I have decided

that I am tired of wearing everything I cook. I make cookies, flour poofs up and I wear it all down my front. I make dinner and something splashes out of the pan, and all down my front.. I wash dishes and I splash dishwater out of the sink and all down my front (sensing a theme here?) I can’t begin to count how many shirts I have lost, to becoming hopelessly stained from being splashed by what I am cooking. The worst culprets are spaghetti sauce and oil. EVERY time I fry some thing, even if it is in a single tablespoon of oil, it pops up and leaves oil spots on my clothes.

I am sick of it. I need an apron. One like my grandmother used to wear. Thankfully she used to make her own, and it was a pretty simple pattern. I  think I can wing it, and make my own.. now to raid my fabric stash and dig out my sewing machine… I’ll let you know how things go.

ok, Here is the plan…

I have created another blog, with the sole intent of publishing my (previously mentioned) book on it.  Be warned, it is an Erotic Fiction book and does have graphic content.

My plan is to publish one chapter every Monday until the entire book is published. All comments are welcome, and encouraged.  The first chapter will be posted on Monday Dec 7th.

E. N. Stephens Books The link can also be found —-> under Links

Update on me…

What is going on around here? um… lets see…Preparing for the holiday. I love Thanksgiving, growing up it was a bigger deal than Christmas and it is one of my all time favorites still. As I have gotten older and had a family of my own, and a place big enough, I have started hosting holiday celebrations. I totally love this. I love having friends and family come, the time we spend together and cooking the big feasts for us.  This morning I did the last of my shopping, except for salad for not one but two meals, one on Thursday, very traditional, Turkey, dressing, etc. and one on Sunday, with prime rib, YUM.

I have also been working on knitting and crocheting some Christmas gifts, I have almost all of them done, I am working on my last pair of socks, as well as a sweater for myself,  and tonight I crocheted up a scarf, the whole thing in just a couple hours, out of a skein of yarn I bought just to check out. Not sure who that will be for yet, but it is in the gift bag.

I have also read several books in the last couple of weeks, for more details on those, check out Book Central, the link is over there —>

I also have started writing my second book. Not that I have done anything with the first one yet, but the second story is one that has been haunting me for several years. I dreamed it um… 3 houses ago so at least 3 years ago, and it keeps coming back with more and more details popping into my head. I have spent most of the last week, since I finished the first book, working out details, developing characters, and a basic story line. Something I didn’t do with the first one, so we will see which works better for me.  I can tell you that so far (and right now I am still on the first chapter) it is much easier to know basic details like how a person looks, and what they do and where they live, before you start instead of trying to come back later and fill those in.

Lemonade!!!

My friend Tara, over at A Day In the Life of……  has nominated me for the Lemonade award! Thanks so much Tara, you are wonderful and now that you are already nominated I don’t know who else to nominate! I will endeavor to find some though…

The Lemonade Award is given to bloggers who show a positive attitude, gratitude and a willingness to share their ideas, support and online friendships. In other words, people who make lemonade when life gives them lemons!

The Rules.

1. Put the Lemonade Logo on your blog, within your post.
2. Nominate at least 10 blogs with great attitude or gratitude.
3. Link the nominees within your post
4. Let the nominees know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received the award.

I don’t have a lot of friends who keep active blogs, however I will nominate those I can..

• Jessi at Surviving the Storms, great person, she knits, she reads, she is a great mom and wife. What more is there in life?
• My friend Yelley from It’s Peanut Butter Yelley Time, a good friend, she used to be local but had to leave for work *cry* we miss her.
• Jenny from More Laundry. She is amazing… the kids, the crafts, the bargains,

I did it!!

50,221 words, and a complete story, in 29 days. do you have any clue how happy I am?

my camera, my poor camera.. *sob*

I love it, I talked Hubster into it for Mother’s day last year, It takes the most wonderful pictures.  And then Hubster insisted that he needed to take it to Germany with him. He promised to be careful, blah blah blah… while he is in Germany he asks me when the LCD screen started cutting in and out.. my response WHEN YOU TOOK IT.  He swears he didn’t break it.. but it worked great for me, no troubles, he takes it and it breaks… do the math. Anyway, it only had a 1 year warranty,  so I look up what a repair is going to cost… they want $149 to fix it at the Canon shop. I only paid $314 for the camera to begin with.. it has probably gone down since… so I look it up, on Amazon, were I got it.. NOPE they now want $950 for the exact same model camera.

Needless to say I shipped it off to be repaired. It is now at the Cannon shop, they say they have a less than 10 day turn around, hopefully I will have it back before Thanksgiving, I miss my camera… it is my precious.

Mind your own business.

This is what my husband told me this afternoon. I wasn’t being particularly nosey, at least I didn’t think so. I asked a simple question, with a reason behind asking. And in response I was given a “Mind your own business.” in a hateful tone. I wanted to kick him, I wanted to scream, I did neither. instead I hid until the initial hurt passed, and then I proceeded to ignore him.

If he wants me to mind my own business, I will. I will no longer do the little things I do for him just to make him happy. I no longer make the coffee I don’t drink, I no longer wash or fold or put away his laundry those things are his business, not mine and I have been told to mind my own.

I fully expect him to tell me I am blowing it out of proportion and to grow up, it won’t work. I am on strike, or in other words, very carefully minding my own, and the childrens’ business until he gets his head out of his ass.

I have realized

that I will not be able to publish my book here.. unless I want the blog to be labeled for adult material, as the book I am in the middle of almost done writing is an erotic romance. But… what I CAN do is open another blog and mark it as containing adult content, and then link to it from here.

As of right now I have less than 3000 words to go!!

Is anyone actually interested in reading it? Should I go to the hassle of opening another blog?

Been Busy…

I am preparing for a trip this weekend, my uncle is graduating from collage, the first in that side of my family to do so, so he is excited, and we are all going up to support him.  In our planning for this trip, (he lives 3 hrs away from us) we discovered that we can take our travel trailer, and stay two nights for less than one night in a motel would cost us. Plus, we would have our own sheets and the ability to cook if it suited us (not that we plan on it, but I have a severe dislike for restaurant breakfasts, so it is a big help there.) So we made a deal with my mother, who will also be there. She offered to pay for the lot for both nights (still, cheaper than a room for her for one night) and we would just have to pay the extra gas to tow the trailer up there. Works for me.

So I have spent the last several days making sure the trailer is ready to go… clean bedding, towels, etc. stocked with food stuffs, and essentials, toothbrushes, tooth paste, hair stuff, etc. Plus, this weekend is one of the kids birthday, so we can do something special for her while we are out of town. Go somewhere special, etc.

On a totally different note, I received an email last week from a blogging group I joined several months ago. I didn’t think a whole lot about it… read it, dismissed it and dropped it into the trash. But the more time went by, the more the idea in it grew on me. The email was a challenge. A challenge to write a 50,000 word book during the month of November.

Now.. I have toyed with the idea of writing for years. And, I admit, even attempted it a few times, but never got further than 3 pages before I gave up and moved on to something else. So this time around, I started thinking about it, and the idea just wouldn’t go lay still… So I started working on a plot outline, and basic character details for my story, intending to get all the basics worked out over the next couple of weeks and  start on Nov 1st writing my book. Hahahahaha… I should have known better. Once the idea really took seed in my mind I couldn’t stop myself from starting. 

I started writing out my story on Saturday (Oct 17th for those keeping track). Hubster was gone for the weekend, but the kids were home from school, so I was limited to first thing in the morning and after the kids were in bed, and any other quite moments I could con the kids out of (mind you, we had a particularly hot weekend, temps tipping into the 100’s again, so the kids didn’t want to go outside…) Hubster came home Sunday evening, and has called in sick both days since (yes, he really is sick, but a whiney sick that makes me want to shoot him, just to put him out of my misery) and I have discovered that if he is home, and in the same room with me, I can’t concentrate on the story… (This may be partly do to not having told him what I am up to yet, or general annoyance at him, I am not sure.)

Anyway… As of this morning (wed, Oct 21st) I have approx. 11,000 words, and some where near 30 pages, that is full letter size pages, not book size pages. I think I am making good progress… but it means I am staying busy… When I get to a point that I am not certain what comes next, I plug in my headphones to my mp3 player, and I go work on housework… My house is looking the best i has in weeks, and I am making real progress in the story.

I am not really looking to have said book published.. I am not certain what I will do with it. If I am pleased with the results, I may MAY, decide to publish it here, a chapter at a time. We shall see how things go.

I think my mixer

is dying *sob* It has started making strange sounds, kind of a grinding/bogging down/cyclical noise… I think the motor is about to bite the dust. I have considered having it worked on, but having a Kitchenaid mixer repaired is not cheap, and if the motor needs replacing, I might as well just buy a new one to begin with.

My mixer is 12 yrs old. It was a wedding present. My grandmother-in-law asked me, when we first got married, what I needed for my kitchen. Since my great-grandmother, who had passed away when I was 16, had had two of everything in her kitchen (Yes, two sets of dishes, two sets of cookware, etc.)  and my sister and I were the only members of her descendants who had not yet set up our own households, we each ended up with a fully stocked kitchen. I thought about it a little bit and, being the basically honest soul I am, I told my grandmother-in-law that the only thing I could think of that I needed for my kitchen was a mixer. She handed me her JCPenney catalog and told me to pick one out.

I flipped through the catalog, and I searched and the only mixer in the catalog was a Kitchenaid, I really didn’t want to pick a Kitchenaid, not because I didn’t want one, I did, I had been wanting a  Kitchenaid mixer since I was about 14. (yes, I was that oh so rare teenager lusting after premium kitchen appliances.) But because I knew how expensive they were (reference previously mentioned lust) and I knew that my in-laws were on a fixed income I really didn’t want to choose something expensive. I asked if she had any other catalogs, because I really didn’t need anything that expensive, and she told me to order it anyway, gave me her credit card to make the call (even then her eyesight was failing and she had a hard time reading things like credit cards and catalogs.) So I ordered it.. I have loved that mixer for the last 12 years. It has not seen light use. I use it at least once a week, but more often daily. Made Breads, pie crusts, pies, cakes, muffins, potatoes, frostings, all kinds of things. There is no way I could do all the cooking I do without a mixer.

I have started doing research into replacing it. I am well aware that it won’t be cheap, Kitchenaid never is. But I am considering the options. I can get a 4.5 qt mixer, similar to the one I have, but with a slightly less powerful motor, for around $200. Or I can spend just a little bit more, and get a 5 qt professional model, with a much larger motor, for around $270.  We are still debating which exactly to get, but we have a little bit, I hope, as we won’t actually replace this one until it actually dies. Hopefully by then I can prepare myself to let this one go.