Big weekend at the Klemstein household

-I'm an aunt again, as of very early Saturday morning--a nephew, this time! I'm not going to go into details here as they're not my details to share. But it's so exciting and fun. And I'm amazed how quickly I forgot just how little and vulnerable babies are in the first few days. And he's soooo cute!

-I achieved a milestone yesterday writing-wise, too. I sent the first Rennie story, Bitter Pill, to a fellow Chicago author who said she'd read it. If she likes it, she said she'd pass it on to her publisher. Yea! : ) This is a milestone, not just because of FINALLY finishing the last little edits to the story--which have been hanging over my head for well over a year--but also because I've got two unrelated (one is not a sequel to the other) books in "marketable" shape at the same time! For those who are interested, making just minor changes to the story--really just fleshing out the parts that needed it--I managed to add eighteen pages. It's 199 pages right now, just a little under 60,000 words. I'm excited at the possibility of seeing Rennie and Sheriff Bristol in print, so we'll see what happens! I have several other story ideas for them running around in my head and I'd love to have the opportunity to get them down on paper.

-I'm getting ready for RT too. I sent in the info for my gift basket giveaway. If you're attending RT, this is my contribution:

A Hot Night of Alien Love
Curl up on the couch for some out of this world romance! Basket includes The Silver Spoon by Stacey Klemstein, a DVD of the sci-fi romance movie Starman, a t-shirt with The Silver Spoon book cover on it, a Silver Spoon Diner mug, a chocolate coffee spoon, popcorn and Red Hots!

The gift basket will be raffled off, I think, on Thursday, May 18, at 4:30 p.m. Huge thanks to Paula and Jeanine, my fellow writers and partners in crime at work who helped me come up with what to include and what to say (I was a little squeamish about using the word "hot," which shocked both of them considering the love scenes I've written!)

-Cooked my first Easter Ham this weekend. It was slightly traumatic. There was a very funny sit-comish moment early on.

My husband: "So how long does the ham take to cook?"

Me: "It's already cooked, it just needs to be warmed. The tag says ten minutes."

My husband (frowning): That doesn't sound right. How big is it?

Me: "Um, a little under twelve pounds."

My husband (still frowning): "Are you putting it in the microwave?"

Me (with a "don't be ridiculous" tone): "No! It says to use the oven."

My husband: "Are you sure about this?"

Me (with a long-suffering sigh): "Fine. I'll check the tag again."
(I consult the tag again at which point I notice that a sticker has been placed over the bottom half of the tag, obscuring possibly important instructions. Hmmm.)

My husband: "Well, what does it say?"

Me (peeling back sticker to reveal one last line of instructions): "'--per pound. Ten minutes per pound.' [expletive deleted]! Who puts a [expletive deleted] sticker over instructions!?!"

But it was okay. We caught the mistake in time. Unfortunately, even with two hours in the oven and following the almighty tag instructions to the "t," the ham was still lukewarm by the time dinner was served. So, my mother-in-law and father-in-law came to the rescue. We cut into it and removed the pieces we needed for the meal (seriously, only six of us--we don't need almost two pounds of meat per person) and heated them at a higher temp.

Yeah, I know, I should have realized that ten minutes couldn't possibly be long enough, but after the store that was to have prepared everything for the meal in a ready-to-heat fashion screwed up (thus totally shaking the foundation of my faith in Target), I was a little rattled. I was supposed to pick the meal up from them on Saturday evening, but they somehow never got my order and had to scramble around to throw everything together at the last minute and I didn't get the right stuff, which threw all kinds of wrenches into the culinary works.

Two lessons learned here. 1) Don't order big holiday meals over the internet, even if it is from the Target Deli. 2) Remove all extraneous stickers from instruction tags.