Maria Palacios - Karate on Wheels

Please read my feature in the April issue of skirt! Houston. It's about the fabulous and always amazing Maria Palacios.

I have copies of Maria Palacios' book, Karate on Wheels to give away. The first five people to e-mail me and to tell me why Maria is traveling to Washington D.C. in April will receive a copy of the book.

Please e-mail your answers to: shoegirlcorner (at) yahoo (dot) com

Taking a Break-Check me out on skirt.com

Hi! It is getting harder and harder to keep up with two blogs and all that I have going on. I'm now regularly contributing to houston.skirt.com.

As much as I love this blog that has been my home for four and a half years I must retire and take a break.

I may come back occasionally to post an update, but for the most part you can find me at my blog on skirt! magazine.

I also have a monthly article on houston.skirt.com I hope that you come and visit me there. Please leave me a comment and let me know you've been by.

Update for the Week

Kat Von D was very cool but there were a lot of people there, around 1,000. We stayed for a little while and then we went and got a margarita. I heard she signed books until 11! WOW!

I have a feature story in the February issue of skirt! Go there now and read it!

After you finish reading it, go to skirt! again to my blog and enter to win this book by Gwen Zepeda. I'm thinking I made it too hard, but it really isn't if you read my story about her on skirt and then google her cats on her website. If you don't want the book win it for a friend or family member or spread the word and tell people about it. I'm GIVING it away for FREE!

On to other good news. After four wonderful years on blogger I have decided to buy ShoegirlCorner.com. Yes! It's mine! I bought it today. I don't know yet when I will make the switch over there but there will be a notice on here when I do. Yay!

Rey (my husband) also bought a domain name and we'll be doing something surprising and cool with it. Stay tuned! I'm really excited to tell you what but I have to wait until Rey is ready to talk about it too.

The Latest & Weird Stuff I Notice

Daddy
I have a lot going on. First my dad. He's getting better slowly but surely, but he sound so tired. It worries me a little. He's on the geriatric therapy floor now. If you know him please give him a call just to say hi. He loves that!

Latin Grammys
OK. My BIG News! I am going to be participating in the Latin Grammy events in this week in some way or another. The Latin Grammy Awards will be held in Houston on Thursday, November 13 if you didn't know. NO, I'm not going to the actual Latin Grammys, but I'm going to be doing something related to all the festivities. So I've joined Twitter finally. I'm not going to have an open profile on a regular basis, except for on the days that I'm Twittering at the Latin Grammy events.

Lap Band Included
One of my sisters was visiting from California last week and I told her that I'm an organ donor. I showed her my organ donor card. She was all, "I didn't know JWs could donate or take organs!" and I was all, "Ever since bloodless surgery baby!"

Then I told her, "Hey I should add a line to my card that says, Lap Band included." Yeah, it occurred to me that whoever gets my stomach should totally need a lap band so they can get some use out of it too. LOL! We had a good laugh over that one.

Tiger Parts not Included
Rey bought some Tiger Balm when he had back pain and the packaging actually has a line that says, "No tiger parts were used to make this product." No lie! I almost died of laughter.

There are weird things out there. You just have to keep your eyes open.

AFRICA IS One of the Seven Continents Last Time I Checked
As many of you know, I'm politically neutral and I haven't said much about this election. HOWEVER, I must comment on one of the latest leaks that came out after the election about Sarah Palin and how she didn't know that AFRICA was a continent and she kept referring to it as a country. TOO HILARIOUS!! How does this happen? How do people with such terrible educations and IQs (think Quayle's gaffes and George Bush Jr was a C student) rise to such high political power?

I'm just saying! I just have a thing for people who don't know their basic geography. Like the seven continents and stuff. That's pretty basic. Like right up there with where is the equator.

skirt! News
OK. I'm done venting crazy stuff to all of you. I'll have a book announcement over at skirt! magazine if you want to follow me there.

Speaking of skirt! I will hopefully be doing more writing on the local page! That's another one of my latest news. How I will find the time, don't ask me? But I figure that if I'm already going to be doing something (like a Latin Grammy event) then I can write about it and if they need it for the local page they can use it.

If You Were Looking for Me

If you come looking for me and don't find me go look for me here. I'm going to be blogging a little more on skirt! in the near future. Nothing definite yet, but I'll let y'all know when I know more too. Come by to visit me there!

And if you still haven't ordered a Bodega Cookbook, to support a great non-profit cause, and to make my wonderful recipe for pork in tomatillo sauce, you suck. OK, not really, you don't suck, but you don't love me and you don't love urban living. Go to the Bodega Cookbook website now and order your copy of this great cookbook! There are some wonderful recipes in there, besides mine, like Carrot Thai soup. YUM!

Writer's Almanac

Weird wild stuff. I opted out of receiving daily e-mails from the Writer's Almanac a while back because I was just getting too much stuff into my in box each day. I love listening to it in the morning on NPR, but it so happens that it airs right at the time when I'm dropping off my son.

Well lately I've been pondering my place in the world. My husband laughs at that and says I've already arrived there and I don't see it. Anyway, that's besides the point. :)

I've been thinking a lot about my writing and lack thereof. I've been thinking about how I need to get off my butt and I need to start sending out queries again to agents. (I know! I know!)

So I was really surprised when Tuesday I suddenly started getting the daily e-mails from Writer's Almanac again and I didn't even ask for them. I haven't even gone on their website in months until today. How wild is that??

It just reminded me of a great essay I read by the Publisher of Skirt! in the January edition. In her case she couldn't figure out where to rent office space. After renting a building, and torturing herself about the decision, they tore down the building next to her. Written in old faded letters on the side of the building were the words, "Skirt Factory." I loved that!

Skirt Magazine

One of my co-workers heads up a wonderful publication that is fast becoming one of my favorites, Skirt Magazine. It is such a fun, sassy magazine! What's really cool about it is that it originated in Charleston, SC and the publisher, Nikki Hardin, took it national by partnering with newspapers around the country. What a cool idea!

The Chronicle launched their local edition of Skirt! in late 2007. You can pick it up in racks all around the city.

The national website is pretty cool too and you can see the themes or each month's publication. You can also go online to see the stories that ran in the Houston edition or any of the other cities. Anyway, I just wanted to tell y'all that I really love this publication. It is exactly the kind of magazine I would want to publish if I was going to do something like that. I definitely want to submit something to them. Maybe they'll consider publishing one of my essays....

That's all.