WHOOOOHOOOOOO!

At last, it's here, it's finally (almost) here! My book comes out in a month and it's available for preorder NOW. To celebrate, I'm doing some super fun stuff today. Check out the cover (feel free to tell me you love it because I do, so much!) and then read the backliner (and the first chapter if you want to), and THEN find out how you can win the very first copy of my book I give away or an Amazon gift certificate. Here we go:

Twenty-three-year-old Pepper Spicer is not living the dream. She ended her engagement at the last minute because her fiancé — a musician and soon-to-be reality TV star — wanted her to sacrifice her own career ambitions for his. 

Now she's stuck at home sharing a room with her little sister, trying to pay off massive debt for a wedding that didn't happen, and spending Friday nights Facebook-stalking everyone who has a better life. Her therapist father urges her to choose her career dreams and count her blessings by writing weekly thank you notes, but gratitude is a tall order when she botches an important job interview and has to settle for writing an undercover dating web-zine column — the last thing in the world she wants to do. Still, as Pepper (byline: Indie Girl) chronicles her bizarre and hilarious blind dates, she gives her father's challenge a try and slowly finds herself leaving self-pity behind. Life takes a major upswing as Pepper's column hits the big time and she tastes the exhilarating thrill of success. But there's one tiny problem: the intensely hot man she's falling for is having issues with her job (again). Will Pepper trade her personal ambition for another chance at love?

Sounds so fun, right? If you want to read the first chapter, you can check it out HERE on my website.

So how do you win it? Easy! There are two ways.

1. If you're on Goodreads, add it to your "To Read" shelf. This link will take you right to the book.

2. You can go to my writing blog and become a follower. It doesn't matter if you follow me here or not.  This is kind of more where my friends find me so I'm not really into adding people who don't want to come back on their own.  My writing blog is a different story. Go follow me there. Go! (Please?)

So if you add it on Goodreads, or follow my writing blog and want to win, leave a comment and let me know.

How do you win a $25 Amazon gift card? Preorder it, let me know you did, and you're entered! Deseret Books has it available for preorder here (even though they don't quite have the cover yet) and and AND . . . You can get it for 30% off today and tomorrow only. Just enter JULY30 for the discount code.

Hooray! Hip hip hooray!

(Tweets are not mandatory but appreciated, btw!)

Hump day, ya'll

I have something SUPER EXCITING to announce on Friday.

IT'S AWESOME.

But until then, I give you my new favoritest thing in the world, discovered via someone's Twitter feed.

Enjoy. No, I mean it. ENJOY.

Thanks a lot

On Friday night, my sister took Grant out to play at an indoor bounce house gym. Grant said, "Thank you for taking me to Jump N Jammin."

He did it unprompted. He did it when they were lying on his bed for story time an hour later and he interrupted  the book to say, "Thank you."

I didn't tell him to say it. She didn't tell him to say it. He said it because he meant it.

Here's the thing. Grant sometimes throw epic tantrums. Screaming, hysterical, can't-even-get-him-to-listen-to-you-fits. Or if you tell him no for something, he might immediately launch into this annoying fake cry that's not a great look or sound on a nearly four-year-old. He will knock his toddling sister over so that he can pick her up and hug her, and then turn around and do it again. He will eat nothing but chicken nuggets. And he's still not consistent about coming when I call him. He hates to clean up. Reverence is a foreign concept.

There are days when he flat drives me nuts. I extrapolate his behavior into the future and I wonder what it means for him. What clues are buried in his meltdowns? What character flaws are real and permanent and what is just standard three-year-old psychoticness?

But then I don't worry. Because the thank you he told my sister is something he said because he meant it. And it's not the first time he's done it. He has the ability to be in a moment he's really enjoying, a little snapshot of happiness, like when my neighbor gave him cold water on a hot day, and he can stop and look at whoever made his happy moment possible and say, "Thank you," with genuine delight. Because he wants to.

A grateful heart . . .

I didn't teach him that. He came to me that way. It's one of the special little things that makes him Grant. And a grateful heart is a powerful gift. It will keep him humble. It will help him find joy in everyday life. It will draw people to him. It will multiply his blessings.

And the tantrums still make me nuts. But I worry less for his future. Because his core, his essence . . . his spirit, are good and true and with a little nurture, he will grow to be great.

I love him. Crazy stinker.

Just ten.

1. I'm super tired of all the Comic Con tweets. But I sort of love Twitter.

2. Everyone on Burn Notice this season has terrible hair for some reason. Just bad dye jobs and bad cuts. It's not good.

3. I have far more books to read than I have time to get to. There are worse problems. But I sort of wish there was a pause button on my day where I could stop time for an hour and read without anyone needing a single thing from me and I wouldn't need to feel guilty about neglecting them. Ah, bliss.

4. I don't like big gaudy gold watches.

5. I really like Just Dance 2 on the Wii but I absolutely cannot do it for exercise unless, per my three-year-old's demands, I do the Monster Mash song first.

6. I have never had a black eye, a broken bone, or a bloody nose. Now that I've put that out there, I'm sure can I expect one of the three any time in the next week.

7. I don't think of myself as being superstitious, but I totally am. I believe in the rule of three (deaths and maybe even pregnancies). And I have other weird superstitious quirks. I've been wearing the same underwear every day for three years because I'm sure it's how the LSU football team got a big win. And I'm so totally making that up. Anyway, I also think that extreme superstitiousness and OCD might be cousins and I think they're in the control-issues family.

8. I only just discovered Honey Badger and Marcel the Shell. I am in love.

9. I've gotten to be both of the things I wanted to be when I grew up. That feels pretty good.

10. I think pregnant ladies are really freaking cute.

In which I feel sorry for others . . .

I blogged today at my writing blog. The little follow widget is working now for those of you who wanted to follow me there before, so feel free to hop on over and click it. And by that I mean hop on over and click it.


Anyway, you can go see why I feel pitied Robison Wells and Sarah Eden by clicking here.

Bag it.

I didn't know designer handbags were a thing until college when my roommate's mom was loopy for Dooney & Bourke purses. Then I thought maybe it was a rich suburban mom thing.

I found out that everyone my age was into the designer bag when I started teaching in California. Their poison was Coach. When I first saw the Coach logo purses, I was like "Meh."

And then suddenly I was like, "Ooh, I want one."

And that is why I don't buy expensive purses. I'm slightly obsessed and wished I owned one, but I don't know if it's because I genuinely like them and think they're cute or if it's because all my friends have them. And I haven't been able to figure it out for at least seven or so years.

I guess there's also the thing where I won't buy one because I usually have other things to do with $300 at any given moment. Like buy three pairs of shoes.

I owned a Coach purse once. It was a gift from my sister-in-law. I loved it. And then Grant smote it with my MAC Viva Glam V lipstick and now it's beyond repair. It's the primary reason I won't be paying for his college tuition.

Anyway, I think my conscience would bother me if I spent a bunch of money for a purse because most of the time when I see a really cute purse in the $200-300 range, I can find a really similar one at Target for oh, say . . . $20. So every time I have an impulse to buy a Coach purse (and I have it often), I think, "You should go write that check to Japanese disaster relief."

And I don't, but I also don't buy the purse.

But now I own an expensive purse. Want to see?

Kenny and I stumbled across this cool little design gallery on a meander through Laguna Beach last month. I liked the bag, but I was like, "That's too expensive." It was somewhere around $100. But then this lady came in, the one who sells them to the gallery, and she was bringing more in to sell. And I got the inside scoop. The bags are made by women in South Africa as a path out of poverty. They're constructed out of repurposed tires and old license plates and there are a few different silhouettes. You can check them out here if you want. (They're a better deal on the website than what I paid retail, btw.)

And I have to thank the purveyors of fair trade goods and microfinanced trinkets and lovelies so that I can own completely cute useless things AND make the world a better place at the same time.

It's like I'm a better person every time I whip out my credit card.

Grab bag

So every single day that I've been in the car since pitching a fit about Grease, a song from the Grease soundtrack has come on the radio. And here's what I think about that: Olivia Newton John could sang. Moving on...

I don't know why I continue to be horrified weekly by The Bachelorette. It's like I forget from week to week what the show is even about. And still last night as I watched the playback, I heard myself saying things like, "What is wrong with you people?" and then, like, pleading for at least one, yea verily, even ONE to find some dignity. But no one did. And yet, I leave it on my DVR.

It's gray outside today. I don't know know why I love it, but I do. So much.

I ate bacon last night. It's a rare treat and it made me so happy.

I had pumpkin ravioli with shaved Lorna Doone cookies on top the night before htat. I couldn't get enough of the crunch. Who'd a thunk?

One time, I was like, I'll never put my girl in frou-frou ballerina skirts and giant bows. And I am SO that mom now. I love it. I call her princess. It is terrible. I will not be stopping.

I am already counting down to the delicious dinner I will make for Saturday night. I love food. Also, I am gaining weight again. But at least it comes from honest-to-goodness delight in food and not emotional eating. Unless you count the thing where I get a piece of chocolate as a reward for even the most minimal exertion. Which I don't.

I have made a goal that at the very least I will sweep my kitchen floor every night. It just seems like something normal people do.

Did I mention that today's post is  random?

And do I even need to mention that random is my blog's default setting?

I'm going to have an omelet now because my husband makes me one every morning because I was very, very smart about who I married. In case you're not my Facebook friend, you should know that he was so moved by the bizarre disconnect in the SYTYCD Lost Children of Uganda dance last night, he performed a totally unprompted interpretative dance of his feelings about the lack of consensus over the debt ceiling. A few weeks ago, he treated me to some spontaneous krumping and then promptly twisted his ankle.

I know, I  know. You all want to come over on Wednesday nights now. Too bad, so sad. I would have to clean before you come by and apparently beyond the sweeping-due-to-meet-social-norms, I just don't do that anymore.

URGENT!!!!!!!

A decision MUST be made my 3 p.m. Mountain Time today. Which of these three covers do you love best for my next book? The design team at Covenant needs to know ASAP because it goes to press THIS AFTERNOON! Please click here to vote! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z829NMZ

A)

Choice B:

CHOICE C:

I am desperate for your help. HELP ME! Nevermind the sidebar poll. My publisher wants you to use the link above!

Bloghopping

You know what I always do when I have way too much to do?

I find one more thing to do.

Um, do you think this is coded into female DNA?

Anyway, here's the thing about this blog. It is my happy place. I come here to rant hang out. I've got lots of like-minded friends who stop by to visit me. This is good and makes me happy.

But did you notice the name of my blog up there? Write Stuff. And that's what I do on this blog. It's also what I originally meant this blog to be about: writing. Only, then I got bored with talking about that all the time and then this blog became something else.

Right now, though, my brain has gone all writing haywire. And I find myself wanting, even needing, to have conversations about writing to let it all out. However, I kinda still don't want to do that here. Here is still for about shoes. And kid vomit. And how I got ripped off by this one infomercial (oh, I cannot make the spelling on that look right to me) because I was delirious, but have now decided I don't mind. I guess I need to tell that story. Wednesday, maybe.

Here's where doing yet another thing I don't have time for comes in. (You thought I forgot, I know. While senile dementia is a certainty for me, I've still got twenty years before I worry.) I'm taking a tentative step toward publishing in the national market and it occurred to me that I need a proper author blog for that. Only it's me, so there won't be anything proper about it. But it will be author-y. And write-y. And I've only got three posts up but they discuss things like how Melanie Jacobson is ruining my life. Or at least harshing my mellow.

So if you're one of my writer friends (i.e. Annette, Jenny P, Susan, Becca, Chantele, Maggie F, etc.), would you mind hopping over there and waving hello? And by that I mean click the follow button? I'm still only posting three times a week but it will be twice here and once there. I need the outlet to pour out writing thoughts, yes. But it's not really fun to talk into a void.

Anyway, I kind of hate my template there but it'll do until I figure out what I do like. Or rather, I know what I like. I just have to figure out how to go about getting it done.

I digress.

Duh. It's me.

I'm World Class, Baby!

I have finally figured out what I'm better at than anyone else in the world.


Are you ready for this?


I am a first-class, elite-level, totally phemomenal...


Underachiever.


Oh, yes. If I knew how to do bar graphs in Blogger, I'd make one to illustrate my potential versus my actual acheivement. I imagine it would look something like if you built a mud hut next to the Chrysler Building and then asked, "All right. Who nailed it?"


Me=mud hut. Almost always.


Here's the thing. I have moments, measured by flashes in the pan, of greatness. Tiny little discrete instances in which I accomplish spectacular things. My father's eulogy. A couple of stellar scenes of dialogue. A perfect jambalaya.


Those were some of those moments. 


But mostly I am a three-toed sloth in a herd of cheetahs, distinguished only by my total lack of engagement with all the things that matter: dishes, dinner-making, grocery shopping. Et cetera. Et cetera. Forever, amen.


There is a suitcase on my living room floor. It took me about four days to empty it, an armful at a time every time I went upstairs at which point I deposited at least half of what I schlepped up on the first available surface that may or may not have had any discernible relationship to where said pile of crap actually belonged. And three days later, the suitcase is still on my living room floor. I have no idea why.
I was feeling pretty bad about my underachieving until I realized that every skill we've been given, including this most unusual talent of mine, can be used for the greater good.


So I now officially invite all of you to drop by my house without warning whenever you need to feel better about yourselves. When I answer the door mid-afternoon still in my pajamas to reveal a living room strewn with toys and food wrappers, and one of my children crawls up to you wearing nothing but a diaper that's sort of almost all the way on, and the other runs out with his underpants on his head screaming, "Look at my stupid hat!", I promise you . . . your self-esteem will immediately improve. It's almost magical.


If you are allowed to see my kitchen, you will be mildly disgusted but feel like a superhuman.


Also, my underacheivement increases in direct proportion to the heat. It's over 90 today. Come on by. You'll feel amazing when you leave.

Greasy . . . goodness? Maybe just greasy.

From an NPR interview about the Grease singalong at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend: "Why do you think this movie still captures new fans?" Answer: "It's just good, clean fun."


Ahem.


Wrong.


Or maybe right, if you define "clean" fun as tales of high school pregnancy, sexual conquest, and abandoning your morals to take up spandex pants and cigarette smoking in pursuit of the hot guy at school.


Then I guess that's right.


This is one of the funniest things to me about Mormon culture. And by "funny," I mean it makes me roll my eyes a lot. Hold on one second...


*Climbs on soapbox and taps microphone.


Attention, everyone! Attention, please! Adding a peppy musical score to something does not automatically make it family friendly. I'M LOOKING AT YOU, GLEE. Among other things.


I do not care if you love Grease or Glee. I like Grease. I just wasn't allowed to watch it until I was in college and then when I saw it, I was like, "Your parents let you see this? Aaaaagh!"


I don't like Glee for oh, so many reasons but again, I get why people do and it doesn't bother me in the least if you're one of them. But the moms watching it with their preteen daughters as "wholesome" family entertainment baffle me. Because . . . have you listened to the talking parts between the songs? 


Uh...


(You can read my friend Susan's most excellent rant about it HERE.)


It's because we Mormons have these little hair trigger responses to certain things. "Oh, Knocked Up was edited for TV? Then everything about it must automatically be okay!" or "Oh, this was performed on Broadway? Fire up the soundtrack for the family singalong because I'm sure it's FINE!" or "It has the word 'Family' in it? Then I bet it's edifying as the Proclamation on the Family. LET'S DO THIS THING!"


That last one especially makes me laugh as applied to the ABC Family channel.


Ah hahahaha!


What the crap kind of family is watching that network's prime time shows together? How are they not all cringing and making a conspicuous lack of eye contact with each other? I can see it as a guilty pleasure, sure. But you could not pay me enough money to watch something like The Secret Life of an American Teenager with my adolescent child. Although you could maybe convince me to do it on the grounds that all the squirming will help me burn calories. (Side note on the CW: Gossip Girls should not be viewed by anyone under the age of forty not accompanied by a parental unit who can fast forward and/or clap their hands over your eyes to shield your innocence. Even if you're a grown up, married, sex-having adult.)


Let me be clear. I think a lot of people get that you have to use a little judgment when watching any show, whatever it is. I can sing the Grease soundtrack from memory too (except I don't sing that one song because, ew). And if you're making informed choices, GOOD. What gives me a giggle (okay, no, it's the eye roll) is this line of thinking: "Oh, a show about a high school show choir! How uplifting!" or "If the word 'family' is in the title of the channel, there's no need to worry.'"


Yes, you do.


Just sayin'.