Scribbles

This is what happens when men are in charge.

When boys think they are indestructible.

When mom goes away on a business trip.

Blood.

Grime. 

Ooze.

Touchdown! 

Here's to my Fullback, who hereafter wants to be referred to as...X-Men Wolverine.

Did you win the KINDLE?

Wow we had nearly 3,000 people enter PJ's Sweet KINDLE giveaway. Wow, wow, wow!  

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest, blogged about the contest, reviewed Licensed for Trouble, and shared it with your friends and family. YOU all have made this contest a huge success - I love writing books for you all. What a privilege!

P.S. I saw numerous comments from you all hoping this was NOT the last PJ Sugar book. Looks like I need to have a little talk with my publisher. *G*

If you didn't win the KINDLE, don't fret (too much) I will be doing another giveaway soon. Like right now. Check out the contest page on my website - I'm giving away the entire three book set of the PJ Sugar series, Nothing But Trouble, Double Trouble and Licensed for Trouble. Find out how to enter here.

Oh, the winner - I guess I should tell you who that is.

Ready?

Congratulations to Lara Krupicka from Illinois! YOU WON THE KINDLE!!!!! My assistant Amy will be in touch to get your info and give you some details.

If you're wondering about my next release - take a look here.

Be sure to check out the blog tour here or purchase a copy of Licensed for Trouble here!

Enter to Win a KINDLE in PJ Sugar's 'Sweet' Giveaway!

Licensed for Trouble, the latest and final installment in the PJ Sugar series, is in stores now! To celebrate the release, we’re giving away a Kindle!! You can enter using Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail using the icons below. One Grand Prize winner will receive a A SWEET Kindle prize package that includes:

• A brand new Kindle (Free 3G, 6”, Latest Generation)
• The entire PJ Sugar series by Susan May Warren

To enter, simply click on the icons below to fill out the entry form, then tell 5 or more friends about the contest. Oh, and enter soon! Winner will be announced on September 2nd.

Be sure to check out the blog tour here or purchase a copy of Licensed for Trouble here!

Fragrance of Grace...

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance the perfume. 

Ever wonder if what you do makes a difference?  If the words you say to your children or the small acts of kindness they never notice, or even the gallant efforts you make to impart great truths matter? 

Yeah, me too. Because, as my children have become older, it feels more and more like my parenting is about sacrificial acts that go unnoticed, or even unappreciated. Does my son care that I ran his folder to school (on my way to the airport) after he left it at home? Or my daughter notice that I left her favorite jar of goober (peanut butter and jelly) in her stuff for camp? Or my son notice that I printed off a blog about his desired profession?

Maybe not. But I have to believe that they create a fragrance in our home of love. That my actions are not poured out to them, but actually upon the feet of the Lord, in worship, in gratitude for this rich life. That as I reach inside and give everything I have...there abounds the redolence of grace. 

At least I hope so.

So, in a desperate quest to know, I sat down with my son and asked him: What do you miss when I'm gone? 

He looked at me and without hesitation said:

Food. 

Really, anything else?

Cookies?

And...

Pizza? 

Okay, seriously...

Fine, how about popcorn? 

Right, well, okay, I got the point. But, as I got up to leave he said, "Wait, Mom. I miss your wisdom, your humor and your good looks." 

He was just trying to get on my good side with that last one. But it worked. I'm off to make chocolate chip cookies. Just one of the fragrances I like to leave behind.

But seriously, what fragrance do YOU leave behind? Just something to ponder as we race (or perhaps savor?) summer. 

I've been traveling a lot recently - but I am home for a few weeks and enjoyed the 4th of July with my family. I'm working on a new book for a series out next winter with Steeple Hill - a three-book romantic -suspense for Steeple Hill's Love Inspired Suspense line that follows up my Mission: Russia series.  This one:  a mistaken identity in Cancun  (and yes, I forced myself to go there for research. Sacrifices, donchyaknowit.) More on that later. But first...look for Licensed for Trouble, PJ Sugar #3 to hit the stands in August! 

Thank you again for all the reader mail - and for your sweet support in the bookstores and online - you leave a fragrance of grace in my life.

I have a complaint.

See, I’ve been traveling this past month – quite a lot (hello Louisiana, and Oklahoma and Portland!)  And I was thrilled when I was able to work in a quick trip down to Minneapolis to see my newborn niece, Ellie Lund.  She’s adorable! 

However….

Well, I’m not sure what’s going on here but….

Here’s a picture of Ellie and me…

 

Now, I’d like you to just compare it for one moment to the picture of my son Peter, holding Ellie.

 

Okay, what’s the deal here? 

Probably I need to fill her in on a few things. 

First, Ellie, you need to know that Peter has issues with destroying things.  Like pens.  And tennis balls.  Someday, when you’re older, you might walk into your dad’s office (with his two gigantic computers), and discover a gel wrist supporter.  I’ll have you know that your cousin tore one of these apart to examine the insides, and carried the gooey, jelly contents around the house for a month, depositing it in his carpet, his bedding, his walls. 

You might think this is cool.  Your mother won’t.  Stop smiling. 

You might also want to consider the fact that he is, at heart, a football player – having made varsity in 9th grade.  Which means, at any given time, he might drop into a three point stance, and, well….hike you.  At the very least, if you hear the words – “Go long!” you should start to tremble.  Stop smiling. 

And then there’s the fact that, at the age of 15, he still has a woobie, a smelly ripped blanket that he rolls himself into at night like a burrito.  Again, you might think this is cute, unless you get near enough to smell it.  I assure you, Ellie,  that his charming smile doesn’t make up for the odor seeping from his teenage boy room.  Don’t be duped. 

Stop smiling.

I, on the other hand, am kind and bring you gifts and know how to burp you without even ONE urge to do a lateral out to the running back. 

C’mon Ellie, work with me. 

Oh, Ellie, Ellie, Ellie…this isn’t helping at all. 

*sigh*

Signed, shaking my head in Minnesota

The Bean.

My daughter is a junior in high school, so we’ve begun the college search.  Although I’ve been on the road for a few weeks, to such places as Sioux Falls, SD, Fargo, ND, Fosston, MN, and even Monroe, Louisiana – I squeezed in a quick trip to Chicago to visit North Park University.  

We went there because my daughter loves schools with columns.  Apparently this is her criteria for a great college.  We’re working on that.  



Now…I THOUGHT we were there to visit the college.

No.

We really went, apparently, to visit the BEAN.  



The Bean is a large sculpture in downtown Chicago.  
The parking ramp is below.  

It’s not easy to find.

We looked for it from here:



 No bean.  

“Please, Mom, we just HAVE to see the bean.”  It was my daughter’s only request (besides eating at Ed Debevics, which I am in therapy for and still can’t talk about).  



So, despite the fact that it’s freezing out, we drive all over the city searching for the stupid bean. (here’s something I learned…don’t drive fast through crosswalks!  Sorry lady in the green coat.  And that guy on the bike.)

The truth is, I had my doubts about the bean. I had never heard of the bean – more focused on, say, the SEARS tower, the Hancock building, the Navy Pier, the Museum of Natural History.  All things a little more lofty than….a bean.

But Sarah insisted.  We had to see the bean.  

So…in faith, I looked it up on my phone.  Found the Wikipedia.  Found the addy.  GPSed it.    

Drove around the city until we finally located THE BEAN.  

There was Joy.  

It was cold.  



Mission accomplished.

Sometimes, you just have to take time out to go see a bean. 

It’s worth the view.  

Susie May

Back in the Day!

Pops had big hands.(Picture is of Pops, and my mother in front, and her youngest brother, John behind her. ) Wide and strong and they would sweep me up and hold me over his head. His silver gray hair was always Bryl-creamed back. He had eyes that twinkled when his granddaughter walked into the room. A train engineer, his hats lined the stairs to the basement. They were gray, striped and much too big for my head when he fitted them on me, pulling them over my eyes. 

An immigrant from Germany at the age of 14. Pops survived world war I in Germany and became a patriot of America during World War II. Later, he ran for office in his small town in South Dakota, and became a county commissioner. He loved his family, his five children, his wife and my best memory of him is sitting on my sofa in my teenage years, clasping the hand of the wife who loved him for forty-plus years. 

I loved going to their house - the yellow Sears & Roebuck box house in Mobridge, SD. The one with the two attic bedrooms - one for the boys, and one for the girls. I would bury myself in the clothes hanging on the pole along the pitched roof, emerge with vintage shoes and purses, my imagination stirring. They had a pitched cellar door that led to the basement: I loved to slide down it when it was closed, and it fascinated me that it led into the depths of their home when opened.  Mumps (Pops' name for her), had a roller dryer that she fed the wet clothes through, then hung them on the line in the backyard. I feared that my fingers would turn to hamburger between the rollers.

Mumps and Pops had a stove that had a little warming tray for toast, and in their back room ... an organ. In the closet in the back room they also kept an old fashioned picture viewer - the kind that came with double postcards that fit into a slot. I would curl up on their sofa - the one covered in plastic - and spend hours peering at the black and white postcards of The World's Fair, Chicago in the twenties, and images of the sea.

As I write historical fiction set in my favorite era, the 1940s, I often return to the little yellow house, the taste of my grandmother's chocolate chip cookies crunching in my mouth (she kept them in the freezer to deter quick consumption), Pops' smile as he came in from his walk downtown, holding a paper.  Or, in the early days, coming in from the train station, green thermos and black lunchbox in hand. He'd set down that lunchbox and scoop me up...in his big hands.

What memories do you have of the generations that came before? The ones that set our course and shaped who we've become and the society we are today?

Share your stories for a chance to win a Memory Prize Pack! Visit the SHARE page at the Sons of Thunder website!

http://brothersinarms.susanmaywarren.com/

The winner of the Double Trouble contest is ... Was it YOU?

Wow - first I just have to say how blown away I am with the number of people who entered the contest that ran during the blog tour - over 1200 of you! And again I say WOW! We used RandomInteger.com to choose a winner ... so congratulations to #690:

Melissa McNicol from Florida!!!!!

You've won the Super Sleuth Prize Package!
*  A brand new iPod Shuffle
* A $15 iTunes gift card
* A $10 Amazon gift card
* A $10 Starbucks gift card
* A pair of designer sunglasses
* A gorgeous scarf from World Market
* AND signed copies of both Nothing But Trouble & Double Trouble

And for fun I decided to giveaway 5 more sets of Nothing But Trouble and Double Trouble to: (again, chosen randomly)

430 :  Eleanor Harmon from South Carolina
67:    Carrie Bartee from West Virginia
1144: Robert Willsey from Nebraska
777:   Pam Ogren from Indiana
284:   Trisha Dowling from Georgia

And as a consolation to those of you who didn't win:

Here is a downloadable Nothing But Trouble bookplate and a sample chapter from each book!

Nothing But Trouble

Double Trouble

Again! Thank you all so much for playing along ... blessings to you and your families!

(Winners please send your mailing address to my assistant Amy amy@susanmaywarren.com)

Double Trouble Contest - Have you entered?

http://www.litfusegroup.com/Blog-Tours/troubles-back-double-trouble-by-susan-may-warren.html

Susan May Warren's delightfully funny heroine is at it again ... P.J. Sugar finds herself in Double Trouble this time!

With one solved case under her belt, PJ Sugar is ready to dive into her career as a private investigator. Or at least a PI’s assistant until she can prove herself to Jeremy Kane, her new boss. Suddenly PJ’s seeing crime everywhere. But is it just in her head, or can she trust her instincts? When she takes on her first official case—house-sitting for a witness in protective custody—Jeremy assures her there’s no danger involved. But it soon becomes clear that there is someone after the witness . . . and now they’re after PJ, too.

The blog tour will run until the 20th of February and features a super fun social sharing contest! Just click here or on the "Double the Sass ... " button up top- you won't want to miss your chance to win an IPOD gift pack - The Super Sleuth prize package – everything a ‘sleuthing’ gal needs! Winner announced March 1st!

Read what people are saying!

Ruth at Book Talk and More       
I’m really glad I read the first two PJ Sugar books back-to-back. PJ’s story isn’t limited to standalone adventures – having the momentum that comes from reading her first two adventures back-to-back, it’s easy to see Warren’s superb characterization. The spiritual truths resonate because Warren’s characters are so wonderfully, achingly well-drawn and relatable. I also loved how Warren explores the idea of choosing between good and better throughout the book. Through PJ’s character, Warren forces readers to confront the issue of trusting God – not settling for the good, but daring to dream and reach for an as-yet unknown future that He’ll walk one through each step of the way, if only we’ll invite Him on the journey. Double Trouble contains all of the elements that made PJ’s first adventure a success – snappy dialogue, well-drawn characters, and a page-turning plot. It ups the ante with more intense action, a better mystery, and a compelling spiritual thread that, if you let it, will encourage and inspire you to embrace God’s grace and provision. I can’t wait for book three!

Melody at Kids, Cakes, Dishes, Laundry…In That Order       
The story is filled with all the things I loved about the first book... Romance, mystery, and lots and lots of laugh-out-loud humor make this yet another of my favorite Susan May Warren books. It's a fun and entertaining read that holds your attention and leaves you wanting more.

Michelle at From His Heart to Mine

As soon as I started reading this book, I found myself doubled over in laughter.  The first few chapters had me wiping tears from my eyes as I met the heroine in this story, PJ Sugar.  She is flawed, fearless, confident, desires success, and the queen of wit.  I love this character, love her humor even more, and enjoyed watching her battle the bad guys, with donut holes even!  HA!  This is one book you will need to read, especially if joy is missing from your life and you find yourself wanting to cheer on an unlikely heroine.

Kathryn at Home Spun Soul       
An easy read, but definitely kept you thinking.  I don't usually like mystery books, but this one was sort of mystery light and even I could think up a few outcomes that were valid, although Susan completely surprised me by the ending.  Very good.  I liked it.  It also seemed that Susan had a realistic balance of God and life.  I'm a pastors wife and some of the Christian fiction can go a bit heavy, even for me.  I felt it was a good book to give to a searching friend.

Leticia at My Daily Trek       
This book had me guessing until the very end on who the villain was. This book was funny, had drama, action and even in somewhere in the middle a cool grandma with a lot of spunk. Okay, okay, enough said I want you all to read this book and enjoy it as much I did. I am looking forward to the next installment. No pressure on you Susan.

Elizabeth at Texas Joy       
PJ Sugar is a girl so many of us can identify.  She desperately wants to find something she’s good at and to chart the course of her life. Great, fun series by one of my absolute favorite Christian authors!

Laura at Lighthouse Academy       
PJ Sugar is a realistic heroine, struggling with past demons, and trying to make sense out of her life and figure out who she is. I had to admire the way PJ’s mind works and her quick thinking when danger comes calling.

Kaylea at My Scrappy Life       
I really like the PJ Sugar series. Warren has created a fun, true to life character in PJ Sugar (but two novels in we still don't know what PJ stands for...). PJ is smart, she takes risks and above all, she is trying to live her faith in an authentic way.

Julie at The Surrendered Scribe      
I loved this book.  Susan May Warren is so effective at weaving a wonderful engaging story that sheds light on the message God has for our hearts.  We're trouble, too.  I goof up, mess up, trip, stumble and fall often.  Double Trouble reminds me that God's not looking for perfection, He's looking for willing.  He'll do the rest. Double Trouble offers action, suspense, humor, romance, and a great use of movie trivia to bring characters together.   I can't wait for the next book.

For more go here!

Superbowl Sunday

I was asked in the café yesterday if we were having our annual Superbowl party.  I was almost unable to speak, the Vikings’ loss still haunting me.  No, unfortunately, we didn’t because, well, that would have profoundly affected my football trash talk with my son (who rooted for the Saints, the little traitor).  And, I would have had to clean my house. 

Okay, okay, I did clean my house.  And I cooked homemade pizza and nachos.  And we had a couple people over. 

Maybe we’ll have a blowout next year.  When the Vikings are playing, donchyaknow.

But, because no one really had a horse in this race, we decided to rate the Superbowl ads.  By far, they lacked originality and fun of previous years.  But here are our favorite, according to quarter: 

The Betty White commercial.   Technically, this started before the kickoff, so it wasn’t an “official” commercial.  But to see Betty White going out for a pass, getting tackled – yeah, well, there were a few shouts of, “Hey Mom, that’ll be you someday!”  (Hey, I catch better than Betty, thanks).  It set the right tone for the game. 

Quarter One: 
Of course, we had to love the Tim Tebow commercial.  I’m just trying to figure out what all the fuss was about?  And the old people in the room (from the 80’s) had to rise off the sofa and start chanting the Superbowl Shuffle (yes, we know it – our son Peter made us all relearn it) after seeing MacMahon and the gang roll around in their motorized scooters.  Wow, do I feel old. 

But our favorite commercial in the first quarter had to be Playing Nice – the Dorito Commercial about the boy confronting his mother’s date.  “Two Things!  Keep your hands off my mama, and keep your hands off my Doritos!”  My sons have decided they’re going to start saying that around the house.  Nice.

Quarter Two:
We were all equally horrified by the Casual Friday commercial.  I think at one point my daughter even averted her eyes.  The effect of seeing so many everyday people in their underwear only intensified when it was followed by We Wear No Pants.  The Warren family decided that yes, we stand by our belief that people in underwear should not be shown on television.  (And were rejoicing that there were no Victoria’s Secret ads, which in our opinion fall under the same category, for different reasons).  We’re still trying to burn from our mind the images of middle aged normal people in their skivvies.  Thanks CBS. 

The voting for best commercial of this quarter split between:
Brett Favre accepting his trophy in 2020 (Hey, I’d root for him!), and Man’s Last Stand, with the litany of the horrors every man must endure (take out the garbage, don’t wear your smelly socks to bed).  Clearly, his only recourse is to buy a Dodge Charger. 

My sons now know what they have to live for.  Phew. 

Quarter Three:
Every teenager in the room nearly levitated off the sofa with the Prince of Persia ad (which we had to rewind and watch again).  Clearly I’m missing something.  However, we all gave thumbs up to the Etrade Wolfman Baby (love those Etrade babies), and there was a collective “Ah, isn’t that sweet” for the Google ad (very effective, I thought).  However…our favorite had to be..

The Bud Light Book Club.  Without a doubt, every boy in the room, said, “Sure, I’d read a book for a Bud Light.”  (Oaky, not really, but for pizza?)  Andrew has always said that book club is just food club in disguise.  Very creative.

Quarter Four:
Admittedly, the Internet TV ad from Vizio had us all riveted to the screen.  Hmm…interesting.  And, there was something about the Human Dolphins that emitted a sort of uncomfortable laughter.  Again, middle aged people in their skivvies….

We all had another collective Ah moment with the token Budweiser horses commercial. 

But hands down, our favorite had to be Tim’s Locker.  First, you have to be a Monty Python fan to appreciate the name Tim as the villain for that ad.  Then, his creative use of a Dorito had both my sons on their feet, trying that killer Ninja move. Thanks, Doritos, I spent an hour vacuuming. 

But the ad that won Warren’s Choice? 
The Punch Buggy.  You know – the 30 second blip of everyone playing the “I see a VW and I have to hit you” game. And here I thought that was only my family.  The things you learn from television.  However, now that we know that the punch applies to all makes of VW, well, I’m getting out my son’s football pads. (and why, exactly, does everyone think they have to hit me when their sibling will do just fine?)

So, nursing our Vikings wounds, we still managed to have a good time, party or not.

Now, what do I do for the next eight months?

To see all the commercials, go here!