Wellllll…I haven’t been around my blog in a good while…I’ve got plenty of excuses, but who wants to hear them? But I’m baaa-ck, with a giveaway!

But finally dragging me back over here to blog is one of my favorite shows, FINALLY coming back to the States, for all of us Anglophiles…Downtown Abbey returns Sunday night!

I’ve teamed up with Tracie Banister, whose book Blame it On the Fame I might have mentioned I really enjoyed, along with a host of other fun writers to celebrate and dish about Downton. To get ready for Sunday’s show, feel free to stop by everyone’s blogs and read their amusing answers to these Downton questions. Oh, and please join us for a virtual tea and crumpet-fest Sunday night on twitter, where we’ll partake in #DowntonGala to tweet/snark as we watch.

One lucky winner will receive a copy of a veddy Downton-esque novel, To Marry An English Lord, so please, join in the fun! {and p.s., to ratchet up your chances of winning, you can earn up to nine entries if you want to leave a comment on all nine of our blogs}.

(the giveaway will run until midnight on Thursday, January 10th and a winner will be announced on the 11th)

From the Gilded Age until 1914, more than 100 American heiresses invaded Britannia and swapped dollars for titles–just like Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, the first of the Downton Abbey characters Julian Fellowes was inspired to create after reading To Marry An English Lord. Filled with vivid personalities, gossipy anecdotes, grand houses, and a wealth of period details–plus photographs, illustrations, quotes, and the finer points of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette–To Marry An English Lord is social history at its liveliest and most accessible.

Here are our questions, and I’ll tell you MY answers. In the meantime, check out the other authors answers as well by linking to their sites.

Without further audieu, pip, pip, cheeri-o and all that rot!

1) You’re planning a dinner party for the Downton crew – who would be No. 1 on your invite list?

JG: Duh. Matthew. And NO ONE else but Matthew. And me. ‘Nuff said?

2) Whose closet will you raid before the party?

JG: Definitely not the Dowager Countess LOL. I’d have to go with Mary’s. And while I’m at it, can I steal her figure too?

3) Once your guests have arrived, who are you most likely to flirt with?

JG: Duh. Matthew. I wouldn’t even play hard to get. I’d be easy. You might say a downright Edwardian trollop!

4) Who will you likely smack before the dessert course?

JG: Welllll…I don’t want to smack Mary for taking Matthew, but I mean how else do I get rid of her? If not her, then definitely her venal sister Edith. Someone needs to set that chick right!

5) Let’s adjourn to the drawing room for some not-so-polite conversation: What’s your theory on Patrick Gordon aka The Bandaged Man? Impostor or legitimate Crawley?

JG: Totally an imposter. How dare he insinuate himself wrongfully into my clan?!

6) How about Bates? Did he do it? Could he do it? If not, who killed Vera?

JG: No way! I think Thomas, the conniving footman did it so he could set Bates up. He’s that sinister.

7) Favorite quip from the Dowager Countess?

JG: In deference to living in Charlottesville, which I’m surprised isn’t called Jeffersonville…Here’s one of many favorite exchanges of Violet:

Dowager Countess: Good heavens! What am I sitting on?

Matthew Crawley: A swivel…chair

Dowager Countess: Oh, another modern brainwave?
Matthew: Not very modern; they were invented by Thomas Jefferson.

Dowager Countess: Why does every day involve a fight with an American?

8) Favorite Downton spoof? 

JG: Hands-down, Jimmy Fallon’s is my favorite

 

9) Now you’ve done it! You’ve landed a guest spot on the show. What’s your storyline?

JG: I’m Matthews long-lost bride and mother of his children (this’ll cement the deal) who’s come to retrieve him to his rightful home with moi, naturally. I might have to jack up some of those princesses to get my wicked way.

10) What would you like to see happen in series three?

JG: Well…I saw a PBS teaser and they’re saying the Crawleys lose their fortune, which does not please me. I’m hoping my darling Matthew hasn’t lost his, at least. If they all have to start wearing dowdy second-hand clothes and serve meals to the servants, it won’t be quite the same show, will it?

 

Okay, then. Thus concludes my answers to the the Downton Abbey Q & A. Don’t forget to visit the other participating authors’ blogs to see what they’ve got in store!

And if you’d like to be considered to win the book, I need you to answer question #4: Who will you likely smack before the dessert course?

And I hope to e-see you at the #DowntonGala on Sunday night!

Now scurry off to visit these other authors’ blogs for more fun Downton questions and answers!

Sipping away at my Earl Gray, with pinky extended…

Jenny

 
Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

Slim to None

Anywhere But Here

Where the Heart Is

Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who’s Determined to Kill Me

Accidentally on Purpose (written as Erin Delany)

Compromising Positions (written as Erin Delany)

I’m Not the Biggest Bitch in this Relationship (I’m a contributor)

And these shorts:
Idol Worship: A Lost Week with the Weirdos and Wannabes at American Idol Auditions

The Gall of It All: And None of the Three F’s Rhymes with Duck

Naked Man On Main Street

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***I WAS SUPPOSED TO CONTRIBUTE A STORY TO MY FRIEND MALENA LOTT’S CHRISTMAS ANTHOLOGY SLEIGH RIDE, BUT GOT A LITTLE SWAMPED, SO UNFORTUNATELY HAD TO DROP OUT. BUT I DEFINITELY WANT TO BE SURE I LET YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS WONDERFUL HOLIDAY COLLECTION OF STORIES, JUST OUT. READ ON FOR MORE!

Get ready for the ultimate sleigh ride with Buzz Books. SLEIGH RIDE is a wintry mix of short stories with one common theme: each story includes a sleigh ride. The book will include seven short stories and a portion of the proceeds will benefit a national domestic abuse prevention fund via Alpha Chi Omega foundation. Women helping women is one of our highest endeavors, and we are extremely excited about the project.  The book is now available in trade paperback and ebook (Kindle and nook). We’re also hosting two big contests over at our www.buzzbooksusa.com to celebrate the launch.
At the back of the book, some of our authors shared their favorite holiday recipes. Dani Stone, “No Place Like Home,” shares hers below.

Cranberry Pecan Jell-O Salad by Dani Stone

Ingredients:

1 stick butter or margarine

1 cup flour

1 cup chopped pecans

1 – 8 Oz. package cream cheese

1 cup sugar

1 – 12 oz. Cool Whip

1 – 6 oz. box of cranberry Jell-O

2 cups boiling hot waster

2 16 oz. cans whole cranberry sauce

Directions:

1.    In a 9” by 13” pan, melt 1 stick of butter ormargarine.  Mix in 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of chopped pecans.  Press evenly in pan and bake at 350º for 12-15 minutes.  Cool.2.   Mix cream cheese and 1 cup sugar.  Fold in CoolWhip.  Spread on cooled crust.3.   Dissolve Jell-O in water and mix incranberries.  Refrigerate until thickened.  Pour over cream cheese layer.4.   Refrigerate until firm and ready to serve.

My mother-in-law makes this every Thanksgiving. We serve it on a piece of endive lettuce on its own little plate. The salad is a gorgeous, tasty addition to any table.

Dani Stone is a freelance writer juggling assignments like a circus performer in sparkly red shoes. Currently, she’s contributing web content for MediaRefined.com and writing a charity spotlight series for the life-changing micro-giving site, Lovedrop.us. Dani lives with her husband and two children in the great flat state of Kansas. www.ihearlaughtracks.wordpress.com

Plenty of you have found yourselves lately having to seek employment again. It’s a grim reflection of the times. And nothing’s quite so demoralizing as looking for work when there’s not much work to be found.

Over the past several months of job-searching I’ve run the gamut of disses: disgusted, discouraged, dismayed and disenfranchised. Frustrated that despite valuable skills built over a lifetime, I’m left undervalued in the marketplace.

But the more I delve into this job search thing, the more I realize that I’ve been viewing it all wrong. Rather than it being an experience to drag one down, it can be an adventure. Almost like a vacation (because who can afford one anyhow?), without leaving home. Consider it employing your vivid imagination to open yourself up to new (albeit perhaps unwanted) possibilities of who you can be.

Take my experience with Monster.com. After spending too much time filling out forms on the website in order for Monster’s algorithms to find the perfect career opportunity for me, I sat back and waited, trusting that their professional expertise would be put to good use. The next morning an email from Monster awaited me, with my future potential dream job listed on my screen: assistant manager at Spencer’s Gifts.

Now, for those who haven’t spent time lurking in dark corners of shopping malls, Spencer’s is the place you go to for puerile titillation, if you need, say, boob cubes (breast-shaped ice cube molds), or fake dog doo to fool your friends and neighbors. They traffic in schlock. A dream job for your average 14-year old boy, maybe. For me? Not so much.

Now at first, I was insulted by this career pitch, wondering who the jokester was sending me lowbrow job opportunities. Not that there’s anything wrong with the job, mind you, but it’s not exactly the place I imagined my skills would be put to best use. Plus there’s something unseemly about a middle-aged mom ringing up perverted products and re-stocking pop-up pecker lighters and blow-up love dolls.

Although I must admit I thought about trying to land the job, and then pitching a memoir to my literary agent about my year as a purveyor of raunch. Sadly it’s the kind of book that sells nowadays

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The next day, I got my trusty email from Monster, and realized their insult was nothing personal. Rather Monster hasn’t a clue. Because they suggested yet another job for which I was ill-suited: architect. I’m pretty sure it takes a bit of schooling to become an architect. Plus my mother used to always say to me (with the best of intentions), “Pity the person who has to drive over a bridge you built,” knowing as she did that a career as one who must build things safely was not meant to be in my future.

That suggestion was followed up by one that I apply for a lineman job. And curse them, because Glen Campbell crooning The Wichita Lineman has been stuck on an endless loop in my brain since I saw that listing. The thing is, I have no idea what a lineman is, other than the person who would climb up telephone poles to fix live wires, and with a morbid fear of heights—not to mention electrocution–no go there for moi.

Today Monster suggested I can be an occupational therapist, and once I figure out what that is, I’m pretty sure I’ll learn I needed to have studied something occupation-like in college to qualify. Although perhaps I need an occupational therapist to find work.

I gave up on Monster when they urged me to apply for a position as a senior in vitro neuroscientist/cellular electro physiologist. In Shanghai, no less.

Woe to the singles world if Monster was a dating service.

Craiglist lists a few vague jobs guaranteeing six-figure salaries, yet posts no information about the business. I think you have to meet them on a dark street corner at 3 a.m. to talk more about what they want. Another great career, killed before it began. I applied for a position in which I was then asked to send my credit record and bank information to complete strangers. I might be under-employed, but I’m not stupid.

I’ ve definitely been held back in my ability to exceed our imagination, job-wise, by living in a small town. I can’t fathom the fun job prospects available to shoot down if I lived in a major metropolitan area—maybe working a jackhammer atop a skyscraper, or being a nanny to Donald Trump’s daughter’s impending baby. In the meantime, closer to home, I’ll just have to pretend I can be a forensics fingerprint analyst, an airport ramp operator, a dog groomer, a postdoctoral research fellow, or a mattress deputy (don’t ask). Or the latest well-contemplated recommendation from Monster: driver of a Porta-John truck. I’m not kidding

.

Granted, none of these rates high on the list of things I could or should do in my life, but hey, for a minute it’s fun to think I can truly do whatever I want. And actually get paid for it. Now there’s an idea whose time has come.

(just thought I’d add this: I found out about a job for which I was ideally qualified, and only then did I find out it was posted on Monster, but Monster failed to let me know….Go figure)