Had a great weekend, but wow I’m tired as I’m typing this on Sunday night. All the kids just left, we ate, swam, had decadent chocolate cake, and the kids and Wizard got me a new laptop computer for my birthday. My old laptop was a dinosaur, this one is a bit smaller and lighter. It’s totally unexpected and I’m thrilled!

Jett (Middle Son’s dog) came to visit too. On Saturday, Middle Son sent me a text that said, “I told Jett how you are. He thought it was hilarious.”  With this picture:

I was in the kitchen cleaning the counters, and had stopped to check my phone and take a drink of coffee–I laughed so hard I splurted coffee and had to clean the counters again

And at our house, Jett’s not allowed on the couch. But while the rest of us were out in the pool, this happened:

Special K (CPA Boy’s wife) was supposed to be watching him, but instead of telling him to get off the couch, she took a picture. Then she texted it to all of us to let us know how the no-couch rule is working out. I love her!! LOLOL!

How was your weekend?

Let’s do our Friday Five where we list five random things about our week:

1. I had a great birthday!
2. I got medically overruled on Yoga and am not allowed to try again until we resolve my shoulder
3. On the same subject, in the a last ten days I’ve seen two specialists, a new physical therapist and today I see my GP to get a referral to a pain management specialist, and try to get everyone on the same page for a treatment plan. Which is a lot like herding cats. I’m so over this. Basically I have two different diagnosis–a problem in my shoulder and a problem in my neck. No one knows which came first. But it looks like the two met up in a perfect storm to annoy the shit out of me. (Okay that last part isn’t an actual medical diagnosis, but an expression of my frustration, LOL!)
4. Yesterday I had time to write! And I wrote until I couldn’t do it anymore. Today I hope I can do it again.
5. The kids are all coming out with Jett.  I’m so looking forward to it!

Okay now it’s your turn to share your Friday Five!

Have a great weekend!

So Monday we had a fire in the hills behind out house. We were lucky this was a couple of miles from our house and moving away from us.

This is from our backyard.

This is close up to the fire before the police closed off all the roads. Note: We were not in the way of any emergency vehicles.

A huge shout out to the Fire Departments! They got crews on the ground, and both water and fire-retardant dropping aircraft in the air, very quickly and knocked down the worst of it in about six hours.

Then Tuesday we had a massive storm cell with thunder, lightning and torrential rains move through. This isn’t a great picture, but can you see how hard it’s raining? It was wild!

More possible thunderstorms are predicted today…which isn’t ideal for us. We planned to go out to dinner for my birthday. We won’t go if it’s pouring and snarls the traffic. Even this chocolate cake–

–isn’t worth fighting Southern California traffic in a downpour. Trust me, people in So Cal can’t drive in the rain! But I can’t really complain since the kids are all coming out this weekend, bringing the food and cake, and doing all the cooking too. I’m looking forward to that!

Now for our Wednesday Worthy candidate. I chose him because he looks like he looks like he could be a fireman taking a break.

So what do you think, is he worthy?

I’m still recovering from my Yoga class last Thursday, LOL! I found muscles that had been in retirement for years. They were not happy with me

This weekend, I worked when I could around my bad shoulder. I’m making progress on Savaged Devotion, it’s just frustratingly slow. Today I see another doctor to find out what the next step is to resolve the problem. I’m grateful for all the doctors, but boy, I’m tired of going to these appointments and tests.

On the upside, I’m meeting Biker Witch (my sister) for coffee today. That always cheers me up.

But I don’t want to talk about me, I’d much rather hear about you guys! How was your weekend? What’s new in your lives? Talk to me!

Yesterday I decided that I’m sick of waiting for some miracle cure for my bad shoulder and neck to take a Yoga class. I just got up and decided to go.  Mind you I can do forty minutes on the elliptical machine and still walk afterward. I do stretches and balancing at home. And every one in the freaking universe tells me Yoga is awesome! It’s the nectar of life, the brain food of geniuses, the reason to live! Yoga cures stress and writer’s block all at once! Plus its low impact! There’s no downside.

I told Wizard all this.

He’s like… “I think they’re talking about normal people.”

I whipped around. “What does that mean?”

He threw up his hands. “Nothing. Go. You’ll be awesome. I’ll see you when you get back.”

Yeah, that’s what I thought he said. So I go to the Yoga class at my gym. It’s a big room with laminated wood floors and WAY too many mirrors. But there’s only about 10 people in the class so plenty of space. This should be pretty easy, right?

15 minutes into Yoga I was sweating buckets and slipping on my mat. I looked up into the wall of mirrors noticed my hair had frizzed and my tongue was hanging out like this:

Actual picture of Jen in Yoga

But I wasn’t giving up. There were people in there who were decades older than me!

30 minutes later I pushed up to a contorted hip twist with an extra shot of try this sucker…and my foot slipped on the mat. But I caught myself.

Whew! That was close.

One second later I felt a pop. Right in…I kid you not…my butt muscle.

Ummm…oops?  My right side, where my butt meets my thigh, sent out a rays of stinging pain in all directions. Then I did a real “tree pose,” the kind where I crashed to the ground on my side. The instructor saw me, but I pushed up to sit on my knees like I was fine. I sat there for a second, looking at the door and thinking two things:

RUN LIKE HELL

and

DON’T TELL WIZARD I HURT MYSELF

All the while the gentle strains of mind control muscle kept playing, and the human pretzels kept flowing into different physically impossible contortions. And all of a sudden, I asked myself, “Are you really giving up because you pulled a muscle? Seriously?  Oh hell no.”

I finished that Yoga class. I did every freaking pose, modifying for the fact that I’d just discovered a new butt muscle. And no lie, after the class the instructor made a point of telling me how good I did.

BHAHAHAHA!!! I think she felt sorry for me.

After that, I  went home, sat my butt down on one bag of ice and had another ice pack over my shoulder. While downing ibuprofen with coffee, I described the torture to Wizard in slow and excruciating detail, each and every moment.

Then Wizard said, “So you’re done now, right? You’re not going back to Yoga next week?”

“What?” I gaped at him, confused. Whatever gave him the idea I’d give up?

This is a true story, and this is how I also write my books. I make mistakes, get lost, fall down, but I throw some ice on the pain and keep writing.

Happy Friday all! Hope you have a great weekend!

P.S. I really hope I can get out of bed today

Savaged Vows is getting great reviews. Thank you all for your awesome support! I’m working my butt off on Savaged Devotion. Ya’ll know I’m going through physical stuff, but I’m working as much as I can.

See here I am hard at work  

Okay enough silliness, let’s move onto Wednesday Worthy!

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So what do you think, is he worthy?

And BONUS candidate for Cute Worthy!

Happy Wednesday!

I’m so happy to share the news that SAVAGED VOWS, book 2 in the Savaged Illusions Trilogy is out!

How much will she risk for love?

Despite her dark past with a rock icon, Liza Glasner can’t walk away from the man she loves with a fiery passion—sexy rock star Justice Cade. A surprise pregnancy and marriage give Liza the family she’s craved since she was fourteen. But her love is tested when Liza’s worst nightmare—Gene Hayes—bursts onto the scene, spreading lies and smears to tear her and Justice apart. Can Liza trust Justice to choose her over fame?

How far will he go for fame?

Justice fiercely loves his beautiful and resilient wife Liza, and he’s determined to protect her from Gene Hayes. At the same time, he’s loyal to his band. The four other men in Savaged Illusions are his brothers, and together, they are battling hard to come back from a humiliating defeat. But just as the pinnacle of success is within their reach, Justice discovers a truth that will either decimate his band or destroy his wife.

Can their love survive?

Secrets and betrayals explode in a heartbreaking twist that threatens to rip Justice and Liza apart forever.

Savaged Vows is book 2 in the Savaged Illusions Trilogy, and ends in a cliffhanger. Book 3, Savaged Devotion, will be released in September 2017.

Grab Your Copy of SAVAGED VOWS!

Kindle /  Nook  / iBooks  /  Kobo /  Google Play

Otherwise, my weekend was pretty good.  On Saturday, we had CPA Boy, his wife and a couple kids over to swim and hang out. I ended up making root beer floats. Sunday, I worked. When I was getting my newsletter ready to send to Anna (she formats my newsletter for me), I came across this picture of Bailey:

This is one of the last pictures I took of him. He was just hanging out in the sun, enjoying himself. It’s been a year since Bailey passed, and it’s nice to see the picture and remember all the happiness and laughter he brought to our lives.

How was your weekend?