Brenda Novak Diabetes Auction

It’s nearly that time again! Fellow author Brenda Novak is holding her annual auction to raise money for diabetes research and I’ve donated two manuscript feedback chances to her auction this year.

I will read your entire manuscript, ask you some questions about what publisher and market you are aiming for, maybe ask you some more questions specifically about the story or characters and then give you my feedback. Lots of feedback (just ask people from prior years). I ask for up to 60 days to return feedback to you just in case life gets away from me again but I have never been late!

I don’t have restrictions on what the manuscript is and those people who know me know I read a wide variety of genres and erotic is just fine.

You can see my auction entries here and here.

The auction starts May 1, 2010. There are a LOT of great items to be won, so be sure to check out all the offerings. I’ve got my eye on a few already!

This is the time of year when I tend to sit back and consider how my year has been and what I’ve done during that year to help others. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate giving more than you can afford in time or cost, but I’m a huge advocate of giving when I can.

I’m convinced that before I started to really look for opportunities to give to others, I had the same number of opportunities I do now but I was blind to them. I never saw them because I never LOOKED for them.

I’m not talking things like giving thousands to someone or even hundreds – I actually think that people do look for these opportunities but they are few and far between for us all. But what about all the small opportunities that present themselves every day. Things like:

• Opening a door for a harried delivery person.
• Writing a note of support, sympathy or congratulations.
• Getting a box of pasta down from the top shelf of a store for someone who can’t reach it.
• Telling your office receptionist how much you appreciate her hard work.
• Taking a grocery store cart back in the rain for someone else.
• Buying a cup of coffee for the policeman in line behind you.
• Shaking the hand of a service member and thanking them for their service.

I can’t tell you how much each of these small acts brighten my own day and I’d like to think that it brightens the day of the recipients as well. Some cost very little, some are free – but all are acts of kindness that require no reciprocation and I try to perform a few larger acts, always anonymously. I never want this to become something I do for recognition or with an expectation of return.

So, again, on this Thanksgiving Weekend, I want to renew my vow to give others small, random acts to be thankful for. I challenge everyone to do the same.

I wanted to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving holiday. My family will be spending it with our extended family, one of whom will be returning from his grandmother’s funeral on Thanksgiving day.

Easy as it is to set aside a day to be thankful, I genuinely try to be thankful for everything I have every day. Life throws some challenges at me but these are challenges to be met and perhaps conquered and are often pathways to previously unknown or unseen opportunities.

Today is a great day to be alive and tomorrow is a great new day as well!

I’m home with more than five minutes between one thing I’m supposed to do and another so I think I can sneak in a post to let you all know I’m not dead yet!

The last few months have been crazy but it appears to be leveling out a bit. This gives me hope that I can return to my regularly scheduled busy life.

I’m currently working on revisions for Escape to Me, writing Desert Alchemy and writing somewhat erratically on Forsake Not, Del Fantasma: Firestorm, and the first of the Bran’s Visions stories – Music of the Heart.

I’m also knitting a shawl for me and a baby blanket for my husband’s cousin. I just found out she’s pretty advanced in her pregnancy and it’s such a great thing to hear because she was very sick for many years after inhaling heavy metals downwind of the twin towers on 9/11.

The Evil Day Job is busy and add the football team practices and games the Minion is attending and I don’t get a lot of time to myself. But I’m hoping that is changing. So keep your fingers crossed that this is true!

Cause I know you all are DYING to hear about it :)

I do have rosacea. My primary care doctor put me on metrogel to start and referred me to a dermatologist. I’ll be calling to make an appointment with the dermatologist on Monday. It can take up to six weeks to show the full effects of a new therapy so I started the metrogel right away and we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, any moisturizer or cleanser I put on my face that stings is going in the trash, no matter how much I liked it or how expensive. I need to find a sunscreen that doesn’t hurt, though.

So no sun, no heat, no hot drinks, no saunas, no hot tubs. Nothing hot. Mutter.

I’m glad I went to my eye doctor as well, I also have ocular rosacea that’s affecting my eyes. He put me on an topical eye ointment (steroid + antibiotic) to bring down the swelling and I see him again next Friday. He’s trying to get the swelling under control so we can treat the chronic issue. Joy.

I also need to call my sleep doctor. I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea about 4-5 years ago and had been wearing a mouthpiece to control it but my dentist is moving my teeth around and I can’t wear it – in the meantime I’m always exhausted and my blood pressure is slowly creeping up. I’ll probably end up on a cpap instead and I can accept that – just praying to find a mask that doesn’t make the rosacea worse and doesn’t make my claustrophobia horrible.

Just tons ‘o fun around here!