Jennifer Apodaca's Blog, page 136

Wednesday Worthy

Here’s our candidate for today:

What do you think, is he worthy?

Weekend Roundup

I missed posting last Friday, I’m sorry! Thursday night I was slightly ill, and something had to give so I skipped the blog. But I missed you guys!

The weekend was a blur: Friday I had lunch with Biker Witch, then came home to work. Saturday I went to my local RWA chapter meeting and had a great time seeing old friends! The speaker was Margie Lawson and I really enjoyed her talk on Rhetorical Devices. I use those techniques in my books already, but gleamed so many new tips to better utilize them and strive for fresher, more powerful writing.

Sunday it was back to work all day. I finished and sent off Savaged Surrender to the copy editor last night.

Today we have a contractor coming to put in a new super sized drainage system to deal with a problem that is beyond our control (not gopher related) on our side hill. It’s going to be messy and expensive, but once it’s done, we hope to have one less thing to worry about.  What’s even more fun? The side hill is right outside my office window But I can work on my laptop so that’s minor.

Needless to say, it’s been busy lately, LOL! Today I have to get back to editing/revisions on Savaged Dreams. I need to keep going!

How was your weekend?

Wednesday Worthy

I’m so close to getting these edits done! When I paused to write this blog last night, I had less than 35 pages to go, and only one scene in those remaining pages that needs a little tweaking. Once I get this part done, I’ll do a quick read through and send it off to my copy editor. I’m hoping to do that by this weekend. Yay!

Around me, a little chaos is going on with home-repair type projects, but Wizard is handling that so I just move to my laptop when the chaos spills over into my office and keep working  Everyone told me how hard it would be to work when Wizard retried, and there’s a little bit of truth to that. It’s easy to get distracted with someone else around. But there are so many more positives to having him home. He handles so much daily crap now that I look back and wonder how I did it all when he worked.

Okay now for Wednesday Worthy. Today we’re changing it up with a very specific question that requires a keen eye for detail Which do you prefer on your hunk — jeans or sweatpants? We have two candidates, one wearing jeans and one wearing sweatpants, to help you choose:

 

So which do you think is hotter? Jeans or sweatpants?

P.S. Someone very special to me is celebrating a birthday this week! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIKER WITCH! You’re the best sister ever!

Weekend Roundup

Wizard defeated the gopher, but we’re not really thrilled since he resorted to a trap that didn’t end well for the gopher Now we are waiting to see if there are any more rodents hiding in the hill.

My weekend was good. I worked on editing, cleaning, and Wizard and I went to dinner and hung out. Oh and I made No Bake Chocolate Cake Batter Truffles. Wizard loves them! I think they’d have an even nicer texture if the butter and sugar were cooked first to dissolve the sugar crystals, but I’d have to try it that way to see if it actually works. And yes, I realize cooking the butter and sugar would go against the whole “no bake” part of the title for the truffles.

Dang I’m tired. Wizard’s back issues are limiting him and that’s frustrating him (huge understatement), plus dealing with a medical system that is overloaded, which leaves him waiting well over a month to see a surgeon to determine if he needs surgery. In the meantime, I’m trying to stay one step ahead of Wizard to do things he shouldn’t, which frustrates him even more. I finally admitted I just can’t keep up and we need to hire someone to help with the house temporarily.

But will I do it? Probably not. I just need to wash my superwoman cape, drink more coffee and wine and get it done Because apparently I’m a control freak, LOL! FYI–so is Wizard, which is why he’s STILL mowing the yard when he shouldn’t be and he refuses to let me do it.

Oh on a totally different subject. I saw my RA doctor last week for routine boring stuff. I had to tell him that I had broken my toe in July. Of course he asked me how I did it. By the end of describing how I accidentally knocked a huge bread knife off a cutting board and the handle hitting my toe, my doctor was struggling not to laugh. I said, “This stuff can’t just happen to me.”

He assured me it can happen to anyone. “But it usually happens to you.”

I can even deny the truth in that statement. Especially when I’m distracted and thinking about everything except what I’m doing at that very second. But the good news is my doctor examined the toe and said it looks like it healed fine. By the way, he’s a great doctor who has helped me tremendously and laughing at me doesn’t offend me at all.

How was your weekend?

Happy Friday!

This is crazy, how is it Friday???

The Epic Gopher Battle continues. Tuesday morning, Wizard went out front in the morning to check the side hill. At the exact moment Wizard saw a freshly dug hole–the gopher popped out to look right at him.

Un-freaking-believable.

Wizard was so mad, he dragged the hose over and tried to flush him out. It didn’t work, and later when Wizard checked the hole again, the gopher had buried it. Ever since then, the battle has raged on. But both of us are torn between frustration and admiration for the little dude–he’s smart and very industrious. But I counted thirteen holes on the hill, and those are just the ones we can see. There are probably more hidden by our landscaping. We wish Bailey Dog was here, trust me, Bailey would find him.

Although Special K told us that one of their dogs, Corky, is also an excellent hunter. We may be borrowing Corky for a day or two. Although…he’s such a sweet dog I’m not sure I’d want to give him back, LOL! I mean come on, look at this little face?

My good news is I just got the novella, Savaged Surrender, back from my editor and I’m happy-dancing! There’s nothing like hearing “great job” after working our butts off, right? Now I just need to do the final edits and simple fixes, and then send it off to the copy editor. I plan to release it on October 24th. I’ve also been working on edits for Savaged Dreams (book one of the Savaged Illusions trilogy).

I’m working this weekend, going to dinner with Wizard and whatever else pops up. I desperately need to clean too but there’s just not enough hours in the day lately.

What are you doing this weekend?

 

Wednesday Worthy

My novella Savaged Surrender is in my editor’s hands. While I made it on getting the revision in on time, I’m going to have to push back the Oct 10 publishing date. Once I get this last pass done, I want to have it proofread and I’ll need it formatted and that’s going to take more time. I’m not going to release it before I think it’s fully ready, butit’ll happen soon!

Now for Wednesday Worthy. Does anyone want to guess why I chose this guy for the blog today?

That’s right–he has a dog friend So what do you think of the guy, is he worthy?

**Note I’ll be gone all morning, but I’ll answer comments when I get home.

Weekend Roundup

Guess who is working like a dog? Yep, it’s me! I’m going nonstop to get this into the editor by Monday night. I took three breaks:

1) I went to the movies with Wizard on Friday to see Sully. I don’t think it was a blockbuster, but it was the perfect break from the book.

2) I went to breakfast on Sunday morning and scarfed down double blueberry pancakes. They were delicious!

3) I waited until Wizard was gone, then vacuumed the house to keep him from doing it. His back is seriously a mess, but it’s a fight to keep him from doing certain things, so I have to be sneaky I’m typing this blog before he’s home–he’s not going to be happy that I did it, but tough luck. He can vacuum all he wants once his back is better.

So that was my exciting weekend. Oh wait, I almost forgot the gopher update. For two days, there are no more holes, and no signs of him. So either he’s gone, or he’s laying low and plotting his comeback. We shall see!

How was your weekend?

Happy Friday & He’s Back!

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!

 

 

Wednesday Worthy

I’m so deep in the writing cave right now, I almost forgetting to eat. I know…shocking! But I had to laugh at one thing: So you all heard the news that Angelina Jolie filing for divorce from Brad Pitt, right?

Yawn, whatever. I just don’t care about them.

What amused me is Wizard. This is TOP OF THE FREAKING NEWS at 5:00 o’clock, with a teaser line that said something like, “Golden Couple Getting Divorced!” Wizard is watching it (he’s in some pain from the same old herniated disc, and I’m trying to keep him sitting, but that’s another story), and he blurted out, “What the hell? I thought we were the golden couple.” He’s dead serious and then he posts that sentiment on Facebook with a picture of the two of us.

I’m probably really tired, but that just made me laugh. Somehow I don’t think Wizard and I have quite the same cache or influence as Brad and Angeline But it’s awesome that he thinks we’re the “golden couple.”

Right now, I’m desperately trying to make Ana and Ethan from Savaged Surrender “the golden couple.” I think they’ve reached silver or bronze, but it’s going to take a lot more work to hit that “golden” mark.

Hey…I said I was tired, right???? Because this whole post has made total sense to me

And moving onto Wednesday Worthy, here’s our candidate:

So what do you think? Is he worthy?

Weekend Roundup

It was a busy weekend! First, no sign of our Gopher! It looks like after a week of an intense battle, Wizard may have won!

Saturday we had a great time going to lunch and wine tasting. It’s beautiful out there in the Temecula Wine Country. We came home with three bottles of wine that we’ll admire but be too cheap to actually drink unless there’s a super special occasion

Sunday was a mixed bag. I had a good writing day and made really solid progress on the novella revision. I feel pretty positive right now (but wait ten minutes, that could change, LOL). In between writing, I made these donuts:

The donuts were baked not fried, and came out a little dry. I can adjust the recipe and baking temp and time to compensate for that. And next time, instead of the glaze and crumb topping, I think I’ll use a chocolate ganache. The crumb topping just adds dryness, so it works better on a fried donut.

The minor blip on the weekend was Sunday morning when I decided to make a quick trip to Target and the driver’s side mirror on my car broke. As I made a left turn, the darn thing just snapped and started swiveling back and forth at will. What’s even more frustrating is this happened on the passenger side of the car two months ago, on the very morning we were leaving for the RWA Conference in San Diego. So I know EXACTLY how much it’s going to cost to fix and it’s not cheap. At that time, we didn’t have time to mess with it, so we just dropped it off at our trusted repair place to fix while we were gone.

This time, Wizard may attempt to repair it himself using YouTube Experts as a guide. Fingers crossed that it works! But I can’t really complain too much, the car is seven years old and stuff breaks.

So how was your weekend?