From Mr. Wrong to Mr. Right

Contest/Giveaway: Full Dark, No Stars

2010-12-16T09:05:00.000-08:00

I should have posted this soooo much sooner on here but I completely forgot I had this blog. Shame on me! Anyway, Today ONLY! Enter to win a copy of Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King. Go to my other blog: www.alicev.net/blog and become a google friend, then retweet at least one of my tweets for this giveaway. I will pick ONE winner.

Tomorrow (12/17) I'll be giving away a pre-ordered copy of the new Fever book by Karen Marie Moning. Due out in January! I will post on my other blog on how to win this as well. Happy winning and Merry Christmas!

Reuniting with Old Flames

2010-09-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

Some people believe in a “one true love,” the power of a “first love,” and we are always searching for that “first-time” feeling again when we go from relationship to relationship. Sometimes we are fortunate to meet up with old friends from years past and play catch-up on each other’s lives, relive our youth, and learn about friends that have since gone away to a better place. Then there’s the one chance you get when the person who got away comes back into your life and you think to yourself, “do I still feel the same?”

I have to admit, there’s nothing like puppy love or that first time you think you’re in love with someone but when you stop to think about what you really love about them, you can’t get past the superficial things like their cute smile, smoldering eyes, or how they have the body type that you like. They might not be as smart as you’d want them to be, as successful, as caring, or as giving of them as you are but hey, that’s why they’re the “puppy love,” right?

Some of you may already know what I’m talking about and some of you might have no idea because you haven’t been there yet. Weather you agree with me or not on my opinion is purely up to you. Once upon a time I was reunited with my “first love.” I remember how I use to swoon over this guy in high school. I remember how he was the best thing in the world even though he didn’t really do anything to deserve the title of #1 man! But I was young, inexperienced in the challenges of relationships, and I wanted to be loved. Needless to say, we didn’t get anywhere but years later we met again and while my heart beat fast to hear his voice over the phone, I asked myself the question: Do I still feel the same?

Time passed for us. Time took away whatever we could have had. Seeing the person he became and the person I became, I knew I didn’t have the same feelings for him. We were two people fresh out of bad relationships and while I remained hopeful for something good to come my way, he was convinced that the opposite sex were money hungry she-devils. Just because his ex-girlfriend had him pay for everything, he thought all women were the same. We were two broken people with out the means to fix each other (not that I wanted to fix him). While we didn’t spark up a new romance, I learned something from him that would later repeat-they always come back to the one that got away. And I was “that one.”

New Giveaway: Clockwork Angel

2010-08-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

I'm giving away a new copy of Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel. Scheduled to release on August 31st! The contest will run between right now and August 30th. I will draw one name and then email that winner. The contest is free and the only rule is that you must leave a comment on my blog: www.alicev.net/blog under the Clockwork Angel post. Leave a comment about why you love the Mortal Instruments series, who your favorite character is, or what your favorite scene is.

Good luck and one more thing! The contest is for USA and Canada residents only. Sorry guys but if you live somewhere else, I can't ship to you yet as I am not sure what the shipping cost would be to other countries. Ok that't it so hurry over to www.alicev.net/blog and enter before it's too late!!!

(Wow that was cheesy!)

Darkfever review and book giveaway!

2010-08-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

I am hosting my very first book giveaway contest on my other blog, "The Journey into Publishing." Entering to win a copy of "Darkfever" by Karen Marie Moning is very easy. There is no kind of soliciting by me and I will not share your information with anyone...besides I'm not a salesman!
Click here to enter to win! Contest running til August 12,2010.

Synopsis of Darkfever from Moning's website:
MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman.

Or so she thinks…until something extraordinary happens.

When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death–a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone–Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister’s killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed–a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae...

As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, the ruthless Vlane–an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women–closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book–because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands...

To sleep together or not to sleep together

2010-08-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

Sleeping in separate beds seems to be the new phenomenom in the last 10 years according to a recentp article in the NY Times called "Married but Sleeping Alone." More and more couples are starting to sleep in separate rooms because of easily treated issues such as snoring, reading or watching tv before bed.

While this is new to the rest of the world, in my family, many of the women slept in separate beds from their husbands. When my grandfather was still alive, he slept in a separate room from my grandmother. Many of my great aunts (my grandmother's sisters) also sleep in separate rooms from their spouses. Even my mom sleeps in her own room from my step dad. While I don't know what everyone's excuse is, my mom snores and she says she doesn't like my step dad waking her up in the middle of the night because he can't sleep.

But is sleeping apart really better? My mom thinks so because she gets uninterrupted sleep. It's a win-win situation for both of them but according to psychiatrist Paul C. Rosenblatt, "co-sleeping is better for your health." According to some of his patients, certain medical symptoms that can be detected by a sleeping partner would go undetected if their partner wasn't there in bed with them. Not only that but it's better for your sex life and better for a woman's sense of security. If sleeping together is better, then why are people doing less and less of it?

The Love Stats: Forever?

2010-07-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

According to Family Dynamics, there's lots of pros for getting married which include a emotional and physical health, wealth, a longer lifespan for men, and a lower suicide rate. Not only does it positively effect the couple, but children are less likely to become teen parents, are more likely to go to college and be successful, less likely to use drugs or commit violent acts. Although the website fails to quote these statistics with numbers, I've took a brief look at some numbers. To keep things simple, I used data from the last 20 years.

Marriage (Across the USA): In 1990 people married at the rate of 9.8. There were 2,448,000 marriages with almost half ending in divorce. That's 1,175,000 divorces at a rate of 4.7. Seem kind of high? Maybe. If you flash forward to 2000, the rate of marriage decreased a bit to 8.5 but the divorce rate barely moved to 4.2. Since data has yet to be provided by Infoplease.com for 2010, we will look at 2008 where the marriage rate continued to drop to 7.3 with a divorce rate of 3.6. This is still nearly half of all marriages ending in divorce. Hmmm...interesting! Maybe it has something to do with age?

Age: in 1990, women married at a median age of 26yrs while men married at a median age of 23.9. In 2000, women married at roughly 26.8 and men married at 25.1. 2008's data is unavailable but in 2007, the ages were closer: 27.7 for women and 26 for men. Not the data you were expecting to get? Neither was I. I was expecting women to marry younger and men to marry older but it's the other way around. Women may mature faster than men and wait a little longer but just because women were older when they married, didn't do anything to really shrink the divorce rate. Then again, with less marriages in 2007, there were also less divorces.

So whose doing all the divorcing? According to Marriage 101, it's the women! Yup, you read right! You ladies call it quits first with ages 20-24 being the highest to say hiatus at a wopping 36.6%! But wait, the men are doing most of the divorcing at that age at 38.8%. Hmmm... this is the time frame of legal drinking, club and bar hopping, and long nights away from your significant other.

But wait, I don't want to point fingers. So what is the cause of unhappy matrimony? I can speak for my own divorce but what about everyone else? Well Marriage 101 breaks that down for us again with the most common reasons for divorce:
-Lack of Communication (Communication should be #1 in every marriage)
-Financial problems (budgeting money, bills, and living within means is a two way street)
-Lack of Commitment to the Marriage (if you can't be faithful to someone then way even bother getting married in the first place? This is such a no-brainer!)
-Differences in Culture (People are different all over the world and are raised with different beliefs, morals, family values. Consideration and understanding should be tackled before going forward. Just makes sense!)
-Sexual or Emotional abuse (Yeah, get out of this one quick! Especially if the abuser will not change or will not do his/her best to change)
-Lack of Responsibilities (I don't really understand this one. Maybe one is always left at home with the kids?)

If this isn't enough for you to throw in the towel and say "No way" to marriage, just wait, there are solutions to making things work! Websites like Marriage Builders.com have Q&A columns for just about any conflict, how to resolve and communicate issues. If communication isn't the issue then maybe you need to spice things up. If local intimate boutiques aren't your thing then head over to the great big world of the internet!Sex is important in a marriage. You two are more than friends, you're life long partners sharing the same bed, having the same goals, and made the same promises of "Til death do us part." Sexless marriages = unhappy couples. Another great webbie is love-lectures.com

So why did I spend on this time sharing all this info? Because marriage is taken far too lightly. We jump into it and say our meaningless vows only to divorce 1,2,3 years or so later. Why even bother if we can't stay together? Wait, am I being hypercritical? No, because even though I've been married and have divorced I've learned something here. Marriage is a beautiful thing shared between two people. It takes both of them to make it work and keep it alive. While I never wanted to become a divorcee, I had no other choice because my husband didn't want to make things work. It's like riding a bike with only one wheel while the other half drags ass on the concrete=just doesn't work.

The Dating Lists

2010-07-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

When you're single, you read these to make sure you don't do them. When you're in a relationship, you read these to see if you've done them. The dating "Do's" and "Dont's" of getting that second date, is a list that everyone from Cosmo, relationship websites, Maxim, etc share with us readers on a regular basis because we supposedly need these guidelines to hook the perfect mate. But how many of us don't follow these guidelines or follow them without even knowing we're doing it?

You're suppose to keep the first date simple with general questions like how many siblings you have and what's your favorite movie? You don't want to mention ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, religion, politics because these are the topics that scare people away. Do they really? Is knowing that you have been in a previous relationship all that scary? Is knowing if you're dating a Republican or an atheist really that bad? Personally I think these are things you should know right away. Why waste your time?

And if you follow the "rules" of dating, does that mean you'll end up in the perfect relationship? Marriage, kids, house: Are these in your future? When I look at relationships, I think of it this way: Relationships are what we enter into to find someone to spend the rest of our life with. When I starting writing "Not if You Were the Last Man on Earth," I wanted to write about my journey into relationships and finding that special someone. I wanted people to know my experiences, my ups and downs, and what I've learned. It's a journey most of us embark on. We get off the train at different stops and some of us get right back on again to find another stop with better opportunities.