Happy Holidays!

Congratulations, Natasha! You’ve won the Catherine Asaro’s The Fire Opal. I’ll be contacting you for your snail mail address.

This blog I’m back to giving away historicals! I’ve got The Spy Wore Silk by Andrea Pickens. It’s the first book in a fun series, so give it a try! As always, to be eligible for the drawing, you must type in your email address. I’ll also add you to my newsletter for updates on all the fun stuff and releases, too. I’ll announce the winner on my next blog in two weeks!

I’ve talked about how my holidays work before, but here’s the update. My two brothers live back East, so my mom alternates years between the daughters and the sons, meaning, one year my sister and I get Thanksgiving with her, and the next year we get Christmas. This year our turn was Thanksgiving, so we’re shipping her off to my brothers today. But we had a wonderful celebration on Saturday. We’ve got a limit on gifts, $20 per person. And the trick is to see how many gifts you can fit into that limit. The dollar store, buy one/get one free, the thrift store, it’s an art. I have to admit my sister is a lot better at it than I am. It took us about two hours for all five of us (Mom, sis, her hubby, myself, my hubby) to open our presents. And it was loads of fun. Then it was a yummy feast. We had turducken (it’s a roll of turkey, duck and chicken with sausage stuffing in the middle), roast potatoes, broccoli and Hot Chocolate Pudding for dessert (YUM!). Now, I have to admit we all agreed that next year we’ll go back to the traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and skip the turducken. I always remember the hot chocolate pudding from my childhood. It’s like a brownie with a hot fudge sauce. Add a dollop of whipped cream, mmm. Love it! But we haven’t had it in a long time. It was just as good as I remember! And I’m going to share my mother’s recipe with you.

Mom’s Hot Chocolate Pudding
Pudding:
1 C cake flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 C sugar
2 T cocoa
1/2 C milk
1 t vanilla
2 T melted shortening
1/2 C chopped walnuts (optional)
Sift flour, baking powder, salt (Okay, I didn’t sift it and it turned out just fine). Add sugar, cocoa, and nuts. Add milk, vanilla, shortening. Stir lightly and pour into 1 1/2 qt casserole.
Sauce:
2 T cocoa
1/2 C brown sugar
1 3/4 C hot water
Beat in small bowl. Pour over uncooked batter. Bake at 350˚ for 45 minutes.

Any traditional recipes you’d like to share?

I’m blogging Monday, Dec 21, with Lucienne Diver. http://varkat.livejournal.com/ And with her, I’m going to share my mother’s recipe for English Trifle, another favorite yummy dessert! Hmm, did I tell you my mom was British? Oh yes, and very proper, too!

Happy Holidays everyone!!!!

Jasmine, Jennifer and JB!

Dream Job!

Estella! Congratulations! You’ve won the Raintree series from Silhouette Nocturne. Here’s the line-up, Inferno by Linda Howard, Haunted by Linda Winstead Jones, and Sanctuary by Beverly Barton. I’ll be contacting you for your snail mail address.

This time I’m going to give away a Luna book, Catherine Asaro’s The Fire Opal. Catherine writes wonderful fantasy books! If you haven’t tried her yet, here’s a great opportunity. To be eligible for the drawing, you must type in your email address. I’ll also add you to my newsletter for updates on all the fun stuff and releases, too. I’ll announce the winner on my next blog in two weeks!

I had lots of editing to do this past week. I received my edited file of my February Loose-Id release Take Your Pleasure, which I told you all about last blog. After I’m done with the edits, I always print out a final copy and read the whole through again, to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I’d been to a friend’s black belt test during the day (yay, she was awarded her third degree black belt! An amazing feat!), and I had about 20 pages left to read, and it was after dinner, time for a nice relaxing bath, but I really wanted to finish those 20 pages, too. So heck, I gave myself a glass of white zinfandel, a couple of dark chocolate Hershey kisses, poured in the bath salts and carried my red pen into the tub. And I finished the edit! When I mentioned this to my friend Kathy Coatney, she said what other job could you be working while luxuriating in the bathtub! Heh, then it hit me, I’ve got a dream job!

And here’s another dream-job moment, a book signing I did yesterday for Yours for the Night with my friend Shelley Adina. I’m in the middle, Shelley’s on the right, and Laurel is on the left. Laurel’s the friend who just got her black belt! We’re working, but don’t we look like we’re having a ton of fun, too! I worked as an accountant for 20 years to get to this point, but now I’ve attained that dream job!

What’s your dream job? Are you doing it now, working toward it, retired from it? Maybe it’s being a mother, a rewarding job from which we never retire! I’d love to hear.

Happy Holidays everyone!!!!

Jasmine, Jennifer and JB!