Tag! I'm it

Rachelle, writer, former editor, and all-round wonderful friend, has requested answers to the following questions. Be sure to click your way over to and check out her answers and great writing as well.

1. What's the one book or writing project you haven't yet written but still hope to? This one is easy: in 1993 I typed the opening paragraphs for an intense and dark themed work of fiction. It's unlike anything I've written to date...waaaaay unlike. It will give voice to matters of which we're afraid to speak and doesn't promise or necessarily deliver some neat and tidy wrap up. Evil--true evil, seldom can be boxed and processed as such.

2. If you had one entire day in which to do nothing but read, what book would you start with? Daniel Silva's newest release (July 24th) "The Secret Servant." Man, oh, man, I love this guy's stuff!

3. What was your first writing "instrument" (besides pen and paper)? An IBM Selectric, circa 1981.

4. What's your best guess as to how many books you read in a month? 8-12

5. What's your favorite writing "machine" you've ever owned? Well, I confess I still miss my yellow legal pad machines. Computers are all so bland and so, well, non-favorite inducing for me. I guess my current Dell which I've somehow managed to figure out how to autosave and back up my writing in progress.

6. Think historical fiction: what's your favorite time period in which to read? I'm more a non-fiction bibliophile but without a doubt years the years between 1932-1949 always capture my attention when picking up a fiction work.

7. What's the one book you remember most clearly from your youth (childhood or teens)? I could wax on about this forever so I'll contain myself. The one book would be The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Sigh. How I wanted to have two brothers and a sister to create a home in the woods near a babbling cool brook. How I wanted to purchase milk in a glass bottle and keep it chilled in the aforementioned chilled running water. How I wanted to live in an abandoned box car and decorate it with nearly discovered treasures. I wanted to be Violet...sweet, strong, and loving Violet.

HTML Madness

Gads! It just took me 45-minutes to figure out how to configure a clickable web link from my home web site to here. (There are perfectly good reasons why some of us are less than capable when it comes to matters of the cyber-net kind.)

Nevertheless, I did it.
I stuck with it.
Googling and surfing my way through www.HTML.com reference heaven I remained, as always, tenacious and unwilling to concede defeat. One could consider it a blessing or a curse, I suppose. This unrelenting drive to figure things out. To get things right and to get things done. It's Monday so I'll go with blessing. But come, oh, Thursday, I'll probably be singing a different tune.

Anyone else like me out there reading these words?
Anyone else prone to sinking their teeth into a project, goal, or, well, life?
Any other all-or-nothing types?

Speaking of Cheese Dips

Major crisis here on the home front.

I am a voracious consumer of white Mexican cheese dip. I travel to the local El Rancherito, belly up to the bar (no smart-aleck comments, please), and ask for a shot of the stuff far more times than I should. But here's the deal...I can not duplicate this tasty food item for home consumption for anything!

I've probably spent +$200.00 purchasing varying types of cheese that purport to deliver the delicious goods. But they don't. I've purchased and melted all manner of expensive Mexican cheeses from my groceries cooling shelves. I've tried white American cheese mixed with other stuff. I've looked online and typed in any and all "keyword" searches to can imagine. To no avail. So here it is.....for the love of all that is holy!!!!! Somebody tell me where I can purchase that fine, smooth, tasty white dip that is served in restaurants.

No cheese that melts into a greasy ball.
No cheese that has a funky grainy texture.
No cheese that is orange or off-yellow.

Just give me the stuff like they have at El Rancherito. (And yes, I've asked and they're not sharing their secret.)

Email me immediately and if it cuts the Jules Cheese Mustard, I'll post it for the entire world.

Allow me to introduce myself...again

Hmm...I'm thinking two and a-half years might be a bit long in-between posts. My apologies, really. Although I'm in to the early months of my fourth decade on earth, I still find it difficult to get done everything that needs to get done.

And there's always a Lifetime Movie Network program calling my name. Sigh.

But anyway. I'm back and it's my intention to show up quite routinely. I'm shooting for three or four posts a week, will settle for two, but promise not to go longer than two years. How's that for accountability?

There are chicken nuggets begging to be pulled from an oven right now so I'll wrap it up and be back shortly with far more interesting opines and such.

Typical Day

So, I watched the St. Louis Cardinals totally hand the Series over to the Sox (and considered swallowing the entire bottle of Tylenol PM tablets) and headed for bed. Then woke up, eh, my husband turned on the bedroom light and FORCED me awake actually, around 7:05 a.m. My kids are all old enough to take care of themselves in the morning so I can get by with a little later wake-up. Sent the kids to school around 7:48 a.m. and grabbed a Pepsi out of the refridgerator. How unhealthy am I? Sat in front of the TV and listened to FOX-News. Bummer, bummer, bummer. (Again considered the remaining portion of pills in that Tylenol bottle.)

Time to go to work.
9:00 a.m. Walk to office. (i.e. my basement which has dead or mostly dead Japanese beetles infiltrating every minute opening.)
9:01 a.m. Set down at computer.
9:02 a.m. Click on Drudge Report and find out depressing news I somehow missed on FOX-News.
9:03 a.m. Pull up working manuscript, Exquisite Hope.
9:04 a.m. Notice Japanese beetle flailing about on his, well, I suppose you'd call it his, back. Consider helping him by popping him onto his tiny beetle feet. Pop him. A bit to poppy I guess as he quits flailing and appears to be dead.
9:05 a.m. Back to my manuscript.
9:06-10:43 a.m. Gaze at manuscript and think, "I really should be writing something."
10:44 a.m. Break for lunch
10:45 a.m. Verizon PhoneGuy comes by to see why my business line isn't working. Discovers a faulty phone line--coming out of my house. Therefore, my problem. He offers to fix it for $92.00. I defer.
10:49 a.m. Put Mexican cheese dip (LUNCH) back in refridgerator and attempt to run new phone line from office jack to outside of my house.
10:58 a.m. Nearly cut off my pointer finger (and lead typing finger!) when using my ten-year olds pocket knife to unsheath the copper phone line.
11:39 a.m. Houston, we have a dial tone!!!!!
11:40 a.m. Melt Mexican cheese dip and eat about twenty-two chips. That's lunch. Watch Linda Vesper on DaySide, FOX-News, and beg God for a tv/radio talk show of my own!!
12:57 p.m. Time to get to work.
12:58 p.m. Sit down and stare at manuscript.
12:59 p.m. Type a sentence. Only 52, 910 to go.
1:00 p.m. Get mail and post high reolution promo poster to web page.
1:05 p.m. Think about starting a blog page of my own.
1:06 p.m. Talk with husband on phone and reassure him, yes, I am indeed downstairs working.
1:07-1:52 p.m. Updated bulletin board.
1:53 p.m. It's time for me to get to work.
1:54 p.m. Surf over to blogger.com and create a Masterpiece. Well, a paint-by-number perhaps.

Things I Should be Writing Instead of This . . .

Hmm . . . I have a book contract which is due by the end of December, that's #1. My mother hasn't received an actual handwritten letter since I went away to Girl Scout camp in 1976. That would be #2. A stack of bills has toppled over and fairly screams, "Pay me! Pay me!" Those checks would be #3. I listened to a complete nincompoop the other night of FOX-News and have thought about writing him an email and telling him what I thought of him and his WACKO ways. That would be Thing #4. And thus have I convinced myself to tackle my manuscript once again.

Jules: The Blonde Period