The Peter Potty : Training Urinal

I don't know why this made me laugh. Maybe because this boy is just so darn proud of his potty :

From Gizmodo :

Why is it that all those potty training toilets for our sons are of
the sit-down variety? Because women control the world, and are biased
against men who mark their territory around the toilet while stand-up
peeing. Well, boys, no longer will your son have to suffer the
indignity of peeing like a girlie. Meet the Peter Potty, the toddler
urinal. It even has a flush system—fill
the top reservoir with water and empty it from a tray on the bottom.
Which is useful, assuming your two-year-old can pull down his pants and
undies, grab his wee-wee and manage to get any of his pee into the
basin without being distracted by the Wizmark Interactive Urinal Communicator you put in the there for fun.

According to its creators, "The PeterPotty is proven to reduce the
potty training age for boys by an average of six months..." While the
website does not provide any research proving this claim, it's sure to
be related to the confidence your son will gain by learning to pee all
over the floor and toddle away from his mess without looking back. It's
never too early to teach him that cleaning the toilet is a job best
left for his sister, mother or maid. The Peter Potty is available from
major retailers for between $39.99 and $49.99.

March 29??

I looked at my calendar this morning and had to do a double take. Only two days left in March? What the hell did I do all month?

Most of it seems to have disappeared into the black hole where my memory should be. (Heaven help me if Alzheimer's every sets in... I already don't have a lot of memory to loose!) I know there was work, and a trip to see my family, and more work. And lots of busy days and nights. But the details of it? Whoosh. Gone. Good thing I have this journal to remind me of at least some of it...

Busy end of the month coming up. The usual work stuff, and then - my first writer's conference. The First Coast Romance Writers conference is Friday and Saturday, only about a 20 minute drive from here. I went back and forth about going... I am not a member of the local chapeter, so I won't know ... anyone? Although I've chatted with some of the members online, so I do hope to meet some of them there. And there are a few great workshops set up. Last week I finally decided to go - then, as soon as I registered, found out there was going to be a babysitting crisis. Grr.

The weather has also turned nice, which means the kids are starting to give the pool looks of longing. It's not helping that Samantha's new favorite movie is Mermaidia.



Last night she ended up swimming through the house. With no shirt on. Ended up with a touch of carpet burn on her tummy.

I'm wishing my brother were here to clean the months-neglected pool ... Mike? Where are you? Guess I'll have to find time today to get out there and do some serious vacuming / chemicalizing. If it stays in the 70's, my little mermaid will want to be in there even if she turns purple after five minutes.

Q&A with Chrissy Brashear of Samhain Publishing

We've got a great Q&A session this week at Romance Divas!

Join Romance Divas on our forums from March 28-30, 2006 to chat with Christina Brashear. Publisher of Samhain Publishing, Chrissy is ready to answer your questions on the world behind the keyboard and screen of publishing. Her editor-in-chief Angie James will also be stopping by, to answser questions specific about submissions and Samhain's lines.

"Born and raised two miles from a uranium processing plant, Crissy swears she really isn't glowing, it's just your imagination.

Crissy has been a lifelong lover of books—a born reader. She was maliciously tricked into going to kindergarten on a promise that she would be taught how to read. She came home that first day still unable to read and has not forgiven her family to this day, she has a long memory. Romance novels helped Crissy survive the years of being an active duty military wife and the long periods of separation from her own real life hero. He who moves a library with every relocation and with minimal complaint has to be considered a hero.

Crissy's been educated in office management and as an administrative assistant, though she refuses to obtain a degree because of the speech course requirement—fear of public speaking. Her job history covers a plethora of subjects ranging from retail, admin in a Total Quality office (Great experience), banking, insurance and finally to information technology before applying all her learned skills to the e-publishing arena. She applies not only her life experiences, common sense but also her own judgment as to what an average reader would want or think—after all, that's what she is—when making decisions or thinking of new ideas for her companies."

You can visit Samhain Publishing at www.samhainpublishing.com

Link to the Q&A is here!

Google Pages

I played around briefly with Google Pages this morning.

My Google page

Not really sure about this yet... but my first impressions :

It's very simplistic. It's meant to be used by people who don't have any web coding knowledge I guess, so everything is just very, very simple. No html or css. Type your text in the little boxes (Header, Sidebar, Main Content, Footer). Pick your layout (no sidebar, one sidebar left, one sidebar right, two sidebars). Publish.

You can add links and pictures, but you can't code them to put in borders, or change size and layout.

If I find a way to change the look of the site outside their very limited 41 "looks" (mostly just variations on the same theme, done in different colors) and 4 layouts, I could see this being a popular choice for people wanting a quick and easy self-managed website. But having so few choices to personalize the page is a big minus for me.

Still alive

Hi, just a quick note to say I'm still alive. Just haven't had time to do the essentials (Work? Food shopping?) and definately haven't had time to play (write).

Had a great trip visiting my sisters, and squeezed in a trip to visit David as well. Drove home Tuesday, and spent all day Wednesday playing work-catchup. I've gotten through the essentials, but there is still an overflow in the "To-Do" box that has to be gotten through tomorrow.

Last night was the TPC party at the Marriott in Sawgrass, which is probably the biggest social event I get to attend during the year. Several thousand people attend from the golf world (or people with money to belong to the more exclusive country clubs), including PGA officials and players. Last nights theme was "A Tribute to Motown", so great music and great food themed to go with it. The music was better than the food this year, and neither topped last years combination of the Beach Boys and seafood. Most of the big name golfers skipped the event - with tee times starting as early as 7:30 this morning, and millions of dollars in purse money, I can understand that ;) Did see Fred Funk - the rest of the golfers, that were there, I had a lot of "he looks familiar" moments but no names to put to the faces.

Best part of the night though was getting to spend so much time with the hubby. He and I don't get to go out just the two of us much, our schedules don't allow it. But his parents kept the kids overnight, so we were able to stay out as late as wanted, up as late as we could keep our eyes open, and sleep in late this morning. Especially after my 5 day trip, it was great to have the time to spend together.

He's off tomorrow to run a tournament in Orlando, and he's taking Montgomery with him, so Samantha and I will have a girls weekend. Hopefully by Sunday I'll have dug myself out of the weeds and be on top of things again.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I'll be on the road on Friday, so I'll wish you all the luck of the Irish today.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Authors,

Authors, we need you. No, really.

One of the biggest questions that everyone wants to know, but no one wants to talk about, is those cold, hard numbers. How big are your sales, how high your advance, what's that payout for your work.

Brenda Hiatt keeps the only actual listing I know of at her website. But she can't do it if authors don't send her the info.

So published authors, this is your chance to do your part - anonymously. Brenda has been doing this long enough, and giving workshops at RWA on her findings, that I don't think anyone needs to worry about your information or anonymity being leaked. She's trustworthy, and she does this to help us all. Please, help her, to help us!

Permission to forward :

QUOTE

What's up on my website is my latest update, but I'll be updating again soon for the workshop I'll be giving in Atlanta. (I have to get my handout in by mid-May, so I'll be updating in time for that.) I'm always wanting current info, so please do send any and all authors my way! What I specifically need for each book is:

Publisher
Year of sale/year of release
Which book it is of yours/for that publisher (1st, 5th, etc.)
Advance
Standard royalty percentage (for regular retail sales)
Total earnout to date (INCLUDING advance)
Last 4 digits of ISBN # (not included in handout--this helps me spot duplicates)

Everything is always kept totally confidential--I strip names before I even paste the figures into my file for the next update. Thanks!

--Brenda

Please email your information to Brenda at BrendaHB@aol.com. And please spread the word - the more authors that help out here, the more informed the community overall will be.

Do you glom? and other reading notes

Heavy readers (and most writers) know what it means to glom. To find a new author, or new subject, and read it to the exclussion of all other matter. Defined as " To seize upon or latch onto something", in reading terms it translates to seizing an authors backlist and reading your way through it.

Usually it's done with an author you just discovered and absolutely fell in love with. Readers new to Nora Roberts have a serious 'glomfest' ahead of them, with something like 160 books to wallow through. Although it isn't all about quantity - I've happily glommed authors with as few as 5 books to their published names (Laurell K Hamilton when I first started reading her).

Looking at my recent reads - the last 10 books - I realized I have once again glommed. This time, it wasn't author specific, but publisher. Brava, published by Kennsington. Erotic romances, and most of them novellas. What about them made me want to read and read and .... well, read some more?

Part of it is that they are all pretty damn good books. Name aside (the whole Bad Boy thing just begs for a laugh), the writing in all of them was way above average. In fact, only one of the Brava's I've read is something I won't recommend. The rest - hey, if you want something different, spicey, and short to read, pick up a "Bad Boy" book.

I am getting ready to glom Karen Marie Moning's Highlander series. I read one of them last year, and just got a great bargain on the other 6 in the series. They're somewhat historical ("highlander" = Scotland), somewhat paranormal (druids and fey), a bit of time travel, lots of romance, and from what I read great storytelling. Should be a happy weeks worth of reading.

Tonight though, I'm taking a break from my glomming. I have in my inbox "All I Need" by Sally Painter, and I can't wait to sink into it. Sally was a guest at the EC author chat last weekend, and we had such a blast. I can't wait to read her book, and hopefully find a new author to add to my glomming list.

How about you? Do you glom? And if you do - who?

Grilled Pancakes

I had one of those "what if..." moments this morning. I was putting away last nights dishes, and Samantha wanted pancakes. Both normal parts of a Saturday morning. Then I saw my George Foreman grill, still sitting out on the counter from last nights grilled shrimp and mahi, and that's when I thought ... "what if I just made the pancakes on the grill." This thought had nothing to do with not wanting to wash the pancake skillet. Nothing at all.

But figuring that the worst thing that would happen was that Samantha would end up with raison toast for breakfast if the pancakes were a flop, I went ahead and gave it a try. Pancakes have never been easier.






First, the set up. Since the grill was already out, I just had to slide a plate under the front legs to make the cooking surface level. I use a pre-packaged pancake mix, so my little helper pulled that out for me. Add a whisk and a measuring cup to mix/pour from, and we're all set. Coffee and laptop are optional accessories. Plug in the grill so it can get hot while you're mixing. I used the highest setting, and it made 3 minute pancakes.



Measure out the mix and water, and let your helper get to work. Or, if you find yourself without a helper, stir it yourself. It's just a little wrist action, it won't hurt.



Now pour the batter onto the preheated surface. Hopefully you've propped up the front of the grill so your batter doesn't run out onto the countertop. See ** below.



Close the lid, and let it be for about two minutes. If you smell burning pancakes, it's a good sign you'll need to lower your heat setting. High worked for me just fine, and there was no burning involved. This is a good time to drink that coffee or check out some messages online. Do it quick though - those pancakes are almost ready to eat.



After two minutes or so, open the lid. With my grill, the tops weren't cooking quite as fast as the bottoms. But they are holding their shape very, very nicely. Slip a rubber spatula (no metal on the grill please!) under an edge and flip those babies over. Mmmmm. Looking good. Close the lid for another minute. Good time to grab the syrup and pop it in the micro for 30 seconds, if you like your syrup warm.


Now open the lid and look. You should see ready to eat pancakes! Ok, they're shaped a little oddly - but you know, those ridges are great for catching the syrup and holding it there. Mmmm.



Time for the taste test.


She likes them! She really, really likes them!

Cleanup was a breeze. Wipe off the cooking surface, wash out that mixing cup and whisk, and you're done. And the pancakes tasted yummy perfect. Who'd of thought George Foreman would make great pancakes too?


**I'm going to assume that if you're going to try this at home, you've got the intelligence to do some simple things. Like level out your surface by slipping a plate under the front legs;

don't dribble batter into the screw holes or any other openings; and for heavens sake don't touch the grill surface with your bare fingers after it's hot. Because, you know, its hot. Children should not be pouring the batter, or flipping the pancakes, or in any way touching the grill. Because, you know, it's hot.


So now I'm wondering what else I can cook on my Foreman Grill. Suggestions? What's the oddest thing you've ever cooked on yours?

Friday Moive

For your Friday movie viewing :
(This is the short one - there's a few longer ones if you look to the right in the sidebar. Warning - 3 year olds who sing and dance are probably only cute if you know the 3 year old singing and dancing. Ahem.)

"Super Samantha Steele"

Ellora's Cave Chat tonight!

Romance Divas will be hosting a chat with several Ellora’s Cave authors on March 10th, from 9-10 pm est in our chat room.
Come with your questions and meet some of your favorite erotic romance authors.  Denise A. Agnew, Jaci Burton, Kate Douglas, Kate Hill, and Jory Strong will all be ready to heat up your weekend.  Read on for a bit more about these incredible authors.
Denise A. Agnew’s award-winning novels have been described as suspenseful, erotic, edgy, thrilling, romantic, and adventurous.  One thing they share is that they are all exciting reads.  Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine called her romantic suspense novels “top-notch” and her erotic romance PRIMORDIAL received a TOP PICK from Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine.  
Denise has lived in Colorado, Hawaii, and the United Kingdom, giving her a lifetime of ideas.  Her experiences with archaeology have crept into her work, as well as her numerous travels through England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.  She now lives in Arizona with her real life hero, her husband.  You can find out more about her extensive booklist, and Denise herself, at her website - www.deniseagnew.com.
Jaci Burton is a multi published author, with over twenty-five books published by erotic romance publisher Ellora’s Cave. Jaci writes in multiple genres, including paranormal, contemporary, futuristic, fantasy and BDSM. Among her many awards to date are the Cupid and Psyche Award for Best Contemporary Erotic Romance, the Road to Romance Reviewer’s Choice Award and two Reviewers Choice nominations by Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Romance Writer’s Ink, Passionate Ink and EPIC.  Jaci has recently contracted with Bantam Dell for mainstream paranormal romance, and with Berkley HEAT for erotic romance. These books will release sometime in 2007.

Jaci lives in Oklahoma with her husband Charlie who inspires her to create stories about sexy, stubborn alpha males who don’t always do what the heroine wants them to. She has three children-two grown sons and one teenage daughter. She loves animals, has five dogs and one fish who keep her company while she writes. Her favorite activities are travel, reading and long afternoon naps.  Find out more about Jaci, and check out her bookshelf, at www.jaciburton.com
Kate Douglas has been privileged to call writing her profession for almost thirty-five years, producing everything from radio copy to news stories to contemporary romances and erotica. With thirteen titles currently in print, numerous ebooks with various publishers, and eight more books in her erotic paranormal Wolf Tales series scheduled through 2008, at least she knows what she’ll be doing for the next couple years! 
Kate and her husband are currently dividing time between two homes while they remodel the house in the mountains where they hope to settle when her husband retires. When she's not loading or unloading the car, Kate's either writing or playing with the grandkids...and trying to figure out when she can go to Hawaii to see her newest granddaughter, Ella, born Feb. 6.  Visit her web site at www.katedouglas.com
Kate Hill is a thirty-something vegetarian New Englander who likes heroes with a touch of something wicked and wild. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in publications both on and off the Internet, and she has over twenty books available at Ellora’s Cave.
When she's not working on her books, Kate enjoys reading, working out, and researching vampires and Viking history.
Visit Kate’s website at www.kate-hill.com
Jory Strong has been writing since childhood and has never outgrown being a daydreamer.  She’s written several series for Ellora’s Cave, ranging from romantic suspense, to paranormal, to futuristic.

When she's not hunched over her computer, lost in the muse and conjuring up new heroes and heroines, she can usually be found reading, riding her horses, or hiking with her dogs.  Learn more about Jory and see her full book list at www.jorystrong.com
Our chat on Feb 24th was great fun – you can read the transcript in our forum archives if you missed it.  But make sure to mark your calendar, you don’t want to miss this one!

Google Calendar, deux

Techcrunch has some drool worthy screen shots up of the much speculated about Google calendar beta. Oh boy.

As I've grown comfortable with gmail, I've looked for calendar options that can compete with Outlook. As I've grown used to using multiple pc's, I'm looking for software options that aren't based on my desktop, but hosted outside - and available from any pc I'm on at the time.

Google Office? Hopefully coming soon to a web server near you.

IBM Thinkpads and Trackpoint

My new laptop came right as I was putting the burgers on the grill for dinner. Oh boy. Decisions, decisions.

Luckily everyone but me likes their meat well done. I was able to at least make sure my ebay buy booted up while the burgers and 'dogs did their thing.

To make what could be a long technical story short, everything is working great. IBM Thinkpad A22m, with no manual - so lots of buttons that I'm trying to figure out what they do. And a trackpoint. How exactly does this thing work?

Still getting used to that. I use keyboard shortcuts for a lot of things instead of the mouse, so it's not going to be terrible - but it was a rough few minutes getting used to it at first. The burgers were quite well done.

Have one "issue" with the wireless card, I can't get a connection when I have WEP turned on. For now I've disabled it, but tomorrow I need to figure out how to get password and laptop to play nice together.

Battery holds a great charge - was running for over two hours just off battery before I plugged it back in, and the monitor showed it still had fifty percent charge. Most of that two hours was spent rebooting while I tried different configs on the wifi card. Not sure how that affected power use.

For now I'm off to install much software. AntiVi, AntiSpy, and AntiMal. Work. Maybe a game or two ;)

But yay! I have rejoined the land of wifi. Freedom!

Laptop withdrawl

It's been almost two weeks since my laptop broke, and I'm suffering severe withdrawl symptoms. I feel so out of touch without it!

Most nights PLD (pre laptop demise) I had my umbilical cord to the world on the kitchen counter while I cooked. I'd browse the news sites, seeing what had happened during the day. If I made it through the serious news, I'd browse through the dozens of blogs I check out a few times a week.

After dinner was reading time. Sitting in my chair, with Samantha snuggled in close to me, catching up on who's done what lately.

Later in the night, snuggled up in that same chair with a glass of wine, or snuggled up in bed sans wine, reading an ebook.

Without this end to my day, I feel off-kilter. I'm at my desk before breakfast checking emails, and there through dinner. Then back to the desk after Samantha's in bed. Or, when I can't stand the thought of sitting back down at the desk, I go and watch tv. I've watched way to much tv the past two weeks.

Tomorrow, UPS should be bringing me my new-to-me laptop. I've got all my software ready to install, and my chair is waiting. I'll rejoin the world of the mobile connected, and it will be a Good Thing.

Now, I've just got to make it through tonight. NCIS and House, anyone?

What time is it?T

Today's cool-geek find :



http://projects-us.com/html/reveal.html

The orange one looks more than a bit odd. Maybe I'm just not an orange person - I think the only orange thing in my wardrobe is a dress I've never worn.

Puck time at Hockey

Puck time at Hockey
Originally uploaded by ksteele2.

Last night was probably our final hockey night for this season. The local hockey team (http://www.jaxcudas.com/) isn't doing great, so their season will not include post-season play. So we went down to the arena last night for one final bit of hockey-fun for the year.

Sean took the kids on the ice again after the second period to do the puck-toss-cleanup. This was Samantha's first time on ice, and she loved it.

After they got back to their seats, a man approached us and asked Montgomery (who had his nose buried in a book) if he'd like to come down and play youth hockey with his team. My son is a big kid - tall, and broad. He's passed one aunt in height, and is only a few years from catching the rest of them. Since most of the men on my dads side are tall, big men it would not suprise me to see him hit 6'3 or 6'4. Anyway, he looks like he'd be an athletic kid, so it didn't suprise me that this man came up to him and tried to recruit him.

Montgomery's response was classic. A very long pause while he visibly drug his eyes away from the page in front of him, a look of incredulous dis-belief, and a muttered "no".

Samantha perked right up. "I'd like to play hockey!"

The man nicely told me that when she's 4 she'd be welcome. They give the kids one-on-one ice instruction, and the little kids have a lot of fun. No tripping or pushing allowed, etc.

Hockey coach man made one more pitch at Montgomery, which was ignored by the bookworm, before heading back to his seat. Poor guy. He came for the big guy, and got the 30 pound girly girl.

Nokia 770 internet tablet

Wow.
This is the Nokia 7701 Internet Tablet. It runs on Linux software.
From the Nokia website :

Applications
	Web Browser, Email Client, Internet Radio, News Reader, Media players, Image viewer, File Manager, Search, Calculator, World Clock, PDF-viewer, Notes, Sketch, Games

$359 gets you :

	Nokia 770 Internet Tablet
	2 stylus pens
	Pouch
	Battery (BP-5L)
	Travel Charger (AC-4)
	64 MB RS-MMC memory card
	Connectivity cable DKE-2 (USB)
	Desk stand DT-7
	User guide
	Quick start guide

Is it Christmas yet?

I've got a case of the Thursdays

Seen "Office Space"? The part where an office worker says to Peter “Uh-oh! Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays!"

I've got a case of the Thursdays.

My in-box is overflowing, my outbox is empty. Grumpy male child overslept, and happy girl child wants to play Cinderella. "Mommy, why is her step mommy always grumpy?" Probably because it was Thursday.

Golf tournament this weekend, and I just finished paperwork from the last one.

Laptop still dead, which is keeping me from escaping to my writing room.

House is a disaster. When hubby was out of town for 5 days, I cleaned it from end to end. Took 2 days for it to become an OSHA nightmare. Only took that long because hubby slept the first day.

Pool needs to be cleaned, I can't see the turtle through the murky water in his tank, and the dog stinks.

My coffee is cold.

I think I'm going to start with the coffee, and go from there. But yeah, I have a case of the Thursdays. Not nearly as much fun as having a case of the Fridays.
I'm going to look at this picture and tell myself it will be Friday soon. If I can just survive the Thrusday.

Did I loose?

The Amber Quill Heat Wave results have been posted, and here are the winners :

AQP'S 3RD ANNUAL
AMBER HEAT WAVE CONTEST


The Results Are In!!!

With more than 200 manuscript entries received this year—almost double the number of entries we received for last year's contest—we had an extremely difficult time narrowing down the list of winning manuscripts. But after numerous weeks of evaluating the stories through three intensive judging phases, we have finally selected 11 manuscripts we felt best represented the erotic romance our readers have come to expect from Amber Quill Press.

So, without further ado, here are the manuscripts—listed alphabetically—we have chosen to receive our standard two-year electronic publishing contract, and the authors we will be inviting this year to join the Amber Quill Press roster of authors...

The Claiming - Sherrill Quinn
Cup Of Fate - Cassandra Curtis
Darkson’s Forfeit - Marie Harte
Diary Of A Dirty Cowboy - Jade Rivers
Family Jewels - Kelly Maher
Her Black Little Heart - Selah March
Poker Brat - Barrie Abalard
Santa’s Helper - Cassidy Kent
The Streets Of Florence - Pepper Espinoza
Tales of the Pride: Awakening - Larissa Lyons
Unloved - Nina Merrill

Is my name on that list under a pen name? Nope ;
So I must have lost, right? Well. Guess that depends on how you look at it. Me being a glass half full kind of person, I think I won from this contest in a big way.

This was my first contest, first submission, and the first time I ever let anyone read my writing, all wrapped up in one. I had great feedback, and I had a major writing flaw pointed out to me by someone who read it before edits. Just by becoming aware of that so early, I came out a winner in this contest.

I had my first taste of submission anxiety. The "did I hit Send too early" fear.

I learned what it's like to sit around waiting for results to be posted - it's not fun! I think I'm going to avoid contets that do web site postings at midnight, it makes it very very hard to go to sleep afterwards! lol.

But most of all, I learned that Romance Diva's absolutely rocks. Out of 11 winning stories, at least 4 of them are Divas. (Still waiting to see if anyone claims a pen name that wasn't recognized, but 4 out of 11 when it was a non-Diva sponsored contest is amazing!) The people support, cheer, prod, cajole, console, laugh, scold, teach, learn, and write together. I've made friends there that I'll carry with me throughout my writing life - and I'm so proud of all of us that entered the contest, and excited for those who find their name on that winning list.

So anyone feeling a bit sad for me (or themselves) that a certain name isn't on that list, I'd invite to look at how much you've won. Then polish that baby, or put it away and start a new one - there's a world full of readers out there, and a home for every book. Even if that home is a deep dark box in the back of your closet.

Gratz to all the entrents, and special Congratz to CC (Cassandra Curtis), Jax (Cassidy Kent), Selah, and Pepper!