Dakota Cassidy, an author friend of mine who has patiently mentored me on my journey to publish fiction, got TERRIFIC news today and I wanted to take a second to share in her joy…..

Dakota is now the proud owner of a 2 book deal with Berkeley!!!

Accidental Werewolf will be the first one out and I’m dying to read it as she finishes it! (I read the proposal but it’s not the same – I’m convinced proposals are close cousins to synopses and aren’t meant to be exciting. That’s so I feel better when working on this synopsis of mine and thinking every 2.5 minutes “Man, this SUCKS.!)

More details are available on Dakota’s blog post but I have to say two things…..

CONGRATULATIONS!!

and

I TOLD YOU SO, DAMMIT!!!!

We are alive and everyone is okay but we have no power, no phone and (as a side effect of no power) no water.

Power went out when the winds got higher on Thursday evening. We had our woodstove (a Monarch Malleable from the 1950′s) cranked up to keep the house from getting too cold. About 2am we were woke up by a huge THUMP that shook the house. It wasn’t enough shaking to mean the house had gotten hit but I knew a tree had come down close to the house. Nothing to do then so we went back to bed.

In the morning we discovered that a tree had indeed come down – thankfully it had missed all the structures and even my row of lovely holly trees but it took out the power and phone. I tried to take Morgan to daycare but discovered the daycare provider had also had a tree come down and had tried to call me to tell me not to bring him – but couldn’t reach me.

We tried the cell phones but the power was down to a bunch of the cell towers and we could only get analog, if anything.

Chuck was off to his office so Morgan and I went to get necessities like gas, water, batteries and some battery lanterns. Good thing we did because there was a huge run on gas later and hour long lines. Traffic was slow because the lights and such were without power, etc.

I’m glad that we got what we did when we did.

Chuck is no longer allowed to poo poo any purchases I make for emergencies – the lanterns have been a lifesaver. It’s also a good thing I’m a candle ho anyway – we have a lot of candles.

We’re now on day 5, going on day 6 with no power, water or phone. We have the stove and lots of wood so we’re running at about 52-56 degrees, not too horrible even if it does make it hard to force yourself out of the warm bed. We have been schlepping water up from the stream to be able to flush the toilets and we have been able to cook hot food on the stove. The cats are not too amused and I’ve discovered that the habit of turning on light switches is REALLY hard to break.

The power company says that it’s probably another day or two before we get power back. The phone company made an estimate of Wednesday to get phone lines put back up. Guess we’ll see. Time to vacate the Starbucks internet WiFi and pick M up from daycare. More as soon as I get a chance.

http://carnalcomedy.blogspot.com/

Let’s see a test of the new template. :)

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Software Tester
2. Waitress
3. EMT
4. Secretary

Four places I’ve lived:
1. Ventura, CA
2. Los Angeles, CA
3. Seattle, WA

Four favorite foods:
1. Chocolate
2. Steak
3. Sesame Chicken
4. Cheesie French Fries

Four movies I could watch over and over:
1. My Fair Lady
2. The Abyss
3. Sixth Sense
4. (none)

Four TV shows I enjoy:
1. Knitty Gritty
2. How its Made
3. Meet the Ancestors
4. Battlefield Detectives

Four Places I’ve Traveled:
1. U.K
2. Scotland
3. China
4. Does an Alaska cruise count?

Four websites I go to (almost) daily
1. www.woot.com
2. www.slickdeals.com
3. Yasmine Galenorn’s Site
4. Seattle Times

Four people I’m tagging to do this too:
1. Yasmine
2. Lacey
3. Cheyenne
4. Mackenzie

Just yesterday my website went live with the gorgeous redesign from Crocodesigns. When I had seen Lauren Dane’s site, I knew I wanted Frauke to work on my site and thought it would have to wait until Spring because she’s much in demand.

But I got lucky and didn’t have to wait that long – so it’s a Yule present to myself!

Hope you love it as much as I do!

Just a note that there may be a period or two during which my website and this blog will be receiving the loving and expert attentions of the hugely talented and just overall nice Web Goddess Frauke from Crocodesigns. This may result in some odd behavior if you happen to visit at exactly the moment things are being switched over, so don’t despair.

I’m super excited and eager to show folks the results – just be patient if I manage to mess it up somehow :)

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

(back to the synopsis)