I've finally recuperated from my weekend at Northern Quest Casino, The Silver Spur Gathering, Author's Corner.  This was the first year for the Gathering and it was a lot of fun.  The Author's were given an opportunity to talk about our books and do a reading.  A guy named Kelly was there to film it all, so hopefully I'll be able to see how I look in the movies.  There were vendors with all sorts of goodies from jewelery to makeup and clothes.  We not only listened to readings from the authors but there were poets and musicians that played instruments and sang their songs, most of them original.  Meeting and talking to some very talented authors was a highlight for me.  A real treat was that several actually wanted my book so we traded. 

There were concerts both Friday and Saturday evenings, which we could attend free.  The weekend ended with Cowboy Church Sunday morning.  One of the really fun things for me was to meet Miss Teen Rodeo Washington, Maggie Little.  She is such a beautiful young lady and she promised to wave to me when she rides in the opening ceramoney at the Cheney Rodeo.  Maggie gave me a picture of herself that she signed with a personal note.  What a doll!  I guess it shouldn't surprise me that there are a lot of talented and wholesome young people.  The ones that are not so nice get noticed and the really great kids go about their business unnoticed.  And Cowboys?  Life would be a little easier if there were more of them around.  I spent two full days with a whole lot of cowboys and cowgirls and I couldn't have asked for better company.  Yes, there were Indians too, after all we were at a casino.

The Casino had good hot coffee and bottled water on ice all day long with muffins and sweet rolls in the morning.  I was very happy!  Oh yes and I took advantage of the valet parking.  Very nice!  I'm really encouraged to finish my second book, no name yet, just 'Another Red Hat Mystery'.  I have the beginning of the third one.  Holy cow! I'd better finish the second one.  So I'll post this blog and get to writing.

Happy New Year - 2012

Happy New Year, 2012! I'm looking forward to the year ahead as I'm getting close to completing my 2nd book. Writing is hard work but it is very interesting, you see you can do all kinds of things, be any one you want to be. You can be rich, beautiful and really smart, although I haven't figured out how to accomplish that last one even on paper. You can even commit a crime, even murder, yes indeed, but even on paper you probably won't get away with it. As in my next book I've killed a guy, well not me exactly, and I've got a few things to figure out yet. There are a list of new characters that I'm growing fond of. I hope you will all wait around for me to finish this one. Oh silly me, I just looked at my watch and yes it is Sunday, January 1, 2012. Good night, bloggers. Happy New Year.

It's almost Christmas

It's almost Christmas. I did my shopping the easy way, gift cards. Yes, I love to get them and they are so easy and I'm sure everyone loves getting them. What can you get for teen-agers? Unless they tell you of something specific that they want, cash or a gift card seems to go over well.
Last year everyone got one of my books. It just came out in time for Christmas and I was so excited about having it in print, I was just busting my buttons. This year not doing so well. Yes, I'm working on the 2nd book and it is going pretty well, but I have a long way to go.
My son Mark set up a new web-site for me and I'm so proud of him, he did a beautiful job.
www.joycecaudelmysteries.com. As I have more information he will post it and I hope you all will check it out every now and then for the updates.
Our family will be celebrating Christmas with two dinners, one on Friday evening then another on Sunday after church. I'm pretty excited to be able to go to church on Christmas morning, it doesn't happen very often. We have three little children that will be opening gifts on Friday evening and they are the only ones that I actually shopped for. That was a lot of fun and I actually found what I went looking for.
My daughter-in-law, Ingrid, and my granddaughter, Natalie, will be arriving from New Zealand around the middle of January. I'm so excited, it has been too long since I've seen them and my son, Mark is even more excited since the family has been seperated for almost six months. Mark and Matthew came in August so Matthew could start his Freshman year at Cheney High School, but Natalie wanted to finish her Elementary school in New Zealand. So that is why the family has been seperated all these months. It will be a joyful New Year for them to be reunited and for the rest of us to have our family complete. With two more major earth quakes in Christchurch, NZ today, there arrival in the USA won't come any too soon.
For all of you bloggers out there, I want to wish you a very Blessed Christmas and a New Year with all the love, health and happiness you are hoping for. God bless us everyone.

It's almost December.

It's almost December and I can't imagine where the year has gone. Yes, we always say that when what we really mean is we didn't get all those things done that we wanted to get done. I know I spend a lot of time planning what I want to do and then get side tracked. So my project now is to decorate the Christmas tree, yes it is a fake tree, since I am really, really allergic to pine. I got the tree put up and the bottom half has lights on it. I bought lights today, Bi Mart in Cheney has a real good price on them. Since I had an appointment with my publisher to pick up some books for my signing on Saturday, I decided to check out the new Ross store on the South Hill in Spokiane and the new Trader Joe's. I also went to Hastings Book Store and sold back some of my books to them and bought another one, THE BISHOP by Steven James, I've read several of his books and then put them in our church library. Since I am an award winning 'Finalist' in the USA 'Best Books 2011' awards contest, my publisher printed up 100 book marks with the award sticker on them and he also printed some one page sheets and added the mention of the award on them. He always does nice things like that and doesn't charge me for them, he says it is good advertisement. Well it is 12:03 a.m. and I'm off to bed. Good night to you all.

It's almost Thanksgiving.

It's almost Thanksgiving! I just feel so blessed and this is the time to think about those blessings and give thanks for them. I just took 3 pumpkin pies out of the oven. The house is warm and smells heavenly. We will be celebrating the Day with famly and friends. My daughter-in-law says a 22 or 23 pound turkey should feed us all. I hope there will be some left over. Oh yes, I do not have to cook the turkey, she is doing all of that. That is really something to be thankful for.

Does your dog snore?  My dog, Jake, has gone back to bed this morning and is snoring away!  Yes it's cute and a little annoying.

Good morning bloggers. I'm on my second cup of coffee this morning so the cob webs have lifted and I'm ready to do some serious writing. Last night I attended a meeting of Authors4Authors and I'm always energized after one of those meetings.  New ideas are flooding my mind for my next book.  As usual I'm a little bewildered how to bring it all together.  I really need to get this one finished by the end of the year.

Oh yes, if you haven't heard, my book THE HAT PIN MURDERS was a finalist in the USA "Best Books 2011" Awards.  You can go to USABookNews.com and find it there.  I'm pretty excited about it.  Now I need to get busy on my next best seller.

It's Saturday morning and gray and gloomy outside, but as far as I'm concerned it's a beautiful day inside. I have nothing scheduled for today so I'm planning to do some writing. I had to take my desk top computer to Staples yesterday, thank God I have a lap top and do my writing on it. This was a fun week for me. My Red Hat ladies, THE NOBLE BABES IN RED HATS went for a tour of the Cathedral of St John the Evangelist, in Spokane. We had a very informative tour guide by the name of Beth Moore. Beth is 80 years old and just full of fun. The Cathedral is breathtakingly beautiful and worth the time we spent there. After the tour we had lunch at Applebees on 29th on the South Hill, where the manager gave all 10 of us free dessert of a brownie with ice cream. Yum! Seems I had more than my share of desserts this week. I won a dessert, another brownie, at DESSERT PALS in Cheney. They are featuring my book,THE HAT PIN MURDERS, and sold 2 books. They will give a free dessert to the person that buys one. Saturday, December 3rd I will be signing my books at the Cheney High School, Arts and Craft sale. My son, Mark, does some incredable crocheting of hats and scarves, etc. will be sharing the booth with me. It is time to start thinking about those special Christmas gifts. I think I had better blog off and do some real writing, I'd like for my Christmas gift to myself to be a finished manuscript.