Who is your favorite book character?

We all have a favorite book character. There are so many to choose from. So who is your favorite and what would ask them if you could talk to them? Post your response in the comments.

Writers Resources

I have found Thesaurus.com an invaluable resource when looking for an alternative word during the writing of NIGHTWALKER. You also might want to check out The Writers Coffee Shop.




Happy Writing!

Whack a Mole

Getting the kids to bed at night is reminiscent of an old arcade game called 'whack a mole' whereas you take a rubber mallet and try to put down as many moles as you can in the time allotted. You get one down and another pops up.
I'm sure we're not the only parents faced with this phenomenom. We lovingly call it whack a mole because you breathe a sigh of relief that all the kids are tucked in bed when one pops up for a glass of water. You get that one back down and think you're safe for the night. Not so fast there buddy, as another child remembers something they absolutely must tell you. A few minutes later after that one is sent back to bed another pops up. Well, you get the idea.

It's nights like that when I think of the future when my husband and I will decide it's time for bed and then...go to bed. No more last minute stories or glasses of water. No more one last kiss and hug from a sleepy-eyed, pajama clad little one.

I don't know about you, but I'll take the chaos any day! Oh yea, and a glass of wine.

Desert Critters

I feel blessed to live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. My husband and I were attracted to the beauty of the desert southwest the first time we visited. Fast forward many years and we now call it home. Among the many differences from living in the desert as oppossed to the great lakes are the critters. It is completely normal to see a little lizard crawling around the fence that surrounds our yard and I'd made peace with that. After all, they eat some of the more nasty critters that live outside.

Outside being the key word. One morning while rushing to get the kids off to school on time, I walked out of my bathroom and past my bed. Noticing a piece of lint hanging to the side of my mattress, naturally I went to pick it off. Only it moved! It was a small lizard. ON MY MATTRESS! My husband had already left for work. Thank God for cell phones. The conversation went something like this:

"THERES A *censored* LIZARD ON MY BED!"
Apparently I spoke incoherently in my panic and he said, "What?"
So I took a deep breath and repeated myself.
"Do you need me to come home?" He asked innocently.
"DID YOU HEAR ME? THERE IS A *censored* LIZARD ON MY BED!"

My husband being an intelligent man turned his car around and made it back home within fifteen minutes. He immediately went upstairs and my son, being helpful, took a baseball bat up to him while my 8 year old daughter and I stood at the bottom of the steps.

WHACK! "That's a hit." My daughter announced approvingly.
We heard a little scambling around upstairs then, "The son of a *censored* is still *censored* alive!"
The first hit apparently only stunned the lizard for a moment and when my husband went to get a cloth to carry its carcass outside, he sprang to life and made a run for it. Now, as I already said, my husband is an intelligent man and knew that if the lizard remained alive and roaming the house he would come home from work to a for sale sign in the front yard, furnishing included. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

Finally the lizard was removed from the house and *sigh* 'my hero', my dragon slayer husband went off to work.

It's morning like that when I don't need coffee and again. you can't make this stuff up!

You can't make this stuff up!

The Heart Attack Grill in Chandler Arizona is a straight up burger and fry joint. It features single, double, triple and quadrulple bypass burgers, flatliner fries and waitresses dressed in nurse costumes that could very well be hazardous to your health. My husband thought, "cool, lets go get a burger." I thought "cool, I don't have to cook tonight." So we gathered up our best friends and the four of us went out to eat. There is an ambulance waiting at the front door should your arteries become clogged just by the scent of the heavenly burger and fries. Once inside, you place your order then can walk around and admire the mannequins dressed as nurses straight from the Victoria Secret catalog.There are plenty of photo opportunities so bring your camera. We did. My husband saw a man having his picture taken with a young woman in medical scrubs in front of a large wall menu. When the man stepped out of the way, my husband handed me his camera and jumped in. The woman looked shocked but smiled politely as I snapped the picture. The man who had been there first didn't look too happy. About five minutes later we found out why. The woman in scrubs was his wife. Not an employee of the grill. They left and we all had a good laugh. See, you just can't make this stuff up!

My memory foam mattress has Alzeimer's Disease

I’ve come to the conclusion that my memory foam mattress has Alzeimers disease.
My husband and I purchased our first mattress together as a married couple nearly 16 years ago. Three homes and three children later, we thought it might be nice to buy a new mattress. While we were at it, what the heck, let’s upgrade to a king size. Then there might actually be room for both of us and whatever child crawls in with us in the middle of the night without one or both of us having to hang off the side the of the bed. We are left grasping for whatever tiny piece of mattress said child will allow us because he/she has spread out and taken up every possible piece of flat surface.
With that planned, we went shopping. Now, mind you I like to shop, daresay even love it; with a few exceptions. I hate, hate, hate to shop for mattresses and the granddaddy of them all, cars. But that being said, off we went to one of the hundreds of places where you can lie down on a floor sample mattress, that has been there for God only knows how long and has seen more action/bodies on it, than a cheap hooker in Vegas.
So there we are, standing in the middle of an enormous showroom filled end to end with mattresses that just begged to be jumped on from one end of the room to the other. Who knew that salesmen could be so cranky? Did I mention that we left the kids at home? 
So after we got kicked out of that store… I didn’t like any of their mattresses anyway… we went into another. After a hard fought mental battle to restrain the urge to jump across the room, we chose a mattress, then another, and so on and so on….you get it. Hour later we chose a mattress that made us feel like we were floating on light, puffy clouds. Heaven! Surely we would get a good five or six hours of sleep a night on this baby. We picked out a new frame, filled out more paperwork than it took to buy our house and my husband proclaimed, “put it in the truck, Bob!” That’s when ‘Bob’ informed us that he could have delivered within the next two weeks. * long-suffering sigh *
Time passes by and much awaited mattress arrives. * applause *
More time passes by and the ‘clouds’ begin to sink until we are left with two body-sized indentations in the mattress. On a good morning, it only takes two tries to work up enough momentum to crawl of the hole. So we turn the mattress. Sideways, longways and anyway to attempt to revive our memory foam. * tears * Sadly, it has Alzeimer’s Disease with no hope of recovery. We even tried taking turns sleeping on the hump in the middle to no avail. It’s like sitting in a 1966 Chevy with the hump in the middle of the backseat.
Left with no choice, we retired our poor sick mattress and bought a new one…online…without the memory foam! Provided it suffers no serious illness, we hope to have this one for longer than a year.