Credit for Images

Okay, so I was researching about the various high dollar amount denominations so that I can make an issue in Cougar’s Mate realistic, and ran across this article on the various amounts of these currencies still left.

As of 5 years ago, only a little over 300 of the $10,000 and $5,000 bills are in circulation. But over 150 thousand $1,000 bills, so we’re good.

But what I found so funny was the two articles that related to individuals using “million dollar notes” to buy goods at Walmart. One was in Georgia, the other in North Carolina. Don’t they know that Walmart clerks are trained in not giving out that much change for a million dollar bill?

Chuckling here.

Can you imagine??? “Okay, wait, I don’t have $999,524 in my register. Let me get some from all the clerks’ cash registers, a few banks and….”

Yeah.

Haven’t they ever watched those movies that show that using counterfeit dollars of a small denomination, though still not easy, is a safer bet? Especially when a $1,000,000 bill doesn’t even exist?

The other thing you have to be careful of is spending a $1,000 antique bill at the bank. Well, trying to cash them in. Especially if you’re a teenager and on the lam after robbing a parents’ safe of the $1,000 bill. Yep, all three of the boys got nabbed.

Okay, see, this is what happens when I do research. I learn all kinds of things I didn’t know!

Did you know any of this?

Have a great Thursday! And may your dreams be filled with million dollar wonders, but if you ever receive one of those million dollar bills, don’t try to spend it at Walmart.

Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male!”
www.terryspear.com

For all my snowbound friends, I’m sending the wolves to warm you up!

While my computer was broken, I couldn’t do some of my fun photo magic, no photoshop, and so I finally downloaded a bunch of brushes, again, and I’m all set to work. Not that I have a lot of time for it, but sometimes I just want to do something special. Like create a wolfish Happy Valentine’s Day statement. Of course, when I do this, I feel guilty about not writing. I kept telling myself it’s okay to take a break every once in  awhile. But my goal was to write 5,000 and reach 60,000 on Cougar’s Mate, and I did it! So see? I can do both! 🙂

It’s early, but if I didn’t want to spend all that time creating something of such wolfish beauty and only use it for one day of the year. 🙂

How I did it:

The bride pictured is from: http://faestock.deviantart.com/

The wolves and background I purchased from Bigstock photos. The wolves are two separate photos.

I used mist brushes from: http://www.obsidiandawn.com/mist-photoshop-gimp-brushes

And that’s the magic!

My parents were both artists and they both had written stories. I didn’t know about their writing, though dad made up stories to tell us when we were kids, until I began to write my first novel and they shared with me. Dad was also a photographer. But early on, my dad told me I wasn’t an artist. Don’t try. lol

I kept thinking that maybe I was. Maybe not with paint or watercolor, but with fabric when I began to create things that they couldn’t. My parents made doll carriages later on and their creations were wooden art. Beautiful. But my bears received all kinds of awards and were featured in magazines and newspapers, so that way was my contribution to the art world. And writing after that in the form of books.

And then I began playing around with creating my own book covers. Horrible. But the more I learned, the more I loved doing it, and just even creating pictures that wouldn’t be used for book covers, and they weren’t so bad after all. 🙂

My parents and I were really close and every year I see something new that I know they would have loved to have done too, and wish they could see all that there is to see. I’m not sure if my mother would have wanted to learn how to create pictures on the computer, but dad would have loved it. And he would have loved the new cameras and all that they could do. And both my parents gave me their stories to publish someday, if I could.

So for someone who can’t create artwork, it’s not too bad, don’t you think?

Okay, I had a light bulb moment on Cougar’s Mate, so off to work on it. I also have the audio files stacking up on The Highlander that I need to go over to ensure they’re accurately synched with the manuscript, and I need to pre-post another blog for the blog tour for Silence of the Wolf. Four more interviews to go, haven’t gotten them yet, and I’m all set.

Are you an artist? What is your medium of fun?

Terry

http://www.terryspear.com