Welcome to Marketing Monday - Halloween Edition. It's like regular MM but Halloween is Friday.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013RVEF0Y
Eleven weeks left of 2025 and, ya know, this is the first year in a long time where I'm not actively looking forward to the year ending. Anyway...
I got some writing done. Not a lot and not every day, but writing was accomplished. 2615 words, to be exact. Not great, but better than the week before. Unfortunately, I kind of stalled after the last scene, so I'll need to figure out where I'm going next and all that. Wish me luck.
I did marketing. It was all :sad trombone: and I only moved 19 copies of RHI. Oh well. This coming week, Wish in One Hand is up on the freebie parade. It's kind of a Happy Halloween thing. I mean, what's better to read on Halloween than a paranormal suspense with genies and efreet, filled with snark? Jus' sayin'.
As for reading, I did read, but I ended up DNF'ing the book. I got maybe 2-3 chapters in and realized I'd already read it. And while I did like it the first time, I wasn't inclined to read it again. No clue what I'll pick up next.
In baking news, I did cinnamon rolls. I forgot to allow for cooler temps and didn't let them rise enough, though. Cinnamon roll fail. They taste okay, but they're not light and fluffy. Hubs has been eating them because he doesn't really care.
On the activity front, I went into the woods twice last week. Once, I did some sawing and log throwing. The other time, I just wandered around. I also finished the sunroom window-washing project. Not a huge calorie burn, but better than nothing. I haven't checked my weight this week, so who knows?
Speaking of being in the woods... Man, there's a lot of downed trees we need to take care of in there. We already had the downed sycamore and the black cherry. Now we have what looks like an elm. In addition to those whole trees, there are numerous limbs down. Ugh. On the upside, I'll get a lot of exercise once the weather turns cold.
Right now, the cats are tussling. It's sounds like two alleycats going at it. ... Okay, I broke it up. Silly boyz.
In weather news, it's been raining cats and dogs, which makes me just want to sit in front of the TV. I need to get over it.
Okay, I think that's it. My life is pretty boring. Sorry about that.
Have a great day wherever you are!
I was getting ready to head off on my errands when I heard something outside that made me turn and look out the window. There were vultures on top of my car. I called out to Hubs. By the time he walked from the office to the front, even more vultures had landed on my car. There had to be a dozen on it and several more on the ground around it. He opened the door and they didn't fly away. We actually had to go out and chase them off. I was thinking some critter had died either under or in the engine compartment of my car. (Flashback to years ago when I had a packrat making a home in there.) We opened up everything. I expected the smell of dead rodent to hit me. Nope. No smell. No body. Nothing. Meanwhile, our trees are full of vultures and they aren't inclined to leave. I'm not into omens, but the whole drive to Wallyworld, I was wondering if my car would die. I made it home in one piece, the car did fine, and when I got home Hubs was fine, too. No clue what the hell that was all about.
Also, yesterday morning, the coyotes were going crazy out there. Their yips and yodels and shrieks kept getting closer until suddenly, the sound stopped. A few seconds later, a single coyote howled like a wolf would howl. Then it did it again. Then a third time. I figure they caught what they were chasing and the one 'yote was calling the others to breakfast.
And then yesterday afternoon, the squirrels were freaking out. The gray squirrels here do a sort of 'cough cough, squeeeal kind of call. Several of them were doing it at the same time off the back of our yard. It was weird day for animals, lemme tell ya.
No, it's not a full moon. It is, in fact, a new moon. Not sure what that means, in reference to all of the above. Right now, everything is quiet, but it's early yet.
Yes, Halloween is approaching. Yes, everything above really happened.
In other news, we watched an awesome movie yesterday - The Whole Truth. It stars Keanu Reeves as a defense attorney tasked with trying to get a teenager acquitted of the charge of murdering his father (a vile and nasty man played by Jim Belushi of all people). It was tense and twisty and twisted, with an ending we certainly didn't see coming. Wow. (And holy shit, when I was getting the link for the movie, I found out the mom was played by Renee Zellweger. I thought she looked familiar, but she barely looks like the gal in Jerry Maguire. :shocked face:)
Okay, I think that's it. Got anything for me?
This week's free offering is RUMOR HAS IT - Book 1 in the Duke Noble, P.I. series. I'm working on the third book now. (Its title is eluding me.) Anyway...
Well, another week has passed and I'm having a hard time getting revved up to do anything this morning, which is why this post is later than I usually post one of these.
Writing was accomplished. It took me two more days to finish the read-through of DN3, and then I added new words for two days. 1781 words to be exact. Not a huge amount, but it's something, eh? DN3 is now up to 24920 words/87 pages. Woot. I would like to have this in your hands by the end of the year. We'll see how that works out.
I did marketing. I moved 59 free copies of Dying Embers. I also sold one after the sale was over. No page reads yet, which is :sadtrombone:, but it's early yet. Tomorrow, Rumor Has It goes on freebie.
Reading was slow. I did DNF that Victoria Holt yesterday, but I haven't started anything else.
In baking news, I made a pizza yesterday - pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, black olives, and red bell pepper. Yum.
On the activity front, I walked two days and spent three other days working on washing windows in the smoking porch. I'm up to 64.25 miles on the walking. The window washing? Yuck. But I'll finish that project today. I just have to finish the doors. Then I'll start the project of washing the other windows in the house. (We have a lot of windows, so I have to break it up a little.) Weight: 174.0 - I guess washing windows isn't really the calorie-burning event I wish it would be.
As for gardening, I have 10 tomatoes out there ripening. Well, I had 10 yesterday. We had storms overnight, so we'll see what's left. I have a ripe tomato in the fridge and I had to throw one out because it was funked up. :shrug: Not the Master Gardener of all time, but it's better than last time I tried this. Next year will be even better. I hope. Maybe.
Yesterday, Hubs and I watched a good movie - Hostage starring Bruce Willis. Not the most well-written thing, but certainly thrilling. It was very intense. But good guys win and bad guys die, so I'm satisfied.
As usual, life is pretty boring here. Sorry about that. How are things in your life?
I confess I didn't read much this week. I think part of the problem is that I'm just not that into the book I'm reading. I really need to DNF it and move on. Except it's a Victoria Holt and I usually love her books. :shrug: I don't know. Anyway...
No new books.
No Books Read.
No DNFs... yet.
Currently reading... The House of a Thousand Lanterns by Victoria Holt. Like I said, it's not thrilling me. So far, it's more like a soap opera than a gothic romantic suspense, like the others of hers I've read. I'll probably DNF it, but I might give it one more chance. We'll see.
What have you been reading lately?
I've gotten a few emails this week in regard to DYING EMBERS (which is still free through the end of today). Most of them have been obvious - people trying to get me to pay them to market my book. One of them, on the other hand, was someone wanting to use my book in their book club. I've been on the fence with that one re: sincere or scam.
I mean, he seemed sincere enough. He talked about my book like he'd actually read it. He said intelligent things. Unfortunately, so did several of the scammers. (In all fairness, the marketers may not have been scammers, but for brevity, and because it's so hard to tell the difference, I'll call them that.)
It's a minefield out there. How does one tell the difference between someone who is sincerely interested in a book and someone who's trying to part you from your well-earned and miniscule profits? (I'm averaging about $18 a month here.)
The idea that I may be ignoring someone who is sincerely interested in my work wrecks me. I lay awake at night thinking about it. I'd be willing to interact with them. (I almost said like or love, but the idea of interacting with strangers makes me nauseous. Hell, most days, I don't want to interact with anyone but Hubs, but that's on me. The older I get, the more hermit-like I become.)
On the other hand, interacting with scammers - even just a little - is bad. You even bother to tell them 'no thanks' and suddenly you're inundated with crap. Who needs that?
So, I sit here, torn between knowing I need to interact with fans/readers and wanting to stay as far away from scammers as possible. It's a slippery slope to hell either way.
What do you think?
(For the record, I deleted the 'book club' email, but didn't send it to spam like I do with all the others. If he emails again, I'll think about this some more.)
I located my gumption. It was hiding behind the TV.
Okay, so we all were taught there are three states of matter - solid, liquid, gas. Years ago, I read something about there being a fourth state - plasma. It's like fire. Fire exists but previously had no assigned state of matter, so Voila! plasma. I thought it was cool and seemed logical, so I taught that to my daughter. Of course, she mentioned it to a teacher, who immediately told her she was wrong. I had to talk to the teacher and explain where Owl came up with that and I provided sources. Derp. Which reminds me about my 6th grade science teacher who marked me wrong during our lesson on blood types. We pricked our fingers, applied it to the paper with some solution, and watched for the reaction. I already knew my blood type and the types of my parents, so it was easy enough. Once the thing dried, though, the teacher said I didn't have what I had and said I had a blood type neither of my parents had. I backed her down by pointing out that she was basically saying my dad wasn't my dad, and she changed my grade back to an A. Silly git.
For the record, there's no way I could be adopted. Sometimes, when I was a kid, I wished I was. Sometimes, I felt like I was. Mom explained it to me the easy way - we already had four kids, why would we adopt another one? Harsh, but true.
I watch a lot of Long Last Family (the UK edition). It's like a mystery show, and y'all know how I do love mysteries. But it's real. People finding kids they gave up for adoption, or adopted people looking for their birth parents, or siblings searching for each other. Usually there are happy endings, and I love those, too.
Is it just me or does Venus look brighter these days?
This morning, a barred owl was hooting out there in the woods. They make a sound people liken to 'who cooks for you'. The last time I heard it, it was just one big HOOT. I tried to make squeaking noises to draw it closer, but nope. Aw, well.
Which reminds me of this exchange I saw about people incorrectly correcting other people. Someone had posted about a barred owl and another person corrected them by saying they meant BARN owl, not BARD. ROFL
Okay, that's enough out of me. Got any this-n-thats for me today? What thoughts do you have on mine?
It's that time again. Marketing Monday. AND it's time for DYING EMBERS to hit the free lists at Amazon again.
Hello! I know I'm not doing these as regularly as I used to, and thanks for stopping by anyway. I didn't do much again this week. It's been a slow reading year. Things like this happen. I'm woefully behind on my reading goal, of course. It is what it is.
No new books this week. I did stop at a thrift store, but all I got was a bookshelf. This particular store has jacked the prices up on all their used books and they're being such snots, I don't buy books from them anymore. And after the experience buying the bookshelf, I won't be buying anything there anymore. So sad, but them's the breaks. The new-to-me shelf is only a two-shelfer, but it's holding my omnibuses, my Phyllis A. Whitney collection, and my Victoria Holts. (This will mean more as you read below... I have a lot of both. LOL)
Books Read:
33) Dream of Orchids by Phyllis A. Whitney (10/9/25) - romantic suspense - 5 stars. Neither new to me nor underappreciated. Picked up from a thrift store for 50c.
Review: "I read it again, but only realized partway though that I had. Still just as awesome the second time around."
No DNFs.
Currently reading... a Victoria Holt I picked up from the thrift store. I only just started it, but so far, so good.
What have you been reading lately?
If you know me, you know that I am interested in true crime stories. (Natch, since I write fictional crime stories and true crime is a great resource for ideas.) What you may not know is that I am especially interested in cold cases. I'm a 'justice for all' kind of gal, and the fact that crimes like these have gone unsolved for years... decades even... just pisses me off.
Recently, I came across this story from a rural newspaper (https://www.cassville-democrat.com/2025/10/09/murder-on-the-tracks-who-killed-justin-hocutt/*) of a 14-year-old boy who was murdered and left on the train tracks - either to hide evidence or to hide the nature of the death. I expect the killer(s) wanted the death to look like a suicide.
From parsing through the article above, it looks like this murder involved a troubled kid with troubled parents in a troubled area, investigated by a police force that didn't have the skills or the resources necessary to solve a crime of this nature, presented to a prosecutor who wasn't really interested in anything but a slam-dunk.
It sounds like they have some good evidence to go on, and several worthy suspects. They just need a shove to bring it all together.
Personally, I'd love to see Kelly Siegler from Cold Justice take this one on. I think all the pieces are there - they just need to be put together by a competent person to make a cogent picture. She's good at that.
Hubs was joking just now that 'writer B.E. Sanderson breaks the case wide open... solves 26-year old cold case'. Wouldn't that be something? But I'm just a writer. What this needs is a seasoned team of investigators and prosecutors.
The only thing I could do is write a book about it. Hmm...
*It's hard to read... not because of the gruesome nature of the crime, but because it isn't as well-written as one would hope.
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...
33) Dream of Orchids by Phyllis A. Whitney (10/9/25) - romantic suspense
32) Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie (9/18/25) - mystery
31) Tales from the 'White Hart' by Arthur C. Clarke (9/11/25) - SF
30) Primordial Threat by MA Rothman (8/28/25) - SF*
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.
Bears keep attacking people in NW Arkansas. Not sure what's up with that. The attacks aren't super close to here and we haven't had any bear sightings inside of five miles from here, but yeah, I don't need freakin' bear attacks on my 2025 bingo card. K?
Sawyer's new game is to bite my feet while I'm sitting here at my desk. It's unpleasant.
I saw a coyote the other morning. I was almost home from a walk and it trotted across the road about 10-12 feet in front of me.The last time I was in Walmart, I saw a woman wearing a Soo Locks t-shirt. It just so happened that I was wearing my Michigan Born and Bred t-shirt that day, so I pointed to her shirt and then to mine, and we both laughed. Stuff like that has happened more often that I would've imagined down here. Like the day I was wearing my U of M sweatshirt and crossed paths with a dude wearing his OSU (the bad one) sweatshirt. He seemed annoyed that he was all the way into Arkansas and ran into a fan of his team's rival. :shrug: Hell, when we first moved here a chick across the street and down the way was from Kalamazoo. We're everywhere, man.
I made deconstructed stuffed peppers a couple days ago. This time, I used red bell peppers instead of green. It was pretty tasty, but I missed the color contrast. They do say you eat first with your eyes. :shrug:
Today, I have to do an Amazon order. Stupid Walmart stopped carrying the ink for the printer they sold me not that long ago. Bastards. Freakin' ink is probably almost as much as I paid for the damn printer in the first place. :steams:
On a happier note, Amazon is really awesome about taking my returns. I bought some clothes for my trip to Michigan, but I didn't wear any of them. (I was expecting MI to be cooler than it was. Derp.) I'd left the tags on for just this result, and returned them as soon as I could after I got home. Huzzah, my refund is in my account. Yay.
Okay, I should probably get on with my life and let you get on with yours. Have a great day!
I've been getting these AITA posts in my FB feed. (For the record, AITA stands for 'am I the asshole?') And since I stopped and read one, they're showing up with startling frequency. Anyway, the whole premise of these things is to lay out a story about something you've done and then ask the world at large whether you're the asshole in the situation.
Okay, I'll admit it... these things are kind of addictive. Unfortunately, in order to see the whole story on any of them, you have to click a link or something, so I'm only going off the parts I can see without clicking. Still, for the most part, I think the person telling the story is not the asshole. (Occasionally, the person is definitely the asshole.)
For instance, I read one this morning about a dad who had sole custody of his teenage daughter, and it seemed like every time he got after her about anything, she's play the 'I want to go live with mom' card. Finally, after she was particularly rotten, he gave her what she wanted. He packed her bags and dropped her off at her mom's to live. Within a day, she was asking to come home. He left her there for four days and then let her come home. Like I said, I didn't read how it all turned out, but it seemed pretty reasonable to me.
Thinking about it all now, I feel sad for people who think they need to ask whether they're the asshole in any given situation. If you thought what you were doing was right when you did it, what exactly is making you think otherwise now? Explore that before you go looking for validation online. You can probably tell for yourself whether or not you were the asshole, hindsight being 20/20 and all that.
I expect those things are probably not all true. Clickbait, doncha know. Except I never click because, while the story was interesting to read, I don't really care what the outcome was. Does that make me the asshole? ;o)
It's Monday again and that means Marketing. This week, I'm offering PROJECT HERMES up to the sales gods.
It's the little things that kill.
I think it's week 40, but these days, who knows? :shrug:
Earlier in the week, I was doing pretty good at doing something writerly every day. It lasted 3 days. I'll try to start that up again today. START TODAY*. Okay, so those three days, I added words to the end of DN3 and then I got stuck because I haven't touched the damn book in weeks, so I went back to the beginning and I'm reading through it all to get back into the story. I'm up to page 49 and hit a spot where I either have to write a new scene or go back and delete the paragraph where I hint about the maid needing to talk to Duke privately. We'll see what happens.
I did some marketing this week. Ugly and the Beast was free and I moved 64 copies of that, and one copy of Sleeping Ugly. (I also sold a copy of Dying Embers (print copy... woot).) Starting tomorrow, Project Hermes will be free for five days.
I didn't do a Reading Wrap-up this week because I didn't finish anything. I am in the middle of reading a Phyllis Whitney that I suspect I may have read before. :shrug"
In baking news, I make a chocolate oil cake with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream. It's yummy. Friday, I made chili and to go with it, cornbread. Yay.
On the activity front, I didn't do a lot of very active things, but I did things. One day I walked. I did some limb cutting and I cut down a nuisance tree. I vacuumed and brushed the kitchen rug, which yielded me enough cat hair to build a third cat, if I wanted. And I did Wallyworld, which is always a workout. Let's not talk about weight, eh? I'm going to call what I just saw on the scale an anomaly. Derp.
The deck garden is still producing tomatoes, so yay. I get one ripe one at a time, which is perfect for burgers or sandwiches. As long as the warm holds out, I should still be getting 'maters. Of course, as long as the warm holds out, it delays my ability to plant trees, so there's that. (Heat, bugs, etc.)
I'm finally getting over the jetlag from my trip. Funny how the change of just an hour can really mess a body up. And I get to do it again next month... change times not travel. Stupid timechanges. Blerg.
Nothing else really going on around here. Hubs and I have some projects we're talking about doing, but we haven't firmed anything up yet, so they don't bear talking about at this time.
Anyway... see ya next time. Have a great day! And if you're so inclined, leave a comment. I enjoy comments.
*'Start today' was supposed to be my mantra for the year. We all know how that has gone so far.
I keep forgetting to make blog posts. This is not helping with my new goal to be more present in my writing career.
What is with the phrase 'being present in x-thing'? Where else can you be?
I heard something this morning about people being accused of taking money to support Israel. Someone is out there paying people to do this? I've supported Israel for decades, so where's my money? Feh.
Somedays, I'm full of shit and I know it. Other days, I don't know it.
I don't know about you, but I'm laughing my ass off over some of the things the dems are doing. I'm also laughing my ass off over how Trump is responding. A sombrero and mustache on Dollar Store Obama? ROFL
Yesterday, Hubs and I sat down to watch a new-to-us crime drama from the early '00s. It started out pretty good and then just got nasty. VETO from both of us. We don't need that shit floating around in our heads. Gah, the little bit I did see is stuck in there now.
Ages ago, I tried to warn the Owl about being careful about what she reads and watches, because once something gets inside your head, you can never get it out. I used the movie SYBIL as a reference point. I watched it in college and I still think about it from time to time even now. :shudder:
I have scads of tomatoes in varying levels of ripeness - from teeny-tiny ones not much bigger than a pea to bigger ones starting to turn red. As long as the weather holds, and I can keep the hornworms off, I should have tomatoes through the month. Hell, some of the plants are still blooming. I could have 'maters through to Thanksgiving. Lemme tell ya, after months of fearing I wouldn't get any fruits off these dang things, I am happy to know my efforts weren't in vain.
And now, I'm off to Dollar General, I think. We're almost out of ice cream and there's almost a whole cake to eat. Yep, definitely a tragedy to be averted there. See ya.
Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I did one of these, but here we are. And I'm still hungover from the trip, so bear with me.
As I said to Hubs, "Oh, wait, it's Sunday, isn't it?" I'm all messed up on dates, days of the week, and time. I've been on Eastern time for a week, doncha know, and dragging myself back to Central is proving to be a bear. Jet lag sucks.
Anyway...
Obviously, no writing, editing, or marketing while I was away. I did sell some stuff while I was gone, so yay. Starting tomorrow, Ugly and the Beast will be free for 5 days - ending this month and starting next month with a bang. (I hope.) I do have plans to get back to writing. Maybe do a Halloween WriMo or something. We'll see. I haven't been very good at setting writing goals and achieving them this year.
I didn't do a whole lot of reading while I was gone either. I did finish one book on the plane on the way there. Woot. Sadly, I'm way behind on my goal for the year. :shrug:
No baking. I meant to make a cake for Mom, but cake was purchased. I thought about doing a homemade pizza for her, but pizza was also purchased. :also shrug:
I did get in quite a bit of activity. I started out by lugging luggage and walking airports. Took a few walks at Mom's place. Ended with more lugging luggage and walking airports. I figured out I walked about 3 miles, altogether, which puts me at 58.55 miles for the year. I didn't feel like I ate that much while I was gone, but I gained weight, even after the walking. Blerg. Weight: 173.0
While I was gone, Hubs watered my garden. I have a bunch of tomatoes in various stages of ripening. I also have tomato hornworms. Rat bastards are getting fat munching on my plants. On the upside, I also have Braconid Wasps - which prey on hornworms. So the fat bastard caterpillars are covered in white eggs that will hatch into their bodies and eat them from the inside out - a fact both fascinating and grotesque. The trees mostly did fine in my absence, so yay.
Okay, I think that's it for me. What have you been up to lately?
I know, I know... I didn't tell you I was leaving. I'm a staunch believer in the 'don't share with the internet that you won't be home' thing. I mean, Hubs was still here, but I wasn't, so there ya go. Anyway...
In the wee hours of the 18th, we made the drive to the airport, where Hubs dropped me off in the parking lot (he would've walked me in but, much to our dismay, the airport and its parking lot are under construction), and off I went to Michigan. I spent 7 days hanging out with Mom, my middle sis, and sis's dog. Oh, and other Michigan fam showed up on Saturday for a surprise birthday thing for Mom, who turned 85 while I was there.
It was a nice and mostly relaxing week. Mom and I ate stuff we don't normally eat and we watched a lot of TV. I took some walks, so it wasn't all lazing about. I also rented a car, which gave me the ability to drive out to the old homeplace. The place was barely recognizable. (Who paints an old farmhouse candy-apple red?? Derp. And they cut down all the maple trees. Turds.)
I got back last night. I haven't downloaded the photos I took yet. I unpacked (mostly) and then flopped into a chair to watch an episode of Doc Martin before crashing into bed.
The cats were not pleased with me coming home smelling like dog. They're over it this morning for the most part. Finn is still displeased with me. Sawyer was up in my lap this morning like I never left.
Anyway, I'm spending today decompressing and nursing my aches from carting my carry-on luggage through O'Hare and from the horribly uncomfortable seats on the airplanes. (Never sit in the last row. The seats don't have any give in the back and the lavatories are problematic... i.e. they stink and the flushing device is LOUD.)
So, I'm home again with Hubs. Sleeping in my bed, driving my car (rental cars... blerg), eating my food, and playing with my cats. I still need to evaluate my writing, so I didn't accomplish that, but I did spend the week not angsting over it all, which was nice.
How are things in your world?
Well, it's Sunday. It was a hell of a week. No, not personally, but I guess it all does have personal ramifications. I've been blocking people like mad this week. Blocking saves my sanity - what little is left - and keeps my blood pressure down. Anyway...
No writing this week. I'm not blocked, per se, but have you ever had so much to do that you're frozen? Like you look at all the stuff and can't do any of it? Well, that's part of the problem. Not all. Hell, I don't even know what the whole problem is. I'm going to ponder it all over the coming weeks and see if I can come up with an answer. Maybe October will be better.
I did manage to market. Not effectively, but better than nothing. To that end, I moved 29 free copies of IDW and 1 purchased copy after the freebie was over. I won't be doing any marketing this week, I think.
Reading was okay. I finished one book and started another. I'm going to try to read more this week. I'll never make my goal, but I'll live.
There wasn't much activity this week. I wandered around the yard one day. I did a hard-target walk another day. I did some negligible stuff otherwise. Miles walked: 54.9 / Weight: 171.0
Nothing baked. I think I'll do cinnamon rolls today. If I muster the will.
What I really need to do is some deep-dish evaluating of my work and my life and what the hell I'm actually doing with any of it. Is it all just Hubs, and cats, and Roku from here on out, or am I actually going to stop being a viscous pool of warm pudding? Tune in next time to find out... Which reminds me... I have some personal stuff coming up, so I might not get a chance to do a Sunday Update next week.
Catch ya on the flip side of all this.
It's Saturday the 13th. Which isn't unlucky or anything, but I'm weirdly pointing it out. Anyways...
Not a lot to report this week. I didn't pick up any new books since the last update.
Books Read:
31) Tales from the 'White Hart' by Arthur C. Clarke (9/11/25) - SF - 5 stars. Neither new to me nor underappreciated. Picked this up for 25c from a thrift store.
No review.
No DNFs.
Currently reading... the one new-to-me Agatha Christie I bought the other day. I wasn't sure I was going to read it right away or save it, but I needed it, so I started it. Sometimes a gal just need a little Agatha to make things seem better, ya know?
What have you been up to reading-wise?
I don't have the heart to do a 'this n that' today. Frankly, I'm sick to my stomach over the assassination of Charlie Kirk. There is no other word for it. He was assassinated. You can call it a horror or a tragedy - it's certainly those, too - but that doesn't change the fact that he was assassinated.
From all I knew of Charlie, he was a good man. He advocated for discussion over violence, and they killed him for it. He was trying to get people to talk about issues and to think for themselves. Well, we can't have any of that now, can we? Feh.
There's a lot of crap out there this morning with people saying vile things. Those people can wither up and die for all I care. If you're one of them, please go far, far away from me.
I'm not sure what this will mean for our country. Hopefully, it'll be a watershed moment and those following the advocates of violence wake up and see that theirs is not the side to be on. Hopefully, freedom will win this battle.
Right now, though, I'm heartsick. And yes, it's the anniversary of 9/11 - don't think I haven't considered whether Charlie's assassination wasn't planned to coincide with this. It probably was.
'Never forget' turned into 'only remember on 9/11' and then ignore the causes altogether.
I'm gonna go watch TV. Something totally not involved in any of this until I can stomach being online again.
Peace. Out.
Well, it's another Monday and I'm marketing. I decided to let loose with Natural Causes because it's been like 6 months since I marketed it. Thus, it's free starting today. Have at it.
Personally, I think this book is really underappreciated. But I'm the author, so what do I know?
Anyway, it's free right now, so if you enjoyed ACCIDENTAL DEATH and haven't read this yet, you're missing out.
Welcome to the Sunday Update. I think it's Week 36. These days, who knows? LOL Anyway, sorry last week was a dud, but let's see what I can do to amuse you today.
I did some writing this week. Not nearly enough, but something anyway. I managed 1709 out of two days. :sad trombone: This week ain't lookin' great either, but we'll see.
Marketing was accomplished. Unfortunately, still being hamstrung by FB, I moved only 29 copies of IDW. I did sell a copy each of the other books in the series, though, so I've got that going for me.
Nothing got finished on the reading front, so no post yesterday. I'm in the middle of reading a collection of inter-related short stories by Arthur C. Clarke. They're okay. Nothing really exciting, but fun.
In baking news, I made oatmeal raisin bread with a cinnamon swirl. What can I say... I was inspired by watching The Great British Baking Show. Plus, I got a new to me cookbook with this recipe in it. It's pretty yummy, but the swirl part was a bust. It's falling apart at the swirl line. :shrug: Better luck next time, I guess. Except it took all day to make, so there might not be a next time. We'll see.
On the activity front, I was more active this week. Yay for cooler weather, eh? I did two walks, two days of cleaning/yard work, and a big grocery trip. I'm up to 53.7 miles walked for the year. Weight: 171.4
Thanks also to the cooler weather, I guess, my tomatoes are bearing more fruits and more flowers, too. I have like 5 more tomatoes. Yay. I also found this show on gardening. It's out of Ireland, but plants are plants and dirt is dirt. I just need to adjust their advice to Missouri climate. The episode on growing tomatoes was very informative. I found out I'm not feeding nearly often enough and that I should've pinched off the excessive shoots. :shrug: Next year's garden should be way better. Live and learn.
This morning, I heard a strange sound coming out of the woods. When I did some research, I discovered it was the sound of an Eastern Screech Owl. Yay. In other nature news, the fawns are getting big and their spots are fading fast. We named Sissy's fawn Scout and it's a big fawn. It's probably a buck fawn, but I haven't seen any antler nubs yet, so the jury's still out.
Yesterday, I wandered the yard with stakes, plotting out where we're going to be transplanting some of the deck trees. Hubs checked out my placement and agrees, so we'll proceed with that in a month or so. I'm trying to put them in the ground when they have a better chance of surviving the deer (i.e. when the trees are leafless and less likely to attract attention.) I hope it works. Otherwise, there's always next year.
Okay, I think that's probably enough out of me. Have a great day and a lovely week.
I keep forgetting to post on Thursday. Derp. I also keep forgetting to visit other people's blogs. Double derp.
Deer have nannies. About this time of year, the mom deers are busy getting ready for being pregnant in a few months and they don't have time for their fawns, so one doe will take over the mom duties for several other does. Yesterday, the nanny deer brought her four charges down for a drink at the water pan. It looked like two sets of twins. They drank their fills and off they all went.
My tomato plants are producing more fruits now that the weather is cooler. I have like 4 more tomatoes out there than before. Woot. I also saw a hummingbird visiting one of the plants that has flowers and pollinating as it sipped, so fingers crossed for even more tomatoes. Woot.
We've been watching a lot of British shows lately. :shrug: It's stuff we haven't seen, so yay. But they have a much more casual take on nudity over there. It's unexpected. We'll be watching a mystery thing and SURPRISE... boobs. Or buns. Or the occasional humping scene. I don't think it's for shock value like it would be here, but we're just not prepared for it.
Also, watching a lot of British shows has given me new phrases to say. Like 'fiddly bits', which is when you're working with something small. (Small screws, tiny parts, etc.)
Sawyer's being obnoxious this morning. He's had three time outs in the bathroom in the last couple hours. Silly cat. On the up side, he didn't wake us up last night. Whew. Two night in a row. If he goes one more night, it'll be a record.
Okay, that's all I've got this morning. What this-n-that things do you have today?
Welcome to At the Movies with B.E. This week, I'm going to try adding a ranking system using a 😻 (smiling cat face with heart-shaped eyes emoji) or a 🙀 instead of stars. Hokey or not? :shrug: Anyway, let's get on with it...
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1986) - starring George C. Scott, Val Kilmer, and Rebecca De Mornay. I remember watching this when it was on TV way back when, so I loaded it up for watching. It's a little "80s" but still a good treatment of the story. 😻😻😻😻
Ladies in Lavender (2004) - starring Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. I found this while searching through various Roku suggestions. I admit I was a little hesitant, but we went ahead with it, hoping it didn't turn out to be shitty. I'm so glad we did. This is a lovely little movie about two spinster sisters in Cornwall in the 1930s and what happens after they find a young man washed up on the beach. They take care of him until he's well and care for him afterwards, until he becomes a part of the town. The ending was awesome and we really enjoyed the movie, despite the fact that they never really delve into why he washed up on the beach. I think he was trying to get to America, but the exact nature of his problem was never addressed. :shrug: Oh, well, I can live with that. I can always make something up in my head to cover that. 😻😻😻😻😻
Toast (2010) - has Helena Bonham Carter, but she wasn't the star. The only other person I recognized was the guy who was in that one series about the young surgeon with Asperger's. This movie started out okay and then got tense and then was okay and then got weird and then sucked. We didn't finish it, but we watched most of it, which was enough of it to adequately give an opinion. I was really bummed because it held the promise of being a really good movie and with some tweaks, it could've lived up to that promise, but it didn't. :sad trombone noise: 🙀🙀
My Family and Other Animals (2005) - this is based on a book by Gerald Durrell (as was a TV series called The Durrells on Corfu - which we watched on PBS years ago). It's a goofy and funny show about a family who leaves dreary, rainy Britain for the sunny life on the Greek island of Corfu, and all the things that happen to them. It was fun to watch, even if it did star the gal who played Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter movies. Definitely not a movie with anything major to say about anything, which is a nice change. 😻😻😻😻😻
I found several more movies to watch that I'm really looking forward to. One in particular is called The Hippopotamus. It looks like loads of fun, so fingers crossed.
Marketing Monday has been pre-empted in favor of this post. In Deep Wish is free now through Friday, though. Jus' sayin'.
Labor Day... I don't celebrate it. Don't get me started. But it's a day off for a lot of people, and when I was working, it was a day off for me, too, since the businesses were usually closed. As a writer, I don't have holidays or days off or whatever when I'm working. Every day can and sometimes is a work day. (Not right now. I've been a toad.)
I did get a good deal on some clothes this morning, so thanks for that, Labor Day. I have two new pairs of pants and a shirt that should be here Friday. This is for a trip I'm taking down the road apace, but I couldn't turn down 40% off. I'm a sucker that way.
So, basically, Labor Day is good for shopping. It's also good because it marks the end of summer, which means, for me, the summer people go home. Yay. Of course, it also means that this weekend is seeing my neighborhood full of strangers in strange cars and someone has been shooting off fireworks and firecrackers. :eyeroll: Tomorrow... Ahhh.
I can't see much purpose in having this national holiday otherwise. Another day for government workers to take off, I guess. Oops, I said 'don't get me started' and yet, there I go.
Anyway, have a great day wherever you are and whatever you celebrate. And if you're on vacation somewhere, be courteous of your fellow humans, eh? The world will thank you for it.
This is going to be short. I spent a lot of time this week focusing on non-writing-related stuff, none of which is bad so don't go worrying. I was just otherwise occupied. I did some marketing, I did some reading, had very little activity and no baking. Everything else is same-same. We'll see what this week brings.
Have a great day!
Not a big reading week for me, but I did finish one, so let's get to it.
I bought some new-to-me books at the thrift store this week: a suspense, two literature, two SF. I also picked up a new ebook - paranormal romance. Those should keep me for a while, I think.
Books Read:
30) Primordial Threat by MA Rothman (8/28/25) - SF* - 5 stars. I hadn't read this author before, although I follow him on FB, but it's not underappreciated. I snagged it when the author put it on sale for 99c.
No review. He's got a boatload of reviews and there's nothing I could add that would gain him sales.
No DNFs.
Currently reading... I haven't picked out what I'm going to read next. The urge is to read the Agatha Christie I picked up on 8/21, but I have so much to choose from right now that I might leave that until I need it.
What's on your reading list lately?
I obviously have no idea what day it is.
This coffee is strong this morning. Yay! (Of course, I made it, so yeah, not surprising.)
The toadiness is strong with me. Is it my superpower? Slower than a sleepy snail, weaker than a reused teabag, able to ignore all tasks with a single yawn... It's ToadLady! :ribburp:
Anyway...
Ever since I cancelled DirectTV, they've been sending stuff to us in the mail. Kinda reminds me of an abusive, old ex-boyfriend - 'I still love you, I'm sorry, I've changed, I can do better, I'll do anything to get you to come back to me'. Meh. Like I told the guy on the phone when I cancelled, there is nothing they can offer me that's better than free. Unless they want to start paying me to have their service. Wouldn't that be something? Heh.
I saw something this morning... a teacher who was told she can't mark the black kids as tardy anymore because 'it's part of their culture'. Wow. You have to laugh at this stuff or you'll spend your life crying.
It's Labor Day Weekend. I got all my shopping done early in the week because there's no way I want to be anywhere near town right now. Vacationers abound, getting in their last hurrah before fall settles around us. Go forth, ye weekend people, get it out of your system for another year. See ya after Memorial Day 2026. Woot.
Someone let two geese roam around the neighborhood. There was a gray one and a white one, and they had trouble staying out of the road. A few days ago, Hubs pointed out the profusion of white feathers that started just south of our driveway and ran for about a hundred feet south of there. No blood, guts, or corpse, but I doubt the goose survived the encounter. It either got hit and something dragged it off, or it got attacked and the winner took the spoils. I'll say again... people shouldn't let their domesticated animals wander free in the wilds. It never works well for the domesticated animal. I have a feeling it's the same dude who let his guinea fowl roam. (Btw, he no longer has any guineas left... wonder why?)
Okay, I'm starting to wake up. Thanks for being around for the process. Have a great day and an awesome weekend. Stay safe. :hugs:
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?
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):
: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)
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?
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.
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
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LDVFWBS
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.)
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?
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.
Good morning and welcome to another fine addition of Marketing Monday. Today, RUMOR HAS IT is on the block and it's free. Woot.
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?
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?
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?
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?
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).
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013RVEF0Y
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?
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.
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?
