Christmas

URB!!

Congratulations! I’m emailing you now to take of the fulfillment. Thank you to everyone who stopped by and commented!

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Welcome to the Christmas Wishes Blog Hop, sponsored by Book and Trailer Showcase (BTS), Coffee Beans and Love Scenes and Full Moon Bites. Many thanks to our sponsors who are offering the following awesome GRAND PRIZES:

Kindle Paperwhite with book bundle

Nook Glow-Light with book bundle

or a $90 giftcard for either Amazon or Barnes & Noble

Just in time for Christmas, too. Either keep or re-gift. We won’t tell anyone.

To enter for the grand prizes, head over to BTS’s website and enter via the Rafflecopter here:

BUT before you go, I am offering a prize to one lucky commenter (international ok)–

A free ebook copy of my novel, The P.U.R.E.,
a romantic mystery with a healthy dose of humor.

Here’s the blurb:

No one ever said Gayle Lindley’s first job would be a killer.

Fresh out of college, Gayle’s career path should follow the yellow brick road straight to the top. Thanks to a menial errand gone wrong, a wayward tongue, and a randy supervisor who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, Gayle’s stuck in corporate hell.

Discovering a company secret only turns up the heat.

The one part of her life not going down in flames is her friendship with the gorgeous, but intensely private, Jon Cripps. Jon would make the perfect consolation prize for Gayle’s pity party if dating a co-worker wasn’t career suicide. Then again, with all Gayle has been through, maybe falling in love is the lucky break she needs.

Hitting the cool sheets with Jon soothes her mind and body, but it also enrages whoever’s behind the smokescreen she’s uncovered at work. Someone is willing to kill to protect their secrets, and Gayle and Jon are the targets.

With both her heart and livelihood at stake, Gayle’s early career-limiting moves could turn into life-terminating ones.

To enter my giveaway, tell me in the comments below if you’ve ever been in a workplace romance and if so, what happened? (Yeah, I’m nosey.) Please be sure to leave me your email somewhere, either in the comment form or in the body of the email so I can contact you if you win.

Now, hop on over to one of the many other participating blogs in the hop:

B is for…Bombeck

…as in Erma Bombeck. I entered the Erma Bombeck humor essay competition this year. Kudos to me for remembering it in time to enter. I didn’t win but here’s my essay:

Darwin trumps Newton

I am convinced laziness is hereditary. Though Darwinists would argue survival of the fittest dooms my kind, modern caterers to convenience are determined to prove them wrong. The explosive growth in display space for “As Seen On TV” products is one bellwether of such.

That is where I found Forever Lazy—a velvety one-size-fits-most Ziploc baggy for the human body designed to lull its wearer into perpetual inactivity.

I giggled at first, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed me circling the display. I could always claim they were gag gifts; give them to my husband and sons as silly stocking stuffers.

My purchase rationalized, I nabbed four in blue—one for each family member.

“These make great white elephant gifts,” the cashier chirped, her industrious fingers flying over the cash register keys. Ten of her would fit in one Forever Lazy suit.

“They’re for my kids to wear after their…uh…three-hour-long black belt Tae Kwan Do classes.” I hadn’t told a complete lie. My children were martial arts students…when I could cajole them into donning their wrinkled uniforms, then herd them to the car where my husband and I played rock, paper, scissors over chauffeur duty.

The suits were a huge hit.

Six days later, wrapping paper cluttered a three-foot radius around the Christmas tree. Greeting card envelopes decked the halls from foyer to kitchen. Glasswear crusted with dried eggnog adorned the family room from end table to end table … and four blobs of royal blue fuzz sat in semi-catatonic states watching reality television reruns.

Forever Lazies had made my family even lazier!

When we were nearly out of microwave popcorn and Ritz crackers, survival and inertia waged the ultimate death match.

I dragged myself to the computer in a Herculean effort fueled by the last candy cane I wrestled away from the dog. For hours I surfed the web searching for an antidote. Surely someone manufactured an Eternally Peppy suit.

Sweat beaded on my forehead from all my turbo mousing. The heat grew unbearable until finally I burst from my blue cocoon like a butterfly.

“Eureka!” I shrieked as I shuffled to crank up my home’s heater.

One by one my mate and our offspring shed their mantles of lethargy and toddled on legs of newborn colts. Maybe I would have grandkids after all.

Newton’s law says objects at rest tend to stay at rest. So too do human beings if given the flimsiest of excuses. Those excuses now reside at the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper. One day I might wash them…if I ever launder my way down that far.