Wow, October was a long time ago. A really long time ago.

What have I been up to, you may be wondering? Well, a lot as it turns out.

I slept through most of September and October, and even a fair bit of November. Why? Turns out I’m pregnant!!

So, we realized that this kid is going to need a place to live, so I had to pull myself off the couch and start house hunting. We found a place fairly quickly but then had to pack up the old place in order to move to the new place.

I hosted Thanksgiving for 8 at the old place and then immediately started packing to be moved into the new place in time to have 15 for Christmas!!

I did it, and then proceeded to sleep through most of January, too.

The house is now coming together (complete with nursery for our little boy who should make his debut at the end of April), I’ve got a bit more energy and am not trying to get back into the swing of things (albeit with some extra bathroom and snack breaks).

So, what’ve you been up to for the past 5 months?

So, it’s Good Friday (well, it’s all right).

The hubsters job follows the same shedule as the NYSE which means he’s off today. Which means a three day weekend. Which means 72 hours of togetherness trapped in a really small house.

Yay.

Actually, he got guitar hero 2 the other day for his Xbox so he’s been playing rock star for the past few evenings, and I’m guessing that will continue. If the Easter Bunny comes early then I think I’ll try to do some scrapbooking. I’m going to try really hard not to do a ton of work, just keep up with the stuff coming in.

We’ve already discussed lunch and grocery shopping today and breakfast/brunch on Sunday. And he promised he’d take me for ice cream sometime this weekend!

On Saturday I’ll be blogging at Word Flirts and on Sunday I’ll be over at SEx.

What do you have planned for the weekend?

How was everyone’s week?

Mine wasn’t as productive as I’d hoped, but it was still fairly nice. I wrote, but not as much as I would have liked. I read, but again, not as much as I would have liked.

Yesterday we went to see the Pirates of Penzance at the NYC Opera. It was very good, and the pirate king was quite obviously influenced by Captain Jack Sparrow!

Saturday we went to a suprise part and did a little bit of shopping (a lot if you ask the hubster).

Like I said, last week I wrote a little and I read a little. I didn’t get nearly as much of that “other stuff” done. I didn’t judge contest entries (bad Emma, bad). But I did book flights to both Florida (I’m going on a cruise with a couple of friends) and Dallas.

And I watched way too much television.

But, I feel refreshed for the most part and I’m ready for another week. I really do like blogging, but I may take hiatuses every so often. It was fun. Though I really missed my blog buddies!

So, what did I miss?

Two different sets of edits edits for two diffeent publishers arrived yesterday. Double Jeopardy is back for another chance at killing me, and I haven’t even peeked at the Loving Fate ones yet.

If I’m sparse for the next little bit, you’ll know why. And if you hear whimpering coming from the vicinity of Maryland - that’s just me.

In the meantime, he looks like a nice fellow…

First a technical note - the spam is getting out of control here on old Emma’s Ramblings so I had to turn on the feautre that makes me approve comments first (but I’m hoping to keep it that I only have to approve the first time) so if you’re comments don’t show up right away, blame the damn spammers.

Now, onto the $13 thing.

Yes, I’m very happy with the success of my epublibshing career, but lets face it, I don’t make very much money. So why are all the damn books I want to buy $13+???

ALL the erotic romance books - Spice, Aphrodesia, Brava, Berkley, etc, etc - are trade paperback and expensive. Apparently since I’m a woman that likes sex, I’ve gotta pay twice as more as anyone else. (Yeah, that sounded wrong).

This weekend I got Animal Instincts by Gena Showalter, All U Can Eat by Emma Holly and Undressing Mercy by Deanna Lee. All of them were $13. There were lots more than I wanted, but hell, I couldn’t afford them. And the thing that sucks more is that I [em]have[/em] to get these books in a bookstore - discount stores are too prissy to stock books with S-E-X!

Plus (yes, my rant continues) all the books aren’t the same size trade paperback. The HQN one is a smidge shorter than the Berkley and Aphrodesia ones. Are publishers also trying to wreck havoc with my bookshelf buying budget?

There’s always crap online about how ebooks are so expensive. Well you know what, books I hold in my hand are expensive, too!! (And yes, I did just go onto Amazon and check all 3 books and they were cheaper buy a few dollars, but I had gift certificates to use).

And what the hell is this I hear about the next Dark Hunter book coming out in hardback. Okay, that’s a gaurenteed way not to get me to read it! Look, if you want to put an author in hardback, I’m all for that (but I still won’t buy the books). But starting in the middle of a series? What the hell is that?

Stay tuned later in the week for my story about the other women in the romance section with me at the store talking about covers.

In the mean time, tells me what annoys you about buying books!

Well, I continued to feel pretty yucky for all of yesterday - until we went to dinner and I was feeling no pain after my giant margarita! I’m feeling much better this morning, but the Hubster wants to go for a hike later. He doesn’t really understand this allergy thing much. He tells me I can’t have a kitty (there was one I really wanted to take home with me at Petsmart yesterday - I don’t know why I torment myself going into that store) because I’m allergic (true). But I have to go on hikes through woods with POLLEN?!?!

Make sense to anyone else?

***
Anyway, we finally got the call that our lisence plates are in for the new car so we’re off to pick those up. We have to stop at Target (sigh, I sadly love Target) and we’ll probably stop at the bookstore, too since we both have gift certificates left over from Christmas.

On my list to buy: Unexpected Complication by Amy Knupp, and I hope they have some Aphrodesia books ’cause those are the ones I won’t buy with my own money ’cause they’re kinda pricy.

And there are some other books I want, but I’m not sure if they’re out yet. I don’t really like these whole “pre-order” and “pre-release” crap. Can’t a book just come out when they say it’s going to come out?

***
Lastly, I’ll give everyone the weekend to answer the questins I asked on this post (you don’t have to answer them all, just give me a general idea). Everyone who answers them, and sends me their snail mail address, will get a supercool Emma Sinclair promo pack (FYI - new magnets were ordered yesterday so I’m not going to send out anything until I get those). And one lucky winner will recieve an even cooler prize (to be revealed along with the winner on Monday).

I woke up today feeling Blah.

I couldn’t sleep last night, don’t know why, but my brain would not shut off and I spent most of the night tossing and turning. Then the Hubster woke me up this morning - which makes me not a happy camper.

I managed to write 20 pages in 3 hours at Starbucks yesterday. Even with the money spent it may be something I add into my writing arsenal regularly. Although I really don’t like this Starbucks. It’s really loud and kind of cramped. My old Starbucks back in Seattle was perfect! *Sigh* how I miss it.

My big excitement for the day is a trip to the post office. I’ve got a few things to mail and them apparently I got a package yesterday that the postman didn’t leave. I’d be excited, but something tells me it’s not going to be that exciting. Story of my life.

We might go out for Cinco de Mayo this evening - a margarita sounds pretty damn good right now. But we don’t like crowds so we may wait on that, too.

Anybody else doing anything for Cinco de Mayo? Any fun plans for the weekend?

I’m tired of feeling like crap. This spring stuff is really starting to suck.

I’m tired of sneezing all the time, I’m tired of the burning eyes, the wonky balance from my sinuses being under so much pressure. The painful sinus headaches that sneak up on out of no where and then practically cripple you with pain.

Damn spring.

I’d say I’m ready for summer, but it gets so damn hot (and humid) here that it’s no fun to go out. I believe I spent most of last summer in the apartment with the air conditioning on.

Spring is kind of nice, I suppose. There’s lots of bunnies around the apartment complex, and they’re fun to watch, especially when they have the white cotton ball tails, even though I am VERY allergic to them when they get up close.

And there’s lots of birdies, and they’re kind of fun when I don’t have to worry about them living in my dryer vent.

Of course, my new blue car now looks green from all the pollen falling from the tree next to my parking space.

But would I rather have the fresh spring air that makes me ill, or the hot summer air that I shut out and therefore get forced airconditioning air?

Decisions, decisions? What’s your favorite season?

My blog keeps getting spammed, damn it!!

I know everyone on the interweb has one of these posts every few months, but damn it, it’s annoying! See, all of the obvious spam gets caught by my spam filter, so every few weeks I just go and delete it all. Annoying yes, but no big deal.

But the damn spammers are getting smarter. Now they’re posting in the regular comments, but not with tons of links that get caught by the spam filter, but honestly with scary, freaky ass comments.

Hopefully this will just be a temporary thing. I really don’t want to have to start moderating all of my comments. Damn spammers.

In other news, maintenace is finally supposed to come fix my dryer vent today! You may remember a few weeks ago when they came in and checked and left me a note saying “birds can’t get in apartment.”

Well, that was true, but it didn’t stop the birds from nesting in the damn dryer vent! So eventually the Hubster put duct tape on the vent, which kept the birds away, but also meant we couldn’t use the dryer.

So today, not only are we supposed to get a bird proof vent, they’re also supposed to come in and clean out all the sticks and stuff that the birds already left in there!

What can I say, my life is boring, this is the most excitement I get.

What’s your excitement for the week?

Obviously I’m back from Cleveland. It was a fun trip.

Sorry I didn’t have a real post here yesterday but I was busy working on all of the catch up stuff. And you know what? I think I’m finished.

I actually think I’m caught up!

It’s a very disconcerting feeling, one I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. The stuff I have to do for the rest of the week is totally manageable. I should actually have EXTRA time to write, not have to fit it in between other things.

Isn’t that weird?

Anyway, while we were in Cleveland exploring our old stoming grounds, we managed to sneak into our old dorm (okay, it wasn’t really sneaking, we walked right in - obviously security hasn’t increased since we lived there years ago)!

We were able to peek into both of our old rooms and explore some of the common areas. But, the most interesting part was walking into the stairwell. The stairs smelled excactly as I remembered them!

And all of a sudden, with the musty grossness, memories started flooding back!

What smells tend to spark your memories (and hopefully they’re a bit more plesent smelling than “college dorm stair smell”)?