Randomness - Coming Soon, Puppy, Jellies, & Kens

I have Coming Soon news! Back in June, Riptide Publishing had a submission call for short stories for their Oh, Come All Ye Kinky holiday anthology, with 20% of the proceeds going to charity. A good cause, the opportunity to work with Sarah Frantz (who's editing the antho), and an opportunity to write a kinky holiday story got the muse off and running. The end result is 'Twas the Night. It will be available in December as part of the antho. Once I get a decent blurb written, I'll post it here and on my website. 

New puppy alert! Isn't he cute? His original name was Boomer....which I wasn't a fan of. So I googled common dog names, rattled off a bunch, and guess which name kidlet picked? Oliver :) 

He's a lab/boxer mix & he's 17 weeks old. He's also getting along very well with the niece's 2 dogs. Oliver especially likes to sleep with the boxer/greyhound mix on the couch in the basement. 

(Oliver's not as big as he looks- only @25 lbs vs the 60lb boxer mix)

In other news, we took kidlet to Chicago to visit the American Girl Doll store and the museums. The Shedd Aquarium was awesome - they had a cool exhibit on jellyfish. 

We also went to the Field Museum. Oh, and here's a quiz for you. You know when you wear sandals or strappy heels and sometimes your pinky toe sticks out the side of the straps? Hate that. Well, do you know there's a name for it? Teradactyl Toe, named after that little toe on the dinosaur's wing. See - here's a pic of one from the Field Museum.

I took kidlet to Toys R'Us, and it was a Ken-doll heaven! They had so many. Even an ice skating Ken (complete with sparkly shirt).

 

I almost got the twinky vintage Ken, but at $45, he needed to stay on the shelf. But he did lead me to the Barbie Collector website, which has a ton of super cool Ken dolls. 

My favorite 'OMIG, I can't believe it's discontinued, I want it NOW' was this collector set from 2003. Barbie and Ken as romance novel characters!!! 

From the Barbie Collector website - "Ken® doll has long brown windswept hair. He is wearing a sheer white cotton shirt and tight black pants accented with a black belt. Black knee high cuffed and buckled boots complete his ruggedly handsome look." - That description is just so full of awesome.