Memories

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.
It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

What The....???

As a parent, I am almost 12 years old. Which means my oldest child Samantha is almost 12. I consider myself well versed in the way of immunizations. They start when they are so young getting those all important shots, that rip your heart out as you stand by helplessly and watch your precious child become a pin cushion. Today I took Sammi for her 6th grade shots and Kassi for her next Hep A. I felt relatively comfortable as I stood in line at the free clinic (I've gotten smarter over the years, and realized that free is the way to go. After all they're the same shot no matter where you get it.) I didn't even flinch as my children were given their dreaded innoculations. I was strong as a rock, after all, there wasn't anything new they could throw at me right? WRONG!!! So as lady at the counter starts highlighting all the shots that Sammi needs, she hands me a flyer about an optional shot. "Would you like your daughter Samantha to have the HPV vaccine today, it is a shot for recommended for girls ages 11-12 before they become sexually active."
I stood there flabbergasted for a moment and tried to pretend that my brain didn't shut down at the fact that she just said my daughter's name and the words "sexually active" in the same sentence!!! All reason left my mind as I politely rejected the shot, when all I wanted to do was scream at her and say, "ARE YOU CRAZY??!! SHE'S 11 I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THAT STUFF ALREADY!!" Sammi of course wanted to know what that shot was for? And why she wasn't getting it (not that she wanted anymore, mind you.) Remember that I told you my brain left my body, right? So I wasn't thinking correctly when I answered her. "That shot is given to girls before they become sexually active so they don't get viruses when they have sex. But your not going to be having sex, so you don't need it, right?" She just agreed with me, embarrassed I'm sure that her mother just said sex three times in public. Now my poor daughter probably thinks that people get a virus when they have sex unless they have this shot first!! And a big part of me is ok with that!!! How messed up is that??
I know that I need to approach this more reasonably, but I'm going to need someone with a clearer head to explain the benefits of this shot before I can get over the initial shock. Thanks for listening to my rant. And to all my friends that only have boys and always longed for that one daughter...BE THANKFUL!!! LOL!!

Books

I stole this from someone else's blog. I love to read so I couldn't wait to find out how many of the great books I've read.

The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. I have read 36 out of the 100 listed. Now I can't wait to read more!! I couldn't figure out how to underline the books I love. But I loved most of the ones I read.


1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 De BerThe Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis nieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Woo Hoo!! I Did It Again!!

I wrote another novel!! This one is an adult romance novel. It has more drama than some romances I've read before, but it was really fun to write. I really got into the characters and was able to broaden my skills. I feel like I can go back to the first book I wrote, and revise it with a little more confidence. I do need a couple people to read my latest book and tell me what they think. So if you're interested, please leave a comment below make sure to give me your e-mail address if I don't have it already. But only volunteer if you promise to write me back to give me your detailed opinion! I'll take the first 2 people who volunteer, just because if I end up changing it, I will need some more fresh readers to give me their opinion!! Thanks so much for everyone's support and encouragement!! It really helps!

Preschool Graduation

Kassi graduated from preschool this May. They put on a cute little show.

Kassi was Little Miss Muffet.

Then she got her diploma

Then ate cake, as you can tell by her dirty face. Grandma Bonnie came to watch and brought Carrie and Jordan with her. Kassi was sooo happy they came.

Professional Artist

Every year, the principal and owners of the school pick some student art that they purchase from the student. Then they have it framed and hang it around campus. Noah was sooo excited to have his artwork chosen this year. They presented Noah with his check of $25 and let him show his framed art to the school. He is now a Professional Artist since he has been paid for his work!! His artwork is a water color with salt added for texture. He used tape to keep the trunks of the trees white. Then took the tape off revealing the white paper and decorated it like trees.

He was quite proud of his work!!

Mr. and Mrs. Miller are the ones that chose his art work. There were about 20 pieces of art work chosen out of the whole school!!

Honor Roll!!

In May Sammi and Noah both made Honor Roll for the last Trimester of the year. Honor Roll is 3.0 and up. My nephew, Jake Denny, was up to the front 3 times. Once for student of the month, once for Principal's Honor Roll (4.0) and again for Presidential Honor Roll (4.0 all year long!) Great Job, Jake!! Keep up the good work!!

5 Everything

I've been tagged by Lindsay!!

10 years ago: I was living in an apartment, Sammi was 20 months old and Noah was 4 mo. old. They were so cute and little, did I mention cute? What happened? LOL!
5 years ago: Kassi was just born, my brother, Jason was living with us and getting ready to go on a mission.
5 things on my to do list: 1. Send a thank you note to the scholarship committee. 2. Send my sister Tiffany the Family history pictures I promised. 3. Write, write, write (I'm 10,000 words from finishing a new book!!) 4. Revise my YA novel. 5. Write MORE agents about a children's book I wrote.
5 billionaire things: 1. Travel 2. Buy a ski boat 3. Buy a cabin up north where it's cooler. 4. build a house. 5. BUY A NEW OR VINTAGE MUSTANG!
5 places I have lived: 1. Shreveport, LA 2. Tucson, AZ 3. Glendale, AZ 4. Oxnard, CA 5. Carpenteria, CA
5 things you might not know: 1. From the time I was 10 yrs old til I was 17 my biggest dream was to become a lawyer. 2. Now my biggest dream is to become a published writer. 3. I once cried when my cracker broke. 4. I have turned in a 1 and 1/2 page book report with the first page missing. 5. I have given my husband a black eye before. But to hear him tell it, it's like 3 black eyes (me rolling my eyes! MEN!)
Tag 5: Tiffany, Ruth, Kristen, Crystal, Nancy

Air Museum

Memorial Day weekend we had planned to camping in Flagstaff for the weekend. But since there was SIX INCHES OF SNOW!! We had to improvise. Instead we took the kids to an air museum in Mesa.

Here's a picture of one of the old planes.

Mike's parents were able to go with us and so were his aunt and uncle and their children.

This is picture of me in my "big butt jeans" by the way. Some of you know what I'm talking about if you've been reading my blog!! LOL!!

Sammi's Field Trip to Benihana's

Before school was out I got to go on a field trip with Sammi to a teppinyaki restaurant called Benihana's. They cook the food right in front of you, and do tricks with their knives.

I wasn't really sure how educational it was supposed to be, but it sure filled my tummy and it tasted sooo good. So here are some pictures, Sammi took some pictures of EVERY thing. And then had me take some of her and her friends. I never knew how many pictures you could take at one restaurant!! Don't worry I will spare you from looking at all of them!!

Stephenie Meyer Book Signing

Ok, so those of you that know me might not find this too strange, but for those of you that don't know me well yet, this might seem wierd. In May I went to a book signing to see an author whose books I hadn't read!! My sister had been going on and on about this author and her Twilight series of books. I was very curious about her, but her Twilight books are YA novels and I was writing a YA novel at the time. With all the rave reviews, I didn't want to read her books before I finished writing the first draft of my own. I was afraid I would feel like my writing was so terrible compared to hers.

So instead of reading her books, I read about her. Stephenie Meyers is an LDS stay at home mom that lives in Glendale, AZ. She had a dream one night and the next morning she suddenly started writing it down because she wanted to know what happened. After reading all this about her, how could I not feel a connection with her story? It was like I just had to meet her. So I found some willing friends to go with me to her book signing for "The Host". "The Host" is an adult science fiction novel, which is right up my alley. So after promising to get my sister, Tiffany a signed copy, off I went to Tempe. My friends, Stormy and Lindsay came with me. They had both read her other books and had a great time talking about them and listening to Stephenie speak to us. I enjoyed it as well. She even talked about how she became a writer and gave tips to those would be authors in the audience.

Now after reading all her books, I can safely say that my favorite is "The Host". But the other ones were good too. I definately recommend her books.

Scholarship!!

Here I go slacking off again!! I promise I'll get back to adding more pictures, but first I must tell you my latest news. I got a $300 scholarship to use for my fall semester at GCC. It's not the scholarship that I wrote the essay about my grandma for, but I am quite happy about it!! It's from a women's group of some kind and I get to attend one of their meetings as well. I feel quite blessed to have been chosen for it and am very grateful to the people that chose me!!