Shannon Stacey

Rerun: Gear shifting and doom

Shannon — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:20:03 +0000

I’m quite swamped at the moment, so I’m re-running an old favorite post I stumbled upon while searching for something in my blog archives. For those who don’t know, because it’s been off the road for several years, I have a 1967 Mustang. Just a little inline-6 coupe, not the “Eleanor”, but I love her. On with the rerun…

From May 23, 2007:

In other news, here’s a little convo I had with the tall kid yesterday:

The setup: We’re in the Mustang, on our way to pick up the short kid from school. I was aggravated because our genius town personnel and police department decided to repaint crosswalks and traffic lines—-necessitating the rerouting and general screwing up of traffic—during our town’s rush hours (2:30-5). As we’re finally making our way across the main street, I hear a clunk, and there’s now a metal…something, sitting on the center console.

Tall kid: What’s that?

Me: Who knows? The car’s forty years old. Stuff’s gonna fall off now and then.

Tall kid: Isn’t that the button you have to push to put it in gear?

Me: Oh…crap. Yes

Tall kid: What does that mean?

Me: It means I can’t put the car in park.

Tall kid: How are we going to get [the short kid]?

Me: (realizing the tall kid doesn’t know enough about old cars to know it’s not that big a deal) You can hang out the window, grab him and drag him in as I go by.

A couple of minutes pass, during which I assume the tall kid has mentally returned to his home planet, where the sound of Mom’s voice is akin to a mosquito’s buzz.

Tall kid: What if his backpack hangs up and I drop him and the back tire runs him over?

OMG, I was dying. The child thought I was literally putting his little brother’s life in his hands. I’m such a bad mom.

These shoes are made for (not) walking

Shannon — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:12:38 +0000

After picking up the Short Kid from school yesterday, we went off in search of boots for him. (For ATV riding.) Tis not the season for boot shopping. While wandering through the shoe store at the outlet mall, I spotted some sassy heels on the clearance rack and tried them on just for grins.

I’m sitting in this picture because I couldn’t actually stand in the shoe without falling over. And, if you’re going to RWA in July, you will not see me wearing these:

You might, however, spot me wearing these:

I won’t be the most “well-heeled” author in Anaheim, but I don’t intend to spend the week hobbling around in pain and falling over onto random industry professionals, either. Trust me, nobody wants to find themselves with a surprise lap-full of Shan.

I dost desire this aural tome

Shannon — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:44:42 +0000

I was skimming through the most recent issue of Publisher’s Weekly on my iPad and I might have actually made a squeaky, excited noise when I saw this ad.

MacBeth. Alan Cumming. I really don’t even know what else to say but HOLYCRAPIWANTRIGHTNOW!!!

It’ll be available July 3rd and the website in the ad is www.Audio.SimonandSchuster.com.

I can’t even tell you how much I want this audiobook. My butt is doing an involuntarily wiggle on the couch, I want it so much.

Married to a romance writer

Shannon — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:09:52 +0000

We’ve grown accustomed to the fact, when people learn I’m a romance author, guys will give my husband the “heh heh” waggly eyebrow, as if the man really is being used as a research sex dummy every day. In reality, it’s more like one of my tweets from this morning:

Mr S just called and said, “In case it’s for your edits, at 2am you slapped my ass, said ‘Old Home Day’ and went back to sleep.”

Just a fraction

Shannon — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:17:22 +0000

Lost .8 this week. Not a gain, but not much in the way of a loss. I’m pretty much spinning my wheels now, so…

1) I have to start tracking points again. And I mean it this time.
2) Treadmill starting Monday. And I mean it this time.
3) The following Monday, starting Jillian Michaels – 30 Day Shred. I did it once before, several years ago, but I wasn’t doing anything else (like the treadmill or eating well), so it was a brutal exercise in futility that lasted three days.

I thought about ordering Power 90, the slightly less brutal version of the infamous PX90, but I already own the 30 Day Shred, so I’ll start there.

How did everybody else do this week?

Goodbye, Jeepish

Shannon — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:41:19 +0000

For those who don’t subject themselves to my Twitter feed, I traded Jeepish in yesterday. During a very recent conversation, my husband told that, thanks to his commute, he’s spending $500 a month on gas. Now that camp time is upon us, it’ll be $700 a month. And that didn’t count gas I put in the 4Runner, which averaged 14-15mpg.

So we decided to trade Jeepish for a vehicle with crazy-good gas mileage and he would drive it for his commute while I would, once again, drive the pick-up. To rub salt in the wound, the car is the one that I have wanted for months: a 2012 Ford Fiesta hatchback in Lime Squeeze.

Kermit! I think it looks a little more yellow-y in the picture I took, but it’s a hot lime green. Isn’t it adorable? And 40mpg! Yay! And I got to watch it drive away while I get to drive…this:

I guess I’ll be taking care of the truck’s burned-out blinker. And the malfunctioning ABS system. And the front tire that doesn’t hold air worth a damn. Needless to say, I’ll be cleaning it out as soon as the rain lets up.

And, despite the Kermit face and the fact she’s not mine to drive, her name is Lolly. (Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolly-lolly-pop…)

One pound to the zombies

Shannon — Fri, 04 May 2012 12:59:01 +0000

Scale day, and I lost one pound, which means I lost the pound I gained back last week and I’m back where I was two Fridays ago. I can live with that, I guess. I would have liked more, but I didn’t really do anything to make that happen. Zero tracking and I only used the treadmill once, since I found really creative reasons not to get on it every other morning.

Like this morning. I’m exhausted because I spent my entire night battling sneaky-smart ninja zombies in my sleep. But I figure an entire night of waking, tossing, sleeping, waking, turning, sleeping, waking, and so on probably burned more calories than the treadmill, anyway. That’s probably where that lost pound went.

How’d you guys do this week?

A Slow Summer Kisses tease & book shopping

Shannon — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:00:21 +0000

It’s Teaser Tuesday at Novel Thoughts and they have a snippet from Slow Summer Kisses!

(And if you haven’t seen it yet, chapter one is posted here on my site.)

They also have a list of today’s romance releases and, oh my aching bank account. Just a few of the ones I’ve grabbed so far:

Undone by Her Tender Touch by Maya Banks
When She Wasn’t Looking by HelenKay Dimon
Karma by Carly Phillips
Captivated by Lauren Dane
Midnight Rescue: A Killer Instincts Novel by Elle Kennedy

I know there are more, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head. Yesterday, I bought all three of the new Carina Press releases.

When am I going to have time to read them all? :cries:

As long as they don’t start talking to us

Shannon — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:52:01 +0000

In a lot of ways, my family’s divided into two teams. On one side, my husband and the teen and, on the other, the short kid and me. For instance, my husband and our oldest go with logic over emotion. They analyze something and then decide if they have any feelings on the matter. The short kid and I go straight to Muppet-flail, Scarlett-O’Hara-swoon drama without passing GO or collecting $200 and then think about whether something was worth getting emotional about.

Another way in which we differ is the way the short kid and I name things. We name everything. For instance, my Toyota 4Runner being named Jeepish. My husband and the teen name nothing. In fact, I can see myself in the future going to visit my grandchildren, Boy and Girl, and their beloved family pet, Dog.

Last night, we were discussing the fact we really needed to gather school stuff together since we’d been on vacation for a week, and the short kid said, “Is James ready to go to school?” This perplexed my husband greatly.

This is James.

James is the new water bottle SK got from the school fundraiser and he wanted to make sure it was washed and ready to use for school today.

Why James?

It’s the “water bottle with the dragon tattoo”. Daniel Craig was in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Daniel Craig is SK’s favorite JAMES Bond.

So the water bottle’s name is James. This makes no sense whatsoever to my husband or the teen, but perfect sense to me.

When writers stop traffic

Shannon — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:19:19 +0000

I just had to go run some more errands (because I keep forgetting things today), which included running into Walgreens for the kid’s allergy meds. I was about halfway across the parking lot when a big white pickup caught my eye. On the access door, in big letters, it said “K-9 UNIT”. The truck didn’t look like the usual NH law enforcement vehicle, so I read the driver’s door and it said “US Coast Guard Auxiliary”.

That made the wheels start turning in my head, because I’d never heard of that. What does the US Coast Guard Auxiliary do? And why a K-9 unit? Is it a drug-sniffing dog for boat searches? A search and rescue dog? I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that in a romance. Drug-sniffing doesn’t do much for me, but if they’re a search and rescue team, that would be original and cool. I wonder if they do inland work or if they’re used along the coastline for suspected riptide victims…

A car horn took about five years off my life and, when I turned around, there was a line of cars waiting to get by me. I’d stopped right in the middle of the parking lot, staring at the truck.

Maybe writers should come with orange safety vests.