It’s still hot out there but at least it doesn’t seem AS hot as it has been.

This morning, I slept until 9. It was glorious. Even then I didn’t want to get up if the phone hadn’t rang. I finally got moving with two cups of coffee and a shower, ran some errands, and then came home and cleaned out my storage closet on the patio. I needed to make room for the futon since I got the new stuff. I want to keep it. When my brother and sis-in-law were here last weekend, my brother dismantled it while sis-in-law and I laughed ourselves silly stuffing the mattress in the coat closet.

Yes, it’s really in there and the futon is in pieces in the outside storage. Which is completely packed with all my shit. I am 100% moved out of the old house, now, which is good.

I’ve been thinking about NGD for the last few days and have finally come to a decision about what’s wrong with it. Now that I know and I can begin constructing a new plot for the story. Though what that is, I have no idea. I asked my friend what the title “Nice Girls Do” meant to her. One of the things she said was ”Nice girls get fed up and say f*ck it.”

It made me go hm.

I will continue to tinker on this one. In the meantime, I’m getting back to One Knight Only.

Oh! And I have something else in the works, but not ready to announce that yet. I should know something for sure in the next couple of days.

Think I’m going to go get an ice cream bar and get back to work. Happy Saturday everyone!

Has this been the longest week known to man?

I know I’m a little late blogging this morning but I was running late from the house this morning. I fell into bed after listening to an hour of Episode 4 of Collective You. I was in tears I was laughing so hard. It’s our best episode yet. So check it out. I’m sitting here writing this blog and listening to the show now from beginning to end.

I’ll have the Sweetie Boy on Sunday since his dad has to work. Looking forward to it. Not sure what we’re doing yet, but hopefully something fun. We might be at Brother’s recording Episode 5 of Collective You. Don’t know yet.

I received another review on Talk Dirty To Me. This one from Romance Reviews Today and is another smashing report: TALK DIRTY TO ME begins and ends with loads of sexual tension, and the pages in between fairly crackle with eroticism and steaminess.  Upon starting this e-book, my first from Samhain Publishing, I couldn’t help but think, “phone sex operator?  Pshaw”, but Ms. Miles proved that even a phone sex operator can be a heroine with a character that not only rings true but also deserves to have her dreams come true.  Claudia is edgy, real, and lonely in the romance department after being burned by a man she thought she loved.  In an attempt to conquer her demons and slay her inhibitions, she starts her own phone sex line.  Hey, it pays the bills, and when she first ‘meets’ Jack, the sky’s the limit in how many ways her body dances to his beat.  It’s a riveting story that would make great bedtime reading, leaving a smile on your face…as well as your honey’s.

Woohoo!

Not much else to report today. I’m gonna go drink some coffee. :coffee:

Oy, it’s soooo hot out there. It hit 105 yesterday and will be that again today. But - hey - by the end of the week we’re supposd to have a cool front and hit the upper 90s. Hooray! :plain:

Just a side note, The Collective You should have Episode #4 up this morning!

I came to a realization yesterday about Nice Girls Do. I finally know what’s wrong with it. Gee, it only too a year, right? Anyway, I was reading the final version of Talk Dirty To Me yesterday and the tone and feel of the book is NOT at all like NGD. So it hit me - NGD doesn’t have the same playfulness as TDTM. That’s what’s missing! Plus I just hate the story. So it’ll probably go into the scrap bin, which I hate because it’s over 45 pages. *sigh*

Anyway, I was looking at another draft for the third book in the Coffee House Chronicles called Take Me I’m Yours and it does seem to have the same tone and feel as TDTM. So I may start working on that a little instead. Of course I still have One Knight Only to finish…

So many projects, so little time!

And I was thinking about submitting MAGIC somewhere else, too. I have the submission package ready, I’m just trying to decide if I really want to send it. It will be at least another 3-4 months before I hear back from Harlequin.

Something to think about anyway. 

Last night I ran out at 9:00 to the drug store. The second I hit the outside, it was like this blast of hit hitting me in the face. Like walking into a blasted oven. Gaw, it’s hot. I dread the thought of today.

I tried to write last night, but nothing was coming to me. So I put on a movie (Someone Like You) and watched it instead.

I’ve been having restless nights, even though I’m exhausted. Hopefully that will start to get better. For now, I best pack up my stuff and head to the office. :dead:

I need :coffee:

This weekend, my child managed to come up with some sayings that cracked us all up. Upon arriving at Brother’s, he was very interested in the computer and the mics and headphones we had set up to record The Collective You. He walked right up to my brother and said, “I want to throw some questions out.”

And then later when we were coming back from dinner, the kids were in the back seat and sis-in-law was riding with me. We hear him talking to Niece #2 and he says, “You are so cracking me out the side of my brain.”

We died laughing. Where does he get this stuff? And he recognizes comedic timing and sarcasm. And he’s 4! He’ll be 5 at the end of August.

Then last night, as I was cooking dinner and the cat was laying in one end of the kitchen trying to stay away from him (he runs away usually), Sweetie Boy is standing there holding a pretend mic and says, “Hi, this is cat news.” And he walks toward the cat. “Can you tell me how it feels to be at the pet store?” And he tolds the pretend mic down to the cat. Then he turns to me, holds the pretend mic to me, and asks me something but I was so beside myself with laughter I couldn’t hear the question.

So when I took him home to his dad, I was telling him about the Cat News segment and my child was giving the fakest laugh possible. As if he KNEW it was already funny. *shaking head*

I have no idea where he gets his sarcastic outlook.

Some jackass on a fax machine called my home phone at 5:30 this morning and woke me up from a very nice dream. :plain: I was not a happy camper especially since my alarm goes off at 6. I laid awake until it went off, of course, and then got up instead of hitting snooze three times like usual. I’m still feeling tired. I stayed up too late last night and I probably haven’t fully recovered from the Marathon. 

And I hear it’s going to be 106 today. :dead:

Yesterday I went to visit my Insurance Agent Extraordinaire and set up my money market account. I figured it would be the best way to save money and it would be a way where I wouldn’t touch it once it was deposited. So I’m very happy and excited about it.

I was also able to brainstorm some ideas on my current WIP with my writing friends. They gave me a great idea for the heroine’s profession so I think I’m going to go for it. They also gave me some ideas one how to make her time travel and give the reader a little peek into the present day before the story starts off in the past.

Anyway, it was a good brainstorming session.

I didn’t have a chance to call the Enterprise area manager but I hope to get the number from Brother today and do it either today or tomorrow. I need to get that done.

What else…? Read some chapters for a friend and I really liked them. I’m excited about her story and looking forward to reading more! I have more chapters to read for another friend so I hope to get to that today around lunchtime.

And I think I’ve pulled a muscle in my left bicep. My arms just hurts when I lift it up or move it around at all. I’m sure it’s from the lifting/unloading marathon on Sunday. I’ll just keep working out the soreness and hopefully it will feel better in a few days.

And here are pictures of my new living room furniture! WOO! (more…)

Announcement: Talk Dirty To Me is #7 on the Samhain Best Seller List! 
:woohoo: 

What a weekend. I think I need to get back to work so I can rest.

Saturday, the Sweetie Boy and I headed to my brother’s house. The kids played while we recorded Episode 4 of The Collective You. So it’s in the can! Tonight and tomorrow I need to get the blog updated.

We ended up finishing the show around 6:30 and headed off for dinner. But after some mishap with the neighbors and their dogs (they were going with us - the neighbors not the dogs), we ended up heading to the restaurant about an hour later. They met us there a little bit later. We stuffed ourselves silly and then I finally headed home about 10:30. So it was late when we got home. We both crashed.

Sunday we all decided to get up early and head to Ikea because I wanted to get some new living room furniture and Brother wanted to get a bed for Niece #2. We managed to meet up there (it was an hour drive for each of us) within minutes of each other. The plan was to get there early (10:30), get the shopping done and get home. Now, since none of us own a truck, we decided to rent their Enterprise van for $80 a day, unlimited mileage. I had reserved us one on Friday.

We get inside, I check the Sweetie Boy into the play room, we go shop. We pick out everything we want. Back downstairs, I pick up the child, we head to the self-serve furniture area. We get everything on the carts and head to the checkout. We were done and checked out by 11:38. Now, Niece #1 had picked up the Enterprise phone BEFORE we checked out to tell them we were ready to go. They assured us a van was on its way.

Cool.

We get outside into the 103 heat (thankfully it was in the shade) and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.

Forty-five minutes later, I get back on the phone with them to find out what the hold up was. I was nice. He told me any minute the van should be arriving.

Back outside, we wait. And wait. And wait.

Now we have three children with us and $1000 worth of furniture just sitting outside waiting for a :censored: van.

I get back on the phone and call again. He tells me the van will be there in five minutes.

I give him ten. Still no van.

Back to the phone. And now I’m pissed. This jackass feeds me some BS about the van being in car prep. Whatever. I say, point blank, “Where are you located because I’m coming to YOU.”

“No, don’t do that,” he says.

I ask for their direct number and he rattles it off fast. If I hadn’t had a pencil ready, I would have never got it down. Now I’m really mad. I say, “What is the ETA of this van?”

He tells me seven minutes. I tell him if this van isn’t here in TEN, I’m calling back and I’m calling every five minutes until it is.

Back outside. It is now TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER from the time Neice #1 called to get the van on its way.

The van shows up at 1:30. We load up. Brother is hot. I’m hot. We get the furniture loaded and head to the Enterprise place so I can fill out the rental agreement and get the keys and go.

Now, we have to go to my brother’s house which is an hour away, back to my house (another hour), then back to Ikea (another hour) to return the van. :dead: Isn’t this great?

The :censored: Enterprise place is SEVEN minutes from Ikea. So what was the hold up? Who knows. I get inside and that cocky punk-ass is a total condesending jerk. He’s all happy to see me. “You must be Michelle.”

Uh huh. Then he says he’s going to “take care of me” and I say - “YOU’D BETTER.”

So he gets to desk and he asks how he can help me and I look that fer right in the face and say, “No. What are YOU going to do for me?”

His customer service skills were in high gear because his fantastic reply was “Well, what do you want?”

Uh. No. You should be GROVELING at my feet. I made a reservation for this :censored: van and you failed to deliver for TWO AND A HALF HOURS. WTF?

I look right at him and say, “I want this van for free.”

Done. And he was a total ass the entire time. I got his area manager’s name and I WILL be contacting him.

So we all get back in the car, drive to my brother’s unload, eat lunch (at 2:30), then head to my house. We unload and they help me get together my coffee table. It’s time for me to drop off Sweetie Boy, so I do that. Brother head’s home and I head BACK to Ikea with the van because my car is STILL at Ikea. :dead:

I get there, drop off the van and get home at 7:45. I was beat. Beaten down. Hot. Hungry. Thirsty. By the time I ate something, drank a beer, and showered, I fell into bed at 10:15 because I just couldn’t sit/stand another second.

And what did I get out of all this? A really cool new couch, two new chairs, and a new coffee table for less than $700. It f’ing ROCKS.

A couple of things before I get rolling this morning:

1. Episode 3 of The Collective You is out! Check it out.
2. My press release for Talk Dirty To Me it out. You can read that here. 

So yesterday I got a wild hair and decided to drive to Ikea - mainly to see if I could do it up the highway I thought I could and to look at the chair I’m hot to have. It was an hour drive in the heat. We got there and I checked in Sweetie Boy to the kids section and then off I went.

I talked to a great saleslady in the showroom and she gave me some fantastic advice. Since I live far away from Ikea it would be $100+ for delivery. No way! Or you can rent a van for $80/day or $20 for two hours. She suggested if I was going to come back on Sunday to try and reserve the van. So back downstairs I went, weaving through textiles and lighting and self-serve furniture until FINALLY I found the Enterprise phone booth. Whew. It was a long walk too and I had only about 15 minutes before I had to go back and get the Sweetie Boy from the kids section (an hour limit there).

So I get on the phone and it dials automatically and it rang forever. I was about to hang up with this very cheerful (sexy) male voice answered. His name was Nick. So I asked if I could make a reservation for Sunday and told him the situation - that my brother and I were going to split the cost and he lives far far away. He said he’d be happy to and as he’s taking down my information, he’s making small talk. He asks me what I do for a living and I told him I was a marketing assistant by day and a published writer by night - because I figure any chance to self-promote, right?

He seemed quite excited about the fact that I was a published writer and my first book was out on Tuesday. I knew this because he said, “Wow! I am so excited to be talking to a published writer!” So he asked me where he might get the book. I directed him to my website and he was impressed. And of course the book cover is on my home page which always causes quite a stir.

Anyway, after chatting it up, with the reservation made, I hung up and hauled ass to get the kiddo. It’s quite the walk too. After collecting my beautiful child, I head back through the store. But do you think I left there empty-handed? Heck no! I ended up with really cool beer glasses, dish towels for 0.49 cents, a really cool wall clock, and an awesome chair for my desk (I had been sitting in one of my very hard dining room chairs). It took me all of 5 minutes to put together to chair, of which I’m sitting in now. It rocks.

After getting home, exhausted, hot and hungry, we ate a little snack and he played with the cat and watched a movie. Then I cooked dinner. After dinner, we headed to Bed Bath & Beyond where I made a few minor purchases - a lighter for the candles, Sweetie boy picked out this mashy Nerds pillow. Heck he hugged it - how can I NOT buy it? And I got a package of nightlights I needed. The bill came to $20. I spent $10 more than I had intended but it was for the kiddo, so no biggie.

On to Target we I was going to get the baby some PJs that fit but as soon as we hit the store he said, “Mom, we need a game with dice.” And when I asked him what that might be he said, “We need to get Nomopoly.” Which, in grown-up terms, is Monolopoly. So. He suckered me into buying a board game, which I wasn’t terribly opposed to since it will give him something to do when he’s with me. And we, of course, bought PJs. Another $20 and $10 more than I had intended - but, once again, for the kiddo.

THEN it was grocery shopping time becuase I figured while I was out I may as well get it over with. My child talked THE entire time. I had a list, but I still forgot stuff so I will have to go back this morning. Never made it to the pet store either, so I have to do that this morning before heading to brother’s to do The Collective You. Anyway, he suckered me into getting Go Tarts and orange juice. So I told him he better eat and drink them. How come I can’t say no? I know - it’s becuase he’s so darn cute. So he was messing with me in one of the aisles as I was looking for feminine protection products - I was wearing my capris with the pockets on the side (sort of like cargo pants) and he was sticking his hand down my pocket. It got me to giggling because he was belly laughing in the store. So I turned the cart and wham right into one of those endcap things. It knocks the durn sign down with a loud clatter on the concrete floor.

My kid looks up at me and says, “Now look what you done.”

Yeah, thanks for that. But I couldn’t help but laugh. We ran away from that aisle as fast as possible.

By the time we got home, unloaded and put away the groceries it was like 8:30. Yikes! Into the tub he goes. I wash and dry his hair and put him to bed by 9:30 and that kid lays in bed and talks until nearly 11. So I finally get to bed by 11:30 (by that I mean, crashing on the couch).

I’m telling you - this one bedroom is WAY too small these days. It’s time to start thinking about a new dwelling and quickly. This kid needs his own room!

And this entry was way longer than I had anticipated. I gotta go shower and get to the store before it gets 5000 degrees outside. And oh yeah - have I mentioned the forecast calls for a high of 103? :dead: And that’s in the shade. :hissyfit:

Keep cool, ya’ll.

I took the day off and I’m SO glad. The baby and I slept until 9! It was fantastic.

Don’t forget I still have the contest going on - so far two winners! There is still one more available to win! See yesterday’s blog entry for details on how to win.

Thanks for all the resposes I got yesterday, too - and I mean all those saying they’re going to buy rather than win. Ya’ll are the best.

I just paid bills :dead: and discovered that I am indeed broke. But all the bills are paid. I really love being able to pay online. That allows me to stretch my dollars even further. I have GOT to stop spending every penny I make, but sometimes it’s just hard and I need stuff between pay periods. Like today - I have to go to the pet store and buy cat food and cat grass. And the baby wants to go to the movies because it’s too bloody hot to play outside.

I so needed this day off. It’s definitely a mental health day. I got about three paragraphs in yesterday :plain: so I hope to get more writing done this weekend on the current WIP. I will be pretty busy, though, so not sure how much I’ll get done.

All right - that’s it for me. I’m off to make a grocery list and then go shopping.

Happy Friday, ya’ll!

First - the contest!

Okay I finally came up with a quickie contest for a FREE copy of TALK DIRTY TO ME! Here’s what you do. Answer the following question correctly.

In my bio, I state I write in several genres, but THIS genre is my favorite. What genre is that?

First three correct answers WINS a free copy of TALK DIRTY TO ME. Hint: You can find the answer on Samhain’s website. Email me your answer to win!

My Friday
This week has been such a beating at work, I decided I needed a mental health day. So I’m taking Friday off! Very happy about that.

Yesterday was not one of my better days, either, around the office. There were many times I wanted to whip out the scissors and threaten death. But I kept it to myself. Instead, I took deep breaths and tried desperately to remain calm. Some people’s behavior is truly unbelievable.

I didn’t get any writing done the last two days. Well, I take that back. I did get about 2-3 pages total. I’ve been trying to decide where to take the story next and if I really want to write the scene that I’m thinking about. I am starting to really like these characters and get attached to them. I’ve even done a little bit of research on publishers (NY) I could send the story to when it’s polished and finished.

Still waiting to hear back from Harlequin on my submission. It’s only been about a month and a half, so I’m sure it’ll take a little while longer before I hear back from them.

I’m totally dragging my feet this morning. I’m going to have to light a fire under my butt pretty soon. It took al my strength to get out of bed this morning. I woke up at 4 am and stared at the clock for about 20 minutes until I went back to sleep. Had the weirdest dream ever, too.

Okay that’s it for me. I gotta get going!

:coffee:

I have NO idea what to blog about today. My brain feels sort of foggy.

I’ve been tired lately from staying up until midnight or so for various reasons. So last night I climbed into bed at 10ish to read my book.

Sidenote: I’m reading this really great book called “Dark Protector” and it’s by Alexis Morgan and I totally love it! It’s the first book I’ve actually been able to sit and read and not lost interest. It’s her debute novel and I can’t wait for the second one!

Anyway, my eyelids get heavy and I finally get to a stopping point and put the book down and go to sleep. But it was one of those restless sleeps. At one point, I felt the cat petting himself on my hand in the middle of the night. Silly cat.

I’ve been trying to devise a contest so people can win copies of my book, but I haven’t come up with anything quite yet. I hope to get that launched tomorrow though.

Thanks for all the well-wishes. I’m happy it’s finally out!

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