Aloha!!! That’s right, I now speak Hawaiian, LOL! It was an awesome trip. The island of Oahu is stunningly beautiful, and we took some great tours. Here’s a few shots:

The Arizona Memorial. This was the most somber, touching and humbling part of the trip. We honestly felt the weight of all those men ambushed and killed or injured, and the incredible heroics of those who risked their lives to try to save them. The dock to get onto the memorial has been closed for a year now because it needs repairs, but just riding by in a boat was an experience I won’t forget.

The Missouri, where the documents to end World War II were signed.

These are replicas of the documents that ended World War II

The castle that I believe the last king on the island built. We learned so much, it’s hard to keep it all straight. The island has an amazing history and culture!

Me and Wizard on the beach at our hotel. This is also where they had amazing fireworks on Friday night.

I have a lot of beautiful beach shots, but you guys have seen all those on TV, and FYI, it’s just as clear and pretty! I’m the one who really loves, and I mean LOVES, beaches so I soaked it all in. Wizard likes the beach, but enjoys time at the hotel pools even more. We did a lot of sightseeing, eating, drinking and laughing. We both relaxed, and enjoyed our one totally selfish moment in time This trip was just for us and we savored it.

But I couldn’t wait to get home to Maggie! I missed her more than I imagined I would! She did well at boarding, and after a few minutes of excitement when she got home, she settled right back into her routine. That tells me that boarding her for a week didn’t cause her any undo stress.

And finally, my friend Marianne, critiqued a large part of my manuscript from Savaged Devotion and gave me the most insightful and helpful feedback I could have asked for. I’m so pleased, and in many ways, relieved. I spent yesterday just thinking about her comments and suggestions. I need to do some revisions, but overall, I’m feeling much better and ready to finally get this book written!

So that was my week, now I’d love to hear how each of you have been!

Happy Friday! I hope all of you in the path of the latest snow storm are warm and safe!

Okay let’s do our insomnia-driven-and-therefore-very-random Friday Five:

1. I’m trying to decide between two different conferences being held in Florida this year (RWA in late July or NINC in early October). I’m leaning toward NINC but… by the time I decide, they’ll both be booked and I’ll be mad but save a ton of money. Wizard’s no help–although he’ll go with me, he tells me it’s my call because it’s my career. Did I ask him to be logical? No I did not. I asked him which location–Disney World in Orlando or Tradewinds in St. Pete’s Beach–he would prefer. Men.
2. However Wizard is looking up first class flights for both of us to go to Florida. I’m going to have to sell a kidney and yet, with his back, I know it’s better for him. I tried to talk him into me flying in coach and him flying first class…um…that conversation didn’t go well.
3. Why does one of my eyebrows have a couple gray hairs, but not the other one. Why??? I’m unbalanced and it’s oddly disturbing. I feel like my eyebrows are messing with me, maybe even plotting evil things.
4. And speaking of whys–why does fun have a price? An out-of-town friend called and was in town. Yay! It was great to see him and a good break for Wizard who is bored out of his mind, but those few hours of fun cost me with deadlines bearing down on me. Fun should be free, that’s all I’m saying.
5. Yesterday I was tired (anyone have a spell to banish insomnia?) and working on a tough scene that involves a touchy subject. Frustrated, I paced the house saying, “Dang it Liza, what do you feel? It’s allll about the feels. How can I write the scene if I don’t know what you feel about this subject????” Wizard looked up from reading the paper. “This is a totally new line of crazy for you. But it looks good on you. Carry on.” Then he went back to reading the paper. Whatever…

Okay that’s my random Friday Five. Your turn!

Have a great weekend!

Is it possible that Thanksgiving is actually next week??? How did this happen? I don’t want to go Christmas shopping, someone save me!

Okay so I’m going to talk about the randomness of my week:

1. At dinner last night I mentioned to Wizard that I had a chocolate craving…and that was as far as I got. The rest of that sentence was supposed to be, “…and I might bake something to take to a Thanksgiving celebration we’re going to this weekend.” But I never got that far before Wizard stated unequivocally that he’d go to the store after dinner and buy me chocolate. Which he did. So…YAY WIZARD! Once I’m finished writing this blog, I’m eating some chocolate
2. I sent off the synopsis for the next two books to my editor yesterday morning. I’m excited and can’t wait to hear her feedback. And she’ll most definitely have feedback–her job is to find any plot holes or potential problem. Her feedback will only make this series stronger.
3. I’m working on a marketing plan for the Savaged Trilogy right now. The first book is finished and in copy editing so it’s the perfect time to plan.  Right now, the probable release dates are June, July and August in 2017.
4. And while we’re talking about this, I wanted to touch on something. Book sales are down. The e-book bubble has burst, something that isn’t a surprise to a lot of us who understand how economics works. Basically the market is saturated, and unfortunately, some of the product out there isn’t the best quality creating an unreliable reading experience for a lot of readers. I know I DNF (Did Not Finish) WAY more books than I ever used to. So what do I do as a professional author who knows I won’t make the same ROI (Return On Investment) that I did just a few years ago? Do I cut production costs? NO! NO! and NO! Absolutely not, particularly when it comes to creating a quality product. QUALITY MATTERS MORE THAN EVER. I honestly care about and respect my readers, and want them to be able to trust me. That means I am adding even more editing costs into my budget with an additional rounds of development and copy editing. I do that to make sure that when I put a book out, it’s the absolute best I can do. This won’t take me back to sales in 2013, but it will create (I believe) a trust with my readers that matters more than ever.
5. I hope you all have a Happy Friday and a Great 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!

The battle rages on between Wizard and Gopher! Wizard has expressly forbidden me from revealing his battle tactics for fear that his mortal enemy, herein referred to as (Expletive Deleted) Gopher, is online and spying on him.

Umm…okay. Wizard might have lost his mind just a little bit

Anyway, every single morning a new one to these (see picture below) appears on the hill that is now the “Theater of War” between the (Expletive Deleted) Gopher and Wizard:

So right now, Wizard appears to be losing, LOLOL!! Wait, did Wizard hear me laughing???? And yeah, now the (Expletive Deleted) Gopher isn’t even covering up his holes. He’s actually taunting Wizard. How can I not laugh????

Come on,  you’re laughing too!

All right let’s move on to to Wednesday Worthy. Today’s candidate is making me so jealous of his abs. I once had abs, now I just drink wine and eat chocolate in their memory

So what do you think? Is he worthy? And okay I just have to ask: Are you laughing about the Wizard vs. Gopher war too? Come on, this is funny!

Happy Friday! I’m rerunning this post from 2012 because I noticed I really need a pedicure, and that made me this of this story. Probably because anytime I try to do a pedicure myself–Wizard laughs at me So here it is:

I decided I should give myself a pedicure. Sometimes, I get lucky, and it turns out okay.

This was not one of those nights.

So I go upstairs, do all the pre work, then gather up my stuff and sit on the floor in front of the TV. And I start polishing.

Wizard, and I don’t know how he does it, will sense when I have been rendered a “captive audience.” It’s freaky how finely tuned this sense of this is. He had been out in his garage for a while, not bothering me. But once I have polish on and can’t move until it dries?

Wizard appears in the room. “What are you doing, Witch?”

I narrow my eyes and say,  “I’m mixing chemicals that will kill you. Run while you can.”

He’s not the least bit worried.  He tilts his head. “Why don’t you just go get a pedicure?”

“Shut up.” I can soooo do this. I can. Really. I used to decorate cakes, damn it. Okay not professionally, but still, I wasn’t embarrassed by my cakes. I can do this!

Wizard totally ignores my outburst and goes on, “Are you making yourself pretty?” Then he starts walking around the room singing “Prettyyyy Girrllls” in the creepiest Wizard voice possible.

I cave in and do the worst possible thing.  I laugh. I can’t help it. Wizard is so not creepy, and when he does that voice, it sends me into fits of giggles every freaking time.

But then he starts to leave, and I sigh in relief. He’s done and I can have some peace.

And then he spots this:

It’s sitting on my upstairs desk. I have no clue what it is–but Biker Witch gave it to me.  Probably because she’s in cohoots with Wizard to DRIVE ME INSANE.

How?

Well Wizard’s face lit up when he sees this. He picks it up, them LOOMS over me.  “Say, Whoo Hoo.”

“No. Leave me alone. I want to watch TV.”

“You have to say Woo Hoo. Then I throw this to you. That’s the game, I saw it on a TV show.”

I swear to you I Am Not Making This Up. I can’t get up and escape because…hello, wet toes. Dark grape polish. Light carpet. I am trapped.

So I say Woo Hoo.  And he throws that weird ass thing at me. I catch it before it attacks me.

Then he stands there sing-songing Woo Hoo! And won’t leave until I throw it back.

I seriously had to play this game while trapped on the floor with wet toes until he was done torturing me.

Finally, he puts the stupid ass thing down and said,  “Fork out the money for a pedicure you cheap witch,” and leaves, laughing all the way down the stairs. Why? Why does this amuse him so much?And he’s wrong, because I can so do a pedicure if I try!

So finally my toes dry, I go downstairs and he’s like totally NORMAL for awhile. Then I look at my toes. Damn it.  I stomp upstairs totally pissed because my toes aren’t right at all and I take off the stupid polish.

I’ll probably pay for a pedicure as soon as I’m done sulking.  I can’t even blame Wizard, he didn’t touch my toes. He’s totally responsible for making me insane, but not the poor polish job. Heck, he didn’t even say “I told you so.”

If you actually made it through this story–all true because yes, we are that boring–have a great weekend everyone!

No Business Monday Today…I’m barely managing to be an adult right now I just about hit my limit at 11:00PM Saturday night. First we had three long days of guys in the house with jack hammers, sanders and tile saws, spreading dirt and chaos everywhere. Saturday somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00 we hurried the tile guys out the door, scrounged up clean clothes and drove an hour and a half to a birthday dinner for our son’s girlfriend. She’s totally worth the effort and we had fun. Got home around 11:00pm and Wizard crashed. He was out in four-point-two seconds. I was doing a few random things like setting up coffee, changing clocks (so it was actually midnight!) and realized I still had my necklace on. I took it off, walked into my bedroom to put it away and smashed my toe — on a toilet sitting in the middle of my freaking bedroom. There I am hopping around, swearing under my breath, wishing Toilet Karma on the guys who left a toilet, A TOILET! in my bedroom.

That is just so WRONG!

And Wizard never woke up. He slept right through my Toe vs. Toilet Hopping Mad Showdown.

Okay, now that my foot is not throbbing (my toe is barely sore today), I will concede that the toilet had been carefully moved and placed mostly out of the way, and I had seen it there earlier. I just forgot.

Then this morning, I told Wizard the story and he laughed. Hysterically. There may have even been tears. And the every time I said, “It’s not funny!” He laughed harder.

So you see, there is no way I could tell THAT story and have any credibility to do a Business Monday post

Otherwise, I am in love with our new tile. The kitchen is grouted now and so pretty. Today the guys (who are awesome and I’ve decided to forgive for the Toilet Incident) will clean the tile one more time, then put the oven and fridge back in. Hopefully all the tile work will be done by the end of Tuesday. Wednesday morning we pick up Bailey Dog, then the following Monday we start  part two of the house reno — The Carpet Project.

I’ve discovered it’s hard to write in a construction zone (yeah, who here is surprised???). But I can edit and revise! So I’m working on getting book one of Savaged Vows ready to go to my editor. I’m actually enjoying tuning out the chaos to focus on that.

Now it’s your turn–how was your weekend?