I hate doing laundry.  I hate cleaning the kitchen.  I hate going to the supermarket.  I hate going to the dentist.  But there is one particular time when I love doing those four things I hate.

When I’m on deadline.

If we all became nudists, we'd never have to do laundry again.

 Why?  Because basically, I’d rather be doing ANYTHING than planting my butt in the chair and writing during deadline time.  Yet that is a total paradox because if I didn’t have the deadline, the book would never get written.  Whenever anyone asks me, “How long does it take you to write a book?”  My answer is always, “It depends on when my deadline is.”  If my deadline is six months from now, it’s going to take me six months to write the book.  It my deadline is three months from now, it’s going to take me three months to write it.

OMG the book is due in FIVE MINUTES!!!

I hate pressure–yet I can’t seem to write without it.  And for reasons I simply can’t figure out, I always make the pressure worse for myself by finding literally hundreds of things that need to be done when my butt needs to be in the chair.  I get it there–but it’s a real struggle.  Why do I do this to myself?  Beats me.

Butt in chair, typing away.

So, anyone else out there a procrastinator?  Do you find yourself avoiding things you know you must do, only to find yourself up against a wall and struggling to get to them done?  Or are you blessed with the “I will focus” chromosome? (lucky you!)  And on a completely unrelated note–is anyone else watching the US Open (another form of procrastination–someone please save me from myself!) 

Tennis player Rafael Nadal. You're welcome.

Well, isn’t this fun, to have so many liars to talk about?  There’s the owner of the Peanut Corporation of America, Stewart Parnell, who refused to testify to Congress today, but whose company has been caught red-handed selling infected food.  Six hundred people made ill and nine deaths and he’s taking the Fifth.  And there’s A-Rod, adored by millions of little kids and big kids alike, who swore to Katie Couric that he never used steroids and now says he did.  And didn’t cheat on his wife.  Uh uh.  No way.  Oh, wait . . .

Gee, swell role models, guys.  Great job!   Frankly, I’m glad to see them on the hot seat.  Who else should be included in this special group?

Sherri adds: Where to start? Lance Armstrong? Cheater or victim of a witch hunt? Paris Hilton? It wasn’t her cocaine in her purse? How about those Iowa egg farmers? Rodents and maggots in the nesting areas? Lovely. What next? We’ll have to stop idolizing athletes as heroes and start growing and canning our own food?

The crazy wheel keeps on turning...

So many changes right about now. The biggest is my new name (how’s THAT for a subtle reference to the fact that it’s release day for When Blood Calls by J.K. Beck?).

But there’s other stuff, too. We’re selling our house (which I love, but am happy to sell because we’ve outgrown it), and we’re buying a new one (that we’re building … or we’re having built).

It's a lot further along now, but I'm SO excited to no longer have a galley kitchen!

My kids are getting older. My daughter’s going to Girl Scout camp soon without me! Just the leaders and a few chaperon moms. My mother has moved to my town.

Bye little house I've known for so long!

All good stuff, but sometimes you want to kick back and yell…slow down!

That thought really jelled with me yesterday when I saw Kathleen (waving to my Whine Sister), who swung by the house with her daughter, who has grown so much since I last saw her…and she said the same thing about my kids. I mean, yeah, they’re supposed to grow, but sometimes you just want to put a hand on top of their head and say stop! Slow down!

Most of the time, though, I have to admit that the changes are exciting. I’ve always liked picking up and moving. I’ve always wanted to get started on the next adventure. Slowing down a little bit though, would be a good thing, because savoring is important, too. And Big Life Things are worth taking the time to truly enjoy. As are the crazy moments with your family.

So I’m going to hang with my mom in her new place, and I’m going to put together a “new house” scrapbook with the kids, and I’m going to drive around to the local bookstores and gaze glassy-eyed upon my book. Changes, yeah. But I’m going to enjoy them all.

How about you? Is life moving my at a clip or a snail’s pace? Any changes in your world making your head spin, or your lips curve into a smile?

As the demolitions expert for A-Tac, a black-ops CIA unit masquerading as Ivy League faculty, Tyler Hanson has two great loves: literature and explosives. She lives by the motto “duty first” and doesn’t have time for personal attachments . . . until a steamy one-night stand turns into a professional partnership.

BURNED BY BETRAYAL

When Tyler meets Owen Wakefield, a handsome British operative, she seduces him with no intention of ever seeing him again. But then the sexy Brit is brought into A-Tac, and despite Tyler’s efforts to keep her distance, she finds herself falling for him. Trusting him.

Owen seems too good to be true—and he is. He’s hiding his true motives and identity, and no matter how he feels about Tyler, he can’t keep her secrets. One of A-Tac’s members has turned traitor and helped terrorists to hijack a shipment of nuclear weapons. As witnesses start dying and evidence starts disappearing, Owen and Tyler must race to find the mole—and prevent a final, cataclysmic act of destruction.

So this year like every year, I watched the Emmys.  And like every year, there were shows (and actors who bring them to life) that won that I’ve never seen (we gave up pay television ages ago).  Shows I sampled and then abandoned (meaning I have no idea why they won).  Shows that won that had better shows in their category (clearly my shows were robbed).  And shows and/or their actors that I adore and did win.  (Go Modern Family and Glee).   

There were ugly outfits and lovely ones.  There were guys in tuxes (with ties and without).  And lots of lame jokes and a couple of sincerely funny moments.  (Ricky Gervais, you always make me laugh…and Jimmy Fallon you sounded just like Matthew Fox)  

There were fabulous faces.  Some famous.  Some not.  And a lot of smiling losers.  “It’s an honor just to be nominated.”  Yeah, right.    

There was the obligatory look at the accountants.  An honorary award for George Clooney and his humanitarian acts.  He is definitely a class act.  The annual memorial (with song by Jewel) for actors and other TV folks who passed on (I always cry).   A fond farewell to 24, Law and Order and Lost.  (Jimmy Fallon you make a pretty good Elton John.)   Betty White – the hottest property in Hollywood was on the show.  Along with all stars with all kinds of wattage.  

It was a night to see and be seen.  A moment to celebrate America’s love affair with television.   When I was little I used to watch the Emmys (and the Academy Awards) and then practice my own speech in the bathroom mirror.   I think that ship has sailed, but I do still love to watch. 

What was your favorite Emmy moment?  A wardrobe faux pas?  A favorite show that won – or lost?

I’m writing this from the booming metropolis of Dallas, TX, home of… well, me. On Monday, when we took off from New York at 8:30pm, the pilot announced: The temperature at DFW is a balmy 106 degrees. ACK! Coming out of the terminal was like entering a sauna, but then the next day it cooled off nicely (in the 80s and 90s, YAY!). There are things that I love about Texas (TEX-MEX! Blue Bell!) and there are a things that I’m not so fond of. We were driving to my parent’s home, about to cross the Trinity River heading south and I noticed a new exit sign: RIVERFRONT BLVD. Now, I don’t know how many of you have actually seen the vast interchange at 35, 30, and 635 where the Trinity hits, but RIVERFRONT BLVD? Yes, the Trinity is a river, much like I am Angelina Jolie. Yes, the river has a front, filled with picturesque scenery, the seven liquor stores, the four bail bondsman places, the Animal Shelter, and you know, if that’s not picturesque enough, you do have the big ole county jail. I don’t know if it was irony, sarcasm, or perhaps delusion of grandeur that caused the naming of that exit, but it did crack me up.

This morning, there was an article in the paper on Stevie Ray Vaughan. It’s been 20 years since his death (helicopter accident). I loved Stevie Ray Vaughan. I don’t know that I actually listened to him much before he died, which makes me sad. But apparently, they had at one time considered naming Riverfront Blvd, Stevie Ray Blvd, because Stevie Ray is from Dallas. Oak Cliff to be precise. He attended a high school in my neighborhood, and it makes me feel kinda cool to know that I’ve walked the same streets that he did. I’ve been to the same parks he played at. I’ve mocked many of the same teacher he did (well, probably not, because he dropped out, but a girl can dream).

There aren’t many celebs from my neck of the woods, but I like that Stevie Ray is one. So the question for today: any famous folks hail from places you’ve lived? And does this make you happy, sad, or embarassed?

I was surprised to discover the clothing item that no well-dressed woman can live without this Fall season is the cape!  Super heroes are in vogue again and each and every one of us should have a selection of capes to wear with our skinny jeans.  Okay, I confess, I have a pair of skinny jeans.  I kind of like the idea of a cape to go with them, especially if the cape is long enough, because, you know, when you wear skinny jeans, sometimes your body oozes out of the top of them and glops over the sides.   A cape would be a great cover for that.

Capes were in style at some point in my life, because I remember them.  I don’t remember if I had one, which makes me think probably not.

I don’t know, what do you think?  Would you wear a cape this fall?  Perhaps with a festive beret set at a jaunty angle on your head? (P.S.  I like the one up top).

I’m sorry. I can’t write my blog tonight because, you see, I’m reading Mockingjay. Yes, I know I’m a day behind the rest of the world, but I had to re-read Hunger Games and Catching Fire before I could start it.

And while I didn’t stand in line to buy it at midnight, I did pre-order it on my Kindle and watched as it appeared around 2am on release day.

Technology really is cool.

But it all got me thinking. I can remember waiting in lines for movies as a kid (actually, only The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi). I’m talking Lines, with a capital L, not just a regular ticket line. And I confess to standing in line for the last Harry Potter book (but I decided at the last minute, thus earning me a Slytherin badge! Hmph!). And I did decide to stand in line for the iPad, but the line was so short (20 minutes) that I only did it so that I could say–on places like this blog–for bragging rights, assuming standing in line to spend a lot of money is something to actually brag about. (Note: I love my iPad. Just in case I haven’t mentioned that here before).

But I can’t remember any Lines for books back when I was a kid. No midnight sales. And I don’t remember anticipation for a book or sequel the way we saw with the Harry Potter books, the Twilight books, Mockingjay, or others I’ve seen recently.

Was I just a clueless kid with a mom who wasn’t about to schlep me to a store at midnight? Am I just a braindead twit of no memory of my childhood? Or is this a new phenomenon–and if so, why? What’s sparked it? Did J.K. Rowling light a fire, or are there other social factors at work here? And, you know, if there are, what are those factors?

I’d ponder this mystery further, but Mockingjay calls. And the middle of the night is a great time to read it. (And so far, by the way, I’m loving it!)

Do you remember summer as a kid?   Playing outside until the sun goes down with only brief stops at home for food at lunch and dinner?  The sound of the ice cream truck coming down the street?  

In my house we had a chest of drawers by the front door (a credenza, I learned as I grew older).  It was painted apple green and had a plate full of pennies on top.  We were allowed to use those pennies to buy ice cream.  

I remember playing catch with my dad in the back yard.  My brother in his chaps and cowboy hat, six guns a blazin’.  (Hey, we’re a John Wayne family—and my brother took that literally).   I remember swinging on the swing set, certain that if I tried hard enough I could touch the sky.  My brother traveling through the badlands on his teeter-totter.  I remember lightening bugs and glass jars.  Slithery green garden snakes that scared the snot out of me.  Following my daddy as we hunted the ‘monster’ in the freshly mowed grass.   

I remember toes the in the water.  Splashing in rain puddles.  Collecting spent fire crackers (we truly believed they were treasure) in my brother’s little red wagon.  I remember riding my trike (double decker with a step in the back), my first bike complete with battery operated light and  bell.   I remember the ten-speed I bought with my own money—my first big purchase—and  the freedom it gave me, expanding my summertime world to the next neighborhood over.   

I remember  weeks spent at my grandparent’s.   Cook-outs in the back yard with my grandfather’s amazing BBQ chicken, and my grandmother’s lemonade and corn on the cob.  Bare feet, shorts, the smell of grass and roses.  Bugs.  And the laughter of the adults coming through the open window when we were supposed to be in bed and asleep.  

As I grew older it seemed that summer got shorter and shorter.  Until it disappeared altogether.  I remember when I was just out on my own with my first job, I travelled through my grandparent’s town, and sat on the picnic table in the empty backyard of their house (they were out of town).  And I cried, realizing that those summer days were gone.   That I was grown, and that nothing would ever be the same.  

Many years have passed since that day.  My grandparents are gone.  My dad is gone.  But the memories are there, tucked away in the corners of my mind.  So yesterday, I was out walking and saw three kids playing in the puddles from a recent rain shower.  And their laughter took me back, if just for a few moments, to those lazy, hazy days when I was a kid and the ice cream truck beckoned.

So what are your favorite memories of summertime?