Friday Dog Blog

Happy Friday!  It had to be a dog blog today.  You'd understand if you could see the massive amounts of dog hair floating around here.  I'm not kidding...Chewie is blowing his coat, and I have never seen anything like it in all of my existence.  I've heard rumors of what it's like to live in an ocean of Newf hair...the actual experience is something else, though.  And yet, how can I be irritated when the source of the enormous fur-bunnies is this guy?

This is him begging for potato chips yesterday.  He's very hard to resist.  Or ignore.  And apart from him, we have his sister, Stella, who is NOT shedding much at present but is doing her level best to keep my attention in other ways. 

What a sweet face.  You'd never know that in the last week she has eaten two sticks of butter, a small container of leftover Hollandaise sauce, and large amounts of my youngest child's every breakfast.  Can you say "counter surfer"?  She also has such a spaz at feeding time that she often lands in her water dish (the water then landing everywhere else), she keeps delivering branches from my blackberry bushes to me, and there is a particular spot in the yard that she appears to have chosen for some sort of canine archaeological dig.  I'm sure it's very important.  So one of my Newfs thinks he's a bear only partially awakened from hibernation, and the other thinks she's a border collie.

They are currently piled up against my desk chair groaning at one another.

So how was everyone's week?  The writing has been slow (need to change that), but I've read a few books from my RWA stash.  Enjoyed The Fallen: Raziel by Kristina Douglas (actually Anne Stuart!), and The Princess in His Bed by Lila DiPasqua.  And now I'm going to finish Embers by Laura Bickle, which is very awesome thus far...I just got sidetracked because I didn't want to bring my Nook to the horse barn to read, so I grabbed something paper (and less destructable!) instead.  My poor Nook has a crack in the frame.  I suppose I'll use this as an excuse to get a Nook Color at Christmas:)

Read anything good lately?  Enjoy your weekend!  Oh, and check out this most excellent review of Dark Awakening at Reading Between the Wines HERE.  The site immediately won my heart because of the wine glass ratings, but it really is a great review.  My goodreads page for the book is making me very happy right now!

Friday! And More Free Stuff!

Happy Friday!  I'm...not exactly sure where this week went on me.  Well, okay, I am a little, since I've resumed my passionate love affair with my Nook and am happily devouring Nalini Singh's Guild Hunter books (I'll be finishing Archangel's Kiss today).  The story is, of course, right up my alley (Angels! Vampires! Everyone is hot and many are snarky!), but her voice is the kicker.  Juuuust right, drew me right in.  I would like a man-harem of the Seven, please.  As soon as they can be delivered.  And of course, I'll have to read her Psy-Changeling series after this.  Hooray for getting into an author when she has a big backlist for me to enjoy!

So, a small announcement, and then I'll open the floor to discussion so somebody can win a signed copy of Dark Awakening, since I have another to give!  It looks like I WILL be doing at least a couple of HOT short stories for Nocturne's new Cravings line, which will be available online only (this is a more erotic counterpart to their Bites line).  I've just gotten the thumbs up on the outlines I did, so I couldn't tell you yet when these will be available, but I think quite early in 2012 with the schedule I've set up.  I will, of course, keep you posted!  I'm going to a dark faerie tale place with these, which should be a lot of fun! 

Aaaaand now,  the (very non-fancy) contest: like last time, open until midnight PST.  I'll do a drawing, assisted by my lovely hat-owning, paper-selecting daughter.  Just let me know if you'd like to be entered in the comments!  And for discussion, since I have the summer ahead and am determined to carve out more reading time on my brand spankin' new screened-in porch, what are the books you have REALLY loved this year?  Did you grab one that really lit a fire under you, like "OMG MUST KEEP READING NOM NOM NOM" (or something like that)?  I love to hear what people are reading, esp. because I love a book I can sink my teeth into myself:-)  I mean, you don't even want to know how excited I am that Dmitri's Guild Hunter story is coming out in September. *happy sigh*  Oh, and please check out this AWESOME review from the amazing Kristina!  She has a great book review site going, and I am completely tickled that she loved Dark Awakening so much!  Click HERE for the goodness!