I’ve not posted since Monday because I’ve been super busy preparing for my trip to see my sister and then on to the RWA National Conference in Reno. Shortly after midnight tomorrow night, I’ll be boarding an Amtrak train for the first leg of my journey. So I won’t be able to blog again until Monday at the earliest. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get online that night and blog about my cross-country trek and the interesting things I saw along the way. I’ve never done a cross-country train trip, so this should be cool.

Okay, so you all probably have them — TBR Piles. For those of you who might not recognize the term, that’s to-be-read pile. Mine is no longer a pile, but piles…no make that mountains. At last count, I had more than 400 books. Crazy, I know, particularly since I read so slowly. But I can’t make myself part with them unless I’ve read them. I’ve bought many, those by friends and those that just called to me because of the storyline. Others I’ve been given or received as freebies at conferences. Actually, I have read some. They’re keepers because they’re written by my friends, critique partners and fellow Noodlers. The first picture is mainly research books and writing books. The other is just a portion of the novels (overwhelmingly romance with some historical novels and mysteries thrown in) hanging out in my office, watching me write my own books.

So, anyone have a bigger TBR pile than me? If so, does your hubby come into your office, shake his head and laugh?

I got to catch up on some of the end of last season’s Battlestar Galactica tonight. I watched the ending of the cliffhanger episode where Captain Adama’s life is literally on the line. The premiere of Season 2 is Friday. Will have to try to catch it after watching Episode 5 of Into the West.

Anyone else out there watch Battlestar Galactica or either of the Stargate series on Sci Fi Friday?

Here’s a shot of two of the many interesting characters on Battlestar — Helo and Boomer, two conflicted characters. And, well, Helo’s just hot. Thanks to http://www.galactica2003.net/ for the photo.

No, it’s not the Blue Room at the White House. There’s a new Blue Room on the block. I still have to take down the masking tape that’s on the trim, shampoo the carpet and put all the stuff back in the room, but I’m done painting!! I can’t believe how different the room looks. It was an icky shade of “white”. My hubby said all I need is some puffy white clouds at the top of the walls.

When I sat down at my computer this morning to check e-mail, that’s when I saw the headline about the terror attacks in London. I hurried to the TV to check out the coverage and thought, “Oh no, not again.” I yearn for the days from not all that long ago when the heightened possibility of this type of attack wasn’t the new normal. When you see dazed, injured people coming out of a subway tunnel, it makes many of our everyday problems seem minor and petty by comparison. It may never come to fruition, but I pray for a day when this type of terror is something we read about in history books, not a cause for fear or worry in the present.

It’s days like today when I think about how books such as the ones we write are here for a purpose other than making authors and publishing companies money. The critics may pick on romance, it might not get the respect of other, more “literary” works, but when the real world is full of fear and destruction, I’m hopeful that someone somewhere will pick up one of those books and be transported away from that fear and destruction…if only for a little while. It’s been called escapist fiction, and on days like today, maybe that’s what a lot of people need, an escape from reality.

Theresa Medeiros posted a nice picture of Clive Owen over on Squawk Radio today and mentioned that he’s one of those guys who has a fabulous voice. You know, the kind who could read the phone book and you’d willingly listen. So, I’m curious…what guys (other than your significant others) have the kind of voice that makes you go all gooey? Have they inspired any of the heroes in your books? And Mary, I know EXACTLY who you’re going to say.

Home improvement update: Finished everything I wanted to today. After painting the ceiling a bright white I realized that my walls really aren’t white. They’re some sort of icky color that’s masquerading as white. Well, as of tomorrow, they’ll begin to be blue, three light blue walls and one darker blue accent wall. When I’m finished I’ll post a picture of my masterpiece.

So, I’m taking this week off from fiction writing and doing some chores around the house. We’ve lived in our house for five years, and we have an extra room at the back that has been a catch-all junk room. It was in serious need of organization, cleaning and a new coat of paint. So, today I took everything out of that room and piled it around our den. Check out the picture above for the result. Ack! Good thing there’s nothing good on TV because I’m not sure I could reach the couch or see the TV over the piles if I did reach it. My arms feel like jittery noodles because I moved a ton of stuff, swept down the cobwebs, vacuumed, cleaned the ceiling fan and air vents, washed all the walls and ceiling, removed excess nails in the walls and spackled the holes. Tomorrow’s exciting agenda includes putting Kilz cover-up on several dark smudges, taping the edges of the trim and baseboards so I don’t get paint on them, putting down the drop clothes and beginning the painting of the ceiling. I hope to get the ceiling done tomorrow so that I can tackle the walls on Thursday and be finished with all the painting by Friday. After that’s in the bag, it’ll be off to Lowe’s to rent one of those super-duper Rug Doctors to shampoo the carpet. And then start moving all the stuff back into the room, perhaps talking the dh into selling some of those sports cards and old LPs on eBay. I’d love to have the room done by Saturday so I can spend all of next week working on a new story idea and preparing for my trip to visit my sister and then the RWA National Conference.

So, how do you work in home improvement projects if you do them yourself? Do you take a week off from writing to tackle a big project or do you weave in a little bit at a time, continuing writing at the same time?

For those of us in the USA, it’s Independence Day, the day when we told England, “You know, we think we’ll just go make our own country, thanks.” We’ve had a weekend of hanging out with family, eating way too much, a road trip for ice cream and just generally being lazy. But, seriously, here are some things I’m thankful for this 4th of July:

* I’m thankful that I live in a country where women can drive, we don’t have to cover ourselves head to toe if we don’t want to, we can go outside our homes without being accompanied by a male relative, and we can go into any career field we choose.

* I’m thankful we live in a properous country, even if the economy has taken some hits in recent years. I’ve heard it said that even our poorest citizens have a life of luxury compared to many parts of the world. I can’t imagine getting up every day hungry and knowing I’ll probably go to bed that way too.

* I’m thankful for RWA and all the wonderful friends I’ve made through it and the field of romance writing. Some of my best friends are other romance writers.

Reading update: I didn’t write any over the weekend, but I finished reading Susan Wiggs’ Table for Five and really enjoyed it.

After sending in my new young adult partial to my agent on Thursday, I decided to take Friday through Monday off. It’s a holiday weekend after all. I’ve been catching up on other stuff, including putting the scrapbook together for the 2004 RWA National Conference. Figured I needed to do that since the 2005 conference is this month. I can’t believe I leave in less than two weeks, first to visit my sister and then on to Reno for the conference.

So, since I have no writing news to report and I’m not in the mood to scan some more scary hair pictures, I’m dedicating this post to pet peeves. I had the idea for this topic while at the post office yesterday. As I was leaving, I held the door open for a lady who was going in. Her response? No “thank you”, no “kiss my big toe”, nothing. This happens every once in awhile, and I have to wonder, would it kill these people to utter a “thank you”? I’m not doing it for the thanks, but geez. I always thank people when they hold the door for me.

Other pet peeves:

1. People who litter. Would it kill them to hold on to that McDonald’s bag until they stop for gas the next time? They have these nice big garbage cans conveniently located right next to the gas pumps.

2. When I’m stuck in traffic on the interstate and some jerk decides he’s more important than everyone else and drives up the emergency lane. Hello, it’s called an emergency lane for a reason. Unless he’s foaming at the mouth or bleeding profusely or having a heart attack or his wife is about to give birth, stay in the line with the rest of us! I must say one of the greatest traffic jam moments was when I was going to Atlanta recently and someone did this. The police officer who was in the lane next to me turned on his lights, and I happily let him cut in front of me so he could go ticket the person. Yes!

3. E-mails that have guilt trips in them. You know, the ones where the sender tries to make you feel like you’re not helping out a cause or sharing a religious message by not forwarding it to everyone you know.

What are some of your pet peeves?