Happy Award x2 & some inspiration for the LaFS Blogfest ♥

I've won the Happy Award...twice! I am definitely feeling the love!

♥ Thanks to Tiana Lei over at Spilled Ink for this awesome award! Tiana has a great blog. She's an aspiring writer who is kind enough to blog about her writing ups and downs. OH, and she she has a really cute layout. ♥

♥ Thank you, Rhonda at Snarktastic Ramblings for being kind enough to pass this one on to me! For those that don't know, Rhonda is one of the funniest bloggers out there. She delivers snark of a colorful variety. Swing by her blog and check her out. ♥

The Happy Award (which is really, really cute!) is very simple and pretty darned cool. First, I'll pass on the award (my favorite part of receiving awards--besides getting to post the pretty pictures on my blog)  then state 10 things that make me happy. Hence, the "Happy 101" picture.

But before I forget — and yes, I know I'm interrupting a perfectly good train of thought — I want to remind everyone about the Valentine's Days Love at First Sight Blogfest. Sign your name and blog address to the Mr. Linky's sign up list and post your Love at First Sight scene to your blog on February 14th. ★ Don't forget to sign up, or people won't know how to find your blog ★ If you're having trouble with your muse, head on over to To Keep It Going, a blog of inspirational tidbits. I'm doing a series on love poems and other romantic paraphernalia, in honor of Blogfest.

Now—back to business. First, to pass on this award I've searched my blog reader for blogs that have not (at least to my knowledge) already received this award. It's nothing personal, I just wanted to spread the love to people who didn't already have it. And if I messed up, and you do already have this, please forgive me ;-) This task was not as easy as I thought it would be...

• Valerie at I Should Be Writing
• Denise Swank at There's Always Room for One More
  
• Angela Corbett at her self titled blog Angela Corbet 
• Terresa Wellborn at The Chocolate Chip Waffle 
• Margot Kinberg at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist
  
• Angie Kate at Always Write 
• Michele Emrath at Southern City Mysteries
• Natalie Murphy at The Sound of Rain 
• The Blogger Girls at The Blogger Girlz 
• Elspeth Antonelli at It's a Mystery

And now for the 10 things that make me happy —

1. My beautiful family.

(brothers, sister, myself, and cat, Leo)

2. My incredible fiance', J. 

(Me & J on my birthday, last year.)

3. My religion

4. Writing

5. Reading

6.  Photography

7. Music

8. Movies

9. Nature

10. Rainstorms

Have a great week everyone. I'll see you next time.

Superior Scribbler Award & Critique_This

Can you believe it? The incredibly talented Anne Riley thinks I'm a Superior Scribbler! I'm so excited--and honored--to receive my second blog award. And look how cute the badge is, by the way.
The rules for this award are very simple; all I have to do pass it on. It should be easy--except for the part where I have to narrow down my list of favorite blogs, but, I'll give it a go.

•  Julie Dao at Silver Lining
• Courtney Barr at Southern Princess
•  Alexandra Shostak at The publication follies of miss Alexandra Shostak
• Lynnette Labelle at Chatterbox Chit Chat (I know she already has this award, but her blog is just too good for me to pass up.)

 I also joined a small Critique Group, which we named Critique_This.  Right now, we have 5 members.  We'll have to see how it goes, but so far, I love it. My group is so supportive and laid back (just like I like). Well, I'll blog more Sunday, but as for today, I'm exhausted. I just really wanted to post the Award that Anne gave me like, oh...about FOREVER ago! Sorry it took so long getting it up.

My MS has be suffering because of the family drama that will not seem to take the hint and die already!
Actually, it isn't that my MS is suffering; the MS has just been neglected. But my MCs...well they are
definitely suffering--which my Critique Partner seems to think is barbaric (though she won't come out and say it to my face).

You see, she's quite peeved-off that she's been stuck at a cliff hanger for about a week...which means Kate and Caleb are also stuck at a cliff hanger, right at the edge of danger---the same edge of danger that they've been stuck at since this family drama, that-is-my-18-year-old-brother's-fault, started, well over two weeks ago.

Still, I'm a mean, mean writer/mommy to my characters and they don't deserve that.

Happy writing everyone!

Sticky Situations

Wow--so I've totally fallen off the edge of the planet for the past week. I haven't even been on Twitter, which is how you know something's up in the Reese household.

Right after Thanksgiving (which was a wonderful day of food, football, and family) a personal crisis reared its big, fat, ugly head. Its taken most of my time away from writing, blogging, tweeting---you name it--so I've been pretty much AWOL for the past week. This problem has been (for the most part) resolved, and I'm finally falling back into the swing of things...at least as of 11am Monday morning.

My plan today is to write the ending to chapter 10 and work on chapter 11. Kate and Caleb are in a tough situation and they have to fight off the enemy and save the day--you know, all in a day's work, right?

Will blog about my success tomorrow!

Clifford the Big Red Dominatrix

Last night, I stayed up late writing, and while I didn't get a lot written word-count-wise, I did get a really good quality scene written out. I was pretty ecstatic last night--especially after all the whining I did to my main squeeze over the past few days (love you Josh!). The scene went over a critical romantic choice. I wrote three sections back and forth between point of views. I would have written this entry last night, but I was exhausted when I finally closed my laptop--it was 4:30am!

Tonight I plan to finish up the last scene at the ball/dinner party and make my way into the next chapter! Of course, that's been my plan for how long? Right...

I'm about an hour behind my schedule tonight. An unexpected project came up with my brother, the kindergartner. The project was, of course, due tomorrow. Perfect. We had to pull out the craft box and dress up Clifford the Big Red Dog for Halloween. F-ing perfect. Like I really had time for that... We actually had a really fun time together while working on E Man's project. Here's what we ended up with

...sort of a cross between a superhero and a dominatrix (the latter was unintentional). The mask just turned out that way. I would have fixed if, but I was in a hurry. Plus, it was a peel-and-stick foam and we'd already stuck it to the Clifford cutout by the time I made the connection...

As you can see, we gave Clifford a studded collar out of jingle bells. (The giant E on the cape is E Man's initial)


I am rather proud of the poor thing. He can't help that he's not perfect.