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My Passions

(Besides my husband and family—and books, of course!—in alphabetical order, because I couldn't possibly rank them…)

Cooking and Cookbooks

I love cooking, and I have more cookbooks than I'll ever be able to use…yet I still keep buying them. I also seek new recipes in newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet almost daily. It's a sickness! I get bored making the same thing over and over, so I'm constantly subjecting my family to new dishes that sometimes work brilliantly but other times tank. I'm always running to the market for some odd ingredient instead of using what I have on hand, I'm terribly messy in the kitchen, and I hate cleaning up, so why do I do this all the time? Why not just settle on a few simple favorites like a normal person?

When my husband read this, he worried people might think of me like Betty Crocker. I don't know what he thinks is wrong with Betty Crocker, but just for the record, I am nothing like her. <g> I don't even own an apron.

Discount Shopping

Like many red-blooded women, I love shopping. But I hate to pay full price, so I always head for the sale racks first. And discount stores are my favorites. You'll find me at Loehmann's, TJ Maxx, Ross, and Marshall's much more often that at the mall. Unless it's an outlet mall, that is! I also discount shop online. For just one example, my daughter and I both love 15DollarStore.com.

As a (related) aside, I used to own a chain of jewelry stores called Royal 14K Gold that were all in malls here in Southern California. Our tag-line was We have it for half, and our prices really were half-off regular jewelry stores like Zales, Kay Jewelers, and the major department stores. We kept a big notebook full of other people's ads in each store to prove it. Back in the '90s, Royal 14K Gold was sold to a large national chain, and that company was eventually sold to (are you ready for this?) Zales—so there's nothing like us in the malls anymore. It's sad, really…

Games

I love playing games. Video games? Yes! Card games? Yes! Board games? Yes! Here are a few of my current favorites:

Apples to Apples
Backgammon
Casino (the card game Juliana and James play in Tempting Juliana—and yes, it was a popular game back then!)
Dance Dance Revolution (I play it for exercise <g>)
Dr. Mario on Nintendo (my husband and I are addicted to this!)
Gin Rummy
Personal Preference (this game is out of print, but if you can find it used, buy it!)
Poker (which all the generations of my family have been playing since way before the national craze)

Liberty

America's founders won us our freedom. I feel that since the Revolution we've slowly been losing everything they fought for, so I've been working to regain it since before I was old enough to vote. For more information about what I believe in, visit this site.

Life Extension

I enjoy my life, and I want to live as long as humanly possible—which I believe is much longer than most people think and growing longer every day with all of science's new discoveries. To accomplish this, I spend a lot of time researching advances in life extension. One misconception people have is that living longer means more years of pain and misery, but the opposite is true—the goal is to stay "young" and healthy all the extra years.

Among many other things, I take Life Extension Mix, which is reformulated often and currently contains 93 different vitamins, minerals and supplements (saving lots of individual pill-popping!). If you're interested in learning how to extend your own life, visit the Life Extension Foundation for more information. I also recommend these two books:

Life Extension Revolution by Philip Lee Miller, M.D.—an excellent overview.
Ageless by Suzanne Somers—optimizing your hormone balance (using bioidentical hormones, not dangerous synthetics like Premarin) is crucial to a good life extension program. This book explains why and how in easy-to-read language.

Live Music

I love, love, love live music! A concert always makes me happy, and strangely enough, concerts often also make me think. I cannot tell you how many book problems I've solved while listening to live music. You can see pictures of me with a few of my favorite musicians at the bottom of my photo album.

Medical Research

I believe health is our most precious possession, so I am a big supporter of medical research. I have Crohn's disease, so I guess it's natural that my major focus these days is the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. But I also contribute to fighting cancer, arthritis, diabetes, and many other worthy medical quests (all medical quests are worthy, really!). I think clinical trials are also important, allowing people who participate to get access to new medicines that could help themselves and others. Visit ClinicalTrials.gov for more information about that.

Movies

I adore movies! There's nothing like escaping into other people's lives for a couple of hours. A few of my favorites can be found at the bottom of my Biography page, but that list just scratches the surface. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time these days to go to the theater, but I always have a stack of DVDs to watch. A bowl of popcorn, a glass of wine, a DVD playing in a darkened living room…why pay movie theater prices, anyway?

Office Supplies

I love office supply stores! Browsing the aisles, choosing colorful new folders, fancy new pens, shiny new notebooks…it's better than a toy store or the candy shop (although I do adore candy, too <g>). I am constantly buying stuff to help me get organized, even though it never works. My current favorite pen is Dr. Grip with a neon blue barrel, but I toss away the black ink immediately and replace it with blue, because I prefer blue ink! My favorite pencil is Dr. Grip Center of Gravity with 0.7mm lead, although the PaperMate Tri-Grip runs a close second. I buy these by the box, because they always disappear around my house.

Although I'm not Catholic, I buy all my toner and ink from the LaserMonks. Why? Well, their prices are very good, all the profit goes to charity, and hey, it's a kick to think I'm buying stuff from real, live monks in the twenty-first century…how could I possibly resist?

Otima Port

This ten-year-old tawny port is heaven in a glass. There's nothing else to say.

Television

Sadly, I don't have time for a lot of television these days. It's one of the pleasures I greatly curtailed in order to make time to write books. However, my lack of television time does not mean I'm a TV snob. I majored in TV production in college, and I really do love TV!

My favorite shows these days are House, Lost, and most any standup comedy on Comedy Central (laughter is the best medicine, isn't it?). Newer shows I'm enjoying are Standoff and Shark. Due to my time limitations, I tend to watch shows weeks or even months after they're aired, either on my DVR or on DVD…so please don't tell me what just happened!

Woot.com

This is my favorite website, hands-down (well, after LaurenRoyal.com, that is <g>). They sell only one item per day until it's sold out—or until 11:59 pm Central time when it is replaced. That's 9:59 pm my time, and since some items sell out within minutes, I always try to check the site at exactly 10 o'clock if I'm at home. Woot's descriptions are usually hilarious, and best of all, they ship whatever you buy for $5 no matter what it is. When's the last time you bought a 200-pound 61″ flat-screen TV and had it delivered to your door for five bucks?