Lady Ozma’s blog

It's Nanowrimo Time

nobody@vox.com(Lady Ozma) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:59:03 -0500

Yes, that's write! Er Right. No wait, write! As in time for me to write with literary abandon! The goal? Fifty thousand words in thirty days while handling the affairs of the house, taking care of the kids, managing foreign exchange students, and a pile of photography work!

Why do I do this to myself? I've won three years in a row. I've got FIVE partially finished books already. Why start another?

Well the question is... why not? HAHA Here's the simple fact of the matter: I just don't have the time to write. Not the way I'd like to. Between taking pictures, homeschooling, reading the 250+ books, cleaning the house, and everything else on my plate? Just not going to happen. But I love it! I love the challenge of creating!

I want to finish my other books. I do. I even have plans - one day. But you know how one day is. One day becomes almost never. My goal is that once the boys are gone, then I can focus on writing. Editing. Finishing. (Though I swear, I'm working on editing Juan of the Dead which is actually mostly done!!!! I swear it is!)

But that's still a ways off. With no deadline hanging over me? Forget it. It won't happen. This is just the way I work. I always have. Why? Because I am the queen of procrastination.

When I was a journalist, some of my friends will totally back me up on this one, I'd wait until 0 hour. I'd be writing that article about 11 PM Thursday night. I'd then be editing it around 2 AM Friday morning. And finally around 5:30 I'd give up and send it in by my 6 AM deadline.

Why? Goodness only knows. I like to torture myself?

THough I did just download Scrivener for my new Mac and wow. Where's that been my whole life? From the way it looks, I might be able to speed up my editing process. Wouldn't that be nice? (Hey it's the reason I just bought Lightroom 2 for my Mac. Anything to speed up the photography processing!)

When it boils down to NaNo though? It's the carefree way in which I can just be creative. Everyone knows I do it. I feel like I can take the one month to do that which I love and don't seem to be able to work into my daily life. Not only that, I seem to actually get OTHER things done in November, too. I know, strange!

So I do it for the love of the creativity and insane rush. There's just some sort of high in saying, "Hey I wrote 5,782 words today!" It can't be topped!

And best of all, I can say it and there are tons of people around me who are all doing the same thing. For once I'm not alone in my insanity. I have a whole world of Wrimos joining in with me!

It's Day 5. I'm at 15,000 words. I'm so proud of myself! I'm loving it! I'm also working on burning a stack of photo DVDs. (They were due like a week ago, but I've been having some issues with the new software. It's all been user-based, I swear!) And I'm ripping podcasts I've recorded to MP3.

See, I told you. More done in November than any other time.

Cause that podcast? Egads is that behind. But I spent a summer where every other week I had no voice. And guess what? I feel like I'm getting ready to lose it. Again. Seriously. WTH is up with 2009 being the year of Oz having no voice? I've been healthy (aside from the plague this winter), I just sound hideous. It's getting old.

Seriously. Old.

Oh well. Who cares, because really? To quote the Mighty Mur: I Should Be Writing.

To 50,000 - and beyond!

--Lady O
PS Because Misery loves Company I've got Joram, Caramon, and Som all doing Nanowrimo with me! And, because there's not enough on my plate? I'm volunteering at the high school helping the wrimos there! I truly have lost my mind. In December, someone check me into the "day spa" known as "Snowden." Kthnxbai.

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Family Monster Mash

nobody@vox.com(Lady Ozma) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:33:40 -0400

Family Monster Mash

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Menu Planning Monday - I Want New Food Edition

nobody@vox.com(Lady Ozma) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:23:58 -0400

I know it's been a while. I've been so swamped and crazy! My budget has been out of control for food because we've been shopping that European way my mom does. Talk about BAD. We're often at 5 PM running to the store to buy things! Not good.

But I've been in a funk about food. I go through cycles like that. I think part of it is just the stress of figuring out meal plans. My husband is super picky and it gets frustrating to do all this work and then have complaints.

I was making my weekly shopping list and trying to figure out what to do this week and so I surfed on over to Orgjunkie.com because you can get HUNDREDS of ideas for meals there on Menu Planning Monday!

Unfortunately for me, I found about 30 Bazillion I want to make. All chicken and fish of course! Curses to the pickiness that says no chicken! Le Sigh.

There are some people that are eating good this week, that's what I learned. One of these days I'm gonna track IP addresses and then just make my Menu Monday the "Travel edition" and go crash all these families for their yummy food! HAHA Wouldn't that be funny? Yeah, kind of stalkery and creepy. Thank goodness I'm not that sort of person!

But that leaves me with... what to make? I want something different. Of course we have to nix cow and fowl and fish. That doesn't leave us with much in the way of options.

So here's what I've come up with, but I want more ideas of different meals! I need a change of pace! I want to get excited about cooking again! Especially with winter coming, I need to get back into that kitchen! I also need to start up my good stock up plan again to get us better in shape for winter weather!

Monday: Empanadas: http://ping.fm/jOsgO

Tuesday: Pasta Frittata: http://ping.fm/OCMur

Wednesday: WAFFLE WEDNESDAY! Woot! I just want an excuse to have waffles. Last week Joram made us chocolate waffles with chocolate chips. MMMM. :) But since you might want a waffle recipe and ours pretty much comes from the red and white checkered cookbook here's an Overnight Waffle recipe: http://ping.fm/Xtsoa

Thursday: It's Chick-Fil-A free entree night for customer appreciation. I don't know what it is, but we're getting it! :) And then we'll be off to Boy Scout Court of Honour which I'm proud to say that my Caramon is running! YAY! (And with that he'll finish up yet another one of those Eagle Required MB's! YAY!)

Friday: Crock Pot Pizza Noodles: http://ping.fm/ZBldG

Saturday: It's the Ward Trunk or Treat and that's at the crazy early time of 6 PM. I'm not sure what we'll do. I'm trying to talk my husband into taking me to the special night at The Melting Pot. MMM. So we might just have the kids fend for themselves or something else all together I need to finalize plans. I've got several ideas on this list of things I can make if we decide to just eat at home and together as a family like usual.

Sunday: Enchilada Casserole: http://ping.fm/MCtrZ

My other ideas which will either be made this week or next because I'm buying the stuff for them:

Sausage and Stuffing Criss Cross Pastry: http://ping.fm/f3nHL Doesn't that just look good enough to make you want to lick the screen? Yeah. Good thing we all have will power! Or at least some of us...

Tuesday: Crock Pot Ravioli: http://ping.fm/AQpSX

Now, I'm off to hit the grocery store before I lose my willpower and have the husband bring home a pizza. ROFL. Because really? With that early morning Seminary thing I really just would rather go to bed right now! Wake up after the sun goes down like a normal person! ;)

Normal vampire that is. HAHA

What's on your menu?

--Lady O
PS - That's right. No green veggies. I've decided I don't like the colour green, even though I'm so Irish that I practically have shamrocks growing out of my ears, so we aren't eating anything green. Ever again. Yup. You know who you are and why I'm saying this. So there! HAHA!

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Let It Shine '09

nobody@vox.com(Lady Ozma) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:58:04 -0400

I'm x-posting this from my professional blog because it was such a meaningful entry that I felt it should also be on my personal blog. I hope you enjoy:

Now that I've got photo releases on all these kids, I wanted to share with you what happened this summer.

My church has an annual conference in the summer for teenagers ages 14-18. It's a great experience and it's for all the youth in an area. We have something like 11 congregations in my town, so that's a lot of kids! This year the theme was "Let it Shine - '09" and was about talents done by way of putting on a play.

I grew up on the stage. I studied classical ballet from the time I was 5 until I was 18. I also studied other forms of dance and performed in plays. Of course, I never seem to get tapped for that any more when the rare opportunities come up. I guess people have forgotten now. My husband gets a call inviting him to particpate in an acapella group to entertain the youth and so I sent in with him the offer of whatever help I could give.

Turns out, I got to help out. I spent the entire conference with the youth taking photos to document the event. What a treat for me to watch as the teens learned how to put together a play, let their talents shine forth, have a lot of fun, and worship God all at the same time. It was my pleasure and my honour to take part in this event, which I did for free. No amount of money could ever equal the joy from the experience and the look on the faces of those teens when they saw the slideshow I put together.

Here's where the miracle came in for me. What a time to build my own testimony in a way I never expected. I just wanted to be of good use. In a chance conversation with the Stake President (for the non-LDS out there a stake is a group of congregations in an area...), I was asked how I handled heights.

Here's the thing. In theory I love heights. I'd love to climb Everest, Nothing is cooler than to look out over a cityscape from a tall building, I think going to the top of the Empire States Building or the Eiffel Tower would be absolutely awesome. My favourite mode of travel is the airplane and I love seeing all the squares of land. In theory. The problem is I have a hideous case of vertigo. I can't even get remotely close to the railing in a mall. I have issues going down the stairs of my house. The world spins and my stomach starts flipping and flopping. It is very disorienting. It's pretty bad when you can't even change a lightbulb because standing on the chair makes you feel like you might keel over at any minute. (No you crackheads, I'm not standing on rolly chairs! Sheesh! I'm not the brightest gal around but I know that much!)

I explained this problem to the Stake President. He had an idea to get the group shot I was hoping to take by putting me in this lift. The stage is in the gym of the church which has those super vaulted ceilings since it is also a basketball court. They have a lift to go all the way up so they can change lightbulbs and things. Obviously, when you are talking something like a group of 150 people, aerial is best if you want to get all the faces.

Well, I told him I'd try it but no promises. If I got up in that lift and the world started spinning, forget it. But, I'd try. It wouldn't hurt me. After all I trusted they wouldn't put me in actual harm's way, regardless of what my vertigo might do to me.

Saturday came and they brought in this one woman bucket lift. I got a crash course in how to use it. The dress rehearsal began, and even though the group photo was coming at the end, I wanted to try it out before we got there so we could have time for alternate plans.

Imagine my surprise when there was no vertigo! Nothing. In fact it was so great, I spent the entire two hours of dress rehearsal in that lift taking photographs. I threw out the ones from before because these were far superior! Standing in a bucket was hard on my knees and back, trashed from the aforementioned dancing and whatnot, but even that was far less painful than one could ever hope and pray for.

And the group shot? Well you tell me how it turned out:

Amazing. That is probably my favourite photo I have ever taken. And that comment about "pray for"? Well I know that is what it was. I know that the Stake President really wanted that photo and I have no doubt some prayers were said for me. I felt them. I've never experienced the sort of calm like I felt then. I can tell you a few weeks later in the balcony of another church shooting a wedding? Definitely could have used that peace because my not so good friend Vertigo was back in full force. Darn.

It was good while it lasted.

I am so grateful that I could shoot this event, but I'm most grateful for this group photo. It is nice to have that sort of experience to make you learn that trusting in God can be a good thing. That doing a simple act of service can take you above and beyond what you are normally capable of. That the power of prayer works.

Thank you, youth of my Stake. You are a great bunch of teens and I enjoyed hanging out with you for three days. Remember this weekend and all you learned. And remember that the Lord really does answer prayers and help you in ways that you can never even be able to guess about.

--Have Camera, Will Travel
JS

--Lady O

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Now THAT is a Pampered Chef!

nobody@vox.com(Lady Ozma) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:22:52 -0400

Recently I hosted a Pampered Chef party. I love this stuff. It's just fantastic and I really love my Consultant, Rachel Luciani. My shipment came in this large box with Pampered Chef written on it and large logos. Caramon instantly claimed the box for a scout project which he finally got to start this week. Here he is with the finished oven: Isn't that great? He lined the whole box with tin foil and then made an oven rack out of wire coat hangers from the dry cleaners. (OMG I hate those things with every fiber of my being!!!!) He was pretty proud of himself and he's totally stoked about baking a pie in here on the next campout. Too bad that's a wilderness survival and they can't take any food! HA! This is the photo that I love though, you can see Pampered Chef all over the box! Isn't that awesome? Look for it in your next catalogue! Hmmm, think you can use the pizza stone on that for pizza at a campout? --Lady O PS A Nephi picture because he was just being silly and hiding in his hidey-hole... maybe he thought we were going to have baked chihuahua? AS IF!

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Menu Monday - Angel Food Edition

nobody@vox.com(Lady Ozma) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:18:30 -0400

It's been a while. I know. My life has been so crazy I've been horrible about planning meals. It's been the icky scramble each day as we try to figure out what to eat based on when we all get home!

Where did my summer go? It's been insane. I know that. Somewhere I lost the entire month of July and nearly the month of August!

With much to report, I don't know where to begin. We have a new member of our family, Som from Thailand. She starts school tomorrow at the local High School. I need to get my life back on track with good planning so her year with us can be the best ever!

So here I am with an update to our menu Monday. I don't even really have a plan for this week but I wanted to talk about what we did last month and this month.

My neighbour's church is part of the Angel Food Ministries network. This is a wonderful ministry that puts together food packages. You don't have to be in financial hardship to qualify for it. It's great for those in need, but it's also great for families just trying to live a little more frugally as well.

There's several options each month. First you have a signature box for only 30 dollars. It's a week's worth of meals for a family of four. That's just a fantastic deal! They even offer an allergen-free box which is nice for those with dietary concerns as well as a box for seniors.

In addition to their meal boxes, there's some specialty boxes. We've been picking up several of these. One is a box just filled with all sorts of yummy fruits and veggies. I love that box! But after two months I have a ton of veggies I'm not sure what to do with!! Especially combined with what little bit we're getting from our garden.

Each box comes with a pamphlet with recipes. Last month we tried a Toscana Soup which was way yummies. There was no talking at the dinner table that night! All you heard was a lot of "slurp slurp slurp". There's just something to be said about good food!

So tomorrow I'm going to make a pork roast with peach sauce. Doesn't that just sound fancy? I know! Colour me amazed since mostly my meals are... well easy. So the sheet makes this sound easy, but we shall see!

Another idea from the Angel Food is a Meatloaf Pie. We're going to try that one, but I'm not sure what day. Because we have a boatload of onions, I'm also going to look into a french onion soup one night.

I may not have a solid plan for this week, but I've got some plans. I do know this weekend it's gonna be a grill master weekend. We've gotten plenty of meats in some grill boxes. We love the grill!

So here's a question to all of you. I have a good couple pounds of carrots, a boatload of garlic (haha to any vampires, don't come around here!), lots of onions, a variety of peppers, three fantastic tomatoes from my garden, celery, cabbage, romaine, potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce... Oh I'm probably forgetting something... but yeah. You get the picture!

I'm looking for something different. I mean sure I could make baked potatoes and french onion soup and whatnot... but what about something new? What do you guys make with these sorts of things? What would you enjoy a crazy blog entry? I think I'm prime for some great vegetarian meals, what do you think?

I did get a recipe for cabbage pancakes. Yeah. Cabbage pancakes. Ever heard of those? Not me. But I know that cabbage is being pushed because of the health benefits. Cole slaw is icky (Nope, not a southerner!) and while I'm Irish I don't want boiled cabbage either. Should I go for the pancakes? And what on earth do you make to go with cabbage pancakes?

Sorry I haven't been around much. Mostly I've been driving. Driving. More driving. Even more driving. Not to mention trying to do school, welcoming a new member into our family, busy keeping up with the travelling husband, fighting with crummy Verizon (I'm THIS close to going elsewhere for cells), reading when I get the chance, working on lots of pictures for people, and on occasion - sleeping.

--Lady O

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Panorama-Mania

nobody@vox.com(Lady Ozma) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:56:10 -0400

I'm x-posting this from my photography journal (so you'll notice a different sign off) because I just think it's cool and I wanted to. HEHE Hope you like it!

--Lady O

In May I took a personal trip with the kids to the Baltimore Inner Harbour. We totally hijacked the husband's business trip and did a ton of walking and sight seeing. Talk about a load of fun!

Well, on our little adventure to walk from the Harbour (basically from beside the Orioles ballpark) to Fort McHenry (so not 2 miles - try FIVE! ONE WAY!) we got to the top of this hill and had this beautiful view of the water. I wanted to melt from the coolness of it all!

I've tried to do panorama's in the past but only half heartedly. I know I did everything wrong since I didn't even have a tripod or a beanbag but figured "Eh, why not?"

So I snapped off a few shots standing in place and figured one day when I had time, I'd fiddle. Well, not that I really have time these days, but I started fiddling last night. Mostly because the big long loads of work event I did last week needed me to do the same sort of technique you use on panorama pictures. I figured Baltimore had to be about a zillion times easier than trying my first real attempt on pictures with a total of like 170 teenagers. See, sometimes I can use my brain! Aren't you proud?

Well... here's what I learned. 1. I need a macbook if I ever want to do something like this on a laptop again. HAHA 2. Woah, it's fun! And with proper software (seriously the last time I tried this was with an Elph and some stitching software that was confusing as all get out) it's not too hard. There's some fine tuning and whatnot, but that's not so bad, right? To be expected? Yeah, I thought so.

I fell asleep at the laptop last night working on this. I woke up this morning (Dudes, of course I got up at some point and went to bed! Geeze! I'm not that much of a glutton for punishment for my art!) and got back to work. Now, I put this in really small just so you don't have to scroll for years...

Whatcha think? It's not perfect, but I think I did a pretty bang up job! I love it! I'm sitting here going "No JS, you don't need to send it off to print. No you don't. Stop. You don't."

I think I need to. Where on earth would I put this though? Hmmm. And how much would it cost?

I better go find other work to do. Before I spend the rest of my photo money on some crazy size picture of Baltimore!

BTW - I'm lonely... message me! Leave me a comment and tell me what you think! Yeah... I'm an attention-whore. I know! But you love me anyway!

--Have Camera, Will Travel

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DC Touring Pix - Redux

nobody@vox.com(Lady Ozma) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:45:56 -0400

Ok, so next time I say I'm posting pix... you guys scream at me in the comments. I don't know WHY my pix didn't show up but I'm trying this again! LOL

So I took my husband to the airport, as you know, and we got to DC early so we took a little spin through town. I grabbed my camera and snapped a few photos as we were driving down the streets.

It was fun!

We went by the water and I looked at pretty boats. I love to get on sail boats. *SIGH* Wish I had a boat I could take up and down the waterways here. How cool would that be to photograph?

We drove by the Washington Monument which was looking stunning as always! I love that the sky was just such a pretty blue with some poofy clouds!

On our way out of town we passed by the Jefferson Memorial which I love.

So here's some photos that weren't in the previous post. I went to DC again on Thursday with a friend to shoot some family photos. Check out this picture I took with my camera phone while we were there!

I love the Lincoln Memorial! So pretty!

Just in case you were wondering, here's a picture from the shoot I did:

The proofs are up on my website. Isn't she beautiful? And her kids are beyond cute. I love them!

And just because I can... I'm going to post a picture of where I was just this past Sunday! I dropped the kids off at Ferrum College for an enrichment camp. It's beautiful down there! This is yet another Camera-Phone snap!

Isn't that great?

So today I'm off to the Newseum up in DC. Woot, another trip into the city! I am so super duper excited! In fact, I must away!

So here's the final shot of me, so fitting especially these days! This was the final picture from when I was spinning around DC with my hubby two Sunday's ago! We're leaving the city and I snagged it in the background with me in the rearview mirror taking a photo! Awesome! Is that me or what?

Have Camera, Will Travel? Yeah, that sounds about right! Whatcha guys think?

SRSLY, if the Pix don't show... MESSAGE ME and YELL AT ME!

Bloggie... you better work right! HAHA

Loves to ya

--Lady O

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A quick spin through DC

nobody@vox.com(Lady Ozma) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:53:11 -0400

My husband has a project in San Jose that he flies to frequently. Sunday afternoon he needed to go to National so we hopped in the car for a nice little DC drive. I hate going to DC on the afternoon of a weekend because traffic is just so questionable. As luck would have it, we hit great traffic! Which also meant we left far too early and got to the airport with an hour and fifteen minutes to spare. So? We did a little drive through of DC. It was just so beautiful I hung out the window like the great big dork that I am and snapped some photos. Photogging while driving down the street? Yeah it's sorta mixed results. (FYI for safety: He was driving, I was photogging!) I thought you might like a little peek at what I got, which I have to admit I'm dang impressed with. Go me! What makes me really go "SQUEEE" is that I was just back in the District yesterday taking portraits of a dear friend and her FREAKING CUTE boys. If those pictures are half this awesome? Oh baby, yeah! Nice shot of the Washington Monument! We drove by the water. I wanna go sailing! How cool would it be to sail around here? We were within sight of the monuments! We headed back out of the city and I grabbed this one of Jefferson. That just says it all about me. I do love to travel! I always hate leaving cool places though so I snapped a picture of me taking a picture with DC receding as we crossed the bridge back into VA! I'm so glad I went back to DC yesterday. I can't wait to show off photos! As a bonus, I took Joram so there will be pix of my friend and her kids and then pix of my kid! (Or maybe I should torment her and post Joram's first? Whatcha think? Eh, she loves me so she'd put up with the torment! HA!) I love ya, DC! --Lady O

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June's Reading List

nobody@vox.com(Lady Ozma) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:45:39 -0400

OK, I've been super busy. So I haven't been blogging on my personal blog as much. I'm very sorry, I just am losing my mind.

In June I completely rearranged my living room, which happens to be where I have my four overstuffed bookcases. I also painted it and the hallway a lovely orangey melon colour. (Thanks for the help, Melanie! I loves ya, MWAH!) I've nearly picked out my colours for the kitchen/dining room, too.

I also started a photography website and have spent so much time setting up the blog there and what have you. It's kept me so busy that i just haven't been keeping up with my regular blog.

I barely finished my reading for June! And July? Oy it's the 15th now and I've finished three books, one of which I can't even use for my 9 book challenge. Yikes!

I'm trying to get my house together for our new exchange student, get some rooms arranged better, that sort of thing. I've already tackled the majority of the boys' room so next up is this extra room of confusion and the spare room for the exchange student (Yay for Som!). My problem is I'm STUMPED for what to do with these two rooms. (Shameless begging for ideas here. Anyone wanna decorate and rearrange with me?)

I've also been busy with some photo jobs. Yay!

So now you know where I've been and have my appology. I promise to start things back up when I have more time. I think I need to figure out my new schedule... hahaha. It's hard to fit in reading, homeschool, cleaning, rearranging, photography business, shopping, cooking, gardening, or the 800 other things I am doing each and every day. Oh the joys of being a mom!

So what did I read in June? Well let me tell you, the challenge this month was rough. And not helped by all those books getting pulled off my shelf and dumped into four nearly tall as me stacks in my bedroom. And since I haven't decided about my baseboards, the books are still stacked in my bedroom. I really do not want to put them back up until I paint the baseboards. However that's not happening any time soon sooooo... yeah. Colour me frustrated.

June's challenge was to pick 9 books from the first 20 pages tagged "paranormal-romance" at goodreads.com.

Yikes. That scared me, but as I learned in a previous challenge that sometimes all it takes to be named paranormal-romance is for... it to be a book. (Seriously, some of those books I am STILL trying to figure out where the romance was!)

My problem was I have over 200 books, there was no way I was gonna buy any more. No freaking way. I had to struggle to find books on my shelf that were already sitting here. Which put me behind because there's a book I swore I'd read so I could put a podcast up this month. (Yeah I need to find the time to get the podcast up and running again. I need a time and space travel device... Doctor Floyd? You out there?)

Somehow I managed to do it. Whew. Lucky for me some series that I read had new books that my mother brought to me. Well she was going to anyway so I looked at that as OK. And I began reading. Got distracted. Read some more. Still distracted.

But, with three hours until midnight local time on June 30th? I finished. I closed up my last book for the challenge and sighed with relief. Whew.

I broke 75 in June with that last book. Seventy five books for 2009. Go me!!!!

Some of these books were not high on my list of "I want to read right now" but they were on my shelf so I went for them.

1. Because Your Vampire Said So - Michele Bardsley
2. Romancing the Dead - Tate Hallaway
3. Dead and Gone - Charlaine Harris
4. Undead and Unwelcome - MaryJanice Davidson
5. Dead if I do - Tate Hallaway
6. You Slay Me - Katie McAlister
7. Hunter's Moon - Lori Handelhand
8. Fire Me Up - Katie McAlister
9. Like a Charm - Candance Havens

Most were brain candy quick reads. Which worked well for me for June, what can I say. I just didn't have the time to devote to reading. Because of aforementioned distractions.

Most were interesting. But I don't even feel like giving up full reviews. So let's just go short and sweet for each:

1. Because Your Vampire Said So - Michele Bardsley -- Ok, so it's another Broken Hearts, Oklahoma story. I gotta say I still like the fact that this author just dumps every supernatural thing you can muster up into one little book. That said, this one wasn't near as enjoyable of a 3 hour escape because the main character's voice was annoying for the first half the book. She chilled and got normal after that.

2. Romancing the Dead - Tate Hallaway -- I still love that Goddess dwelt Garnet. Crazy girl!

3. Dead and Gone - Charlaine Harris -- Yes, finally the new Sookie but Oh. My. Gosh. It's gone mega on the dark. I don't want to spoil but I nearly cried at the end. Let's just say that it got bad. Real bad. I don't even know what to expect next. I was so stoked to read it but man... Charlaine got mean. To everyone. It was interesting to watch the were's "come out". Go shifters!

4. Undead and Unwelcome - MaryJanice Davidson -- I love that shoe obsessed Queen Betsy! Long unLive the Queen! This one was sad because she was dealing with the aftermath of the death of her werewolf bud. While she's off in New England dealing with that, Devil Spawn Sister goes a little nutso and that was a bit worriesome. Mama Lucy shows up, and I love that... but whew. It wasn't near as dark as Charlaine's, but wow the two back to back sent shivers up and down my spine.

5. Dead if I do - Tate Hallaway -- Yay Garnet is getting married, if her fiancee's Vambie (Zompire??) ex's curse doesn't bring the whole event crashing down. Love it!

6. You Slay Me - Katie McAlister -- This is the first Aisling Grey novel. It was OK. I definitely like the idea of a Wyvern Mate Guardian over the portals of you know where gallavanting around Europe solving murders. What a creative idea. I do love the fact she's gotta do this all while not at all sure what any of that means.

7. Hunter's Moon - Lori Handelhand -- Nazi Werewolves. Again, need I say more? Everything is better with Nazi's. Though this one had a seriously damaged main character that I had a hard time getting to the point where I cared about her.

8. Fire Me Up - Katie McAlister - Aisling number 2. She's still clueless so she goes to a conclave of supernatural sorts. In another European town. Love it! But not enough to throw this series to my "must reads" list or anything. Good filler book.

9. Like a Charm - Candance Havens - Now this was an interesting change of pace. What I liked: Library to Ghosts. Seriously? That's hillarious. What I didn't like: Hippies in country trotting business and Virgins who give it up after decades of virginity for almost nothing. You wanna throw in the smut, just don't make the chick a virgin. Thank you. It just seems lame to me. Like I WAS going to wait for marriage and all, but suddenly since meeting you yesterday I'll just chuck that out the window. After all, I'm like 30 whatever now. So sure. It's about time. *SIGH*

So there you have it. That's my update for June. Unfortunately none of these fit into the alphabet challenge. That's OK, the book I'm currently reading does! Huzzah! So here's the stats:

Books completed in June: 9
Books completed in 2009: 75
Books completed for alphabet challenge: 19

ABC Challenge Titles Read:
The) Accidental Werewolf by Dakota Cassidy
Blueberry Muffin Murder by JoAnne Fluke
Circus of the Darned by Katie Maxwell
Dead Over Heels by Mary Janice Davidson
Echoes by Nathan P Butler
Fudge Cupcake Murder by JoAnne Fluke
Grave Peril by Jim Butcher
Heaven by Mur Lafferty
I Love You To Death by Amy Garvey
J
K
Lemon Meringue Pie Murder by JoAnne Fluke
My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon by Various
N
(The) Other Woman by Jane Green
Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich
Q
(Doctor Who: The) Resurrection Casket
(The) Scot, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Annette Blair
Tall, Dark and Dead by Tate Hallaway
U
(The) Vampire of Venice Beach by Jennifer Colt
Welcome to the Jungle
X
Your Planet or Mine by Susan Grant
Z

--Lady O
PS Feel free to go see my blog posts over at emeraldlens.info if you want to see some of the photography I've been doing and more on the trips we've taken. :)

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