Tiny Little Victories

So, I’m having one of those days today where everything seems to take more effort than it should.

You know the kind, where you pick up a pen, drop it, pick it up again, drop it again, and it rolls out of reach under the sofa. Then, by the time you retrieve it (with the end of the broom handle you had to retrieve from wherever it lives), you forgot what you wanted to write anyway.

Yeah.

But then I went out to pick up groceries and the gal at the deli counter called me Miss!

Miss!!!

I haven’t been a Miss in ages.

I’ve been firmly living in Ma’am land for at least the last six or seven years now. But today, after the morning of internal chaos forcing me to be gangly and awkward, I became a Miss again.

If only for that one moment, leaving the house today was totally worth it.

And I’m sure that was a big part of why I was a disaster this morning – I didn’t want to leave the house for errands.

Because yesterday I clocked in another 3,000+ words in my new manuscript and I was feeling particularly ready to write this morning. But then there’s that pesky thing called life where I won’t write too much without food.

And if you know me you know I’m not one of those writers who lives on coffee and cigarettes. Bleh. Even in the days when I was a smoker and drank coffee non-stop there was always, always, food in my life.

I eat, like, five times a day. So grocery shopping was a necessary evil because all that consumption leads to an empty fridge eventually.

But, if I waited, ordered a pizza, ate panko crumbs on peanut butter just to survive (the last 2 things in the house, seriously), and gone shopping tomorrow, I may never have been a Miss.

And now I’m back home, ready to blow out another huge word day, but I can’t seem to force myself to work on this new book. 

Because I'm a Miss! And it’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted a blog. After the morning I had, it felt like the right time to catch you all up on the doings around here.

I’ve had a super busy spring / it’s-already-summer-in-Phoenix.

At least this post isn’t three months since my last blog (like my last blog post was), but it has been two solid months of living life, seeing people, doing stuff, typing words.

I’m also getting back into nail art and picked up some supplies to make designs that are more fun and artsy. Which is good because I’d been wearing tan nude nails every week for somewhere near four months.

Over it, time for fun again!

Doing something to my nails (on the regular) started back in junior high school. I’d use markers, polish, whatever I could get my hands on to put color and design on the tips of my fingers. I even used my ballpoint pen to dot flowers onto my pinky finger.

And I didn’t care what color I used as long as there was some color at the ends of my hands. When I was a kid it wasn’t “cool” to use black, navy blue or other colors considered freaky.

I used them.

Because they’re colors. I mean, why was red or pink okay but not black? Why did wearing black nail polish make people think of me as a certain type of person? That shit just never made sense to me and I’d think about it while I slathered shiny blue polish on every other fingernail.

These days I’m trying brushes, sponges, vinyl decals, creating my own decals, acrylic painting, and stamping to get some fun designs going on. And it’s so relaxing to sit and paint for a couple hours without the need for climbing a ladder.

Tiny little canvases. I love it.

Aside from nail art, I released a book, the 2^nd in my California Dreamin’ Series: Alternate Plans. I won’t go into great detail on the book here. You can click on the title and read all about it over on Amazon if you’re so inclined.

Already read it? Then while you’re over there checking out the link, please leave me a review!

Reviews are the lifeblood of authors on Amazon and I’d be forever grateful for your honest feedback. All reviews are awesome because they help me write better books the next time. So, go, review one of my books right now!

Thanks 😍

In the midst of work and life, Matt and I even managed to take an extended vacation for the first time in almost a year. We started out with friends in Temecula, California on a wine weekend of debauchery, madness, and so much fun.

From there we drove up the coast to San Francisco, back down to Big Sur (as far as possible due to the coastal highway being washed out), inland to Paso Robles, back out to the coast (just below the closure), and wound down the entire coast to San Diego before driving home.

It was freaking awesome!

It had been ages since we took a long road trip and it was so much fun to get out, take pictures, reconnect, see the beach. Can’t wait to do it again. Soon.

But, for now, I’ll be finalizing the next book release slated for September (30 Chapters in 30 Days, a writer’s inspiration for getting big word count down in a month or less), and working on this new California Dreamin’ Series book.

And something tells me my main character (who is 44 this year) will get to experience the joys of being called a Miss for the first time in years.

Then again, maybe I’ll just keep that little joy all for myself.

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In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.