October 13th 2015

Hi, it’s Christina –

Dani's 1st day of work

Good Afternoon! No, I haven’t fallen off the edge of the Earth, there just hasn’t been anything I felt warranted an entire blog post. Today I will get you updated on everything since my last post in June, and then either tomorrow or Thursday, I’ll make the post I will be talking about in a second.

Doing what I love in my
happy place.

Let’s see, over the summer, DaniRose got to spend two weeks in Florida at her boyfriend’s grandparents’ house. Even though she’d never been away from home for that long, and other than getting attacked by fire ants, she did just fine. 

Liz teased that these were
our accommodations.

Lys and I took a couple of day trips to the beach while she was gone. Both Lys & Dani had summer jobs, but unfortunately for my writing, they worked the same days I did, and were off the same days as I was, so I did not write a single word all summer. (I elected to put writing on hold as opposed to burying the girls in the back yard because they kept disturbing me while I was trying to write.)

She took me to
Big Lots!

The end of June, I drove down to Greensboro, NC for a “girls weekend”, my first ever. On Twitter, I have become friends with several other authors, some of us are even in an anthology together which comes out later this week (I’ll tell you all about it when I know an exact date for the release). Well, one was flying in from California to visit family, another was flying in from Israel for business, and I said, “We can’t miss this opportunity to get together. Who knows if it will ever happen again.” Then sweetiepie Lizabeth Scott said, “Well, y’all just come and stay with me.” So we did! 

Not too shabby!

We had the most incredible time, and believe it or not, we actually got work done – exchanged best practices, taught each other marketing tips, even did some book formatting. I have no idea when the time will arise again when we can all get together, but I am fairly sure all of us will make a Herculean effort to make it happen again.

The "Haul"

The day after PJ's 25th birthday, My hubby & I, my father-in-law, PJ & Alex all went on a fishing trip. My goodness, we had a blast. I didn't catch anything, but everyone else did. Let me tell you, there was some good eating going on that night!

The kid's got a real
talent for decorating!

In August, my in-laws threw us a surprise 25^th Anniversary party. It was wonderful. Lys made a GORGEOUS cake for the event.

Right before we brought Lys back to college, we went and spent a few days at two different friends’ houses down the shore – I actually had a better time doing that then when we went on vacation. We brought along the game Cards Against Humanity and played at both houses. OMG, we laughed so hard, my sides ached.

On the ferry from NY to VT

Lys got off to college fine. She needed to be there a week early because she was a student ambassador (or something like that). The one bad thing was UVM’s move in weekend was the same weekend, so there were no hotel rooms available. I had to sleep on Lys’ floor – let me tell you, I am entirely too old to be sleeping on a floor!

What a LOVELY night
on Church Street

Two weeks ago we went back up to Vermont for Parents’ Weekend – again there were no hotel rooms available (for under $200), so we ended up staying an hour away. NBD, it was a lovely ride and we got to spend almost two days with her. We went apple picking, did some shopping, and a whole lot of eating. We had a wonderful time.

All throughout the summer, on weekends, I have been at Canterbury Tales Forever Book Shoppe in Peddlers Village, in Lahaska, PA doing book signings. I know I’ve said this a million times, but I really love it there. If you ever have the opportunity to visit, you should. 

My display at ShopRite

I will be there every Saturday & Sunday from now through the middle of November with the exception of October 24^th. On the 24^th, I will be at the Princeton Public Library for their Author’s Day, then on November 21^st, I will be at the Hillsborough Public Library for their Author’s Day, and that will be my final signing for the year.

I made 2 sets of these,
one for each auction

I have also had the opportunity to do a few charitable events. I did a fundraiser for ShopRite’s Partners in Caring. I donated baskets to the Hillsborough Woman’s Club Basket Auction, and well as baskets to help raise money for a young family who recently lost their mom.

Last Friday, I was asked to be a speaker at SheTalk. SheTalk is an event Tara Wattal, a high school junior and Girl Scout going for her Gold Award, started. She had community role models come in and do inspiration talks to girls roughly in the 8 – 14 year old range, and she asked me if I would be one of the speakers (this is the event I was telling you about at the beginning of this blog). 

After each speaker, the girls did an activity based on either the speaker herself or the message. When I was done yacking, I had the girls do a ten minute writing prompt. When they finished, I collected all the papers and told them their stories will be published on my blog. Well, there were a whole lot of girls at the event, and several of the parents took up the writing challenge as well, so I am currently transposing all of the submissions. As I said, I’m hoping to have the post up no later than Thursday. The girls did a wonderful job. I think you’ll enjoy seeing what they wrote.

Okay, so now you are all up to speed on what has been going on in my life since the cruise. To be honest, other than my post later this week, I don’t know when the next post will be. I don’t think y’all want to hear from me all the time, so I think I should hold off until I have something interesting to tell you. Now, if I’m wrong, let me know, and I will reevaluate my thinking.

Until next time – I hope you have a WONDERFUL day & Happy Writing!