Today......

I went to see the author Paullina Simons speak. My lovely friend (waving at ya!) came with me! Paullina was very interesting. She spoke, then signed books, including my great big stack! I specifically asked her to personalise 'The Girl In Times Square' to me as it's my fave book of hers.

It's fascinating to meet the people who create the characters of your reading-fantasy life! How they are and aren't what you expected them to be! How suddenly you are more focused on the fact that they have fantastic hair rather than the fact that their imagination 'birthed' a character that you obsessed over and cried for. Although you still spend time taking in what they say and hoping to get a glimpse into the workings of their creative brains.

I did have a photo of me taken with Paullina but when I got home I realised that my girl bits were gaping out of my blouse! Errrrr! Hence, only the pic of Paullina alone in the shot, talking to a room full of (mostly) women!

What a great way to spend a Wednesday!

Weird Stuff!

There must be something in the air...over the last week, three weird or merely co-incidental (depending on which way you lean) things have happened to me.

Weird Occurrence Number 1

The Superteen was home from school due to a teacher's strike. I was channel hopping on the television and stumbled across an Oprah episode involving an interview with the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, about her book, 'Eat, Pray, Love'. Now, I've flicked through this book a few times at the local book store, but have always decided that it wasn't for me. After watching the television show for about 5 minutes, I was distracted by the Superteen and went off to talk to him. I didn't think much about the show after that but about half an hour later, I had an urge to go to the library to drop a close-to-overdue book back. As I walked in, I felt a compulsion to head to the cd section...and you guessed it....there was the entire 11 cd version of 'Eat, Pray, Love' lying face-out on a shelf looking at me.

Needless to say, I took it as a sign and borrowed the collection. I have been playing it in my car when I'm driving alone and to be honest, I find the story mesmerising. There is no way that I'd have read the book but the cd is such an intimate way (and one which I've never done before, btw) for listening as it's read by the author herself. I may write more about this book once I've finished all of the discs (I'm up to disc 5) so will pause here only to say that this was either one very spooky co-incidence or a sign from above!

Weird Occurrence Number 2

I fell asleep in front of the tv last night. Ok, I do this semi-regularly but this time the tv show that was playing was 'Drop Dead Diva'. I only saw the first 5-10 minutes of this particular episode until I woke at 3am with the lights on, the dogs still inside and the tv blaring. What was on the tv when I awoke, you ask? Drop Dead Diva....at the almost exact part where I dropped off to sleep at.

Now, if this wasn't eerie enough......after watching Channel Go's second run of the episode for a little while, I looked at the bedside clock and decided that it was definitely sleep time. I turned the show off at the part where one of the characters was wearing bunny ears whilst being questioned on the stand.....about 10 or 15 minutes from the end. Today, after suffering a very nasty headache and trying to sleep it off for a couple of hours, I awoke at about 2pm and turned the tv on. Yep....the exact same episode was repeating for a third time and I stumbled across it at the part just prior to the bunny ears section that I turned off at in the wee hours of this morning! Talk about Groundhog Day (love that movie, too, btw!). So, I actually watched a whole episode of this show across 3 different screenings, all within 16 hours of each other!

Weird Occurrence Number 3

This evening I was packing party bags for a birthday party I'm holding for Miss Now-Ten. I had a sudden thought. I wondered to myself if my bestie would be staying to watch the kids at the party or if she'd be dropping her daughter off and picking her up later. Within a split second of me thinking this, the phone rang....you guessed it....it was my friend ringing to tell me that she'd stay and help me.

I've always been a believer in 'signs from God'. Maybe these occurrences were just co-incidences, but if they were a sign from God, I'm now wondering what He was trying to tell me!