TGIF! Time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

1. August is here with 100+ degree heat. It’s too hot to function. But at least we have A/C. Wizard and I are stressed and tired, but dealing with things we need to deal with.
2. Maggie had her yearly checkup and is in really good health (as much as they can tell). The vet tells me every time that she loves Maggie because she’s so joyful. It’s true that Maggie doesn’t really have a lot of special tricks or play with toys, but her one talent is being happy to see almost everyone. First she wags her tell, then her whole body wiggles and when the happiness overwhelms her, she squeals and “talks”. So I’ll take the vet at her word Maggie is getting older, obviously, and the milkiness I see in her eyes is real and from age and hardening of the lenses. Maggie is still seeing pretty well though. Otherwise, she needs a mild teeth clearing that they think they can do without anesthesia. I’m really happy to get goods news with no surprises about Maggie this week.
3. I also had a good eye exam and this time, I bought glasses too. OUCH on the cost! It doesn’t help that my prescription is so high (which I heard four different times), we added on had all kinds of options to get the lenses in the frames as light as possible, and as comfortable as possible. But I like the glasses we chose, and I can still wear contacts (with reading glasses), so I have options. My eyes appear healthy and the exam was easy. Overall, I call it a win, even if it’s an expensive win.
4. Oh my CT scan approved for my sinuses to hopefully find out where/why my nose is bleeding. I think it’s August 20th or thereabouts. I’m too lazy to check my calendar to be sure, but I’m happy about that. Even if we can’t find the source on the CT, we’ll know what it’s NOT from and that’s helpful too. My GP will decide where to refer me once he has the CT results. So things are moving along.
5.  I might be going to lunch with Biker Witch today but we haven’t officially confirmed that as I write this. Chaos is running amok, so it’s hard to make real plans. This weekend is a wait and see what happens. We are doing our best to go with things the best we can.

That’s my five, now I’d really love to hear yours! I hope you all have a good weekend, and if you’re in the heat, stay inside, hydrated and cool!

I’m here!! Sorry I missed posting on Monday. We had to unexpectedly go to my Mother in Law’s house, stay with her, and handle some issues. All four siblings in the state are helping out, so it’s not just us. We had very limited internet access and zero time for me to try to post. Between that and celebrating my birthday,  it was a weirdly fun and very stressful few days. But seriously, I had a great birthday, and as of yesterday calm had return our lives to normal business not wild and a little crazy.

Now onto reading. I quickly downloaded Sherrilyn Kenyon’s “Simi, (Shadow of Fire, Book 5) onto my Kindle, but haven’t started it yet before writing this blog. While driving all over the place, I finally went back to listening to the audio book I was mad about. I find the plot and setting really interesting, the romance bores me. But I’ve decided to finish the book, and then I’ve loaded two other books on audio. I feel like I might be driving a lot, so I’m ready Audio books and interesting podcasts make long drives and traffic a heck of a lot more bearable!

Did I miss anything Monday? What are you reading or listening to?

I’m still reading “House of Fire and Magic (Myths & Outlaws Book 1) by Sherrilyn Kenyon. It’s pretty good, although I don’t find it a compelling page-turner. While the story is fun, it feels a little old school to me. I do like the political intrigue in the paranormal world, and some of the various magical creatures, and I’m happy to keep reading it for a while in the evenings.

I have not gone back to the audiobook that made me mad last week. I mean I’ve turned it on, then turned it off. Guess I’m still mad, LOL! I think I need to find another audiobook, listen to that then maybe come back to the one I’m mad at.

And totally unrelated: I’ve had this book plot idea hanging around now for a few weeks. I’ve told it I’m busy, I’m not writing commercial fiction now and it’s just sitting there in my brain swirling around. Fortunately, I don’t have any characters showing up and bugging me! As long as the actual characters don’t materialize, I can ignore the idea. It’s just a distraction from doing work on the blog stuff!

Are you reading anything interesting?

It was a quiet one for me. I’m good with that.

Friday and Saturday involved a lot of cleaning. I also wrote a blog and had three ready to go. Then it dawned on me that two were very similar. Sigh…I discarded one into my “draft” file where I can repurpose it later. I wrote one more blog, so I had three again and am beginning work on the fourth. I want seven or more written before I launch the blog. I haven’t even started on the interview side of things (I want that to be part of the blog, plus podcasting later).

Will I do all this? I hope so, but also, life is swirling. So they way I look at it now is I’m exercising my writing muscle and enjoying learning new things. If it all comes together — awesome! If not, it’s all good. — I’ll just readjust or pivot and find my happy place in a scaled down version.  I really do need to make a decision on the blog theme and ask someone to take pictures of me. I’m not looking forward to either of those things But I am enjoying working on this, and keep the pace as I want it to be.

Here’s a pic of my granddaughter in the airport heading for her first flight.

From all the pics I saw, she did great on the plane and fell asleep on her dad. It looked like they had a blast. They’re visiting Cigi’s mom’s relatives and I’m really happy that she’s getting to meet her extended family. I just have to say, Middle Son is loving being a dad.

Turbo and his family are having a blast. Here’s oldest son (CPA boy) covered in kids. Boys never really grow up, but they sure do get stronger! Turbo is in on the right of the picture (in CPA boys left arm). They are visiting CPA Boy’s friend from high school and college!

Here’s a pic Maggie’s here just because We were hanging out in the backyard and I used a treat to bribe her for a pic.

This weekend I floated the idea of renting an Motorhome to go see Wizard’s brother in Oregon. He had a minute of being intrigued, then starting thinking of disasters that could befall us. Essentially, the motorhome was going to break down, leaving us stranded and evidently our phones would die and any form of communication would evaporate and probably bears would eat us slowly while we’re alive and screaming…it was astonishing how fast a fun idea became a horror movie, LOL! He might come around or write a horror novel, I’m not sure which yet!

So how was your weekend?

TGIF!! Here we are again on Friday and I’m my usual, “How did that happen???” But it’s here and it’s time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

1. I’m working on my blog stuff. I have a lot to do, so it’ll be a while. I have a question, but for context, the new blog will be different. More of a lifestyle blog (loosely), and I’ll start with one main post a week. Not the casually, unedited chatty type I do now. However, I’m thinking about keeping Friday Five if any of you are still interested in that kind of interaction?? Any answer is totally cool, I’m aware that some or all may not be interested in a different version of the blog at all.
2. I learned from working on all this how much I missed writing. But I don’t miss the pressures, deadlines and things that were beyond my control.
3. It’s been a tad cooler this week. Enough that I repotted a couple plants and Wizard did a major weed and clean of our backyard hill area. I don’t know how he still does it, but he manages.
4. So far, I really like my new pans. Especially for the price But seriously, I do like them and am happy that I took a chance on them. It’s only been a couple weeks so we’ll see how I feel in a few months. I’m pretty hard on my kitchen tools.
5. It’s been a quietish week and this weekend will be fairly calm. All the kids are busy — two are traveling and one is dog sitting for one of his traveling brothers. I haven’t decided what kind of kid free trouble I might want to get into, but if I do something crazy, I’ll let you all know on Monday!

That’s my rather boring five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a good weekend!

I’m going to try for a soft rant…but I get worked up so we’ll see. I’m having feelings, and let’s be real, feelings are feelings…not facts. This is just the way this experience is making me feel.

I bought an audiobook by my favorite authors and I flat out feel misled. If the romance is between two women, mention their names or some other clue in the blurb. I found out by surprise, and that’s the part that bugs me. Not like a shocking plot twist, I love those. This feels deliberate to get someone who chooses not to read a certain thing to read it. Authors shouldn’t have to trick readers into buying their books. Sure we advertise, get good covers and catchy blurbs to get attention for the book, but hopefully, we’re highlighting the strong parts of the book, not misleading readers.

I considered returning the book, but I’m not actually offended by the romance. I’m just annoyed at the game, and not interested in the romance. It’s not my thing. Think of it like this: I really don’t like fish. But I have nothing against the fish industry, and people choose to eat fish around me all the time. I’m fine with it, I just choose the kind of food I like and everyone is happy. So I’m not returning the book.

FYI, I did return a book once because the adult hero of the book made fun of someone with a handicap in the opening pages. In that case was offended and mad. I returned the book in utter disgust. I don’t remember the title or author or anything except how upset I was.

Back to this book: Would I have bought the book anyway if it’d been clear in the blurb? I’d say there’s a 60% or better chance I would have as I liked the premise of the book, and I really like her writing. This author’s books are generally about more than a romance so … yeah, I’d say 60% chance I would have picked it up anyway. I might even have been curious of how she was going to weave that romance into the super interesting, and highly competitive setting.

Now I don’t know if I’ll finish it because I’m soured by the feeling of being duped. Or maybe I don’t like being thought of as closed minded or in any way supporting censorship? Something I fought against in my time of Co-President and Published Author Liaison for my chapter of RWA.

I don’t know, but my experience with this book has soured and I’m not sure if I’ll finish it. I really do like the premise…so we’ll see.

What are you reading? And was my rant soft? I mean, I didn’t swear…that counts right

Happy Wednesday!

We had a good weekend. Saturday was the pool party at Youngest Son’s house.  That was a blast. Youngest has a waterproof vlogging (video) camera, and Middle Son used it to capture himself doing summersaults into the pool. That was amazing to see from the video perspective, even under water. By the way, Middle Son is a total ham, just like his adorable daughter, Cigi. Of course, Cigi was the star of the day (Turbo wasn’t there, he had friend’s birthday party). FYI, my sons and daughters in law made fun of me, saying “Don’t let Cigi see Grandma or she’ll just want her.” Um…how was this supposed to upset me? LOLOL! Cigi loves everyone and spent time with them all, I just can just usually coax her to come to me. It’s a Grandma Superpower

Second fun thing, I was bugging them all about going stand up paddleboarding with me. Middle insisted that he’s the best paddleboarder and he’ll teach me. His wife said he’s good at paddleboarding but sucks at teaching because he just goes…and would leave me behind, so she should teach me.  When middle balked, she asked him who taught him. He shut up then, since she taught him how to paddleboard! Yep, that’s my utterly ridiculous family. Anyway, hopefully we will go paddleboarding before summer is over, and I’m going to drag Youngest daughter-in-law with us because it’s her kind of thing even if she doesn’t know it yet. And probably Youngest son too, so he can watch Cigi at the beach (he’ll volunteer for that!).

Sunday, Wizard went racing with Turbo and Oldest Son. He fixed up a car for Oldest Son so he can race too, and last I heard — both Turbo and his Dad had qualified in first place in two different qualifiers. We’ll see what happens in the single main race. Wizard told me he wasn’t going to race as he would end up being Head Coach and Mechanic fixing both Turbo and Oldest Son’s cars. I think he’s enjoying his coaching/mechanic job as much as he enjoys racing. Update: Turbo came in second place against five other adults!! His dad placed after him, but I’m not sure where yet. Here are father and son, both clearly having fun!

This week we need to buy some rock to go around our new deck now that it’s all sealed and done. I’m still thinking about some kind of patio cover or pergola…but our budget tells me it won’t be happening soon. Budget is a total buzzkill.

How was your weekend?