Nothing else matters ...

Guys, I love my family (most of the time) but all this togetherness over the holidays is putting me into family overload. My Aunt and Uncle from Washington state are visiting for a few days and tonight we had dinner with them over at my sister's house. I like seeing my Aunt and Uncle, Ilove playing with my nephew while I'm at Amb's house, but I'm also ready for things to fall back into their normal routine.

One thing I keep telling myself I'm going to do is finish up my NaNo novel. I haven't written a single word on it since I hit 50K back in the middle of November and I'm feeling a lot of guilt about this. I love this story. I love my characters. I need to sit down and just finish it so I can get back to editing and tweaking and re-editing.

And in book news:
Book #284 - Faefever (Fever #3) by Karen Marie Moning - There was a lot of flailing and ALL CAPS as I wrote this review. In an entirely good way. Because this series is AMAZING!
2011 Reading Challenges (pt 3) - Vampires, Shifters, TBR and a themed monthly challenge. I'm going to be doing a lot of reading in 2011.
Roof Beam Reader's 2011 TBR Challenge - The official list of books I'll be reading for this challenge.

I also put up a new Squidoo page dedicated to the Southern Arcana series by Moira Rogers. I honestly think everybody who likes werewolves and doesn't mind steamy sex should read this series. Honestly.

And that is all.
Later.

I am tired. As is the usual for my family, we got up early to do the Christmas thing. I didn't nap. I had to be cordial THE ENTIRE DAY. I'm exhausted.

So, Merry Christmas for anyone who celebrates. Yeah, it's a little late. It's not even 9:00 here, though, so I figure I'm still good.

Book stuff:
On My Wishlist - 3 books I'm probably going to buy before the end of tomorrow.

Speaking of which, I got tons of books. It was kinda awesome. Family, you rock.
I'm very tired now.
Later.

I finished wrapping gifts! I feel like I can conquer the world at the moment. It's amazing! Phenomenal! Outstanding! Take that, world! I have conquered!

I'm sure this is the lament of all adult-type people who are stuck at home while the kids are on their holiday break: The kids are driving me bonkers! For the love of angel food cake! How in the hell can they be so freaking annoying after only a few days? How? *crawls into a corner and weeps* I'm okay with them the first half of the day and then the afternoon rolls around. Things are all downhill from there. All downhill.

Anyway. I know they're just excited for Christmas and stuff. I know that once the thrill of the upcoming festivities have passed they'll settle down. The question is, will I mentally be in one piece after? Unknown.

Yeah. Book stuff:
Book #280 - Like Clockwork by Bonnie Dee - Steampunk and murder most foul.
2011 Reading Challenges (pt 2) - Some e-book fun.
Giveaway - Celebrating the Southern Arcana series by Moira Rogers - One of my favorite authors has a new book coming out at the beginning of January. I'm giving away one e-book of each of the three books in the series - Including the new one. Go. Enter. Enjoy.

So, there you have it.
Did I mention that I finished my wrapping? :)
Later.

Holy Hannah! Tomorrow I'm going to wrap presents. I swear it. I'm tired of the box of goodies taking up a large portion of my closet floor. I'm sick of maneuvering around the box every time I need to find a pair of shoes. I'm just... ready to wrap now.

I am exceedingly tired. Sleepy. Must sleep soon.

So I'd better get this book stuff out of the way.
Book #275 - Double Enchantment (Relics of Merlin #2) by Kathryne Kennedy - Another dip into the fun hat can be found with Regency era shapeshifters.
Book #276 - The Naked Detective (Karmic Consultants #4) by Vivi Andrews - Nudity in Atlantic City. Isn't that normal?
Book #277 - Immortal Ops (Immortal Ops #1) by Mandy M. Roth - I had a hard time getting into this one. Which is a funny thing to say since I read it in a matter of hours.
Teaser Tuesday - Naked bits, werewolves tracking their prey and crazy Fae. Just another day in the life of this girl.

I'm going to go to bed now.
Later.

Today was the Annual Holiday Party hosted by myself with the lovely jenah, kimbrchick and malkovich03 putting in an appearance. The power went out at my house this morning due to the torrential rain and wind that we were getting. I was a little afraid that we were going to be powerless all day, but everything righted itself and the power came on about 20 minutes before the ladies got there.

We went to lunch at a sports pub and I had the onion rings that make your taste buds sing. They are so freakishly good. I never order onion rings but I just can't resist those beauties. We drank mimosas and watched Inception afterward which was pretty cool but convoluted enough that I feel like I need to watch it again. Jenn, Kim and I also watched a few episodes of Vampire Diaries since Jenn was way behind on that.

So. Cool stuff. Plus I have some book stuff.
Book #272 - Arctic Shift (Denali Shifters #1) by Lissa Matthews - A book without conflict isn't terribly interesting.
In My Mailbox - Free books from Amazon, free books from All Romance, free books from Carina press, books I won, and books I bought. Pretty much an awesome week.

Okay. I'm off to nudge my boy off to bed.
Later.

Oh, man. I got my hair cut and colored today and my stylist always blows it out and puts all this crap in it. It looked fine until I laid down for a nap. Now I have a huge bubble of hair clinging oddly to the top of my head. Hahaha! I'm so glad no one can see me right now.

My sisters and I are planning out our time to finish up our Christmas shopping. It looks like Amb has claimed a few hours from me on Friday and a large portion of the day on Monday. Friday night I'm meeting my BFF Megan at the movies. Cole's tagging along for that. We're seeing Tron Legacy. I saw the original in the theater although there are some people who refuse to believe me when I say that. Saturday, Heather and I are heading out to get those last few things we need to pick up together.

Hopefully I can get it done over those 3 days and not have to think about buying things any more!

Books stuff:
Book #265 - Lord of Devil Isle by Connie Mason - I get to talk about scurvy and how seamen (ha!) always have all their teeth in historical romances.
Book #266 - Sweet Disgrace by Cherrie Lynn - Blistering sex doesn't mean literal blisters. I'm just sayin'. Also, sexy demons who lust after sweet angels are kinda hot.
Book #267 - Fated (Doomsday Brethren #1.5) by Shayla Black - A short story that pulls the Doomsday arc along.

And now I'm done.
Later.

I am so freaking tired right now. I don't feel like I'm going to face plant into my desk anymore, and trust me when I say that was a possibility earlier, but I can't imagine that I'm going to be staying up too much longer.

Cole had his final football games today. He ran in a touchdown, which was cool. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I don't mind having my Sundays free again. Not that it was all that taxing, but it's just going to be nice to have a few free weeks with all the crazy holiday stuff coming up.

Which reminds me that I need to email the ladies about our annual holiday party. I should really get on that.

Onward.

Book stuff:
Book #262 - Undertow (Building Sanctuary #2) by Moira Rogers - I love werewolves. I love couples caught in storms. I love alpha males. Yep, this book pretty much pushed all my buttons.
In My Mailbox - Books and books and books. Love!

I'm tired. I'm going to get the kids off to bed now.
Later.

Oops. I missed a day yesterday. I have an excuse though. I took malkovich03 out to dinner. Except that we drank more than we ate. *thumbs up*

Randomly, yesterday morning, Heather and I had decided that we were going to go up to San Jose to an actual mall instead of just the stores we have in Morgan Hill. We did some marathon Christmas shopping. It was epic. We got a huge chunk of our shopping done. Honestly, I didn't know I had that much shopping in me. I'm not a big shopper when it's not, you know, online. But we triumphed at the mall. TRIUMPHED!

Today, Cole had his football game and it was freeeeeeezing because the wind was whipping across the damn field as we were sitting there. Don't worry, though. I survived.

Okay. I have some book stuff.
Book #249 - Darkfever (Fever #1) by Karen Marie Moning - I was hesitant to start this series, but the sexy fae took that hesitation from me.

In My Mailbox - I bought a lot of books this last week. In my defense, I had an Amazon giftcard. *blink, blink*
On My Wishlist (week 13) - Cool giftsets I'd love to get my hands on.

And that's it.
Later.

I was up all night last night with Cole. We watched Signs. He puked. We watched Signs again. He puked some more. I think that every time I started to fall asleep he'd bolt out of the bed (I had him in my room since it's close to the bathroom) and start puking again. It was gross. AND IT HASN'T STOPPED YET TODAY!

Baby Ryan has a double ear infection, I'll be watching him for a few hours tomorrow. Cole obviously won't be going to school since he hasn't been able to keep anything down in over 24 hours. Heather called earlier and said that Hailey's hanging over the toilet.

Tomorrow's going to be awesome.

I'm just crossing my fingers that this nasty bug passes me completely by. I do not want to be doing any puking. None. Zero amounts.

In other news, we got our Christmas tree today. My mom was convinced that she'd be happy with a 7-8 foot tree. Yeah, right. She came home with a 10 foot one. I swear! 10 feet. We could barely get it up the front steps it was so damn big. Heather said that trying to squeeze it into the front door was like a football trying to fuck a monkey. That sent me into a hysterical bought of laughter, which really didn't help us much with the getting of the tree inside.

Anyway. It's up. It's decorated. It has pretty, pretty lights.

I have some minor bookish stuff:
In My Mailbox - I did really well not buying any books the month of November. Until this week. Damn myself.
30 days of books... Day 76 - High fantasy, free on the Kindle.

And that's all. Cole's conked out for the moment. My poor guy.
Later.

Ahh ... it's momentarily silent. My sister and her boys (the ones who live in Hawaii) have left to trek onward to the next set of family. Heather and Hailey just left to take care of Hailey's Guinea Pig (Dean!). The dogs are silently wrestling on the bed. Cole's playing some Halo game on his 360 that he couldn't live without. There's laundry in the dryer and the Christmas decorations have all been put away.

All in all, it was a good weekend.

That said, we did have to make a small stop at our local emergency room when my sister tripped and cut her knee up pretty badly yesterday. 6 hours and 5 stitches later (I didn't stay for the 6 hours, mind you, I was just the wheel girl), everything was peachy keen. She was joking that she's a emergency room secret shopper, hitting all the emergency rooms in the state to make sure their care is up to standard.

You know, I need to do some major laundry tomorrow. Sure, I'll get some of it done tonight (and already have) but there's a lot lot lot to do still. This is what happens when a holiday falls on one of my laundry days. Laundry buildup!

I'm undecided as to whether I should finish my book or watch one of my new movies. I just don't know.
I'll think about it and come up with something.
Later!

PS- I picked up Psych season 3 at Target today for a mere $17.99. Sweet! Oooooh! Maybe I'll watch that!