Okay, okay, I know I’ve already failed. I missed last week. Clearly this whole “schedule” thing is not something I can do. BUT! Because I do fail hardcore, I’m going to try to appeal to your better nature by offering you pictures of cute cuddly things. To be more specific, I’m going to post pictures of MY cuddly things. Since announcing a few weeks ago that Joe and I are having a Wookie, I thought maybe you’d like to know that this *technically* isn’t our first child. Okay, it’s our first child that is unlikely to poop outdoors. We’ll see though. If it’s anything like Joe, I may have to change that statement.

Without further ado, the beasts….

As most of you may have noticed, Write On Con has ended for 2010 and I just want to say…

THANK YOU

…to everyone who participated, blogged, tweeted, vlogged, and spread the word about Write On Con. Jamie, Elana, Casey, Lisa, Laura, Shannon, and myself adore every single one of you for your patience through our server issues. We can’t thank you enough for allowing us to reach over 11,000 virtual attendees! YOU are what made Write On Con absolutely fantastic. Thanks.

I’d also like to thank all of the panelists who put up with our emails and answered every question that came their way. You guys were nothing short of fantastic. (This is starting to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech isn’t it?) To the girls who worked with me for months and months on Write On Con, you all are amazing and have great hair. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Finally, I have to thank Jamie Harrington. Without her I never would have had the chance to meet these great girls and participate and such an AWESOME, KICK-ASS event.

Want to see our final blog post of the conference? Check it out here.

Unfortunately, the *ahem* editors saw fit to remove my Oscar-worthy scenes in which I single-handedly save an entire orphanage from burning to the ground with no help whatsoever from Harrison Ford, have a heartfelt talk with my mama (played by Sally Field), and share a comical car chase scene with Will Ferrell. Clearly for such a lowly, unknown writer, I have a lot of Hollywood connections. What can I say? I get around. SADLY, the editors believed these scenes to be too “off-topic” for our farewell vlog. I say they don’t know good work when they see it. Madness. So what if it was 25 minutes long?

What were your best memories of Write On Con? What did you especially enjoy?

For me, I plan on finishing this book, THE UNTITLED GREEN SHOES PROJECT. Seriously, I need a better title. While that one is all cute and stuff, it really has nothing to do with the story. Well, Maddie wears green shoes and she travels through time, so MAYBE the whole, “I travel in mah green shoez” thing works, but I don’t know. We’ll see. Write On Con offered me so much inspiration (in a time when I really needed it), that I don’t think there’s any way I can repay all the panelists for their insight. I’m rambling again.

I want to hear about your Write On Con experiences! Do you have a blog post about it? Share it with me! I’d love to read them! As a matter of fact, if you’re new to following me because of Write On Con, tell me a little about yourselves. Feel free to share here in the comments or on Twitter (@JentheAmazing). I want to know all about you guys.

What a glorious, glorious Friday! Well, that must be because it IS Friday and not because of whatever weather you may have outside your window. For me, as long as it isn’t the biblical weather that DC had yesterday, I’m content. I’m all for thunderstorms, especially growing up on the hurricane ravaged East Coast, but flooding? TORNADOES?

But I digress. I’m an avid blog reader of Tawna Fenske (if you don’t read her blog, you should. She’s hilarious. She can teach you how to do stuff….with your feet.) and if you are too, you may have noticed that this week her posts focus on improving your own blog. One technique she suggests is to set a schedule for your blog posts. Since I certainly don’t have the time, nor the stamina, to post 5 times a week like she does (that’s too much pressure to be funny ALL THE TIME), I’m going to keep it simple and post once a week.

Did you hear that universe?

ONCE.A.WEEK.

Every Friday, check back here for updates on me, writing, me, reading, me, and well, me. What can I say, I’m nothing if not a giver to my readers. If you’re lucky, I may even start holding contests. (See? Selfless.)

To kick off my new in-your-face, read my blog attitude, I’m also here to make a special announcement.

Vuvuzelas please!

With permission from dear husband, I am allowed to tell you that we are expecting, in the coming months, a wee little tot.

Is this crazy? Do you need a moment to process the news? Don’t worry, I’ll wait for you catch your breath.

………

Better? I KNOW! Trust me, I didn’t see things happening this quickly, but I must say, I’m rather excited at the thought of having a little Wookiee in my life. (Stayrook = Rook = Rookie =Wookiee. Yea, sometimes you just have be in my mind to understand these things.) I won’t bore you with details about nausea, swelling fingers, and crankiness at being sleep deprived. Instead, I’ll end this friday post with a story (I do like to pretend I’m a writer), about how Papa Wookiee found out he was gonna have a fuzzball pup. (Boy, I can use the hell out of this analogy.)

It happened one not so eventful Saturday morning. I hadn’t been feeling well, and at the insistence of the pain in my boobs, I decided to take a pregnancy test. Lo and behold, that test was positive. Immediately, I took a picture of said positive test and sent it to BFF Kristy Colley for confirmation. After frightening everyone in the grocery store with her screams of glee, she called, we spoke, we gushed, everyone was happy.

Unfortunately, I had to wait for Joe to get home. I plotted with BFF KC on cute ways to tell him. Baking buns in the oven. (Too cliche.) Knitting booties. (I can’t knit. That was out.) Putting a positive pregnancy test in a cake. (To be fair, this was never a consideration but someone online had actually done this. You let your husband bite into a cake, a cake with a stick you peed on? REALLY?) In a moment of confusion, I panicked and decided to leave the TWO pregnancy tests on the bathroom sink, hoping he would use the bathroom first thing when he got home.

Again, unfortunately, he did not do as I planned. He came home and being the doll he is, he knew I still wasn’t “feeling well,” so he sat beside me on the couch, comforting me in my time of pain. Of course, I had to cover my mouth the entire time to keep from grinning because I’m a terrible, horrible liar. After nearly 20 minutes had gone by, I said in my best I’m-still-very-sick voice, “Could you get my book out of the bathroom, please?”

He groaned, but got up and like a good creeper, I watched him go into the bathroom from around the corner.

“Everything okay?” I asked after he’d been in there for quite some time and I heard cabinets being opened and closed. I even saw him peak around in the trash can. Where in the WORLD does he think I keep my books?

“I’m guessing this is what I was meant to find?” The tests.

“Yes….” I gulped and walked to the bathroom. “..Is that…okay?”

He looked at the bathroom sink and paused for a moment before looking back at me with the most pathetic, pleading look on his face. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS!” He half laughed, half cried. “You hid the box with the directions and I can’t figure it out!”

After laughing my heart out I finally said, “It’s a ‘yes.’”

“Why can’t they just write that on the test? Why all these lines and confusion and I was worried it all meant something else!”

We hugged and kissed and all that sweet romantic stuff that bores everyone to tears. Don’t worry babe, it doesn’t mean Wookiee is going to have three heads. Just one furry one is alright with me.

For the record, this is the man I’m about to have a child with:

Does anyone else have any exciting news to share? Come on, do tell!