Jennifer Apodaca's Blog, page 160

Weekend Roundup

So how was everyone’s Mother’s Day? We had a blast here. Kids + Dogs + Margaritas + Hot Tub = FUN!

Cookie and Corky were tired! (Corky is on the left, Cookie on the right)

We missed Bailey! He had to stay home since he doesn’t always play well with other dogs. But Bailey is coming to stay with us for a week in June, so that’ll be fun.

The weekend had a mild hiccup. On Friday, just a couple hours after I sent the manuscript of CAGED MAGIC to the editor, my other editor sent copy edits for EXPOSING THE HEIRESS and needed them done by Monday.  That’s what I get for planning a weekend off But the good news is, Wizard and the kids all pitched in and everything worked out fine. I got the copy edits done and had fun too.

So how was your weekend?

Happy Friday and Mother’s Day!

Sending out a special wish to all the Moms!

Cute little Teddy bear giving a bouquet made of hearts

Today I’m finishing up CAGED MAGIC to send off to the editor. I’ve been clocking 12 to 16 hour days (I wish I was exaggerating!).  I can’t wait to get a break — but not this weekend. Saturday I’m making enchiladas to talk out to my mother-in-law for dinner. I haven’t seen her in a while, so that’ll be nice. I volunteered this because I thought the kids were busy (and I always understand that). But it turns out they are coming over Sunday so I need to figure out something to have for them too. We’ll barbecue hamburgers or something easy so it’ll work out and we’ll have fun.

So what are your plans?

Wednesday Worthy!

I’m so sorry I didn’t respond to comments on Monday. In two words, Monday Sucked. In more words, Monday Sucked Big Fat Donkey Dongs. But Tuesday was soooo much better and I expect today will be fine too.

Back to Monday, the painters didn’t show up (car trouble) after I’d gotten up before 5 am to shower and get some work done before they arrived. It pretty much went downhill from there with various things, including three and a half hours in the dentist office working on a bridge for the tooth I had extracted. Not Fun.  For anyone wondering, after long, endless, boring discussions with my doctors, we ruled out an implant due to my medical history. Everyone was on the same page with this decision EXCEPT my oral surgeon who assured me I was making a terrible mistake.

Whatever, now I’m committed to my terrible mistake On the upside, I now have a lovely new temporary bridge and can smile without being self conscious. (Wizard swore no one could see the missing molar, but it bugged me.) I’ll get the permanent one in two weeks, and that visit will be much faster and easier.

And the painters made made it out yesterday — the kitchen is all finished! So happy about that. And I do want to that despite this one glitch, the guys we’ve had here have been great. Seriously.

Even better? I doing my final edit on CAGED MAGIC and should have it in on Friday, barring zombie attack, fire or food poisoning type events.  Fingers crossed And while I’m talking about CAGED MAGIC, my assistant, Anna, just put it up on Goodreads for anyone who wants to add it to their reading list. Click here to find it.

All that said, I’m truly sorry I didn’t respond to comments on Monday. You guys are a priority to me, and I don’t like the feeling that I’ve ignored you. I’ll do better!

So…maybe this picture of our Wednesday Worthy Candidate will make it up to you:

Strong Athletic Man Fitness Model Torso showing six pack abs. isolated on black background

What do you think? Is he worthy?

 

Weekend Roundup

Weekend was good, there’s just never enough time. But I finally got to hang out with my friend and start shopping for a dress for the RITA Awards (Her Temporary Hero was nominated for a RITA). We had a blast, were gone for hours, and came home.

Wizard, looked us both over and said, “Seriously you bought nothing?”

“Well she bought lip gloss,” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “You were gone for HOURS. I still think you should wear the red dress you already have.”

He just doesn’t get it. LOL. I found two dresses that I really liked. One I ruled out after I realized I had glitter-sparkles all over me from trying that dress on. That will get annoying so I eliminated that dress. I’m seriously considering the other one while looking at more online now that I have a better idea of my size.

So today the guys are coming back to paint and by the end of the day, the kitchen should be fully restored after the water leak. I’ll be hiding and working in my “corner office” which literally is just a chair in a corner of a bedroom :-). I’m in the last hundred pages of revising, then I’ll do one clean up pass and send it back to the editor.

Now it’s your turn! How was your weekend?

 

Happy Friday!

It’s May! Unbelievable! The last month or two racked up somes serious craziness. But it’s a new month so I’m going to be positive. My kitchen is nearly finished after three non stop days of restoration work, so yay! It took Wizard and I about two hours to clean everything and put away all the stuff in the cubpards, but it’s all pretty much back to normal.  Monday they will paint and touch up, then hopefully, be completely finished.

CAGED MAGIC…well I’m working my backside off in between everything else. I love it so much, love that Linc is fierce and hard, yet his heart is soft when it comes to those he cares about. He comes from a hellish background but doesn’t let it destroy him. I love that.  And Risa, she’s just wants to keep a vow to her murdered friend and save baby Kendall (Risa’s godchild). But things are stacking up against her very quickly. I just hope I’m telling their story the way it deserves to be told.

And then one day, I can sleep again

But for all you asking about a release date for CAGED MAGIC, the plan is July 20th. We pushed it back due to craziness crashing into my life and, frankly, the book needed more time.

As for this weekend, I’m working, then Sunday going out with my friend for shopping and lunch. We had to cancel last time due to the leak in the my kitchen, so I’m really looking foward to it.

So what are your weekend plans?

Wedensday Worthy

It’s hot and miserable here, with construction type people in my house working to fix my kitchen after the water leak, my email is piling up to scary heights, and I’m desperately trying to find time and quiet to work on CAGED MAGIC to get it in shape for the editor next week. Frankly, I need help…so I called in these guys:

 

 

What do you think? Are they worthy?

Weekend Roundup

I’m back to a crazed work schedule, desperately hoping to get CAGED MAGIC back to the editor next week. Adding to the stress, the restoration work on our kitchen is supposed to begin Tuesday. Should be…interesting. But I did get a break this weekend, baking cupcakes and going to CPA Boy’s to celebrate his birthday since we had to cancel the previous week. All the kids came, and we got to play with these two:

Cookie exhausted after we all left

Corky hamming for the camera

 

And these are Chocolate Kaluha cucpakes with a mousse-gnache I made using this recipe

 

How was your weekend?

Happy Friday

My website went through updates, and now when I log in, I have to do math to “prove my humanity.” I kid you not. Apparently the ability to do math proves we’re human. Calculators and computers will be so sad to learn that In any case,  I absolutely hate it. It’s just annoying more than anything. I can actually do simple math but why should I have to? I thought that was the point of usernames and passwords. Making me jump through more hoops just to get into my own website is frustrating.

Hmm, it seems I’m suddenly a ranty witch With all that’s been going on, it’s pretty funny that I’m losing it over something like a simple A+B=C math problems that takes me about 3 seconds to complete.

In other news, I’m working my tail off now that I have a reasonable handle on revising CAGED MAGIC. I’m also finalizing details for the release date and will announce it soon. My assistant, Anna, is making plans too. Exciting times! And scary. CAGED MAGIC is a huge, some would say, insane risk. But risk keeps life interesting.

This weekend will probably be quiet, maybe we’ll see CPA Boy and for sure, I’m working. What about you guys? Any weekend plans?

 

Wednesday Worthy

I’m working feverishly, determined to get this revision done despite my resembling some kind of carnival fun house lately.  I do have to tell you guys this one little thing though because…well… my days of being classy are clearly over. So we had the insurance estimator out yesterday and both Wizard and I were tired. Like…walking into walls tired. Oh wait, I can be fully rested and caffeinated and still walk smack into a wall. Hmm…what’s another description of tired?

Oh, I know! I was so tired I didn’t even want wine. Yeah…that tired

So anyway, the guy’s doing his job, measuring, calculating, punching into numbers on his computer, making graphs and I’m just trying to stay out of his way.  So I step back in a doorway where the insurance adjust can’t see me.

But Wizard can.

And Wizard’s being all manly and serious. Discussing numbers and timelines, and you know being profession and all mature.

So I flashed him. Wizard, not the insurance adjuster. Okay I didn’t actually flash Wizard, but I lifted my shirt and inch or two as if I was going to do it.

OMG…you had to see Wizard’s face! His eyes went wide, and a second later, his mouth twitched as he tried not to laugh. Totally priceless! And yet, he kept talking away with the insurance guy. I know, I know, so immature of me. I used to be so grown up but lately, I’m finding maturity overrated.

Also, I woke up enough to have some wine after the insurance adjuster left.

And just so you know, the very nice, professional and insurance adjuster had no idea. I promise.  Only Wizard knew what wickedness I was plotting. Oh and now all of you too

Now that you’re all wondering if I’ve lost my mind (probably), let’s move on to Wednesday Worthy. Here is this week’s candidate:

So what do you think? Is he worthy?

Weekend Roundup

Holy Water Leaks, this was so not how I thought my weekend would go. So Friday night, I was cleaning the stove after dinner, and noticed a water stain on my stove top.

Then I felt a drop on my hand.

I looked up and saw water dripping down the microwave. I found more drips, and looked right to the wall where I saw the ripples in the paint. Not. Good. I knew we had a leak.

So my kitchen  looked like this a couple years ago when we updated with granite and new sink and faucet:

While there’s more updates we’d like to do someday (like lighting and a new fridge) I love my kitchen, it’s my happy place. But it wasn’t very happy this weekend. See that header above the upper cupboards with the row of six pictures? There was a water leak somewhere behind that.  The restoration crew had to come in Saturday and strip out the cupboards and microwave, cut holes and find the leak. Once they did that, the plumbers fixed it.

 

 

No mold and no lasting damage, so Yay for that! We caught the leak when it was a slow drip before the pipe burst and became a true disaster (pure luck). The next step is 48 hours of a jet plane in my house: Just kidding, these are the driers/blowers/dehumidifier things that only sound like jet planes. But they are making sure everything is absolutely dry so it’s all good.

It’ll take about a week to get back to normal. So far, everyone we’ve worked with on this, from our insurance to the contractors, have been awesome and reduced our stress. Thankfully this didn’t happen last week when I was recovering from surgery or a couple weeks ago when Wizard was recovery. And Wizard is retired so having him around really helps too.

Sadly, we didn’t get to see CPA boy for his birthday but he understood (obviously) and we’ll reschedule for next weekend. I’m also rescheduling a dress shopping/lunch date with my friend because friends always understand that life throws us curve balls.

That said, I’m pretty much exhausted with all this. And I still have to fix my tooth (once it’s healed and it’s healing “perfectly” according to the oral surgeon) plus deal with what appears to be a cyst in my ankle according the the orthopedic doctor.  Also Wizard is having an ongoing issue with his foot too. None of this is serious, just sort of stacking up to the point of being really tired.  All I want to do is write, but life doesn’t always work that way.

However, I will get CAGED MAGIC done and back to the editor as soon as I can. And one thing that thrilled me is that the copy editor for EXPOSING THE HEIRESS contacted me to tell me she enjoyed working on the book, and  “I was completely hooked the whole way through and there were times the suspense was so intense that I actually forgot to breathe.” I’ve never had a publisher copy editor do that before, so I am wildly happy about it.

So how was your weekend? I really want to know guys!