How do I love thee, Mr. Bates Downton Abbey? Let me count the ways… another day. Until then, enjoy this wonderful bit of Downton fun.

To learn more about BBC Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day, click here.

For Writers ~ @ Bob Mayer’s Blog, Mayer’s Reflections on the Value of Bestseller Lists vs. The Long Tail. The key to success in digital publishing is not the immediate success and the bestseller list.  It’s the long tail,… Clickety, click.

For Writers ~ @ Girlfriends Book Club, Guest post: Alexandra Sokoloff by Brenda Janowitz. Talkin’ Love Story Elements. Always find something interesting at GBC. Click, click, click.

For Comma Lovers Everywhere ~ @ Behler Blog, The Oxford Comma…’Nuf said. This made my week and filled me with glee. Click on over.

For Food Lovers ~ @ Inspired Taste, Joanne’s 46 Superbowl Recipes. Small bites, dips, sweets, drinks. Have mercy! Love this site. What are you waiting for? Also, big giveaways all month. Click, man, click.

TGIF, baby!

The first blog post I ever wrote was October 14, 2007 on WordPress dot com at Could Be A Blog.

Because I’ve been feeling all nostalgic and sentimental, here is that first post in its entirety.

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I’ve been thinking about The Kiss, like we think about The One. All week long, It’s In His Kiss (The Shoop Shoop Song, a 1964 hit single by Betty Everett) has been going through my head. Others have recorded it since then, Aretha Franklin comes to mind, but I’m humming Betty. Okay. Sometimes, I’m actually belting it out. Sorry, sweetie. We all know I’m tuneless.

“If you wanna know, if he loves you so,…” One look at these couples and you think, oh yeah, it’s definitely in the kiss — from the sweet caress, to the playful buss, to the smooch, to the full clinch, tongue-dueling lip-lock that’ll set off sparklers in your brain like the 4th of July.

In the movie, French Kiss, to distract Kate (Meg Ryan) from her fear of flying, Luc (Kevin Kline) starts a dialog with Kate about the first time. For Luc, this was at age 12 with Magda, a putain or prostitute. He said, “To kiss a prostitute, it costs more. It has always been.” Kate nods. “…You could probably disconnect from everything else, but a kiss…All I mean is a kiss is where the romance is.” Evidently, Luc thought so, too, because he told Kate that the next day he stole 50 francs from his brother, “…and I went back and I kissed Magda for half an hour.”

Faith Hill, in her 1998 hit single, calls it “unstoppable,” “unsinkable,” This Kiss.

We’ve all read heroes who can deliver on the kiss. Boy, have we ever! The Morelli Kiss flashes through my brain. You know, the one in Hot Six where Stephanie’s “undies floated to the floor.” (Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, http://www.evanovich.com). I know. All you Plum fans are thinking, “Wait! What about the Ranger Kiss?” Sorry. So many kisses, so little column.

How about you? Have you got a favorite story hero who delivers on the kiss? And, is the romance really in the kiss?

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How I did sweat over that first post. I look at it today and would do some things differently. Still, it remains one of my favorites.

Happy Hump Day!

You experience a long drought — a dry spell, I tell ya — when there just aren’t any movies out there to see in Matinee-land.

I’m trying not to obsess over the lack of an accent mark over that first e. MW says either/or, but this just screams “knee” to me, not “nay”. Saturday, we went to the mati(knee).

Moving along.

All of a sudden — bam! — you’re seeing one movie right after another.

Yep. That’s what happened to us.

Yep. Yep. We leave our hearth and home and travel down the road to mingle with other bipedal uprights; slouching in chairs with feet up on rails, and consuming copious quantities of coke and popcorn — not me!

We go to The Show.

We risk the traffic, the weather, the potential for creepy crawlies to well… creep and crawl, the fug air, and our precious ears for the big screen experience.

I can’t speak for Mr. G, honey, but part of the big screen experience for me is audience reaction. I want to smell it, hear it, taste it, feel it.

When do they laugh? When do they gasp? When do they crawl under the seat like a girl? (Oops. That might be me.) When do they cry like babies?

I’m crying like a baby just watching the trailer for War Horse. I’m not sure I can take it on the big screen.

Recently in Matinee-land, we saw this ~

I wanted to sew all my worldly goods into the hem of my skirt after seeing this film. Monetary thrills and chills.

Then we saw this ~

Help me, Rhonda. I expect Oscar nominations for Michelle Williams and the Cinematographer, Ben Smithard. A truly talented ensemble cast.

And this~

Michell Pfeiffer, I heart you. That is all. I get right into these series vignette movies. Sarah Jessica Parker wins Best Clogs in a Vignette category. The girl can walk the shoe runway.

Yup, matinee ‘ho.

You? Any Matinee-land finds to report? Tell all.

For Writers ~ @ Terribleminds, Wendig’s, 25 Things Writers Should Know About Rejection. Wendig’s not a sugar coater. Gird your writing rejection loins. Click on over.

More For Writers ~ @ Girlfriends Book Club, Karin Gillespie’s All Work and No Play* Makes a Dull Writer. When Crazy Daisy meets Ms. Grind. Clickety, click.

For Christmas Tree Lovers Everywhere ~ @ Design Milk, Modern Christmas Tree, posted by Jaime. Yep. Click. Def.

For Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup Lovers ~ @ HuffPost Kitchen Daily, Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup Recipe Combos. Six sandwiches to combine with six soups. Be still my Northern Girl heart. Click. On. Over.

TGIF, baby!

This came across my Twitter stream on Thursday, courtesy of New York Times and USA TODAY Best Selling Author Teresa Medeiros. You can find Medeiros, and her wonderful books, here.

It was just so infectious and joy-giving, I had to share it here…with you.

For Writers ~ @ Nathan Bransford, Bransford’s, How to Network Without Networking. I struggle with this issue of networking daily. Click on over.

For Dreamers Everywhere ~ @ Romance Writing From the Edge, Ross’s Friday Fun Video – Dream Drive. Have mercy. Clickety, click.

For New Writers ~ @ Bob Mayer’s Blog|Write It Forward, Mayer’s What to Write. It’s not just “write what you know.” Mayer has been penning a #NaNoWriMo series. Yep. Click. Def.

For Knitters Everywhere ~ @ KwanaWrites, Knitting Spirit by Kwana. These knitted ornaments remind me of socks. Just what a Northern Girl needs. Click. On. Over.

TGIF, baby!

Tomorrow is the last day of 30 days of blogging in November for NaBloPoMo on BlogHer.

I did it.

With enthusiasm, I did it.

For the third time, I did it.

I did it for November of 2010.

I did it for October of 2011.

As of posting tomorrow, I will have done it for November of 2011.

I done did it.

It’s challenging to blog every day each month. Like any other writing, the more you write, the more you write. It sharpens the skills and, hopefully, makes you a more consistent and better blogger.

That being said, I won’t be going down that road again.

Like Louisa in The Sound of Music, I flit, I float, I fleetly flee…

I won’t say never.

It’s possible I could blog every day another month, but I won’t be challenging myself to do so.

Why?

Because, as a blogger, I prefer a 5-day, M-F schedule. Saturday and Sunday, I want to direct my attention elsewhere.

I want to get out and smell the E.D. Smith strawberry jam exhaust wafting out of Winona, or the yeasty smell of Ace Bakery bread drifting out of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). I want to bird watch, cat nap, read a book, burn a calorie.

You get the picture.

And, frankly, I don’t think the great swell of the Internet cares about weekend blog lite. Like Black Friday, I think they’re gone, baby gone — watching the bird, napping the cat, sniffing the air, burning a calorie…

If you haven’t signed on for a NaBloPoMo challenge, you might want to give it a try. The badge at the top of this post is a live link and will take you there.

I did it.

Well, as of posting tomorrow, I will have done it!