God who?

Last year - April 27th 2007, to be exact, I posted about my friend's 2 year old son who was diagnosed with cancer -- a nasty brain tumor. Original post is here.
A year long battle that included 3 brain surgeries (the sucker kept coming back), 3 rounds of aggressive chemo, a bone marrow transplant, and finally, radiation to get rid of any lingering cells, and Owen seemed to be fine.
The family went on a fab trip to Disney, thanks to the Make a Wish Foundation, in celebration of Owen's return to good health.
Upon their return, Owen had one last MRI, just to make sure all was well.

All isn't well.
It's back.
There's nothing they can do.

My heart is breaking. I can't write, I can't sleep, I'm afraid to be alone with my thoughts... but this isn't about me.
Please pray for Owen and his family, to whatever higher being you subscribe.

Catching up, Thinking Blogger torch gets passed...

I've been a bit out of the loop the last few days. I've been lurking, making a quick comment or two, but my heart hasn't been in blogland lately.
Let's catch up, shall we? (cue dramatic music...)

Thanks for all your comments and prayers for my friend's son. Good news - latest cat scan indicates that Owen's brain tumor was excised in its entirety. Bad news - still no clue what caused it as the biopsy results are still pending.

My Sweetness (aka almost-three-year old son) had to undergo a horrible test at the hospital last Friday which I still have trouble thinking about. The poor little munchkin had to be catheterized while me and two nurses held him down. It was awful!! He was crying hysterically, I was fighting tears and the whole thing went on too long. They pumped dye into his little bladder for a series of x-rays, then... I can't even go on.
Emotionally, I'm just all beat up. Poor kiddo is back in diapers cause he's so afraid his 'willy' will hurt. I'm very mad at our doctor for not preparing us for this ordeal. We thought it was an ultrasound, as in No Pain. Had I know it was such an invasive procedure, I would have exhausted all other avenues of diagnosis first. Totally unnecessary...

It get's happier from here, I promise...

It's MAY!! My book, Destiny by Design comes out in 17 days. Yes, I'm counting! Wouldn't you? :) I'm going to be posting the blurb, a few hook lines and an excerpt over the next few weeks and have already decided on a Destiny-themed Thursday Thirteen.

I finished book 24 in the 50 Book Challenge: Margaret Moore's The Duke's Desire.
Yipee! Almost 1/2 way to my goal and I'm slightly ahead of schedule. I've got a Jennifer Crusie to tackle next. This is my first Crusie, so it better be good!

And speaking of books, I just received another installment of Notes & Reflections from Uncle Mike, which I shall post tomorrow.

My wonderful darling husband is creating a new website for me. It's AWESOME! I scrutinized every author website out there looking for components I liked in terms of tone, color, headers, content, rollovers, you name it. Yes, if you have a website, I've examined it thoroughly!
There are some AMAZING examples out there -- author's truly are a creative bunch! The hardest part was capturing the essence of 'me'. It's great to say that Daisy Dexter Dobbs has a fun site, or KJ Howe's is da bomb, but I needed an image, a look, a design that screams WYLIE! And because I haven't really put myself in a tidy little 'niche' box just yet, it was difficult to pinpoint the feel. Having said that, I'm tickled red white and pink with what my DH has come up with. We've still got quite a bit of content to upload, but I hope to debut it within the next 2 weeks.

Finally, I've been terrible to ignore the fact that Susan Helene Gottfried honored me with the Thinking Blogger Award over a week ago and I haven't passed the torch. So here goes, in no particular order:
Thomma Lyn - her writing quotes always stir interesting discussion and make me look at particular aspects of my writing that may not have come front-of-mind unless provoked.

Candy Minx - I don't even know where to begin. This woman is smart, and talented, and creative and inspiring. Her eclectic posts - art, music, television, movies, books, issues - are so thought provoking that I often have to go back and reread them a second time just to absorb it all.

Here are the rules, for you newly tagged folk...
How participation works: If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

(I know I'm supposed to tag five, but I'll start with these two and give some more thought to the others. There are just so many great blogs out there!)

Finally, finally,... If you haven't yet voted in the The Blogger Awards, don't forget I'm up for a Blogitzer and would greatly appreciate your vote. Just click the link and do your thing - THANKS!

Promise Me, A Prayer for Owen

Usual preface: I'm NOT a book review site, yada, yada, yada...

Book 23 in the 50 Book Challenge: Harlen Coben's Promise Me

This is the 5th book I've read by Coben. His talent for fast-pace story telling and twisty-turny plot always seems to keep me reading into the wee hours. Promise Me is the latest in the Myron Bolitar series. I'm not crazy about this series because all the characters, aside from Myron, are like charactures -- too extreme, somehow. But whatever, I still enjoy them, just not enought to run out and buy them all. I prefer Coben's single titles; Tell No One is one of my fave suspense reads, EVER.

Bad things/good people:

Yesterday I got some devasting news. My friend's little 2 year old son has a brain tumor. He's being treated at Toronto's Sick Kids Hospital. I would like to ask my buddies in blogland to please say a prayer for Owen Yee. Thanks