September 29th

Hi it’s Christina –

Greetings from Burlington, VT.

Due to an erroneous 4:45 wake-up call, I’m awake. It is going to be a LONG day!! I started with checking my emails and there was one from a new group I was invited to join on LinkedIn. This group has you submitting an excerpt of a book (yours or another book you’ve read) and the link to where the book can be purchased. Hey, just one more avenue to advertise my book, so I was all for it. I went to upload an excerpt from A Second Chance, and I found ANOTHER typo. ARGH!! How many hundreds of times going over it and how many editors will it take until this dang thing is error free?

So this started me going in and fixing all the various places where A Second Chance was loaded and making the correction. (grown/groan – which I SWEAR was fixed on the first editing run.) I started with Kindle, and Kindle has now changed their program and the book cover file was no long valid, so I had to deal with that as well. Finally got that taken care of (only took an hour) and I uploaded the new content file with the correction. It will be available sometime in the next 12 – 24 hours.

Next I tried to tackle the file for the hard copy of the book on CreateSpace. The file is NOT loading! After it finally loads, I have to go through the whole review process again, so it may be a week before it is available. I still have to fix the Nook version, but I am dreading whatever obstacle that may throw in my path, so I decided to take a break and do the blog instead.

One of the surprises for my daughter that I couldn’t blog about yesterday  was, we brought her cousin up with us for the visit. The squeal my daughter let out when my niece popped out of the car was probably heard for miles! Needless to say, it made her day.

 

 

 

We did take the girls out apple picking as planned, and we went out for dinner last night. Can you guess where we went?

The girls stayed in the dorm with my daughter last night instead of with my husband and me at the hotel. I can’t wait to hear the stories when we go pick everyone up for breakfast! I can only imagine…
 

 

In a couple of hours we will be picking up the girls for breakfast and then we will be spending the day along Church Street. I figure if we leave between two and three, we should get home at a reasonable hour.

 

All these trips up here, the directions sent us around Lake George. If you have never been to Lake George, the roads are twisting and winding, going up and down some crazy hills. I was dreading having to traverse these roads when the weather turned sour, so I went hunting for an alternate route. While I drove, I kept seeing signs which pointed to Route 87, the road I took to the turnoff for Lake George. That lead me to believe there should be a spot further up Route 87 I could take to avoid the Lake George loop. Low and Behold, I found an alternate route! Route 87 meets up to Route 22 which links me to Route 7. Route 7 takes me directly to my daughter’s front door. Want to know the best part? Not only does this route simplify my trek to four roads, it also shaves almost an hour off of my travel time. I am looking forward to trying this new path on our way home!

Oh well, enough playing. I am going to try and get the uploads to work so my book will be available again. Say a little prayer for me that it goes better than it did earlier. I’m convinced technology and I will never be on friendly terms!

I hope you enjoy this glorious fall day, and happy writing!

September 4th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

 

It’s still dark outside. I set my alarm an hour earlier than I needed to be up so I could do my blog before we left for the beach. There will be six of us going today, my daughter, three of her friend, one little brother, and me. One friend was supposed to be watching her brother today and would not have been able to come to the beach, so I said we would take him too. It’s one of the girl’s birthdays today and I didn’t want the one friend to miss out spending the day with her because she had to babysit.

 

It has been a very long time since I’ve had a ten year old boy at the beach. If I remember correctly, at that age my son would spend the entire day either in the water or digging a hole to China in the sand. Hopefully this little boy will be the same. If not, I haven’t a clue as to how to entertain him.

 

As of today, my daughter’s tight circle of friends are all fourteen years old. It is a very small window of time when this happens because in a few weeks, the first, and quite ironically the tiniest, of the group turns fifteen. The other group members were at Sunday’s picnic, so they celebrated then, but my daughter wanted her friend’s actual birthday to be a little special…so I’m loading up my car with food, beach paraphernalia and kids, and we are going to have a great day. The last hoorah before they have to go back to school.

 

OK, I have to go make sandwiches and get the cooler packed up, so I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

 

Your Last Challenge was:

The day for one of my favorite fall activities is finally here and I think I’m more excited than the kids. I could not have produced a more perfect day than if I had conjured it myself. The air is crisp and the sky a cloudless blue; and although we need sweatshirts right now, before we are finished they will be tied around our waists or more than likely be handed off to Mom, their pack mule in residence.

We pile out of the car, bags in hand, and are immediately assailed with a cacophony of aromas; the hearty earth after a night of rain, the pungent rotting fruit, and, since the orchard is part of a working farm, the barnyard stench also vied for supremacy. The children wrinkled their noses, but I just smiled. As we walked closer to the entrance, another scent gently wafted through the air. Now the kids begin to show signs of interest. Without asking permission or whining and begging as they would have done when they were young, they detour directly to the barn/store, knowing I would not object in the least. I too smelled the newest batch of apple cider donuts emerging from the oven and my mouth was already watering.

 

Dang it, I never even made it into the orchard, never described the sweet taste of the pilfered apples or the joy in watching my adult children start acting like kids again. Oh well, rules are rules. Sad part is, with my daughter away at college, our only hope at a family apple picking is if we go up by her one weekend and my son agrees to come with us. The chances are not likely. I’ll just have to wait and start all over again when I have grandchildren and they are old enough to go (10 years at least from now).

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

The Magical Realm is in an uproar…

 

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.