Catching Up

I apologise that all I've done lately is lurk, duck in, do a drive-by comment, then dive below again. For those of you I've ignored, I assure you, it wasn't intentional. It's been a strange summer, good and not-quite-as-good.

Of course, the big news is the novel is now available in both E-book and Printed versions. It took six tries to get the cover approved. I don't understand why they tell you the bleed is .125", then say that the writing has to be .5" inside the bleed five tries later. Fortunately, the cover designer, Rusty, is the most patient person on the planet and bent over backwards to meet their specs, even though the specs seemed to change from day to day, depending on who I spoke to on the phone. I would love for you to give it a try - the e-book version is only $3.99!

I got to spend a couple of days with the amazing and wonderful hechicera, and another fellow writing friend, Andrea. We spent a happy day eating mango/ginger smoothies, homemade yeast rolls (yes, I suspended the no-gluten rule for the day), fresh peaches and blackberries, and reading one another's stories out loud. She is, I'm very happy to say, working on Wake again, and if you are not familiar with this gem, please go and start it - she is finishing it!

She sent us home with fresh picked corn and eggs from her hens. The shells were the most beautiful colours of brown and light blue, and they made a very tasty omelet this morning for our breakfast.

The gluten-free, sugar-free, alcohol-free, salt-free eating continues (with a slight change while at Hech's. I don't want to be rude when I'm presented with the most delicious food), and I'm starting to see results in the looseness of my clothes. I said from the off this wasn't about losing weight, although that's nice, but about feeling better about what I eat. One of the things I noticed was I walked up the stairs at Hech's, and when I got to the top, I wasn't sucking wind and having to pause to let my legs catch up. She actually said I looked and sounded so much better than I was at Thanksgiving. It's nice that others see the difference.

Another local author and I are planning on doing a joint book signing at a local bookstore. We think the angle of two local authors together might be a nice draw. This particular bookstore is great about supporting local authors, so fingers crossed we can get in there and it will be a success. Besides, I'm painfully insecure about this sort of thing. It will be a lot easier for me (and according to my fellow author, Wofford, for him as well) to do this as a duo.

Everything is hunky dory, in fact, except for one thing. Somewhere, in the last six weeks or so, I woke up with what feels like a trapped nerve, resulting in pains and tingling and numb spots in my leg. I don't think it's DVT, or I'd probably be dead by now, and it doesn't hurt at all if I'm up and moving around, only sitting. Needless to say, after two days sitting in a car for over 5 hours at a time, it's feeling a bit achy today. I suppose a good chiropractor could tell me if it's a trapped nerve or a disc problem, but who's got the time and money for that, nowadays? Until I'm screaming in agony, I'll just have to bitch and worry about it.

Other than that, I feel pretty good. I'm not waking up feeling dreadful, like I had been before we started eating properly, and my stamina seems to have doubled.

Yesterday, we were eating breakfast in the hotel (which Hech most generously offered), and this handsome, dark-haired, dark-eyed guy about 45 or so came up to clear our table. "I love your hair," he said. "The blue is fantastic."

As I was about to return with something almost-flirtatious (TheHubs™ was with me, so I couldn't go full-on cougar), he added, "My mother would just love that."

Thanks, sonny. And don't forget to add my 3S Tonic to my orange juice. Oh, well, you can't win 'em all.