My Hunger Games Tee

I had to make myself a Hunger Games tee. Because I'm a major fangirl.

Then I decided to make the shirt available to all those who feel me.

You feel me?

(Clicky to purchasey)

This is Only a Test...

Just trying out a new comment system. If you stopped by looking for an actual blog post, here's a funny for your time.

The People Have Spoken

Looks like I'll be adorning my iPad with this skin:

Thanks, everyone, for helping me decide! I'll post photos when I've attached the epic skin of epicness.

Help Me Choose a Skin for my iPad

I got an iPad for my birthday from the Hubs. I didn't think I'd ever find one useful, but so far I use it much more than my iPhone, and it's made my social media work fly by super fast each day. That means there's more time to read and write. Two thumbs up for the iPad!

I was looking at gelaskins.com for a vinyl skin to protect the back from scratches. I saw you could customize your skins, so I asked one of my favorite artists if I could use one of her pieces. These are the ones I've narrowed it down to.

Which one should I choose? The gnome's been no help, so I thought I'd ask my always helpful and artistically astute blog and Twitter friends.

In Which I Gush About Books (for once) and My Birthday

I don't usually gush about the books I'm reading, but today felt like a gushing day. So here it is.

*cue gush*

Fellow readers, get thee to yonder book emporium and lay your shillings down for BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS, which has been loosed this day.

Huzzah!

I loved BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS. I loved reading it curled up on a blanket outside under fall colors. It's the sort of book you can sink into and stay immersed in, like a bubble bath. In fact, I read so long I got pruny, sotospeak.

If you want to read more of my gushing, here's my review on YABooksCentral.com. There are no spoilers -- it's basically just an urging for YA paranormal fans to go out and buy the book already.

I also finally reviewed Laini Taylor's LIPS TOUCH: THREE TIMES. I've been meaning to for a while now, but the Project of Doom always got in the way. *shakes fist at Project of Doom*

I devoured this one without bothering to come up for air. Kind of like when I take on a bowl of my dad's cream cheese and corned beef dip. Only I wasn't sick after LIPS TOUCH.

I was schooled.

Here's my review of LIPS TOUCH at YABooksCentral.com, full of yet even more gushing.

And my final gush of the day?

I can't wait for the release of NIGHTSHADE.

Which is on my 30th birthday.

How rad is that?

I mean, the release, not my turning 30. That's not so rad. In fact, I'm kind of bummed about it. Hence all the gushing. Gushing tends to make me feel better, if only temporarily. But I plan to pick up NIGHTSHADE as a Happy-Birthday-to-me treat on the 19th. It's a great idea, don't you think?


Birthdays haven't been that much fun the past few years. Living so far away from friends and family makes it just another day on the calendar. If I was back home, my mom would cook me a made-to-order meal. That's our tradition. My request is usually her fried chicken and mashed potatoes, her signature antipasto salad, and of course cranberry sauce (which could quite possibly be my favorite food of all time -- don't judge). Dessert would be Gooey Butter Cake or oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Then we'd sit out back around a fire, laugh and tease each other, and sip Velvet Red, our family's favorite local wine.

Celebrating at my dad's is much the same. He starts early in the morning, smoking fresh ribs and Cornish hens. He has his own secret recipe for BBQ, and his simmering sauce pretty much flows through our veins. We gather around the table, passing dishes of grilled summer vegetables, slices of fresh tomato with salt and pepper, homemade pickles and pickled beets, deer sausage, and just about anything else our family has grown or canned over the summer. Then he pulls out the instruments, and we circle around in the living room with the guitar, mandolin, and banjo.

It's tradition.

And I don't necessarily want to start my own tradition because I'm not sure anything can beat those.

In fact, I know nothing can.

So instead of trying, I'm going to come up with a Gilmore-Girls-list of birthday treats. For myself. Because I don't have a daughter like Rory to make the list for me.

I need my own Happy Birthday mallomars:



So what should I put on the list?

☑ find NIGHTSHADE in the wild, lasso, and claim it as my own
☐ what else?







  

The Project of Doom Has Eaten Me Alive!

Some of you may remember my rants about the Project of Doom a while back -- that intense web re-design I've been working on all summer.

I'm proud to say ... it's almost done ...

My deadline was October 1st. But that was my personal goal, so I don't feel too bad about missing it by a few days. In fact, I plan to launch the new site re-design either this week or next.

Huzzah!

The down side has been an entire summer spent sitting at the computer - not writing - which has done nothing for my posterior. If you're going to stock up on extra real estate, you better get a novel out of it, am I right? I also feel I've lost touch with the blogosphere and twitter realms. Annnnnd I haven't done a lick of writing.

I feel as though I've been gobbled up, swallowed by the black hole of work. (Or white hole, according to the photo of epic win above.) I've been chewed, crunched, gulped, digested, and left as a squidgy blob of pulp. In fact, I feel a lot like this:



This is what happens when you're a perfectionist with an addictive personality. In my case, I'm addicted to creating art in all forms, mainly writing and story building, and I go about the creation and design of a website in much the same way. I slave away, for little to no compensation or recognition, nitpicking every last detail until all that's left of me is this squidgy pulp of socially unacceptableness.

The sad thing is, once I'm done with this project, another will come, then another, and another, because working on those projects make me happy.

In some form.

We all have our Projects of Doom, where nothing ever goes smoothly, and we wave at our deadlines as they careen past us time and time again. But I'd rather saddle up and take on the obstacle course (and win that blue ribbon) than sit on the sidelines.

Wouldn't you?