Happy Halloween!

Still in Disney. Still REALLY TIRED! What the hay? I used to push a double stroller around this place! Here's the day's round up. (We're going back and signing on until 12 am. I just needed a nap.)
Joey thinks that with a mohwk, he has to look tough.



Sophie's dreams came true! (After an HOUR long wait!)

She thought she was a real fairy after this.






She even tried to fly.


Luckily the place was dead.




Me pretending to feel faint at California Adventure. But the smile, that wasn't pretend. Disney ROCKS!

Tomorrow.... Arizona!

Disneyland Day 2

Too tired to write anything clever. I swear, I need to train before I come to this place!
Joe being cool


Me. Loving all over my cotton candy




How I know my son is starting to like girls...




Mr. Slick thinks he's the one that invented bunny ears.




But I was hip to his game!

Yes. Dinner was three appetizers. And after two wings I looked at my husband and said, I'm full.

I begged him to carry me. He didn't.

K. Now I must sleep! Have a great day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Suz

I'm going to...

DISNEYLAND!!!

Okay, so me and the fam loaded up the RV last night and made our way to Anaheim. We got about six hours and then decided to stop. The awesome thing about an RV is that you can park at a rest stop and still have a queen size bed, a TV/DVD and a fridge full of snacks. What's not awesome about an RV is that people get mad if you run your generator at 2am. Hm. Oh, and never and I repeat NEVER try to make a pot of coffee while doing 65 through the grapevine. My ride is going to smell like Breakfast Blend for the next twenty years.

Anyway, exactly 24hrs after we left Eugene, we arrived in Disney. The Rainforest Cafe fed us, although about 5 minutes after ordering we decided we were too tired to walk back to the hotel. But they wouldn't let us sleep in the restaurant so we had no choice.

Tomorrow is the big day. Full day in Disney! And I'll be looking for a hidden note my friend Tyler left for me. :) Haunted Mansion, right?

Well, here's some pics from our night! And remember, we'd just driven 11 straight hours in the RV.

See you all soon!

-Suz

Holy Cannoli!

I can't remember the last time I was this busy! What have I been doing? Let's see. I've been playing with the puppy, getting costumes together, baking cookies, making dinner. I KNOW! Making dinner??? I never cook! I think I'm being possessed by a Stepford Wife!

But I took a minute to snap a pic with me and Sophia. Then I'm off to Bed, Bath and Beyond. So jealous, right? haha. Wait until I tell you about my trip to DisneyLand in three days...

Halloween Fun! Sort of...

Hey! So tonight my kids have a Fall Fun Night at their school. Awesome. Only I haven't finished getting their costumes together. So I'm not completely sure this counts as "dressed up". haha. But as you can see, my kids love to pose!

Hm. I wonder where they get that from?

It's PICTURE DAY!

Today is picture day! And just in case the school screws up my daughter's picture, I took a few of my own. Check it!

Oh, and I got a new pup. Her name is Basil and she's a basset hound. Can you guess what she's going to be for Halloween???????

A Break from the funny

My cousin Bub (short for Bubbles, real name Charles) passed away yesterday in my hometown of Utica, NY. He was my grandparent's nephew and a permanant fixture around the house. Lately it seems like the doctors in my family's lives have been wrong. It just reinforces the fact that they're human. And in the end, we have to be our own best advocates.

Bub, I will miss you. And I will remember eating Pasqualli's pizza with you in Aunt Maryanne's house on Saturday nights. I will remember your outrageous stories and the Bait store. I will remember the time you drove me up to Plattsburgh and ate hotdogs at my college. And I will remember how you were there for my grandmother in the end. And how you loved her.

I hope you've found peace, Bub. I'll miss you.

PS. Say hi to Gram for me.

-Suzanne

Meet Miss Tuffsy...

The other night, my daughter came into my room. She couldn't sleep. She was scared.

So I got out of bed and walked her back to her room. She started crying.

"What's wrong?" I asked. (Mind you, I was tired. A little cranky)

"It's Miss Tuffsy. She's staring at me."

"Who the hell is Miss Tuffsy?"

"Her!" And she pointed behind me.

Miss Tuffsy is a dog-faced doll that my daughter has had for ages. But now, she thinks Miss Tuffsy has a knife. (No joke! Thank you Simpson's Halloween Special) And yet, she posed for this picture with her. But something tells me she still doesn't trust her...

Blesh you

I'm sure you've gathered by now that my daughter is high manintenance. Well, today I was getting ready for work, and she sneezed in the other room. Now normally, I always say Bless You, but I was brushing my teeth.

So I hear, "NOBODY SAID BLESH YOU!!"

I spit, then said, "Sorry. Bless you."

A minute later she sneezed again, and then immediately one more time. I'd learned my lesson.

"Bless you," I called.

She came stomping in the room and I looked over. She narrowed her eyes.

"I sneezed TWICE!"

"Uh...bless you, bless you?"

She smiled. "Thanks!" And walked out.

Sigh.

.

I want to Thank You

Sometimes I wake up a little sad. Sometimes I wake up with the ambition to take over the world. Well, the publishing world.

Today, I feel both. Now for me, I find if I express my feelings, I am immediately relieved. Like, within minutes of voicing what's bothering me, I'm over it. Does this happen for anyone else? It sucks for the times when I want to hold grudges, but it's great for my attitude! I'm never mad for more than a few hours.

I heard a song the other day (Natalie Merchant's Kind and Generous) and it's been haunting me since. It makes me think of my grandmother. And how I could never have told her enough how much she meant to me. There would never be enough Thank You's.



Ahh... See now I feel better. I've also been writing a lot, which is awesomely cool. Here's just a little something I've been working on:

My father’s voice floated in from the living room. “And here’s Devon at her second grade dance recital.”

I would stab him.

Brock laughed. “Is she the flower?”

“Oh, no,” my father said, his voice dripping with affection. “She’s the bumble bee.”

“I see it now,” Brock announced. “I couldn’t tell with the yellow face and all.”

My stomach twisted in knots but I knew I had to make my move. I crept to the doorway and looked in.

“What the hell?” I said.

Brock and my father both turned suddenly as I continued to stare. Brock stood up and smoothed down his sweater vest. Yes. His sweater vest!


So that's all from me today. Wow. I really feel so much better! haha. I hope everyone has a wonderful day!
-Suz

Scared!!!

Sure, this is me now:

But I'm going to that zombie movie, Quarantine. Growing up, I watched just about every horror movie ever made. Some you may not have even heard of! But now that I'm an adult, I've realized I'm a complete wimp. In fact, I plug my ears during scary movies. Be quiet! I know other people that do it too!! (natalie :) )

So tonight, I'll be more like this! Only with real screams and my ears plugged. Which makes it REALLY hard to eat popcorn.

I'm scared!!!!

Pick a song... any song

Hey! So I didn't make my September goal of finishing my book. Oh, well. I was distracted by things like renovations, illness, misbehaving children, and going out to dinner every night. Okay, the dinners were my idea, but it was still a distraction. I did, however, hit page 46 of my manuscript today which is 1/3 of the way there! Go me!

Thinking back on some of earlier books, I noticed that I used to make playlists. Yeah, I don't do that anymore, mostly because I don't have the time or patience to create them. But here's the breakdown of some of my earlier books.

If I had to choose just one song from my playlists that set the tone for the book, here's what they were:

BROKEN: The Scientist by Cold Play
BEGAN: This Years Love by David Gray
THE COFFEE BREAK-UP: Falling in love at a Coffee Shop by Landon Pigg
GINGER SNAPS: Fidelity by Regina Spektor
SMITTEN KITTENS: Underneath It All by No Doubt

I sort of stopped after that. So for my new book, I realized that I NEED a song. Currently I have a playlist started called... Happy Suz. lol. (That's not the title of my book) But I have a few cool tunes on there. Like:

Stuck to You by Nikka Costa
The Middle by Jimmy Eat World
and Beverly Hills by Weezer

Yeah. I'm not sure any of those go with my current book.

Do you have a song that could capture the mood of your book??? Do you have one for me??? Hook me up!!!

-Suz

Book It!

Oh, God. Do you remember Book It? Where you'd get stars and earn a personal pan pizza for reading books. Promoting both literacy and obesity!! haha. Kidding. I loved that program!

Anyway, I've been a little down. So this weekend, I did something crazy. Radical. Absolutely...okay, not really. But I read.

I read really fast. Go figure. And normally, I read unpublished books by my immensely talented friends. (love you guys) :) This time however, I picked up a book out of my To Be Read stack and read it cover to cover. It was Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Cullen lover. What of it?

I found that getting lost in the book totally perked me up. And I mean TOTALLY. So now I'm moving on to my next book. Only... I want to read something good. Fun. Maybe a little romantic. *grin

So if you could suggest I read one book, what would it be????? Let's make a super dope list!!!!

-Suz

So....

My daughter came home from school today with a pouty face.
"What's wrong?" I asked.

"A girl on the bus was mean to me."

"Yep." My son nodded in the background.

"Really?" I asked, feeling concerned. I mean, she's only in Kindergarten.

"Yep," My son said again.

"Why was she mean?" I asked. Okay. Now here's her story. Without taking a breath.

"This mean girl said that she hated me because I was prettier than her and she's in second grade and she said she hated me and I was so mad at her. Then she asked if we could be friends and I said sure." She paused to smile. "But I was lying because I don't want to be her friend. I was tricking her so that she won't be mean, but I'm not really her friend."

"Uh..." I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that.

"Yeah," my son said. "Sophie totally tricked her."

"And," my daughter crossed her arms. "I am prettier anyway."

Oh, God. I seriously fear the future.

Pulling a Houdini

So... here's the thing. Don't disappear on me, but I'm taking a little break. Like... the summer of reruns, only in the fall. If I don't return calls or emails, I promise I will. Eventually.

It'll only be a week or two.

I promise to come back with only good stuff! Stay tuned till after this short commercial break....



(maybe there'll be a few guest blogs in my absence)

Love ya,
Suz

Butlers, Hotels and Web Interviews....

Hi! This has been a pretty good couple of days! I got good news, not-so-good news, and then THIS!!! Thank you, Holly!!!! And thank you for cutting out the part where I jumped up on the chair and started dancing to celebrate my book! I'm kidding. I totally didn't get up on the chair.

Also, my daughter asked if me and her could go to a hotel this weekend. I thought it was odd, so I asked, "Um, why do you want to go to a hotel?"

She said, "Because they have butlers that will do anything you say!" And she said it like she meant it!

Me, "No. And I'm not even sure that there are butlers like that. "

She rolled her eyes, "Uh, huh! And I'm going to make him bring me a puppy that can fit in a purse. So let's go tomorrow. Kay?"

Yeah. So does anyone know where I can find a hotel like that????
-S