C.L. Bevill's Blog, page 2

Now on Sale!

 On one day everything was normal.  The next morning billions of people had vanished, and new magical creatures had appeared, altering not only the Earth but everyone who woke up on that one day.  Lulu survived the change, only to encounter far worse situations than she’d ever known before.  Two years after a sea of dreams transformed everything, Lulu searches for “tech bubbles,” places where technology is still operational, and consequently useful to the survivors.  What she discovers is that not all weapons from the past are nonfunctioning, and that the past is never truly dead.  She will fight to save the new world and everyone she’s come to love.
Discovering her own powers, Lulu is on a frantic journey to recover items that will shut down a doomsday device.  Nothing will ever be as easy as snapping one’s fingers as she encounters new animals, new people on a weird purple world, and who her enemies really are.
Ruins of Dreams is the fourth novel in the Dreams series.  The order is Sea of Dreams, Mountains of Dreams, Forests of Dreams, and Ruins of Dreams.
 
Available at Amazon here.
Available at B&N here.
Available at Smashwords here.

The Fat Woman and the Teenager OR How my Teeth are Grinding

How many times has it been said that one should beware the teenager?  How I admire the middle school and high school teachers for their ability to deal with this elusively recalcitrant creature of yore.  I always thought that no, it could never happen to me.  Then it did.







HIM, the man to I am married for over three decades, and I had a child late in life, so we both thought we were prepared.  However, I hadn't experienced that noise IT, the child who will be an official teenager in March, makes when it's listening to me and I'm saying something it doesn't want to hear.  The sound: a kind of sigh that is long-suffering, condescending, and sardonic, all at the same time.  I bet you know that sigh.  To be perfectly frank I probably did the same exact sigh when I was that age.  Somewhere my mother is laughing in her grave.  (That laugh from the characters on The Simpsons.  Haha!)





via GIPHY


I got the sigh this morning.  Why?  I think it was simply because I said good morning.  Then it dawned on me that I probably asked for this, in the greater scheme of things.  I tempted karma by saying my kid was different.  My kid is not like the other kids.  My kid won't be like that stereotypical teenager.  Haha!






Actually I think the kid is an emerging emo.  She wants to wear all black now.  Except for jeans.  Blue jeans, everything else black.  I tried getting into it with her.  ("How about that black shirt?  That would look good on you."  This generally results in me getting one of those sighs.)


No, I don't think she's stupid, but I wonder how stupid she thinks I am.  For example, she'll start explaining something to me like she was talking to a two-year-old.  ("First, Mother, you wipe your ass with toilet paper...")




And that sigh.  I want to put ear muffs on before she does it because I think my blood pressure shoots up ten degrees after I hear it.  All that drama.  Dram-ah.


via GIPHY
That's about it.  She's not even officially thirteen, and I'm counting the time down until she's twenty.  I think I'm hosed.

Now Available The Bubba Mysteries Novels Collection

The Bubba Mysteries Novels Collection

Previously published as Bubba and the Dead Woman, Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, Bubba and the Missing Woman, Brownie and the Dame, Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note, The Ransom of Brownie, Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies, and Bubba and the Ten Little Loonies.
Come join Bubba in rural Texas where the murders are fresh and the crazy sauce is brimming to the top!
Six novels and two novellas at a fantastic price!Over 550,000 words of pure-D Texan hilarity!
Available at Amazon here.Available at B&N here.Available at Smashwords here.

Now Available: Forests of Dreams

Forests of Dreams (Dreams #3)




On one day everything was normal.  The next morning billions of people had vanished, and new magical creatures had appeared, altering not only the Earth but everyone who woke up on that one day.  Lulu survived the change, only to encounter far worse situations than she’d ever known before.  Two years after a sea of dreams transformed everything, Lulu searches for “tech bubbles,” places where technology is still operational, and consequently useful to the survivors.  What she discovers is that not all weapons from the past are nonfunctioning, and that the past is never truly dead.  She will fight to save the new world and everyone she’s come to love.

Book 3 of the Dreams novels.  Book 1 is Sea of Dreams.  Book 2 is Mountains of Dreams. 
Available on Amazon Kindle here.
Available on Smashwords here.
Available soon on B&N.
Available on iTunes.
Available on Kobo here.

 

Dichotomy of an Election

I remember the first time I voted in a Presidential election.  I voted for Reagan.  I don't remember why I voted for Reagan, probably because he once worked with a chimpanzee.  Then I think I voted for Bush.  Then Bush again.  Or maybe it was Ross Perot.  (Who, for all of you neophytes, was Trump before Trump was Trump.)
Then I don't remember exactly because the whole 90s and early 2000s were a blur.
Every time there's a Presidential election year, things have a massive tendency to go sideways.  Mudslinging happens.  Mudslinging on crack happens.  Things are said that most people would never dream about saying.
And there's this year.  This year is a state of utter confusion confounded by idiocy and the inability for people to stop for a moment and take a good look around them.
I mean, what the hell happened?
I suppose I could say something about the obvious villain: the Electoral College, but would that do me any good?  I think not.
So without further ado, unless ado is running for President 2016, which if we want to go with puns, it's true, two doos are running.  There were other doos to be sure, but they dropped out.

Meh

Nothing much happened in this blog.

The Fat Woman Continues the D OR How I Felt Like a Criminal in the Misses Section at Walmart

Warning: Fat Woman will talk about...dieting...AGAIN!  Ranting may be involved.  Plus diet memes.  Lots of diet memes.  If diet memes offend you, this is your big opportunity to click on the x in the upper right hand corner.  Don't say I didn't warn ya!


So I'm on month four of the lifestyle change.  (MONTH FOUR!  Four months.  Sixteen weeks.  112 days.  2,688 hours.  161,280 minutes.  Yes.  I've been thinking about this a lot.)  I've plateaued like four times and each time is worse than the last.  Currently I've lost a total of 37 pounds.  I eat 1000 to 1100 calories a day and I exercise six times a week.  I hate that I've stopped losing weight.  If I weren't going to go to the doctor next month I would be screaming "WHY!  Why am I not losing weight?"  I've looked up all kinds of answers.  I'm not cheating on food portions.  I might not be sleeping enough.  I might not be getting enough vitamin D.  I might have some issues with hormones.

All things I need to take up with the M.D.  Plus he hasn't seen me for 37 pounds and I expect some kind of doctorly happiness over my weight loss.


I want the guy to be enthusiastic, dammit.  I want him to do a cheerleading routine on my weight loss!  I want him to run out into the hallway and scream out that I'm the best patient, ever!  Am I going to be disappointed?  Probably.
 
So this last week I went to get a new pair of pants.  Why?  All my other pairs of jeans are sliding down my ass which isn't a style choice I like to go with.


Although I did some sewing to save myself a little money and also to use the old jeans as working-in-the-garden jeans, even those are too baggy, so they went up on the shelf in the closet because I can't quite bring myself to throw them away...yet.

Therefore I'm in Walmart.  Why am I in Walmart?  Because Walmart is where I usually buy my fat jeans.  You can see my mindset hasn't yet moved into the proper zone.  I literally went to Walmart to buy my fat jeans because it hadn't sunk in that I didn't need to buy fat jeans again.  (Duh moment approaching.)  Without hesitation I went to the fat women's section.  (They call it the women's section because calling it the fat section might not be PC.)  I'm standing there like a doofus because I can't find a size 14.


Yes, I am truly confused.  I look.  I look again.  I look a third time, and then I had to scratch my head.  I think if I was MacGyver, I would have found it.  In fact, I would have used a Swiss Army knife to make a new pair for myself out of old ones.


Then it dawns on me.


I'm in the wrong section.  I was IN THE WRONG FRICKIN' SECTION.  So I surreptitiously slide on over to the misses section.  I expect someone will yell at me like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I mean, I'm looking around expecting someone to look at me and ask, "What are you doing here?"  But they don't and I'm all like, "Hey, this must be a meaningful moment."

 I went to the US Space & Rocket Center to see my daughter graduate from Space Camp the very next day, and my husband who I was meeting there, did not recognize me when he was looking for me.  So it's another meaningful moment. I may be plateaued, but it doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad thing. Fat Woman out.

More Thoughts About the "D" Word OR How Fat Woman Deals With the "D" Word in a Snarky Fashion

So the "D" word news is old.  I've been put on a good food timeout.  I've lost 20 pounds and no one has said anything which is a little depressing, but I have to be realistic.  Regardless, I have to look at nutrition labels everywhere I go.  If I'm really bored I look at how many calories are in the fast food items I can't even touch.  (1/3 Lb. Mushroom and Swiss Thickburger from Hardees's, which has 650 calories in it.  Their 1/3 Lb. Frisco Thickburger has 930 calories.  I couldn't even eat a 1/3 of that in my present plan.)  I worry about sounding like Reformed Diet Fiend.  "Hey, person I don't know," I say to a random stranger in a fast food place, "did you know that has 930 calories in it?  Hey, where ya going?"  Previously I complained about HIM, the man to whom I'm married, and how's he's lost 25 pounds and he's got all kinds of people saying stuff to him.  (Showoff.)

Therefore I haz some shizz to say about what I've learned in the last five weeks.

Anyway, it turns out that if you substitute turkey for some of the meats you can get more bang for your buck.  However, the bang doesn't exactly taste right.  Example: Jenni-O turkey hot dogs.  These aren't actually bad.  They have about 70 calories per dog and they don't taste exactly wrong.  If you put a crapload of mustard on them, you're golden.  (No pun intended.)
It was hot and it was technically a dog, so yes, it was.The turkey hot dog was our first foray into the wide world of turkey biproducts.
I know this really doesn't have anything to do with the blog, but
I never would have thought to do this with a coffee pot.Having partially succeeded with the turkey hot dog, we went for the turkey burger.  I believe our reasoning was something along the lines of "But the turkey hot dog wasn't bad."  These turkey burgers are also Jenni-O's, and they're preformed patties that you fry up and supposedly eat like a regular burger.  I ate the first one okay.  I added a towering pile of sautéed mushrooms and onions, baby, and more mustard.  (I'll whisper a little dietary secret about mustard.  The bottle says it has 0 calories.  0, 0, 0, which is good for me.  Someone's probably going so say something about sodium, but I've got a trade-off here, and I'm going with 0 calories.  0!)  (Also mushrooms and onions are like, retroactive calorie foods.  It takes you more calories to prepare them than they contain, and no, I didn't use butter or oil to sauté them.)  HIM liked the turkey burger so much we made it the next day.  But then my stomach said, "Oh, hell no," and I couldn't finish it, probably because it suddenly had the consistency and smell of fried Alpo.  (I never fried dog food, but I had to try some dry dog food kibble when I was about ten because if my dog was eating it then I should too.  Anyone who was a kid with a dog has done this, don't deny it.)
Do you think this woman looks at memes of herself all day long?And surprisingly there were more memes about turkey burgers than I would have imagined, which meant I have to post them in my blog because...because...the memes have 0 calories, too.  0!
So this guy finally retired.  They sent his
character into space in the commercial.  How degrading.
I bet they didn't send Dos XX's with him.
"In space, no one can hear you scream because there is no beer."So turkey hot dogs = okay.  Turkey burgers = only when you're starving to death, on a desert island, without any coconuts, and Tom Hanks is unavailable for backup.  (Which sometimes I feel like I am starving to death, but then I think I could eat a turkey burger.  Then I think, "I'm not really starving to death.")
And I got distracted again.  This guy is from Turkey, and I don't
know why it's supposed to be funny, but I liked it anyway.Next up on the turkey byproduct list was Jenni-O's attempt at a sweet Italian turkey sausage.  (Think a turkey version of a brat.)  (Somewhere there's an underground guerilla group of turkeys who are planning to bomb Jenni-O factories.)
Distracted again.  I would say it was the diet, but it's probably just me.Then we tried Jimmy Dean turkey breakfast sausages.  You can hear me squealing in the meat aisle when I read on the back that it's 100 calories per serving and one serving includes two sausages.  Two.  (Those people at the supermarket don't like it when I squeal.  I'm not sure what they think is going to happen but it can't be pretty.)
I couldn't find a turkey sausage meme.
Would you look at that picture?
Seriously, who eats kiwi and blueberries at
brekky?  By the way, the diet Nazi in me sez
this is actually showing 1 1/2 servings of turkey
sausage patties, so it's slightly misleading.Despite the lack of memes in the breakfast turkey sausage arena, the sausages aren't bad.  They only mildly taste like dog food.  (HIM adds Siracha sauce liberally.  I mean he drowns the poor little sausage-y bastards in it, but he also has to add the calories to his app.)  (I suppose if I put cheese on it, slapped some mayo on it, added a fried egg, on top of a toasted English muffin it wouldn't be so bad, but then I couldn't eat anything else during the day, which would suck about 4 PM, whereupon I would likely strangle everyone in the house.  Maybe the neighbors, too.)

So I went looking for recipes and found one for meatloaf.  I decided that I would attempt to make a lower calories version of meatloaf using lean ground beef and lean ground turkey.  Believe me when I say that I added the normal amount of onions to the recipe and then I doubled it because I knew if I didn't it would taste more like dog food again.
  I went looking for turkey meatloaf memes and I couldn't find any,
but I did find this picture that someone did for their recipe, so I
will now make fun of it by saying it looks like
a turkey meatloaf fruitcake.
That just made me gag.My turkey meatloaf wasn't terrible, but it wasn't my regular yummy meatloaf.
So someone got really bored with their turkey meatloaf and
threw boiled eggs in it.  I did not do this with mine.  Maybe
next time.And I continued to look for memes to amuse myself.
I yam amused.  Also I have no yams.More meatloafy memes.
I thought I was perverse.  Someone actually
took the time to make a baby meatloaf with
bacon diapers.  This looks uber gross.  I
wish they posted the after it was cooked part.Finally the Dos XX's guy again.
This has to do with Meatloaf, but not meatloaf.
Get it?  Also, he probably won't have meatloaf
in space, unless it's the freeze dried kind,
which is probably worse than the turkey meatloaf fruitcake.Anyway, tomorrow we're trying a different type of turkey sausage.  (Think kind of Hillshire Farms smoked sausage except with turkey.)  I don't know.  I hope it doesn't taste like Alpo.

Fat Woman (who might have to rename her blog) out.

Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness is OUT!

Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness is out!
It’s the day of Bubba and Willodean’s wedding day.  The sun is shining.  There isn’t a cloud in the sky.  The pergola is decorated in high style with baby’s breath and ribbons streaming galore, and the preacher is ready.  So what can possibly go wrong? Just about everything can go wrong.  While twenty-two types of canapés are being served along with gallons of mimosas, Bubba finds the one thing that he well and truly did not want to find.  There’s a dead body in his house.  Then the dead body disappears while Bubba goes for help.  Then the body reappears with nary a witness except Bubba.  One would think all of that would be bad enough, but throw in a super steampunk villain, a cranky baby, no available cellphones, a mother who invited “everyone” to the wedding, and dozens of people trying to keep a secret from Bubba, and one’s got a bona fide comical caper of epic proportions.

The questions are very nearly endless.  Will there be a wedding?  Will Bubba ever find the dead body again?  Will he find out who the murderer is?  Will this trailer ever end? Bubba and the Wacky Wedding Wickedness is the seventh book in the Bubba Mystery series.  The series is as follows: Bubba and the Dead Woman, Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, Bubba and the Missing Woman, Brownie and the Dame (3.5), Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note, The Ransom of Brownie (4.5), Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies, and Bubba and the Ten Little Loonies.

Buy it at Amazon here. Buy it at B&N here. Buy it at Smashwords here.

Fat Woman and the Diet of Doom

Anyone who is on Facebook with me knows that I'm on a diet.  Why because I'm posting about it all the time.  (Also known as bitching about it all the time.)
Jeez, I hate this.  On my last visit to the doctor, he tells me, "Well, look at that, we have some new news.  You're still a borderline diabetic, but now you've got Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 3."  I had to go look that shizz up because my mind kind of blurred after the words came out of the doctor's mouth.  You have to picture it in slow motion.  "CER-RON-IC...KID-KNEE...DEE-ZEES," he said.  Since he's the doctor, I'm technically obliged to listen, no matter how much I don't want to listen.

Then came some other stuff like Weight Clinic and Optifast and injections, and I think my brain kind of dropped out of orbit, kind of like Skylab.  (You have to be of a certain age to remember that one, so the hell with you if you have to Google it.)  (I looked for a Skylab meme and I couldn't find one and so I looked for one for the International Space Station and I did find a mildly funny one, but then I was really distracted and found one that has nothing to do with diets, space stations, or anything in the blog, which is the one I'm going to put below.)
In space, no one can hear John Williams'
infamous score.  You know it because
you're humming it right now.Anyway, Skylab was the precursor to the International Space Station.  Astronauts went up, hung out, did experiments, and sang songs.  Then the whole kit and caboodle fell down in the seventies.  I think it hit part of Australia.  And you didn't have to Google it.
An International Space Station cartoon because I can.So I talked to my husband about the diet.  Words were said like, "We must," "I must," and "You must."  I talked to our daughter.  Support was mandated.  I then went to this weight clinic because we initially decided to do the Optifast thing.  I talked to the counselor there.  This is where the problems started.

It's my concerted opinion that their weight control Nazi megalomaniac twat in charge of bringing in people to their $2300 program (not to mention $120 per week for the shake product) is, oh, shall we try to use a polite term, or should I just call a guilt-inducing, non-compassion having, prune-faced, know-it-all spade a spade?  I think I just did.
Of course, my mini-rant calls for a meme.Therefore it dawns on me that it doesn't matter who is holding my hand, because I'm going to have to do it myself no matter what.
I hate Dr. Phil, too.  He's a total jerkface.  I don't think he really
has a degree in psychology, but I don't feel like looking it up.And I thought about it and I thought about it.  There was only one way to go and that was to count calories and exercise.  It sucks to count everything that goes in your mouth, (no nasty jokes there), but I gotta do it.

Furthermore, I had to apologize in advance to my husband, HIM who still remains nameless, for transmogrifying into Diet Nazi Bitch.  I suggested to HIM that the reason that he wasn't losing weight was because he was eating too many calories.  I use the S Fit app on my Samsung which is pretty damn good for doing that, if a little time consuming.  (Insert fat joke here.)  So he's counting all his calories too.  We've both lost about ten pounds, which is good, but here's the shizzy part.  He eats about 2000 calories a day and I eat about 1000 calories a day.  This SUCKS!
I love this artist.How is that fair?  He literally eats twice as much as I do (but he did give up beer and wine) and he gets the same bennies.  This blows.  Now I've plateaued for a few days which also blows because it's depressing to get on the scale after days of STARVING YOURSELF. for pete's sake, and there is no decrease in weight.  My mantra is usually muttered in a manic fashion while glaring at the numbers on the scale, "Stick to it, stick to it, stick to it."
Oh, I've gotten pretty creative.  We had turkey hot dogs today.I'm going on a trip to visit my sister and I'm probably going to have to apologize in advance for anything that comes out of my mouth there, but this is not just a diet, it's permanent.  I have to eat like this for the rest of my life.

Shopping at Target: Runs into the sample woman.  The sample woman says, "Here, have one."  She offers something with sausage, cheese, and other stuff on it.  I say, "I can't eat that.  I wouldn't know how to count all the $#$%^!! calories on it.  What's wrong with you?  Can't you see that I'm a fat woman on a diet?  Can't you offer it to skinny women who obviously need the calories.  Jesus Tapdancing Christ, what is the problem with you people?"  HIM: "Honey, just let it go and we'll go browse through the vegetables again."

Dieting is definitely affecting me.  I was at Home Depot the other day and was minding my own business when I stopped to let a man with a cart full of siding go in front of me.  He saw my t-shirt which said: "Home is where the wifi is at", and said, "That's the stupidest t-shirt I've ever seen."  Then I said, without pausing, which isn't usually the way I am, but it was an hour before dinner, "No one $&*@#^!! cares what you think."  Well, he was rude first, and I suppose I should have been carrying my "Danger: Dieting Fat Woman" sign, but I wasn't.  Next time, he might know not to insult a fat woman.

In conclusion, the diet endures.