Happy New Year

Good bye 2011

and hello 2012!

Thursday's thirteen: Those We Lost This Year

This has been quite the year.


We've lost a few celebrates:

1. Apple founder Steve Jobs died at 56 on October 5 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. The tech guru leaves a vast legacy in his industry over the better part of four decades, listed as the inventor of household items such as iPod, iPhone and iPad, among others. He was also the driving force behind companies like Pixar and Atari.

2. Legendary newsman Andy Rooney diedNovember 4, just weeks after his 1097th and final weekly segment on the CBS stalwart 60 Minutes, capping off a 33-year run.

3.Russell Armstrong, the husband of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills beauty Taylor Armstrong, was found hanged August 15 in the bedroom of a friend’s home in Los Angeles. He was 47. Following his death, Taylor’s allegations of abuse against her late husband surfaced in interviews and on the Bravo reality show.

4. Emmy Award-winning actor Harry Morgan, who gained fame in the role of Colonel Potter on the iconic seriesM*A*S*H, died at 96 on December 7 of pneumonia at his Los Angeles home.

5. Comic Patrice O’Neal, who appeared on The Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen in September, suffered a stroke in October and passed away November 29. The funnyman was a regular on the New York comedy circuit and a frequent guest on the Opie & Anthony show.

6. Ken Russell, the Oscar-nominated British director whose credits include 1969's Women In Love, The Who's 1975 musical Tommy and 1980's Altered States died November 27 after suffering from multiple strokes. He was 84.

7. Cinematic legend Elizabeth Taylor died March 23 of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after being hospitalized for six weeks. The two-time Academy Award-winner was 79.

8. Retro soul singer Amy Winehouse, who had a worldwide smash with her 2007 hit “Rehab,” was found dead of alcohol poisoning in her London apartment June 23. Her death at the young age of 27 spurred further speculation about the “27 club” a group of famous musicians (Jim Morrison, Janice Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix & others) who died at that age.

9. Betty Ford, the former First Lady who bravely went public with her own drug and alcohol addictions to help others with the famous clinic in her name, died July 8 at the age of 93. She was married to late President Gerald Fordfor 58 years.

10. The embattled star of Taxi and Grease, Jeff Conaway died May 27 from multiple causes, some attributable to his well-documented battles with drugs. (I remember him on Babylon Five.)

11. A preeminent sex symbol of the 1940s, The Outlaw star Jane Russell died February 28, 2011 of a respiratory-related illness in California.

12. Legendary fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday at 96 at his Morro Bay, California home from respiratory failure connected to pneumonia. LaLanne hosted a TV workout show for more than 30 years and opened his own chain of spas.

13. My own loss. Our sweet little pigeon, Pidgie has been murdered by a raccoon who pulled her right through the bars of her cage. (And she was in a sturdier cage than this one.)


Now I have to change my bio from: Janice Seagraves grew up in a small California town. Her home is a hundred year old haunted house (I’m not kidding), where she lives with her husband and daughter, one overly affectionate cat, and a pet pigeon that is in love with her husband (also not kidding).

To: Janice Seagraves grew up and still lives in the same small California town. Her home is a hundred year old haunted house (I’m not kidding), where she lives with her husband and just grown daughter, and four overly affectionate cats.

New posts

I have an interview here: http://savannahchase.com/2011/12/27/watch-out-author-janice-seagraves/ where I talk about my haunted house.

And a post here on new years resolutions:http://romancebooksrus.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-years-resolutions-new-series.html

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone.

Breaking down the hook

Here’s post I did on Savvy Author on breaking down the hook. I used my own book as an example:

http://www.savvyauthors.com/vb/content.php?1739-Breaking-down-the-Hook-by-Janice-Seagraves

Thirty-second Anniversary

It's my thirty-second anniversary.

Yup, yet another thing to remind me of how old I'm getting.

Here's my husband and I on our wedding day, December 21, 1979

And now, thirty-two years later, December 21, 2011

For our anniversary we went out to IHOP.

It wasn't a fancy meal at a nice restaurants, but it was nice.

Oh, you shouldn't have!

You know you all got them. The unwanted Christmas present. 

Maybe it was the ugly hand knitted Christmas sweater from Aunt Aida, or the teddy bear you were told to share with your sibling, or something too old/too young for you.

What was the unwanted gift and how did you handle it? Were you diplomatic or did you say something you couldn't take back?

When I was much younger, I received a paint by number set. A gift from an uncle and aunt because I wanted to be an artist. 

My mom told me to thank them for the thoughtful gift. Although  they couldn't have put much thought into it if they thought that a paint by number set is what an artist does. I would have preferred a drawing pad, or something related to art. I opened my mouth to say that, but got a warning look from my mom. 

So I thank them with the sickly smile I only reserved for school photos.

And now I have the other problem--my husband is too way good to me--really too good.

He puts us into debt for some outrageous gift that'll take us years to pay off.

Yes, now that's the gift that keeps on giving. 

Oh, you shouldn't have. No really. You shouldn't have.

I Believe

How old were you when you realized that there was no Santa Clause?

I was probably eight or nine. The kids at school were telling each other that there were no Santa Clause. I wanted the gifts so I told my parents that I believed.

It kept going until I was twelve, that's when my dad abruptly said, "I think you kids know there's no Santa. It's your mom getting up in the middle of the night to fill your stocking. So we're going to do away with the Christmas stockings, starting this year."

It was a shock to hear him say that. Although I think he said that so he didn't have to pay for an extra gift for Santa to stuff into the stocking.

My daughter was younger. At age six she asked my husband if there was a Santa Clause, and he told her no.

I was so mad at him for killing the Christmas spirit.

It nice to think that there's a jolly fat man who wants to bring you a gift. And when a child can believe in things like Santa Claus it helps them believe in God.

Dyer died

My dryer died and my hubby, with my daughter's help, is trying to fix the darn thing. This sort of thing always happens when its not covenant for us. I have a huge pile of clothes I was going to do. It right before Christmas, so all our money is spent. Daughter has registered for summer semester at college and they don't want to wait for their money, so we have to cough it up asap. And it too cold outside for me to hang out my clothes. If I did my clothes would smell like an old mop.

The dryer still spins and all the lights come on, but the heat element doesn't heat anymore. So we need a new heat element, which my hubby will have to run down to Fresno to get.

Wish us luck getting the darn thing fixed.

Persimmon Cookies

I should have posted this earlier, but last weekend my daughter and I made persimmon cookies. It was a first for me, I had never made them before. Pitty I didn't get take a photo. This is one I found online, but it looked very close to what we made.

I found a recipe online. I pulped the persimmons. They have to be dead ripe and squishy for this portion of the recipe.

And I mean squishy.

Then my daughter measured and dumped everything into the bowl, while I stirred. She finally took a turn at stirring when my arm and hand were about to give out. Then she made the first batch and I make the next and the next. Well, the recipe was for three dozen cookies and we doubled it.

I was up till three in the morning baking cookies and my daughter had long since fallen asleep, lol.

The next morning, I got up and brought my hubby a whole plate of our cookies. His eyes got real big and a smile stretched across his face.

Oh, he was a happy hubby for sure.

Highest winds in California in years

Some of the worst winds in years blasted through California overnight, sweeping through canyons, gusting up to 97 mph (156 kph), and toppling trees and trucks while knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people.


We're lucky we didn't lose power or any trees. Just some limbs fell out of the trees in our yard.