Awesome Is Hard Work by Joan Reeves

Good morning! If you knew everything I've been called upon to do in the last 2 weeks, you'd understand why I'm posting late today.

We attended two graduations out of town, then a funeral in west Texas, then a reunion in Louisiana. All of that was exhausting, but then everything hit at once. 

BRIEF RECAP

1. We signed a contract to sell property in another county which necessitated our presence for various meetings with the buyers, inspections, and arranging for a few things to be done there. All of that took several trips there and back (240 miles round trip).

2. After much arguing back and forth discussion, my Darling Husband convinced me to put our current house in town up for sale. Reason? He wants a much bigger lot with a much bigger garage. Me? I'm okay with where we are, but happy husband = happy, uh, can't think of anything that rhymes with husband. (Saying happy wife = happy life is much easier.)

3. Spent an entire week removing everything from bookshelves, cabinets, etc. so the furniture could be moved to allow the painters access to the walls.

4. We packed about a million books it seems along with stuff stored in the cabinetry that was to be moved. 

I decided there was no way I wanted to put all that back in place if we were going to sell the house so we rented a storage facility and moved what seemed like hundreds of boxes into storage.

5. Darling Hubby decided he wanted to also store the pool table because "looking Lous" always seem to want to roll the balls on the pool table.

He's protective of his Olhausen so he deconstructed it and got a strapping young man to help him move the slate, etc. into storage.

6. All paintings, etc. were taken from the walls and rugs rolled up. 

7. We finished all of that deconstructing this morning—minutes before the painting crew showed up.

Now, I'm in my office, which was painted a year ago and isn't part of the week's painting adventure, but there are paintings stacked against the walls, a half dozen lamps on the floor, and other hazards.

I have just enough space to walk from the door to my chair in front of the computer. I'm praying this will all be finished by Friday.

MORE TIME SUCKS SCHEDULED

Of all times to have a tooth that needs to be crowned! Had a day of dental anguish to get the tooth prepped for crown. Permanent crown scheduled for July 3.

The rest of this month and into July is filled with more of the same because this next weekend we must arrange for movers to remove everything from our house in the country and into storage. 

I'm exhausted just recounting all of this.

To make matters worse, I have a July deadline to upload my new book, OLD ENOUGH TO BE BOLD. I'm concerned I may not complete everything that needs to be done to make it publishable.

That means I haven't promoted it other than mentioning it in a few places.I had extended the release date twice already, but the universe keeps throwing curve balls at me. I'm worried. If I have to change the release date again, I'll be penalized by Amazon and banned for 1 year from setting up a pre-order. 

Yikes! But if I have to extend again, I'll just have to live with the consequences. I'll blow up that bridge when I come to it.

LIFE GOES ON

I'll keep writing and trying to be "awesome" —whatever that means—and get the book done. In the meantime, I have 2 books on sale for 99¢. Both are guaranteed to give you heated romance and lots of laughs.

THE TROUBLE WITH LOVE  is a spicy Enemies to Lovers Romantic Comedy set in a small Texas town. Just click the link to learn more about it.

You can also read it with Kindle Unlimited.

There's an audio book of it too for those who love to listen to a good book, but the audio edition is not  on sale.

Also on sale is SCENTS AND SENSUALITY which is also on Kindle Unlimited. This spicy fake boyfriend RomCom is part of the Love, Laughter, and Shenanigans series.

Click the link to learn more about this hugely popular RomCom that's been on the UK romance bestseller list since January. (I love that it's also selling in India and France—the USA too of course.)  

Scents and Sensuality is also available as an audio book too.

By the way, on the audio book link, you can listen to an excerpt which is entertaining in itself.

So that's my frantic, frazzled life since May. How are things in your Life? I certainly hope it's more serene and peaceful than mine.

Enjoy the rest of June. Here in Texas, July means the door to the furnace will probably be blocked open. See you then!

(I'm online: SlingWords * Website * Facebook * Romance Gems...Authors & Readers Meet.)

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45 Pounds Down and Still Not a Fashionista ~ Sherri Easley

I thought losing 45 pounds would feel like a victory parade. Cue the glitter, the applause, the breezy montage of me tossing old clothes over my shoulder and strutting into a dressing room like a woman reborn.

Instead, I found myself in a department store three-way mirror, wondering if I’d wandered into a circus funhouse.

Here’s the thing no one tells you: when your body changes, your style doesn’t automatically download a new user manual. I’m not a fashionista. I like to write about strong women and overcoming obstacles, not crop pants and rise lengths. And when it comes to jeans? I’d rather wrestle a love triangle than figure out if I’m “curvy high-rise” or “straight ankle-cut.”

I stood there in the dressing room—half undressed, fully confused—staring at a label that read “slimming stretch.” Lies. The only thing it slimmed was my patience.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of the work it took to lose the weight. But in that moment, all I wanted was a pair of jeans that fit and didn’t try to gaslight me with a size number that made no sense. I miss the elastic waistbands. I miss the yoga pants. I miss not caring!

But maybe that’s the lesson. We’re all in transition—whether it’s our bodies, our stories, or our characters. And just like romance, sometimes you have to try on a dozen awkward fits before you find the perfect one.

For now? I’m celebrating my size-uncertain hips and my unapologetically soft style. If my heroine can slay demons dressed in leathers and face paint, I can survive shopping for new clothes.

Maybe…

Meanwhile, my writing is as unpredictable as my shopping- Here is the next part of chapter one: 

I remember nothing of life before Master Faren. It was as though I’d sprung to life at five winters old—filthy, barefoot, and half-starved—appearing on his doorstep with nothing but a soot-streaked face, a bag of rune stones and a strange black quill clutched in my hand.

I was just a little mortal girl with a strange mark on her left shoulder, raised and pale like molten wax hardened in the shape of a flame and a quill. A mark that prickled during storms and that sometimes, in the stillness between heartbeats, hummed.

 No name. No origin. No recollection of my past.

With hair black as a raven’s wing and eyes the color of storm-soaked earth, I stood out among the flaxen-haired, fair-skinned villagers who prized sameness like a virtue. And in a place where uniformity was sacred, I was an unforgivable deviation.

Whispers followed me through the narrow lanes of Dalswyth. Some claimed I was a changeling. Others swore I’d crawled from the underworld. Children ran from me. Old women crossed themselves.

I wasn’t a monster, though; I was just different.           

At first, the rejection stung—sharp as frostbite, and just as numbing.

Master Faren always found me. He’d wrap me in his arms until the tears dried, then sit me in the crook of his armchair and read to me about ancient legends until the ache in my chest dulled into something quieter. Something bearable.

But pain taught me something else: how to disappear.

By the time I was older, I’d stopped trying to belong. I’d started to climb.

When the village boys chased me with sticks, yelling names I didn’t understand—old slurs for changelings and witch-born things—I didn’t fight back. I didn’t have to. I could vanish when it suited me, slipping through broken fences, up drainpipes, into attic beams or beneath crumbling stone.

It became a kind of game… one I always won.

I could scale rooftops before I knew how to braid my hair. I moved through spaces most people never noticed—low windows, high ledges, the hollow between walls. I could land without a sound. Breathe like I didn’t need air.

The townspeople whispered that I had no bones. That I was half-spirit. That I climbed like a cat and fell like a leaf.

And maybe… they weren’t wrong.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

How is your Summer writing coming along? 

DON'T SQUEEZE THE CHARMIN

 

 By Caroline Clemmons

Recently my youngest daughter and I were talking about the lack of cute commercials currently on television. Our discussions are frequently on deep, critically important  subjects of this type.

You know, with the overabundance of drug and insurance commercials, there aren’t many of those or of others which stand out in my memory.  At least not recently. At the risk of sounding like the old-timer who walked to school uphill in both directions through deep snow, here are some I do remember fondly.

My all-time favorite commercial was when Coca Cola featured a group of carolers singing “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.” Isn't that timely for our current situation? In my opinion, no one will top that one!

Another was the Alka-Seltzer cartoon boy Speedy that sang plop, plop, fizz, fizz and jumped into a glass of water.

Who can forget the little boy singing he’d like to be an Oscar Myer wiener?

David Naughton wanted to be a Pepper for Dr Pepper, my choice of soda—the cherry flavor. He put a lot of talent and energy into his invitation.

I have to say seeing Mr. Whipple squeezing the Charmin was far, far more appealing than blue bears discussing “going.”

I admit every time I heard Sam Elliott speak about Dodge Ram trucks I wanted to rush out and buy one. Never did. Wouldn't he be a great narrator for an audiobook?

Working in an advertising agency must be extremely stressful. All the same, I often wonder who approved some of the commercials we see. Many actually repel me rather than tempting me to buy the product. So much expense deserves better results.

What’s a commercial you remember fondly?