I have a few places I like to use for finding ebook bargains:

Kindle Reader There’s a frugal pick every day so far as I can tell. The other books listed may or may not be bargains depending on your budget! There are good book descriptions, prices and the posts say whether text to speech is enabled or not.

Books On the Knob is becoming ever more relevant to the e-reader world. Not only does it have bargain Kindle books, but also Nook, Sony and any other e-book that is a bargain. There is a new post daily, sometimes more than one. You can subscribe to get your bargain list daily: Books on the Knob

And here’s another one that I just started following, KindleCheapReads. I’ve found some excellent bargains on this one–everything is under five dollars. This is a fun site with good books!

I’m sure you’re all aware that a spiffy new, improved Kindle was announced yesterday — with wi-fi for $139 and 3G (Whispernet) for $189.

It’s a sleek looking device–slimmer, longer battery life (up to a month when you leave Whispernet turned off when not in use), improved web interface and room for more books. You can load something like 2000 more books onto it. So at 100 books per year, you’d be set for the next 20 years.

One week ago–let’s say 6 days before the announcement, I ordered a netbook. :>)

I wanted something I could use for email, *reading* and web surfing. The kindle was $189 and…just not all that multi-purpose. Okay, so the new kindle may only have slight improvements. I won’t really know until some reviews are out. But I knocked the Kindle out of the running early because email and surfing the web were just as important to me as reading when I’m traveling.

I ended up with a 7 inch netbook (the same screen size as the kindle, essentially), a full keyboard (very small keyboard, but a keyboard) and Windows XP. Many netbooks ship with Windows CE which makes the machine useless as a reader…and useless in an emergency for running most applications.

I’m quite happy with my little Asus netbook, but I must admit–the Kindle is getting better and better. And cheaper.

Explain to me how hotels can stay in business when they don’t answer rate requests via email. I don’t mean they don’t list an email address. No, they have email addresses or forms. But they do not answer when a rate request is sent. In some cases, the web page warns that it may take a couple of days (Pretty inexcusable–it’s not like I’m trying to stay at top hotels that are so swamped with business they don’t have time to answer an email or two.)

I’m working on a trip to northern NM and southern Colorado for my parents. I’ve emailed more than 15 hotels. I’ve received…5 replies. One of which does not count because the *lovely* guy said, “Please give us a call.” If I wanted to call, don’t you think I’d have picked up the phone? Another hotel, I did call–because I was tired of waiting days with no answer. She asked what kind of room I needed and immediately began taking down information: Address, phone number, etc. Uh, lady. I called for the *rate.* Do people really book a room without knowing the rate???

Part of the point of sending an email rate request is to be able to do comparisons. Find availability. Hear about the amenities. Not one hotel has bothered to mention amenities when replying. NOT one. Folks, here is a perfect time to sell yourself to an interested party. Tell me you have coffee pots in the room. Maybe a fridge. Maybe a room with a view. Free breakfast??? Anything. But what do I get? At best, I get a response. At worst, I get a “what dates?” when I already specified that in the email. Well, actually…at worst, I get no reply at all.

And sometimes, folks, the first to reply wins. In this case, the first to reply looks a lot better customer service-wise than those who do not respond at all. That’s a black mark before I even know the rate.

So far, I have booked 3 different hotels. All three were ones who responded via email, within two days or faster. Sure, I called some of the others–but the customer service or rates or other issues held true to form with the NO RESPONSE to my original request.

If you can’t answer an email, I don’t have a lot of faith you can run a hotel.

Just about died gardening this morning. Unbelievably hot even at eight in the morning. Sure, I could go earlier. Doesn’t help. The humidity is so thick it stands next to you. Too bad it doesn’t laugh. At least then there might be a breeze.

And this morning had to be the morning I spotted hornworms. UGH. Gotta be the ugliest, most disgusting worm on the planet. The things are as fat as my middle finger. I killed about four and then. THEN. I found The Largest Tomato Hornworm I’ve ever seen. The thing had to be six or seven inches–not stretched out as they can do. Ugh. I had to cut the stem it was on to bring it to the porch to show BMHusband. Besides, you can’t peel them off the stems even if you were so inclined (as-if). They have suction claws. Yes, they do.

So I bring it to the porch. BMHusband was suitably in awe of the hornworm that my garden grew. But then we just stood there staring at the thing. Who wants to stop on a seven inch pool of disgusting green smarm??? And yes, the stuff oozes and squirts out–sometimes a foot or more. GROSS.

What a disgusting morning. I’m ready for autumn.

Is he spying on us??? Trying to break in???

No, it turns out that Junior is climbing the screen because he spotted a lizard!!!

No, he doesn’t need the lizard. He has plenty of food. We even open the door when he wants to come in. But that doesn’t stop our intrepid hunter.

That screen is gonna have to go.

I have been craving chocolate eclairs for many days now. I stopped at the local grocery where the display yielded eclairs with some sort of whipped cream inside — for a buck a piece. Folks. Not even close. I can squirt whipping cream with the best of them. I am not paying you a dollar for an eclair the size of my finger with fake cream inside. It’s supposed to be a pudding/custard cream. Not whipped.

We don’t have a luxury bakery in Cedar Park that I know of. Which means if I want chocolate eclairs, I either have to fly to NM and go to the Flying Star or make them. So today…

No, I did not fly to NM. I tried making eclairs. The puff pastries went pretty well. Got them in the oven, got the cream filling started and the chocolate melting. Puffs looked good, coming along. Cream wasn’t thickening well. Looked a lot like…milk. Wasn’t boiling either. Was taking too long. Sigh. Puffs came out, looked good. Drizzled the cream into the eggs and back to the pot. Thin, very thin. Maybe it would set up in the fridge.

Chocolate topping–excellent. I’m good with chocolate because I’ve worked with it. A lot.

The puff pastries were a bit gummy inside–another five minutes and possibly all of them slightly smaller so they flaked better–would have been perfect. The stupid cream never set up and it was too sweet to boot.

So, here I sit. We will not be eating chocolate eclairs for dessert.

Hmph.

I don’t know why this is cool to me, but it is. I think it has something to do with thinking about all the work that went into making the champagne–200 years ago. The grapes, the aging, the bottling. Then it was shipped…and sank. All the hands that touched it, the place it was supposed to go. And there it was preserved under water for 200 years. That’s a long time. I think there must have been a few ghosts captured in those bottles, maybe swirling around them like the waves.

Sage: Tales from a Magical Kingdom is no longer on sale. The price is currently 99 cents, but that will revert/change to $1.99 in a matter of hours. Generally speaking new pricing takes effect in 48 hours so if you want the cheaper price: Ready, Set…Go!

Thank you to everyone who purchased Sage!

The oil gushing into the gulf was stopped today for the first time in months. I hope it stays capped and sealed. I hope it never happens again. I’m not satisfied with my government’s slow and lazy response–I hope that the clean-up effort takes on a high priority and gets the attention it needs. And I really, really hope that no more oil goes gushing unchecked into the gulf.

Karen Cantwell–fabulous author of Take the Monkeys and Run (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery) has a blurb about my book on her blog! (She also has the first chapter up with my permission.) She is running various contest to come up with a title for her next book and also a contest to win an Amazon gift certificate. Check it out.

The cucumbers are coming in pretty fast and furious. Today I had to crawl under a tomato plant and half a cucumber plant to reach a very large cucumber. My knees got muddy and I got dripped on (I had already watered, of course.) Ugh. I like gardening, but crawling in the mud is not the same thing as digging in it.

I joined Goodreads. Kind of new over there and finding my way around, but if you’re on Goodreads, send me a “friend” message and we’ll be friends!!! So far I’ve joined an e-reader group and a cozy group. No, I don’t need more books to read, but that is likely to happen! Oh, I found this paranormal group as well.

Oh–one more exciting item. I’ve seen the mock-up covers for my next novel, Under Witch Moon (an urban fantasy.) Wow. I’m working with an artist and let me just say that I’m very pleased. Deb Wentz, the artist, has done two possible covers–which means when they are finished, you, the audience will get to help me choose! But I must tell you–they are both very, very good!!!

Adriel should have known that with a werewolf, it never ends with just one body. She would have gone to the police after witnessing Dolores’ death, but she’s not certain the killer she saw is actually responsible for the other murders. Besides, the police don’t believe in werewolves, and they aren’t going to believe she is a witch either so what can she tell them?

She keeps her eyes and ears open as she tries to help her latest client escape the clutches of a voodoo witch, but things just get worse when more bodies turn up. In fear of a murderer who knows he was seen, a voodoo witch out for revenge and a werewolf gone berserk, she is greatly relieved when she meets White Feather, an undercover cop. Unfortunately, he isn’t convinced she is innocent of all wrong-doing.

It’s going to take every spell she knows and a few she hasn’t tried to solve the murders and stay alive.

A few years ago, I quit corporate America. I wanted to write. Or, do just about anything else. Don’t get me wrong. The money was nice. There were good people, there were bad. But most of all there was craziness and an emptiness that ate at my soul.

I was lucky. I took my husband out of corporate America with me. Or maybe he took me. Either way, every time I hear the song “You Don’t Have to Cry” (Crosby, Stills and Nash) it reminds me of the very real reasons I left. The only part that doesn’t apply is that husband came with me. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have any regrets either.

Are you thinking of telephones and managers
And where you got to be at noon
You are living a reality I left years ago
It quite nearly killed me
In the long run it will make you cry
Make you crazy and old before your time
And the difference between me and you
I won’t argue right or wrong
But I have time to cry my baby
You don’t have to cry
I said cry my baby you don’t have to cry
I said cry my baby you don’t have to cry…

Amazon has put my book, Sage: Tales from a Magical Kingdom, on sale for 79 cents. Yes, 79 cents! If you are one of the four or five people who have not already purchased it…well, there probably won’t be a better time. When the sale is over (and I have no idea when that will be) the price will go to $1.99.

With Amazon’s helpful sale, for the first time ever, Sage sold over a hundred copies in one month. Woot!

So you will recall my search for clothes that fit. Since that failed, I decided to make myself some shorts–with the hope that by winter, I’d know how to make sweatpants that fit. Well. This has been interesting. I carefully measured and thought out the pattern. Three times. I sewed diligently. I thought they were looking okay, although there seemed to be a lot of material for just one pair of shorts. After accidentally putting the waistband on so that the ties were in the back…I became anxious, but not terrified. I redid the waistband. I tried them on. Hmm. Rather…large. So large, in fact, they are loose on BMHusband. He could wear them if he doesn’t mind that one pocket is lower than the other. I can fix the fact that one leg is shorter than the other, but not necessarily the pocket. And he’d have to use the string-ties (which I accidentally sewed in so tightly that at first instead of being a tie, it was more of a noose.) These shorts are a cross between Frankenstein and Godzilla. But the material is a really nice material…

Sigh.

Last night, Scamper decided to use the garage as shelter again because it was raining and drizzling periodically. No problem. She came inside the house from the garage, ate her treat and some dry food, wandered around and then parked herself in the garage. Half hour or so before we went to bed, we closed and locked the inside door to the garage; if she wanted in again, she’d have to go out the big garage door, which was cracked open. She could then come ’round to the back door where the cat door is (and the chime rings so we know the cats are there. Except when it isn’t Scamp or Junior and it’s raccoons, skunks, neighbor cats…you get the idea.)

I went to bed and half hour later or so, BMHusband came in. We’d been in bed maybe fifteen minutes when it sounded like a soccer game started in the living room.

“What was that???” Husband asked.

“Sounds kind of like the cats playing. Where is Junior? Maybe he’s playing with the balls.” We both got out of bed.

Husband said, “Junior came in while I was brushing my teeth. But Junior never plays with the balls unless Scamper plays with the balls.”

Lights on, we both peered about nearsightedly.

Husband said, “That looks like Scamper.”

“Yup. Sure does.”

“How did she get in here? I shut the door!”

“Looks like she found a way in.”

“Junior came in while I was in the back bathroom brushing my teeth. I saw him. Figured it was a good time to shut the door and lock it.”

“Looks like maybe she came in with him,” I said.

“But where was she when I shut and locked the door???” he asked.

“Not in the garage.”

While we had this conversation, Scamp sat there in the dining room, tail curled calmly around her legs. Junior came over and gave my legs a hug. There was no panic. Maaaaybe Scamper didn’t realize that she had no way back out. I doubt it. She’s a pretty smart cat and she knows her exits–at all times. Maaaybe she’s starting to believe we aren’t trying to trap her inside for nefarious purposes.

I asked her if she’d like to go back into the garage (it was still raining and now that we had interrupted the soccer game, it wasn’t likely to restart.) I opened the door to the garage and got out of her way. Sure enough, she scampered right on out there. She was still there in the morning when we opened the door. In she popped, had a bite to eat and then back out. Several times. You know. Like a cat, but not a particularly feral one.

Three of my titles can now be found at the Sony Bookstore.

They are, of course, the first three titles I published: Catch an Honest Thief, Sage, and Executive Lunch.

Scamper has been spending more and more time in the yard. It’s always nice to see her out there. Junior could be inside in the air conditioning (so could Scamper, but as-if!) but he often chooses to lounge…in the strangest places.

Yes, he really is wedged inside a cinder block.

As for Scamp, here she is under the grill:

Of course it’s hard to see her. That is the plan. She prefers it that way.

It’s been raining quite a bit these last three days–and for the first time ever, we found Scamper in the garage out of the rain! We leave the door cracked for her, but other than exploring it a time or two, she has not used it that we know of. Apparently it was soggy enough that she took shelter there last night. It’s only been two years cat…