on my desk monday

During my school visit to Tulsa, OK, they gave me veggies chips that included green beans--and now I am addicted! The Whole Foods version is okay--but the kind they had in Tulsa is superior! Why don't they have a Sprouts here?

on my desk monday

It was my birthday and my publisher sent me these amazing and so-incredibly-delicious Bee chocolates! They were soooooo yummy as well as bee-utiful (ha ha).  THANKS, LB!

the cake we bought

The first question people ask after they hear about Baby Rain Dragon, is "Is it a boy or a girl?" Well, we wanted to tell our families the answer in a more fun way than usual so (borrowing the idea from my friend Elaine--who just got her first picturebook contract, by the way!)when we got our ultrasound we had the technician write the sex of the baby down on a card and place it in a sealed envelope.

This sealed envelope we brought to a bakery. We asked the baker to make the cake chocolate if it was boy and vanilla if it was a girl and to ice the whole thing in white. This cake we planned to take to the Sasquatch's family for Christmas to cut Christmas morning--all of us finding out the sex of the baby at the same time as our holiday gift!

Of course, in the meantime, I tried to guess by just looking at the ultrasound photo. But I couldn't tell:

However, finally, Christmas morning came and with the magic of technology I skyped my parents and sister's family in for the grand cake cutting...

And it was....

Vanilla! Rain Dragon is  a girl!

I checked the card just to make sure:

Hello, Rain Dragonette!

the cake we made

For Thanksgiving, my mother asked me if we could bring the dessert. The Sasquatch and I had thought about making pie but I saw a recipe in Martha Stewart's magazine for a gingerbread cake. It looked yummy, so we made that:

We decorated it with gingerbread cookies (that is the Sasquatch's specialty. He makes amazing gingerbread cookies).

And we added a surprise....

Surprise!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

on my desk monday

Writing supplies!

I'm trying to write my new novel "Return to Sky" which means I need hair clips to hold back my growing-out bangs (I chose ones with goldfish to bring me luck!) and candied ginger. All my novels have been fueled by a steady ingestion of candied ginger. I usually eat the Trader Joe's brand but for some reason my local Trader Joe's has been sans candied ginger lately...which means I've resorted to Whole Foods and their expensive Australian version. Sigh. Hopefully, this will at least last me a chapter or two!

drinking paradise

So I was in Arizona for a week of school visits and the Tucson Book Festival and it was great fun. I have lots of fond memories, but I have to admit what I am missing the most is the amazing, fresh-squeezed orange juice that my lovely librarian host spoiled me with.

Mary, my librarian host, had two orange trees in her backyard laden with fruit:
which she harvested regularly:
and let me make into juice!

she had an electric juicer which made the process quite exciting (and quick):
I think about 6 oranges made this jug--those oranges were very juicy!
and delicious!Ahh, freshly squeezed orange juice from fruit just picked off a tree...it's a sublime liquid that cannot be described. It is really just like drinking paradise!