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For this week, my husband’s book is free on Kindle! If you haven’t read it already, now’s your chance to grab a copy. 
I just saw the blurb on Today’s List of Free Mystery, Suspense and Thriller Kindle Books 6/18/12 – Post 2 | eReader Love, which I confess is kind of exciting.
Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the free Kindle App for your tablet or computer or smartphone.
Please check it out and give it a read. It’s free! 
I am this many!
Yep, I’ve got almost half a million hours logged.
Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.Mann, Horace
I think I’ve probably lost more than 2 along the way. 
I’d like to say a special thank you to my friend Steve, for the awesome post he put up. Happy Birthday Vanessa « Cry and Howl 
Thank you Steve! *hugs*
And of course, thanks to My Beloved as well, for his funny and loving post. OH how that man loves to tease! Love you too, Babe! *kisses*
I was telling my kids a story about my own childhood the other day, and it had my husband in stitches. I’m not sure why, but for what it’s worth, here’s the story.
When I was a kid, I was a pretty picky eater. Oh, who am I kidding? I still AM a picky eater! Although I’m not nearly as bad as I was as a kid. Anyway, in addition to my being a picky eater, my mother was a horrible cook. She did criminal things to food, I kid you not. How much of her bad cooking contributed to me being a picky eater, one will never know.
One time, I must have been around 10 or 11, she made something for my dinner that – best as I can recall, was either mushrooms or Brussels sprouts. It was round and slimy, I remember that, and I would not eat it. It looked weird, it smelled awful, and it was slimy. No way. Would. Not. Eat.
I can be a stubborn girl when I have a mind to.
My mother yelled at me, threatened me, all kinds of things she told me would happen if I didn’t eat the science experiment reject in front of me. Eventually she picked up a piece of whatever it was off my plate and tried to shove it in my mouth.
Oh no, we are so not going there! I clasped my hand over my mouth as an extra barrier of protection. This was a battle of epic proportions!
My mother, in her rage and frustration, leaned over and bit my hand, the hand covering my mouth. She bit me! I remember screaming, and I had a set of lungs on me too, it’s a wonder the neighbors on the other side of the wall didn’t call the police.
At this point in the story, Darc busted up laughing. I mean to tell you, he almost had tears running down his face, and that’s quite a feat of accomplishment for me! Usually I’m the one splitting a gut at his stories.
“Why are you laughing?” I asked him. “My knuckles were bloody and had teeth marks and everything!”
I try to remember that my beloved is a writer of horror fiction so things often strike him in a way they don’t other people.
“Oh my gosh,” he replied, “‘Eat or be eaten!’ That’s just priceless.”
I guess it does have sort of a vampire quality to it. Eat or be eaten. Who knows? Maybe I’ll make it into one of his stories yet! 
[Preview: Vampire Bestiary « Eternity Publishing]
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Cross posted at DarcsFalcon.com
I am fortunate in that I have much to be thankful for this year. But there have been years where … well, let’s not go there. Suffice to say that there are lots of hurting people out there and this time of year often seems to bring out just as many feelings of despair as it does joy. Sometimes life seems to just fling the crap at you and it can be hard to take.
Right now I have a friend who is hurting. Hurting loud enough to cry out to me. I confess, I’m scared. So if you’re the praying type, your prayers would be appreciated in a big way.
Thank you.
Have you ever had that moment of clarity, when you realize that something you might have hoped for is never going to happen? When you realize how very wrong you were to give someone the benefit of doubt? When you finally understand that some people simply aren’t interested in truth but are content to continue spewing and believing lies and hatred?
I am having such a moment.
People I once knew, who were once close to me, so very close, would rather embrace a lie. Doesn’t matter what I say or do, the truth is irrelevant. Facts and evidence are irrelevant. I’ve been up most of the night debating different ways of responding to the hatemail I received yesterday, but in the end, it really doesn’t matter. How can you combat self-deception? The whole, “You can lead a horse to water” thing. I just don’t play that way. I was trying to leave the door open to a future relationship, but I see now that won’t ever happen.
So I am done. Done trying to convince them of the truth. Done trying to defend myself against a lie. Done hoping that one day the relationship will heal.
Time to move on! There is a certain freedom in the mourning, though. And I will cling to that.
I’ve actually used this line. 
The “stop” part, that is.
One time, when I was much younger, this guy kept hitting on me and wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was pretty creepy. He just kept pressuring and pushing me and I was getting kind of scared. He never threatened me or anything like that, but with some guys you just never know.
Finally, after like the 50th time he asked for my phone number, I gave in and gave him the number …
To the local funeral home.
Sometimes, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
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It must be the pool. He wasn’t even in the dream, but pools and swimming always remind me of him, and I guess it only makes sense that a dream about a pool party would bring his memory sharply into focus.
I still didn’t know how to swim, the summer I was 10. Oh, I frolicked a lot in whatever swimming pool was available, and those weren’t hard to find in California in the 70s. I was a water baby, you just couldn’t keep me away. I had the chlorine-green blonde hair to prove it!
One place my mother and I lived, had a big rectangular pool right out front. That blue door in the center on the 2nd floor was my apartment for a year. It’s hard to see in the picture there, but just beyond that brick entry, was the pool. That’s where I learned to swim.
Tucked away, in the last bottom apartment on the right, lived a man, his wife, and their 17 year old son. The old man told everyone, even the kids, to call him Rick. “No Mr for me! I’m just old man Rick.” He was the 1st grown-up I was permitted to call by his first name. He spent his days sitting on a bench in front of his apartment, smoking and watching the kids swim. He reminded me a lot of Jackie Gleason.
I learned a lot about Rick that summer. He loved water, he loved kids, he’d been a diver in the Navy during the war (WWII) and his eardrum had burst during one of his dives. He’d worn one of those old diving suits with the big brass helmet. I had visions of him dressed up like an astronaut, only exploring the bottom of the sea for treasure, not space.
He was kind and he smiled a lot. He loved teaching the kids how to dive into the pool. “Bend your knees just a little! Keep your back straight! Relax!” Sometimes he’d throw the spare change from his pocket into the pool to encourage us to dive the 12’ in the unheated water to go get it. Our reward was getting to keep it. He taught me how to do the backstroke, and the butterfly, although I wasn’t very good. I grew to love that old man, although in retrospect he probably wasn’t as old as I thought. Not a gray hair on his head! He was probably in his 50s.
His son, Rick Jr, would dazzle us kids by climbing up on the railing in front of my apartment and jumping into the pool. Oh he made my little girl heart flutter with his daring and bravado!
Even after school began that fall, I’d come home and see Rick on his bench, smoking. I’d wave and he always waved back, ask how I was. The weather turned cooler in November and one day his bench was gone. Worried, I wanted to go check on him but my mother wouldn’t let me “bother” him. “He probably just puts his bench away for the winter,” she said.
Could a man go that long without stepping outside to smoke? I wondered. My heart was scared and I didn’t know why.
One day in January, we ran into Mrs Rick coming out of the laundry room. I grabbed my chance. “How is Rick? Is he alright? Did he quit smoking or something? I never see him anymore and his bench is gone!”
Her eyes clouded and I knew before she could say it. “Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry, I thought you knew … Rick died last November.”
I don’t recall how I responded to her, if I said anything at all. I do remember lying on my bed, weeping. His wife was a widow, his son was fatherless, and I had lost a friend. How was I supposed to get through this? Rick was still teaching me, only now it was about death and sorrow. Bend your knees a little! Keep your back straight! Relax! If you think about it, if you keep that in mind, you can pretty much handle anything. You can withstand the blows life will deliver, if you remember those things.
The aquamarine shimmer of a swimming pool will always stir my memories of old man Rick. So will the sunlit sparkle of coins under the water. Those memories of him are my own under-sea treasure.
The "Ness" in DarcNess ;) 
What did you say?