Blanket flower, sunny coreopsis, red gerbera daisy, lavender azalea, red rose
Lots of flowers in the garden. We didn’t get to do half of what we wanted to do. Life got in the way. Little one was running a fever first thing, so we ended up just staying home and she spent the morning watching cartoons, relaxing. I actually managed to get some writing done on the book and added 1600 words for the day while editing. Yay! We finally did play in the sprinklers late in the day. She didn’t take a nap. So we plan to do the things we didn’t do yesterday, but I’ll have to see how she’s feeling first and hope I don’t catch what she’s got!
Okay, she’s good today, so when it gets hotter, it decided to get cold last night, and poured rain–which is great!–we’ll play in the sprinklers again.
Tomorrow is my 2nd COVID vaccination shot so I don’t want to get sick and miss it!
This juvenile giraffe was so cute. He was a perfect model!
Beautiful day yesterday and today we have all kinds of plans, walking, gardening, icing an angel food cake, playing on a splashpad, planting flowers. Just all kinds of fun. The same tomorrow. I hope to take my granddaughter to a pond where they have all kinds of daffodils out right now and take pictures.
Well, still doing edits and not getting anywhere on word count, but I was way ahead. But it will get there. Have a terrific day!
The bald eagle had been injured and taken into the zoo and cared for. It’s in an open pen so it can fly off as soon as it’s healed enough. It was trying while we were there, but it has a way to go before he/she can take flight. She was just beautiful.
I don’t usually get this many great shots at the zoo, but I’m glad that I did since going there is such a long drive and through the awful Houston traffic. I loved going to the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, because the parking was great and I could go nearly at any time in the morning and practically had the zoo to myself. I used to have a zoo pass for that reason. Great for picture taking and just taking walks. I love the one in Omaha too because it’s even bigger and hilly, and you get tons of exercise.
Because it was so warm yesterday, it was a great day for weeding! I got quite a bit done. I picked up a new kneeling pad that isn’t as hard as cement like the other one! And that helped considerably. I just have to use it when my granddaughter isn’t here or she uses it as a resting place to lie down on. lol She’s a nut. I hope to get some more done today. It’s really starting to heat up. I like the 60’s in the morning. I feel more motivated to do yard work than when it’s 40 degrees out. But when it’s 40, no fire ants are out, so there is a tradeoff and I’ve noticed more mosquitoes are starting to arrive.
Still just doing edits on Billionaire, so not getting a whole lot done. I’m at 64K now, 16K to reach minimum word count goal.
We were out front taking a walk and then checking the flowers that had come up and she wanted me to take a picture of her sitting on a rock in front of the flowers. I need a little bench out there. But something that doesn’t rot or rust. A stone bench would be great, but they’re so heavy to move.
I need to go to the grocery store again. I didn’t get enough food last time!
Hope you all have a great day! I’ve got to get to work!
My daughter and granddaughter made these special Easter eggs using dye, plastic bags and rice, then shaking the hard-boiled egg in one color rice bag and then in another until they had really pretty speckled eggs. She had mostly brown eggs, and they turned out really pretty!
I meant to get this out earlier, but I was distracted. I didn’t write anything yesterday, but decided late last night I wanted to go in a different direction a little bit in an earlier part of the book and I began editing to see where I need to go. Because of that, I’m having to make minor changes through several chapters, so working on that today.
Plus I had to get the garbage out and you know, I have a garbage bag, the weeds are beckoning to me and I began pulling weeds. Oh and flowers are coming out and naturally I had to take pictures of them. And then a pesky squirrel was waiting for me to fill the bird feeders and I had to take pictures of him. And then I was working on edits and remembered the blog!
Hope you all have a delightful day!!! It’s going to be 90 this week. Wait, I said I wanted a little warm up! Little.
When my granddaughter saw this, she wanted to see what was on the other side. She wanted to see their faces. lol I told her they don’t have anything on the other side. You never know what will confuse a child.
For my avatar that we dress together on my writing game, I have lots of different things I’ve earned to dress her with. But some things are a no go. Beards, bushy eyebrows, scary face paints. We have to do it her way. When she’s not around, I can do it my way.
We’re having grilled ribs and some kind of sides for lunch. We’re way limiting dessert. My daughter has to watch it because of the baby. And I need to just watch it period. And little one doesn’t need it either. She was probably a year old when she had her first dessert for her birthday. A strawberry short cake with whipped cream and strawberries. We just didn’t feed her dessert. She didn’t need it.
So alphabet letters in plastic eggs and pennies will be what she’s searching for in the yard. She did get some candy that my son-in-law picked up for her preschool, but she’s limited on what she can eat of it. And she’s really good about it.
The other day though when I was asking her what we needed on grandma’s grocery list, she said, “Angel food cake!”
lol
*sigh*
Well, it’s not supposed to have too many calories, but the problem is the delicious double fudge chocolate that goes on it!
We’re finally into my last week of waiting to take the 2nd vaccine. I read where people who have had COVID already only really need one shot as a booster. If that’s true, then those who are just getting their first shots who have had COVID before could bring the numbers higher for those fully vaccinated–if CDC agreed that it would truly be the case. So far, just for Texas, we have 15% for fully vaccinated. That amount keeps going up as more people finally get their 2nd vaccines. I saw that West Virginia is doing really well. And it looks hopeful that 12-15 year olds will be able to be vaccinated.
I’m going to still try and get my daily word count. I managed to get to 64K yesterday. 16K to go! It doesn’t seem real. But we’re celebrating Easter in a bit.
I was so upset this morning. I went to upload some beautiful artwork I did of 4 parrots together and my whole folder that I had all my artwork in is gone. I have no idea how that happened. I looked in the trash folder, just to make sure I hadn’t thrown it out by accident when I was getting rid of some other files yesterday, but I hadn’t.
I managed to get my 2,000 words in yesterday! Yay! That was because I had a 500 extra word count from the day before that I hadn’t counted toward that day–I usually wait to count it when I have a 1,000 words, and added a scene from another book that I had cut that amounted to another 500 words, so I wrote 1,000 yesterday.
We also put the two chairs together, did laundry and lots of fun workbooks.
So when I went to have little one put the washers on the machine screws for the chairs, she asked where the acorns were. To her, nuts are acorns. We have acorns in the yard. All the shows show squirrels going after acorns. Walnuts, peanuts, pecans, Brazil nuts, I have them all, but the only thing she equates nuts to are acorns.
I paused. “Acorns? Nuts!” lol “No nuts on these. So then we proceeded to put the two chairs together.
On the laundry, I have her push the buttons on the wash machine and dryer, trying to teach her to read the words: Power, Start. She has Start down. And when I’m reading books to her, I keep trying to teach her to read words that she’s seen repeatedly. It will come naturally. She recognizes Zoo, since it’s in a book about a Dr. Seuss book about a dog wanting to be in the zoo and she reads all the signs for me. She knows what Stop says because she reads all the stop signs, so if she sees it in a book, she recognizes it. But most of the time, she really doesn’t want to read. I did get her to read all the dogs in Go, Dogs, Go, and some of the more repetitive words, the colors, big, little, in, out, up, down, and articles.
She will sit and “read” out loud to herself, just making up what she things the words are. I tell her we have to know how to read so we can do all kinds of things. And it’s coming, slowly.
She’ll be here in a few seconds. Just trying to get a little bit of edits done before she does.
Hope you have a great day! It turned cold for us! But I think it will warm up later.
It was a great writing day yesterday!! I wanted to get out and work on the yard because it was so nice out, but I wanted to get as much as I could get done on the story. Without much in the line of interruptions, I managed to make yesterday’s word count and the day’s before. And I ended up with 500 for today. Yay! I don’t think I’ll get much in the line of writing done today, but the days I have little one, I don’t have any word count scheduled. So if I get some done, it’s all gravy! But really the reason this happened was I had some more ideas for writing and took off with the scenes.
I have a couple of patio chairs and a table to put together for the patio. I didn’t have enough seating and I’ve been here for 6 years, so it was time. But I have had the items sitting in a box for 2 months, and I’m finally getting around to putting them together. Little one helps me. I’ve been teaching her to look at the directions, find the matching letters, the right size machine screws, washers, nuts. To go by which part is done first. She puts the screws in and adds the washers and then the nuts. And then she screws them on. She loves doing it. And I love teaching her how to do things like this so when she’s all grown up, she can do it all by herself! She’s now 4 years old.
Yes, some directions are awful, but these are pretty clear. We put a sewing cart together too. Now we have the two chairs to put together. We’re going to do them both today, hopefully, or one today and the other tomorrow.
I finally got a garden kneeler and she loves it. lol She has been wanting to take it out and garden. That means her playing on it, not really gardening. But I hope to get pictures of her today like she’s already been, lying back on it, looking up at the clouds in the sky. What a gardening life.
I’m going to try and get started on sewing up a couple of bears too today. Maybe she can help me with those–stuffing, that is. I’ve tried to teach her how to turn the pieces so the fur is on the outside of all the parts–arms, ears, legs, body, etc, but that’s still too hard for her. She could stuff them, but she’d rather sew on the sewing machine. Some day.
Well, I need to get off here and feed the dogs that are ravenous! And start to work on something before little one gets here.
My editor says that they’re trying to work up a print anthology for the novellas for next year. So thanks to all my readers who only read print books. I get you!! After working on a screen all day, I read print books too. But Night of the Wolf is now out in ebook form!
I have never gotten a good picture of a porcupine before. This one was cute, though he’s hiding behind a tree branch. I remember going to a big cat reserve in Minnesota that also had bears and other animals. They had a porcupine who cried for attention. But man was he stinky! We still had to stop and talk to him.
I had taken my granddaughter to a children’s museum where they had a baby porcupine they were talking about and the woman was allowing kids to come up and pet him. He was so adorable. That was way before the pandemic. I’d love to take my granddaughter there again, especially when they have the special animal days, but we have to wait until more people are vaccinated. I would like to do a lot of things with her before she ends up in school and then we can’t. *sigh* I can’t believe she’ll be going to kindergarten next August already!
I’d tried to take her to the Barnes and Noble book reading, but she wouldn’t sit still, she was only two, so we left. I think she would do well with it now, but of course we can’t do it. And the same with the library toddler programs, though now she’s a pre-schooler. In her pre-school, she tells me the teachers tell the kids to stop talking all the time. lol That’s okay. They’re getting them ready for the first step in big kids’ school.
Instead, she can help me put together a sewing cart–she loves to help me build things. And she does a good job at it too. And she can help me stuff bears, clean pots and pans, and feed the birds and dogs. So maybe that’s all she really needs!
Yesterday was a turtle day for me. I usually get so much stuff done, but yesterday, I got my word count, and did a synopsis for the Night of the Wolf, but not for White Wolf to the Rescue. I need to do that this morning. And I didn’t get anything done on the bears, though I didn’t care for the one bear fabric I cut out, so I ordered 3 new ones and hopefully one will work. The baby I’m making the bear for has red hair, so I picked up 3 reddish furs. I used to always have them in stock, but I finally used the fabrics up and then I was having trouble finding ones similar.
And I have little one here longer today, so I need to get my word count done earlier. She’s so cute. She really wants to help me with the bears. What can she do? Help to stuff them. What does she want to do? Sew on the sewing machine. lol
Okay, so today no matter what, I need to get groceries–no milk and haven’t had any for days. I spent all day yesterday doing edits and writing. It was too cold to go out. I know my northern friends are laughing at me, but…
I was doing research of some kind, can’t remember what now, and I came across an article about putting twin preemies into the same incubator so that they would thrive. Numerous cases have shown this really works. That the babies cuddle together and provide comfort to each other. I’ve read where they’re used to hearing each other’s heartbeat and that helps to make them feel like they haven’t lost their twin. Do you think it’s like puppies who are inconsolable when separated from their litter mates at first? And then one of my friends was sharing where one twin came five days before another. Now, I’ve written where one came the next day, like minutes apart so they had separate birth dates, but five days apart? Can you imagine trying to explain how your birth date and your twins are that far apart?
In the case of my great aunt and grandmother who were twins, they disagreed until they died as to their birth date, one saying it was one day, the other saying it was two days later. When I was doing genealogy research, I learned my grandmother was right.
Night of the Wolf (In the Heart of the Wolf 10th Anniversary Release–now a single release)
Serena Wilder learns all her money has been withdrawn from the bank by the man who has been sharing the rent with her. They’re both wolves. She trusted him. But when he takes off with all her savings, she vows revenge. But first, she returns to the old homestead where she’d lost her whole family due to a fire. In the basement, her father had kept a hidden safe. She hopes it’s still there so she can finance her trip to the Grand Cayman Islands where the thief has settled–using her money!
Tanner Greymere and his three brothers discover a red wolf skulking around their home and they realize just who she is and why she is there. But Tanner has no intention of her running off to fight a wolf on her own, so now the challenge is to locate him on the island, get her money back, and convince her she needs to stay with the pack–with him, but protect her at all costs. But nothing goes their way.
***
So I was working on Billionaire and finally had some ideas. I’d forgotten that one of the earlier heroines was pregnant, so needed to add something about that. And another couple has a boy, so I had to figure out how old he would be and add him to the story. And then the pregnant woman will add more conflict. So does the boy. He’s 4 years old, what can I say? He added lots in the original story where he was featured. Kids just do. But in a fun way.
Then I had another great idea about one of the dogs that the hero owns in this story. It’s actually based on a true story about my dad, and ironically, the dog’s name was Toby. My dad loved animals–horses, that his grandparents and his mother had, dogs–he never had cats–but when they took care of my cat when I had to go to some army training, he fell in love with her.
This all goes to show that when I’m stuck and don’t know where to go–I still need to keep writing and then suddenly I’ll have that ah-ha moment and there it is! 3500 more words! But so many times, I’m trying to come up with something and it’s not happening. I still write, but when I’m not trying to force something, then it comes to me. I just wish it would come to me more often while I’m writing. lol
I also cleaned the gutter out front. I wasn’t sure I could reach it with my 6 foot ladder. I couldn’t on the backside of the house. It was packed with pine needles. I need to get some of those gutter covers.
I also got rid of two yellow jacket nests being built at each end of the garage. I find that if I hose them down while they’re being built, soaked both yellow jackets, they won’t build there again. I can spray tons of hornet spray and they’ll return every time. But water? The greatest deterrent. The only reason I can think of is that they believe rain is going to wash away their nests, and so they don’t build there any longer. I have a couple places in the protective foyer where they would build and I had a devil of a time stopping them. So that does it!
I pulled weeds too. I thought of going to get groceries today, out of them, but when I went to post about Night of the Wolf, I realized my publisher doesn’t even have a synopsis up for it, so had to write that one. Still need to write the synopsis for SEAL Wolf to the Rescue.
I did manage to cut out 3 bears also, and I need to start sewing those up today. But I also want to get my 2,000 words today on Billionaire. I’m still playing my 4theword game to keep up with my writing! Which makes it even more fun.
The temperature dropped, but it looks like today is going to be the lowest temperature of any days and we’re supposed to have rain.
