BradBarkley & HeatherHepler

Title: Reading and Book Signing
Location: Barnes and Noble in Tyler, TX
Description: Heather will be doing a reading and book signing
Start Time: 13:00
Date: 2008-11-29
End Time: 16:00

Title: Southern Festival of Books
Location: Nashville, TN
Link out: Click here
Description: The Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word is a three-day literary Festival celebrated each year during the second full weekend of October. It is free and open to the public. No advance registration or tickets are required
Start Time: 11:00
Date: 2008-10-11
End Time: 12:30

The answer is why not? I mean of all the things that you could think of to make out of cupcakes, planets seem like a pretty easy one. I did draw a line at anything beyond our solar system for right now. I mean already I’m wondering how two people can consume a dozen cupcakes before they go stale….

The new season of Ace of Cakes is starting this week. I can’t wait. It is easily my favorite show on tv. The biggest bummer of my week was that Duff of Charm City Cakes was actually in Austin and my sister got to see him (BUT NOT ME!!!) Where is the justice in the world? Actually I was more interested in whether Geoff was there, but she had no information on that. She isn’t really much of a spy…

 — Heather

I have learned that it is possible to play the same game of Monopoly for seven hours – of course we didn’t play it for seven hours straight. One might wonder why we played for that long. Well, our power was out for several days. Apparently the trees around here have pretty shallow roots and with all of the rain, they’ve been having a hard time standing up. Our neighbor lost a huge oak tree. It landed in our yard, missing our house, but neatly taking out the power lines. Just when they finally got that cleared, another fell down the street. I now know that trees seem much more likely to fall in the wee hours of the morning than in the day. I also know that chain saws make a heck of a lot of noise. The first day without power is kind of fun. You light some candles, you get out the board games, you camp out. Day Two, you start thinking about the hot water and how there seems to be a definite funk coming out of the refrigerator when you open it. Day Three is about the time you wonder just how long you can go without a shower and if cheddar cheese is supposed to actually be black. I am so happy the power is back on this morning. I think I’ll go take a shower and then maybe make some coffee. Of course I have 147 emails to catch up on too!

Okay.. these aren’t new, but they are completely cool. Is it weird if I give my niece and nephews Sleeping Sickness, The Flu, and Bad Breath?

Bad BreathSleeping Sickness The Flu

Check them out yourself at http://www.giantmicrobes.com/Heather

It seems impossible that it is already almost the end of June. Where is the summer going? So far it’s not so hot that you can bake cookies in the car like we did last year…. Just park your car in the hot sun, roll up all the windows and stick your cookies on the dashboard. It takes about two hours, but then you’ll have delicious cookies AND the bonus is… your car will smell awesome for several days. More later. My cat is trying to tear into a bag of cat food – even though his dish is full of the SAME food… Have a great day.

Heather

Thanks to everyone I met in Lexington at the Book Fest. I got to sign a ton of books, and actually SEE a copy of Dream Factory for the first time. I also met some cool people and ate some kind of bizarre (yet oddly delicious) Kentucky candy (called Blue Monday) which was explained to me as “pulled cream covered in chocolate.” Here is a link if you are interested: https://www.siscor.com/aspcart/rhc/OpenProd.asp?ProdNo=6

Anyway, thanks to everyone, especially the amazing people at Joseph Beth Books…we will keep you posted on upcoming book events.

Brad

I think I’m breaking down. After nearly a year without television, I am thinking, thinking about getting my cable hooked up again. The weird thing is after about a month of not having it, I was fine. It was like once the habit was gone, I didn’t miss it. But, now I’m starting to miss some things. Like the new show on Discovery – Planet Earth. If you haven’t seen it yet, you have to see it. And, I don’t mean just if you are “into that kind of thingâ€?, but everyone should see it. I’ve only watched one episode, which I only got to half watch because I was supposed to be playing pirates with my nephew. (Whenever he would go retrieve the cannon ball that his aunt shot across the room, I’d get about 30 seconds.) But, even those thirty seconds… I was BLOWN AWAY. And, I know what I just did… the cannon and blown away. Hush. It wasn’t intentional. But, I digress… but really isn’t this whole idea of blogging about digressing?… anyway I digress again. Can you digress when you are already digressing? I mean, is there a word for digressing in the middle of a digression? How many levels have I digressed at this point. Wait… hmm.. hmmm…. Reading above. Okay, now I was talking about television. I’m thinking of getting it back, which may cut into my reading time, but really it will probably just cut into my watching The Real World on my computer time. I can’t apologize. I am a Real World junkie. I know it’s so cliché and predictable, but I can’t help but love the angst and the romance and the crazy. I have digressed long enough.

I will be appearing on April 21 at the Bluegrass Book Festival in Lexington KY, so if any of you are from the area, come by and say hello.  I am sitting on some panel and talking about young adult fiction and writing in general, I believe, and after that I plan to walk around, see what Lexington is like, and find some sushi to eat.  Unfortunately Heather can’t be there, but I hope some of you can be.  If so, come find me and say hi!

Brad