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Tucson Botanical Gardens + April review + a fresh batch of memes
Good morning and happy Saturday! It’s the last day of April, a good time to look back at the month that was. Also on tap: art and blooms from Tucson Botanical Gardens, memes, and various bits of personal news. But first: welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer! Pull up a seat, grab a drink, and let’s chat.
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Tucson Botanical Gardens and a few laughs (Weekend Coffee Share #15)
Good morning! Writing and work have kept me busy this week, so I’m a little late getting the Weekend Coffee Share (hosted by Natalie the Explorer) up for this week. Today I’ll share a few pics from my visit last weekend to the Tucson Botanical Gardens as well as the usual funnies at the end. But first: This Week’s Writing Update, Brought to You By Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers The writing update for this week is that there isn’t much of an update. I’ve heard exactly nothing about any of my pending submissions, including the story I submitted for the Christmas horror anthology that was supposed to be published…
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Passion flowers at the Tucson Botanical Gardens (#FOTD)
Long-suffering husband and I visited the Tucson Botanical Gardens yesterday for the first time since December (see pix from that trip here and here). We’re having a wet monsoon season, so we hoped for lots of flowers–and got our wish. Their butterfly garden includes these wonderful passion vines twining around the trunks of huge mesquite trees. I love the intricate detail of passion flowers–so lovely after a couple of months of dry, scorching heat. Posted for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge.
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The 2023 Highlight Reel: Writing, Travel, and More
I’m one of those weird people who enjoy reading everyone’s annual navel-gazing posts: what I accomplished this year, cool things I did/places I went this year, etc. So as I usually do this time of year, I set out to write mine. I’ll start with my first post of 2023, I said to myself. What were my intentions for the year? How did last year’s accomplishments stack up to this year’s? And now I need a stiff drink. And it’s only 7 AM. And I don’t even drink. When I wrote last year’s post, I complained that 2022 wasn’t one of my more productive years and selected persevere as my…
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The June wrap-up, or how I spent 30 days doing virtually nothing
If you’ve been hanging out in my demented corner of the interwebs for very long, you know I participate in a monthly blog hop called What’s Been on Your Calendar (hosted by Sue, Debbie, Donna, and Jo), in which we post highlights from the month just past. So, what did I do in June? Nothing. OK, there’s this week’s post taken care of. See you next week. Just kidding. Sort of. I really didn’t do much in June. After the craziness that was May, I wanted to curl up in a sunny window with a stack of books for the rest of the summer. I wasn’t quite that lazy, but this may be…
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March is over?? What the actual !@#$%
Today is the last day of March, and I have no idea where the month went. I also have no idea where January and February went, or where 2022 went, or where my youth went. I’m not alone in my inability to perceive time accurately. At least once a day here at Camp WTF, Long-Suffering Husband or I will say something like, “It’s Friday? How’d that happen?” or, “Damn, we’re old. How’d that happen?” Kind of like Groundhog Day but with more whining. So today, let’s look back at March. Maybe if I have a record of what happened, I can wrap my head around the idea that another month…
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Acceptance, rejection, Christmas lights, and funnies (Weekend Coffee Share #18)
Good morning, happy Friday, and welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer! I can’t compete with her amazing holiday display pics, but I’ll share a few of my own anyway. But first: Writing news! There are two kinds of people in the world: those who want the bad news first, and those who want the good news first. I’m the former–get the yuck out of the way so we can end on a positive note. So in that spirit: I received a rejection for the writing retreat I applied for. Bummer. It would have been amazing, I’m sure, but on the bright side: that’s 2 weeks…
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Saying goodbye to summer (Weekend Coffee Share #4)
Good morning, and welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share! It’s Saturday morning here in Tucson, the start of Labor Day weekend. It’s sunny and humid, and the wet pavement by my front door tells me it rained last night. The air is cool (well, cool for Tucson) and fresh, so before it gets unbearably hot and sticky, let’s plop on the porch with a morning beverage (got my Diet Coke right here) and look back on summer. But it’s still summer, you say? Well, yeah, the equinox is over two weeks away, and it’ll feel like summer here in the Sonoran Desert till November. But to me, Labor Day weekend…
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New Orleans and Spring in the Garden
Good morning! Happy Saturday! I’m still trying to clear the fog after a whirlwind 3 days in New Orleans for my first in-person work conference since the before times. It was wonderful! It was exhausting! And, me being me, I ate my weight in beignets, because: And: But before we get to my New Orleans gluttony travel photos, welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer! Grab a drink, pull up a seat, and let’s visit the Big Easy.
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I got a story accepted! Plus other news and a few local laughs (Weekend Coffee Share #17)
Good morning, happy Friday, and welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer (whose pics are always gorgeous, but this week’s are *incredible*). I’m going to kick off this week’s post with: Writing news A couple of weeks ago, I was grousing about my lack of writing news. I had several pieces on submission plus a pending application to a writing retreat, and I was getting just a tad impatient (if you consider refreshing GMail every 1.3 seconds, “a tad impatient”). Well, I still have a bunch of things pending, but: My Christmas horror story got accepted! It will be published in the 2021 Deathlehem anthology, which…