In the City

Hello, friends!  Just a quick update!  I may not have any more deadlines for a while (Yay!) but life is still as busy as ever!

I’ve been enjoying a wonderful few days, celebrating the impending Christmas season with friends and family.

A few of my girlfriends and I had a Christmas crafts night.

Then my mom and my sister and I took a trip downtown to see the world premiere of the opera Becoming Santa Claus.

And life is only going to get busier!  Tonight, my friend and I are taking my sister out to celebrate her birthday.  Tomorrow night, a group of my friends from high school and I are going with our English teacher (our Mr. Feeny, if you will) to see MacBeth.  Thursday night, I’m going to a bachelorette party and Saturday is the wedding!  So much fun and merriment and all the while I keep thinking, “Oh my goodness!  I have to get the new book out!”  Then I remember it’s already out and I think to myself, “Oh, yay!  I love it when that happens!”

The new book is doing great.  And Boy Band is getting some new love because of it!

I’ve had two reviews in the past week that I particularly love.  One is from a new friend down in Mexico named Bryan.  You can check out his review here!

He also took this fabulous picture and I’ve got to be honest, it’s one of my favorite book portraits ever.

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The other is a review I believe I already shared, but I love it so much, I’m just going to share it again.

I love all my readers and reviewers and friends so, so much!  I don’t know if you realize it, but you make so many dreams come true just by doing what you love!  Thank you, thank you!

I hope you all are enjoying this most wonderful time of the year.

Authorfest 2015

This weekend was incredible.  I was thrilled to be able to participate in the second annual Authorfest in one of my favorite small towns, Denison, Texas.  As a writer, I believe that words are all powerful, but as a photographer, I believe that pictures are worth at least a thousand words.  So here they are.

First, some scenic shots of Downtown Denison.

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Preparing for dinner and a reading at Devoli’s!  It also happens to be part of my favorite winery, Homestead.

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Photograph courtesy of Tim Malek Photography. http://www.TimMalek.com

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Photograph courtesy of Tim Malek Photography. http://www.TimMalek.com

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Usually, I prefer red wine, but this Orange Muscat may have converted me.

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That night, there was another raffle drawing.  I swear to y’all, I have the BEST luck at these things.

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And, of course, there were plenty of books to go around.

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I also got to meet the cutest puppy ever.

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And I spent all the money I earned on wine and new old books including a lot of vintage Stephen King and an old copy of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

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Thank you to everyone who made this weekend such and amazing experience.  Thank you especially to James and Claudette Peercy, who organized and made the entire event possible!

You can find James and his wonderful books here: http://www.jameswilliampeercy.com

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Spa Days and Seven Facts

This weekend, I had my very fist spa experience.  It was a friend’s birthday and so a group of us went to celebrate with her.  I had no idea what to expect, but my friend told me that there was an indoor swimming pool with a bar.  Sold.  It’s like, I don’t even care what else this spa has to offer me.

As it turned out, when you get to the spa, you are given a uniform that you’re supposed to wear while you’re there.  It was actually really comfortable, despite being a rather unflattering shade of orange. But since we were heading straight for the pools, we just wore our bathing suits.

The pools were awesome, full of jets and streams and illuminated this amazing shade of turquoise that made me feel like I was in a fantasy novel.  There was also an indoor water slide, which is meant for kids, but when you’ve got five twenty-somethings who, you know, enjoy the finer things in life (like bars in indoor swimming pools), you’ve got to ride the water slide.  That’s just all there is to it.

There are still lessons to be learned, however, even when you are in your mid-late twenties.  For example, stranger danger is still totally a thing.  Don’t talk to strangers.  Just don’t do it.  Especially in a spa where there’s alcohol.  Also, don’t leave your new boyfriend alone with your best friends.  That’s one my friend Kit Kat learned the hard way.  While she and the birthday girl went off to get pampered, she left her boyfriend alone with me and our friend, Roxanne.  We basically gave him what was probably the longest girl talk of his life.  We told him all about our bad dating experiences in the past and gave him a run down of what not to do.  I’m not sure if he was amused or scared.  Probably a little of both.  He seems like a cool guy though, so he probably wasn’t too scarred for life.  He also has his own LED lighting business!  Check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/enviraldesign

After we finally left the pools (after about six hours), we went to the sauna.  Apparently, people go into the saunas to relax, but we’re a pretty social group and we like to talk.  I would therefore like to issue a formal apology to everyone in the saunas whom we disturbed with our chatter.  I’m sorry.  I hope we didn’t ruin your evening.

All in all, my first spa experience was a pretty positive one.

The next day, I went on a Downtown adventure to the Dallas World Aquarium and Spaghetti Warehouse with a friend I’ve met only recently, but who is lot of fun and very easy to talk to.  It was a great day.  Very uncharacteristically, however, I forgot my camera at home!  I did get this shot of Downtown Dallas on my iPhone, however…

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Finally, I was tagged in a Facebook post asking me to list seven things that people may not know about me.  I was tagged by my author friends Ben Ditmars (https://benjaminditmars.wordpress.com) and Melissa Zaroski (http://davenportmanor.net).  I’m kind of an open book, so I’m not sure if there’s a whole lot that people don’t know about me, but I’ll give it a go.

1.  When I was little, I was afraid of band-aids.

2.  I hate talking on the telephone.

3.  When I first learned to ride a bicycle, my dad promised me two doughnuts if I rode around the block without crashing my bike. I did. But I never saw those two doughnuts.

4.  I enjoy playing chess.  I’m not good at it, but I have fun. I’m not a competitive person at all.

5.  I own 11 square feet of land in Scotland.

6.  I’m an enabler.

7.  My favorite necklace is one that my grandmother gave me. She called me into her room one night when I was about five or six and told me to reach into a bag she was holding.  Anything I pulled out, she said, was mine.  I pulled out the necklace.  To this day, it is my most treasured possession.

If you’re reading this, I tag you!