I’ve been away in France buying books, but life’s been a touch more mundane than that. On the accomplishment side of things, I turned in my second novel to Ravenous Romance, a fantasy entitled Desire’s Pursuit that the start of a four-part series. It was hard work, but wonderfully rewarding. I’m about to start the [...]

As immersed as my daughter is in studying electronic arts, fine art, and science, she considers herself a part-time graphic designer. She mentors underclassmen in digital imaging, but to earn credit for the work, the duty’s rolled into an intense independent study. This time around, she focused that study on tile patterns. Spinning out of [...]

So I give you Crunch, our favorite tabby who has a habit of laying claim to people’s shoes. Give him half a chance and he’ll claim yours. This particular episode happened one day after work when my husband was changing out of his work clothes. Just try putting your shoes away when the cat’s glaring [...]

Our family has a tradition of naming our various computers after stars and star constellations. Various appellations have included Sirius, Castor and Pollux (matching IBM ThinkPads wouldn’t you know), Pixis, and Betelgeuse. In a variation on the theme, I named my Toshiba Satellite laptop Oshumi after Japan’s first space satellite.
However, the desktop that for the [...]

My cat Crunchy is a Summer Cat competitor at mediabistro’s blog, Galley Cat, this weekend and you can vote for him! As you can see from the photo, he had the moral support of my dog, Roxie, in coaxing me to continue my editing taken some time ago and I couldn’t ask for a better [...]

comes from Wordle. Heck, the site’s name feels good. But here it is:

Speaking of words, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been somewhat absent here. We had a death in my husband’s extended family which required some travel. Then last Friday my daughter and I were part of the throng that gathered at Rockefeller Center to [...]

when you’re tired of the standard black casement that covers your laptop, your ebook reader, and all of your tech stuff? I discovered the answer when I complained about the problem to my daughter.
Put stickers on it, she told me disbelievingly. (Evidently, it’s the most obvious answer in the world.) So I did. The laptop [...]

We were showered in maple seeds like you wouldn’t believe this May — and some trees still have seeds clinging to them. The seed pods, what we call whirlygigs, showered us all month in quantities we’ve never seen before.
We’ve lived here for twenty-five years and have never seen anything like it. My neighbor used his [...]

Today’s modest pleasure: my iGoogle page. I have a koi pond and a lava lamp soothing me with their gentle motions, a Youtube widget that points me to entertaining videos, and National Geography Pic of the Day that’s like having a personal gallery for daily enjoyment.
But you know what really pleases me? My new page [...]

You know, for those of us who forget to cat-blog on Fridays. Not that I’m going to do either religiously — I don’t do much of anything religiously outside of writing — but I will share certain cat-related finds when it humors me. I might even share the occasional pic of one of our cats.
For [...]