This is crazy, how is it Friday???

The Epic Gopher Battle continues. Tuesday morning, Wizard went out front in the morning to check the side hill. At the exact moment Wizard saw a freshly dug hole–the gopher popped out to look right at him.

Un-freaking-believable.

Wizard was so mad, he dragged the hose over and tried to flush him out. It didn’t work, and later when Wizard checked the hole again, the gopher had buried it. Ever since then, the battle has raged on. But both of us are torn between frustration and admiration for the little dude–he’s smart and very industrious. But I counted thirteen holes on the hill, and those are just the ones we can see. There are probably more hidden by our landscaping. We wish Bailey Dog was here, trust me, Bailey would find him.

Although Special K told us that one of their dogs, Corky, is also an excellent hunter. We may be borrowing Corky for a day or two. Although…he’s such a sweet dog I’m not sure I’d want to give him back, LOL! I mean come on, look at this little face?

My good news is I just got the novella, Savaged Surrender, back from my editor and I’m happy-dancing! There’s nothing like hearing “great job” after working our butts off, right? Now I just need to do the final edits and simple fixes, and then send it off to the copy editor. I plan to release it on October 24th. I’ve also been working on edits for Savaged Dreams (book one of the Savaged Illusions trilogy).

I’m working this weekend, going to dinner with Wizard and whatever else pops up. I desperately need to clean too but there’s just not enough hours in the day lately.

What are you doing this weekend?

My novella Savaged Surrender is in my editor’s hands. While I made it on getting the revision in on time, I’m going to have to push back the Oct 10 publishing date. Once I get this last pass done, I want to have it proofread and I’ll need it formatted and that’s going to take more time. I’m not going to release it before I think it’s fully ready, butit’ll happen soon!

Now for Wednesday Worthy. Does anyone want to guess why I chose this guy for the blog today?

That’s right–he has a dog friend So what do you think of the guy, is he worthy?

**Note I’ll be gone all morning, but I’ll answer comments when I get home.

Guess who is working like a dog? Yep, it’s me! I’m going nonstop to get this into the editor by Monday night. I took three breaks:

1) I went to the movies with Wizard on Friday to see Sully. I don’t think it was a blockbuster, but it was the perfect break from the book.

2) I went to breakfast on Sunday morning and scarfed down double blueberry pancakes. They were delicious!

3) I waited until Wizard was gone, then vacuumed the house to keep him from doing it. His back is seriously a mess, but it’s a fight to keep him from doing certain things, so I have to be sneaky I’m typing this blog before he’s home–he’s not going to be happy that I did it, but tough luck. He can vacuum all he wants once his back is better.

So that was my exciting weekend. Oh wait, I almost forgot the gopher update. For two days, there are no more holes, and no signs of him. So either he’s gone, or he’s laying low and plotting his comeback. We shall see!

How was your weekend?

And…he’s back…

Yep that’s like the eighth gopher hole. This guy is still taunting Wizard. He moved from the backyard to the frontyard of the hill that stretches all along the side of our property.

Wizard is ready to go Caddyshack on this gopher.

It’s crazy, we just can’t trap him, can’t get him to move out or take any bait Wizard had tried. Things are getting ugly here–I’m really hoping a certain online retailer doesn’t sell any questionable items because I don’t want my yard to look like this…

Fingers crossed the gopher makes his way back up into the hills while I still have a house

Otherwise, I’m pretty much on lockdown and working. This novella will go back to my editor on Tuesday. I’ve committed to that delivery date so it will be happening (barring any explosions, LOL!). Which means my weekend is booked with working. What are your plans?

HAPPY FRIDAY! Hope you have a great and explosive free weekend!

I’m so deep in the writing cave right now, I almost forgetting to eat. I know…shocking! But I had to laugh at one thing: So you all heard the news that Angelina Jolie filing for divorce from Brad Pitt, right?

Yawn, whatever. I just don’t care about them.

What amused me is Wizard. This is TOP OF THE FREAKING NEWS at 5:00 o’clock, with a teaser line that said something like, “Golden Couple Getting Divorced!” Wizard is watching it (he’s in some pain from the same old herniated disc, and I’m trying to keep him sitting, but that’s another story), and he blurted out, “What the hell? I thought we were the golden couple.” He’s dead serious and then he posts that sentiment on Facebook with a picture of the two of us.

I’m probably really tired, but that just made me laugh. Somehow I don’t think Wizard and I have quite the same cache or influence as Brad and Angeline But it’s awesome that he thinks we’re the “golden couple.”

Right now, I’m desperately trying to make Ana and Ethan from Savaged Surrender “the golden couple.” I think they’ve reached silver or bronze, but it’s going to take a lot more work to hit that “golden” mark.

Hey…I said I was tired, right???? Because this whole post has made total sense to me

And moving onto Wednesday Worthy, here’s our candidate:

So what do you think? Is he worthy?

It was a busy weekend! First, no sign of our Gopher! It looks like after a week of an intense battle, Wizard may have won!

Saturday we had a great time going to lunch and wine tasting. It’s beautiful out there in the Temecula Wine Country. We came home with three bottles of wine that we’ll admire but be too cheap to actually drink unless there’s a super special occasion

Sunday was a mixed bag. I had a good writing day and made really solid progress on the novella revision. I feel pretty positive right now (but wait ten minutes, that could change, LOL). In between writing, I made these donuts:

The donuts were baked not fried, and came out a little dry. I can adjust the recipe and baking temp and time to compensate for that. And next time, instead of the glaze and crumb topping, I think I’ll use a chocolate ganache. The crumb topping just adds dryness, so it works better on a fried donut.

The minor blip on the weekend was Sunday morning when I decided to make a quick trip to Target and the driver’s side mirror on my car broke. As I made a left turn, the darn thing just snapped and started swiveling back and forth at will. What’s even more frustrating is this happened on the passenger side of the car two months ago, on the very morning we were leaving for the RWA Conference in San Diego. So I know EXACTLY how much it’s going to cost to fix and it’s not cheap. At that time, we didn’t have time to mess with it, so we just dropped it off at our trusted repair place to fix while we were gone.

This time, Wizard may attempt to repair it himself using YouTube Experts as a guide. Fingers crossed that it works! But I can’t really complain too much, the car is seven years old and stuff breaks.

So how was your weekend?

No news on the Wizard vs. Gopher battle today. Hopefully I’ll have an update on Monday and things will swing in Wizard’s favor. Even I’m getting tired of the destruction.

I’m making progress on the novella revision but it’s slow, partly from home repair issues have demanded attention. It’s just life laughing at my plans I’ll get this done in another week or so. In good news, last night, I got the revisions back on Savaged Dreams and my editor loves where I’m taking the story now, so that’s awesome. There’s more work to do on it, but I’m excited to tackle that once I finish revising this novella.

Tomorrow Wizard and I are taking the day off and going to have lunch out and visit some wineries. We just want to get out and spend the day together away from pressure and gophers

What are you plans?

Cheers! Have a great weekend!