Eat your vegetables. Put on a coat. Tie your shoes. If you don’t clean up this hell-hole-hurricane-disaster-zone-stinking-landfill-of-a-room, I will clean it for you…and give all your earthly possessions to homeless Brazilian Pygmies who don’t have bedazzled password journals.
I think we can all agree, though sometimes begrudgingly, that it is usually best to listen to your mother. In fact, listening to your mother has become such a universally good idea that 39 cities have decided to devote an entire show aimed at giving motherhood a microphone. One of those cities happens to be my hometown, St. Louis. And I am honored to say that I have been chosen as one of the mothers you should apparently listen to.
I have heard that your level of happiness is directly correlated to how often you show gratitude. Well, I am bound and determined to start off 2015 happy. So much so that this very first post of the year is going to be slathered with gratitude.
I have much to be thankful for in this past year, but I’m guessing you don’t want to read a novella-length post in which I profess my appreciation for everything from Korean-Mexican fusion food to The Monkees finally playing a gig in St. Louis. So I am going to focus on the biggest thing to happen to me in 2014: the release of my first children’s book, Absolute Mayhem. (Sorry, Monkees. You were a big deal, too. Promise.)
I am still giddy over how well-received the book has been, even in its fledgling first month. And while it does feel like a huge payoff for me and all the work I put into it, an incredible and unexpected byproduct of the book’s success became Continue reading “The Gratitude Novella”→
I am vibrating just a bit. Finally, here is the blog post four years in the making. If we want to be technical, it has really been more like twenty-five years in the making. But twenty-one of those years were just spent dreaming…the last four were the ones to see the actual work that made this dream a reality. So let’s stop putting this off any long and get right to it then:
ABSOLUTE MAYHEM IS HERE!
My very first children’s book, Absolute Mayhem, is officially available as of TODAY! And all I can say is that I am kind of excited to go someplace like a doctor’s office where I have to fill out a form, just so I can finally list my occupation as Author, after almost ten years of leaving that space blank. I mean, I can totally do that now. I have a business card that says so.
If the space on that form isn’t too small, I can also list myself as an Illustrator. In addition to writing Absolute Mayhem, I also did all of the illustrations, which was hands down THE most enjoyable part of this whole project. I have fallen in love with my characters, the sister and brother duo ofLulu and Milo, almost as much as I love my own children. And I sincerely hope they are able to charm you and your family as well, along with their tag-a-long dog Hippo.
Lulu, Milo, Hippo and I have spent a lot of time together getting them ready to go out on their own. I had a lot less time to prepare them to fly the nest than I do with my own children; then again, they aren’t half as stubborn and don’t distract me from my mission by leaving lots of messes to clean up. I can also erase their mouths if they get sassy. So they have now graduated from the desk of my comfy home office to the big world ofKellySuellentrop.com and Amazon, just in time for the holidays!
Please help me spread the word about Absolute Mayhem. To sweeten the deal, I am having a GIVEAWAY! Two people will each win a free autographed copy of the book. You can be entered to win the following ways:
#1 – Visit my giveaway on Rafflecopter HERE for various ways to earn entries.
#2 – If you are a blogger, REBLOG this post.
#3 – Go to either my new AUTHOR FACEBOOK PAGE or the ARE YOU FINISHED YET FACEBOOK PAGE, find the post announcing Absolute Mayhem’s release on the timeline, and share it. (And go ahead and give those pages a “like” while you’re there, if you haven’t already.)
#4 – SHARE this blog post using the social media sharing buttons below, and let me know where you shared it in the comment section.
The giveaway will run today until midnight on Sunday, December 7th (Central Time). I will announce the winners on Tuesday, December 9th here on the blog and on my social media outlets.
Of course, you can always purchase your own copy of the book on KellySuellentrop.com and on Amazon. (And after you read the book, I would love for you to leave a customer review over on Amazon!)
In the coming weeks, Absolute Mayhem will be visiting lots of different and awesome places around the internet, and I am really excited about that. So stay tuned! In the meantime, let me just say thank you in advance to all of you who are going to share the book with your friends and families.
It will be pretty nice to have the last four years pay off.
They say you may miss opportunities if you don’t look for them. They say that don’t they? I’m pretty sure they do. If not, they should.
Sometimes opportunities fall in your lap, like when you’re debating whether you should go to that all-weekend music festival, because last time they ran out of toilet paper, and ew. But then your old college roommate happens to post a link on Facebook, making fun of this mobile toilet paper invention just as you are about to tell your friend Wren you’re going to have to skip Lolla-Roo-Aid-palooza this year. And you post your “Lol. Is that for real?” comment, but then think to yourself, Music festival, here I come. Opportunity totally came knocking at your door. Continue reading “Always Check Your Junk Mail Folder”→
Last week I received my first proof of my upcoming children’s book, Absolute Mayhem. And while there are still a few minor changes that need to be made, I’m a little giddy when I tell you it looks AWESOME! Like, it’s a real book and everything. So that means it will be ready for the masses so soon that it’s not even funny.
Guess where I am today? Well, technically I am where I am just about every day. Home. But virtually, I’m all over the place.
Remember a few weeks ago when I told you my writing would be appearing in some kind of big places in the near future, but I wouldn’t tell you where? Well, I know you have all been on pins and needles since. So today is the day I relieve your suspense. And you get a two-for-one deal, because unbeknownst to me, BOTH places are featuring my articles on the very same day! Continue reading “Guess Where I Am Today?”→
I have a secret admirer…who is not so secret. Look at what I received in the mail over the weekend:
It reads, “To Kelly – Cool! Micky Dolenz” Cool? Guys, does that mean he thinks I’m cool? That’s like three steps above the “Text Me” conversation heart.
It may appear to simply be an autographed head shot of one Micky Dolenz of The Monkees. However, this was an UNSOLICITED autographed head shot of one Micky Dolenz of The Monkees. As in, I did not request or purchase this. It just appeared in my mailbox over Valentine’s weekend. Continue reading “I Think I Might Finally Be a Celebrity Girlfriend.”→
Mlunch. Cheweez. Amana. Hosible. Uncle Donald’s. Flop Shoes. Bolo Daddy.
I have a running record of seemingly meaningless words like these on scraps of paper, tucked into baby books. Yet I knew exactly what each one meant when they would fall from the lips of my daughter or son. The ones I listed above can be translated into: lunch, Cheerios, banana, hospital, McDonald’s, flip-flops, and peanut butter, respectively. I don’t ever want to forget the ways in which my children claimed the English language all for their own as they were learning to talk and Continue reading “Help Them Find Their Words. Even The Gibberish Ones.”→
I’m not going to try to be clever and witty. We are talking about “being thankful” for the Remember the Time Blog Hop this week because, duh. Check out how to link up and join the hop at the end of my post.
In my family, Thanksgiving is really about just one thing.
You may have noticed my blog looks a little different (it will likely evolve some more in the near future). I thought I’d change things up in celebration. Guess who is *this close* to hitting 1,000 followers? Heck yeah! I’m SO close that I may actually hit the milestone while I slumber, in between the time I scheduled this post to publish and it actually publishing. Unfortunately, I do think a chunk of those followers are spammer blogs who post in Croatian or redirect you to pyramid schemes promising financial Continue reading “This Is The One Where I Give Away Free Stuff…So You Probably Want to Read It”→
Are You Finished Yet? 