Mmmmmm…food…

Howdy everyone! I’m so thankful it’s Friday I could weep like a sad kitten! sad kitten

Since it is hot as friggin’ hell out here in Arizona (someone kill me) I thought since I’m staying inside (never to leave the house again until November) that I’d do two things.

  1. Give you a lip-smacking, damn good recipe from my cookbook.
  2. Give you a link to vote for Rants From My Crazy Kitchen as being one of the top 25 Foodie Moms. You’ll remember her not only from her awesome blog, but she contributed two delicious recipes to the cookbook. Yummy drool drool! Click HERE to vote for her and her awesome blog. I’m sure she will be very thankful you took the time. :)

RECIPE TIME!!!

Okay, so you guys know that I’m a cookbook writer that HATES HATES HATES to cook. Yeah, I know. I’m a whacko. Anyway, I’m going to give you a recipe for one of THE BEST desserts you can ever make and I kid you not, a blind hamster could make it–it’s THAT easy! It’s the perfect cake to take to a BBQ. It’s the perfect cake to take to bed and eat with your hands until you pass out (at least you are already laying down–less likely to get injured).

This recipe is good for a few reasons:

  1. It’s cheap to make.
  2. It’s easy as hell to make and takes about 4 minutes to throw together.
  3. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t want a second helping.
  4. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t want a third helping.

I’m going to give you the recipe straight from the book, little story and all (each recipe has its own story because I talk too damn much!). :) I hope you love it! Oh, and GO VOTE for Rants!! She’s awesome and I’d love to see her make it into the top 25 Foodie Moms again this year. :)

Dump Cake

Let me say that on their own, I don’t like many of the ingredients in this cake. The first time my mom made it and handed me a piece I thought to myself, “GROSS! Cherries and pineapple? Vomit. Must. Keep. Smile. On. Face. While. Gagging.” Then I took a bite. Then I took another. Then I took 20 more and ended up eating 3 pieces of it. Somehow, all the flavors come together into this conglomeration of co-mingled delights in a way that I never would have expected. Of course, anything with a stick and a half of butter is bound to be delicious. Besides which, it truly is the single most easy homemade cake you will ever make. Ever. Period.

Below is Mom’s recipe from 1978. Thank goodness that she saves everything. I sure know who I get my pack rat tendencies from.

 dump cake

The list of yum yums:

  • One 18- to 20-ounce can of cherry pie filling—the extra cherry kind if possible
  • 1 – 1½ sticks of butter
  • One 20-ounce can of un-drained pineapple rings
  • 1 box of yellow cake mix

 Dumping it all together:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 °F.
  2. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9×13 glass dish.
  3. Place a single layer of pineapple rings on the bottom of the dish and pour the juice over the pineapple.
  4. Pour the can of cherry pie filling on top of the pineapple and spread so the cherries are distributed evenly.
  5. Pour the dry yellow cake mix over the pineapple and cherries and level it out. Don’t mash the cake mix, just gently level it out and make sure it’s evenly dispersed.
  6. The take a stick or stick and a half of butter, slice it into 1/8-inch thick slices and put it over the entire cake top about an inch apart.
  7. Bake at 350 °F for about an hour or until the top is crispy brown.

I can’t even begin to describe how tasty this cake is. And seriously, have you ever read an easier cake recipe? It’s even easier than boxed cake. I would serve this cake to a chef. A president. A Nobel Prize winner. There is no shame in serving this cake to anyone and everyone. It may have taken you 3 minutes to make it, but no one would ever guess that in a million years. It is absolutely fantastic.

Enjoy everyone! Have a fantastic weekend! :) Luv ya!

In Rememberance of Cereal

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Yeah, yeah, I know…weird topic, right? But I have an undying love of cereal. I’d eat cereal all dang day if the kind I like wasn’t filled with more sugar than a dozen cookies. Mmmm…cookies….

As I just recently found one of my all-time favorite cereals at the store and celebrated by doing a Happy Cereal Dance in the aisle (yes, people stared. No, it was not pretty!) I thought I’d share with you how cereal has affected my life.

  1. Boo Berry, Frankenberry and Count Chocula: What on earth could be better than these? When I was a little girl, my mom didn’t let us eat sweets and candy all the time, much to my sister’s and my chagrin. But frankenberryfor some wonderful reason she let us eat pure sugar cereal. Woo hoo! LOVED those three cereals. And while I usually hate putting more than a small splash of milk into my cereal, for these I would make an exception as the cereal-flavored milk was YUMMY!! Of course now Frankenberry and Boo Berry taste like cardboard vomit. I don’t know why they mess with perfection (except to save a buck here and there–cheap bastards) but I can’t eat either of them now as they taste so nasty. Count Chocula I can still eat, but it’s not as good as before. I think they use leftover cardboard from the cereal boxes in the actual cereal. Oh and they are so skimpy with the marshmallows now! I have to throw away half the box of cereal just to have the proper marshmallow to cereal ratio. WTF?? It’s simply a shame.
  2. Crunchberries: I do love me some Crunchberries. Remember when they were only red in color, not this rainbow of yumminess they currently are?  crunchberries 2The only thing that SUCKS about Crunchberries is that I’ve spent my entire life throwing away 3/4 of the box because I don’t want the Cap’n Crunch that goes along with the Crunchberries. I need at least a 2:1 ratio of Crunchberries to Cap’n Crunch. Essentially,  3 bowls of Crunchberries costs $5 because I throw out most of it. Absolutely ridiculous! So, imagine my sheer delight when I first discovered OOPS Berries. Crunchberries without the Cap’n. WOO HOO!!! It was like a dream come true–both taste bud dreams and wallet happiness dreams! I could eat Oops Berries til the cows came home. I bought 4 boxes and ate until I was sick. Ready to puke and stuck with a bluish-colored tongue, I still had to have more. So back to the store I went and they were GONE! SON OF A BITCH! CrunchberriesWhere are they??? Apparently, they were just a special. NOOOOOO!!!! See, it even says, “Limited time only” on the box. So, I took to the Internet and would buy them in bulk. 10 boxes to an order. I’d be so embarrassed about my Oops Berries addiction that I’d hide like 8 of the boxes in the closet so no one else would eat…OH, I mean, see them. Freudian slip there. ;) Thank God I can now usually find this delicious box of yum at the Fry’s or at the Walmart. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have my Oops. Best damn cereal on earth. (This was the Happy Dance inducing cereal the other day.)
  3. Frootloops and Apple Jacks: Mmmmm…loved these then. Love these now. They are essentially the same cereal to me. I just snuck a single serving of Frootloops into the movie theater 2 weeks ago and crunched frootloops and applejackson it throughout the movie. I’m sure everyone within 10 feet of me wanted me dead. Crunch crunch crunch! As for Apple Jacks, well, my story is a bit naughtier. When I was a teenager my friends and I would sneak out all the time after curfew. ALL the time! It was awesome. Once Mom and the step-dad were asleep and either the A/C or heat kicked on (it made quite the racket) I’d quietly pry open the front door and off I’d be for many hours of illegal activities and whoring. KIDDING! The whoring didn’t start until much later. KIDDING AGAIN! Okay, we’ll just say that my adventures often involved pot, booze and making out, but I kept my pants on for the most part. Anyway, I digress…so one night my best friend and I decided to sneak out. We happened to be sitting on the front porch eating Apple Jacks when our friends pulled up to whisk us away. applejacks in mailboxSo, we stuffed the bowls of Apple Jacks into the mailbox and off we went. Well, those Apple Jacks saved us because we didn’t drag ass back home until about 8:00am and surprise, surprise right as we finished removing the bowls of soggy Apple Jacks from the mailbox my mom (who ALWAYS slept late, dammit!) opened the front door and asked us what in the Hell we were doing. Since I’m a quick thinker I said, “We’re just eating our cereal outside because it’s such a pretty day!” Mom totally fell for it!!! Had we not had bowls of cereal (because who would think we’d stashed cereal in the mailbox overnight?) my mom never would have bought that we had just come from inside the house. She’d have known we were just arriving home. I’d have been murdered. My mom did not put up with that shit and I’d have been killed in a less-than-pleasant way involving thumb tacks and a potato peeler! Apple Jacks saved my life!!!

Okay, I just realized that this is already a tome and I could seriously go on for about 8 more cereals. To save you eye strain, I shall not. I just wanted to share my cereal love with you and how my love affair with it saved my ass one time. My entire teenage years would have been so much more boring had my mom truly busted me. She’d have locked my bedroom door from the outside each night and I’d probably still be a virgin! Eeee Gawds, no!!! :)

Favor? Pretty please with sugar on top?

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TGIMFF!!! (Yeah, TGIF just doesn’t capture how happy I am that it’s Friday!) The hubby and I are doing a double feature tomorrow. First, Pain and Gain. Any suggestions for movie number 2?

As for the favor, I’m wondering if those of you who I sent complimentary copies of my books to, or who got in on the $.99 Kindle/Nook book special, would do me a favor? If you got the books and enjoyed them, can you pretty please leave a delicious review of them on Amazon? I hate to even ask, but I’d be super grateful. After Amazon went bonkers last year and deleted tons of reviews off of everyone’s books including mine (I will still never understand why they did that), it appears that hardly anyone has read my books when they actually do quite well. It was so devastating to go from having tons of all 5-star reviews (except 1 from someone who liked the content but not my slightly naughty mouth ;) ) to having almost no reviews at all. Absolutely heartbreaking. pretty please kitty

I heard back from tons of you via email on how much you laughed or how yummy the food was–and was so delighted by your wonderful stories, but it would be great to see that wonderful commentary on Amazon too. And just so you know, it doesn’t have to be a tome. It could literally be one happy sentence and I’d be thrilled. I’d really appreciate it, my lovely blog buddies, if you’d help me out with this. And if you don’t want to or didn’t like the books, I totally understand and don’t feel like you have to leave a review–no pressure. I just thought I’d ask those of you who did enjoy them or got a good chuckle out of them to leave a review.

If you do decide to post a review (for any or all books), just click on the pictures below and it’ll take you right to the book’s Amazon page.

Thanks so much, guys! I really appreciate it! Love you!

Book Cover Small  New Intimacy Book Cover Small with black border 1-20-13        New Sex Book Cover 225 pixels wide black outline

Kitty says, “To all of you who’ve already left reviews, thank you! Mommy and I love you!!!”

happy kitty

Upcoming post and KICK ASS COOKBOOK REVIEW!!!

Okay, so I’m halfway through writing my new post–dedicated to online dating–and I get an email about a blog post reviewing my cookbook, Darn Good Eats. I’m so freaking excited about this review that I saved my online dating post into MS Word (cause you KNOW how easy it is to lose a post on WordPress by accident) and had to do a quick post sending you to her page. She not only blogged her review, but put it up on Amazon and Goodreads. I’m all verklempt!! What a sweetheart.

Big thanks to all of you guys who are posting reviews for the books. I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart!!! I’m so thankful I busted out with the colors! I want to marry each of you! Wow, that’s illegal and makes me sound like a tramp. ;)

Okay, I’ll shut up now and give you the link to check out her blog: Book Review Blog (this lovely lady does not mess around with her reviews–crazy amounts of detail–it’s like a thesis!)

I’ll get back to my online dating blog (for those of you in the dating world, I think you’ll enjoy it) tonight or tomorrow.

Big hug to you all! Have a great night!

Book Cover Small

My New Cookbook!!! (Reblogged from BlondiesBEARista.com) :)

Ummm…I don’t know what clicking a “press this” button does. Is this gonna post on my blog? I hope so!

Check out the wonderful post by the lovely blondiesBEARista.com.

I’m just tickled pink. :)

Thank you so much and thanks to all of you for everything. I’m so happy I have a blogging family that makes me smile every day. I value you guys more than you will ever know.

Now click on this link, follow her blog, and have a lovely evening. :)

My New Cookbook!!!.

PS: In case you didn’t notice, I kept all my Kindle books at $.99 because I’ve been so delighted by the reviews and all the wonderful feedback I’ve gotten that I wanted to keep them on the cheap a bit longer. MUCH LOVE!!!

$.99 Kick Ass Book Special Almost Over. Let the Weeping Begin! ;)

$.99 to get some yummy nookie, tons of cuddles and scrumptious tasty treats for only a few more days! Holy cow!

    New Sex Book Cover 225 pixels wide black outline    New Intimacy Book Cover Small with black border 1-20-13    Book Cover Small

You guys all kick ass for being some book buying mo fos! :) I am thrilled at how many of you have taken advantage of my $.99 get your nookie-, intimacy- and food-on special!!

Since there is less than a week left of the special before the books go back to full price, rather than cost, I wanted to do one more blog post so that anyone who missed the first one could still grab ‘em up while they’re on the cheap! ;)

  • If you read the first blog on this, but didn’t get any books, then READ WHAT’S BELOW! ;)
  • If you read the first blog on this and did get some books, then ignore the rest of this one and know that I love you dearly.
  • If you didn’t read the first blog on this then read on my friend and grab some book goodies for the next few days.

Here’s how this is gonna go down. (All the purpley text below are links that’ll take you to the books.)

First, for those of you with Nooks, I lowered the price as low as they’ll let me go to $.99 for both Sex: How to Get More of It and Intimacy: How to Get More of It. I’m going to leave the price at $.99 for another few days so that you have plenty of time to download them. The cookbook is not on Nook as formatting the bullets and numbered lists is a friggin’ bitch and the cookbook is chock full of both bullets and numbered lists. Just the idea of the 200 hours it’d take to format it (and it would still look poopy!) makes me wanna kill myself, but there is a solution, which I’ll share in a minute. So, if you wanted to get copies of the “how to have a kick ass relationship” books, but I either ran out of hard copies during the giveaway or you live in another country or you just prefer having books on your Nook, then this is your time to get them nearly free. :) Woo hoo!

After the $.99 pricing is over, I’m going to temporarily make Sex and Intimacy unavailable on the Nook and join a program called Kindle Select. By doing so, Kindle Select makes you remove your books from sale anywhere else electronically for 3 months, which is why I’ll have to take them off the Nook on B&N.com.

Now, for those of you with Kindles, I also dropped the price of both Sex: How to Get More of It and Intimacy: How to Get More of It  down to $.99 (the lowest price Kindle allows) for the next few days. Yay!

But wait, there’s more! For the next few days I’ll also keep the Kindle price of Darn Good Eats down to $.99. Yay!

If you don’t have a Kindle or a Nook, fear not! Kindle has free apps you can download to your desktop computer, laptop computer, iPad, iPhone, Android phone, etc…which allow you to read Kindle books without an actual Kindle. Here’s the link to download those apps: KINDLE APPS. (This link is for the US Kindle/Amazon page, but it’s available for all countries. Just go to either of the Kindle links for my books on your own country’s Amazon page and you should see a link on the right-hand side of the screen that’ll take you to the page to download the readers.)

Last, but not least, one more goodie for you! Also, for the next few days, I’m going to keep the price of the paperbacks for Sex, Intimacy and Darn Good Eats dropped down to cost on Amazon. I can’t drop the price on the paperbacks on Barnes & Noble or I’ll actually owe them money for selling my books. How crazy is that???? So, pretty please get them on Amazon.

Here are the lowest prices they’ll allow me to sell the paperbacks for since they cost money to print (in US pricing, though I brought the international pricing down as low as they’d let me too!) :) :

Just as with the hard-copy giveaway, if you guys wouldn’t terribly mind, if you like the books you read or feel like you learned something valuable from them, would you pretty please with a cherry on top write a kick ass review on Amazon? I would appreciate it more than you could ever know. :) :)

I hope for the next few days you guys are some downloading maniacs and that you enjoy the books tremendously. Tons of love! :)

Guess I shouldn't advertise such things in public!

Guess I shouldn’t advertise such things in public!

Broken teeth, drugs, blog coma

Hello my dear blog buddies!

I know I’ve been a bit absent and I feel bad that I haven’t responded to any comments in the last few days. I broke a tooth a couple of weeks ago and have been in and out of a torture chamber (read that as dentist and endodontist offices) non-stop ever since and still am not done being slowly killed by needles, drills and partially removed teeth. OUCH DAMMIT!! I’ve been medicated on Vicodin and now steroids to try and calm down the raging nerves and just haven’t had the energy to do anything except pray for a quick death.

I promise I’ll be back soon to thank all of you for your amazing help with the Superhero Challenge. I appreciate all of the help you’ve given Liz more than I can say.

Tip o’the day: Do NOT chew on olives with pits. The pit always wins.

This is representative of both how my tooth and I feel about EVER going back to the dentist!

This is representative of  how both my tooth and I feel about EVER going back to the dentist!

99 Cents for Sex, Intimacy and a Happy Belly (This is written on the sandwich board I’m wearing and I’ve been assaulted twice)

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$.99 to get you yummy nookie, tons of cuddles and scrumptious tasty treats! Holy cow!

Guess I shouldn't advertise such things in public!

Guess I shouldn’t advertise such things in public!

I want to thank all of you, from the bottom of my furry little heart, for participating in my book giveaway! I was so tickled at all the responses I got. It means the world to me that so many of you wanted my books and would be willing to write reviews for them (only if you like them though). :) I can’t believe how many books I have to mail. The guy at the post office (and all those in line behind me) are gonna want me dead. Ha ha. :)

Of course, because the Pony Express charges so much for mailing to other countries that I would have had to change professions and buy some knee pads in order to afford shipping the books overseas, I’ve decided to do the next best thing. I’m gonna give those of you with Nooks and Kindles (or any kind of computer–which I assume you all have as you are reading this right now) the opportunity to get the books as cheap as humanly possible. (I’m even temporarily gutting the prices of the paperbacks because I love you guys so much!) :)

Here’s how this is gonna go down. (All the red text below are links that’ll take you to the books.)

First, for those of you with Nooks, I’ve ajust lowered the price as low as they’ll let me go to $.99 for both Sex: How to Get More of It and Intimacy: How to Get More of It. I’m going to leave the price at $.99 for 2 weeks so that you have plenty of time to download them. The cookbook is not on Nook as formatting the bullets and numbered lists is a friggin’ bitch and the cookbook is chock full of both bullets and numbered lists. Just the idea of the 200 hours it’d take to format it (and it would still look poopy!) makes me wanna kill myself, but there is a solution, which I’ll share in a minute. So, if you wanted to get copies of the “how to have a kick ass relationship” books, but I either ran out of hard copies during the giveaway or you live in another country or you just prefer having books on your Nook, then this is your time to get them nearly free. :) Woo hoo!

After the 2 weeks of $.99 pricing is over, I’m going to temporarily make Sex and Intimacy unavailable on Barnes&Noble and join a program called Kindle Select. By doing so, Kindle Select makes you remove your books from sale anywhere else electronically for 3 months, which is why I’ll have to take them off the Nook on B&N.com.

Now, for those of you with Kindles, I’m also going to drop the price of both Sex: How to Get More of It and Intimacy: How to Get More of It  down to $.99 (the lowest price Kindle allows) for two weeks. Yay!

But wait, there’s more! For the next 2 weeks I’ll also drop the Kindle price of Darn Good Eats down to $.99. Yay!

If you don’t have a Kindle or a Nook, fear not! Kindle has free apps you can download to your desktop computer, laptop computer, iPad, iPhone, Android phone, etc…which allow you to read Kindle books without an actual Kindle. Here’s the link to download those apps: KINDLE APPS. (This link is for the US Kindle/Amazon page, but it’s available for all countries. Just go to either of the Kindle links for my books on your own country’s Amazon page and you should see a link on the right-hand side of the screen that’ll take you to the page to download the readers.)

Last, but not least, one more goodie for you! Also, for the next two weeks, I’m going to drop the paperback price of Sex, Intimacy and Darn Good Eats down super cheap on Amazon. I can’t drop the price on the paperbacks on Barnes & Noble or I’ll actually owe them money for selling my books. How crazy is that???? So, pretty please get them on Amazon.

Here are the lowest prices they’ll allow me to sell the paperbacks for since they cost money to print (in US pricing, though I brought the international pricing down as low as they’d let me too!) :) :

I updated the pricing this morning. Sometimes it takes up to a day or so for the prices to update (maybe a day or two in other countries), but hopefully they’ll already be updated by the time I publish this post on Tuesday afternoon. :)

Just as with the hard-copy giveaway, if you guys wouldn’t terribly mind, if you like the books you download or order or feel like you learned something valuable from them, would you pretty please with a cherry on top write a kick ass review on Amazon? I would appreciate it more than you could ever know. :) :)

I hope for the next two weeks you guys are some downloading maniacs and that you enjoy the books tremendously. Tons of love! :)

Free books and a little tit (for tat!)

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Does anyone else have a room in their house which is the Collect All room? A room where all the “I don’t know where this shit goes!” goes? Lord knows I do. I have about 3 of them. Okay, I’m not that bad…but close! The reason I’m telling you that I’m a pack rat psycho who has one room whose door is always shut in fear that someone, anyone, might see inside it is that I finally decided to clean it up. Ugh. What an undertaking. It’s been on my to-do list for about 6 months and I finally started on it tonight.

Why, you may ask, did I decide to actually clean something (cause you KNOW I hate cleaning!)? Well, because I’m a bit wrecked on pain killers as I broke a tooth last week. OH MY GOD does that fucking thing hurt. It hurts right now. I wanna chop off my own head to stop the hurt. OUCHY!!! The reason this hideous pain has inspired me to clean a bit is that I take a pain pill, fall asleep, wake up screaming in agony a few hours later and then have to do something to take my mind off my nightmarish misery while the next pill kicks in. I’ve decided that cleaning The Room from Hell is how I can distract myself from grabbing a pair of pliers and self-extricating the sonofabitching tooth.

How this has led me to Free Books and a Little Tit (for tat, you perverts!) is that I found a stash of all 3 of my books that I didn’t realize I had. I have 24 Sex: How to Get More of It. 28 Intimacy: How to Get More of It. And about 25 Darn Good Eats cookbooks (with the black and white interior). The Sex and Intimacy books don’t have the updated cover and some of them even have my author’s pic as me being a red head. So, when I found the books it sparked an idea (2 actually). Shocking, I know.

Idea one:

I will happily mail you a copy of one or more of my books on-the-house (I’ll even pay for shipping) in exchange for a review on Amazon (and any other place you wanna put it, but definitely Amazon). Now, this is not me bribing you. If you don’t like a book, I don’t want you to say you did–that is dishonest and poopy. I only want people who genuinely enjoyed the books or learned something valuable to leave reviews on Amazon. Obviously, if you hate a book I’d prefer you didn’t leave a review. Especially one like this, “That Jodi bitch can go suck it! I hate her. I hate her books. I’m going to burn her house down and eat her cats while she watches.” I’d feel pretty stupid if I paid to ship them to you and then you publicly ripped me to shreds. That would kinda blow. But if you like them, I’d super appreciate kick ass reviews. That would pretty much rule.

If you’d like to participate in this (keeping in mind I have a limited amount of books) email me at authorjodiambrose@gmail.com and give me your mailing address, your name (for those of you who go incognito on WordPress) and the books you’d like copies of.

  • Ladies, you can have any/all of my 3 books. Even though the Sex book was written for men, I get tons of feedback from chicks that they love it, so you can have that one too if ya want it.
  • Gentlemen, you can have the Sex book and/or the Darn Good Eats cookbook. Trust me, you do NOT want to read the Intimacy book that I wrote for chicks unless you want to read about menstrual cycles and things of the like.

Before you email me and request the Sex or Intimacy books (the cookbook is G-rated, so it’s not an issue), just remember that I’m a mouthy broad. If you follow this blog you know that I love to cuss, have a smart ass mouth and pretty much tell it like it is. The Sex and Intimacy books are just like that (though they have less cussing than my typical blog–totally unbelievable, I know), so if you know ahead of time that you’re going to be offended and hate them, please don’t ask me to send them to you. I truly want people to enjoy the books and be happier as a result–if you think that might be you, then definitely email me with which books you’d like.

One small caveat: Idea one is for US residents only. I am sooooo sorry my dear friends who are not here in the US, but it’s sooooo expensive mailing you stuff I’d go broke. I spent $47 mailing 2 books last week–one to Canada and one to New Zealand. I love you guys, but I just can’t afford all that. I would if I could–I promise, because you know I love your accent-having-asses even more than I love otters.

Now for idea 2, in which everyone can participate.

Idea two:

I always want my books to be as affordable as possible. As you guys know Darn Good Eats comes in both a black & white interior version (inexpensive) and a full-color interior version (slightly more expensive) so that everyone can afford it. I never want anyone to want to read one of my books but not have the bucks to do it. So, I thought I’d combine the Sex book and the Intimacy book into one book so that I could essentially sell both books for the price of one.

Here’s where you guys and your awesomeness comes in. I would love your help in naming the book. If you’ve read them, you know what’s in them and could probably come up with some amazing, fun and witty suggestions. If you haven’t read them (and don’t participate in Idea one above) you can always go to Amazon and do the Look Inside to see the first few pages of each book. That’ll give you a good idea about their content. Click here to preview Sex. Click here to preview Intimacy.

In exchange for your wonderful book title ideas, whoever either comes up with the name I end up using or the person whose suggestion sparks my imagination into finding just the right name, will get credit in the book and a link to their blog or other website. This way, all my readers get to see how wonderfully talented you are in naming books, and having your blog/website address in the book (both hard copy and digital) should help drive more traffic to your own personal awesomeness.

You can either leave your book title suggestions here (give me as many as you’d like–the more the merrier) as a comment or if you want to email it (them) to me feel free to email me at: authorjodiambrose@gmail.com.

See, there’s all kinds of tit for tat going on here!

OH, and one last thing–for those of you who have read one or more of the books and are now at least slightly happier, if you have a pic of you and your honey that you’d like to share with me, I’m thinking (not guaranteeing though) of doing a happy-reader-photo-collage either on the cover or inside of the new combo book. If you’d like to see your and your honey’s smiling faces in print, send me a pic WITH CLOTHES ON YOU BUNCH OF PERVS and it may just appear in the upcoming book. I thought it would be fun to actually show the happy faces of people who’ve been helped by my books. :) Please know that by sending me the pic you are giving me full rights to use the photo both in print and digitally from now until the end of time. I won’t edit the photo at all except to possibly crop it or do some color correction (if necessary).

Click on any of the book covers below to visit their page on Amazon if you want to read more about them or read reviews from other people. That info may help you decide which books you want me to send you (idea one) and might help spark an idea for the combo book name (idea two).

New Intimacy Book Cover Small with black border 1-20-13 Book Cover Small New Sex Book Cover 225 pixels wide black outline

Just so you know, I’m so tickled that I found that stash of books so that I can get them into your hands. For once, cleaning turned out to be a good thing!!!

I hope you guys enjoy whichever books you get and that they all not only make you giggle, but make life a little sweeter. Love ya!! :) XOXOXO

Horrible, inexcuable language here. Don’t read this rant. It’ll shorten your life by at least a year. I greatly dislike fu*kheads.

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So, the other day I ran into the rudest fucker ever at the Starbucks. And I do mean EVER.

When they called his drink they should have called it like this: “Venti double mocha, salted caramel douche bag for Fuck Face. Fuck Face, your drink is ready. Fuck face?”

You guys know me pretty well, right? I take most things with a grain of salt. Not very much actually makes me mad (except road rage, horrible grammar, snatch monsters and sadistic pedicurists–but really, even those things don’t make me mad, they usually make me laugh). So, for me to be livid is, in all sincerity, pretty rare. But this guy…THIS guy…ugh. I wanted to set him on fire and toast marshmallows in the flame.

What, you may be wondering, has me so annoyed? Well, here it is.

I’m behind this guy in line at Starbucks and after he places his order the Starbucks chick (who is super sweet) looks over to me and asks, “Venti caramel frappuccino light with sugar free caramel, two Sweet&Lows, no whip, no drizzle?” I congratulated her on her awesome memory and told her how nice it was that she remembered (I get between 1-2 Starbucks a week, so it was especially nice that she remembered). The guy, who’s about 65, wearing a running suit, missing a fair amount of hair (though the rest was dyed) and not missing about 30 extra pounds, says to me while looking down his gin blossomed nose, “Wow, that sounds like an awful lot of calories for you to drink. And you probably have one a day, don’t you?”

OH. MY. GOD.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, YOU JUDGMENTAL, SHALLOW, STUPID, ASSHOLE MORON PRICK FUCK FACED ASS HAT!!???

DID YOU JUST REALLY SAY THAT AND ASK ME THAT????

DO YOU WANT TODAY TO BE YOUR LAST DAY ON EARTH?

IF I LET YOU LIVE, DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HAVE TO DRINK THROUGH A STRAW FOR THE REST OF YOUR MISERABLE DAYS!?

Yeah, I was irate. But, instead of saying what I just so delicately wrote above in all caps, I said, “Actually no. It’s about 100 calories and no fat. The fat-free milk accounts for about 60 calories. The mix counts for about 40. Then the sugar-free caramel has 0 calories, as does the ice and Sweet&Low. It’s a great way to have a treat without ingesting 500 calories and 30 grams of fat, and it’s delicious.”

The reason I didn’t let this complete asshat HAVE it was that he wasn’t worth it. Here’s what I saw when I looked at him (and it made me sad because he clearly wanted to be something other that what he was):

  1. His attire screamed: “I want to be 30 years old again!” Not that men over 30 can’t wear running suits, I think they should! :) You’d have to have seen him to understand. Think of older women who dress like 15 year old hoochies and you’ll understand how this guy looked.
  2. His hair screamed: “I want to be 30 years old again!” as it was clearly dyed. I’m all about dyeing hair–I dyed mine yesterday. But I think he needs to reevaluate his color choice.
  3. His attitude screamed: All women should be perfect looking all the time, be 5’8″ and weigh 120 pounds and anything less than that is unacceptable–so I should try and make this frappuccino-ordering woman feel bad for wanting a treat.
  4. His demeanor screamed: I wouldn’t date a woman over 22 because anyone over that age is ugly, fat and used up. I’m a man, spelled M. A. N., and I only date super models and porn stars because I’m THAT good.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have given any thought to how he looked. People have the right to look however they want to without being judged. But since he was the complete fucktard that he was and clearly casting aspersions at my not-rail-thin-self, I thought his “clamoring to look younger appearance” was relevant.

So, let me explain something to him and to anyone else that expects perfection.

  1. No one is perfect.
  2. No one should be perfect. It’s our imperfections that make us special and unique.
  3. 42 year old women are not supposed to look like they are 17. Everyone ages. Aging is okay. Aging is natural. Aging gracefully is a beautiful thing. Being happy with aging will help keep you sane as NO ONE can stop the aging process.
  4. Our bodies change as we age for a reason. From a strictly “keep the species from becoming extinct” point of view, women in their late teens through their mid-thirties look the way they do to attract the male of the species for the purpose of baby-making. That’s when we are typically the healthiest, our eggs are still young and plentiful, and childbearing should not kill us. As we get older our bodies start to change (so do male bodies, Mr. Starbucks Asshole). The shape of our bodies change due to the loss of estrogen after menopause and how the body reacts to that loss. Gravity starts to get the better of us. Our hair starts turning gray. These changes indicate to the male of the species (at the most primal level) that we are moving from child bearing age to another era of our lives. AND THAT IS OKAY!!! Why would a body that has been on the planet for 50 years be expected to look the same as a body that’s been on the planet for 20? Do most 30 year old cars look the same as they did the day they came off the showroom floor? Likely not. SO GET OVER THE DELUSION THAT WOMEN SHOULD LOOK YOUNG AND SLENDER FOREVER, EAT ONLY SALAD WITH JUST A SPRITZ OF LEMON AS DRESSING, AND AREN’T GOOD ENOUGH IF THEY DON’T!

We all have things about ourselves that we’d like to change. Everyone who reads my blog knows I gained about 10 pounds making (and EATING–yum!) all the food for the cookbook. And while I’m watching what I eat in order to lose those 10 pounds, I’m not sitting around measuring my ass and crying over it. I like how I look, curves and all. I’ve always had curves. Even when it wasn’t cool to have them (think the 80s), I still liked having curves. From any angle, I definitely look like a woman.

Here’s me at 16 and 17 going to my junior and senior proms (good grief–that make-up and hair!!!):

I've never been that tan again!

I’ve never been that tan again!

Yep, I gots me a tush!

Yep, I gots me a tush!

Curves everywhere in the mirror reflection

Curves everywhere in the mirror reflection

Here’s me now:

Baby still got back! ;)

Baby still got back! ;)

HA! Look at that furry cowie!!! I had no idea cowies could be that furry!!!

Anyway, my point by putting in cutie cowie is that I don’t have anything to prove to anyone, especially some ass face at the Starbucks. You guys all know what I look like–you can’t escape my silly self on the Internet. And even if I had rounded out to the point of becoming bovine, so what? Why should anyone care? As long as I like who I am and as long as you like who you are, who else should judge?

So please, let’s all let ourselves and others off the Perfection Hook a bit. Okay? When we die will people at our funeral say, “Wow, I would be sadder if only she’d been 10 pounds thinner…” NO! Ultimately what do we want said at our funeral. “She was so thin her whole life–she held up well, even if she was a bitch because she was hungry all the time.” Or, “I will miss her so much. She was sweet and funny and showed love to others every day of her life.” I don’t know about you, but I’d pick the second option any day. ;)

Unless your weight is making you unhealthy, don’t sweat the pounds so much. Who said everyone had to be skinny? And certainly don’t sweat the pounds of others. First off, it’s nun-ya as my hubby would say (as in none of your business). Second, who is anyone to judge anyone else’s weight? Third, you never know why a person is big (or thin). It could be a love of cupcakes or it could be emotional trauma or it could be a physical issue. But regardless of any of that, who cares? There are so many other things to consider about a person–their ass being one size larger than they may like shouldn’t be at the top of that list.

Good grief, I’m exhausted!!! So to end all of this let me throw some cliches at you, since I’m flat out of creative things to say.

  1. Shut your fucking piehole if ya ain’t got nothin’ nice to say.
  2. Those without sin, cast the first stone. Then choke to death on a pig’s foot, please.
  3. Quit being a fucking prick or Jodi will end you with a hammer and a potato peeler.

Okay, I’m done! :) Have a good night and love your muffin top! ;)