An Event at the Library

A couple weeks ago on Oct 18th, I was asked to participate in an event held at my local library and sponsored by the Friends of the Library group. It featured myself and another young author, 13 yr. old Nico, talking about writing and self-publishing our books. It was a very fun event and these are some of the pictures my husband took.

This was prior to leaving for the event. I was dressed as my main character, Ardella Cleveland. She gets a different colored dress and {recent development} necklace in each book. The first book, The Lost Rubies, featured her in, obviously, a blue dress.

Nico spoke first. He wrote his book when he was nine and had it self-published via Createspace recently.

Now its my turn. I'm tickled to say I didn't refer to my notes.

We also read from our books. I'm so glad I practiced reading aloud to my siblings all those years; it really paid off.

The blonde lady is Nico's mother and the lady in the right hand corner is Pauline, one of the Friends of the Library representative who helped organize the event.

Question and Answer Session!

It was very fun.

They asked lots of good questions too.

And there ya go, a final picture of the authors taken by my wonderful husband. He was tickled to be in charge of the camera since he doesn't like his picture being taken. Poor man, I'm always taking it anyway. *giggles and grins*

A Tale of Two Pierced Ears

While out in Rhode Island, my husband and I got my ears pierced for the first time. It was a bit painful but I kinda liked the look. However, there were unforeseen complications that would later arise. 

This is my left ear and its tale was short lived. If you will notice, the earring is a bit close to the harder part of my ear where it shouldn't be. While we were still out in Rhode Island it was getting extremely painful for me to keep that ear clean and to change the earrings - which we did a bit regularly to help with keeping the hole clean and open. Well, after one particularly difficult day of trying to change and clean the ear and earring while my ear was suspiciously swollen turned out to be a bad idea. So I left the ring out and let my ear heal up.

Now I just had one earring in my right ear for quite awhile. I thought it looked kinda odd but I figured if it healed well then later on, say in January, I could get the other one re-pierced and have both ears looking normal again. My ear had other ideas it seems. Around the beginning of October it started swelling up. Since it wasn't set as close to my inner ear as the left one had been, I was still able to clean and change the earring with relative ease. It got pretty darn swollen though and was getting painful to sleep on, even to touch. It got to the point where I almost didn't want to hug my poor husband in my usual way because my ear would brush his shoulder or neck and hurt really badly. Then, on Oct 19th I decided I'd had enough and had my husband pull it out. I'm glad he did because when it was removed, the back of my ear was all swollen and discolored around the hole. Plus it looked like the backing of the earring had scratched my swelled ear. It was pretty nasty and the swelling is only just now reducing to normal.

Still, even though my earring adventure didn't end so well, I still liked having earrings and maybe someday I will get their pierced again with gold studs. Maybe my ears won't react badly to that. Enjoy the rest of the {bleary} pictures of my brief time with earrings.

I liked the roses.

NaNoWriMo

There's not much new going on - hence the lack of posts. Plus, I'm still procrastinating on sorting through my pictures and organizing them into posts. But I will get back to that since we have some new ones; on Sunday coming home from visiting my parents {a huge storm was rolling in so we helped picked the tomatoes before it hit}, my husband and I stopped by Bear Creek and took some pictures while scrambling around the steep banks and listening to the roar of the little creek. It was fun! I will shoot for posting the pictures.....eventually.

Also in the works are plans for NaNoWriMo and my current pet project, The Cleveland Mysteries. I've decided the series will be 7-10 books long unless I run outta ideas/gem stones so I have about 4-7 more NaNos to get through before the series is over. Which is perfectly fine with me. I'm sure I can turn out at least one book a year if not doing NaNo then in general. I mean, if 50,000 + words in 30 days is easy, I ought to be able to turn out that many at least in 365 days! I'm putting in that possibility because now that I'm married, sooner or later I'll add the title of Mother to my resume` - which will be very long but odd when I'm finished with it. *winks* Still, no babies planned for awhile so over the course of the next two months and 2013 I will A. write book 3 in my series during NaNo, B. edit book 1 - sometime in Jan.....maybe. C. Ship off revised edition and book 3 to personal editors and anxiously await their comments, and keep myself occupied with D. finish editing and publish book 2. So, by this time next year, I hope to have all three first books published as I gear up to write number four. *grins* For more rambling details of my NaNo plans and a bit of Cleveland jabbering, visit my primary blog at this link anytime. Please comment and let me know your thoughts.

Today is the third day of a three-day storm here in Northern California so we're a bit cold and wet but I'm loving it. We have our struggles {a couple of them weighing on our minds a bit more lately than others} but God will take care of us. He always provides and today, He's provided good friends to make us laugh and a lovely day with good food and lots of love. Oh and good books. *winks* I'll see ya around.

The Best Birthday...

It was my birthday this past week so I'm gonna do a post on it - complete with blurry pictures. *grins* We celebrated {privately} the day before my actual birthday. My sweet husband hopped up first and got the table all dolled up then snapped a quick picture {probably why its so blurry} and then spent about twenty minutes trying to get me up before I actually got up.

This was quite a lovely surprise to wake up to.

That isn't my real age. *looks innocent*

I took the phone from him and took his picture lighting the candles.

Lit

Not lit. I dunno why he took so many cake pictures - especially since he himself didn't {and still hasn't} had any of the cake. Oh well, more yummy German chocolate cake for me! *grins*

The first present was a lovely necklace.

I liked the ribbons so I was teasing him by playing with them after I'd opened the little box.

A cute little lovebear!

Stickers all over the pretty envelope!

His message in the card made my eyes tear up.

Satisfied that the presents were open, he let me scamper off and get dressed.

My new necklace.

After breakfast and getting dressed, we went out shopping. Among the boring things like paper towels and toothpaste that we got, my husband bought me some new pantyhose {for for five or something like that; a sweet deal}, new black sneakers {only about eight dollars which, considering my last pair were twelve, was pretty good to me}, and a lovely new ring.

Isn't it pretty? So simple yet so stunning. Of course, it looks better in real life than in the picture.

This is the next day, my actual birthday. We had a half day at work and in the evening he took me out to dinner so we got all dressed up. I love that new dark blue dress I'm wearing!

He said the sweater went very well with the dress and permitted me to wear makeup.

Isn't he handsome? *melts*

Needless to say {and very truthfully}, this was the best birthday I have ever had in my life - which is saying something. I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful sweet caring thoughtful man in my life and I love him so very, very much!

Thank you darling for the best birthday!

Home Sweet Home - Apartment Style!

Okay so, as promised, here are the pictures of our gorgeous little apartment! *smiles*

This is our front door - from the inside.

Our main couch with my husband hiding under the blanket. He hates having his picture taken.

A close-up of the pictures on the wall and the nic-nacs above.

The TV and collection of library movies across from the couch.

The slightly buried smaller couch and side-table.

This corner is a little messy but when we start using the stove, it'll get cleaned up real quick.

Our marriage license. 

The dozen red roses my husband bought me after he accidentally broke the first rose he'd given me that I'd been drying.

The backdoor leading out onto the deck.

Our small kitchen area. No, I didn't clean it before taking the picture. *winks*

The shelf my brother Sam made for my birthday several years ago now serves as our spice rack.

My husband put this shelf up and I stuck the nicer looking books on it. Do you think it's sagging a little? Hmm....

Our "bedroom." Yes, those are boxes of books off to your left.

Its a neat little twin-size - granted, it could be bigger but at least it has some handy storage drawers underneath.

That big open space is just begging for a table and chairs.

Our deck

This is my husband's ripstick. He's so good at riding it. I call it his "wiggle-stick." *looks innocent*

And speaking of my adorable camera-shy husband.....

Hahahaha! Isn't he sweet?

A Busted Computer and New Dresses

Hello, hello, hello. I haven't posted in awhile. I was procrastinating at first mainly because I didn't want to get a bunch of pictures all sorted and organized into a post that more or less made sense. And then, my computer screen went out on me. *glares* My mom opened it up and fixed it though so now I can see. *smiles* The CD player still doesn't work though. Oh well. We're gonna take it back to Fry's {the electronics store we bought it from} and have them fix it while its still under warranty. While its being worked on I will be outta a computer again but I think I'll be able to do NaNoWriMo this year again which just tickles me pink! *happy dance*

In other news, I cut my hair the other day. It was just below my shoulder blades {about as long as it ever gets; major source of frustration for me, damn hair} and I kept having bad hair days. When my hair reaches a certain length {which it almost never goes beyond}, it gets very hard to brush. Plus it does this annoying poofy thing and gets all tangled, blah blah blah. So I just chopped it short and had my wonderful husband trim the ends so it looks even. It reaches just past the top of my shoulders now.

Ya remember that dress post I did awhile back? Well, my husband has acquired four more dresses since then. A flowery tanned summer dress that is very pretty but too short for my personal taste {plus the arm openings rub against me in an irritating way}, a gorgeous sleeveless dark green dress that fits me sooooo well, a beautiful dark purple dress with embroidered flowers on one side that also has a matching scarf thing {I've been that one to church on Saturday evenings}, and a lovely floor length dark blue dress that is sleeveless but made of this velvety fabric. My clever husband had to tightened up the straps a bit so it wouldn't go all saggy in my chest area and show too much, but its so lovely! When I get a chance, I'm gonna take pictures {well, he'll take the pictures and I'll just model the dresses} and post them for you.

I will also post pictures of our cute little studio apartment when I take some. Maybe I will do that tonight. I was way too tired to even think of it last night. But then again, I haven't thought of it all week. *smiles*  So basically, you have more posts coming your way soon!

Now if I could just get outta the fact that its my birthday next week and my Knightly won't tell me what he has planned for the event. :/