So I did a thing… I moved to a wordpress web site 🙂 Here’s the link – see you there… we are having doughnuts and vodka http://lynceeshillard.com/
Mayhem Monday
Hey Hey everyone!
Welcome and
Everyone is into Fall… I’m the odd ball. I really don’t want pumpkin spice, hoodies, or football. I do however love fires with caramel apple martinis (caramel vodka, apple cider, chopped apples, cinnamon)
I was surprised with some homemade pumpkin doughnuts from a reader that Charlie and I totally loved!!!
And I do love Halloween. Took Charlie to a Halloween store this weekend while waiting for Batman’s birthday party (Batman turned 80 – pretty darn good looking for 80). So Hell Clown freaked Charlie out.
I have a new romance horror coming together that has to do with this….
Also on the writing front, I’m looking at using enneagram to develop characters 🙂 I took a test a few weeks back and I’m hooked. I order The Essential Enneagram by David Daniels, MD/Virginia Price, PH D and The Enneagram made Easy by Renee Baron/Elizabeth Wagele for this. I’m really excited about this.
I also picked up The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron/Suzanne Stabile. I’m toying with the idea of doing a journaling topic using it. Not until the new year, I have topics for the rest of 2019. October will be focusing on our inner child. I’m doing a video on turning a child’s book into a journal.
I’m continuing my young adult mer/siren/things of the sea binge. I read Sea Witch by Sarah Henning last week. I loved it!!! I ordered Sea Witch Rising but while I’m waiting on that I have To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo and Secrets of the Sirens by Julia Golding – I’m sure this is NOTHING like by motorcycle club siren;-0.
I did a blog post last week on reading as a writer – you can check it out here. All month we are doing awesome writer ‘chats’. Take a few minutes and read it over. Talking about reading my author charity this month is Great Start Readiness. If you are interested in learning more about why I LOVE this check out my blog post – It’s A Reading Thing.
To round out the weekend, Charlie and I had a movie night. And what movie night isn’t complete without popcorn??? While I let Charlie pick out the popcorn at the farmer’s market. I didn’t really examine the bag, the kernels were coated in a golden brown so I assumed it was caramel…well, nope. It was peanut butter caramel!!! Why is this a thing????
So tell about your week??? And your thoughts on ‘weird’ flavored’ popcorn??
Charlie loved his fruit flavored popcorn.
It’s a reading Thing
Hey Hey everyone! Welcome to Charity Sunday. This Sunday, I’m featuring Great Start Readiness.
This a program that I support more than a 1000%. Reading your child from birth is soooo important and lays the foundation for years to come.
Charlie attends most of these events with me.
He’s an avid reader and I contribute this to reading to him from the moment he came to live with us.
Sadly, not all kids have access to books. Parents are stretched thin on their budget, and for many other reasons. Great Start Readiness not only gives away books, we host a ton of play and learn groups. We do this in a variety of places from laundry mats to churches to parks. Wherever we can met the parents where they are at.
Not only do we want the kids to have books but we want the parents to be comfortable reading the books. Many parents weren’t read to and they believe that it has to be something much more than it is. I’ve had countless parents say to me – ‘you mean I just read.”
There are so many ways you can support a read early program –
- Buy books to donate to family homeless shelter.
- Volunteer at a reading event
- Sponsor a child at your local school’s book fair. This money is given to a child whose parent’s may not be able to afford a book, it allows them to be a part of the this fun school event
Also The Books for Kids Foundation is a great country wide organization that would love any donation.
And while I support this charity with all my heart and soul, I don’t have a book that features it…most of my books don’t have kids because well, they are steamy suspense romance – which may result in a child being born after the book is done and I’m sure all my characters would read to their child 🙂
Don’t forget to check out all the other authors participating in Charity Sunday –Â Authors Featured Charity
All proceeds from my sales of my SUPER steamy Halloween suspense romance over the next two weeks will be donated to my local Read Early Read Often program.
Blurb:
Lila Maxwell is coaxed into attending All Treats, a Halloween speed dating event by her best friend. Instead of the soul mate promised one Halloween ghoul after another appears at her door until Cowboy Bill.
Jax Carlson has spent the last year focusing all of his attention on starting his own business. Hiring Lila Maxell over the Internet as his project manager was the final piece to his prefect plan. Set to open for business in three days, Jax plans on spending a couple of days on his boat relaxing. However, his friend Erik has a different idea – a speed dating Halloween party.
Jax has spent the night plotting the best revenge possible for Erik until Sally opens the door. The woman dressed in the pale lavender Harem costume ignites a fire that Jax thought was impossible without the aid of his formulated dating list.
After a night of mind blowing sex, Lila sneaks out before they exchange real names believing it was no more than a one-night stand.
Lila’s first day is full of surprises, the biggest being Cowboy Bill is actually her new boss, Jax Carlson. She thinks keeping her hormones in check while convincing Jax that love doesn’t follow a formula is complication enough until she learns the participants of the All Treats speed dating event are being killed.
Monday Mayhem
Hey hey everyone!
I hope everyone had a great week. Mine was a lot of behind the scene stuff…. you know the stuff that has to be done but no one notices that it’s done… like cleaning out the family room closet. If that isn’t the definition of fun, I’m not sure what is. 😉
Fall has settled into my part of the world. The Fall here is cold…wet…and gloomy.
Besides cleaning out the closet and other heart stopping fun things, I started a new blanket. It’s been awhile since I’ve crochet a blanket. For many years my goal was to crochet a baby blanket a month for the Linus Project. Sadly, I had to give that up because life shifted but I’ve found other charities along the same lines to support. I highlight one once month on Charity Sunday, a blog hop of 16 to 20 other authors where we talk about and promote a charity we support. I’m not far enough along to really post a picture that will look like anything more than a glob of yarn.
And of course, we are back to our bowling shuffle on Saturdays. We were suppose to go to a Harry Potter scavenger hunt but Charlie had a really bad headache episode on Friday so I decided we needed to keep things quite.
We spent Friday the 13th in the ER 😦
Because of the headache thing, we didn’t get to do our Friday the 13th movie thing. We did it on Sunday. And if you are watching a Scooby-do marathon, it must be done from inside a shark – just saying.
I made ‘blood’ popcorn (jello popcorn).
What you need:
- 10 cups popped popcorn (unbuttered works the best. The jello doesn’t coat as well if it’s buttered.)
- 1 cup butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 (3 ounce) package strawberry flavored Jell-O(R) mix (of course any flavor will work)
- 1 tablespoon corn syrup
- 3 tablespoons water
What you do:
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease a 1/4 sheet pan. Generously butter a heavy 2 quart saucepan.
- Distribute popcorn evenly in prepared baking pans.
- In prepared saucepan over medium heat, combine butter, sugar, gelatin, corn syrup and water. Heat to 250 to 265 degrees, or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms a rigid ball.
- Pour mixture evenly over popcorn and stir until coated. Return popcorn to oven and bake 5 minutes; stir, then bake 5 minutes more.
- Turn popcorn out onto a large piece of foil. Let cool completely and break into clusters. Store in an airtight container, in a cool, dry place.
I was part of a Friday the 13th blog hop were I talked about creepy things. You can still enter – https://www.facebook.com/LynceeS/
Mine are dolls – yup they freak me out.
What triggers your creep bumps?
And that wraps up my week. What did you do?
Friday the 13th AND a full moon!
Happy Friday the 13th and full moon!
Today’s moon is known as the Harvest full moon. We always do fun things for the Harvest moon. I make this soooo yummy (not keto friendly bread) Here is the link for the recipe I use Harvest Bread – I follow it except I use apples and apple cider in place of the pineapple.
We also make crafts using seeds. I tried to find some pictures from previous years but of course couldn’t. I hate it when my total lack of organization bites me. But this year we are going to make bean soup kits in a jar…well because it’s already uber super cold – and I hate it but I’ve decided to embrace it.
Since I’m going to do this with my 7 year-old, we’ll be watching Scooby-do for your Friday the 13th element. But after he’s in bed, I’m excited to start the new Stephen King book – The Institute but you don’t want to buy it??? Well, jump on over to The Friday the 13th giveaway to enter to win a copy! And I’m doing my own give away – a gift card to Amazon – on my facebook author page – Romance with a Bang
just tell me your favorite full moon myth/superstition/belief.
But if you want to read something tonight – check out my Murder and Treats it has murder…a full moon…and treats…and some really steamy sex 🙂
Make sure to check out the other authors in the Friday 13th giveaway…
Virginia Lee Johnson
Mia Jones
T.L. Christianson
Author A Nicky Hjort
Sara J. Bernhardt
Danielle DeVor
LaKeah Smith
HAVE A GREAT FRIDAY!
Monday Mayhem
Hey hey everyone!
How was your week? Last week was the first day back to school…
I had such high hopes, big plans, you know the drill and once again life just came in and took over. I’m over life, she needs to move on 🙂
A lot of what went on last week centered around food (big surprise huh – hahaha). I discovered corn on the cob cooked in the air fryer – sooooo soooo yummy.
Charlie did some cooking this week – both at home and at an event we went to. The Oma and Opa day at a local Dutch village. He made waffle cookies.
And we also bought this cheese…it’s interesting.
I’m catching up with the rest of the world I finally watched Aqua-man. I know weird for someone who wrote a mermaid book and is in the finally edits of a siren/mer book. I’m not sure what my hesitation was but I think it was ALL the hype on how good looking Aqua-man is. That I shall not comment on. ;-0
On the personal front, I started reading/researching Enneagrams. Took a test, just a quickie to see where I landed. Now before I say anything on this, let’s talk zodiac signs. I’m a Capricorn who is NOTHING like a Capricorn. And I mean NOTHING. On the other hand the quickie Ennegram test was 100% spot on even down to what I NEVER am. I have a couple of books on order and I’m looking forward to reading up on this more.
Besides being late to the Aqua-man craze, I have just started reading/listening the DC Icon books. I listened to Cat Woman Soulstealer by Sarah J Mass, read Batman Nightwalker by Marie Lu, and I’m reading Wonder Woman Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo (a new to me author). I loved Catwoman. Though Batman was okay, and that might be because I love Batman so I was expecting too much??? Has anyone read Superman? Any thoughts??? I’m not a Superman fan overall so I’m unsure.
On the writing front, I’m part of a Friday the 13th author Facebook hop, I’m giving away an Amazon gift card, other authors are doing giveaways and we are giving away a Stephen King book because well it’s Friday the 13th.
The journal newsletter and site are coming along. I’m working on some graphic design.
I also have a new look for headshots.
What’s new in your world???
Monday Mayhem
Hey Hey Everyone!
It’s Labor Day. The last ‘official’ weekend of the summer for us. But actually it Summer has packed up a left 😦 The highs have been in the mid 60’s. Major bummer. The water temps are already in the 50’s so no swimming. We did sneak in one last ‘beach’ day. We went to a small inland lake but the water was still cold to swim.
Last sunset of the weekend
The boys had fun playing in the sand and I did some reading. My goal for this summer was to read the Terry Brooks Shannara series and Kristen Britan’s The Green Rider series. I did finish The Green Rider series which I’m review on Tasarla’s blog on Friday. There are a lot of books in the Shannara series so I extended goal to year end.
But while at the beach I read The Dollhouse Murders. It’s for a series of writer articles on ‘creepy things’…
I consider her creepy….you???
And along the reading thing, I worked a Back 2 School Bash. Charlie is loving the Michigan Chillers series. I love working these events, talking to people about how important it is to read to your child from birth on.
We also did some dino fun at the local children’s museum
And while there I was inspired for my next journal topic – Bubbles. The ones we create for yourselves and those around us. Believe me after weeks for restricted movement for Charlie due to his concussion, I want to put him into a real bubble – a thick bubble that is shatter proof. 🙂
We also did a Back to Hogwarts night at the local library. Sooooo much fun. And of course there are new school supplies 🙂
And then because I just don’t have enough going on I started a new craft ‘hobby.’ Cloth covered plates. I’m making this into a three tier cupcake display holder.
In the writing front. I’m also done with the 1st draft of Jar of Souls…. I love this story! While I love all my stories this one has been a blast to write. I might be hanging out in the romance horror genre for a while.
So what new and exciting things have you been up to?
Running with the Big Cats
Welcome to Charity Sunday. There are several charities that are dear to my heart and I’ll be sharing them on Sundays along with a group of other authors.
So this is how it works…at least for me. There are two ways you can support my featured charity.
1. Through a direct donation
2. Buy my book – anytime the week following this post and ALL the money will be sent to the charity.
This week’s featured charity is Wisconsin Big Cat Rescue. Â They house leopards, lions, and tigers. “Our goal now is to give these cats a home where they can live out their life, and not be made to jump through firey hoops or sit on a table to have pictures taken of them with people at resorts or fairs. Here they can simply run, play, and relax as they please, and receive plenty of love and attention.”
Charlie’s favorite
I’m behind this thought more than a 100%. I love to see big cats, giraffes, and other exotic animals what I don’t
My favorite
love is seeing being forced to entertain me. This is why I support The Wisconsin Big Cat Rescue and the local animal rescue (I’ll featuring that one in a few weeks.)
In my book Treasure Hunt there is a Siberian Tiger Esmeralda that has magic and the ability to talk Delaney. She doesn’t jump through hoops or sit pretty for pictures. Matter-of-fact, she is pretty kick butt.
Except:
Delaney watched Esmeralda pace the deck of the ship. Her low grumbling growl filled the air.
Esmeralda turned to face her. Her golden eyes shining in the swirling fog. Evil is hunting. It’s seeking you.
“I know.” Delaney told her. “I’m ready.”
The cat snarled rolling her lip back to bare her large teeth. We are ready.
Blurb:
DeLaney Black Heart is the captain of The Gypsy Princess, the most feared pirate ship on the Cannequ seas, until recently. Her long-standing enemy, Falken Sands, is making good on his threat to ruin her. She is in desperate need of a large bounty to soothe her crew and reclaim her title.
Raven Kinsley is a treasure hunter. He offers DeLaney the chance to redeem herself. Only their history is stopping DeLaney from jumping on the offer. Raven abandoned her a year earlier and disappeared.
Left with no other choice, DeLaney agrees to Raven’s commission. They begin their journey to claim the lost treasure of Midas, but soon trouble surrounds them. Raven and DeLaney combine forces to battle gryphons, the possessed Falken Sands, and other creatures.
DeLaney tries to convince herself what she feels for Raven is born out of battle, not love. Raven knows he loves DeLaney, but until an old enemy is beaten, he can’t make his claim on her heart.
As secrets are revealed, they realize this is more than a mere treasure hunt. It’s a battle for their lives.
Buy: Treasure Hunt
Remember all sales will be donated to Wisconsin Big Cat Rescue but if Treasure Hunt isn’t your type of book, please consider donating directly – Wisconsin Big Cat Rescue
Check out the other great featured charities and authors. Have a great day!
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Monday Mayham
Hello everyone!
It has been a CRAZZZYYYY seven days. My 7-year-old hit his head a week ago yesterday soooo I’ve spend my time running to hospitals, concussions clinic, and trying to find ‘non’ active things for him to do.
We tried a little adventure yesterday….A small local farm. It went good or so we thought. But last night, he woke up crying his eyes hurt and he had a headache. So we are back to living like vampires ☹ But any day you stand talking to an alpaca is a good day…Or feed it a carrot from your mouth. And I find it very funny and an excellent day when a goat chases him to eat his shirt 😀
While living in the dark, I’m still trying to keep on deadlines, word count and you know things like laundry, and dirty dishes. I did a fun author thing during Pirate week.
It’s also photography day so I’ve flooded my Instagram with my pictures… like this one
I’ve started What’s in the Pie over on Wattpad – here is the intro. I’ll be adding more on Wednesday’s. I need to get a cover – that’s on my ever growing list.
Also I the writing front, I bought this cute notebook (because really there isn’t such a thing as too many doughnut notebooks).
I’m using it for a blog tracker. I divided it into three sections – blogs by date, blogs by content (life, cooking, characters – etc.), and by writer (Lyncee, guest, etc.). I’m hoping this will help me in my quest for organization. A glimpse at this weeks planners – I needed some Wonder Woman in my life 🙂
On the ‘fun’ side of lift, I received this in the mail this week….
Love love love these bags. I came with all these goodies….
I also received a box from Walmart. I’m hoping to do a compare on Youtube. They cost the same, so which do I feel is a better value?
I started two non-fiction books this week…
Boss Up! (for both my writing career and VA business)
And Save the Cat! Writes a Novel (writing craft – my goal is to read 4 craft books this year – this only my 2nd 
)
What’s new in your life?
Monday Mayhem
Hey Hey everyone!
It’s August and with that comes my favorite thing – BACK TO SCHOOL supplies. I’m soooo addicted.
A few of my favorite journals and pens and planners
I may have a collection of doughnut notebooks…because well – they have doughnuts on them!
I’m also sort of sad because I know my beach time is coming to an end ☹ So there is a big push to get as much time as possible. This year is going to be a little harder. I usually try to have an editing project for August but this that didn’t work out. I’m writing and I can’t find a beach laptop.
Can you ever get tired of this view?
What am I writing you ask? I’m so glad you did ask.
Well, I have this…. My first horror romance – isn’t the cover AMAZING!!!!
And I’m working on What’s in The Pie? This will be romance suspense and I’m seriously thinking it will be on Wattpad. I’ll do a chapter or so a week. Paul is okay with this idea – he loves people dropping in weekly (if you don’t know who Paul is check out my book hooks .
I’ve also decided to get really serious about my finances. Yeah, I know a bit late in the game but a long story of why and I’ve finally kicked those demons to the curb. I just finished reading –
I’ll be doing a review and writing about my late life money journey – on It’s Never too Late to Start.
I got this finance/budget planner….
It scares the crap out of me! Like I break out in hives and start foaming at the mouth wanting vodka every time I open it. But hey, I’m doing it. It was a referral from Shay Budges. I love her! While she’s young and rocking the world I still find a lot of what she has to say inspiring and useful.
August and September Master Menu plan and recipes
One of the things I’m doing that I did all the time when my kiddos were young but sort of stopped when I became a -very brief- empty nester is long term menu plan. I did the month of August and half of September. I bought everything that was on sale this week for the dishes for those 8 weeks. I know this saves me money and time but when it was just me, I didn’t feel the savings was there.
And because it is the end of the summer, I’m stocking up on winter lotion. Lotions are big to me. In the summer I’m an aloha based lotion. This is my favorite is Banana Boat
But for winter, which can be brutal here in my part of Michigan – anyone heard of polar vortex, I use Hemp lotion.
This week’s mermaid color – Sally Hanson’s Flashionista
Do you switch lotions with seasons? What are some of your favorite?
As far as the Keto/diabetic friendly diet is going. Last week was okay until Sunday – then oh man did I fall off the wagon! The wagon ran me over and then left. It was many miles down the road by the time I woke from my carb hangover. But now that I’m on a menu plan, I think days like yesterday should fade away. Some things I have on them that I’m excited about – Zucchini bites, mashed cauliflower with pizza steak, and beef taco lettuce wraps. I’ll post my thoughts and share recipes on Thursday’s Tasty and Thirsty.
Any one try anything good keto or low sugar they would like to share?
And finally, today is national underwear day. Why? And how am to celebrate this???
Lyncee Shillard 