State and Bound

So I'm back! Somehow I managed to 'outwit, outplay and outlast' the insane weekend. On the road with four kids aged 11 to 2, I received a lot of sympathetic stares and comments. I'm not sure if this made me feel better or worse. Did it look like I didn't have it under control? Maybe they didn't get the memo that I believe I can do anything I set my mind to.  Okay, I am a little delusional at times, but I challenge anyone to beat me at Survivor-unless they make me eat bugs-that's a deal breaker!

Alas, I digress...back to the weekend...

Although it felt differently, no one actually suffered from heatstroke.  No one was kidnapped, and we even survived the absurd Dallas traffic on our way to Waco. State turned out to be a positive experience for the kids, even the two year old had a rockin' time, dancing barefoot to tunes that were jammin' during the fireworks show. The only downer was my hubby's absence, but we called him in Vegas and sent him lots of pics, so it was almost like he was there with us. Besides, if he'd joined us we couldn't have purchased all those light-up play swords--he's a rather practical fellow.









Also, on a happy note, I received a lovely email from Deana on Friday informing me that I won first place in the '200 word limit contest'. What does this mean? Well, only that stupendous agent, Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency will very sweetly critique my query and the first 30 pages of Bound.

I'm so excited that I feel like Christmas came early this year.  Bound is the first novel in my Lillian Riece series and actually stems from my Bittersweet series (still in rewrites).  Bound stands alone, but most of the characters have a past and IMO are well developed because of this. As I've never felt ready to query Bound, this is forcing me out of my shell.

Which is a good thing!

Blog Bash 2011 Winner!

                                                                                                                       (artwork courtesy of Bonavista-Tim)
Well, folks, Blog Bash 2011 has sadly come to an end! I would like to give a final thanks to Michelle over at Family Approve, for without her none of this would have come about! And also a big thanks to my sponsors. Their links will stay on my blog until the end of the month, please stop by and see the fabulous items they have to offer! So, it's now time for what you've all been waiting for! The lucky winner!  Drum roll, please!


Using Random.org:




#222 Sherry is my lucky winner!


Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the Winner is...

Whew! Is it wrong to admit that I found my first giveaway to be completely exhilarating? Seriously, what a blast!

Before announcing the winner, I just want to quickly share some lessons I learned along the way:




#1 Although linky's appear clean and orderly on the page, I will not be using anything but comments for any future giveaways. Because, let's face it, we all love leaving comments and I got lots of sweet ones from new and old friends alike. I adored it! But it also made things a tad bit sticky for me when I set out to enter numbers into random.org. I found myself trying to decide between which comments were to be included and which were to be left out, and I simply couldn't do it. So I took the linky entries and then added all the comments and came up with my final total that way. It was crazy, lemme tell ya!

#2 A few days ago, when I realized what was happening, I learned how to number my comments. A future tutorial perhaps? We'll see. I'd probably just confuse everyone, present company included.

#3 I have the best followers on the planet! Honestly, thanks for stopping in and signing up. And thank you to all the new followers who've joined my crazy world!

#4 Random.org doesn't like me. I tried everything I could think of to get the picture of the winning number onto this post, but it was hopeless. If anyone could explain it to me, please, please, for the love of all giveaways, leave me a comment or email.

So without further ado, I present the winner: Congratulations #42 aquariann! 


Thanks again everyone, and don't forget that Blog Bash '11 is less than a week away. I promise more information in the days to come!