( motivational poster – Depositphotos ) Here in the U.S, we’re finishing up a three-day weekend today for Memorial Day. For some, even though it’s meant as a remembrance for service people who lost their lives at war, it’s still a working weekend, for others, it’s about kicking off summer, and for some, it’s a combination of all of those. Where I am, we’re still under a stay-at-home order, which suits me fine, since the number of new cases of this virus are still holding pret

In normal times, a lot of people use the weekends to catch up on all the chores they didn’t or couldn’t get to during the workweek. Right now, we’re in far-from-normal times, and for a lot of us, there is no differentiation between weekdays or weekends. For some of us, we still have a regular or semi-regular work schedule. I’m one of those lucky ones. That leaves me weekends to get the bigger chores done, like it or not. A typical weekend here includes multiple loads of laund

( fresh chamomile with hearts -Depositphotos ) It’s Mother’s Day here in the U.S, meant to celebrate all of the moms in our lives. For some right now, today is harder than usual, when we can’t be with our kids or our families. But we’re together in spirit, and will be together in real time again one of these days, after this wretched virus has been knocked back and it’s less dangerous to everyone for us to gather again. I hope if you’re a mom that you had a lovely Mother’s Da

I know we’re all having moments right now when we just can’t take another minute of being at home, where we have all the chores staring us in the face and no good reason not to do them, or the distress of just missing our family and friends. I’ve had plenty of them in the last month and a half since we started the work-from-home at the day-job, just prior to the stay-at-home order in our state went into effect. I miss our once or twice a month Sunday family dinner with my boy

( Depositphotos ) That is where I would like to be right now. I’m not, but I would like to be. Usually one day of the weekend is my do-all-the-chores day, and one is for relaxing a little, maybe cooking dinner, maybe a project, and definitely for writing. Not this weekend. I had an errand to run yesterday, and then I worked some OT for the day-job, and I have to say, my brain is pretty fried this week. Today should now be do-all-the-chores day, but I just can’t. I do have the

I bet I am not alone in having fantasies about what it might be like to work from home. The last time I worked at home, I was running my husband’s office while our boys were small, so it had its challenges, but I managed it, and still wrote every day. That was a long time ago. Now the boys are grown and in their own place, and I work a full-time day-job in an office, in the normal world. Probably most people’s expectation is that top left image, being super-productive and hap

( Young woman reading book – Depositphotos ) I think right now, there is probably a lot of this going on, sitting somewhere comfy with a good book and a hot drink. Reading is a good way to get away from all the bad news around us right now, an excellent distraction from worry. For some of us, it’s the writing of those books that helps us to think about something else, something positive for a while. For a lot of people, today would be a day for their religious celebrations an

Really, spring has been here for way longer than it should be this time of year. I shouldn’t complain, because I love spring. All the daffodils and other spring flowers bringing color before the trees start to get green…it’s lovely. But we didn’t get any real winter here, which means that there are going to be an abnormally large amount of bugs here pretty soon, and I am not looking forward to that. I suppose it just means my indoor time will stay greater than my outdoor time

I am going to be floating on cloud nine for the next few days, just because I’m thrilled that Light the Way Home is out in the world now. If you click on the title, that takes you to a page with links to all the major booksellers, in case you need something new to read this week while you’re staying home to avoid germs, or just to take your mind off of the scary news stories everywhere. Ever since my publisher for Hunting Medusa closed up shop a few years ago, I have been stu

If you come around regularly, you know I’ve been talking about this for ages. I’m way overdue for this story to be released, but it is finally time, and I’m excited to share it with you. Nervous, too, since it’s been such a long time since I had a book out. I hope you all like it. In case you like to pre-order so your reading material shows up on release day, I have a link where you can find your favorite online book-seller to pre-order Light the Way Home. I’ll be hanging out

(peeking out of a window – Depositphotos) With all of the scary news around this week, I hope you are all home safe and well, and that you have plenty of reading material to keep you occupied if you wind up having to stay home for an extended period of time. I do my normal grocery shopping every other Friday, and guess which Friday was time to go? Of course it was the thirteenth, and it seemed like our entire county had lost its collective mind and decided it was the apocalyp

( Goal Target – Depositphotos ) I can see the finish line from here! I’m talking about my novella for the Common Elements Romance Project, of course. I wanted it done and out a long time ago, but I’m not going to beat myself up over that anymore. It’s almost ready to be out in the world, and I’m nervous. Excited, but nervous. Like, nauseous when I hit send to get the manuscript to the formatter, just thinking about it again is making me queasy, so I’ll stop that. Instead, I’m

Today is the first day of March, and we still haven’t really had any winter here yet. Oh, we’ve had some chilly periods, but it’s been unseasonably warm for large chunks of time in the last month or two. The most snow we’ve seen was the unexpected one back in November that piled up a quick few inches that didn’t last into the next day. For winter lovers, it’s been exceptionally disappointing, though I have a friend who’s thrilled. I’m still holding out hope that we might get

( celebrating success – Depositphotos ) I’ve checked off another couple of steps this week toward getting this Common Elements Romance Project novella into your hands soon, which is a huge relief! Just a few more to go with this one, which makes me happy. Then I can take a closer look at my goals for the year to see how much adjustment I need to make since I am late on this one. I hate that, starting off the year late on the first goal. It makes me think maybe the rest of the

( Deadline – Depositphotos ) I love deadlines. I love having a finite end date for a project. But I have to confess: if it is a self-imposed deadline, I suck. I used to be a lot better at reaching those–when I was running my husband’s office and working from home, I had writing goals and deadlines for myself every month of the year, and I always made those, and never at the last minute, always with plenty of time. If I have a work deadline, or, when I sold Hunting Medusa, tho

( Silhouette of kissing couple – Depositphotos ) We’ve had a couple of crazy weeks at the day-job, and it occurred to a few of us the other day that we go a long stretch from the end of year holidays (Thanksgiving/Yule/Christmas/New Year) until there is another ‘day off’ holiday. Not that there aren’t holidays–Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day–just that they don’t get work holidays. Our next one is Memorial Day. It’s a long stretch from January 1st until May 25th. I’m kind o

( hands in form of heart – Depositphotos ) It’s February, which means for the next two weeks, everything will be about pushing romance and gifts for your Valentine. Don’t get me wrong, I love romance and Valentine’s Day (and who doesn’t love a good gift?), but I feel like we should be doing this all year long? Not necessarily the gift part, but if you love someone, let them know, yes? Not just one day a year. I’m not even talking about saying it constantly. How about some ‘ac

( Top view of laptop – Depositphotos ) I’m going to miss my deadline. To be fair, it was a self-imposed one, but I hate missing deadlines, even the ones I’ve given myself. But I am working out the last few big things for the novella release. It will be a few weeks later than I hoped, but it is still going to be out soon. So I can get back to finalizing these important things for release, I’m leaving you with a little snippet of the novella. ================ Hayden gave her a

Our weather-guessers promised several inches of snow for our area yesterday. We got a dusting, topped off with a whole lot of sleet. This time of year, the front of our house doesn’t get much sun, so the driveway will probably be icy for a few more days, until the temps go up a little again. But I did get the ice off my car so I can get to work tomorrow, so that’s something, right? The good news for me this week is I took a couple days off from the day-job. I can have a break

That’s what I feel like this week. We’re not quite halfway into the new month, and I feel like I’m really far behind already. Ugh. Not the way I wanted to start the new year. I know what I need to do to get caught up, but I haven’t managed to pull it off. In better news, we finally had our New Year’s dinner with the boys today. All kinds of yummy food, plus a nice visit. The dishes will wait, because I really, really have to finish the revisions I should have finished a week