Celebrating a Mistake?!

Nope! Just kicking off the party for An Error In Judgment

Party? Did someone say PARTY?

Launch date is July 20, 2011 — and it’s time to begin the countdown! I’d invite you all for cake, cookie and some really good punch, but my house is a mess from all the neglect. Hey, getting a book out takes a lot of time and concentration. A body can only do so much in so many hours.

So, to make up for the lack of food and music I’ve reduced the price on Levels of Deception to .99! You can find it on Amazon, Smashwords, (where you can download the format of choice for the e-reader of choice), and as soon as the electronics grind it all out the e-book will be available all over the place for .99.

I LOVE celebrating the release of a new book! Mine or anyone else’s. It’s a new adventure waiting, an invitation to laugh, cry, gasp, shiver and love — and it’s a new friend who, once read, will wait patiently for you to return, or be satisfied with a cozy spot in your memory.

If you haven’t had a look at Levels Of Deception yet, here’s a brief synopsis — I should probably warn you … the heat turns up between Thea and Paul. Like one reader mentioned, “it’s nail-biting romantic drama” added to a mystery that twist, turns and ultimately surprises!

Levels of Deception

The second in the Thea Campbell Mystery Series

The murder of a professor in the basement of the Seattle’s Burke Museum is haunting Thea, and not just because the man was her absent boy friend Paul’s colleague. Both men have been implicated in the theft of valuable fossils from the museum and Paul not only refuses to discuss any of it with Thea, but warns her to butt out.

Unwilling to see him framed for crimes he didn’t commit, Thea launches her own investigation. When an attempt on her life lands her in the hospital. Everyone, including Paul, insists she run to his protection at his dig site in Montana.

But what she finds there is far from a refuge.

The levels of deception are more personal and extend farther than she could have imagined.

The price of her pursuit of truth will be blood.

Now, here’s a look at more suspense, twists, turns (yikes!), romantic drama (sigh … whoops! Yikes!) …and the cover? Oooo….it’s fabulous!!

Where is it? I’ll show you next time!!

An Error in Judgment

 

The third in the Thea Campbell Mystery Series

During the awards ceremony at the Puget Sound Dressage Society’s annual banquet dressage judge Sig Paalmann collapses and dies. The wealthy man leaves his bride of two months — Thea’s estranged friend, Andrea — and enigmatic last words.

Thea’s initial plan to reestablish her friendship with Andrea, despite the arrogant man she married, grows into resolve to support her through the crisis. But Andrea needs more than support when her husband’s death is deemed murder and she is arrested.

With boyfriend Paul Hudson’s help, Thea’s digs in to investigate only to discover complications far worse than either had anticipated. Andrea is pregnant and in fragile health, warring business partners jockey for control, slighted family members turn ruthless, and Thea and Paul become pawns in a desperate struggle for money and power. But, the situation, already critical, takes an even more personal twist with the arrival of an old nemesis — a man capable of orchestrating not only Sig’s death but the grave danger stalking Andrea, Thea and Paul.

It’s party time … right?

Achievement.

There’s been a lot of that going on lately, in fact, it’s the time of year for it. My daughter graduated from high school this last week, and the ceremony got me thinking about all those rites of passage that mark our lives. They’re definitive moments — like plot points in a book.

There’s no turning back.

An important milestone has occurred and, although it’s been anticipated and our lives may proceed forward on the course we planned, we won’t ever go back to the time prior to that moment.

We celebrate — usually.

Often times it seems the commemoration is more important to those around us. Some of us skip our graduation ceremony. Wedding planning sometimes makes elopement a seductive alternative and some of us dispense with the wedding entirely while proceeding with the commitment. Birthdays are often ignored unless someone else insists on a party.

Hey, I’ve got my third mystery novel coming out next month and have yet to have a release party for any of them. I should have some sort of bash. After all, finishing a novel is an achievement and so is publishing it. Nevertheless, I’m not particularly inclined to mark it with a party despite suggestions from friends and family.

Why do we so often simply soldier on instead of pausing to rejoice over our own accomplishments? I love celebrating the things my friends and family achieve.

Maybe, just maybe, celebrating our own accomplishments makes our world a little bit better for everyone and binds us together as a community.

Maybe I’ll rethink the party.

 

Tempus Fugit

Oops.

 

I’m late. It’s the story of my life lately.

 

As summer approaches the days may get longer, but so does my list of things to do. My daughter, the high school senior, is graduating and there’s a whole lot more going on than I recall when I was her age. Young people have busier lives than in years past — and it flows directly to the parents.

 

A good deal of my time is spent shuttling both kids to things they need to do, making sure I get to work on time and praying I can deal with all the preparations for the special celebrations that go with graduation, not to mention the last-minute, must-attend, why-didn’t-someone-tell-me-sooner events. It’s enough to drive me stark raving. Sound familiar?

 

Then there’s all the house and garden falderal that couldn’t be done when the weather was awful — and of course the weather was so awful until recently that the weeds have taken over everything. It’s a losing battle. Who am I trying to kid?

 

Then something like this happens — Not one award for scholastic excellence, but three… for each girl. And one happy “little” brother.

 

 

 

The blonde with the glasses and the happy brother are mine.

 

Suddenly all the craziness seems worthwhile.

Leaning into Joy

I heard a phrase the other day that pulled up such a mental picture that I haven’t been able to forget it.

“Lean into Joy” is what the woman said.

My immediate thought was, do I do that? When something great happens, do I embrace it and, well, lean into it? I used to — when I was much younger.

I think as we get older we know there’s another shoe that is going to drop. It’s tough being disappointed, and we try to protect ourselves from it.

But there’s something else, too.

Sometimes the good stuff that happens to us is at the same time something not so wonderful happens to the people we care about — friends, family. Sometimes we get singled out for happiness while other folks have to watch. Personally, I hate to rub other people’s noses in my good fortune, but by the same token I have to remember that the joy of my friends and family lifts my heart. I want to happy dance right along with them.

They need that gift of joy from me, too.

Happy Mother’s Day to all. Share the joy — it makes it that much better.

“Those who joy would win –

Must share it. Happiness was born a twin”

– George Gordon Noel Byron

Spring: Take 2…uh, I said…

Happy Spring, everyone!

We're waiting for Spring...and waiting...

Oh, no. Sorry, I seem to be mistaken. There was snow here the other day. And rain almost constantly. It must be February.

But, then again, I was at the grocery store the other day — a place I hang out often — and there were a bunch of Easter displays up — chocolate rabbits, little stuffed bunnies and chicks, jelly beans, plastic eggs to put candy in, baskets, that plastic/paper grass stuff you vacuum up for months afterwards….

It’s Easter, therefore it must be Spring.

Pretty Flower!

But, I keep seeing posts by my friends on Facebook about snow.

I’m confused.

When I was a kid, there were more flowers around at Easter. Seriously. And the weather was a lot warmer. One of my great memories of Easter when I was under ten was each year my sister and I would get a Spring new coat and hat — our mother picked them out —  and we’d get to wear them to church. We’d all get dressed up — my dad in his suit, my mom in her pretty new dress, coat and hat, and off we’d go. Easter lilies packed the vestibule and flanked the alter. The sky was blue, the birds were singing and there were bright yellow, pink and blue flowers everywhere.

Of course we can’t forget the Easter baskets. Chocolate bunnies, eaten with precise ritual, and dyed eggs that magically disappeared (we never ate them — unless you count the egg salad as doing so).

You eat WHAT kind of bunnies?

What are your favorite memories of Easter and Spring? Share them, and we can all pretend together that the weather isn’t so un-spring-like.

How to Increase the Gray-Hair-Count

“M-mommy?”

When you answer the phone and your eighteen-year-old daughter asks a quavering question she should know the answer to, the list of all the things you could reply narrows down to one.

“Are you hurt?” Either my heart had stopped or it was racing so fast there were no discernible beats.

“N-no.”

This is not the moment of relief. This is the moment where all those little black dots swim before your eyes. You know the ones I’m talking about –

They’re shaped like dollar signs.

“How bad is the car?”

Sniffling preceded the answer. “It’s stuck.” More sniffling.

Not the answer I was expecting. The dollar signs shrunk. “Stuck?”

“I misjudged the parking space and scraped the other car and now I’m stuck. I don’t know how to move our car without making the damage worse.”

The dollar signs got bigger. “I’m on my way. Where are you?”

“Woodinville.”

“WOODINVILLE?”

My husband, who had completely forgotten about the bowl of ice cream he’d been eating while listening to my side of the conversation, winced. Hey, the shriek was totally called for. Daughter was a good sixteen miles from where I expected her to be, had damaged my car and probably someone else’s. I had a right to be upset. I hung up the phone and searched for my shoes.

“Not hurt?” husband asked.

“No. I need the truck keys.”

He dug around in his pocket, pulled out his keys and tossed them to me. “Have fun,” he said, and went back to eating his ice cream.

By the time I got to Woodinville I’d concocted quite the scenario in my mind. I was totally wrong, of course. There was no way I could have imagined what my usually intelligent offspring had done. In a nearly empty parking lot, she had chosen to park directly next to a nice big SUV, and gotten so close it looked like one of those car-jump line-ups — only this line-up involved just two vehicles and no ramps. You couldn’t have slid a piece of paper between them.

I considered the situation from several angles. Her assessment was correct. She was stuck. My car and the SUV were pressed closer than two hormonal teenagers slow-dancing to sexy lyrics in a dark room.

Did I impart a lecture before saving the day? Of course. It’s my job. I’m The Mom.

Was I still angry? Not really, but I had to keep up appearances. Sometimes that’s what keeps your kid safe in the future — remembering how mad Mom can get when you don’t think.

Final damage?

SUV: 0.

My car: lightly scraped paint near the rear panel.

Me: more gray hair.