Figures...

Hubby out of town and two kids wake up sick. All my plans for the week must now change. Sigh...

I can so relate to these kitties today.



Hope you have a nice Monday!

Quiet

With revisions on the final Hood Hamlet story due tomorrow and a heavy heart, I've been a little quiet on-line. I've been shushing the kids. Yesterday the two youngests were screaming and shouting over who got to use the laptop first. I told them to quiet down. They didn't so the shushing turned into neither of them being able to use the laptop. They got quiet after that!

I'm loving how the revisions are turning out. Just feels weird to have an empty spot next to me while I write. The others are still there, but it's going to take time to get used to Rocket being gone.

Not much else going on here. How about with you?

Wish...

I've wished from the very same thing. I've gotten the wish, too. Not quite as dramatic as the pic to the right, but hey, however a kitten shows up is good, right?

My wish at the moment is for one of my older cats, Rocket, who is Spirit's brother, to keep eating. He's nearing the end of his journey with me. He'll be sixteen in April. I have had him since he was tiny. A new supplement really perked him up this past week, but the vet warned me it could be a day or a month or so that his conditions takes a turn for the worse. He has liver cancer. So we're enjoying our time with him and spoiling him rotten.

Do you have any wishes?

Walking away

I wish my cats offered to walk away yesterday. Instead, stacks of folded laundry and piles papers I've organized toppled like a house of cards. I won't even go into my TBR tower of books and how much fun the cats have with that on a routine basis.

And then they look at me with an "what-I-didn't-do-anything" stare that cats have down pat!

I'd happily offer treats, tuna or salmon, whatever they'd like if they'd just walk away.

So my trying to check things off my list continues. I made one run to the post office yesterday to mail the five packages I'd managed to get together. I have more to do today. I finished one of my RITA books and started another. The new one is by an author I hadn't heard of and I was laughing out loud at various points. I love when that happens. And more cleaning. Yuck!

I'll be back at it today!

Enjoy your Wednesday.

Not Again...

My tummy hurts, too. My nose is congested and the nose bleeds started last night.

But I'm on deadline and this happens every single time, even when I make myself go to bed before midnight each night. Guess it's part of my "writing process." I think I'll see if I can change that part.

I'm also going back on Whole 30 starting tomorrow. Figured Lent would be a good time to do it again!

Are you giving anything up?

Links for Friday

I've been packing up boxes to get into the mail. The international mailing deadline is looming, plus I realized I entered the RITA and never sent in the books. Best to get those off while I'm still thinking about it! Especially before the line at the post office gets way too long!

I have a couple links for you today.

The first is for cat lovers (okay, they are both for cat lovers, but what do you expect from me?), though the fifty photographs are so good even non-cat lovers might like them. Go to buzzfeed here. Be sure to listen to the optional soundtrack. It's not annoying music, but really adds to the viewing.

This on catser.comis going on my list of things to buy if I ever hit the NYT or win the lottery. Is that not a cool book case? Cats and books, what more could you want except maybe a Chris Hemsworth lookalike to be at your beck and call!

Before I forget, today is your last day to enter my $10 gift card giveaway. Winner's choice between Amazon and BN.com. All you have to do is post a comment to be entered!

I finally got Maria's prize, a box of goodies from the RWA National Conference, sent out and it arrived in two days! I'm almost caught up except for mailing a set of RTCs (Romance Trading Cards from Not-So-Perfect Princess) and a couple other books with autographs.

Writing & Cat Links

I took Monday off to relax and play with my new Kindle Fire. Tuesday I did some edits/critiques for an online writing class I'm in and caught up on the assignment I missed the first week due to revisions. Now I'm back to writing. Next up...

Twelve Days in Hood Hamlet!

Okay, that's the working title, but I think it's cute and I hope they keep it. This is another one of my Mount Hood Mountain Rescue Christmas Magic stories and it features a fireman hero, Bill Paulson. He's the last of the original group (one was already married.) It's hard to believe I've gone through them all when I was only going to write the one story. And my next release in March features another mountain rescuer who was new to the group.

On the kitty front, Miss Mousie's stitches are out. She's doing well. There's an update here if you want to know more.

I also found two very funny cat links I have to share:

The first one came across my Facebook page yesterday. It's on enpundint and is called If Fonts Were Cats. Definitely worth a click. Here's the link.

The other I found through my Twitter friend Eliza Evans, who is a big Miss Mousie supporter. She'd tweeted about a cat who was his own uncle. Of course, crazy cat lady that I am, had to click on the link and came across Cat-Shaming on Tumblr. It's similar to the Dog-Shaming one and hilarious. Worth a visit, too! Here's the link.

Sandy

So if you saw this post earlier, I mentioned it was release day. I was prewriting a post for November 1 and published it instead of scheduling it. Oops. So you'll see that again. Sorry, I was very tired.

I hope all of you being affected by Sandy are okay. You've been in our thoughts and prayers.

I saw this on icanhascheezeburger. It's called Hurricane Sandy Perparedness for Cats. 


Please take care and check in when you can!

My Morning

The sound of a cat heaving woke me up at 5:45 am. I turned on the light and put on my glasses, just in time to see a hairball come flying out of Yoda's mouth.

What a way to start my day!

I cleaned up the mess then grabbed my MacBook Pro to write. I had a half-hour to work until it was time for my new editor to call from the UK. With the time difference, early mornings work best for phone calls.

The phone rang promptly at 6:30 am. She sounds very nice. We chatted about various things including my current manuscript. She told me the new title is THE MAN BEHIND THE PINSTRIPES. I told her I gave the hero a best friend who was in Special Forces. (See yesterday's blog if you want to know more about that.) She's also excited about Paulson's story, the next Hood Hamlet/Christmas Magic/Mt. Hood Mountain Rescuer story I'll write next.

The entire length of the phone call I was waiting for something to happen. Life here is chaotic. As soon as I place a phone by my ear, it gets worse which is why I expected a kid to barge into the room bleeding, wailing and in tears or two cats to start fighting beneath my bed where I was sitting.

Two kids did walk in, but promptly turned around when I gave them the look, the look that says not-now-unless-there-are-flames-or-blood. There wasn't. I also made a preemptive move, by chasing two feline fighters out of the room mid-conversation.

Now I've got one kidlet and a dog in bed with me while I try to write. Both should be asleep or downstairs eating breakfast. Both would rather be with me.

The not-so-glamorous morning of a romance writer!

I think it's time for my morning cup of tea sans milk and sugar! Hope you have a great Friday!

Revolution

I've mentioned the magic box aka the pantry before. The cats and dog love when the door gets left open or even cracked so they can check out what's inside.

Beauty (featured in the pic on the left) has been known to climb the shelves in search of treats. A good thing we keep them in a basket up high or they would be gone!

I watched my first show of the new season last night...Revolution.  Interesting concept. I definitely wanted to know the rules though. The technology rules of the world post-blackout. Yeah, I'm still a geeky mechanical engineer. I just can't help myself. But seriously... After 15 years, they couldn't have designed a steam engine or other stuff that doesn't require electricity?

Definitely action packed. Loved the Return of the Jedi lunch box. I'll keep watching and hope some questions get answered.

The other show I want to check out is Last Resort. I love government conspiracy type stuff. And let's face it...submarine's are cool! In college, I spent a summer working at NUWES, the Navel Underwater Warfare Engineering Station in Keyport, Washington.

Any new shows you're going to watch?

Guest blogging for Miss Mousie

I kind of feel like the kitten above. Sinking fast! LOL!

I used my blogging time on a post for Miss Mousie's blog. Actually it's in Miss Mousie's words. I was just the typist.

To read it, go here!

Enjoy!

Summer winding down

Many of you know I've homeschooled my kids for the past four years. For the past two years, they have attended a school two days a week and are home with me the rest of the time. This parent partnership program has worked out well for all of us. And given me a little more time to write as well as sleep! But this year, change is afoot. My oldest will be starting and attending high school full-time.

It's weird to think of her being away five days a week. I know she's looking forward to it, but I'm not. Even with her sometimes acting as if she were an alien or auditioning for a remake of the Exorcist, I'll miss her. But it was her choice to be homeschooled when she finished fourth grade and when she said she wanted to go to high school, we supported that decision, too.

I do think it'll be strange for her to have to get homework done the day it's assigned. It's never been that way with the alternative school. Already she's been doing schoolwork. Her Pre-AP English class assigned a book called The Book Thief and her AP Human Geography course has her reading Fast Food Nation (her choice out of a list of selection) for summer assignments. 

As for what I blogged about yesterday in regards to LOLcats... I did find a site that will add captions to pictures. If anyone is interested, it's called rolfbot. It's pretty basic with no bells and whistles that I could see when it comes to font size, but it works. I was too tired to do anything more than a sample one of Chaos and her ball...

Not exactly LOLcat quality, but it's a start. I'm assuming there are more sites like this and I hope they allow you to play with the font size and stuff. Just need time to keep looking.

Have a great Friday!

Gone Camping!

I rarely go dark on the blog unless I'm sick or on deadline, but I won't be posting again until Monday. The two younger kidlets have a swim meet on the Oregon Coast so we're going to camp in the park next to the pool and make a mini-vacation out of it.

Our oldest wants nothing to do with camping (or maybe she wants nothing to do with me since we've reached that stage of adolescence) so she's not going. The animals aren't going either, not even Chaos. We have housesitter staying here to make sure all our babies are okay while we're away.

Even though this is a vacation, I plan on writing. I'm bringing my Alphasmart since I doubt they'll be a place to recharge my MacBook Pro. But if I have Internet access, I will put my Alphie aside so I can use this app I found last week on Twitter. Written? Kitten! is totally awesome! Perfect inspiration to get me writing more words and faster.

I did want to share this story from the New York Times about outdoor cats wearing Kitty Cams and what they do when you're not watching. My cats stay indoors all the time, but it's worth a read. I had to smile when I read about cats cheating on their owners. I'd wondered about that!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend. I intend to. See you on Monday!

Dogs and a Contest

There's a new post up on the Harlequin Romance Authors blog by Barbara Wallace titled Dog Days of Summer? Meet the dogs of Harlequin.  It's a fun article that shows some of our dogs, including my Chaos, and there's a giveaway to boot! One lucky visitor will win a $25 Amazon gift certificate so be sure to leave a comment so we know you stopped by!

If Barbara's article doesn't fill your quota of authors and their pets, check out Jill Krementz's Photo Journal on the New York Social Diary to see some other Top Dogs!  Or this Writers and Kittehs from icanhascheezburger.com.

Enjoy your Wednesday. Only a couple more days and the weekend will be here!

Baby Lion

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Yesterday I took my oldest daughter and my niece to the Clark Country Fair. We wanted to check out the 4-H Cats, who are on display through today. It was a gorgeous, blue-sky day, but the temperatures were predicted to be hot! Getting two fourteen year old girls out the door before ten wasn't easy, but we did it!

This is our third year of 4H and our third year attending. The same vendors are in the same spots. Oh, a few new things are there. Wine slushies are everywhere. But it's nice to know where things are.

By noon, we were burning up. I suggested we take a peek at the exotic animal display put on by A Walk On The Wild Side (if you click on the link make sure your volume is down or off because they have music on the site), get them milkshakes then head home since there was still a swim meet last night.

Oh my goodness. They had an eight week old lion. Everyone was sighing. Talk about cute. Adorable. Insert favorite baby adjective here.

I love cats. I really love big cats. I was head over heels in love.

The girls decided they'd rather spend the $10 I'd said we use for their milkshakes on a picture with the baby lion. For that price, you got to hold the kitty, get a photo taken and then time to pet the cutie cat. So we got in line.

It moved relatively quickly. It was hard to complain because we were in the shade, surrounded by other animals and they were very generous with the time they allowed you to spend with the lion. That boded well for all of us.

About two groups ahead of us the cub fell asleep, reminding me so much of the kitties we've had in the house. The staff member said they didn't know when the lion would wake up, but no one cared. Alseep or awake, the lion was still amazing.

When our turn arrived, I let the girls do the holding while I stood back and took additional pictures with my daughter's iTouch. Then we were all allowed to pet the baby. I was so excited when the cup opened his eyes. I didn't want to stop petting. To be honest, I didn't want to say goodbye, but unfortunately adoption isn't an option! I'm sure my neighbors and my other cats would have something to say about that if it were.

All I can say is best $10 spent in a very long time!

Disneyland or Bust

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Forget Kansas! Today I'm on my way to Disneyland. Well, LAX first. Then the Anaheim Marriott second then Disneyland. I cannot wait! I'm hoping we're there by 10 am! Fingers crossed!

It's conference time again. Imagine fifteen hundred romance authors in Mickey Ears! Okay, I can't quite see that, but the Happiest Place on Earth is the perfect place for a conference. The last time I was in Anaheim for Romance Writers of America's national conference was in 1998. I was a Golden Heart Finalist, had sold my first two books and had my four month old daughter Mackenna with me. Hubby played nanny. That was fourteen years ago. How time flies!

I'll be blogging about the conference this week and posting pics! If there's any romance author in particular you want me to take a pic of let me know in the comment section and I'll see if I can find them at the Literacy Signing on Wednesday evening.

Life is Good!

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I love this LOLcat. It's exactly how I feel right now.

It's Friday the 13th and my two black cats, Yoda and Beauty, are chasing each other around the house making lots of noise and having a blast!

The revisions are off. I'm working on my new book. Today is also day 30 of Whole 30. I've almost made it!

Last night, the kidlets and I finally saw Snow White and the Huntsman. I went only for one reason—to see Chris Hemsworth! I really enjoyed him in it.

Tonight the kidlets have an archery lesson. It's the one thing they asked to do this summer. Rather than a summer camp, since I have no idea whether they'll like it or not, we're doing a private lesson. Then we can see if this is just something Hunger Games inspired they wanted to try or something they want to do more of.

Not much else to say! I hope life is good wherever you are!

Cat beds

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This LOLcat made me laugh. This could be one of my cats. I was at Costco and found the coolest cat bed. It's woven like a basket with a circular part where the cat sleeps on a lamb's wool bed that's held up on a matching stand. It's so cute and cozy I almost bought two.

Of course, the cats preferred the big box it came in. They still do. Oh, once in a while I'll find someone sleeping in it, but not as often as I thought.

I keep putting them in it just so they know it's theirs. As if anything in this house isn't there. LOL! So we'll see if they start using it more!

Hope you're enjoying your weekend! Mine's been full of soccer, swimming and revisions. And lots and lots of sun!

Back at it

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My cats have been anything but silent since we got home last night. Spirit especially is so happy we're home. Either that or she's excited she can now plot my final demise. But she hasn't left my side except to eat or play. She actually played with the laser light last night something she hasn't done in a long time. Maybe I should go away more often!

Of course, we're back to the same old same. Soccer tourney, swim meet and dog show this weekend. Worse, the flames are licking at my heals once again. More revisions arrived on my latest complete. I also have a proposal due which means the delivery date for that will have to be changed. That always wigs me out since I usually have due dates picked for certain reasons that don't always have to do with the writing but life and family.

One thing I learned being away in Sunriver is we need more balance in our lives. Me, in particular. Looking forward to making some much needed changes around here!

Well, after I finish the revisions and another complete ;)

Have a great Friday! I'll be working on revisions and watching my son play soccer today. He has two games that are about ten minutes from our house. (Both his tournaments are super close to home this summer!) I'm really looking forward to seeing him play!

Final Day

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The kittens above are saying hello. We'll be saying goodbye to Sunriver. It's been such a great vacation. Exactly the break that we all needed. Now I have to get everything packed up, the beds stripped and the dishes in the dishwasher!

Our 4th was very nice. A bike ride, sledding hill, geo-caching and a trip to the Sunriver Village to see the 4th of July festivities. They had games for the kids, a dunk tank, a BBQ and a very cool exhibit with local first responders, National Guard, SAR and the Forestry Service. Of course I went into writer mode and asked lots of questions! How could I not with so much right there at my fingertips! We capped off Independence Day with dinner out then driving to Bend to watch the fireworks being shot off on Pilot Butte.

What did you do yesterday?