Happy news to share today!

I just learned that KNOCK ME FOR A LOOP has WON! Orange County RWA’s “Book Buyers’ Best” Award in the Single Title category!

…&…

INHERITING HIS SECRET CHRISTMAS BABY is an “Award of Merit” recipient thanks to Virginia Romance Writers’ HOLT Medallion competition!

Oh, yeah, that’s right…

Happy Dance time! :getdown

Love, love, love that these books are getting so much wonderful attention!

Huge thank yous to Orange County RWA & Virginia Romance Writers for such incredible honors.  Thank you, too, to all of the judges involved in both contests, who took the extra care to read entries with an eye toward rating the stories instead of simply reading for enjoyment.  And to the coordinators, who took time out of their busy lives to…well, coordinate.  Not an easy job, I’m sure, but it is very much appreciated.

Okay—commence partying!

As you know, I love quotes.  Funny quotes, serious quotes, quotes taken from television shows & movies…  And every time I’m working on a new book or am anticipating a new book’s release, I love to collect any quotes I see or hear that seem appropriate for that story.

Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you may have spotted some quotes associaed with HER LITTLE SECRET, HIS HIDDEN HEIR in the WIPs sidebar or posted on Twitter & Facebook.  I do that sometimes to amuse myself, & hopefully to amuse you. :kittylaugh

But what if you missed them?  What if you missed a really good one?  Well, that’s why this is my blog…um, I mean, Mistress Heidi‘s blog…  It means I can post them all together, all over again, for our continued enjoyment.

So here we go…  Quotes that seemed just perfect to me for Marc & Vanessa’s story:

“Are you casting asparagus on my cooking?”
~Curly Howard

“There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won’t and that’s a wife who can’t cook and will.”
~Robert Frost

“My mother was a good recreational cook, but what she basically believed about cooking was that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you.”
~Nora Ephron

“My mother didn’t really cook. But she did make key lime pie, until the day the top of the evaporated milk container accidentally ended up in the pie and she decided cooking took too much concentration.”
~William Norwich

“When we no longer have good cooking in the world, we will have no literature, nor high and sharp intelligence, nor friendly gatherings, no social harmony.”
~Marie-Antoine Carême

“She did not so much cook as assassinate food.”
~Storm Jameson (Margaret)

“I don’t believe in low-fat cooking.”
~Nigella Lawson

“I don’t like food that’s too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I’d buy a painting.”
~Andy Rooney

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.” ~Harriet Van Horne

“I hate coconut. Not the taste, the consistency.”
(Zombieland)

“Yeah, but he was juggling the food. And then it went in his hat. And then it came out of his hat. I mean, I’ve never seen a recipe that included the word ‘hat’.”
(Monk)

“You can’t kill that woman.”
“Oh, yes, I can. A poison cookie, just like I tried with Earl a couple years ago. I mean, I still know the recipe—it’s just sugar, eggs, & poison.”
(My Name is Earl)

“Do not maketh carrot cake. The Lord hates carrot cake—it is the Devil’s food! But that doesn’t mean don’t make devil’s food cake—I love that stuff.”
(My Name is Earl)

“My mom used to bake all the time. Actually, her maiden name was Baker. I don’t know if that’s why she baked, but she loved baking.”
(The New Adventures of Old Christine)

“Why did I say that? I think frosting makes me lie.”
(How I Met Your Mother)

“So that’s my problem. You work on that—I’m going to eat this cupcake.”
(How I Met Your Mother)

“We only have time to pack the essentials—clothes, medicine, & my grandma’s lemon square recipe.”
(My Name is Earl)

“I thought I’d surprise him with a batch of freshly baked cookies. That’s what Oprah would do.”
(New Adventures of Old Christine)

“What did you put in the cookies?”
“Nothing. I’m nice now.”
“Yeah. I’m still not eating a cooking till I see you eat one.”
(New Adventures of Old Christine)

“Who throws a cupcake? Honestly!”
(Austin Powers in Goldmember)

“Can’t we just scrape off the burnt parts?”
“There’s nothing but burnt parts!”
(Desperate Housewives)

“Daddy musta been a baker, ‘cause that is a great set of buns.”
(Bones)

“Oh, I brought this back from the funeral for you. Since you’re off sweets. It’s a cake-like object made with some sort of prune crap substitute for sugar.”
(The Closer)

“Oh. There is no substitute for sugar.”
(The Closer)

“It has an ingredient my cakes have never had before—danger.”
(Desperate Housewives)

“If I don’t handle this delicately, he’s bound to go on another caramel binge.”
(Psych)

“There is no problem that a muffin cannot solve, from neighborhood conflict to constipation.”
(Raising Hope)

“Sneaking around makes everything taste better.”
(Desperate Housewives)

“Marge, it’s 3 a.m. Shouldn’t you be cooking or something?”
(The Simpsons)

What do you think?  Did I miss any?  And which is your favorite—or favorites?

“Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts: and no one to thank.”
~Christina Georgina Rosetti

Happy Sunday, everyone!  I hope you all had a great week & are having an even better weekend!

I have to admit, mine has been a bit up & down. :knock

The up part is that I AM HAPPY to be making wonderful progress with my “Dynasties: The Kincaids” story for Harlequin Desire.  Yes, it’s true that I still feel as though I’m dreadfully behind.  I look at the calendar, look at how much I have done & how much I still have to do, &…well, let’s just say that I keep a paper bag handy for my frequent bouts of hyperventilation.  It doesn’t help, either, that page-wise, I’m very nearly finished with the book.  Plot-wise, however, I’ve got miles & miles left to go.  How it that even possible?!  And yet I ask that, knowing this is exactly what happens with every single book.  So chances are, I’m right on track. :whistledev

I also have to send out mad I AM HAPPY props to Madame Mommy Dearest, who celebrated her sdhaidfningagehth birthday yesterday. I hope she had a great day, even though I failed in my annual duty of taking her out for a lovely all-expenses-paid birthday meal.  But as mentioned above, I’m coming up on the tail end of a deadline, with massive panic as my constant companion, & thankfully she’s quite understanding about these things.  I gave her a few nice gifts (which she claims to love *g*) & a rain check for a post-deadline outing of her choice.  There—have I redeemed myself at least a little bit? :oucher

The down part—which went back up fairly quickly, so nobody panic :smack —happened Friday night.  I’d closed up the house around 9pm, when it started to get dark & rainy outside, then went back upstairs to write.  Around midnight, though, the power went out & ask I was walking around with a flashlight, I realized I hadn’t been bothered by a cat even once the entire evening.  And they always take turns bothering me.  Feed me.  Love me.  Play with me.  Make him stop biting me. That sort of thing.  So I started searching.  One cat—one—greeted me, & the rest were MIA.  OMG!  How is that even possible?  It took me about three rounds of the house & a rapidly increasing panic attack to realize that MY CATS WERE NOT IN THE HOUSE! Which, again, is nigh to impossible.  I never let them out; everyone who ever comes to my house hears exactly the same thing:  “Don’t let the cats out!”

It took a while for me to figure out what happened, but turns out the back door screen had been pushed out.  I suspect one of them lunged against it in excitement when he saw a bird/squirrel/stray cat & it just happened to pull free of its frame, because they don’t normally push or dig to get out.  But here’s the worst part:  I NEVER NOTICED when I closed up the house (not the ripped screen or the fact that 90% of my children had escaped) & actually locked them out.  In the dark.  In the rain. For three hours.

You cannot even imagine how petrified I was.  And remember, it was midnight, in the middle of a thunderstorm, in the middle of a power outage.  But I went outside, anyway, in my underwear (yes, it was another bra & undies adventure! :ROFL ), flashlight in hand.  As soon as I started calling for them, a few of them came running.  Thank You, Jesus!  Soaking wet, wondering what the hell was going on.  I mean, at first it was an adventure, sure; but then it was just dark & wet & scary & somebody had locked them out of the house. :bloody   One of them, though, must have been more frightened than the others, because when I finally spotted little eyes shining in the flashlight beam, he was hiding in the bushes (which I got to wade through…in my bare feet & underwear…& remember, it was pouring down rain, so everything was already soaking wet & getting worse).  Then when I managed to coax him out, he ran across the yard & under the shed.  Good.  Fine.  That put him closer to the house & at least I knew he was safe.  But he liked it under there; it was dry & cozy & nothing—including me!—could get to him under there.  So now picture me in the rain, in my underwear, pitch black except for a not-very-bright flashlight, lying on the ground on my stomach trying to coax my most fraidy-cat kitteh out from under the shed.  A shed that sits off the ground about a foot & is surrounded on all sides by three-foot-high tiger lily plants.  Sigh.

It took me what felt like forever to lure him close to me.  Oh—& shaking the snacky container may have worked with the others, but this cat…he is made of sterner & less blackmailable stuff. :kittylaugh   I actually had to crawl about halfway under the shed…through the tiger lilies (poor things may never recover ), through the dirt & God knows what else has been living under there (there’s a reason no one spends time under a ratty old tool shed, you know )  Finally, though, I was able to reach him, grab him, carry him inside…& never, ever let him out of my sight again.

You know, until the next time disaster strikes. :hide

So on a ginormous scale…

I AM HAPPY I discovered the torn screen when I did.

I AM HAPPY they all—well, almost all—came running back home when I called for them.

I AM HAPPY all of my babies are safe & sound & once again inside where they belong.  (To think of all the horrible things that could have happened. )

I AM HAPPY it was wet & late instead of dry & shiny when they got out, with very little traffic, otherwise they might have gotten a lot farther than they did &…see “horrible things” notation above. )

And I AM HAPPY that almost no matter what else happens in my life today, tomorrow, & for the next little while, I will be able to look back on that very scary experience & remember that something with the potential to be very, very bad turned out just fine, & that as long as my babies are safe, I’ve really got no room to complain.

All right, I know that was a really long story without much of a punchline other than & I thank you for humoring me.  So now it’s your turn.  Tell us what great, wonderful, whew! moments happened to you this week.  And feel free to start with “I AM HAPPY Heidi finally shut up about searching for her cats in her underwear.  Again.” :ROFL

And now for the winner of this week’s Free Book Friday giveaway—that unclaimed copy of the Stud Muffins: Luscious, Delectable, Yummy (and Good Muffin Recipes, Too!) cookbook.

:getdown Shannon!!! :getdown

Congratulations, Shannon! :claphat Please contact me with your full name & mailing information, & I’ll get your book out to you as soon as I can!