I’m off to Celebrate Romance. I am excited to have a weekend of romance novel fun and girl time! If any of you are in the Columbia, SC way and want to see me, I’ll be here Saturday night starting at 5:30:

Books a Million #278
275 Harbison Boulevard
Columbia, SC 29212
803-749-9378

Have a faboo weekend y’all – I’ll be back Monday!

Hey y’all, hard to believe it’s Thursday already. Woohoo! Tomorrow I head to Columbia, SC for Celebrate Romance. I’ve got to pack and this TT is going to help my swiss cheese brain.

Thirteen Things to Bring This Weekend

1. A case of water (already in the car).

2. My cell phone charger – dangit, don’t you hate it when you forget it?

3. My laptop (can’t be offline for three days, now can I?)

4. Bookmarks, lots and lots of them.

5. My cool pens to give away.

6. A few koozies in case people want an extra (I donated 100 to the goodie bags).

7. Buttons – my darling DH made about 750 buttons for me to give away at conferences. “Read a book, ride a cowboy!”

8. Extra books – for my peeps who read Sexy Spurs, a free autographed book if they find me at Celebrate Romance.

9. My new majorly cool tote bag with purple handles and “Beth” stitched on the side.

10. Additional clothes and shoes – hey I’m driving so I don’t have to pack light.

11. Bookplates for anyone that already owns one of my books.

12. My mom – she’s so excited. :)

13. My brain. A very important commodity often overlooked.

Two more days until I go to the Celebrate Romance conference. Am I ready? Um, no.

I’m fighting an icky virus that’s depriving me of sleep and an appetite, I still have to pack and everything I wanted to get done, well, I’ve done some of it.

*sigh*

My TT from last week is floundering to get done. Only three days left in February – ack! I guess sometimes I aim too high in my “to do” lists, but I can’t help myself. There’s so much I want to get done. My new books from Amazon sit and taunt me on the shelf… “read me!” Yet I don’t have time, dangit. There’s one called the Harlot’s Daughter – a medieval *squeeeeeeeeeeeee* – that I really want to read right now.

Anyhoo, I hope y’all are having a good hump day. We’re dipping back into the 40s here in NC again (go AWAY winter!).

I’m over at Passionate Prose with a problem. Go over and see if you can help!

Monday’s eye candy for your viewing pleasure.

My 11 YO bowls in a youth bowling league on Saturday mornings. He’s a good bowler with a 110 average. The kids on his team (two girls, one boy) are all much younger than him (next year he moves up to the young teen group) and he’s wonderful with them, very patient and helpful.

All of the kids in this league range in age from 6 to 11. My 11 YO is good enough to have moved up already to the older kids, but I decided to give him one more year with the younger kids since he’s so good with them.

So anyway, yesterday they were bowling against a team of four girls of which three were there. The first game was a close match, close enough that it came down to the last bowler on our team. She got a spare and then some additional pins (not a common occurrence for this sweet kid), winning the game by three pins.

One of the girls on the other team didn’t like that and she stamped her feet and said she was going to “kick some tail.”

Oooookay.

The second game, our team beat them by 124 pins. It wasn’t even close. Our little pouty diva looked angry.

In the third frame of the third game she threw her first ball, then a minute or two later, we realized she was gone. The coach is looking for her everywhere and we finally found her halfway down the building, sitting in a corner by a trash can saying “I don’t feel good.”

So in the middle of the third frame, she just decided to quit, claiming she didn’t feel good.

I think we all knew she was majorly annoyed with losing and just decided to give up. Honestly I was really surprised and hadn’t ever encountered that before in the two years my son’s been bowling.

I’d say this girl was probably around the same age, 10 or 11. I’m not sure how to take her actions, other than poor sportsmanship. What do y’all think – if you have kids, how have you handled someone on the opposing team being unsportsmanlike?

Hooyah! It’s Friday. Whew, thank Gawd, get down on your knees and throw up your arms, Amen!!!

Now that I’ve got that over with, today’s blog post is a quiz. I feel like having fun after a long week, don’t you?

So, my element is fire. Hm, perhaps there’s a story there to be written…

Your Power Element is Fire

Your power color: red Your energy: hot Your season: spring Like a fire, you are full of power and light. A born leader, you easily draw people toward you. You are full of courage and usually up for anything dangerous. You have a huge ego and love to be the center of attention.

Ah, Thursday! The special day right before Friday, I’m liking it. Of course, it’s February 21st already and I swear yesterday was the 1st. I know it’s a short month, but damn it goes by fast. I’ve got 8 days until the end of the month and my “to do” list is still to-doing.

Thirteen Things Left to Accomplish in February

1. Locate the remains of my brain (this is an important one).

2. Get about 4K more written in Zeke’s story so I can submit it for publication to my editor at Samhain. Devils anyone?

3. Flesh out the synopsis for my trilogy proposal to a lovely agent who says I’ve got the “chops” to make it.

4. Write the first 30 pages of the first book in the trilogy to submit with the synopsis.

5. Tease you all with no information about the trilogy proposal.

6. Read another book in my TBR pile.

7. Clean my linen closet (can’t squish anything else in there).

8. Clean my walk-in closet (even scarier than the linen closet).

9. Get my promo items ready for the Celebrate Romance conference on the 29th!

10. Paint my toenails – it’s been a long winter without any polish.

11. Get used to my blonde hair (I’m getting there, but I still get surprised when I look in the mirror).

12. Lose 3 1/2 pounds (my goal before CR).

13. Not procrastinate and get all of these accomplished (or at least more than half!).

I’m going to borrow a phrase from Sybil… *le sigh*

My TBR pile keeps growing. Seriously y’all, I keep buying more books than I read. What the hell? Why can’t I just say no?

I blame Sybil for all the reviews/info she has on her site, but I really blame Amazon. I go online and they have this “recommended for you” feature. I get suckered into looking at it every time. And wouldn’t ya know it, there’s a new book on there I haven’t read or bought and bam! it’s in my shopping cart.

That’s when Amazon gets truly evil. After you put a book in your cart, there’s this insidious little thing that says “customers who purchased this book also purchased…” with all kinds of other books!

Gah!

I went to buy a book or two and ended up buying SEVEN!

The Spymaster’s Lady
Bodine’s Bounty
Laird of the Mist
To the Edge of the Stars
The Harlot’s Daughter
The Serpent Prince
The Raven Prince

Double gah!

I’ve got dozens and dozens of books to read, but as soon as that Amazon box arrived, I took the new books out and smelled them, petted them, and thought “my precious.”

I’m not even going to go into the ebooks I haven’t read either.

I did get a chance yesterday to read Stacey Kayne’s new book, Maverick Wild (sequel to Mustang Wild) and although they were both good, I admit I liked it better than the first one. However, I also didn’t get as much written on my WIP as I wanted to either. Once I start reading, I just can’t stop!

Any other book-aholics out there?

I’m over guest-blogging at the Cata Romance blog – swing on by and say howdy! I’m talking about the must-needed strong, smart heroines in romance novels.