Wake up sleepyheads! I’m looking for some feedback for an article I want to write for the monthly RWA journal. I’ve got a poll I’d sure like your thoughts on…you can pop over there and vote on my LiveJournal page, if you would be so very kind.

Comments are welcome in either location. Thanks in advance!

Jaye found this: it’s a program that makes “word clouds” out of your website. You can order a t-shirt with the image on it. I might just have to do that.

I made an image from my book website, and this is how it turned out. I love it!

I’ve been so busy the last few days getting ready for our annual family road trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (the U.P. as the natives call it), I haven’t had time to think about updating the blog.

Well, I’ve thought about it, but haven’t done it. I’m trying to focus on getting as much of my book finished before leaving, plus laundry, cleaning out the van, cleaning the house, and all the other stuff you know that has to be done before we leave.

We leave tomorrow for a week, and it’s a 9-hour road trip, with three kids, a husband, and a dog. I’m so looking forward to it.

Actually, I am. I’ve been traveling to the UP since I was born, every summer, to visit my grandma and grandpa, and every year when I leave, I wonder if it will be the last time I’ll see them. My grandma turned 90 on July 21st, and my grandpa will be 89 in August.

This is my maternal grandmother that we’re visiting, and although we’ve always lived at least 9 or 10 hours apart, she’s played a special role in my life. A wonderful seamstress, she used to make us pajames every Christmas when we were younger. (I still have the last flannel nightgown she made for me…and I still wear it.)

She also made my prom dress for my senior prom…it was a lovely evening gown with a plum satin overskirt that merged up into a boned, strapless bodice. In the back, the satin overskirt split up the middle to the back of my waist and under it was frothy lavender lace. I wish I had scanned my photos so I could show you all a picture of it. It was gorgeous!

Then, when I got married, my grandmother and my mother made my wedding dress. I helped too, just a little (’cause I can’t sew–too impatient). My mother and I had gone to try on dresses all over until we found the one I wanted. Then my mom took careful notice of the design, fabric, etc., and she and my grandmother made the dress exactly as it appeared in the store. My job was to sew little tiny pink satin “centers” into the rosettes of the Alencon lace that covered the entire dress–which was a simple sheath with a super-long cathedral train, made only of Alencon lace. It was beautiful.

When I was pregnant with my first child, the very first piece of clothing I got for her came just weeks after I announced the pregnancy. My grandmother, at that time 80 years old, had sewn and then hand-embroidered little flowers, birds, bees, and hearts all over this little precious jacket. I cried.

(It’s a really blurry picture, but the only one I have with me and the kids and my grandma.)

Now my grandma lives in a skilled nursing facility attached to the hospital in the town she’s from. She’s actually happier than she’s been in years, though her memory is more than quirky–which is the reason she had to move in there. Her husband, my grandfather, still lives in the house they’ve always lived in. He is another story, and he deserves a post all his own…but I’ll save that for when I get back.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the trip, but at the same time, I know that as we leave to come home, I’ll cry as I always have, wondering if it’s the last time I’ll see one or both of them.

Now that Amazon is offering grocery items, there really is no reason to leave home.

Why, you can even have milk delivered to you, via the friendly world at Amazon. In fact, so many people have found this so convenient, Amazon’s been overrun by reviews about this heretofore mundane kitchen item.

Here are a few choice samples, but there are 480+ other reviews, many of which others have found helpful in making their milk-purchasing decisions.

Summer Milk, August 9, 2006

Reviewer:

Sean Davis - See all my reviews

Heat Index today: 112 degrees

Result: Milk was a bad choice!!!!!!!!

oh wow, August 8, 2006

Reviewer:

billy pinko “billy pinko” (Utah) - See all my reviews

This is the sexiest milk I have ever had. This milk is silky and perfect in every way. I felt real nourishment after I drank this milk, and you know what I mean. Marvin Gaye must have had a lot of this milk, and his special lady-friend too.

My hat is off to these cows. Actually, everything is off to these cows. This is naked, wonderful milk.

A Social Tsunami?, August 8, 2006

Reviewer:

Silicon Valley Bob “bob41116″ (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Does selling milk over the Web mean that our nation’s next generation of illegitimate children will be fathered by the FedEx man?

Okay, so I’m just waiting to see the reviews for condoms.

I’m swiping this meme from Rosario (my new best friend, because she’s the only person of my acquaintance who’s also read the Vicky Bliss books and she’s been quoting the best parts back to me…).

One book…that changed your life
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.
This is a book that every woman should read. It’s written by a famous personal security expert–he’s worked with everyone from Olivia Newton-John and Cher and other celebrities, to non-celebrities, rape victims, violence-in-the-workplace victims, etc.

This book is about how we have an innate ability to sense when things are “off,” that we have this deep-seeded instinct for danger (women often call it intuition), and how, if we listen to it, it will can help us to protect ourselves from all sorts of dangers.

I wrote an article for the Wet Noodle Posse ezine about some of de Becker’s information. Read this book.

One book…that you’ve read more than once
Well, you all know by now that Night Train to Memphis is the first one that comes to mind, although I’ve reread many others.

One book…that you’d want on a desert island
Uh…How to Survive on a Desert Island? No, wait…I’ve got it…The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.

One book…that made you laugh
Anything by Jennifer Crusie, J D Robb, Elizabeth Peters or Susan Elizabeth Phillips…but since I have to pick one book…I’ll say It Had to Be You by SEP.

One book…that made you cry
It’s a kids’ book called The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell. It’s a Christmas story about a little boy of age 5 who becomes an angel, and who just doesn’t fit in up in heaven; so one of the angels kindly goes back to earth to get the treasure box the little boy had hidden under his bed…and what’s in that box, and how happy he is, and what happens…well, I bawl everytime I read this book to my kids; it gets so that my husband sits there and chuckles at me because I can never get through the story.

The kids are always asking me why I’m crying. I can’t explain to them why it moves me on so many levels.

One book…that you wish had been written
The books that I wish had been written, I’ve written, or intend to write.
One book…that you wish had never been written
Um…Harry Potter, so I could have written it? (just kidding)
I can’t think of any books that I wish hadn’t been written!

One book…that you are currently reading
The Virgin’s Lover by Philippa Gregory

One book…that you’ve been meaning to read
Why Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner

So? What about you?