It's the ATTACK OF THE BLOGGY SNATCHER'S blogfest!

First the bad news - no Retail Wednesday today.

But that's because it's time for the:

*loud cheering and applause*

Well,

since I set this up, we have decided to go on vacation, but I should be able to get on and visit all of you. There's only a handful of us, so it shouldn't be too hard. But I AM excited to see what everyone has come up with! Click HERE to go to the link that has the list of people! Check them all out, it's sure to be fun!

here's my entry:

Lightning sizzled through the sky, thunder chasing just behind it. I shivered as I approached the mansion. No, make that the enormous mansion. Fat raindrops began to pound the ground just as I stepped under the protection of the entryway. Fingering the stiff, formal invitation that had led me to this lonely place I pressed the doorbell.

A deep gong sounded, echoing through the house beyond the closed double doors. Within moments the door opened and a tall, thin butler eyed me coldly.

"Yes?" he said.

I held up the invitation. "I got this in the mail. It said I was supposed to come here tonight?" I didn't mean to say it as a question, it just came out that way.

"You are early," the butler said, looking at me with disdain. "Very well. Please step this way, SonshineMusic."

"No, that's..."

"That is what you will be called while you are here. You will call me, The Butler."

I could hear it just like that, capitals and all, in his voice as stiff as the paper. I narrowed my eyes at his back as we went inside.

"You will wait in the library," he said, showing me into a vast warm room and then immediately leaving.

It was like I had stepped into a dream. Every wall was floor to ceiling books. I wandered over to the closest wall and brushed my fingers against the spines.

The doorbell sounded again and I turned around to face the door. The butler passed it on his way to the foyer. I heard a bit of a commotion, some swearing, some loud voices and The Butler's cold tones.

"You need to see a doctor," The Butler said and I stepped toward the hall just as a man and woman, supporting each other burst through the door. I stumbled back to get out of their way.

"My good sir, I am perfectly fine," the man said. "Merc will fix me up here. Fetch me some vodka and leave us alone." Blood dripped onto the carpet from a gash in his side and I gaped at him and the woman.

She was wearing stilettos so high I wondered how she didn't fall off them. They looked sharp. And painful.

"Simon, you idiot," she said.

The Butler had stalked away and was just returning with a bottle of vodka and some glasses on a tray when the doorbell gong sounded again.

"I'll get it," I said and all but ran from the room. What on earth was going on here?

I opened the door and a girl leapt inside. "#HI!" she said, then turned around and waved her hand at five lurching figures that were trying to get up the stairs. "#honestly," she said, bouncing back out and pulling them up and through the doors. "I tried to get them to stay home, #butWOULDtheylisten #No #IamMIAbyTHEway" She gave me a hug and then pirouetted into the middle of the foyer. "#DOyoulikeMYshoes?"

"I DO," said another female voice and I jumped, because I hadn't seen anyone else out there. I spun back around, but all I could see was a pair of stylish shoes, the rest of the girl was hidden in the shadows, but somehow I knew she was smiling. "I'M TAHEREH! LET'S BE BESTIES!" she said and danced through the foyer so quickly I just caught the flash of her shoes and her big, bright grin.

Mia herded her zombies into the library and I was about to close the door when three more figures appeared on the path, scurrying through the rain.

They hopped up the stairs and skidded through the door, breathless and laughing. A small white dog I hadn't noticed at first ran in circles around the one girl. They all shook the raindrops from their clothes.

"I'm telling you, those weren't sunflowers!" The tallest of the three said.

"Yes, they were!" the other two girls exclaimed in unison.

The first girl rolled her eyes. "Okay, so they looked a little creepy, but honestly Han..."

"Her name is Palindrome," The Butler broke in, marching into the hall. "And you are Falen and she," gesturing strictly to the third, "is Dangerous With A Pen."

"I certainly am," Dangerous with a Pen said, her eyebrows furrowing as she reached into her pocket and whipped out a ballpoint pen. She slashed it through the air like a sword. Then the three of them burst into laughter again.

"You will wait in the library," The Butler commanded, glaring at me. Apparently I had broken some sort of rule by answering the door.

The little white dog barked and Falen scratched the top of its head.

"Come on, Yvie," she chuckled.

"Oh sure, leave me to park the car by myself."

This time it was a male voice that surprised me. I spun back to face the door. Man, was I jumpy. Palindrome waved her hand. "You found the house just fine," and she stuck her tongue out as she and the other two girls left the foyer.

The man shut the door and then brushed at the shoulders of the brown jumpsuit he was wearing, sending raindrops scattering to the floor. I recognized the octagonal symbol and smiled.

"That's a Dharma suit!" I said.

"Ah, a fellow Lost afficionado," the man said, holding out his hand. "I'm..."

"Teebore," The Butler cut in. "And you can both wait in the library." He was glaring at me again.

I threw up my hands in a sign of surrender. "I was just trying to help," I said and I followed him and Teebore back to the library.

We had just stepped into the now somewhat crowded room, when the door gong sounded once again.

"How many people do you think were invited?" I wondered aloud. Then I looked around the room.

Mia's zombies were on the far side of the room, sprawled on the floor. It looked like they were coloring. Mia was chatting animatedly with Tahereh, but she must have seen me watching her zombies, because she gestured to them. "#iALWAYSbringsomethingFORthemtoDO #itKEEPSthemfromBEINGbored."

I nodded, not really sure what to say.

"Here, have an Oreo," Tahereh offered, pulling a bag of them out of her purse.

I smiled and took one. Nothing like cookies to break down an awkward silence.

There was a curse from the other side of the room and I turned my head. Simon was sprawled on a low reading couch, one hand on his face and the other outstretched with a glass of vodka clutched in it. Merc, if that was her name, bent over the wound on his torso.

"Quit being such a baby," she smirked and he snarled something inaudible back at her, which only made her laugh.

Palindrome, Falen and Dangerous With a Pen were perusing the bookshelves, talking in low, but animated voices. Teebore moved to join them. I continued to stare around the room.

Why on earth had we all been called here?

The Butler reappeared, leading two more people into the room. There was a man with dark hair and a woman next to him. There were two things I noticed immediately. One was that the woman seemed fascinated with a dimple on the man's cheek and kept poking it with her index finger. The second was that the woman didn't have a cheek. The lower half of her face was rotting away.

Mia's zombies also seemed to have noticed and one of them lurched to its feet and staggered over to peer up at her.

"This is Blam," The Butler gestured at the man, "and this is Joan Crawford," he pointed at the woman.

"Not that one," Joan clarified and I had to grin.

It looked like The Butler was going to say something else, but the doorbell rang. Again. And he disappeared.

There was the sound of loud giggling and then a small shriek, followed by more giggling. Two girls stumbled in, tripping over each other's feet and nearly tumbling to the ground. One of them was my sister and I rolled my eyes. She might look drunk, but she had probably just had coffee. Either that or sugar.

"I swear, I saw something move out there," the other girl said, clutching my sister's arm. "This is the perfect place for spakes."

"Maybe, but..." my sister started to say, but The Butler cut her off.

He seemed to do that an awful lot. "This is..."

Now it was my sister that cut him off.

"...AchingHope," she finished.

"And I'm BlackRoseofLight94!" the other girl said, waving her arms and stretching the words out like a grand announcement. Then the two of them dissolved into giggles again. They tried to move out of the doorway, but this time actually did fall to the ground where they stayed in a laughing heap.

The Butler ignored them and announced loudly, "I believe you have all arrived now. Dinner will be served in ten minutes." Then The Butler left and we all stared at each other, uncertainty clear in each gaze.

I was glad to see that I wasn't the only one that seemed mystified by this strange meeting in this creepy house with all of these people that I had never met before. Well, except my sister of course.

What on earth was going on?

Oh my werd, but I had way too much fun with that. I might actually do a 2nd part to it at some point, because it took a lot longer just to get everyone into the house than I anticipated.

Hope you all enjoyed! and those are all links to everyone's blogs, which you should definitely check out, because they are all amazing!

and go read everyone else's posts! they're sure to be a blast!

NY See!

Friday Naomi and I headed into the city for a day off with a very special and fun dinner at the end!

Here we are on the train, being goofy and probably driving everybody crazy. Fortunately there weren't many people on the train to bother :)

We got into Penn Station around noon and then walked our way all the way down to...

We walked up to the bookstore and there were like 20 carts of $1 books outside. I knew we were doomed. Look at all the lovelies!

I thought I was going to get out pretty easily, but then I found the Lemony Snicket audiobooks - which I have slowly been trying to accumulate, but they are hard to find and expensive and these were on sale for only $12! I was so excited.

Of course, then we had to carry our bags of books all over the city.

After the Strand, we sat in the park and had lunch. We bought some fresh fruit to share. mmmm...

We walked all the way back up past the Empire State Building and then sat outside the Library for a while. The weather was gorgeous. Then we walked through Times Square (fortunately not during the Poland Spring bomb scare) and up toward Columbus Circle.

It's funny, all through all of those "famous" landmarks and we took hardly any pictures, but we stopped to take pictures of this church (Of course I can't remember which one it is)
And this random building. Yeah, we're like that.

So after taking a break in Borders, we headed off to the Jekyll and Hyde Club to meet up with Nikki Stafford and some of the other Nik at Niters for dinner.

The restaurant was a lot of fun - a little loud - but fun. The characters played their parts well - especially the caretaker whose name completely escapes me and Miss Misery.

Naomi and I were standing outside the restaurant waiting for the others to show up and Naomi looked at me and said, "We're insane."

I looked at her. This is of course a given. After all we are both writers and therefore a tad insane. I just wasn't sure why in this particular time we were insane.

"We're doing what they always warn you against. Meeting people you met on the internet."

haha! But, as my boss put it, most serial killers don't travel in packs, so we figured we were probably safe :)

You know how it is when you are really good friends with someone and then you haven't seen each other for like five years and you get together again and for a couple minutes it's a little weird, but then you just feel as though you were never apart?

That's the best way to describe how it was meeting everybody. Even though we had never met face to face, it was like we were getting back together with old friends. It was amazing. We talked Lost and other TV shows and other random things and just had a marvelous time. I so hope that I have the chance to meet up with some of the other Nik at Niters in the future.

Naomi and I are going to Polaris in July and we'll at least get to see Nikki again (so excited!) But I'm hoping that some of the other blogger people will be there too.

Here's the happy little crew.

Yeah!

I could have stayed and talked all night long, but unfortunately, there was one train back to our stop and if we had missed it we would have been stuck overnight, which would not have been cool. We did have a nice long evening together, though and it was just amazing. Getting to actually speak to people and see their expressions as they throw out their theories and being able to immediately bounce back and forth ideas and expand on and qualify and question and answer with each other. So much fun!

Blam posited a grand theory, which he illustrated with the best napkin sketch ever. I'm pretty sure Nikki is going to put up a picture of the napkin, because she saved it so we would have proof that Blam figured everything out. But one of the best things was when Kevie picked up the napkin and "explained" Blam's theory to the other half of the table. It went something like... "See, here's a circle and that makes this line go woowoowoo" hahahahahahaha!

Okay, maybe you had to have been there.

And I really hope Blam posts it up sometime soon, because it's a blow-your-mind kind of theory.

Anyhoo.

It was a blast. and I'm dying to do it again soon.

*happy sigh*

What I Read This Year - Post 3

Whew... This is taking more posts than I anticipated, but I love books, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.


51. Elyon by Ted Dekker (Another title in his YA series. Pretty good)

52. Raven Rise by D.J. MacHale

53. Soldiers of Halla by D.J. MacHale (The final book in the series. It was satisfying. There was a whole lot of exposition, but there really wasn't any other way to explain all the mythology so that the ending worked. All in all a nice end to a series I thoroughly enjoyed.)

54. Thirteenth Child by Particia Wrede (Loved it. Historical fantasy? How do you make THAT work? She does. I want to read the next one.)

55. Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Another book our store focused on. Very dense prose. I really liked it, but it took me a while to get through it.)

56. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (Absolutely heartbreaking and beautifully written. This is one of those books that will stay with you.)

57. The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf (Fascinating book with a great twist.)

58. Wild At Heart by John Eldredge (The counterpart to Captivating, this book explores God's design for and of men. Very enlightening.)

59. Sold by Patricia McCormick (A heartrending fictional account of a real atrocity - the sale of young girls and women into prostitution.)

60. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (A very good book. I read this one on the recommendation of Blam and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson you should enjoy this one, too.)

61. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (I had never read this before and now I want to know why! It was amazing and I loved all the play on words. Fun, fun, fun.)

62. Evil at Heart by Chelsea Cain (I picked up an ARC of her second book, Sweetheart, quickly saw it was a sequel, so I read her first one, Heartsick first. Not my usual fare at all, but it totally sucked me in. Liked the first one a lot. Second one was okay. Third one was necessary to wrap things up, but started to feel like a repeat of the first two. I hope she moves to new characters for her next book.)

63. Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink (Not only is this book fantastic, but Michelle is one of the nicest authors you will ever meet. I am lucky enough that she is a local author and came to do a signing at our store. She is a fantastic lady and her book is wonderful. I am dying for the sequel to come out.)

64. The End by Lemony Snicket (Listened to this on audio. I've read the entire Series of Unfortunate Events multiple times. I love it so much.)

65. The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket (Another audio.)

66. A Summer to Remember by Mary Balogh (I really like the way Mary draws her characters. They are great.)

67. The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs (A friend of mine recommended The Know-It-All to me a few years ago and I've been following Jacobs' books ever since. This one was fun, but I preferred his first two books over it.)

68. The Earl Claims His Wife by Cathy Maxwell (I feel really bad because I can't remember anything about this book or why I picked it up.)

69. Sweet Revenge by Diane Mott Davidson (I got this book on audio and fell in love with the author. I like a good mystery and she delivers with character, plot, humor and heart.)

70. Suspicion by Kate Brian (Another book in the Private series. I'm pretty sure Kate is a Lost fan after reading this book. Deserted islands, a character named Sawyer that always has his nose in a book... I recognize the signs :)

Well, one more post ought to finish this up. Maybe I'll get to that tomorrow.