At the Movies with B.E.

It was a slow week for movies, so I'll add in some other stuff.

Murder by Death (1976) - with all-star cast, this pokes fun at all the major sleuths of the early twentieth century - Miss Marple, Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, Sam Spade, & Hercule Poirot - but in an almost homage kind of way.  There's still a mystery to solve and a surprise ending, so loads of fun.  Hubs hadn't seen this before and he seemed to enjoy it, despite its occasional camp and cheesiness.  Me, I'm all about camp and cheesy sometimes.  ;o)

Here are some non-movies we've watched or are currently watching:

Emily of New Moon (1998) - I added this to my save list because we really enjoyed Anne of Green Gables, and this was also LM Montgomery.  What could go wrong?  OMG, this was so sad - first her mom dies and then her dad dies, she's forced to live with a nasty aunt who kicks her cat out of the carriage in the middle of the woods.  I hoped in other episodes the story would get better, but I went through the first season looking at each episode's synopsis, and nope.  Every episode was tragic.  We vetoed watching anymore.

A Touch of Frost (1992) - We are super enjoying this series.  I love DI 'Jack' Frost.  The writing is good, the characters are awesome, the plots are thrilling. Good stuff all the way around.

The Last Detective (2003) - Also super enjoying this series.  DI 'Dangerous' Davies is the nice guy who finishes last.  He gets all the nothing cases, but he's a good man and a smart detective, so he manages to solve each of the nothing cases that ends up being a something case.  Smart and funny, with heart.

Life (2007) - this series stars Damian Lewis (who played Dick Winters on Band of Brothers).  I'd seen this advertised way back when it was on TV but, at the time, I didn't want to see this actor on a show like this.  I'm glad I got over it.  So far, it's been a pretty good series.  I was afraid they were going to insert a romantic thing, but from the last episode we watched, I think they kyboshed that.  We'll see.

I'm still watching too much TV, but it's getting better.  What things have you watched lately?

Marketing Monday - Song of Storm and Shroud

Starting today, SONG OF STORM AND SHROUD is free.  (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.)  This epic, coming of age YA fantasy is filled with magic and daring.  Get your copy today!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09W745M6P

Yesterday, I used Grok to make a better picture of the dragon.  Here's how I see her (although the wings should be darker... it's an imperfect AI thing):

That's her on a good day.  Here's her when she's pissed:

(Please ignore the leg coming out of her butt.  The last person who commented on her butt-leg lived in the village below.)

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 24

 :blink blink: Oh.  Hello.  It's Sunday again, isn't it?  I woke up thinking it was Tuesday.  Days of the week have little meaning to me anymore.  I feel like, at this point, I ought to have reached a higher plain of consciousness, but I haven't.  I've reached a higher plain of unconsciousness, maybe.

Anyway...  I didn't write much this week, but I did write.  DN3 has rolled over 20K words, so that's something.  I'm hoping to have news of more words by this time next week.

The marketing didn't go great.  I started out okay, then I lost the will.  Thus, Unequal only moved 16 copies. :sad trombone:  Song of Storm and Shroud will be free starting tomorrow.  Then the month will end and along with it, my current 90-day span of Kindle Select.  Starting Labor Day, I'll have a whole new 90 days to market stuff.  Woot.  Here's hoping next month is better for sales than this month has been.

Oh, and I spent some time yesterday morning screwing around with Grok, building a sorta-kinda new cover for SSS.  It looks pretty snazzy until you realize the dragon's left back leg is coming out of it's butthole and it's front left leg is spindly and warped.  AI still has a lot to learn about how living things are put together.  No creature - real or imagined - can walk with a leg coming out of it's butt.  Jus' sayin'.

In reading news, I finally finished that Hercule Poirot omnibus.  Yay.  I'm a third through another book.  Also yay.  And I bought 6 new used books to dive into.  Woot.

It was a busy baking week.  I made banana-raisin muffins, pizza, and bread pudding.  The pizza was the only thing that turned out right, but the other two were tasty, so it's all good.  Too much banana in the muffins and I forgot to add sugar to the bread pudding.  :shrug:  Even the best bakers can screw stuff up, so I'm not flagellating myself.  

On the activity front, I was still something of a toad.  One day, I did the dancercizorama thing 5/4/5 (5 minutes dance, then 4 minutes exercise, then another 5 minutes dance).  That's way down from what I used to do, but I'll have to work my way back up to that.  And as my mom reminded me, I'm older now than when I did 20/10/20.  Another day, I walked three-quarters of a mile.  Weight? No clue.  Chonky.

The fawns are getting big and their spots are starting to fade.  We've named Sissy's fawn 'Scout', which'll work for a doe or a buck.  I'm thinking Scout is a buck fawn because it's big for its age.  (Buck fawns are typical larger than doe fawns.)  I need to come up with a name for the twins.  I've already used Dot and Dash, but since I almost never know which deer is which once they turn into adults, I can reuse those.

Okay, on that note, I'll let you go.  Have a great day and feel free to drop a line or two about your week.  =o)

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 8/23/25

I know I haven't been the best reader lately.  I have been the best anything lately, though, so it's not too surprising.  Anyway, let's get to the books...

I picked up 6 new hardcopies - 2 hardcover and 4 paperback - and one new ebook this week.  The ebook is paranormal romance.  The hardcovers are both romantic suspense and the paperbacks are mystery, crime noir, western, and NF.  I found an Agatha Christie I didn't have and hadn't heard of, a Zane Grey, a Don Hamilton, a Victoria Holt, a Phyllis Whitney, and the NF is by J. Edgar Hoover about the Communist menace.  Should be interesting.

Books Read:

29) Five Complete Hercule Poirot Novels (8/18/25) - mystery - 5 stars.  Neither new to me nor underappreciated.  I picked this one up in June of 2024 from a thrift store.  It was 50c.
Review: "This took a while to get through, because I was reading other books between stories, but it was an excellent collection for this Poirot-lover."

No DNFs this week.

Currently reading... a SF I'd been looking forward to for a while but didn't have the budget to buy.  Then the author put it on sale for 99c.  Woot.  So far, it's pretty enthralling.

What have you been reading lately?

At the Movies with B.E.

It wasn't the most jam-packed week for movies*, but this is what we watched.

Much Ado About Nothing (1993) - starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson.  I love Shakespeare, but this is particularly good.  If you haven't seen it, I totally recommend it - even if you aren't that into the Bard.

Death Wish (2018) - Okay, so I swore I wouldn't watch this because I'm generally against when Hollyweird remakes old favorites. Then I saw that it starred Bruce Willis and I love Bruce, so I gave it a whirl.  I'm glad I watched.   It was awesome.  This movie was definitely not harshing on the Charles Bronson version and it was also totally not-woke.  I liked the juxtaposition of Bruce as a mild-mannered, peaceful surgeon before his family was attacked and the man he had to become to gain justice.  The end was satisfying and cool.  Yay.

I tried watching a couple other things, but they were duds, so I stopped.  Nothing worth mentioning here, even to pan it.

Have you seen either of these?  Did you watch anything awesome this week?

*we ended up watching several new-to-us TV shows instead.  If you want to hear about those, let me know and maybe I'll add those to the ends of these posts.

Marketing Monday - UNEQUAL

It's Monday and you know what that means - Marketing!  Today, we're focusing on UNEQUAL... if it's possible to focus on anything at 4am. lol

Starting today and going through Friday, UNEQUAL is free. This dystopian suspense focuses on a future where everyone is 'equal' and anyone who is better or worse than the average is labeled Unequal and is then disappeared by the government.  Pick up your copy today.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LDVFWBS

Sunday Update - Week 33

This week... Well, it was HOT.  And I was a toad.  Okay, I wasn't entirely a toad all week.

I wrote Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for 3182 words.  Then I lost track of where I was going next and turned back into a toad.  I'll try to get untoaded today.

Marketing was done.  Rumor Has It was free and I moved 57 copies - 40 of which went on Friday.  Not sure why the spike that day, but there it is.  Also, someone read Unequal this week and someone else is working on Dying Embers, so I am seeing some fundage for this month.  Not sure which book will be up for free this week.  Stay tuned.

Reading occurred.  I didn't bother doing a post yesterday because TOAD.  We'll see what I can accomplish next Saturday.  

No baking because HOT.

No activity because HOT.  Weight: 172.0

I'm still watering my deck garden.  My first tomato got picked.  We had it sliced up on hamburgers and it was yummy.  My second tomato got some kind of funk and turned gray from the bottom.  (It's not touching anything, so not sure what the hell happened there.)  In happier news, I have a third tomato.  It's tiny yet, but it's there.  And one of the tomato plants is still flowering, so there's hope for more.  Something ate all the leaves off one of my dogwood trees.  I think it was a grasshopper, because a discarded grasshopper exoskeleton is laying in the pot.  Did I ever mention how much I hate grasshoppers?  Filthy little bastards.  The rest of the trees are doing okay.  So are the green peppers, but those will never make it to big enough for fruit before the end of the growing season.  :shrug:  They were an experiment anyway, so no big loss.

The fawns are growing.  Sissy's fawn is a pretty big little guy.  (Assuming buck fawn because it's big, but I haven't seen nubs yet, so not sure.)  The twins are thriving.  Life is good.  Hubs is making sure they have fresh water once, if not twice, a day.

In family news, one of my extended family was attacked by a pitbull.  He was out running - he does marathons, so he was training - minding his own business, and some numbnuts was walking his pit without a leash.  He saw the dog and gave it a wide berth.  It didn't matter.  The pit went after him anyway, ruinating his left hand and then, after the owner and the guy got the dog off, it came back for more and attached to his right arm.  He's had surgery to repair the damage, so now it's a waiting game to see how much function he'll regain.  I'm pissed, to say the least.  Poor dude can't work now and who knows when he'll be able to work again.  He's freakin' IT, so all his work is hands.  And he's the nicest guy ever.

Okay, I think that's all the excitement I can take for one day.  Have a great day, wherever you are.  (And if you're walking/running, watch out for dogs with stupid owners.)  

2025 Books Read

Here we are with my 2025 Books Read post.  I started it a little later than usual this year because it took me a while to finish that first book.  

If you haven't been following along all these years, here's how this post goes.  The books I read are in reverse order - newest first.  * means ebook.  # means 'new to me and underappreciated'.  If there's a number at the end, it's where the book's at in a series.  The links go to Goodreads where I may or may not have written a review.  (Check back on Saturdays for my weekly Reading Wrap-up to see reviews.)

I set my goal for this year's reading at 70.  We'll see how that goes.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's begin...

29) Five Complete Hercule Poirot Novels (8/18/25) - mystery

28) The Devil's Angel by Margaret Bernard (7/26/25) - UF*#

27) Space Academy Dropouts by Phipps & Suttkus (7/6/25) - SF humor*#

26) Sweet Harmony by Noel Bailey (6/25/25) - magical romance*#

25) The Danger by Dick Francis (6/15/25) - thriller

0) Novella by Name Withheld (6/9/25) - SF*

24) The Face in the Water by Kathleen Pennell (6/8/25) - mystery*#

23) Blade Runner (or Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep) by Philip K Dick (6/5/25) - dystopian

22) You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming (5/29/25) - action/hard-boiled crime

21) On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming (5/24/25) - action/hard-boiled crime

20) The Singing Stones by Phyllis A. Whitney (5/17/25) - romantic suspense

19) Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (5/15/25) - mystery

18) Bill and the Last Cup of Coffee by Lance Lassen (5/8/25) - dystopian action/humor* (I read the ebook, but this is the link to the paperback. In the time between now and when I downloaded the book, the ebook page has been removed and the paperback was set to 'out of print'. :sadface:)

17) Goldfinger by Ian Fleming (5/5/25) - action/hard boiled crime

16) In Plain Sight by Dan Willis (4/27/25) - magical hard-boiled crime*

15) Dr. No by Ian Fleming (4/26/25) - action/hard boiled crime

14) Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (4/20/25) - dystopian

13) Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming (4/16/25) - action/hard boiled crime

12) Islands in the Sky by Arthur C. Clarke (4/11/25) -  science fiction

11) Murder by the Script by Lisa Pevey (4/8/25) - cozy mystery*

10) Festive Fonts and Fowl Murder by Lisa Pevey (4/7/25) - cozy mystery*

9) The Modigliani Scandal by Ken Follett (4/6/25) - suspense

8) A Murder in Cursive by Lisa Pevey (4/3/25) - cozy mystery*

7) The Ebony Swan by Phyllis Whitney (4/1/25) - romantic suspense

6) The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip (3/29/25) - fantasy

5) Murder by the Letter by Lisa Pevey (3/27/25) - cozy mystery*

4) Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout (3/26/25) - noir crime

3) Moonstruck: Retribution by Silver James (3/20/25) - paranormal romantic suspense*

2) President Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer (3/14/25) - noir crime

1) Child Star by Shirley Temple Black (1/8/25) - autobiography

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy this reading journey with me.

Thursday This n That

Finn looks like a little-bitty kitty until he's not next to Sawyer.  It's only then that you realize he's a big cat.  Sawyer, however, is a BIG cat.  Which works for me.  I like big cats.  Kira was big.  Max was big.  I'm not sure how I'd handle an actual little kitty.

Today's bird is a red-headed woodpecker with an acorn.  Neat birds, but we rarely get them in our yard.  They prefer to hang out by the river.  Not sure why.

I sat down yesterday to watch Much Ado About Nothing (the Kenneth Branagh version) by myself because Hubs really wasn't that interested.  Within about ten minutes, he showed up and sat down, and we watched it together.  I'm sneaky that way.

Yes, I actually do love Shakespeare.  

I'm getting the urge to go thrifting to buy used books again.  No, I haven't read all the used books I already own, and I don't care.  =op

I picked my one good tomato yesterday.  The other tomato would be almost ready to pick if it wasn't already going bad.  Not sure what happened there, but it's turning gray from the bottom up.  Eww. Oh, and I have a third tomato now.  It's about double the size of a kidney bean.  Fingers crossed it doesn't catch the creeping crud and it grows big enough to eat.  Growing food ain't easy, lemme tell ya.  Anyway, I'll slice up that one tomato and we'll have it on sandwiches.  Yay.

If your post to a book group is not book related, I will block you. Just sayin'.  Also, if you're an insufferable turd, I'll block you.  Needless to say, I've been blocking a lot of people. LOL

Okay, I think that's enough out of me this morning.  What's up with you?

At the Movies with B.E.

Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) - This is THE definitive Sherlock Holmes movie.  So good, even after all these years.  

Bookworm (2024) - a weird little movie with Elijah Wood as an absentee father who suddenly shows up and takes his daughter on an adventure.  It's set in New Zealand, so there are some amazing scenes, but yeah, the story was definitely weird.  Good weird, but weird nonetheless.

A Month in the Country (1987) - starring a young Colin Firth and young Kenneth Branagh.  Plus, Natasha Richardson (who died way too early, in my opinion).  It was just a nice movie.  Not much to it, but nice.  Two men after WWI, struggling with their own horrific memories of war and striving to accomplish their own goals.  Set in the beautiful English countryside.

And Then There Were None (1945) - I thought I'd found a later version of this with Oliver Reed that I remembered enjoying, but it ended up being in another language with subtitles, so I searched again and found this.  I don't remember ever seeing this one.  It was pretty good.  It had a bunch of lesser actors I remember from several other old movies (the maid from Rebecca, Uncle Willie from Philadelphia Story, etc.) and Barry Fitzgerald (he was the matchmaker in Quiet Man, among other fine roles).  Definitely an enjoyable adaptation.

In the hopper are a WWII movie and a veterinarian movie set in Devonshire, plus we still have a couple Sherlock Holmes movies to watch.

Marketing Monday - Rumor Has It

Good morning and welcome to another fine addition of Marketing Monday.  Today, RUMOR HAS IT is on the block and it's free.  Woot.

Hearken back to the old days in this nod to Spillane, Stout, and Gardner.  DUKE NOBLE, P.I.: RUMOR HAS IT - a crime noir novel - is free.  (It's always free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.)  Get your copy today!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08ZNXQKPC

Sunday Update - Week 32

Here we are at Week 32 and I don't really have much to show for it.

I did not write this week, despite every encouragement and a little poking in the ass.  Let's see if we can change that this week.  It goes without saying that AuGoWriMo is a bust for me so far.  I can salvage it if I get off my ass starting today.  START TODAY!  Part of the problem is the last words I wrote were such dreck, I'm having a crisis of confidence.  Derp.

Marketing was done.  It wasn't exactly productive.  I only moved 40 copies of WIOH, which is usually my best mover.  :shrug:  Not much I can do about it without paying for advertising.  I don't have a problem paying, but usually by the time I think about doing a freebie or a sale, it's too late to put an ad anywhere.  I need to plan ahead, which I am HORRIBLE at.

I did read this week, but I ended up DNFing most of it.

Cinnamon rolls were made.  They aren't the best rolls I ever made, but they're edible.  I halved the recipe, but while I was putting everything together, I used the whole measurement for the oil.  I tried to salvage it by adding more flour.  The result is a little weird.  We'll eat them and I'll try not to make the same mistake in the future.

On the activity front, I started out the week really well.  I walked three times for 3.5 miles.  Then it got hot again and I stayed inside.  Those miles put me at 50 miles even for the year, so far.  We won't talk about weight.  Heat makes me blow up like a water balloon, so even if I had weighed myself, it wouldn't really count.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The fawns are getting bigger and their spots are getting less defined.  I saw an opossum.  We also had several baby nuthatches in the redbud tree.  Yay.

Speaking of trees, my baby redbuds are doing well.  I still only have two tomatoes.  Those are getting closer to ripe, so yay.  Everything else is holding steady and not too big, but not dead.  Dang heat.

I think that's it for me.  How are things with you?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 8/9/25

 Hello!  Sorry I forgot to post last week.  You didn't miss much. Trust me.  Unfortunately, not much has gone on since the last wrap-up either.

I did pick up one new ebook. It's a fantasy I saw on a FB group and it sounded interesting, so I downloaded it.  We'll see.  Due to DNFs, I only have two unread ebooks left. One is an SF and the other is a fantasy.

No Books Read.  That's right, folks, I haven't actually finished reading anything since the last update.  Derp.

DNFs:

8/8/25 - legal thriller - free.  Maybe I was just so irritated after the previous DNF that this one irritated me more than it would've otherwise, but it did irritate me, so there ya are.

8/8/25 - YA Action/Adventure/?? - free.  It was going along fine, introducing all the hero characters and the general premise, but then the scenes with the villains started and meh.  I actually got about a quarter of the way into this one, which cheesed me off.  I hate wasting time on books I won't finish.  Bleh.

8/1/25 -  YA UF - free.  It made me remember why I hated high school.

Currently reading... I think I'll start the next Hercule Poirot story so I can finish that omnibus.  We'll see.

Have you been reading anything good lately?

Thursday This n That

Earlier, I saw some silly ditz 'digital content creator' saying that you don't have to be a writer to be an author.  Wuh?

Yesterday, I read a headline that went something like 'law students think tests are discriminatory' because they're too hard.  Like the person who posted the link said 'tests are supposed to help discriminate between the capable and the incapable', so yeah.

What is with all these words that people are putting asterisks into now?  I write a bunch of crime fiction, but words like rape, murder, killer, etc. are forbidden?  I don't even like putting asterisks in when I type fuck, I'm sure as hell not going to do it when I talk about rape or murder or killers.  Pardon me, but fuck that shit.

I wrote a note to FB in answer to their limiting my number of marketing posts.  Now, I don't seem to be getting the block, but I'm also not getting any reach.  Brilliant.  Wish in One Hand has traditionally flown out the door when I run a freebie.  I got 21 downloads the first day, then I wrote FB that note and the next day I got 4.  :eyeroll: :facepalm: :headdesk: 

Just got our Brightspeed 'final bill' thing.  They owe us $24.  It would've been nice if they'd just put in a check.  But no.  I'll most likely have to call them and struggle to get my credit back.  Fun.

I've been watching The IT Crowd.  It's pretty funny.  If you're a nerd, which I am.

I'm up to 50 miles walked for the year.  I posted that to FB and one of my friends (someone I've 'known' since like 2006 when I got my first blog) said something like 'well, you better turn around and go home'.  This is why we're friends.  LOL

If I wore jeans, I'd be buying myself a pair of American Eagle right now.  Sometimes I miss wearing jeans.  :shrug:

Dollar General has the best ice cream.  It's Caramel Swirl.  Caramel flavored ice cream with a ribbon of smooth caramel.  No chunks.  It's awesome.  I'm not a fan of chunks in my ice cream.

Got anything to add today?

At The Movies with B.E.

Time again for another trip to the movies.  This past week, I watched:

All of Me (1984) - Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin.  If you haven't seen this, you're missing out on a hilariously fun movie.  Lily plays a rich lady who's dying and has plans to put her soul into a beautiful young woman, but the vessel falls out a window and hits her lawyer - played by Steve - in the head.  So, now she's in his body with him and he has to get her out.  Comedic genius on the part of Steve Martin with some cute verbal bits by Tomlin.

Swallows and Amazons (2016) - this was a sleeper I found when I was just looking for something nice to watch.  It's about these kids in England on holiday in 1935.  They go to a home on a lake and get permission to take the boat out to this island, where they stay the night, but there are other kids who have already claimed the island and they have a 'war'.  It all works out and they become friends, and they defeat some Russian spies, too.  We really enjoyed this one.

Death on the Nile (1978) - Peter Ustinov as Poirot.  Need I say more?  Personally, I prefer David Suchet as Poirot, but I love Peter Ustinov, so I couldn't really go wrong watching this. It's a pretty good adaptation, if you can get past the '70s kitsch. 

The Mirror Crack'd (1980) - this had a star-studded cast, including Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson.  Angela Lansbury made a fine Miss Marple.  (Margaret Rutherford was the best Miss Marple, but that was a longer time ago.)  I've never seen another adaptation for this book, so I guess this would be the best one.  Not the best Agatha Christie based movie I've ever seen though.  Fun, but I'm not a huge fan of Elizabeth Taylor.

Jesse Stone: Benefit of the Doubt (2012) - Another awesome Jesse Stone.  Although this one did kind of leave things hanging that weren't addressed in the next and final movie of the series.

Jesse Stone: Lost in Paradise (2015) - This was the final Jesse Stone movie.  It was a pretty good one, even if it did start out a little sad.  I was sorry to have finished this series of movies and I definitely know we'll be revisiting these at least once a year from now on.

Murphy's Romance (1985) - a cute little romance between a divorcee (Sally Field) and a older pharmacist (James Garner).  She moves out to a small town in AZ, I think, to start her own ranch and escape from her life in CA.  She meets the pharmacist and over time they become friends.  Then her ex shows up like he's trying to win her back, and it's clear to everyone but her that Murphy 's tossed his hat into the ring for her.  Anyway, it all works out in the end.  HEA abounds.  Yay.

That's it for me... I know, it was a lot.  It'll taper off this week, as I'm running out of movies and watching more shows.  Eh, maybe I'll start talking about those, too.  We'll see.  Did you watch anything good lately?

Marketing Monday - Wish in One Hand

Welcome to another Marketing Monday and the freebie offering for WISH IN ONE HAND.  This is the first book in the Once Upon a Djinn series, but it can be read as a standalone (because it was originally written that way). 

Starting today, WISH IN ONE HAND is free! (Always free with Kindle Unlimited. This is for the rest of us.)  Pick up a copy of this fun and snarky paranormal mystery and get all of its genie goodness today!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013RVEF0Y

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 31

This is my 3200th post on this blog, by the way.  Not important, just sayin'.

It's Sunday again and I don't have much to tell you.  I was supposed to start the AuGoWriMo thing on Friday.  I failed.  I did write this morning, though, so that's a step in the right direction.  (Or the write direction... lol.)  Duke Noble 3 is at 16242 words as of a minute ago.  Woot.  I have greats hopes to get the first draft finished by the end of the month.

I did some marketing this week.  Unequal was free and I moved 41 copies. :sad trombone:  Eh, I wasn't expecting it to go gangbusters, but still.  This coming week, Wish in One Hand will be free.  Maybe that'll generate some sales.  

Not much reading this week.  I forgot to post yesterday, so anything I read this week will be on next week's post.

No baking.  It was too hot.

On the activity front, I was a busy lady.  Three days cleaning, one day I did some dancing, I took one walk, and I went grocery shopping.  I meant to walk yesterday, but I needed to run a couple errands and then I got lazy.  Weight: 171.6

In gardening, my tomato plants have loads of flowers and still only 2 tomatoes.  Bummer.  And one of my dogwood trees died.  I think it was heatstroke.  The redbud trees are growing right along.  The hickories are doing well, too.  The one unknown tree I planted is doing really well.  The green peppers are pathetic, but that was a fool's gamble anyway.  I planted too late.  I just pushed seeds into dirt to see what would happen.  Maybe I'll try again next year and start earlier.  This is all a learning curve.  Maybe year three will net me a good harvest of edible produce.  

Other than that, not much to talk about.  I watched way too much TV, but I'm having a lot of fun with the Roku thing.  Amusing myself to death, I believe is the phrase.  I told you Roku would be dangerous for me.  I need to find a way to balance the entertainment with the serious business of actually living.  To that end, I need to write.  And to exercise.  In between all the fun shows.  Umm... yeah.

Anyway, have a great day wherever you are.  And drop a note about what you're up to before ya leave, eh?

Friday This n That

I'm not dead.  I'm just lazy.

I woke up late two days in a row.  This makes me not want to do anything, but I had planned on going grocery shopping.  The jury's out as to whether I'll just skip over to the Dollar General for milk and postpone Wallyworld.

The news lately is fucking horrible.  Mass stabbing in Traverse City, mass shooting in NYC, some shithead killed two people in front of their kids on a fucking hiking trail in NWAR (northwest Arkansas to the uninitiated), four people were murdered by some asshole in TN.  Is it any wonder I don't want to go anywhere?

I dreamed last night that I had a third tomato on my plants.  Yeah, I lead a boring life.  Here's me dreaming about tomatoes.  One more tomato is an exciting thing for me.

I'm supposed to start AuGoWriMo today and write words.  I need to carve out some time to do that and I need to STOP watching Roku for a few hours to get that done.  I can do it!  Unfortunately, we found a new series to watch last night and it was awesome.  Drat.

A couple of days ago, I had a chicken breast defrosted to make Salsa Chicken, but then I realized I didn't have the right cheese, so I turned it into a kind of Chicken Parm.  Slap a chicken breast into a pan, cover it in marinara sauce, cover that all in mozzarella, bake at 375F for 30-40 minutes or until cooked through.  I made spaghetti noodles and more sauce to go with it, and added those into the pan about halfway through.  It all turned out really yummy.  We ate the leftovers for dinner last night.  Yum.

Yeah, the lacking cheese thing is another reason I need to go to Wallyworld.  Drat.

During the making of the spaghetti noodles, I spent some time dancing around the living room to music in my head.  Sawyer was freaked out by this.  Finn just looked at me like I'd lost my mind.  Maybe I had.

At the Movies with B.E.

Okay, twice in a row.  This is a trend.  Anyway, here are the movies I watched in the past week:

The Name of the Rose (1986) - I hadn't seen this one in a really long time, but I remembered liking it, so when I found it, I slapped it on my Save list.  I still liked it.  Hubs totally didn't.  To each his own, and perspectives, etc.  It's rare that we differ on things, but when we do, the thing is entertainment.  :shrug:

Jane Eyre (although strictly speaking this was a mini-series in 1983) - this is the version with Timothy Dalton as Rochester :swoon:.  I saw this one back when I was living in Illinois, so it had to be 1992.  There's a lot cut from this to make it short enough for TV, but all in all, a pretty faithful adaptation of the book.  And did I mention Timothy Dalton :swoon:?  Hubs enjoyed it, but he had a completely different and interesting perspective on the whole thing, which actually made the discussion of it enjoyable.  He really didn't appreciate Rochester's treatment of Jane.  I never thought about it that way before.

Jesse Stone: No Remorse (2010) - this was #6 in the series.  It was pretty damn good, too, like the others.  Something about Tom Selleck in this role makes me happy.  I really need to pick up the books.

Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost (2011) - another good installment of Jesse.  

Invitation to a Murder (2023)  - searching through all the things to watch, I stumbled across this.  The blurb for it sounded interesting, and it delivered.  It seemed like it was going to be a knockoff of And Then There Were None, but ended up as a nice, all around nod to Agatha Christie.  Not a thrilling movie, but a good one.  

Have you watched anything good lately?  Got any good suggestions for things I might want to watch?  

Marketing Monday - Blink of an I

Hello!  And welcome to another rousing rendition of Marketing Monday.  Today's offer is BLINK OF AN I, the story of a gal, trapped in a dystopian world of castes, controlled by an unforgiving Union, who's suddenly thrust into a position where she can leave all the horrors behind or return to save the only home she's ever known.  

That's a lot, I know, but it's a lot of book.  It's 487 pages that readers say is a fast read.  Anyway, it's one look at one possible future for this country.  May we never see this come to pass.  And if we do, may there be a Mary to come to its aid.

Starting today, BLINK OF AN I is absolutely free (Always free with KU.)  Get this dystopian adventure today!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079X142G2

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 30

Thirty weeks into 2025 by my estimation.  I could be wrong, of course, but I don't really think it matters.  Anyway...

I didn't do any writing this week, but I do have a plan to do a NaNo thing next month, so there's that.  Actually, I plan to start today.  We'll see how that goes.  

Marketing occurred.  Unfortunately, I did some marketing on Monday and FB slapped me with what ended up being a 24 hour hold on further marketing posts.  They never tell me when they do it or why or what the parameters for marketing are, so I just have to roll with it.  Bastards.  I only moved 30 free copies of Accidental Death.  On a happier note, someone in the UK read AD and it's sequel, Natural Causes, in KU.  Yay.  I also had some residual page reads for Dying Embers from the freebie earlier this month.  Also yay.  Starting tomorrow, Blink of an I will be free for 5 days and I'll market to the best of my ability.  (Or I'll get discouraged again and halfass market.)

I did some reading.  Not a lot.  See yesterday's post.

Yesterday, I made a half-batch of cinnamon rolls.  This time I went super simple with the filling - just cinnamon and sugar - and they turned out non-spectacular but yummy nonetheless.  I also made a batch of banana muffins.  I'd never done that recipe before and they turned out awesome.  Woot.

On the activity front, I was a toad.  One walk.  I mean, I'm hauling about 4 gallons of water every other day to water my deck garden, but I don't mark that down.  It's exercise, though, so it probably should count for something.  Weight: 171.8 - unchanged.

In gardening news, I still only have those two tomatoes.  They're getting bigger, so yay, but I want more.  To that end, I think I'm going to sacrifice one flower - pick it and rub it on the other flowers to try pollinating ever other flower.  Fingers crossed it works.  The green peppers are still pretty much seedlings.  Next year, I need to start all of this earlier in the season.  My trees are doing okay.  The poor dogwoods are looking to me like they're suffering from the sun/heat.  I moved two of them into a shadier spot.  Several of the redbuds are doing awesome, though.  I'm going to need to stake them up so they don't grow retarded.  The hickories are doing well, too, although some bug is munching on their leaves.  Silly bugs.  I can't get bugs to pollinate my tomatoes, but they're happily eating my trees.  Blerg.

When I go Roku, I expressed some concern about it taking over my life.  Well, I wasn't wrong.  It's sending me straight to the Hell of the Unproductive.  I'm resolved to change that this week.  I need to set aside my new toy and be an adult again.  (Well, as adult as I ever was.)  It's not like Roku is going anywhere.  All the fun will still be there after I get my work done.  

And that's about it for my boring week.  How were things in your world?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 7/26/25

 Yeah, yeah, it's been a while, but then again, it's been a while since I finished a book.  Here's what's happened since last I posted a Reading Wrap-up...

I picked up one new ebook.  It's by a popular author that I've been wanting to read and when I saw he put this on sale for 99c, I snapped it up.  That one's a SF.  I also still have a YA action/adventure, a UF, and a legal thriller to read.  Yay!

Books Read:

28) The Devil's Angel by Margaret Bernard (7/26/25) - UF*# - 5 stars.  New to me and underappreciated.  Free off Amazon's Top 100 Contemporary Fantasy free list.
Review: "I really enjoyed reading this. It has an interesting premise, a thrilling plot, and intriguing characters. The end and lead-in to the next book(s) was so-so, but not enough to lose it a star. All in all a good book."
Note: Available in Audiobook.

DNFs:

7/15/25 - UF - free.  Thinking about it now, I'm pretty sure this was written by AI.  At least I hope no human writes like that.  It was pretty bad.

7/15/25 - UK thriller - free. I don't remember exactly why I DNF'd this puppy.  Lame characters, poor dialogue... something like that because the premise was good.  :shrug:

Currently reading... since I just now finished the UF, I haven't started another ebook.  I'm still working on that Hercule Poirot omnibus.  One story left to go on that, I think.

What have you been reading lately?

Thursday This n That

Sawyer has been playing with his favorite jingly-ball for about an hour now.  He bats that thing around the house like Pele going down the field for a goal.  Yes, he woke me up, but it's hard to be mad at him when he's being good and playing.  I'd rather have him doing that than scratching the bedroom walls and meowling at 3am, as he is wont to do.

My freebie thing this week isn't going great.  On the other hand, people have been reading DE in KU, so I can't be too depressed.

Getting old blows.  I mean, it's better than the alternative, but come on.  The strange thing is I still feel young in my head.  My body is a whole 'nother story.  

I can't believe Ozzy Osbourne died.  I was never a huge fan of his, but he was a fixture of our culture for so many years.  Now, there's a case of Heaven won't take him and Hell's afraid he'll take over, if ever there was one.  (A joke... I hear he was a nice person, and his antics on stage in the '80s were staged or rumors or PR.)

Also, Malcolm Jamal Warner (Theo from The Cosby Show) died this week.  That was a real shocker.  He was younger than me.  The poor man drown.  =o(

Hang on a sec... I need a smoke and some more coffee... Thanks, I needed that.  Now where was I?

Why are the katydids so freakin' loud this year?  Holy crap, it's like an alien invasion out there.  Or Day of the Triffids.  OMG, Howard Keel was in that movie?  I haven't seen it since I was a kid, but I never would've thought Keel was the MC.  By the way, the Joshua Tree National Park looks like a scene out of DotT.  Creepy.

Wow, that was some free range thinking right there, eh?

No matter what you read about what's going on in Gaza, do your research.  A certain section of the populace are putting forward blatant lies.  Don't get suckered.  Actually, that pretty much goes for everything.  Do your due diligence and don't look like a moron.  K?

Finn and Sawyer are rasslin' now.  Finn sounds like he's being killed, but he's the aggressor.  One of these days, he'll really be in trouble, but because of his prior drama, I won't react to his caterwauling.  Cat who cried wolf and all that, doncha know.

Okay, since I've bookended this post with cats, I should probably let you go.  Have a great day wherever you are.  :hugs:

At the Movies with B.E.

Okay, so not really 'at' the movies.  I'm home.  I'm always home and I don't do theaters anyway.  Still, I've been watching some things that I'd like to share.  Maybe I'll make this a regular post.  We'll see.

The first movie up is A Birder's Guide to Everything (2013).  If you know me, you know I'm a bird nerd, so when I saw this title on the Roku movie list, I had to stick it in my Save pile.  I sat down to watch it on Saturday morning.  It was fun and lighthearted in places, serious and heartwarming in others.  It's about a teenage guy who's into birding.  He sees a duck he hasn't seen before and he's pretty sure he's identified it as one thought to be extinct, so he convinces his friends to take a trip to try and find the duck again.  So, here's these three boys and a photography-nerd girl on the road, looking for a duck, and things happen.  It's kind of a coming-of-age thing, and a friendship thing, and a family thing with birds.  Think The Big Year combined with Stand by Me.  The main character was played by an actor I've never seen, but the MC's best friend was Spencer in the newer Jumanji movies.  And Ben Kingsley was in it, too.  I really enjoyed it.  So far, Hubs hasn't seemed interested in it, but I'll convince him to watch it.  I think he'll enjoy it almost as much as I did.  

Next up is an older title... The January Man (1989).  It's a quirky suspense starring Kevin Kline and Mary Elizabeth Mostrantonio.  Kline plays a disgraced police officer called in to help with a crime the NYPD hasn't been able to solve, because he's some kind of crime-solving savant.  Once a month, someone is strangling a young woman and this has been going on for 11 months now.  (Which is a little far-fetched that they wouldn't bring in help earlier than after the 11th death, but I rolled with it.)  The movie also has Alan Rickman, which was cool.  Love Alan.  I'd seen this ages ago and loved it, and it held up pretty well to my memory of it.  (Although, I don't remember the nudity.  Maybe I'd only ever seen it cut for TV. :shrug:  Eh, it was the '80s.)  Hubs liked it, too.  

We also watched several Jesse Stone movies.  They star Tom Selleck as an ex-LAPD officer who's now the police chief in a small town in Massachusetts.  They're gritty and suspenseful, and we really enjoy them.  We'd seen a couple before, but we're trying to work our way through them all. We're going to start over from the chronological beginning and re-watch the first five before we move on to #6, just to get everything straight in our heads.  (And because they're awesome enough to re-watch.

Next up on my watch list was Dragonslayer (1981) - a movie I haven't seen since my folks took me to the theater to see it when it came out (probably because my brother wanted to see it and I begged to go, too).  It's still pretty awesome.  A group of townsfolk show up at a sorcerer's place to get him to come take care of their dragon problem, but something happens and the sorcerer's apprentice ends up going instead.  There's daring-do and magic, surprises and romance, and a happy ending.  Yay!  

Finally, I found a movie from 1980 that my father loved.  I mean, he must've loved it because he rented it like every other weekend.  And I loved it, too - but hey, I was a kid.  It's called Hawk, the Slayer.  I made it about 15 minutes in before I gave up.  It's really really bad.  Hokey beyond measure.  Bad acting.  Bad writing.  Bad special effects.  So bad I'm not even linking to it.  Sorry Dad, but it's the truth.  Even for 40 years ago, it's bad.

All in all, not a bad week for movies.  I have several movies ready to go on my Save list for the coming week.  No spoilers in case I do this again next week.  I really should spend less time in front of the tube, but I doubt that'll happen.  

Marketing Monday - Accidental Death

I wasn't sure I was going to do any marketing this week, but I did it.  This week it's Accidental Death's turn.  

Starting today, ACCIDENTAL DEATH is absolutely free.  (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.)  Download your copy of this 'big city cop in a small town' mystery now!  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XM6VJ9U

Let's talk for a moment about Accidental Death and how it came about.  Once upon a time, I was the wife of a city manager of a small town in Colorado - just like Jillian.  One night when Hubs was late getting home from a city council meeting, I started to imagine all the reasons why he was late.  I knew the real reason was because the meeting was running long, but the idea of a heart attack and death popped into my head.  If you knew how contentious some of those meetings can get, you'd understand.  

That's not enough for a whole mystery, but the idea had legs and grew into Accidental Death.  I had several misstarts and wrong turns, but in the end, I had a book I can be proud of.  

Of course, all the players in real life were changed and morphed to give birth to fictional characters.  There is no one character in this book that is exactly a real person.  On the other hand, all the fictional supporting characters in this book do have characteristics of people I've known or known of - both in that small town in CO and from the small town in Michigan where I grew up.  If you don't like them or they offend, that's life.  I expect a lot of small towns are a lot like Serenity.  Hell, I'd bet if you scratch the surface of any size town, you'll find the same things there, too.

Anyway, I hope you read and enjoy this one.  And if you do, check out its sequel - NATURAL CAUSES.  

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 29

 It was an extremely lazy week last week.  Okay, maybe not 'extremely'... but lazy nonetheless.

I only wrote 840 words.  Then I hit a 'I have no idea where to go from here' spot and fell apart.

I did do some marketing.  DE was free and I did my marketing version of swimming with both hands tied behind my back.  Oddly, the second day, downloads took off and I moved 189 copies that day.  Not sure what happened there, but I'm okay with it.  I also got a couple of really nice reviews for DE recently and one of the reviewers bought FG, too. So yay.  Not sure what I'll be doing this week.  Maybe nothing.  Tune in tomorrow.

Reading... I finished another story in the big book of Hercule Poirot mysteries.  I also DNF'd some books.  I'll try to remember to post about all that next Saturday.  

In baking news, I made a yellow layer cake from scratch.  It turned out pretty tasty, if a little dense.  I frosted it in vanilla buttercream and slathered strawberry jam in the middle.  I'd do it again, but cake mixes really are easier, cheaper, etc.  I also did what I'm calling 'open-face pizza subs' and those are yummy.  Yesterday, I made pulled pork.  I had mine on toast with cheese.  Hubs did his over mashed potatoes.  Livin' good in the rural 'hood, and all that.

On the activity front, I only walked once this week.  I also did some cleaning and gardening.  Weight: 171.8  :shrug:

Ah, the gardening...  My first tiny tomato made an appearance, followed by a second.  #1 is about kumquat size now and #2 is a little bigger than a pea.  A couple of the plants have several flowers and the other plants look like they're trying to make flowers, and flowers lead to fruits, so yay.  I also repotted all my little pepper plants.  I planted 18.  An hour later, it rained torrentially, and one got smooshed, so 17 plants.  I know it's late to get plants like that going, but I'm still hopeful I'll get at least a few peppers before it gets too cold.

Other than that, it's been too hot to be really motivated to do anything physical.  Mentally?  Well... Okay, fine... I've been letting myself get sucked into the Roku vortex.  So many good things to watch...  :drools:  I'm catching old movies I haven't seen or haven't seen in decades, awesome new-to-me mystery/crime shows, fun home and cooking shows...  Yesterday, I found Dragonslayer (1981) and saved it to watch later.  I saw that movie in the theater when I was a kid and haven't seen it since.  I hope it's still awesome.

What's been on your agenda lately?

Thursday This n That

Yesterday, I heard about a recent 'news' program where a couple of idiots were arguing that egg prices are, in fact, still up.  Not sure what planet they live on, or where they're buying their eggs, but egg prices here are about half what they were just a couple months ago.  I went from paying over $5 a dozen to $2-something last week.  I call that winning.  Now, if we can just get meat prices down, my budget will be happy.

Scammers suck.  A guy in one of my FB groups was contacted and offered the chance to write two articles for publication.  He wrote them, they paid him, he deposited the check.  Shortly after, they said they wanted half their money back for some hyped up reason.  Then the check bounced.  Thankfully, he hadn't spent any of it.  Writer Beware posted about another one where authors are getting contacted via email telling them that their book is being considered for a movie.  I've gotten a couple of these already (for Unequal), but mere minutes after I read the article, I got another one (Project Hermes).  A movie?!  My lil ol' book?  Yeah, pull the other leg, it's shorter.

I think I found the way around FB and their stupid 'anti-spammer' rules.  Post to one group every ten-fifteen minutes.  It's a PITA, but if it works, then I'll do it.  I find this whole thing particularly funny in that this morning alone I saw a couple people actually spamming these book marketing groups, but I'm the one that gets tagged.  Derp.  Those people are probably paying FB for the privilege... a thing I refuse to do.  

Have you ever seen the movie CAVEMAN?  It's from the '80s and it stars Ringo Starr.  (Yes, THAT Ringo Starr.)  It also has a really young Dennis Quaid and Shelley Long.  I remember my sister taking me to the movies to see that.  Well, I found it on Roku and watched it yesterday.  It's silly and stupid and a little crass.  But it was AWESOME!  

My tiny tomato is a little less tiny, but it's still the only tomato.  

I saw a news story yesterday about all these kids in TX setting up lemonade stands and using the proceeds to help flood victims.  

And that's enough out of me.  What's on your this n that list today?

Celebrating the Little Things

I'm so excited.  I have one tiny tomato.  It's about the size of a Jelly Belly, but it's there.  Most of the other plants have buds, so maybe the one tiny tomato will have friends soon.

Last night, while I was out back smoking, I saw a ton of fireflies.  I love fireflies and would much rather watch those than fireworks.  Anyway... one in particular was stationary.  It just sat in a cedar tree occasionally lighting up.  For some reason, seeing it made me happy.  

I spelled stationary right.

Sunday, I made a layer cake from scratch.  It's pretty dense, but it's super moist and yummy, so yay.

Someone bought a copy of FERTILE GROUND yesterday.

I lost a pound.

My WIP is up to 15488 words.

Several of my redbud trees are thriving.  They're about 6-8 inches tall and getting new leaves.

We watched a Sherlock Holmes movie from 1942 that we'd never seen before.  It was pretty good.  (Naturally. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are almost a guaranteed good watch.)

Those are my little things right now.  Sometimes I have to look for them, sometimes they pop right up, but they're always there.  What little things do you have to celebrate today?

Marketing Monday - Dying Embers

 The time has rolled around again to whip out the first book and set it free... or rather set it FOR free.  

(Hey! Inserting a pic works this morning!  Yay!)

Now through Friday, get DYING EMBERS absolutely free.  (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.)  Get your copy of this gripping suspense novel today!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TEQK7OU

Revenge is better hot.

Sunday Update - '25 Week 28

 :blink blink:  I just woke up and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet, so bear with me.

I did some writing.  Not nearly as much as I would've hoped, but life's like that sometimes.  I only wrote three days, but I managed to put out 4054 words.  The book is up to 14648 words.  Not NaNo #s, but better than nothing, right?

This week, I marketed Sleeping Ugly.  FB is still hamstringing me, so I get like 3-5 posts up and it tells me they're not letting me post anymore for a while to prevent spamming.  Turds.  I'm following all the rules of the groups I belong to - like only posting one book and only once every 24 hours - but I'm the spammer.  Gah.  So, while I got posts out, they weren't all the groups every day, which meant I only moved 57 books instead of my former amounts of 120-150 a week.  I did manage to sell a couple others, too, so not a total waste of time.  It's just disappointing.

Reading was okay.  I finished one freestanding book and then one of the books in that Poirot omnibus.  :shrug:

Nothing baked.  It's too hot and I'm unmotivated.

On the activity front, I got off my butt 4 days this week.  Two walks, some gardening, and some housework.  I haven't weighed myself.  Again... too hot to be motivated.

In gardening news, the tomatoes all either have flowers or buds for future flowers.  Last night we got heavy rain and when I looked out this morning, most of the plants look depressed.  I'll need to go out today and shore them up with extra slats and yarn.  I hope none of them are actually broken.  That'd suck.  The trees all look fine.  I did manage to repot some of them.  I need more dirt and more bigger pots to really do a good job.  What the bigger trees really need is to go in the ground, but I'm trying to wait until fall to give them a good shot of living through the deer.  After Elmer the Elm's horrific death, I'm hoping young trees without leaves will get ignored and by spring they'll just be part of the landscape and therefore uninteresting.

Ah, Roku... how I love thee.  Yes, I have spent way too much time this week vegging in front of the tube.  I'm watching Midsomer Murders, Murdoch Mysteries, Doc Martin, Yorkshire Vet, Great British Baking Show, and Hometown from the beginnings.  Not binging, just watching an episode each like once a day or once/twice a week.  There are a lot of episodes of all those, so yay.  I'm also watching Emergency!, Red Green, Dr. G, Mayday: Air Disasters, Forensic Files, and MST3K when I feel like it. When we get done, or we get bored, I'll subscribe to BritBox.  I'm looking forward to watching all the episodes of Inspector Morse and Poirot (naturally, Poirot... lol).  

Okay, I think that's about it for me this week.  How are things in your world?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 7/12/25

 Not the best reading week I've ever had, but not the worst either, so let's get right to it.

No new books.  I still have 6 unread ebooks - three urban fantasy, two thrillers, and a YA action/adventure.  And of course, I have scads of unread hardcopies in case of emergency. ;o)

Books Read: 

27) Space Academy Dropouts by Phipps & Suttkus (7/6/25) - SF humor*# - 5 stars. New to me and underappreciated at the time of download.  Free off the Book Barbarian newsletter.
Review: "This is a pretty neat story, with loads of fun characters. I really enjoyed reading it."

No DNFs.

Currently reading... the next story in that Poirot omnibus.  I'm on The ABC Murders.  I'll probably finish it today and then read another ebook.  The omnibus has two more stories after this.  Unfortunately, I didn't notice when I bought it that Death on the Nile has damage to the last third or so of the story - like the top quarter of all the pages was ripped out.  I won't be able to read that.  Good thing I've already read that story in other formats, and I've seen the movies.  Still, damaged books make me sad.  =o(

Okay, your turn.  What's been on your reading plate this week?

A Cautionary Tale

Saw this just now in one of my author groups.  It's a cautionary tale...

If you use Find and Replace, do not do Replace All.  I did it once years ago to change a character's name.  I think it was Tom and I changed it to something like Bob, so tomorrow became boborrow and tomato became bobato.  Cusbobers? Botbob? Ugh.  It was frustrating and irritating, and kind of hilarious in retrospect.  

Last week, I saw a similar story - only this time it was a reader saying the book they were reading had all sorts of weird errors and after thinking about it for a time, they realized that the author had Replaced all instances of 'ass' with 'arse' (probably to make it more British sounding).  Working on an arseignment?  Going to an arseignation?  Went fishing and caught a big barse?

In the above case, though, I'm not sure what 'too late' would be for a book. Post publication and after a slew of bad reviews perhaps?  Ugh.

If you're silly enough to make this mistake, the fix isn't that hard.  Once you realize you've replaced all your Toms with Bobs, do another Find and Replace, finding Bob this time and going through each separate instance... OR just replace all Bobs with Toms again, and THEN do another search for Tom replacing it with what you meant to replace it with in the first place - each instance separately.  Which is what you should've done the first time, but you got lazy and paid the price.

Sometimes, doing the work the right way, no matter what kind of boring slog it is, actually saves time in the long run.

If you've done it and didn't do that final run-through before you loaded it for publication, only to have people read it and leave bad reviews, you're kinda screwed.  Always check, recheck, and double-check before you hit Publish.  

Thursday This n That

Ding dong the witch is dead... to me, at least.  Yesterday, I had the great honor of killing my account with Brightspeed.  Gah, they suck so bad.  Even the last phone contact with them sucked.  The first person I talked to 'Shannon', who was barely understandable as it was, hung up on me accidentally.  I called back and got 'Sergio'.  He was actually harder to understand, but he got the job done and confirmed my account was cancelled effective 7/9.  Then I asked about the 'final bill' and he said it was like $58+, and I was all like 'whoa whoa whoa, wait a second there'.  I explained how we haven't had phone service for WEEKS and that any bill they sent wasn't going to get paid - very nicely, of course - then I said 'please make that go away for me, Sergio' and he did.  $0 bill and the service is dead.  Long live 1-VoiP.  Of course, I don't trust Brightspeed, so I fully expect to see a bill that they will want me to pay, but I have Sergio's confirmation number and a willingness to call and go all screamin' chicken on them.

By the way, it's really nice to pick up the phone and hear a freakin' dial tone for a change.

I also killed DirectTV.  That dude was also hard to understand, but only because he had his mic too close to his mouth and he was speaking too fast.  He tried really hard to get me to stay.  He offered me a discount.  He offered me a giftcard, too.  I finally ended up telling him he couldn't give me any offer that would be less than FREE.  $0 bill there, too, but no refund (per their Terms of Service according to the dude).  I just still have service through the 18th.  (I already took all the stuff down and put it in the spare room, so nah.)  And since my equipment was so old, they didn't want it back.  Yay.

This new Blogger thing where they want to insert links into my blog posts because their AI told them I should is really irritating.  It keeps flashing a dialogue box at me that I have to dismiss.  If I want links in my posts, I'll put them there tyvm.

I found a new-to-me show on Roku - Yorkshire Vet.  It combines two of my loves - Dr. Pol and All Creatures Great and Small.  And I have access to all the episodes, so I can just sit down and watch one when I feel like it.  For free.  Woot!

The bird of the day is actually a two-fer... Rosy-faced Lovebirds.  I'm not a fan of parrots, per se, but these are okay.  Little cuties.  Aww.

It looks like Lumpy lost her fawn.  We hadn't seen it in a while, and a couple of days ago, I noticed that her milk bag is gone.  It wasn't too unexpected.  Lumpy's getting pretty old and that baby was really small - like premie looking.  Still a sad thing.  On a happier note, we have Sissy and her baby (which would be Lumpy's grandbaby) both doing well and we have another doe with twins who's been visiting.

One of my tomato plants has two flowers blooming! I helped the pollination of them along, so fingers crossed.  Most of the other tomato plants have buds, so they should be blooming soon.  Then we'll get some real pollination action going on.  Woot.

Okay, that's probably more than enough out of me.  Have a great day!

A Morning Rant

When I got close to finishing the first draft of my first novel, I began doing research on everything I would need to do to get it published.  I bought the big book of agents.  I made lists and notes and spreadsheets.  I studied how to write query letters.  I scoured the web for information.  I joined a couple of writers' groups online.  

I did the same thing when I decided to stop looking for an agent.  I went through the process of researching publishers who might accept unagented manuscripts and how to contact them.  When that didn't work, I went through the process of researching everything on how to self-publish... before I made a single step down the path.  

This morning, I saw a gal bitching because she self-published through Amazon in May and made some sales, but it's already July and she hadn't seen any money yet.  A boatload of people told her what is already obvious to anyone who's done like 2 seconds of research - Amazon pays at 60 days from the end of the month that your sales occurred in.  So, May sales get paid at the END of July. 

Even then, she questioned the truth of the answers those people gave her.  She was sure Amazon was out to screw her.  :eyeroll:  And some dude in comments egged her on because Amazon supposedly closed his account within 30 days of him publishing his book, but they didn't take it down and they're collecting all his monies.  Obviously, Amazon is ebil.  

Okay, so Amazon isn't perfect.  Generally, though, if you do your research and you follow the rules, it's easy to navigate the river.  I'm guessing dude didn't follow the rules.  

I often see people complaining about things that are so easy to figure out with a little effort.  But effort is a four-letter word for some people, even when it's little and not really effort.  Here... I'll help... Go to your freakin' search engine, type in what you're looking for, scroll through the answers it spits out.  Voila.  And it helps to not just read the first answer.  Read several until you find the right answer and understand it thoroughly.  

Okay, so that is effort for some people, I guess.  Researching shit ought to be fun because like, you know, we're WRITERS.  :shrug:  But no, they'd rather bitch in a Facebook group.  It probably took more time for the bitching than they would've expended on the research, but hey...

Anyway, long story short... I blocked the chick.  And the dude.  I don't need that kind of negativity and willful ignorance in my life.  The moral of the story?  Don't run around social media screaming at people to chew your food for you and then whine when you choke.

Starlink, VoiP, and Roku... WOOT

Monday, I posted this on Facebook, but it's worth repeating here: "My Roku arrived and it's all hooked up.  This may have been the worst idea I ever had.  It has Red Green and Mystery Science Theater 3000 and all the Doc Martin episodes I never got to see because I started watching late in the game.  :swoon:  Oh, man, this could be bad for my productivity."

Turns out it's only bad for my productivity if I let it be.  Last night, I told myself 'you're going to write today', so I left Hubs in the living room watching some show about people building homes in Alaska and sat my ass down.  I cranked out about a thousand words, had a cigarette, then sat down again.  I ended with 2098.  My hands are ouchy this morning, but it was worth it.

Anyway, I'm loving the Roku.  I spent part of yesterday watching The Great British Baking Show and it's spinoff Celebrity British Baking Show.  Then I watched Dr G. Medical Examiner and a little MST3K.  Later, like I said, Hubs found that Alaska show to enjoy while I wrote.  We decided to go slow on the Doc Martin episodes so we don't get burned out.  There are like 18 seasons of that (2004-2022), most of which we haven't seen.  We're reserving it for one night a week, probably Saturday or Sunday.

It hasn't slowed the internet down at all.  Say what you want about Elon Musk, at the start of the year, Starlink saved us from Brightspeed's slow, sometimes non-existent, internet, and now it's saving us from the BS crappy phone - thanks to 1-VoiP - and skyrocketing bills through DirectTV.  

I'm sure at some point we'll run through all the shows we know we like, but there are scads of shows we've never seen that we'll give a try to at that point.  

By the way, going back to Red Green and MST3K, I laughed myself silly watching both of those, but I'll have to do small doses of them, too.  Too much of a good thing causes burnout.  And my face hurts from smiling too much.  We should all have such horrors visited upon us.

So, anyway, if you're like me and dragging your feet to get some of this newer technology, give it a try.  If I can get good service out here in the middle of nowhere, you can probably do fine with it, too.  It does take a little startup scratch, but in the long run, you'll save money.  Our combined phone and internet bill was $147 a month with BS, double that with DTV - so around $300 A MONTH.  Now, $120 for Starlink, $24 for phone, and the Roku is free.  All that for less than our phone/internet alone.  So the initial outgo for $600 Starlink and the $34 for phone and the $57 for Roku will be recovered by the end of the year.  Woot.

(Private thanks to my sister for recommending Roku and my nephew for getting her onto it.  This shit rocks, man.)

Marketing Monday - Sleeping Ugly

Hello, and welcome to Marketing Monday with your host, B.E. Sanderson.  Today, we'll be marketing a most wonderfully snarky paranormal mystery... SLEEPING UGLY.

It's the story of a supermodel on the verge of greatness who, through no fault of her own*, gets cursed and every night at midnight, she turns butt ugly.  How can this possibly happen every night?  Well, that's the brilliance and the evilness of the curse.  She gets better looking throughout each day until she's her beautiful self again at around 11:59 p.m.  Then WHAM... ugly.  Which super sucks because she can't even pretend to be someone else or people will notice she's getting better looking throughout the day and throw her in some kind of laboratory as a study subject.  

*Well, maybe it's a little her fault.  She's kind of bitchy, foul-mouthed, and self-absorbed, and she did sleep with someone else's husband... But, he's estranged from his wife, so that totally doesn't count, right?

Anyway, now she's got to get this damn curse taken off and maybe along the way, she'll learn something about herself.  Even bitchy models can maybe get a second chance.  

Starting today and going through Friday, SLEEPING UGLY is totally free.  (It's also free with a KU subscription, but this is for everyone else.)  Pick up your copy of this snarky, fun, paranormal mystery today!  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GM24Q48

There's supposed to be a cool marketing graphic here, but Blogger is being a turd.  Just imagine one, okay?

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 27

 Okay, we're over halfway through 2025 and so far, I'm of the opinion that this is the best year we've had in a long long time.  Sure, things are still pretty shitty all over, but things are also looking up.  I'm feeling optimistic.  Which is weird for me.  Anyway, let's get into the past week...

I didn't write much, because I was distracted with other things.  Those distractions are over, so I'm feeling good about the week to come.  I did get over 2200 words down and I like where the story is going.  Yay.

I took the week off of marketing.  Guess what?  No sales.  Not a single one.  Not a single page read.  Crickets.  I need to figure out if I'm going to be marketing this week and what, or if I'm just going to let it slide again.  

I read some stuff, but I didn't finish anything.  

This week, I made a batch of blackberry muffins.  Yummers.  And a batch of chicken wet burritos.  Also yummers.  

On the activity front, I did walk three times for a total of 3.6 miles.  That puts me at 41 miles for the year.  Woot.  Weight: 171.4 - also woot.

The big news for the week... I got the VoiP set up.  (That's voice over internet protocol - which allows you to make regular phone calls on a regular phone using your internet, which for me is Starlink.)  There was a little niggle wherein the Starlink only has two ports for devices to plug into and I need three - my computer, Hubs' computer, and the VoiP device.  So I ordered up an ethernet splitter from Amazon and had it overnighted.  And it was defective. So, I went to Walmart yesterday and bought a better thing from a company I trust, and it works like a champ.  Yay.  Today or tomorrow, my regular phone number should be ported over from Brightspeed to 1-VoiP (our new provider out of Edmund, OK... love them) and then I can officially kick Brightspeed to the curb.  (OMG, they suck so bad.)  Next up, ditching DirectTV.  My Roku device is supposed to be here today through Walmart delivery.  Woot.  If it's everything everyone says it is, DerektTV can go away, too.  Woot.

Okay, I should probably wrap this up so I can get my walk in... and pick berries while I'm out there.  (Blackberries growing alongside the road... hence the muffins.)  Have a great day and tell me about what's going on in your life before you go.  =o)

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 7/5/25

Not the most exciting of reading weeks here.  Eh, it goes like that sometimes.

No new books.

Books Read: 

I didn't finish any books this week.  Well, not free-standing books.  I finished Murder on the Orient Express in that omnibus of Poirot stories, though.  It was awesome, as usual.

DNFs:

7/4/25 - free SF humor - OMG, this was so poorly written I just couldn't even.  It seemed like every single thing a writer can easily catch and fix during edits was missed by this person.  And that was only in the first few pages.  It really bummed me out because I was actually excited about the premise, which is why I downloaded it.  =o\

Currently reading... a different SF humor.  This one is good so far.  I'm over halfway through, so I hope it doesn't take a turn for the crappy.  

What was on your reading plate this week?

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day to all my American friends.  Actually, all my non-American friends should celebrate, too, because us being independent helps make the world a safer place.  And we're getting back to being the place we need to be... i.e. a shining example of liberty.  

Anyway, because I'm free to do whatever I want, I'm going to do exactly that today.  It'll probably be nothing, but that's okay, too.  

Oh, and here's an art pic I made of some kids on their way to watch the Independence Day parade where we used to live in CO.  I just loved the little red-headed trio, so I snapped a shot and then played with it until it looked like a painting.  It makes me happy.  Hopefully, it'll do the same for you...

 

Thursday This n That

 Alligator Alcatraz...  First off, I just saw some liberal chick whining quite incorrectly that it was a wildlife sanctuary and how dare we all celebrate it because it's cruel.  I also saw a cute cartoon of some alligators talking and one says 'did you hear we get to eat them if they escape?'  Which reminded me of this prison just outside Marquette, Michigan.  It's across the street from Lake Superior and it butts up to some of the nastiest, craggy woodlands you'd ever want to see.  Back when I was in college, it had the highest walkaway rate of any prison in Michigan.  But the escapees were rarely ever seen again.  You see, it was filled with criminals from places like Detroit and Flint.  City boys who probably had never taken a survival course in their lives.  The way I figure it, the missing criminals either went into the water and drown, or they went into the woods and died.  Win win, in my book.

Soon, I will be able to kick Brightspeed to the curb.  The VoiP is in place and working smashingly.  I called Mom on it yesterday.  Unfortunately, the Starlink router only has 2 ports, and we have 2 computers to plug in, so I needed a splitter.  It came and after some massaging, it's working, too.  The true test will be calling Mom through the splitter this morning.  Keep your fingers crossed.  I have a temp phone # until my regular # transfers over to the new service, so don't try to call me at this time.

Better internet... check.  Better phone... check.  Next up, replacing the satellite TV with something like Roku.  Woot.

Man, Wallyworld was a zoo yesterday.  Totally spasticness.  

What's with this new crap here on Blogger?  This morning it has a notice at the top - some crap about upgrading something - and it just offered to insert links into my post for me.  Why the hell would I want links inserted into my post?  Wouldn't a link take people away from READING my post?  Derp.  Makes no sense.

My tomatoes might almost be trying to make flowers.  Fingers crossed.

My black walnut tree got root rot and died.  I guess they aren't meant for growing in a pot.  Next time I have to transplant a volunteer walnut, I'll find a place in the woods for it.  =o(

I almost put in -o(... That would be a cyclops, I guess. Rawr.

Okay, that's about all I've got today.  Feel free to drop some this-n-that yourself before you wander off.  Have a great day!

Marketing Monday, or Lack Thereof

 There won't be any marketing today.  I haven't been sleeping well and I just didn't have the drive to create a sale.  And I knew I wouldn't be in any shape to do morning marketing today.  (We finally slept last night, which was good.)

The problem with not marketing is with no marketing comes no sales.  I mean, I'm still getting some page reads, but nothing to shout about.  :shrug:

Unfortunately, even with the marketing, I'm only averaging about $20 a month.  I keep hoping something will take off and fly, but so far, nothing has.  When I look at the amount of effort versus the return, it really makes me not want to market.  

This, of course, is all free marketing.  As in, no money is going to to accomplish it.  On the other hand, I'm spending a lot of time.  We won't go into how many hours I spend to make $20 a month, okay?  That's just depressing.  I get paid more than that for working on a single spreadsheet for an hour.  

Anyway, I know that if I paid someone else for marketing, I'd trade cash for time.  The problem with that is the last time I paid for ads, I made an 11.06% profit.  In 2019, I paid $355.31 and cleared $39.31.  Not sure if 11% profit is awesome or pathetic, but there it is.

With FB being a turd about how much I can market, I'm definitely going to need to start delving back into other sources.  I've started that, kinda.  At least, I've gone through and determined which newsletters are defunct, so I have a good list to use when I start back up again.  Bleh.

Tomorrow's post will be of a personally relevant nature, as opposed to a writerly nature.  Maybe I'll talk more about this marketing thing on Wednesday.  For now, though, it's time to get to my morning routine.  Have a great day, wherever you are.

Screwed by the Liberals Again

In case you missed it, the liberal government passed some new health insurance laws again last year that went into effect this year.  (https://help.ihealthagents.com/hc/en-us/articles/20207003806871-New-Short-Term-Health-Insurance-Law-Rules-for-2025) 

Let me set you the stage for how this effects me (and possibly you)...

For the last several years, I've been using short term health insurance.  It bypasses the Obamacare mandate, which makes it way cheaper.  I can't afford health insurance any other way, so there I am.  It's not great, but it's better than nothing.  Every 6 months, I would have to sign up for a new policy.  When I got the email saying my insurance was expiring, it seemed like it was the wrong month to renew, but I shrugged and got on with signing up.  That's when I noticed that all the new policies were 3 month with a 1 month extension.  I guess when I signed up in March for my new policy, I missed that fact.  Okay, fine, whatever.

I went into the site, did my thing, found my policy, and went through the process of getting my new policy.  5 days went by while I waited for my acceptance.  Instead, I got an email saying my application for new insurance had been 'withdrawn'.  Unfortunately, I got the email right before I went to bed, so there wasn't anything I could do about it (which didn't stop me from obsessing over it all night).  And time was ticking because my current policy would run out on the 30th.  

The next day, I contacted the company that manages this crap - ehealth, I think it's called - via chat message on their site.  The gal told me she couldn't help me and I would have to call.  So, I called.  I got a really nice lady who calmly explained to me that the law had changed last September and, in addition to the policies only being for 4 months each, they cannot be from the same provider twice in the same year.  They withdrew my application from United Health because I can't have them again this year. 

The only other companies offering short term insurance in my state... because, ya know, Obama fixed it so we can only have certain companies offering insurance in our states... are unheard of to me.  And either of them only offer indemnity policies instead of regular policies (PPO or EPO).  

I picked one and submitted a new application, because what choice do I have?  Even if I could afford to get a regular policy, you can't sign up for one of those outside the month of November.  (Obama again... although in all fairness, it's not just him. It's him and his cronies.  And Biden and his handlers.)  

So, as long as my application got accepted, I would have insurance.  Until 10/31.  (It was accepted, btw. So yay, I guess.) Then I'll have to go with the other unknown indemnity company for 4 months before I can go back to UH.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  On the upside, the new policy is cheaper with better coverage... except for the indemnity thing where we'll have to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed by the insurance afterward.  

While I was doing this, I accidentally ended up in the section for regular insurance quotes, and discovered that the cheapest of those was $750-ish a month.  Almost twice what I was paying UH and more than 3 times what I'll be paying the new company.  That's like half our monthly income.  

Yes, I know some of this is my own damn fault, right?  I could crawl to Obamacare and beg for alms, but my hypocrisy only goes so far.  Come November, I might have to debase myself and do that or choose to go insurance-less.  

I'm a healthy gal.  I can go without insurance, right?  (Don't worry, I'm not that stupid.  Bad things have a way of happening, especially when you temp fate by going without insurance.)

Sunday Update - Week 26

I almost typed Sunday Ypdate.  Yip.  LOL. Yeah, this is what comes of too little sleep and then waking up late.  

Anyway...

I wrote words!  5269 of them.  I gave myself a good talking to mentally and Monday night, I just started adding words to DN3.  I took Friday off because it was a mentally draining day and I just wasn't in a place where words would come out.  Then yesterday I wrote over 1800 words, which kinda made up for the day off.  The point is, I'm averaging over 1000 words a day, which is good.

And I even did some editing.  I stopped writing one night and as I lay in bed, I realized that something needed to happen between where Duke was and where Duke had been before, so I went back... a thing I almost never do while I'm dirty drafting... and fixed it.  The writing really started flowing after that.  Woot.

No Marketing this week.  I'll see what I can come up with this week for a new offering.  It's hard to muster the urge when I have to fight FB every step of the way, but if I don't market, I don't sell.  And I like selling books.

The reading... well, you can see that in yesterday's posts.  I'm not blazing any trails here, unless it's the trail to DNF.

Yesterday morning, I made a half-batch of cinnamon rolls.  They turned out pretty good, even if halving the recipe took some mathing.  

On the activity front, I did something active 6 out of 7 days, so woot.  I only walked three of those days, so 3.5 miles (37.4 total).  I meant to walk 4 days, but I was wandering in the yard before setting out and I got stung by some kind of baby, bastard hornet.  Hurt like a bugger and put the kibosh on that day's walk.  (It's all better thanks to Benadryl gel.)  Now that it's hot, I decided to start dancing in the living room again.  So I did that one day.  And I went grocery shopping.  Weight: 172.0

Look for more information on Friday's drama this Tuesday.  (The post's already written, I just need to schedule it.)

On a gardening note, my tomato plants are huge and they all look like they're getting the beginnings of flowers, so that's something.  My green pepper plants are still tiny, but they're making progress.  Some of my trees are looking pooky, though. I think they need replanting in bigger pots or in the ground.  Ack.  I have no more bigger pots and they're not ready to combat the deer yet.  We'll see how that goes.  I may go pick up pots today.  Also, the blackberry patch I've been watching down the road is getting close to being ripe enough to pick.  Cross your fingers I make it there before the birds do.

Okay, so that's about all I have for you today.  How was your week?