Good friends + Good Books = Good Times

We had another SoCal Blogger meetup today, and had some newbies join us. Woohoo!! We were quite the crowd. A good time was had by all. Lisabea was in from the East Coast, and brought her frigid weather with her. Yes, I said frigid. It was somewhere in the low 50s. Brrrrrrr.... We have thin skin here in SoCal.

We started off in Borders, where I picked up Shattered, When a Stranger Loves Me, Montana Creeds: Logan, and Scandal. Loving life! Then we moved on to PF Changs, where we sat for hours, ate, and talked books, books, and more books. Then we hit the parking lot for our regular book swap, where Nikki tried like hell to give away Second Chance Pass (an almost wallbanger for her), Holly tried to give away a couple she hated (I forget what they were), and I tried to pawn off Chasing Stanley - the only book ever to inspire me to write a scathing review, all with no luck. The Frazier Park, CA library will be loving life once all our leftovers make their way up there (Thanks, Tracy!!). Lots of other books changed hands, though, much to our mutual pleasure.

I'm so glad that Renee and Blanche could join us this time, and hope our loud, obnoxious selves didn't intimidate them *g*. Can't wait to do it again, everyone!

I encourage you to see who is in your area, and get together. It's da bomb!


From L to R:
Blanche, Holly, Me (hidden), Daphne, Tracy, Lisabea, Wendy, Rosie, Nikki, Alice, Renee

Another new blog...

Hey all, Since I'm not so sure everyone here is DYING to hear about Jeff's football exploits, etc... I've started my own blog, cause I just don't have enough things to do, right? I hope you'll come on by and visit me at Living in the House of Testosterone.

I'll still be posting regularly over here as well, no worries.

It's been quite a while...

Okay, so I've been crazy absent on this blog, as well as the Great Scotts one. Sigh. But I have a good reason, I swear!

First, let me finally welcome Lori T. to the blog! Yes, it's been that long that I've been away, lol. We all have lives, so it's great to have another member here to share their thoughts with us. Welcome! :-)

But let me just show you some fun pictures of what's been keeping me away from you wonderful people:

The babester at about 2 weeks old
Me and the cutie at a wedding a couple weeks ago

My ridiculously handsome boy at one month

So he is the reason I've been away! I can't seem to get more than a few minutes on the computer at a time. I'm trying to get a shower in, get some online work done, hold him when he's fussy, just stare at him for hours on end... :-P

I have to say being a mother is more than I ever thought it would be. It was a bumpy road to get here, but it's amazing the immediate love I felt for the little guy. He was absolutely worth the wait (and the horrible labor and emergency c-section, too, lol).

Anyway, I'm going to try to post more than once every few months. I'm trying to get better at balancing the whole mom thing and computer time, so hopefully that'll work and you'll see me more often! I missed you guys!

KAREN'S BLOG

Karen's blog is down... Again. She's annoyed and can be found here: http://karenscott.wordpress.com

HEE!!!

Hello everyone. Go here and see if you see any awesomeness that pertains to this blog and me. HEE!!!

Cool New Blog!

Chantal, Nath, and Ames have started a new book review blog called Breezing Through! Swing by and check it out.

FYI...

Linnea Sinclair is blogging at The Bradford Bunch today. Check it out.

Meeting Great Friends...

Saturday was our So Cal Blogger Get Together. My day started early, as I had to head out to Nikki's place so we could carpool. I've met Nikki before, and we got along like gangbusters. So, I headed out around 9:15 to her place. She lives around 30 minutes from me, but I needed a Starbucks fix of a Why Bother Mocha and needed to fill up with gas. (nonfat, decaf, no-whip, you get the picture... why bother... and no jokes about the coffee then the gas, as my hubby did). So I got to Nikkis'a at just after 10, and we transferred all my books to her van (after oohing and aahing over each other's selections, of course *g*).

Then we loaded up her daughter, who immediately passed out for her nap, and headed out to meet everyone else. There was (dare I say it) absolutely no traffic, and we made it in record time. We had lots of time to wander through Borders before everyone else got there, and I immediately noticed Mine Til Midnight sitting on the new releases table. Score!! (I finished it on the plane ride from Burbank to Dallas, BTW - more on that later). There were only about 5 copies. So Nikki and I each grabbed one and we knew the rest would be eaten up by our fellow bloggers, so we grabbed those as well.

A few minutes later, Rosie came in. I immediately felt like I'd known her for years. How awesome is that? We started talking books and life immediately. She is still all fired up over JRAW's LU. LMAO! It was a major topic of conversation all day *g* Go on, just ask her the page number where JRW lost her.

Soon thereafter, Wendy, Rowena and Daphne came in. After a bit of bookhunting, we decided not to wait around for Holly, and headed off to eat lunch next door at The Cheesecake Factory (yum!).

Conversation flowed, and Holly arrived in her brand spankin' new SUV, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. We chatted about books, blogging, life, and all the fun stuff that friends gossip about. I felt like I'd known these women forever. It was a truly wonderful thing. Every time I've met up with friends I've made online, I've been so fortunate (with a couple of exceptions here and there) to have connected really well with all of them, and can honestly say what really nice women they are. Cause let's face it... with the internet, you just never know what you're gonna get. We could have all been some freaky weird people. So without further ado, here are the freaky weird people I hung out with on Saturday :) (taken with my phone, cause of course, I forgot my camera!)

Thanks to Rosie for coordinating everything, and thanks to all my fellow bloggers/friends for rearranging their schedules around my work travel so I could be there.

Thursday Thirteen

My Thursday Thirteen is up over at Great Scotts! My theme is Thirteen Things Going On In My Life... some good, some not so good. Check it out if you can be arsed. (God Karen, I still LOVE that phrase)