Jennifer Lyon
Monday, August 7th, 2023
Weekend Roundup & Oops I’m late!

Blooper Alert: I only just now realized this blog didn’t post. And when I investigated, I saw that I selected August 10th instead of today’s date of August 7th. So yep, I’m late and obviously wasn’t wearing my glasses when I set the date, LOL!! Happy Monday!

I had a pretty nice weekend!

Friday Biker Witch took me to lunch for my birthday and we had a good time. I appreciate having her in my life more than I can ever express. We did a little fun shopping, then we got a cookie and some coffee. Guys, I tried an iced coffee with macadamia milk and I’m so in love. It was better (to me) than the cookie! I am now thinking of buying some macadamia nut milk, but I don’t want to make iced coffee every day, and I would if I had that in the house :-)

Saturday we went to dinner with youngest and his wife. I ordered my favorite chicken while Wizard rolled his eyes. In his opinion, I order chicken too much. Ah well, he survived and we all had a nice evening. Then when we were leaving, we ran into Wizard’s sister, her husband and her adult daughter. That was a bonus to see them!

Sunday, Wizard went racing. His eyes aren’t quite fully back to 100%, but good enough for him to have fun (and to safely drive). If he can’t race, he plans to announce, which he also really enjoys. I stayed home with Maggie, then went out to Marshalls to spend a gift card. I got a few things, including a couple Halloween decorations which I haven’t bought in years. But the thing I’m most excited about is a purple Halloween mug covered in dogs dressed in costumes. Good thing I get up before Wizard or he’d steal my new mug for sure! Full disclosure — it didn’t occur to me to buy him one as I was in line when I saw it and had to have it since it was less than $5.00 :-)

So that was my weekend. Now I’d really love to hear about yours!

Friday, August 4th, 2023
Friday Five

TGIF! How did Friday get here so fast? Well since we’re here, let’s jump right into sharing five random things about our week.

  1. Monday I took Maggie to her vet and put her through some minor testing. Her urinalysis came back with a bit of struvite crystals but no infection or other signs of stones. Yet she’s having weird accidents, so we have her on a “watch” for the moment. The plan is that if she’s still not quite herself in a bit of time, we’ll do an x-ray for a closer look, and if that’s clear, we’ll put her on some low dose meds to help her. This could just be an aging issue, but it’s upsetting Maggie and so we want to be sure she’s okay. I really appreciate her vet and the staff (they are more than just staff, they are true caregivers in the purest sense of the word) for their careful yet conservative approach. And they tell me they love her because she’s so sweet, even when they’re sticking needles in her. That’s my sweet Maggie — when she’s not out mercilessly hunting lizards and trying to get crickets to hop so she can chase them.
  2. Maggie is supposed to sit and wait while I answer the door. However some religious women stopped by and Maggie decided she must go out on the porch and wiggle-circle them. I don’t know if it was some kind of religious bonding ceremony or my dog is just nuts. I suspect that latter. For a dog who was scared of everyone, let’s just say that she’s come out of her shell. As for her her breaking command, that is my fault. I wasn’t paying attention as I should have been to stop her. And I let her go out to greet my kids when they come over, so that’s made her think she can.
  3. I had a really nice birthday, and thanks to all for the lovely birthday wishes! Wizard and I went to dinner where I had a filet mignon with herb butter and blue cheese topping. I paid for it with some indigestion which I knew would happen from the herb butter, but it was totally worth it! That steak was amazing! I also got an air fryer (I wanted it) for my birthday and I’m looking forward to playing with that.
  4. Yesterday in the late afternoon, I tried making granola again, and this time I used some oil and maple syrup. It smells really good but I haven’t tested it yet. Making the granola necessitated a trip to Trader Joes where several checkout people asked me what I was baking from all the dark chocolate and various nuts in my cart. I sheepishly admitted that I’m just stocking up for when I’m inspired to bake, and that I seriously love their dark, non dairy chocolate chips. They were kind and treated me as if I’m normal, LOL!
  5. I feel a bit spoiled; today I’m going to lunch with my sister and tomorrow evening we’re going to dinner with Youngest and his beautiful wife. I hardly ever eat out, so three times in a week is pretty amazing.

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope you all have a great weekend!

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2023
Wednesday Reading

I listened to a cute romantic comedy audiobook titled, NORA GOES OFF SCRIPT by Annabelle Monaghan. The heroine was a romance channel (think Lifetime or Hallmark) screenwriter and did well enough to take care of her family but not really hit big. Her jerk of a husband leaves her, and she writes her breakout script. Then she falls in love with the famous lead actor in the movie when it’s filmed on her property. Okay that’s all fairly standard stuff and I liked it. What made me laugh was her take on writing romances — there’s a formula and she can make any scenario into a romance with some tweaking. Her new boyfriend gives her a heroine and a career and she turns into a plot in less than a minute. A lot of us who write romances play this game. Wizard and I play it. So this was familiar and amusing to me.

I enjoyed her humorous and straightforward take on it. She was in no way degrading romance because there is a formula. The talent comes in with voice and execution and she had that. What was funny was she accidentally lost her way after her divorce and wrote a darker book without the happy ending. Then she tried to go back to her bread and butter romances, and couldn’t do it. I related to that! I often struggled with staying within the formula of whatever genre I was writing, while my heart was always trying to make the book bigger (for lack of a better word). Nowhere did I feel it more than when I wrote the Once A Marine Series. By the third book, I was busting the seams of that formula, unintentionally creating problems from the publisher. And that was on me, no one else (I am NOT blaming the publisher, they had clear guidelines). I came to admire even more the amazing writers who work exceedingly hard to write book after beautiful book following the formula. Many of them can do it very fast too. Of course, there are those petty jealous types who will call them hacks and other names. They are NOT hacks. What they are is so talented that they can make the same formula for each book interesting and engaging each and every time. That takes real talent and hard work.

Anyhow, this book reminded me of all this in a fun and positive way, making me laugh and nod along. It made me want to sit down and write again, which is a nice feeling. Not something I’m acting on at the moment, but so nice to feel that desire! And to laugh with a character struggling to write within the formula the same way I have struggled.

Right now I’m listening to a Women’s Fiction titled I’LL BE YOU by Janelle Brown that’s holding my interesting but it’s too soon to form an opinion.

What are you reading or listening to?

Monday, July 31st, 2023
Weekend Roundup

Pretty good weekend aside from being hot and humid. The highlight was going to see Turbo on Sunday. We went out in the afternoon, hung out at their house for a bit, then went to dinner and the park when it was cooler. We all went in Turbo’s new truck, and he loaded inhis and Turbo’s bikes too. Once at the park, Turbo showed off all his skills climbing and jumping. Then before it got dark, Oldest got his and Turbo’s bike down, tossed the keys to Wizard and we (Wizard, myself and Special K) and we drove home while Oldest and Turbo rode their bikes — it’s a 10 or 15 minute bike ride.

Now Wizard really wants a truck like that. Nothing surprising there, Wizard has been thinking about a truck for a while and he’d make good use of it. What is surprising is that now I want one too :-) I just really like it, and it was fun. Plus it’s small enough I’d be comfortable driving it, but big enough for us to be useful. But we’ll see.

Hanging out with them was a great way to end our weekend!

How was your weekend?

Friday, July 28th, 2023
Friday Five

TGIF!! Friday showed up again, which means it’s time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

  1. This week has been a heck of a lot better than last week! The heat is on at a 100+ daily here and that’s limiting our outdoor stuff, but otherwise, not a bad week. I did a few things like got my hair done. It’s still short and I like it most of the time. I also bought makeup. I’ve never been good at makeup, but I wear it daily just to feel like I made an effort. And I baked some sourdough bread and gluten free, dairy free brownies. The bread seemed to come out fine. The brownies are from a recipe off the internet, and somehow, the oven temp didn’t print so I guessed 350 degrees. Gluten free flour is tricky so these are Goldilocks brownies — they might be overdone, underdone or just right :-)
  2. Wizard got his stitches out, and that night, he opened up one spot on his eyelid. I mentally over-reacted, but it turned out to be fine, just a little surface break in the healing area. We treated it, did a makeshift butterfly bandage to sleep with to prevent him from accidently scratching it, and it’s healing up well. Whew — for a few minutes, I thought I was going to have to drag him to Urgent Care.
  3. My sinus x-rays have not yet been read by the radiologist as of late Thursday afternoon. It’ll be a week today. If it’s not read and the report issued by this morning, I will be calling and “encouraging” people to do their jobs. If I get resistance, I’ll be informing my insurance that a provider they are paying is not doing their job. I’ve been patient and nice until now, but they are running a cattle operation there, and I’m over it.
  4. Due to the heat, if we run out of things to do in the late afternoon or evening, we’ve been watching Yellowstone. Now I’ve never been to Montana, but I’m guessing this may not be a fair representation of the state in all things, LOL. But as long as one doesn’t mind violence and murder being the go-to solution for all life’s problems, the show can be entertaining.  And we’re watching it together which is nice. Maggie can even get on the couch outside of her normal couch time. She loves it!
  5. We hope to go see Turbo on Sunday. Oldest offered to have us over but I didn’t nail down the plan as I should have. Today I need to do that with my daughter in law, only because she knows their family schedule better than my son and there may be something he forgot going on that day. Otherwise she always welcomes us. That will be fun!

So that’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend — I think we all deserve that!

Wednesday, July 26th, 2023
Wednesday Doggy Time

This is how my grand dog, Phoebe, invites us over to come swimming with her:

How can anyone resist her?

Also, Golden Retrievers are so photogenetic, even when they’re an older girl. And then there’s Maggie, who’s a little more photo challenged aka SUBBORNLY RESISITS HAVING HER PHOTO TAKEN.

Like here. True story, and Wizard saw this — I told her to “Sit so I can take a picture of you.” So she did…with her back to me and the camera.

If it’d been a video, you’d hear Wizard roaring with laughter in the background.

Happy Wednesday!

Monday, July 24th, 2023
Weekend Roundup

It was a quiet weekend and I’m so grateful for it! Maggie is feeling much better. We kept her on the strict bland diet as her vet advised, and today we’ll begin transitioning to her regular diet. Hopefully this will solve it, but everything is on her chart, and we’ll address it again when she has her vet appointment at the end of the month.

Wizard continues to heal. Turbo and his family went to Youngest’s for a swim day and we were invited but we turned it down. Wizard can’t be in water or the sun, and we wanted to keep the weekend quiet for all three of us — they all understood. Wizard is bored which is also a good sign.

Boy yesterday was humid and overcast, I think the technical word for it is “yucky” :-) The only upside for us is the yucky weather helped curb any desire Wizard might have had to do something more than walk around the backyard for a few minutes. He really only has another week or so before he can get back to regular life.

I got a chance to get caught up on some cleaning and while doing that I’m listening to book DRAGON HEIST and it’s hilarious! I think maybe Silver mentioned that book, and I remembered that correctly, thank you Silver! It’s exactly what I need this weekend! Now I feel more caught up and ready to face another week.

That’s my weekend, now I’d love to hear about yours!

JenniferLyon.com