My Two Blessings

Sniff! Snort! Sneeze! Cough!  I've had my allergies under control for a very long time but this year, allergy season has hit and hit big time.  Have been feeling like I'm battling a long term cold for a while now, which of course has been messing with my productivity.  Know it's allergies though because the antihistamine works and the decongestants don't.   *sigh* Brain fog has led me to coming online to write a blog post and end up instead reading celebrity gossip.  I'll admit it. I've become addicted to Daily Mail's showbiz and X17.  Let's just say it's research for my next wip.  *grin*. Finishing up my critting class through Savvy Authors this week and have gleaned much about critiquing and how to be critiqued.  It's been quite a  learning experience.   Still editing Eyes in the Ashes and the plan is to finish the 2nd edit by the end of June.  It has been rather slow going but making progress and the story tak...

 The Cottage at Glass Beach By  Heather Barbieri   Synopsis :  Married to the youngest attorney general in Massachusetts state history, forty-year-old Nora Keane is a picture perfect political wife and doting mother. But her carefully constructed life falls to pieces when she – along with the rest of the world – learns of her husband Malcolm’s infidelity. Humiliated, hurt, hounded by the press, Nora packs up her daughters, Annie, seven, and Ella, twelve, and takes refuge with her maternal aunt on Burke’s Island, a craggy spit of land off the coast of Maine. Settled by Irish immigrants, the island is a place where superstition and magic are carried on the ocean winds, and wishes and dreams wash ashore with the changing tides. Nora spent her first five years on the island but has not been back to the remote community for decades—not since that long ago summer when her mother disappeared at sea. One night, while sitting alone on Glass Beac...

My guys went off to home depot and returned with a few herb plants for me including Greek Oregano, Italian parsley, sweet basil, sweet marjoram, texas tarragon, cilantro and cinnamon basil.  Unfortunately the amend potting soil had chicken manure in it and my hands currently smell like ****.  Oy!   I've had a nice lazy day so far and started reading Neil Gaiman's Anasi Boys.  Also typed up chapter 2 and 3 edits for Eyes in the Ashes.  I received some valuable feedback from the authors of Kill Zone, plus my critique class classmates and will be pondering what changes to make to chapter one.   I took last week off completely from writing or editing as well as everything else, feel refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to tackle my edits again.   My goal is to edit five pages a day with the hopes to finish the 2nd edit by the end of June.  I also came across a wonderful idea which is to find a picture that symbolizes each sce...

Courtesy of Najwa Marafie Last week I decided we were going to take this week off from lessons because we needed the break.  So glad I did because our computer hard drive crashed at the shop.  Unfortunately for me,  I had forgotten neglected to back up my back up's from Quickbooks onto a usb drive - since mid march.   *facepalm*  I fibbed and told my employees it was just a couple weeks worth of data because I didn't need want to hear  a lecture from my techs. Fortunately for me, they reinstalled the old hard drive from when we had Windows XP which enabled me to get everything entered, up to date and backed up.  Tomorrow the new hard drive arrives and I get the pleasure of installing everything and restoring quickbooks back to normal.   I also signed up for a critique class through Savvy Authors and learning how to critique as well as be on the receiving end of a critique.  I have a tendency to be more of a teacher rather than a cr...

April is a promise that May is bound to keep. Hal Borland April passed by in a flash and I'm looking for a slower, lackadaisical May. However that's probably not going to happen until mid June when James graduates from 6th grade.  Our schedule has changed somewhat since he began working more diligently and suddenly having the desire to get his work done earlier. "Mom let's do math NOW" is the new morning mantra.   We discovered Life of Fred math books written by Stanley Schmidt and now math is fun and interesting.   Which means my writing time in the morning is being taken over by lessons and now I have to figure out where to fit it all in. Treadmill or write for an hour? Start dinner or write a blog post?  Read or browse the blogosphere.  Haven't quite gotten there yet.  Even though I instituted a buying ban for the first half of the year, my TBR pile seems to have grown.  They keep having babies and the babies are having ba...