Excited for the Book Event, and Pears.

 

     My book event is ten days away, and I'm beyond excited. Just to remind you, it's at Bailey's Books in St. Albert. That's 29-B Rowland Crescent in St. Albert. It's in an odd placement, but worth the trip. That is easily the coolest bookstore I've ever experienced, and I'm thrilled they asked me to be there. 

     I've rolled over so many ideas in my mind, but I can tell you what I'm planning. 

     As I mentioned, there will be a Door Prize, but I'm not telling you what's in it. That's an 'after ' blog. As I mentioned before, I'm bringing a copy of  "Elaina's Fate" for guests to sign. Not my idea, but I think it's a good one. I've also decided that for mementos sake, I'm going to highlight the part I'm going to read, so I can also remember what I read to guests. Why not? I think it would be a cool thing to remember, especially if I do this again. 

     Here's a little treat...I'm bringing my pear loaf to share. Why not? I have tons of the stuff! I'm not even finished yet, and my freezer is full. 

     For those of you who don't know me well, I live next door to a pear tree. It actually belongs to my friend Ashley, but neither she or her renters have the time or energy to deal with it. She basically let me have it. 

     Over the years, I have experimented with all kinds of recipes and a few canning methods and just anything and everything to do with pears. Here's a funny fact: I hate pears. 

     But I don't hate these pears. Ashley believes them to be a hybrid of apples and pears, so maybe that's why they taste better. I sometimes think I like them because pretty much anything you grow yourself tastes better than anything you buy. 

     I have two go-to favorites: The Pear Loaf and a Pear Custard Pie. This year, I experimented with Pear Cookies, Pear Cobbler, and two different kinds of Pear Muffins. All of these recipes are available on Pinterest, on my 'Successful Board'. That's where I keep all my recipes that worked out well. 

     My favorite is still the pear loaf. I have that one down to almost a one-woman assembly line and can pump out at least six loaves a day, plus my experiments. 

     I have tried to share them on my Facebook page, but it didn't work for some reason. I suspect that I can't because they're not mine. So if you're interested, please check them out on my Successful Board on Pinterest.

     Oh, and I'm playing with the idea of bringing a couple of excepts from unpublished work, like Bad Clown, for example. Is that a thing? 

Hurray for Fall!

 

I love September. I love summer and fall, but September is the best of both worlds.

It's still warm, but not too much so. There's more yardwork to do, but because it's cooler, it's easier to do. Don't get me wrong, I love yardwork, but those plus 30 Celsius temperatures can really sap a person's energy. It's time to harvest and reap the rewards of all that spring and summer work. 

I've stopped raking my yard in the fall. Or at least I don't rake too much of them. Someone pointed out how a yard full of leaves is bad for your grass and attracts pests and snow mold. It's true, but I'm not talking about that kind of thing. Mine never gets that bad. 

My neighbor across the street gets the carpet of leaves. They're the people who clear my sidewalks and driveway in the winter. So I rake their tiny lawn clean and put the leaves in my compost. Win/win, and it's the least we can do for them.  

I do my fall cleaning. Like I said, it's a lot cooler outside, but I can still keep my windows open to air things out. Perfect.

Then there's the harvesting and canning. I've already done a batch of canned tomatos and a batch of freezer pickles. The pears are plump this year, and that means I'll spend my evenings making pear bread. It's also a lot of work, but the results are so rewarding. When last I visited my friend Tracey, his mom gave me QUALITY vanilla--the kind you get from Mexico--and I'm excited to try it out. 

Melaida's new business is off to a good start. She'd given me a stack of flyers to put out when she started the business, and today I got them all out. She's got new ones coming soon, and I've already figured out new neighborhoods to hand them out. There's entire blocks in my own region I haven't even been to, not even in my garage sale days. I'm finding that those long walks around the neighborhoods are a lot more pleasant this month.

I'm excited and proud of her, but I just realized I haven't done anything to promote my own work lately. I was thinking I should publish an excerpt of Chasing Monsters for Halloween. Then later, one for Elaina's Fate. maybe a contest. With all the aggravation that went into publishing Elaina's Fate, and the length of time it took to finish it, I stepped back from it, and never really came back. I didn't even hold a contest for it. 

I intend to fix that...soon. There's still a lot going on. I finished the first draft for HER TRUE NAME: VOLUME THREE, but I'm taking a short break on that before I edit. I'll start in October. There's also the anthology that has new stories to add, and truthfully, I need to get all of it organized. At least get all the stories on a single USB key. ( Yeep!) I finished a short story named 'Bad Clown'but it needs work. 

I've got a new short called 'Darkness Encroaches' but I don't like the title. Yet another piece that needs a lot of work.  

I've started work on a eulogy for a friend that has signed up for the MAID program, but that's the only new thing right now, and as you can imagine, it's not fun. 

So, yeah...I'm still hard at work. You can probably expect something new from me next year. Hopefully. We'll see. At least two new books are on their way.