I’d like to introduce the cover for my April 2010 release, THE COWBOY’S BABY. I love the pose they have of the little girl and the man. I hope it will entice many readers to pick up the book and read it. Hopefully they will enjoy the story equally as well as the cover.

WHAT I’M DOING TO GET ORGANIZED:

One thing always needs doing, every day, every SINGLE day, is supper. I don’t know how many times I’ve looked at the clock knowing I have done nothing about supper and men are starting to circle like vultures. So I have been trying to change that as much as I can. One thing I’ve done is prepare meat ahead of time. This is how to prepare a large batch of ground beef.

Take about 10 pounds of ground beef. Spread a little at a time on a cookie sheet. Do not crowd it. Bake in a 350-375 degree oven for about 10 mins. Remove cookies sheets (I do two at a time), drain and break up the lumps of meat. Return to oven and continue cooking until all pink is gone. It’s okay if some pieces get a little crispy. Salt and pepper to taste. Dump cooked meat into a large bowl to cool and continue cooking the rest of the ground beef until it is all cooked.

Meanwhile, stir fry a finely chopped onion. Mix into cooked meat. Allow it to all cool then package into freezer bags in quantities sufficient for a meal. It can be used in soup, stew, chili, casseroles or anything you’d normally use ground beef for. It helps make mealtime easy.

HEALTHY HINT: Put drained beef in a colander and wash with hot water to remove more of the fat. Put back in oven to cook/brown more. Browning again after washing is essential for good flavor. (This also works well if you are frying ground beef.)

ANOTHER HINT: grate a carrot and stir fry with onion for added nutrition. One medium carrot for each pound or two of meat works well.

WHAT I’M READING:

I am a Claude Monet fan. One thing I really enjoyed on my long-ago trip to London <insert longing sigh> was the National Gallery where I got to see Monet paintings up close. I enjoyed equally as much my visit to Musee D’Orsay in Paris where they have much space devoted to this famous French painter.

I discovered a fascinating book in our library called, MONET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS FOR KIDS by Carol Sabbeth.    It describes in easy-to-read style the beginning of Impressionism. There are some lovely quotes. Claude Monet, “When you paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Instead think, ‘Here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow,’ and paint it like it looks.”

Pierre Auguste Renoir thought paintings should be "likable, joyous , and pretty." He said, "There are enough unpleasant things in this world. We don’t have to paint them as well."

The book is interspersed with drawing and painting lessons. They were so simple and straightforward I am almost convinced I could become a painter artist. (Though not of the caliber of these famous painters. )

On second thought, I think I will return to my writing. LOL.

Writing is demanding.

Deadlines are inflexible.

Requests from editors for more work on a project are unpredictable.

For instance:

On Friday I sent in the proposal for the Alaska story. One inflexible deadline met. I was anticipating a weekend with nothing pressing to deal with in my writing world.

Late Friday afternoon the courier man arrived and handed me a package. It was line edits to be done on Dakota Cowboy and returned by Mon. Seeing as they go back by courier, Tuesday is the earliest I can manage it.  Line edits is when the manuscript comes back with strike outs and notes in the margin. ‘Add something more here about the hero.’ ‘Change this word. Used too many times.’ ‘Why didn’t such and such happen? Explain.’

It sounds easy but it feels a lot like one of those math problems when someone gives you a list on unrelated numbers and asks what would come next. Do you guess or do you know?

It’s further proof that material from the editors is unpredictable.

Every moment of the week end will be spent getting this ready to return. Which proves that writing is demanding. (I will find balance just as soon as I have time!!!)

What I’m reading:

From age 45 to 59, Hannah Breece taught in the most primitive areas of Alaska. She once ‘held a hundred wild dogs at bay by herself and escaped. She traveled in a kayak wearing bear intestines! A bear almost ate her right from her bed and this time the dogs saved her!’ She scaled cliffs, fell through ice and outran a forest fire. This story is full of information but also reads like a story. I really enjoyed it.

What? It’s Saturday again? Already? Where has the week gone? I had such wonderful ideas of balance and organization.

It seems all I did was write and deal with interruptions. Mostly in the form of phone calls. (Do you still have kittens to give away? I could have give them away three times over!)

Why the pressure on writing? It’s because I have 2 deadlines this month. One was met Wednesday when I sent the package off via courier. The other has to be met before the end of the month. Plus I had non-negotiable demands from editors on yet-to-be released books such as filling out the detailed information required for cover art. DAKOTA FATHER is the title of my Jan. 2011 release. It goes rather nicely with DAKOTA CHILD (Sept. 09) and DAKOTA COWBOY (July 2010).

So most days this past week has found me at my computer.

My to-do list has changed very little all week. In fact, rather than change the list, I’ve taken to simply crossing off yesterday and changing it to today.

But as soon as I get these projects done I will find a way to be balanced–my goal for the year.

I’ve been reading some wonderful research books. GOLD RUSH WOMEN (picture to the left) is full of information and stories of unusual women. Anna De Graf was 55 years old when she climbed the Chilkoot Pass walking with the help of a crutch, her sore feet wrapped in rags. She wasn’t looking for gold but for her youngest son who had gone in search of gold. She supported herself working as a seamstress, sewing tents, making clothes for the miners and dance hall girls.

Ethel Berry found Klondike gold before the great Klondike Stampede. She spent the previous winter huddled in a small wooden shack with only a flour sack for a window. She panned paydirt by lamplight in a washtub

. She arrived in Seattle in rags but with $100,000 in gold in her bedroll.

Josephine Marcus Earp (yes, Wyatt Earp’s wife) set out with her husband to the gold fields. She turned back when she discovered she was pregnant but they set out again the next year. Again, they did not make it before freeze up. In the end they opened a canteen and sold beer and cigarettes.

This is a very interesting book about the last frontier in North America.

By the way, I intended to be more organized this year but we won’t talk about that this week for obvious reasons. (Most the total lack of organization.)

Christmas is over and it was lovely. Time spent with family, enjoying babies and growing grandchildren. Here’s the two little girls watching a toy. They are getting so big so fast.

The cold weather made for some beautiful scenery.And the heavy snow fall was great for building tunnels.

The new year is over a week old and I made some resolutions or as I prefer to call them, goals. I need to adjust my life to a better course.

I am determined to do is be more organized and balanced. Seeing as I never even managed to blog last week the organized part is not off to a blazing start. But I will continue to aim for that. Perhaps I’ll post some of my lessons.

Balance? I know it’s there. I see it every time I swing by. I just don’t know how to achieve it. Perhaps FEELING  organized is one way to find balance–living purposefully, knowing my priorities instead of responding to the urgent. I’ll let you know how it works out for me.

Oh yes, Diet. This year, instead of determining to lose weight I am committing to a year of eating well, and exercising regularly. Good luck to me.

In the meantime, I am enjoying re-reading a couple of books by one of my favorite authors–Elizabeth Berg. I just finished True to Form. I suppose you might call it a coming of age story but it is not typical. It’s so much more. A child who sees life with a very mature, but growing, point of view. What I really like about EB books is the way she captures life in such rich detail. I feel like I’ve jumped into the deep end of life and see things I’ve never before noticed. Perhaps seeing life through a kaleidoscope–richer, fuller, more colorful. If you’ve never read Elizabeth Berg, give her a try. Or re-read an old favorite.

For some reason a recent discussion on one of my writers’ loops focused on desks. Perhaps because with Christmas approaching, there were those who hoped for new desks, or new chairs.

I found the discussion interesting.

There was a woman who had been moved from her office because of a leak that ruined one wall. She went to the partially converted garage which would one day become their extra family room. However, it wasn’t finished and as cold weather approached she had to move indoors and set up shop in the living room.

Another worked out of a credenza in the living room with the big screen TV close by.

A third told how her first office was a former 10 foot  X 10 foot bedroom. She outgrew it and they built a room over the garage. That information puzzled me. How do you outgrow a room? Does your computer get bigger? I thought they were getting smaller? And how much money does she make writing that she could afford to build an addition? A lot more than me!!

Some posted pictures of their desk, workspaces and work areas. Wow. I couldn’t believe it. They were so neat. Totally unlike the condition of my office at the time. Have a look.

My room is 10 X 10. It serves as both writing area, farm business area and every other type of work area. This is Christmas present wrapping in progress.

This is my current background picture on the computer screen. A picture of Alaska as I work on my Alaska story. And a stack of research books and notes.

This is the timer I have to use, at times, to make myself work. I set it for 15 to 30 minutes and force myself to type until the timer goes off. Or the phone rings. Or someone comes to the door. (Whichever comes first!!)

So my question still is, who outgrows an office? (At least I have one and don’t have to try and work in the living room.) And who can afford a big addition? (I can GUARANTEE she didn’t pay for it with her writing money. And if she did I gotta ask, hasn’t she anything more fun to do with that money? Like travel? Buy more books? Whatever?)

PS. The mess is almost cleaned up as we celebrate the family Christmas get-together today.

I’m sure we’ve all heard it. Stretching is good for you. If we believe the exercise gurus it improves our flexibility. It improves muscle balance around a joint thus improving posture. It reduces the chance of injury. It increases the blood and nutrient supply to muscles and cartilage, thereby reducing muscle soreness after a workout. 

I’m sure it’s all true. It just requires a lot of effort. Of course, so does exercise which is why it often ends up on the bottom of the to-do list. (Way at the bottom.)

Making myself write something beyond my comfort level is a form of creative stretching. I expect it is good for me but not always high on my fun list.

I’ve been stretching a lot these past days. (Creatively, not physically.) I have the privilege of being asked to write an editor-driven continuity. For those of you who don’t know, that means the editors plan a series of books, in this case 6 contemporaries, and 3 historicals. They develop the basic story idea for each book then assign them. This series is about a fictional town in Alaska built during the Klondike gold rush. The book I have been assigned is about a native woman familiar with natural healing and a doctor interested only in science.

Like I say, it’s been a stretching experience. I’ve researched the Klondike gold rush (at least I was somewhat familiar with that.), the Tlingit Indians, the gateway cities of the gold rush, medicinal plants of Alaska, medical practices of the 1800s, and on and on.

I guess it’s good for me. Or is it? Look at this video of a man doing some stretches and decide for yourself.  (here’s the link in case the clip doesn’t work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS8GNWensHc&NR=1)

By the way, watch for the upcoming series Treasure Creek. The contemporaries come out later in 2010 and the historicals in early 2011.

Yes, we’ve had a lot of snow. It’s impossible to say how much because it’s blown into drifts. But here is a picture of the planters on the wheelchair ramp where snow is a mushroom cap. Doesn’t it look like a Hallmark card?

Mind you, I don’t like it quite so much when I get stuck in it as I have.

The drifts are deep. Here is a drift by our trees. I suppose it is close to six feet high.

Again, it’s pretty to look at.

I suppose it’s all in how you view snow as to whether or not you enjoy it. Shoveling a hundred yard driveway is different than looking out the window.

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.  ~John Ruskin

There is no season such delight can bring
As summer, autumn, winter and the spring.
~William Browne

Snowflakes are kisses from heaven.  ~Author Unknown

Snowmen fall from heaven… unassembled.  ~Author Unknown

Or as one person says, When it snows you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels.

I’ll add a third choice: stay indoors as much as possible and enjoy the view.

Here’s my view.

A winter storm blew in yesterday. And it’s still blowing. There’s something about a snow storm that makes me particularly grateful for a nice warm house. The roads have been terrible. Visibility is poor. Very poor. The main highway (QE2) has been closed off and on all day. This is what we saw when we opened our door this morning.

I was trying to think of the worst storm I remember but what stands out in my mind is the winter the roads were closed much of the time. We went to town on snowmobile for weeks. My husband and oldest son and daughter rode on the snowmobile. My younger son and I rode on a sleigh towed behind and by the time we arrived in town five miles I was plastered with snow.

There are some great pictures of snow storms on this site.

http://nsidc.org/snow/gallery/index.html

That’s a train they’re looking down on and wondering how to dig it out.

I always thought snow flakes, though no two alike, were somewhat similar. Not so according to this site which say, "If you look closely at falling snow, you can see a great many different crystal shapes.  There’s a lot more to see than you might think!" After glancing at the information, I decided there is more about snowflakes than I ever wanted to know.

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/class/class.htm

Remember folding and cutting paper to make snowflakes? Snowflakes are 6 sided so you have to folded a sheet of paper in half then thirds.

  In case you’ve forgotten how to do it, here are instructions:

http://highhopes.com/snowflakes.html

And here are a few pictures taken in the 50s. Just to show that this kind of weather is nothing new.

I remember climbing the fence and jumping into this bank of snow. We wore only woollen clothes so you can imagine how wet we got.

So enjoy the snow. Build memories to share when you’re old enough to smack your gums and say to your grandchildren, "I remember the blizzard of ‘09. Why we had a drift as high as my head right outside the door. It took us days to shovel out. "

We often celebrate Thanksgiving twice. Once in October for the Canadian Thanksgiving and then again in November if we have family visiting us from south of the border.  Such was the case this year.

We began the weekend on Thurs. with a wiener roast. Our turkey dinner was slated for Friday to accommodate those who had to work.  The weather was balmy and pleasant. Not a flake of snow or drop of rain. Dry ground. Drifting leaves. Cats romping about.

Some of the family decided to stay over Thurs. night. We have one spare room which was already occupied so we put up inflatable bed wherever we could squeeze in one. Someone slept on a foamy in the laundry room. Someone slept next to the freezer on a mattress. It was…cozy, shall we say.

We woke to snow. Heavy, wet snow which turned to ice as soon as a vehicle drove on it. Snow fell heavily until mid afternoon. The streets and highways were well iced by then. The Queen Elizabeth II highway was shut down with a 50-60 car pileup. The trip from Calgary (normally an hour to an hour and a half) took 4 1/2 hours.

The birthday girl had to stay in the city by herself while the rest of us ate turkey. Sorry you couldn’t make it, Tania.

The roads were too treacherous to travel on so everyone stayed another night. No one complained about the crowding. In fact, it was kind of fun. We were warm and dry. We had lots of food. And good company.  Lots of people to hold the two baby girls. Here is a picture of them enjoying each other. Haedyn is checking out Anastasia’s ear. She also pulled her hair and tried to get some action out of her cousin.

It was a great weekend and made me realize again how blessed we are with family, conveniences, food, water, heat, homes, etc. I could go on and on but consider just one thing we take for granted–water. We showered, bathed, flushed toilets, did laundry, made number pots of coffee, drank lots of water and likely never once gave a thought to the fact much of the world does not enjoy a super abundance of safe, clean water.

So today, I am going to consciously give thanks for water. (As I wash 4 loads of sheets, 3 loads of towels and enjoy another cup of coffee.)

Which brings me to another thought about water. How satisfying it is. How necessary. We have also a spiritual need for refreshing, cleansing water. In John chapter four, verse ten, Jesus says he will be to us living water that satisfies.

How blessed we are to have satisfying, abu

ndant water at our disposal.

A while ago–it doesn’t matter how long–a couple of writers got together and came up with a plan on how to help an organization that is dedicated to training Christian publishers and writers in difficult places around the globe. That organization is called Media Associates International. The plan they devised was a book written by published authors and sold solely to benefit the organization. And so A Novel Idea was written.

This book contains approximately 80 articles giving advice on writing inspirational fiction. I am pleased to be included with my article Doing a Fast First Draft.  My friend and fellow writer, Carolyne Aarsen is included with her article Tunnel Vision-A Writer’s Friend.

I haven’t read all the articles yet though I hope to before long. Some titles really attract me like, Writing Novels from the Inside Out by mary DeMuth and The Plot Skeleton by Angela Hunt.

This book won’t make me any money but will benefit hundreds of others. I am thrilled to be a part of it.