I'm so over it

After more than two years of time, effort and money thrown into the game, I'm giving up Vampire Wars.

I've had it. It's clear Zynga doesn't care enough about its current customers to make any effort to keep them.

The last straw for me is having the gifting box pop up every single time I click on any rewards. It might not seem like much, but it at least triples the time it takes to try to collect things. I just can't take it anymore.

So if you're a VW friend and want some of my abilities and stuff, send me your gift link FAST. I'll leave the account open for another day or two, but then I'm blocking VW.

I started an original romance novel a couple years ago. Maybe now that I'm no longer playing any Facebook games I'll start writing again.

Or maybe not. :)

Trashy book wisdom

I'm reading another trashy romance, For Love or Legacy by Ruth Cardello. Something in the book, a comment by one of the character's mothers, struck me:

The great part about getting older is you realize you don't have to impress anyone else.

How true!

That is all.

A clean slate

It's a new year. A clean slate. A blank piece of paper.

There's a cartoon going around on Facebook. Angus and Phil: What exactly is a New Year's resolution? It's a 'to do' list for the first week in January.

It's funny because it's true. Every year I resolve to exercise, to lose weight, to be a better person, to read my daily devotions, yadda yadda yadda. And it never lasts.

A friend of mine, aliaslaceygreen, has inspired me. Instead of making those same old resolutions that I can't manage to keep for more than a week or two, I'm choosing a word for the year.

My word for 2012 is LISTEN.

I don't know if it's possible to overcome my self-absorbed nature. One of my "interesting facts about me" haiku says it best:

I'm a space cadet

Real life isn't as good as

The world in my head

But this year I'm going to try to listen better... to my family, to friends and church members, to what God might be trying to tell me.

Is a word better than a resolution?

I don't know, but I guess I'll find out.

Merry Christmas?

So what are you doing Christmas Eve day? Baking? Last-minute shopping? Wrapping those last few gifts and putting them under the tree? Maybe even decorating the tree?

Know what we're doing?

Making a big mess of the foyer and cleaning out the coat closet.

Why are we doing this?

I have no idea.

But Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. :)

In the mood

I finally got in the mood to bake some cookies.

Yeah, I know, they don't look like much. But they are absolutely my very favoritest cookies in the whole world. Cinnamon snaps. Kinda like ginger snaps but... well, you get the picture.

I've already eaten a whole bunch, and they're out there on the table calling to me. Trying to resist, but it's hard.

So in case you love cinnamon as much as I do, and prefer crunchy cookies, here's the recipe. Don't say I never gave you anything. :)

CINNAMON SNAPS

1 c. brown sugar

1 c. white sugar

1 c. butter

2 eggs, beaten

3-1/2 c. flour

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1 T. cinnamon

Cream the sugars and butter. Blend in beaten eggs. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Shape dough into two logs, 2 inches in diameter. Wrap with wax paper and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Slice rolls into 1/4-inch thick cookies. Dip top in sugar crystals or sprinkle on if desired. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes, until edges are golden brown.

And that's all there is to it. Easy and cinnamon-y. Guaranteed no calories during the holiday season.

Enjoy!

Sweet treats

These are reindeer cookies, made by Betsy. Aren't they cute? And easy: Just make the Hershey's kiss peanut butter cookie recipe, roll the dough into balls, flatten them into egg shapes and bake. When they come out of the oven press in M&Ms for eyes and nose and chocolate covered pretzels for the antlers.

Below is a picture of one of the five boxes of assorted cookies made by Molly and sent to relatives. Yummy! Molly also decorated the house while I was at my mom's.

Made by me: nada... zip... zilch.

I'm still working on trying to be happy for the holidays, or at least not too cranky. My mother-in-law breaking her hip last week, precipitating two trips to the Catskills, hasn't helped.

What has helped... cookies. I'll regret it when I make my annual New Year's resolution to lose weight, but nothing says happiness like a peanut butter kiss cookie.

Ernestine Ulmer said it best: Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.

:)

Guilty pleasures

Why do they make Harlequin romance titles and covers so embarrassing?

Somebody gave me a box of 10-15 year old Harlequins & Silhouettes, and I'm reading them in secret... Oh, well I guess it's not a secret anymore, huh? *blush*

Most of them aren't too bad if you want a quick, easy read with a guaranteed happy ending. But then when I review them on Goodreads, everyone will know what I'm reading.

Is it really humiliating to read light romances? I always thought so, but now I'm not so sure.

Heck, even Nora Roberts, the queen of romance, started out with Silhouette. How bad can that be?

It's Al Right

I've been reading a lot of free Kindle books, and it turns out many of them are self-published.

Being a bit OCD, especially during the holiday season, the errors drive me insane, and I've been tweeting advice to self-publishers. Examples:

Tips for #selfpublish: Hallows=holy relics. You don't have dark hallows under your eyes unless you were slapped by a dead saint. #badgrammar

Tips for #selfpublish: If you're following the rules, you TOE THE LINE. Tugboats tow the line. #badgrammar

One of my pet peeves is the use of the non-word, alright. ALRIGHT IS NOT A WORD! Another is the non-word alot. ALOT IS NOT A WORD!

My dear friend Rosie Lane gave me a terrific link to a blog post by the brilliant Allie Brosch about the alot, an imaginary creature that looks like a cross between a bear, a yak, and a pug. Then when I wondered what an alright looked like, she gave me a link to a youtube video song, Alright, by Jamiroquai.

So from now on, whenever I see alright used in a sentence, I will think of my friend Al Right with the funny hat and mustache. "I was feeling alright" gives me the picture of the writer stroking Al Right's mustache.

Stupid... maybe. But it helps me deal.

You gotta take your fun where you find it, right? Al Right!

Scrooge no more

It's officially the start of the holiday season, and I'm not happy. I frickin' HATE the holidays.

It may be partly because I work part-time at a church, and other than Easter it's the busiest time of the year. Extra work, but of course, no extra pay.

Not to mention all my own shopping, Christmas letter, cards, parties, the six-hour drive to visit my mom and the five-hour drive to mother-in-law, yadda yadda yadda.

As a Christian, I should love the season, looking forward with great anticipation to the birth of Christ. But we've turned the holiday into such a bastion of commercialism and family duty that it's lost its meaning.

I've considered just abandoning all the secular trappings, but I don't think I can do it. My family expects gifts and I don't want to disappoint them. My friends and relatives actually look forward to my annual letter and card, or at least they say they do. The church people need the Christmas events. And my mother and mother-in-law really want the visits and would be sad without them.

This year I'm going to try really hard to improve my attitude. Yeah, I know, I'm a curmudgeon and everyone expects me to bitch and moan all the time. But I really mean it. I'm going to do my best to find the joy this year.

How do you feel about Christmas? Do you love to shop? (Grrr, I hate it... oops, sorry, backsliding already.) Do you love the decorations? The insane holiday music everywhere you go?

And do you think I'll really manage to change my attitude? Does it count if I just hate it inside and don't bitch and moan?

2011, the year of Scrooge-no-more. Hey, it could happen...

A question about questions

What's up with authors not using question marks anymore?

I noticed it particularly in J.R. Ward's last couple of books. Now don't get me wrong, I think she's an awesome writer. I adore her books, every one. But in places where I learned to always use a question mark, she doesn't.

I already returned her two latest to the library, so I don't have exact quotes in front of me, but here's an example made up by me:

"But things don't always go according to plan, do they."

My seventh grade English teacher, Mrs. Williams, taught me to use a question mark there. So why doesn't J.R. Ward?

And here's another example, from the Foreword to "SEAL of My Dreams," an anthology of stories about Navy SEALS: "Who is better equipped to honor the image of our greatest warrior heroes than the gifted pens of some of the romance industry's finest authors of romantic fiction."

Does it have something to do with the inflection? Generally when asking a question, the voice rises. "Are you going to the store?"

But not always. "Where are you going?"

So really, have the rules of punctuation gone out the window? Is it a lack of knowledge on the part of authors and editors?

I admit to being a nitpicker of epic proportions, and Mrs. Williams's lessons have stayed with me for more years than I'd care to enumerate. Changes in the rules drive me crazy, whether they're universally accepted or just some author's convention.

It shouldn't bother me, should it?

It shouldn't bother me, should it.

:)