So sad....the only question is "why?"

Found out this morning that a friend passed away...suddenly....major heart attack. He wasn't a good friend of mine, more of an acquaintance for me, friend of my husband and his sisters. He was actually my sister in law's boyfriend's brother. He was a father...his little girl is a year younger than my daughter. And he was only 32......the same age as me.

Death terrifies me more than anything....my own and of those close to me.

I try to take care of myself and my kids, my husband, make sure we stay healthy and go for routine check ups. I encourage my kids to be safe and do not allow them to do dangerous things. We try our best to live life but constantly be aware of our safety.

But you could do all these things and it could mean nothing. Any second, any of us could be taken away. What would my kids do without me? I don't want them to live they're lives without a mother. And if I lost them......I can't even think about that.

Critiques by a fellow blogger???

I have come across several bloggers who have offered critiques to their followers. They did the critique, gave their thoughts and posted them on their blog. I think this is awesome for the blogger offering it....any feedback is so helpful. Sometimes we need a fresh eye to read it after our writers group has read it a zillion times. And also very brave for the writer...we all know how hard it is to put yourself out there.

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in doing something like this here on my blog.

Now I don't consider myself a professional editor by any means, but I've been told my by writers group members that I am good at giving feedback for fiction. I've been through the editing process for my book and have learned so so much.

So...what do you guys think???

Why are people so disrespectful??

I grew up middle class, probably the lower end of it. But my dad worked hard and earned everything we had. There was always food to eat and a roof over our heads. We never went on government assistance, accept for once when my dad injured himself and was out of work for over two months. (My parents got food stamps for a little while.) We had a car, albeit, a rusty one. But we still managed to have fun and enjoy life...sometimes even got to go to amusement parks and museums, take day trips, go to festivals. I have many fond memories of my childhood.

We were always taught to respect things and people. If we didn't have something...oh well...we didn't have it. If you wanted something, you earned money to buy it.

I don't understand how people today think it is okay to take things from others.

I am an adult now and I work hard. I have a home and children that I take care of in addition to my writing. My husband works hard and earns the majority of our income. We're not swimming in money but we have enough to pay bills and eat and there is sometimes some extra to treat ourselves.

And nothing makes me lose faith and respect for the human race more than someone else coming and just taking what we've earned through hard work.

Last week someone went into my car and stole my ipod and our navigation system. We bought the ipod ourselves and the GPS was a Christmas gift. Neither item have we had for very long.

Why are there people in this world that have zero respect for others, their property??? Why were these people not taught these lessons as children? What is wrong with our society that people are left to believe that this is the proper way to go through life? Why are people not being taught that hard work is the only way to get what you want??

I am trying so hard to teach my kids that you don't take what's not yours and you work hard and save money to buy things yourself.

Grease is the word!!

I caught Grease on AMC the other night and it is just one of those movies that I can't help but watch whenever it's on! There's love and lust, there's friends and fun. It's the nerdy girl wanting the bad boy and plenty of subplots to round it out. The music is fab...I know every word of every song!

LOVE IT!!!!

What about you??? What are your favorite feel-good movie that you can't help but watch whenever they're on?

Got some dates for releases!!!!

I am so so excited over here!!!!!!! Back in, oh, like February, my editor at Lyrical, Piper Denna, told me she saw A Bitch Named Karma on the print release schedule for September. I was beyond ecstatic!!! But without hearing it from the owners of Lyrical Press, I tried not to get too excited. And then I did hear it from them..at The Write Stuff conference the end of March. But they said January.

Well, I found out the other day that the official release date for PRINT for A Bitch Named Karma is December 1, 2010!!!!!!

Wooo Hooooooooooooooo!!!!!!! They emailed me the book flap...OMG......it made me all tingly!!!!

And I have another release date announcement!! Found out my official release date for Paradise Cove, a short novel that is being published by Lyrical as well!! March 21, 2011!

Facebook....love it but it seems like it's going down hill.

I was not the first of my friends to join Facebook, but was definitely ahead of most. It was the coolest thing ever! I had been on Myspace before and that was cool then...but FB was so much better!! I loved the status updates...little tidbits of my friend's lives. I loved being able to log in and scroll through...maybe 15-20 minutes of my time, and be instantly updated on all my friend's lives.

I reconnected with friends from years ago and even my friends now, and was able to talk with them on a daily basis. And other friends who were merely acquaintances before had now become a friend.

Whenever there was a party or some event, it was always a race to see who could post their pictures on FB first and we'd all tag and comment on the pictures! So so cool!!

But now...seems like FB isn't what it used to be. And that makes me so sad. It was perfect for me. I could get on at 10 am or 10 pm and catch up on everyone's posts and comment on them. Seems people aren't on like they used to...people aren't updating their statuses or commenting on mine. I Twitter, but it's no where near the same.

I started my FB Fanpage a while back and have some fans that aren't people I actually know in real life. that is pretty cool! :) if you're not a fan and would like to be....check me out here!

So what are your thoughts on Facebook??? Love it, hate it.....sad that's it seems to be on the decline??? I know I am :(

My blog is now my official website

I started this blog and it was great. I was really getting into the whole blogging community thing! Loved it! But I still needed a website for general info and such. I used my free webspace that my ISP allows me and used their template. Very blah and boring...very basic. But it was free. No money in the budget for website building these days.

But then Blogger allowed you to have pages on your blog. This was FAB!! I added some pages and the blog now had all the info I needed....so why keep a crappy looking site???

I just changed my site forwarding to the blog. So happy about this change. Now everyone will only see my fab looking blog!!