Randomness! I live my life by it.

You might be surprised to know that as an author, a housekeeper, a mother, or insert any other occupation I currently hold, I use a randomizer to organize my day and my life.

With 5 kids choosing a seating arrangement in the car is a nightmare. One person only got the front seat for a half a mile, while the other sat there for three hours. And the argument ensues. Yes...I have a randomizer app on my phone and a set of seating charts depicting every possible option associated with a number and decided by who gets the front seat on what day. Oh my, when these boys start in you'd think the end of the world had come. No, it all comes down to who has to sit where.

As an author of over a dozen published books, and more on the way, you might figure names are not coming at me as quickly as they might have in the beginning. When you name a character the task is as important as naming your child. But, the Internet can almost save the day always...and yes, there are many name randomizer sites. If you have a name you like it'll pick a surname. Don't know what kind of name you want you can plug in all sorts of wild things and it'll produce you a list. If you've read any of my books, you might have met Sophia Burkhalter...yes...a name randomized character. Not too shabby.

I plug in almost anything into a randomizer. Never diagnosed, but I assume I have a form of adult ADD. Keeping things random helps me with my head when it goes a million different directions. I'll make a housekeeping list...and randomize it.  I'll make a set of menus...and randomize them. What an amazing tool.

So, now to focus on blog topics. There are many a website out there with topics on anything and everything! You might have guessed. I took a list from a website and...do you feel it? I randomized it. Now looking at this list of 176 one word topics I feel free and enthusiastic about figuring out how to tie in my writer site with the word FEET. I guess you'll see how I do as that is the second word on the list.

And I guess I did pretty good with this randomizing. When you figure my list of 176 actually turned into a list of 177, since I just wrote a whole blog post on randomizing!

Have a very random and wonderfully mixed up day!
Bernadette Marie

5 Totally Random Facts about ME, Bernadette Marie

One of the things I ask in my interviews is to have people tell me 5 random facts about themselves. I have a post-it note, which has been hanging on my desk for 3 years now with these facts about me. So I thought I'd share.

So here is what is going on as I write this. My dear friend is painting my house and I'm watching a man in my cul-de-sac try and jimmy his door open on his mini-van. How is that for random facts?

1. I AM MESSY. I'd like to say I'm not...but that would be a lie! I pile stuff and I shuffle it about. I'm not dirty...just messy!!!  But then if you read anything about a creative mind...this is how we roll!

2. I'D RATHER BE COLD THAT HOT. You can only get so naked! Heat gets to me pretty fast. I have a low tolerance for 100 degree heat. Yep that's why this dry Colorado heat works for me! But I don't mind being cold. You can keep layering and layering and layering!

3. I CUT MY OWN HAIR. Yep! I do! I have a salon in my home which I still do business out of. Another creative outlet for me. But for the past 2-3 years I have mastered, or tried to, the art of cutting my own hair. I don't think I'm too shabby at it either. And...I'm licensed. I have an edge.

4. I CAN WRITE AS FAST BACKWARD AS I CAN FORWARD. The art of passing notes is a lost one! But you can guarantee if you got a note from me in the 1980's you got a few that had to be read in a mirror or from the opposite side of the paper.

5. I STILL USE MY FINGERS TO MULTIPLY BY NINE. What a skill! My cousin taught me to multiply by 9 using my fingers when I was in 3rd grade. It is a skill that has stuck with me and I've passed on. Often it is just quicker for me to look down that it is to recall. I'm not that analytical. I leave that to my husband and 4 out of 5 of my boys. (Yep...one is defiantly as creative minded as me...math is not our thing.)

What about you? What makes you you? Share with us some random facts that make you unique :)

You can find sale links to all my books, and those of other 5 Prince Publishing authors, at www.5princebooks.com/buy.htm