Memorials and Elusive Beeping

Yesterday started out as a rather stressful day with worrying about a friend having surgery, and remembering that it was also the 20th anniversary of both my grandmother's death, and coincidentally the first bombing of the World Trade Centers in New York.  Twenty years ago, I was 8, and I still distinctly remember getting the call that grandma had passed away. My mom took the call, I was sitting at the table. I knew, as soon as my mom picked up the phone that she had passed away, and while we knew it was coming, that didn't help the mourning process much. My grandmother was an amazing woman who still lives on in our memories and through the lives of her children and grandchildren. I was touched to find out that my mom had put this memorial in the paper.

We're Going To.....

So we left off with my husband thinking, that when I was talking about going to swim in'the Gulf,' that I was talking about his time overseas during the first Persian Gulf war. Feel free to facepalm--I did. The next day however, out of the blue, this beautiful Google chat happened:

To Orlando, or not to Orlando Part 1

You know those awesome videos on Youtube where parents tell their kids that they're going to Disney, but only when they're on their way there already? The kids burst out crying, and screaming and carrying on.  Sadly it appears my husband's only response is a soild 'meh.'

Ashes and Ice book review!

As promised, here is my review of the exciting debut novel, Ashes and Ice, by my wonderful friend, Rochelle Maya Callen.  This post is long, but it's because as a bonus gift, you're getting an excerpt at the end! So read my review, then go over to Amazon  or Barnes and Noble and buy it now for only 99 cents. I can't wait until the paperback comes out because I'm planning a giveaway then!   Thank you Lady Amber Tours for hosting this blog tour.  

Synopsis:

She is desperate to remember.
He is aching to forget.
Together, they are not broken.
But together, one may not survive.

​Jade wakes up with no memory of her past and blood on her hands.

Plagued by wicked thoughts, she searches for answers. Instead, she finds a boy who doesn't offer her answers, but hope. But sometimes, when nightmares turn into reality and death follows you everywhere, hope is not enough.

LUST. LOVE. LOSS. Sometimes, all that is left are Ashes and Ice

Learning New Skills

My husband is a geek, an alpha geek at that. He loves to make computer's sing and dance. You'd think that would mean that he had the nicest of computers, and nothing technical in our house would ever be broken for long. Yeah, so not true. Right now he's working off of a laptop he just bought, because this desktop that he built while I was still in college, kept blue-screening. His computer history since we moved into this house has been a comedy of error, and hopefully he'll build himself something worthy of the level of his geekiness. 

Valentine's Debacle

Time to delve back into my history a bit, before marriage came into the picture, while we were still alight with the glow of a new relationship...

Valentine’s 2009
I had just commuted back from a conference an hour away, was not in a terribly good mood. I had my period, awful cramps and it was Valentine’s Day. What a lovely combination, right?  The one shining light I had though, was that my boyfriend and I would be able to see each other that night. My husband and I started dating right after Thanksgiving five years ago.

New things to come, book reviews!

Soon you will be seeing a new feature on my blog--book reviews. One of my favorite bloggers has pretty regular book reviews, which initially drew my interest. I love to read but frankly, I'm getting sick of reading the free fluff that I get through Pixel of Ink. It's an awesome resource to have (and you should totally check it out).  My issue is that fundamentally, I'm cheap and slightly paranoid, and the idea of electronic books still makes me feel like I was jipped out of a real book. However, I will totally admit that since I discovered brain candy, as I like the call trashy fiction, I became hooked. It's like heroin in literary form, and I really need to expand my horizons a bit and read more genre's of books. I like funny, light and fluffy because it seems like too much of a commitment to delve into something that is deeper. Hopefully this will soon change.

A brief side note on my take on self published books is this -- power to you for taking the time, effort and energy to write a book. It's a huge accomplishment. As such, don't sell yourself short by not having a decent professional editor for your work.  If you don't, and I find any typos at all in your book, my respect for your writing goes down, and I'll lose interest pretty quickly, and your formatting will probably really annoy me. I will almost never stop reading a book unless the editing is so convoluted that I can't follow the story line.  Also, take the time to deal with the editing issues for the kindle to ensure that your typeface isn't so big that it can read on the moon and we aren't allowed to make it any smaller (this happens all the time!).  I know I make tons of typos here, but I'm not, nor do I have a professional editor. I sure as hell can't proofread my own work. Ask my last boss, she'd be glad to point out that shortcoming.  

Don't Kill Dinner Cover Reveal!

Everyone loves a good vampire book, so I had to do a cover reveal for this awesome looking book that's being released on March 15th!  

Series: The Rules Trilogy
Author: Jennifer Martinez
Genre: Urban Fantasy/New Adult Paranormal Romance (Mature audiences only. Mild to
moderate swearing and sexual situations)


Don't Kill Dinner Blurb:
There are three rules when it comes to being a vampire in New Orleans. 1) Don’t kill dinner.
2) Don’t feed from people you know. 3) Don’t tell anyone. Not too hard, right? Wrong. Kenna
is a new vampire filled with a passion that has turned into an uncontrollable lust for blood.
Will Arthur be able to stop her feeding spree before the coven comes after her or is Kenna
beyond saving?

Arthur has been watching Kenna for years, wanting her to try her own hand in life before he
gave her the ultimate proposal. Now that she has accepted, will his love be enough to save
her?

Author Bio:

One day while slaving away at her monotonous day job, Jennifer Martinez found her true
calling. Like a firefly in the night, the pages called to her. Once she caught the bug there was
no stopping it. Her fingers flew furiously across the keyboard winding tales of love, mystery and
anger. She snapped out of her reverie to find herself still behind the desk but at least she knew
who she was… Author Jennifer Martinez.

I like to think of myself as a beautiful conundrum. When I am not writing, I can be found
surrounded by my amazing family and 4 dogs or volunteering at a local animal rescue. I love who
I am and don’t mind at all when I get strange looks from people. I am a tattoo covered, child and
animal lover who looks forward to destroying peoples preconceived notions of what “someone
like me” would be interested in. You only live life once… you may as well make it interesting.

I love to get lost in a good book and hope that everyone will get lost in mine.

Links:

Jennifer Martinez on Facebook
Jennifer Martinez on Twitter
Jennifer Martinez on Amazon
Actor for Hire, The Rules Trilogy 0.5 Kenna’s Story on Amazon
Actor for Hire, The Rules Trilogy 0.5 Kenna’s Story on Smashwords

The Psyched out in the Work Out,

I had a rough week, healthwise and realized yesterday that I felt like I was losing motivation, so I thought that I'm exam that a little bit today. I'd love your feedback too!

Keeping motivated while losing weight is so difficult, but what about when we become our own worst enemy?  What I feel isn't talked enough in relation to weight loss is the psychological effect, especially in people that lose a large amount of weight. It's hard to look in the mirror every day and see a different person, even if you like the person that you're seeing in the mirror.  Basically--you know when you put makeup on, pout your lips all sexy like and take a picture to display yourself in all of your peacock glory on Facebook and you think to yourself 'damn I look pretty good in this picture!' Well, when I look in the mirror now, I feel like I'm looking at that styled up 'skinny day' picture of myself.  When I lost weight in college, I thought I looked good and I was happy with how I looked, but I don't remember looking in the mirror and feeling like I was looking at a different person.  This would sound great, and in many ways it is, but it starts making you question people's motives for being nice to you (would that person still like me if I was fatter?), it starts making you want to scream, "but that's not me!" at the mirror, and it can start planting seeds of doubt in your mind.