C.J. Redwine

Early this morning (very early this morning), I woke to the alarming sound of my cat puking. I say "alarming" because she sleeps on me. I have a strong stomach but even I quail at the thought of a face-full of kitty vomit.

I sat straight up and looked around (it's dark, remember, and she's a black cat so she blends well in shadows...)and she wasn't on the bed.

The sounds increased with the inevitable "hork and splat" conclusion and I fumbled around with my bedside light so I could investigate and clean it up.

I found - nothing.

The dog was sleeping beside my bed. The cat was staring at me from the middle of my bedroom floor as if to say, "What, we're getting up now?"

I decided I'd dreamt the entire incident and went back to sleep.

This morning, in the act of racing through my morning routine so I could head out the door, I found the puke.

In my shoe.

And yes, by "in" I bloody well mean in my shoe.

Yuck.

Leave it to a cat to have su…

When I was little, we had a German Shepherd/Alaskan Husky dog named Daniel who would eat, quite literally, anything.

Everything.

No exceptions.

When he was a puppy, he ate my big wheel. It was a beautiful pink big wheel with tassles streaming from the handle bars. When he was finished with his afternoon snack, all that remained was the thin metal rod used as the big wheels's foundation. His poop was full of pink chunky plastic for weeks.

We moved to a home that had a plum tree in the backyard and every year, as over-ripe plums fell to the ground, he would eat them. All of them. And over-abundance of over-ripe plums is not kind on the digestive system and he would leave piles of bright violet poop all over the yard. (But hey, at least you knew where not to step!)

Once my mother decided to grow onions along the back of our home. She planted seven onion plants and nurtured them along until one night she announced the onions would be ready for harvest the next morning. The next mo…

So last night was our company's Christmas party. This means several long tables of buffet style food. We had everything ready and called all the employees and their families to get in line and start filling their plates.

One of our newer employees was at the head of the line. I watched in complete amazement as she went through all three tables of food, filled her plate, and then grabbed a chair and pulled it up to ONE OF THE BUFFET TABLES, shoved her plate in between pans of food, and started eating.

Who does that?

We have an entire dining room full of available seats and you sit and eat where others need to get their food?

People were passing by her, staring, and NO ONE was taking food from the dishes right next to her plate. I decided to fix that situation so when I approached the table, I started moving the dishes away from her immediate vicinity. As I reached beside her to shove another casserole dish to the left, she belched.

I don't mean she burped.

I don't mean she q…

I told you November is a crazy month for me and birthdays!

Happy Birthday to my hubby, Clint! I can't imagine life without you and am so grateful God brought us together. I love you! Here's my "gift" to you (it's the thought that counts, right?)




Happy Birthday to my friend Opal! Love you, girl, and you know it.

1. Went to see Enchanted with hubby and Kelly. Paul refused to see it and went to Hitman instead. It was a good movie and one the kids will love (although, unlike hubby and Kelly, I could have done without the loooooong song sequence in Central Park. The only highlight there was when the prince got flattened by the bikers.)

2. Worked last night and realized that sadly my stupid lungs are still not quite cooperating and working more than two hours becomes difficult. Thankfully, I'm surrounded by friends who are more than willing to help me when I need it.

3. Saw a preview for the following movie - I laughed so hard during the preview that people around me were questioning my sanity. This is top on my list of things to see this summer:



4. Finished (drum roll please) ALL of my ironing. Every last miserable shirt. This, I believe, may be a first.

5. Attended my company's Christmas party last night.

6. Watched Beowulf last week. I liked it but I wish I'd loved it. I think us…

In October, my hubby and I added our surrogate teenage daughter (who doesn't live under our roof but might as well) to our cell phone plan because she's 15, gorgeous, starting to date, and had no cell phone. Not the safest situation. For various reasons, her father wouldn't get her one himself so we added her to our plan (with his permission), ordered the free phone that went with it, charged her $15 a month, and, in a stroke of sheer brilliance on my hubby's part, signed up for unlimited texting at the same time.

My hubby did all of this online. One stop shopping...open your account page, add a member, choose a phone, adjust your family plan's minutes and texting options, and off you go.

Easy.

In her first week, our daughter sent over 3000 texts. 3000. In one week. We warned her of the dangers of carpal tunnel and arthritis and marvelled that anyone could find 3000 things to say through texting.

And we congratulated ourselves on having the foresight to sign up f…

I admit it. I'm behind on nearly every aspect of my life right now. I blame 3 weeks of bed rest due to pnuemonia. Now that I'm (tentatively) back in action, I need to make up for lost time!

I missed acknowledging two birthdays this past weekend: My mom (cat lover, close friend, and fellow shoe addict) turned, ummmm, 39(!) this past Friday and my college roomie and friend Kim (Flambo on this blog) turned 33 (I think...aren't you younger than me?) Saturday.

November is a crazy month for birthdays in my life. I sat down and figured out that I have 4 family member birthdays and 7 friends with birthdays just this month. Maybe I'm attracted to people born in November? Or maybe the romance of Valentine's Day is more effective than I thought... "Here, honey, have a box of chocolates, some flowers, and a little morning sickness on the side!"

The difference between the possible and the impossible is one's will. - Hironori Otsuka

A comment a few posts down got me thinking about something I posted here shortly after I started this blog. I was working through the idea of writing what I felt passionate about writing, even though I am capable of telling any number of stories.

It was me fumbling my way to a recognition that others might throw opinions and reactions at me and that I needed to learn to sift through those, looking for any grain of truth and tossing the rest out the window because really, it is my writing.

My art.

My story to tell.

And I'm getting much, much better at telling anyone who thinks I should be doing something different to just go do it themselves.

Anyone interested in my earlier post, go here.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful sister-in-law, Shelley! She is a sister of my heart and one fun, loving, generous Texas girl and I am grateful to have her in our family (and to be a part of hers as well!)

Shelley,

Have a wonderful day with your family and know that we love you very much and we're thinking of you. And tell your hubby that if he doesn't bring you out to Nashville BEFORE summer, I will have to hunt him down and make him pay. ;)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

This morning Starshine showed me a comic book he wrote in which one character brandished a sword at another character and said,

"Keep it up and you will taste my rash!"


=D

Cross-posted from my LiveJournal page:

I'm a competitive girl.

I don't think it's possible to overstate that fact: I am a competitive girl.

If I sit down to play a game, I play to win. I may love you but if you are sitting across the poker table from me, I play for keeps. If I play against you in volleyball, I will do my level best to leave you huddled in the fetal position, whimpering for your mama. If I take a class and the professor says he doesn't give out A's (happened twice in my college years), I will not only earn an A, I will do so in memorable style just to prove the man wrong.

So you'd think pursuing my personal dreams with the same single-minded passion would be a given.

It nearly wasn't.

I've wanted to write books since the second-grade when I took a one page writing assignment and turned it into a four page story told from the point of view of a poor, over-worked school bus. (Having a second grader of my own now, I can fully appreciate the…

Some nights at work, everything seems to go horribly wrong.

There are the nights when a guest causes it by being incredibly rude or childish (like calling me "Sweetcakes" when my apron clearly says "C.J." or letting their spawn toss forks at other tables.).

There are nights when I cause it. (like when I jiggled a tea pitcher to get some ice into a woman's glass - as requested - and ALL the ice flew out and covered the table)

And then there are the nights only Murphy can deliver.

One night in particular comes to mind.

A party of five came in and chose to sit at a four-top with a chair in the aisle. This is a common practice and really isn't a problem except that this guy's chair happened to be right beside the doorway from one part of the dining room to the next. Very high traffic area. Waiters carrying beverages and plates of food and a chair sticking out in their path are a bad combination.

This man was a nice guy. He smiled at me when I greeted the table…

Some things I'm thankful for:

1. My Savior and the lover of my soul, Jesus Christ.

2. My incredible husband who loves me completely and who is still my favorite person.

3. My children who challenge me and amaze me and light up my life.

4. Pancakes.

5. The fact that I now know to pull everything out of the middle of the turkey before I cook it.

6. A strong sense of humor.

7. Friends who have become family (Paul, Kelly, Leigh)

8. Friends who offer love and faithful friendship (Dusty, Kailani, Opal, Drew, Tricia, Sandy, Luke, Shelley, Dawn, Sharon, John, Derreck...can you see how blessed I am?)

9. A critique partner who has also become a friend (Katy)

10. An extended family that spreads from Louisiana, through Texas and New Mexico, winds through Arizona, and ends up in California.

11. Music.

12. Writing (my own and the incredible work of other authors as well)

13. Our armed forces and the sacrifices they make for us every day.

14. Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman - two actors whose body of work I …

Those of you who've been regular blog readers for a while will appreciate this one: Wandereringray sent me a link to the perfect Christmas present for our friend Mal (Paul, aka bluedragoon25).

Those of you who are new to the scene can get caught up here.


Click here to see how you can make Paul's Christmas the best Christmas ever.


I personally love the warning not to use this to try to stop real bullets. Gee, thanks for the tip.

Something that will show up in the Alexa Tate series:




Thank you to my friend Paul (aka bluedragoon25) for photoshopping my idea into reality. =)

*Again, borrowed the idea from LiveJournal, even though we aren't quite on amicable terms yet.*

The concept is to list some of your Christmas wishes, whatever they might be, and to browse other's blogs/journals and see if there are any wishes there you might fulfill. =)

1. This is my true heart's longing and no one but God can fulfill it but all I really want for Christmas is my daughter.

2. I would love a fancy title/heading on my LJ like all my friends have but since I am barely on speaking terms with icons (and even then, I can't change them out on individual comments/posts without changing ALL of them...*sigh*), I can't figure it out and instead, I have a bar of annoying ads on mine.

3. A new battery for my laptop. This one lasts approximately 35 seconds once the plug comes loose (which, unfortunately, happens easily) and that isn't all that helpful in the grand scheme of things.

4. A bag of groceries and some coats to a family in your area who needs it. Don&#…

I am often asked how I come up with my ideas. The short answer is - they just come to me. Something will catch my eye or an idea/question/phrase will grab my attention and my brain uses that as a springboard to launch into the fantastic world of "what if".

I long ago discarded any restraints to the "what if" world so that if the moon looks like the half-lidded yellow eye of a Dragon, I can quickly construct the outline of the Dragon circling Earth and imagine what will happend when he opens his gaping maw, jagged teeth dripping fiery venom as he lunges toward Earth...

But I digress.

The long answer is it's all about what sparks your imagination. I have a friend who loves pictures - she snaps pictures, she cuts out pictures and does collages, she uses photo shop like it's going out of style...that speaks to her. Another friend can see entire battle scenes when he listens to instrumental music. My hubby can envision a three-dimensional sculpture and creat…

An idea I picked up from LiveJournal.


So here's how it works:
1. Open your music library.
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press play.
4. For every topic, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button.
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool. =)



Opening Credits: Batman Begins - Vespertilio


Waking Up: Handel - Water Music Suite #1 in F


First Day at School: Daughtry - Breakdown


Falling in Love: Harry Potter - The Werewolf Scene


First Date: Disturbed - Prayer


Fight Song: Three Days Grace - Burn


Breaking Up: Switchfoot - Redemption


Prom: Star Wars - Padme's Ruminations (are we seeing a movie soundtrack theme here?)


Life: Fuel - It's Come To This


Mental Breakdown: Celtic Visions - Spencil Hill


Driving: Snow Patrol - Hands Open


Flashback: Flyleaf - All Around Me


Getting Back Together: Atreyu - Falling Down


Wedding: Yanni - Swept Away


Birth of Child: Sarah McLachlan - Possession


Final Battle: Lord of the Rings - Many Meetings (yet another movie soundtrack…