I’m doing this post from my phone even though I took the photos with the DSLR and put them on my computer. I actually went to all the trouble of emailing them to myself so I could access them from my phone…all so I could use Instaframe. I think it was faster than doing a collage in GIMP, but I’m not sure!
Now I’m updating this because on my computer I can see that the trees are really cut off! So here they are in full.
Oh well. If you never try anything new, you’ll never learn anything new!
In scrounging around in my folders looking for photos to share today, I found this one from 2 years ago.
The next one is from today.
I hope this is the most important decision you have to make today. I’ve been doing too much thinking, and this really cheered me up, so I hope it helps you out too!
Today you can get Dead to the Max for free. It’s the start of what looks like a great series. This is by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jasmine Haynes/Jennifer Skully, who signed with me, along with Adina Senft/Shelley Adina on Saturday at The Village House of Books!
Jasmine took a picture of me signing my very first book sale. Yes, that’s a friend. I had a lot of support from friends, which made me feel wonderful!
Here’s the free book. I already downloaded it and can’t wait to start!
Blurb:
A ghost, a psychic, and one very hunky detective, all tied up with a bit of murder and mayhem…
Thirty-something, down-on-her-luck accountant Max Starr has the unfortunate gift of being psychic, a newly-discovered wrinkle in her already messed-up life. Her husband, Cameron, is dead, killed in a botched 7-11 robbery two years ago. She’s cut herself off from friends, moved out of her San Francisco home in favor of a studio apartment, and dumped her flourishing career as a CPA to do temp work.
And now Max has developed an annoying penchant for attracting the spirits of murdered women. Okay, they possess her. And to exorcize them, Max must unmask their killers. But how?! By stepping into the void their deaths created, taking their jobs, befriending the loved ones they left behind. Max goes wherever she has to go and does whatever she has to do, with a lot of help from the ghost of her late husband Cameron and hunky and very enticing Detective Witt Long.
In Dead to the Max, Book 1 in the Max Starr series, Max steps into the shoes of a murdered accountant and starts to learn that even supposedly boring accountants can have secret lives and secret desires. Max just has to hope the secrets she uncovers don’t get her killed, too.
You can download the ebook here:
And here are the titles of and links to the Max Starr series:
Happy Sunday! The weather here is amazing. I need to get out and take some shots, but for today I have an oil painting of Uluru for you.
I am happy to report that my first ever book signing yesterday went really well. Valentine’s Day, sunny weather in the 70s, set up on the sidewalk, and a lot of friends came by to show support. It was pretty great.
Have a great day.
Nicci
I hope you are having a nice Saturday. Here is a shot from my favorite place in the world. Enjoy!
There are a couple red flowers out in the neighborhood, both miniature. This is on our tea tree.
These are in a neighbors yard. I think they are miniature geraniums:
Happy Friday!
Nicci
From the National Weather Service Monday Facebook post.
Oh, by the way, we have a statistic for you…due to precipitation runoff since Friday Lake Tahoe’s water level has gone up about 4.8 inches. That means that approximately 16 billion gallons of water have been added to Lake Tahoe from the past 2 systems.
The next two pictures are from Harold Jones’ Facebook page.
Lake Shasta before the last storm:
and after:
According to Harold:
The lake has came up 11.88 feet since Friday. With the high inflows the lake will continue to rise for the next several days.
The other good news. Shasta Lake is 35.50 feet higher than on this day last year.
And here’s a news flash that just happened: A Powerball ticket worth $1.4 million (5 of 6 of the numbers) was given away as part of a promotion in the Bay Area. (The giveaway was just a ticket…I would say the promo value of that ticket is now really huge!)
Three other people in other locations had all 6 numbers, and will split $564 million. What would you do with $188 million dollars?
I would set up a foundation. It would be incredibly fun to manage a huge foundation and give away money. I would hire people to do most of the work though, while I write. I formed a plan after I left my first nonprofit job in my late 20s and started to seek work that would provide a secure old age, that I would work at a corporate job until 50, write until 70 and work at a nonprofit organization again after that.
You don’t have to have $188 million dollars to do philanthropy though. According to Giving 2.0 by Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen:
Major gifts may dominate headlines, but the majority of giving still comes from individual households—ordinary people with extraordinary generosity. Even in 2009, at a time of deep recession, individual giving averaged almost $2,000 per household and drove 82% of the $300 billion donated that same year.
If you did win the Powerball, there’s another book that a reviewer said was really good with the specifics: Give Smart: Philanthropy that Gets Results. Reading the description of this book put me in a great mood. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the problem of how to make a real difference with huge piles of money? That would be so fun.
Of course we all know happiness really comes from
within
and from love and friendship:
It’s fun to think about extravagant things one might buy as well. I think it would be fun to have a house on the beach in Santa Monica, maybe like this:
That’s only $7,299,000
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1347-Palisades-Beach-Rd-Santa-Monica-CA-90401/20484777_zpid/
Have an abundant Thursday!
Nicci
Water droplets on flowers…
This is one of those times I’m glad I take RAW format as well as jpg. Usually I like the camera’s jpg version just fine, but this time the RAW one was much better. Then it was a matter of figuring out how to get those little gleaming drops of water to survive output. They kept disappearing. The droplets were mostly what I preferred about the RAW image, that and the balance of light. I finally figured out to output it without compression, and there they are, the little droplets.
Happy hump day! And for those of you in Australia, you are over the hump and well on your way to the weekend.
If you don’t have a day job, do you still differentiate weekends? I have learned to do so, keeping the same rhythm as the working world. I still work on weekends, but I always did that. I just don’t work that much, and I do most of my socializing on weekends. I try to keep my week days as working days. But I do have to get up from my desk and move, thanks to my transformation from Move a Little, Lose a Lot. I’m going to go do one of my walks right now.
Have a great day, and don’t forget to get up from your desk and walk around. It really does make a difference.
I thought you all might like to see this blog post for my first book signing. These are really interesting authors and we’re talking about romance for Valentine’s Day.
by Nicci Carrera, Adina Senft, and Jasmine Haynes
Nicci Carrera:
Hello, Village House of Books blog readers. I am writing most of this post and inviting my co-book-signers to chip in, so please bear with my long-windedness. This is a topic near and dear to my heart! So I will talk first and then ask one question each of the amazing Adina Senft and Jasmine Haynes.
I am thrilled to be doing my first ever book-signing of my debut spicy romantic comedy at Village House of Books with two remarkable authors whose work I adore on Valentine’s Day, 2015 (3 – 5 p.m.).
If you have not tried reading modern romance novels, I encourage you to try them. Romance is a very broad category. You can find anything you want in the genre, and there is…
View original post 1,176 more words
Yesterday I made this: http://www.cookingclassy.com/2014/07/avocado-salsa/
Here’s my photo…the one on the recipe is prettier since I didn’t think to take a picture before we ate most of it, but in case you don’t want to hop over there to look, here it is:
The recipe did require that I go to the store and buy most of the ingredients, but that’s okay, because that was my NEAT activity for the day. What is a NEAT activity? Funny you should ask, since that, along with the link to this recipe, is the giveaway for today.
NEAT is Non-exercise activity thermogenesis, a term used in the book Move a Little, Lose a Lot.
It was raining yesterday, so going shopping was a great thing to do to make sure I accomplished my daily two and a quarter hours of moving around.
It took about an hour to make this, maybe 45 minutes, not sure, but it was worth it. It’s incredibly delicious. We had it as a side with a vegetarian tamale from Costco.
Move a Little, Lose a Lot is the most fun I’ve ever had with a weight management program. I love the rewards feature. At the start of the book, you choose 4 rewards of increasing value. That really motivated me, so now I also know that planning out rewards really works for me. But the best thing about the book is that I quit the gym! Well, that’s not quite true. I did quit the gym, which is great, and saves $88 a month, but the best thing is that I now know that cleaning the house, yard work, washing the car, walking to the store, de-cluttering the house (an overarching goal for the year) and going for a walk all count toward my movement goals for the day, which must add up to two and a quarter hours (by the end of the book). It’s liberating, and I lost a little weight and a lot of stress because now I’m not stressing about the fact that I’m not going to the gym, or going to the gym and hating the time it took from my life. I’m also not stressing about all the chores hanging over my head that I never get to. Now, I rely on those chores and de-cluttering goals to get my NEAT activity. By following everything (almost) that the author said to do, I have really changed my whole set of behaviors and mindset around activity and work. The author (a Mayo Clinic researcher and doctor) knows what he’s doing regarding changing human behavior and overcoming the traps of our modern society. I’m in the final two weeks, which are about your community. This is where he starts to talk about how having a NEAT lifestyle is good for the planet and the community.
As for the weight loss, I don’t have a lot to do, and I already ate pretty well (except for over the holidays), so it’s just a bit slow. But I’m not gaining any more, and I know I will gradually reverse the last couple years of weight gain caused by too much work and stress-related eating. (I can hear you: “You’re a writer, how can that be stressful? You should see my job.” Yes, I had one of those jobs too, so I do sympathize, but writing has it’s own stress, trust me. And if you are a writer, you know of what I speak.)
So, here is the giveaway. If you feel comfortable giving me your mailing address, leave a comment and I’ll enter your name in a randomizer. Once I’m done with the book in 2 weeks, if you live in the USA, I will email you, get your address, and mail you the book. If you live really far away, and you win, I’ll give you a digital copy of my book, or one of John Holland’s books that I edited, your choice. If you live in the US and really want one of my or John’s books instead of Move a Little, Lose a Lot, that can be negotiated! Okay, I’m making this up here, obviously! But I’m trying to keep the cost below $5. Final caveat, if you subscribe to my blog but can’t leave a comment, you can contact me by filling in the form on my Contact Me page on my website. (While you are there, feel free to sign up for my monthly newsletter, which has an original recipe along with news and writing tips.)
Here’s another giveaway that floated across my virtual desk this week. The author is selling all her books for $.99 and running a contest for $120 gift certificate.
http://www.thesnarkology.com/2015/02/07/paranormal-sale-120-gift-card-giveaway-lisarayns/
I think you need a pretty picture today, too.
Nicci Carrera 