Sooooo, my laptop died and I still haven’t gotten a return thingy even though it’s under warranty. I had to send it in immediately after I got it for Christmas as it was dead. So now it’s like it’s already been sent in so…wait, it has a 3 year warranty! So dying on me a 2nd time counts for too many times? ASUS Vivo Book Laptop. Remember that name in case you’re looking for a new thinner model: if you have a crashing laptop they might deny service under warranty.
Next, my main computer froze this morning, I was weeding and mosquitoes and fire ants were biting and it’s time to have a do over. lol
But, at least I managed another 3,000 yesterday on the novella, 4,000 more to get word count. And I’m getting somewhere on the back flowerbeds too despite the heat and biting insects.
We have another Saharan Desert dust storm this weekend, say what?
Have a great day!!! I’m off to finally get busy with writing!
I love them! They’re so pretty, especially when they’re green. I caught pictures of a Cuban anole also, but will share later. They don’t turn colors like the Carolina Anole but are brown with all kinds of interesting ridges.
I wrote 3500 words on Dreaming of the Highland Wolf yesterday. In a novella, you need to keep it to a single plot line–but since this one is Highland, wolf, and a romance, and I always have a mystery, some humor, some conflict, it still has to have a lot of variables to add in there. No dead bodies this time. I just don’t have room for them. lol
Skies are clearing of the Saharan Desert dust, yay! Went for a walk for the first time in several days.
I’m at the halfway point on the novella! Now, if I can only keep up the momentum. I’m hoping to have it done in 3 days–as in have written the story, then need to edit it, then I need to begin working on Wolff Bros II due back October 1st. I think I have to do Dreaming of the Wolf 10th Anniversary release novella also.
I’m off to work!!!
Have a wonderful, safe, and clean-air day! Well, as clean as it can be in a big city.
Having trouble with WordPress again. I wrote this 2 hours ago, but the blog wouldn’t post. So now I’m trying to copy and paste onto a new blog. Total pain.
The Sahara Desert dust has come to stay–for a while.
The dust is outside and inside–air quality was at 170-awful, yesterday.
This reminds me of the awful dust storms we would have in West Texas.
With the dust, it’s reduced the chance of having the storms we’ve been having. I was hoping that they would wash the dust away. But it has also chased away hurricane and tropical storms, for the time it’s visiting us.
I managed to write 2500 words on Dreaming of the Highland Wolf. I spent half the day with my daughter and granddaughter, then spent the rest of the day working on the story.
And I took one of the pictures I’d taken and played around with it before I did some edits on the novella and called it a night!
Have a great day! Air quality is 102 here so far, and we already have a heat index of 89 and it’s only 5 am. I’m off to make corrections and then try and catch up on my oil painting class. Then write. By the time it gets to be late, I’m too tired to try.
I love skipper butterflies because they hold still for pictures. They come in all kinds of different colors. They have thicker bodies like moths, but they keep their wings up at rest like butterflies. I also have some white butterflies in here that keep nice and still for photo taking.
Vampire Redemption
Vampire Redemption is now for sale in print! Yay! See, all that work paid off!
Huntress Pasha wants revenge against the vampire who had decimated her family of hunters and she’s sure she’s found her mate—a hunter who saved her and helped free her family. But he is a hunter turned vampire now and as much as she hates the vampires for what they’ve done to her and her family, she scorns any notion of settling down with one.
Zachary is in love with one hot-blooded huntress and he’ll do anything to save her and her family from the vampires who had taken them hostage. But now, he’s one of them, and he can’t come to grips with what he’s become. He’s on a mission to help Pasha eliminate the vampires who destroyed her family and hopes he will fall in battle, an honorable way to die—as a hunter eliminating rogue vampires who threaten mankind.
But just maybe being a hunter turned vampire isn’t the worst thing that can happen to him, if he can have an edge against the vampires, if only he wasn’t shunned by the huntress he has lost his heart to.
So little one and I did puzzles, and I was trying to teach her how to read a couple of books. And we did matching workbook. We went outside between rain showers and I pulled weeds until I disturbed fire ants. Then we looked for milkweed bugs to get rid of, and then she finally laid down to watch a show. And I continued to proof Vampire Redemption.
But I also took a break and played with some pictures. The scraps of artwork above are from Oscraps–LA Dinosty and I created the pictures from those. So much fun after days of proofing mss.
My mss coordinator said she’d get with me to tell me what my schedule looks like for the next ones I owe them. I know the Wolff Bros book is due October 1st. So I still have a few days before I start on that, which means starting on the Heart of the Highland Wolf novella.
I see something in my mind’s eye–a lake, a hero, a dog, and trouble. A woman and even more trouble. It’s a romance, what can I say?
So on the other front–Texas Children’s Hospital has opened up to adult patients because other facilities in Houston are overwhelmed.
Yay! I worked in the heat and mugginess a lot yesterday since we’d had 4 1/2″ of rain and it made it easier to pull up grass and it was a tiny bit cooler. Last night it started to rain again and we have another 2″ of rain, so that means weeding some more tomorrow while the ground is nice and moist. It might rain until 7 pm tonight, or not. Little one is on her way soon.
I’m 1/3 of the way through proofing Vampire Redemption for print. I finished setting up and doing the print cover for Scepter of Salvation yesterday, so the book should come out soon. Waiting on Mage of Monrovia cover and then I can finish it and produce it. And sent in the specs on Vampire Redemption to the cover artist so waiting on that one, and then it’s back to coming up with the story for the Highland novel.
I thought this was an interesting article–are we washing too much?
Well, not all of us are giving up, but what can we do but do what is smart?
I’m so glad that other countries are benefiting from some of our scientists’ research. I want this to end for all countries. And if their governments are listening, I’m so glad!
Vultures at the Zoo
Did you know it’s illegal to disturb a vulture’s nest? My daughter was telling me that at one of the new schools that recently opened, vultures had built a nest and the school officials couldn’t touch it. But isn’t that all about learning anyway? First hand science.
We spied vultures on top of a building and kids nearby were calling them hawks. I told them they were turkey vultures. They thought that was cool. Especially how they cleaned up dead things. lol
Okay, back to the regularly scheduled program. We had 4 1/2″ of rain—yay! And that meant I was out trying to weed before the heat gets to me. Fire ants are out also. I know! One got me. Filled half of a 40 gallon bag with grass and weeds and put out some more bark mulch. I know they say it’s supposed to keep the grass from taking hold and keep the ground more moist in dry spells, but sometimes it feels like it’s there to promote weed growth. lol
Taking a water break and then back at it.
I finished proofing for Mage of Maldovia print book and Scepter of Salvation and am working on Vampire Redemption. So trying to get those out in print soon.
I love the sound of running water–streams, waterfalls, fountains.
When I had little one overnight, she has a sound maker–rain, waves–no, those are too scary. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star worked. lol So for an hour while I made sure she was going to sleep, I worked on my book and listened to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star…If I’d listened to the rain, maybe I would have been asleep.
We had wild storms last night, tripped three of my circuit breakers. So I go to start my teapot, no electricity. Our electric went out, but came on again a couple of minutes later. No internet, had to restart my computer. Now, everything’s working.
I’m working on the print version of Scepter of Salvation. When I put the ebooks up for sale, I never put the print versions up. Probably too many other deadlines. So I’m going to get this one proofed and up hopefully soon. I also need to do that with Vampire Redemption and Mage of Maldovia.
It’s hot and muggy here, but hopefully we’ll get some rain. We were supposed to get rain all week, so we were checking to see if we had a tropical storm bearing down on us from somewhere, but no storm. Just some micro bursts of rain every once in a while.
Happy Father’s Day to all those great fathers out there!
I did not plan to go to any store again. I didn’t. I have been keeping the 2 week rule on going to the grocery store, and that was on Thursday. Then Friday, my daughter and I ran to the lumber place. She needed to replace a couple of fence rails and I was going to get a couple as standby. No fence rails. We got bark mulch. We planned to get some coffee at Starbucks, drive-thru–it was closed for cleaning, COVID-19 case probably found. It’s serious. It’s not going away any time soon. It’s a reminder. Stay home.
Two of our Texas cities are in the number top cities for COVID-19 rises–San Antonio and Dallas. Thankfully, some of the big cities, like Houston that I live next to, found a loophole in the governor’s ruling that we can’t enforce mask wearing. Maybe not, but businesses can. The big cities are more at risk. It’s unbelievable how many people I see not wearing masks.
On a neighborhood site, people asked why others aren’t wearing masks. “Oh, well, we would, if it was mandatory.” Uhm, so you have to be told by Mother and Father that it might save lives–maybe even your own and your family’s–to wear a mask and now you can’t go places if you don’t do what they say?????
Houston has become one of the cities requiring mask wearing. Unfortunately, I live in a city bordering it and it’s not mandatory here.
Maybe, just maybe, if people were doing social distancing and wearing masks, we wouldn’t have to be shut down again. You think? Get. A. Clue. All or none, because people believe it’s all gone. It won’t happen to me. I won’t be a statistic.
So today, I was not going anywhere. But then my daughter invited me to come over for Father’s Day. I went out to get my son-in-law some presents, and of course–little one. Not presents, but more pre-K workbooks and puzzles as she’s just learning how to do the 24-piece ones.
At least when I go at 7, there are hardly any people there except for employees and I feel for the ones who have to work there. Though some of them aren’t wearing masks either.
What I don’t get is when people don’t wear masks, sometimes they also defy the distance thing. Two women, no masks, headed straight for me, defiant. They could have gone on the other side of the packages of food. They weren’t shopping for anything where I was. I shot down an aisle I didn’t plan to use. Call me a coward, but…
Live dangerously, take the risk, but don’t share it with me.
Have a happy and safe day! And thanks to all those well-deserving dads out there. Make your kids’ lives matter!
