Nothing else matters ...

Today is a HUGE birthday day amongst my family and friends.
My sweet niece, who often drives me crazy, is celebrating her birthday in Disney World.
Happy Birthday, Hailey-Bug!

My big sis, far away in Hawaii enjoying the sun and surf (in theory).
Happy Birthday, Tracy!

My favorite bibliophile who moved across the country but still manages to keep in touch like a CHAMP and prod me to write my part of our Zompocalypse story!
Happy Birthday, oddmonster!

That's a lot of birthdays. I'm all worn out now.

Anyway. Onto the not as joyous stuff. As you can see, I'm online again after the Great Computer Outage of 2011. The technician ran a slew of tests and everything came back looking good. He admitted that there's been a lot of calls about slow and non-responsive internettedness and it looks like there are just too many people using too little ... whatever it's called. So, yeah. That sucks. But we're back up and running and we're going to try to keep track of when and how often we lose connection to see if it's worth changing providers. I'm not feeling terribly optimistic about this, to be honest. Meh. We'll see.

I have a ton of stuff to talk about but I'm going to talk book for a minute and save the funny stuff for tomorrow. Maybe.
Book #285 - Changeless (The Parasol Protectorate #2) by Gail Carriger - These books are so freaking FUNNY. I love the tone they're written in and how utterly absurd some of escapades the characters find themselves in the middle of are.
Book #286 - Lights, Camera...Monsters (Monsters in Hollywood #1) by Lila Dubois - I know these books won't be for everyone but I thought this one was sexy and fun. Sex with monsters! Who knew I'd get such a kick out of it?

Out of the blue today, my mom says "One month until the kids are back in school." It really does seem like they just finished school and now we're going to have to gear up for a new year. Crazy.

Okay. I'm off to finish the 3rd Parasol Protectorate book.
Later.

I feel like I've been a terrible journal writer lately. Which is funny because my last few posts have actually had some substance as opposed to be just rambling about books. As I'm so fond of doing. But I really do try to post every day and it seems like lately that's fallen by the wayside a bit.

One of the reasons I originally started posting on a regular basis (besides the fact that I have this unlimited capacity to write and write and write and write about things that no one wants to hear about) was so I had a record of these fun, sometimes interesting, often bizarre things that happen to me. I have a terrible memory. TERRIBLE. When I hang out with malkovich03 she'll say stuff like "Do you remember that time we went to dinner and you ordered the pasta and then we both had wine and your was white and mine was red and these guys came over and one of them was an alien and he wanted to take you away to the mothership and show you the galaxy?" You'd think I'd remember an alien wanting to take me away to the mothership BUT I DON'T. Much less what I ate that time it happened. I swear, if my brain had any more holes in it I'd be a walking medical miracle. Imagine what I'd be like if I were all drug addled and drank like a fish. I know. I'm scared now too. I'm sorry to put that picture in your head. So very, very sorry.

Anyway. I feel like I've been doing a poor job keeping up with my lj lately. I don't exactly know if that's going to change in the near future but I'm not going to let myself stress out over it too badly. Because I've got plenty of other things to stress over. Right?

Okay. Books. I have some.
Book #273 - Midnight Howl (Poison Apple) by Claire Hutton - The 2nd of Hailey's books that I filched. This one with werewolves!
Book #274 - Space Junque (Apocalypto #1) by LK Rigel - I barely knew what I was reading through half of this book and I STILL ended up picking up the next in the series. That must say something.
Book #275 - Never a Bride by Amelia Grey - Another quick little historical romance. nothing mind bending or earth shattering about it but it was fun.
In My Mailbox (07/10/11) - I found out this weekend that Goodreads has a section for free ebooks they offer. I downloaded a metric ton right after posting this post. Meaning that next week's post is going to be HUGE!

I'm a little hungry. Should I eat? I must think.
Later.

Tonight I'm going from work straight over to Hailey's dance recital. I don't know how to put this without sounding like a raging bitch so I'm just going to say it. I'm really not looking forward to this. I mean, I like watching Hailey's dances but she's only in 2 or 3 of them. And the entire show is THREE HOURS LONG. The evening performance starts at 7. So it'll be at least 10:30 before I get home. Like I said, I don't mind watching Hailey dance and, honestly, I'm sure I'll enjoy the entire first half of the show - they're doing Aladdin after all and I do love me some crazy-talking genie - but the second half is going to be hard. Because by the time we hit the second half I'm ready to go home.

So... yeah. Dance recital after work.

Now, I want everyone to hold onto their pants for a minute because I'm going to talk about books. Not the way I normally do- that'll come later- but about the really great run of books I've been reading lately.

See, I have this theory about books. Part of it has been begged, borrowed, and/or stolen from various places (most notably oddmonster) but it works for me so I'm appropriating it for my use.

I believe that all books have an audience. I might not be that audience but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people out there who fully enjoy a book that I don't. This is just one of the reasons that I always try to be gentle in my reviews when I don't like a book. I try to give reasons why I didn't like something or why it didn't work for me as opposed to just throwing up my hands in disgust. The other reason I try to be gentle has everything to do with how much of my heart and soul I put into my own novel. I can't say for certain but I'm pretty sure that most people who take the plunge and attempt to write a book and have it published have put a lot into its creation. That book is someone's baby. They nurtured it from the kernel of an idea up to the end result. That last part might be me projecting my own insecurities out into the universe. I don't know.

I'm not saying that you have to like every book, either. I'm not saying that you can only say good things about a book. Believe it or not, I don't always say good things about the books I read. I just do my best to explain why whatever I was reading didn't work for me.

I've kinda gotten off track here. Let me step back on. I've been reading a lot of books lately that have worked for me. A lot. Like, 9 out of 10 books I've read recently have migrated to my 2011 Favorites pile on Goodreads. Why? Timing. I pick up these books and they're exactly what I'm looking for at that moment. I wanted a book about fallen angels with an emphasis on the urban fantasy side (as opposed to a paranormal romance) so I started reading Highborn by Yvonne Navarro this morning. My God! This book is EXACTLY what I wanted. Yes, it is well written and incredibly engaging and I probably would have rated it highly anyway on those points alone but the fact that I was looking for exactly this type of book right now is propelling it into favorite status.

So on top of every book having an audience (somewhere, even if it's on a Himalayan mountaintop with a lonely goat herder) I think that timing is key. If you don't want to read a book about dangerous fallen angels you're probably not going to love this particular book as much as I am. Does that make sense? I feel like lately I've either been making some really good book decisions that match up perfectly with what I'm craving in a literary sense or I've been incredibly lucky lately. Because I've been reading a lot of great books. A.Lot.

I don't think I articulated this as well as I could have. I'll have to think on it and let it simmer for a bit.

Anyway. I read a book today. Don't act so surprised.
Book #254 - The Sacrifice (Forbidden #1) by Samantha Sommersby - This book shocked me with how good it was. I was seriously expecting a smutty quickie and I got a full-on story. Sweet!

I've really gone on enough here.
Later.

The kids and I took the dogs to the dog park this morning. Bailey rolled around in every patch of mud and dirt she could find. She was adorably filthy by the time we left. Needless to say, both dogs got a bath today. Heck, I practically needed a bath by the time we were done bathing them.

In totally random news, malkovich03 had to make an emergency trip out of state and I miss her. I have a book signing I'm going to tomorrow and we would have gone to dinner to catch up on life and various other things (things which mostly involve me inserting the words "cock" and "screaming orgasms" into the conversation while trying to keep my voice down so the patrons at the next table don't hear about sleep orgasms. No fooling. Hey, researching for writing sex scenes is a dirty job and I'm happy to do it!) before the signing but now I'm just going to go, get my book and find a coffee shop to read at until I can read at the bookstore.

Thus far, I've watched all of disc 1 of Firefly with Hailey. Episodes: Serenity parts 1 & 2, The Train Job and Bushwhacked. Hailey still isn't convinced that it's as good as The Walking Dead but I told her she had to give it a chance before making such a sweeping declaration.

And now onto the books...
Book #234 - Shameless (The House of Rohan #4) by Anne Stuart - I really, kinda, pretty much loved this book. Historical shenanigans, FTW!
Book #235 - Solid (Solid #1) by Shelley Workinger - A well-written, nicely fleshed-out young adult novel. It has a mad scientist in it. Well, a mad scientist conducts experiments in the prologue and then the kids he experimented on have to deal with the fallout, so he's not actually in it in it, but... oh, nevermind.
Felicity Heaton's great e-book summer savings - Felicity's offering her newest paranormal vampire romance for $0.99 through July 1st. As an aside, I've read quite a few of her books. And I've liked them all.

Okay. I'm done.
Later.

Cole and I just watched Hot Fuzz. He swears that it's the first time he's seen it, which I find amusing since I've watched it many, many times and you'd think he would have caught it a time or two just by walking through my room.

He liked it, btw. He said it was "cool and hilarious". Awwww. Mom and son bonding over violent, bloody movies. LOVE IT!

Tomorrow's the last day of school. I'm okay with it for the most part (except for that whole "Hailey and Cole fight constantly and this summer is going to be REALLY LONG" thing) and then I realize that my baby is going to be in SEVENTH GRADE! WTF!?!?! When did my wee beastie get so big? I'm not talking height wise either (although he is nearly as tall as me- damn you, mom and dad, for combining to give me these tiny, tiny genes)... I'm talking HOW DO I HAVE A KID WHO'S ALMOST 12?

*le sigh*

Tomorrow is going to be awesome. I'm heading out to malkovich03's end of town (well, work-type town) and dragging her off to a book signing. Melissa Marr at Keplers in Menlo Park at 7 pm. I'll be the one with red and black hair trying to talk her BFF into going out for a drink later.

I have some things of a bookish variety to talk about...
Book #221 - Hidden by Blood (Sweetblood #1.5) by Laurie London - Short and sweet, I liked it a lot.
Book #222 - Dark Needs at Night's Edge (Immortals After Dark #5) by Kresley Cole - I AM STILL LOVING THIS SERIES! Now with bloodthirsty vampires, sexy ghosts and awesomeness beyond compare!

I am done, people!
Later.

Holy Hannah! I made it through and entire Monday thru Friday work week. It was touch and go for a while there but I had malkovich03 do some virtual hand holding today on Twitter and coax me thru the rough patches.

You know, I used to work ridiculous amounts of hours every week. Every day of every week. Now I can't even work a measly 5 days in a row at 6 hours per day. It's like my brain got broken or something. Or it's like ... my brain got... no, I already said that.

Anyway. I was going to recreate the Twitter conversations I engaged in today but that seems like waaaay too much work so... yeah. Not happening. However, I did tweet a picture of my red and black hair (complete with hot pink scalp) to Mal this morning...
Red and black, babies. red and black.

As a random aside, I wore really cute red plaid shoes to work today. Totally impractical with four inch heels but they fucking rocked!

Okay. Books.
Book #212 - Graveminder by Melissa Marr - I couldn't put this book down. It has this gorgeous creepy, slow-build feel to it that was so very, very captivating.
Book #213 - Fragile Eternity (Wicked Lovely #3) by Melissa Marr - Look! I'm having a Melissa Marr-a-thon. That's because I'm going to meet her next Friday. Book signings are so fun. Especially when I get to hang with Mal and be catty. This book? Awesome. Loved it. But then, I do tend to love those wicked, wicked Fae.
Book Blogger Hop, Follow Friday & Tagalong Friday - The best part about this post is my totally fictional account of what the poor model guy had to deal with during his nuded up photoshoot. Ha! I make myself laugh.

I have malkovich03, jenah and kimbrchick coming over tomorrow and I've pretty much done everything I was planning on doing tonight. This includes cleaning, vacuuming and getting some of the food made. AWESOME!

Okay. Now I'm done.
later.

I'm attempting to condense down some of the random sites I have here and there around the web. I deleted my fanfic journal this morning. Mostly because I haven't updated it in over a year and I have big plans for being published in the future. That might not make sense but if I ever decide to share all my random writings with the internet again I'll probably go all out and do it on my own domain. I also have plans to delete my graphics journal, mostly because I really don't see myself making icons or wallpapers or anything like that in the near future. So, yeah. That'll go away soon. I think jenah and I need to decide if we're going to do anything with blabapalooza or just let it fade away. I don't really care one way or another, I just know that I haven't been watching many movies lately and thus have nothing to review.

Oh, and yesterday I mentioned that I'd written about 450 words on my Zompocalypse story. I cranked out another 150 words last night after I wrote up that post, so I ended up at 600+ words. Nice. Not fantastic, but definitely nice.

And for books...
Book #181 - Turned at Dark (Shadow Falls #0.5) by CC Hunter - An interesting introduction to a new series. I liked it.
Book #182 - Fallen from Grace (Dark Passages Prequel) by MJ Putney - Not quite as tight as I would have hoped for a new-to-me series but it tickled my fancy and left me with a lot of questions.
Book #183 - Voice of the Blood (Voice of the Blood #1) by Jemiah Jefferson - I liked some things about this book and then there were other things that I wasn't as in love with.
Book #184 - The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton - Oh wow. I loved how we were given three different storylines from three different times and we slowly begin to unravel the mystery of what happened so many years before and how it ties in with the present.

I just spent 20 minutes laughing my ass off over oddmonster's post about Velociraptors. Comments. Cracking me up. Dying now. Can't breathe.

In other news, I had a plan to do some things around the house today. Things like vacuuming and making laundry detergent (I know, I am so crafty. You don't have to say it.) but instead I did a whole lot of nothing. I did do some laundry but that was it. And I still have to make laundry detergent.

I am momentarily caught up on reviews.
Book #175 - A Little Harmless Sex (Harmless #1) by Melissa Schroeder - Fast, fun and sexy. It's another contemporary romance I liked.
Book #176 - The Strange Case of Finley Jayne (The Steampunk Chronicles #0.5) by Kady Cross - I really liked this glimpse into Finley's life before the events of The Girl in the Steel Corset.
Moira Rogers, free ebooks and sexy men! - Moira Rogers has a book coming out tomorrow, Wilder's Mate is 50% off at ARE, Pocket After Dark has some great free reads and I like wet, half-naked men.

I'm off to do very important things. Wish me luck!

Oh, I had a fabulous time at the book signing last night. Cassandra Clare and Holly Black were an absolute hoot together. I think a large part of it stems from the fact that they're friends in real life and not just two authors who happen to be touring together to promote their books. They were riffing off each other and they are just really fantastic women who put on a great Q&A.

I also happened to spy author Lisa Desrochers (author of Personal Demons) hanging out on the periphery (she was there to meet the ladies, not as part of the signing) and she ended up sitting next to me. I got to talk to her one-on-one about her books, her contract, the sexy teasers she's been leaking for her upcoming book and just writing stuff in general. It was one of the coolest and most unexpected things to have happen and I absolutely loved it. I did manage to wrangle a picture with her...

malkovich03 took the picture and she snapped it just as Holly Black was passing behind us. So although I don't have pictures of CC and HB during the actual signing (there were probably between 200 and 300 people there so they didn't have time to chat excessively or pose for pictures), I do have that action shot of Holly Black scooting past us.

As a random aside, I kept getting compliments on my fingerless gloves yesterday. The girl at Peet's Coffee was almost drooling over them and Cassandra Clare told me she really, really liked them. Fingerless gloves WIN!

On top of all that, I met a lovely blogger who lives in the Stanford area and Mal and I got to giggle over the massive amount of teen angst floating through the room. I was also recognized by the lady who organizes the event since she had just seen me on Sunday for the Kelley Armstrong signing.

I FEEL ALL IMPORTANT OR SOMETHING!

Final count for the books I got signed last night:
Holly Black: 10 total (5 from the Spiderwick series, 3 from The Modern Faerie Tales series and 2 from the Curse Workers series)
Cassandra Clare: 5 total (3 from the original Mortal Intstruments series, 1 from the 2nd Mortal Instruments cycle and 1 from The Infernal Devices series)

So, yeah. I'm happy with what I came home with.

I also managed to get a few reviews written. Which is nice because now I feel REALLY accomplished.
Book #144 - A Lady Never Tells (Willowmere #1) by Candace Camp - A totally engrossing historical that happens to be a free read at Pocket After Dark until April 30th.
Book #145 - Catch of a Lifetime (Tritone Trilogy #3) by Judi Fennell - Cute, but ultimately not really my type of book.
Book #146 - Venice Vampyr (Venice Vampyr #1) by Tina Folsom - I liked this one, but I was expecting a lot more from it.
Book #147 - Trey (Red, Hot & Blue #1) by Cat Johnson - Look! A contemporary romance I LIKED!

Okay. I've gone on and on and on here. I guess I can stop babbling now.
Later.

It was a spectacularly uneventful day at work. I read. I wrote up a review. I read some more. A few people came in. Not many. I came home. I had pizza at my sister's house.

As much as I complain about how slow work is, I actually really, really enjoy what I'm doing. First off, I get to read a lot, which is always cool. But more than that, I do have stuff I do during the day. It's just easy stuff that I whip through and then I get to work on how to make the office run more efficiently. Needless to say, I like this job far more than my last one. FAR MORE. Like, whoa.

Did I mention how I get to read at work? Beautiful.

Tomorrow I'm dragging malkovich03 out to Menlo Park for a book signing. I'm going to be seeing Kelley Armstrong who wrote the completely fabulous Women of the Otherworld series and the YA Darkest Powers trilogy. Her newest book is coming out on Tuesday and it's a new trilogy set in the Darkest Powers universe, which is itself set in her Otherworld universe. Confused yet? Don't be. Anyway. I adore her writing and I'm super, super excited to get to meet her and get my oodles of books signed.

Since I'm already talking about books...
Book #143 - Mine to Possess (Psy-Changeling #4) by Nalini Singh - I freaking love this series. And this book is my favorite so far.
In My Mailbox (04/10/11) - Free books, anyone? I picked up many this week.

I'm two reviews behind. Again. It's like I catch up and immediately fall behind. Ahh, the perils of reading all day while working.

Okay. The beastly boy wants to watch Terminator Salvation. I can't deny myself the lovely Sam Worthington. He's purty.
Later.