Monday, September 30, 2019

STARS WIN!!


Saturday nights game was an exciting one that included a come-from-behind rally as well as overtime and a shootout. Here are also pictures from warmup.








 My man, Roman Polak, who got a laugh and offered a huge grin in reaction to my poster.

 Up and coming Star defenseman, Esa Lindell.

 The captain, Jamie Benn.

And our hottest player, Tyler Seguin.


Have a great week--it's gonna be a busy one.


Friday, September 27, 2019

The countdown begins...


Eighteen days until I leave for my conference in Albuquerque.

(From the Albuquerque Wikipedia page)


It's time to make the lists: things to do in preparation and things to pack.

I'm driving this time, which is nice. I like road trips and having a vehicle is always handy if you want to sight see or whatever while you're wherever you are.

Things to do in preparation is two-pronged: all things at home and at work I have to do in advance of being gone and all the things I have to prep for the actual conference.

I'm getting tired just thinking about it. :0)

But it's Friday and I have a hockey game tomorrow. I'm going with some friends who don't go to many hockey games, so I'm hoping to give them the full experience. I created a poster for my favorite player and I want to get there in time to secure spots on the glass to watch warmup and see if I can't get another interaction with my man Roman Polak.


Monday evening is the Season Ticket Holder event at the zoo and I'm hoping that Mr. Polak will be attending that as well, so I can get a picture and possibly an autograph. So excited!!!

I'll report back next week.

Have a great weekend!!


Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Musical Tastes...


As I was pondering today's blog topic on my way to work this morning, I was also sliding up and down the radio stations hoping for something worth listening to.

That of course is subjective, but what I realized is that my musical tastes have changed over the years. I grew up on country and still enjoy a country song or two. I have an eclectic selection in my iTunes library that I put on shuffle while I work and (mostly) listen to whatever starts playing--unless it's the two-hour waves white noise track or one of the handful audio books I have. This get fast-forwarded to the next song.

But when I'm in the car I will always choose the alternative rock station over the classic rock, pop rock, or country station.

Do you listen to the same stuff you've always listened to or have you expanded your horizons?

Have a great week...see you Friday.

Monday, September 23, 2019

I feel a little like the White Rabbit


Not that I'm late. Not yet, anyway, but I have a lot of things to do and I could easily get behind as I have little get-up-and-go at the moment. But I will dutifully update my to-do list and do my best to plow through everything as the countdown to my road trip/conference begins in earnest.

(no, there shouldn't be an apostrophe in 'Mondays' here, but I didn't caption this photo)
(but the meme accurately depicted my feeling about today being a Monday)

My weekend was awesome. My first meeting as president of my writers group went well. I got to see a couple of the peeps I hadn't seen in a couple of months, although a different peep didn't make it sadly...

I got back my next anthology story from the coordinator with nothing but missing or extra words marked. The story itself was fine. YAY. Once I tweak and send back, I'm done with this thing until November.
 
I spent some time Saturday and Sunday morning re-acquainting myself with ten Rigs Book 7, A Certain Kind of Man, as well as working on the backbone of the story, aka the plot, as well as the romance. I know you remember all my whining about struggling with plot. So I knuckled down and made some progress. Am I done? No. But I'm making progress.

Anyway...time to get to work. Have a great week. Catch you Wednesday.
 
 

Friday, September 20, 2019

My foray into tole painting...


I think I've mentioned the plain wooden nesting dolls I bought a while back and my plans for them. Well, last night, we got together and began our projects...








My little people definitely need a second and possibly a third coat of paint. The black covered pretty well, the green, not so much. I also need to get some sort of skin-colored paint for the heads. I'm also going to have to extend the green down a little further because I need enough room on the back of the green for names and jersey numbers.

Of course, I still have to finalize my decision of who warrants immortalization on my dolls.

The important part was that a good time was had by all. One or two more sessions will definitely be needed to complete our projects.

Have a great weekend!!


Wednesday, September 18, 2019

It's that time of year again...


FALL

Here's my Walmart:



And here's what I bought. They were just too cute and y'all know my fondness for squirrels.




Are you ready for fall. I'm ready and waiting...


Monday, September 16, 2019

GAME DAY!!!!





DD and I are headed back to the American Airlines Center tonight for the first pre-season game of the year. We are both super excited that hockey is back.

My game-day go bag is prepped and ready to go: foot warmers, gloves, blanket, Chapstick, toothpicks, a pen and extra ponytail holder. Now I probably won't need the foot warmers or the blanket tonight. Probably not the gloves either, but as someone who gets chilled easily, I can't leave home without them.

The weekend was productive. I got my scene 95% done. Sent to my beta, received back with a comment about said ending, then back to Scrivener this AM to address the issue. It still needs some work, but I work in waves, so a few more days ought to do it and then it goes to the anthology coordinators. Unless they have issues, I'm calling it done.

Have a great week.


Friday, September 13, 2019

(Self) Publishing a Book is both Exciting and Tedious


Happy Friday, y'all. I'm still waiting for the cool down to happen here in North Texas. C'mon, Mother Nature... lol

Come October 16, books 7 and 8 will be live and official. I got edits back from the proofreader over Labor Day and I quickly fixed all the minor issues. And I do mean minor. Missing words and whatnot. For all that I struggle with the plotting, I've never had a book come back from the editor needing major plot fixes. So something comes together somewhere for me, and I'm grateful, let me just put that out in the universe.

Once all the fixes are applied, it comes time to make sure the front and back matter is ready to go. That's things like the dedication, making sure the appropriate ISBN number is in place on the correct copyright page (I have three I can interchange as needed), making sure I've noted all trademarked items I mentioned.

After that it's time to compile the document out of Scrivener and into a MS Word document and format. This is headers and page numbers, centering scene and chapter breaks, blah, blah, blah. I don't mind this part too much. I'm trying create checklists for everything so I don't forget stuff and so I do things the same way every time. That's a bit tedious.

But the most tedious part for me is logging into the various retailers and setting up the book for sale. Blech. But if I don't do that, the books stay hidden on my PC. Conversely, it's exciting to get the email saying the book has been accepted for sale. It's even more exciting when the royalties drop into the account each month.

This weekend will be all about finishing the second anthology. It's so so close. Just the very last scene to wrap up, but I struggle with endings and I don't want it to be cheesy as it's a Valentine's Day date.

So yeah.

Also, housecleaning. Laundry. Grocery shopping. Oh, and bathing the dog, poor thing. She's nasty.

Have a great weekend!!

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

lest we forget...



Monday, September 9, 2019

Hockey Season has unofficially begun for moi!


This past Saturday, my hockey partners in crime and I went to a player signing. We got autographs and pics with the very handsome and talented Roope Hintz, an up-and-coming forward for my Dallas Stars.


I had him sign my paper ticket with his image on it. :0)



I'm gonna collect as many signatures on tickets I can and then frame them... Sadly, they didn't put every current roster player on a ticket. I'm not sure what I'm going to have other players sign, but I'll figure out something, because...

There will be players at the annual Season Ticket Holder event who are not on tickets. It's a shame too because there are enough tickets for each player to appear twice instead of a select group appearing three times.

Anyway--  it's hockey season again --finally!!


Friday, September 6, 2019

Look at what came in the mail the other day...







My Dallas Stars season tickets have arrived along with STH discount card, my passes for the STH event where I get to meet/take pictures with/get autographs from various players.

Four weeks until the season stars!!






Have a great weekend!!


Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Time for Family


I made my annual trek to Omaha this past weekend to see my family-- I was driving there on Friday and driving home on Monday, hence no blog posts. I could have scheduled something random, but I just didn't get around to it.

Anyway, my oldest sister and her daughters have all moved back home and so all the baby birds are back in the fold. I got to see those four nieces for the first time in TEN years and they are much grown. All of them teenagers now. Holy smokes. But beautiful and each one unique.

The visit was a little crazier with the addition of the four girls on top of my other sister's three younger, wilder bunch, but a good time was had by all.

My baby sisters and me...

Kristen in the middle and Meagan on the right.

I also stopped in to say hello to our dad, who died ten years ago come November. Of course, I couldn't find his grave because I don't get to go very often and it's usually dark outside. My step-mother ended up throwing on some clothes and driving to the cemetery to help me find it. (Yes, she was up--an early riser like me and the cemetery is ten minutes or less from the house.)

This time, I oriented myself--there's a pergola thing at the end of the walkway--so next year I shouldn't have any issues. :0)


On the drive home, I stopped at some of the scenic overlooks which I have never done, but it's a long drive by yourself, so stopping and stretching isn't a bad thing.

Cows in Kansas!


I've always wanted to stop and see these things, so I finally did. I know they're huge and this picture doesn't do them justice at all. To see them whirling out across the countryside is pretty amazing.


Hope your long weekend was everything you needed it to be-- Catch you Friday.