- did laundry
- dropped off the drycleaning
- watered the plants (they’re never as well-tended to as when I have a deadline)
- met with a contractor who’s going to make new planter boxes for my patio. When you’re trying to procrastinate, you should always take on a home-renovation project

I’ve never been so domestic. I’ve also never been so sporty. I’m playing volleyball, doing Booty Camp Fitness, golfing, and playing tennis with my girlfriends. Last night we stopped for a water break and practically got booted off the court by a gang of hungry tennis players. Apparently, you can’t take water breaks and leave a court empty. We got our court back, but only by allowing Nicola, a very good tennis player guy who didn’t speak much English, to play with us, so he could warm up for his match. I told him we weren’t very good. He said that was okay. He decided to serve the ball. We mostly missed the returns. So then, every time he served it, he would yell “Sorry!” But we looked super cute in our outfits.

Now I’m staring at Paul Wesley….

While I go back to writing, I thought I’d leave you with some things to read and contests to enter.

Want to get some sweet kitchen tools that will make you look like Nigella Lawson (even if you can’t cook like her)? Read 10 Gourmet Kitchen Tools over at Food Network. 

Looking for an easy DIY rustic centrepiece? Stick em up with this twig candle holder.  

Or, put your herbs in a little white picket fence home.

Over at The Eaton Centre (another great place to spend procrastination hours!), @saragigi posted this list of excellent summer reads, including Love Struck!

Don’t want to buy a copy? Here are some contests where you can win an autographed copy of Love Struck instead!

Win a whole bunch of stuff with Sweetspot’s Dr. Oetker contest

Tag yourself on the profile pic of Key Porter’s Facebook page.

Don’t forget, I’m also running the summer-long referral contest. Tell a friend about Love Struck and you’ll both get an autographed copy of Stuck in Downward Dog — free! (Scroll down for more info).

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Here’s how the contest works:

Recommend Love Struck to a friend, neighbour,  stranger on the subway — anyone you like. Be sure to say things like “It’s so funny!” or “I couldn’t put it down!” or my personal favourite: “I missed my subway stop because I was so engrossed in the story!”. I think these are good ones that would woo anyone to buy a book but feel free to make up your own enticing reasons why your friend should do so. Just don’t say things like “You’ll have 18 years of bad luck if you don’t buy this book.” That would make me feel guilty. And it’s just wrong.

Once your friend has bought Love Struck, tell her to scan her receipt and email me at chantel (at) chantelsimmons (dot) com (or put a copy of the receipt in the mail to me). In the email she should include both her name and full mailing address and your name and full mailing address.

I will send both of you a signed copy of the first edition of my first  novel, Stuck in Downward Dog – for free!

PS If you recommend Love Struck to a stranger and don’t want to give him/her your mailing address (because that would be weird), just tell him/her to do the steps above, and then you can send me your own email with your mailing address. Be sure to tell me the name of the person you referred Love Struck to, so when they send their receipt, you’ll get your signed copy!

The contest will run for the summer until we run out of copies of Stuck in Downward Dog!

Step  1: Cut out circles from fabric and fusible interfacing. Iron together.

Step 2: Glue-gun thin wire to interfacing, then cover with pretty ribbon.

Step 3: Write love notes or fortunes on slips of papers, fold your circles into fortunes, and give to someone you like a lot!

The contest ended last Saturday on the random day that I made up for the contest to close…and then you waited. An entire week because I was running around and forgot to post the winner! Want to know what I was doing? Probably not but I’ll tell you one thing: I went to my first bookclub meeting for a group that had chosen to read Love Struck!

The host of The St. Catharines Ladies Book Club asked me if I’d come to the meeting, but we decided to keep it a secret from the rest of the book club members until I got there – and since I was late (whoops! I forgot that in a small town you really have no excuse of traffic for being late for anything!) they tried to guess who was coming.  They all thought Melissa was coming, whoever that is. (Sorry to disappoint!). Anyway, I loved meeting all these women who’d read my book – and even made notes to discuss!

I wanted everyone to be honest about their feelings about the book, just like a regular book club meeting, and it was so interesting to hear everyone’s take on certain aspects of the book such as infidelity, self-discovery and character traits. The host used the bookclub questions that my awesome assistant created and they were really good! (I was stumped on several questions. Hmmm…).

Also, I loved that everyone in the club chooses a quote from the book and reads it aloud. It can be a favourite quote, or a quote that you thought summed up the book or the theme. Great tip for book clubs!

Thanks again to the St. Catharines Ladies Book Club for inviting me! If you want to invite me to call in or come to your book club meeting – just let me know. Each member will receive a little present from  me, too.

Okay, okay! I know you just want to know who the winner of the review contest is! Here you go….

The randomly selected winner is….

Genevieve Anderson!

Congratulations, Genevieve. Send me your mailing address and we’ll send you your prize. Thanks for everyone who left such thoughtful reviews of Love Struck on Amazon, Indigo, their blogs, Facebook, and Twitter!

Stay tuned for another contest coming soon. Just as soon as I think of the rules. If you have any ideas, leave a comment, because I have lots of prizes to give away!

Happy Weekend!

All you have to do is write a review (good, bad, indifferent, it doesn’t matter!) about Love Struck  on Indigo.ca or Amazon.ca, then leave a comment for me telling me you did so, and you’ll automatically be entered to win!

The contest runs until April 16! Good luck!

Does this happen to you?

One of my friends recently said to me, “Everytime you quit one job, you seem to take on two more.” It’s true. I keep trying to have fewer jobs but I keep getting more. Which means I keep putting off the things I really want to do (hello, write novels!) because I’m too busy doing things that I said yes to instead.

After reading The Happiness Project, I decided one of the things I was going to do was say “no” more often. After I decided this, I was re-reading the author’s list of things she had planned to do and one of her items was to say “YES” more often. Suddenly I felt guilty that while I was wanting to say “no”, she was changing her life for the better by saying “yes.” I just didn’t get it. How could you say “yes” and be happy too?

Then a little while ago I was giving a presentation (another example of a “yes”) and someone commented that it seemed like I had so many experiences and had done so many different things — and asked how I came to do all these different things.

And then I realized something. If I’d said “no” to every opportunity, I’d be boring and uninteresting. I wouldn’t be able to give a presentation because a) no one would ask me to because I wouldn’t be qualified and b) I’d have nothing to say, and the entire presentation would be useless for the guests because I would have no experiences to draw upon and no advice to offer.

It hit me: saying “yes” is a great thing because it makes you really live. I loved giving the presentation because I met so many interesting people and because in preparing for the presentation, I improved my own skills in several areas that I wanted to improve — I made a PowerPoint handout (with those lines to write!), which I’d never done before, I read several articles on a topic that I’d never read about before, and I talked to a group that I’d never spoken to before. And I wouldn’t have done any of those things on my own. (Let’s face it: I probably would’ve read a book or watched TV when I was instead working on the presentation and giving it). I only improved my skills because I said “yes.”

When I got home I felt an incredible sense of accomplishment, not to mention I was energized and inspired to tackle more things  on my t0-do list. 

All because I said “yes.”

What about you? Do you find yourself saying “yes” or “no” more often?

1. Blowdry on a budget. When you need a blow-dry, get a haircut at the same time. Or rather, schedule your haircut for the day you need a good style. Instead of paying $48 for my usual blow-dry, I made a hair appointment with a new stylist I wanted to try out for her blow-dry skills at Concepts Salon & Spa since it’s closer to home. I ended up only paying $45 — so it was like getting a free blow-dry, and I love the cut, too!

2. Mani tip. Ask your esthetician to do two super-thin coats of polish — even if that means going a shade darker than you normally would choose. It’ll last a full week, if not longer (if you don’t do dishes!).

3. Refresh your mani. Just when your polish is starting to crack at the edges — signally chipping about to start — apply a very thin coat of topcoat – then let it dry for a full hour. It re-wets the original polish and will make it look fresh for another couple of days. Then, since dry cuticles are a dead giveaway of an old mani, add a bit of oil (even veggie oil will do) to your cuticles to make it look like your mani is new.

4. Baking soda blitz. My girlfriends and I are all addicted to Dermalogica Daily Microfoliant for  its ability to gently exfoliate our faces and leave them soft and glowy. What we don’t love is the price tag, so my friend has been testing out a bit of baking soda and water as a micro-exfoliant. So far, she says it’s soothing and refreshing. And over at Holistic Vanity, the blog for Pure+Simple, owner Kristen Ma’s been touting the benefits of baking soda for all kinds of ailments.

Check back tomorrow for tips on how to save on your wardrobe for spring!

It’s called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. It started out as a blog, when Gretchen who was happy, wondered if she could be happier, and so she set out to find out if, in one year, she could. The book reads part memoir – part self help, so it’s really the best of both worlds. Unlike Eat, Pray, Love, which Gretchen says she couldn’t do given that she’s married, has a job and two kids that she can’t abandon for a year, she instead decides to set out a project that she incorporates into her everyday life. So while you’re reading about what she does, you get ideas on what you could do. Even though the book is about her life, she writes it to really help the reader with research  and theories and so you feel inspired, rather than sedentary, just watching from the outside as someone else lives  their life.

She has a list of 12 Personal Commandments (such as “Be Gretchen”–in other words, if you try to be someone you’re not, you won’t be happy, and “Act the way I want to feel”), Four Splendid Truths (ex: One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.). Each month she sets a focus, whether it’s Marriage, Family, Work, etc. And then she makes a short list of the ways that she’s going to effect change in that focus. She doesn’t say things like “Be more organized.” Because what is “more”?

Instead, she sets out tangible goals, such as “Get up 15 minutes earlier in the morning.” Which in turn allows her to get through her emails or some work before her kids wake up. Or “The One-minute rule” — which states that if it takes less than one minute to complete the task, do it.

When I got home from vacation, I cleared off the shelf in my closet where I throw random items like pens, golf tees, bobby pins and business cards. I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and it took me only a minute to put the items in their real homes.

The book was so inspiring that I couldn’t wait to keep reading it and I was sad when I was done, though I’ve already started a list of things I’m going to change this year. I’m not alone — since releasing the book, Gretchen added to her website a Starter Kit and a Happiness Toolbox that you can use to start your own happiness project. More than 2,000 other people are already using it, too.

One of the other tools she suggests is a one-sentence journal. The problem with journaling – or blogging for that matter – is the time commitment. But who can’t commit to a one-sentence entry every day about something that made them happy that day?

I already started. Here’s my entry for today:

When I got to class today, my students broke out into “Happy Birthday”. So cute.

That’s two sentences. See how easy it is?