Baby, It's Cold Outside...

My window for Christmas music is a small one, and yes, this is obvious, but who cares?  Without any further ado:

Well it's certainly cold out there.  But why not?  It's winter.  And it actually feels like it.  I'm digging out the hat and gloves for tomorrow.  And I have to say while I do like the general idea of a white Christmas, since I'm traveling tomorrow I'm happy that it's going to be a sunny Christmas, sans snow.  If I want to think about the snow I can close my eyes real tight and remember the storm of the season that blew in last year right after Christmas. (Or the one that blew in this year for Halloween...aka the lost weekend trapped in the 'burbs without power.)

But, hey! it's the most wonderful time of the year.  Or so I've heard.  And I'm FINALLY almost totally in the holiday spirit zone.  I mailed out my cards.  I stocked up on more eggnog.  I wrapped all my gifts.  And I baked my mint mini brownies.  Done.  Done.  And done.  

So first up, I have to give major thanks to Real Simple for the amazing recipe for the mini mint brownies.  I should preface this by saying, I'm not a baker.  Or a chef.  I'm a simpleton in the kitchen and my kitchen is the size of most people's closet, so anything beyond toast and coffee can be a logistical challenge.  That said makes today's victory is even sweeter:

The crushed candy canes are optional, but since I'm taking these babies on the road with me tomorrow, I may save the garnish for later.  Plus I'm pretty greedy with my candy canes (yet another thing that has a small window for enjoyment) so I may hoard these to enjoy later with my stockpiled eggnog.

And with me, being me, I've also managed to squeeze in some quality TV time.  I had a dangling vacation day (use it or lose it) and spent a good chunk of it FINALLY seeing what all the hype is about when it comes to Revenge.

Okay.  I am officially so late to this party (10 episodes late to be exact) and I have to say....better late than never.  It may be cold outside but to quote Emily Thorne, my new most favorite person, "They say vengence is a dish best served cold but, sometimes it's as warm as a bowl of soup."...and she poisons Conrad's soup so he can get busted with his mistress.  And that's just the pilot.  Trust me when I say there is no better way to spend the cold days ahead.  If you haven't already seen this show, catch up!  So good.  Just like Ringer I'll be coming back to Revenge a lot in the posts to come.  I literally just watched all ten episodes (thank you iTunes)...and yes, I've maybe watched some of them more than once.  But the pilot is that freaking good.  Just do it.  There's mystery, intrigue, backstabbing, best-kept-secrets (and the not so best-kept ones), people with way too much money, cheating, drinking, fashion, the Hamptons, lying, stealing and yup! revenge.  I'm obsessed.

And in the land of things I won't question, watching the show is actually inspiring me to write. I think it's that whole see-something-great-makes-me-want-to-write-something-great.  I made a commitment to 75,000 words by year end and I'm realizing that even with time off from work that's a bit on the ambitious side, but I'm up for the challenge. As of today, I'm 66,586 words and counting.  (Killing off another character certainly helped with the latest word surge!)

As for another thing that was better than expected, I also just watched Friends With Benefits.  Four full times.  Don't judge.  Though that could also explain the Justin Timberlake cameo in this afternoon's nap dream.  (And bee-tee-dubs, ten more days with nap potential makes me beyond happy.)  But back to FWB...I thought it might be entertaining.  I've gone on record already with my awe of JT and was curious how he'd do in this one.   (And SOOOOO happy he wasn't playing a singer or an aspiring singer in a movie which would give him a reason to sing and dance.  Britney.  Cough!  Cough!  Crossroads.  Cough!  Cough!)  But it was actually, legitimately funny.  Like laugh out loud funny.  And smart.  And witty.  And certainly relatable in parts.  

I watched the opening five minutes about twenty times.  That funny.  Sadly it's hard to find the entire scene on You Tube (WTF?) but I did find a good chunk of it.  Now if you're not a fan of humor with four-letter words and some obscene references then I'd skip right past this. 

And not that there was ever any doubt, but once again Emma Stone kicks incredible ass.  She's the coolest girl in town.  Easy A was EPIC.  If you haven't already...you know the drill...get on that.  Immediately.  If not sooner.

And while my most favorite JT post-break up line didn't make this clip (and I'm not going to type it here for fear of offending a reader and fear of of this blog getting slapped with some kind of parental advisor warning).  So for now I'm going with this line, because I could hear myself  as Mila in this exchange:

"Don't lash out. You're better than that." - Andy S.

"I'm really not." -Mila K.

I'm trying to resist the temptation to buy the movie.  But I do have a gift card in hand and a Barnes & Noble down the block so there's a good chance this movie will be mine before 2011 is out.

But before I can even contemplate a trip to one of the greatest places on earth, I've got some packing to do before the big day.  So for now, channel the holiday spirit (I was singing along today while I baked).  And while it's near impossible for me to pick a favorite Christmas song this one ranks very high.  

I know it's a cover, but a truly amazing one at that.  You've got a great song.  Sung by U2 (in the Joshua Tree era).  Makes me want to just get up and dance.  And it lends to my rockstar fantasy of being the inspiration for my rockstar man's song...telling me to baby, please come home.  (Bono may not have penned this little diddy, but he did write The Sweetest Thing for his wife, so I know he's got it in him.)    

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Enjoy the season whatever way makes you happy!  I said it before and I'll say it again...it's the most wonderful time of the year.  Why not enjoy it?!

Lies and Christmastime

So I probably got way too excited when I found out that both The Lying Game and Pretty Little Liars are coming back on January 2^nd. 

So.  Much.  Lying. 

My life has been a little empty without my teen soaps (okay not really, but still, I’m looking forward to having them on my DVR for some mindless entertainment in 2012). Plus, the prospect of them revealing who A is on PLL is more than I can fathom right now.  What WILL they come up with next?!?!  Yet another silver lining?  Now January, which is usually a downer of a month, with its cold and grey days is suddenly looking up.  (Though if this bizarro weather trend keeps going, it might be 50 and sunny next month, which is kind of messing me up but I’ll take it over frigid wind and snow any day!)  And PS – One Tree Hill is coming back too.  I mean, apparently good things also happen in threes.

But before I can revel in the amazingness of these shows, there’s a holiday season to get through.  I know, it’s supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year and all that jazz and not something to get through.  But honestly, it’s become an incredibly stressful time of year.  Thanksgiving to New Year’s is just a marathon of insanity on the work and home front and it’s not so much that I dread it, but I kind of wish it was more fun. 

Now, maybe I was just too young to know better, but I have such fond memories of Christmas as a kid.  And even for most of adulthood.  It goes without saying that I like to receive gifts (um, who doesn’t?) and not like I need an excuse to shop, but I always loved buying presents and wrapping them up.  Love looking at decorations.  The smell of Christmas trees.  And at the first snowfall getting my first Starbucks Peppermint Mocha of the season.  I love the idea of tradition.  Of having all sorts of mismatched ornaments and sentimental favorites on the tree in favor of a perfectly coiffed matchy-matchy one.  And to only listening to Christmas music after Thanksgiving and not a minute before.  So many songs to pick from but this one is definitely one of my favorites:

But somewhere along the way…I don’t know…it just seems like something is missing.  I don’t mean to get all Charlie Brown and complain about the commercialness of Christmas, but it always seemed like a magical time of year.  Now, the stores are packed with pusher shoppers, half of the Rockefeller Tree Lighting ceremony is pre-taped, and hardly anyone sends card anymore. Perhaps it’s my old age talking, but I miss Christmas past.  Maybe I should get myself a Charlie Brown tree, do the Peanuts dance and the Christmas spirit (or the angel of the Lord as it were) will inspire me.

Letting go of some literal baggage

The good news….I did get a little taste of Christmas this weekend. My mom bought me some candy canes.  We did some shopping (avoiding the crowds very well, I must say).  My holiday cards are in progress.  I even baked.  I know….WTF, right? What can I say?  I was trying to get in the mood.   And I suspect knowing that there’s a long vacation at the end of month always helps. 

I’m also getting a little of a jump-start on another year end tradition, which is pretty much trying to get my life in order.  Pretty sure I may have mentioned that I can be a bit of a total control freak in some areas of my life.  At least I own it.  But I’ve been on a mission to re-do my closet for a while (hello, Elfa closet amazingness!) but haven’t been able to pull the trigger.  I’m a pack rat.  I’m emotionally tied to some of my clothes (memmmmmories….) and even though I don’t seem to have a problem with impulse purchases I do have a problem with impulse purging.  Enter mom and her candy canes.  Several hours, an honest look at things later and three bags of crap later and voila!  It actually wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be, with one exception. 

Kate.

There’s that stereotype how all women are obsessed with shoes and buy them like candy.  Closets packed to the gills with shoes of all kinds, because as the adage goes, “shoes always fit”.  Now, I can appreciate a fabulous shoe as much as the next girl, but truth be told, they aren’t my go-to purchase.  For me, it’s all about the purse.  Always has been and always will be. It’s my weakness.  Even when I was younger…there was my purple Tano purse and my tan Le Sportsac and the most miniscule leather “purse” from Banana that maybe was the size of an iPhone to the paratrooper briefcase that I used in high school and I still have in my closet.  Still actually looks pretty good.  Loooove this bag. 

That said, there are times when a purse needs to meet its end. Or as my mom said, it was time to let it make someone else happy.  God!  Aren’t moms just the best?!  Alas, she was a bit shocked when she saw my whole “collection” if you will.  But luckily I am my mother’s daughter, a purse lady herself, so there wasn’t an ounce of judgment.  And she helped me let go a little.  So farewell Lisboa clutch that had nothing but crap memories tied to it.  So long off-white purse that gets dirty when the wind blows (damn, final online sale mistake).  See ya black doctor-esque bag that’s way too small for me now, even though I still kind of like it. 

But the hard part was breaking up with Kate.  I’ve been a kate spade new york girl since 1997 when I got my black nylon Sam.  It was the reason I opened a Neiman Marcus card, since my MasterCard just wasn’t fancy enough for NM.  Live beyond my means much?  From there, it was just flat out obsession and my closet has a lot of Kate in it, from bags to clothes to shoes to jewelry.  So when it came time to take a hard look at the state of my purses and my mom suggested parting ways with one, well, it wasn’t pretty. 

I give you my green Noel Dot purse:

Now this picture really doesn’t do it justice. It does have stains on it which I can only guess is from spilled drinks in bars, exposure to the rain, and proof that bad things happen to good purses when they are exposed to the elements in Boston.  But I love this bag.  Love the color. Love that I never saw anyone else with it.  And even though I probably haven’t carried it in years, it’s a sentimental favorite.  And even though this picture really kind of makes me want to keep it (that's the probably with your giveaways being stored under the dining room table...there's the risk of snatching stuff back out of the bag)....it really is a bit banged up and not really the impression that I want to give off, so I’m giving it away.  It hurts me more than it hurts her, I’m sure.  Hopefully she’ll be adopted into a new home by a girl who will treat her right.  Goodbye, love.  Thanks for the memories. 

(And doesn’t out with the old mean in with the new?  Too soon?  Sorry, Kate.)

Next step is to attack all the “stuff”…the books…the paper…the pack-ratty piles that I never want to deal with so I just seem to move them around.  But I’m committed to the final home improvements (good-bye wall o’ mirrors) and since that requires moving my giant storage unit, I figure I may as well try to clean it up a bit.  I’ve already said it a hundred times but when I’m in the mood I actually like the cleaning process.  Color me crazy.

And the writing you ask?  A little stalled.  I blame the company holiday party on Monday night and being too tired yesterday to manage more than 400 words before I needed to crawl into bed.  I did break 60,000 words with a goal of 75,000 before the year is out.  Then, teen drama aside, I should be able to commit my butt to the chair and my fingers to the keyboard in 2012.  And hopefully not be tempted to check out all those after-Christmas sales.  Three bags of giveaways and my closet isn’t exactly swimming in space.  Maybe my first New Year’s resolution should be to figure out how to exercise some self control.  But then again, why set myself up for failure, right?!?!

For now, I’ll leave you with some holiday inspiration.  Sorry the video is so crappy.  Kind of had higher hopes, you get the gist.  

Happy dancing!

A heap of TV means a whole lot less writing.....

Well a few days off from writing and it’s been a little bit of a downhill spiral.  I took some time off (not totally by choice since I was letting the rest of my life slip and I need to stop that freefall).  Long story short (too late), and I’m at 58,764 words.  That’s not such great progress, in the grand scheme, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.  And I’m guessing The Devil Wears Prada wasn’t written in one either.

So one day at a time. I’ll get back to it.  I wrote on Wednesday.  And I’m here, right?  Just have to get back in my groove and then I’ll be flying again. I miss my daily update input on NaNo though.  Sigh!  Feeling the void for sure!  Fortunately NaNo’s programs and updates continue throughout the year so I can get my fix (and encouragement from the community) any time I want it. 

But while I wasn’t writing, I did make these delish mint mini brownies….from scratch, thankyouverymuch, so that took some time.  They are going to be a Christmas hit for sure!  Mmmmmmmmmm!  Brownies.

Catching up on life also meant step #1 in upgrading my computer (updated my back-up and the operating system.  Woohoo!), cleaning, laundry, shopping (necessities.  And my first official Christmas gift for mom. And maybe a pair of leather gloves for me.) and of course making my way through my DVR.  So of course, it’s me. And it’s TV.  And I have lots to say. 

I would like to say that this week’s 90210 viewing was wholly unintentional.  I got home from my massage at Bliss (aka what I imagine heaven to be like) and flipped on the TV.  A rerun of Ringer was coming on at 9 p.m. and it was a few minutes shy of that.  Hence, 90210 was on.  See?  Not my choice.  I can’t control the TV schedule.  And sure I can control what I watch but after a Blissage 75 I was too mellowed out and insanely happy to care about ten minutes of bad TV. 

As with all other shows airing this week, it was the mid-season finale so that means drama.  And cliffhangers.  But just like with the Lucinda reincarnation, they are once again reincarnating story lines.  What can I say? It’s a car crash I can’t turn away from.

90210 Then...

First up, Silver is making out with some married dude with a kid.  Swears he’ll leave his wife.  And why? he wonders, does Silver want to be with him knowing his “situation” (um, that situation is call MARRIAGE, ass hat).  Well, she says, all aglow, because he was *honest* about it, of course.  Hmmmm…wonder if he’s being just as honest with his wife??!?!!  Just saying.  Anyway, this is totally Valerie and that creeper, Kenny, who was an old co-worker of Jim Walsh and was going to be Val’s financial advisor.  (You know because she bought the After Dark after scoring money from the equally creeper FBI guy Jones, and Dylan, after helping in the sting to trap Suzanne and Kevin.  Yeah, that was believable.)  But shocker!  Kenny didn’t plan to leave his wife and Val was none too pleased. Does anyone remember when Val faked a pregnancy and pulled up to Kenny’s house and hands his wife diapers?  And the wife is all, “Kennnnnnny!  Why is she giving you diaaaaaaaaapers?”  LOL!  Genius.  Jut hope they don’t make Silver all bipolar again (third time…probably not the charm) and make her huck some diapers at Married Ass Hat. 

Can you guess which one is the Marky Mark model?

Storyline #2 – poor, emotionally tortured Dylan model Liam is cruising down the stripe on his motorcycle, while his will-they-or-won’t-they-get-back-together romantic interest, Annie (who b-t-w- survived DeGrassi’s Bible club.  Amen!), is leaving him a voicemail about how she always loved him.  So romantic.  Less romantic is that she’s pretty much been prostituting herself to make enough money to send her brother David Silver Dixon to rehab.  Too bad Liam gets nailed by a car before he can hear the voicemail and is left for dead.  A hit and run you say? Hello, Andrea Zuckerman.  Can only hope Liam doesn’t have a flashback while at a drag race with Brandon.  Though I must say, it was poetic how the hit and run driver, who initially had the good sense to call 911, looks up to check exactly where she is, and there’s a giant billboard of Liam in his underwear staring down at her.  Way to tap that Marky Mark thing about two decades too late.  Awful show.  Yet I got sucked into the last ten minutes and then spent another twenty writing about it.  Dammit!

Gossip Girl:

Best things about this week’s episode?  Chuck telling Nate how you can’t believe everything you read – “These stories are invented to sell papers to women who collect ceramic cats.”  Reminiscent of the delivery of his Season 1 quips.  Love it!  And Dorota telling Blair to make a wish “Bippity Boppity Boo!….Poof!”

Worst thing? (Spoiler alert!!!!) Blair and Chuck hopping in a limo and FINALLY admitting they are truly in love with each other and want to be together.  And then getting into a Princess Diana-esque car crash after being chased by the paparazzi. Chuck’s life is hanging in the balance (as if they’d kill him off) and Blair officially survives (but you just know she’ll lose the baby, so she’ll be free and clear to go with Chuck.  After another shitload of obstacles, of course.)  So bad it’s not even good. It’s just bad.  And the Charlie storyline?  Ridic.

Plus two car crash cliffhangers, two nights in a row?  C’mon CW.  You can do better than that.  I know you can, because you have…..

Ringer!

What’s bigger than being obsessed with something?  Because that’s me and Ringer.  I’m uber-obsessed.  Super-sized.  I can’t even talk about it enough. So freakingly well done.  So many twists and surprises and oh-no-they-didn’t moments.  I am going to watch all the reruns and worship at the feet of the SMG.  Catch up now, people!  It’s that good.  (No.  Really.  It is.  Don’t judge me for the 90210 thing.)  And for the record, I call bullshit on the Logan and Juliet thing.  He turned her down and now she’s going to try to ruin his life for it.  Spoiled little rich girl.  And with Siobhan back in town, all bets are off.  Side note, why are they making Henry look like Roy Halston all of a sudden?  Random. 

And while sadly, I haven’t discovered any “new” music this week Ringer has been playing all their ads with Adele in them. And no, not that Adele song. Or that other Adele song.  I loved this one when I first downloaded the album. Can only pray it stays under the radar for a little while longer….(or maybe I’m under the radar because I don’t really listen to the radio much.)

Bones:

I watched some back-to-back episodes and am trying to get adjusted to Booth and Bones being a couple as much as they are.  I hope this isn’t their jump the shark moment.  And while I was never a fan of Moonlighting but I always hear how when Dave and Maddie got together it was the death of the show.

(Now before I go on, let me just address that groan over my having zero interest in Moonlighting. Oh, I know…how could I not?  I’ve heard it a hundred times before.  And I’ll tell you why not.  It’s called Remington Steele my friends.  It was the original and the superior in my book.   The dialogue was witty. Their banter was sharp.  Pierce Brosnan was charming (and the mysterious con man thing didn’t hurt).  The show had all the elements of a screwball comedy.  Old movie references all over the place.  Mystery.  Drama. Comedy.  I wanted to be Laura Holt.  I can absolutely credit Remington Steele as one of the first shows that truly made me fall in love with mysteries.  And it was one of the first shows we recorded with our Betamax so I would watch them over and over.  Still do.  Thank God the whole series is on DVD.  LOVE LOVE LOVE this show.)

But back to Bones.  There is still some good humor there.  I like them together.  I’m not quite sure about the new super-hick prodigy in the lab who learned forensics so he’d know how to kill his father (but then decided he’d always leave some kind of evidence behind and get caught so went on the straight and narrow).  Hmmmm….just bring back Clark already.  And I do love Sweets.   I’m all in.  More mysteries and detecting.

And then some…

I also got fully sucked into the made-for-TV movie Innocent, based on the Scott Turow book.  Now, Presumed Innocent was a great movie (and great book)!  I was curious where this story went, picking Rusty up 20 years later. This time his wife ends up dead (and he’s got a new mistress) and once again he’s fingered for the crime.  Not life-changing TV exactly, but entertaining nonetheless.  (Have to say Bill Pullman kind of annoyed the crap out of me.) 

The good news is TNT is doing Mystery Movie Night with movies based on bestsellers.  Kind of fun to see something new.  And John Corbett is in one (hello, lover!).  Love me a mystery.  Wish they would do more of the Lacey Smithsonian ones with Maggie Lawson, but I can’t have it all can I?

Also I have to say I’m totally annoyed by all the Kourtney & Kim commercials.  I kind of hate myself for giving them an inch of space here, but I’m going to implode if I have to watch that “if it’s not meant to be” chat between the two of them one more time.  I might have to boycott E! for good.  No wait.  That’s crazy talk. But I absolutely REFUSE to watch the marriage-sham show.  A girl just wants to watch some E! News and all they do is promote the hell out of that show with all their “watch their marriage fall apart” scenes.  We get it.  Their marriage didn’t last.  They don’t even seen to like each other much.  Who cares if Kris is a slob or Kim slams a door and cries?  I can count on my neighbors to fight at least one night a week and then hear their annoying kids cry.  Don’t need to watch it on TV.   And since my neighbors have 5 people in a one-bedroom (um, really?) I’m sure it’s messy in there too.  Yeah, yeah, yeah…judgy wudgy was a bear.

So lots of TV (it seems so much worse when I put in all down on paper) and less of writing.  Have a weekend of holiday fun planned and then back to the grind.  (And hopefully will get to my Xmas cards too…truly far too crazy of a time of year for a girl like me!)

And last, but certainly not least…Jason Priestly is going to be on Psych this week.  Love.  Love.  Love.  Even with his new face.  Thank you, James Roday and Dule Hill.  Keep on delivering!

Fifty-six thousand three hundred seventy-eight

Okay, now first things first.  I had the “new” 90210 on in the background Tuesday night while I was writing and am wondering – am I only the person who noticed that Lucinda Nicholson has suddenly been reincarnated as Liam’s modeling agent?  Named Sheila?  I mean honestly people…must you insult the die-hard fans by resurrecting old actors to play new roles?  (Straightening Lucinda's hair wasn't enough to make her a whole new person.)  Kelly coming back as Kelly – no problem.  Brenda as Brenda to direct the school play – main reason I tuned in to the show then and now.  Totally believable returns to 90210.

But if Jesse Vasquez shows up as a music producer for Dixon (a.k.a the kid with the David Silver storyline of drugs and DJ-ing) or if Noah Hunter is suddenly a college professor at CU  (where once again everyone conveniently goes to college), I just might be driven to complain to the casting agents themselves.  And if Gil Meyers comes back at all, never mind as a teacher that’s supposed to be a student favorite and also supposed to be sexy!  (Retch!) Well I’m going to LOSE MY MIND.  It’s a good thing D’Shawn Hardell has found a second career as the Mayor of Bluebell on Hart of Dixie.  Just saying….(and yeah, yeah, yeah, I know….I have no business watching this crap show of recycled story lines with an actress who graduated from DeGrassi, but you never know where inspiration might strike.)

Now that I have that out of my system…

In far more important news, NaNo is officially over and here’s how I landed:

My NaNo profile picture

Days:   30

Word:  56,378

Pages:  214

Total words written for all of NaNo: 3,073,176,540 (O!M!G!)

I honestly am so happy that I signed up for the NaNo challenge and so proud of myself for seeing it through, sticking with it and exceeding the 50K word goal.  It’s been an eternity since I’ve written so consistently, never mind on a new project that was longer than a blog post.  This is EXACTLY what I needed on all fronts.

Now, I still have great affection for my last project, another mystery novel that has circulated critique groups, a few contests and was sent to a group of agents.  But it didn't make any noise.  And I think know I got buried so deep that I couldn’t see the forest for the trees (a phrase I love and a book that’s on my re-read list).  The novel (or is it a manuscript before it gets published? I'm never sure)...anyway it honestly needs another harsh round of revisions to make it good enough to send back out.  But I hit a wall and was paralyzed to change it.  That book and I?  We needed to go on a break. 

Ross & Rachel long before they were on a break!

So to start something totally fresh during NaNo has been exciting and inspiring and addictive and just because November is done, it doesn’t mean I am.  (Insert a dramatic pause and picture me raising my fist in the air, like Jeter does after every win.)

There’s a long road ahead.  Gaps that need research. Characters that need names I truly love (and that truly suit them).  Clues that need to be planted.  Holes that need to be filled.  But overall I am excited about the story.  My characters are starting to lead me places and my mystery is taking solid shape.  I said it before and I’ll say it again – TOOT!  TOOT!  And I don’t even feel like I want to take a day off from writing.  But I officially “popped” that carton of eggnog last night to celebrate.  And it was so damn good!

Other things to celebrate:

December 1^st means all the new horoscopes are out.  Mercury is in retrograde and I’m blaming it for my latest sidelining-back injury, so I need to see what’s coming next.  And to see when Mercury is going to get the hell out of here.  Because surely things are going to swing up soon!

I couldn’t possibly be in less of a holiday spirit mood these days.  Now I’m no Scrooge, but the weather has been too warm, I’ve had zero desire to go shopping (Black Friday?  Cyber Monday?  The most I got was a paperback, some fun stuff from Bliss and some essentials from Soap.com).  But I resisted pretty much every sale, every enticing offer and didn’t make a slew of stupid purchases for clothes I don’t need.  And J.Crew continues to try to seduce my with their 25% off, but the dress I've been stalking still isn’t on sale, and I haven’t given in yet.  Shopping + willpower is not usually my thing, so am raising a glass to that too!

The Thanksgiving break did allow me one day to be a total slug and catch up my DVR that was filled to an embarrassing degree.  I knocked off two episodes of The Good Wife, one episode of Castle, and finally watched the Pretty Little Liars special from Halloween.  And bravo! to the writers of that show.  I hope they do more full-flashback episodes to bring the two stories together.  Allison is such a wonderfully, evil character that it’s fun to see her in a full ep.  And yes, I know I’m talking about a show for teens (again), but who cares?  I’m so excited for the winter premiere – January can’t come fast enough.  And maybe, just MAYBE I watch it for Sidney Andrews and Piper Halliwell and Kat Arujo from Mystic Pizza.  Confused?  You’re just going to have to tune in then.

Some things not worth celebrating? 

Limitless.  Even Bradley Cooper couldn’t save that movie.  I appreciated the token close-ups and his day-two facial scruff and the man does look delish in a suit, but even that wasn’t enough to keep me entertained for almost two hours.

Dealing with all the things I haven’t done since I’ve been too busy writing.  I have lots of housework to tackle.  Laundry.  Dry cleaning.  Pre-Cyber Monday impulse online purchases to be returned.  (My 60-day return policy is almost up!)  I did wash my windows a few weekends ago.  Woohoo!  I do love me some cleaning.  

I haven’t even picked out the photo for my holiday cards, never mind bought supplies.  This time last year, cards were in progress, gift lists were made and I’m sure it was freezing outside, which kept me inside.  I’m happy to stay in the 50-degree zone, but need to get on the other two things.  (The fact that is hasn’t snowed is kind of crippling my holiday card picture though….crap!….not that I’m complaining.)

And in the land of pop culture, Bethenney Frankel’s talk show is a no-go.  Kind of bummed, but perhaps she was getting over-exposed.  I'll wait for her to come back to Bravo.  Ringer is on it's mid-season hiatus.  Booooooooo!   

It’s time to get down to business.  December is always crazy and goes by in a flash and I definitely want to end the year on a high.  Look at me! I’ll turn all this negativity  into something to celebrate.  (Cue the cheesy montage of me doing all my chores, looking a little haggared but eventually filled with totally self gratification on a job well done.  I think I’d like this to be my montage soundtrack.)

So there you have it.  A month of totally literary abandon leaving room for little else.  But I would do it all over again.  And hoping, I can keep it up.  


Here's to the next 50,000 words!