Resolution Revolution!

This will be the year. Do you ever catch yourself saying that just prior to a New Year? I do. But this year I mean it - I hope. My resolutions this year are simple - achieve my personal best. Meet my weekly word count goals, my daily exercise & calorie goals and stay under budget when shopping, be a better wife and mother. Well - maybe I can't improve on everything! I hope to participate in lots of book signings, write many books and sell every one of them.
I resolve to try not to get too upset if my son decides to go to college away from home (but I plan to beg and plead for him to stay local).
I hope when I look back here from December 2007, I won't be disappointed. I hope you and yours have a great '07. Please resolve to read all Dara Edmondson's books this year - oh, and recommend them to all your friends!

Woe is Me

Well, here it is, Christmas Eve day and I'm sitting at home with a retched hangover. Why, you ask? Enablers. Dear friends who took us out to a very fine Italian restaurant last night forced us to over-imbibe, as usual. They are wonderful folks - very generous and fun to be with. But they always, always, encourage us to drink too much, eat too much and generally have too good a time. On top of this, they give us gifts like Godiva chocolates and other irresistable goodies.
The power is ours, you might say,(as Captain Planet did). We could easily turn them down - not go have loads of fun and enjoy their stimulating company. But we're mere mortals - weak and prone to lapses in our resolve. So here's my wish to you. May you find yourselves with such enabling friends this holiday season. You'll have a terrific time. Plus, you'll have that much more to repent for come January. So eat, drink and overindulge with reckless abandon. And have one for me!

Diet Don'ts and Don'ts

I really hate this time of year. Don't get me wrong - I love all the parties and the celebrating. It's the temptations that slither beside me as I sit innocently beside my thin friends. If they can indulge in a plate full of potato latkes with a fudge chaser, why can't I? It's just not fair. And never is that clearer than at the holidays which, let's face it, are one big hedonistic orgy. If we're not stuffing our faces, we're tearing open gifts! My thin friends ease up on their exercise routines for the month of December while I do triple time at the gym. No effect. If I didn't sweat my tush off 5 days a week on the elliptical trainer, the bike and the treadmill, I'd have twelve chins.
But that's the way the cookie crumbles (pardon my reference to food again!) So, I end up every January first way over my caloric as well as my monetary budget. Here's the good news - January is resolution month. I think it's no coincidence that resolution month comes immediately after overindulgence month. That's the ying and yang of it - the balance of the universe. But please - let calories burned in January equal or outnumber calories consumed in December. Please???

Teenage Wasteland

It's official tomorrow - I will be the parent of two teenagers. My youngest turns 13. Talk about making me feel old! As if that wasn't bad enough, a good friend sent me the public school calendar for next year. Since my daughter goes to a charter school and my son will be graduating in May, I won't have any children adhering to said calendar. I know this must all sound trivial but to me, it's tear-worthy. Kind of like the day, many years ago when I tried to lift my son to put him inside the back of the grocery cart, which I did as an occasional treat until it was too full of groceries. So, there I am standing in the middle of the supermarket and I realize he's gotten too heavy for me to lift him. I started bawling, right there. Poor kid hugged me and showed me that he could just climb into the cart. But I knew - and half the people at Publix knew - I was getting old. I was probably about 33 at the time, which sounds so young looking back from 44. Nowadays my husband and I talk of things like retirement and when the kids are through with college and on their own. If I had my way, they'd live with us forever. I might regret those words one day if that actually came to pass but the idea that my family is going to morph into a smaller version of itself when my son goes to college has me scrambling for reasons why he must stay at home. I know I'll get over this - it's part of life after all. But it's not a part I much care for. I'm a huge proponent of the status quo.

Another Chapter...

Just signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press to print The Kitten Club - a contemporary romance about a 40 year old working class hairdresser who falls for a wealthy developer. This will be #2 in print for me and my first "serious" book. My other books and stories have been romantic comedies and Chick Lit but this isn't. I'm curious to see how well it goes over. If I do say so myself, it's a really good book. Lots of heartache and tears, a bit of saucy sex, as a Brit I recently met says.
The toughest thing about writing saucy sex into a novel is the knowledge that your parents will read it. I hope and pray my Dad skims over those parts. Yes - he does. I must believe that!

What Little Girls Are Made Of...

...Sugar and spice and everything nice...
The nursery rhyme author never met my daughter or her arch nemesis/best friend (depending on the day). The pair is 12 years old - almost 13 and my husband and I cringe at the thought of them becoming teenagers and fighting about, say - boys. Right now they're not speaking. No problem, you might say - perhaps they need the time apart. And I'd agree with you, save for the fact that they must ride in the same carpool most days to and from school and live a block apart. Oh - did I mention their older brothers are close friends and their fathers and mothers are bestest friends. Yes - this complicates the issue immensely.
Arch Nemesis insists my daughter sent an email to the boy AN has a crush on. In it, said daughter pretended to be AN and professed her undying affection for the boy. My daughter insists it wasn't her. Now AN has supposedly turned all the other 12-13 year old females in their class against my daughter. Who do you believe. Did you think we were talking politics for a moment? Does the United Nations have similar distrust issues?
Eventually the pair will kiss and make up until the next drama begins. Until that time both girls will make their parents' lives a living Hell.
Dr. Spock never said there'd be days like this!

Inlaws and Outlaws

Gotta love the holidays with office parties, friend parties and the ever-dreaded family parties. Must we continue to torture ourselves? Slow, excruciating death by family rears its ugly head and we just sit back and ride the miserable wave.
Being married to a man whose family hails from rural West Virginia, I'm always in awe of the products of a family tree with no branches - Cousin Kermit, straight from prison, Uncle Ralph, released from the mental institution on a one-day pass.
Like lambs to the slaughter, we line up to get a serving of Grandma Bertha's corn casserole which may or may not have poisoned Grandpa Howard last year.
Well - best of luck to you all as you trek through the muck of dysfunctional family functions. May the force be with you!