another round of blog awards.

Lots of thanks and a hearty hug (one of my specialties) to Jenna over at Finding the Write Way for this Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award!

I want to eat it. I want to eat-it-up-yum.

I feel so... loved! So... is anyone really that interested in learning seven more things about me? Yeah... 

1. I had my first pedicure this weekend. I know. It took me almost 26 years (well, probably not all 26. I don't think small children really get pedicures), but I finally got one. Want to see my post-pedi toes? Of course you do. They're blue with flowers.

I mean, why not, right?

2. Speaking of firsts, I finally got my nose pierced today. I'd been wanting to this since I was 19. It was good to finally let myself.

My face (and left hand)(and nostril bling).

3. I was born with a head full of jet black hair, which turned blond when I was a toddler, then got, like, white blond when I was 4-6 years old, then started turning dirty again when I was about 12. Now it's just... brownish (see above). Fascinating. A friend in college called this "mood hair."

Okay, that's absolutely enough about my appearance. Let's talk about books!

4. I didn't start reading Harry Potter until after the first movie came out. I didn't start reading Lord of the Rings until after the first TWO movies were out. I'm ashamed, but it turned out okay.

5. My favorite book in 5th grade was Shiloh.

The weirdest thing that ever happened to me:

6. Once upon a time in college, I came home to my apartment from an exhausting day of classes and promptly crashed on the couch. I was so tired, I could hardly keep my eyes open when my roommate, Katie, came in and started microwaving some popcorn. I was so wiped out, but I kept telling myself, "At least say hi so she knows I'm not 100% asleep." Katie poured the popcorn into a green, plastic bowl and sat down in the chair beside me. I willed myself to wake up and eat popcorn with her I sat up. I rubbed my face and turned to her. I said, "Hey Katie..."

But she was not in the chair. She was not in my apartment at all.
Some people call this hallucinating. Yup.

7. I'm not the biggest fan of dark colas. I like Sprite and her clear-syrupped cousins fairly well (I *heart* Ale-8), but the only darker soda I really like is root beer.

And NOW you KNOW!

Alrighty, who here is irrisistibly sweet... thinking thinking...

Zzzzzripph! Jeigh Meredith, come on now, girl. You know you make my heart sing. (You also bring out the weirdest sides of me. Sheesh.)

Jenna Cooper! Oh, drat. You're the one who awarded me. Well... consider it mutual.

How about those new writer friends of mine?

Kristen Simmons! Check out her fabulous new website, and get pumped about Article 5!

Courtney Potter! Seriously, Court, you are such an inspiration to me.

I have been so blessed, recently. Especially by other people. So let's all show some love!

hobble off to dreamland.

You know how I was never going to be one of those writers who used their own dreams as fodder for fiction?  Well, you might not have known that, but it used to be true.

Not because I have moral reservations about taking the inspiration in whatever form it greets you... I just usually don't have very interesting dreams.  I mean, I have some WACKY ones, as evidenced here and here, but not really any story-centric or inspirational ones.

I guess the dream I had last night about a kid getting attacked by a giant spider wasn't really story-centric or inspirational, either, but it woke me up and wouldn't let me go to sleep again.  Some of us call that a nightmare.

So I started writing it down and it turned into a story.  Kind of fun.

Thanks for listening.  Also, happy December!

i pretend like i'm not peeing my pants with joy over the new harry potter movie...

But I must be, according to my subconscious.

The other night, I had what I think may very well be the oddest and most hilarious dream of my life, to date.  In short, I was playing poker with my cousin Justin, Todd Packer from The Office, and Lord Voldemort.

You heard that right.  Voldemort.  And my real-life cousin.  And an actor whose name I don't remember.  Though, in the dream, he was the sleazy character he plays on TV, not himself.  Insane.  Especially since I despise that character, do not know how to play poker, and the ONLY one of these people whom I would EVER associate with in real life, is, of course, The Dark Lord.  I mean, Justin.

I don't remember much of the dream, but right before I woke up, I must have said something awesome, because all three of these men reached out to give me a high five.  The very last thing I did before coming to was slap hands with Voldemort, who didn't know how to do it right.  He kept his fingers pointed out, like he was all about Hitler (which I wouldn't doubt, given his history), and I tried to correct him.  He looked down and admitted that his wrists didn't flex back.  He seemed so dejected and sad.  I was about to say something like, "It's okay, buddy.  I know that kid did a number on you," but then I woke up.

I whispered to my husband, "I think I just had a dream that Voldemort gave me a high-five."
Joshua said something like, "That's unsettling," but it was muffled and he was half asleep.  Then I realized how crazy I sounded.  I'm half tempted to look up in the books about those faulty wrist joints, but something tells me I just pulled that from some other unprocessed brainwave.

I must just be really excited about these movies.  And high-fives.  And... poker, I guess.

My total BFF!

one weird dream.

I had a bizarre dream last night in which I begged a lady I didn't know to cut my hair, right then and there in the cereal isle of the grocery store, because I just couldn't stand it anymore.  She did, I thanked her, and went about my day.  I didn't know what my new hair looked like until I caught my reflection in a mirror at some social event (odd, since I rarely attend such things).  It looked, for lack of a better example, a bit like this:

Not as flattering on me, and in the dream it was even weirder.

I went into panic mode.  I found the woman who had cut my hair (of course we were at the same party-- or was it in the grocery parking lot?) and screamed at her.  She said, "You said you wanted it short," and I said, "Yeah, but not this short!  And what's with the color?" (In the dream, in was almost jet black.)  She said, "I knew you wanted it colored."  Like that was an answer.  I said, "I wanted it auburn!  It looks like-- like--"  I never found out what my dream self thought it looked like.  I woke up and saw that it was 9:00, which is when I was supposed to leave.

I was ten minutes late to work because my hair issues have entered my subconscious.  Also, because I ignored my alarm.