dealing with the day.

2. Beer Pouch-Pocket Hoodie – Um…I’m all for hoodies and I’m all for beer but…if you can’t hold on to your beer bottle without putting it in the little pouch on the tummy of this sweatshirt, you really need to be cut off anyway.  Plus?  It’s butt ugly.

3. Plush Sock Monkey or actually…ANYTHING sock monkey – Earmuffs, toys, t-shirts.   Sock monkeys are way scarier than clowns.

Flair Hair Visor

4. Flair Hair Visors – All I need to do to explain this one is post a picture.  Whoever came up with it needs to be shot.

5. Tropical Fish and Seashell Toilet Seats – A) A toilet seat for a gift?  Really?  B) With real seashells in it?  I love all things ocean/seashore/beach but…you have to draw the line somewhere.

6. Stinky the Garbage Truck – I live with 5 cats and 3 male humans.  I don’t need anything else that stinks. 

7.  Barbie Video Girl – It’s a Barbie Doll.  With a real, working video camera in her torso.  My husband wondered if this is the new tool of pedophiles. 

8.  Beer Pager – It’s a coozy-type thing for your beer, which in theory is fine until you realize it has a remote control.  When you lose your beer, you push your handy remote and the coozy burps and flashes its lights.  I’m thinking the owner of one of these should have an even bigger warning for women to stay away than the middle-aged man who still lives with his mother.

9. Escape Hammer – It’s a little tool with a sharp metal end that you can use to escape your vehicle if you get trapped in it.  Available from a gift catalog.  I don’t think I need to expand on this one.

10.  Pop Quiz Clock – The catalog’s description says it all:  “Math whizzes and curious folks will try to figure it out – the hours are marked with fractions and algebraic formulas.”  I so don’t need this in my life, and neither should anyone else.

That’s all the stupidity I’ve come across in the last couple of days.  What about you?  Anyone else have suggestions for what not to buy?  I find this a much easier exercise than figuring out what TO buy!

Very few things will make me break down and take my car in for an oil change.  I can only think of one thing, actually, because the little guilt stickers they put in the upper left corner of the windshield don’t work on me, at least not by themselves.  A road trip PLUS more than 5,000 miles since the last little sticker was put on.  The double whammy.

I’m road tripping today, going to Indianapolis for a girls weekend with my plotting group.  I’m driving Little Red, our very practical, 103,000-miles-on-the-odometer family car that my husband normally drives.  I’m picking up two of my friends on the way, and maybe because these two are depending on me for transportation, I thought it’d be nice to give Red some clean oil.  (Plus the sticker told me it’d been a year and a half and over 6,000 miles.  Details.)

So yesterday I picked up my boy from school and headed for the nearest Jiffy Lube, which I actually had to look up.  I pulled in with dread.  Why do I hate these places so?  A) It’s boring car stuff and as long as my car runs okay, I could care less what’s happening under the hood.  B) There are shoes I would be much happier spending that money on.  C) A $35 oil change is never $35.  Especially when you only take your trusty buggy in every other year or so.  (“Your air filter has a lot of…stuff stuck in it.”  “Your oil is dark and sludgey.”  “You should have your ___ hose replaced because it’s clogged.”)  D) I know jack about cars and inherited a heavy distrust of mechanic types from my father, so no matter what they tell me or show me, I always feel like I’m at risk of being a sucker if I say yes to everything.

My local Jiffy Lube was kind of a…different experience.  I drove up and a woman came out to greet me.  Okay…cool.  And then another woman helped her work on my car.  They were running the place, the only two people I saw working. And they meant business!

The one who was clearly in charge is the one who got “upsell” duty and I know this isn’t rational but I felt less like a sucker hearing all of Red’s woes from her.  She explained things so a woman who knows jack about cars could understand and see what needs to be done.  When I said no to things like new wipers, she didn’t give me that condescending, you’re-gonna-regret-that look, she just moved on.  Truthfully, she probably didn’t do things much differently than the men who’ve been in upsell position with me in the past, but for some reason I trusted her more.  I’m sure this says something about me and some deep-seeded discrimination against male mechanics, but whatever. 

Jiffy Lube got my money (more than $35) and they’ll get my repeat business, maybe even sometime before the year 2012.  I’m all about a little girl power, and it seemed especially fitting right before a girls’ weekend.

The blogging wagon, that is.  Bigtime.  Life kind of hit me smack in the head, between the school bookfair, my parents’ visit and superfast househunt, my son’s birthday and…all the usual stuff.  Excuses?  Maybe.  But I (once again) hit the point where One More Thing, in this case blogging (once again) was going to be the straw that broke this camel’s back.  And for some reason, even though the above-mentioned stresses are gone now, it was all I could do to click on New Post and start typing again.  I don’t believe in writers block but I’m a mostly living, breathing example of bloggers block.

So…I realize this is not a legitimate blog post but it’s a start.  I’m alive.  I think.  I’ll be back this week with something other than excuses.