Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all who will be celebrating today! I am ever so thankful for the gift of my family - immediate and extended - and true friends. Life can be hard sometimes and it is the love and understanding and compassion of support of said family and friends that sees me through. I am most thankful for my husband and our children who bring me joy, love and happiness every single day - even when times are tough. What are you grateful for?

Have a happy day!

Movie night

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July to those who are celebrating today! Have fun, enjoy your family and friends and please, be safe out there!

Afternoon theatre

My daughter and I spent the afternoon seeing friends in this play. It was the first time seeing it for both of us and we had a wonderful time together. 

Thankful and grateful

Christmas tree

Merry Christmas Eve! I hope everyone has a wonderful time with their family and friends!

Christmas wreath

This fresh wreath smells delicious! It was a gift from friends of ours and we love it!

Cool decorations

We wnet to a Christmas party this evening and the decorations (along with the company and the entire party) were wonderful! I particularly fell in love with the "floating" ornaments. I want to do this in my home! My husband said "Hmmmm, okay." LOL I'm not sure if that means he likes it or not or if he's just afraid I'll pull him into this project with me. Oh well, I'm going to try it and will post a picture when I do! 

Grateful

I am so grateful for my family and friends and the fact that we get to experience this life together. It's so important to me not to ever take them for granted. Everything can change in an instant. I love them and I try to express that on a regular basis.

Musing Monday: Non-Keeper Books

 Musing Mondays is a weekly meme hosted by The Purple Booker that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

• I’m currently reading…
• Up next I think I’ll read…
• I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
• I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
• I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
• I can’t wait to get a copy of…
• I wish I could read ___, but…
• I blogged about ____ this past week…

THIS WEEK'S RANDOM QUESTION: What do you do with your non-keeper hard copy books?

This is a simple answer for me. I either give them to family or friends or donate them the library bookstore. 

The Man Who Invented Christmas

I want to see this movie! It looks fantastic! As someone who LOVES A Christmas Carol and has read it many times this movie will (hopefully) be brilliant to me! In fact, my kids want me to read then the book this year so I was already planning to do so. I'm not sure if they'd like this movie, though. So this may need to be viewed on a night out with girlfriends. 

Old friends

I feel like I'm visiting old friends when I read a new book in a series I love. I am currently reading Echoes in Death by J.D. Robb. This is the 44th book in her In Death series and it is as amazing as ever! Even though these are stories that revolve around homicide I still love being immersed in this world and 'seeing' the characters and what they're up to! Does anyone else feel this way about books and characters?

Plugging away

I had breakfast and a revision session with a friend this morning. We do this once a week and it is so helpful to me! For one thing it is super nice to have a friend who absolutely understands what it is to be a writer and working toward publication. I am very fortunate to have supportive people in my life: my husband, our children, family and friends but my writer friends understand on a different level. This morning my friend was working on her synopsis and realized she wanted to change the order of some of her story arcs. I knew exactly what she meant just as she understood my ramble about not getting stuck in revision and not submitting my book.

This brings me to what I've been struggling with for a month or so. I have been hyper revising. I don;t really know if that is a 'thing' but it has become a thing for me. I'm absolutely nitpicking my novel to the point that I am annoying myself! My friend helped me to realize that I need to stop this! So, I have decided that I will finish the round of revision I'm doing now and submit the story. I've given myself a goal of January 31st. I originally said I'd do it by next week but pushed it until the end of the month so I can write the synopsis. Maybe with the next book I'll write the synopsis first. At any rate, I am so thankful for the support system I have - especially writer friends who get all the quirks that go along with this endeavor!

Homemade Christmas cards

My friend came over today and showed my daughter and I how to make our own Christmas cards. It was SO MUCH fun. We can't wait to do it again!

Hello December

This is the photo from my 2016 calendar - not one I took myself. I love this photo, though! It is peaceful and festive at the same time. Even as I wonder how it came to be December so fast I am ready to enjoy this season with my family and friends. I hope you all are able to do the same!

Our apple picking day

We spent the day out in nature apple picking. We went as a family but also met up with some great, long time friends! We had a wonderful day being together! This picture is one of the apple trees we actually did pick from.

We went to Oak Glen which is a place that I have been going to since I was a child. I used to go with my mom, brother and grandma. Other family members probably went through the years but I definitely remember spending time here with my grandma. Of course that makes it really special to me. Early on in my relationship with my husband - before we were married - I introduced him to this slice of nature and he fell in love with the area, too. Now we've made it a tradition to take our children, as well. I love that we have this tradition and hope to continue for a few decades. 

Apple picking

Apple picking is one of those things that I think of as an Autumn activity. We're going to go apple picking soon with longtime friends and I can;t wait! I will definitely take plenty of pictures (the one above isn't mine) and post some of them. I love this time of year.

Friends

We had an unexpected visit from friends tonight. An evening spent with friends is always wonderful!

Good Friends

I am so very thankful for my good friends. They are special and important to me. It's true that we don;t always see each other but we know we're always there for each other and that truly does mean the world. 

Summer humor

We had a barbeque with friends and our family tonight. The food was excellent and the company even better. However, the only picture anyone managed to take was this one - the of the hot dogs before they were grilled. I don't know why exactly but I think this is so funny.