Jennifer Shirk's Blog, page 20

More Stops!

Hey, all!

Still on blog tour here, so if I haven't been around...that's why. :-)

In case you're interested, I'm at

Every Day Is An Adventure   (talking about whether or not I outline before I write)
and

It's Raining Books  (talking about how I keep it "light" in my writing)

Stop by if you get a chance!


I will be awarding a free ebook of Kissing Kendall or an ebook from my backlist (winner's choice) to a random commenter at each stop.

(There must be a minimum of 5 comments on each blog for a winner to be chosen)

I know. There's always a catch. :)

Good luck!

Two Stop Shopping

Hey, all!

Day 3 of my Blog Tour!

In case you're interested,

I'm doing a little Q&A at Kaisy Daisy's Corner

and

if you've ever wanted to see my writing spaces (yes, I said spaces-plural), I've posted a little peek into my writing world over at Welcome to My World of Dreams !


**I will be awarding a free ebook of Kissing Kendall or an ebook from my backlist (winner's choice) to a random commenter at each stop. (There must be a minimum of 5 comments on each blog for a winner to be chosen)**

Have a GREAT day!

A Day in the Life

Hi, all!

As I've mentioned before (in many many ways) I'm on blog tour all this week for my latest sweet romance release KISSING KENDALL.

Today I'm over at MY DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS talking about my typical day.

AKA Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

But stop by anyway to see my 5 out 5 STAR review for KISSING KENDALL as well as a chance to win your own copy (or a copy of one of my backlist books).

Have a great day!

BIG Happenings today!

Happy Monday!!
 I'm VERY excited today for TWO reasons.  The First Reason: my blog tour for KISSING KENDALL starts today! (Yay!)For more info on the stops and giveaways, see Friday's post. Today I'll be over at MUSINGS FROM A ADDICTED READER talking about... me. Ha! Original, I know. The Second Reason: my author friend Carol Kilgore has a new release in the works and today is her BIG cover reveal!
    A little bit about Carol:
 
Carol Kilgore is an award-winning author of several published short stories and many essays and articles.
Solomon’s Compass is her second novel-- a blend of mystery, suspense, and romance she calls Crime Fiction with a Kiss: always at least one crime and one love story.
 Carol and her Coast Guard husband live in San Antonio, Texas, with two herding dogs that like nothing better than pack time on the patio


You can find Carol here:website. blog. facebook. twitter .goodreads .amazon 

And now the reveal....

                           SOLOMON'S COMPASS
 
When U.S. Coast Guard Commander Taylor Campbell discovers her uncle’s drowning death was murder, she must determine the killer’s identity in order to prevent another murder. Jake Solomon’s job is to make sure Taylor isn’t the next victim.
  Isn't it a great cover?

Congrats, Carol!

Happy New Year!!

Yes, I'm late in posting to the blog today.

Time flies and all that.

I had a wonderful holiday-thanks for asking. I had a very relaxing time eating and reading.

PS: Don't I look cute in my Santa apron? My friend gave it to me as a Christmas gift and here I am wearing it on Christmas Eve. LOL

But now (starting maybe...this weekend?) I'm going to buckle down and get back to writing and exercising!
There. I wrote it, so it must be true.

Just a little side note...

My blog tour for KISSING KENDALL officially starts this Monday!
If you're interested in winning a copy of my new release--or even a book from my back list if you've already read it--feel free to stop on by and comment along the tour!

Here is where I'll be next week:

January 7: Musings From An Addicted Reader
January 8: My Devotional Thoughts
January 9: Kaisy Daisy's Corner
January 9: STOP 2 Welcome to My World of Dreams
January 10: Every Day Is An Adventure
January 10: STOP 2 It's Raining Books
January 11: A Chick Who Reads

My favorite Christmas gift is an outfit (yes, I said OUTFIT) my hubby bought me. It was a sweater, shirt for underneath the sweater, ring, and handbag combo.  (He obviously had help). LOL

See you Monday!!

What was your favorite Christmas gift?

Merry Christmas!

WOW! It's Christmas Eve and I overslept!
But the good news is yesterday was my "work" day baking and preparing so I really don't have a lot to do today but enjoy.
So I thought it'd be fun to end this blogging season with some fun holiday facts:

Fun FactsAll the gifts in the Twelve Days of Christmas would equal 364 giftsContrary to popular belief, suicide rates during the Christmas holiday are low. The highest rates are during the spring.Alabama was the first state in the United States to officially recognize Christmas in 1836, Oklahoma was the last.The world’s largest Christmas present was the Statue of Liberty. The French gave it to the US in 1886. It is 46.5 meters high and weights 225 tons!The giving of Gold-wrapped chocolate coins commemorates St Nicholas who gave bags of gold coins to the poor.In 1999, residents of the state of Maine in America built the world's biggest ever snowman. He stood at 113ft tall.The abbreviation Xmas isn't irreligious. The letter X is a Greek abbreviation for Christ.The twelve days of Christmas are the days between Christmas Day and Epiphany (6th of January) and represent the length of time it took for the wise men from the East to visit the manger of Jesus after his birth.
Have a Merry Christmas!

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14 See you next year!

Best Christmas Gift!

Oh, hi. Are you still here?
No end of the world, I guess.

Well, I thought FOR SURE the end was near on Monday.
I mentioned that Amazon decided to make my book SUNNY DAYS FOR SAM a Kindle Daily Deal on my blog.

I actually had to find out through seeing someone tweet about it.
When I saw it I was like, "Sunny Days... Hey, that's MY book!"

So I went over to Amazon and sure enough the price was lowered to 99 cents for that day only. So I figured I'd go with it and tell everyone.

Then this happened:
I ended the day as #16 for Best Sellers overall, #1 for Contemporary fiction, and #5 for Contemporary romance!

THANK YOU to those who bought!
THAT was so fun to see!

As well as this:
Look at my sweet little PG romance wedged between all those 50 Shades books!

And then this is what had me and my hubby chuckling over:

MOVE over JK Rowling!

Well, now the price is back to $2.99 and needless to say, JK Rowling is back in her rightful position. And I'm back to reality. LOL

But it was fun while it lasted, and a nice unexpected gift to receive!

On another note, I am DONE shopping and wrapping.
I'm still baking cookies and need to make two pies, but that's fun stuff. I'm pretty much on cruise control until Christmas.

So if you're on blog break starting today, I wish you a
VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!
And a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

So how about you? Where are you in your Christmas prepping?

Christmas Cooking--and various other things

Hello, all!

Yesterday was rainy and cold, so it was the perfect day to start my Christmas cookie making.

I made three kinds and will make another three before the week is out.

This is a new one for me and considering it's the second time I had to make this recipe this month, tells you that I can't keep it in the house very long!

It's a BROWN SUGAR GINGER CRISP.

This cookie is perrrrrrrfect with a cup of tea. It's thin, crispy, buttery with just a hint of ginger.
Very nice and delicate.
I think the girls in my cookie swap will be very happy.

I thought I'd share the recipe:

Ingredients:1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour3/4 teaspoon baking powder1/2 teaspoon salt2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened1 cup packed light brown sugar1 large egg yolk1 teaspoon vanilla1/2 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger (3 oz)1/4 teaspoon ground gingerPreheat oven to 350°F. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat together butter and brown sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at moderate speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in yolk, vanilla, and gingers. Add flour mixture and mix at low speed until just combined. Drop heaping teaspoons of dough about 3 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets and bake in batches in middle of oven until golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets on racks 5 minutes, then transfer with a metal spatula to racks to cool completely. Cooks' note: · Cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature 3 weeks.

And some things of note in case you are interested...

Amazon has dropped the price of SUNNY DAYS FOR SAM to 99 cents. I don't know why and I don't know for how long.

But there it is.

Grab it while it's CHEAP. LOL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, I'm at the lovely Kate Evangelista's blog today. She has been doing a 24 Days of Christmas Blog giveaway with various authors this month and now it's my turn. I will (naturally) be giving away a copy of my new release KISSING KENDALL .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, the winner of KISSING KENDALL from Julie Jarnagin's blog is Jessica Nelson!

And, the winner of KISSING KENDALL from Rula Sinara's blog (A Writer's Rush) is Kathleen Bosman!

Congrats!

What's YOUR favorite Christmas cookie?

Déjà vu Blogfest!

Happy Friday!

It's that time of year for a little Déjà vu Blogfest.
Want to join in?
Check out author D L Hammons' blog for more info!

I went WAY BACK. Like December 2008.
Not really my best post, but I thought it was festive and fun.
Ah, 2008.
A time when I used to do the Thursday Thirteen meme posts...
Good times.

I also thought I'd mention that this is my 1,111 blog post.
Yep. That's a lot of blogging. :)

Anyhew...I give you that holiday post now.
You can thank me later.
    Thirteen Ornaments from
Places I've Traveled
---------------------------   

1. St. Michael's Maryland

2. Atlantis! in the Bahamas


3. Red Lodge, Montana


4. Jackson Hole, Wyoming


5. Chicago





6. Charleston, South Carolina




7. Glacier National Park, Montana


8. Nantucket


9. San Francisco

10. Bermuda


11. Marblehead, Massachusetts (the Driftwood restaurant, to be exact)



12. Martha's Vineyard



13. Annapolis, Maryland

_______________________________________________________


Do you collect ornaments from where you travel too?
------------------------------------------------------------------
Since then I've added Puerto Rico and Vermont :-)


 
 

And on and on...

Hey, all!

It's Wednesday (not my usual blogging day) but I wanted to say that I'm over at my good writer/bloggy friend Jill Kemerer's blog today!

We're doing some Christmas talk.
(Oh, and I might be hosting yet another giveaway of my new release, Kissing Kendall )

*cough cough*

Have a great day!