Are you guys shivering in your neck of the woods?? I was when I first rolled out of bed this morning—it's brrrrrrrr! here in the city!!— then I got to the computer and learned that Publishers Weekly Contributing Editor Barbara Vey posted about POP at her Beyond Her Book blog — and she loved it!! Check out the link to read what she has to say, because everything she had to say warmed me up quite nicely. Actually, it was probably the delighted little dance I did that warmed me up, but her blog caused the dance, so it's all the same. I think everyone should start the day with a bathrobe dance. :)
What else makes it a fab if freezing Friday?? I heard a rumor that Romantic Inks is giving away one of my books—Haven, if you're out there, can you substantiate, my dear?? [OK, I heard from Haven over at MySpace, and they're giving away THREE of my books this weekend. LOL. Thanks, Haven!!]
Also, Circe Designs, the jewelry designer that designs the hoop and charm collections I give away on my website contests, will be doing a special POP collection in January!! I've seen a preview of the stuff, and I think it's stunning. Can't wait to show you!! I think all their designs and materials are gorgeous, and their new website went live yesterday -- they're still tweaking a bit and adding items, stuff like that. The earring gemstone charm sets are really popular and adorable, but I have several of the necklaces, too, and love them. I think it has something to do with the materials and the handcraftsmanship -- just feels different. Anyway, I think it'll be a blast to have a whole POP collection.
Criminy -- I just realized I"m shivering again!! I better get up and dance a bit more, or at least put on a few more layers of clothing. On the Christmas list: woolly slippers that go up to my knees. :) How's your weather, everyone?? I like hearing from Kathy, because Canadians always make me feel like a big wuss, what with their 10 degree Farenheit temperatures. LOL. How's the shopping/baking going?? I have more baking to do, and I need to work on DOD (The Dangers of Desire, you see, which, given the scene I'm working on, also might warm me up nicely), so off I go for now...
Oooo, I'm here! Sorry I'm late, er.. on time..umm yeah.
Ok, I goofed when I said we had three, it's TWO of Julie's books! But YES we are giving them away TOMORROW over at Romantic Inks. So drop by but be prepared to be teased!!
Congratulations Julia on the rave review!
Sorry I haven't been around much but I've been busy planning things for my trip to SF (umm that's not until July, for the RWA conference). It seems it would be in my interest to show up a bit early, but man that hotel is expensive!
Plus launching new things at RI, including our new forum! I'm hoping to host a few workshops.
Speaking of workshops, I'll be giving on at the Beau Monde conference. I'm so excited, nervous, thrilled and nervous (umm, did I mention that one?). OH and I'm nervous hehe.
You know, I heard a rumor that it's almost Christmas! Yikes, I haven't even began to shop yet!! Scary right? Oy! But really, with our weather you wouldn't even guess it was December. I mean, we have mid-March/April weather going on!
Ok, I think that's all for now...I'll be back if I think of anything else.
But don't forget, drop by RI tomorrow!!!
Posted by: Haven Rich | December 14, 2007 at 04:27 PM
I think you should do a workout video: Bathrobe Dancing with Julie Anne Long. I think it would sell. :)
Speaking of selling, I did a lot of my shopping yesterday. I nearly went insane. My pet peeve of the moment is those annoying salespeople in the center of malls who accost you and try to get you to buy crappy products you don't even want. One big reason I avoid malls whenever possible. Last time, a guy held out some bundle and said "Miss, touch this." Feeling bemused, I said no thanks and kept walking. I wanted to say "You know, you could get in trouble if you go around malls asking strangers to touch things."
So I try to look as bored, busy or hostile as possible when I walk through a mall (all of these looks come natural to me). But yesterday some guy said "Excuse me ma'm" and I kept walking, trying to ignore him. He followed me and said it again. I said "NO!" rather forcefully, and even sort of held up my hand, and he backed off. I was so irritated that after going to a department store, I walked outside and around the whole mall to get back to my car. It was cold but I went unmolested, and better yet, did not go to jail for Christmas. I think I would rather work at Bob's One Stop Corndog Shoppe than be required by my employer to meet a quota of daily harassment or get docked pay/fired.
OK, ending the sarcasm for a bit, the weather outside is cold, and while they were talking about snow, now it looks like all we'll get today is maybe a few flurries. Oh well. Better than the ice storm that our neighbors to the west in Oklahoma are dealing with. Although when I turn on the space heater in my room, it sucks out the moisture and makes my nose bleed. I may have to invest in a humidifer. I bought some saline stuff to put in my nose that helps, but this morning it's still bleeding. Sigh. Maybe Santa will bring me one. Which reminds me of some of the Santa letters we're printing in the paper that are hilarious. But I've already gone on too long.
Posted by: Lareign | December 15, 2007 at 08:56 AM
Congrats on the great review, Julie.
Oh, it's FREEZING here. I have a beanie on my head and socks on my feet at the moment. Layers layers layers!
Ugh, I got sick Tuesday night and stayed home from work the next two days. This is the third year in a row that I've gotten sick on or around my birthday. This is not a nice tradition to have. :( Even though I'm still recuperating, I did celebrate my birthday yesterday with friends at dinner and lunch today.
Posted by: Diana | December 15, 2007 at 09:59 PM
Congrats on all the cool new features at RI, Haven, and hope my books found good homes!! :) Thanks for the clarification on the quantities, too!! LOL. And giving a workshop at Beau MOnde -- good for you! That should be a blast! Nerve-wracking, but a blast. :) I'm getting ready to power through the rest of The Dangers of Desire, with a goal of finishing by the very beginning of next year -- yeah, we'll just see! :) Wish me luck.
Worried about some of my friends in the NorthEast!! the weather seems relentless!
Lareign, you cracked me up. YOu do have to wonder how many sales are made by just stopping people in the malls, but t'is the season for desperate shoppers, but who knows?? Maybe it's the ideal way to get sales. LOL. I always quiz those kinds of salespeople -- how's it going? Do you sell much this way? ETc. Is this fun or is it tough?? Sometimes they forget they want to sell stuff to me. LOL.
Man, brutal weather you're having, too! Humidifier -- now there's a sexy xmas gift. LOL. Here, it's just our version of cold (low 60's, freezing temps, occasionally at night), and it's sometimes tough to get the house warm, and sometimes I'm working away and I start to notice my hands are kind of stiff. I need to create fingerless gloves. :) I tend to pile on clothes while I"m working. Nothing like what they're experiencing in the midwest and back east, though!!!
Bummer -- sick around your birthday?? Poor Diana. Maybe it's all the excitement leading up to it. LOL. Hope you're feeling better! There was a gnarly bug going around a short time ago. Glad you got to go out to dinner regardless!! Hope you were able to actually *taste* it, though!! :)
Back to writing today!! They're talking about a big winter storm coming in. We do need the rain, that's for sure!
Posted by: Julie Anne Long | December 16, 2007 at 10:36 AM
You know, Julie, that is definitely a nicer way to go about it, by asking people questions. I feel like such a grinch sometimes, but I'm afraid to interact with them at all, or they'll latch on like leeches. I don't mind department store and actual store people, though. I generally have sympathy for them, and they aren't as bad-usually you're already going to them willingly and they try to "upgrade" you somehow.
Mall workers do have it tough. We had a temp typing up our Santa letters, and she said she quit a job selling perfume at a department store because of all the sales pressure they put the associates. She said once she came up four dollars short in her sales quota, after working really hard to get there, and so they dropped her hourly wage by a dollar. Since she was only going to get a 50 cent hourly raise if she made the quota, she quit.
And hey, congrats on the nice review. Publishers Weekly's pretty prestigous, right? Yay. :)
And speaking of heat and being numb while typing, the other day at work it was quite cold, and when the heater finally kicked on, everyone was happy, except the smell wasn't so great. I had to cover my nose for a bit to block it out. And the fingerless gloves thing? I actually had to do that once on a cold game night when I was in marching band, played the clarinet. Wasn't exactly sexy, but then again, neither is marching band.
Posted by: Lareign | December 16, 2007 at 11:55 AM
Hey Lareign!! Thanks for the congrats!! And WOW -- that story about the perfume seller is something else. I had no idea fragrance could be so cutthroat!! I somehow bypassed working retail jobs -- I *did* work as a cashier in a Pizza place for a while in high school, then I ended up working in offices, and from then on my career trajectory took me through offices. But I've had a lot of friends who have harrowing stories about retail, boy. so here's the mall workers of the world!! LOL. May they have merry, merry christmases and wildly exceed their quotas.
My heater always smells like a musty tent when it first kicks on. LOL. But it's a WEE bit warmer here today, because we're getting rain. Hope you're still staying warm and safe!! Crazy winter weather out there across the country, sounds like!! Good excuse for adding brandy to the egg nog. ;)
Posted by: Julie Anne Long | December 17, 2007 at 12:24 PM
Wow! Congratulations Julie ~ the review is fabulous and, like Lareign, I'd give anything to see your bathrobe dance! LOL
I did stop by on Friday, briefly, but never did manage to post... 3 little kids keep me a wee bit busier than I'm used to anymore ~ especially since my own wee-est one is now 15 (and 1/2 she states!) and in grade 10. Sheesh.. kids these days. *grin*
Anyway, our weather is still definitely wintry, but not as cold as it was before ~ we're at around -6C (21F) and it's nice and mild. But the roads are all slush, which I HATE, and all the once-white snow is, if not outright black, a sickly browny-gray colour... Yech! At least the snow's like that on the main routes; we're in a strictly residential area so it's not so bad. Of course our pristine, snow-covered lawn is no longer ~ pristine I mean. There are oodles and oodles of rabbit tracks all over it. There's at least one, often two in the area, and they love my big garden in the front. Even as soon as it snows, there are Charlie's prints (the rabbits have all been named Charlie... and have been since my now-22 year old was still in elementary school.)
Well, I'm nearly done with my shopping ~ YES!!! ~ but seriously behind on my Christmas cards. I've done the main baking, but I always do cookies with the babysitting kids and that's going to be this week ~ likely Thursday or Friday when most of them will be here. It's always a lot of fun and the kids love the chance to decorate a whole cookie sheet of cookies that they get to take home. I'm not even a baker, but I do treasure this time.
Anyway, Congratulations again Julie ~ you done good! Hope the weather has improved ~ will improve... feel better!
All the best to you all.
Kathy
Posted by: Kathy K | December 17, 2007 at 02:00 PM
Try to stay healthy and warm, everyone. I'm feeling better, but I'm pretty sure there is/was a stomach virus going around in my class because five kids were out last Friday. I probably caught something from them, those germy kids. :P
Posted by: Diana | December 17, 2007 at 07:09 PM
LOL! I can see it now -- I'll call it....Bathrobeaerobics! The world's shortest, most comical imaginable workout. LOL. I'll bet it's fun (and messy, and exhausting) to make xmas cookies with three little kids, Kathy!! I'm about to do some more baking, but I'm doing more writing than anything these past few days, so I have to carve a little time out for it. So cute that you have bunnies traversing your slushy lawn! So they eat your garden?? That's probably less cute. :) Rabbits can make short work of a garden, boy. My sister has to find creative ways to keep the deer from eating her roses, which they seem to find especially delicious.
Slays me that 20 degrees is "balmy" for you guys. :) It's relatively balmy here, too -- 60 or so, thanks to the rain, which we're getting a lot of and which we really need, so that's a good thing. Much more tolerable to sit and work in that temperature, though. :) Last year? The year before? I think we had 43 days of rain in a row in February and March. That was a bit hard to take. I'd like my rain spaced out genteelly through the winter, please.
Five kids out, Diana?? HOly cow. Bet that's fun for their parents. :) Hope you're recovering nicely!! And staying off public transportation during the rain. :)
Good luck with the holiday prep for now, all!! LOL. Off i go to write and bake.
Posted by: Julie Anne Long | December 18, 2007 at 11:37 AM
I’ve been opened to listen and understand what the bible says..god
Posted by: Office 2010 | January 18, 2012 at 05:38 PM