European Vacation!

Congratulations to Fedora Chen! You are the winner of Black Out by Annie Solomon. I’ll be contacting you for your snail mail address or you can email me at skully @ skullybuzz dot com.

Next up, I have A Dangerous Beauty by Sophia Nash. This book has the most gorgeous cover! To be eligible for the drawing, you must type in your email address. I’ll also add you to my newsletter for updates on all the fun stuff and releases, too. I’ll announce the winner on Labor Day, September 7th! (Oh my GOD!, where has the summer gone!? I know I said that last time, but I have to say it again.) Good luck!

Okay, so about the European Vacation. It’s not mine. It’s my husband’s. He’s leaving today for a three-week trip to Germany and Norway. He’s going with an old friend of his that he’s known since grade school. They’ll be visiting his friend's relatives in Germany and hubby’s relatives in Norway (he’s a Viking God, remember!). They’ve been planning this trip forever! But I never really considered that I’d be all alone for three weeks! I’ll get to watch all the chick flicks sitting in my Netflix queue and the third season of Dexter (he doesn’t like the serial killer movies). I can eat brussel sprouts and edamame and chicken livers and lamb kabobs. I can watch endless reruns of CSI. I can lay in his spot on the sofa and eat his half of the popcorn as well as my own. The kitchen table will stay clean. I won’t have do to any ironing! This will be all such fun! For about four days. Then I’ll remember that there’s no one to share my mocha with in the morning (he makes my mocha for me!). No one to talk with or snuggle up to in bed at night just before I go to sleep (except our dog Star but she snores). No one to appreciate my cooking or to kiss me goodbye when he leaves for work. No one to call me on his lunch break or when before he leaves on his hour-long drive home. No reason to look forward to five o’clock. There’s all these little rituals we have, dinner, the TV shows we watch together, the talks we have about the day. When someone is there, you take all those things for granted. But when they’re gone, you realize how much you rely on those rituals, look forward to them. BTW, Star is going to miss him a lot, too. Because Dad is the one who gives her all the treats. When Dad goes into the kitchen, Star jumps up to follow. When Mom goes to the kitchen, Star doesn’t even open her eyes! Suddenly three weeks seems like a very, very long time for both Star and me!

So what rituals do you have, whether you do them yourself or share them with someone else?

Jasmine, Jennifer and JB!