Plot Monkeys

Now that the book is done, I’ve finally started to actually think about Christmas. Started decorating this weekend…since I haven’t seen my Christmas decorations in 3 years, it was almost like Christmas came early! I opened boxes and found things I had totally forgotten I had. Plus things I’ve received since then that haven’t ever been used–like 4-5 new buildings for my Dept. 56 Dickens Village collection. That’s what I spent all day Sunday putting together. It’s gorgeous–but I don’t have room for any more buildings!

Anyway, I’m also starting to think seriously about the fact that I have some shopping to do. Usually by this point, I am DONE. Not just shopping, but even the wrapping. When the girls were little, I’d have layaways starting in August, pick things up every payday. I’d have them wrapped and hide them in boxes in the garage…hide in plain sight, you know? Our garage was always full of boxes, anyway.

Now, however, I’m really behind the eight ball. And it’s not just because of the book. I also am just stymied on what to get the kids. I know Janelle posted a week or two ago about the “hard to shop for” men in her life–the Dads. But pre-teen/teen girls are really tough, too.

Clothes are obvious–though none of them are clothes-hounds. (And my oldest absolutely refuses to wear anything trendy or with “brand” recognition–she prefers vintage clothing stores and used hippie stuff off eBay. Sigh.)

There are of course video games and movies that I know they’ll like. But clothes are boring and movies/video games are small. And I am a big kid on Christmas morning, I like the room to be overflowing. I’ve often told Bruce–if he got me some fabulous diamond tennis bracelet and nothing, he would see one sad-faced wife on Christmas morning. I would rather have a dozen presents to open–comprised of books I want, CD’s, DVD’s, my Reebok Princess sneakers…(eh, Julie?) rather than one single fabulous gift. (Fortunately, Bruce is a lot like me. He likes Christmas that way, too. )

Back to the girls. It was easy when they were into actual toys that I could go stock up on at Toys R Us. But there’s nary a Barbie to be seen in my house these days (:sob: - last year was our first Barbie-less Christmas in about 15 years!) I love board games myself so we have a ton already. They got lots of stuff for their new rooms when we moved in. The older two got new cell phones last year and the youngest isn’t allowed to have one. None of them are into jewelry, none of them collect things (well, they used to each have music box collections, but they all packed them away and didn’t want to display them in their new rooms. Except my oldest with her Little Mermaid stuff. It’s warring with the Buddhas, incense, beads, etc., in her totally hippie/India/Zen green & pink room. Marches to her own drummer, that one.)

They do love to read. I’d love to hear of any more YA books your “tweens” are digging. My youngest is really into the Stephanie Meyer Twilight books, but we’ve now got them all.

So, anybody have any suggestions for 12-19 year old girls who couldn’t care less about clothes or jewelry or pricey electronics? I’d love to really surprise them with something different…that they would actually like! But beyond the basics above, plus Broadway stuff–which I’ve already covered–I’m stumped!

PS:

Don’t forget to go back to eHarlequin today for the next chapter in my completely FREE Christmas novella…

Holly Cavanaugh has one chance to save her struggling B&B: a featured story on a Country Inns television show. Unfortunately, something uh, unexpected has just fallen out of her new Christmas tree.

With a stiff on the floor and a TV crew on the way, Holly has no time to deal with a visitor. Especially when it’s reporter Zach Weldon–her long lost love–who’s on the trail of diamond thieves. And Holly’s heart.

Don’t miss…

AND A DEAD GUY IN A PEAR TREE
by
Leslie Kelly

Chapter 2 goes live today here www.eharlequin.com

As you all know by now, I am in deep deadline dementia on LUCKY CHARM, the first book in a new series starting October 2008. But it’s my day to blog and I do live to amuse, so here goes:

Two unrelated topics today …
1. BAILEY had another haircut. Why? She goes out and runs through the bushes. I never know what’s in that fur. So let’s play a game. Which one is Bailey? Left? Or Right? (Rhetorical question, folks!) But I can’t help looking at her and thinking she looks just like a Meerkat, don’tcha think?

and
2. SEDUCE ME - the book video is up on my website along with an excerpt.
If you’re on my newsletter email list, you’ve seen this already but just in case, here it is again for your enjoyment. I think it captures the book perfectly. Reminder this book is a reprint of my 2001 Blaze, Erotic Invitation, with a new cover and title. So don’t … er …. be seduced, pardon the pun, and think it’s a brand spanking new book! That said, if you want to get your hands on a copy to match your other reprints, or just because you like me, or I asked you to, … feel free. and THANK YOU.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

And in case you can’t see this, CLICK HERE to see the video on my website!
Oh. It would be nice if I told you when this book is out, right? I have no clue!!!!! Harlequin releases books the last Tuesday of the month before the release. In English, since I have a January 2008 release for SEDUCE ME, it would technically be in stores December 25th. Do the math, folks. That’s Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Hence … I HAVE NO CLUE. Just please look for and buy the book? I’ll be eternally grateful.

Oh. My goal? To finish LUCKY CHARM before I leave for Florida on vacation December 21st so all I have to take with me are books to read for enjoyment. It’s doubtful. But I’ll be close enough.

Guess what? Its Ten PM. Do you know where your children are? Just kidding. It’s Ten PM. I’m exhausted. My head hurts. I am going to sleep … and i have no intelligent or other kind of question to get dialogue going today … so you’re on your own.

Oh and lest I forget? :happychanuk: :happychanuk: :happychanuk: :happychanuk: :happychanuk:

HAPPY MONDAY!

PS - my daughter, Jen, just told me she changed the spelling of her name a week ago from Jen to Jenn.
Why? Jenn is a partier and Jenn is more PARTY.
Did I mention she’s all of 11 years old?
I kid you not.

********************
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Starting today–a completely FREE Christmas romance novella from Leslie Kelly!

Holly Cavanaugh has one chance to save her struggling B&B: a featured story on a Country Inns television show. Unfortunately, something uh, unexpected has just fallen out of her new Christmas tree.

With a stiff on the floor and a TV crew on the way, Holly has no time to deal with a visitor. Especially when it’s reporter Zach Weldon–her long lost love–who’s on the trail of diamond thieves. And Holly’s heart.

Don’t miss…

AND A DEAD GUY IN A PEAR TREE
by
Leslie Kelly

Chapter 1 goes live today at www.eharlequin.com

Zaharoula (Za) Viennas
of Ellicott City, MD!!!

CONGRATULATIONS ZA!! Drop Leslie a line at lkellyauthormail@gmail.com to choose the store for your $100 gift card.

We Plotmonkeys are SO appreciative of everyone’s wonderful, gracious and generous support of this effort. Just between our entrants and we Monkeys, we probably provided Christmas gift boxes to at least 35 soldiers! And we are so incredibly proud of that.

Thanks again and Happy Holidays everyone!

:elf: :santawhat: :santahat: :snowmanhead: mastree: :wreath: :cold: :menorah: :happychanuk: :candycane:

# 101 - Amelia - TEAL MEDIUM SLIPPERS
# 33 - Kathy Sanders - PINK LARGE SLIPPERS

CONGRATULATIONS! Email me at: carly phillips @ mac . com (no spaces) with your name/address/book choice and I’ll get your prize mailed to you!

:candycane:WINNER OF JANELLE’S STARBUCKS “CUSTOMIZED” CARD: Laurie (Comment #45) — you can email me at janelledenison@sbcglobal.net with your full name and mailing address and I will get the gift card in the mail to you! :candycane:

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This came to me in an email:
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER BANNED FOR LIFE FROM DISNEY LAND …
… wonder why?
… wonder how they had the nerve!

… yep, those ‘r real boobs!

HAPPY SUNDAY!
Go Pats!
:happychanuk: :happychanuk: :happychanuk:

Some of you may not know this, so I’m going to tell right up front that Tori is a pseudonym for the dynamic husband & wife writing team of Tony and Lori Karayianni. I can’t remember when I first met T&L, but I can tell you that it was a magical day. I probably laughed until my stomach hurt. I might have smelled of cigarettes after hanging out with them outside. I certainly made two friends that I (and all the Plotmonkeys) cherish dearly!

Lori is a member of the 65′ers and Tony is just a hoot. Both are brilliant writers and amazing people. And they wrote the Bad Girls Club books with me and Leslie, so they’re cool.

Today, they’re here to share their hard-earned wisdom regarding this writing gig we’ve all got going on. They’re going to stop by for comments, so if you have any questions, please ask…they’ll answer!

Welcome, T&L!!!
————————————————————————–

The Road Well-Traveled…
By Lori & Tony Karayianni aka Tori Carrington

I think most of us are familiar with the quote from the movie Field of Dreams, “Build it and they will come.” In a writer’s case, the phrase might be, “Write it and they will buy it.” Are these expressions reserved solely for Hollywood movies? We see Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder writing a guaranteed bestselling romance in her Manhattan apartment, rejection letters and agent hunts and revisions so not a part of her life. Or how about Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good As It Gets? Again we see a novelist in an expensive Manhattan apartment, only this time he’s a person no one can stand — including his publisher. And then there’s Bonnie Hunt in Cheaper by the Dozen where she’s swept off to NYC, all expenses paid by her publisher, to do talk shows and sign books.

Do any of these portrayals represent reality for us or for the majority of writers? No, wait. Don’t answer that. I’m (Lori) currently in dream mode and yearn for the day when feather boas and bonbons and an airy Manhattan apartment are reality. (Tony’s boa will be red and he’ll hog the bonbons.)

Did I hear a few snorts out there? How crass of me to mention writing and money in the same sentence! If this is your reaction, then you may want to stop reading this post here. Frankly we’re tired of defending ourselves to the “better dead than well-read,” crowd. Writing is like breathing to us and we can’t imagine wanting to do anything else. And the feather boas and bonbons and airy Manhattan apartment will be the ultimate proof of our being professional writers. Successful writers. So take your catty remarks elsewhere because we don’t have time for them. We’re too busy writing and striving to make sure writing is something we’re privileged enough to do for the rest of our lives.

For those of you still here…hello. Refill your coffee or tea cup, or fix yourself a frappe, curl your feet under you on the couch or office chair and let’s talk.

So what’s your take? Do you think, perhaps, that it’s because we fiction writers lead such isolated existences and have such vivid imaginations that we’re so thoroughly able to entertain thoughts of our latest book being bought for megabucks, hitting the NYT bestseller list, being made into a movie starring Hugh Jackman and Angelina Jolie, and maybe even being nominated for a Nobel Prize for literature? And why not? It’s all possible, isn’t it? (I was going to refer to the story of the 19-year old Harvard sophomore who got a half million dollar advance for her first two books, hit the NYT bestseller list and was featured on national talk shows, but, unfortunately, while her story was indicative of the possibility of all of us doing the same, it turned out that she didn’t write her books, rather she paraphrased passages from someone else’s books. Phhhht!)

While achieving this dream list of items is possible, well, it is also improbable. Do we know the ultimate in writing success is not going to happen to you? No. But we can perhaps ready you for the likelihood that it probably won’t. And help you find joy in being a professional writer anyway…while still holding onto The Dream.

Scene: Main city library, the head of 18 branches. Theatre seating for over 250. Teleconferencing equipment set up connecting us to another library branch including a 25-foot screen showing that meeting room. Tony and I in this type of environment for the first time to speak on publishing topics, shaking our heads. Probably twenty people will show up. Which means we’ll be in our element because it will allow for a more intimate give and take.

Instead a steady stream of people file in, nearly filling the theatre and the remote location. All attendees writers who don’t belong to either of the two writers groups in town (we asked), who had been up until they saw the coverage for our speech writing in a vacuum, completely unconnected to other writers around them. And we realized this couldn’t be all of them. That’s when a statistic I’d heard early on in our own writing career came back to me: that of only 1 in 10,000 manuscripts being bought from new writers in a year. Back then I remember thinking it couldn’t be true. But in that one moment at the McMaster Center, I came full circle and knew that it was.

And as we took the podium to speak, we paused for a heartbeat, looking into the countless hopeful faces looking back at us. Seeing hope. Glimpsing The Dream. We were them; they were us. Overwhelmed comes close to describing how we felt, but humbled closer. So much so that Tony cleared his throat and quietly asked that I speak first because he could not.

What can you possibly say to so many? Do you give them facts? Tell them it took us thirteen and half years to sell our first book and that we still have 27 unsold manuscripts in the attic? Or do we let them know that in the past nine years we’ve contracted for over forty books – one of the latest available the third title in our hardcover SOFIE METROPOLIS series – and that writing is now happily our day job and has been for years? Do we share the countless rejection letters and the horrific editor and agent appointments we’ve survived? Or affectionately relate that we love our Forge and Harlequin editors, and adore our agent, who is truly a god among men?

Then I began, and we both went ahead with our prepared speeches, digressing often (like in this post), trying to tailor the talk to them, hand them the wisdom we’ve accumulated over the past twenty-three years we’ve been writing within the space of an hour.

And after we’d both given to the point of emotional exhaustion, hoping we’d accomplished our objective, we opened the floor to questions. The first one was, “Where can I find an agent?”

It’s then I realized that it isn’t a writer’s isolation that allows The Dream to flourish. Rather it’s the mere act of being on the road itself. One traveled by countless others before us. And the products of the Hollywood Dream Factory? While the depictions might not be our reality – yet! – they are someone else’s (Nora Roberts, Dan Brown and Danielle Steele come to mind). Kathleen Turner’s character? Maybe that book she wrote tanked. Jack Nicholson’s novelist? Perhaps it took him a decade to sell his first title. Bonnie Hunt’s portrayal…well, okay, this one we can point a finger at and laugh. While fluke-like occurrences like this can and do happen, they come with their own unique challenges. But we’ll let someone who’s gone that route communicate that angle (can you imagine what second-book syndrome is like for them? Yikes).

Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to convey is, that day we came to understand that no matter what we say, The Dream is alive and well in the hearts of every writer. And we believe the world is the better for it.

So let’s talk. About how we’re all connected as we stroll, race, or otherwise stumble our way down a road well traveled, yet a path distinctively our own. About how it truly is about the journey, yet not at the sacrifice of the destination. And perhaps help each other avoid a few of the potholes and deadends and crazymakers in our shared quest of making The Dream a little more of a reality…

————————-

RT Career Achievement Award winners and two-time Rita nominated authors Lori and Tony Karayianni write as Tori Carrington. The third title in their Sofie Metropolis series, FOUL PLAY, is available now, along with their latest Blaze Extreme DANGEROUS, and their contribution to the mystery anthology QUEENS NOIR. They believe the greatest gift they can give fellow writers is friendship, understanding and encouragement. For more info on the authors and their books, visit www.toricarrington.net and www.sofiemetro.com.

It’s holiday time and look what I found for TWO lucky winners!

PAUL FRANK MONKEY SLIPPERS!!!!!
And winner’s choice of a signed book from my backlist (subject to availability!)

Post your comment along with your SIZE Teal’s are a medium (7-8) or Pink’s are a large (9-10) (sorry no smalls) and check back on Sunday to see the funny and winner.
HAPPY FRIDAY!
and :happychanuk: :happychanuk: :happychanuk: :happychanuk:

PS: Also be sure to come back Sunday for the announcement of the winner of our Plotmonkeys Give A Soldier A Christmas contest! We’ve had a great response, have been thrilled that our wonderful jungle friends have stepped up so generously, and are really looking forward to awarding that $100 gift card!!

Like the other Plotmonkeys, I’m on a deadline (and life is generally insane right now!) and my brain is FRIED! So, today’s blog post is going to be short and sweet — and FUN! I’m doing a mid-week giveaway — a $20.00 CUSTOMIZED gift card to Starbucks! :santahat: You all know how much I love Starbucks, and to have a customized card to the coffee shop is just the coolest thing!

I went to Starbucks and designed mine and listed my favorite drink: Iced Venti Quad Latte with 3 Equals

I know the picture below isn’t that clear (it was the best I could do) but yes, that blonde person is supposed to be me and I’m holding a book and a cold drink, and my drink order is listed in that little blue bubble to the right. Fun!

In order to enter today’s contest to win a $20.00 customized Starbucks card, you’re going to have to work for it! You all know my favorite Starbucks drink, so now YOU have to list YOUR favorite Starbucks drink — even if it’s hot cocoa or one of their iced teas or something more complicated! Because, after all, this will be a CUSTOMIZED Starbucks gift card that lists your favorite drink! I will randomly draw a winner from the posts and the winner will be announced on Sunday, along with Friday’s contest winner, so you’ll have to check back then to see if you’ve won!

So, tell me, what is your favorite Starbucks drink?

:fourturkeys:

I went Thanksgiving week to go see the movie ENCHANTED. Now, first of all, you guys know I’m an absolute Disney FREAK. I love everything related to the movies, the theme parks, the clothing, the books, the music. If it’s Disney, I’m there. I can’t say I’ve liked every movie they’ve ever made, but I certainly expected to enjoy ENCHANTED.

First, the reviews were fabulous. Even Gayle King (Oprah’s friend) was raving on her radio show.

Second, it has Patrick Dempsey. I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy regularly, but when I do, this guy just melts my insides. He’s so adorable! Cast him in a somewhat princely role and what’s not to love?

Third, Susan Sarandon is the wicked witch and Peter Pettigrew, er, Timothy Spall, as her henchmen. Excellent casting. Both are fabulous actors.

Fourth, it’s Disney, for Pete’s sake! Disney doing a riff on it’s own ever-growing popular line of princess this and princess that.

So ready was I to love this movie!

And yet…

…flatter than a pancake.

It was cute, I’ll give it that. I’m certainly not telling people not to go see it, but this was one movie where my expectations did not match the experience. Amy Adams and James Marsden were fabulous. I take absolutely no issue with the acting or singing in this film. Top notch all around. I didn’t realize until five minutes ago that the woman who played Nancy and who sadly, never sings, (who ends up being the princess in the end…sorry to spoil it if you haven’t seen it!) played Elpheba (the Wicked Witch) in the original Broadway production of WICKED…and the irony there is just delightful.

But the story just didn’t hold together.

How come the henchman adapted so well to modern New York City?

And though I totally buy the princess breaking out into song in the middle of Central Park and no one thinking this is the least bit unusual (it is New York, after all), how come everyone else suddenly knew all the words and dance steps?

And SPOILER ALERT…

Why did modern career-girl Nancy, after being happily engaged to practical, logical, un-romantic Patrick Dempsey for five years, suddenly want a prince so badly she chucks it all to live in a make-believe world?

I could go on, but honestly, that was enough to ruin the whole story for me. I sat there and watched and I smiled, but I’m not foaming at the mouth to get my hands on the DVD (unlike, let’s say NEXT WEEK when HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX comes out! Wahoo!)

Luckily for me, my daughter is not a princess girl. Okay, she did go as Princess Leia for Halloween, but I think that’s only because she got to carry a big gun. She was Mulan a few years ago, but Mulan, technically, was a soldier, not a princess and despite her beautiful kimono, she carried a big, honking sword. The other “princess” my daughter has emulated for Halloween was Pochohantas. No weaponry there, but she ran fast and saved the hero’s life…I mean…you do see the pattern, don’t you?

She liked the movie, but didn’t ask to go back like she did the minute we left Ratatouille, which is the last Disney film we saw (and have since seen about a gazillion times because the DVD was released a few weeks ago.) THAT ONE is worth seeing people. But trust me when I warn you that by the first half, you will be hungry for soup. By the end, you’ll want your veggies. It’s really cool how that happens.

Seen any good movies lately? Asking for any particular DVDs in your Christmas stocking or for Hanukkah?

mastree: :happychanuk: :elf: mastree:

Yesterday, I mentioned in comments that the Plotmonkeys have a special offer we’re kicking off today–if you buy a book (or books) by any of the Plotmonkeys, either as a gift for yourself or for someone you love for the holidays–we will send you an autographed bookplate (for the author you bought) and a Plotmonkey bookmark!

Just email me the receipt (julie @ julieleto.com) if you order online or send me a copy of your store receipt to:

PO Box 270885
Tampa FL 33688-0885

We’ll pay the postage to send you the bookplates and bookmarks! Don’t forget to send your snail mail address, too!

Remember, Plotmonkeys make great gifts!

First…I am JUST ABOUT FINISHED this book. YAHOO! But I am still internet-less from 9-5 on weekdays. Be assured, I *will* be reading and responding to comments after 5. So please don’t let me down and have me get online all excited at 5:01, only to find I scared everyone away…lolol!

That said…

You know, we never get too serious here on Plotmonkeys. With good reason–the four of us are easygoing, laid back people who just don’t want the drama. But I have reached the point where I just have to speak out about something.

I am freaking tired of paying forty-five bucks to fill up my gas tank, when it cost me twenty bucks four years ago when I got the car.

Now, I do not have the solution to the world’s energy crisis. But I can’t help thinking that if I could drive a car that got 60 miles to the gallon TWENTY-TWO years ago, why the heck can’t I find one now? My 1985 Honda Civic CRX (which I adored) routinely got 60 mpg long before the word “hybrid” referred to anything other than a cross-bred flower. (IE: It was a standard fuel engine.)

Sixty. Miles. To. The. Gallon.

Now car dealers do backflips to get people excited about cars that get thirty.

Why is that?

Frankly, I think we’ve all been screwed over. Certain financial interests have not wanted us to find an alternative to expensive fossil fuels, nor have they wanted to work to make those fuels more efficient. Otherwise, after twenty-two years of serious research and development, we’d have cars getting 100 miles per hour, rather than crowing about the ones that get 30. Or cars that ran on something else altogether! (I vote for all the used deep fry oil from McDonald’s.)

I would love to replace one of our cars, but with the new house, have to put it off for a while. But you can bet when we do, fuel efficiency will play a huge part in the decision. Bruce has a fantasy about driving a Jeep like he used to when we were first dating. But at 14 mpg? Uh, no. That ain’t happening, and he’s the first one to say so.

If more people bought with that as their number one criteria–rather than how bad-ass the latest monstrous 10mpg SUV looks–the carmakers might actually think they could make a real profit on energy efficient vehicles. And maybe they’d actually decide to try to make them even more efficient!

But, to be honest, it is not the extra dollars coming directly out of my pocket that most upsets me. It’s the state of the world we live in now and the political helplessness our reliance on a single commodity has caused us as a nation.

I can’t help imagining what the political situation of this world might look like today if somebody, somewhere along the way, had had the foresight to say, “You know, maybe it’s not in our country’s best interest to be completely at the mercy of other nations who stand for everything we do not, just because they control most of the planet’s supply of a single product that we can’t force ourselves to give up.”

But I digress.

Now, we think we’ve got it bad…do you know what a gallon of gas costs in Europe? Roughly eight bucks.

Know what it costs in Iran? Roughly 44 cents.

Logical? Hell no. Why do we allow it? Because the west has no other choice. Supply and demand, baby. They supply it, we demand it, and we’re f’d.

Now, this rant isn’t entirely just a rant. I might not have an answer to the problem, but I have a few minor ways that I and my family are trying to do our part to change things.

I don’t like the quality of the light in those new twisty, fluorescent light bulbs, but every lamp in my new house has one. And if you leave the room, even if just for a few minutes, the light goes OFF. (Wow, that’s a hard one to drill into kids’ heads!) It’s not gas out of a pump…but electricity still comes from fuel.

Small kitchen appliances I seldom use but keep plugged in on the counter? They’re drawing current–just a little bit, but they are drawing it. I now unplug em.

It’s getting cold now…but the thermostat is set five degrees lower than it was last winter. We wear sweaters. We use quilts. I curl up next to cutie-pups during the day when I write–she’s so warm and cuddly. (And next to Bruce during the night…he’s warm and cuddly, too…)

When oldest daughter is away at college, and the downstairs where her room & the rec room are located isn’t being used on a daily basis, the vents get closed and the basement door is shut. Why heat one-third of the house that we’re not using?

Lots of errands pop up–every single day. Instead of doing them as they arise, they get bunched. Got a doctor’s appointment? Then that’s the day I also hit the bank, the grocery store, Wal Mart and the gas station. I do not make five trips. (Unless I run out of Diet Coke. For that, I’ll make the trip to the closest store.)

Online shopping for the holidays is not just a time-saving convenience to me this year. It also saves me the gas it would take to drive the 30 miles to the nearest mall.

My hubby is going to start car-pooling with my sister 2-3 days a week, despite having slightly different work schedules. It’s a little inconvenient…it’s also something.

Maybe if everyone did a few little somethings they’re not doing now, that demand could start to shrink. The supply might just perhaps go up. The teeter-totter might move in the opposite direction.

And if the money isn’t rolling in the way it used to, maybe somebody, somewhere, will stop worrying about lining their own oily corporate pockets and start researching–working hard to make a real change for the good of our country and our children.

End of speech. Feel free to throw tomatoes. Better yet, how about throwing some energy saving tips of your own? I’d really like to hear them!

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REMINDER: We’re asking YOU to help the Plotmonkeys give a happy holiday to some lonely American soldiers!

From now until December 7, the Plotmonkeys–Janelle Denison, Leslie Kelly, Julie Elizabeth Leto and Carly Phillips–are sponsoring a special contest. Just donate to a charity sending care packages to our troops overseas, and you’re eligible to win a $100 gift card to do your own holiday shopping!

All the details can be found here: THE SEASON FOR GIVING

As Jeannie mentioned, she and Zoey took Digger (from Cross My Heart) on a road trip. She was kind enough to send me pictures and I just had to share with you!

Can you find him in each picture?
Obviously I’m still in deep deadline, so thank you Jeannie and Zoey for providing today’s blog and entertainment.
I wish I was somewhere in Paradise right now. Anyplace hot with a beach.
Where do you wish you were at this very moment?

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REMINDER: We’re asking YOU to help the Plotmonkeys give a happy holiday to some lonely American soldiers!

From now until December 7, the Plotmonkeys–Janelle Denison, Leslie Kelly, Julie Elizabeth Leto and Carly Phillips–are sponsoring a special contest. Just donate to a charity sending care packages to our troops overseas, and you’re eligible to win a $100 gift card to do your own holiday shopping!

All the details can be found here: THE SEASON FOR GIVING