We’re midway through the month, and about midway through the winter season now, aren’t we? That point where, especially for those who don’t enjoy the season, it feels like time is standing still. I actually love winter and haven’t had nearly enough snow to suit me yet, but it does feel like this month has lasted an eternity. On top of that, I feel like I haven’t made enough progress on my writing goals for the month either. The good news there is when I was figuring out time

It is finally actually not just feeling like winter, but looking like it, too. We had a bit of snow last week, though not nearly as much as the weather-guessers told us to expect, and it is snowing again today as I write this…with more in the forecast for us this week. When I got up this morning, there were footprints in the fresh snow from the neighborhood cats, but those have since been covered up by big, fat, fluffy snowflakes to the tune of a couple inches of snow. Our lo

Happy New Year, everyone! I don’t know about you, but 2020 seemed like the longest year ever. I’m looking ahead to the new year, as I think most others are. New years are always full of possibility, aren’t they? This time, it feels even more so to me. It took me a while to work out my 2021 writing goals, trying to make them achievable, but not too easy. I think I’ve settled on a good list, but I guess I’ll find out as we get further into the year. That said, I think I have a

I think most of us are ready for the new year after the year we’ve had. We are here, anyway. 2020 was a difficult year, particularly for those who have been sick or had someone close to them sick from this wretched virus. Even for those who have stayed healthy, there have been challenges–kids learning from home, people working from home, businesses affected by shutdowns… It’s a long list, and I doubt anyone is unaffected in some way by the events of this year, coronavirus and

The month of December is full of holidays and religious observances. I missed wishing people a lovely Hanukkah, and I’m sorry for that. This week kicks off with the Winter Solstice or Yule, followed by Christmas and then Kwanzaa. I hope that no matter what holiday you celebrate that it’s safe and wonderful, in spite of the weirdness and horror that has been 2020. Our holidays here the last few years have been small events since the people we celebrated with has left this worl

There is snow in our forecast this week, and I really hope the weather guessers are right for a change. We had an unexpected snow on Wednesday, but it didn’t last even a couple of hours. It sure was pretty coming down, though. Since I’ve been working from home, the desk I work from for the day-job faces windows (which is nice, since at the office, we’re nowhere near a window), so being able to see outside all day is a lovely bonus. The snow on Wednesday started as just a few

I’m not actually complaining with that blog title, just making an observation. We have two more days of insane-busy at the day-job to start the week, and then it will settle for a week or two, until after Thanksgiving. My teammates and I are discussing taking a day or two off once we get through mid-week (mostly because all four of us still have PTO we have to use before the end of the year), and then I have my annual almost-vacation that starts the day before Thanksgiving-mo

I know, some of you are saying, no, it’s too early! But this is on my goal list for this month, to work on them. I’ll fine-tune and finalize them next month, but I need to at least have a starting point. My goals list for this year went to hell early in the year, but I think that happened to a lot of people this year. I had intended to have Medusa stories back out in the world, not just my Common Elements Romance Project story. That won’t happen now until next year unfortunat

It’s the beginning of November, and here in the U.S., that means Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away. It’s nice to have a day to be thankful for everything that’s happened in the past year, but I feel like we should be grateful all the time. I try to be, anyway. There is almost always something I can be thankful for, even in a really crappy week, like a mug full of my favorite tea or hot chocolate. ( Depositphotos.com ) I’ve noticed in recent years that a lot of people, at

( Depositphotos.com ) It’s the last day of my extra-long weekend, and it looks more like fall here now, with most of the trees showing colors other than green, finally! Though there are some trees that seem to have skipped the color change and gone right to drop-all-the-leaves. Halloween is less than a week away, and my biggest excitement for it is that it is also a blue moon this year. I’m just hoping the weather is nice enough to see it, maybe set up the telescope in the ba

Hiya! This is just a quick post to share a fun event I am participating in, now through Sunday. This features thirteen authors with seventeen books, all including fathers to celebrate Father’s Day! There will be a different group of authors featured each day, and I am in the Friday group. Plus there are goodies to be had. Check out the event page. And then maybe you want to enter to win a copy of all the books featured in the event? Of course you do. I’m a little nervous, bec

( 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

( 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

( 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

( 2020 new year – Depositphotos ) Just a few days now until the new year starts. Are you all ready? It isn’t just a new year, but a whole new decade starts this week, so it seems like a bigger deal than just every other New Year’s Day, doesn’t it? That said, I am still working on my writing goals for the year. I had second thoughts about my list last week, about what I think I can really accomplish in the new year, so I took another look at them and made some adjustments. My

( family at feast – Depositphotos ) In the coming week or two, there will be lots of scenes like the one above all over the country and the world. We used to have large family holidays when I was growing up, with grandparents, sometimes aunts and uncles and cousins, too. Holidays are a lot easier for kids than for the adults, aren’t they? All the kids have to do is wait until the big day, though that seems interminable to a six-year-old, whether it’s a birthday or Christmas.

(Christmas Cookies – Depositphotos) I should have gotten a lot more done this weekend. Except I’m currently trying to fight off some ick. I’ve been chugging tea all day, in hopes of making my throat feel better. It doesn’t. I had hot and sour soup for lunch. It didn’t help. I finally broke down and took some cold meds for the slight fever I had earlier in the afternoon. I had big plans to figure out cookies to bake next weekend, and maybe start on the grocery list. Instead, w

My to-do list isn’t quite as bad as the poor woman above, but it feels like it some days. I’m winding down a mini-vacation right now, and I feel like I haven’t accomplished nearly enough for as many days as I’ve been home. To be fair, my time off was over the Thanksgiving weekend, so I spent the day before and the day of in the kitchen for a large chunk of the day, and washing dishes for days. I did wrap up a small project yesterday that I started a couple weeks ago. Today, I

It’s Thanksgiving week here in the U.S. I’ve spent some of the past two days in the kitchen–my final loaf of sage and onion bread is baking in my bread machine right now for the stuffing we’ll eat on Thursday and the house smells so good right now. I almost hate to wait four days to sample the bread. But I will, and I’ll be grateful for it on Thanksgiving. We don’t always think about the good things in our lives, the things we have that others envy because they don’t have the