March

I think my next free day for Soulless will be March 27, which happens to be my mom's birthday. It will only be one day this time. A countdown thingy will soon appear on the right.

I have high hopes for March. My book Sources will be in the hands of my editor. (It's sooo almost done!) My husband is supposed to be getting a bonus from work. I'll be teaching piano lessons. I hope to finally get my hourglass pendants on my etsy shop. I'll be working on my next book project. I will exercise more. And Spring makes everything nicer.

I watched the movie Austenland last night. I read the book a year or so ago and really liked it. The movie was fun too. If you've never heard of it, it's about a 30 something woman who is obsessed with all things Jane Austen, especially Mr. Darcy. She learns about a retreat in England that lets the guests live out an Austen-themed vacation, which I think might be fun.

Don't forget to leave reviews for Soulless on amazon/Goodreads!

Top Ten Tuesday #38

We're supposed to be getting a decent tax return his year. That doesn't happen often at our house. Don't get me started down that road. Anyway, all the money will be used to pay for bills and other nonfun things. I could easily make a list of all the things that require payment or repairs around here, but I won't. If I could use the extra money for anything else, namely anything other than bills, it might go something like this...

Today's Topic: Funner Ways To Spend My Tax Return Money

10. Cool cooking appliances and tools. I love to cook. I'm thinking meat grinder...
9. New board games. My family enjoys playing board games at our little gatherings.
8. Shopping spree at our local thrift store. I know, if I have a bunch of money, why not go to a real store? Because I love a good deal on clothes that are perfectly wearable.
7. New boots. Maybe even some fun colors, like blue or purple.
6. Eating out. We usually only do this when we have coupons or gift cards.
5. Add to our DVD/Bluray collection.
4. Add to my book collection. This would include ebooks.
3. New laptop and iPad. Mine are a little out of date.
2. Something for my hubby. Probably video games.
1. A trip somewhere. We might even be able to pull off a visit to Disneyland. *sigh*

Sadly, the money is already spoken for. Sometimes being a grown-up is hard.

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In case you were wondering, the total number of downloads for Soulless during the two free days is 1,304. I'm pretty happy with that. I'm going to do another round of freeness during March, so watch out for that if you missed this past round. And now that a bunch of people have a copy of my book, I would really appreciate some reviews on amazon. I've already gotten a very positive five star review. Made me smile.

Keep reading!!

So Far So Good

My free days for Soulless have been awesome! I don't really have anything to compare it to, but I think it's going well. By the end of Friday, the number of downloads broke 1000, and last time I checked this morning, it was at 1200. This includes downloads from around the globe. I'm quite pleased. Big thanks to all of you who have gotten your free copy and have helped spread the word. It's not over yet, so keep the good mojo going! Here's the link again for your convenience. CLICK!
**this promotion has ended**

Hubby and I are FINALLY going to go see the second Hobbit movie. Our lateness is partly due to hubby's busy schedule and partly due to our empty wallets. When we mentioned this to my in-laws a couple of weeks ago, my brother-in-law whipped out a $20 bill and insisted we go see it pronto. Well, here we go! I'm excited. I've loved all of the Tolkien movies thus far. I can't wait to hear Smaug speak! Benedict Cumberbatch has the most amazing voice! Now I want to watch Sherlock...

Things and Stuff

I've seriously been slacking off in my writing lately and I don't have any good excuses. I only have a few chapters left to write for The Vessel Book Two. I hope to be done by the end of the month. I can do it!! The cover is already done, which is good because it's a lot of work. Any guesses on what will be featured? The title is Sources, which is pretty self explanatory if you've read Taela.

My husband is a talented singer. Our church group/neighborhood area is holding a talent show next weekend and hubby decided he wanted to participate. Actually, we get to participate since I will be his piano accompanist. After looking over many choices, we settled on The Song of the Lonely Mountain from the first Hobbit movie (the song during the end credits). It was a pain in the butt to find a good arrangement, but we finally figured it out. I'm going to start practicing it today. I hope it goes well. I might try to record it on one of our phones and share some of it. We'll see.

The free days for Soulless start tomorrow (Feb 21-22)!! I'm excited to see how this works out. Please please please, if you like me at all, tell anyone you know who might be interested in getting a free book!! No Kindle is necessary! I've mentioned before that if you have an amazon account, you should have access to your Kindle cloud which lets you read Kindle books on your computer! Help me make this a success!! Since I don't write posts on Fridays, I'll share a link today. You can pop on back over here on Friday and click on it! Yay for free books!

Soulless link.

Top Ten Tuesday #37

I've been watching many episodes of the Amazing Race on Netflix. I enjoy seeing the beautiful places the teams get to go to. I would love to travel. (See list #14) I could never do the Amazing Race, though.

Today's Topic: Why I Could Not Be On The Amazing Race.

10. Poor sense of direction. I have to use mapquest or google maps anytime I go somewhere. And even then, there's no guarentee I'll get to my destination.
9. I speak only English. I know other teams manage to get around without knowing the language of the country they're in, but it's always a detriment. I took Spanish in Jr. High, but the only thing we really did was play Uno.
8. I don't like crowds and busy atmospheres.
7. I don't have the right kind of patience. I don't do well with waiting or time wasting.
6. I'm not physically fit. I would probably die from exertion.
5. I don't sleep well. I have a hard time getting decent sleep at home in my own bed.
4. I complain a lot.
3. I'm more lazy than I'd like to admit.
2. I'm not adventurous. I like being at home.
1. I could not handle the pressure. I like to plan things out and take my time. Rushing around like a crazy person would make me crazy.

Wow, I sound like a real loser.

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Only a few more days till you can get Soulless for free on amazon!

Sushi Success!

I mentioned briefly last post that hubby and I were going to make our own version of sushi for Valentine's Day dinner. Since it was our first attempt, we decided not to use fish. That may happen sometime in the future. I got all the veggies chopped all nice and julienne-like (carrots, zucchini, sweet potato, broccoli, and red bell pepper) and prepared the rice. I had some calrose rice on hand, which isn't sushi rice, but it worked pretty well anyway. I had some chicken, bacon, and sausage for the meats. For dipping sauces, I like sweet and sour, so I made a bit using some pineapple apricot preserves. Hubby requested a creamy teriyaki, which I made with teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, and plain yogurt. Earlier in the day, I watched some videos to learn how to roll properly. It didn't look super hard, so I was excited ready to try. I rolled the first one while hubby watched. He made the next two. We both used a bit too much rice, which made them on the ginormous side, but they looked fairly decent. But what matters most is that they tasted great! We stuffed ourselves and now have leftovers. We have plans to make sushi more often, venturing into more traditional ingredients as we go. Here's some pictures of what we did.

We also shared a steamed pork bun we got from a local Asian market. Hubby would like me to try making some from scratch someday. I think that's doable. And hubby had a bowl of miso soup. I'm not a huge fan of miso. All the room in my tummy was for sushi. It was a fun experience and I look forward to doing it again. Probably in a few days. :)

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One week till Soulless free days on amazon! It will be next Friday and Saturday. Remember that you don't have to own a Kindle in order to read a Kindle book. You can read it from your Kindle cloud, which is connected to your amazon account. I hope you'll take the opportunity to give my book a try!

Cake and Piano

I seem to write a lot of posts about cake. Not that it's a bad thing. Cake is delicious. This time, the cake is for Valentine's Day. I made it yesterday. I figure, why wait for the actual holiday to eat a sweet treat when we can enjoy it now? Here's a picture.



It's a vanilla pudding poke cake with a layer of coconut and a cream cheese, coconut cream frosting. My hubby loves coconut. Pretty yummy! For dinner on Valentine's day, we're going to attempt to make sushi. It won't be traditional sushi. We'll be using chicken, sausage, and bacon for the protein, as well as our favorite veggies. It should be fun!

As for the piano part of the post, I've decided to start teaching piano lessons again. I did so for a few years before I got married. The time has come to do it again. Not only do we need the extra money, but I enjoy helping kids build a new and enjoyable skill. I've been playing for over twenty years and couldn't imagine my life without it.