Better late than never, I'm joining the Barks and Bytes blog hop today.
I like this hop because you can either post about dog-related stuff (the Barks) or not (the Bytes). So, today I have a little of both. The Barks: Rita "Helps" Make the Bed I was changing the sheets on the bed in the guest room the other day and thinking how I missed Abby, because she would ALWAYS leap up on the bed and get in my way when I tried to make it. (She was such a mischievous little beastie!)
I had this post almost completely done. And then I hit some strange key combination on accident and lost the whole thing. Even though I'd already saved it several times. ARRRRRGGGGHHHH. Anyway....... It's Follow Up Friday... the blog that lets you wrap up your week.
The shelter where I volunteer, Helen Woodward Animal Center, has a pretty good turnover rate for the dogs. But, once in a while, we'll get a dog or two that are there for months on end. I know those dogs gets lots of good care and loving from the staff and all of us volunteers... but still... it would be nice if someone would take a chance on them. So today, for Blog the Change for Animals, in honor of one of the dogs that's been at Helen Woodward for a while now, Lilo, -- as well as all the shelter pups out there -- I present: "Take a Chance on Me," with lyrics appropriate for a pup waiting for their furever buddy, set to the tune of Abba's classic hit:
I feel like you guys already know tons about me, since I don't hide behind Rita for posting. After all, part of the reason I have this blog is to attract attention for my writing, so I have to put myself out there as myself, not just as "Rita's mom." I post pics of myself every once in a while, and my mug is always there on the right side-bar. Plus I share interviews that I've done, so... you guys already know me, probably as well as you know Rita. But... I thought this sounded like such a fun hop so I wanted to play along. Hope that's cool.
I was sitting out in the backyard this weekend with my book. (Sorry... a little mischief there... I know many of you could not sit out in your backyards at the moment for more than about 2 minutes without freezing...). Anyway, I hadn't started reading yet, and just had the book in my lap. Rita came over and kept shoving the cover open with her nose. She's never done that with a book before, so she must have thought it looked (or smelled) good!
Excuse me if I am a tiny bit wordy on Wordless Wednesday (you always do, right?), but I wanted to tell you about our special giveaway -- it's a gift from me to you, or for you to pass on to someone else! After all, who doesn't like a gift?
Just a quick mirth watch post today (what?! She's not going to be wordy?) because it's NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. To officially participate, you sign up online and keep track of your word-count progress, and to "win" you need to come up with 50,000 words (most of them formed into actual sentences!) by month end.
Hang in there for more cuteness like this!
BTW, 50,000 words does not a novel make. In general, your average 300-page novel is about 90-100K words. So, really it should be called NaHaANoWriMo - National Half-a-Novel Writing Month, but that's unwieldy and sounds like some ancient Hawaiian word.
I apologize in advance for how wordy this will be, but I wanted to share my pics from the Morris Animal Foundation (MAF) Gala of Hope and tell you all about it. I also apologize in advance for how crappy our pics are. (!) My sis and I are new to having iPhones. (Do all iPhones take crappy pics indoors if the lighting isn't great, or is it just us? It's just us, isn't it...) If I'd known, I would've brought my "real" camera! Darn it. Anyway... here goes the full report!
My "date" and I checked into our lovely hotel room and got dolled up.
Okay - I'm going to start right out by saying the mischief is all on me today. I am too beat to give you a full report on the Morris Animal Foundation Gala of Hope today! But... I'll give you some teasers and answer the Big Question.
... I thought I'd post a hoppy video. And this one just happened to cross my path yesterday. This is a lot like how Rita looks when she's amped up about something. Luckily she doesn't get amped up too often!
Recently I posted about Rita being a Sheagle - she's half beagle, half shepherd (at least, as far as we know). But maybe she's got some springer spaniel in her too. Or sproinger spaniel.
She doesn't look like she'd have a lot of vertical (after all, she only measures about 20 inches tall)...
You guys! You are not going to believe my tale of woe... You know I love Morris Animal Foundation and Betty White right? (If not, I mentioned it here, plus mentioned my donation pledge to MAF in my book trailer that I posted yesterday.) So, imagine how excited I was when I got a phone message inviting me and the hubs to the MAF's "Gala of Hope," featuring Betty White - we're talking free tickets! Since we donate to MAF, we get their mailers so had seen that the event was happening on Oct. 19. I had said to the hubs how much I wished we could go, but (a) it's in L.A., about 2 hours from our house (that's with NO traffic), (b) the tickets for the 2 of us would have been $600, (c) it's not the hubs' favorite thing in the world to get dressed up and go somewhere fancy. So the mailer went in the recycle bin. But they called yesterday and said they wanted us to come for free!! We were chosen because of Abby's entry in the Orvis cover dog photo contest. If you've been following the blog for a long time, you'll remember that I entered this photo of her in the contest way back in Feb. of 2011.
If we're friends on Facebook, you may have seen this already (and if we're not friends on Facebook... why not? Look me up on there!). Anyway, for those of you who haven't seen it - the lovely Sugar the Golden Retriever, with a little help from her mom, made me a video trailer for my new novel, Rescue Me, Maybe!
I was so thrilled that they offered! I sent them the words and the pictures, and they turned it into this:
If Rita had a video camera handy, she could record how clumsy I am and shame me with that. It would totally be payback for the "Pancake Catching Fail" video. She could do a whole compilation video of me running into walls and tables and bruising myself on drawers and various other objects that LEAP out into my path over the course of my day.
Lucky for me, she doesn't have a video camera.
But.. I found this dude on YouTube who has a really cool super slow-mo camera. And he has clumsy dogs. (Clumsy dogs are dogs after my own heart!) And, bonus, they are super cute dogs too!
Enjoy:
Rita and I can totally relate to these pups not being able to catch! How about you? Are you clumsy too, or is it just me and Rita? ...And these cuties in the video. How about your pups?
That's it - just a quick Mirth Watch post today! It's been busy, busy around here with the launch of Rescue Me, Maybe.
It's Follow-Up Friday - time to catch up on the news and answer those burning questions.
It's been a busy week, with Rescue Me, Maybe officially launching this past Monday. Boy, you think writing a book is the hard part... but the work has really only just begun once it's published! Anyway, let's get to the followin' up.
Pups:
First I want to show you some special pups today:
{Wait... we interrupt this post to first apologize if you subscribe via email and get this twice. Somehow this posted with a back-dated timestamp. (?) Had to hunt all over to find it and repost it as today. Sorry for the dupe. Now... here are some pups:}
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