Friday Favorites – Keep Calm (or The One With The Book Signing)
I’d love to say “Happy Friday” with a springtime smile and a flirty flip of my hair, but since it snowed over 6″ yesterday I’m more than a little depressed.
It’ll melt, buddy. It’ll melt.
Are you effing kidding me, Minnesota??
If you follow me on Facebook, you’ve seen the way I’ve felt about the weather this week.
(And if you don’t follow me on Facebook, see what you’ve been missing? Follow me right now, right here!)
Last August I wrote this post where I broke apart the calendar year and explained my love/hate relationship with Minnesota (which for the past week I’ve really, really hated and have had a hard time remembering the “love” part).
Here’s a snippet of what I wrote in that post about March and April:
But once we get the annual St. Patrick’s Day snowstorm the weather usually warms up pretty quickly (and by ‘warms up’ I mean hits 50°) and those mountainous piles of filthy snow that clog the Target parking lot (so annoying) begin to miraculously melt along with my winter rage and I become alarmed at the soggy substance I see appearing along the edges of my driveway (and then relax because I realize it’s just the grass), and I know it’s finally time to breathe easy.
And for the first time in 4 months I’m able to take a deep, deep breath without fear of freezing the insides of my lungs and then I get a little crazy and wear flip-flops and short sleeves and swear I’m not cold and ignore the goose bumps the size of marbles because I am that happy that I’ve made it through the winter.
Oh, Michelle. You silly, optimistic fool.
Although, in my defense, last year by the end of March we had 70° days and the lakes were iced out and there were leaves beginning to bud on the trees. It was unheard of. We all freaked out.
We had a spring.
This year, we’ll be lucky to hit 50 by the end of the month.
But moving on.
It’s Friday and we’ve got some favorites to get to, so let’s forget about the depressing weather, put on a pair of flip flops with our fleece pants, turn on the fireplace and get to it!
1. Keep Calm apps –
Like most new apps I find, I have to give credit to Thing 2. The kid knows her apps. But let’s face it, when you spend your free time with three – yes, three – screens going all at once, you’re bound to be up on all the latest and greatest.
 Before you freak out, the iPad is school administered and the laptop belongs to the whole family. But still…when I was 11 I was playing with a paper clip and a string in my free time. |
There’s actually a few “Keep Calm” apps she showed me. They’re all free but one has more crazy backgrounds than the others.
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I’ve been wasting time and having fun with these…as you will soon realize.
2. My first book signing!
Wednesday night I had my very first book signing at The Bookcase, the Twin Cities’ oldest independent bookstore, and you guys, it was crazy. And by “crazy” I mean overwhelming and fun and stressful and exhilarating and terrifying.
I wanted to keep calling it a party, because while I love mingling and chatting up people, I absolutely hate being the center of attention (shut up, Husband). I hate it when everyone stares at me and it makes me insanely nervous to be expected to speak and god forbid, say something funny. But, of course, I had to be.
Here’s a few photos of how the evening played out…
This is when my friend and the owner of the store was introducing me and I was simultaneously forgetting everything I’d planned to say and trying to come up with something totally different on the spot.
And here I am making an ass out of myself by not coming up with something different and stalling…and trying desperately not to shake the Chardonnay out of my glass.
 Crickets. Crickets. Crickets. |
Then came the fun part. Here I am channeling my inner Bloggess.
Then came my favorite part of the evening, which is ironic given that I thought it would be the part that I’d hate the most (see above).
I had to read from my essay.
Dun dun dunnnn.
Have you read my essay? I reaallly didn’t want to read my essay, but people were sitting in chairs just waiting for me to do something, so I went. And I read (only the first few paragraphs…it is only four pages, after all). And because I could sit…I wasn’t nervous at all.
 “Once Upon A Time…” (Stopping before I got to the M.C. Hammer and lunchmeat references.) |
And then – then – just as I was getting up to refresh my wine, people started raising their hands and asking me questions like, “How do you find the humor in what you write?” and “How did you start your blog?” and “Do you keep a journal?” etc. etc. etc. And you know what? That was my favorite part. Even though I’m a writer, those who know me best will not argue with me when I say that I’m a talker. So I threw in a funny story or two and talked about my blog and about my writing process and maybe about my kids finding out I wrote about sex (which certainly was not a direct result of the two glasses of wine I’d had). It was like chatting with friends. The fact that 32 of the 40 people there were my friends is neither here nor there.
Sounds like a wonderful evening! Glad you are having such great success.
Thank you, Sally! So nice of you to think of being there. Damn weather.
Congrats on making it through the signing w/o incident! I LOVE the crying Dawson clip.
Thank you! Although if I’d have fallen or vomited it would’ve made a funnier blog post.
And who doesn’t love an emotional Dawson?? I could watch that for hours.
That sounds like fun!!
It was so much more fun than I was expecting it to be! I could get used to this… 😉
Awesome Michelle! Can’t wait to read the book!
Thanks, Andrea! Although, it might make you really hesitant to have kids. haha.
Keep calm and make ’em laugh. That is my new mantra for this adventure. Beautiful job and congrats again.
Let’s put it on the back of the totes! 😉
Thank you (again)! Wish some of you ladies could’ve been there with me! Can’t wait to hear about yours!!
That is so cool! Looks like it was a lot of fun. Congrats!
Thank you!! I might want to do it again one day. Keep writing…keep writing… 😉