We had wild storms yesterday afternoon that we weren’t going to have. Yay! We needed the rain. So we got an inch. I also managed to get 3,000 words on Bear in Mind, so 28K done, 42k to go. Woohoo!
This is another photo I took of the beautiful wolves at the International Wolf Center.
Hope you all have a great day. It’s supposed to be hot again here. *sigh*.
I took the photo of the alpha male’s brother who is getting the brunt of being picked on. Though he’s as big as his brother, and the other two wolves are smaller, Luna, the black female is the alpha female, and the other, Boltz, is her brother.
I took this photo at the International Wolf Center. Oftentimes they were just sleeping, or standing, but seeing them playing was really fun.
The Alice in Wonderland Escape Room outdoors was lots of fun yesterday. We had a phone app and as we searched through the town for the Wonderland characters, we would have riddles, puzzles, and sometimes timed events to the next phase. If we got our riddles and coins for answering others correctly when the Cheshire Cat showed up, we reduced the time to our overall amount we were accumulating. But if we got it wrong, down the rabbit hole we went. A lot of folks were dressed in costume. We saw a lot of Tweedle Dees and Tweedle Dums and a pair of sisters who were dressed the same were pushing a buggy carrying two fluffy dogs dressed as cards-just adorable. It took us 2 hours and 6800 steps to free Alice and we actually took her home with us!
So I’m going backwards on word count on Bear in Mind. I had a scene in there that would create too many characters and two many subplots, and then I had to sort out some of my scenes so that they made sense once I cut out the other. I’m back up to 25K and hope I can keep moving forward now on the story!
Speaking of falling backwards, did you set your clocks back if you have Daylight Savings Time in your area? I just need to reset my car clock. I woke at 4 am and couldn’t get back to sleep, but I guess that was really 5 am.
Hope you get back on track today like I hope to! Have a great day!
I took the picture of the clouds and alpha wolves. Then added a new backdrop, which is under the clouds in part.
Yesterday was a hectic, but fun day and I managed to lose 2.2 lbs. Now that’s more like it! So I walked and am going swimming in a few, did a little weeding and I’m going to get back to the book. I managed to get 1,000 words yesterday. I tell myself I can’t get out to walk–too hot, or take the time to swim, because I’ll lose so much time writing. Ha! I waste so much time not writing, doing other stuff, and I need the exercise.
Less hectic today, but still need to pick up my granddaughter at preschool this afternoon.
The Wolf Pack–I created this with Clip Art from Creative Fabrica, Daily Texture, and Oscraps.
After little one went home last night, I finally managed to proof another 10 chapters, so I have 8 chapters to go on Silence of the Wolf, and 10 chapters on the novella. I should get that done by Friday.
We went to the mall. It’s so hot that I thought it would be fun to walk the mall and maybe I could find some clothes for me. Skip that, but I did find an outfit for both baby and little one for Memorial Day and I’ll take some pictures. At the mall, everyone for the most part was wearing masks. So I was glad to see it. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and they had everything spaced so that people weren’t on top of others. I haven’t been to the mall in about a year and a half, maybe longer. I haven’t been to a restaurant in about the same amount of time because I just don’t eat out very much.
A friend of mine is in Weight Watchers and so she and I are doing the Blue Plan together! It’s fun and in 2 days, I’ve lost 3 lbs. I’m hoping I will continue to lose weight and get down to what I was before I quit working at the library. My problem is that to write, you have to keep your butt in the chair. To maintain weight, you have to get up and move. lol
I don’t eat that much–so I could never figure out what was wrong. I don’t eat bread very often, or pasta either.
Chocolate is my downfall, but even after skipping chocolate for a couple of weeks, I was still being a yo-yo on my weight. When I was younger, I used to count calories. I hated that. So now I’m trying to follow the WW plan and free foods are most vegetables and fruits, fish, chicken breasts, turkey breast…Anyway, so here’s the scenario. Instead of eating what I normally would–a half of a Chicken Marsala dish at the Cheesecake Factory, which for the whole dish is 50 points!, I had Tuscan Chicken on the Skinnylicious menu. It was 11 points for the whole thing. I didn’t know it at the time, so I was being careful of how much I ate, but I couldn’t eat all in one setting anyway. There were three pieces of chicken breasts and vegetables.
So I had only one “portion” and saved the other two for two more meals. Yesterday, I ended up having 2 portions, one for lunch and one for dinner. I had more tomatoes and broccoli as a side dish and for breakfast I had a poached egg (eggs are also zero points) and a sprinkle of cheese on it. The day before I was getting close to my limit of points because I had a chicken thigh and it’s 3 points, so I skipped the butter on the broccoli. But I could splurge yesterday and had butter. I measured it, when I normally don’t measure things.
Now, yesterday, we arrived too early for the mall to open, at least I thought. Shops weren’t open until 11. Though I finally found an entrance where people were entering to walk. It was way too hot to sit in the car. Panera was open and they have all that stuff you shouldn’t eat–that I shouldn’t eat. Cinnamon buns. 29 points! All my points would be shot in one sweet 620 calorie roll. They do have half sandwiches which are about 11 points, so that’s not too bad.
So see? I might not eat that much, but if I had done what I would have in the past, I would have had the cinnamon bun for breakfast, the Chicken Marsala for lunch, and the other half for dinner. And that would have totaled 50 for the chicken Marsala for the day, and 29 for the cinnamon bun, and if I’d had some dark chocolate to finish it off–104 points for the day. Now I could see why I wasn’t losing weight! I don’t eat much, no snacks all day, no chips, nothing, but what I was eating was higher in calories and in points.
I don’t want to change my diet completely, as in eating foods I don’t like just to lower my points, because I won’t last on it, but I can definitely watch what I eat of the stuff I do like. And the Tuscan Chicken was really good. What makes it easy is I can look up the foods I normally eat, or even restaurant food and decide how many points I’m willing to have.
I’ve been balking at doing this because I don’t “eat much,” but it wasn’t getting me anywhere. A lot of the reason was that my friend eats a lot of things I don’t like and so I just couldn’t see myself eating whole new menus of food that I can’t stand. So I’m working on varying my own eating habits now but still eating what I like–except for some of those really high point items. So I’m working on it now! And I’m feeling better and I hope to feel lots better soon!
Have a super wonderful day. I’ve got to get ready for little one! And need to feed the dogs and birds!
It’s hot out! At 5 this morning, 90% humidity. Yuck. lol
It will get better. We did have some rain yesterday, and we’re supposed to get it this morning. I did get some yard work done yesterday too.
I love Jane Eden’s animal drawings on Renderosity, and her spooky things just came on sale. So I created this with her wolf and background, adding other interesting sky art to the sky and reduced the saturation on the backdrop, and darkened the wolf.
I’m off to take care of little one. Not sure what to do on my new books so I’m floundering. I hate when that happens! I want to jump in with both feet and just write. But maybe I need a break too.
Have a great day! I’m off to play with little one.
So here Ajax, the Arctic wolf was telling Boltz, the gray timber wolf, that the beaver was all his. Don’t even think about getting close to his meal.
But social distancing? Sure. Keep your distance from my food!
I went to the grocery store yesterday morning when it first opened, no crowds, managed to stay away for 2 weeks and my fridge was bare. Everything, but hand soaps, sanitizers, etc, were stocked. Toilet paper–for those hoarding them, paper towels, Kleenix, all of that was in. Yay!
Then I was trying to stuff all the meat in my freezer along with the frozen vegetables. And I got a lot of fresh vegetables to eat for the week.
Most everyone was wearing a mask. Yay! A few holdouts. I guess they think the rest of us we’re protecting them. I felt like I was a bandit.
I turned in the proofed copy of Joy to the Wolves, couldn’t find the promo stuff I’m supposed to do for Night of the Billionaire Wolf, wrote 200 words on Red Wolf, and that was it. I offered to take care of my granddaughter tomorrow. I need to jump on the story today though. Been trying to reach the halfway point in forever. I should manage it today.
Hope you all are keeping your distance, don’t get too close to a growly wolf who’s acting all alpha, and stay safe!
Mar 31, 2020 10th Anniversary of Legend of the White Wolf (new novella included)
Legend of the White Wolf: In a world of snow and ice, their passions blaze…
Book 4
Award-Winning Author introduces the next installment of her paranormal romance series
A 2008 Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year Award Winner! Night Owl Romance Reader Choice Award for Best Paranormal 2008
In this fourth in Spear’s series, Private Eye Cameron MacPherson and
Faith O’Mallery are both on quests that lead them into the world of
magical wolves…
Cameron arrives in the Canadian Arctic to search for his partners in
his P.I. business who are late returning from a hunting trip. Faith is
there to discover what her father had seen in the same area years
earlier that had made him lose touch with reality–man-wolves, he called
them.
The two tumble into an icy world of enemies bent on destroying the lupus garou kind. As they turn into lupus garou themselves, and bond with the pack that only they can rescue from destruction, Cameron and Faith find their soul mates in each other.
So that’s coming up next!! Soon! If you have the ebook already, you can redownload it and get the updated version and the new novella.
I got through 15 chapters yesterday of Highland Wolf. 11 more to go for proofing. And then I’ll need to write the acknowledgements and turn it in.
I need to write the dedication, acknowledgements and one more scene for Vampire Redemption and then turn it over to my beta readers.
And I still need to plant plants and ship off more books.
I’ve already done laundry, dishes, put out the trash, walked around the block to get my mail, and put it all in the trash, taken the dogs out, cleaned up after them, fed them, taken the dogs out, cleaned up after them, and now it’s time to get to work!
The photograph of the wolves is one I took of the wolves at The International Wolf Center, Ely, Minnesota.
It’s always time for wolves, don’t you think?
So I finished proofing the 3 books that I have my rights back to, formatted them for ebook, and began to upload them for publishing last night and this morning.
Amazon-done! Kobo-done! Google Books–done! Barnes and Noble–done!
I think that’s all but Ibooks, which I always have a keychain problem on and so I have to wait until next week to get them to help me fix it. I tried. I just have to do this and this and this and this, which is fine. I can follow directions. Except the second “this” doesn’t exist.
And Smashwords, which still shows the titles as belonging to my publisher, therefore I have to wait until next week to hear their verdict before I can upload them.
It will take a while for the ebooks to show up on the various sites and once they do, I’ll have to update all my weblinks everywhere.
Now, it’s time to format them all for print. The hardest part. Redo the cover for print. The even harder part. Though it appears the format for print isn’t working out too badly this morning. Maybe I’ve finally got my rhythm on it. Or not.
Since it’s only 75 degrees this morning, I was out tugging away at weeds and a dead tree. I need to remove another, but because of the issues with my shoulder, I might wait until next weekend to do that one. I removed the other one a little earlier in the week.
I had thought about putting off the print so I could get started on the Halloween story, but I’d rather get this done and out of the way.
All right, I’m back to work! Hope your day is GLITCH-FREE!
It’s an enrichment program they have at the wolf reserve in Omaha. He didn’t just find trash lying around. They put chicken bones in it and he has to search out the prize. He found it and he took off running. MINE.
Reminds me of my granddaughter. She looked in the fridge this morning, pointed to my yogurt and said, “Mine.”
Yep, from wolves to kids, it’s the same deal.
I’m off to play with her…hope to get some work done on the story, or reading done on the other. We had rain!!! Yes! Three inches. We sure needed it.