My Birthday: Monday Blog Post

Solar light in green phase.

Solar light in green phase.

Newest News:

I suppose it doesn’t hurt to tell you that my birthday was yesterday. At my age I don’t celebrate big. I don’t actually want much. I’m decades beyond wanting a party, or cake. It’s enough to mark the day and have a minor celebration, which my husband and I did. We went to a local restaurant that we only go to on special occasions. I had my usual, lamb chops and baked potato. Extra special for me, is that this restaurant serves crème Brulee for desert. I know. It’s decades out of fashion but even before I was diagnosed celiac, it was my fav desert. Of course I ordered it and even let hubby share. Nope. Didn’t take a picture. Everyone is so over seeing other people’s dinners.

Solar Light with flash in the tomato bed.

Solar Light with flash in the tomato bed.

Hubby bought me some solar powered optical garden art. He even set them up for me, which I didn’t know until Sunday night when I looked out the window and they were all glowing and changing colors. It makes me happy to see them out there.

AuthorShout.com has been a fantastic promoter for me this month. I’m so pleased with the publicity they’ve been giving me. Kindred Spirits, is on their site for the month of July. http://authorshout.com/recommended-reading/ Take a look around the site. I think you’ll find something you’ll like.

Giveaways:

SmashwordSale2016

Over half way into July Smashwords.com’s Summer/Winter Sale is in full swing. Four of my books, Mystery at the Fair, A New Start, First Encounter, and Lost Rainbows, are free on the site. Log in, get an account if you don’t already have one, and search on my book titles. Use the coupon code SFREE, when you check out and those books are free! This offer only lasts until the end of July. You’re running out of time. Get these books for free while you can. I do not offer them free very often.

Summer Giveaway

The Red Hot Summer giveaway is also in full swing. Just click on the Rafflecopter link. You do have to sign up to Rafflecopter but after that, you’re free to click away. I have links to it on my facebook, twitter, and website pages. This giveaway I offer a free ebook, Mystery at the Fair, or for second prize, a $10 Amazon card. Over a hundred prizes from over 50 authors plus a grand prize of $150 Paypal Cash. It’s not hard to enter and there are multiple ways to enter. You could easily win a prize. If you haven’t entered yet, please enter today and every day.

Shout Out:

Carol Sletten Apaches and Lozen

Let me give a big shout out to Carol Sletten this week. An artist, performer and author, Carol is multi-talented and a really nice person to boot. She’s involved in an author’s luncheon in Greer, Arizona promoting her talk, Apache’s and Lozen, A woman warrior who rode with Geronimo. It’s a presentation I’m sure you won’t want to miss. Tickets are $20 at the door. https://www.facebook.com/carol.sletten?fref=ts

Garden News:

The green and yellow beans are flowering. It won’t be long now before I have those wonderful yellow beans. I’ve picked 3 tomatoes so far. Today I had a light lunch of a cut up garden tomato and cottage cheese. It was soooooo good. I’ve been watering the bed I fertilized and tried to kill the mint out of. So far, no mint sticking its little green leaves up. I remain optimistic. This last week I repotted both the Meyer Lemon and the Bay tree. Poor bay. It was just a root ball, no dirt at all. I’m sure it’s now very happy to have dirt to grow in. The lemon tree is infested with ants that seem to be growing little insect sucker pods on the green branches and leaves. I spent a good deal of time and many thorn stabs wiping the sucking pods off of every leaf and branch. Sunday I fertilized and on the lemon, left ant bait. The sucker things, whatever they are, kill the branches. That has got to stop. The peaches continue to grow and ripen. I should have ripe peaches in about two weeks. How’s your garden doing?

Where Will I Be?:

Book Festival flier 2016 FINAL Front Pg

July 23rd is the Payson Book Festival, partly funded by the Arizona Humanities. It’s just 6 days away and I’ll be at my table all day, ready to talk to YOU! I hope you can make it as we will have over 90 authors attending as well as music, food, author presentations and workshops. It will be stupendous! www.paysonbookfestival.org and click on the Meet the Authors tab. Check us out on Twitter: @PaysonBookFest, and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/PaysonBookFestival/.

FallFest2016

9th annual Fall Festival in Pine, AZ. October 8th and 9th. http://pinestrawberrybusinesscommunityaz.com/fallapple.html. I’ll be there all weekend as part of the local author book signing. My hubby will be there as part of the chili cook-off at noon on Saturday. There are also crafters and a very excellent antique show scheduled, not to mention music and food!

Want more details about these events? Click here for more information.

Newsletter Sign Up:

Click here to sign up for my newsletter. I’ve put sign-up prizes on both the regular and the Brown Rain newsletter sign-ups. That’s right. If you sign up for my newsletter you get a free story from me. Be prepared for fun and contests! Click on the video link for a short video from me. Hear what I’m working on. Join my “A” Team! I’d love to see you there.

Newest Book Release:

Zoe Ohale is out for editing and is 100% done at the editors’. I’ll get to the further edits after the book festival. If you’re a Brown Rain Series fan, I think you’ll like Zoe Ohale. You may remember a short story I published on my blog on 8/20/15, Extra Baggage. That was the second story about Zoe. The first, Betrayal Moon, is in the Forward Motion anthology, due out in the next couple of weeks. Just 17, Zoe has been an orphan living on the streets of Baia Mare since she was 12. Street smart and fiercely independent, Zoe has been offered the chance to move back into legal society by the police officer that arrested her a few months ago. But first, she has to help protect the little kids in her group, help her friend save her father from assassination, and find a criminal ring that just stole all of the physical credits being delivered to the Planetary Bank of Baia Mare. The book, the first of a series, should be out in August, if I can find time to work on it between the Book Festival and the Fair.

Kindred Spirits released on March 14th! I’m pretty excited about it. You can buy it and my other books at: Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, Gumroads  or Chatebooks today! You can also see all of my books on www.ConniesRandomThoughts.com. If you’ve read any of my books, please drop a review on the site where you bought it or on Goodreads. It’s a big help to me in the book rankings each vendor uses to promote the books on their sites. Thanks in advance.