Sale to Harlequin Spice!

Oh my gods, I’m so excited I could just explode into a million bits of Styx confetti!

I’m going to be in a Harlequin Spice anthology! *\o/*

::cue dancing and possible explosions::

The ever-splendiferous Alison Tyler pinged me awhile back about a story of mine she remembered, “The Broken Fiddle,” which is set in Ireland and involves a legend and Irish fairies and music (as all good stories should). She wanted to include it in her anthology Alison’s Wonderland, and she just got word from Harlequin about the final Table of Contents:

The Red Shoes (Redux) by Nikki Magennis
Fool’s Gold by Shanna Germain
The Three Billys by Sommer Marsden
David by Kristina Lloyd
Managers and Mermen by Donna George Storey
The Clean-Shaven Type by N.T. Morley
The Midas F*ck by Erica DeQuaya
Sleeping with Beauty by Allison Wonderland
Unveiling His Muse by Portia Da Costa
Always Break the Spines by Lana Fox
An Uphill Battle by Benjamin Eliot
Moonset by A.D.R Forte
Mastering Their Dungeons by Bryn Haniver
A Taste for Treasure by T.C. Calligari
The Broken Fiddle by Andrea Dale
The Cougar of Cobble Hill by Sophia Valenti
Wolff’s Tavern by Bella Dean
Slutty Cinderella by Jacqueline Applebee
Kiss It by Saskia Walker
Let Down Your Libido by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Dancing Shoes by Tsaurah Litzky
Gold, On Snow by Janine Ashbless
After the Happily Every After by Heidi Champa
Cupid Has Signed Off by Thomas S. Roche
The Walking Wheel by Georgia E. Jones
Rings on My Fingers by Alison Tyler
The Princess by Elspeth Potter

It won’t be out ‘til July 2010, but I’m still doing cartwheels now! Maximum squee!

Set the night to music

We’ve been busy the past few days. For one thing, we’ve had a houseguest for two days: Margaret from Tasmania. She’s a friend of Ken’s via various bike lists. Margaret is, for all intents and purposes, riding around the world on a BMW. She’s done Africa and South America so far, as well as a fair amount of the US. She’s also running the Iron Butt Rally* this year, so Ken’s helping her with some modifications to her bike.

Except Ken flew to Colorado this morning… He’s picking up a friend’s bike and riding it back here to use for spare parts in case something breaks on his bike during the rally. He’ll be home tomorrow.

The drive was utterly gorgeous. On the way home, I even turned off the AC and opened the window to smell the ocean, because it’s been a perfect day temperature-wise. (Who cares if my hair went in all directions simultaneously?) The sun sparkled on the waves. Surfers played. I managed to keep my eyes on the road and not die from trying to watch the incredible view. I feel pretty damn lucky to live here!

(And I want to learn how to surf. I’ve wanted to ever since I visited my sister when she lived in Hawaii… That was 20 years ago. Ack.)

Anyway, Margaret is spending a couple days in San Diego and then she’ll be back, too.

I came home after swinging by a new grocery store (small, but had some interesting and tasty fresh items I’ve not seen elsewhere), then Melanie came over and gave me a great massage. I had to run out for one more errand, but since then I’ve been home…with a small headache I can’t seem to shake. Tough patooties, because I must get the bulk of a short story written tonight! I’ve started it, and I know generally what happens. It just took a slightly different tone than I expected, so we’ll see if it sticks with that or if I’ve taken a wee wrong turn.

Music. Must have music.

Tomorrow I have a chiropractic appointment and then lunch with my friend Janice, which will take place conveniently near the Post Office and library, since I have to hit both of those places. Later I’m meeting Ellenie at Barnes & Noble for writerly gabbing, research, and ideally some writing as well. And at some point Ken will return home.

Thursday we’ll probably hit the Farmer’s Market again, and then I have a hair appointment, followed by a phone confab with Teresa. (We were supposed to have one last week, but her day job has been crazy.) After that is the Shire meeting, and somewhere in there Margaret will re-appear. And I will get some writing in.

Right now, Friday looks pretty open…except that it will get filled with work, because of the craziness of the two days preceding it. Phew! We also have to re-commit to hitting the gym, so…

As for the weekend…who has time to look that far ahead? ;-)

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*IBR facts: More people have gone into space than completed the Iron Butt Rally. Also, more people have climbed Mount Everest than completed the Iron Butt Rally.

Of unbounded domesticity

We’ve been curiously domestic this past week, which I think is less of an anomaly and more of a case of us flipping over to get into our normal groove (which will, of course, change again mid-month when Ken leaves for the IBR).

We did a big meal-planning and food shopping early in the week, which resulted in some nummy home-cooked meals and/or big dinner salads. I also got hit with a craving for chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies, which I never crave. (Chocolate-chip cookies, sure. Oatmeal? Not so much. I freely and cheerfully blame Karen Abrahamson, who brought homemade oatmeal cookies to the OWN workshops, and they were there for me in a time of weakness.). So we went back out one night to pick up the ingredients for those, and I made them last night.

Damn, but I make a fine batch of cookies when I get hit with the urge about every 2.5 years!

(Now I’m craving lemon bars. Hopefully, this too shall pass. After all, I have three tubs of chocolate chip/coconut/oatmeal cookie dough in the fridge now. Because what’s the point of actually baking four dozen cookies for two people? Then again, there’s this lemon tree outside, and lemon bars don’t last very long, and there is a Shire meeting next week…)

We also pootled down to the local Farmer’s Market (a jaunt of all of two block east) to pick up various fresh things, including some corn picked right that morning. We ate it one day later and oh my gods it was good. Om nom nom. Seriously.

Friday we took my car in to Bert, my fabulous Swedish car guy, to eyeball the new engine he put in recently. He then drove us to a movie theatre where we wiled away our time watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Minor car parts are now on order, and then we hit Trader Joe’s for some essentials before heading up to the BMW dealer, whereupon Ken collected his newly tuned-up bike and we headed home.

We have Alias season 3 discs sitting here from Netflix, and now that we’re almost caught up with DVR stuff (less than one thing per night recording, I believe) we’ve been settling in to enjoy those.

And we’ve re-tidied the sewing room (Ken put up a new shelf while I was in Oregon, as well) so we can continue various projects there. Sweet. I did some mending while we acted like slugs and lounged in media room watching Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (movie version) and Being Human and Eureka.

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Currently Reading: Black Hills, Nora Roberts
Lately Listened To: Hallucination, Shaw/Blades
Recently Watched: see above