July Catch-up

I can’t believe I haven’t posted one Blog this month. Wow! What a slacker. I’ll start out by saying that today is my birthday, so go easy on me. I’ll continue on and say I’ve been very busy at work and at home, though I know these are not good excuses, but there you go. So… here’s a few things I’ve done in July so far:

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July 4~ The hubby and I spent an enjoyable Independence Day with his family. His aunt is visiting (as she does every summer) and her daughter (his cousin) came along for the holiday with her two daughters who are very cute. It was nice to see them. While we see Aunt Lucy yearly, we hadn’t seen his cousin and her kids in a few years. We did typical stuff: a BBQ, fireworks, took photos, and a good time was had by all.

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July 11~ My mom has some time off from work this month, so she met me for lunch on Tuesday. My boss is very good about letting me come in early/stay late and take a long lunch so we had 2 hours. It was really nice because I usually eat at my desk and play on the computer. It’s not that I’m anti-social, but between moderating the Jenny Crusie Bulletin Board, E-groups and now this Blog (which I’ve been woefully neglecting, I’ll admit) I try to get stuff done during the day so I’ll have more writing time at night. Mom and I ordered our favorite California Citrus Salads (Yum!) and talked about birthday plans.

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July 12~ I went to a Tea (I figured I might was well capitalize it since it was an event and not just a drink) that was given by a member of my local RWA chapter. She had never given a Tea and the dozen or so of us who were there had never been to one before, so we all enjoyed eating little cucumber sandwiches, “biscuits” and jam, and of course, tea. Since it was a million degrees outside, we all opted for iced tea, though beautiful teacups were placed at each of our places and array of teas were available.

Our hostess often wears hats and had a variety of them available for those of us who showed up hatless. I chose a black fedora-type hat and it was fun to look around the table at the hats the others chose. The ladies are all people I see at monthly meetings, but because we have over 200 members, I don’t usually say more than “Hi. How are you?” and that kind of thing to most of them. It was great to chat with them and get to know them better. We discussed ways to make guests and new members feel more welcome at our meetings and it was a constructive as well as enjoyable afternoon.

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July 13~ I had lunch with Michele. Yes, another long lunch day. I told my boss this is my “Popular Week” with my three invitations to lunch/Tea. I met Michele at a hot dog place that I knew she’d enjoy being that she’s a Jersey Girl. She looked GREAT! She had on a short, sassy burgundy-colored wig that suited her to a T. I was pleased to see her looking so healthy. She actually glowed. She gave me a lovely birthday gift, a book bag made by her wonderful daughter Nikki. The inside and outside were made out of 2 different fabrics that coordinated nicely. The inside fabric is pink with hot pink ribbons (breast cancer symbol) and the outside was pink, lavender and blue with hearts and ribbons and a little “sketchy-watercolory” looking. It’s very pretty. There’s even pockets inside. Nikki is going to make some more of them for our craft auction for the Michelefund, but I own the original. Eat your hearts out.

Inside was a gorgeous card, two paperback books and my favorite candies (Junior Mints and Jelly Bellies) so what more could a girl want? It was so great to spend time with Michele—we don’t see nearly enough of each other—and just to talk and hang out and look at her while I’m talking to her, to hear her while I’m talking to her. Neither of us are big on telephones, so we mostly communicate though e-mail. Though, since she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she and I have talked on the phone more than we ever did in the past.

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July 14~ The hubby and I had dinner with friends and they ended up treating us for my birthday which was really nice and unexpected. We ate at the greatest little Mexican place and sat outside under a big umbrella in comfy chairs. It was so relaxing to just lazily sit outside and hang out after a long workweek and gab until they put up the closed sign.

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By now you’re probably all thinking that if you want to spend time with me, all you have to do is feed me, and that’s actually fairly accurate. I’m a foodie. I’ll admit it. Case in point, for my birthday tomorrow afternoon (actually THIS afternoon since it’s after midnight) we’re going to see “The Devil Wears Prada” and go out for Italian food at a little place we really love but don’t visit often enough. I will probably order the Combo One because I always do, unless I decide to go crazy and try something new, which I don’t often do.

Are you like this too? I have one or two items that are my favorite at each restaurant and I always order those. Creature of habit? I dunno, but I always do this. Combo One is small portions of spaghetti, ravioli and lasagna with a meatball. The dinners come with soup or salad (I always get salad), a glass of wine (I get rose`), garlic bread (I order mine with no butter) and a choice of ice cream (I get Spumoni). Yum, yum, it sounds good right now! Anyway, I’ll check back in and let you know if I was adventurous. Unless they have a killer ravioli special (Like something exotic with lobster and goat cheese in it), I probably won’t be. And I think I'll wear my new pink shoes from my "Shoe Love" post. :)

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Also, thanks to Katy Cooper's recommendation, I am doing Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method of plotting. I'm so not a plotter, but this has been quite productive for me so far. Step one is to write one sentence discribing your manuscript and in step 2 you expand it to a paragraph. I'm nearly done with that part now. IIRC, there are 8 steps. What I like about it is that you start small and get larger. The thought of plotting a manuscript is a huge-scary undertaking for an organic writer like me and I appreciate the idea of starting with baby steps. I'll be too busy tomorrow (today), but I'll finish up step 2 on Monday and move on to step 3. I'll keep you posted on this.

Current Mood: not-so-sleepy and somewhat talkative, but the hubby is asleep, so here I am