Happy Thanksgiving!

thanksgivingI have a lot to be thankful this year. I’m healthy, despite a slight scare a few months ago. My husband’s prostate cancer seems to be under control, if not gone. Our children are all healthy as are the two grandchildren. My parents, both in their mid-eighties are well and able to live on their own so far.

My books are selling, I’m having fun writing the next one, and any complaints I might come up with are minor when you think of what some people are suffering. So I think I just won’t complain at all.

A very Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers, blog followers, friends, and family. Be good and play nice. No one wants to stand in the corner or get a spanking on Thanksgiving. Unless it’s a good girl spanking. :)

Holla

Giving Thanks

thanksgivingIt’s a tradition in many families to reflect on what they’re thankful for during the week of Thanksgiving. Like most people, if I stop and think about it, I can find more things to be thankful for that I can write about. The most common things are giving thanks for one’s health and their family’s health.

But there are countless other things I can think of. My most recent book, Maid for the Cowboy, has really taken off. This morning it was #69 in the category of romance/westerns. I was so excited when I saw it. I ran to the bedroom to tell my husband and he was just as thrilled as I was. I’m very fortunate to have him and his support in my writing career. He’s eaten many frozen microwavable dinners when I’ve been trying to finish a work in progress.

Sometimes the stress we all live under makes it difficult to remember we have a lot to be thankful for. Here’s a reminder of a few things:

If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of the world.

If you have money in the bank, your wallet, and some spare change you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness you are more blessed than the million people who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the agony of imprisonment or torture, or the horrible pangs of starvation you are luckier than 500 million people alive and suffering.

If you can read this message you are more fortunate than 3 billion people in the world who cannot read it at all.

Maid for the Cowboy – a snippet

Maid for the Cowboy finalA snippet from my new book 

Maid for the Cowboy

Callie has been caught standing on a stepladder, washing windows. A dangerous activity to Joe’s way of thinking. He gives her a good talking to and promises a trip to the woodshed if she does something like this again. The following day, after the bossy cowboy and his brothers leave for the day, Callie decides to finish the window washing job. Here’s what happens next:

Callie took the stepladder and her window washing supplies and went outside to finish up the job Joe had interrupted. What Joe didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Or her, for that matter. She giggled to herself as she thought about his threat of taking her on a personalized tour of the woodshed.

She made good progress, finishing the side she was working on the day before. The back of the house had the screened in porch so she moved along to the third side and continued her work. She was about halfway through with that side of the house when she heard Joe clearing his throat behind her.

At least he didn’t startle her this time. She kept working, pretending she hadn’t heard him. Butterflies were doing some kind of jig in her belly as she wondered what he was going to do.

“I thought you understood me when I said no stepladder when you’re here alone.”

“Well, it’s too beautiful a day to spend inside and the windows need cleaning. I’m almost done and I haven’t had an accident, so all your worrying was for nothing.”

“That’s not the point, Callie. The point is I said no stepladder. I also remember telling you what would happen and not to test me.”

“Yep, you did,” Callie pretended not to be concerned. “But I can’t wait till someone is around to do my work. All is well, so no need for you to get your underwear in a bundle.”

She could see his reflection in the window. It wasn’t crystal clear, but she could make out enough to tell he was fuming. What would he do?

Joe put his hands at her waist, picked her up and set her on the ground. Holding her arm with his right hand, he put his left foot on the second step of the short ladder and then pulled her quickly over his hard thigh and began spanking her bottom.

“What are you doing!? Let me up!” Callie yelled, kicked, and cursed.

“Unless you want me to carry you to the woodshed, I suggest you hold still and quit yelling.”

He spanked her denim clad bottom with his hand about fifteen times while Callie tried to hold still. She suddenly was pretty sure he’d follow through on his threat to take her to the woodshed. This spanking was painful enough that she had no desire to see what might await her in the woodshed.

He finally let her up, and gripped her arms with his hands, making her face him. “I hope you understand I mean business. We’re out here far from medical help and we all need to do things as safely as possible. You will listen to me and do what I tell you when it comes to your safety. Next time I have to spank you, it won’t be over your clothes. Do you understand?”

Callie was stunned into silence. She nodded her head in reply as she tried to figure out what had just happened. He had spanked her! Like she was a naughty, disobeying, little girl!

“I need to hear it out loud, Callie. Do you understand?”

“Y…ye…yes, sir.” She finally stammered.

Joe turned and walked away, leaving her standing there. Confused, not quite able to believe he’d actually bent her over his knee and spanked her, Callie slowly dumped her bucket of vinegar water onto the ground, picked up the stepladder, and went inside. Had anyone seen what had happened? Where were the other brothers? Jamie was still in school, but where the other three?

Most important of all, why were her panties wet and her thighs trembling?

Maid for the Cowboy final

Maid for the Cowboy:

Things heat up between Callie and Joe almost from the start when Callie is hired after answering an ad for a position as housekeeper/cook for five cowboy brothers on their ranch in Arizona. She learns the hard way that Joe means it when he says safety is the most important concern on the ranch. This lesson is given with Callie over Joe’s knee and his big hand delivering hard spanks to her bottom.

The attraction between Joe and Callie grows into much more. Soon Callie is in love and has to ask herself if she can reconcile herself to a life with a cowboy who delivers a spanking every time she does something he considers dangerous or unsafe.

 

 

Doing it all

For some reason, women feel like we have to do it all. We have our jobs and/or families to take care of. Some of us face a great deal of pressure in both our jobs and our families. Projects at work often have deadlines requiring us to work longer hours. This can take away from family time, causing stress and pressure on that front.

I wrote a comment on Ana’s post this morning when I realized that I should be writing all that on my own blog. It is a crazy time of year. There is much more to do than just the usual stuff that has me running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I have three jobs and I can only say thank goodness they all fall under the self-employed category. There’s my writing, which I love. I give myself deadlines and goals. Things like how many words a day I must write to finish this book by a certain date. But I can’t always meet those goals because the other jobs interrupt. Being self-employed is great, but it has a downside. You’re not really your own boss. Your clients or customers are your bosses. They come to you for the service you provide and if don’t, or can’t, or won’t provide it in a timely manner or at a price they’re willing to pay, you will lose that client. So when I’m busily writing my 5000 words for the day (which often ends up to be only 2000 or 3000, please don’t spank me!) and suddenly my husband calls with a rush job from that business, I have to stop writing and take care of the new business.

Next week is Thanksgiving and one of the things I’m thankful for is that we will have a very small gathering this year. Very, very small. Four people, total! Yes, just two others besides my husband and myself. Easy, breezy cooking day. But do you realize that Christmas is only 3 weeks and 6 days after Thanksgiving? Yes, really!

As I mentioned in my comment on Ana’s blog, I’m making my daughter a sweater for Christmas and it’s not looking too good for getting it done. Forget about the stockings I planned to crochet for my two grandchildren! Maybe next year – they’re barely more than babies so there’s still time. I’d rather do them in needlepoint anyway, even if it does take more time. I’m trying to find time to fill out my blogroll here and am not having much luck. I should have waited until after the holidays to switch my blog over. But I didn’t, so I have to deal with it, though it won’t be today. Probably not tomorrow or the next day either.

Super_Spanking_2_Commission_by_ericalannelsonThere are not enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. I have to accept that and squeeze in a little time for myself. Even if its just to sit down and watch an hour of television. It’s good to empty your mind of the things that cause stress and worry. It’s healthy to stop and take some me time. If you don’t, you’ll start taking out your frustrations on those you love and might find yourself draped over a knee getting a spanking. Or staring at the juncture of two walls while you stand in the corner. Or both.

 

 

 

Ana’s Advent Calendar

banner-700x300This sounds like so much fun! Ana at governingana came up with this cool idea to do an Advent Calendar. You won’t believe how many prizes there are! So many authors have come together to donate their books as prizes (both my Santa Spanks! books will be on the list).There’s a whole slew of Grand Prizes including a Kindle Fire or Nook HD from Blushing Books, a wooden spoon and spatula set (ouchie!), a bunch of gift certificates, and more!

All you have to do is sign up, play daily, and then check the winner list on Christmas Day. There will also be random surprise checks throughout the month, a little surprise for everyone with perfect attendance, and free book days.

Check out Ana’s blog here for full details.

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Thanks for stopping by!

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for stopping by on Love Our Lurkers Day. I had a lot of fun popping in on other blogs and saying hi. While I haven’t been a lurker for a long time (we all start out that way), I don’t comment very often.

I think I missed some people as I was trying to make the rounds, so I feel I should apologize to them. Sorry!!

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I’m working hard on fixing the edits on my latest book and hope to have that published and available in a week or so.

Happy Love Our Lurkers Day!

LoveOurLurkersToday is Love Our Lurkers Day here in blogland.

This is an almost brand new blog. It was started a couple of months ago. Then a few weeks ago, I changed the URL to my blog so my readers would have an easier time finding me. That seemed to have caused me to lose some of my followers. I still have a lot of work to do on this blog and I keep putting it off because I’m working on my next book. But I will get to it.

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t have many followers yet and I have no clue if I have any lurkers. If I do, if you’re out there, please say hello.

Come on, don’t be shy. I won’t bite. Today is Love Our Lurkers day and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to say hello back.

Feel free to ask any questions about anything.