Tag Archives: Life

Healthier Me Update #2

5 Feb

Well, I should have done this earlier today. But I didn’t. For some reason, looming deadlines are attractive to looming deadlines. They gather in clusters, like sharks scenting blood in the water.

I’m still treading water, but barely!

By Nancy ~ from Orlando, FL, USA [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Anyways, here’s my update this week on the state of my healthy resolution. (Don’t forget, you can join the #healthierme13 challenge! Just use the hashtag on twitter, and check out Sidney Bristol’s blog for more. We’ve got a little tribe growing!)

So since my last update, I had the cold from hell. I’m talking the can’t breathe, coughing, sneezing, knock you on your ass kind of cold. Yup, it was miserable. BUT, I will have you know, I DID NOT VEER FROM MY CAVEMAN DIET. It was tempting!! It was sooooo tempting. Especially Friday night, when husband, trying to be helpful to his poor, sick wife, said, “do you want me to bring home dinner? I could get pizza!”

I said yes, then immediately took it back. I sent his ass to the grocery store for fresh meat and veggies.

Like I said last week, the incredible weight loss from my first week was more than likely due to bloat and water weight. It’s slowed down to a much healthier rate now. Since my last update, I’ve shed another 1.6 pounds. Not bad for being plastered to the couch for almost half the week. That brings my weight loss total to 12.6 pounds so far. Only 37.4 to go before I hit my birthday goal!

In other healthy news, I am considering making my own kefir. I’ve heard it’s super awesomely chock full of probiotics, especially if you make it at home with goat milk. Anyone tried this? Tips?

(BTW, come back later this evening for awesome blog hop and prize news! W00t!)

Books and Life

8 Jan

If you know much about me, you know that I’m an escapist. I love to experience books because there are no limits, unlike real life.

But I also love to read and write because it helps me to make sense of the world around me.

In a little over a month, I hope, some of you will be reading CAUGHT IN CRIMSON, the first book in my new series “Spellbinding”. A theme that runs through the story is doing what’s right for you versus what’s expected of you.

Now, I’m not one of those people that writes to theme. The stories come into my head, and they tell themselves. I’m usually just along for the ride. Like INDELIBLY INTIMATE. That one turned out to be a story about refusing to let bad choices define your life. And SINFUL TRUTH. That turned out to be a story about a murderous group of psychopaths. Okay, not everything I write has a clear-cut theme. But still.

image from Dreamstime free

image from Dreamstime free

I haven’t gotten a lot of criticism on my stories yet (most people that talk about them seem to like them, hurray!) but one of the things someone complained about in INDELIBLY INTIMATE was Quinn’s choices. They didn’t like that she made bad decisions.

I don’t know why this popped into my head today, but it did, and I felt like I should address it.

In good stories, the characters feel real. Real people make mistakes. So, my characters make mistakes. If we only wrote about perfect people, the stories would be very boring. Our flaws make us human. They give us depth and meaning. They are what drives us to become more, better. Quinn LaBrea is very, very human. But you know what? So am I. I haven’t led a perfect life, and I’m willing to bet NOBODY reading this blog has led one either. If you have, please contact me. I have a very large wheelbarrow you can borrow for that load of horse manure you’re toting. :)

Delia, the red witch and heroine of CAUGHT IN CRIMSON, has made mistakes. She’s got ideas that don’t really mesh with reality. She’s going to screw up, she’s going to fall. But I hope you read because in the end, you know that she’ll climb out of the hole she’s made. And in the end, isn’t that what all of us want to do? Move on, move up, move forward? Make up for past mistakes and drive toward the end, doing our dead-level best to be happy?

I think so. I sure do.

Caught in Crimson will release in February or March. Keep your eyes peeled on the new “Coming Soon” page for details. And let me know if you think I’m full of crap below. I can take it! :)

Strip Naked

29 Jun

I live in North Carolina, otherwise known as the tobacco, possum, and humidity capital of the South. So far this year, we’ve had a mild winter, and an excellent spring. So imagine my groan when I saw this forecast:

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Yeah. Today? Heat index is supposed to be 115.

To quote Troy from Swamp people, MUDDA-FRICKA.

 

So here are my top suggestions for beating the ridonkulous heat.

1. Strip. It’s too damn hot for clothes.

2. Collapse over the air conditioner. Punch anyone that tries to stop you. Self-preservation at its finest.

3. I’d say run through a lawn sprinkler, but any H20 that hits the air will be immediately vaporized into soul-sucking humidity.

4. Pack yourself in ice. Literally. A bathtub full. Or actually, ice cream would be even better. Have a straw handy.

5. Avoid reading DEAR ADDI or SINFUL TRUTH. Getting that hot on your insides while being that hot on the outside? Spontaneous combustion. Then again, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go. ;)

How are you going to beat this heat?????

Tek-no-lojikul Ignoramus

26 Jun

I’m not the computer geek in my family. That honor goes to my elder sister, Mac-phile and tech support genius. However, I know enough to get by. Usually.

Until I’m faced with the honor of a World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria beta key.

This little gem brightened my geeky little heart, and as soon as I limped home yesterday, (sprained my ankle over the weekend), I tried to figure out how this twenty digit number series would turn into a cute, curvy furry Pandarian chick.

After lots of google searching which told me Nothing, I figured it out on my own. I got just enough downloaded to log in and create a character. Isn’t she cute???

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But the download made it hard to enjoy playing, so I logged out and let it work all night. This morning, no more progress was made.

Grrrrrrr.

So I tinkered with it some more. We’ll soon see if that helped.

Between that, the fact that I couldn’t figure out FOR THE LIFE OF ME how to send email from my iPhone from this one particular account, and the whole “your iPhone has not backed up since the stone age because your cheap ass hasn’t bought more iCloud storage”, I’m about ready to pitch all my technology at the wall.

Anyone feel my pain?

Didn’t Pan Out like I thought

25 Jun

I started practicing my autograph when I was a kid. I think it really cranked into high gear when I was about twelve years old. I’d say, “why yes, darling, of course I’ll sign your album!” and scribble my name with a flourish on my notebook.

I didn’t really think much about how I’d get “famous”. I just thought maybe someday someone would hear me sing and just plop a billion dollar recording contract in my lap. I certainly didn’t think about writing novels at that age. Books were too much fun. Why make them a job?

When we were about 15, my best friend and I decided we were going to have a band. We’d be called “Angelic Vixen.” We never wrote any songs, or picked up any instruments, but we had a bitchin CD cover planned.

In retrospect, I’m glad that didn’t happen. For one, I’m a mediocre singer at best. For another, while I love to travel, I dont think I’m cut out for life on concert tour. And I adore writing. So signing my first, real autograph will be the result of a lot of hard work instead of luck and happenstance.

Other things in life haven’t been as easy as I expected either. But you know what? It makes me appreciate it more. As I embark on the next chapter of my life, I know the value of striving for something. And that’s something that you can’t learn from anyone except life.

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