Only forty minutes until 2008 is history and we enter 2009 here on the West Coast of the United States.

I have to admit that 2008 has been a challenge in many ways. There have been a lot of crises and issues mixed in with a lot of good things as well. Right now that appears to be continuing with the high point of my new Ellora’s Cave contract and the low of the impending heavy rumors of layoffs at my day job.

I’d really like things to settle down a little and even out, just for my ability to cope with life.

For 2009, I’d like to invoke:

Prosperity
Creativity
Security
Success

We’ll see what happens but here’s hoping it’s an even better year than 2008.

Happy New Year everyone!

I just signed a contract for Escape to Me (formerly Raven’s White Hart) with Ellora’s Cave Publishing! I’m really excited.

I don’t have a release date yet – they have to receive my contract and I need to work with my editor but I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.

You can read more about Escape to Me here.

Babes in Toyland II has been nominated for a CAPA award for Erotic Anthology!!

The winners won’t be announced until Valentine’s Day but I’m so jazzed just to be a part of a nominated anthology!

You can read more about my contribution, Gift of the Holly King, here.

We went to run errands today and were in the midst of trying (without much success) to get the Mazda 3 out of the snow when our neighbor came driving down the snowy, slushy road on a little bobcat (I think). He very kindly scraped the worst of the snow and slush off the road so we could get out.

When we were coming home several hours later, we were all braced for the possibility of not even making it down the road but discovered the wonderful man had not only cleared the road but had cleared one whole half of our driveway.

I gave him some money to pay for gas (we have a private road and he’s been doing the work but I KNOW it takes gas at least) but I may have to bake him some cookies or something. That was SO nice of him to do.

We made it up the driveway and near the house – YAY.

On the bad side, our danged phone lines got water in them somewhere and we’ve been having mostly non-connectivity since we got home Saturday. Mr. Maura is trying to track down what circuit is bad but we don’t have it figured out yet. So be patient if you email me.

We arrived home today from several days away on a family holiday gathering to find that yet MORE snow had fallen while we were gone. Things were okay until we got onto our road – where a neighbor had managed to plow the road a bit but when we tried to turn up our road we discovered a very important thing.

Mazda 3s are NOT good snowplows.

We had about 19 inches of snow in the driveway (which Mr. Maura had dug out only 2 days earlier) and we barely managed to get off the road before we came to a rather complete halt.

We gave up, hiked up through almost knee deep snow to the house and got some hot food, then went to dig a path down to the car to bring in the stuff from the car. Being as how it was dark, cold and trees were dripping on us, we decided to wait until tomorrow to rescue the car.

Here are some more pictures of the snow to enjoy…..