Maybe not *only* in Austin, but it fits. This castle was in the works before we moved to the Austin area nine years ago. In fact, it was almost finished. It’s in a rather nice, upper-middle-class neighborhood, sitting next to nice normal looking homes. We always wondered how in the world the guy got permission from the neighborhood association to build this addition to the front of his house.

Maybe he started building it before the neighborhood association had a chance to setup certain bylaws. Who knows? But this guy–his home is his castle.

He must not have had the property (money? permission?) to put in a full moat so had to settle for a rather large fountain that resembles a moat. The picture doesn’t do justice to the gargoyles and the light isn’t right to capture the fabulous gilded doors, but you get the general idea.

Okay, whoever runs for political office on a platform to abolish changing the clocks in the spring and fall–I’ll vote for that!!! I hate the time change. I can’t get up on time, I don’t eat lunch on time and I wander around all day “feeling” I’m in a different time!

Today I finished the draft of “Executive Retention!” It’s off to the first beta reader and I couldn’t be happier. Any writer will tell you that manuscripts way overstay their welcome. That thing has been giving me fits and starts so it’s good to push it to the next stage. It’s not ready to leave the nest quite yet, but I’m still glad it’s on the next leg.

Now I can go out and get some serious gardening done. A nasty worm tried to eat one of the cucumber plants last night. There’s a few beans to be picked (We’re talking one or two) and there’s a lot of weeds…

I love caves. They are very inspirational, not to mention beautiful. Inner Space Caverns in Georgetown, Texas is only a few short miles from where we live. We’ve never gone there because the signs near the area are so cheesy, we figured the caverns were small and nothing more than a tourist trap.

Well, the signs are misleading! Thanks to regular blog-reader, Max, we decided to go visit the caverns and my! what a great surprise. The cave is very much a living cave with fabulous formations. It’s been a nice, wet winter too, so there were some great water flows, making for just a magical place. The cave costs about 18 dollars per person to tour and takes about an hour. It’s well worth it if you’re in the area. Beautiful formations, knowledgeable guides and a lot of fun.

As always, click on the thumbnails to view a larger picture.

We had company this weekend. Ohboy. Feral cat and feral kitty don’t really understand *us* never mind additional household humans. Strangely Scamp did better than Junior. Of course Scamp lives outside and does not view the house as a safe haven so finding dangers in it not only doesn’t shock her, she’s always in the mood to bolt out the door anyway. “Door bolting” is a badge of honor for Scamp, something she practices on a regular basis even when the only sign of danger is a slowly moving sunbeam.

Junior was very disappointed when strangers arrived. Luckily the weather was nice for the entire weekend. I did nab him once and brought him inside to introduce him to the two friends. Sorry to say that he was not impressed. He made a big show of trying hard to escape by climbing over my head, shedding copious amounts of hair and when finally released, ran for his life as though dire threats and actual promises had been delivered.

We were gone most of Saturday touring this and that. I thought it would give Junior plenty of time to get over the shock that we actually have friends. But nooooo. When we arrived home, he and Scamp were out on the porch. That little stinker *ran* from me. No, not Scamp. She sat there and waited for her food bowl like a polite little domestic cat, while I attempted to pet little Junior. Stinker refused to let me near him. I was *very* hurt.

Of course I brought their bowls out so they could eat without panicking. As dusk came around, Scamp left to go wherever it is she sleeps. Junior followed her, but I knew he’d be back. He isn’t allowed to go to her spots or doesn’t feel he really belongs there anymore. He checked at the door a couple of times, but wouldn’t come in.

Eventually the guests were safely in bed. He did come in, but he still eyed me suspiciously. Stinker.

We made sure he stayed in both nights; I didn’t want him running around getting into trouble. He has a shelter outside on the porch, but I was afraid he’d be too nervous of the house to use it. So BMHusband nabbed him and made sure he was safely inside at night. Once inside with no activity going on, Junior was fine. Skittish at times, but fine.

Sunday morning, Junior was content to run in and out as usual. The guests weren’t up yet and Junior has many appointments in the morning (one assumes from the going in and out). On one such trip inside, Junior had just finished a sample snacking at the food bowl when our young guest (7 years old) came trooping out of the hallway, cleverly wrapped in a pink blanket that trailed out behind her…Junior took one frozen look, jumped straight out of his fur and ran for the nearest…kitchen was the best opening he had. Young guest didn’t really notice Junior so she hopped right into the dining room, scaring him further round to the opposite side of the room. He took one last good look at the pink apparition–the look on his face was a cross between, “What in all God’s glory is that thing??!??” and “I think I swallowed my tail!” before slinking as fast as his little legs could scamper–into the safety of the bedroom. He planted himself under the bed and did not come out again until the guests had gone.

Now, really. Our guests were wonderfully behaved and nice people too. I really think he could have given them more of a chance. Hmph. He was such a naughty kitten.

I’ve been waiting to write this post for at least a month. When I started out publishing on the Kindle, one of my goals was to sell well enough to publish a second book. That didn’t take me long. Sage: Tales from a Magical Kingdom is a set of novellas–and short stories don’t sell as well as novels, but from the get-go, I was pleased with sales.

From research, I used these two statistics to set my goals:

1. Self-published authors rarely sell more than 75 copies and most of those copies are to friends and relatives.
2. Small publishers sell 20 to 30 copies of each title per month.

Given those two points, I figured selling 10 to 20 copies of Sage per month was a good goal. I’ve only published a few pieces in online zines, so my name is completely unknown. Since I was selling into the Kindle market, I didn’t have to worry that relatives or friends would be buying significant copies–no one I knew had a Kindle!

Sage made the 10 copies per month pretty easily and hit twenty plus–in fact, it averages twenty copies per month. It took me less than six months to reach 75 copies. So from that standpoint, I think we could say I reached the bottom tier of self-publishing pretty easily.

Sage will never be a blockbuster, nor will it generate significant income–it’s priced at $1.00. What it does do is generate interest and serve as a cheap way for readers to sample my writing style. It did well enough that I decided to publish a novel, Catch an Honest Thief.

My goals for Thief were to sell 20 to 30 copies a month or get close enough to figure out if the market was receptive to my work.

Thief had a rocky start. It made the twenty and then sagged for a couple of months. The reviews and feedback on both Thief and Sage were good, however. By November 2009, I still didn’t know whether the model made sense. Sage was meeting expectations, reviews were meeting expectations but sales were under expectations with Thief.

I decided to go ahead with Executive Lunch. My goals were the same as for Thief: twenty to thirty sales per month. If sales for either of them didn’t get there, Lunch would probably have been my last Kindle edition. (Keep in mind that while all of this was going on, I did have a completely different series subbed to regular publishers.) I’m a big believer in attacking from different angles to reach my goals.

Executive Lunch was what I will term my Kindle “break-out” novel. It averages over 100 copies per month. It helps sales of the other two books as well, pushing them into the 20 per month since it went live. Some of its success is probably due to the good reviews on the other two, plus some good early reviews for Lunch. Some of the success is probably due to the fact that it came out in November, very near the big Christmas shopping season.

I used the success of Lunch to tweak the book description of Thief and also to improve the cover.

The bottom line: My goal was to sell 500 minimum within 18 months to declare any kind of success. With Executive Lunch, I reached that number today, after four months. My audience has been kind–maybe because I don’t charge much for my novels, maybe just because they are kind people. At any rate, the second in the Executive series will be out this year. My goals are a little higher now that I have some numbers. Realizing the whole thing could fall apart due to the economy or fate or alien zombies, I’m hoping to sell a thousand copies of Executive Lunch by the end of this year–and five hundred of Executive Retention, which I expect out in July, priced at $2.99.

It’s been a lot of fun, a lot of work, but I’m enjoying myself. Watch the blog–I’ll be having a cover contest to choose the covers for my next two books!

At long last! OverMyDeadBody has published Secrets in the Sand, a short story about…well, Secrets. In the Sand. This was a themed contest with “Back to School” as the theme, but don’t let that fool you. It’s quite possible there is murder and mayhem involved!

I noticed that the story displays much cleaner on Explorer than it does with Firefox (I haven’t tried other browsers). For that reason and because I’m into e-readers, I’m thinking of making the story available for download in an e-reader format. What do you think? It is short enough to read online, but it might be more convenient to read on the go!

Since it isn’t yet converted for download, feel free to go read it, but let me know if you would like a version for your e-reader.

As always, with my published short stories, after the exclusivity period is over, I also make them available over at AnthologyBuilder where you can add any of the very large inventory of stories into a print book and have it shipped to you.

I’m nearly certain that I single-handedly keep plant businesses and seed businesses profitable. Despite planting seeds, I needed to go to the plant nursery because some of the seeds didn’t do that well. Most of the plants are alive, but they are lagging. The tomato plants are a bit purple (from the cold? or lack of phosphorous?). I decided to be on the safe side, I had better go get some backup plants.

It is soooooo hard for me to not take one of every kind! Or two. Or…flowers. Or…okra??? I’ve never grown okra!

I did better than in years past because last year was so hot, it was difficult to take care of the garden (read: little produce and lots of backbreaking work, an expensive watering bill…) The thought of the heat from last year made me put two plants back. Oh sure, I still have more than I need. I’m counting on the neighbors. There must be a neighbor on my block who needs a tomato plant or…five. Cucumber plants anyone???

Despite the gray day, I moved the cilantro plant that had sprung up next to the driveway in the front to the official garden in the back. No, I’ve no idea how that plant got there. I’m sure I dropped seeds, but I have no idea what I was doing in that part of the front yard with cilantro seeds in hand. The cilantro seeds that I planted in the back never came up–of course. Hey, I’ll take what I get, and if that means moving the plant round back to where the watering happens, then that is what I will do.

I put the sad looking cucumber plants outside and planted some more. They were left too long in pots and just wilted. Not the best looking plants I’ve ever tried to raise. Hopefully the new seeds will come up looking perkier.

There are weeds all over the yard, in the garden…just calling to be dug up. I pulled a few, but it’s starting to drizzle which is a good enough excuse for me to come inside and post rather than do actual work. It’s supposed to rain for the next couple of days. We could really use some sun, but I suppose the plants want the water too. Spring is here, but it’s not in the best of moods.

If you are going to send me a pizza ad, tell me the price of your pizza. No, not a two dollar off coupon without a base price. Two bucks off 10 dollars is a good deal for pizza. Two bucks off 25 isn’t so great. Do not send me to your website to check and then tell me I must pick “my store location” to get prices. When I go to “my store” and pick the menu, Do Not show me a menu WITH NO PRICES. Do not tell me to place an online order to get pricing. I do not want to place an order when I have no idea what your pizza costs.

I can only assume that your prices are so ridiculously high you are ashamed to print them in the ad that you sent. You are so appalled at your own pricing, you won’t even admit to the price online IN THE MENU. Save yourself money and save my time. If you are going to spend money sending me an ad through the mail, I guarantee that you need to tell me the price of your pizzas in that ad.

In your case, game over. Will not play.

Junior said so.

He’s always been partial to flowers.

Am I the only person in the world who wants to create my own green tea cream??? Probably not. Sure, lots of places sell green tea. Lots of places sell green tea cream. BUT, how many of those places tell you the percentage of green tea extract in the cream? I haven’t found any yet.

Green tea cream is supposed to be very good for the skin. It helps with dryness, redness and inflammation. I already have several creams that help with these symptoms and have had moderate success with most of them. But for a few years I’ve wanted to try a green tea lotion–one that didn’t cost 40 dollars an ounce with no label to tell me just how much green tea I’d be getting.

I’ve finally decided to do a white tea/green tea infusion. This is a method of soaking tea leaves in an oil to impart the properties of the leaves into the oil. I thought about using the crockpot (heat on low for a couple of hours, stirring often, strain with cheesecloth) but decided on the “sun tea” method. It takes longer, but I don’t have a lot of time to monitor the crockpot temperature today. I’m, well, supposed to be editing my manuscript, not concocting tea leaves!!!

So tea leaves and oil are sitting in the sunny window. I used wheat germ oil, even though olive oil is the standard oil of choice. We’ll see how it goes. At the rate I try different creams, I should look 2, not 60.

Okay, a couple of daffodils have managed to bloom. I can even smell the three hyacinth–because it’s so darn windy that every time I go on the front porch, I get hit with a strong breeze.

I have at least three tomato plants that would like to be transplanted outside. Too bad we still have a couple of nights this week when it might freeze. And since it is only 50 out, I’m not feeling particularly enthused about going and digging in the cold, wet ground. Sigh. Spring. It’s sort of here, but it’s hesitating.

Scott over at Me and My Big Mouth has a mystery to solve. Friends of his recently bought an old house (Presumably in the UK, although I don’t think Scott said in his post) and found this book plate nailed over a hole in the floorboards (oh, the things we will use in a pinch to make repairs!) At any rate, I found the image intriguing.

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but I had to wonder about the history of this book plate. Did the book ever get published and circulated? Who came along later and thought the best use of the plate was to repair a floorboard? The frustrated writer? A careless relative?

The image itself is very interesting. Here’s my guess: The book was written during the war when the end date was not yet known. The author was writing his/her opinion of the war or a personal experience. You know the person lost someone dear. That question mark makes me wonder if the person wasn’t certain the war would ever end. What did the author lose? Were they doing the book in secret? Did they ever finish it? Did they live to tell their story or did the war end and things begin to change so quickly that the author never finished the endeavor?

What do you see when you look at the book plate?

Seems like everyone is jumping on the bandwagon–another new e-reader was introduced yesterday (snazzy looking, but with a 500 dollar price-tag). The Entourage Edge bills itself as a reader on one side and a netbook on the other. Someone at the company might have been reading the Amazon Kindle boards–they put in an SD card (a common request of those owning the K2), a user replaceable battery (another common request) and it can read EPUB and PDF files. No, it doesn’t read Kindle DRM files or Nook DRM files. However, so long as a file isn’t DRM protected, you can use free applications such as Calibre to convert the books to EPUB. (For the record, my books are DRM-free at Smashwords.com and at Amazon. They can be purchased in EPUB format from www.smashwords.com or you can buy them from Amazon and covert them to whatever format floats your e-reader.)

This Entourage device appears to be offering some real competition (if you ask me!) The iPad announcement was flat. It didn’t grab my interest, but maybe it wasn’t ready for prime-time. I think its failing was that the price tag was that of a netbook, but without the functionality. The Entourage seems like it might offer netbook capability and the e-ink screen for reading.

If anyone happens to buy one and has an opinion, let me know what you think! Be happy to provide a free coupon for one of my books in exchange for your analysis of the device!

I’m also very interested in the Mirasol technology I keep hearing about.

I have a couple more reviews for Executive Lunch over at Amazon and one new review at Smashwords. I point this out as my way of saying thanks–getting a review from a total stranger is always a huge treat. Since I can’t thank people personally, I’d like to say thanks here–The time you spent reading and commenting on my books is very much appreciated!

Thank you!

Yeah. Uh-huh. It’s the end of February folks. I usually have tomato plants blooming in the garden. They’re certainly IN the garden and growing. The snow “flakes” that are falling for the second time this morning are well over an inch in diameter. They’re huge.

Here I thought we were the only ones that had neighbor pets trying to move in. Pets must like vacationing and visits as much as the next human:

My parents live in rural NM–pretty darn rural and in the middle of nowhere. When they do things like go to Albuquerque to pick me up from the airport, Smurfie (the lab) stays with a neighbor that lives about three miles away. No big deal. The neighbor has a couple of dogs and they’ve played together before. Well apparently Angel (misnamed if there ever was one) wasn’t ready for Smurfie to go back home. After mom went and retrieved him, a few hours later, Angel showed up at the door. Since it was a bit late, Angel was allowed to spend the night.

Mom took Angel home in the morning. So far she hasn’t come for an extended visit again. But you just never know. We still have the neighbor’s cat showing on a regular basis…

The blog will be quiet this week as I am off to visit the parental units in NM. BMHusband will be monitoring kitty cats and the blog for spam (so don’t get any ideas that I’ll suddenly be allowing “medical” enhancement commercials, unbelievable investments in another country or buy your pharma here…)

It’s not supposed to be wonderful weather yet, so curl up with a good book. That and a cup of cocoa should tide you over!

Scamper got a scare the other night when she was in here and another cat got in. Yes, the neighbor cat that thinks he’s everyone’s buddy had to come prancing in after she came in to eat. It didn’t help that I yelled at the neighbor cat (not that it made him leave–in fact, he decided it was an even better opportunity to run around.) Scamp freaked out and in the end, they both ran for their lives. I think I managed to scare the neighbor cat badly enough that he forgot to chase Scamp (He does this at every opportunity for no good reason. I don’t think he would hurt her, but you never know.)

At any rate, since that episode, little Scamper has been afraid to come inside. She came in once to eat, but now sits pathetically outside staring in the new cat door. Yes, we have a new cat door. Q, I mean BMHusband, decided that we needed a way to lock other cats out when she or Junior come IN. Step one was to build a more rigid (and see-through) cat door, rather than the heavy, colored flexible plastic one we had.

Once BMHusband had that cut out and attached, he also attached a one-way lock. Thus if Scamp ever decides to come in again, and if she doesn’t fritz when we move towards the door, we can actually keep other cats from following her in. She can still hop out at her leisure. The only problem thus far is that she refused to believe us when we told her the new door was better and that she would be perfectly safe inside. She comes by and will eat if we put food out (which we did as soon as we discovered she would not come back inside.) We have to monitor it closely though because we do not want other cats to find out when feeding time is. It must be mating season or prowl season because we’ve seen about 6 cats, three of which we’d never seen before. One is a very aggressive (male, we think). He chases Junior, sprays everything whether it moves or not–and gets chased out of the yard by us. I get tired of constantly hosing down wherever he has been, the bugger.

The neighbors on our other side also adopted a cat. It’s young, probably a fixed female. She hasn’t made any friends or enemies yet. Like all their other pets that are “inside only,” she escapes on a regular basis and visits. We have returned more dogs to that home (of various sizes, including a Great Dane, a boxer and a small fluffy dog about the size of a chihuahua) than we see on a week of walks.

It’s been a busy two weeks at the Schneider Pet Hotel.

I’m starting to see searches on the blog for tomato plants and gardening. Usually by this time, I either have a few tomato plants out or I’m thinking about it seriously as I check weather forecasts. Not this year. I have the plants in the window and there they will stay for at least two more weeks, probably three. It’s cold all over the nation. If you have the urge to plant, probably better keep it indoors.

I even have cucumber plants in the window. I don’t know how well they will transplant, but I do know they can’t handle temps below about 40. They get very stressed and freeze easily.

The onion starters I put out don’t look especially good. Those that I planted last fall are actually coming around and looking spiffier. The leek and green onion seeds that I put down last fall look pretty good. I think there is still time to throw onion seeds down if you hope for onions. I threw some more down at the same time as the onion starters. We had nice weather for one day, but then it rained and got dreary. I don’t know if seeds will do particularly well in water-logged and cold conditions. I’ll keep you posted. I don’t recall such a lashing of cold rain after planting seeds.

The snap peas…are actually in good shape, but I don’t know if I can keep them there. We have some freeze warnings for most of the nights this week–along with rain, sleet and possible snow warnings. It’s a little difficult to cover for all of those things, especially if the rain comes first and douses the covers so that they are nice and freeze-worthy!!!

But despair not. Start your little tomato seeds inside. Give them eight weeks or so. The weather will likely be friendly to plants in four to six weeks. Probably. No matter what that little ground hog guy says.

In the past I’ve posted about my one to three or sometimes four favorite ads. This year? We are talking commercials that might as well have been on AM radio only many AM radio commercials are shorter, to the point and not as annoying. Dockers: I had no need to hear a bunch of men singing about their pants–or lackthereof while traipsing around without them. Beer commercials: Yikes. Those were bad. Worse. And then bad again. Go Daddy: Must you always have some chick ripping her shirt off? Get over the Hooters type commercials and get some class. Even Budweiser with their horses went rather wild and weird by having a COW as the “cute.” Hmm. That didn’t work for me. Cows and horses as friends? Hmm. A giant Longhorn cow?? I was worried the five-foot horn was going to spear a Clydesdale.

As far as car commercials went, seeing a bunch of guys stand around in a coma while we ‘heard’ them make promises to do laundry so they could own the car of their dreams…no. The guys looked like idiots–just like the guy following around his girlfriend while shopping. Zombies. They all must be part of the zombie invasion.

Volkswagon had a fair commercial, but nothing standout. At least they didn’t embarrass themselves like Coke did. I have no real idea what any of those coke commercials was supposed to be about, but the one seemed to be a spoof of Madoff (or some wall street thief) losing their billions and being stripped of his belongings. The idea that handing a suicidal wall-street type a Coke would somehow make everything better…huh? There were other coke commercials, but they were so painful, I finally turned the sound off and just went for more snacks. And no, I wasn’t inclined to grab a Coke while I was in the kitchen.

There was another commercial with office workers running around without pants…something about casual Fridays. This was possibly the best of the commercials (as in mildly funny) but I don’t remember who did the ad. And since there was virtually no competition for “Best of” it’s hard to say how this commercial would have fared against a better field.

These are a little messy to make, but they freeze well and are great snacks! This is a modified recipe–I used less margarine (half) and I substituted ground oats for some of the breadcrumbs.

Spinach balls

1 16 ounce bag of frozen spinach, thawed and drained (press as much water out as possible)
1 1/4 cups shredded Asiago or Romano cheese
1.5 cups shredded breadcrumbs
1.5 cups ground oats (take regular oats and grind them in a food processor)
1/4 cup butter or margarine
4 small green onions chopped fine
1 clove minced garlic (optional)
1/2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp oregano
1 egg

Mash everything together, form 1 inch balls and bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes. Spray your cookie sheet or used sprayed foil! These will try to stick to the pan.

That’s it! The recipe makes about two dozen.

…Because it’s not just about the game! This year is colder than most at the Texas home of BMBooks. I really wanted sushi, but who wants to eat cold fish and cold rice on a cloudy, cool day???

Rather than make a stupendous meal, I prefer to nibble my way through the game:

Spinach Balls (I thought the recipe was on my site, but obviously I forgot to post it. I will post this recipe soon. In the meantime, you can check through other recipes and see if there is some dip or snacks to your liking!

Deviled Eggs
Potato Chips — Sour Cream and Onion, of course. You may think this is a lame choice, but us cholesterol, low-salt diet people don’t get to eat chips very often. We will try not to consume the entire bag during the first quarter, but no promises.

For the entree, I made a simple pasta dish. I like it; BMHusband tends to think it is on the bland side. It has Italian sausage in it. How can it be bland, I ask?? But if you find it bland, I recommend adding fresh chopped basil when the tomatoes go in.

At any rate, here is the recipe for Sausage Pasta:

Boil about a pound of pasta (bowtie, macaroni or other)

In skillet saute:
3 cloves minced garlic in olive oil
three to four crumbled sweet Italian sausage — about 3/4 of a pound

When the sausage and garlic are almost cooked, add:

sliced green onions (about 5 to 6–one bundle)
1/2 tsp pepper flakes (to taste)
sliced fresh mushrooms

When the sausage is completely cooked and the veggies tender, add:

2 cans of diced tomatoes (or fresh–close to four cups diced). This dish is actually a little better if at least one can of tomatoes is drained of excess juices.
1 cup of cream

Stir and heat through. Mix in the pasta. Serve with garlic bread and grated Romano cheese.

I’ve been following a few forums and blogs concerning the Amazon/Macmillan and pricing of ebooks. What amazes me is not the argument itself, it is the hatred some have for ebooks. Okay, I get that not everyone wants to read digital. But why be angry that others do? There’s also some very angry people that authors are republishing their backlist (books that are now out of print) to Kindle and other readers. They’re angry about people like me, pricing my books at 5 dollars and under.

Seriously folks. A few thousand books at 99 cents, two and three dollars is not going to cause the world to end.

I’ve seen posts that rage about low prices–”You’re ruining the industry. Your stuff is sub-standard!” Well, again, if you don’t want to buy or read it, don’t. It isn’t as though paper books are going anywhere. Ebooks aren’t even at fault for the rising costs of print books. Ebooks aren’t the cause of lower author advances either. In fact, one might argue that ebooks could result in more sales (to a different demographic) and generate interest in books that isn’t there for heavy hardbacks, trade paperbacks or POD or other printed versions. But even in the creation or catering to a new market, ebooks are not exactly a threat to the quality or longevity of regular books. The only threat to the existing structure is not giving the customer what she wants at a price she can afford. If publishers can’t or won’t produce books (in hard copy or digital) at a price people will pay, then yes, the industry will fail until someone does. If small publishers produce a satisfying book at 5 dollars and customers like it and buy it–then a market has been created for those books at those prices.

The industry is changing. Save the anger for something that matters. If ebooks become the new sliced bread, mankind will endure. If an independent author or three put out good books and the public buys them, it isn’t going to mean that existing authors suddenly go broke. There will always be formats if there are buyers. There will always be newbies that come in with a lower price that give the big guys a run for their money–no matter how temporarily, no matter how good, bad or otherwise in quality. That’s the nature of the beast.

I’ve mentioned before that BMHusband shares some cool qualities with Q, the James Bond character. Namely, he tends to solve problems by inventing things. Where you and I might hang a bell on a door so that when the cats try to get in, the bell would rattle, BMHusband looks at the door and sees wires, lasers, lights and…a fancy, hi-tech doorbell. Which is what has now been invented and installed!!!

This is your basic…well, okay, NOT so basic garage door opener style device. When the cat crosses the beam on his way to the door, a chime sounds on the wireless (yes wireless–why would we even consider a boring old wired speaker???) speaker in the bedroom. “Ding!!! Junior is home!” Well, it doesn’t really say “Junior is home,” it just chimes. And we can then investigate to make sure it is, in fact, Junior or Scamp and open the door. When it is one of the invader cats, we tell it to go home (the neighbor cat is still trying to convince us to let it move in.)

“Our” cats took less than a day to figure out that they don’t even have to tap on the cat door anymore. They simply sit in front of the door and wait. Magically the humans appear and let them in!!! Junior was convinced that he could now send us mind-messages. He was so pleased! Except we still don’t give him treat every time he sits at our feet in the kitchen. And this morning when he hopped on the bed and began “the stare” we did not immediately shower him with food, let him out or otherwise give in to “the stare.” But when he wants in on a rainy morning, we hear about it.