It's here!

Sweet Love: Erotic Fantasies for Couples is here! And it's so pretty!

Featuring stories by me, Teresa, Kristina Wright, Alison Tyler, DL King, Janine Ashbless, as well as other authors I don't know but love to read stories by!

My story, "Storming the Castle," was inspired by Pencoed Castle in Wales—yes, it was saved from being turned into a theme park by the presence of rare bats. Ideas are everywhere!

Editor Violet Blue says in her intro, "Andrea Dale's 'Storming the Castle,' while lighthearted, does not disappoint for explicit sex, public risk and sexual fantasy, and pure storytelling."

"Pure storytelling." ::beams::

Things to Do Today

(It amuses me to do these types of posts occasionally. Do you enjoy reading them, or do they bore you to tears?)

My mom is safely home after her red-eye flight last night, so now it's time for me to get back to work, as well as get the house back in order and fall into the regular productive routines again. I’ve got tons of things to do, but if I make my To Do list too long, I’ll despair and end up playing Sporcle games instead of working. So today’s list is stuff I feel is do-able in the time allotted.

Check back later to follow my progress!

Midnight Update: Well, I'm quite chuffed with how much I accomplished today.

Writing

• finish and submit story to Best Lesbian Romance 2011. DONE (I discovered I did, in fact, have a reprint that fit the guidelines, hurrah!)
• get Virgin contract letters signed and in the mail to my fabby coauthors, which will allow Cat Scratch Fever and A Little Night Music to be sold as e-books. DONE
• update deadlines list. DONE
• update website DONE

SCA

• finish April issue of The Oak Leaf, have Ken proofread it, upload it, etc. DONE
• finish reading March issues of other newsletters. DONE
• catch up on all Kingdom Chronicler correspondence.

Other

• go to farmer’s market. DONE (We now have food for dinner tonight, the event on Saturday, and dinner Sunday, as well as veg for later in the week.)
• clean off desk. Partly Done
• wash clothes purchased at thrift stores, put away all clothes.
• curl up with Ken and catch up on some TV and/or movies. DONE (We watched Bones and part of Behind the Music Remastered about Heart. I really want to catch up on Lost, though!)

In which I discover my true superpower

It is not fair that when I go shopping with my mother, only I end up buying things. I don’t like shopping. At all. (Today I discovered my superpower: Texting while shuffling after my mom as she browses through racks of clothing. Srsly. Dudes.)

Yet Sunday, I came home with four skirts, a raincoat, a straw tea hat, and fabric for kitchen curtains and matching dish towels (I think the two pieces of fabric began life as table cloths, but fear my sewing skills!). Today? Three shirts and a wok at Ross. And then I felt a very great urge to lie down. (I came home and had a cuppa, which is almost the same thing.)

Meanwhile, the Santa Anas have been blowing, and I think I must be allergic to something they’re blowing at me, not to mention my hands feel like mummy hands because all the moisture is being sucked out of them. They say it will rain tomorrow, and if it does, that chorus of angelic voices you hear will be coming from my throat.

Now, if I could only a game of Fluxx against these people in my house, things would be just fine.

No, really, still alive

No, I haven’t fallen off a cliff. I just haven’t had time to sit down in front of the computer…

The weekend of the 19th through 21st, we were at our Shire’s annual event, Black Oak Lodge. We went up early on Friday to help with set-up, stayed for tear-down, and got home Sunday afternoon. If I had time to wax rhapsodic about how lovely the weekend was, was a great event it was, and how important this event and the site are to me, I would. For now, I don’t.

Monday was spent frantically trying to catch up on things, punctuated in the late afternoon by Ken’s need to go to the Urgicare place. If I had time to relate that long story, I would. He’s fine, and if you want the details, ask him.

Tuesday we headed north to Monterey (stopping at the Black Oak Lodge site on the way to retrieve some Shire effects that had been left behind). My sister Donna moved there in August and we still hadn’t visited, plus my mom had flown there the week before. We walked on the beach, had paella and very early birthday cake for me for dinner, and then I introduced them to the madness that is Fluxx. Mwahaha.

Wednesday we went to the Aquarium, and all I have to say about that is baby otter!!! and leafy sea dragon socks!!! because the rest pales in comparison. We also visited the animal shelter my sister and niece volunteer at (and I didn’t come home with all the cats, so be impressed), had a picnic on the coast, and poked around some tide pools and saw a purple crab.

Thursday we packed my mom into the car and headed back home along the coast. Stunningly beautiful day. We ate at our favorite Mexican place in San Simeon.

Friday my mom and I met another writer at CB&TL for a session, and that night we went to the Shire’s quarterly birthday dinner at a Mongolian BBQ. Ken stayed home because our friends Ernie and Pauline from Portland were due in on their motorcycle, and were arriving later than expected. So that was a late evening.

Saturday we introduced my mom to sushi at Cho Cho San (Rock and Roll hand roll nomnomnom) and continued south to have dinner at Ken’s mom’s, so we got home late that night, too.

Today we checked out a gated senior community with our friend Thomasina, stopped for Thai food for lunch, and then Thomi, Morgana, Mom, and I went thrift-store shopping. I came home with four skirts and one top, all of which may or may not really fit me, and a raincoat because I had none. We also stopped at Rosie Lee Imports, so I’m well stocked up on PG Tipps. We watched Dreamgirls after dinner, and now it’s annoyingly late and I have a chiro appt in the morning and then we’re going to have lunch with Ken’s dad and wife at Versailles.

Tuesday is another writing session (and none too soon, because I am cranky for the lack of it, plus I have deadlines looming like large murderous looming things) and then we’ll hit the Camarillo outlet mall. Tuesday evening and Wednesday are currently up in the air, and them Mom leaves at about midnight Wednesday.

Thursday and Friday will be heads-down working, finishing up any stories for deadlines, finishing the April issue of The Oak Leaf (Shire newsletter), catching up on Kingdom Chronicler stuff and e-mail and whatnot, tidying the sewing room, and prepping for King’s Hunt on Saturday.

Meanwhile, I’m astonishingly far behind, and unlikely to catch up on, Facebook and Twitter, so if anything important is happening, please let me know!

More whenever I resurface again…

Not that I needed anybody...

...to tell me it was okay to love Styx!