I have one and a half Newfoundlands. I have Cooper, a full-blood Landseer Newf. And I have Boone, a Newf/Golden mix. I love them dearly. And it’s my birthday. So here. Have six minutes of cool music and pics of awesome Newfies. Enjoy. And have a great weekend!
I mostly watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. Given all the controversy surrounding this year’s telecast, I probably won’t watch at all. Still…advertisers usually pull out their best for the game and sometimes, those commercials get leaked. These are the ones that made me laugh.
2019 Walmart Famous Cars (long version)
2019 M&M Commercials
First the teaser (With Christina Applegate)…
And then the follow-on…
And finally, two of my favorite Super Bowl commercials…because…puppies and ponies!
What’s your favorite Super Bowl commerial?
So…as most of you know, I’m a writer. And not just a writer but a published author. Lawyer Guy and I had dinner with some friends of his last weekend and I was asked if I’d always wanted to be a writer. I paused before answering. I’d wanted to be a cop (thanks Angie Dickenson and her character SGT Pepper Anderson.) I also wanted to be an Olympic equestrian. And an actress. Then came college and I was recruited by the CIA. Yeah…no. But being a bureacrat held some interest. Until it didn’t. And despite careers in the family propane business, stock market, court system, fire and police, there was one thing that remained constant: my love of making stuff up and telling stories. Thank goodness I met and married Lawyer Guy who supported that dream.
I should pause here to mention that I had a few journalism classes and caught a bit of creative writing in my high school English classes along the way. Even though I was the art editor/photographer for the newspaper and year book. 😆 I still learned all about the precepts of good journalism–asking the right questions. And you know what? Those questions are just as pertinent when you write fiction. Heck, even the Universe agrees with me.
The questions you have to answer, Silver, pertain to what, where, when, and why.
Mine pertain to how and with whom.
Fair?
The Universe
© http://www.tut.com ®When you know the end result, Silver, I always know the fastest way.
I figure the big U is talking about life in general and us puny humans getting through it. But to me, so much of what the U says goes hand-in-hand with writing. When I start a book, when I wend my way through the plot, characters’ backstories, twists, turns…and happy ever afters, I have to answer all those questions. Sadly, I don’t always know the fastest way. Too bad the Universe can’t ghost write for me.
Interesting theme for #1lineWed today. I thought it would be an easy one to find a snippet for. I mean really? The theme is **LETTER**. You’d think I could find at least a text message or something in one of my WIPs. Nope. But that’s okay. It worked out because I needed to write a snippet about a letter and then this idea hit me. I was stuck in Jen and Wiz’s story. I hadn’t painted myself into a corner, per se, but I was well and truly stumped. The puzzle pieces weren’t coming together. Then my fingers typed out these letters, forming these words, and I now have my direction. The snippet, in Jen’s POV is pretty self-explanatory. I hope you enjoy.
****
I stared at my monitor, my fingers hovering above the keyboard. Could I do this? Leaning back in my desk chair, I dropped my hands to my lap. What I was planning would be considered totally insane by anyone who knew me. Heck, absolute strangers would think the same.
The office hummed around me—ringing phones, the fax machine tones, two people talking in murmurs, the copy machine whirring. I rubbed my sweaty palms against the slick material of my tailored pencil skirt. I was a professional. I wore suits and heels. I sat in on executive-level corporate meetings. I did not ride on the back of big motorcycles clinging to an outlaw biker like my life depended on it. Except my life had depended on it. More than once.
And I was miserable. Absolutely, completely, massively miserable. I hated sleeping alone. I hated how empty my apartment felt when I came home after work. The first week, I ignored the ache in my heart. The second week, I cried every night. The third week…well, it was pretty much a blur. Let’s just say that I found a new BFF and her name was Margarita. I shuffled through the fourth week like a zombie, only I didn’t crave brains, I craved the man who’s hard body set mine on fire.
Time just sort of…wrapped around itself at that point. I got through my days at work. I struggled through the nights by binge watching stuff on Netflix and Hulu. Except I couldn’t tell you one thing I’d watched. I couldn’t tell you what I ate. I often didn’t. Eat. It hurt to breathe, hurt to move, hurt to do anything. I craved Wizard like my next breath.
He’d walked away from me. Dumped me out at his clubhouse in Missouri, turned and freaking walked away without a backward glance. One of his brother’s handed me my car keys. All my stuff was loaded in Rascal. No one said a word. They all just stared at me like I had some sort of horrible disease that would rub off on them if they got too close. Even the old ladies who were there—the one’s who’d pretended to be my friends. That hurt too.
I hoped. For awhile. Wiz never called. And no matter how many stars I wished on, he didn’t show up at my door. I called him a couple of times but only got his voice mail, no matter what phone I called him from. I drunk texted him at Margarita’s urging. She said it was the salt that made me do it, not her excellent top-shelf tequila. The last time I called him, I got a “number not in service” message. Wiz had changed his phone number.
So here I sat, three months later, all but crazy for wanting him. I had to be close to him. I couldn’t explain why but I knew—deep inside—that if I was physically closer to him, I wouldn’t hurt so much. I didn’t believe for a minute that he’d take me back but if I could occasionally catch a glimpse of him, if…
So many ifs.
My hands moved on their own. My fingers tapped on keys and words formed on the open document on my monitor.
RE: LETTER OF RESIGNATION
I was going to do this. I was going to quit my cushy job—that I mostly hated, pack up all my stuff, and move to Kansas City. I’d find a place to live and get a job up there. And pray that our paths crossed and that Wizard didn’t hate me as much as I thought he did. I didn’t know what else to do. I did know that I had no choice.
****
Letter writing might be a lost art. Writers, what about your characters? Any letters in their stories? Readers, when’s the last time you wrote a letter?
For those who care, the Super Bowl is this Sunday. Want a pot-luck dish to take to the party? Try this easy-peasy version of lasagna.
Prep Time: 20 min.
Total Time: 1 hr. 20 min.
Servings: 12 servings
Discover the only lasagna recipe you’ll ever need! Watch our video to learn how to make this meaty, cheesy, crowd-pleasing Simply Lasagna Recipe tonight. CLICK HERE for that video. 🙂
What You Need
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 egg, beaten
1 container (15 oz.) POLLY-O Natural Part Skim Ricotta Cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2-1/2 cups KRAFT Shredded Low-Moisture Part-Skim Mozzarella Cheese, divided
1/2 cup KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese, divided
1 jar (24 oz.) OLIVO by CLASSICO Traditional Pasta Sauce
1 cup water
12 lasagna noodles, uncooked
Make It
Heat oven to 350°F.
Brown meat in large skillet on medium-high heat. Meanwhile, combine egg, ricotta, parsley, 1-1/4 cups mozzarella and 1/4 cup Parmesan.
Drain meat; return to skillet. Stir in pasta sauce. Add 1 cup water to empty sauce jar; cover with lid and shake well. Add to meat mixture; stir until blended.
Spread 1 cup meat sauce onto bottom of 13×9-inch baking dish sprayed with cooking spray; top with layers of 3 lasagna noodles, 1/3 of the ricotta mixture and 1 cup of the remaining meat sauce.
Repeat layers twice. Top with remaining noodles, meat sauce and cheeses. Cover with foil sprayed with cooking spray.
Bake 1 hour or until heated through, removing foil after 45 min. Let stand 15 min. before cutting to serve.
Kraft recipes come to the rescue again. This is one of those iconic dishes that can be as hard or as simple as the cook wants to make it. This is a recipe that Lainey Walker often fixes for her little brothers, her big, bad biker Wolf Hollywood, and brings to the clubhouse whenever the Nightriders are having a family party. If you haven’t already, check out Lainey and Hollywood’s story in NIGHT MOVES. Read it for free with #KindleUnlimited. *Pssst*, there’s a good chance that the whole Nightrider series will go to wide distribution within a month or so so grab and read it now for free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription. Just click on the book cover for the link. If you’ve read the book, I hope you’ll leave a review because word of mouth gets new readers for your favorite books.
Monday just keeps coming around. And this is the last Monday in January. How did that happen? Oh, yeah. Procrastination. I really need to get off that merry-go-round because it’s not all that merry. So…anyway.
My inner reader (who suffers from a touch of OCD when it comes to series) is complaining. I’m in the middle of two different series and I’m having to read one out of order, while the other is stalled out why I wait for my free reads to reload, which will happen on the first of February. I’ll be able to finish out the last three books in that series. In the other series, the 2nd and 3rd book were on hold. I moved to other audio books but when I finished them and those two STILL hadn’t dropped, I sucked it up and moved on to the 4th book. And, as of last night, the 5th. I read/listen to books at an insane rate. I realize this. There are some books getting ready to drop that I’ve been waiting for: the next installment of Christine Feehan’s Torpedo Ink series. It’s been a year so I’ll have to re-listen to first book. The first week in Feburary, CONNECTIONS IN DEATH releases. I’ll be re-listening to some favorite books in that series, plus at least the one before CONNECTIONS as a refresher. I’m also looking forward to Siobhan Muir’s MY FOREVER COCKY BIKER ENCOUNTER. I’ve enjoyed her snippet teasers as she been writing it!
I’m still not discussing writing.
As much “crime” TV as I’ve been watching, I should be writing either police procedurals or heavy romantic suspense. Too bad Iffy is on vacation.
I can’t believe that Pitchers and Catchers is a couple of weeks away with full-blown spring training right behind that. Harper and Machado STILL aren’t signed. What’s up with that?!? And congrats to Mariano Rivera, famed relief pitcher, for becoming the first unanimous selection for baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Not much intresting going on around here of late. What’s up in your neck of the woods?
I’ve caught some flack for writing unabashedly alpha heroes. Tough shitstuff. I will continue to write them because I know far more men like these than I do the other kind. FYI, I’ve put more than my share of the other kind behind bars, but I still believe in real men. Just sayin’…
There are good days and bad days. There are happy days and sad days. And then there are just…plain ol’ days. I’ve been stuck in a weird head space for several months now. Time is zipping by as quick as a blink of the eye. The more time that goes by, the harder it is to get in the head space that makes me want to change things. And then the Universe shows up in my inbox.
Low days exist to remind you that you still have choices.
High days, Silver, exist to remind you of how fast you rebound… among other things.
Boing,
The Universe© http://www.tut.com ®
High days, Silver, also remind you that no matter where you’ve been, I can still reach you.
I need to boing. Okay, to be honest, I need a friggin’ bungie cord and a high bridge to get the boing back. I’m tired of the low days and would love to have a high day. I’m searching for it, eventually I’ll find it. And that’s about as optimistic as I can get at the moment. How ’bout you? How do you find your boing?
So…another Hump Day, another #1lineWed challenge on Twitter. X marks the spot as we search for TREASURE in our words. In answer to today’s them of **TREASURE**, I found this snippet from our favorite dragon’s POV. This scene is from LEATHER & LACE. I’m not quite sure where and when it happens, but the competition between Nikos and Sinjen definitely heats up in this book. I hope you enjoy…
****
Nikos was an idiot. This was one party he should not be crashing. The Mare Mascaradă was, to the vampires, as sacrosanct to the night kind as the Próti Ptísi was to the dragon clans. Still, when he’d discovered that Sinjen intended to bring Sade and introduce her to the Nysferanti court, he couldn’t stay away. If he was caught, the Nysferanti would be well within their rights to not only demand his death but to wage war against the Clans. He was the Drakon of Clan Kholikikos.
Pulling his glamour tightly around him, he stayed to the shadows of the upper promenade. Had his information been false? The ball was half done. The new vampires had been presented to the Vampyre Conclave. The more brutal events were over, the survivors of the blood games standing sentry around the perimeter.
What was it about the infuriating human that drew him so? It was a fascination that could be considered a betrayal if he went too far. Risking war by his presence was bad enough. To take her to mate would be to commit the ultimate perfidy. His Archon would demand his head and his hoard. Yes, he wanted to bed the woman, and claim her, but not as his mate. Bad enough that her emerald eyes reminded him of the jewel he coveted most, but the woman herself? She was…unique.
The crowd stirred, pulling his attention to the polished floor of ebony wood where masked dancers whirled in a kaleidoscope of colors. The massive doors opened at the hands of liveried attendants. The vampires were as bad the fae when it came to pomp and ceremony. The male entering drew his gaze immediately. Kristian St. John had been a warrior—a Templar knight. He’d sacrificed his life during one of the insufferable religious wars waged by humans only to discover that he’d been turned by the master vampire, Mathias De Vries.
Sinjen was tall for his age. Nikos choked back his humor. While his glamour would hide his form, it did not blanket sound. In the Twelfth Century, men were not tall. The vampire would have stood head and shoulders above his peers at the time. His dark hair and eyes the color of sapphires set in a face of sculpted planes turned heads of both sexes. He wore the black tuxedo like he’d been born to the garment. So many of the Nysferanti reveled in the formal attire of the past. Nikos had to give Sinjen props for not bowing to tradition.
But where was Sade? He stepped closer to the balustrade, leaned around the massive polished marble column he’d used to shadow his form, seeking her. She wasn’t there. He sought out Sinjen—who was staring up at him. Their gazes collided. Sinjen held out his hand. A gloved hand slipped into it. Nikos jerked his eyes to the glorious woman who could claim him if he let down his guard. The red satin dress caressed her long, lean body with loving care. Her hair was bound in a severe twist held by emerald combs.
Nikos swallowed hard. He was salivating like a dragonet stealing his first jewel. Sinjen’s eyes remained on him as the damnable man led the treasure that was Sade Marquis onto the dance floor. Music swelled. A tango. As he watched them dance, he realized that he could betray his kind to own this woman. It was time to go before he lost all honor.
****
Writers, do you have any treasure in your WIPs to share today? Readers, what books do you treasure?
When life gets busy and the temps are chilly, it’s time to drag out the Crock Pot and have a hearty meal like this one.
Prep Time: 15 min.
Total Time: 8 hr. 15 min.
Servings: 4 servings
Throw the fixings in the slow cooker in the morning, then enjoy a steak-and-peppers main dish simmering in a tomato-based sauce for dinner.
What You Need
1/4 cup KRAFT Zesty Italian Dressing
1 boneless beef chuck steak (1 lb.), cut into 4 pieces
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 can (14-1/2 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained*
1/2 cup beef broth
1 green pepper, chopped*
2 cups hot mashed potatoes
1/2 cup shredded KRAFT Swiss Cheese
*I’m allergic to tomatoes so I leave them out but add onion slices along with the peppers because I ❤ onions. I add extra beef broth to compensate for the liquid.
Make It
Heat dressing in large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat. Meanwhile, coat meat with flour; gently shake off excess flour. Add meat to skillet; cook 2 to 3 min. on each side or until evenly browned on both sides. Remove from heat.
Combine tomato paste, tomatoes and broth in Slow Cooker.Add meat and peppers; cover with lid. Cook on LOW 8 to 10 hours (or on HIGH 3 to 4 hours).
Serve meat mixture over potatoes; top with cheese.
As always, to get all the details, head on over to Kraft Recipes by CLICKING HERE. Since BLOOD & FIRE has been updated, revised and re-released, with a heroine who is a busy EMT, this recipe is definitely in Celie Monaghan’s recipe box and she made it a lot because growing up in a pack town means lots of meat. She let me know that Rhys really likes this dish too. 😉 You can read their story–a stand-alone novel set in the Moonstruck World–for free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription or at the new release price of $1.99. That price goes up later this week so grab it while it’s cheap.
What about y’all? Do you rely on your slow cooker?
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Silver James 