Category Archives: Random Rambling

A Taste of Nostalgia

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My family has endured it’s share of loss during the holidays this year. My grandfather joined my grandmother just before Christmas and is now looking down on us from above. Yes I’m a believer in heaven and an afterlife. And if I know anything about my grandfather, it is that he is looking down on us, with a gin and tonic in hand, smiling and waiting for us to be reunited once more. So for todays Tasty Tuesday, in honor of a man I loved and deeply respected, I’m toasting this Tuesday with his beverage of choice.

Gin and Tonic

Ice

2 fingers of Bombay Sapphire Gin (the man’s favorite gin)

Tonic Water

Lime (optional and never a preference of my grandfather’s)

Simple and yet refreshing recipe. Ready? Add ice to glass. Pour in about two fingers of gin. Fill remainder of glass with tonic. If you are opting for a squeeze of lime, add a wedge. Give a quick stir and enjoy!

Here’s to you Papa. May you continue to make great music, and save and gin and tonic for when we meet again.

Please stop by and see my fellow Tasty Tuesday partners in crime…

Apple Pie Oatmeal, by A. Catherine Noon  http://taurusandtaurus.blogspot.com/2013/01/tasty-tuesday-apple-pie-oatmeal.html

Great Balls of Italian Soup by Selena Robins – : http://selenarobinsmusings.com/2013/01/07/great-balls-of-italian-soup

Stay in Bed Stew by Nancy Lauzon http://nancylauzon.com/2013/01/08/tasty-tuesday-stay-in-bed-stew/

 

 

Naughty New Years Blog Hop

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Happy New Years everyone. I love a good celebration and this year, I’m desperately in need of celebrating any way I can. So how am I celebrating? With a New Year’s Blog Hop courtesy of JustRomance.me. The Blog Hop features lots of wonderful authors and great prizes — including a Kindle — and a chance to expand your ‘to be read’ pile. A great way to ring in the New Year.

I have nothing uber sexy to discuss at the moment, though I do say there is nothing like ringing in the New Year with someone you love (or at the very least are physically hot and bothered for) and seeing as how we’ve all survived the end of the world and zombies aren’t running a muck and chomping on our brains, I think there is plenty to celebrate. So, while I’m a Guinness girl through and through, I thought we should kick off the new year with this little beverage that I like to call the Anti-pocalypse Tini. It is sure to help you get your naughty on…even just a smidge.

Anti-pocalypse Tini

Ingredients:
1 oz Chambord
1.5 oz honey vodka
.5 oz lime juice
3-4 raspberries

Directions:
Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass or crushed ice-filled rocks glass. Top with more crushed ice. Garnish with raspberries.

And let’s wrap up this celebration with a little music and one of my favorite songs….

Now click on the banner to see the rest of the blog hoppers and play! If you came here directly, go to justromance.me to join in on the fun.

Monday Morning Blues

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Mondays come a lot faster than they used to. Or perhaps my weekends are flying by at an accelerated rate now that I’m older and have those dreadful things called ‘responsibilities’. I don’t truly find Mondays to be a cause of the blues. It’s not Mondays fault after all. It’s ours. We try to cram everything that we should be doing all week long into two days. Those two days are spent doing ‘catch up’ instead of relaxing. At times, we can find our off days to be more stressful than our work days. I know I find this to be true. Then this morning I read a post by my dear crit partner, Debora Dennis, about routines. It got me to thinking.

 

I know thinking, on a Monday too! Seriously though, maybe Mondays wouldn’t be so loathed by the masses if things weren’t put off until the weekend. What if we did the laundry every other evening while watching our favorite show? Or perhaps we sat down and read with our children while they were doing their assigned reading time for school, if you go to college like I do…then do your homework while the kids are doing theirs and you have dinner cooking, or as Debora suggests- utilize that morning coffee routine to get some things done. For me it’s not so much a thing of routine, but of time management and procrastination.


I can change these things. So can you. Then perhaps we won’t loathe Mondays anymore. Perhaps when the weekends roll around we will actually have a chance to sit back and enjoy them. Then when Monday’s come, we can bound out of bed with joy and perhaps even look forward to facing the day instead of dwelling on what we could have gotten done over the weekend if we just had one more day…

Now go out and celebrate the start of a new week. A chance to show your world who the boss is and that you are taking no prisoners! Go forth and enjoy the day and make it what you want it to be!

 

Mid-Week Meltdown?!

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You ever have those mornings where you wake up and think…there is something that I need to do – or that I forgot! I’m having one of those moments now. School? Nope. I checked the website, class is up and available a week ahead of schedule. Promo spot? Nope. Have interviews still to respond to and a few other things in the works, but nothing due this morning that I know of and I’ve scoured my email to be sure. Lil zombies? Did I leave them somewhere? Ah no, they are sleeping safe and sound in their beds. Fall asleep with the stove on? Forget to pay a bill? Nope and double nope.

I ran through everything I could possibly think of and I still have this nagging feeling that I am missing something. Guess I will have to let it go and put this obsessive focus on more productive pursuits like writing. Yes I did do that last night. Between plotting and writing I added a few words to my contemp western. Big goals for that to be finished soon. Thanks P.G. for the 1k in 1 hour marathon. Are you ready to go again tonight? We both have deadlines/goals that we need to meet. That is the beauty of connecting with authors. When you need a push, there are usually a handful out there willing to stand behind you and shove. I have quite a few I can rely on at any given time. Maybe they will help me remember what I’m having my mid-week meltdown over? Well, for what its worth, have a great Wednesday!

Just Another Manic Monday

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And now that I’ve…

a) Shown my age

b) gotten a Bangles song stuck in your head

My job is complete. Have a great Monday. Okay seriously, I loathe Mondays. It is entirely possible that I’ve mentioned that before. Mondays mark the end of the weekend, the beginning of a week, shorter periods of available writing time, hell…shorter periods of time to do anything other than work, sleep, and maybe squeeze an hour or two in with the lil zombies before they have to go to bed and we can start the craziness all over again on Tuesday. Has anyone ever had anything good to say about a Monday? Sure I woke up, which inherently makes it a good day, but there has to be something positive about this day that is dreaded by many. Please someone give me something that will make Mondays a day to look forward to. Anyone? Anything? Man it just got awfully quiet around here. Well, don’t give up hope. Together we will think of something that makes Mondays something other than…manic.

Talk to me!

School, Party Planning, Edits, and Self Publishing… Oh My!

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Yes that about sums up my life at the moment which is why I’ve been so scarce here on the blog. I’m slowly working my way toward my bachelor’s degree. On top of that I am planning a 40th wedding anniversary celebration for my folks because why should we not celebrate a couple truly living out their happily ever after? Let’s add into the mix that I am in the midst of final round edits on Blood and Moonlight that will be releasing next month. Then I get to tackle the fun, exciting, and nerve wracking task of self publishing. Thankfully, I am not the first to travel down this road and I have a lot of support from a very helpful editor and critique group.

So what’s next? What am I working on? Isn’t that enough? Well hardly. If my hand isn’t in fifty different pots, stirring up the cauldron, or adding unnecessary ingredients, then I’m likely under the weather. On top of all of the above items that are in the mix for the next month, I’ve started working on a contemporary western series, began drafting the second book in the Moonlight series, and have made a good attempt at organizing and planning which books I will write for the next oh…five to ten years? Yes the list is long my lovelys but it is full of goodness, hope, and promise of magic and mayhem waiting to be discovered and put onto paper. Stick with me folks. I have a feeling that the next month or so is going to be a rough but exciting ride!

Bad Girl~

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Not in the sense one might think. I’ve been bad about blogging. In my defense, I do have a very good excuse? Don’t I always? Well here it is-

I’ve been working on edits for Blood & Moonlight, getting it ready for release. I’ve also been up to my neck in writing Bewitching Ways and dealing with school. Let us not forget the zombie twins and all that they demand (Hey when the lil zombies call I need to get a runnin’ or risk losing some brain matter and I need all I can get).

Ooh plus I almost forgot to mention that my dear friend Bethanne Strasser is releasing her book, For Love or Duty, in five days! OMG I can hardly wait. She will be stopping by for an interview. And I will be doing a guest spot over on her blog on Tuesday to help her celebrate! So you see, I’ve been busy. I will leave you with a song that I keep listening to lately – Shinedown‘s Bully


 

Talk to you all soon and have a great Sunday! Stay tuned.

My Write-a-thon Plan

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This weekend will be a great weekend. There I’ve put it out there. The weekend has been put on a pedestal. Three days. No work. Kids are busy. Quiet house. A book to finish. This is it.

The goal for Bewitching Ways is a minimum of 30k. Sitting at about 16k and that is unacceptable. I wrote myself into a corner and have been struggling to find my way out. Well that all ends now. I’ve got Ben n Jerry’s Volun-Tiramisu, veggies, the coffee is stocked, the tea-lemonade is stocked, music is at the ready, and homework is complete.

That’s right people. The time has come. It is Moira’s Memorial Day Weekend Write-a-thon. I’m showing this story who the boss is and the characters, muse, and plot better take note. I’m taking no prisoners.

A Celebrational Friday Five ~ Music Style!

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Oh for the love of a Friday – a day that kicks off the weekend. Brings cause for celebration, sleeping in, and just plain enjoying life outside of the daily work grind. And this is not just any Friday, but a Friday the 13th no less! I say let’s celebrate. (Mind you, I’m of the opinion that one does not truly need reason to celebrate. Just do it.) I’m kicking off this weekend with a celebration of music! That’s right! Comment for a chance to win a $15 iTunes gift card.

Lets get to my Friday Five shall we?

First on my list… Bad Religion ~ Broken

Second…Social Distortion of course and one of the first songs that introduced me to them and cemented my love of their music.

Third is a newer obsession courtesy of my cousin Bryan F… Streetlight Manifesto ~ Would You be Impressed?

Four is Rancid…well because they are Rancid duh.

And to rap up this Friday Five… NOFX ~ Leave it Alone

There is my Friday Five Folks…name some of your top five and lets get to that iTunes Gift Card!

P.S. The winner of Rebekah Purdy’s Interview Contest for the free copy of Cinderella Complex is Bethanne! Thanks to everyone who commented!

New Direction Take Two

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As in life, things are rarely perfect the first go around. Or we tend to change our minds, evolve, and realize that what we need is different than we first imagined. So is the case with my home here on the web. My site just didn’t feel like it fit ‘me’ anymore. Though it was lovely and worked when I first acquired it, what I wanted to project as my web presence changed. Now, thanks to Kim Killion and her very talented staff at Hot Damn Designs, I have this lovely new home that I feel is a better fit for the writer I am. I swear that Kim has a bit of magic fairy dust or possesses a certain fairy godmother gene…because she nailed what I wanted right out of the gate.

Speaking of fairy dust and fairy godmothers, next week I will have some fun things coming your way. One thing I’m willing to divulge is that I will be having the lovely Rebekah Purdy here to help celebrate my new look and her new release The Fairy Godmother Files. Yay! It is a fantastic young adult book that I just can’t wait to share with you! I might just try my hand at a little fairy dust and see what I can whip up for a giveaway or two so definitely come back by!