Guest blogging today

If you're looking for me, I'm blogging over at the Slip into Something Victorian site today. Stop on over and check out my Tuesday Ten!

In Panic Mode

Now I lay me down to sleep, and not to count a single sheep. For neatly in my mind laid out, are all my chores to brood about.

I don't remember where I first heard that little ditty, but it's always held true for me. The last couple of nights, just as my weary head has finally--gratefully--sunk into the pillows, I've heard a buzzer go off. The panic alarm in the back of my brain. You know the one. "Red alert! Red alert! No time for sleep, there's work to be done!"

Yeah--that one.

Whenever there's an "event", whether it's a holiday or a birthday or something like my son's upcoming First Holy Communion celebration, I panic. Usually for days. And I don't sleep.

I don't have a lot of cooking to do for The Event, I was smart enough to plan on just a few home made things and my mother and in-laws have both asked to bring something to help out. That's fine, I don't mind letting others help.

And there's lots of cleaning to be done--not a big deal, I still have a week and plan to take Thursday and Friday both off from my day job next week to finish anything I don't get to during the beginning of the week. I am a Flybaby, after all, (not a very good one, mind you, but I try and that's all that counts. LOL) so I know how to take baby steps and do things in small doses.

It's the day job, the writing deadlines and the promoting that's tipping the scales too far in the wrong direction, LOL. Add to that I've been walking for an hour every day, something I really, really need to do, not just for myself, but for my dog and my kids, who get dragged along on these walks, and there's more time out of my day. I've been able to fit that hour in small doses, walking the kids to school -- ten minutes up, ten minutes back, twice a day. That's forty minutes. Plus a good walk for the dog that's usually between 20-30 minutes, and I've easily gotten that hour in. I feel better, I'm not dragging in the middle of the day and I'm falling to sleep faster at night. (If only I could stay asleep!) So this is not something I want to push aside, because I know I'll never get back to it.

Usually fitting it all in is never an issue for me. I stick to my schedule and things gets done. But the house is still not quite put back together from the painting marathon (simply put: everything I can put back in place has been taken care of. It's the big stuff--y'know, the "guy" stuff my husband has to help with, like hanging shelves and big pictures, that hasn't been done. Big surprise there!) The warm weather hasn't helped becuase now every night after the dh gets home, instead of being available for all those little "honey do" things I've saved up, he's working in the yard. (If you've read my blog for very long you know I'm a Lawn Widow. Once the warm weather comes, I no longer have a husband. I have a man obsessed with weeds, dandelions and whether or not the neighbor's grass is greener or lusher than his.) Is it too much to ask for a couple of good, rainy days around here in the month of April?????

Since The Model Man came out at the end of last month, I've had trouble keeping up. I usually devote my Fridays to promoting and blogging and reading other blogs, but that means squeezing more work into the other four days, sometimes spilling into the weekends. (And the one week I didn't promote--The Model Man slipped from #1 to #2 for TWRP sales at Fictionwise. Coincidence? I don't think so!!!)

Anyway, this isn't much of a blog so much as it is a vent, LOL, and it occurs to me that while I'm sitting here sniveling, I could be writing or working.

But tell me...when things pile up on you and you need to get out from under, how do you cope? Get up an hour earlier? Stay up later? Dive in and do a marathon job of catching up?

I probably won't blog much between now and The Big Day, so I'll be back sometime soon afterward to let you know how it all went.

Wish me luck!

Tagged!

I've been tagged! Not the first time it has happened, but it's always fun. Sarita Leone tagged me.

The rules:

1) Link back to the person who tagged you. 2) Post the rules on your blog. 3) Write six things about yourself. 4) Tag six people at the end of your post by posting links to their blogsites. 5) Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their site. 6) And let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Okay, now the hard part. Six random things about me.

1. My middle name is Ruth. I've always hated it. Add to that fact that I have never, ever met anyone named Ruth that I got along with and I really hate the name, LOL. When I got married, I changed my middle name to my maiden name. Now I can call myself "Ruthless" and mean it! (LOL Actually my married name starts with D--I really did it so I wouldn't have to go through life with the initials NRD.)

2. I'm a member of the sandwich generation. I have a parent with Alzheimer's-like senile dementia, and one who struggles with the role of caregiver. I also have two young children. It's every bit as difficult as I ever thought it would be; if it wasn't for the escape writing offers me, I'd probably have lost my mind a long time ago!

3. My favorite color has always been light purple--but lately everything I buy is pink: cell phone, umbrella, wallet, new jacket, sweatshirt...even my blog and website are pink! I'm told this happens when you live in a house full of males, as I do. (And yes, even our pets are male!)

4. I never read any of my work after it's published. I'm afraid I'll find a big, glaring mistake and be mortified.

5. Both my sons are named after historical figures of the old west. They also both have two middle names, because mom is indecisive and didn't want to leave any historical figures out.

6. My sister is also a published romance novelist.


That's it! My six random facts! Now I'm off to tag....

I choose:

1. Paty Jager
2. Susan Macatee
3. Cynthia Owens
4. Christine Koehler
5. Kat Henry Doran
6. Ashley Ladd

Goofing Off

After a week with the kids home from school, and the home improvement project finally in the clean up stages, I'm ready for a little R&R. The sun is shining and the weather man is promising temps near 80 (not the norm for April in my neck of the woods) so I am officially goofing off today!

Hope you get to take some time out to smell the roses today--or whatever's in bloom where you are!

Home Improvement

If you're wondering where I've been lately, you need only listen to the creaky bones and groans of pain to figure it out.

Home improvement. Not the fun kind, where you hire someone else and sit back with a nice glass of iced tea and flip through a magazine until they're done. This is the much more affordable do-it-yourself kind of home improvement.

Let me back up a sec. My oldest son makes his first holy communion the first weekend in May. As I set about planning what to serve for the brunch following the service, and where I was going to put all those people, I made a big mistake. I looked around. Some of the relatives invited have never seen my house. Some haven't seen it since I moved in. In fact, I hadn't taken a good hard look at it since I moved in! So I did.

And boy does it look bad! Seven years of grubby little hands, chocolate milk explosions and crayon renderings have really taken their toll. It's not that I never clean my walls, LOL, it's just that after a while you're actually scrubbing paint right off the walls. And hey, I'm really kind of sick of the beige on beige "neutral" look that the previous owner painted the walls in order to help sell the house.

So I have been painting. Unfortunately, once I started on one room, it made the others look really bad. I did the living room/dining room--only to discover my front hallway looked even worse when I was finished. So I painted it. But the front hallway leads to my kitchen. Speaking of my kitchen... that room has been a work in progress for oh...a good six years now. But that doesn't mean a fresh coat of paint wouldn't spruce it up.

You see where all this is going? One thing has led to another until I don't know where to stop. The good news is this week I don't have to paint around school schedules. The kids are home on spring break.

Which is why I have all those lovely paint footprints to scrub off the floors when I'm done...

Outlaw in Petticoats

There's been so much good news around me lately, it doesn't seem to want to stop. But today I wanted to take a break from sharing my OWN good news--really, it gets annoying, doesn't it??-- and share someone else's.

My dear friend and CP of 8 years now, Paty Jager received a 5 spur review for her upcoming release Outlaw in Petticoats from Love Western Romances. Here's what she had to say on her blog this morning:

Outlaw in Petticoats, the next Halsey brother book to be released in ebook on May 9th, just recieved its first review from Love Western Romances. And it has me smiling! I knew the review would be good because the website's moderator had told me she knew it received 5 spurs, but she hadn't had time to get the review up on the site yet. I had contacted her to do an author spotlight- which I can't get in until January 2009, but that's okay, by then the third book should be just about out in ebook. (fingers crossed) Anyway, after she told me that I kept checking the site- all weekend- LOL No I'm not a review addict, well maybe just a little!

So to not keep you in suspense any longer here is the url to go read the review:http://www.lovewesternromances.com/outlawpetticoatsreview.html

When I wrote the character Zeke in Marshal in Petticoats, I fell in love with him in his small role. And that must have carried over into Outlaw since both my editor and this reviewer both said they too, fell in love with Zeke. Of course I am currently in love with the brother who is the hero in Miner in Petticoats, the book I'm finishing up right now to send to my editor.

If, like me, you're a western fan, you've got to meet the Halsey Brothers. Like Paty, I had a weak spot for Zeke from the start. Outlaw was one of those books you just didn't want to see come to an end.

Big "woo hoo" for Paty--and Zeke! :o)

More Faith

If you read the previous blog, then you know I'm absolutely over the moon about the wonderful things my friend Faith had to say about The Model Man. She was kind enough to post them on the TWRP website under reviews where all potential buyers could view them.

Take a look: TWRP Review for The Model Man

Would somebody please pinch me, btw? This much good news all at once is just too good to be real!

And since this song has been stuck in my head since yesterday's post, I thought I'd share it here--you know, and get it stuck in YOUR head. *G*.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XesXjkDLImg

You gotta have Faith

Something really exciting happened to me last night. No, Ed MacMahon didn’t show up on my door step with a million dollars, nor did Orlando Bloom profess his undying passion for me (Sorry, Orlando, I’m already taken!)

But I heard from someone who read a copy of The Model Man and was excited enough to tell me how much she enjoyed it.

Some of you may be familiar with the name Faith V. Smith as a reviewer for Romantic Times magazine. Well to me, she’s a co-worker and dear friend. We only met last summer but immediately felt like long lost friends and, as I like to say, had a case of the warm-fuzzies for each other right off.

Faith did not review my book for RT—that I know of, it hasn’t even been reviewed by them—she read it because I was proud to share it with my friend when it was released (you might say she and I share a passion for cover models, LOL).

It was a little déjà vu to hear someone who had never read my work before talk about my characters, and comment on how much they enjoyed my story. This from a woman who has read –literally—thousands of books in her career with RT. For her to call mine an “exceptional read” just absolutely warmed my toes, and kept me grinning from ear to ear so much last night that I had trouble falling asleep.

Now, I know what you’re thinking; Earth to Nic: Faith is your friend, of course she’s going to like your book. True. But she could have liked it without having been that enthused about it, and she has nothing to gain by exaggerating her feelings about The Model Man to me.

What really struck a chord with her was something I hope we can all relate to. The fantasy—the hope—that women over 40 can still be viewed as sexy and desirable for who and what we are-- and not because of what we look like.

I’ll end this blog with Faith’s final observation on the subject. “The Model Man is a fairy tale romance for real women.”

Feeling Lucky?

...if you're not feeling lucky, then hop on over and take a look at the blog I've posted on the Slip Into Something Victorian blogsite on the tricks and devices old west gamblers used to tilt the odds in their favor.

Nic