Happy New Year

Happy New Year 

Blog Post

It's my turn to post on Romance Books '4' Us: http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2012/12/turning-i-cant-into-i-can-by-janice.html 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Windswept Shores is back!

Here's my secret project I've been working on all month, my debut book is once again available as an ebook and better than ever with a replaced missing scene. I also made things a little tougher for poor Meagan. 

In a few days it'll be available as a paperback book too.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AS9NDNO 

End Of The World?

Drawing by Janice Seagraves

Turns out that the last little drawing on the Mayan calendar was broken off. So we really don't know what the Mayans intended for this day.

 I think the part that broke off was the reset button, although it could also have read, turn over and start new calendar on this date.

 So, if today is the last day on Earth. How's it going for you so far?

 For me, it's pretty boring. I'm not seeing any zombies or horsemen. Since it's mine and my husband's anniversary, we are going out for dinner and a movie.

12-21-2012

For those of you that are afraid the world will come to an end on the 21st, just remember this, the Mayans had no leap year so their calendar ended last year.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

My daughter and cat Moonshadoe during our nearly white Christmas

As a child I prayed, dreamed and wished for a white Christmas with all my heart. You see the part of California where I live doesn't get snow but once every ten to fifteen years.

When my daughter was six, it snowed in my home town and it stayed for a week. It was beautiful and cold. My daughter and I built small snowmen from the snow on the car. We had a snowball fight with daddy.

There were icicles hanging on the trees. The snow stayed on the roofs and front yards of all the houses in town. My home town looked as charming as a Christmas card.

 The snow stayed for a week and then two days before Christmas it melted. So I nearly had the white Christmas I had always dreamed of, but it was still magical.

Christmas Blog Hop

Stop on by for two free reads and a chance at a prize. You can also follow the adventures of Jared the Fierce Were-Tabby.

http://janiceseagraves.org/2012/12/13/christmas-blog-hop/ 

12-12-12

Today is a very rare day. It's the twelfth year, twelfth month and twelfth day. 12/12/12, is the last of the great repeating dates to occur in our lifetimes.

Celebrate 12/12/12 by having twelve cookies, 

and cranking up twelve days of Christmas!

The Christmas Gift

The nicest gift anyone ever gave me was just before Christmas a number of years ago. My husband and I ran a appliance store. My husband fixed the appliances and I answered the phone, ordered parts and set up appointments.

My husband was late to one appointment to an elderly couple, and the wife called to chew me out about it. My husband was only ten minutes late. When he showed up to their house, the lady's husband apologized to my husband about the phone call.

The phone call had me rattled, but I added it up to doing business in a small town.

The next day my husband went to do another run of appliance repair appointments, and came back with a beautiful poinsettias plant.  It was a gift from another elder couple and it was for me. They said, "It was for the nice lady on the phone who helped us out so much."

For a moment I was completely speechless and burst into tears.

It's a lesson I never forgotten: kindness can mean so much to someone having a bad day.

I Won the Nanowrimo!

I won the Nanowrimo Contest!!! 

This is from the winner page:

Congratulations, novelist! You won!

Here at NaNoWriMo HQ, we are cheering ourselves hoarse in recognition of your epic creative accomplishment this November. One month ago, you committed yourself to this wild write-a-thon: 30 days of high-velocity, no-holds-barred, anything-goes noveling.

And now, 50,000 words and one month later, you are a NaNoWriMo Winner!

Thanksgiving

From Wikipedia

Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Because of the longstanding traditions of the holiday, the celebration often extends to the weekend that falls closest to the day it is celebrated. Several other places around the world observe similar celebrations. Historically, Thanksgiving had roots in religious and cultural tradition. Today, Thanksgiving is primarily celebrated as a secular holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Why The English Lauguage IS Hard to Learn

The English language has developed over a long period of time and had been influenced by a great many languages including but not limited to French, German, Latin, Italian (Roman), and Gaelic.

Where else will you see words like depot where the t is silent. Nite spelled night and where there are so many words spelled with silent k's: knight, knife and knee.

Then there are the differences in the English spelling from UK, Australia to America. For instance in America we spell color: color but in UK and Australia they spell color: colour.

And we wonder why kids are having problems learning how to spell.

My Big Announcement

I've just signed a contract with Keith Publications. They will publish my alien series called Alien Heart Series and the first book is titled Alien Heart. That's my series that's starts in my free reads, Exodus Arcon.

This is very thrilling for me, since I have been working very hard on my series for a while now. Alien Heart took two and half years total, but it was this last year that I was aiming for a market.

A big shout out goes to Mary Keith at Keith Publications, who has been wonderfully supportive and waited for me to put the final polish on my manuscript.

My nano widget

Here's my nanowrimo widget

Inspirational Sunday: fortune cookie 4

Happy Halloween

Our dog Snaps, photo by Janice Seagraves

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Inspirational Sunday: fortune cookie 3

Advice on winning the Nanowrimo

It was my turn to blog on Romance Books '4' Us. 

I posted my advice on winning the Nanowrimo, and how you can too: 

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2012/10/nanowrimo-advice-by-janice-seagraves.html

Halloween Blog Hop

I'm participating in the Halloween Blog Hop and posted about my real life haunted house. And just for dropping by, you get two free down loads. 

If you leave a comment about your own paranormal experiences with your email addy, I'll add you to the drawing for a gift certificate from Amazon. http://janiceseagraves.org/2012/10/26/halloween-blog-hop/
 

Best Vampire

Vampire bat drawn by Janice Seagraves

Since it's Halloween week, who in your opinion who is the best vampire and why?

Here's a short vampire list of old and new favorites. I'm just naming movies here, but if there's one I missed or there's a favorite vampire series you love, then please name the actor or actress, the show, and why you like him or her.


Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins
Bela Lugosi as Dracula
Keefer Sutherland in Lost Boys
Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in Interview with a Vampire
Gary Oldman in Dracula

Christopher Lee as Dracula 

Adam Sandler as Dracula in Hotel Transylvania (new release)
Wesley Snipes as Blade
Kate Beckinsale as Slene in Underworld
Robert Pattinson as Edward in the Twilight movies

Inspirational Sunday: fortune cookie 2

Warm Fall

All that lovely cool weather went away and it warmed up again. Temps in the high eighties with one day this week that's be 90.

It looks like we're having a warm fall after all.

Inspirational Sunday: fortune cookie

Autumn whine

Where's Autumn?

It's suppose to be fall, right? But today we had temps of over a hundred, and it'll be around a hundred for the next week.

Hot, hot, hot! And my hot flashes are going nuts!

When will the cool get here?

Thursday's Thirteen: Save Water

I live in a dry arid area here in the central valley of California. We don't take water for granted here, especially not in a drought.

Photo by Janice Seagraves taken near Three Rivers CA

Here are thirteen ways to save water:

1. Even though it's fall it's still hot here so when kids want to cool off in the water, put a sprinkler out where your lawn needs it.

2. Don't run the water when you brush your teeth.

3. Don't water your lawn, or if you insist on having at least a semi green lawn then water twice a week.

4. Install low boy toilets to conserve on water (that's what we have).

4. Run the dishwasher only when you have a full load.

5. Wash your car in those places that recycle water.

6. Only wash full loads of laundry.

7. Buy water conserving appliances

8. Use the garbage disposal sparingly. Compost your vegetables instead to save on water.

9. Spread mulch around your plants to keep in the moisture.

10. Fix faucet leaks indoors and out.

11. Sweep patios and walkways instead of hosing them off.

12. Install a rain sensor on your water system so your sprinklers won't run during the rain.

13. Take shorter showers or use the buddy system. It's always fun to share.

Photo by Janice Seagraves taken at Huntington lake CA

On Ice by J.D. Faver

On Ice by J.D. Faver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I just finished On Ice by J.D. Faver, about a woman, Rene, who runs from her abusive husband with her two children up to a tiny town in Alaska called Sad Horse.

Rene is hired as a teacher by a tall, bearded, Grizzly Adams type man who’s the love interest. The people there are warm and welcoming. Each one is a true character, which reminded me of Northern Exposure.

As Rene struggles to assist her children in adapting to this sleepy town, she can't help looking over her shoulder for her abuser. At the same time, the town's people seem to fold her into their arms.

Sad Horse seems to be made for Rene. This is where she is needed and accepted. She can't help comparing this life that she is making for herself with the isolated home her husband forced on her.

Unknown to Rene, her sister and her family are being harassed by her abusive husband, Mark. The sister can’t step a toe outside without coming face to face with the smirking Mark.

J.D. Faver does a great job of ramping up the tension. The husband eventually catches up to her, and the climax had my heart pounding.

The only negative about this book was the editing: Missing commas, dropped words, some telly phrases and slight POV shifts.

Even though the editing bothered me a bit, it still didn't take away from this engaging story and I found myself really rooting for the heroine.


View all my reviews

Anniversary of 9/11

 Today is the anniversary of 9/11, the day the twin towers fell.

Most people remember where they were when Pearl Harbor was attack (I wasn't born yet), when Kennedy was killed (I was four) and now 9/11.

Where were you on 9/11? 

I live in California and we're three hours behind NYC. I had gotten up to wake my daughter for school.

I turned on the TV and sat down staring at the burning twin towers and wondered what was going on. The news caster made the announcement. Five minutes later one of the building fell, and then my mom called. 

Mom: "Are you seeing this?" 

Me: "Yes."

Mom: "Did you see the building fall?"

Me: "Yes."

Mom: "Just wait the next one will too." I didn't question how she knew, but I realized she was right. If one fell the next one would too.

It wasn't long until the next one did.

I felt like I was in shock for the rest of the day. 

Who hated us that much? Of course we did find out.

Janice~

Harvest Season

It's official, we're right in the middle of Harvest Season. 

(photos by Janice Seagraves)

The tree shaking has already happened and all the yummy goodness of almonds are laying on the dirt, waiting until they're dry enough for the sweeper to sweep up. This is all done by a machine driven by one man. It blows the nuts over until he has them lined up into one long neat row. Later he'll show up again to sweep up the almonds, which will then be loaded up into the back of a semi truck trailer to be taken off to the processing plant.

At the plant, they'll be taken out of their shell and the almonds cleaned and then roasted before they'll dust with salt or seasonings and boxed up for sale.

Across the street the raisin harvest is underway. Again what used to take a work crew of ten to twenty takes only three men to pull off. Long lengths of paper are laid out down the rows of grapes, then the huge picker pulls off the grape bunches off and lays them down in a flat even row. Later workers will come to cut off length of the paper and turn them over onto fresh paper so the grapes can dry on the other side. After drying they'll be gathered up and dumped into either gondolas or the semi truck trailers and taken away to a processing plant where the rains will be cleaned, destemmed, dried again before being boxed up for shipment.

My husband works at a local winery. It's the biggest plant in my home town and hubby works there as graveyard foreman. He's a industrial maintenance mechanic and keeps the plant running.

The crush season is underway: The grapes are harvest like the raisin grapes but instead of being laid out to dry are then loaded up into gondolas or the trailers of semi-trucks, then they are brought to where my husband works. Weighed, the sugar content checked before being off loaded into the crush area, where they are turned into juice and the steams, seeds and grape skins are removed. Wine grapes almost always have seeds. The juice is put into great big silos some six stories tall, where later a yeast culture is added. Yeast eats the sugar in the grape juice producing alcohol, which in turn changes grape juice into wine.

A lot has changed in the last twenty years in how produce reaches the market, and less and less people are needed. One of the reasons that the work has become so mechanized is that the workers are getting harder to come by because of the tougher migrant laws since 911.

In my home town, the farmers have gotten together and decided to share the same work crew. They rotate the work and keep the migrant workers busy all year long, so they'll stay and be available when they are needed.

Thursday's Thirteen: Harvest Season

We live in the middle of a almond orchard and it's Harvest Season which means...

*All photos were taken by me or my daughter

1. All these lovely almond blooms

2. That opened in the early spring time...Fell off.

 3. The nut has matured during the long hot summer.

 4. And the almonds have dried and the outer shell popped open

 5. Dried Almond

6. Almond cracked open and ready to eat.

The Harvest begins on Thursday Aug. 30, 2012, which means I get woken up bright and early by the machines shaken the bejessus out of the trees and hear the hiss of almonds hitting the ground.

7.  In my home garden, we're also grown tomatoes

8. Green peppers

9. Which turned finally to red peppers

My daughter cooked them with chicken and pasta, yummy.

10. There's several orange trees on the property, which makes an awesome orange Julius.

11. My husband and daughter's favorite, grapefruit. 

12. We have a few strawberry plants

13. Which keeps us in strawberries, yum!

Do you do anything special during harvest season?

Humor post

It’s my turn to post on Romance Books 4 Us. A humorous trip to the hardware store:  http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/?zx=4cd985ca95fbef26

Neil Armstrong--First man to walk on the moon

Neil Armstrong, passed away following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures, age 82.

It was sad to hear about Neil Armstrong. I still remember being woke up by my parents, to watch Neil Make his "Giant leap for mankind" on the moon in 1969. I was eight at the time, which I suppose dates me.

Thursday's Thirteen: Random Photos From Around My House

 1. Humming birds at our feeder

 2. Blooms on our Crape Myrtle tree

 3. Sunset and wind chimes

 4. Our dog Snaps

 5. Our cat Freya and dog Snaps hiding from me because they didn't want to go outside. The brats.

 6. My container garden

7. Peppers

 8. Nearly ripe tomato

 9. Mystery footprint in the sticky trap

10. Almond bloom

 11. Fancy daffodils 

 12. Yellow Daffodil 

13. Almond blooms against the sunset