tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2514203777490780242024-02-19T06:42:19.837-08:00Author Jesse Hayworth/Jessica AndersenThe things I'm usually too ashamed to say on anyone else's blog ... ;)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-82872500995893947432015-12-06T17:15:00.004-08:002015-12-06T17:15:42.993-08:00Seriously, what is that smell?<span style="font-size: large;">So yesterday morning, while my brain wrestled with a plot-and-character problem in Revision One of the Mess In Progress, I invoked one of our favorite post-baby purchases: the Shark dust buster. We call it the Remora--'cause, yanno, it's a little shark. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Remora has proven invaluable when it comes to sucking up all the little schmutz (spelling?) in the corners that Wallaby invariably finds and sticks in his mouth. So much so that we just bought a second one (hello, Black Friday sale) for the downstairs. Anyway, there I was while Wallaby sat in his high chair eating his Cheerios, dust busting away with the Remora.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And I smelled something. Again.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It wasn't a good something.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Ugh," said I to my son. "Did you do that?" </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But like it or not, Arizona and I are both pretty familiar with Diaper Funk, and it wasn't that. It was more like a litter box gone over--except that I had just cleaned the litter box, having smelled Litter Box Funk earlier. Which I was still smelling. Okay, so I missed a chunk. Except I didn't *see* anything hiding out on me. So where was the invisible culprit?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I hunted high and low. I Remora'd cracks and crevices, inside the baseboard, around the litter box … all clean. By the time breakfast was cleaned up, I was walking around, talking to the smell.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Think you can avoid me forever? Ha! You'll see. I will find you, and I will END you!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The baby, wisely, decided it was time for a nap.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some time later, I sat back down at my revisions, determined to make headway on <i>something</i>, darn it, when Arizona came up from his downstairs office for a snack. He came over to me, kissed me, and griped good-naturedly about a client as he made himself a bowl of cereal. Then he headed back downstairs. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As an afterthought, he stuck his head back around the corner of the stairwell. "Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: "Yes?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"I may have sucked up a cat turd in the Remora this morning. So you might not want to let the baby play with it until we've cleaned it out."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">(Or, yanno, get my face down really close to the exhaust port as I try to suck up whatever stinks. Sigh.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The moral of the story, and one which I am preparing to bring to my revisions this week? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes the thing you're doing to fix the stench is actually the source.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Have a good one, ReaderFriends!</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-73096676108339763922015-11-30T04:57:00.003-08:002015-11-30T04:57:41.827-08:00The Great Nano Hangover<span style="font-size: large;">On Saturday, I had a strange, out of body experience as I watched myself weep into my husband's chest, wailing, "It's no use! If I don't want to f*ck him, why should she?!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And I thought, WTF??</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The "he" in question is the hero of my current mess-in-progress, the "she" is my heroine, and my very unsexy meltdown came on the heels of my having "won" Nano for the first time, then looking back on my nearly completed first draft, and going, "Oh, shit." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Because all those notes I plugged in so I could keep writing the stuff I could see, the ones that said "insert tab A into slot B here" to mark where a sex scene should go, or "deepen conflict here, once you figure out what the hell it really is" … Yeah. Now I have to deal with them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona, to his credit, held me, made "there-there" noises, reminded me that I at some point hate every manuscript, and assured me that I would find lots of reasons to want to f*ck my hero during revisions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">That, ladies, is the mark of a truly great WriterHusband.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), each November a sort of collective hysteria grips a large subset of the writing community, and a ridiculous number of authors, both published and aspiring, log into the relevant website and pledge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That's 1667 words a day, which doesn't seem like all that much.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Until, of course, life intervenes. Which it always does.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">You see, I usually start off the month all swaggering and like "I totally got this" and I launch in and put up some huge numbers in the first week or so, writing like a crazy woman regardless of what else is going on in my universe. Then I make the mistake of looking back on what I've written, and think "Oh, hell, no" and I start revising what I've written, because, damn. Or I get sick. Or someone else gets sick. Or I get a big editing job. Or, or ...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So I've never before made the 50k mark. Until this year.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This year, I was in the perfect place of Nano--I had already written and thrown out two openings for the current story, and finally knew who, what, where and when. I had a detailed outline that I actually had faith I could stick to. I was excited to write each and every scene. And I was going to write and not look back. Cross my heart and hope to … well, you know.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And I did. The first week, I got up at 6 each morning and wrote until 8, when Arizona gets to work and we do the Baby Handoff. I wrote during nap times. I wrote in the evening after Wallaby corked off for the night (he doesn't stay asleep, but darn, he's good about bedtime). </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The second week, my mom came and stayed so I could get in some solid hours of work. The story flowed. My brain churned. I found myself waking up at 5:30 instead of 6, so why not get up and write? Because did I mention I was also keeping up with my usual freelancing gig (science editing), too? And of course trying to Mom and Wife. Let's go to the playground! Let's make oatmeal cookies! If there aren't enough hours in the day, sleep can take a hit. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The third week, on pace to not just hit 50k, but stretch it to 60k or even 70k for the month, I backed up my morning to 4 or 4:30 and started early on my strictly rationed Diet Coke. Plot twists! New scenes! I gobbled the story and spewed words. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Week four was more of the same. I passed 50k and won Nano, then kept going! With four days left to write, I was closing in on 60k for the month, and more than 80k in the manuscript … And I realized it was time to start wrapping things up. Yay! Awesome! Party time! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Except that then I looked back over all those frantic words. And I thought about how how many holes I left in there, and how much work it's going to be to make them as good as I know they can be. And, because I was running on zero sleep, raw emotions and ten months of "hey, let's nurse every two hours" ….</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I. Cracked.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Scratch that. I freaking broke.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It started with a sticky nut on my treadmill (long story, maybe I'll tell it next week), escalated to my hero's unf*ckability, and took a detour to "I'm soooo tired and I can't keep doing this." Which wasn't really a detour at all, but the core issue. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Too much pressure. Not enough sleep. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But that, folks, is what Nano is about. It's also only one month out of the year, and it's over. In fact, this year I called it a couple of days early.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Yesterday, Arizona got up with Wallaby like he usually does, except instead of writing, I rolled over and slept for three more glorious hours. And the only time I opened my computer was to troll Facebook and order a second Shark dust buster (another long story, tangentially related to the treadmill thing).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And today, 6 a.m. saw me back at the computer, working on revision notes. The goal for next month: Make my hero absolutely irresistible. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To those of you out there who participated in Nano this year, you're all winners in my book. And you're all (we're all) f*cking nuts. And, as of midnight tonight, officially done and probably very hung over. So be good to yourselves. Cut yourselves some slack. Maybe even take a week before you look back over the crap you spewed over the course of the month. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'll try to do the same.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-25346586023247996752015-11-23T07:04:00.003-08:002015-11-23T07:04:17.111-08:00GIVEAWAY: Animal rescue, sexy contractors and book recommendations ahoy!<span style="font-size: large;">Every now and then, I put on my extrovert costume, pack a couple of cool jackets and a pair of cowboy boots, and head off to a writers' convention for a few days--bonus points if it's being held somewhere fun. Mostly, though, I go to meet people--book lovers, booksellers, other authors … all the folk who keep fueling the machine that gets great stories into readers' hands. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And sometimes, I have to go a couple of states away or even partway across the country to meet a neighbor. Like the time, whilst headed to Reno, I stumbled upon a good friend from a local writers' meeting holding down a chair in the Denver airport (shout out, Donna L). </span><span style="font-size: large;">Or the Romantic Times book signing in Columbus Ohio, when a reader came up to my table and introduced herself as a fan, and we got to talking. It turned out that she was a Navy wife and mom of three who lived just a couple of towns away from me, and in addition to being an avid reader, was interested in writing romance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In that moment, when I said, "We've got a great writers' group in the area. You should totally come check it out," I might not have guessed that she was brimming with the raw writing talent--or wicked sense of humor--that she turned out to have, or that five or so years down the road, she would be in her second year as president of that writers' group, my go-to for celebratory (or sympathetic) girls' nights out, and on the brink of having her second book come out!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRZIUtdoM62j6VPnhcb7ajzXXbO8xT1VBE-yJN7A3UGhbmmG5Av0CZhWe1Xxc5OB1kUpcrC93KugRWG9eNCw3XBrLC4vfErYKAldYFK0flgWTf4TApddsEbQZ_-5Ni6-AbR6aI3Sp3Aw/s1600/Gail+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRZIUtdoM62j6VPnhcb7ajzXXbO8xT1VBE-yJN7A3UGhbmmG5Av0CZhWe1Xxc5OB1kUpcrC93KugRWG9eNCw3XBrLC4vfErYKAldYFK0flgWTf4TApddsEbQZ_-5Ni6-AbR6aI3Sp3Aw/s320/Gail+cover.jpg" width="213" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you love a fun, sexy and thoroughly modern contemporary romance, check out <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Boyfriend-Hire-West-Side-Romance-ebook/dp/B00U7LIZOA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1448287750&sr=8-2&keywords=gail+chianese" target="_blank">BOYFRIEND FOR HIRE</a> (and the first in the series, BACHELORETTE FOR HIRE, only $0.99 on Kindle!).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And then there was the time I was at a local writers' convention and someone said, "Have you met Laura Moore? You really should. You guys have a lot in common." A background in riding and showing horses? Check. A career in academia? Check. Romance writer? Check, check, and check! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Not to mention that Laura made an impression on Arizona. I think he liked that she, as he often does, will sometimes sit back quietly and let a conversation play out, not putting in a word until she has something to say … but that something will be worth the wait. She's clever, insightful, and incredibly generous with her time and heart, and it shows in her contemporary romances, the latest of which has a thoroughly drool-worthy cover, don't you think?</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjapYICNCAVXf0JYc00Pd_GCNh4tlCgpTbz4_TKMwz5IlUtd9TXkE_f-PVLKaKfqw_KND3wy0oeC8uujQZliPTf24Pc2_FEvH6nOdazMQwZ627Asw3U9UHpri8DcrcTvzj0xGzXgc3owQ/s1600/Laura+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjapYICNCAVXf0JYc00Pd_GCNh4tlCgpTbz4_TKMwz5IlUtd9TXkE_f-PVLKaKfqw_KND3wy0oeC8uujQZliPTf24Pc2_FEvH6nOdazMQwZ627Asw3U9UHpri8DcrcTvzj0xGzXgc3owQ/s320/Laura+cover.jpg" width="194" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fans of Virginia Kantra and Robin Carr should check out <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Once-Touched-Silver-Creek-Novel/dp/0345537025/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448287667&sr=8-1&keywords=laura+moore" target="_blank">ONCE TOUCHED</a>, which has a heroine fighting to save her animal sanctuary and a hero photojournalist who saw too much in the war. Seriously. Do it!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you're a Facebook fan, check out their release party today 4-11 p.m. (I'll be dropping in at some point, and they'll be giving away a copy of one of my books.) <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/922060661219977/" target="_blank">Here's the link</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">To encourage you to support these lovely ladies and their fabulous stories, I'm giving away two books today: one copy each of Gail and Laura's previous releases. (You don't get the new ones--you've gotta help an author out and go buy them this week, to encourage zee publishers to keep signing them up for more books!) Just leave a comment here (or if you have trouble commenting here, mention that in a Facebook comment and I'll include you in the drawing). Winners to be announced tomorrow (Tuesday)!!</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-15178738671993853922015-11-16T07:00:00.002-08:002015-11-16T07:02:52.952-08:00Kitten v. bucket of paint … Doc Jess loses<span style="font-size: large;">So it started out innocently enough, as these things tend to do. Arizona and I have been trying to come up with a plan to improve the baby proofing in the bathroom, where we lack a vanity cabinet and have only open shelves for storage, but don't want to invest much money. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We decided to start by replacing the mirror over the sink with a medicine cabinet that we could retrofit with one of those magnetic baby locks (which are a PITA to install, but withstand lots of tugging). Then, while at Home Depot (ah, how many well-intentioned sentences start thusly when you own a home), we added a few things to the pile--some new shelves for downstairs, and … well, I can't quite remember what else, but suddenly we had spent four times the cost of the (inexpensive, fortunately) medicine cabinet.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Then, of course, when we get home and pull down the old mirror, we discover that there aren't any actual studs in the space where we want to hang the cabinet. Arizona, not being a fan of anchoring anything in drywall, decides we're going to screw a piece of wood to the studs and mount the cabinet to that. Okay, sounds like a plan, and we've got appropriate scrap wood on hand. Bonus, we've also got the leftover bathroom paint the prior homeowners had left for us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Er, somewhere.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So down I go into the storage niche, where, with Wallaby's "help" I dug out the paint in question. Which was, when I think about it, probably pushing fifteen years old. It was also nearly empty, and what paint was in there had long ago fossilized. Hrm.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In a blinding flash of I don't want to go back out/I don't want to color match and buy new paint, I decided to use up the wall paint we had left over from having painted most of the rooms upstairs, including the opposite bathroom wall.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">First, though, the wall needed some spackle, the new board needed some putty, and the whole thing needed to be washed down. All done either while simultaneously entertaining a kiddo who has entered the 'walk three steps and face plant' stage with a vengeance, or during nap time. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Did I also mention it was date night for the three of us?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So it was that last night, with Wallaby tucked in bed and Arizona snoring a song of steak-and-potatoes repletion, that I locked myself in the bathroom and painted the darn wall. Which included hunkering down, getting behind the toilet, behind the pedestal sink, and cutting in and around all sorts of annoying corners. And did I mention the need to remove the kitten from underfoot, in the sink, batting at the paint brush …? Which led to her rapid ejection from the project, much to her annoyance. All while CBS played on my computer on the floor, giving me <i>60 Minutes</i> instead of <i>Madame Secretary</i> because of the football game. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Eventually, though, I finished. I cleaned up. I turned on the blower, opened the door, and stuck my foot in the gap, in the move that is second nature to 99.9% of cat owners out there.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This time, though, I failed. A medium-size black-and-white blur somehow evaded my foot and my ungainly riposte, and sailed through the two-inch gap between the sink pedestal and the painstakingly painted wall. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Or, rather, sailed halfway through. Because there she stuck, glued to the tacky light blue paint, looking at me as if to say … well, I'm not sure what she was looking like, because I was trying to decide whether to laugh my ass off or start swearing. I may have done both.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Some time later, when I finally emerged from the bathroom and rejoined my snoozing spouse in the living room, said spouse roused and sleepily mumbled, "Everything good?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Yep," said I. "I painted the bathroom and washed the cat."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Awesome," he mumbled, and rolled over. Then: "Wait. What?"</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU11TDwcYXyTkM2LG2rOthn99IcEsNhTLLo_j6LJ25yxGP_lIxXYrVl4RoX1LTkptC4wDfEgKrtkx8Q_aTkhvVUy4VxBU0svlrS440XYbxC79fPl9FXTTFDSf7Y935sh9BqJvQlxSL_w/s1600/Bunker+Oct+15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU11TDwcYXyTkM2LG2rOthn99IcEsNhTLLo_j6LJ25yxGP_lIxXYrVl4RoX1LTkptC4wDfEgKrtkx8Q_aTkhvVUy4VxBU0svlrS440XYbxC79fPl9FXTTFDSf7Y935sh9BqJvQlxSL_w/s320/Bunker+Oct+15.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-62774633114835258362015-11-09T06:47:00.001-08:002015-11-09T06:47:12.007-08:00The Grossest Thing I Ever Ate<span style="font-size: large;">When coming up with a new character's backstory--the stuff that I need to know about a person that might never appear on the page, but that I need to know in order to live inside their head while I'm writing--I ask myself all sorts of questions. Like: Where did they go to school? Were they a jock? An outcast? An introvert with a few close friends? What was their first kiss like? Their most recent one? What pets have they had? What pets do they wish they could have? What is their weirdest guilty pleasure?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As of this week, I have a new one: What is the grossest thing they ever ate, and what were the circumstances?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me? Both of my grossest moments involve mold. One a moldy hot dog that I ate half of (at the cafeteria serving the backstretch of Suffolk Downs race track, whilst waiting for the track vet to look at a horse I wanted to buy), and one a Lean Pocket with a green-and-purple interior that I again half ate before realizing it wasn't the one I had brought that day, but rather one I had forgotten in the barn fridge a month earlier.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Gack. But then again, from such things is penicillin made.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As you might guess, this question arises from life with a terrifyingly mobile nine month old, during Autumn in New England. We're doing better about playing with leaves rather than eating them, but all bets are off when it comes to the sandbox at the playground. (Sand. Nom!) And then there are the unexpected moments of abject parental gross-out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">To set the scene the other day:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me: *spins ring things on floor, much to the delight of Wallaby and his kitten, Bunker The Terrible* Whee! Look at them go! That one went in your bedroom.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Wallaby: Squee! *waddle-crawl-walks after it*</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: *takes two minutes to putter in kitchen whilst listening to normal, non-dramatic noises from his room*</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Wallaby: Squee! *comes back out of his room*</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: *sees blood running down his chin and on his collar* Aaaahhhh! *notes that baby isn't crying* ????? *investigates situation, cleans off kid, finds no obvious wounds, but something nasty on the hallway floor …*</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona: *comes upstairs* Hey you two. What's up?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: You know that tick that Lucy wouldn't let us pull off her the other day? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona: It disappeared, right? We figured the tick stuff had killed it and it dropped off.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: Found it!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Ew. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-48342630271158577932015-11-02T07:08:00.000-08:002015-11-02T07:08:03.362-08:00I wish I'd thought of that ...<span style="font-size: large;">Just a short one today, ReaderFriends, as my mom is staying for a few days to do grandma stuff with Wallaby and let me get in some good chunks of writing time. Yay! But I just had to say …</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The other day, our usual biking spot hosted a road race, which made parking tough but didn't really affect our riding, as the gnarly stuff that we ride is the stuff most joggers avoid. When we returned to the car, however, we discovered that we had acquired a postcard under one windshield wiper. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I was annoyed, but didn't want to litter our 'take out what you bring in' park, so stuck it in the car door. Later, I glanced at it and had to admit it was kind of cool. You see, it was inviting me to a 5k race Halloween night that spanned the 'lose an hour' portion of the headache that is daylight savings.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm no runner, but even I was tempted, just for the sheer weirdness of being able to say I finished a race before I began it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So, yeah. Wish I thought of that. Have a great week, all!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Jess(e)</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-10380649896144355802015-10-26T06:52:00.000-07:002015-10-26T06:52:02.716-07:00Executive Decision and Sad Cat<span style="font-size: large;">Hola, ReaderFriends!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">With a busy week staring me down, a book that needs writing, and an hour of nap time in which to write, I'm going to work on the book rather than blogging this week. Thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you next week. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">To make it up to you, here's one of my favorite videos: The Sad Cat Diary. You've probably seen it, but it's totes worth a re-watch :)</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-88576244408569413072015-10-19T07:02:00.003-07:002015-10-19T07:02:17.699-07:00The Best Short Dino-Erotica Published Last Wednesday<span style="font-size: large;">Have I mentioned that I'm a geek? Well, I am, and I was reminded of that fact this morning, listening to the radio while building towers of random crap for Wallaby to knock over (rinse, repeat). Said the morning show hostess on the radio:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So, there's a new study out today, sponsored by (insert name of undershirt company-Hanes? Fruit of the Loom? I forget). It says that men make more money when they tuck in their shirts at work. Men who tuck make an average of 77k, whereas men who don't tuck make an average of 60k. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(Insert semi-witty banter with the male cohost, who is apparently a non-tucker.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: Bzzzzzzt!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Wallaby: ???</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: That's a penalty buzzer on the play. You see, I'll bet you a box of Cheerios that they just compared salaries between tuckers and non-tuckers, and didn't control for profession … Even though I think we can both agree that certain higher-paid professions would, as a matter of course, expect one to tuck in one's shirt, whereas certain less well-paid professions would come with no such expectation. So there's an inherent bias in their calculation.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Wallaby: (knocks over a tower composed of six blocks, a rubber ducky, and three giant LEGOs)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: My thoughts exactly.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">To give credit where it's due, the hostess mentioned that this was, indeed, the case, and thus the findings of the study should be viewed with some caution. (Okay, she didn't use exactly those words, but that was the gist.) But it got me thinking about other situations where the media lies with so-called statistics.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"Our #1 best selling sofa!" Which isn't terribly impressive if, say, their #2 most popular sofa sold ten units last year and this one sold twice that. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"100% customer satisfaction!" How, exactly, are you measuring this?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"99% accurate" Do a Google search on how home pregnancy tests define this term. It's an eye-opener!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Which isn't to say that we're not guilty of the same shenanigans in the writing world … My last Mustang Ridge book was a top five Amazon best seller! (For new releases Western Fiction, that is.) If you make the niche small enough, eventually everything is a bestseller. Which really takes the oomph out of the word, don't you think?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Is there a solution? I'm not sure. I don't know if there's even a problem. But I do know that most of us out here on the other end of some of these claims aren't as dumb as the claim-ers are hoping. And then they wonder why a smart consumer doesn't take everything they're told at face value!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-39760089318675460472015-10-12T06:37:00.001-07:002015-10-12T06:37:26.315-07:00How DID you do that to yourself?<span style="font-size: large;">Back when I was in my early twenties, working as a landscaper (long story), I sprained my wrist. Upon arriving at the restaurant for a night out with friends, sporting a wrist brace, I got the expected "Uh, oh. What did you do?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: I was pushing a wheelbarrow when the tire hit a rock and the handles twisted. I had a choice between hanging on or dumping a full load of dirt in the client's swimming pool. So. (I lifted my bandaged wrist.) The pool stayed clean.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Friend: Aw, come on. I was hoping for a better story than that. Like you got bucked off or lost your grip on a bar stool or something.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: Sorry.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This has, of course, been followed in more recent years with more interesting stories, like The Time Jess Dislocated Her Elbow, Put It Back In Its Socket, And Walked Back To Civilization and The Time Jess Went Over Her Handlebars And The Medic Was Wearing Fairy Wings (it was a Halloween bike ride). </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This past week, however, I encountered a most excellent version of the "How I wrecked myself" story, and (for a change) it wasn't mine. To whit:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona (looking at his phone): What's a clavicle?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: Collarbone. Why?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona: GW (his best bud of many years) effed his up and needs surgery.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: Ouch! What did he do, go over the handlebars?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(Phone makes beeping incoming-text noises.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona (reads): He hit a pack of javalinas. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: A what of who?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona: They're a kind of wild peccary, forty or fifty pounds each. I guess he was riding downhill in the dark and didn't see them in time.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: ??</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Later, there was some gearhead discussion of how GW's suspension had performed while rolling over several of said creatures. Apparently, it absorbed the first couple of bumps, but after that, the javalinas won. (And all ran off into the bushes.) It was agreed that mountain bike suspensions generally aren't engineered for javalina. (And for Chrissakes, autocorrect, I still don't mean 'javelins'!)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I can just imagine the conversation if the question were to arise:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Bike designer 1: Javalina? Really? Who does that?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Bike designer 2: Some guy in Arizona. But maybe we should run some tests, see if we could change the dampening on the shock to absorb bumps like that.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">BD1: Test? With what? A bunch of hams?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">BD2: Two words: Pig Roast.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">BD1: I'm in!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The moral? Sometimes truth really IS stranger than fiction.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-64077665868618893152015-10-05T06:40:00.003-07:002015-10-05T06:40:54.105-07:00I confess: I need a tube in my toilet paper<span style="font-size: large;">The other day, Arizona, Wallaby and I were doing the weekly grocery shopping. Or, rather, Arizona and I were doing the weekly shopping, whilst octopus-baby (who is now big enough to ride in the cart as long as it's got a working seatbelt) did his best to put the whole world in his mouth. Although we were cruelly depriving him of his current favorite snacks (mulch, leaves, cats …), he was willing to be placated by, well, pretty much anything he could get his hands on. The yuckier the better.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">[I'm not proud. Yesterday, he got hold of the kitty litter scoop. #parentaloversightfail]</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Anyway, in the salty-fat aisle (you know, chips and nuts), I went for the usual location of Snyder's Butter Snap pretzels, and stalled, confused by the lack of the familiar brown-and-yellow bags. Thinking the store had done one of those 'we're going to move everything around so you can't find shit' shuffles (which are supposedly meant to get consumers out of their ruts and spur them to try something new, but I'm pretty sure are really some diabolical population-level IQ test that I constantly fail), I stepped back and looked around.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona pointed. "They're right there."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I turned back to the usual spot. Hesitated.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">"There. You just had your hand on them." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Here, I will note that his tone could mean only one thing: we needed to hit the McD's at the front of the store for a small fry, stat. Because for some reason, the combination of hunger and watching me dither over a food choice at the grocery store is one of the very few things guaranteed to put an edge in my husband's voice. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That, and the traffic in downtown DC. But I digress.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Back to the pretzels--As I looked again, I realized that Snyders had redone the packaging of our beloved butter snaps, from brown-and-yellow to … baby poop? I mean, really. It's a drab, yucky mustard color that somehow does a Predator-worthy camouflage move to blend into the shelves like nothing I've ever seen. Or not seen, as the case may be.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Later (after his fries), Arizona said, "It's like that color that's in every house on every DIY renovation show ever. The one that people immediately say 'Ugh. We'll have to repaint.'"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Which makes me think about branding, and how it can sometimes be a good idea to shuffle things around, while other times it just confuses the crap out of people, makes them feel lost or (worse) means they can't find your work because it doesn't look anything like they're expecting it to. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And, yeah, we're not talking about pretzels anymore, or not entirely. But that's all I'm saying about my current MIP (mess-in-progress, not to be confused with a WIP--work in progress--because the latter is, yanno, actually working). Instead, I'm going to take my pretzels in the camo-drab bag, and get back to my mess.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Oh, and the toilet paper? Arizona and I are both thumbs down on the new Scott tubeless TP. We're good earthlings and all, and didn't figure we'd miss those little cardboard beauties. But after half a package of fumbling at a time when, well, one doesn't really want to have to fumble, I'm ready to give this experiment a 'fail.' We don't use a TP dispenser (otherwise known as a kid-and-kitten toy), so for us this particular brand expansion is a no-go. But your mileage may vary!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-86915556587752820742015-09-28T04:53:00.001-07:002015-09-28T04:53:14.834-07:00Gone fishing ...<span style="font-size: large;">Er, biking. Catch you next week, ReaderFriends!</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-66147593662383210492015-09-21T07:50:00.005-07:002015-09-21T07:50:40.984-07:00When I grow up ...<span style="font-size: large;">A while back, I remember blogging (not sure if it was here or elsewhere) about how I sometimes still found myself thinking "When I grow up, I'm going to …", as if being forty-<i>mmrmph </i>and a business owner wasn't sufficient to make me a grownup. But some days (most days?) it didn't feel like it was.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">At the time, I was willing to say I didn't need to grow up, that I liked still feeling like I had a ton to learn and lots still left to change. So it's interesting to realize that it's been a while since I last thought "When I grow up …"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe it was the coffee table. This spring ushered in Arizona's and my first married furniture purchase (aside from our giant bed, known as The Big Soft, that is), when we upgraded our beat-to-hell sofa for a new one, and traded the ottoman for an honest-to-goodness coffee table called Bob's Enormous Coffee Table. (PSA, be careful when Googling 'bob's enormous'. I'm just saying.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Though it seems like the obvious answer, I don't think it was having Wallaby that did it. I mean, sure, I'm making decisions for another human being, but how grown up can one be when the day's entertainment leans heavily on making noises like "phhhhbbbbllllttttt" against said human being's tummy, hiding behind a dish towel, and eating Cheerios with one's fingers?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">All I know is this past weekend, as I manned up and said goodbye to my beloved Single Girl car in lieu of a new Familymobile, although it felt like a very grown up thing to do--it being my first new car purchase and Arizona's first not-handed-down-from-a-family-member car--I didn't find myself thinking "When I grow up …"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Does that mean I've officially grown up? Hells, no. I've decided it means that I'm no longer worried about whether I'm a grownup, a perpetual twelve-year-old who still thinks fart jokes are funny, or both at the same time. I am who I am, and I'm doing a pretty good job of it. This week, anyway …</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-40619598658584774492015-09-14T07:34:00.001-07:002015-09-14T07:34:28.555-07:00Good company on my desert island<span style="font-size: large;">This past weekend, Wallaby, his grandma (J-ma) and I went to the Connecticut Romance Writers' fabulous conference. Before, my conference itinerary used to sound a whole lot like: Hang out in the coffee shop and write; go to workshops; give talks; meet with agent; meet with editor; hang out in the bar and socialize. Sleep a few hours when and where convenient; maybe hit the gym or go for a walk outside. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Now, they're more like: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Whee! It's five a.m. and we're someplace new! Let's investigate!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Whee! Let's zoom up and down the really long, nicely carpeted hallway and back!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Zzzzzzzzz</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Whee! Breakfast! Let's wear some eggs! Then hug mommy in her conference clothes!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And after that, there are high-level negotiations regarding when and where Wallaby and the Boobs will rendezvous in and amongst me giving talks, going to workshops, etc., and he and J-ma go off for their day's adventures. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Then I take a breath, and shuffle my identity back to WriterJess for a few hours, before we rinse and repeat the above. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Which, really, is lovely. But life then doesn't look much like life now, and vice versa. And neither does my writing. Where before, I could tune out the universe and write for eight or ten hours, or longer, these days I get two precious hours in the morning before Arizona starts working, and another couple after Wallaby goes to bed (if I can stay awake that long). Which has led to some self-kicking in recent months--you know, that inner monolog that goes something like:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I used to write fast.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I should have this book done by now.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I can't believe I'm not even halfway done.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This is crap.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">No, really, it's crap. Why am I even bothering?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Ugh.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I need to throw out a chapter. That took me two f*cking weeks to write.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I suck.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">To say that I wasn't really feeling the love of being at a writers' convention this past weekend would be a gross understatement of my angst. But I was scheduled to give a couple of workshops and see one of my best writer-pals (shout out, Virginia Kantra!!) along with one of my best gal-pals (shout out Gail Chianese!!) and many other awesome friends, so I couldn't very well bail. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So I went. And to say I felt out-of-step with the crowd would be putting it mildly, at least when it came to talking about writing stuff. I don't have my next book scheduled. I'm not really ready to talk about the Trainwreck-In-Progress. I'm writing … sort of … but …</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Ugh.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Then came breakfast on Saturday. I usually sneak out on keynotes, but the speaker was (fabulous mystery writer and Emmy-winning reporter) Hank Phillipi Ryan, who I've known since she first started writing, so I stuck around. I know she gives good talk.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I hadn't expected her to give me an AHA. Followed by a DUH. (Not that she said something stupid, but that what she said made me give myself a big old dope slap.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Because she talked about Not Giving Up. About how she gets to a point in her writing where she just wants to chuck the whole project in the electronic garbage. About how Stephen King's wife had to rescue <i>Carrie</i> from the trash. About how the book is rarely (never?) as bad as we think it is in that moment, and we should just keep pushing through.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And you know what? Ninety percent of the audience members were nodding. Which was right about when I reminded myself (as I had been doing all week, but this time it stuck) that I <i>always</i> hate my book when it's about halfway done, and it's never as bad as I think it is. Or if it is, I always figure out how to fix it. (And, as they say, admitting you have a problem is the first step to overcoming it.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Damned if I didn't come out of that breakfast, not just wearing some of my scrambled eggs (thanks, kiddo), but feeling like I was back in the tribe, no longer alone on a tiny little island in the middle of the Sea of What The Hell Happens Next? And knowing that no matter what, I'm not going to give up.</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-8233117681326486302015-09-07T07:03:00.000-07:002015-09-07T07:04:36.151-07:00The POV of a Tree (hey, it rhymes!)<span style="font-size: large;">As a writer, I've put myself in all sorts of perspectives--or points of view (POVs) over the years, male and female, white knights, villains, children, animals, and everything in-between. My agent, upon reading Nightkeepers, remarked that with all the POVs I used, she kept expecting to hear from the perspective of the big tree at the center of Skywatch.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(I was a little abashed I hadn't thought of that. Because, World Tree!)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The fabulous and mega-bestselling Suzanne Brockmann taught me very early in my career (I was fortunate to share a writing group with her, Lisa Gardner, Hannah Howell, Patricia Grasso, and Judith Arnold, to name a few) to keep my POV pure. In other words, not to use language or thoughts that wouldn't be organic to the character whose head I'm in at a given moment, even if it would make my life a whole lot easier when it comes to descriptions and such.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For example, my cowboy hero might stretch his long legs out in front of him as he leans back against a tree, he probably doesn't note the powerful muscles of his own thighs, or the way his worn jeans showcase his bulge. Unless he's a narcissist or something of a dick, that is, and I don't tend to write those kinds of heroes. My guys is far more likely to notice that his knees hurt or his socks don't match. Or, better yet, how the heroine looks coming toward him with fire in her eyes. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">POV applies to everyday life, too, as we're expected to put ourselves in other people's shoes, to better understand their take on things. And not just people, either. Back when I owned the farm, I spent way too much of my time thinking like a horse--i.e., trying to see the world through the eyes of a suicidal prey animal with long, spindly legs and hooves that could get stuck in the darnedest places. A gopher hole? Obvious death trap. The metal bars covering a window at eyeball height, protecting the glass? Less obvious, but I knew not one, but two horses who rolled around and got a foot stuck way up high, and spent the night hung up by one back hoof.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">These days, as Wallaby goes increasingly mobile Arizona and I shift into baby-proofing mode, I'm learning a whole new perspective--that of a small human who sees the world from shin high, thinks everything at twice that height is solid enough to pull himself up on, and doesn't yet get that going face first off the edge of a precipice stops working the moment said cliff is higher than a couch cushion laid on the floor. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Thus, I find myself going through the house, seeing things with new eyes. Me? I'd never think to pop a dishwasher pod in my mouth and give it a chew. But it's so pretty! And shiny! And it bounces! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Gah!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So wish me luck, dear ReaderFriends, and I try to anticipate all the ways Wallaby (in collusion with his kitten) might try to hurt himself, and no doubt fail to anticipate them all. But at the same time, enjoy with me the fun of picturing yourself a foot off the ground, with no fear and the pure and innocent belief that there will always be someone there to catch you when you fall. And have a wonderful Labor Day week :)</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-53777115825872150532015-08-31T06:05:00.002-07:002015-08-31T06:07:27.478-07:00It's all Downhill from here<span style="font-size: large;">Last week, Arizona, Wallaby, Grandma J and I packed a ridiculous amount of stuff into two cars and went to Vermont for a week, in Arizona's and my first official together vacation that did not involve staying at a family member's house or me doing writing stuff with other authors. Despite a bit of last-minute angst when the owner of our vacation-rental-by-owner was late getting us the code to the key-box, and me coming up with all sorts of disaster scenarios (as you do), there was little to no drama, and the four of us spent a very fun week together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We hiked.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicfSOauHSZZ-mCJ1gp9e15jCuTl2-YSCgy23tOAGRfLhdBLJroLbV4eiXhRXdqSZygA7XzbBu89p-xksOJFCaEAOngLa2dS2OmFchyphenhyphenctaVEyS8MhrB-zJKgk0kE4XkNWymd5Ea4erWoQ/s1600/J+G+and+F+on+Mt+Olga+VT+7+mo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicfSOauHSZZ-mCJ1gp9e15jCuTl2-YSCgy23tOAGRfLhdBLJroLbV4eiXhRXdqSZygA7XzbBu89p-xksOJFCaEAOngLa2dS2OmFchyphenhyphenctaVEyS8MhrB-zJKgk0kE4XkNWymd5Ea4erWoQ/s320/J+G+and+F+on+Mt+Olga+VT+7+mo.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We did silly tourist stuff.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicdIxbX23iMuxfJy2C4XW17xgwoTwth3MuhK6tIAYhgHBP0i-APYlGwk1KAeLsIw2jlhBdmtV4VZhSj1XaoC_V0-JNus2bAW5QNxW6S4MFnfKGnaj4SCRwwjirgML-7ot0V6IWDusSww/s1600/J+G+and+F+big+chair+VT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicdIxbX23iMuxfJy2C4XW17xgwoTwth3MuhK6tIAYhgHBP0i-APYlGwk1KAeLsIw2jlhBdmtV4VZhSj1XaoC_V0-JNus2bAW5QNxW6S4MFnfKGnaj4SCRwwjirgML-7ot0V6IWDusSww/s320/J+G+and+F+big+chair+VT.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We took Wallaby to his first playground (where he was far more interested in playing in a puddle than on the swing set, but that's cool, too).</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinL9RfFci_suzJNK6twWLfKmAOZ3rDBWSJvOqV8C2PGCpiw8KrSk3UnReUui0KsC1FRsDOS5Rn0Xzj07Fi-Gap9Cb9jITLqHypSYlcbzAK7EnHnIxsIlVPdftv2I2NGgW30zJp_Fozpg/s1600/F+swing+7+mo+vt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinL9RfFci_suzJNK6twWLfKmAOZ3rDBWSJvOqV8C2PGCpiw8KrSk3UnReUui0KsC1FRsDOS5Rn0Xzj07Fi-Gap9Cb9jITLqHypSYlcbzAK7EnHnIxsIlVPdftv2I2NGgW30zJp_Fozpg/s320/F+swing+7+mo+vt.jpg" width="236" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My apologies for the lack of Grandma J footage, but she ducks photos. Trust me, she was there, and we couldn't have had the same fun without her. Because with her and Wallaby off doing grandma stuff, Arizona and I hit the slopes. Not to ski, but to load our mountain bikes onto the lift, ride it to the top, and roll down at breakneck speed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And, no, neither of us broke our necks, or anything else. In fact, we emerged from a week of gravity riding with minimal wear and tear on both us and our bikes--which, given my history of wrecking myself whilst biking, is pretty impressive. But it got me thinking that a whole lot of my bumps and bruises have come, not while shooting downhill, but while pedaling up.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When you're going uphill, you're putting a whole lot of work into each stroke, trying to balance and counterbalance, steer, plan for the rocks and roots up ahead, and generally keep your helmet over your heels when the whole assembly wants to wobble and prove gravity. (Though, as Arizona is fond of pointing out, I can't actually prove gravity. I can only generate more evidence in favor of its existence. Snicker.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When you're going downhill, all you need to do is keep your joints loose and your balance more or less upright, and let all that potential energy you gathered on the uphill do its thing. Yelling "Wheeee!" at appropriate intervals is also encouraged.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Which, come to think of it, is a whole lot like writing a book--or at least it's a whole lot like how I write a book. I slog through the first half, wording and rewording, writing, deleting, cursing, and generally feeling like I'm pushing a giant, unwieldy ball of worms up a mountain. But then I get to the top, with those worms turned into story dominos that are poised to fall into place, and I go <i>flick</i>, and send them tumbling down the other side of the hill. I keep my fingers loose and my balance more or less upright, and I write faster and faster, gathering momentum as I roll down the hill.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So now, as Arizona and I do our best to shake off our post-vacation hangovers and get back to our Monday morning routines, I'm encouraged that I've only got another week or so before I reach the halfway point in my current project. The worms are more or less behaving, the dominos are starting to fall into place, and pretty soon I'm going to get to stop pedaling quite so hard and ride the momentum down the hill.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And won't that be fun?</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-70307168269799721682015-08-17T05:57:00.000-07:002015-08-17T05:57:27.083-07:00Giving ourselves permission to fall<span style="font-size: large;">This past weekend, Arizona and I attended a group mountain bike ride near our Little House in the Trees. Organized by the New England Mountain Biking Association, this is an annual event that we attend every year. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Last year, I was benched (literally, as I sat my expanding ass on a picnic bench) and felt totally out of the loop of lean, Camelbak-wearing bikers who milled around, talking about their favorite gear, trails, and post-ride beer stops. This year, with my mom watching Wallaby, I was able to don my gear, put in my registration (at a table manned by a guy in a neck brace from last week's ride) and join the fray. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">(To those of you who know me well enough to ask, no, I didn't perform any spectacular aerial dismounts, thankyouverymuch.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There were roughly three levels of gear on the attending bikers: those who weren't sporting knee, shin and/or elbow pads because they were beginner-ish enough not to have them; those who had what I consider to be an appropriate level of padding for a bouncy-fun ride; and those who weren't wearing their pads because they were hard-cores freaks intending to ride below their level, whether because they had their kids with them, because it was forecasted to be in the nineties, or just 'cause.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me? I wore All The Pads, and even did the old hike-a-bike around a couple of obstacles I just wasn't feeling that day. Because after spending the past couple of weeks hovering over Wallaby (who has decided that crawling is so last week and it's time to get vertical), I'm more aware than usual of the whole <i>thud-OW</i> thing. So much so, that I'll confess that I (sigh) bought my kid a house helmet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In my defense, he's huge for his age, cruising early, and hits hard. And as Arizona said (bless him), "Let's get him started early thinking that when you're wearing the right protective gear, you can push the boundaries."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And you know what? He's right. And it applies to writing, too. With decreasing advances, increasing pressure to do more of the editing and marketing myself, and a kiddo making the sticking-to-deadlines concept a questionable one at best, I am, for the first time in fifteen years, not under contract to a publisher for my next book. Instead, I'm working on two stories for self-publishing, one as Jesse Hayworth and another as Jessica Andersen. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've got my crash helmet firmly fastened, my loins girded (whatever that means) and am ready to take the plunge for real. Wish me luck, ReaderFriends. And for you this week, I wish you soft landings and more time spent going "whee!" downhill than working your butt off to pedal up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">With love,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Jess</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-43599606128482983282015-08-10T06:36:00.001-07:002015-08-10T06:36:20.560-07:00The English Language Really is Whackadoodle<span style="font-size: large;">I think I've mentioned my deep respect for my scientific editing clients, many of whom are writing in English as their second or third language, and depend on professional editors like me to help them keep their tenses and participles straight. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Aside from one or two papers I have sent back to the authors with a carefully worded request that they work with an English-speaking colleague to bring the manuscript up a couple of notches before I take a crack at it (e.g., the one that a Russian scientist wrote, submitted to Google translate, and sent in for editing--yikes!), they're so much better than I could do if asked to be coherent in a foreign language. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(I've got some high school French to my credit, along with equine survival Spanish: <i>Pas grano por favor, el es muy gordo</i>! As for science? Nope, nope, nope.) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Okay, so there have been some giggle-worthy editing moments, like an entire paper written about the genetics of rainbow versus Asian crap (aka, carp), and a long-ago college entrance essay (back when I was doing general editing as well) from a girl enthusing about how much she loves to play with blue balls (some sort of rhythmic gymnastic thing, as I recall). And I can always tell which of my clients is doing speech-to-text or dictating to a non-scientist assistant. But that just serves to remind me what a thorny language our English can be!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've been reminded of this in recent weeks, as I've gotten more aware of what I'm saying to Wallaby, modeling a language that I love to play with, but that has some really whacky rules when you come right down to it. And the complexity!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When training a horse (apologies to those of you who cringe at animal v. kid comparisons, but that's the way I'm wired), I always try to have the same word or cue mean the same thing. "Whoa" always means "stop forward motion," "foot" always means "pick up the clomper in question," "stand" always means "plant all four clompers and stay there," etc. Same with the cats, though as you probably know, cats reserve the right to reinterpret their humans' input at will. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Granted, Wallaby is going to be capable of far more complexity. But at what point do I introduce it? Right now, "gentle touch" always means "do your best not to use maximum force when grabbing me/the kitten/etc." and "not food" always means "you get two tries for your mouth before I take it away and put it out of reach." But have you ever stopped to think of how many words we use for the same thing? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Bunker is Bunker. She's also a kitten, a cat, a kitty, and an unholy terror (being four months old now, and in maximum destruction mode). She's black-and-white or tuxedo. She's soft, warm, purring, naughty and adorable, all in turn (and sometimes simultaneously). She's Bunkie, Bunkster, Bunker T. Menace, and Darn-it-Bunker ... </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm sure each language has those same issues, but English adds in some real whoppers--like words that sound identical but aren't spelled the same and mean very different things, and, heck, times the same exact word means different things. Is it any wonder my editing clients stumble sometimes? And how amazing that the human brain can learn such complexities starting at such a young age!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Even then, though, I suspect there will always be some confusion as to why things are the way they are. So I'd like to share with you two of Wallaby's biggest complaints to management from this past week:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">1. Why is it okay to pick up leaves off the ground and eat them sometimes but not other times? (I was all "ooh, fun!" about eating straight from the garden, then vetoed nibbling on the hydrangea. Mommy is mean!)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">2. Why is it okay for Bunker to eat the eggs I drop off my tray, but I can't eat the kibble she drops from her bowl? (Mommy. So mean.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Still, though, life is pretty good when you've got a kitten and a cardboard box.</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-36879880855019157262015-07-31T18:37:00.000-07:002015-08-03T04:35:30.136-07:00Read A Romance Month 2015<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Howdy ReaderFriends! Today’s entry is going to
be a little different than the norm (shouts in Cheers voice “NORM!”), as it’s
part of <a href="http://www.readaromancemonth.com/" target="_blank">READ A ROMANCE MONTH 2015</a>!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">As a participating author (shout out to Lorelei of <a href="http://www.readaromancemonth.com/2015/08/loreleis-lit-lair-a-joyous-journey-to-romance/" target="_blank">Lorelei's Lit Lair</a> for recommending me and crafting a truly excellent kickoff post) I’ve been asked to
talk about this year’s theme—the joy of romance—answer some fun questions,
recommend some favorite books, and host a giveaway. How cool is that? And seeing
that I’ve got a new book releasing on August 4, it’s perfect timing to give a
shout out to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Mustang-Ridge-Jesse-Hayworth-ebook/dp/B00PT4K5WU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1438112223&sr=1-1&keywords=coming+home+to+mustang+ridge" target="_blank">COMING HOME TO MUSTANG RIDGE</a> and the recently released long
novella, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Over-at-Mustang-Ridge-ebook/dp/B00ZRV3BY4/ref=pd_sim_351_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0HBZ08X140BAR5HQKS62" target="_blank">STARTING OVER AT MUSTANG RIDGE</a> (only $2.99!).</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">And now, without further ado …<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">THE JOY
OF ROMANCE<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">When I sat down to write about the joy of
romance, a new heroine popped into my head, in a little scene of her own, set
at my Mustang Ridge Dude Ranch, high up in the hills of in gorgeous Wyoming. I
thought I would share it with you! Here goes …<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">“So…” Anastasia leaned across the long indoor
picnic table, nearly putting her elbow in a plate of fat, buttery biscuits in
her hurry to get close enough to whisper without actually going to the trouble
of coming around the table. “Which one is it going to be?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Joy leaned in, partly to meet her best friend
halfway, and partly because everything on the loaded table smelled so darned
good. It better, seeing how Ana had used the luxury guest ranch’s reputation
for top-notch country cooking to convince Joy to come with her on the week-long
vacation … and conveniently “forgot” to mention that they were booked for
Single’s Week. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">“I’m going to try a little bit of everything,”
she stage-whispered back. “Especially when we get to dessert.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">That got an eye roll. “I’m not talking about
food. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">men</i>, Joy! What do you
think?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;">That I’m nowhere near ready
for this</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;">. Two years ago, she had thrown herself into getting Joy Love
Bakery off the ground, vowing she wouldn’t even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">think</i> about another relationship until she had her life under
control. Maybe the business was doing a decent hover these days, but that
didn’t mean she was ready to move on. Still, vacation was vacation, and she
figured she could tolerate the nametags and awkward getting-to-know-you
conversations to get to the trail riding, roping and cattle drive promised in
the glossy brochure. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">She scanned the long dining hall, where exposed
stone work and log beams gave a rustic feel while a well-stocked bar and stage
area promised a good time, and pretended to consider the dozen or so wannabe
cowboys scattered around the room, mixed with an unequal number of eager faux-cowgirls.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">The men came in a wide range of shapes, sizes
and coloring, suggesting there should be something for most any girl’s taste.
She could almost imagine an auctioneer up there on stage, giving them an
auction-worthy rundown: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Do you like tall,
dark and handsome? Then check out Taylor from Texas. He’s got a great smile, a
bit of wear and tear on his jeans, and a good job in the oil fields. Want
someone with more of an eco-conscience? What James lacks in height, he makes up
for with a great smile and a company that builds zero-energy homes</i>. And the
list went on. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Come on, Joy!” Anastasia pressed. Wearing stiff
new boots, skintight jeans and a sparkly shirt that showed just enough of her
curves, she fit right in with the other ladies. “Which one is it going to be?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wearing boots had some scuffs and her jeans had
some wiggle room she thought she would appreciate when it came time to actually
ride out on the trails, Joy was fine with being underdressed. It was vacation
enough being a thousand miles away from her apron and hairnets—she loved the
bakery, but she hadn’t done much else for too long. And this was going to be an
adventure, regardless. “I’m going to take my time,” she said, “get to know
them. You know, book, cover, that sort of thing.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ana made a face. “You’d better pick someone
quick and introduce yourself before someone else gets her hooks into him. And
don’t roll your eyes at me. That’s why we’re here!” She sighed happily and
steepled her hands beneath her chin as she looked down the table. “To meet
someone interesting and have a fling—or at least the potential for one. The
kind that puts that swoopy rollercoaster feeling in your tummy and makes you
feel like anything is possible!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Was that what romance was like to Ana? Lucky
girl. As far as Joy was concerned, romance wasn’t a rollercoaster so much as a
steamroller that flattened you and left you behind. “Go on and mingle, already.
I’ll be right behind you.” By way of the dessert table, because this called for
fortification of the chocolate variety.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Promise me…” But Ana’s eyes went past her to
the door, then lit. “Aha! I knew they wouldn’t have an odd number of singles.
And hel-lo, gorgeous! Ooh!” she squeaked, her hands doing a fluttery thing over
the biscuits. “He’s coming this way!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Joy turned, expecting to see the sort of guy who
usually got Ana’s inner rollercoaster car starting up the long incline that
inevitably led to a fall—six foot or so, broad shoulders, narrow hips, leather
and/or ink a plus, along with an I-don’t-give-an-eff attitude that Ana
interpreted as being an evolved human being, but almost always turned out to be
a literal not giving of an eff. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Instead, she got a guy who was an inch or two
under Ana’s magic number, with curly chestnut hair and the face of an imp all
grown up, complete with a devilish sparkle in hazel eyes that were locked, not
on Ana, but on Joy, with an intensity that said his being there was no
accident.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Aiden?” Her voice went up at the end, heading
for dogs-and-bats territory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">The devilishness spread from his eyes to his
lips, which curved in a smile that weakened her knees and almost sent her
plopping into the mashed potatoes. “Joy. It’s good to see you.” He said it like
he meant it, the bastard. Like he hadn’t promised he’d be back from his
rainforest gig in six weeks, max, and that afterward they would make plans,
make a life together. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">This was the first time she had seen him in
almost three years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ana whipped her head between them. “You two know
each other?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Joy’s insides gave the anticipatory <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shimmy-shimmy-shake</i> that a rollercoaster
car made as it started up the incline, and nerves wrapped her from head to toe.
“We … um.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Need to talk,” Aiden filled in for her. He
stretched out a hand—tanned, broad, capable, dusted across the back with
masculine hair and a nick or two that said he still worked with his hands,
still tended to forget his work gloves. “Can we take a walk?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">She was tempted to swat the potatoes into the
towering stack of corn on the cob on the next table over, and escape in the
ensuing melee. Instead, she took his hand and said, “This better be good.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">*******<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">(And that, folks, is the joy of romance for
me—the potential for a wonderful rollercoaster ride of emotions and an amped-up
version of a question we ask ourselves every day: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I wonder what’s going to happen next??</i>)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">(P.S.- Sorry for the cliffhanger. I meant to
just have a cute little scene of two people meeting and riding off into the
sunset of happily-ever-after, but I’m just not wired that way! If you want to
follow this blog and/or sign up for my <a href="http://jessehayworth.us6.list-manage2.com/subscribe?u=0ef318aea3e56f0353f87bf26&id=dd45acb765" target="_blank">newsletter</a>, I’ll finish Joy and Aiden’s
story one of these days, and let you know how it turns out!)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;">QUESTIONS</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">1 - Tell
us about a moment in your life when you experienced sheer joy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">The other day, Arizona and I took the baby for a
nice, long walk to get ice cream and hit the beer store (as one does). We
passed an older woman in her yard and exchanged waves and a “Hey, how are you?
Nice night!” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">We hadn’t met her before in the neighborhood,
but I recognized her from the T-shirt she wore, advertising a local orchard up
the road. I used to stop there sometimes for a cookie or muffin, back when I
was living on a perpetually cash-strapped farm up north with my ex, and would
pass the farm stand in my travels.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">“What would it have been like,” I mused as we
kept on going, “to be standing there back in the day, with her ringing up my
morning glory muffin, to hear a little voice whisper from somewhere, ‘One day,
you’re going to wave to this very same woman as she gets out of her car after
work. You’re going to be walking with the love of your life and your son—a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">baby</i>, at forty-two! The bills will be
paid up, and when the cars come by, your man will put himself between you and
them, not the other way around’.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">And that, my friends, was a moment of sheer joy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">2 - Tell
us about a place that brings you joy, or is attached to a memory of joy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Once upon a time (aka going on five years ago),
I drove down to the ferry dock an hour or so south of the farm in the World’s
Fugliest Truck to pick up my Match.com date, who was coming over from the
island to meet me. As much as we had been emailing fast and furious in recent
weeks, he was still a stranger with a computer and some blurry pictures. Would
he be anywhere close to the six-four he claimed? Would he be as clever and kind
as he seemed online? Would there be sparks?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">The answers to those questions and others were
yes to infinity and beyond. And these days, when we use that same ferry dock to
take Wallaby to visit my in-laws on the island, I always feel that same joy and
hear a whisper of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This is where the fun
began</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">3 - Tell
us about a sound that brings you joy (or a memory attached to sound — music,
laughter, wind chimes… ?)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">I love the sound of equine hooves thudding on
the ramp of a trailer. Back when I had horses, it meant we were going on an
adventure, or coming home from one. These days, I don’t have horses (thus why
the bills are paid up, LOL), but I volunteer at an equine rescue, so the noise
of hooves on a trailer ramp either means that one of our rescues is headed off
to a new adoptive home, or a new rescue is arriving to begin rehabilitation.
What joy!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">4 - What
recent book have you read that brought you joy. (Or a book you read in your
life that brought you so much joy you’ve never forgotten it.) Why?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;">Codependent No More</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;">. I know it’s probably not the
usual answer to this question, but when I first started reading it at a
particularly low point in my life, it was like I had been wandering for a
really long time (despite the best efforts of my friends and family) and I had
finally found a path I could follow back to myself. That was a moment of joy in
the darkness. Even today, with my life in a very different place, I refer back
to it now and again when I find myself wanting to cling and control rather than
going with the flow. And that brings me back to the joy of my present self.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">5 - And
for fun, the joy of choice ;o) ~ Pick your Chris! Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pine,
Chris Pratt, Chris Rock, Chris Evans or Christopher Plummer (circ. 1964 aka
Capt. Von Trapp)? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sorry, I’m going to reject your Chrisses (Is
that a proper plural?) and substitute my own geek love: Christopher Gorham, aka
Auggie Anderson on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Covert Affairs</i>!
Love, love, love him showing a blind man leading the rest of the CIA around by
their computers, and when he’s shirtless … hello, HAWT!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;">DRAWING</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">Please sign up for my <a href="http://jessehayworth.us6.list-manage2.com/subscribe?u=0ef318aea3e56f0353f87bf26&id=dd45acb765" target="_blank">newsletter</a>! All new
sign-ups this month will be entered in a random drawing for a $50 gift
certificate at Amazon or BN.com (winner’s choice). The winner will be announced
here at my blog on Monday, 8/31.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;">RECOMMENDED AUTHORS</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">I love books! Books, books and more books! So,
in no particular order, I highly recommend Lois McMaster Bujold (space operas
and fantasy), Linnea Sinclair (sci-fi romance), Samantha Cayto (sci fi erotica,
etc.), Sherry Thomas (historical romance), Hannah Howell (historical romance),
Gail Chianese (a debut contemporary romance author and buddy of mine), Kristan
Higgins (contemporary romance and women’s fiction; a buddy, though far from a
debut author), and JR Ward (who I suspect needs no introduction (but check out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bourbon Kings</i>!!!) and is my partner in
crime when it comes to mooning lake cops, which is a long story, and not yet
past the statute of limitations …).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: Garamond;"><span style="font-size: large;">BIO<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Garamond;">Jesse
Hayworth</span></b><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Garamond;"> (aka <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Jessica Andersen</b>) is a farm girl from
way back, complete with tractors and livestock. Now farmless and driving a
Subaru named Roo, Jesse lives on the East Coast with three kitties she rescued
from various bad situations, the husband who rescued her from Match.com, and
the son who rescued them both from the bad habits of sleeping through the night
and going mountain biking on a whim. She loves writing about wide-open spaces,
animals, and true love, and she hopes you’ll come along for the ride!</span><span style="font-family: Garamond;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-4033374544696984092015-07-27T05:51:00.003-07:002015-07-27T05:51:47.438-07:00Fruit, Flowers and Small Appliances (and a heads up!)<span style="font-size: large;">According to Google-Fu, Arizona and I should have celebrated this past weekend with fruit and flowers (if we're traditional), or an electrical appliance if we're a more modern couple (and I can get over my instinctive twitch where it comes to getting household gadgets as alleged gifts, because, really, our vacuum cleaner sucks, and not in a good way). </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We, however, eschewed the fruit, flowers and vacuum for steaks. And not just steaks, but drinks and dessert, at a sit-down restaurant (an old favorite) without a newly crawling six-month-old in my lap trying to "help" as we toasted each other with actual adult beverages and said, "Happy four years." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwAAJ7cuyvy8MqiPdf-UZ-Val7q4AGxu-RLWmyhBprRsAcE_1Pm0QhA5A_N41fdJcs9-QaH9OF3eKZFUxiyd_RssU2lBHBA1nFFHaeC5Tm7JSFb25gJSnHCsYvtI_PeP4VMm3w-pIrA/s1600/Wedding_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTwAAJ7cuyvy8MqiPdf-UZ-Val7q4AGxu-RLWmyhBprRsAcE_1Pm0QhA5A_N41fdJcs9-QaH9OF3eKZFUxiyd_RssU2lBHBA1nFFHaeC5Tm7JSFb25gJSnHCsYvtI_PeP4VMm3w-pIrA/s200/Wedding_2.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Yes, folks, this past weekend marked our fourth wedding anniversary. Can you believe it? And despite the small appliances thing, I think four is a very nice number. So I've collected a few special fours that I'd like to share with you!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Four is:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The number of years Arizona and I have been married, the number of months we knew each other before we got engaged, and the number of months our engagement spanned before we were married.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The number of teeth Wallaby is currently sporting. Well, almost--he's got two on the bottom and one on the top, and another top one is going to come through any minute now. Which means we're going heavy on the ice cubes and chewy things today, and keeping a tight rein on BBIs (Boob Biting Incidents).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The number of burners on our stove. And, coincidentally, the number of objects I have melted because, even having lived in our little house in the trees for three years now (aka 36 months, which is divisible by four), I still get tripped up by the little diagram on the back of the stove and turn on the wrong burner. I mention this having melted the feet off my rice cooker last night. Because I rock.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And, most fun of all ….</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsBDeHGsLvGU3i0YoG3Pdl6CmlxTBSyf2MwD88RSbdMht6AtwgMqOty8BfC5B96W_Dy7nGAblFxZzeH3QHXyktKP3MvRJJ7EpT7BIeuqdkUG0EubduilZ9-gwqH73eSKjirgGk3O8kLw/s1600/ComingHomeToMustangRidge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsBDeHGsLvGU3i0YoG3Pdl6CmlxTBSyf2MwD88RSbdMht6AtwgMqOty8BfC5B96W_Dy7nGAblFxZzeH3QHXyktKP3MvRJJ7EpT7BIeuqdkUG0EubduilZ9-gwqH73eSKjirgGk3O8kLw/s200/ComingHomeToMustangRidge.jpg" width="123" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The date on which <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Mustang-Ridge-Jesse-Hayworth-ebook/dp/B00PT4K5WU/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1438000894&sr=8-1&keywords=coming+home+to+mustang+ridge" target="_blank">COMING HOME TO MUSTANG RIDGE</a> will be in stores next week! August 4 is next Tuesday, and you can <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Mustang-Ridge-Jesse-Hayworth-ebook/dp/B00PT4K5WU/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1438000894&sr=8-1&keywords=coming+home+to+mustang+ridge" target="_blank">preorder now</a>! This is a full-on paperback and digital release, and it's a story I adore. It follows on the heels of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Over-at-Mustang-Ridge-ebook/dp/B00ZRV3BY4/ref=pd_sim_351_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1BK7WHSKXZ3PTQB2E7YB" target="_blank">STARTING OVER AT MUSTANG RIDGE</a>, so if you missed the novella, grab it now!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieNgjQRO9zV_vms8UquH8Iu4G5hmxn31M4J92sJ0x9Yg_uL0YtegxYePpUi_MVtvE3uqeqTOF0dCuDr7-MBfEeInDw7lj3WqhyphenhyphenpDI6v23_tudITLpnKo1X4ryfksxdCAVZPn8WUFiDjw/s1600/mustang-ridge-final-merge3+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieNgjQRO9zV_vms8UquH8Iu4G5hmxn31M4J92sJ0x9Yg_uL0YtegxYePpUi_MVtvE3uqeqTOF0dCuDr7-MBfEeInDw7lj3WqhyphenhyphenpDI6v23_tudITLpnKo1X4ryfksxdCAVZPn8WUFiDjw/s200/mustang-ridge-final-merge3+%25281%2529.jpg" width="125" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And tell me … What is your special four??</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-88884822179822339082015-07-20T05:18:00.000-07:002015-07-20T05:18:58.778-07:00Kid v. Kitten: the Flowchart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">As Wallaby celebrates his half birthday (six months, ermagherd!), he's working very hard on the crawling thing, up on his hands and knees and trying to figure out how to get in a forward-moving gear. So I've been putting a 'bait' toy a little ways ahead of him, to encourage him to reach forward.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">All good stuff, right? But I've got a confession. His current bait of choice is a two-inch ball of tinfoil that I tossed on the floor for the kitten. He'll follow that sucker as long as I want to keep moving it … or until the kitten intercepts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Obviously, there's this whole gazillion-dollar industry devoted to producing "child development aids" and another gazillion-dollars aimed at convincing parents like me that little poopsie will be doomed to a life of underperformance if he/she doesn't have several hundred dollars worth of new toys for each stage of his/her little life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At the moment, my son is obsessed with shoes, curtains and cat toys. Which is fine by me, as we're using them to practice what he needs to practice. </span><span style="font-size: large;">I do, however, keep a close eye on what's being played with, and by whom, and I run each toy decision through an advanced decision-making tree that I though I would share with you in the form of a flowchart. </span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-58105196417947247142015-07-13T06:06:00.001-07:002015-07-13T06:06:15.234-07:00Network TV and the Little Blue Pill<span style="font-size: large;">I'll confess--one of the big reasons I haven't had any success cutting the cable and switching to streaming movies and TV shows is that I kind of like commercials. The good ones are like little miniature stories told in fifteen or thirty seconds, and from a storytelling perspective, it's fun to see what actually shows up on screen versus what my brain fills in. The bad ones can be just as entertaining, too, from a creative-mockery standpoint. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">For example, who really thinks those two guys in the car are funny, Sonic? Not me. And why do I find Hannah and her horse the slightest bit watchable? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In addition, it can be fun thinking about why certain ads are run when they are. Okay, so I get the car and auto parts commercials during <i>Top Gear</i>, but the fourth "Enjoy the go" Charmin commercial in fifteen minutes during<i> Rizzoli and Isles</i>? Do they think those of us watching a female-centric crime drama have wiping issues?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It gets even more pronounced when Arizona and I watch programming On Demand, as our cable company (Commie-cast) sometimes takes one big sponsor per show. For <i>Orphan Black</i>, it was Subaru. Okay, I get that. But for <i>The Last Ship</i>, which we just recently got caught up on, it's Viagra.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">All Viagra, all the time. If there's a commercial break, whoops, Viagra! Either the old Italian guy trying to chase down a pill while a much younger hottie waits for him back at the villa, or a different hottie telling us that half of men over fifty suffer from ED, blah, blah. Now, don't get me wrong--I'm all for the product. If you need it, have at it! But did the programming folks ever stop to think what kind of a message they were sending. To whit:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me (groans): It's the Italian guy again. Bet he's going to lose his last pill down the drain, and the pharmacy will be closed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona: What does this say about the people watching this show?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me: That they're missing the prized 18-49 demographic, maybe? Or hitting the upper end of it, at any rate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona: Or that watching it is the anti-aphrodesiac. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Later that afternoon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me: You want to watch another episode?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona: Bring on the Boner Death Show!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-15230286573355484262015-07-06T07:00:00.003-07:002015-07-06T07:00:50.851-07:00To My Sixteen-Year-Old Self<span style="font-size: large;">Ermagherd! Last night, you totes got into see Def Leppard for free, and it was da bomb! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">(Translation into 1989-speak for my back-then self: (in Boston-accented Valley-girl) Ohmigod, I, like, totally saw Def Lep live last night, freebie. It was wicked awesome pissah!)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaCOyyTDEcibOVSQjAta7Er6oJIlSWsRBnrojhv2R-Csx5lqhLh9Ez20uF_jX3YeCHIdbxhY-NVkY8x7_AImEZkVDG-onSUqhDY5JbiJ8q-AbVr2XK4ipbPUlVM69yIGdmAN-EVEnLTQ/s1600/J+at+DL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaCOyyTDEcibOVSQjAta7Er6oJIlSWsRBnrojhv2R-Csx5lqhLh9Ez20uF_jX3YeCHIdbxhY-NVkY8x7_AImEZkVDG-onSUqhDY5JbiJ8q-AbVr2XK4ipbPUlVM69yIGdmAN-EVEnLTQ/s320/J+at+DL.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Does anyone else out there do this? You get to a point in your life--maybe something happens, or maybe it's just a random Monday--and you look around and wish you could time travel, or send a note back or something, and talk to your younger self. Me? I do it lots. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Not so much to warn myself against doing something--I figure I've learned more from my mistakes than the things that came easy. I wouldn't go back and tell then-me not to date my ex, or to get out far sooner than I did, because while that might have saved me from some very dark times, those experiences made me who I am today. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Those dark days, though … I wish I could get a message through time to thirty-seven-year-old me. Back in July of 2010, my ex was suddenly an ex and I was clearing, repairing, repainting and landscaping an entire four-bedroom house for sale while keeping the horse farm going and trying to write a romance. I was sleeping a few hours a night, and had the TV playing<i> Law and Orde</i>r marathons damn near 24/7, trying not to think too much, and crying when I did--not so much for a relationship that hadn't been doing either of us any good for a while, but for the life I was saying goodbye to, and the background mantra that a woman is more likely to die in a plane crash than get married after thirty-five. I kept telling myself it was going to be okay, but in the wee hours, that sounded pretty hollow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now, I wish I could whisper back to that self of mine and say <i>It's not just going to be okay, it's going to be amazing. Just hang in there. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Five years later, I'm a wife and a mommy. Mr. Right and I have a cute little house in the trees, an awesome baby, an eleven-year-old car, and a list of fun things we want to do together. And, last night, I got to see my teen-self's all-time-favorite band perform live!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It went like this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">RescueDeb (president of <a href="http://beechbrookfarm.homestead.com/" target="_blank">Beech Brook Farm Equine Rescue</a>): Hey, volunteers! We've been selected by an organization called <a href="http://rocktotherescue.net/" target="_blank">Rock To The Rescue</a>. We're going to be featured at the upcoming Styxx concert at Mohegan Sun, where we'll be selling tickets to raffle off a signed Fender guitar. Our rescue gets a quarter of the proceeds directly and the rest goes to their foundation, to be given out as grants. No admin fees, all proceeds to charity, all good stuff. Who wants to sell raffle tickets? You can stay after and see the show.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me (former hair band junkie, though not a huge Styxx fan): Sure, I'll go.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">RescueDeb: We need bodies. The more the merrier!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me: (emails two friends who have supported the rescue in the past, and who I think might go for a hair-band night at the casino)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">RhondaFriend: Drat! I'm out of town!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">GailFriend: Hubby and I are in! We were talking about going to the concert. Styxx rocks. Love DL, too. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me (blinks): DL … DL … D … ERMAGHERD! Is Def Leppard going to be there????!!!??? SQUEEEEE!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">See, back in the day, my then-bestie, KristinFriend and I were The Biggest Fangirls. We didn't just have every Def Leppard album ever made--on cassette first, then CD--we had VHS copies of every rockumentary, interview or video we could get our hands on, plus acid wash jeans and blue jean jackets lovingly decorated with their logos and lyrics in puffy washable paint, and we spent hours talking about … well, you get the picture. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So, yeah. Def Leppard. And, it turns out, Tesla, as the warmup act. Can you say Hair Band Heaven? It was a total blast. Not only did the Beech Brook Farm team kick ass selling raffle tickets, making lots of $$ for the rescue, we were then given access to a little section of seats slightly behind the stage, to watch the show! The sound quality wasn't the greatest because we were behind the speakers, but who cared? I knew all the words and my brain filled in the music.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And, because I was up way too late and am a little scattered, here are a few impressions, in no particular order:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">-The crowd was older than it would've been when I was sixteen, and the panties that got thrown on stage were a lot bigger. (Though, in fairness, the pink ones might have been a slipcover.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">-Old rockers may have to take it down an octave now and then, but they sure know how to work a crowd.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">-There's no better text to get from hubby in response to 'I'm thinking of staying longer, everything okay?' than 'All good. Dealt with giant sh*t. Baby asleep now. I'm watching sharks.' </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">-There was this one guy in the crowd I couldn't stop staring at. He was wearing all white, looked like Doc Brown from Back to the Future, and stood stock still the entire time, staring off into space. Everyone around him was moving and rocking and banging heads, and he just stood there. And no matter what the lighting, he seemed to glow. I don't know what his story was, but I was tempted to borrow a phone and take a picture to see if he would show up.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">-If you would have asked me back when I was sixteen what it would take to get me to leave a Def Leppard concert before the last song, my answer would not have been: <i>It's been six hours since I last nursed</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">-Nothing says "boys' night at home" quite like looking this morning for the little mesh feeders that I'm using to introduce bits of banana or avocado into baby Wallaby's diet, and finding them under the coffee table, one lovingly filled with a teaspoon of enchilada, the other with the same amount of Hawaiian pizza. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And so, I wish you good music, ReaderFriends, a blast from the past, and maybe a whisper from your future self on a dark day, saying, <i>It's not just going to be okay, it's going to be awesome … with a side of enchiladas and Hawaiian pizza!</i></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-58355616522555147632015-06-29T05:41:00.001-07:002015-06-29T05:41:18.320-07:00Is This Your Cat?<span style="font-size: large;">So the other evening it went like this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">(Me futzing around on the computer while Wallaby naps in his room and Arizona snoozes on the couch.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">(Car drives up Steepest Driveway Evah … moments later, a brisk knock sounds at the downstairs door.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me: Goes out onto upper porch to check out the situation. There's a strange man standing there, pretty big, looking kind of intense. However, the car is a minivan-ish thing, there are two kids in the back and a woman in the passenger side. Despite those episodes of <i>Criminal Minds</i> about serial killer families, I decide they're probably not an immediate threat, and go down the stairs. "Can I help you?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Him: "We're Number Nine."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(There's probably a science fiction reference there, but I take it to mean that these are our neighbors a few houses down, who we know to wave at and occasionally return their dogs.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me: "Hi. Welcome to Nineteen."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Her: (Sticks arm out window.) "Is this your cat?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me: (Regards little black-and-white fluff ball with a mingled sensation of <i>uh-oh, I'm in trouble</i> and <i>SQUEEEEE!</i>) "Um, no."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Her: (Face falling.) "Darn. We were hoping … It just came into our yard. And we've got those two big dogs. It's really friendly … and there's that storm coming ..."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me: (Puts on my "SUCKER" hat, steps forward and takes kitten.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Kitten: (Correctly reading "SUCKER" sign.) Burrows under my chin and purrs. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: (Realizing that kitty is pretty much an animated skeleton beneath the fluff.) "I guess I can ask around, and find her a home. Or maybe she can stay."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Neighbors: (General relief, some small talk--they seem like really nice people, actually, and we've got some stuff in common. Arizona and I really need to have that block party we keep talking about. Anyway, they take off.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Me: (Regards house.) "Okay, kitten. Be cute!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">(We go upstairs.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona: (Rouses. Blinks at kitten. Realizes it's not Pixel or Lucy. And then, because he's awesome, he says "Awww" and reaches out to take the kitten.) "Are you hungry, little one? You look hungry. Come on, we've got some squishy food in the other room."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">[Later, after I put out some Facebook calls on the local forum, asking if anyone is missing a kitten, or wants one, and get a whole lot of "Congratulations on your new family member!" posts in return …]</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Arizona: (Looks at me wearing purring kitten on my shoulder and the baby in my lap, while Pixel sits near my feet and Lucy hovers in the doorway, trying to look uninterested.) "I guess I should thank you for deciding to volunteer at the horse rescue. I thought you were kidding when you said you didn't dare work at a kitty rescue."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Me: "In my defense, it doesn't count as crazy until the cats outnumber the people. And, no, I'm not going to use that as logic for having another baby. I promise!" </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Because three feels like the exact right number to me, in both people and pets. So please join us in welcoming Bunker to the fold!</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-61002398814477681862015-06-22T05:02:00.000-07:002015-06-22T05:03:01.969-07:00Cutting Our Teeth and a NEW RELEASE! <span style="font-size: large;">Wallaby may look like the spitting image of his daddy at the same age, but he's very much my kid when it comes to responding to pain versus frustration. I dislocate my elbow biking? I pop it back into joint and walk a mile out of the woods to the car. The cable goes out in the middle of an episode of iZombie? I screech like a banshee. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Similarly, when Wallaby gets a shot, his response is to glare at the nurse, but if he's trying to master a new skill and can't make his body work the way he wants it to? Watch out, eardrums! So it perhaps shouldn't have been a surprise that his first two teeth came in last week without much in the way of fanfare.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">(On his part, at least. I may have been rather more dramatic when he unexpectedly bit down on a tender part of my anatomy. We're working on that.)</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dude … I've got teeth … (and some styling pool noodles taped to the edges of … well, everything that has an edge).</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's fitting, really, as kiddo's first two teeth coincided with the release of my first self-published e-book, a Mustang Ridge story about starting fresh. In fact, I'd like to share my Author's Note with you: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dear ReaderFriend,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This story is dedicated to new beginnings because recently
so many things have begun anew in my life, including marriage, motherhood, and
my honest (and occasionally successful) attempts to live in the moment and find
something to love about every day, even the toughest ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">That’s part of what makes Della and Max so interesting to
me—she can always find something to love about old clothes (even the most
shiny, flammable and shoulder-padded monstrosity), while he’s constantly looking
ahead to his next job and shiny new gadget. So I love watching the two of them
slow down and enjoy the time they have together … until <i>poof</i>! It’s over and they have to figure out what comes next.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For my part, I’m enjoying the moment, and am grateful to
you, my ReaderFriend, for choosing to read <i>Starting
Over at Mustang Ridge</i>. I hope that Max and Della’s story reminds you to find
something to love about each and every day … And if you can’t, that it reminds
you that sometimes a change of direction can be just what a girl needs!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Whether we're talking teeth or a new publishing venture, beginnings can be an exciting time! Thank you as always for sharing my weekly milestones, writerly and otherwise, and if you'd like to help out, please buy, read and review your own copy of Starting Over at Mustang Ridge for <a href="http://amzn.com/B00ZRV3BY4" target="_blank">Kindle</a> or <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/starting-over-at-mustang-ridge-jesse-hayworth/1122141504?ean=2940151278171" target="_blank">Nook</a>!</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-251420377749078024.post-89358556340603312952015-06-15T04:49:00.001-07:002015-06-17T05:58:04.820-07:00Spiders on Drugs<span style="font-size: large;">Howdy ReaderFriends! After a fun weekend with family, with science editing jobs piled up, the release of <a href="http://amzn.com/B00ZRV3BY4" target="_blank">STARTING OVER AT MUSTANG RIDGE</a>, and Wallaby cutting his first two lower teeth, I'm swamped! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So please accept one of my favorite Youtube sillinesses (that word has too many of some letter or another, doesn't it?) in lieu of an actual post today, and keep an eye out for a real post when I'm out of the weeds and/or the new story goes live!</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08794865453544968184noreply@blogger.com1