WEST NILE VIRUS

We have West Nile virus on our little paradise island. And it's close to us.

Every morning when we walk to the Village, we go by the park where mosquitoes were found bearing...yes, the dreaded virus.

Now I'm indecisive. Do we continue to walk and hope we don't get bit? Do we stop walking and gain weight? Do we walk but avoid the park area, thus adding far too much distance for my comfort? Do we spray with OFF (which I'm convinced I'm allergic to) and hope for the best? Do we walk only at the times mosquitoes won't be out? And if so, what times are these, pray tell?

Oh my. What to do.

Can you tell I'm freaking out?

DRAGONVALE

All right, I admit it. I'm hooked.

I don't usually play computer games, but I do keep Bejeweled and Angry Birds and a couple more on my phone to entertain young relatives.

One of them earnestly insisted I install Dragonvale. Actually, I think it went like this:

"You should put Dragonvale on your phone."

"You think so?"

"Yes. Then I can give you gifts."

"Gifts?"

"Yes. All you have to do is download the app."

"I don't know how."

"I do. Give me your password."

And presto, I got Dragonvale. The 'gifts' turn out to be 'gems' needed to purchase dragons and other stuff. Also turns out I can give her gifts, too. She even showed me how to play.

"Here's some money." Punch. Points are added to the money supply.

"We'd better buy you a food center." Punch. A little house is added on the screen.

The market also sells habitats, buildings, decorations, dragon eggs...All so you can build your own little dragon world.

And sometimes it leads you to buy stuff with real money. I pointed this out.

The blithe response from the knowledgeable nine-year-old. "Oh, don't worry about that. When it says to put in your password, just cancel it."

You get the picture.

Anyway, I can't stop playing. But I do have to give out gifts every twenty-four hours, right? I'm not addicted. Really I'm not. Why would a grown woman be addicted to building a kingdom of fire dragons and rainbow dragons and earth dragons and...

ARC for TAXED TO THE MAX

Excited last week to open one (of two) boxes and find they contained the Advance Reading Copies for my light mystery TAXED TO THE MAX coming out in December from Five Star. This will be a hardback, but I still didn't expect such nice Advance Copies. They're like trade paperbacks.

Now I have to figure out places to send them out to for review. Five Star has already done the main ones so I must dig around and find smaller places. Can't remember if the Atlanta Journal Constitution still does book reviews or not.

Oh well. Guess I'll soon find out.

TIME OFF

I'm tired. After several weeks of unexpected deaths overwhelming us, expected friends and relatives visiting us, and expected-but-not-sure-when edits coming in, I'm ready to take time off.

I wasn't meant for this merry-go-round of upsets and out-of-ordinary events. I like my life to be ordered, predictable, laidback. Unexciting.

So now that our last visitors have gone home, I find I miss the two eight-year-olds chattering and running through the condo.

Even the cats, who pretended to hate being brushed and petted and oohed over by strange little people, seem to miss them. The girl cat shows no interest in the tennis players outside the window at all, and she's usually right there watching the ball go back and forth. The boy cat sits in the kitchen and meows for food because he's used to having little hands catering to him.

It's very quiet here now. Guess I'll work on those edits.

BANANA PUDDING

Having relatives next week and had left-over whole milk from the last set of relatives. So I decided to make a banana pudding using Granny's recipe. Or rather, Granny's recipe as written down while watching her throw in a teacup of this and a heaping spoon of that and guessing at this...

Naturally, mine did not turn out as well as hers.

Could it be I forgot the vanilla flavoring in the pudding part? Hmmmm?

BLOG INTERVIEW

Desi Moon has an interview with me on her blog today about my new release. Tomorrow she'll review SET UP. I'm hoping she doesn't pan it but if she does...Reading is always subjective so if she doesn't like it, that's okay. I'm fortunate to have relatives who read!

Her blog link is: http://dbmoonauthor.blogspot.com/

Oh, and the link for SET UP is: http://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=321&category_id=64&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

It's also on Amazon already! I thought it'd be a couple more weeks but no! It's here:

http://www.amazon.com/Set-Up-ebook/dp/B008QWTYIS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343851679&sr=1-1&keywords=set+up+by+cheryl+dale

So much has been happening around here, I've not had time to promote it as I should. Although to be honest, I hate trying to sell people anything!

FEELING DOWN

While waiting for details of my critique partner's interment, we received word an aunt had died unexpectedly. We ended up leaving immediately after Nan's services on Tuesday for her funeral in north Georgia on Wednesday.

We're back on the island now, and somewhat recovered from the trip, but I can't help contemplating my own mortality. I'm sure everyone does this from time to time, especially after sad occasions like these, but for some reason this week hit me especially hard.


I know I'm making a greater effort to enjoy friends and family while I can. I hope every one of you will, too.