Welcome 2016!

Here it comes...2016!

I can't even imagine how the change of the year got here so quickly. It's been an amazing, odd, interesting, slightly terrible, and very wonderful year, and I'm incredibly grateful that I've gotten to experience it. If you're reading this, I'm glad you've gotten to experience it with me. :)

Every year, someone asks me about making New Year's resolutions, and my response is always that I don't unless it just sort of turns out that way. If I feel a need to make a change in my life to be a better person or to be healthier or happier, I don't until the new year, which is what I think many people do. For some, it will work. The idea that we're sweeping out the old and ringing in the new helps some people stick with their goals. For others, not so much. Me? I just have to do it or it won't get done.

I'm reminded of this every year when I go to the gym where I work out regularly. Right after Christmas, I see the staff showing a bunch of new or potential members around. Some of them have gotten memberships as Christmas presents; the others probably have made the resolution to get fit in the coming year. Either is great if it gets that person to the gym. Unfortunately, I've seen this scenario played out over the years, and usually most of the folks who start simply don't finish. Every December, I see the new members signing up. In January and maybe February, the gym is bustling with well-intentioned people of all ages trying to make a positive impact on their health. By the end of March, only a couple of the people who started in January are still hanging in there. These are people who have made a lifestyle change and committed to it, which is key to making any change in life. I think if we called them New Year's lifestyle changes instead of resolutions, more people would be successful in reaching their goals.

What's helped me is that if I want to change something, I try to make it a habit as soon as possible. For example, in September I realized that job stress was getting me down and affecting my relationships with other people. I decided one day to change my attitude toward what was going on in my work life that day, and made plans to talk less about my frustrations at work and more about other things going on in my life. That required me to stop focusing on my job as much and focus on things I've missed, like reading and writing. Making that one adjustment required a great deal of effort and other modifications, but it's been worth it. Life is better now, even though the workplace situation hasn't really improved and probably never will.

What I'm trying to say is that there is no time like the present, whether it is New Year's day or a random day in March, to make the changes you want to make, and sometimes those changes require more than one variation in routine to make them happen. If you want to get healthy at the gym, you have to make it a part of your routine, not just something you do when you get time, or that gym membership will get very dusty and then disappear altogether. At least, that's how it works for me.

I hope that you achieve whatever goals you want to achieve, whether you're deciding on them now or in July. I admire anyone who tries, whether they fail or succeed, in making their lives or the lives of those around them better, in big or small ways. I wish you the very best for a peaceful, loving, happy, and tremendous 2016 filled with, of course, lots of books. Happy Reading!

The Relief of the Holidays

I thought I had the holidays under control, and it appears that I do. However, everything else in my life is sort of out of control.

By that I mean my job is crazy. Just a week before everyone's schedules get upset by the holiday furor, my boss announces she's leaving. Then my new boss announces that we have a major project we need to be working on, which leads me to doubt his sanity. What boss in his right mind would expect his staff, who is in the process of finalizing fifty other projects that are due at the end of the fiscal year, to just drop everything that's expected and start a new something or other that he hasn't really explained but wants completed by the first week in January?

The holidays are my relief from my job stress. All the madness that comes from cooking and cleaning and being the family diplomat when Uncle Fred eats the last deviled egg that Cousin Bertha had her eye on is a relief compared to the lunacy that is my occupation right now. At least my day occupation...the writing part of my life keeps me fairly sane, as does the reading part.

Things are hectic, but not so hectic that I've not been thinking about adventure. As in, participating in one. But I can't think of what to do. I want to plan something wild and memorable with my hubby and do it, enjoying every blissful non-working moment of it; however, I don't know what to do. As a writer, I can conceive of all kinds of things, but I really don't think my DH wants to save the world by recovering a stolen diamond from the Tower of London while dodging aliens. I need help on scaling back on what I think adventure is. In other words, I need something that realistically I can do without causing an international incident or an intergalactic war. Any ideas?

I hope your holiday shopping--wait, that's an adventure!--is going well. Mine is done, actually, so all I really need is that post holiday adventure to look forward to. Otherwise, I only get to look forward to my job, and that is, right now, a bummer. Maybe my next adventure should be dusting off my resume and scoping job sites. Hmmm...

Happy Reading!

Peace, Love, and Joy and Happy 2015!

I just wanted to take a moment and wish all our readers and my fellow bloggers a happy, happy holiday and solstice season. No matter whether you celebrate anything in the winter or celebrate everything, I hope your days are filled with whatever makes you happy. For me, that's peace and love and joy. And writing, of course!

I'm not scheduled to post next week, so this will be my last post of 2014. It has been an amazing ride this year--up and down and up and down--and I look forward to 2015. My plan is to find a way to rejuvenate (by writing) and to relax more (by writing). Do you see a pattern? lol

Actually, I'm off right now to do a little writing before I start helping with dinner preparations with our oldest son. I'm excited about two new books that will be released in 2015 and am editing the first one right now. It's great to be back at it after having to squeeze writing time in among my work projects.

I hope your new year brings you plenty of reading and/or writing time. I'll be back January 8th, but until we meet again...

Happy Reading!

Cameo

Happy Holiday from Natasha

Christmas Eve is tomorrow. All the snow that had piled up in the last month is completely gone, rain and temps in the high 50s took care of that. But even if we don't have a white Christmas, we'll have friends and family, good food and plenty of drink, music and gifts and lots of laughter. Lots of love.

So whether you celebrate Christmas or not, my wish for you is the same. Have a wonderful week full of love and good cheer. Hug those you care about and give them a gift, even if it's just a bright smile.

Love,
Natasha
www.natashamoore.com

An Early Happy New Year

I hope this finds everyone enjoying a festive and wonderful holiday season. I missed the opportunity to post my greetings with my blogmates because my e-mail has been down due to the fact that I'm switching over to another computer. I love getting a new machine, as mine is slipping away at a rapid clip, but in the transfer process I've missed some communications that I wish I wouldn't have missed. The holiday wishes for this blog was one of them.

So, I'm being proactive, given that my next post will be in 2013--can you believe it?--and wishing everyone a happy and safe New Year's. Where did 2012 go? I mean, it seems like just yesterday that I was doing my last blog post of 2011, and here we are with 2013 looming. Is the earth spinning faster or something? Yeeeikes!

For me, 2012 has been a hectic, crazy, and challenging year, and I'm not sad to see it go. However, even for all the hard stuff I've had to overcome this year, there have been some real bright spots, some real accomplishments or good things that helped offset some of the difficult times. For example...

1. I finally found underwear that fit really, really well. I'd lost some weight, and my undies got baggy. I never thought much about it until I saw the wrinkles showing through my jeans one day. When I moved, it looked like my bottom had a mind of it's own and was doing some kind of hula dance with a snake. To find underwear that actually fits, because of my odd size, is a major accomplishment that makes for a little less worrisome morning when I'm trying to get ready for work.
2. I maintained my weight after losing about almost twenty pounds, although I'm not sure if I'm happy about that or not right now. I feared that I'd gain my weight back, so it's good that I didn't, but I also wanted to lose just five more pounds. I actually had a going away party for those stubborn last few pounds of flab, but since food and drink were served, it sort of defeated the purpose.
3. I got to write a little more, but also I've found new homes for some of my older books. They'll be coming out in 2013, in hopefully new and improved versions, along with some brand new stuff. The process to get it done has been a real learning experience, and I've discovered you can teach an old dog new tricks. Woof!
4. This hasn't happened yet, but my DH is 100% supportive of creating sort of a home office for me, which will include my new computer (once I get the blasted thing set up) and a nice workspace in case I want to do a craft of some sort. We're negotiating, and I've had to use my feminine wiles to convince him to give up his computer chair. That and other kinds of "negotiations" like it have really been the true highlights of 2012 for me. :)

What about you? What great things happened for you in 2012? Or, what do you look forward to in 2013? Please do share. It's gonna be a great year!

Thanksgiving Recipes & Sizzling Excerpt

Hi everyone, I'm still participating in the Thanksgiving party at The Romance Studio . (The party ends on 11/23.)

Today I'm sharing an exclusive, steamy excerpt from Beast in a Kilt. What happens when a virginal lass gives an aphrodisiac to a hot Highlander? Click here to find out.

I'm also sharing recipes such as Sinfully Delicious Milk Chocolate Bar Cake, Apple Spice Bread, Cinnamon-Lover Pumpkin Bread and Scottish Cinnamon Shortbread.

You can view all my posts here including other hot excerpts.

Lots of prizes are being given away such as books. I'm giving away a Hershey's recipe book for your holiday dessert ideas. TRS is giving away a NOOK! Each comment is a chance to win! Click this link to join the party:




Thanks!
Nicole

http://www.nicolenorth.com/

Don't Furgit the Crits!

I thought it apropos, since we've been blogging about treasures and memories during this wonderful holiday season, to bring critters into the picture. What greater treasure is there than unconditional love?

Between the end of my senior year in high school and my first year of college, our last dog passed away at the ripe old age of forever and a few days. We held off getting any more pets because of the lifestyle transitions going on at the time, but being "dog" people, that could only last so long. It was inevitable that we'd get another pet, but I didn't know when. As it turned out, my family decided to get me-translation "us"- a dog for Christmas.

And she immediately became my mother's best friend. lol

I can't stress enough that I don't promote giving living creatures for gifts. Too many of them become unwanted pets in a matter of weeks. Anyone who works at a shelter will tell you how it fills up after the holidays. However, this was a situation where our puppy was simply ready to come to her new home so close to the holiday that it just coincided, and quite honestly, even if she'd been the ugliest, smelliest, most obnoxious creature on the planet, I'd have kept her, because she was a dog. My dog. A chihuahua mix I'll call Charity, she was adorable and charming, and, as we discovered through many interesting encounters with men (young, old, tall, short, skinny, chunky, etc.), an unrepentant flirt. She LOVED men. I mean LOVED them. More than me, I sometimes think. She'd stare at them and pose, batting her little doggy eyelashes. Some of them waved. Some waved and smiled. Some waved, smiled, and struck up conversations.

God, what a great little dog.

Beyond Charity's penchant for enchanting the male of any species (including pigeons), she was loving, loyal, smart, protective and sweet--in short, a treasure. She passed away from old age a few years back, but her joining our family that Christmas is a memory I will always cherish, and so, of course, I've done what many writers naturally do with their familiars--I've immortalized her by writing her into a novella.

Who says writers don't have power? lol

Charity is the inspiration for Hark, the three-headed Chihuahua in my latest release, Seducing Gracie, due out in January. Granted, Hark is a boy and has three heads, two of which beat up on the third, but still, she inspired me to write him in one evening as I contemplated the maternal instincts of my lead character, Gracie.

In honor of the inspiration and joy our pets bring to our lives, I'm also posting a link to the Humane Society of the United States' holiday tips for pets page. The holiday season can be a stressful time for humans, with all the changes in everyone's normal routines, the decorations, the different foods, and the excitement, and these things affects pets just as much, if not more.
It's important to try to think and plan ahead, especially if your family is going visiting or will have visitors, and it's also important to consider the hazards that holiday foods and decorations can present to your pets. One Christmas, our other Chihuahua mix, whom I'll call her Faith, was still a puppy and very much into eating anything that dropped on the floor. She ingested a plastic flower-shaped rim to a Christmas tree light that I dropped as we trimmed the tree. In a panic, I called the vet's emergency number, figuring the foreign object would do all kinds of damage, but it didn't. He told me exactly what to do, which was let it pass. It did. Ugh. On the bright side, it did pretty up her puppy poop a bit. Very festive.

Do you have any Christmas memories of beloved pets to share? Do you have any holiday traditions involving your pets, or have you ever incorporated a pet into a novel as a character? I had so much fun with Hark that I'm working on adding another critter to my next novella, Taming Lucy. Perhaps Lucy, a succubus, will have a cat. If she does, it would probably look like the one below. lol Happy Holidays!

Keeping the Fires Burning -- Creatively and Otherwise

Holiday times are lots of fun, but they can also become stressful. Yesterday while at a mall, I decided I wouldn’t let this busy time of year get the best of me. I entered the lot and the sea of vehicles jockeying for a parking place. Two kind drivers smiled and yielded the right of way, and I journeyed through the lanes. With temptations abounding and parties planned this month, I’d already decided parking farther away was the perfect plan. Of course, the fact space was at a minimum also set this notion in motion.

The best part of my adventure was running into some old friends and briefly catching up on what was going on in our worlds. A chat with a gentleman while browsing books started a conversation that found us discussing current fiction works of merit. After some time spent checking out various stores—and I wasn’t even shopping for gifts—I found a great bargain and then headed for the car.

Though I wasn’t at the shopping complex for too long, it seemed as though the parking lot had shrunk and vehicles would soon have to park on the curbs. A chilly wind slapped my cheeks, and I wrapped my scarf tighter. Bumper to bumper I inched my way toward the highway and freedom from the shopping frenzy. The interstate was close by, and I pointed my car toward it. With the radio on, I longed for an escape—a comforting and/or pampering escape.

Sound familiar?

If it does—or even if you’re curious as to what routes I take to remedy such desires—read on. Here are some pampering possibilities for solo or enjoyment with a significant other. Guaranteed to raise heart rates and warm you from head to heel.






Solo –






Fill your bathtub with glorious bubbles and bask. Include a bath tray and read a favorite book or sip a yummy beverage. Soak away the stress.






Treat yourself to a homemade facial mask or give yourself a sassy pedicure/manicure. He’ll appreciate your beauty and won’t be able to resist touching, kissing and tickling you.






Find some childhood photo albums and take a trip back in time.






Surround yourself in silence and practice yoga or meditation. This will slough off stress, clear your mind, and balance your mood.






Bake something extra sinful such as special brownies, cookies you’ll frost, or a festive cake. Call a couple friends and have them come over for chatting and coffee/tea while you share the pastries of the season before they spoil.






With a Great Guy –




Pick your favorite scented lotion or oil and get in touch with each other. Massage is a magical way to make stress and sore muscles disappear while making some pretty wonderful memories.






Hang out beneath the mistletoe from time to time. He won’t have any problem finding you there.






Light the fire in the hearth and then build the loving spark to a bonfire with your special guy. Heat doesn’t have to only be coming from the burning logs.






If there’s snow on the ground, build a snowman. Tossing snow at each other and tumbling into the cold stuff is fun and will eventually find you heading inside to warm up together and continue the playful moments.






Head for the mountains or a favorite retreat where the two of you will be alone. Each breath of cold air will find you hungry for the hugs and kisses the guy beside you will give. Start with an Eskimo kiss and explore some winter fantasies together.

Wishing you all the best for the holidays and beyond,

Shawna Moore
TO HELLE AND BACK AGAIN -- Ellora's Cave
TORMENTED (Recommended Read) -- Ellora's Cave
ROUGHRIDER -- Ellora's Cave
HELLE IN HEELS -- Ellora's Cave
Shawna's Myspace
Helle's Myspace

Season's Greetings

Wishing you all good health and much happiness,

Shawna Moore

TORMENTED -- Available now at Ellora's Cave

ROUGHRIDER -- Ellora's Cave

HELLE IN HEELS -- Ellora's Cave

Shawna's Myspace

Helle's Myspace

Happy Christmas Memories by the Half Dozen

The Christmas cards are ready for mailing, the cookie recipes are chosen, the gifts are purchased and wrapped and I've sung my way through many Christmas carols. While I'm not wiping flour off my cheek, a couple tears have taken its place for the time being. Here, my blog-reading friends, are a half dozen of my favorite memories from Christmases past.

1. My last Christmas spent with my beloved mother is my most precious Christmas memory. I videotaped a good part of that day and conducted some special spotlights with her. Despite her cancer’s advanced stage, she enjoyed her lunch and opening presents. Seeing her able to thrive for those moments made me even more thankful for my gift of fabulous parents. Nothing and no one could ever top them for me.

2. Dad putting together my fiery red Schwinn bike. No more training wheels—I was a big girl! His patience despite my eagerness to try out my newest toy was admirable. How glad I am that I didn’t grow up during a time when electronics and computer games were all the rage. Real toys were much more fun and provided many more adventures with my friends.

3. The first Christmas of my marriage. Murphy’s Law insinuated itself from the time we perked the Christmas coffee to the time we kissed goodnight LOL Light strands wouldn’t stay lit. Bulbs tumbled off the tree boughs. One extension cord remained elusive until well past sunset. While gathering ingredients for the holiday meal, I dropped an egg on the kitchen floor. But one thing overrode the frustrations – love reigned supreme that day.

4. At the age of eight, sledding was one of my passions. If I asked mom and dad once, I probably asked twenty times exactly when the snow was deep enough for sledding. This particular Christmas Day, the hill near our home saw little traffic (those were truly the wonderful days). He got my sled down from the rafters and we set out for some winter fun. I made many trips down the snow-covered slope before a car approached. By this time Dad was likely tired of hauling my sled back up the hill, and we were due to depart for my grandmother’s home for Christmas lunch and a get-together with family members and friends we hadn’t seen in quite some time. Of course, mom awaited our return at home and had drawn me a bubble bath. I’d love to know how I really managed to catch a breath between the talking, singing, enjoying my family’s excellent cooking and sledding.

5. Although I don’t have memories of this particular Christmas, my first Christmas must have been one gala celebration. I’ve seen pictures of myself wearing an adorable Little Miss Santa suit complete with furry trim and a perky hat any young diva would adore. Propped up in my highchair, I grinned for the camera and played the cover baby LOL Oh, and I’m later posed with a giant panda bear (my “Pandy”). Mom often laughed and recounted how, at only four-and-a-half- months of age, I did my share of baby-talking that holiday LOL

6. The Christmas following my engagement, I enclosed a letter with my Christmas cards that extolled the virtues of love and how love made a difference in my life. Never kept a draft copy, but I still remember most of what I said on those two red pages.

I’m truly looking forward to more Happy Christmas memories. Life is too short to delay expending every effort at making special memories and cherished connections with those we love. Friends and family are our greatest gifts. Without them our lives would be far less rich and rewarding. In short, our lives would be rather empty.

Here’s wishing you all good health, much happiness and countless loving moments.

Blessings and all the holiday best,

Shawna Moore
TORMENTED -- Available now at Ellora's Cave
ROUGHRIDER -- Ellora's Cave
HELLE IN HEELS -- Ellora's Cave
Shawna's Myspace
Helle's Myspace