I go out of my way to find things that are beau­ti­ful. Gen­er­ally, I turn to fash­ion for those types of things — a stun­ning dress in a per­fect fab­ric, a lovely pair of patent leather peep toe pumps, maybe a jew­eled hand­bag that’s designed to catch the light just right.

I want to go beyond that. Things in life lately that have been beautiful:

1 — watch­ing my edi­tor and close friend release her first novel. She spent five years work­ing on it (in between rais­ing kids) and it’s such an amaz­ing thing to share that moment with her.

2 — a story I heard on Twit­ter today just made my heart clench. @skydiver was in Vegas, watch­ing the foun­tains at the Bel­la­gio (one of my most favorite things in the world to do — fun, but incred­i­bly roman­tic), and he was asked to take a pic­ture by a young cou­ple. As he did, the man turned to his girl­friend and pro­posed. If that isn’t the epit­ome of beauty, I don’t know what is.

3 — a few friends of mine have really invested the time into find­ing out what their pas­sions are. I know I’ve spent hours upon hours ask­ing myself the tough ques­tions, and it’s really beau­ti­ful to see these strong, inde­pen­dent women ask them­selves these ques­tions, and decide to com­mit to fol­low­ing them in the form of either start­ing busi­nesses, expand­ing their net­works, research­ing things they oth­er­wise wouldn’t have … to see women accept­ing them­selves for who they are, not apol­o­giz­ing for who they are, and my per­sonal favorite, work­ing their asses off to be bet­ter than they were yesterday.

As Ghandi says (and yes, I real­ize it’s douchy to quote Ghandi in a blog post) “Be the change you want to see in the world.“
I know I will. Will you?

1. Mood: Lov­ing life!
2. Are there any life lessons you wish you could have learned sooner? YES! Stop being a stub­born, pig­headed kid and grow up! School is impor­tant. Peo­ple are impor­tant. CARE about every­one. THINK things out.
3. How do you feel about sci­ence fic­tion? I love it! Some of it is bril­liant. Some of it is hor­ri­ble, but I’m into it.
4. Sequins — yay or nay? ONE THOUSAND PERCENT, YES YES YES!!
5. Eyes/lips/cheeks: MAC’s duo: Play on Plums, Lips: Posietint, Cheeks: Benetint/High Beam
6. Tell me five things about your­self: I love work­ing really hard, I’m a ball of energy, I’m going grey in a very unat­trac­tive way, I’m addicted to Benetint, and I have a major shoe fetish, but I think you all already knew that.
7. Favorite bar soap? Bar soap?! NO.
8. How are those New Year’s res­o­lu­tions com­ing along? Fab­u­lously! I’m meet­ing ALLLL of my goals!
9. Out­fit: Here you go:

01–13-10 out­fit

10. Weekly goals: BLOG more! Launch my YouTube chan­nel (which I can’t wait to share), and use the heck out of my TUMBLR.

And I really want to share the amaz­ing deal I got on these Ken­neth Cole shoes:

Ken­neth Cole, Stirry Night

With the Piper­lime Tues­day 10% off and a gift cer­tifi­cate, I got these babies for $35. And they are gor­geous! I’ve had an amaz­ing yel­low Anthro dress for a while, and these Mary Janes are the per­fect amount of pretty-tough for me, because of the studs going down the back heel.

Yel­low Anthro Dress, Ken­neth Cole Stud­ded Mary Janes

I always love the sur­veys I find at one of my favorite beauty blogs: MakeupAndBeautyBlog.com ; Karen’s got killer reviews and a spunky atti­tude a chick like me can appreciate!

1. Mood: Crazy happy — this is SUCH an amaz­ing day. The offi­cial LSP launch was today, as well as a great arti­cle on Lit­Sis­ters (in which I actu­ally appear to be quite intel­li­gent and not like the dorkus we all know I am!) and I’m back on my diet. After indulging on an hourly basis over the hol­i­days, I’m back to my nor­mal eat­ing healthy regime, and plan­ning a hard­core diet for a cou­ple of weeks out.

2. Video games — love ‘em or hate ‘em? I’m big fan of old school video games. I don’t play any­thing made later than the SNES. I don’t play often, but some­times when the boy and I need to de-compress, we’ll crack out the old sys­tems and play Mario Kart.

3. Last thing that made you smile? The awe­some arti­cle that came out earlier.

4. A favorite sound? Harley’s howl­ing. He doesn’t do it often, but when he does, it totally cracks me up.

5. Eyes/lips/cheeks: I’m on a Ben­e­fit kick — Charm school on my lids, Benetint on my lips & cheeks, and High Beam as a highlighter.

6. How do you feel about leg­gings? I don’t think they’re for me. I have a pair, and they are reserved for travel days when I’m in the car for 5+ hours.

7. Do you fol­low sports? Not any­more. Grow­ing up in Mon­treal, Lord Stan­ley was a big part of life, but not any­more. I do love play­ing a bit, and going to base­ball games in the summer.

8. When I was a kid I wanted to be _____. A writer, of course. But in addi­tion, a singer, marine biol­o­gist & geologist/volcanologist.

9. Out­fit: I’ve been so busy since the minute I woke up, I haven’t stopped to get dressed yet! So, plaid jam­mie pants and a Jedi sweater. But I’ll be chang­ing for my meet­ing tonight, and I’m plan­ning on my sun­shine yel­low Anthro dress, moto jacket and black flats.

10. Weekly goals: With the launch of LSP comes a myr­iad of new work to do, but I want to get a few more chap­ters writ­ten, and wrap up the lose ends on the next LSP release, Poles Apart. [!!!excit­ing!!!] My only must-do is to make sure I take care of my foot injury. I have Achilles ten­donitis and I need to remem­ber to ice my ankle and try and stay off of it as much as pos­si­ble. Tough to do!

I’ll do a year-in-review pic post soon. I was for­tu­nate enough to have spent the Christ­mas hol­i­days with the Army side of the fam­ily, and then New Years hid­ing out in Cal­i­for­nia with the hus­band. It was a much needed break, but I’m thrilled to be back, and back to work! I have some great things planned for this site, and I can’t wait to put them into motion!

I have put off blog­ging in 2010 until it was safe to make this announce­ment — the first big one in 2010, with so many more to come!

I am pleased to announce my part­ner­ship in Lit­Sis­ters Pub­lish­ing, a bou­tique pub­lisher spe­cial­iz­ing in high qual­ity fic­tion by women authors. Each part­ner is an acclaimed author in her own right and, together, the part­ners bring over sixty years of busi­ness, mar­ket­ing, PR, R & D, and entre­pre­neur­ial acu­men to this new era of pub­lish­ing. We have taken our des­tiny into our own hands and are excited to empower other women authors on their jour­ney to pub­li­ca­tion and beyond. Lit­Sis­ters is cur­rently pro­duc­ing our 2010 list . Please check in with us later this year for infor­ma­tion on sub­mis­sion oppor­tu­ni­ties for our 2011 list. For more infor­ma­tion, please find us at www.litsisterspublishing.com.  Fur­ther, we invite you to join our Lit­Sis­ters writ­ing com­mu­nity – open to all writ­ers – at www.litsisters.com.  Sign up for our newslet­ter to receive updates, tips and news.

Happy Mon­day, kids! I’m doing a blog sur­vey this morn­ing, which is con­sid­er­ably less excit­ing than, say, Leah’s sur­vey, or even Hay­den’s. And Mark’s is com­ing this afternoon.

1. Mood:
Totally in holiday-mode. I’m all kinds of bright and cheery and singing very loudly and off key, and it’s a good thing I work from home, because I feel so sugary-sweet lovey that I’m pos­i­tive I’d make my co-workers puke pink daz­zle just from being in my very presence.

2. Left or right handed?
Right!

3. Where do you con­sider home?
Despite being Cana­dian (and this is the time of year when I really really miss being in Mon­treal), I can’t help but feel most at home here in the Val­ley. I love Arizona.

4. Three things you’re grate­ful for?
My amaz­ing sis­ters, fam­ily, and H&M.

5. Eyes/lips/cheeks:
Gold metal­lic lids, deep bronze lips, bronzer/NARS Orgasm cheeks.

6. Have you ever stud­ied abroad?
No! I would have loved to, tho!

7. What do you col­lect?
Does shoes count?  Also, teacups from Anthro!

8. Last text you sent?
To my Twit­ter feed Fri­day night, announc­ing that I was par­ty­ing at Axis/Radius with some amaz­ing friends. Pic from that night:

Me, and my dear friend Kim

9. Out­fit:
I’m still in jam­mies, but here’s what I wore last night to a Christ­mas party:

Casual Xmas party outfit

{out­fit: black pen­cil skirt w/paperbag waist, black tank, white cardi with satin trim, black pointed toe flats, char­coal chain bag, Marc Jacobs neck­lace & mint green nails by Essie.}

10. Weekly goals:
Launch the new LSP web­site, Audrey’s new site, Chap­ter–freak­ing–Five, a bunch of other busi­ness stuff, and enjoy Thursday&Friday with the family!

[read 20 ques­tions with Leah Bowen here]
I’m watch­ing Leah and Hay­den hug, as she’s about to leave and give him pri­vacy for his sit down with me. He kisses her cheek and tou­sles her hair and she smiles up at him – God, he’s so much taller than she is — and she reaches for the door handle.

“Wait,” he says. She stops and turns around. From the ground next to the chair she just sat in for her inter­view, he picks up her Burberry purse. “Don’t for­get your bag.”

Leah takes it from him and gives me a bash­ful smile. “Thanks, Den. Talk to you later,” she says. Another quick hug, and she’s gone.

CL: Nice to see you, Hayden.

HT: Call me Den. What’s doing, CL?

CL: Shall we get started?

HT: Let’s rock it.

Favorite color:

“Pur­ple,” he says. Final. No ques­tion. Why, I ask. “It’s a good color,” he says.

All right. Mov­ing on.

Favorite sea­son:

“I like win­ter. It doesn’t get all that cold in Phoenix, or in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, where I’m from, but it’s chilly enough to need to wear lay­ers. It’s a nice change from the mil­lion degree heat we have most of the year.”

If you could live any­where in the world, where would you live and why?

Hay­den rakes his hair out of his eyes, tuck­ing it behind his ear. “I like where I live,” he shrugs. “I’m a sim­ple guy. I moved here to go to ASU for my degree in design, and love it here. It’s a good place to put down some roots.”

What’s been the great­est moment of your life so far?

He half-smiles, and I can tell from the mis­chief that’s danc­ing in his eyes, he’s not going to give me the answer I want. “I’m really proud of being a busi­ness owner. I’ve always wanted to be self-employed. My design com­pany is some­thing I’m really proud of.”

Way to avoid the ques­tion, Den.

“Fine,” he says, with a hint of amuse­ment in his voice. “When the Red Sox won the World Series.”

I sigh.

Do you have a cell phone, if so… what kind is it?

Hayden’s half smile turns into a full one, and I know he’s in his ele­ment. He’s a guy’s guy, all gad­gets and elec­tron­ics and cars and sports. From his pocket, he extracts an iPhone. “I love this thing. My iPhone is my world.” He’s flip­ping through things, and throw­ing out words like “apps” and “e-readers” and shows me his cal­en­dar, how he can buy movie tick­ets on it and a pic­ture he took of Leah. “Pretty cool, huh?”

If you won $1,000,000 in the lot­tery, how would you spend it?

“I don’t know that I would. I don’t need much. I have my car, my place … I think I’d leave most of it in the bank. Maybe take Bowen shop­ping, she’d like that. And buy my par­ents a new car. They need one so bad.”

What’s one place you feel the most peaceful?

He raises an eye­brow at me like he’s try­ing not to ask me where I’m get­ting these frilly ques­tions. “I don’t know! I guess I like Bowen’s kitchen. The chairs at her table are comfy, and she always has killer snacks. That’s pretty peaceful.”

Favorite movie?

“Indi­ana Jones. Lucas makes clas­sics. Indy, Star Wars … that’s pure gold, CL. Pure. Gold. Indy on DVD is what got me through col­lege. Honest.”

Favorite lyric from a song?

Hay­den looks at me like I’ve asked him to spell a thirty-letter word. “How can I pos­si­bly answer that? There are far too many amaz­ing lines.” Pick from your top-ten, I tell him. He bites his bot­tom lip in thought and I can’t help but notice he and Leah have that habit in com­mon. “I’m going with old-school Bon Jovi here, CL. Wanted Dead or Alive. ‘I walk these streets, a loaded six string on my back / I play for keeps, ’cause I might not make it back / I been every­where, and I’m stand­ing tall / I’ve seen a mil­lion faces and I’ve rocked them all.’ God,” Hay­den says, shak­ing his head. “The man is a genius.”

Are you a cat per­son or a dog person?

“Dog!” he says, as quickly as Leah did. “I can’t do cats.”

You’re stranded on a desert island. You can take three things with you. One has to be a book, one has to be an album (we’ll pre­tend you can lis­ten to it) and one person:

“As for a book, I’d take Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. I read it when I was a kid, for school, and it stuck with me. Maybe it would give me some sur­vival ideas,” he chuck­les. His laugh sends goose­bumps fly­ing down my arms, and I’m caught up in the melody of it. He’s divine. “For an album? That’s a tough one. I’d have a hard time nar­row­ing it down between Bon Jovi, Cold­play, Jour­ney and Sina­tra. I know, I have music ADD. Okay, and I can bring a per­son? I’d bring Bowen. Leah’s some­one you want to be stuck with on a desert island.”

Why, I ask.

That mis­chief is back in his eyes again. “She’s good fun,” he says, and leaves it at that.

If you put your iPod on ran­dom right now, what’s the first song that plays?

“I don’t have mine with me,” he says, with a frown. “But I’ll ran­domly pick, and I have a feel­ing Bowen put some girlie crap on there. I bet Spice Girls or Brit­ney Spears would play first, to embar­rass me.”

What soothes you?

The smile in his voice fades a bit as he speaks, and it’s replaced by a soft­ness. He crosses his legs at his ankles and brushes a strand of hair from his ocean green eyes that seem to be a bit darker now. “When I’m stressed,” he says, look­ing down at his knees. “I go to Bowen’s and we watch a movie. We sit together on the couch, and I always put my arm around her. I dunno. There’s some­thing sooth­ing about sit­ting with her and watch­ing a movie. Calms me right down. Go figure.”

And I decide at that moment to be a crappy jour­nal­ist and not push him for more info, and let his words hang in the air between us.

What do you want your life to be like in five years?

Hay­den looks back up at me. “Like it is right now. I want to have my com­pany still doing well, maybe get a big­ger place, have the Pon­tiac paid off … I still want to have break­fast with Leah at IHOP every Sat­ur­day morn­ing. I want to go shoot pool and have a beer with Gary and the guys.” What about mar­riage and chil­dren, I ask. He stops for a minute, and then nods. “A wife and kids would be the best. I want kids, for sure. And I want to be mar­ried. If that hap­pens in the next five years, great. If not, I can wait. I’m only going to do this once, and I want it to be right.”

What are you most afraid of?

“This is going to make me sound like a wuss, but los­ing Bowen. She’s my anchor. For the past eight years, she’s been my best friend. I can’t imag­ine my life with­out her. Can we lay off these seri­ous ques­tions for a bit, CL? Shit!”

Fine. What’s your favorite dessert?

“Cheese­cake. Oh, man, I love cheese­cake! Not as much as I love pan­cakes, but cheese­cake is up there.”

If you could go on a vaca­tion for a week to one place, where would you go?

“I’ve always wanted to go to Italy, or France. The food would be amaz­ing. And before you ask, yes, I would absolutely just go to eat.”

What’s your favorite ice cream?

Hay­den grins. I see how he works. Ask him life ques­tions and he shifts in his seat. Talk to him about food, and he comes alive. “Choco­late Chip Cookie Dough,” he says, and his stom­ach growls. “Man, I’m hungry!”

What’s your favorite arti­cle of clothing?

“My Chucks,” he says, glanc­ing down at his feet with ado­ra­tion. His clas­sic black and white Con­verse Chuck Tay­lors have seen bet­ter days, but they are def­i­nitely well-loved. “Jeans and t-shirt and Chucks. They’re the best.”

Last one, Den. What’s your favorite memory?

And just like Leah did, he gets quiet again. He looks down at his Chucks and takes a deep breath. “What did Bowen say?” he asks. I tell him he needs to wait and read it for him­self. No free­bies from me. He chuck­les at me and nods. “Fair enough,” he says. “The first thing that comes to mind is the first Dbacks game I took Bowen to. She wasn’t a big ball fan before then, but I got her going. That was fun. But I think my absolute favorite was the year we all went out to the beach for New Year’s Eve. We had a fun night.”

I bite my tongue, I don’t want to give any­thing away, but I have a feel­ing that Hay­den and Leah have no idea just how much they’re on the same wave­length. I just smile at him.

“This is great, Den,” I say, scrib­bling notes.

He stands and pulls out his phone, and I can see he’s check­ing his text mes­sages. Leah’s sent him a cou­ple dur­ing our inter­view. He laughs to him­self and types back at a speed that must be world-record level. When I’m done scrib­bling notes and he’s done tex­ting or buy­ing a Volvo or what­ever it is he can do on that phone, he smiles at me.

“This was fun, CL. Thanks for the inter­view,” he says, his man­ners impeccable.

“That’s my line,” I joke as he gives me a hug.

I can hear his phone beep in his pocket, and he laughs again. It’s from deep within his chest, and it vibrates through me. It’s impos­si­bly sim­ple to get caught up in him.

“I bet­ter run, that’s Bowen. She’s dying to know what we talked about and she said some­thing about post-interview pan­cakes, so …”

His laugh is con­ta­gious as I let out a gig­gle. “Have fun,” I say and give him a wave as he walks out the door.

When he’s gone, I decide to take a break. Mark isn’t due for a few hours, so I’ll go grab some lunch and meet up with him for Twenty Ques­tions later.

Tak­ing a break from the usual blog posts here at MTL2PHX (and at GoodReads) I thought I’d do some inter­views with the stars of Col­lide! We’re gonna start with Miss Uber Jew­elry Designer, Leah Bowen.

CL: Hey, Leah!

Leah sits down, smooths out jeans and crosses her legs. She flashes me a huge, bright white smile.
LB: Hi CL! How are ya?

CL: Great! Thanks for sit­ting with me and answer­ing these ques­tions. I know a lot of peo­ple are curi­ous about Col­lide and you, and–

Leah cuts me off with a nod and a laugh. LB: –And me and Hay­den.
I smile and reach for my pen and paper. CL: Yep, but we’ll get to the guys later. For now, we’re going to play twenty ques­tions. Good?
LB: Great, let’s go!

Favorite color:

“Easy. Green. I’m def­i­nitely a green girl,” she says, with a blush. I want to point out that both Mark and Hay­den have green eyes, but I move on.

Favorite sea­son:

“I love the spring. Spring in Phoenix is beau­ti­ful. The sum­mer is crazy hot, and we don’t get much of a win­ter … but the spring is all about new life, and I love that.”

If you could live any­where in the world, where would you live and why?

“You know, I adore liv­ing in Phoenix. But there’s some­thing about the Chicago metrop­o­lis that is so appeal­ing. I think if I had my way, though, some­where in Italy would be great. Maybe a Tus­can villa,” she laughs.

What’s been the great­est moment of your life so far?

Leah doesn’t even hes­i­tate with this one, “With­out a doubt, watch­ing Fire­fly grow. When I first started, I was threaded neck­laces in between classes, and shop­ping for gems when I wasn’t study­ing. It’s just so much big­ger than I ever dreamed.”

Do you have a cell phone, if so… what kind is it?

Leah reaches into her purse and pulls out a beat up flip phone. “I have this. I have no idea what brand it is. Den picked it out for me a few years ago when I needed a new one,” she says, and flips it open, giv­ing me a shrug. “Noth­ing fancy here. I can text and make and receive calls.”

If you won $1,000,000 in the lot­tery, how would you spend it?

Throw­ing her phone back into her purse, she sits back with a sparkle in her eye. “I’d buy a house. Noth­ing too big, but with a pool. And a car, so I could own it out­right,” she crin­kles her nose. “I hate monthly pay­ments. Out­side of buy­ing a ridicu­lously expen­sive purse or some­thing, I think I’d bank it and use the inter­est to build up Fire­fly even more.”

What’s one place you feel the most peaceful?

At this ques­tion, Leah blushes, and I some­how feel like I’ve asked her some­thing really inti­mate. She gets quiet and looks down at her hands. “I think a lot of peo­ple would answer that with a loca­tion … like the beach or some­thing. But for me …” she trails off and I have to clear my throat to get her atten­tion. When she looks up again, there’s some­thing serene in her face, as if she’s just men­tally gone to that peace­ful place. “Hayden’s liv­ing room. It’s always been so … peace­ful. His fur­ni­ture is so cushy and soft. He has these leather couches you can just sink into. And dark wood tables. The sim­plic­ity of the brown leather and un-fancy tables is just so … it puts me at com­plete ease.”

Favorite movie?

As if glad to be off the sub­ject, she perks up. “My favorite movie is Indi­ana Jones and the Tem­ple of Doom. When I was in col­lege Den got me turned on to them, he’d have them on in the back­ground while we were study­ing for finals.”

Favorite lyric from a song?

Leah twirls a curl around her fin­ger as she thinks. “I really love Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me To The Moon, you know? It’s so …” she stops, and I swear she swoons before she con­tin­ues. “You can get lost in that song. I love the line – fill my heart with joy, and let me sing for­ever more,” she says, in a sing-songy voice, like she’s try­ing not to belt out the tune. “It’s so sim­ple, but so full of emotion.”

Are you a cat per­son or a dog person?

“Dog!” she exclaims. “Marie has a cat. We don’t get along.”

You’re stranded on a desert island. You can take three things with you. One has to be a book, one has to be an album (we’ll pre­tend you can lis­ten to it) and one person:

“Ahh, the ‘stranded on an island’ ques­tion. You’re one heck of a jour­nal­ist, CL,” she says, rolling her eyes. I shake my head and we exchange smiles. “Oh-kay,” Leah says and is silent as she thinks about it. “I think I’d bring Wuther­ing Heights. And the for album … I’m going with this one com­pi­la­tion CD I found a while ago. It’s called Clas­sics of the Heart, and it’s all of these amaz­ing clas­si­cal piano pieces – oh, you’d love it, CL – I’d bring it to remind myself of the opti­mism and beauty that I left behind. And as for a per­son? Well, I’d like to say Mark. We just started dat­ing. That’s a lit­tle weird, isn’t it?” I shrug in the way that says hey-its-all-you-no-judgment, and she sighs. “I guess Den, then. He’s my best friend and the only per­son I can stand to be around for hours on end and not want to kill,” she laughs.

If you put your iPod on ran­dom right now, what’s the first song that plays?

“I actu­ally have mine with me! Another thing Den made me buy. He gave me the whole ‘Bowen, you’re eight years behind tech­nol­ogy!’ speech,” she says, in a per­fect imi­ta­tion of Hay­den as she pulls out the lit­tle lime green iPod Shuf­fle. She pushes a few but­tons, sticks white ear­buds in her ears and waits for a few sec­onds. Then, she’s laugh­ing hys­ter­i­cally. “Of course! It has to be the most embar­rass­ing song in the world!”

Leah won’t even tell me, she sim­ply hands over the ear­buds for me to sam­ple. Ugh, yeah, Embar­rass­ing is right. She’s lis­ten­ing to “If You Wanna Be My Lover” by the Spice Girls. I just shake my head and hand them back to her.

“Can we pre­tend that didn’t hap­pen?” she asks.

I just shake my head again.

What soothes you?

“When it rains in the desert. It’s so rare here. When it rains, the sound the droplets make when they hit the dirt, or the tin roofs, the way the palms rus­tle in the wind. It’s so soothing.”

What do you want your life to be like in five years?

This, she answers with cer­tainty. “I want Fire­fly to be huge. I want every­one to know what it is, and I want to be able to work it full time. I’d love to be mar­ried. Find the one, maybe have a dog. Maybe a baby, too. But my career has to come first. I’ve wanted Fire­fly to be a house­hold name my whole life.”

What are you most afraid of?

“Fail­ing,” she says, with­out miss­ing a beat. “Fire­fly is my life. I’ll do what­ever it takes.”

What’s your favorite dessert?

“I love cupcakes!”

If could go on a vaca­tion for a week to one place, where would you go?

Leah nods, and smiles. There’s some­thing dis­tant in her eyes, as if a vaca­tion sounds amaz­ing, but could never hap­pen. “I would love to spend a week in Paris. But, for me, I want to be in love when I go, you know? I know it’s cliché to say that it’s the most roman­tic city in the world, but I believe that. And I want to expe­ri­ence that with the per­son I love most in the world.”

What’s your favorite ice cream?

“Mint choco­late chip!”

What’s your favorite arti­cle of clothing?

“Not to be all shameless-self-promotion and all, but my Fire­fly medal­lion,” she fin­gers the sil­ver chain and cir­cu­lar medal­lion that hangs around her neck. “It’s from my core col­lec­tion, and it’s my favorite thing. I wear it almost every day.”

Last one, Leah, and we’ll wrap up. What’s your favorite memory?

That famil­iar blush rises in her cheeks again and she shakes her head just a touch. I’m sure she didn’t expect me to notice, but she bites her bot­tom lip and answers in a tiny voice. “New Years Eve. Five years ago,” she says. Care to elab­o­rate?, I ask her. “It was just,” she pauses, then her gaze meets mine. “It was a great night.”

I make some final notes on my paper and when I look up at her, I see her watch­ing the door. She knows Hayden’s next, and I sus­pect she’s hop­ing to catch him as he walks in.

“Thanks, Leah,” I say, reach­ing my hand out to her.

She turns back to look at me, her long brown curls whip­ping around her face. “Oh! Thank you, CL! This was fun!” She pulls me up and gives me a warm hug, just as the door opens and Hay­den walks in.

He stops, look­ing at us and grins.

“Hey Bowen, Hey CL,” he says.

Leah gives me a peck on the cheek and thanks me again before run­ning over to him.

I smile and watch them as I turn the page and get ready for Hayden’s interview.

When I think of where I get my ideas, I think back to the open­ing lines to one of my favorite movies: Love, Actually.

“If you look for it, I’ve got a sneak­ing sus­pi­cion… love actu­ally is all around.”

I believe this to be true about ideas. They’re every­where. And where Col­lide is con­cerned, I can remem­ber the song that sparked the main idea. I was lis­ten­ing to Dash­board Confessional’s “Stolen” (which I’ve posted about HERE in a blog about find­ing inspi­ra­tion) and sign­ing along. As I did, over and over again, I saw this beau­ti­ful man … tall and lanky, with dark hair and green eyes that made you melt until you were a pud­dle on the floor. And he was just real­iz­ing that he was in love with this girl. That’s when I knew he was my Hay­den, and she was my Leah. And that maybe, he’s been in love with her all his life. And then it grew from there. She loved him, too, but she couldn’t tell him. But I needed the WHY of it.

Hay­den and Leah had to be best friends. They mean so much to each other, and they respect each other, and wouldn’t ever do any­thing to ruin that rela­tion­ship … even if it means keep­ing their feel­ings a secret and suf­fer­ing in silence.  That’s essen­tially where it began. From there, I did some plot devel­op­ment. I needed a way to keep them apart, and one night it just dawned on me, some­one had to keep them apart. That’s where Mark Stevens came from. Hand­some, wealthy, intel­li­gent and gor­geous beyond belief.

And voila, a love tri­an­gle was born.
So, going back to the sub­ject mat­ter of ideas, you can see where a song can spring­board an entire story. I’ve also seen a dress that spawned into a vision of Leah wear­ing it at a party. From there I played the“what-if” game … what if she wore it to a gala? what if Hay­den and Mark were there? what if this was the dress she wore the night her life changed? And go from there … what was the gala about? if Hay­den and Mark were both there … who was she there with? and how did this night change her life? Pretty soon, these ques­tions were answer­ing them­selves and I had char­ac­ters run­ning around in my mind, hav­ing these con­ver­sa­tions, and I just typed every­thing out as fast as I could.

Ideas are every­where! Open your eyes and let your mind wan­der, and you’ll be sur­prised at what you come up with.

I was in Vegas last week, and spent some time shop­ping at Ceasar’s Forum Shops & the Bel­la­gio. The win­dow dis­plays were awe­some, but CHANEL caught my eye and res­onated with me. While I aspire to be able to walk into Chanel and say “I’ll have every­thing that man­nequin is wear­ing!”, I sim­ply can’t at the time being. So, I decided to take a pic­ture of the look and do my best to re-create it.

The Inspi­ra­tion : Chanel Hol­i­day 2009 Win­dow @ Vegas

And tonight, I’m going to a hol­i­day party hosted by the lovely Dottsy, and I have to glam it up for my girl’s cel­e­bra­tion! Here’s my cheapie version:

Hol­i­day party look — the pieces

Hol­i­day party — Final Look

Shoes — F21 ($20)
Red tights — HUE (dil­lards, $9)
Gold sequin skirt — H&M ($25)
Black Tank
Cadet jacket — H&M ($40)