Annameekee Hesik's Blog
April 4, 2014
The Sequel is NEAR!!
Hey You Know Who Fans!
I just wanted to give you a heads up that the sequel to The You Know Who Girls is slated for release on December 1st, 2014! It's called Driving Lessons and in Abbey's sophomore year she is in for even more new adventures, new love, and new confessions!
See my website for a glimpse at the cover! http://www.annameekee.com
I just wanted to give you a heads up that the sequel to The You Know Who Girls is slated for release on December 1st, 2014! It's called Driving Lessons and in Abbey's sophomore year she is in for even more new adventures, new love, and new confessions!
See my website for a glimpse at the cover! http://www.annameekee.com
November 24, 2012
5 Totally Random Things I Think Are Awesome!
First of all, Hello. I hope you are well. And thanks for visiting El Blog de Annameekee.
Second of all, why is it that things full of beauty are called “beautiful”, and things full of wonder are called “wonderful”, but things full of awe are NOT called “aweful”? Instead, we called it awesome…as if, only SOME of it is full of awe. English. Pshh. Stupid. (Please, please do not spend any time researching this rhetorical question and then telling me the answer. I prefer to just be angry with English sometimes. We have a complicated relationship, and I like it that way. Thanks.)
Third of all, I bought a book today (on a total whim!) called, The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha. It was nestled on a display counter at my local bookstore (Shout out to Bookshop Santa Cruz!) with a bunch of self-help books about being happy and crap like that, and who doesn’t want to be happy? I picked it up because it was pretty and on sale for six bucks. Inside are vignettes about awesome things. Some I totes agree with (Getting off an airplane) and others I’m like, meh (a blast of air conditioning when it’s hot). But it got me thinking. What do I think are awesome things? So, without further ado, here are five random, not very well-thought out random things I think are totally AWE-FUL!! In other words, awesome.
1. Homemade Cookie Dough: There is only one reason I make cookies- to eat the dough. Now let’s get one thing straight (it will be the only straight thing in this blog): I HATE COOKIE DOUGH ICE CREAM! Blech. Get that stuff out of my face. However, I LOVE to eat homemade cookie dough. First, it’s all about the licking the beaters. Oh, glory hallelujah. I try not to do this in front of others because me and those beaters, well, we get pretty intimate and half of it ends up on my face. After those are all cleaned up, I stir in the chocolate chips. Not your ordinary Nestle’s, oh no. These babies are Double Chocolate (super big) Dark Ghirardelli chips. I will eat at least three spoonfuls of the mix and chips. Once the cookies are done, I give them all away. You’re welcome!
Some of my fav batters are pumpkin chocolate chip, oatmeal, regular chocolate chip, brownies, and even zucchini chocolate chip. I have also been known to lick the cupcake batter bowl clean. I’ve never gotten sick. I have the stomach of a teacher. Nothing gets me down!
Yes, I just had cookie dough tonight, which is why I wrote about it. Look out neighbors, cookies coming your way!!
2. Hummingbirds: We have a salvia bush in front of our picture window, and those little buggers just can’t get enough of it! All day long, they zoom here and there, to this flower and that flower. They also love the sage brush and bottle brush tree. On days when I am really spacing out and staring out the window for long periods of time, I catch the birds resting on the telephone wire, but then zooooooom, they are off! They like to dive bomb me in the backyard, too. I don’t take it personally, though. I mean, they are tiny and I am enormous, so I can understand why I may seem like an enemy. One hummingbird is called “Anna’s Hummingbird” so of course I like her the most!
I guess what I think is so awesome about them is their speed and flutter-tastic nature. I want to be like them, especially when I am feeling like a lazy blob of a human, spacing out on my couch and staring out the window.
3. Students who March for Equality: I really, really think young people who stand up for equality are awesome. A few years ago, when CA wanted to ban gay marriage (again?), my GSA students made signs and headed for the Prunedale Shopping Center to tell the world (well, the Prunedalians) that they needed to Vote No on 8! It was pouring rain, it was cold, and Prunedale is not one of the most liberal cities you’ll visit in CA. Far from it!! Yet, there those students were! ”Love your local lesbian!” was one of my favorite signs. Unfortunately, Prop 8 passed and gay marriage was banned. Did that stop em? Heck no! These AWESOME kids marched right down to the city hall and protested there, too!!
They are brave and bold and so incredible! I am honored to know them and feel SO lucky to be a part of their lives. What’s even more awesome is that so many of you young people are out and proud and marching as allies for your friends and family! Thank you for screaming at the top of your lungs, making signs, and marching in the cold and hot days of inequality. Your work is paying off! Look at us now! Four states have legalized gay marriage in our last election. Watch out now!!
4. Musicals: I just sit there the whole time with my mouth open, thinking, “Wow…this is so awesome!” My wife and I LOVE them, but we can’t AFFORD to go to them as much as we would like to. So, we’re not like some of you who have seen them all on Broadway, twice. We are small town girls with teacher budgets, so here’s what we have seen lately: Lion King, Avenue Q, Les Miserables, and Wicked.
Seeing Les Mis with my wife was wonderful!! At first my seat was totally sucky because some GIANT headed man sat right in front of me. But after the intermission, we scooted over and, ahhh…all better. We were both crying at the end and shared a hanky that I brought along just in case.
I’m always packing things in my purse, just in case. The show’s usual Jean Valjean was sick or something, so there was an understudy. Well, jiminy cricket, if that was the understudy….AMAZEBALLS!!! I can’t wait to see Book of Mormon, but if the roof, pets, and bills have anything to say about it, I’ll be waiting a tad bit longer for that one.
5. Pancakes from Silver Spur, Santa Cruz, CA: I can’t explain it. It’s like eating cake from a pan, people! For breakfast!!! I have sent dozens upon dozens of pics of these pancakes to my BFF/Webmaster, Caseymeekee. I eat them into the shape of a C, take a pic, send the pic to her, and then polish them off. I don’t know why I do this. I guess because I like the middle of the cake the most and I enjoy showing my “C” to her.
There are tons of awesome things (making babies laugh, kittens, sunsets, thinking you lost your wallet but you didn’t) and I will post more later, but that’s it for now because some other things I think are awesome are SEQUELS! Which is why I need to go work on mine: The You Know Who Girls: Soph Year!! Weeeeeee!!!! I wonder what Abbey’s post about awesome things would include…hmmm….
Read more at http://www.annameekee.com
Happy Post-Thanksgiving to you!!
Annameekee!
P.S. What do you think is awesome?
Second of all, why is it that things full of beauty are called “beautiful”, and things full of wonder are called “wonderful”, but things full of awe are NOT called “aweful”? Instead, we called it awesome…as if, only SOME of it is full of awe. English. Pshh. Stupid. (Please, please do not spend any time researching this rhetorical question and then telling me the answer. I prefer to just be angry with English sometimes. We have a complicated relationship, and I like it that way. Thanks.)
Third of all, I bought a book today (on a total whim!) called, The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha. It was nestled on a display counter at my local bookstore (Shout out to Bookshop Santa Cruz!) with a bunch of self-help books about being happy and crap like that, and who doesn’t want to be happy? I picked it up because it was pretty and on sale for six bucks. Inside are vignettes about awesome things. Some I totes agree with (Getting off an airplane) and others I’m like, meh (a blast of air conditioning when it’s hot). But it got me thinking. What do I think are awesome things? So, without further ado, here are five random, not very well-thought out random things I think are totally AWE-FUL!! In other words, awesome.
1. Homemade Cookie Dough: There is only one reason I make cookies- to eat the dough. Now let’s get one thing straight (it will be the only straight thing in this blog): I HATE COOKIE DOUGH ICE CREAM! Blech. Get that stuff out of my face. However, I LOVE to eat homemade cookie dough. First, it’s all about the licking the beaters. Oh, glory hallelujah. I try not to do this in front of others because me and those beaters, well, we get pretty intimate and half of it ends up on my face. After those are all cleaned up, I stir in the chocolate chips. Not your ordinary Nestle’s, oh no. These babies are Double Chocolate (super big) Dark Ghirardelli chips. I will eat at least three spoonfuls of the mix and chips. Once the cookies are done, I give them all away. You’re welcome!
Some of my fav batters are pumpkin chocolate chip, oatmeal, regular chocolate chip, brownies, and even zucchini chocolate chip. I have also been known to lick the cupcake batter bowl clean. I’ve never gotten sick. I have the stomach of a teacher. Nothing gets me down!
Yes, I just had cookie dough tonight, which is why I wrote about it. Look out neighbors, cookies coming your way!!
2. Hummingbirds: We have a salvia bush in front of our picture window, and those little buggers just can’t get enough of it! All day long, they zoom here and there, to this flower and that flower. They also love the sage brush and bottle brush tree. On days when I am really spacing out and staring out the window for long periods of time, I catch the birds resting on the telephone wire, but then zooooooom, they are off! They like to dive bomb me in the backyard, too. I don’t take it personally, though. I mean, they are tiny and I am enormous, so I can understand why I may seem like an enemy. One hummingbird is called “Anna’s Hummingbird” so of course I like her the most!
I guess what I think is so awesome about them is their speed and flutter-tastic nature. I want to be like them, especially when I am feeling like a lazy blob of a human, spacing out on my couch and staring out the window.
3. Students who March for Equality: I really, really think young people who stand up for equality are awesome. A few years ago, when CA wanted to ban gay marriage (again?), my GSA students made signs and headed for the Prunedale Shopping Center to tell the world (well, the Prunedalians) that they needed to Vote No on 8! It was pouring rain, it was cold, and Prunedale is not one of the most liberal cities you’ll visit in CA. Far from it!! Yet, there those students were! ”Love your local lesbian!” was one of my favorite signs. Unfortunately, Prop 8 passed and gay marriage was banned. Did that stop em? Heck no! These AWESOME kids marched right down to the city hall and protested there, too!!
They are brave and bold and so incredible! I am honored to know them and feel SO lucky to be a part of their lives. What’s even more awesome is that so many of you young people are out and proud and marching as allies for your friends and family! Thank you for screaming at the top of your lungs, making signs, and marching in the cold and hot days of inequality. Your work is paying off! Look at us now! Four states have legalized gay marriage in our last election. Watch out now!!
4. Musicals: I just sit there the whole time with my mouth open, thinking, “Wow…this is so awesome!” My wife and I LOVE them, but we can’t AFFORD to go to them as much as we would like to. So, we’re not like some of you who have seen them all on Broadway, twice. We are small town girls with teacher budgets, so here’s what we have seen lately: Lion King, Avenue Q, Les Miserables, and Wicked.
Seeing Les Mis with my wife was wonderful!! At first my seat was totally sucky because some GIANT headed man sat right in front of me. But after the intermission, we scooted over and, ahhh…all better. We were both crying at the end and shared a hanky that I brought along just in case.
I’m always packing things in my purse, just in case. The show’s usual Jean Valjean was sick or something, so there was an understudy. Well, jiminy cricket, if that was the understudy….AMAZEBALLS!!! I can’t wait to see Book of Mormon, but if the roof, pets, and bills have anything to say about it, I’ll be waiting a tad bit longer for that one.
5. Pancakes from Silver Spur, Santa Cruz, CA: I can’t explain it. It’s like eating cake from a pan, people! For breakfast!!! I have sent dozens upon dozens of pics of these pancakes to my BFF/Webmaster, Caseymeekee. I eat them into the shape of a C, take a pic, send the pic to her, and then polish them off. I don’t know why I do this. I guess because I like the middle of the cake the most and I enjoy showing my “C” to her.
There are tons of awesome things (making babies laugh, kittens, sunsets, thinking you lost your wallet but you didn’t) and I will post more later, but that’s it for now because some other things I think are awesome are SEQUELS! Which is why I need to go work on mine: The You Know Who Girls: Soph Year!! Weeeeeee!!!! I wonder what Abbey’s post about awesome things would include…hmmm….
Read more at http://www.annameekee.com
Happy Post-Thanksgiving to you!!
Annameekee!
P.S. What do you think is awesome?
September 27, 2012
The You Know Who Girls- in the house, literally.
There was a thud on the porch.
“More shoes for you, Annameekee!” Mary called, stirring from her nap.
We were both napping, in fact, though in different rooms. It had been a long week and adjusting from summer life to teaching and mentoring life was not going well. We were suffering from a bad case of four o’clock sleepies.
I stumbled out of the bedroom and opened the front door. “More shoes,” I grumbled as I bent down to pick up the box. Now, just so we’re clear, it’s not like I am a shoe diva- far from it. It’s just that I can’t find a freaking decent pair of shoes in all of Santa Cruz (in my size- thank you Amazons who took all the good shoes), so I do the unthinkable: order several shoes from Shoebuy and then return what I don’t like, which in most cases, is all of them. Don’t judge me.
Anyway, back to the box. I bent down to pick it up and it was certainly not shoes. This box was heavy! “What’s this?” I looked at the label, but didn’t recognize the shipper. “Hmm.” I got the nearest car keys and busted through the tape. And at that moment, it hit me: heavy box + release date coming up = NO WAY!!
Yes way!!! My book! It was real! And in my house! What?! (You can see a pic of my ridiculously happy face on my website!)
“Mary! Look!” I held one up. “Can you believe it?”
“Of course I can!” She jumped up and ran over to hug me. “It looks amazing!”
I smiled from ear to ear until my cheeks hurt.
I have been through so, so much to get this book published: Weird agents that disappeared, editors that loved it then moved or had babies, a publishing company that posted my book all over the internet (including Goodreads!) then went bankrupt leaving me with the embarrassment of having to tell everyone who ordered it that it would never come, a new agent, a new publishing company (Bold Strokes Books! Yay!), and a new title. And there it was in my hands- The You Know Who Girls: Freshman Year by Annameekee “THAT’S ME!” Hesik. Well, well, well.
Of course, the whole family wanted to read it right away. See a pic of Aggie, my wonder lab, reading it at my website!
And then kitty Matisse demanded that I hold it up for her review. “This book would be better if there was a cat named Matisse as the star.” She was so severely disappointed that the book didn’t feature a cat named Matisse that she destroyed the cover of the book that I took out of the box to have around the house to show friends. I forgave her. It was that or suffer 5AM wake up calls for the next three weeks.
So now what?! I have a reading booked at Book Shop Santa Cruz, but it’s not until January. Hmmm…A reading at the school where I used to teach sounds like fun. Then there’s a possible reading in Seattle and, hey now, London. And there's a giveaway happening on this very site!
But don’t worry, I will keep you all posted. In the meantime, check out my totes awesome webbie site on the interwebs: www.annameekee.com and twitter- theyouknowwhogirls and email: annameekee@yahoo.com and goodreads.com and, and, and…oh yes, Facebook! Annameekee Hesik (YA Author) Whew!!
Better get back to writing the second book in the series!
Love, hugs, unicorns, and rainbows!!
Annameekee Hesik
“More shoes for you, Annameekee!” Mary called, stirring from her nap.
We were both napping, in fact, though in different rooms. It had been a long week and adjusting from summer life to teaching and mentoring life was not going well. We were suffering from a bad case of four o’clock sleepies.
I stumbled out of the bedroom and opened the front door. “More shoes,” I grumbled as I bent down to pick up the box. Now, just so we’re clear, it’s not like I am a shoe diva- far from it. It’s just that I can’t find a freaking decent pair of shoes in all of Santa Cruz (in my size- thank you Amazons who took all the good shoes), so I do the unthinkable: order several shoes from Shoebuy and then return what I don’t like, which in most cases, is all of them. Don’t judge me.
Anyway, back to the box. I bent down to pick it up and it was certainly not shoes. This box was heavy! “What’s this?” I looked at the label, but didn’t recognize the shipper. “Hmm.” I got the nearest car keys and busted through the tape. And at that moment, it hit me: heavy box + release date coming up = NO WAY!!
Yes way!!! My book! It was real! And in my house! What?! (You can see a pic of my ridiculously happy face on my website!)
“Mary! Look!” I held one up. “Can you believe it?”
“Of course I can!” She jumped up and ran over to hug me. “It looks amazing!”
I smiled from ear to ear until my cheeks hurt.
I have been through so, so much to get this book published: Weird agents that disappeared, editors that loved it then moved or had babies, a publishing company that posted my book all over the internet (including Goodreads!) then went bankrupt leaving me with the embarrassment of having to tell everyone who ordered it that it would never come, a new agent, a new publishing company (Bold Strokes Books! Yay!), and a new title. And there it was in my hands- The You Know Who Girls: Freshman Year by Annameekee “THAT’S ME!” Hesik. Well, well, well.
Of course, the whole family wanted to read it right away. See a pic of Aggie, my wonder lab, reading it at my website!
And then kitty Matisse demanded that I hold it up for her review. “This book would be better if there was a cat named Matisse as the star.” She was so severely disappointed that the book didn’t feature a cat named Matisse that she destroyed the cover of the book that I took out of the box to have around the house to show friends. I forgave her. It was that or suffer 5AM wake up calls for the next three weeks.
So now what?! I have a reading booked at Book Shop Santa Cruz, but it’s not until January. Hmmm…A reading at the school where I used to teach sounds like fun. Then there’s a possible reading in Seattle and, hey now, London. And there's a giveaway happening on this very site!
But don’t worry, I will keep you all posted. In the meantime, check out my totes awesome webbie site on the interwebs: www.annameekee.com and twitter- theyouknowwhogirls and email: annameekee@yahoo.com and goodreads.com and, and, and…oh yes, Facebook! Annameekee Hesik (YA Author) Whew!!
Better get back to writing the second book in the series!
Love, hugs, unicorns, and rainbows!!
Annameekee Hesik
