Psst! Just a quick reminder that there are contests ongoing over on the Delilah’s Collections website!

This Tuesday was a hard starter. (Is that even grammatically, correct? I don’t care!) I soooo wanted to stay in bed. My daughter even encouraged me last night to sleep in. She was up bright and early and already had the girls’ lunches packed (that’s my job!). I wasn’t needed. However, there are only so many hours I can lie in bed before … 1) I have to pee, 2) no position —back or sides (never on my tummy)— feels comfortable, and 3) I have to see everyone.

Besides, I have a very full day ahead of me, and if I don’t start early, I won’t finish! My To Do list for today is 18 items long. That sounds nuts, but I put even little things on it, like watering plants, so I don’t forget…because I do. I’m a lister. Always have been, and you’ll know I’m not well if I don’t have one sitting in the middle of my desk. I list what’s important (writing goals, edit goals), then put things in between those that make me get up and move around (like watering those pesky plants, cleaning Loki’s fish tank, or sweeping around the bunny’s cage).

No contest, no game today. I have to start work now! But remember, there are open contests you can find by scrolling down my blog page or following the link to the Collections site, so be sure to go play! If you want, give me a kick in the butt to get going—some encouragement. I’m already thinking I need a nap.

UPDATE: The winner of the GC is…Cindy!
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Another month flew by! How does that happen? And while I accomplished a lot in April, I dragged my feet on a lot too! Which will make May a very, very busy month for me!

April

Work-related:

1. I compiled the boxed set of Danger Zone stories, and I published it! (I hope you got your copies! For now, it’s FREE in KU!)
2. I’m 3/4 of the way through my Silver Soldiers short story.
3. I, along with the other Silver Soldiers authors, have been posting “Getting to Know” blogs on the Collections website to get readers ready for the release on May 9th!
4. I began work on Cold Hard Cash.
5. I completed only 3 editing projects for other authors in April.

Health-related:

1. My hand is mostly healed from the recent break. I still have some nerve problems and have to do physical therapy to improve my hand’s function.
2. I had an ultrasound and EKG done of my heart. Not great news there. I have Moderate Left Ventricular Hypertrophy (a thickening/stiffening of the heart muscle), which is likely caused by my high blood pressure.
3. I restarted Weight Watchers in the latter part of this month to help with my heart and blood pressure issues and have severely limited my salt intake. I managed to gain weight back, but after my diagnosis, there’s not any room for procrastination. I’m down 3.9 pounds as of today.
4. As for physical activity, I’m still not doing enough. I’m feeling tired all the time. Which I know has to do with my weight, my heart, and inactivity. All my issues are interrelated. I just need to get my fat ass off this chair and move more often, along with the dietary changes…

Happiness-related: 

1. The family is trying to do fitness-related outings, which include me. We hiked a local trail to the bluff overlooking the river. It wasn’t a long trail, but we all enjoyed it very much. We also did a couple of shopping/flea market outings, which helped with steps.
2. I am still participating in the #the100dayproject online art challenge. As of today, I’m on Day 66. Here are a few of my April pieces…

May

For work-related, I plan:

1. To complete my short story for the Silver Soldiers anthology.
2. Publish Silver Soldiers on May 9th!
3. To complete and publish Cold Hard Cash, the first of the We Are Dead Horse series.
4. To complete 4 editing projects in May!

For health related, I plan:

1. To continue counting those points for my Weight Watchers diet and hopefully shed at least another 5 pounds, remembering, as always: Slow is good!
2. To continue to reduce salt, processed food, and incorporate foods good for blood pressure (spinach, broccoli, bananas, red wine).
3. To continue working on getting the pool ready for swimming!
4. To begin walking and counting my steps.
5. I’ll re-dedicate myself to doing more housework, too, because my art room is a disaster. And cleaning is exercise, ahem.

For happiness-related, I plan: 

1. To attend the 18-year-old’s high school graduation!
2. To continue producing some small piece of art every day as part of #the100dayproject. I’m volunteering several times a month to sit in the Art Center to keep it open.
3. To blog about art (on my Emerald Casket site) just to keep myself honest!
4. To work toward re-opening my Etsy store! I just about have enough art to do so!

Contest

Comment on anything you’ve read in this post. Tell me what you’re doing to make yourself happier and healthier. Tell me what you plan to read in May…
Like I said, comment on anything for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

UPDATE: The winner is…Beckie!
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Yesterday was fun. I had an ultrasound scheduled at the VA in Little Rock.

Those two sentences don’t seem to go together but hear me out. We dropped the girls at school and then headed to Little Rock early, hoping that if we arrived early at the VA they’d take me. And they did! Which meant we had all this time we thought we’d be waiting there to do something else before we had to be back to pick them up from school.

How to spend all that time?

Our first thought? THE INDIAN STORE! We’ve been dying to restock the pantry and freezer with chutneys, samosas, and naan bread. But alas, when we got there, we realized we had an hour to wait before they opened. What else could we do?

Barnes & Noble was just down the street. Once inside, Kelly headed to the chicken coop books, and I headed to the art section. One watercolor book about birds and a collection of skin-tone ink markers later, and we were ready for what was next—which was Trader Joe’s right next to B&N! I’d never been inside one so, of course, we had to go! Everything Bagels, tea tree oil shampoo, and shampoo bars later, and we were done!

Next was Target! (Don’t laugh, but Target is a treat in a Walmart-only small town!) Only, our goal was to be in and out fast because we knew we could spend some major time there, so we limited ourselves to the 5-dollar section of the store. What fun we had! I have a small watering can I don’t need and some small chalkboard signs I also don’t need.

So, it was lunchtime by the time we left Target. Indian grocer or Indian restaurant? Our stomachs won. Little Rock actually has one of the best Indian restaurants I’ve ever eaten at. We were first in the door before the lunch crowd, ordered our Chicken Tikka Masala and Lamb Korma with veggie samosas, and anyone sitting next to us would’ve been uncomfortable listening to us moan over the food. We took a doggie bag back to the car with enough leftovers we could stretch it with naan and samosas to feed the kids and us again later!

So, at last, we headed to the Indian grocery store. We know it well enough we were in and out inside 15 minutes with our incense, hot pickle, naan bread, samosas, and curry sauce.

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon GC, what would your perfect day be like?

UPDATE: The winner is…Cindy!
*~*~*

I didn’t have any notes for what I wanted to talk about today. I sat at my desk, turned to my computer, and opened an empty “page” for the blog. Then, I clicked on a few news/gossip sites because I can’t be still for a second on line.

Still no ideas, so I turned to my desktop which is littered with open paint palettes, a basket of paint pens, dried paper towels with dabs of dried paint, which make them very pretty, my planner, which I’ve been underutilizing lately, and my cups and pots full of pens. Not to mention the plants that line the back of my desk that are waiting for me to take them back outside since we’re done with freezes. It’s a very messy desk.

I left the palettes open last night so the paint would fully dry. This is the messiest and most used.

It’s also the first watercolor palette I ever purchased. It’s a Van Gogh travel palette–a kind of medium, student-grade palette. The Azo Yellow and Madder Lake Deep (that dark red) in the lower left corner are almost gone. I started to close the palette, but all that lovely messiness reminded me about how far I’ve come.

When I first purchased this, I was so careful not to get different colors mixed in their paint pans, and I’d CLEAN the mixing wells at the top after every use. I loved the pristine look of the palette and wasn’t comfortable with the messiness that comes from paint. Now, look at it. The white has yellow in it. The Azo has green in it. The ochre has more green in it. And those wells haven’t been cleaned in forever because that’s where the color magic happens after you mix and forget what you mixed and then mix some more…

And there aren’t enough wells for color mixing, so I use the logo space at the top to mix more colors. I love this palette. I love getting a wet brush and working the water into the dried paint until it’s buttery, and then stroking it across paper. That sounded almost sexual, didn’t it? Hmm. I need to write a story about an artist…

And off I go again. “Squirrel!”

Do you have anything you let get really, really messy because it works best that way? Comment for your choice of a download from my backlist!

And I’ll love this Friday about midday. By then, I should be through with the last book I have to edit this week, and I can take a much-needed break!

What will I do with my time? I’ve neglected housework—but to hell with that. I don’t want to do ANYTHING productive. Maybe, I’ll just head back into season three of Fringe and watch some episodes back-to-back. It’s not a perfect Sci-Fi show, but I’ve been enjoying it. I think there are five seasons, so it should keep me going until next month. Then I’ll either start Picard or Strange New Worlds. (I don’t want to run out of Star Trek shows, because that will be just too sad, so I’ve been pacing myself.)

But anyway, I can’t stay here long. I have pages to read and kids to get out the door to school. I hope you have a GREAT Friday. Have you made any weekend plans?

Open Contests

1. Revisiting Conquests!—Last day to enter! Win an Amazon gift card!
2. Hollow Beasts kept me glued! — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
3. 3 Quick Reminders & the Saturday Puzzle-Contest! — Win an Amazon gift card!
4. Briar Boleyn: Fantasy Heroes to Swoon For! — Win FREE books!
5. Anna Taylor Sweringen/Michal Scott: A Pioneer on the Entrepreneurial, Literary, and Astral Planes — Win an Amazon gift card!
6. A Quick Note & A Word Search: Male Stars I’ll Drop Everything to Watch — Win an Amazon gift card!

UPDATE: The winner of the contest is…BN!
*~*~*

I’m late getting started at work today.

And it’s all Alisa Lynn Valdes’s fault.

I’m embarrassed to admit that between being a full-time writer and editor, it’s hard for me to find time to read for pleasure. I do read plenty—mostly news articles and magazines, things about climate change, world politics—stuff that makes me crazy, so I often wonder why I do it. I’m sure the stress is shortening my life, but my addiction is news-porn. Plus, it’s rare for me to pick up a book by someone I’ve never read. When I read fiction, it’s usually something I read years ago, a guilty-pleasure read, because I don’t have to pay close attention to it, and I can relax. For me, these days if I have downtime, I’m usually pulling out my paints and paper.

For a writer, that’s sacrilege, right?

Well, I was doom-scrolling through Twitter yesterday morning over my first cup of coffee and saw a short video from an author named Alisa Lynn Valdes. It wasn’t a slick presentation, which would turn me off. It was natural, just her filming while driving down a gravel road, talking about one of the places that inspired her latest book, Hollow Beasts. She read something from the opening pages, and I was instantly struck. Hooked. I hit the link to her book, discovered to my delight that it was FREE in KU, and loaded it to my Kindle, where books that intrigue me usually go to die. I rarely open them after I load them, but yesterday, when I was done with work, and before I brought out my paints, I opened my Kindle app and began to read.

I finished just a few minutes ago. I haven’t been that engrossed in years. The characterization of the characters was sooooo good. Everyone who had pages devoted to their POV was distinct from the other—sometimes, with very opposing viewpoints. The main underlying topic was timely (no spoilers), and the suspense had me on the edge of my seat.

I’m going to check out her backlist as soon as I upload this post.

So, my question to you is what have you read lately that kept you glued to your phone/Kindle/book? Comment for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card.

Real quick, before I share my pics and have you entering contests here, I want to tell you about a couple of contests going on right now over on my Delilah’s Collections website. There are two at the moment, and more coming soon. Just follow the links then come back here!
Link One. Link Two.

I shared some pictures of our newest farm animals a little while ago and couldn’t resist sharing some more recent photos. These first three are of our bunny, Oreo, getting some playtime with the teenage chickens.

Here, he looks a little nervous.

But he settled down and ignored them.

Here, he seemed to get over his fear and his curiosity got the better of him.

Chicken tending is a family affair. The 9-year-old didn’t mind the rooster perching on her leg.

And meet our latest addition, Duckster.

Duckster came to us via my step-grandson’s college fraternity. The pledges had to get farm fowl and take care of them for a week. After that? I shudder to think if J hadn’t known we’d take their baby chicks, guineas, and ducks. The duck is getting along fine in the hen house.

Open Contests & Giveaways!

1. Gabbi Powell: Turning rejection into triumph! (Contest) — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
2. Puzzle-Contest! New babies down on the farm! — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
3. Another collection… Quotes? (Contest) — Win a FREE book!
4. Gabbi Powell: When Characters Make Demands of Their Own (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
5. March Into April (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
6. Saturday Puzzle-Contest — Win an Amazon gift card!
7. Gabbi Powell: Why give something away for free? (Contest & FREE Book!) — Win an Amazon gift card and claim your FREE book!
8. Dahlia T. Drake: The Genesis of CRIMSON MORTE and My New PNR Series! (FREE Book!) — Claim your FREE book!