A.J. Lauer's Blog, page 25
January 18, 2013
Grow Your Blog party
Greetings, travelers! And welcome to Naturally Sweet :)My name is AJ, and this is my little corner of the interwebs. I started Naturally Sweet in college and it has grown from a place to toss thoughts and bits of writing to my favorite way to share dreams and stories about life, work and my professional world. And also! To share news about writing, which has become a more and more important part of life (see my below post about the book coming out this week - hooray!)
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll become a follower and visit often.
Many thanks to Vicki at 2 Bags Full for hosting the Grow Your Blog party!
January 16, 2013
Cover Reveal!
I am very excited to reveal the cover to the book I wrote with my good friend Dan!It's called Armageddon: Pick Your Plot, and it gives the reader the opportunity to attempt to survive 42 possible catastrophic endings.
Support for Armageddon:
"A wild and witty, thought-provoking adventure... the twists and turns will keep you guessing all the way to the cataclysmic end each time... and even the inevitable may surprise you!"
- Eve Forward, author of Villains by Necessity
"I always thought I'd go through life without being responsible for ending all life on the planet. I was wrong."
- Ryan North, author of Dinosaur Comics and Co-editor of Machine of Death
We are expecting to release the book within the next week, so stay tuned for updates :)
January 12, 2013
2012 Recap
Oh man. The holidays happened. We're almost midway through January and I haven't done any kind of 2012 recap! So here goes. Things that happened in 2012, in no particular order:
* Joined Vittoria Ensemble, and sang a duet at our concerts in November.
* Wrote a book with my good friend Dan (to be published soon!).
* Participated in April A-Z, met lots of lovely blogging types. Can't wait for this year's challenge.
* Supervised an Intern which was a cool move forward for me, professionally.
* Had a great first conference season!
* Hiked a 14'er on our first Anniversary.
* Visited my brother and his family in South Korea for two weeks.
* Got 30 raspberries off our new raspberry bushes in the backyard.
* Painted a room for the first time (boy I am full of fail of posting stuff like that on here! Perhaps a house update is in order.)
* Survived the Mayan Apocalypse.
While we don't have too many big plans for 2013 at this point, I am sure it will be another great year. Let's keep this trend going :)
* Joined Vittoria Ensemble, and sang a duet at our concerts in November.
* Wrote a book with my good friend Dan (to be published soon!).
* Participated in April A-Z, met lots of lovely blogging types. Can't wait for this year's challenge.
* Supervised an Intern which was a cool move forward for me, professionally.
* Had a great first conference season!
* Hiked a 14'er on our first Anniversary.
* Visited my brother and his family in South Korea for two weeks.
* Got 30 raspberries off our new raspberry bushes in the backyard.
* Painted a room for the first time (boy I am full of fail of posting stuff like that on here! Perhaps a house update is in order.)
* Survived the Mayan Apocalypse.
While we don't have too many big plans for 2013 at this point, I am sure it will be another great year. Let's keep this trend going :)
December 13, 2012
Yup, I'm gonna brag for a second..
Last month I sang a duet in our choir concert, and it went really well. And! I have video proof!
December 2, 2012
Shocking
We've been getting a ton of work done on the house lately. As we came up to and hit the one-year mark on Thanksgiving, I think we realized that there were a lot of things we had decided about taking care of, but just hadn't actually done it yet. So suddenly we've been putting up book shelves, wall shelves, buying little bits of furniture, and putting away the schnibbles that have been sitting around for a year without a home.
I hate schnibbles. You know what they are - the little bits of papers, small sentimental objects, old cell phones.. Things that aren't necessarily useful anymore, but for some reason you feel you might need to keep them? Ugghh.. For me the schnibbles in life are some of the most stressful objects.
Anyway, my one Black Friday purchase was this lovely 1920-1930'ish dresser. I got it at a resale shop near work. Debated about it for almost 2 weeks, then finally measured and realized it is exactly the right size for our guest bedroom. It needs a little bit of love. There are some black marks on it (still deciding whether to refinish it), and the handles are actually too long. They stick out funny. The front of the second drawer is broken off. But still, it's about the cutest dresser ever! And the front is birdseye maple veneer, which is just lovely.
Pictured at the resale shop -
our guest bedroom does not have
that much stuff in it!So tonight I glued the drawer back together and busted out the Brasso to shine up the keyholes.
And, dude. The Brasso shocked me! As soon as I opened the container, a huge blue spark popped out of the lid and shocked the fool out of me. It was the worst I've had in years - tingly fingers and a momentarily fuzzy brain. Nothing harmful, but it was rather.. shocking (sorry).
Now I know for next time that the Brasso has a bit of an attitude, and can hopefully adequately prepare and/or ground myself for the experience. Who knew?
I hate schnibbles. You know what they are - the little bits of papers, small sentimental objects, old cell phones.. Things that aren't necessarily useful anymore, but for some reason you feel you might need to keep them? Ugghh.. For me the schnibbles in life are some of the most stressful objects.
Anyway, my one Black Friday purchase was this lovely 1920-1930'ish dresser. I got it at a resale shop near work. Debated about it for almost 2 weeks, then finally measured and realized it is exactly the right size for our guest bedroom. It needs a little bit of love. There are some black marks on it (still deciding whether to refinish it), and the handles are actually too long. They stick out funny. The front of the second drawer is broken off. But still, it's about the cutest dresser ever! And the front is birdseye maple veneer, which is just lovely.
Pictured at the resale shop - our guest bedroom does not have
that much stuff in it!So tonight I glued the drawer back together and busted out the Brasso to shine up the keyholes.
And, dude. The Brasso shocked me! As soon as I opened the container, a huge blue spark popped out of the lid and shocked the fool out of me. It was the worst I've had in years - tingly fingers and a momentarily fuzzy brain. Nothing harmful, but it was rather.. shocking (sorry).
Now I know for next time that the Brasso has a bit of an attitude, and can hopefully adequately prepare and/or ground myself for the experience. Who knew?
