Things That Go Bump In the Night

Here's my post on Romance Books 4 Us about things that go bump in the night. With an excerpt from my just released novel, Matrix Crystal Hunters, and a three of my drawings. 

http://romancebooks4us.blogspot.com/2013/10/things-that-go-bump-in-night.html

Halloween Holiday Trivia

(our cat Ninja)

Halloween Holiday Trivia

Orange and black are Halloween colors because orange is associated with the Fall harvest and black is associated with darkness and death.


Jack o’ Lanterns originated in Ireland where people placed candles in hollowed-out turnips to keep away spirits and ghosts on the Samhain holiday.


Pumpkins also come in white, blue and green. Great for unique monster carvings!


Halloween was brought to North America by immigrants from Europe who would celebrate the harvest around a bonfire, share ghost stories, sing, dance and tell fortunes.


Tootsie Rolls were the first wrapped penny candy in America.


The ancient Celts thought that spirits and ghosts roamed the countryside on Halloween night. They began wearing masks and costumes to avoid being recognized as human.


Halloween candy sales average about 2 billion dollars annually in the United States.


Chocolate candy bars top the list as the most popular candy for trick-or-treaters with Snickers #1.


Halloween is the 2nd most commercially successful holiday, with Christmas being the first.


Bobbing for apples is thought to have originated from the roman harvest festival that honors Pamona, the goddess of fruit trees.


Black cats were once believed to be witch's familiars who protected their powers.

Just for Halloween a new excerpt from my book

Windswept Shores by Janice Seagraves

Windswept Shores, now available  from Pink petal books.

Windswept Shores by Janice Seagraves Cover Contest Winner

erotic contemporary romance novel (approx 50K) price $4.95

Cover Art by Pink Petal Books with assistance from Winterheart Design

BLURB: The sole survivor of a plane crash, Megan is alone on a deserted island in the Bahamas until she finds a nearly-drowned man washed up on shore. Another survivor, this time from a boat wreck. With only meager survival skills between them, will they survive and can they find love?

EXCERPT:

Hearing an odd noise, they exchanged a worried glance. It sounded again.

Megan pulled down the corners of her mouth, spitting out one word, “Pigs.”

Seth’s eyes widened. “Bill.” He thrust the eggs into her hands, heading to the ladder on the side of the boat.

“Where are you going?” Megan asked.

“They’re in Bill’s ashes. After his bones.”

“You can’t charge boars barehanded. They have long, sharp tusks.” She frowned. “The last time I ran across a wild pig, I had to climb a tree.”

He slammed his fist on the boat’s railing. “I should have taken them out last night and buried them.” Opening a chest, Seth took out a spear gun. “You know how to use one of these?”

“No, I’ve only seen them on TV.” She set the eggs on the swivel chair.

“It’s just like on the box. You point and pull the trigger.” Seth demonstrated, loading it with a long spear with a wicked looking barb.

“What are you going to do?” She took the spear-gun.

Seth pushed the sharp end away from him. “I’m gonna make a bullroarer.” He brought out some heavy duty fishing line, tying a pointed weight to the end of it. “If I get charged, shoot. But try not to hit me.”

“I’ll try,” she said softly.

“Try a little harder than that, luv.” He grinned as he climbed down the ladder.

Megan scurried over to the side and aimed the spear gun at the pigs.

Seth rounded the bow of the boat. He called out with a thick accent, “Oy, get away from there, you miserable drongo.”

The boar grunted at him, sounding like “Huh?” The sow snorted, her piglets hiding behind her.

“Well come on, take a gander at the big Aussie.” He spread his arms wide as the boar snuffled, trying to scent him. Seth unwound the cord from the weight, spinning it over his head. The weapon started to hum until it turned into a very odd loud buzzing noise.

Alarmed by the noise, the pigs snorted and squealed.

“What a gas bag you are, you and your dirty grubs.” He moved closer to the hogs.

The female and the babies acted nervous, as if they didn’t want anything to do with that odd whirling noise overhead. With a last loud squeal of dismay, they ran off.

The boar didn’t budge but pawed the ground. “Seth, the boar is going to charge,” Megan warned. She kept a bead on it with the spear-gun.

“Steady now, Megz.” He edged closer to the boar. “Oy, you great big wanker, your missus left and so should you.”

The bore squealed ferociously and charged. Megan screamed. The spear-gun went off.

***

Now also available at Smashwords, Diesel, All Romance and for the kindle at Amazon.My website: http://janiceseagraves.org/

Thursday's Thirteen: What says Halloween?

Halloween: as my daughter drapes my house in its Halloween splendor, I thought what really says Halloween?

1. Jack-o-lanterns?

2. Scarecrows?
3. Black cats?

4. Fake webbing?

5. Little bitty chocolate bars?

6. Horror movies?

7. Costumes?

8. Sculls?

9. The colors black and orange?

10. Ghosts?

11. Bowls and bags filled with cheep candy?

12. The smell of warm (or burning) pumpkins mixed with candle wax on

Halloween night?

13. Little kids screaming tick-or-treat!

What says Halloween to you?

Thursday's Thirteen: October's to do list

Since its October first or nearly at this posting, here are thirteen things for October in no particular order.

I would have posted some photos but my internet service is acting funny.



1. Setting out the autumn decorations.



2. Getting out and decorating for Halloween. It’s not the same decorations as the autumn ones.



3. Raking fall leaves. I really hate this chore. We have sycamore trees, they have big leaves. Lots and lots of them.



4. Dusting the house and getting it ready, so I can shut all the windows for the cold season.



5. Picking out a pumpkin. I don’t do this quite so much now that my daughter is older.



6. Pulling out the spent spring flowers and planting fall bulbs or more mums.



7. Cleaning out my planters and planting some fall flowers.



8. Putting away all the shorts and summer clothes. Then digging out of the back of my closet for my long sleeve blouses and long pants. Cool weather clothes, oh how I miss thee.



9. Costume making time. My daughter has taken over this chore. She’s too old for trick-or-treating, but there’s an Ani-jam on Halloween that’s she’ll be attending. She won third place in the last one for her costume she had made.



10. Buying Halloween candy. We don’t get trick-or-treaters, we live too far out of town but I buy them for my small family. We like candy. :)



11. This year it’s on us for my daughter’s senior year school picture. It all has to be done by October 15th.



12. Get sign up for the Nanowritmo (National Novel Writer’s Month). It’s always a crazy month for me, but for the last three years I have finished in time with a 50,000 word novel.



13. Celebrate my hubby’s Birthday. His B-day is on the 29th.

Thursday's Thirteen: Halloween

Here's what we'll be doing this Halloween:

1. Getting B-day cake for my husband; he's B-day is the 29th just a couple of days earlier. This year he turned the big five-o, and here will be a tombstone on his cake. I can't pass that little dig up can I?



2. Getting treats.



3. Getting snacks.



4. I've already rented the entire series of Chucky movies for my daughter's horror marathon/sleepover. So if you wanted to watch one of those your too late, Baw-hahahah.



5. I'm buying lots of different kinds of soda for my daughter's fiends I mean friends.



6. Pizza; what's a all night horror movie marathon with out pizza?



7. Popcorn; after all there will be movies being watched.



8. Salad; some of my daughter's friends requested salad. Salad on Halloween? Teenage girls I tell ya.



9. Candy apples; there is something to this old favorite. It makes Halloween seem more traditional.



10. Fake webbing.



11. Fake spiders; what's Halloween with all that fake stuff I tell ya?



12. A spooky door bell that plays scary organ music, and shouts beware at you. I going to print us signs that say, "For God's sake don't touch the button." Because when you see that you just gotta.



13. Black light; I had to go to three stores, but I was finally able to find a black light bulb that actually had the wattage to eerily illuminate my daughter's bedroom, just enough to satisfy her.

Happy Halloween, Baw-wa-hahhahahahha!


Cough cough, that laugh hurts the throat.

Happy Halloween!

Before I forget Happy Halloween!

~~~

I wanted to post this yesterday but we had an electrical storm come through our area, and I didn’t want some freak bolt of lightning burning out my computer.
~~~
Yesterday was my husband’s birthday, but after the last twenty-seven years of marriage I have learned not to buy him a present.

.

I let him buy himself something for his birthday; after all he knows what he really wants for a birthday present.
.

He choose a new computer game and a new set of joy sticks, he had wore out his last set.

He's such a big kid.
See this is why in my profile I said; I'm raising a daughter and a husband.

~~~
My daughter is sick and I have been at the doctor’s for the last two days.
Yesterday her regular doctor was gone on a doctor’s conference, and we had a substitute doctor who I’m sure is a fine doctor, but he just doesn’t know us. I don’t believe in going to the doctor for every little sniffle, and I only go in when my daughter has a cold that she isn’t getting over or an infection of some kind.
.
This new doctor said, “[that he] wasn’t convinced, after looking at an x-ray [of my daughter’s skull, that he ordered and the sinus swab], that she had a sinus infection.” So he recommended a sinus saline wash, and for her to wash out her sinuses twice a day morning and night, and then use the nasal spray he prescribed.
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Okay, the thing about severely swollen sinuses is that what goes in doesn’t necessarily come out. Ouch!
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My daughter moaned in her sleep all night long from the sinus pressure, even though I did give her Tylenol for the pain as per the doctor’s recommendation.
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I took her to school even though she didn’t really feel like going, because she had already missed three days last week, and the doctor thought she wasn’t ill enough to stay home.
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At ten this morning I got a call; “Mom, come and get me. I feel terrible.”
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I found her in the school nurse’s office, and the nurse told me, “Your daughter has a sinus infection you need to take her to the doctor.”
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I felt like saying "duh, like I don't know that? Come with me and convince that (new) doctor about it!" But I didn't, but I may have rolled my eyes.
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But I did tell her what happened the day before, and she told me to “take her back again today and insist (who me) that he proscribed her a antibiotic.” She even gave me a note to take to the doctor that described her symptoms and that she thought that it was the signs of a sinus infection.
I was glad to get it and her excuse for my daughter to miss the rest of the day at school.
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I went back to the doctor’s office and got in right away yesterday it was a one hour wait. Yesterday I was at the doctor’s office all together with the swab then waiting for the x-ray, and then the doctor to talk to me again--for three and half hours.
That’s three and half hours of my life that I will never see again.
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When we got in the exam room; in walked my daughter’s doctor Dr. Naz, he has been my daughter’s doctor since she was born. He was actually the second person to hold her after her birth.
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I was so glad to see him I could have hugged him.
I told Dr. Naz what happened, and showed him the note from the school nurse. He examined her and proscribed an antibiotic and a cough medicine that has an antihistamine in it. The antihistamine will reduce the swelling in her poor sinises.
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I tried to fill the prescription right away, but our insurance last year made us switch from Wal-mart where we had been going for years to Long's drugs. Because of some new supposable cheaper deal at Long’s.
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The only thing was I forgot.
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I had only filled one prescription for Sarah last year for an ear infection, and I just didn’t remember the switch. So we had to get back in the car and go to the other store. Luckily it didn’t take too long, and I had my daughter to take a nap as soon as I gave her the new medicine.
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My poor baby girl went right to sleep.
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After seeing her doctor today I think she’ll be all right.