Destiny of the Wolf: His heart holds a secret only she can unlock…
All she wants is the truth Lelandi Wildhaven is determined to discover the truth about her beloved sister’s mysterious death. But everyone thinks she’s out to make a bid for her sister’s widowed mate.
He’s a pack leader tormented by memories Darien Silver blames himself for his mate’s death. When her twin arrives in his town, he finds himself bewitched, and when someone attempts to silence her, he realizes that protecting the beautiful stranger might be the only way to protect his pack—and himself.
Silver Town Wolf Series: Destiny of the Wolf (Book 1) Wolf Fever (Book 2) Dreaming of the Wolf (Book 3) Silence of the Wolf (Book 4) A Silver Wolf for Christmas (Book 5)
When I was at the San Diego Zoo, I had so much fun seeing polar bears in the water playing. I had never seen that before. At the Omaha zoo, one just sleeps in a cave all day. Our Texas zoos that I’ve been to don’t have any. I don’t think the one is Wisconsin that I went to had any. I don’t remember any at the zoo in Minnesota. I could be wrong. I might have missed them.
But when I saw the active bears in water at the one in San Diego, it was so much fun. They loved it too.
Do you see the red parrot turned upside down while the green parrot grooms him?
It’s just an upside down world.
Did you know that journaling is a great catharsis? I always tell myself that when something crazy, wild, bad, fun, exciting happens, I need to put it in a story. That’s how I live my life. It’s story material.
So here’s a crazy one. I hired a guy to take out a tree and replace it with one that won’t have to be trimmed to death to keep it from running into my house and the roots from tearing up my driveway. I don’t know why builders don’t think of long-term trouble. Anyway, so the guy and his helper tell me that the in-ground sprinkler has been cut in two places. Now, he proceeds to tell me just how one of the two shovels they were using couldn’t have done the job. He didn’t say anything about the other shovel. You know why? The one he was showing me did it. If I had taken forensic evidence from it, it would have shown it was the culprit.
So he says there’s no way it could have done it. The cuts were way too smooth. And he lifts the edge of the shovel to show it’s too jagged to have cut anything that smoothly.
It looked really smooth to me.
He says they had to be cut by a pair of scissors.
Tell me this guy is joking. That he can’t think I’m that stupid. That I would even consider buying into that malarkey. Nope. He really, truly, sincerely believes I will fall for his story.
I write stories for a living. One of the key elements is that you have to make them seem realistic. Even though mine are about shapeshifting cougars, and jaguars, and wolves, and bears, oh my!
“Well, it won’t cost that much to fix. Only about $3.50. It’s not that big a deal,” he says.
So why make up a cockamamie story and just fix it? He offered his services to do my yard. NO. WAY.
And, one of the guys tossed a water bottle behind my shrubs, thinking I wouldn’t find it. I was pulling weeds back there, and hey, my yard isn’t a trash dump, thank you very much. If you want to trash your own yard, go right ahead. That flowerbed is next to the house, a long way from the road, so it had to have been theirs.
“Nobody came over here and cut the sprinkler with a pair of scissors,” I said. For one thing, to have cut it where it was cut–in two separate places– someone would have had to have dug up all the dirt around that length of hose to reach it. I didn’t even think of that when he hit me with this unreal story. It’s almost as crazy as a parrot hanging upside down so his companion could groom his tail feathers.
UnREAL.
The funny thing is that when I looked at the other guy to see his take on this ludicrous story, he was smiling. I smiled at him. We shared the secret. He cut the sprinkler hose.
The guys finally came back three days later to fix it, after I reminded them they were supposed to fix it two days earlier.
“We haven’t forgotten about it,” the guy in charge had texted me.
Me either! Since the water was shooting across the yard and not watering the tree that was just planted.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it the night they had done it. It wouldn’t have mattered in the least that they had done it–if they had just not made up a story to say they didn’t do it. Are we all kindergartners or what?
My neighbor’s son is my yardman, and I told him all about it when it first happened. The day after it was fixed, he was out mowing his parents’ lawn and came over to make sure the sprinkler head was set right. It wasn’t so he fixed it for me. When he cuts a sprinkler head by accident–because that’s all it is–he fixes it. No made up story at all.
I asked him why he came over and cut my sprinkler with a pair of scissors, by the way.
He laughed. I laughed.
Telling about it is a catharsis. And maybe, someday, it will be in one of my books.
Am I still mad? Nope. Sprinkler’s fixed, and I have a fun, true story to tell.
Hope you have a fun day and any tall tales you hear or offer will be just told in fun.
Colorful Umbrellas Reflected in the Water, Riverwalk, San AntonioCheetah Chilling
I spent so much time pulling grass and weeds you’d think I had no grass left. Nope. It’s like a stimulant. Pull grass, five more pop up in its place. So every morning for a couple of hours while it’s cooler, I pull grass and weeds, put down bark mulch, return to house, and write. Which meant? I forgot to blog!
Something has to give. Today is my daughter’s last Friday off, so we’re having breakfast in a few minutes, and I couldn’t put down more bark mulch. So we’re off!
Riverwalk in San Antonio–Added Oil Texture in Photoshop, but what I loved about the scene when I took the picture was the reflection of the colorful umbrellas in the water.
It cooled down!!! It was 78 yesterday morning, and around 85 during the day, finally ending up at 91, but I spent most of the day running errands and then pulling grass and weeds out of my flowerbeds. I did get my word count.
But this is the thing. Bark mulch is great because it reduces water evaporation, shades the roots of the plants, in this heat, that’s great, and helps to shade out weeds and grass. It also breaks down and makes great compost for the plants you planted there.
I. Think.
I mean, I go out there and I just weeded 4 of the 7 flowerbeds and there are more weeds and grass before I can get to the others! But I will say where I have deeper bark mulch, the weeds/grass are/is easier to pull up. Where I didn’t have much mulch, I had to get a shovel out to dig up the grass. It’s never ending. It’s like dusting. If I dust, it will come right back. And I don’t even have to be gone long for it to start all over again. lol
It’s toddler time. Potty training. We are getting the hang of it. I. Think.
Have really terrific day!! I’m off to…get into something!
“Look at my beautiful feathers. She’s sees these and that’s all she wrote.”
“Hmm,” the other bird said.
Yep, I speak bird.
Don’t you hate it when you can sleep finally, and the smoke detector (one of like 10 stupid detectors they install in these houses) starts beeping? It’s got such a shrill sound, there’s no ignoring it and it was on the other side of the house and it still sounds as bad as if it were in the same room. Well, nearly. It meant its battery needed changing. Since I have 10-foot ceilings, that meant getting the ladder out, carrying it into the house from the garage, getting a 9-volt battery, climbing the ladder, and pulling the old battery out. Paying attention to the way the other went in because I can’t see how the battery is supposed to go in, I’m proud of myself. Insert new battery after a humongous struggle, climb down ladder, walk to the kitchen, the detector starts beeping.
Return to the ladder, climb up, remove battery, reinsert battery after a horrible struggle–my dad used to say never force things because it isn’t meant to work that way if you have to force it–in this case, he’s wrong. It’s supposed to be in there that way. Wait this time before I climb down ladder.
Beep…………….beep……………beep. And it’s not just a beep-beep like Road Runner made. Nope. It’s a shrill, ear-piercing screech, right next to my head. Of course. I take it out, try to put it in the opposite way that I know isn’t right, and can’t get it in at all.
So I climb down the ladder and get ANOTHER new battery, climb up the ladder, remove the “old” new battery, slip in the “new” new battery and voila, no struggle to get it in.
Okay, okay, so maybe dad was right, even if the other should have worked. And yes, after waiting, no beep. Climbing down the ladder, no beep. Several minutes passed while writing the blog, no beep. Time to carry the ladder back to the garage. More sleep? Forget that. The dogs want out. Food, out, in.
Time to write.
Hope you have a sound sleep and no screeching Road Runner waking you from your dreams.
I did it! I got caught up! I had to write 8200 words to do it, but I did it! I’m at 10,000 words, 70,000 to go. I wrote all that yesterday. It’s not easy or I’d do it all the time. I also weeded and did my usual chores, and I even took pictures of butterflies and dragonflies and flowers. But I had so much conflict, so many scenes coming to me in watered-down movie versions that I just kept writing. I need to go back and flesh out the scenes, but I LOVE it when that happens.
So I’m caught up. Today, no word count because I’m babysitting, but I always try to get some done anyway so I can get ahead of the game until more edits come. I’m caught up! Can you tell how wonderful that makes me feel? Now, if only I could do that every day. lol
