TAS [traditions & superstitions]

road tripping with Stealth

Road-tripping is a serious tradition in our family.  We love to get in the Tundra and DRIVE!  Seeing the journey is as interesting and fun as the destination --- and always comes with surprises.  Like the year we drove to Cannon Beach and happened to pass a massive strawberry field right as the berries had come into season.  So delicious and flavorful!  FYI, those things in the grocery that look like strawberries are not strawberries . . . .

Integral to our road-tripping tradition is Stealth, nose to the windshield, gawking as the world flies by.

 And the superstition?  I always make sure my British pound is in my travel bag.   :-)

WOD [word of the day]

whatevs: fabulously hip for 'whatever'

sunday extra: happy anniversary Painted Boots

Painted Boots is one!

Happy Anniversary to Painted Boots . . . my first book, published last July, 2013.  To celebrate, I'm giving away an autographed copy to the first person to send an email to: info.mechelle@gmail.com

Painted Boots is mature YA.  It deals with love, loss, bullying and coming of age.  Here's the teaser:

When her father drags her to a new life in Wyoming, Aspen Brand doesn’t expect to fall for a cowboy named Kyle Thacker—but she does.  At seventeen, Aspen and Kyle share unexpected ground: guitar, running, physics.  And guilt.  Aspen blames herself for her mother’s car accident, while Kyle can’t find a way past his brother’s suicide.

On their first date they open up to each other, forging an unbreakable bond between them.  But Kyle has spent two years living with a vicious secret—one his ex-girlfriend will do anything to protect—and sharing his truth with Aspen makes her a target.

Now if Kyle is to be her love story, Aspen must first win the fight of her life.

USP: Happy Anniversary to moi

Tonight I'm promoting the fabulous anniversary of my marriage!  The years of wedded bliss just keep on rolling by.  We're celebrating by cleaning up the house and painting, and I'm blogging.  (We're saving our celebration for the weekend.)  But on the bright side, it's the first year where both my husband and I remembered our anniversary before the day of our anniversary.  Or a few days after, which is what happened last year.

TAS [traditions & superstitions]

Stealth hitches a ride

Thirteen years ago, as I was preparing to head to China to fetch my daughter, one of my skating students gave me the fabulous Stealth Panda.  I stuffed him into my coat and continued to teach ... with just his head peeking out from between my coat's open zipper.  I had a very shy student in that class, and that night I talked to her in the bad French accent that became a Stealth staple for my daughter.  It made my student laugh--just as it's soothed over my daughter's tears, fears, anger and angst.  Stealth and his comical accent can fix anything from a tantrum to hurt feelings.  So of course he travels with us everywhere we go.

Over the years Stealth has wormed his fuzzy, fiber-filled ways onto our family's list of favorite traditions.  He's given us endless laughs.  And in return, we've given him an ego bent on world domination.  "After all," he muses, "I easily solve zee problems of one small family.  Think of zee wonders I could work for zee world."