It’s even better when a couple of writing buddies get published in the same book, as happened with this one: both Sam and I were published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Here Comes the Bride – and both of us got a box of books from Simon and Schuster on the same day!

Since I have 10 books now sitting in my living room, and I really, really need you all to read my story and tell me that you love it, I’m giving away a book on Tuesday, May 8th. Between now and Tuesday, enter a comment telling me your favorite part about weddings (either as a wedding party member, guest, bride, groom, wedding crasher…) and I’ll pick a commenter at random and send you a book.

For an additional entry, you can like my facebook page here, and leave an additional comment telling me you did so, and for another entry, you can share this with your friends and (of course) tell me you did so.

So – three chances for this fun little book. Great deal, right? I know I’m biased, but all the stories I’ve read so far have been very sweet and funny and the perfect thing for a quick mid-afternoon coffee break or an “I promise it will be worth it, don’t lose your mind” gift for a bride-to-be. (Of course, I’ve only read mine and Sam’s… just kidding!)

Clockwise, from top left: Sam's story, front cover, my story

Enter away! Tell your friends! Oh, and I’ll start – my favorite part about our wedding was our rehearsal dinner – it was meaningful and encouraging and everything I had dreamed of when we first got engaged. My favorite part about other people’s weddings? Everything. I admit it, I love weddings. I cry when the bride walks down the aisle, I love being a bridesmaid (and I am a very good one, if I dare say so myself) I love pinning on boutonnieres and dancing and woo-ing at the “you may kiss the bride” part. It’s all wonderful.

Leave comments and tell your friends to win a book! Winner will be chosen Tuesday, May 8th, probably at some point past my bedtime, if I’m honest.

1. What is your favorite book?  Why?

I love Les Miserables because the story reminds me that it’s worth the hard choices to do the right thing, that heroes can win in the end, that evil is real and terrifying and good somehow still gets a chance. I love Jane Eyre because it’s the absolute perfect sappy love story – filled with detail and heart and tough choices and prickly personalities. I love A Tale of Two Cities because the French Revolution is fascinating to me, and so is the idea of self-sacrifice. I love poetry by Yeats because it takes me back to a windy afternoon in Galway, Ireland, the first time I read a poem and it didn’t just wash over me and sound beautiful, but it completely rearranged how I think.

2. What song brings you back most viscerally to a moment in your history?  Where does it take you?

Gets It Faster by Jimmy Eat World reminds me of bloody knuckles and a much-bludgeoned punching bag – taking my broken heart out with my fists. Jealous Kind by Jars of Clay reminds me of my junior year of college, definitely one of my darkest times, when I “gave away my heart to the rushing wind” but was desperately wishing for a jealous God to chase after me anyway. Feels Like Today by Rascal Flatts reminds me of the laugh-lines around Adam’s eyes crinkling up and my heart going pitter-patter as I realized that I might actually be falling for this charmer. Mud on the Tires by Brad Paisley reminds me of long summers at the ranch and changing irrigation line in the dusky evening light, tired but happy. The Finding Neverland soundtrack reminds me of writing my first creative nonfiction work – late at night on my little yellow couch – and getting straight As on it, realizing that maybe there was more to language than just stating the facts.

3. Who is your favorite character in fiction?

Jean Valjean for his honor and complexity, Jo March because I can relate to her in nearly every way, Black Beauty because he is one of the few animal characters ever written who is so authentic and honest, Bob Cratchit for his sincerity, Aslan for being not safe, but good, and Samwise Gamgee for being the most lovable and loyal side character ever written.

4. What is your favorite food?  What about foods you abhor?

I love grilled fish – anything other than salmon or tilapia. I love red wine, baked potatoes, McDonald’s french fries, slow-cooked tri-tip, fresh fruit smoothies, blueberry muffins, peach yogurt, corn on the cob, spinach salad, wild rice, BLTs, enchiladas, sourdough bread, anything with cheese on it, fresh green beans, key lime pie, chicken tikka masala, tortilla soup and ice cream sandwiches.

I despise blue cheese, rare meat, sour cream and brussels sprouts.

5. Are you a morning or a night person?

Morning – although I’m kind of just a beauty sleep person. Not getting enough sleep = cranky, no matter what time it is.

6. What is your default font when you write on your computer?

Whatever Pages chooses. I used to be picky, and now I write too dang much to care. Such is the nature of small business management… the little things slide right on by.

7. How many siblings do you have?  How many children do you have (as of now)?

One brother and sister-in-law, who lead a fantastical, adventurous and well-photographed life in Reno, and another sister-in-law in Texas who keeps the family in line, all of us jealous of her incredible cowboy boots and laughing at everything.

No kiddos yet, although one of these years I’m sure we’ll have a passel, as we hate small life changes. Go big or don’t have babies, we always say.

8. What season do you like best?

In Oregon, I love the fall, when the Aspens turn golden-yellow and the pasture-grass is long and tan. It’s the season for long horse-back rides down dry dirt roads, cutting firewood, soaking up sunshine and preparing for snow to come. In Texas, I love spring, when bluebells appear and green grass stretches for miles, the weather is a perfect 80 degrees and sitting outside seems like the best idea for every meal. Here, in SoCal, I love summer, the season of kayaking, hikes, camping, suntans, bare feet and long days. Everywhere I love Christmastime.

9. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A vet. Too bad I’m terrible at math and science… (apparently I thought it was enough to just like animals).

10. If you practice yoga (even sporadically), what is your favorite pose?

Warrior. I feel like a bad-ass every time.

11. When was the last time you cried?

Watching Knocked Up on TV last weekend. It’s a really sweet movie, ok?!

My style is:

At play, it’s earth-tones, plaid, leather, jeans, watches, buckles, straps, relaxed

At work, it’s sleeveless with jackets, high-waisted pants, comfortable heels or boots and an attempt to accessorize and get my hair to behave.

I love shorts.

And boots. And sitting in the back of pick-up trucks.

I also love the feeling of saltwater on my skin, being outside in the sunshine, and going on adventures. I hope to someday look at good in my kayaking outfit as these ladies do.

What’s your style?



We can’t get to the joy of Easter Sunday without remembering the justification of Good Friday, though. Apparently there’s this whole YouTube meme of making text-based videos of Texas pastor Matt Chandler and, despite the fact that might be kind of weird, this one is one of my favorites.

Funny how a two-minute reminder can re-orient your perspective…. have a wonderful Good Friday, friends.

I was home for a drizzly few days all by myself, and I decided that it’s been a while since I sat down and wrote just for me – not marketing copy or blogs or HTML or Facebook stuff, but my stories and hopes and maybe even entries to a writing contest or two.

It was a cold, grey weekend – perfect for hunkering down with a giant mug of coffee and waxing eloquent – and for the most part, it was really wonderful. I need a few hours of quiet to re-focus and let my poor, squished muse take a breath. After a couple of days of this treatment, I had some rather obvious realizations:

1. I thrive on quiet reflection. Turning off the radio, leaving a grocery list unshopped for a day or two or just forcing myself to stop worrying and over-achieving for a few hours is exactly what my soul needs.
2. Writing is HARD. (Everyone who’s ever tried to write anything gaffaws and points at me.) I feel like I lived up to the old saying about bleeding on the page… and most of what I wrote this weekend is probably rubbish anyway.
3. But, despite the crummy nature of what I wrote this weekend – I don’t want to only write things that turn a profit for me or come easily to me. I want to write stories that matter, the little slices of life that I am called uniquely to tell.

I realize that I underestimate the power of a dream – of knowing what I love to do and having the freedom to do it. Sometime on Saturday afternoon I was slapped with the realization that yes, running my own business is hard work, but holy cow, I get to write at work! And I get to go to conferences with other nerdy, lovable people and DO about things that I love and not just dream about them.

I had a great little writer’s retreat in my living room, hugging a cup of coffee, watching artsy/informative films that Adam would hate and reading books outside when my fingers got tired of typing. I’ve made a resolution to do mini escapes like this more often, even if for only a few minutes – to write something personal on the blog or read something inspiring. I’m blessed to be getting closer and closer to my dreams, if only I can look up from my day-to-day long enough to embrace it and be grateful for it.

However, beyond such rudimentary ideas as “let’s not bounce checks” and “let’s pay bills on time” I’m a little in over my head, and I usually rely on an expert to tell me what the hell I’m looking at on any given piece of paper that the bank is mailing me with alarming frequnecy and regularity, because apparently their greatest heartfelt desire is that I become a victim of identity theft.

So, one day a few weeks ago, a Banker Dude calls me.

“Hey” he says. “Since you have so far escaped the clutches of identity theft, we want to change that by sending you a giant Sequoia worth of paperwork and convince you to get a new account that will change your life forever and make glitter rain on your parade. Great, right?”

Me, being an idiot, succumbed to his stupid pitch, opened this new glitter-filled account and was promptly smacked in the face with what I now call the Wells Fargo Black Hole of Office Space-Style Despair, You Made Money But We Can Keep it From You HAHA Oh And Also, You’ll Need to Talk to 1o Different People For Lotsa Hours and They’ll All Tell You Something Different, Good Luck Ever Seeing Blue Sky Again SUCKA.

I tried to deposit into the new account.

Suddenly the next day, no money is in the account.

I go to Wells Fargo and very politely ask why my money is gone.

They explain that I put it into the new account, which means they have the right to hitch it up to a horse and carriage and send it to Ohio, after which it might come floating back to me in an empty Coke bottle, if I’m lucky.

I cry.

They don’t care.

I demand that they shut down this stupid new account and give me my money.

They say that they did so, but they shrug about the whole “give me back my money” part.

Two weeks later, the check I’d already deposited once comes back to me via carrier pigeon.

The sun is shining, I’d had a good night’s sleep, I’m feeling optimistic, so I go back to try to deposit it again.

No can do.

They tell me that the account was not deleted, my life is not better, that everybody who made me cry before was wrong and I have to start all over.

I leave in a huff.

I went back today, only to discover that I had to delete every account I’d previously made, all the ones that Banker Dude said were all glittery and whatnot, and sit and stew for two hours at the desk of Incompetent Teller #35.

At one point, she asked me what my business was (as I was trying to set up business accounts). I said “writer” and she, all small-talky, despite the fact that I was searching for some sleeping pills in my purse to overdose on, asks if I like it and if I’m busy with it.

IT TOOK EVERY PIECE OF MY SELF-CONTROL TO NOT SAY:

“I do love it, actually, although sitting in this bank has started to make me doubt if I’m even alive anymore, as it sucks my creativity and my hope away and I am on the verge of banging my purse on the desk like a real nutjob and stowing cash under my mattress rather than ever coming here again. In answer to your second question, yes I am incredibly busy, and I’ve spent 10 hours IN THIS BANK in the last few weeks, so you asking me about my business makes me want to scream, as to-do lists dance before my eyes and I stare at some terrible photo of a kid and his birthday cake, which is supposed to make me believe that ‘We’re here for you’ when that is laughably untrue. Also, I write about my life, about my adventures and my husband and my business, and this debacle is SURE AS HELL going on the blog. All I want is to deposit my money and not cry when I do so. IS THAT SO HARD.”

Here’s the final tally:

Wells Fargo = 10 million clusters

Banker Dude = 1 glitter turned to poop

Incompetent Teller #35 = 5 unsuccessful small-talks, but apparently successfully dodged all my stabby-eyed attempts to make her feel bad about this

Dani = needs a margarita, I don’t care what time it is.

However, when I sat down write this meaningful piece that I was sure would bubble forth, nothing came. So, here’s how to catch a lobster:

First, go out to the pier in the dead of night with a couple of scruffy men, some dead fish, all your courage and a thermos of hot chocolate. The colder it is, the more lobster-catching street cred you earn.

Look at your lobster hoop with high-tech headlamps and some slight concern about the effectiveness of this contraption. Chop up the dead fish and put it in the bottom of the hoop, making sure it smells disgusting and delicious to the bottom-dwelling spiders that we pay $24/lb for in the store.

Lower the hoop off the pier, making sure that it touches the ocean floor but doesn’t have enough slack to get in a mess. Move quickly to insure that the blurry night-time photos keep their exciting Instagram-esque patina.

Wait about 10 minutes, and haul the hoop back up.

If you’ve caught something, you have to make sure it’s a lobster, and some other scary sea creature.

If you have caught some other critter, wave it around gleefully in front of your scruffy man-friends and your wife, happy over your discovery. Then give it the thrill-ride of its life back over the rail of the pier and into the water below, following it with the lobster hoop and wishes for better luck next time.

On the next pull, if you do find a lobster in your hoop, you have to measure to make sure it’s legal, and it has to do its best to scramble around on its scary legs and freak everybody out.

See? Scary.

If it’s a legal lobster, you plunk him in a bucket and take him home. Once home, you will have to pull unspeakable things out of the lobster at the kitchen sink, and your wife will probably not love it. However, after the painful part is over, you get to melt a pound of butter over a delicious lobster tail that only cost a few cold hours and a couple of dead fish instead of $24.

• Seats with removable arm-rests and an excuse to get all date-y and hand-holdy. This is silly, since we are old and married and live together and have a couch and everything, but snuggling up in the movies makes me feel like I’m on a date, and I still get all excited when we put back the arm-rest and get comfy.
• Candy. I love it, and the theater is one place I don’t have to justify the calories to myself.
• Ditto with popcorn. We also have a reward card at the theater, so we often get free goodies, which is even better.
• Costco movie tickets. So cheap! So awesome! So Costco, the best place on earth!
• Surround sound.
• Big screen. We have a big TV, but you can’t beat the theater picture and sound, particularly for action movies.
• Intentionality. You can’t get up and check the fridge, there’s no laptop of work asking for your attention. Sitting at the movies is at least two hours of uninterrupted brain-tune-outage, and it’s awesome.
• Sharing the experience with friends. Going to the movies in a group and talking about it afterward is unbeatable, especially when you see something particularly awesome or terrible.

What’s your favorite thing about the movies?

My aunts and myself with Grandma (we missed my only girl-cousin and my mom! Wish you guys could have been there...)

Last night was her 87th birthday party, at my aunt and uncle’s house. When this family gets together, the wine flows like water and conversation flies thick and fast. We spare no one in our jokes and we are more than willing to make any person the butt of any hearty laugh. This family is a group of talented story-tellers, a trait they inherited from my grandfather, and of keen observers, a gift from my grandmother.

She sits in the kitchen with the girls as we laugh and talk, as Michelle stirs the Paella and we hear the deeper rumble of the menfolk’s laughter and Uncle Dud’s booming storytelling from the other room. She is easily confused now, one moment she tells me a story about ice skating as a kid in Ohio, the next she seems unsure of who I am.

I feel terrible that I didn’t record her stories when she was more able to remember them, that I don’t have a written record of her incredible life to share with the world. I regret not listening more, not honoring her memories like I should have – now that her reminiscing days are slowly fading away, it seems I’ve let this treasure trove slip through my fingers. Because what are we, if not the strands of those who’ve gone before? At the party, we found a photo of my grandfather from the late 1930′s and it could have easily been my brother, hands in his pockets and cap sitting back on a full head of hair, standing confidently on an Eastern Sierra snowbank. The realization of how much we inherit from those who’ve gone before struck me as I looked at the photograph, my grandfather’s adolescent, piercing gaze penetrating me through sepia tones and long-gone clothing styles.

My grandmother is frail now, but she paved the way for us. She survived polio and even traveled the world despite her physical handicaps, finally marrying a my grandfather in California and bravely saying good-bye to the life she knew in Ohio. She showed us all how to stand up to a societal mores and get a college degree and a high-paying job when such a thing was incredibly rare for a woman. She then graciously made the choice to stay home with her four kids and show all of us what love looks like – so much so that when we, the grandkids, came along, we were raised in her footsteps by our parents, who’d seen good parenting modeled first-hand. She has long been a faithful Catholic and unwavering believer – soldiering on through every trial, every lonely moment since my grandfather passed away, every infirmity.

I feel so honored to have grown up in the tradition of faithfulness, goodness and hard work that my grandparents exemplified. They lived through extraordinary circumstances and created a family that we relish now, one that couples common-sense with good humor and impatience with the echo of my grandfather’s booming laugh. I only hope that I can do them credit, now that I’m old enough to appreciate their legacy. Someday perhaps I’ll write their story, at least for my own sake, so that I don’t cheapen the legacy I have or allow petty differences to get in the way of loving the family God gave me. I hope it’s not too late to record the story of a girl from Ohio and a boy from Huntington Beach who loved us enough to give us an example of how we should live.

My great-uncles and I thought we'd help blow out her candles. Wasn't that nice of us?