Here is my modern take on the annual Christmas letter. This will end up on Facebook where I “live” and most of my friends and family are there, or at least their kids are so it is my hope that everyone who needs to will see this.

What can I say about 2011? It was a pretty good year in a lot of ways, but as years go, it had its ups and downs.

Noah started the year preparing to take his First Communion and playing basketball with a team at the YMCA. Juliette was starting her second semester as a junior in college and beginning to stress about getting a summer internship.

Steve and I were continuing our same jobs, he working for CCT and worrying, at least at the beginning of the year, whether he would have a job by the end of the year, with budget cuts at the university. I was, and continue to be, still working as Mom and CEO of the Brandt family, as well as writing fantasy novels.

Noah moved from basketball to soccer, still at the Y, and we began to notice that he wasn’t as competitive as the other kids. He was content to have fun and play, but winning wasn’t as important to him. He joined another basketball team in the summer, and while we loved his coach who took great pains to explain the plays and the goals of the team, even going so far as to design a play that worked to Noah’s strengths, passing and blocking, after that “season” finished, we decided not to sign him up again for a team sport. His non-competitive, easily distractable nature seems to lend itself to less athletic pursuits.

In March, Steve and I attended a writes’ conference in Houma, LA, where we each pitched our latest books to an agent. She told me to try to cut 35,000 words from my book and contact her then.

I cut 29,000 and sent her an email in August. To my surprise and delight, she remembered me but said she was much busier than she expected. She suggested I try to find other representation and if that was unsuccessful, to contact her again in December. I did, it was and I will be sending her another email by the end of the year.

Steve decided not to contact her again because he feels his book needs more work that he has time for at the moment.

On a side note, our friend Jo Templeton also pitched to the same agent at the same conference and while she, too, was unsuccessful in getting representation, the agent’s words helped her plot the second and third books in her series and her first one was picked up by Crescent Moon Press, release date to be announced.

Speaking of Crescent Moon, I took a job with them as content editor. At the moment, I have three books I’m working on, but it looks like all three will be finished, or my part, anyway, soon, and I hope to see them released in 2012.

Noah took his First Communion on May 15.

Juliette started a book review blog, Paperbacks and Frosting, and while she didn’t get a summer internship, she is now finishing up one she got for the Fall Semester, with Paige Wheeler at Folio Lit.

Noah went to soccer camp this summer again, and took swimming lessons.

We did not go on a family vacation due to timing issues and conflicts in scheduling, and all of us have decided we can’t let that happen again. We need to take some time off!

Noah, Juliette and I did Vacation Bible School again this year, and as always, we loved it and it was exhausting! Next summer will be interesting as the school is undergoing major remodeling and it will probably interfere with VBS, as far as space and ease of movement throughout the school/church campus.

In August, my sister-in-law Elizabeth and I met up in Nashville for five days before school started. It was a lot of fun and we saw lots of touristy things and even went to a show at the Grand Ole Opry. We’re considering making this trip an annual event, although the venue will change.

Steve traveled a lot this year, more than usual as he has been given more and more responsibility as his seniority at CCT increases and because some people left due to the anticipated budget cuts which didn’t happen as expected. He went to Seattle twice and several other places this year.

At the beginning of October, my in-laws took us all to Shreveport to the Red River Revel, a big art fair. It was a lot of fun and we spent a little too much money, but we’re hoping to go back next year.

Thanksgiving was held our our house this year after two years of spending it in a condo in Orlando. I think just this week we finished all the turkey leftovers!

Our Christmas tree is up and all the presents have been bought!

I hope your 2011 was a good one and that 2012 will bring you all you desire, but most of all, I hope you receive all you need to become the person God created you to be. Some of those gift may be in the form of trials. We know that gold is refined in fire, and that the cross comes before the crown. May prayer for you all is that you receive joy and happiness and love but most of all perseverance and strength.

You are all my friends, but more than that, you are a soul God loves and Jesus died for. You are more precious than gold and were created in the image of our God.

For that fact alone, I love you. Not for what you may do or what you have done. Not for who you were or who you may become.

You. Just you. You are loved!

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year to all!

I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year. I’ve done it before, but this year I’m very excited because I took the time to plot out a book beforehand, mostly. I had about 3/4 of it plotted before I started writing on November 2.

(November first is a Holy Day of obligation for the Catholic Church and I don’t write on Holy Days or Sundays – those are days of rest.)

When I’ve done this in other years, I ended up “winning” (having 50,000+ words at the end of the month), but I didn’t end up with a book or even something that could be edited into a book. This year, I really think I can finish this and it will be a “real” book.

Because of my work with Crescent Moon Press, I had to miss a few days of my own writing, but today I’m only about 11,000 words from winning.

About a week or so ago, I read an article in the London Guardian (I think) that someone posted on Facebook. It was about Nora Roberts. I have to assume that if you are here, you know who she is, but for those few who always wander in looking for Doctor Who stuff, I’ll just say she is the Queen of the Romance Novel.

She’s super prolific and her fans are as fanatical as they come. I’ve been to several conferences in New Jersey that she attended back in the 90s, but I rarely stood in line to get her to sign a book because I always figured there were other authors just as worthy without the lines. I have this “Pie in the Sky,” “Pay it Forward” attitude that if I buy your book today, maybe you’ll buy mine when it comes out.

Anyway, I know lots of people love Nora, but I was always prepared to believe she was a prima donna or something. There are lots of reasons for this, which don’t matter now.

The point is that I read that she writes every day, all day, and something clicked in my head. I need to focus more on getting lots of words written every day.

This week, Thanksgiving week, my husband took the week off. He’s doing NaNo, too, and Monday we spent the whole day together. Our son had the week off, too, and he’d spent Sunday night with his grandparents. Steve and I went out to breakfast, then to lunch and sat together on our sofa and wrote all day. (We wrote in the coffee shop, too.)

I wrote over 6,000 words that day!

I think in terms of pages and that’s over 24 pages. A definite record for me.

The next day, Steve went to work because he had to teach a class, but even doing some laundry and cleaning the kitchen and going to the chiropractor, I wrote about 5,000 words – (approx. 20 pages). I proved that I could do this!

So I’m so excited about my new found productivity.

My critique group, The Rowdy Girls, has met a few times to just write. They were here last night and we worked for about four hours, just writing. Okay some talking, laughing and drinking wine, but I did end the day with 5,566 words written.

Heartla met today and we wrote for an hour.

After the meeting I had to run to Walgreens to get a Rx filled for my son. I had to wait, and fortunately there is an outlet near the chairs so I pulled out my computer, plugged her in and wrote.

When the prescription was done, the clerk apologized and asked if I’d just gotten all set up. I said no.

“I’m a writer so I try to get new stuff written whenever I can,” I said.

“I understand,” she said. “I’m a reader.”

I immediately pulled out my card and handed it to her and told her about our Readers’ Luncheon. You never know where you might find a new reader.

I hope she stops by here and says hello if she does. She made me smile today and gave me more motivation to get new words written!

Have a great day everyone, and please say hello if you stop by!

Recently, I had the good fortune to reconnect with two of my cousins on my father’s side through a group on Facebook for people with Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD). This is the disease that is on my father’s side of the family and which is the reason I had my transplant ten years ago.

I actually got a friend request from a woman whose name I didn’t recognize, but I figured she was a writer as a lot of my Facebook friends are writers. When I clicked on her page I saw her maiden name which is the same as mine and that she had, among her friends, a man with the same name as another of my cousins.

Before I had a chance to send her a message to ask if we were indeed related, I got a note from her saying she found me through the PKD group. It turns out she has a page on Facebook searching for a kidney donor as her PKD has worsened.

I thought this was such an exciting thing (Finding her and seeing that she’s taking a non-conventional route to finding a donor) that I sent a note to all my writing groups, sharing this information.

My email program must have a glitch because apparently, although I sent this about 15 days ago, people are just now responding and I’ve gotten some surprising comments.

In one group, the discussion quickly turned into a “rant” about how Facebook is terrible because of all the private information that is now available to anyone and how the world is all so “social” that real live, face to face, interactions are dying.

I started to write a response because I think some of that is wrong and some is true but not the fault of Facebook or even the Internet itself, but I decided that would serve no purpose. Instead, I decided to write a blog post instead.

Periodically, I find some of my friends on Facebook freaking out because “people can find your phone number” so easily. I’m not totally sure why this is so bad, but I guess these same people don’t remember that even though no one I know uses one anymore, phone books are still printed and they are specifically designed to allow people to find your phone number.

It used to be a thing. If you wanted to talk to someone to invite them out or give them information or just chat, you’d look up their name in the phone book and voila, there was their number! Plain as day, right in print!

How did we ever manage to avoid stalkers? And you know what, your address was right there, too!

Crazy.

Another criticism I’ve read of the Internet and Facebook in particular is that we’ve lost the ability to have face to face relationships because we’re living our lives virtually.

Well, I don’t have any scientific data on this, but personally, I don’t see how we can “live our lives virtually” for real. Most of us still have to leave our houses to go to work or to school, and we have to leave to do many things that are just part of life. I actually feel like I spend most of my time running errands when I’d rather be at home writing. The Internet/Facebook hasn’t changed the way I get groceries or pick up my prescriptions or go to the dentist. And I have to deal with people in all those arenas, face to face. Facebook hasn’t changed that.

However, something it has done is given me friends, true and real friends, in far away places. For instance, right now, I have a friend living in the Northeast who I met through a group of romance authors who were formerly in the military. She and I have shared our weight loss struggles and she sent me a message, through Facebook, that I inspired her to join Weight Watchers and we’ve been supporting and encouraging one another through messages back and forth.

I have another friend that I met in 2006 when I went to the RWA National Conference. She wishes she lived in France but she really lives in the Midwest. We’ve chatted about a lot of things and interests we share through Facebook and I don’t think we’d be this close if it weren’t for the Internet.

I’ve reconnected with family members spread far and wide, as well as high school and college friends. I’ve listened online to a radio station in Harrisburg, PA online because one of my dear college friends did the traffic in the mornings.

I don’t worry about stalkers, which seems to be a big concern with other people in regard to the amount of information and photos that go online. Facebook, for me, is a kind of backup for all my photos and scrapbook pages.

I understand there are weirdos out there who want to look at pictures of kids for sick reasons, but I don’t think it’s any riskier to put pictures of my kids out there for family and friends to see than it is to let them actually be outside. There have been sickos throughout time. Facebook didn’t create them. Any guy with a camera could take his own pictures of anyone’s kid if he really wanted to. I would rather that my friends could see how cute my kid is than worry.

Someone said that because of how easy and social the Internet is, people have forgotten how to write letters.

Nonsense.

I have moved five times since I got married and every time, I’d cry in my friends’ arms and they’d promise to write. I would get to my new home and be horribly lonely for my friends back home and write letters (this was back in the late 80s/early 90s – no easily accessible Internet) to the friends back home with my new address. I can count, 25 years later, the number of letters I received in reply on the fingers of one hand.

The Internet didn’t kill letter writing. Among most people, it was never quite as alive as those who are nostalgic believe. My mother was a great letter writer, and she would write me twice a week for years, until cell phones made it easier to call and postage kept going up and up. When I was young and in school, I wrote letters. Lots of letters, but rarely did I receive anything in reply, even from boys I was dating over summer vacation.

Some people just would never write letters, even without Facebook.

I realize that some people will never accept social networking, and that’s fine. For me, though, I always hoped the Internet would be a place to meet people and that’s what Facebook is.

Like everything, it can be abused and a few bad apples can spoil it. I just don’t think they are the majority and I don’t think any technology is inherently bad.

I welcome your thoughts.

Life is getting exciting here but a little baffling at the same time.

Last March, and I may have blogged about this, I went to the Jambalaya Jubilee conference in Houma, LA. It’s a small conference held in a public library, and this was the second time I went.

This year I pitched Sword & Illusion to agent Cherry Weiner. She told me it was too long and I should cut about 29,000 words. (Yikes!) When that was done, I was to email her.

Well, Monday I did just that. I had spent hours cutting words from my book. I cut out several characters and, for a lot of writerly reasons, ignored that Attack of the Queen had ever been written. Ms. Weiner told me to “think series,” which was something I already was, and again, for those writerly reasons, I’ve chosen to make Sword & Illusion the first book of the series.

It will mean that the story that was told in Attack will move to later in the series and possibly will change appearance. I have promised my best friend (and inspiration for Adazzra) that eventually she will get her husband and children back. At this point, I’m not sure how that will all happen, however.

When I was first writing the book – We’ve been calling it S&I at home, but that’s going to be confusing because all of the books will be Sword & something beginning with I – I had seen it as the second book, so deciding to make it the first one meant that a lot of things changed, and everything was possible.

I was assuming Attack would be the second book, now titled Sword & Inferno, but events in Illusion make it necessary to deal with some things before I can get to Adazzra’s world and save it from the Vlaad.

My husband and I went through a list of I words to come up with some other titles. He doesn’t think Sword & Immunocytochemistries is a good title. However, right now I think book two will be Sword & Infidel due to how Illusion ended.

Now I’m faced with writing a book I have no plot for yet. I think this must be what successful writers face. I have never written a book that I didn’t have a story in mind for before I ever sat down.

However, it occurred to me this morning that people like Rachel Caine, Jim Butcher and Alyssa Day, who have long series of books with the same characters or related ones, probably don’t know all their plots before they begin. Heck, my friend Jo also pitched to Cherry at the conference and had synopses for three books requested and she had only written one and a half. She didn’t even know the plot of book three.

But she does now.

So, if I’m going to be a successful fantasy author, I need to be ready to figure out a plot from the ground up.

I’m excited but scared, too.

I’m on our church’s VBS committee as well as doing drama every year. I love it. I love making a fool of myself for Jesus!

However, the committee meetings are hard for me sometimes. I don’t know all these people. I mean, I’m getting to know some of the committee members although there are still a couple whose names I might not know, or if I do know that, they might not know me much because if I see them outside of the meeting room, they are appropriately polite, but not overly friendly.

I’m guessing I’m never going to be “friends” with some of them.

Tonight was a tough meeting. There is a woman in our church and who usually does VBS and who I’m friends with on Facebook, who apparently has a son who was in some horrific accident and nearly died. I think I was the only one sitting at that table that didn’t know this. I gather, from the conversation swirling around me, it had to do with a water slide and possibly a party of some kind.

I just looked at her Facebook page and there’s only posts from people wishing her the best and a speedy recovery for the child.

I don’t know how they all knew this but I know I’m not in the grapevine.

I also never know half the women they mention when talking about potential volunteers.

Does this come from not growing up in a place, not going to church with these same people for 35 years or whatever?

How long do you have to be part of something to be PART of it?? However long it is, six years isn’t it.

I have been thrilled to see how the people at my husband’s work respect him and come to him for advice and trust him with responsibility. I was there when he was in graduate school and for years he had no self-esteem and thought he’d never get anywhere in his chosen career. It’s been a long journey to get here but it’s paid off for him.

He says the only reason that people come to him for advice and think he knows what he’s doing is because he’s “old” now (late 40s) and has gray hair (or late least more than he used to).

An interesting thing happened to me at the last HeartLA meeting. As most of my friend know, I have no problem speaking in front of people. In fact, I love doing it, so when our vice president/program director said they needed someone to speak at the June meeting, I said I would and I asked what they wanted me to speak on.

Suddenly, everyone in the group started talking about self-editing and grammar and asking me questions about the book I edited for Crescent Moon Press and asking if I would talk about that.

I said I would, but the thing that surprised me was that all these women were asking my advice and help. One of them even asked if I would look at her book and help her with the editing. Actually, she had asked my daughter of Paperbacks and Frosting fame if she’d “review” her book and I pointed out that she’s reading published books, as it’s a review site not a critique place.

She said she really needed someone to “critique” her book although that wasn’t the word she used. I told her I’d read it.

She acted as though I’d offered her a publishing contract. “You’d really do that for me?”

I told her of course I would and we agreed that she’d send me the first few chapters as that would make her less uneasy about someone else reading it.

I came home thinking how odd it was that all these people look to me for advice and help when my last book came out SEVEN years ago.

Then I realized what it was.

I am older than most of them and I have gray hair!

Maybe they see me as the wise old woman of the group.

Or maybe I’m just the most talkative one (and I am one of the Rowdy Girls – some uncharitable people say I’m the instigator of the Rowdy Girls) and so I offer a lot of opinions and that give the illusion that I know a lot.

Maybe I shouldn’t color my hair after all.

Lots of interesting stuff is going on.

WRITING UPDATE:

HeartLA has its monthly meeting today. It’s always fun to get together with other writers. We have a couple of members who are “characters” and one was in fine form today, which made for an interesting meeting, but otherwise, it was great.

We had several visitors, which is always gratifying. When I was president, it was my goal to raise awareness of our group and it looks like it’s still working. Today a couple of them mentioned their story ideas and they spurred my imagination.

Today’s “workshop” was on goal setting, done by my friend Rhonda and now I’m psyched about working harder to get Sword & Illusion finished. I’m still struggling with one of the early chapters that will have repercussions throughout the book. So, I really need to make sure it’s right.

FAMILY UPDATE

Not much to say here. Beloved was sick a little this week and I was kind of afraid I was getting it, but possibly not. We’ll have to wait and see.

The Girl got an industrial piercing in her ear and I’m not totally thrilled with that but she is 19 so basically, whatever!!

The Boy has had some bad days in school. I’m not sure if he’s past it or not, but we’ll see next week.

SCRAPBOOK UPDATE

I saw a layout someone made with my Mardi Gras 2009 kit:

You can find this kit at any of the stores listed on the sidebar.

I also found out today I’ve made my first sales at two of the stores, so that’s pretty exciting.

I’m still trying to figure this whole thing out, but I’m still having fun.

LENT UPDATE

I’ve given up hitting the snooze and I’ve done pretty well, but I can tell you it’s taking its toll on me. I think that’s why tonight I feel so tired and almost like I might be getting sick. We’ll see. I didn’t go to Adoration last night because I’m getting up at 5:45 am every morning and had the HeartLA meeting today so being up until 1 am just didn’t sound healthy.

Well, I’m off to worry about my characters and try to get another kit finished. Talk to you all later.

Today is my 50th birthday and while a month or so ago, that number bothered me a lot, today I am probably one of the happiest women on the planet!

My family threw a surprise party for me last night at a local steakhouse/buffet restaurant. And it was very sneaky the way they did it.

I’ve been hinting, or actually blatantly telling my husband, that I wanted a party for this birthday. I never get parties, but as this is my 50th, I told him it was a big number so it deserved a party.

Well, he never made any comments about it or asked me where I wanted a party or who I wanted to have there or anything. In fact, he would joke that we could go out to Chick-fil-a for dinner!

As the days and weeks passed, I kinda went back and forth in my head about whether I thought he was planning anything or not. Nothing really seemed to indicate it. He was busy with work and actually forgot his parents’ anniversary which is Valentine’s Day and didn’t get me a card or anything, so I figured if anything, he barely remembered to get me a gift until the last minute. My daughter told me she’d gotten my gift a long time ago.

Well, a few days ago, he asked me if I thought going to Ryan’s would be okay. As he’d saved coupons from a mailing, I said I knew that’s where he wanted to go.

The plan, as far as I knew, was to go out TONIGHT!

Then, yesterday, my daughter called from college and said she just found out that her psychology test was tonight at 5:30 pm. I was a little disappointed but said, well, we can go out some other time. I IMed my husband and he said, “Wait. Tomorrow is your birthday. Well, what if we just go out tonight?”

I said sure that would be fine. He IM’d me a few minutes later and said it was all arranged.

I knew then there was no party because he couldn’t just call everyone (whoever they were) and have them all change their plans at the last minute like that.

However, turns out it was always supposed to be last night and her psychology test is tomorrow afternoon anyway! I thought that’s what she’d told me but figured she made a mistake.

There were people from the church choir and my writers’ group and even my Stampin’ Up lady was there! I was very surprised!

Here’s my cake.

Me opening the gift of a woman who couldn’t stay to eat with us. You can see some guests in the background. Her gift was a lovely picture frame.

Reading the card that went with a handmade beaded bookmark from a writer friend.

Showing off the bookmark. The cute little boy shoving bread in his mouth is, of course, my son.

A lovely orchid from a friend my husband works with who is also a fellow Guild Wars gamer with us.

My writer friend Arlene gave me a “Writer’s Block” journal. The guy in yellow is my Beloved husband.

Another choir friend and his family gave me a quill fountain pen set!

I guess I liked it.

With most of my stash:

Lovely jewelry from my good friend Sharon and her family:

My family gave me a card that said that my gift from them was a night at a bed and breakfast (with my husband of course) and babysitting from my daughter!

It was a wonderful night!

Now onto the freebie.

I had so much fun making this add-on for my Tweeny Girl kit, I almost didn’t stop, so you get several goodies. Remember, stop by any of the stores to the right to pick up the full matching kit.

Click here to download.

I’d love to hear what you think and see what you did with it!

Good morning, cyber world. I know I haven’t spent as much time with this blog as I should, and I will start again and try to not neglect you again. Can’t promise anything. After I’m only human.

A lot has been going on in my part of the world. In fact, however, my part of the world has gotten pretty small lately. Basically, the size of my bedroom with small forays into the kitchen for sustenance.

Last Monday I received my radioactive iodine treatment. It was a simple, and at the same time, not so simple thing. After asking the radiology tech some questions about precautions, my family got “last” hugs and kisses and they were ushered out of the room. Then the tech put on a lead apron and rubber/latex gloves. Then she pulled out what looked like two small baked bean crocks. Two cups of water sat on the table next to me. She set the crocks next to me and opened one. They were clearly lined with lead, and she pulled out a small capped vial that contained one pill. She said it had to directly in my mouth so she “poured” it in and I drank one cup of water. We repeated this procedure and she quickly led me out of the waiting room.

I asked about the possibility of superpowers but she said no that wouldn’t happen. Bummer.

Anyway, as soon as I got home I came into this bedroom and except for people calling me and IMs and my family standing at one end of the hall while I peeked out the bedroom door to talk to them, I’ve been isolated to keep from radiating other people.

Today is my last day. Tomorrow I get to catch up on hugs from the Boy, who hasn’t been doing well in school this week. I have to wash all my bedding and clothings separately from the rest of the family and twice through the cycle. But that’s minor and it’s over.

On Monday I got back to the Radiology office for a full body scan to make sure the cancer didn’t spread anywhere. My doctor says by Thanksgiving I should be myself again.

Actually, I’ve been feeling pretty good this week except for stuffed sinuses that make it had to breathe at night.

I’ve started a new book and have written two chapters already this week. I finished three books I’ve been in the middle of reading for awhile.

The best part is all the friends who have called, emailed or IMed to see if I’m okay and ask how I’m feeling. It’s very heart-warming to know how many people care.

The Boy’s been seeing a language therapist and from what I hear, he’s doing great. He goes on Mondays after school, and we’re tryng to find a second day during the week that will work because she really needs to see him more often to have him make progress.

He’s going out trick or treating tonight, as a pirate. When the Girl was little I made all her costumes, but with all the thyroid stuff going on, we just didn’t get to it this year, but life is different that is was 13 years ago, too. I wasn’t a published author then and I wasn’t focused on trying to make this a career.

I’ll put an excerpt from the new book on the site. Check it out and give me some feedback. I’d love to know what my readers are interested in reading!

I hope you all have a great weekend! Check out the previous post and comment to win Jeff’s new book!

Yes, I did mean to blog every day but after two days there wasn’t much to say beyond, here it is, Day three, same ole same ole.

We had some personal stuff go on in the family. The Girl came home from college for the weekend. It’s not actually a SUPER big deal as she’s come home every weekend since school started, but again, the university is about 20 minutes from here and Beloved works there, so her coming home isn’t hard or anythingl

Saturday was HeartLA’s monthly meeting, just a week after our luncheon. Siince I found out about the cancer after the luncheon, I told them all about it and several people had friends who went through this so I got a lot of support and all that. The meeting wasn’t too exciting; our speaker forgot to come which was fine as we only had about 8 or 9 people there to begin with.

I didn’t go to lunch with them because Beloved’s car was on the fritz and the family usually goes to Chick-fil-a on Saturdays. Or at least the boys do. They couldn’t go if I didn’t come home with my car, so I went to lunch with them.

The Girl and I went to confession Saturday afternoon. I talked to the priest about how I don’t think I’m all that good a Christian as I don’t seem to automatically turn to Jesus when I’m in the hospital or at home. Even at Adoration the night before I didn’t really know what to pray for. I mean, God knows I want healing, and it seems selfish to ask for that. What if that’s not in His will for me? Anyway, I feel a little better. Father Tom is undergoing prostate surgery soon for his own cancer and he was trying to tell me that he thought his medical problems won’t be as bad as mine. Yeah, right, um, sure, okay. Anyway, I’m praying for him.

Sunday I was feeling a little more tired, but the Girl and I had tickets to High School Musical on Stage at LSU. I’d never seen it before, being not a big Disney Channel Movie fan, but the Girl needed to see it for her theater class. She didn’t know exactly where the theater was, so we did end up walking a bit which took a lot out of me by the time we got there. Fortunately, sitting in the theater made me feel better, and the walk back to the car wasn’t so bad.

The play? It was cute, but so predictable and kinda…cheesy. I don’t know what the big hype is. I know there are tons of people who just love High School Musical – I mean, they’re making High School Musical III so it must hit a chord somewhere — but I just don’t get it. If anyone out there does, please tell me what I’m missing.

Mass was fine, but I was tired. Several choir members talked to me after and offered support and prayers.

Yesterday, I was sleepy most of the day. Just didn’t sleep good Sunday night. I went to Weight Watchers and was down .2 which isn’t great, but at least it’s not a gain.

Today, I’m feeling a bit icky. Woke up with a cold like sore throat and have been coughing. I felt like I was coming down with one before the surgery but I think this one is a DIFFERENT cold as Beloved is feeling the same way.

Tomorrow, the Boy has an appointment with an audiologist and Thursday is our Stampin’ Up Hostess club, so I’m hoping I’m feeling better for those things.