Month: January 2013

Love and Chocolate

erinbradyauthor

With Valentine’s Day just a month away, I am bracing myself for the cherry red heart shape decorations invading the stores and the guilt-inducing TV commercials you couldn’t miss even if you wanted to. Yes, you will feel guilty if you don’t buy your significant other an expensive piece of diamond jewelry, a designer hand bag or something from the latest fashion catalog (Are you listening, dear husband of mine?) Yet it’s such a conflicting holiday. For most people, you either love it or hate it-there is no middle of the road, it seems. Me? I absolutely, 100%, without a single doubt in my mind love it and it’s not because I have someone special. Nope, none of that. In fact, I’ve loved it for most of my teen years, even during my awkward stages of braces and acne. I have loved it for most of my twenties when I was dating plenty and trying to find myself in the process. And I loved it during my thirties and up when I’ve settled into married life with a family. Why?

One simple word: chocolate!

Chocolate in heart shaped boxes, chocolate in the shape of a rose on a wired stem, chocolate held by an adorable teddy bear. I love chocolate and it loves me back (except when I get on the scale in the morning after a bender). It’s the most delicious thing I have ever tasted in my life. It melts on my tongue and excites my taste buds like nothing else ever has. It’s sooo rich and sweet! And it never lets me down. It never judges me either, even as I search for it during a late night or wee hours snack raid, bundled up in my flannel pajamas, fuzzy slippers on, trying to quietly feel myself about the kitchen without turning the lights on for fear of being caught in the act by a family member.

And February 14th is the only time of the year I can indulge in my passion for chocolate without feeling guilty! I can eat it openly and proudly without cowering under my bed blankets. I do not have to look over my shoulder as I unwrap the chocolate bar I have hidden way in the back of the pantry shelf, behind that box of mac’n cheese. I don’t have to worry about being caught red-handed, mid-bite, a mouthful of evidence … in hand. I need not try to quickly wipe my mouth and fingers clean of any incriminating chocolate markings.

So this year, I have decided to send myself a Valentine Day gift and it will be a box filled with something dark, sweet and good to eat. Can you guess what that is?

Erin

There’s No Business Like Show Business

erinbradyauthor

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I woke up early Thursday morning to tune into the announcement for this year’s Oscar nominations.    As I think I mentioned in prior posts, I am a self-professed, very obsessed movie junkie and I follow the award season like a stockbroker follows the swing of the New York Stock Exchange or the millions of people that follow Kim Kardashian on Twitter.

Every year, I have the same ritual.  I get up, walk myself to the kitchen and make myself breakfast and then sit down in front of the TV with my paper and pen in hand, jotting down all of the nominees and predicting who I think will most likely win.  I’m like a gambler marking down my picks to submit to my bookie.  I’m only glad I don’t know any bookies because if I did, I’d be in serious trouble! Keep me away from Las Vegas for my own good.

Then, I make plans for the weekend and head straight to the theater and watch all of the movies that I haven’t seen yet that is up for any kind of an award, including the best song or animated film category.  I’m not picky at all.  In fact, I can’t wait to see Wreck It Ralph.

I will spend the next few weeks sitting in a stadium seating, temperature controlled, surround sound cinema with my lightly salted popcorn and soda crying through Les Miserables, being inspired by Life with Pi, ogling Bradley Cooper and closing my eyes at the gory parts of Dyango Unchained.

I know it’s a little crazy and I will most definitely gain a few unwanted pounds with the amount of popcorn I will consume these next few weeks but it will be so worth it.  Because on February 24th, when I tune in to see the Oscars, I will be prepared with my best picks.  Of course, I’ll be wrong most of the time, but who cares!  That’s the fun of it.  In fact, all of it is fun-the dresses, the drama and the overly long or sentimental acceptance speeches.  I will soak up every minute of it!

My only regret this year is that Meryl Streep is not nominated for anything.  It’s the first time-in what?  I’d say a hundred years!

Anyway, got to go-the movies are calling.  I’ve got a lot to catch up on and not enough time to get through it.  Wish me luck.

Erin

Oscar Alert!

My first chick-lit book is all about a heroine who wishes to leave behind her boring job as an accountant to land in Hollywood.

Marty Peters is a young professional working as junior tax accountant for Staner, Warsaw and Bentley, a high power accounting firm in New York City. Marty hates her job of number crunching and secretly longs to pack it all in and follow her dreams of Hollywood fame and fortune.

When both of those worlds combine through a series of comical misunderstandings and one missing screenplay, Marty finds herself as one of the accountants at Staner chosen to fly out to Los Angeles to attend the Academy Awards.

Taking credit for “Until Tomorrow”, a screenplay that does not belong to her, and falling in love with the handsome Egan Riley, the writer behind Until Tomorrow and the only person who stands in her way of living the life of paparazzi and movie premieres, Marty finds that she must make a choice between love or her fifteen minutes of fame on the red carpet.

I hope you check it out!