Wordless Wednesday: Memorial Day Picnic

 

Smores and Firepit and Sunset oh my!

Join in the fun and link up here:

The Next Big Thing

Thanks a bunch to the lovely Pauline Wiles for tagging me to take part in The Next Big Thing. This involves me yacking on about myself and my books while also spreading love to other authors that I admire!

Like me Pauline is a British ex-pat, and when she left the UK eight years ago she was not quite sure how she was going to survive without afternoon tea, historic homes, the local pub and oodles of rain but is now living in California with her British husband and getting her head around the constant sunshine and cheerful people! She calls herself a “trailing spouse” so that's what I will think of myself as herewith.

I beg of you please take a peek at Pauline’s engaging debut novel, Saving Saffron Sweeting. It is about Grace, an English woman living in USA with her husband and living a charmed life until she finds out he's doing the dirty on her. Unable to stomach the betrayal Grace flees back to her homeland, and somehow lands in the clutches of the quaint village of Saffron Sweeting....

Buy the book and find out what happens next and be aware that the book will leave you yearning for English treats like sticky toffee pudding. So do yourself a favor and get stuck in!

_____________________________

Now, onto my Q&A section:

What is the working title of your book?

Cocktails at Naptime - A Woefully Inadequate Guide to Early Motherhood.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Once upon a time...two mums who really should have been doing housework wrote a book together....they called it "Cocktails at Naptime" and some nice Australian publishers called Finch Publishing laughed out loud when they read it on the train home and thought their readers would laugh out loud too on their trains home, possibly startling some fellow passengers along the way (read more here)

What genre does your book fall under?

Pregnancy and Childbirth Humor.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

That the book will become a movie is something of a given - two bloggers meet over the blogosphere and write a book. The plotline is marvellous. Once Hollywood comes a-calling the question will be who will play Gillian and who will play Emma?

Emma (me)

I am a kind of bossy no nonsense English type but frankly Emma Thompson's getting a bit long in the tooth to play someone as stunning and vivacious as me so I'm going to have to put my thinking cap on here. I am also one of those clumsy types with no sense of direction so I am thinking maybe Tamsin Greig?

Gillian Martin

Gillian is a plain speaking Scott so maybe Michelle Gomez who played that Scottish woman who was bonkers in Green Wing? (although Gillian is not really bonkers)



Sue White (Michelle Gomez) and Dr Caroline Todd (Tamsin Grieg) in Green Wing


But here are some other options:

Kath and Kim

Rennee Zellwegger and Julia Roberts

Meryl Streep and Judi Dench

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

There are secrets that no baby book will tell you, and stories that no parenting magazine will touch with a set of forceps. Thats a shame because out of postnatal nastiness and the struggle with sleep-deprivation, couch stainage and perineum bruising, comes forth humour lots of it!


Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The book was first published by Finch Publishing in Australia but we would be over the moon if a British or American publisher wanted to publish it too. You can purchase it on Amazon here.


How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

A few months of emailing eachother, gallons of Chardonnay and a very messy house (as the housework didn't get done)!

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

The book was written by two authors who met via the internet. Gillian lives in Aberdeen, Scotland and I live in Baltimore, USA and we have never met! We are both successful bloggers who wrote the book in cyberspace and have been promoting it all over the internet ever since.

Cocktails at Naptime tackles the first year after birth for first time mums in a way that will have you in stitches. Go here for chapter headings and extracts.

The book is also like stand up comedy on a page and includes off-beat stuff about how Mothers of History (including Queen Victoria and Marie Antoinette) dealt with getting their figure back as well as an essential guide to transforming your partner into a sex symbol using only household bleach and a pair of rubber gloves.

If you want to know how Marie Antoinette got her figure back post birth read Cocktails at Naptime.



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Now to continue this series of author-self-interviews, I would like to tag:

Jill Smokler aka Scary Mommy who lives somewhere in Baltimore although I have yet to meet her. Her latest book is the side-splitting Motherhood Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies) Check out her amazingly popular confessional on where you can let it all hang out and not feel judged.

Joanne Clancy is a fabulous writer from County Cork, Ireland. She is an avid reader, self-confessed Kindle addict, and tea fiend. Joanne was a quarter finalist at the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards 2013, with The Secrets and Lies Trilogy. She has also written The Wedding Day; Unforgettable Embrace; My Love, and Watched.

Nikki Kneppler is the author of Moms Who Drink and Swear: True Tales of Loving My Kids While Losing My Mind. Blurb: Attention all potty-mouthed, cheap-wine-drinking mothers: Prepare to meet your match. Any bad thought you’ve had about your kids, Nicole Knepper has had worse. Much worse. It’s not that she doesn’t love her kids. It’s that she understands what a mind-f*?% it can be to try to civilize those wild little beasts.

____________________________________

Other books you can buy written by me (and make me very happy) are Seductive Viennese Whirl and Her Ten Year Itch. You can also connect with me on Facebook and Twitter.

We're Not In Kansas Anymore

Hurrah!! My entry for the Expat Culture Shock Competition has won!! Thanks to everyone who voted for me.


We're Not in Kansas Anymore
by Emma Kaufmann

I was whisked by taxi from my flat in central London in the early dawn. Giddy and slightly nauseous, I thought of my boyfriend waiting for me on the other side of the Atlantic.


What the heck was I doing?


I had waved goodbye to my French flatmate Jean-Claude who was a total Americanophile. A passion for all things American, had, like Borat's been ignited by a passion for Baywatch and had taken Jean-Claude on many jaunts to San Diego where he had ridden waves and bedded beach babes who went nuts for his accent. A recent attempt to emigrate to the USA had bombed and now Jean-Claude was somewhat miffed that I was off to his version of the Promised Land.


Read mine and all the entries here:

Winners of the Expat Culture Shock Competition

Happy Caturday

Happy Caturday to you all!

I'm linking up with a Cat Like Curiosity for this feline blog hop.

I am a cat fanatic and had cats all through my childhood even though I am somewhat allergic to them (although right now I am catless and just have the two guinea pigs). I would love to be reincarnated as a cat.What could be better than lying in the sun all day and sitting on laps and getting tickled behind the ears?

I just did a picture of a ginger cat who looks like he's just eaten a canary or bitten the tail off a mouse and is just sleeping it off:

Things I am grateful for:

1. Spring is in the air and I can wake to the sounds of birds chattering.

2.  I don't have to scrape snow off my car.

3. I finished the last of my horde of Easter chocolate so I can now start Operation Cram Myself into a Swimsuit by Eating Less.

4. There are lots of flowers in my garden which makes me feel very cheerful. Hopefully my sunflowers will bloom this year as they sometimes decide not to.

5. I am pleased that my daughter has started mowing the lawn so I don't have to.

What are you grateful for?

If you are cat crazy please link up here:

Cooking with the British Bint

Aaah! We thought it was spring but then on Monday opened our curtains to see this:

Very beautiful to be sure.The kids strapped themselves into their snowpants and spent the day shrieking with excitement that there was no school. And then sledded all day while I kept busy in the kitchen.

The rest of the week was grimly cold so I stocked up on carbs. I am obsessed with food but I get a bit sick of these self  confessed foodies who will only use the highest quality goat's cheese where the goat was organically milked or who won't use a common or garden rotisserie chicken unless it has lived a healthy life in a close community of other chickens. That's fine for some people who are loaded I guess, like Gwyneth Paltrow who has her kids on a carb free diet (that puts a new meaning to the term deprived childhood doesn't it?)

No, I reckon the real skill is finding a bunch of wrinkled old vegetables, some past their sell by date herbs, and a few odds and sods in the back of one's cupboard and then bunging them together to create a delicious okay edible meal. Are you with me?

So that's what I did. I made some pizza dough. I slopped some barbecue sauce on it. I put some bits of roast chicken on.

It's not rocket science.

But it is delicious. 

Barbecue Chicken Pizza - it's really hard to make (not)

Don't get me wrong. I am a total food voyeur. I love to peruse pretentious foodie markets and nibble on bits of organic Camembert and inhale the scent of freshly made chocolates. But I'm not going to shell out for it, because I'm not daft.

On a recent trip to New York I realized most of my photos were about food. 

Trip to Food Paradise aka Chelsea Kitchen:

Is that Gwyneth Paltrow? No it's me!

Heaven on earth (Dim sum in Flushing):

Oh yes I did - asked for a fork in a dim sum restaurant

Live fish at a supermarket in Flushing

Where was I?

Anyway the week ended on a high note. Today has sunshine flooding down on us and even the guinea pigs are romping free in the grass.

So tell me this: are you a foodie or just a culinary genius like moi who can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear? Isn't it just pretentious to always have to have to source the wierdest, most obscure ingredients to put in your stew? Yes I mean you Fearnley-Whittingstall and your placenta stew.

Trifecta Challenge: I Should Be So Lucky

Here's my piece for Trifecta Week 70 using the third definition of Lucky

LUCKY (adjective)

1: having good luck
2: happening by chance : fortuitous
3: producing or resulting in good by chance : favorable

I Should Be So Lucky 

That morning their mother tried to shake Celeste and Sheena awake but they were locked in a deep restless sleep.

Weird and incomprehensible words streamed from their mouths.

Hammer-time

Harem  pants

Shell suits

Rainbow legwarmers

Celeste sat up and screamed.

"What is it?" her mother asked.

"We went back to the nineteen eighties."

"But how could you?" said their mother. "That's totally impossible."

Sheena sat up and stared at her sister.

"I don't understand. What was that?"

"Oh God! All we wanted was to find out about fashion."

"We shouldn't have been so curious."

"I feel violated."

"So much spandex."

"All those shoulder pads."

"It's just a nightmare," said their mother, as she watched their pale, sweaty faces contort in agony. "It's going to be okay."

The night before, Sheena and Celeste had belted themselves into the time machine located at the back of their closet, behind piles of identical breathing suits in shades of beige and grey.

The question that burned into their brains night and day was,What was fashion? That was what the sisters were dying to find out.

Yet the machine they had built would not travel back from the present 2257 to pre-2050, to the time when people lived on Earth, until global warming made the ice caps melt and the rivers rise, until pollution was so thick it burnt the insides of  their lungs and they had no choice but to move to Mars or die.

As the time machine juddered into life Sheena noticed that her pet rat, Bleepers, had gnawed through some of the wires. The time dial was spinning like it never had before. The sisters shrieked with excitement as they watched it race back in time:  2045, 2025, 2000 ....

Oh my God! It was their lucky day. Yes indeed, maybe Bleepers would change their fortunes. 

"Thank you Bleepers!" Sheena shrieked, slamming her fist on the dashboard. "We're heading to 1982! This is it Celeste.We're going to find out what fashion really means! Woohoo!"

 

Trifecta Challenge: Big Screen and Little Screen

This is Week 69 of the Trifecta writing prompt which asks us to use the definition below. 

The word is INFECT. 

3a : contaminate, corrupt    b : to work upon or seize upon so as to induce sympathy, belief, or support

BIG SCREEN AND LITTLE SCREEN

There was a time when I would

Watch the Big Screen

And before I knew it

I would have a terrible craving for

Nembutal 

Big Screen told me it would make my edges go fuzzy

And it did

What fun it all was

Some days Big Screen would infect me 

And I'd find myself

Rollerskating in white shorts during my period

Like a zombie

In the evening Big Screen whispered to me 

That to win my husband's love

I should scrub my private parts with Lysol

It was a most effective strategy

Big Screen became like a lover

And I turned up the sound

Drowning in Big Screen's voice

Until I was so busy watching

Big Screen 

That my husband left me

And my white shorts got too tight

I was buying too much KFC

And scrubbing with Lysol played havoc with my skin

Decades have passed

And I don't let Big Screen boss me around any more

Like he used to

Now I don't let Big Screen tell me what to do

I carry Little Screen with me

In my pocket

And talk to her often

She is my best friend

With a constant stream

Of chatter in my ear

I suppose it's just a different

Sort of prison

Because I can never switch her off

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Don't forget! There is still time to enter my Limerick competition and win a large Easter Egg!

Competition: Pen a Limerick - Win an Amazing Chocolate Egg



The Easter bunny above (called Paisley) and I are extremely egg-cited about the launch of my Easter Limerick competition (although you can't see his expression under all that fur).

Yes, I am looking for your finest Easter themed limericks. And naturally there is a prize from chocolatiers Hotel Chocolat for letting your creative juices flow onto paper or rather computer screen! So read on if deluxe chocolates are your drug of choice.

As I write I am chomping on a lovely gift from the peeps at Hotel Chocolat who sent me some of their Classic Egglets (below) which are smooth, creamy and delicious. For these are not just any chocolate Easter eggs. Oh no. These babies come as a clutch of seven mellow egglets and come filled with super soft Salted Caramel, smooth Pecan Praline, dreamy Vanilla Truffle and melt-away Hazelnut Praline.

Hotel Chocolat have a strong ingredients philosophy and use only wholesome, real ingredients and their overall mantra is Less Sugar, More Cocoa. All their products are vegetarian.

Have I got you all excited yet?

Well if you want some chocs you'll have to pen the verse.

First I'll answer any questions you may have floating about:

Q: What is a limerick?

A: A limerick is a humorous verse of three long and two short lines with a rhyming pattern of AABBA.

Example written by me:

There once was a cat called Babbitt
Whose lust for Easter eggs became a habit
Chomping through dark, milk or mint
Her egg consumption left her so skint
She had no choice but to marry the Easter Rabbit

Q: Aren’t limericks usually obscene?

A: If you are even slightly familiar with limericks, you’ll likely be aware that they are often bawdy and/or vulgar. You are perfectly free to come close to vulgarity, even hint blatantly at it, but personally I prefer innuendo over blatant vulgarity (although you are free to experiment either way).

The theme is Easter. Bunnies, eggs, chirping chicks. The whole shebang.

Q: What can I win?

At the end of the contest, Paisley the bunny and I will choose a “Most Favored” among all limericks submitted. The author of the Most Favored Limerick will win:



An Egglet Extra Thick Easter Egg

Both half-shells are cast from their special 40% cocoa house milk chocolate. And inside – 12 mini eggs, gorgeously decorated with colourful flourishes and filled with liquid caramel, smooth hazelnut praline, strawberry ganache and more. 12 pieces.

Q: How do I participate?

A: Just post your Easter themed limerick in the comments section below.

Q: Can I enter more than once?

A: Of course! Crush us with your rhyming prowess. You’re welcome to enter as many times as you like, but please enter only one limerick per comment (unless your limerick is multi-versed).

Q: When is the deadline?

A: Monday March 25, 2013 at 11:59pm Eastern.

Yippee! Let the Easter Limerick Party begin!

Submit your Limerick:

Just use the comments section below to astound us with your creativity

Forcing the Dead to Eat Chocolate

You've got to feel sorry for dead celebs these days, because their image can be manipulated to sell seven shades of consumer pap.

For example would John Lennon really have sold out to this degree while alive to sell a Citroen while a) bemoaning the nostalgia for the 60s and 70s (in a clip from 1968, not to mention the fact he was dead by 1980) while letting (b) his voice be done by an impressionist who has obviously never heard John Lennon speak.

I blame Yoko for this faux pas.

And what possessed Charlize Theron to appear in an ad for Dior perfume where Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich pop up from the dead in full face makeup? Creepy, gruesome and just, well, in such bad taste. I mean don't these divas smell a bit rank after having been dug out of the ground years after their demise?

Poor old Audrey Hepburn is the latest product of post-death digital manipulation. It's hardly believable that chocolate ever passed the sacred portal of Hepburn's lips, since Audrey was as skinny as a matchstick. And if it had would it really have been a Galaxy bar? Ooh this is bad...evidently Hepburn was brought back from the dead, forced to ride a bus and eat Galaxy brand chocolate. I just can't imagine her doing this tacky commercial in real life so surely this is disrespectful?

Don't the dead have any rights? Or is this the definition of celebrity hell, having your image regurgitated and forced to do tasteless tricks until the end of time?

What's next I wonder? A commercial with Princess Diana advertising Weight Loss Pills or Anna Nicole Smith advertising Spanx? The mind boggles!

Tuesday's Tea Party

We all know blog hops are a great way to gain more followers, meet other bloggers and help each other grow. Don't forget to return the favor to those who follow you. Every Tuesday you can be sure this shin dig will be going on, so be sure to come on back.

                                                  

Alice @ Adventure Into Domesticland     &     Simply Mad About Beauty

                                                          

Emma @ Mommy Has A Headache          Alicia @ Moms Don't Say That!          Sarah @ Enjoying the Epiphany

1. Follow the host and co-hosts
2. Link up! - Your blog, Facebook, Twitter and/or Pinterest.
3. Grab the badge, place it on your sidebar or link party page.
4. Keep coming back to link up each week!

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