Getting started

My job description:
Wife, mom, grandmom, sister - these are the jobs that make my life a good one
Cook, go-fer, bookkeeper, general domestic - necessary, but not much fun
Acorn TV fanatic, certifiable nature starer, dedicated mystery reader - keep me going
Writer - I thought this was a hobby, but it's become a job!
And now, just as I am realizing I have no time for anything else, I feel the need to become a blogger.

Let me start with saying that when my husband, Tom, retired I had dreams of travel and dining in exotic places. We managed Florida a couple of times and a lovely week in Ireland. The novelty of unlimited time wore off and we fell into a routine. We had grandchildren. Well, not so much had - we certainly didn't do the heavy lifting - as were given two beautiful grandchildren; Storm, a wonderful boy who came to us ready-made with the marriage, and Sophia, a beautiful girl who was born in order to keep Ninnie and Pop young and wear us out at the same time.

Tom had his hobbies and I had family. I decided I needed another outlet. Tom dared me to write a book and I did. I wrote a cozy little mystery called Roses and Daisies and Death, Oh My! which I self-published as an eBook. It was all very relaxed and decidedly non-professional.

And then Intrigue Publishing made me an offer. I signed with them in December and became an actual professional author. Thanks to immense help from my son, Matt, the new, improved, edited Roses and Daisies and Death, Oh My! will be released in paperback and as an eBook December 1, 2013. Wow!

But now, of course, I need to work at promotion. At this, I am not good. I am not comfortable. And I sometimes feel that I'm just too damned old. But I'll give it a go. Blogging was suggested. This is something I have yet to understand fully. I mean it took me about an hour to figure out what a URL address is (thank God for my very patient daughter, Rachel).

I want to thank another Intrigue author, D. B. Corey, for pointing me in the right direction. His blogs echo so closely what I've been feeling that I figure I might be able to make this work, too. So here is the first installment of a weekly blog in which I hope to explore just how I can manage birthday cakes, babysitting, mentoring, grocery shopping, staring out the window, playing Words with Friends, fixing dinner, hosting wonderful company, caring for our ward, paying the bills and keeping up with Nashville, while at the same time turning out the next Daisy&Rose mystery.