I hope everyone had a great 4th. Having done our cookout and partying last weekend, we didn’t even leave the house except to step out onto the front porch to watch the neighbors shoot off fireworks. And as you can tell from my lack of blogging the past couple of days, I’ve been in the writing cave. I’ve written 33 pages in the past two days. I’m really pushing to have a rough draft done by the time I head to San Fran so I can do editing on the train.

You know how you get those meme things in e-mail and are tagged by other bloggers all the time. You know the ones that ask things like — tell us six random things about you? Well, I’ve decided to start my own and see how long it takes the world of the Internet to send it back to me. So, here goes:

Famous People Meme — Which famous person in each of the following categories would you like to meet?

Author — J.K. Rowling

Movie Actor — Orlando Bloom

TV Actor — Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, also Sarah Michelle Gellar

Musician/Singer — Bon Jovi

Historical Figure — Queen Elizabeth I and Sacajawea

Fictional Book Character — J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood brothers

Fictional Movie or TV Character — Buffy Sommers

Okay, if you have a blog, go forth and blog. Everyone, including the bloggers, share your answers in the comments section. I’m verrry curious.

Today I went to my RWA chapter meeting, the first time since March. The two times I happened to be traveling this spring were on meeting weekends. I presented part of the program on judge training for our contest/critiquing. Super critiquer Annie Solomon was the other presenter. It was nice to see everyone and to go out to lunch with the girls. Afterward, I dragged my friend Monica to Barnes & Noble so she could get J.R. Ward’s Dark Lover so she can get hooked on the series like me. She ended up getting the first two, Jessica Andersen’s new book, the first in her The Final Prophecy series, and a Katie MacAlister book. I was sad to see, however, that yet another B&N has removed the series romance (Harlequin/Silhouette) books from their shelves. Sigh.

I meant to put up these pictures a few weeks ago when my rose bushes were blooming. Still, they’re too pretty not to share.

Sorry I fell off the blog radar for a few days. The Internet connection was poo in my room at the RT conference hotel, and I spent yesterday driving home from Pittsburgh. But without further adieu, here’s a look at my week in pictures and a bit of commentary.

My hotel room overlooked the site of historic Fort Pitt (you can see the outlines of the original fort on the grass), and where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers come together to form the Ohio River. It was cool to see the spot where the Ohio River begins since I grew up near the opposite end of the river. To the far right of the photo below, you can see a bit of Heinz Field, more commonly known as Three Rivers Stadium to Pittsburgh Steelers fans.

Since some of my Bandita pals were there, and I was an American Title finalist like one of them (KJ Howe) and several other writers in attendance. We had a group Bandita/AT dinner at a restaurant across the street from the hotel. Others took those pictures, so I don’t have those yet.

I’ve decided that at any future RT conferences I attend, I’m going to go the costume route at the evening parties. Lots of people went all out, including my pal Lindsey Brookes, and it was great to watch. Because these parties included dancing, I didn’t want to keep up with my camera. But if anyone sends me photos, I’ll be sure to post them.

On Friday was the awards luncheon where numerous authors were honored, and Helen Scott Taylor was announced as the winner of the American Title contest. I came in first runner-up. Huge congrats to Helen! That’s her below sitting between her beautiful daughter, Katherine, right, and the first AT winner, Janice Lynn.

Here are some more ATers: Holli Bertram, Evonne Wareham, former finalist Judi Fennel, last year’s winner, Jenny Gardiner, and (standing) Liz French, managing editor of Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine and our fabulous RT contact throughout the contest.

On Saturday was the big group book signing. I knew lots of the authors signing. Here are just a handful of them.

Colleen Gleason

Anna DeStefano

Jessica Andersen

Natale Stenzel

Here I am being a total fangirl with J.R. Ward, who is not only talented but gracious, friendly and hysterical too.

Oh, and here my fabu agent, Michelle Grajkowski, and I decided to have a picture taken together to see how much our printed shirts would mess with people’s eyeballs.

Okay, here’s what you all have been waiting for — cover models! Not only were this year’s contestants in the Mr. Romance contest there, but since it was the 25th anniversary of RT, there were also famous cover models in the building. Yes, Fabio was in the house. In fact, I nearly plowed into him when I was exiting the ladies room. I also spied special guest Adrian Paul of Highlander fame looking verra nice in a purple suit. Sorry, didn’t have my camera with me. Next time, I think I’ll just have my camera attached to my hand at all times. If you’ve been reading romance novels for awhile, you’ll also recognize the name John DeSalvo. And guess what! Yes, I do have a photo of him.

The Mr. Romance competition brought out the flashing cameras. Here’s a peek at the reason why.

And here’s me with the very nice and charming James Gaskin, who was the second runner-up. One night, he talked to Michelle and me for several minutes after one of the parties. We chatted a bit about him studying physics in college and how my hubby was a physics major for a couple of years before changing to economics.

And the winner was…Chris Winters. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, he’s the one showing off his pecs in the photo above. Hey, if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

I didn’t meet Chris, but from all accounts he’s a nice guy too. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the guys I met and heard about were all very nice and down to earth, several of them college students. Other than James, I only talked to Chris Howell and a bit with Luke Walsh. I think I felt kind of funny just striking up conversations with them because it seemed like they were constantly being pulled one way or another. I figured they had to be totally exhausted by the end of the week.

So, have I convinced any of you to attend RT next year in Orlando?

My feet hurt! I went dancing at the Ellora’s Cave party here at RT last night. Seriously, there’s a party every night. I love to dance and used to go with friends in college, but until I went to the Harlequin party at the RWA National Conference last year I hadn’t been since college. So it’s fun to attend these parties with my writer pals. But let’s just say that my heels made it about one or two dances then got kicked off for the remainder of the night. So I can dance again tonight, I’m wearing tennis shoes today and my feet are much happier.

I went to a couple of panels on writing vampires yesterday. I haven’t written them, but I love vampire books. It’s fun to be at a conference that has a lot of pure readers/fans who aren’t writers because they really show how much they love particular authors and their books. Popular authors Kim Harrison and L.A. Banks got hoots and hollers from the crowd after being introduced. I’m sure J.R. Ward will at the panel I’m going to this morning. And after hearing Mary Janice Davidson speak, I have to read her books. She’s a riot!

Okay, more updates tomorrow if I don’t dance myself totally stupid tonight.