And once again, for your viewing pleasure and to make Monday just a little more palatable.
How can any one have the grumps when a vision of this hits their eyes first thing?
I always thought New Year’s resolutions were completely stupid. Not a little dumb, or even a small amount of not-so-bright. But out and out moronic.
Needless to say, I’ve had a change of heart. Yes, I still think resolutions are an arbitrary goal set on a fake date to accomplish something, or at least feel like we accomplished something. However, if all of us set goals that are way out of our comfort range and maybe a bit into the stars, AND even if we fall short of the high mark we set for ourselves, we have still done something. Which is probably more than we would’ve done without setting that arbitrary goal on a fake day. So set a goal that’s way out of reach. Have fun trying to make it. And even if you don’t hit the finish line, know that you’ve gotten a lot further than many, many… many others. 😉
Another year. The ending of one and the beginning of the next.
Looking back… it’s been a good year. For my writing. For my personal life. 2013 is the year I decided to stop thinking about being a published writer and instead took steps to make that happen.
After my mom died, I realized that there’s no time like now. Sometimes, there are no tomorrows. Instead, today is the day. So I took a deep breath and took the leap. My second career dream was realized this past year. I’ve been lucky that way. My first career choice was awesome. Fabulous, really. It was just time to do something else. Writing was that something else.
Looking forward, I still have some milestones I want to reach. There are several goals that I hope to meet in the coming year. As spectacular as 2013 had been, I have a feeling that 2014 is going to be even better. At least, it will be for me.
My hope is that it will be a great year for all of you as well. Don’t let anything stop you from being and doing and becoming. You got 12 months in the next year. Start small and end LARGE.
Happy New Year, y’all! 🙂
By: Enrique Lin
And the devil wears blue jeans. But seriously, is there anything hotter than a guy in no shirt with faded jeans on? Not that I can think of at the moment. lol
By: psgreen01
6 cups Walnuts
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup brandy
1-1/4 cup maple syrup
1tbsp cinnamon
3 tsp salt- course sea salt is best
1/2 cup maple sugar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake walnuts on a cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes.
2. In a small bowl, combine cinnamon, salt and maple sugar. Set aside
3. In a deep skillet, combine butter, brandy and maple syrup. Cook until reduced by half. Add in walnuts and cook until almost all the liquid is absorbed.
4. Turn off heat and take skillet off stove. Add cinnamon mixture until evenly coated. Spread out on cookie and let cool.
YUM. Enjoy!
I hate Christmas. I didn’t used to. I used to love it. But it’s become something crazy, something not right and something that is a little scary. It’s like the whole country is waiting with bated breath to see if the rest of us are willing to go into debt to ensure loved ones gets shit they don’t need or want or even asked for. Stupid.
Back in the day, my little nuclear family would travel to visit my extended family. And that’s what Christmas was about– getting together with family and friends and visiting with loved ones. Now, not so much. And it sucks.
It sucks so bad, I hate Christmas now. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday currently because it’s still about family and friends and getting together.
If Christmas didn’t suck so much, here’s what I’d wish for. I wish that each and every one of you reading this is healthy and safe. I wish that the world is kind to you. That you are loved as fiercely as you love. I hope that you have family and friends to share the good, the bad and the ugly. I wish each and every one of you peace and happiness.
Eat a piece of pie or cake for me. That’s the best gift I could be given. Sharing food and good times. Being thought of and thought of well. Of loving and being loved.
I wish you JOY!
Been thinking a lot lately about the state of the world and women in it. Our common experience as women who live in a world populated with people who are bigger than us, stronger than us, hormonally more aggressive than us coupled with the vagaries of our various political structures, social networks and economic opportunities, and I’d bet you’d be surprised if I told you we as American, and western, women have more in common with our sisters in the middle east than we do without spouses lying in bed next to us. You are probably calling me crazy. Discounting my opinion.
If I told you that it is my considered opinion that women are still oppressed and treated as lesser class, you’d scoff and tell me that we’ve come so far, baby.
Then I’d point out that the likelihood of being raped isn’t so vastly different in different parts of the world. Sure, there are surges in war torn areas and areas filled with chaos. But in those areas who are just poor, just third world without so much external strife, the statistics are damning. And I’d go on to compare health care given (not merely available but actually accessed) is on par as well. There are far more parallels than opposites. Not even going into the similarities of how a society can keep an entire gender pinned down, the injury done to women physically is the same the world over. In just this one thing, being secure in our own bodies, every women on this planet is at risk. Most often, that risk comes from the home or the home neighborhood.
As the title of this post suggests, I want all women to begin to empower themselves. Take a gun class. Do I think a gun will make shit better tomorrow? No. But it will give you a feeling of empowerment. If you’re morally opposed to firearms, take a taser class or a stun-gun class or a pepper spray class. Take a damn class. Go to self-defense classes. Take martial arts. Become stronger in your body so it can help you get stronger in your mind.
None of these classes are intended to make you think you can take on a dude twice your size. The best and first course of action should always be to get away, get help and cause a commotion to get noticed. But maybe the class will give you the confidence to think of how to get away instead of falling apart, or to create an opportunity that can be exploited. It might be the difference between tragedy and triumph.
Every woman should be safe in her body. It is a travesty that this is not so. A many-pronged approach to resolving the problem needs to happen. One of those prongs is making women stronger in their bodies. There are all kinds of strength. By acquiring one, we help bolster them all.
We have a winner, or three. 🙂
Drum roll, please… the winners are: Carolyn and BookAttict. But because it’s the Christmas season, I picked a third. Well, random.org did. lol My third winner is jennifer mathis. If you’re a winner and didn’t indicate your email address or book title and format preference, please email me or use the contact me page with the contact form, and let me know which ebook you would like, which format you prefer and an email address to which I may send the aforementioned prize.
To help that decision along, I’m linking to both the Holiday Spice anthology with my story Homecoming, and to the FarSeen. Just click on the pictures below and it will take to the parent pages. If you click through on the FarSeen cover on the OtherKind page, it will take you to the FarSeen main page complete with reviews, blurb and excerpt. Once you’ve read the tidbits available for the two offered prizes, that’s when an email to me should be happening or about to happen.
Click for more
Click for more
As soon as I know which book you want, I will either send a link or the book directly to you. I would really appreciate it if you’d leave a review on Amazon or goodreads or somewhere, but it’s NOT necessary. Mostly, I want you to enjoy my stories. 🙂
Also, if you didn’t win, but feel you must have my book(s), I would totally be happy and willing to exchange a copy for a review. Shoot me a note using the contact methods listed above for the winners if a review in exchange for a copy of the ebook is something that sounds interesting.
Last, but not least, THANK YOU to everyone who participated in the hop, came to my blog and commented. I really appreciate it. We all do.
Hope you all have a wonderful, happy holiday season!
Paul Walker died a few days ago. I loved him in FF. Thought I share one of his pics today in tribute. Because we lost one of our go to Manday men. He will be missed, and not just because he was so pretty. 
And a close up.
Happy Turkey day y’all. Gobble, gobble. lol I actually like Thanksgiving as far as holidays go. I like that it’s about food and family and getting together. In my family, at dinner, we go around the table and tell about the one thing we are the most grateful for that occurred in the last year. Not all the things that make us give thanks or a few of them. Just one. It makes us focus and keeps the momentum going so everyone gets a chance before the dinner is over. It’s awesome.
By: Lawrence OP
So many of our holidays have turned into three ring circuses. I like hanging out with friends and family, watching football and generally just being with the people who love us and we love back. Then if you’re lucky, you made plans to go gorilla shopping the next morning, complete with infiltration plans and an exit strategy, with those very same people. Cause for Black Friday shopping, you NEED a posse. People who will have your back and not leave a man behind. But they also have to have sharp eyes to look for bargains as well as coordinate color combinations. So really, you want a variety of family members to go with you to cover your back. Yes, it has gotten that grime out there. Little blue haired old ladies will cut a bitch to get to the blouse on sale. Seriously.
I also vary my menu a little every year. Yes, I do turkey and ham. And most of the sides are perennial favorites. But this year instead of a chocolate pecan pie, we are having a dark chocolate mousse. I’ve decided to forgo candied yams in favor of the simpler baked sweet potatoes. And so on. Here’s my Thanksgiving menu:
brined, dry rubbed turkey
ham
mashed potatoes with roasted garlic and herbs
sweet potatoes
green bean casserole
broccoli and cauliflower in a cheddar cheese sauce
stuffing with chestnuts, gruyere and bacon bits
turkey gravy
pumpkin pie
chocolate mousse
cranberry sauce
This menu is for 4 people. I add more sides and maybe an appetizer sampler if I have guests arriving. But for the small, nuclear family thing? The above menu has been honed from years of tweaking to find the perfect balance for my family. Yours may vary.
Now the best part of Thanksgiving isn’t the main menu, although that is pretty great. Nope, the best part is the left-overs. I like messing around with different recipes to use the turkey as much as possible. I even use the turkey carcass as a soup base. But that’ll come later. And if you serve turkey for Christmas, then some of the leftover recipes will stand you in good stead.
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