September 2012

Archive for September, 2012

Upcoming Events

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beta readers, ebooks, publishing date, soul of a vampire, the gnome on September 27, 2012| 16 Comments »

My tentative date for e-publishing Soul of a Vampire is Thursday, October 4. That’s one week from today. Notice I said “tentative”. It seems like something happens most of the time when an author sets a particular date for publishing. There are some issues pointed out by beta readers that I need to tend to. I have to decide which suggestions I want to take and which ones I disagree with. I usually agree with most of them. The funny thing is, my two main beta readers didn’t have issues with the same things. (This doesn’t count simple typos, which they both might have caught.) There was only one sentence in the entire manuscript that they BOTH thought should be changed…and they each changed them slightly differently. There was a phrase they thought should be put in a different part of the sentence, but they put them in different places! What I DO know is that both of their sentences sounded better than mine did. LOL The point I’m trying to make in such a long-winded way is how important it is to have more than one beta reader.

I’ll probably do a giveaway with free ebooks and swag not long after SoaV is published. It depends on when the “swag” is ready. LOL. ALSO…I’m planning a Halloween giveaway mid to late October featuring my book, The Gnome, and the grand prize is totally cute. At least I think so. 🙂

That’s all for now. Most of you have been awfully silent the last few days. Where are my people? LOL

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I Joined a Gym!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged exercise, gym, working out, workout anytime on September 25, 2012| 4 Comments »

I finally did it…again. I really like working out on machines, but the last gym where I was a member just got too crowded. I was having to wait on machines all the time. The employees were SO pushy. And they seemed to think they were too beautiful to bother themselves with the rest of us. Yeah, that’s the feeling I got from them. I was locked in for either 2 or 3 years (don’t remember which), and it was about $40 or $50 a month. And the location wasn’t convenient at all.

So on to this new gym. And it IS new to our town. It’s called Workout Anytime. The hours when they aren’t staffed, you just slide your card to gain access. It’s much smaller than the other place I was going. I went to sign up during my lunch hour yesterday, and it wasn’t crowded at all. And the guy who signed me up wasn’t pushy, just down to earth and friendly. The machines look like good quality, and of course they are new right now. The best thing? There is NO CONTRACT. That’s right, no contract. And only $15 a month!!! Yay! What’s the downside?

So I’m going to try this and see if I can figure out a good time to work out. I was going to go at lunch, but I realized I already have lunch obligations two days a week, which only leaves me three weekdays. So I think I’m going to try going before work. I don’t plan to do my cardio there…I’m perfectly happy with my treadmill at home. So I could work out with weights for 20 minutes. Weight training rarely makes me sweat. So if I leave home about 30 minutes early, I can work out for 20 minutes, then drive 10 more minutes to work. I would probably change clothes at work instead of at the gym. And if everything goes well, I’ll probably eventually leave earlier and workout a little longer. We’ll see how it all works. I’m really excited. *happy dance*

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Various and Sundry Things

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beta readers, cabin, cats, first aid class, ladies' retreat, Pigeon forge, sleepy on September 23, 2012| 6 Comments »

I’m back from the ladies’ retreat. Although I had fun, I had a much better time with Anya last weekend. Too many people together for a long period of time wears me out, and there were 23 of us. And I didn’t like the person to bathroom ratio. But still, fun was had. And the game room! The cool thing was the arcade game. It had all the old ones. Centipede, Galaga, Space Invaders. (Some of you are too young to remember those!) There was a pool table, foosball, and air hockey. And a big screen TV. 🙂

I’m putting off looking at what the beta readers marked in my manuscript. LOL. One of them that liked it a lot said there were still some issues I needed to address. I’m just too tired right now. I was awakened at 3:00 this morning by someone falling off the top of a bunk bed (she’s fine), and I couldn’t get back to sleep. Then there was the 3 hour drive home for church.

My cats are still doing fine since their surgeries. I still can’t believe how fast they bounce back. After two days, they acted like nothing had happened.

I’m now certified in First Aid. I took a four hour class last Wednesday.

That’s all for now.

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Another Retreat

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cabin, church group, Pigeon forge, retreat on September 21, 2012| 2 Comments »

Well, here I am on another retreat. This time, it’s a church group and there are about twenty of us in this cabin. And only four showers. I enjoyed most of tonight, but I’m realizing more and more that I’m mostly an introvert. I’m sleeping downstairs in the game room on my air mattress with a good friend of mine. They begged us to sleep upstairs where there are a bunch of them on air mattresses (they let the older ladies have the bedrooms), but I didn’t want to be there. I think my friend really wanted to stay up there…she’s a true extrovert…but she chose to stay with me. This game room is awesome. More on that later. 🙂

Time to go to bed now. If I can sleep with the women upstairs making so much noise. LOL

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Adventures in Sewing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bias tape, sewing, youtube on September 20, 2012| 8 Comments »

Susan Bischoff and I went shopping a LONG time ago and bought everything I needed to make a skirt and blouse for my first (in a long time) sewing project. I got around to cutting out the material a few weeks ago. Today, since I’m on vacation, I’ve had a whole day to work on my sewing. How is it going? Well…maybe not too bad. I have the under skirt finished. But the lace overlay is giving me pause. I had to cut six inches off the skirt because I’m short and the skirt was much longer than I wanted. Now, I have a problem because I can’t cut off the lace (haven’t cut the material for this yet) since it has a scalloped edge. So that means I’ll have to cut off the top of the skirt instead of the bottom. Maybe this won’t be too much of a problem since the skirt is fairly straight. I guess it will be gathered just a little more. I decided to make the overlay separate from the underskirt so I can maybe mix and match later, sometimes wearing the skirt without the lace.

On to the blouse, which is what I’m just beginning to work on now. This pattern is supposed to be “very easy”, but I say nay, nay. Only because I had no idea how to use bias tape. However, thank goodness for YouTube! The way the pattern showed using the tape was confusing, but the video showed exactly how it’s done, plus an even quicker way to do it. (This is double fold bias.)

Okay, I know I’m boring the non-sewers to death. In fact, those people probably have already stopped reading. LOL. Anyway, I was just wondering. Have any of you ever used YouTube to figure out how to do something? If so, was it helpful?

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Final Check-In

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beta readers, cats, final row80 check in, goals on September 19, 2012| 11 Comments »

There’s not much new to report. One beta reader is finished (and she loves my story!), and one is halfway finished. I haven’t worked on getting Vampires’ Curse ready for print since I was at the cabin. The frustration of the page numbers just overwhelmed me, so I’m still trying to decide whether or not to add the extra pages to make the chapters all start on the right side. Most people who commented on my blog post said they didn’t care where a chapter started.

All in all, I’m happy with where I am with my goals for this round. Except for exercise goals. Those are the ones that always suffer.

On an unrelated note, my cats are fine after their surgeries, just lying around a little more. Oz had this huge hernia removed, so he was a little worse than if he had just had the neutering. They both slept with me last night. 😉

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The “Look” Challenge

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged current wip, look challenge, meme on September 19, 2012| 10 Comments »

I’ve seen this floating around, but I finally got tagged. 🙂 I have Jeff Clough to thank for it. No, really, I like to do these. LOL Anyway, here are the rules:

1. Grab your current work in progress.
2. Find the first occurrence of the word “look.”
3. Copy that paragraph and a few surrounding paragraphs.
4. Post them to your blog.
5. Tag five other people.

Ok, I’m going to break the last rule. Although I LOVE to be tagged for stuff like this, I know others don’t necessarily want to take the time, so I’m not putting anyone on the spot. But here is the except from my book containing the first instance of the word “look”:

“My Nikolas, I have a gift for you,” she murmured as she kissed him. He was lost. He wrapped his arms around her and wanted only to stay here with her for eternity.
He kissed her deeply and urgently, but soon she pulled back and looked at him. Smiling, she said, “And now for my gift.”

I know that’s short,but the surrounding paragraphs would give part of the story away, which I don’t want to do in case someone reading this decides to read the book. 🙂

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Cabin Pictures

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cabin, ellijay ga, retreat, river on September 18, 2012| 13 Comments »

While I’m sitting here waiting until it’s time to pick up Willow and Oz from the vet, I thought I would post our cabin pictures. The vet’s office called and said they had awakened and were doing fine, and that I could pick them up in about four hours. In addition to the neutering, they fixed a hernia Oz had.

Anyway, on to the pictures. I’m going to have a hard time picking out my favorites, but there are too many to post. It amazes me how much clearer they are on my iPad than on my computer. The iPad display rocks.

Barn where grill, canoe, etc. is kept. Note the paintings in the window.

Cabin

Dining Room

Kitchen

Living Room

Porch

More Porch

Anya’s Bedroom

My Bedroom

Swing by the Creek

View of River From Cabin

River

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Willow and Oz – The Great Escape

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cats, cats escaping, oz, willow, willow and oz on September 17, 2012| 12 Comments »

Okay, the title is a little more dramatic than the circumstances call for…maybe. The whole thing certainly felt dramatic at the time.

Today is the first day of my vacation, so I was trying to sleep late. But I heard my puppy, Daisy, barking like crazy at something. She just wouldn’t stop…she kept barking and barking. Finally, I got out of bed to see what the problem might be. I saw Willow sitting on top of the cat cage. Not IN the cage…on top of it. And Oz was nowhere to be found. I hurried outside and saw Daisy was barking at something under the deck. I figured it must be Oz she was barking at. I got a flashlight and saw that it was, indeed, Oz under there. And I couldn’t coax him out because he was afraid of Daisy. I doubt Daisy would hurt him, but the barking was unnerving. I finally yelled at my husband to get out of bed and help me. He had to run Daisy back to the other side of the house. I called and called to Oz, but he just wouldn’t come out. All I could think of was 1) I had to have both cats available to be “fixed” tomorrow morning, and 2) We have coyotes around here. The coyote issue is the reason my cats are in a huge cage on the deck instead of roaming free. So I’m really freaking out because Oz won’t come out. Finally, I figured out what to do. I got Willow out of the cage and held her while calling to Oz. It worked like a charm. As soon as he saw Willow, he started toward me. Now I had another problem. Oz is getting really BIG. And Willow was struggling in my arms to get to Oz. But my husband gently took Willow from me so I was able to scoop Oz up into my arms. What a sigh of relief came from me. Now the two culprits are safely ensconced in my house.

Oh, here’s the way they got out. My son and his girlfriend were here when I got back from church yesterday. He had let the cats into the house so the girlfriend’s little girl could play with them. Apparently, he had opened both doors of the cage, and when he put them back in, he only latched one of them. It took the cats awhile, but they finally figured out one of the doors was unlatched. What a scary thing it was!

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