My obsession lately has been… THE DOG WHISPERER. I’ve been watching it on my Kindle Fire any chance I get. And now, I’m bugging the bejeepers out of Wizard to go to the animal shelter so I can practice what I’ve learned.

“Um, is that like practicing witchcraft?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Nope. If I practiced witchcraft, you’d be a toad.”

“Me?” He had the audacity to look shocked. “What did I do?”

“Do I have a French bulldog puppy?”

He tried on an innocent expression. “You were serious about that?”

I glared. “Nice try.”

He laughed in my face. “So is trying to get me to the animal shelter. Practice my ass. You’re tricking me into getting a dog.”

Damn. I went back to watching more episodes of DOG WHISPERER  (And FYI, I’m totally wearing him down! Really! He even said it the other night!)

Now for our Wednesday Worthy Candidate. I’m just jealous of his flat abs, otherwise…eh.

So what do you think, is he worthy?

GREAT weekend! My only disappointment was that I didn’t get to go to my local RWA chapter meeting, but that was my decision. Because Friday night Wizard was out until just after midnight helping BLB buy his brand new Jeep Wrangler. This is a huge milestone for BLB (youngest son). Wizard was about to bust a gut with pride. He essentially did nothing but be there for a little support while BLB negotiated a great deal. Saturday Wizard headed back out to hang with Middle Son and I stayed home because I had a feeling BLB would come by Saturday to show me his Jeep.

Sure enough, BLB came over  He took me for a ride including out on the dirt trails. Half way though that ordeal, he turned and looked at me.

“Still scared Mom?”

Ummm…  “Not as much as I was a few minutes ago.” I almost always honest with my kids.

He cracked up. “The Jeep is built for this. You know that right?”

“Yep.  And you’re handling it very well.” See I knew that intellectually. BLB doesn’t scare me when he drives, none of the boys do. Wizard and I spent too much time teaching them and we were relentless (they’d tell you that too. We made them drive everywhere). This reaction was all emotional on my part. I was thinking. OMG he has’t even had it 24 hours, and we’re going to get stuck! After all he’s been through, all he’s overcome, there’s a part of me that wants to put him in a bubble and make life easy. That however, is the WORST thing to do so I usually control that reaction. BLB is a tough young man and has his life handled. My job now is to just get out of his way and be proud.

I have the proud thing down, LOL! I’m like that with all my kids. (I’ve never figured out how to be so sure of my writing–it’d be awesome if I had that same confidence there!)

As for the book, I got some real writing done and I’m really enjoying the process and loving watching Linc realize he has to step up and take an emotional risk. Linc, however, isn’t at all happy, particularity when something bad happens to his soul mirror I’m hoping he’ll forgive me if we can ever get to the end. He just needs to hand on for about 200 more pages

This last thing is that I started Silver’s book COWGIRL’S DON’T CRY.! I read about a third so far, and am hooked. I’d have read more but BLB came over on Sunday too to hang out for several hours. But I’m anxious to get back to the book and see what happens.

So how was your weekend?

How did it get to be Friday again? It’s the new year and I thought time might slow down, but nope. Is it just me? So crazy! But on the upside, I’m loving writing right now. It’s just different, freer than it has been in a while. I refuse to think about deadlines, and am just letting the story happen.

Later I’ll get crazed. It’s inevitable because that’s just how I am. I care so much about the readers who have invested in Wing Slayer Hunters and hung in there waiting that I want to give them the story they deserve. But thinking about that now is counterproductive. So I’m just writing, deleting, rewriting and letting the story mature and develop.

And while I have you guys, I wanted to say that I do try to answer the comments, but missed out on Wednesday. When I went to answer, the blog or something was acting up and not posting my answers, then I just didn’t get back to try again. But I always read them comments and always appreciate them!

So this weekend: Tomorrow I’m having lunch with Biker Witch so we can catch up. I’m going to try to make my local RWA meeting on Saturday because Candace Haven is talking about writing a “Fast Draft” something I’m very weak at, and “Revision,” something I’m decent at but can always improve. But it depends how much writing I get done today. And then I’m also going to start reading COWGIRLS DON’T CRY by our own Silver James! I can’t wait!

So what are you doing this weekend?

I’m deep into writing, determined to keep going on CAGED MAGIC.  I’m so deep into multiple story lines, I swear I hear the guys talking to me at night when I’m in that almost awake stage of sleep. So far I’ve managed to keep myself from waking Wizard and saying, “Did you hear that?”  I mean seriously, doesn’t the man live with enough crazy?

Although, since he’s been home full time, I’m noticing that he talks to himself too. So take that Wizard! Crazy is courageous in this house!

And since I really can’t be trusted to blog with all the voices in my head, I’ll move onto Wednesday Worthy.  Today I’m cheating a little bit. Instead of searching out a possible candidate, I saw this picture in my FB Feed and snatched it because it’s Chris Hemsworth. That’s all the reason I need! According to Chris’s FB page, this is from his People Magazine photo shoot.

So…I’m finding those arms all kinds of worthy. What about you?

And a bonus Chris-pic just because I’m awesome like that:

Wow a lot has happened! I’m going to put pics here you may have seen on my FB page–feel free to skip ahead.

Okay so first, we woke up New Year’s Eve to snow:

This is what it looked like about 6:30 am. Stunning as we don’t get snow here–ever! So that was exciting and fun. We had a snow day! I had intended to work but we were having too much fun playing like children.

Then New Year’s Day we left for our trip to Solvang. We met our three sons there, along with their girls (one wife and two girl friends). I put a family pic of my personal FB page you can probably see here  if you’re interested. We all went on this wine tasting trip to celebrate BLB’s (youngest son) graduation with his B.A. degree. The trip was a blast, and I owe a special thanks to Special K (CPA Boy’s wife) for organizing it! And to all our sons and their amazing girls for making it work. These are memories we will treasure.

Even better, Bailey Dog joined us! This is him staying in our room while all the kids went to dinner (we were invited, I just wanted to stay in that night). He was showing off his brand new jacket that Middle Son’s girlfriend got him:

Wizard now calls him the “Red Cross” dog, LOL! Bailey was very good on the trip. We took him out for to explore the shops the last day, and stopped at one winery where they graciously allowed Bailey to come in, and we ate lunch on the patio of Cecco Risorante where they also happily allowed Bailey and brought him some water. We always ASK before bringing Bailey in anywhere.

Oh and I can’t forget this special cat, Cleo, we met at another winery the day before that:

Cleo likes to greet all the customers, and was super friendly as you can see. When I sat down, he crawled up in my lap and cuddled. Don’t tell Bailey though It’s our secret that I have a new friend.

Then Wizard and I went to Santa Barbara where we stayed another night to visit my brother and his lovely wife whom I haven’t seen in years. We never intended for so much time to go by, but that’s what happens in life if we don’t try harder to stay in contact with the ones we love. It was wonderful to them! I wish I’d gotten pictures, but we were so busy visiting, it didn’t occur to me at the time.

And then on the way home, we took the 101 home, and I can’t remember where this was exactly but not too far out of Santa Barbara. It was tricky to snap this pic of the Pacific Ocean while going about 70 miles an hour. It was gorgeous!

Compare that to the first pic of snow just a few days earlier, and you can see that Southern California can surprise us once in a while with a little variation in the weather

Now I’m so happy to be home, get back to my routine and work on Linc’s book, CAGED MAGIC! I’m hoping I can write straight through to the end without another interruptions. This poor book has been shuffled aside too many times.

So how was your New Years and weekend?