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Ze-whoa…

March 30th, 2012 | Comments Off

I knew I was going to have both my new class during the week and a advanced weather workshop tomorrow afternoon so I decided not to sweat it and do some housecleaning on the site as I got the chance. The upside is that as I was tweaking some stuff behind the scenes I ran across what appears to be a phenomenal blogging plug-in for both web browsers and WordPress called Zemanta that will help find related images, articles, or whatever – as you’re writing! The truly neat thing is that you can use your favorite sources as well as the greater web to search for stuff. Seriously, I’ve seen a lot of things pitched over the years as being great for this or that in terms of blogging – some … Read entire article »

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I can identify with the fish

I surely can.  see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz! Because that’s the way my life’s been this last week or so. Seems like every time I take two steps forward, I end up two steps back. Or something else distracts me. Oooo, see the pretty light over there. Let’s go follow it.  But it’s not all bad. Actually, none of it’s really bad, just, you know, normal life stuff, if you know what I mean. Anyway, when I started posting again at the first of the year, I committed to getting something up at least once a week and I still feel that way. Life, however, has other ideas so I’m attempting to … Read entire article »

She’s writing about the grandkids now?

A funny thing happens when one takes a break from reading for a period of time. A favorite author’s backlist can multiply like rabbits, especially when we’re talking about the romance genre. At least nowadays. Case in point, a couple of weeks ago, I go out to eat with my children and on the way home we stop do some shopping. Oddly enough, or not, we all three end up in the book aisle at about the same time and start jokingly picking out books for each other. Then things took a turn into the very funny when I pick up a new book by Stephanie Laurens, take one look at the back description and realize … Read entire article »

alpha heroines

(Editing note: I’ve been going through old posts and files doing some housekeeping to categorize and tag them and decided that it would be fun to periodically – probably every 5th Wednesday – pull one forward for a second look. The criteria I use to pick them could be research for a current topics of interest or a whim of something that catches my attention while browsing the bowels of the site. Heck, I may even dig up something I posted elsewhere and no one’s ever seen. Who knows. Today’s recycled post was originally posted here on Feb 2, 2006 and got picked because I was checked to see what I’d already said about Stephanie … Read entire article »

It’s a dog’s life ;-)

Okay, here’s the deal. I was going to post something thoroughly insightful today but that didn’t pan out. No, seriously, I was but I’ve been feeling like crap for the last two days. Nothing specific, just yuck. If I didn’t know better I’d swear it was the weather, which has actually been rather great but I think that’s a big part of the problem. It’s like we’re already having spring when we should still be having winter and my sinuses are acting up like it’s the middle of summer. I hate feeling this way because I can’t concentrate at all and certainly not on writing posts when I’d rather be outside instead of inside where … Read entire article »

Information – where do you look?

Information – where do you look?

I need some feedback before I share some of my all-time favorite reference books. Or to put it another way, I’m nosy and downright curious as to what everyone else uses. To set the stage, though, I’m currently in the middle of researching how to create and/or layout a small kitchen garden at the back of the house. I’ve … Read entire article »

Happy Valentine’s Day

As many years as I’ve been reading romances I’ve never taken the time to look up the history of Valentine’s Day. So, this year I did some reading online and found it fascinating but one reference in particular caught my eye because I suddenly realized I might’ve stumbled across the origin of “scrapbooks” in a rather unexpected place. Check out this quote and see if you catch what I did: Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as “scrap.” … Read entire article »

How… odd

How… odd

I decided I would make a list of all the Valentine romances that I have to share for today’s post. Only thing is that when I dug around my shelves, my book database, my e-book files and, well, just about anywhere I could think of I came up with only one Harlequin paperback and 2 e-books that even just mention … Read entire article »

How’s the weather your way?

I could care less whether or not Phil sees his shadow on Groundhog Day tomorrow, however, it did get me to thinking about the weather and reminded me to mention something else that has become very dear to my heart. A couple of years ago, I became a volunteer Weather Spotter. What most people think when they hear “weather spotter” is someone running around in a car chasing storms, i.e. what’s commonly called a storm chaser, but that’s not what I do or have even been trained for. Oh, it’s true that the Weather Service does offer elite training for what they call mobile spotters and there certainly are people crazy enough to get out there … Read entire article »

Run for your life – no really

I love cozy mysteries. Watching them. Sometimes reading them, too. But don’t think it’s because they have a “lighter” tone than other mysteries do. Cozies tend to be more quirky, sure, but the one thing that cozy mysteries have that most other mysteries don’t is a very large body count. Don’t believe me? Well, check out this quote: Why would anyone be down on cozies in particular? When you think about it, just how cozy are they? How cozy would you feel tucked away in your pristine English country village, at your church potluck supper or your Tuesday evening quilting circle, with neighbors dropping dead all around you? Honestly, if they’d stopped to consider the body count she … Read entire article »

One of my favorite places on the web

I’m not sure how long it’s been part of the LOL network but I fell in love with Set Phasers To LOL from the first moment I saw it. Partly because like the other LOL sites it has lots of funny stuff, but also because it has its only unique slant/approach to doing things. Which generally involves a combination of the normal captioning of pictures (or in this case screen captures) the LOL sites are known for with a liberal sprinkling of fandom lore that I find equally fascinating. Such as the It Came From Science Fiction post illustrated below: see more Set Phasers To Lol If you click through to the post itself, you’ll find a … Read entire article »

Want now please ;-)

I reblogged about this on Tumblr but couldn’t resist mentioning it here too because he’s just soooo cute and happy looking as a Transformer. If you don’t recognize The Mystery Machine, I don’t know you. So just go away and let me have my fan moment in peace. Heh. Related Posts:Where are you, Scooby Doo? … Read entire article »

Oh, my aching back

I cracked up when I ran across this over on one of the LOL sites: see more Set Phasers To Lol In case you can’t figure it out, it’s a fantasy author attempting to imitate the poses on some of, I think, his books. They may not be all his books but whatever. It’s still hilarious that he basically ended up almost doing injury to himself in the attempt. Related Posts:Why do I keep falling for this stuff when I know what’s going to happen eventually? A hand, but what’s it doing?another body parts puzzle … Read entire article »

Why do I keep falling for this stuff when I know what’s going to happen eventually?

I had intended to post on another topic today but between slowly recovering from a cold, a bad elbow that’s limiting my typing and family activities over the weekend that post isn’t ready yet. However a mini-rant came to me out of the blue a couple of nights ago so you get the benefit of that. Anyway, I was in the mood for some detective shows and had sat down to watch the TIVO recording of Monday’s episode of the new Hawaii Five-O and immediately noticed that the description was only two sentences – not unusual – but one was about McGarrett’s personal life, the other was about Danno’s and there was nothing about … Read entire article »

Does it make me smile?

Does it make me smile?

A few days before Christmas, the strap on my handbag broke and I decided to treat myself to a last minute Christmas present so I stopped by J C Penney with my daughter. I’ve always liked their selection because most of them are organizer bags, they come in a wide range of sizes and materials, are well-made and durable plus … Read entire article »

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