The Book of her Heart

Often people ask me which one of my books I like the best. That’s a really hard question for a writer to answer. To begin with, I’m the first to admit that I am a terrible judge of my own writing. The books I turn in to my editor that I think are perfect inevitable end up being the ones we do big revisions on. While the ones that I think need some work end up being perfect. Go figure. It’s only after the reviews start pouring in can I really tell whether I’ve written a star or a stinker.

Secondly, our books are kind of like our children. It feels wrong to rate one above another. We love them all equally.

But, having said that, I will say that most authors I know (myself included) do have a Book-of-our-Heart. This is the one that we just had to write. The story that had to be told. The message that was more distinctly personal to us than any other. For me, my Book-of-my-Heart is one that I wrote when I was unpublished, just before starting Spying in High Heels. It’s about four good friends living in Las Vegas, and, oddly enough, contains no mystery at all. It’s just about the intertwined experiences of four people trying to find themselves at different stages of their lives. Which sounds really heavy, but it’s actually written as a total comedy. This was my book that won the Golden Heart (the RWA award for unpublished writer), and, despite the fact that it was never published, I still just love it.

A friend of mine, and fellow Romance Diva, recently had the Book-of-her-Heart release. Jennifer Haymore’s, A Touch of Scandal, came out this past month. I know Jennifer was really excited about seeing this story finally hit the shelves, and, purely as a reader, I was, too! Unfortunately, tragedy hit Jennifer just as the book was about to release. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. Craptastical timing. Not that there is ever at time when you want to hear the word “cancer”, but what should have been an exciting time of celebration has become a time of surgeries, treatments, and doctor visits.

Luckily, Jennifer has a great sense of humor, a great sense of strength, and she will get through this. (Hear that, Jennifer? You WILL!) So, while Jennifer is kicking cancer’s butt, all of her friends are going to be spreading the word about the Book-of-her-Heart, A Touch of Scandal. Read it, love it, and, if you have the time, drop Jennifer a line to let her know how the book of her heart touched yours.

Hugs, Jenn!!


~Trigger Happy Halliday

Happy Tax Day...

It's Tax Day! How many of you spent last night sifting through receipts, punching calculator numbers, or staring at a monitor wishing you'd started the process much sooner--and vowing NEXT YEAR, you'd be on top of things?

In observance of Tax Day, I'm sending you a lovely bouquet of tulips from my front yard.

And if you want to rant, cry, bitch and moan, or just need a hug, I'm here for you!

~Bullet Hole~

This may be the best, or worst sandwhich ever. It's the Double Down by KFC and instead of bread, it has two chicken breasts. One has to wonder what was going on in their heads when they created this.

I always thought the bread gave you something to hold onto while keeping your fingers relatively clean. Apparently, bread is not needed at all to make this sandwhich. You just need meat between meat with some cheese thrown in as a vegetable substitute.

Don't get me wrong...I am the worst eater you know. Growing up in the Midwest on red meat, butter and gravy does not make for a healthy lifestyle. My great grandfather judged a restaurant based on it's hot beef sandwhich. That is, a piece of white bread on a plate. Dump on slabs of roast beef, scoops of mashed potatoes and gravy and you have the midwestern version of filet mignon. By the way, it's the first thing I order if I see it on the menu.

I usually love stuff like this. When KFC came out with its Famous Bowls, Mr. Assassin and I downed dozens of them. And we still laughed when Patton Oswaldt called the Famous Bowl a Sadness Pile in a Failure Bowl. In fact, when KFC came out with the boneless chicken breast you could hold and eat, I was the first in line.

One time, Mr. A and I were in San Francisco for a week. The food was so lean that we found ourselves crawling into the Hard Rock Cafe begging for the greasiest burger they make. Back home, fettuchine alfredo sauce is so thick you could stand a fork up in it. In San Francisco - you got the equivalent of wet noodles.

Anyway, even with my hedonistic food cravings, this Double Down looks a bit too outrageous for me. And that bothers me. Hell, for the last few months I've been centering my lunchtime errands around Wendy's Black and Bleu burger and Hardee's Grilled Cheese Thickburger.

But the Double Down goes too far. I have to cut my arteries a break. I simply have to realize that I'm not five years old anymore. And that really hurts.

Next week, I get bifocals...the end is near.

The Assassin

What My Hubby Gave Me For Easter

I know, Easter has come and gone, but this was too special not to share. Frankly, there’s been a quite a bit of sharing going on amongst the Craig clan lately. You see, the gift hubby so graciously gave me wasn’t a large Godiva chocolate Easter bunny. Nope. It wasn’t even a cheap chocolate bunny. It wasn’t an egg-shaped diamond necklace either. It was the MAN FLU.

Now, some of you gals out there, especially the unmarried ones, might not have heard of the MAN FLU. You’ve heard of the swine flu, the bird flu, but not the MAN FLU. Well, let me tell, the MAN FLU is by far the worst of all three. Just ask any man. Okay, us women know that the MAN FLU is just the flu, but when a man has it . . . Oh, it’s totally the worse thing in the world. It means possible death. It means pain, lots and lots of pain unlike anything, any mere, weak, little woman has ever, ever known. It means . . . “fluff my pillow, bring me some soup, and can you please rub my head.”

But before I tell you any more about the MAN FLU, let’s talk about the whole sharing aspect to this blog. We were all taught the fine art of sharing as children. Well, my daughter has done an excellent job teaching this to my granddaughter. Remember, I was staying with my daughter a couple of weeks ago? Well, Lily Dale decided to share with me the bug she caught at daycare. You know the bug I’m talking about? It’s doesn’t belong to any insect variety. It’s the one that makes you walk funny and really fast to go to the bathroom. Basically, it means your butt cheeks are squeezed so tight that you have to take very short, very fast steps to make it before the poop hits the fan, or in this case the poop hits the pants. Not that Lily Dale knows how to do that walk yet—but hey, she just learned to walk period, so I gave her break.

Because we live a couple hours away from my daughter, I was actually staying at my daughter’s house. Hubby, going home to an empty house, got a little lonely. So one evening after work he decided to drive up to stay the night. It was the night I was doing the funky no-shit chicken walk. He was sweet, patted me on my head and then went and slept on the sofa—claiming he just couldn’t sleep on the bed. You believe that, right?

Needless to say, a few days later I return home to hubby with a cough and a fever. He has the all-time terrible MAN FLU. Being the good wife that I am, do I go sleep on the sofa? Oh, I could have. He even suggested I do. But nope, I open him a can of soup, bring him his meds, take his temperature, and proving I’m the superior sex, I rub his head and hope my body warmth gives him comfort in the dark of the night. Then it happens and . . . it’s bad.

Hubby’s not just coughing, he’s doing the funky walk, too. He doesn’t just have the MAN FLU, he has a combo deal. He has the MAN STOMACH FLU, too. Oh, it’s not the same stuff I had, or that Lily Dale had, because we would have been dead, or so says my hubby. Now, I didn’t give him a hard time about his belief system because I figured having two things at once, gave him just a bit of wiggle room.

He got a bit more room when I ended up taking him to the emergency room where he was admitted and kept overnight due to dehydration. I bring him home the next day, nurse him back to health, and once again prove I’m the superior sex—until right after Easter I realize the gift he’d bestowed on me. Yup, he shared his MAN FLU.

Now you are probably wondering how it could be the MAN FLU if I’m not a man. No, I haven’t grown a pair overnight. But I figure because I know I caught it directly from a man, I have claiming rights. And how bad is the MAN FLU? Well, I’m pretty sure the thing I just coughed up is a lung. It’s still moving and jiggling and trying to breathe. Thank God I have two of them.

Yup, this MAN FLU is tough. I’m hyped up on cold meds, day time, night time, and drinking cough syrup like it’s tequila shots and I’m worm hungry. This thing might be hell, and it might have taken a lung, but it’s not taking my funny bone. My sense of humor is mine to keep. Nope, I will laugh in the face of MAN FLU. I will stand strong, I will survive. But could someone please bring me some soup, rub my head, and do something about that lung laying over there? Hubby would do it, he’s been very gracious, but he had to go to work.

So what about you guys? Anyone got any MAN FLU stories? Anyone ever had the MAN FLU? Come on, share a little. I’m sick and it’ll make me feel better.

P.S. I actually recovered and am feeling better now. Hubby is all well, too. There is a life after MAN FLU.

A Blur

So my entire weekend was a blur. I wrote a ton of freelance articles for an education website - all about tax and accounting. I completed my tax return AND my calculation for quarterly tax estimate - ugh. And I did laundry - yea, no commando this week! I didn't have any assistance with the articles or the tax return, but I did have a laundry helper. He works for caramel Bugles, so he's cheap labor.

Here, we are separating solids and whites. He prefers solids.

Last week, I had a minor surgery. I have been taking hormone shots every three months for years - yes, I'm hormonal. So my doctor wants me off the shots and to try something new as she thinks it will help me loose weight. I tried to explain to her that if I'd put down the keyboard and the cheeseburger I'd probably loose weight, but she is convinced. So now, I have a hormone implant in the inside of my upper arm. Basically, it's a plastic rod shoved underneath my skin.

The actual insertion didn't hurt, just stung a little, but I have a high tolerance for pain, so no biggie. Driving to work the next day was a whole other issue. Do you have any idea how tender the inside of your arm is? And how many nerve ending there are? Or how much it hurts when a tiny plastic rod presses into the ugliest bruise on record?

The jiggling while driving would periodically send shooting pains in my arm. The kind that make you involuntarily go "aaaahhhh" but not yell. Then some butthead pulled right out in front of me and I had to slam on my brakes. Well, brake-slamming is often accompanied with tensing one's body and yep, I am pretty strong, so my healthy biceps shoved that plastic rod directly into the bruised skin at a high rate of speed and pressure.

I let off a string of cussing that would have made sailors blush. Heck, I even made up a few words. I must have looked like I could kill, because the person who pulled out in front of me actually pulled off the shoulder of the road and gave me the "I'm sorry" wave. They probably thought I was going to shoot them. I have to admit, it's probably a good thing that the only weapon I was equipped with at the time was my mouth.

My boss was suitably horrified with the bruise and commiserated on the cussing. I should have put in a bid for open bar in our cubicles while I had her in my pocket, but I hadn't fully recovered from the braking yet.

So how about you? Any big accomplishments this weekend? Anyone have a weekend off? I've forgotten what a day off looks like. Anyone care to explain??????

Deadly (hormonally challenged) DeLeon

Just for today

I saw this posted on a writing forum this week, and, I’m ashamed to admit, I had tears streaming down my face afterward. Big Boy asked what was wrong with me. I told him that instead of doing his math, we were going to Target and I was buying him the large Icee this time without him even asking. I think he though I’d totally lost it. But I’ve never seen him put his shoes on so fast in his life. :) Hope all of you mothers out there enjoy this!

My Boys


Just for this morning, I am going to step over the laundry, and pick you up and take you to the park to play.

Just for this morning, I will leave the dishes in the sink, and let you teach me how to put that puzzle of yours together.

Just for this afternoon, I will unplug the telephone and keep the computer off, and sit with you in the backyard and blow bubbles.

Just for this afternoon, I will not yell once, not even a tiny grumble when you scream and whine for the ice cream truck and I will buy you one if he comes by.

Just for this afternoon, I won't worry about what you are going to be when you grow up, or second guess every decision I have made where you are concerned.

Just for this afternoon, I will let you help me bake cookies, and I won't stand over you trying to fix them.

Just for this afternoon, I will take us to McDonald's and buy us both a Happy Meal so you can have both toys.

Just for this evening, I will hold you in my arms and tell you a story about how you were born and how much I love you.

Just for this evening, I will let you splash in the tub and not get angry.

Just for this evening, I will let you stay up late while we sit on the porch and count all the stars.

Just for this evening, I will snuggle beside you for hours, and miss my favorite TV shows.

Just for this evening when I run my finger through your hair as you pray, I will simply be grateful that God has given me the greatest gift ever given.

I will think about the mothers And fathers who are searching for their missing children, the mothers and fathers who are visiting their children's graves instead of their bedrooms, and mothers and fathers who are in hospital rooms watching their children suffer senselessly, and screaming inside that they can't handle it anymore.

And when I kiss you good night I will hold you a little tighter, a little longer. It is then, that I will thank God for you, and ask Him for nothing, except one more
day.............


~Trigger Happy Halliday

Freaky Weather

This was the scene outside my front window the day before yesterday. My daughter took this picture after she called to let me know we were getting golf ball sized hail, my first thought to get photographic evidence for the insurance claims' adjuster.

This is not the kind of spring I'd hoped for after the winter that wouldn't end. We've got from hauling snow to hauling our keesters to the basement when the tornado sirens go off.
I guess I'm fortunate our hail was just egg-sized and I didn't find any visible damage. Counties to the north of us received baseball sized whoppers. On one car lot every car on the lot (over a hundred vehicles) was damaged due to the hail.

If this is an early indication of what our severe storm season is going to be like, we're in deep doodoo.

Working the early shift today so I'll check in tonight!

Have a great day!

~Bullet Hole~