Shannon Stacey

On Tuesday, I got an email from Yankee Candle and the subject line caught my eye. Mmm… Is that bacon I smell? Introducing our sizzling new Man Candles lineup.

Mmmm…bacon. Also, Man Candles?

Later that day, I received the new Yankee Candle catalog in the mail and it also featured the new Man Candles lineup. From what I can tell, two of them are new which means I’ve been unaware of previous Man Candles.

So from left to right, we have First Down, Riding Mower, Mmm Bacon, Movie Night and Man Town. It was pretty easy to guess what Riding Mower, Mmm Bacon and Movie Night would smell like, but I had to do further investigation on First Down and Man Town. Luckily, the catalog had handy dandy descriptions.

Man Town – Escape to the man cave with this masculine blend of spices, woods and musk.

I’ll wait while you finish laughing at the idea a man cave would smell good. Done? Then on to FOOTBALL!

First Down – Game on! This combination of orange, patchouli, vetiver and leather is as exciting as game day.

(“Chrysopogon zizanioides, commonly known as vetiver is a perennial grass of the Poaceae family, native to India.” Yeah, I didn’t know either.)

But there’s more! This Yankee Candle catalog is scratch & sniff! And I love football and you can buy cute football-related accessories for the First Down candle, so I rubbed the spot and buried my nose in it.

When I was done coughing, sneezing, drying my eyes, and rubbing my face, I told my husband to smell it. He declined.

Trust me, that is not what football smells like. Fortunately, since they’re MAN candles, I can toss the catalog and move on with my life.

That said, I do have mad love for Yankee Candles and don’t have enough room to display them all.

That’s just one shelf on my baker’s rack. I’m scent-sensitive and can’t have the perfumed candles with the exotic flowers and storms and all those buzz words that mean insta-headache. Light fruits, warm apple Christmas scents and such, though, I love. Honeydew being my favorite. But they do have an awesome new scent called Waikiki Melon that I adore. And I bought the fun accessories to match!

So, would you buy a bacon-scented candle? And, if you’re a candle person, what’s your favorite scent?

…I was getting married. Twenty years. It’s a pretty big milestone, which sent me looking through pictures. Here are a few that stuck out to me…

My sister helping me get dressed. Now we have six kids between us and my oldest graduates from high school next month.

I’m quite sure I was telling him how to cut a cake.

Of course he did it wrong.

Whispering sweet nothings in my new husband’s ear. (Actually, I’m pretty sure I was telling him I had to pee, but my dress wouldn’t fit in the “water closet” of the beautifully restored freight house we were married in.)

The laughter that gets you through twenty years together.

I could probably fill a notebook with things I might do differently in my life, but saying yes when this guy handed me a ring and said “Well, do you want it?” isn’t one of them.

All He Ever Dreamed is available from Audible.com now! (As are the rest of the Kowalski crowd and my Carina Press novellas.)

Speaking of audiobooks, I have Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts cued up on my Audible app, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet. (Which, of course, means I haven’t had a chance to clean my house. Bummer.)

Have you read (or listened to) it? I’m hoping it’s really, really good.

I seem to have shared my conference crud with my boys. Aren’t I a giving mom? The teen fought it off pretty quickly, but the short kid’s taking a sick day today. And the teen’s day doesn’t start until about 11:30, when I drop him off to take his AP Physics exam. My schedule’s gone sideways on me and the day hasn’t even started yet.

Throw in the fact I’m still playing catch up from losing a week in Kansas City and I feel like I’m on a treadmill, running and running and not getting anywhere.

BUT…the ATV trails open Saturday! I feel like at some point I went from wanting to ride my four-wheeler to needing to ride. I hope there’s mud. And the short kid’s looking forward to it because he’s got a new ride this year.

2012 Kawasaki Brute Force 300

We pick it up Wednesday, which I belated realized is my 20th wedding anniversary, so my husband and I will be celebrating by hanging out at the powersports shop. Neither of us have a problem with that.

But first I have to get through today…