Girly Girl by Author Kristin Billerbeck

Why I miss my big kitchen...

I actually prefer cooking in a small kitchen. I especially loved my kitchen in Saratoga because it had a small triangle that said to people, KEEP OUT! I'm not a big lover of help in the kitchen. Is that wrong? I mean, my kids in there with me, fine, but there was a nice place for you to sit while I cooked for you, so there was no need to be in my space.

I know. I have issues.

But these kind of gadgets are what I miss most about a big kitchen. When you have a big kitchen, you can afford to have space for a jalapeño corer and grill plate. In a small kitchen, you can only keep what you absolutely NEED. And no one NEEDS a jalapeño corer and grill plate, am I right?

Homemade jalapeño poppers. Just one more reason I need to move to Florida and get a bigger kitchen.

Abuse in the Schools

I'm telling you, it's rampant. This child received a "Catastrophe Award" for most excuses for homework. She's eight.

That is a life-altering event for that child, I guarantee it and that teacher should be fired immediately. Thank you Teachers' union that we are stuck with so many abusers! And that is not to say that there aren't FABULOUS teachers out there who work so hard to overcome the nightmare that is our current system.

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/8-old-gets-catastrophe-award-most-homework-excuses-113936385--abc-news-topstories.html

If you read the entire article, the children and the teachers all laughed at the little girl. It's just SHAMEFUL! You don't know what that child is going through at home. Does she have help with her homework? Maybe Mom is working three jobs. Maybe Dad drinks a bit. The point is, what this teacher did is without excuse. Kids who don't do their homework at that age are probably having bigger problems at home. What if your little award, Miss Know-it-all teacher leads this little one to a beating? Did you ever think of that? Of course, you didn't. You're ignorant.

As for the mom, God love her, she went to the school and the principal to complain and got "blown off." How many times do we hear that? How parents are blown off by school administrators? It is SO time to take back our schools and get rid of these people.

This teacher should just get a dunce cap and put the child in the corner. We obviously haven't evolved from that.

If you don't think this is abusive -- think back to being eight years' old and the entire class is laughing at you. They're being led by their fearless leader, the teacher. Will the kid do her homework? Or has she once again learned she's "too stupid" to do it?

Divine Encounters & Discernment

Have you ever felt like you met someone and it was a divine encounter? Today, I met a woman and we just clicked, I can't explain it better than that. It turns out, we both grew up in the Bay Area (very unusual for here); we both grew up Catholic; we both converted to straight Christianity; and we both experienced abuse at the hands of the church.

What are the chances? This is why God gives you these little rays of light when you need them. They remind you that God is not His people, and sometimes, people suck. He is THERE in the midst of that darkness.

But this is where it gets weird. She also has the gift of discernment and she starts to tell me how she started to feel this negative oppression in the house and about doors opening/closing on their own in her house. She tells me she can FEEL it. (See? How many other Baptists watch the ghost shows, I'm telling you, this was a divine appointment.)

So I end up telling her how to bless the house. How to pray, burn sage, cover the four corners of the house in prayer, etc. I'm up now in the middle of the night praying for her, but I'm so struck at how God uses ALL things, even my funky ghost shows for His glory.I love how when we're open and honest, God brings another in support so that you know you're not alone.

Believe it or not, I STILL can't get my YA voice right for this Supernatural series. I keep falling back on trying to make it absolutely Biblically-correct and that just doesn't make for interesting Supernatural fiction. Example? In one pass, I had an angel. Biblically, angels are ONLY male. Could they be female? Probably, but I don't want the letters from angry moms saying that, so it shuts down the creativity.

That's why I wanted to work on a story that I didn't have to think about all of the rules. I think it's okay for fiction to be just that: Fiction.

Real Housewives of OC...Costa Rica

If you're not welcome in foreign countries as an American -- the Real Housewives of the OC might have something to do with that. Honestly, these women don't know how to act in public -- except the brunette (Heather) and I wanted to crawl under the table for her.

There's a reason I didn't watch this franchise. This particular episode consisted of nothing more than them fighting from here to Costa Rica. Question: why would anyone hang out with someone who made you so miserable? Are they all gluttons for punishment?

I'm ready for NYC to start, though they didn't get rid of Luann or the Pinot Grigio chick. I may just be getting too old for these shows.

Bachelorette: I love me some Dolly Parton!

I'm a huge Dolly fan. Does this surprise you? You know what I love the most about her? That she's so honest. I love that she models her look after the town hooker when she was growing up -- because she thought "that was the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen."

She's committed. You have to love that. It was so sweet how excited Emily was to see her at Dollywood. And sweet that Arie held her hand while she rode her first roller coaster.

The highlight for me was Emily's girlfriends making the guys pose and dance to win their affections. My girlfriends would make a guy's life a living hell, and you have to appreciate that about friends. They truly want what's best for you and they see things you cannot.

I love her and Arie's connection. I think he's my fave so far.

You can't really see Dolly's boots in this pic, but DANG those babies ROCKED. I love me some boots! Boots with bling? Oh girl, you're speaking my language.

Emily says she feels like she doesn't have a whole lot of talents, but she is a good mom. I'm there with you Emily. I'm good at that too. Finding a guy who appreciates that quality? Not so easy.

Chris impressed the girlfriends on the group date. I'd say her friends were a wee bit lecherous, but maybe that's me. He got the rose on the group date. I just don't see the strong chemistry between her and Chris like I do with Arie or say, Jef.

Tony went home after the group date with kids proved too hard for a man missing his child. Sweet, and he wasn't really harsh enough for Emily. Not harsh in a bad way, just maybe too passive?

Worst line of the night was spoken by a man who proved himself beyond shallow, "If you get fat, it isn't that I won't love you, I just won't love on you." Note to XX: She will get fat because if it's such a worry for you, you will manifest it with your hateful attitude and lack of acceptance.

Kaylon, D-bag of the season, tries to act manly and admire her character for sending Tony home, but he has to admit that he thought his first child would be his own. Then, he tells her to shut up and let him finish. She's trying to figure out if she made a mistake and his words weren't really abusive. They were. Why do women always assume it's them? Listen to those signs, ladies!

Travis got rid of his Ostrich egg. Good call for knowing the jig was up. Alessandro is going home because he sees Ricki as a compromise. In the limo, he tries to make us believe this is his choice. He's going to live like a "Gypsy King" whatever, dude.

Arie comforts her and they share a moment. Awww. Chris and her also share a moment before the cocktail party. He's confident he'll be a great father and tells her Ricki would be his child. He has a good heart. I just don't see them together. Do you?

I like how she's weeding people out before we get to the rose ceremony. It gives Chris less air time. I can't appreciate that.

Stevie is the final man to go home. More importantly, my house is clean and the laundry is done, so my time was not totally wasted. Ryan calls Arie a "dainty man" while he's more physical. Um, no. Not remotely true. Ryan can go now. But he's not.

Whining leads to a new book find...Thirteen Reasons Why

I've been working on a YA proposal seemingly forever. I cannot find my YA voice, and while I have the storyline laid out, the character is just evading me. This is ticking me off. So I did what we all do, I called my best friend and whined. (She's a high school counselor and has known me since I was four -- in other words, she knows my whiny YA voice -- remembers it from the first time it existed.)

It's hard to transition from a mother of three teens to my inner teenager. BFF suggested I read two books to find that voice again. One of them was "Thirteen Reasons Why" and I devoured it yesterday. It's the aftermath and story of a girl who commits suicide. The thirteen reasons implicate people who have hurt her and the pain it caused.

If you haven't read this book, you don't need to be a teen. It really sucks you in very quickly. So that's my book recommendation of late and though it didn't necessarily help with my heroine's voice, it was a great book to avoid working.

Are healthy eaters morally corrupt?

Okay, I love this study. I'm almost embarrassed how much time I spend at ScientificAmerican.com -- I wish I wasn't so old. I'd go back to school and be a neuroscientist. As it is, my heroine is one, so I can justify wasting time on my brain fetish.

I know someone who has trained themselves to avoid ANYTHING unhealthy. They will choose an apple over say, tiramisu. Hey, they'll be healthy. My theory is if I get three extra years out of eating an apple over tiramisu, that is three years of misery and you can have it. So imagine my lovely surprise running across a SCIENCE article that states maybe eating healthy can cause you to act like a jerk.

Do we really need a study for this? People who eat healthy because they enjoy it, my theory is this doesn't have the same results. People who eat healthy because they're just that much better than you and self-denying? JERK METER off the charts!

Okay, so this article contains a few ugly references. Including the desire to have "relations" with your cousin, so don't say you weren't warned. But I find the contents fascinating and now, for that chocolate lava cake.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/2012/05/21/wholesome-food-and-wholesome-morals-does-seeing-organic-make-you-act-like-jerk/

I'm not home to watch "The Bachelorette" so my blog will be late or non-existant. Read up on healthy eaters and while you're watching "The Bachelorette" partake in something wonderfully tasty.

He's a Princess...

Have you seen that show "Princess" on MSNBC? It's a financial expert who worked for twenty odd years with people cleaning up their finances. She claims she never had more of a problem with clients than with what she terms "The Princess" -- the spoiled adult woman who doesn't get that the world doesn't owe her a living.

She sponges off friends/boyfriends/parents and is deeply in debt without earning her own way. Often, she lives at home, doesn't pay rent and lives above her means.

I want to know what you call the male version of this. My son just came in and told me he needed me to go get potatoes. (I used them all last night.) He doesn't want his steak without potatoes. I told him that he could go over to the store and pick up some potatoes and I'd make them.

"But we're out of my chips too."

"I can't afford your chips. You can only have so many bags a week. If you're done with them, you're done for the week." (They're organic and costly and the only kind Mr. Princess will eat.)

So he actually says to me, "Stop buying everyone else's chips and then you can afford mine."

So what do you call a male princess? And how do I slap some sense into him? The host of the show, Gail Vaz-Oxlade has her own book. I think I will be purchasing this book. There's also an article on how not to raise a princess. I know it's not too late for me because most of the adults on this show are in their mid-twenties.

http://www.slice.ca/Shows/Princess/ArticleDetail.aspx?Title_ID=251057§ionid=37&postid=232127

Sidenote: Seth and I are rewatching SNL with Mick Jagger and Elle comes in and says, "That's not Mick Jagger. He's too old to be Mick Jagger." LOL

Audrey Tautou grew up...so can Ashley

I've been a huge Audrey Tautou fan since "Amelie" -- that's just such a fun movie and she's so sweet in it. I loved her as Coco Chanel and even as a gold digger who falls for a poor bartender in "Priceless." Most Americans probably know her from "The DaVinci Code" but like Harry Potter, I am probably the only American who hasn't seen that one.

Now, I hear her new movie is about a woman who poisons her husband. SOOO weird. Because my new book has poison in it, and a bad husband -- but I can't tell you what happens with it, or it would ruin the plot. However, it is different. Still, it's like a sign that sweet Amelie is now poisoning men. It's a twinkly sign that says, yes, the character must evolve with age.

So thanks Audrey! http://www.sacbee.com/2012/05/27/4519915/audrey-tautou-grown-up-at-cannes.html

I'm on Top of the World!

This is the hike I normally do by myself or with a friend, who moves as slowly as I do. Yesterday, my daughter came alone -- and practically killed me. Why do 11-year olds think Mom should RUN up a hill?

Doesn't the fact that I SIT and write all day have any bearing on her mercy? Apparently, it does not. But I love this triumphant shot because I'm behind her gasping for air and she's raring to go. Aging. One of the cruelties of life. Aging beside your energetic daughter? Hateful.

We're taking a mommy/daughter yoga class. Because downward facing dog at home always gets me a face full of doggy kisses. Maybe I can redeem myself. You think?

We biked today. I did better at biking. Yay!