Happy Thursday! I can hardly believe it's the last week of May. It feels a bit like a whirlwind.  On May 8th, Real Life Hero and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. We've been married for over 20 years now. We went out to the Cheesecake Factory and had a lovely dinner (and brought up slices of cheesecake for the offspring). We don't usually spend that much on an dinner out, but it was anniversary, so we splurged. It's funny to think how back when I was getting married I had trouble imagining 20 years down the line and here I am past that. I love my Real Life Hero and he's stuck with me until death (when I hope we go to Heaven). At this time I won't be reporting any news on Sugar & Frost . I don't feel like I have anything I'd like to share about it at this time. (There are still some queries out). I'm still writing and working on several manuscripts. Two of them I think I'll keep just for me unless I change my mind one day. The others, we...

  Happy Thursday All! Yes, I know...normally I would post my monthly blog post earlier, but this time  it's taken me more than one day to write this post. At first, I needed to figure out what I wanted to post about. And then, i t kept feeling like it (the post) wasn't ready. Querying: S ugar & Frost is the "book of my heart" so far. I had the most fun writing it and I totally fell in love with the characters. I really believe in this story. It's just so sweet and fun. Like a warm blanket on a cold day. I got asked by an agent to send some more pages (I had done some not-insignificant editing--after asking this agent if I might revise & resubmit--I don't know what will become of that; and it wasn't a full request, but still, it was nice that the agent wanted more pages). Despite the situation at hand, I did have one agent comment that "the writing is solid". So, that's something. As I said, this story is incredibly special to me an...

  Happy Friday and Happy March! Been busy working on a manuscript of mine and playing with some new ideas for new stories and ideas for existing unfinished manuscripts. No new updates on the querying front to report back on, yet, but hopefully some good news will come! We've now entered the season of Lent. As a Catholic, this season is a time for repentance, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and reflection. I look at it as a time for not just repenting of sin--but really working on one's relationship with Jesus in a more intense and focused--the word 'intentional' comes to mind--way to make it a part of you rather than just something you do for Lent. Every Christian has their own approach Lent, and since I'm no Theologian, I won't go into much detail here. I do wish everyone a fruitful and prayerful Lent. Not long ago, I got a new laptop computer. My other one is still working but I was having some issues. So I talked to a friend of mine that knows a lot about comput...

Happy Thursday and February! I decided to take a little longer to write my monthly blog post. It was just as well since things were crazy last month with illness sweeping through my house. (Every member of the Averie household has had some illness within the last 2 months--including Averie Cat). So, we're hoping to be healthier this month (although I'm having some allergy issues). I continue working on things for Sugar & Frost and when I can, I'll let you all know what's going on (no, I don't have a contract with an agent and/or publisher, yet, but some things have happened, but I'm not ready to mention them publicly, yet). We had the dubious honor of replacing our water heater recently, but the service person put it on such a high temperature that hot water was scalding! We had to adjust the hot water for various things and then when my husband came home he went up and adjusted it so hot water wouldn't be quite so blistering. Once I'm in a place wh...

  Happy Monday, January, and New Year! Whew. 2025 has already been eventful! In my family, that meant husband and eldest with sinus infections during the second week of the month (which actually was the first full week of January). Me and youngest had sinus infections in December. And then the news of the fires in California, which is so sad. I've been praying for all in the path and dealing with the fires, etc. Hopefully firefighters are able to contain/put them out soon. The first few days of 2025 weren't too bad, but then things got a little crazy. I'm hoping the rest of the month is calmer, healthier, and happier. Writer's Life Updates: I still have some queries out on Sugar & Frost that are awaiting answers. In the interim, I'm working on some other stories (every author has files with unfinished manuscripts and I'm definitely no different in that respect!) Christmas and New Year's: My Christmas was fairly quiet since I was getting over a sinus ...

Happy December! We're nearly halfway through December and I just realized I hadn't put up a blog post for this month. OOPS! But, to be fair, I've had plenty going on. Personally: We are still minus a Christmas tree. No, we haven't gotten it up, yet. But I'm hoping this weekend it will happen! We don't usually take this long, but we've had some things going on. One of those things was that we had to replace our washing machine. Our previous one decided that it had enough of our household and no, thank you it would not work properly any longer. Poor thing limped along until it wouldn't drain out the water in the clothes (I had to squeeze them the best I could and pop them in the dryer for longer). But that's at an end since we now have a brand new washer, which we've had for about a week and it's doing okay so far. Not long ago, Averie Cat (that's his social media nickname) had some health issues that made me quite concerned about him. Fo...