Someone asked if those were feathers, but they’re not. They’re tufts of gray fur from squirrely squirrels. The squirrels had taken off long before the nest fell. I had to show it to both grandkids because it isn’t often that you have a squirrel nest in your yard that was once 35 feet or higher in the trees.
I realized yesterday later that I had posted the same picture two days in a row. That’s what happens when I’m in rush. I took my grandson to his sister’s graduation and ended up taking her home. Parents/guardians can do that after certain parties, activities every once in a while and many were taking their kids home. So I hadn’t expected to have both kids all day, but we had fun. I took them to have ice cream after they ate lunch at my house. If the residential pool had been open, I would have taken them to it. It felt like 98 yesterday and we’ll have a repeat of that today and tomorrow.
I only managed 1,000 words on Highland Wolf yesterday, none on Wolf Bound. I will have to make sure that when I have my granddaughter here all summer during the weekday that I still get my writing done. We played dominoes and I let her play reading and math games on my computer online, and we even taught the beginning of chicken foot dominoes to my grandson. He won the first round, then on the second round, he wanted to place a domino that couldn’t be placed and had a little tantrum. lol Then their mom arrived to save the day.
I’m off to clean up more pine cones in the yard from the last storm and then get to writing. Only one more school day after today and I believe the pool is open on Friday. I hope it’s warm enough because I want to swim!
Have a lovely day!
Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”
One of the squirrely squirrels in my backyard. You see how he’s eyeballing me? They chitter at me, waving their bushy tails, telling ME that I can’t have the bird seed in the feeders. Wait, you guys can’t have the bird seed in the feeders. Right. They totally scoff at me, and at the dogs that love to chase them.
My book blog came up as number 3 on The 40 Best Paranormal Romance Book Blogs and Websites! I’m thrilled! I Love Vampires was number 1. I love their blog!
I’ve been working on proofing Mated for Christmas. What inspired me for the book was that I went to visit my friend in Minnesota and we took in all the sites up in Ely. I loved seeing the wolf reserve up there and then this past time, we went to see the bear reserve also. I love that they have so many lakes, and of course my wolf pack lives on a lake, visited by a real black bear. This story is set in wintertime, where it’s really really snowed in. One of my beta readers, Donna, has to remind me to add more clothes to my characters when I send them out in the snow.
Where I’m at in Texas, we don’t get snow very often. And when I wrote this story, it was probably 110 degrees here. It can be hard to think Christmas thoughts when it’s the middle of the summer! But I always have fun writing them.
Also, on Feb 28th, I’ll be taking over Lori Foster’s Facebook page, and kudos to Lori for giving me the opportunity! I’ll post links when I have them.
In the meantime, I’m halfway done with proofing Mating for Christmas, trying to finish up a marketing plan for my publisher, getting closer and closer and closer to finishing Huntress Unleashed, and waiting to hear if I have a contract for new wolf books coming up. But when I’m waiting for things like that, what do I do? I keep on writing.
Have a great one!
Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”
So I was taking pictures of my grandson, just sending some of them to my daughter this morning, and I told him to smile and he starts saying, “Cheese.” Mom and Dad have him well-trained. lol
I was getting ready to start working on a story idea for Ely, Minnesota, when I remembered it has to be Christmas. That changes everything! I can’t have them going boating on the water in winter. Here, yes, not up there.
I just planted some bell pepper plants that my daughter gave me. I have several from the compost pile also. I love bell peppers–great on pizza, in spaghetti, fajitas, stuffed with meat, chili. They’re great! Also, I have chives growing. They look like green hairs right now. I have several tomato plants growing. My daughter brought over some more, so I need to plant those.
I’m off to contemplate a white wolf story in winter and at Christmastime!
They are really comical and they’re so bold that they either tell me off, or like with this one, give me a stare down. Who won? The squirrel, of course. It’s amazing how still they can be while trying to pretend they’re not there and how much they can flatten themselves against a tree. I missed capturing shots of the one hanging down to eat birdseeds from a basket. They are truly entertaining.
Another neighbor has dogs now. They’re little. Smaller than my dogs and they love them, but the little ones don’t love my dogs back. lol So, sigh. Now I have dogs on two sides and on the back, two different homes of dogs. It’s just the way the cul de sac in back is set up so I have two homes that back part of my property. I try to keep mine from barking. I let them out so early in the morning to potty, I don’t want them waking anyone who might be sleeping.
I’ve tried everything I can think of to keep them away from the wooden fence. I have pavers piled 3 high on one side, but the bigger dog there has been digging a hole under the fence to get to them and undermining my wall. lol I feel like I’m under siege. She barks every time she hears them out in the yard. They really just want to greet each other, but they bark and make a mess of the yard.
With the other big dog in the back, I placed timbers along the bottom of the fence behind the holly shrubs, but the dogs race along the shrubs and make a mess of themselves and my border. With the little dogs, I rearranged some little fencing panels I have, I loaned some to my daughter, but she loves them and won’t give them back, lol, and unfortunately, I can’t find anything like them or I’d buy more. I finally set them up where I hope I can at least keep the dogs away from the fence. My dogs don’t bark at the little ones. They love small dogs, but the little ones do bark. And I’m afraid mine will start digging.
Then on the other side is another big dog. She’s pretty quiet. So if she ignores my dogs, they ignore her.
And that’s enough about dog news. I’ve got to run to the grocery store, need to get some stuff done on my writing, and have to get my shot this afternoon. It will be the 2nd Pfizer shot. I had hoped to get it earlier in the day, but I can’t get it anywhere else. So either I will have to pick up little one late from daycare, or her mom will if she’s not in labor.
Have a great day!! I need to get a million more things done before I sleep.
That’s the way I feel when going out in this heat!
So I was pondering something the other day when I was with my granddaughter–mixed messages. I still call her baby sometimes. I try not to. It just slips out. She’s officially the age of a pre-schooler now, no longer a toddler. Sometimes she’s a little girl. “You’re too little to do that. You’re a little girl.” Then at other times, “You’re not a baby. You don’t do that any longer.” Then, “You’re a big girl. See how you can do that?”
lol
I was out pulling up some milkweed that had taken over. One of my rosebushes looks pretty sad. I want to cut it way back, but I don’t think this is the right time to do it. We were supposed to have rain yesterday, then no chance of rain, then it rained. Yay! 80% chance of rain today. It was sprinkling while I was out.
Okay, I’m off to write. I managed to get 1200 words after little one left–49,000 to go. Sounds much better than 80K, which is the minimum.
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?
The juvenile squirrel was trying to get on this feeder, but he kept falling off. The white-winged dove was flapping his wings like crazy trying to get tidbits of seeds on the same little feeder. lol So I caught a few frantic flapping-wing trips to the feeder. They weren’t giving up.
And that’s dedication. Seeds are all over the ground, but somehow the ones in the feeder are worth the effort!
I managed 3,000 words yesterday–getting toward my 89K word goal. Eighty was minimum.
No sugar in my diet for a week now, no cravings. I picked up grapes and cantaloupe, have apples and carrots, so if I feel the urge to have something sweet, I’ve got it. And they taste sweeter now that I’m not eating tons of candy. Though my friend said that dark chocolate has all kinds of health benefits as long as it has 70% cacao, so I’m going to pick up some that have almonds in them (the almonds are also good for you), and have those as backup. BUT only a piece a day, or I undo all I’ve done with being good.
A squirrel with a nut in his mouth. He was right by the school where I voted. Do you ever notice you never notice life all around you? I could have just been walking to the school, but I wanted to capture some fun moments while I did it.
I finished Highland Wolf and turned it over to my beta readers. Now I need to get my tax stuff together. Ugh. I’d rather write.
I’ll be finishing up Vampire Redemption next. I think I need to write 2 more scenes. And then I’m off on the next adventure. For some reason, I want to write the next Wolff Brother story, but it has to be the Christmas story, so I need to write the next red wolf story instead. Or I’ll be in trouble with deadline dates. One year, I had them mixed up somehow, and I wrote a Highland book before the book I needed to write, turned it in and was told I needed to get the other done ASAP.
It was great. I ended up finishing both books early. lol
It’s turned cold again, relatively speaking. It was 80 the last couple of days and then it dropped to 45. But little one and I planted a bunch of flower seeds in the light rain, and I spread weed and feed before she even got to my house, and later after the rains stopped for a while, we went out so I could take pictures of flowers, and she told me which ones to take and then she had to see the pictures on my camera.
Okay, so I’m off to tackle taxes that I really don’t want to do, but I know I’ll feel better when I’ve done them.
