Happy First Day of Spring

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Linda Andrews

Yeah! Spring is finally here. Where I live in Arizona, it’s been in the 90s for a couple of weeks now, but nothing says spring to me like flowers. We happen to be shopping in Trader Joe’s yesterday to buy crab meat for my daughter’s birthday dinner when the hubbinator spied these beauties. 

I love daffodils. They are my absolute favorite flower. 

And sure enough, as soon as I trimmed the stems and place them in water, they started to bloom.


This morning, there were six flowers. It’s a great sign.

Until next time.

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Happy Saint Patrick’s Day

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Linda Andrews

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that it is also corned beef and cabbage day, too.

Other days to celebrate this week:

18th—National Awkward Moments day. It’s like my own personal day.

19th—National Certified Nurse’s Day. Nurses are awesome people and deserve more appreciation than they receive.

20th—Spring begins.

21st—National Common Courtesy Day. I think this should be every day, but we can start with one and see if we can’t get others to follow along.

22nd—National Bavarian Crepes day. I’ve never heard of Bavarian Crepes. I make and eat French crepes, so I had to look this up. Here’s a recipe: http://ifood.tv/french/372976-bavarian-crepes

23rd—National Near Miss Day. I think we can all celebrate the Earth not getting smashed into by an asteroid. After all, Earth is where we keep all our stuff. FMI

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My Sister’s Garden

Posted on March 15, 2017 by Linda Andrews

If I ever feel like no one is paying attention to my blog, I just have to post about my family. Then I know that everyone in my family is silently stalking me.

Here is my sister’s garden. Once spring fills in the open space, I know there is a book in there somewhere.

March 2017 193March 2017 191March 2017 211March 2017 212March 2017 213March 2017 208March 2017 209

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Yeah, but…

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Linda Andrews

Everyone has a talent. Some people’s talent is to annoy others. Yes, it does come naturally to some, but others learn by practicing over and over again, usually on their coworkers.

But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about acknowledging your talent and owning it. Sure you can dabble in other arts, but be proud of the one that is naturally yours instead of constantly looking at someone else’s and thinking it would be better to have that talent.

As this month is about celebrating women and their contributions to society, allow me to  introduce you to my sisters. I have five of them (one is by marriage, but we’re counting her). Three are talented artists. One, like my mother, loves to try new techniques. One promotes art in Alaska and besides being awesomely talented, picked enough Juniper buds to have a craft beer named after her town. Another whose ability to turn other people’s garbage into a fairytale backyard and 3-D art.

They get this talent from my mother (although I did have Zane Gray books that my Dad doodled in, so there’s some latent talent there, too).

Here’s three of my mother’s artwork that was recently in a show in Prescott:

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Each piece tells its own story.

And while my fourth sister doesn’t always use canvas to create her art, she stages homes. Which tells a story about family and possibilities that help sell real estate.

And lastly, my fifth sister uses teaching as a medium to pass on to her students how molecules are transformed into other molecules (a clear beginning, middle, and end). She’s also an author of a book.

Having been around other authors, I appreciate the enormous amount of support I receive from my creative sisters.

Until next time.

 

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Days to Celebrate

Posted on March 10, 2017 by Linda Andrews

Happy Friday everyone. It always seems like it takes a while for Friday to arrive, like there’s an extra day in there somewhere. Anyway, here are your days to celebrate this week:

3/10-National Blueberry Popover day. Yum, I’m going to find a recipe for these, but alas they’ll be made on another day.

3/11-National Johnny Appleseed Day. Do they even teach this legend in schools anymore?

3/12-Daylight Savings Time. Thankfully, living in Arizona we don’t have to observe this one. Pacific Time here we come.

3/13—National K9 Veteran’s Day. Awesome. I hope our canine vets are reunited with their handlers to live out the rest of their days.

3/14—National Pi Day. I think we should celebrate with pie, because pie.

3/15—National Everything You Think is Wrong Day. Actually, I think everyone needs to observe this. FMI

3/16—National Everything You Think is Right Day. Obviously this is in direct response to yesterday’s day of observation. FMI

Until next time.

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Happy International Day of Women

Posted on March 8, 2017 by Linda Andrews

One of the best thin about being an author is research. In my historical novels, I particularly enjoy including women’s stories in the long list of books I read about a time period. How a society treats women is significant in terms of defining how civilized they are. Women’s rights are actually considered on par with GDP in many world indices that measure standard of living.

Some of the biographies I’d love to read about some famous women include:

Actors would include Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Hedy Lamar, and Marlene Dietrich.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Marie Curie

Mary Shelley

Madam C J Walker

Mata Hari

Florence Nightingale

In my general reading, I love to learn more about women’s roles during the First World War as part of the signal corps and nurses, as spies/resistance workers during the war, and those unspoken heroines who manned the home front, the women’s suffrage movement in both the US and England, and I always love those wild women of the west.

Which woman in history would you like to learn more about?

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1/4 Turn

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Linda Andrews

The hubbinator and I take our dog for a walk every evening. And you know what that means. Those poop bags aren’t going to throw away themselves. So it’s up to us to scoop and dump those bundles. Fortunately in the park we visit, there are plenty of places to dump those packets.

And plenty of opportunity to stand around those bins while the dog sniffs the trash bins.

Which is how we noticed it. You know the kind of thing that stands out. Not in a that’s not garbage kind of way, but a What-in the-World kind of way.

In this case, it was part of a Monopoly board. Not all of it. Not a broken half of a board. But a quarter of a Monopoly board. 1/4. And the rest of it wasn’t in any of the other trash cans.

Why and how did a quarter of a Monopoly board get into the can in the center of the part? Hubbinator believes someone was pissed at the retirement of the thimble from the game board. Given that I don’t like the game, I think it was someone who feels the same and wanted to prevent it from ever being played again.

Or there could have been a bad break up and someone decided to destroy the ex’s beloved game and scatter the pieces around the Valley.

Any way, this will be a mystery that will never be solved.

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And so we meet again…

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Linda Andrews

Marci Gras was yesterday. I didn’t celebrate appropriately. There wasn’t King’s cake. There weren’t beads. And I had a Reuben casserole instead of gumbo or jambalaya.

So here we are on Ash Wednesday and I’m faced with another Lent.

While many are looking at giving up things. I’ve switched to making a positive change in my life. 

Of course, there was this book idea yesterday about destroying civilization on planet Earth, cuz you know it would be fun. And lots of you agreed. Facebook told me so. 

The problem is that I have a book queue in my brain that, you know, means I’ll surpass most of my 92 year old relatives if I write them all.

But I have to get cracking to do so. 

And, as many of you asked about the last Syn-En book (Home World), I will finish it this month. I will I promise. The issue is that I already wrote it 75K words in November.

But I kinda separated Nell and Bei permanently.

Then I might have, sorta, you know killed one of them off.

Along with a bunch of other characters, cuz it is the last book.

but there are fans who know where I live and have threatened to kill me. Okay, they’re my family. My family threatened to kill me. Horribly.

So I have to rewrite it. Minus the 15K words I trashed.

But alas my brain thinks it’s already finished, so it’s squirrelling frequently with look here’s a cool story idea.

And I’m like, but… but I just blew up the spaceship. And Nell is…

And yet, that new idea is very cool. And diabolical. 

Still, I was supposed to have Home World finished last summer. Then Christmas. Then January. 

And here it is March. I will finish it by the end of the month as my Lentian offering.

I will persevere and I will triumph. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KrdOcertUzY

 Just no one tell the universe my plans.

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Guest Blog:Darcy’s Hope at Donwell Abbey by Ginger Monette

Posted on February 26, 2017 by Linda Andrews

I don’t think many folks will be surprised that I love Jane Austen and have a fondness for Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett. Long before I wrote romance, I read it. It is still one of my go to genres to make myself feel better. So when someone tries something new with the stories, I’m so there.

I loved Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies and Jane Austenland. And I love fellow author Ginger Monette’s version that graphs it onto one of the most under represented eras in romance, the First World War.

The best thing with talking to other authors who write in your genre, you can ask for help with those hard to find answers about every day life. Ginger asked me if I had anything on VAD (Voluntary Aide Detachment) training, i.e. nursing assistants, and I asked her about how the men cleaned up when they left the front to go on leave. I sent her articles the information I had from Vera Brittian’s Testament of Youth (and a few others), and she sent me public domain of pictures of the soldiers showers. They reminded me of gym class, but there were some ahem naked men in the photos. Of course, since we both write clean historical romances, it was important we knew about hygiene on the front lines.

But enough about that, here’s an extract from Darcy’s Hope at Donwell Abbey:

9-praise-donwell-abbeyElizabeth bolted from the chair. “Fitzwilliam, wake up!” She nudged his arm in the darkened room, but he continued writhing with great heaving breaths. “Captain!” She squeezed his hand, but he jerked it away, whimpering.

On impulse, she slid her arms under his shoulders and held him close. Instantly his thrashing ceased.

Gently rocking him, she massaged the unbandaged hair at his temple and whispered against his cheek, “It’s all right. Just a dream.”

He breathing slowed, but his body remained tense. “My ribs…hurt.”

She lowered him back to the pillow, then tapped on his hand, Try to relax. All right now?

“Mmm…. Water. And morphine.”

She squeezed his hand and poured water into the hospital cup. She touched the pill to his lips then offered the porcelain straw.

He swallowed. “Who are you?”

Elizabeth froze and closed her eyes. How she longed to tell him the truth, then brush a kiss on his lips, assure him of her love, and promise to stay by his side.

She took his hand and spelled, Miss Thomas.

“Thank you…Miss Thomas.”

Elizabeth sank into the wing chair and released a heavy breath. Could she bear to be so close and yet so far away from Fitzwilliam?

For Links to all available retailers: click here

And as a bonus, the first book is now on sale everywhere

 

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And if you’re interested, there’s still time to get in on the tea giveaway:

Click here for giveaway

 

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Days to Celebrate for the Week Ahead

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Linda Andrews

I know many of us love Taco Tuesday. I’ll admit I prefer soft tacos, but I love hot tortilla chips. Which makes me happy that today is National Tortilla Chip Day.

02/25/17 Is National  Chocolate Covered Nut Day. Which is yummy, and can only be improved by throwing in some caramel.

2/26/17 Tell a Fairy Tale Day. I might break out my Disney movies for this. My favorite being Beauty and the Beast.

2/27/17 National Polar Bear Day. I won’t recommend hugging one, but maybe a few brave souls can jump in a frozen lake.

2/28/17 National Public Sleeping Day. I didn’t know this was a thing.

3/01/17 National Dadgum That’s Good Day. Really. Here’s the link.

03/2/17 National Read Across America Day (Dr. Suess Day). This is every day for me.

Until next time

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