Every year my good friend, Selma, and I have an annual contest to see who can make the ugliest cookie. Each of us claims to win each year. There aren’t any judges except us. There are two rules:

1) The cookie has to be made of edible ingredients (not that you would want to eat them); if it’s in your kitchen and can be ingested, it’s in.

2) There must be some sort of holiday connection.

Some of the truly tasteless cookies have been a pile of Christmas poo, Christmas trees with body parts, and a visual reinactment of Selma’s surgery to remove 1/3 of her intestine due to Chrohn’s Disease. Instead of the ugliest cookie, it should be called the most disgusting cookie. While we still have a blast doing it, I really can’t show you the pictures this year. Pretty revolting (though funny to us).

Just wanted you Ugly Cookie fans to know the scoop!

There’s a fun viral campaign going around with Internet marketers right now. Someone started “tagging” 5 people to share 5 things people wouldn’t know about them. It’s been running for a few weeks and I just got tagged. So here goes…

1) I was obsessed with the movie, Jaws. My cousin and I secretly snuck a tape recorder in the theater and memorized every single line in the film. I can still recite it today. I learned everything I could about sharks and used to know every breed.

2) I’m a certified open-water scuba diver (despite Jaws) Learned when I was 15 and have dove off wrecks, at night, and with black tip reef sharks. (The barracuda were by far more scary.)

3) I was the secret “Snooper” reporter in 7th grade. Our English teacher selected one person in the whole school to spy on fellow classmantes and write a gossip column. No one could know who it was. It was me.

4) I hate salmon. Everyone has tried to get me to like it. I’ve had it made every which way at the finest restaurants. Still hate it.

5) I never wore the color red until I formed Red Hot Copy. My grandmother always told me it was a bad color for me. So I avoided it. Now 50% of my clothing, shoes and handbags are red.

Now I’m tagging these 5 folks:

Alexandria Brown

Tom Antion

John Carlton

Michael Port

Alice Seba

Don’t tell anyone, but it’s December 14 and I’m just done working. I have one more call today for my Sterling Inner Circle. It’s gonna be awesome actually because it’s about making your plan for 2007. I’ve actually never created an annual plan before this year and it’s very powerful.

UPDATE: Got hit with another round of the nasties today and had to postpone my Sterling Master Mind call!

Anyway, if you are slowing down like me, you might enjoy this fun spoof on OJ Simpson (oh yeah…he’s “innocent” but it’s still a fun game).

Throw the book at OJ

These past few weeks have been a nightmare on my health. I won’t go into disgusting details, but after a long weekend of sleep and fun with hubby, I feel TERRIFIC! I also took some time out to exchange gifts with a few of my girlfriends from over 20 years.

Me (in the tiara), Cyn, Mick, Rach

We just never seem to see each other enough.

I was holiday shopping recently, racking my brain for that special gift that would make my sons do the Snoopy dance. And I couldn’t think of anything.

So I started thinking, when was the last time I was THRILLED about a gift in that childlike way? What I came to realize was the last time that happened was actually when I WAS a child.

A few past presents came to mind like a two-foot tall ballerina doll who spun when you twisted her crown, a butterfly jewelry-making kit, and a scary Barbie head designed solely to apply make-up to. But I have to say my favorite of all time was the Easy-Bake Oven. Kinda funny since I hate to cook.

Bringing it full circle, my mother, Linda, recently won an Easy-Bake from Andy Wibbels for recounting its influence on me as a child (again, not to cook but I guess I liked to eat what came out of it). This is a picture from when I visited her over Thanksgiving.

So here’s my question…what gift did you get during your lifetime that REALLY got you excited. Post it here in the “Comments” section. Happy holidays!

Well, it should have taken my hubby, John, and me about 10 minutes to get to the Westin Hotel from our house to attend the Dan Kennedy/Zig Ziglar event the other day. BUT that is assuming you are going to the RIGHT hotel.

As it was, a few weeks ago I had a 10 minute conversation with a lovely hotel operator to make our hotel reservations at the Westin. I made sure it would be cool to bring our dog (yes, the Westin takes dogs if they are under 40 pounds - cool, huh?) and that the event was indeed at the Westin. All was right in the world…or so it seemed.

Problem is I ASSUMED the Westin we were talking about was the one by the airport where 99.9% of all seminars are held in Southern California. I was wrong…but didn’t find out until John and I packed up to fight the unreal holiday traffic (yes, it’s starting already) to get to the airport Westin, only to find out we were expected at the DOWNTOWN Westin!!! When we finally arrived it was 5pm - time for cocktails.

Luckily I ran into my buddy Ms. Ali Brown and her man in the bar. She was getting her ezine out from her laptop. Gotta love Internet marketing!

Wendy Coad came up to let me know how awesome her Bootcamp experience was last year. As a lifer, of course she is welcome to join us for the next session beginning February 7. You can learn more here at RHC Bootcamp.

Another amazing success story from my Bootcamp! Bernadette Martinelli credits her experience learning to write copy made all the difference in the sales she has for her cool jewelry organizer.

Sarah Bermen and Joy Schecter (I apologize ahead of time because I’m pretty sure I’ve misspelled both of their names)

Ali Brown, Deanna Lee (a rabid ezine fan), me, and Dr. Cindy Brown