Happy Friday! TGIF x 100,000,000,000,000,000.

I’m giving away 2 signed copies of So Not Happening. Here’s the super hard question you must answer in order to be in the running to win. Are you ready?

Lucy bicycled 45 miles going east from Kalamazoo and Janie, 70 miles. Janie averaged 5 miles per hour more than Lucy and her trip took 1/2 hour longer than Lucy’s. How fast was each one traveling? Lucy bicycled 45 miles going east from Kalamazoo and Janie, 70 miles. Janie averaged 5 miles per hour more than Lucy and her trip took 1/2 hour longer than Lucy’s.  Question: What is Lucy’s brother’s shoe size?

Or you could answer this question instead: What is a blog (besides this one) you check on a regular basis and why? I’ll go first.

I check Agent Chip MacGregor’s blog HERE because he always has something insightful to say about writing or the writing biz. He’s funny. He’s blunt. He’s real. He wears kilts. Highly recommended!

I check author Meg Cabot’s blog because it’s funnier than her books (which is pretty stinkin’ funny). And sometimes I steal her YouTube clips and paste them here like I came up with them myself. She is a pop culture junkie like me, and so I totally relate. Except somehow, despite the fact that she writes like 10 books a year, she finds time to watch television. A LOT of television. And because I don’t, I stop by her site to get little blurbs about all the shows I don’t get to see.  She also has entertaining Tweets on Twitter. Which is a rare feat. You can read those on her blog, too. (If you’re like me and holding out on joining Twitter.)

I love author Natalie Lloyd’s blog because Natalie has a witty, clever way with words, and I constantly marvel at her nifty descriptions of things. And she also reads YA and other cool books and reviews them, tells a good story, and dishes on some pop culture. AND she’s going to stop by my blog soon for an interview. Because I’m making her.

The fabulous Jocelyn of Thomas Nelson (home of So Not Happening, go buy it, this has been a subliminal message, it would make a great Mother’s Day gift, and Father’s Day too) co-blogs with her roomies HERE. I call them the Martha’s. They are very intimidating. And by intimidating, I mean scary. They knit, sew, bake, cook, grill, and have kitchen utensils that have questionable names and such specialized uses that they would only end up as dust collectors in my house. But the Martha’s have a cool site. If you’re a foodie at all, you must check it out.

I also check in on the four authors of Girls Write Out. It’s fun to see the four different authors (Kristin Billerbeck, Colleen Coble, Diann Hunt, and Denise Hunter) and their very different blogging and personality styles.

I love Novel Journey, too. It’s full of book information, daily interviews, and reviews. Lots of good info there. NJ mother Gina Holmes’ first book, Crossing Oceans, is coming out next year, and I’m so excited for her. I’ve heard great things about this book.

This isn’t a blog, but I check ETonline.com almost every day. Who needs CNN when everything you need to know about what happened in the world is right there on Entertainment Tonight’s website?  Was there a clothing malfunction on Dancing With The Stars? It’s on ET. Is LiLo too skinny? It’s on ET. Want to see 700 pictures of Michelle Obama and her biceps? ET.  Every time I click on over to Fox News or CNN, I just get depressed. Or I read some new story about the swine flu and by the time I finish the article, I’ve got over half the symptoms.

I can’t wait to see what blogs you check. You have from now until Wednesday night at 7 CT to leave your picks. I’ll announce the two winners Friday.

Speaking of pop culture, THIS picture cracked me up.

And who’s totally stoked for this show? I can’t wait! (Even though I don’t even get this stupid channel.)

You KNOW you’ll see some spirit fingers on Glee.

Finally, I ripped this off someone’s Facebook, but check out these 1970s PSA’s for the swine flu shot.

Um…they WERE talking about the swine flu in that second one, right? Sounded a little risque to me.

Okay, I’m out. I must get on ebay and buy some face masks. I hope, like Heidi, I can find one to match my bikini.

Have a great weekend.
JEN

25 comments

This weekend was one of my favorite events of the year–the Race for the Cure. It is so much fun. My friend, Holly the Snow Dance Queen, and I have been planning our shirts for months. We knew we wouldn’t be placing first with our walking/running/sauntering times, so we wanted to totally dominate with our shirts. And…dominate we did.

Boob Warriors! We Save Them All, Big or Small.

Our t-shirts were the hit of the race. I cannot tell you how many people came up to us and either took pics of us or just told us how much they liked our shirts. One woman came up to my sister in law (far left) and said, “I have to take a picture of your chest.” And she did. My friend Holly and I both had the same sentiment when we crossed the finish line: We must do even better next year. It will be a hard challenge. I think Holly’s idea to do the shirts on camo just made it.

My mom and aunt did not want me to share this portion of the story, but we nearly missed the race. My sister-in-law said they weren’t the Boob Warriors. They were the Free Crap Warriors. See, all these vendors are there with booths, handing out free stuff like cups, koozies, pencils, tampons (I kid you not), food, etc. And my mom and aunt just go crazy over this stuff. So we got there about 30 minutes before the race was to start, and they began hitting all the booths. These ladies went to town. They get the stuff for their grandkids (or so they say–and no, not the feminine products).

And things were really confusing this year at the Komen. Nobody really knew for sure where to go or when exactly things started. Well…we missed the beginning of the race. And so finally, after my mom and aunt had like two giant bags of stuff each, my SIL and I took it all back to the car (and got lost)…

Where are we? My arms are about to fall off!

FINALLY we went to walk. And just followed the crowd.

Ten minutes later…we were done. I was like, um…this isn’t right. My mom laughed and said, “Wow, we’ve really improved since last year.”  “Yes,” Laura agreed. “We’re really good.”

Seems we got in the walk for people with either really short attention spans or no endurance whatsoever. But we finished and all breathed really heavy when we came in so people would think we had done the whole 5k. My friend Holly and her group (who actually went where they were supposed to and did the 5k) ran the last few seconds. It looked really authentic.

This was my favorite booth. It just spoke to me.

It said, “Hi. I’m Dove chocolate. Come grab me by the handfuls.” And I obeyed.

The Race for the Cure is for everyone. Lots of dogs there this year. They had their own race, but of course, some went on the 5k too.

That’s not a hairy baby in that sling. It’s a dog.

This dog just sat right down in the middle of the finish line.

I mean, he just stopped abruptly and sprawled on the ground like, “Nope. I am not going a step further. This is it. I’m done.” His owner had to coax him up. Maybe he was protesting that none of the vendors catered to him. I mean what’s HE gonna do with a razor and maxi-pad?

Before we finalized our shirts, someone told Holly that our shirts weren’t dignified and kind of a dishonor to victims and survivors of breast cancer. My mom is a breast cancer survivor and she is ALWAYS up for a fun shirt. Race day definitely confirmed sophisticated dignity was not the order of the day.

Even kids get involved!

It was a great day to people watch too. My prize picture would have to be…the mullet.

Face covered to protect the decade-confused and the Achy Breaky die-hards.

This next picture is Afro-Tastic!

The secret to breast cancer could be found in my hair!

In those hard, hard moments on that ONE MILE where I thought about giving up and quitting, it was signs like this that gave me the will to keep going.

Those truffle bars are good, by the way. They were handing them out. My SIL said that even though they were only 100 calories each, we probably didn’t walk even one bar off. Since it was a hopeless situation, I had two.

Also, this might be tacky to trash a product on my blog, but DO NOT get this stuff.

I put it on before the race (and my family didn’t like how I did this while driving. I don’t know why), and it is almost solid. It has the same consistency of squeezing out some Elmer’s on your arms. Goes on like glue and leaves paint strokes of white. I had to scrub down with my Dasani. And then I was sticky all day. I almost couldn’t focus on eating my ice cream.

Yoplait was filming people talking about running.

Um, the Komen excluded, I run because my stupid friend Leslie makes me, and it’s pretty much torture and I just wish exercise came in a pill. They didn’t seem to want that on tape though.

Here’s another favorite pic.

This would be Dan Skoff, one of our local weather guys. I don’t know if you’ve figured this out by now, but I have HUGE crushes on weather guys. Not like “I Want To Date You and I Don’t Care If You’re Married, We Belong Together” sort of way. Just in a “When You Report School Closing Snow, I Get A Little Overheated” sort of way. Anyway, Dan is one of my faves because he gets excited about snow too. The other guys are always like, “I’m sorry, but unfortunately we have some bad weather coming in.”  That is so negative and disrespectful! But not Dan. Whenever he tell us we’re not gonna have school, I just want to send him a personal check. Anyway, he was there reporting the weather. I blew him kisses. In my mind.

The Race for the Cure is such a fun atmosphere. It’s just one big party. If there is one close by, you MUST go. You will not regret it, even if you miss most of the walk/run like we did! Because you get to hang out with cool people, eat free food, be Free Crap Warriors, and support a cause that is changing lives. And…you make it a tradition like we do! And every tradition in our family of course revolves around food. Here’s how we like to cap off our successful walk.

Whew! All that cardio has left me depleted. Must refuel with biscuits and gravy!

Stay tuned Wednesday for more give-away info! Also you can catch me and So Not Happening today at the super cool website YAfresh. Love that site!

Go Team!!!

JEN

5 comments

Congrats to Tabitha and Heather M , the winners of So Not Happening!!! Email me your home addy, ladies!! I will try not to be lazy about getting to the post office (the one that’s open five minutes a day) and get those to you. Hopefully this year.

So Thursday was weird. When the drugs wear off (it’s Thurs as I write this), I will probably regret sharing this story. But I went for something called a tilt-table-test. It’s no big deal at all. My dr. thought I had really low blood pressure and wanted to check it out. (Turns out I do, and the prognosis is drink juice and eat salt. Literally. Big whoop.) But I was a little worried about this test. It makes a lot of people faint and you couldn’t drive yourself. And that was all I knew. I’m someone who is comforted by a complete picture. The possibility of hitting the floor and being driven away in the back of my mom’s Buick? Not a comfort.

But anyway, before we got to my “you’re totally fine” diagnosis, I had to endure this crazy test where the objective is to see how much you can take before you pass out (Apparently a lot. I held strong like Rose on the Titanic). You know  you’re blog obsessed when you’re strapped down to a table and your main thought is, “I have to pee.” And your second one is, “I have a wedgie. ” But your third one? It was definitely, “I would give anything to have my camera.”

So first of all, I’m put on this table and get all these electrodes put on me. They just yanked my shirt to my chin and started sticking those suckers on. I had no idea that was coming. I was like, “I’m so glad I wore a good bra.” And then one nurse was like, “Oh, you forgot an electrode.” And the other says, “I’m not sure how I did that.” And I said, “I think my big chest blocked your view.” When I get nervous I tend to make boob jokes. Apparently I was really stressed, because I thought of exactly one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two of them. Next I got an IV for what I call “the bonus round.” The IV didn’t go well. I made myself look away to the TV because I have a theory called The More I See Pain, The More I Feel Pain. Here’s what I heard as the needle was digging into my hand:

“Uh-oh.”
“Oops.”
“Hmmm.”
“That’s gonna blow.”
“Uh-oh.”
“That’s not good. She has such tiny veins. ”
“Yes, they are very tiny.”
“That vein keeps flipping over.”
“Tiny veins. Sorry!”
“Yep, there it goes again. Jennifer, are you okay?”
“Uh-huh.” (As I do all I can to focus on the TV. Oh, fire in South Carolina! Record temps in Cali! Sarah Jessica PARKER, get that needle OUT OF MY hand!!!!!)

Anyway, it was eventually a success. So then I’m strapped down like the Hulk to this table. Four giant velcro belts come around me and bolt me down. THAT was a great feeling. And when I get nervous…I need to pee. Like a chihuahua. And I’m like, “Crap. It’s too late to say anything. This belt is a little tight…) But no accidents, I’m happy to report. But I did have a serious wedgie. And even worse, being strapped down it was like cemented in place. Torture by wedgie. We should’ve used that at Guantanamo.

So you get all secured and then they tilt you to seventy degrees and you have to stand there, unable to move anything but your arms. And every three minutes they take your pulse (I do have one) and blood pressure. (ill-fitting undies raise blood pressure, by the way. Be advised.) And I just stood there for 45 minutes. If there was any real complaint about today it was that I had to watch Weather on the 8s and Storm Stories. I mean Weather Channel? I happen to love the WC (once I had a very serious crush on Jim Cantore), but ONLY in the winter. Who cares about the Weather Channel if snow days aren’t involved? Not me. Especially when I’m trussed up like something from Frankenstein’s laboratory. It certainly doesn’t distract a girl much. I wanted to see some Ellen or Oprah or Gilmore Girls reruns. I’d have settled for Home Shopping Network. Diamonique week. Quacker Factory?

So then the last 15 minutes of the two hour event is Bonus Round. This is where they start pumping some magical drug through your hard-earned IV. And that’s when things get really interesting. Instantly your heart rate goes up. It’s the WEIRDEST feeling ever. You can actually feel it moving in there. And things get kinda loud in your head. And I don’t mean all your deep thoughts spinning around. And then the nurses are talking to you, and you’re like, “No talky! No talky!” And it gets really hot. And your heart keeps racing. And you can SEE it moving. And it makes you think of body builders who can move their boobs and now you can too! And then. . .it’s over. And just like it took two nurses to get the IV in, it then takes two to get the tape off because your IV was taped down like Duct Tape on a saggy bumper. And the nurse tells you that you must include Gatorade and salt into your life. And you say okay.  And you return your attention back to Storm Stories and wonder what happened to Jim Cantore’s hair, but know if he were standing right there you’d tell him you still think he’s weatherly delicious.

And a few hours later, you’re still a little kooky on drugs. Like now.

On a happier note, on the way home my mom and I saw a man on a motorcycle with a lampshade on his head. And taped to his jacket was a sign that said, “Drugs Kill. Alcohol Kills. Religion Kills. So Why Is Marijuana Illegal?” Um, because it makes you ride with a lampshade on your head?  Because dude, I’m on drugs right now, and you don’t see me wearing home decor. Again, I thought, “WHY don’t I have my camera?!”

The lovely author Trish Perry was kind enough to interview me on her blog. If you stop by, you can enter her drawing for a chance at a signed copy of So Not Happening. I may enter myself. If I win, then I won’t have to endure the Post Office That Is Never Open Because I Live In A Retirement Village of People Who Don’t Work. You can see the interview/contest HERE. And scroll down to Thursday, April 23rd for the goods.

So I hope you have a lovely weekend. Stay tuned next week for more giveaways of So Not Happening.

Tilt-Table Tested,

Jenny

13 comments

Loving your “favorite teacher” comments! Keep them coming. If you want to be put in the running for a free copy of So Not Happening, just follow the directions HERE. You have until Thursday evening.

So I’ve never downloaded an American Idol song in my life. Last week I downloaded Kris Allen’s cover of the song from Once and have played it until I feel a little gaggy now when I hear it. I have worn it out. I think it’s better than the original by far. AND Kris is from Arkansas! I just put that together last week. (I’m just now tuning in for the most part.) Not only that, but he’s from Conway, where I went to college my first year and a half before packing up my ancient dorm room and coming back home to the lovely University of Arkansas. (Here’s a tip…don’t pick your college based on a half day visit. Or just because it’s in close proximity to a movie theater and a restuarant that makes some tasty cheese dip.)

I don’t even know what I was searching for on Amazon, but somehow I found this.

“The Classic Regency Romance. Now with Ultra-violent Zombies!” Pride and Prejudice and ZOMBIES? What the heck? And the weird thing…it makes me want to order it. I thought about making my main character, Isabella Kirkwood, from So Not Happening, a zombie. But I went with a brain-sucking alien instead. I thought there were more romantic possibilities between her and the dragon love interest that way. But you have to read really close to see this secret, immortal part of them. And backwards. If you read the book backwards aloud, it’s totally there. If you read it normally, she’ll just be a typical human girl.

So due to a messed up schedule and standarized testing, we watched Princess Bride in class today. One of my classes liked it. One did not and found other things to do (about made my head spin off my neck). And one watched intently…but didn’t get any of the jokes. It’s very disheartening. And how ungrateful is that? Princess Bride in class? Come on! When I was in school and we got to see a movie, it was always some lame, moral-filled, after-school special type thing that would have a ridiculous title like “Betty’s Self-Esteem Makes Her Beautiful.” Or “Daddy Isn’t Coming Back and My Life is Ruined.” Or “Good Girls Don’t Shoplift.”  But anything to avoid another worksheet. And I’m happy to say…I’ve yet to shoplift, so maybe it was not all for cheesy naught. Now I wish they would’ve shown us a movie called, “Reasons You Shouldn’t Grow Up to Eat Ridiculous Amounts of Sugar and Other Overly Processed Food.”

At the risk of beating a dead horse called Britain’s Got Talent,  have you seen this boy?  I love that middle judge’s reactions. They’re just so…genuine. As we say in the south, that kid can SANG.

Some of you have already emailed me and asked me if I knew someone was out there writing books for adults under my name. It’s me!!! Here’s a sneak peek of the cool cover of my women’s fiction book coming out in September called Just Between You and Me.

I love this cover. I heart it for a lot of reasons, but I especially like  it because it’s an official CWHM. I don’t want to get technical on you, but that stands for Cover With Hot Man. It’s true. Check him out in the background. He has cool jeans on and everything. The fact that he’s a merman-werewolf hybrid is really gonna cause some problems for the CWGH (chick with good hair). It’s also gonna be a Women of Faith novel for 2010!!! I feel very blessed about that. So blessed I’ll probably change the merwolf back to a human. Even though I am feeling pretty smug that NO ONE has had a merwolf character yet. It was gonna be my thing. I should pray over this…

Speaking of books, I’m really excited about this book by suspense author Brandilyn Collins and her daughter Amberly.

If you haven’t read any of Brandilyn’s “Seatbelt Suspense” novels, you are missing out. I’m not really a suspense girl, and I loved her last book, Dark Pursuit. Now she and her daughter are teaming up for a cool YA series about Shaley, the daughter of a rockstar. (How cool would that be? Unless he was like still stuck in the 80s and had big hair and tight, spandex pants. Ew. But that’s NOT this dad.)  The Collins ladies also have a great contest going on where you can “live like a rockstar.” You can check it out HERE.

Have a great rest of the week. Don’t forget to enter the contest for a free copy of the alien-free, vampire-free, zombie-free version of So Not Happening.

JEN

16 comments

How is it Monday again? We are bracing for a full week of standardized testing at my high school. The classes are going to be so messed up. And people from the state department will be nosing around and dropping by. Because if there’s anything my students like better than ME walking around, looking over their shoulder as they test, it’s total strangers coming in and staring at them.

So Not Happening is starting to hit mailboxes!!! Not sure if it’s on shelves yet, but Deena of “A Peek At My Bookshelf” has posted a great review. You can read it HERE. It’s always cool to get kind words about a book–especially when it doesn’t come from someone with your same last name.

I’m giving away two copies of the book this week. In So Not Happening, Isabella Kirkwood moves to a new town and new school. Though a teacher doesn’t exactly take her under his/her educational wing, she does get stuck in a class where she discovers a hidden talent. To win the grand prize of one pig-covered book, you need to leave a comment and tell me about your favorite teacher. (And note to my students, if you pick me, you are automatically disqualified on the grounds of pathetic suck-uppage. And you’ll probably get detention and have to give me your lunch money for the rest of the year. And buy me one of those Yarnell’s ice cream things from the cafeteria.) I’ll randomly draw the the winners Thursday evening and announce Friday!!!

I had some great teachers in school. My kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Ida Ellis. I LOVED her. She was so good to me. Once I wore these fake pearls to school, and they got broken or something. A few days later she presented me with a replacement necklace (which I’m sure I broke too). She came back for my class’s high school graduation. I still think about her and wonder where she is. She was retirement age when I was in kindergarten, so I’m gonna think good thoughts and imagine she’s kicked back in a retirement community in Florida.

Then there’s Mrs. Hansen. She was my first grade teacher. Her husband worked for Radio Shack (I have no idea why I remember this), and she’d bring all these cool gadgets to class, like a blow up robot. Yes, blow up robots were the only kind you could get back then, and it was pretty cool. And she had Speak-n-Spells. Does anyone remember those? It would give you a word in this really creepy voice, and you’d spell it out on this keypad. I rocked at Speak-n-Spell. I need one of those today–thanks to years of reading hideous student spelling, I can’t spell worth spit now. When you read a million and one essays, you start to question every word and lose your magical gift of spelling. I miss it so.

Anyway, Mrs. Hansen would let me do my one-woman puppet shows. I would create the puppets myself with my stunning artwork (read: scary) and then put on these shows. It’s a wonder anyone would play with me at recess later. I’m surprised kids didn’t chunk their nuggets at me at lunch. It was also in Mrs. Hansen’s class during snack time, that I decided drinking milk through a straw was kinda getting boring. So I got this brilliant idea to reroute the milk through my nose. I stuck the straw up my nostrils and just snorted. It was a spectacular failure.

I also liked Mrs. Mitchael, who is  now Mrs. Palmer. She was my gifted and talented teacher. Shocking I know–but apparently at one point my brain functioned somewhat. She was a tough teacher and always  pushed me. It drove me nuts. She’s acknowledged in So Not Happening. Mrs. Palmer was the teacher who really got me to writing. Once in sixth grade I had to do this project, and I wrote my own version of Twilight Zone. It was called “Stop and Smell the Roses…If You Dare.” What originality! What suspense! And I even wrote out a cast list–all people from Dynasty, Three’s Company, and Facts of Life. Yes, Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter and Jack Tripper. Greate casting instinct.

There was Mrs. Pat Brashier who told us on the first day of Algebra I we would call her ma’am and never refer to her as Mrs. Brassiere. I was like, “Oh crap. I hadn’t even thought of that. Great. Now it’ll just pop out of my mouth.” She ran her class like a drill sergeant, made you put your gum on the end of your nose, and just basically scared the snot out of me. Every time she looked at me, I just wanted to blurt out some sin and write out my own detention slip. But I did learn me some math. It wasn’t until many years later that I found out her trips to the teacher’s lounge during class were smoke breaks. In class!!!! I guess I thought she was in there drinking motor oil, chewing nails, and doing other things to fortify herself to come back and scare us some more. Her tactics would NEVER fly these days (without a nice fat lawsuit), but man, did I end up liking that woman. And she’s the reason I passed the ridiculous number of college math classes I had to take. (When you pick 100 majors, you end up taking lots of math…and many other electives that have nothing to do with life or a sustainable career.)

Finally, there was Senor Kniseley. He’s a very long story, but this guy was my teacher from seventh grade through college. He took a group of us on lots of trips, and basically made me appreciate culture. One year I was taking 22 and 24 hour semesters in college (don’t even ask. This was even when I didn’t eat junk food. How did I survive?). I was full time at the local university, but taking my foreign language at the community college to play catch up. So he sits me down as we’re making my schedule, and he’s like, “Your academic life is nuts and giving you wrinkles. Do you really want to be a teacher?” And I’m like, “Um. . . yeah.” And he says, “What do you REALLY want to do?” And I said, “I want to be a writer.”  I think maybe one other soul on the planet knew this. And he nods. “Then be a writer.” And I said okay and went and flunked another Spanish quiz.

So who was your teacher of choice? Let me know and get in the running for a shiny new copy of So Not Happening!!! I hope you have a great week. See you Wednesday!

JEN

40 comments