On Saturday night when I checked Amazon to see the book rankings of my inspirational romance, No Greater Loss and my chick-lit mystery, A Fiery Secret, I saw my women’s fiction book, Never the Same, was on the amazon page for pre-order for $10.20 and on Barnes & Noble for $12.15. Pretty excited to see it listed at both places already. On August 21st, it will officially be on sale in print!

If you’re interested in buying the print of Never the Same, here are the links:

Click here for Amazon order page!

Click here to go to Barnes and Noble online site.

I’ll be posting the winner of my July giveaway tomorrow. I’m thinking of drawing two names since I have so many books from my sister and received books from a raffle at Lori Foster’s event. Tomorrow I’ll list the books for my August Giveaways. Be sure to stop back tomorrow!

Wow - I just noticed that this is my 100th post!

I’m thankful for the places I’ve been able to visit, but have a list of other spots I’d love to have the opportunity to see.

Here are some of them:

Chicago - I’ve heard how wonderful Chicago is from our children. Christina and April actually went for an eighth grade class trip. I really wanted to go as a chaperone, but both times I had too many younger children at home when they went. I thought I’d get to go as a chaperone when Bart or Emily went to Chicago on a class trip in eighth grade, but the school stopped the Chicago trips before they were in eighth grade. Emily went her senior year of high school, and Bart got to go another time.

Cancun

Hawaii - Bart went to Hawaii with his wrestling team over Christmas vacation during his junior year of high school. I should have gone then. A lot of the parents went but I guess I thought if one parent got to go, it should be my husband. Recently, I found out he doesn’t want to go to Hawaii. April has gone to Hawaii and loved it.

Colorado - I’ve wanted to go to Colorado for years.

Grand Canyon

Arizona

Gatlinburg, Tennessee - I think I might be able to get there. It’s only four or five hours from us so we could take a road trip without any problem. Also it won’t be as expensive as some of the other places on my list.

Ocean City, Maryland - I’ve been there but would love to go again.

Outer Banks, North Carolina

Australia - Never going to happen, but I can dream!

Philadelphia - Emily just went there for a national scholar conference. She was busy attending workshops and etc., but did see the Liberty Bell. She told me some interesting facts about it.

Alaska - I’d love to take my husband on a cruise to Alaska. I don’t know the cost, but if I ever have enough money from book royalties, that’s my plan.

Europe - Probably not going to happen either.

Well, what’s on your list? Have you been to any interesting places lately?

Our anniversary is coming up this next week. I mentioned to my husband Tom about going to Cancun, Mexico, to celebrate. I know we couldn’t actually go right on our anniversary now because we’d have to make arrangements for our two daughters with special needs. He said right away he didn’t want to go to Cancun. If I ever go to Cancun or Hawaii, I doubt if he will go. I’ll probably go with some of my kids to these two places.

Don’t forget the end of the month is coming soon, and I’ll be drawing a name for the book giveaways. Also my sister Jean and her husband Wes visited us from Georgia this week, and she brought me a huge box of books. Some of them I have actually already read, so I have a great selection of books to give for the month of August! All you have to do is leave a comment anytime during the month to be entered in my monthly blog drawing!

Angela James, Executive Editor at Samhain Publishing, told us on the author loop about an article on rejection written by best selling author, Jodi Picoult. “Try, Try, Try Again” is a great article and you should read it if you’re a writer who’s been rejected. Jodi had some setbacks while trying to reach her goals.

Here is the link for you to go directly to her article at Writer’s Digest online magazine:

http://www.writersdigest.com/articles/picoult_trytryagain.asp

Before I give the bread recipe, I have some writing news. Since last Wednesday I’ve written 5,788 words on my book about three sisters. I know some authors write more than that in a day’s time but I’m thrilled I am making steady progress. I’m glad I signed up for this writing challenge. I only have so much time to write so for me this is an accomplishment.

Okay, now about zucchini.

I’ve made zucchini bread several times this summer since we have a lot from my husband’s garden. I also make a zucchini Italian casserole we love.

Here’s my Zucchini Bread Recipe:

Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 ½ sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 teaspoons vanilla
Beat eggs, stir in oil, sugar, zucchini and vanilla.
2 cups flour (I think I have sometimes used more flour but like it the best with this amt.)
¼ teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons soda
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup nuts

Mix flour, baking powder, soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in egg mixture until well blended. Stir in nuts. (I actually pour some of the batter into pans before adding the nuts.) Some family members don’t like the nuts.

Spoon into well greased loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees until done in center, approximately 1 hour if you make one large loaf. I use the small bread pans. I think they are nice for zucchini bread. I fill the small bread pans halfway with batter and the small loaves probably take 30-40 minutes.

This recipe freezes well.

Enjoy!

I’m disappointed that I only wrote 2,763 words from Wed. thru Sunday. I expected I’d get so much more done because I knew exactly the scenes I wanted in the next several chapters and had conversations in my head. The characters are very real to me so it wasn’t writer’s block causing me not to get enough done. I just seem to have too many family distractions. Also I lost time today because I had to take my laptop in to get repaired. I won’t get it back for two weeks. Since I had all my chapters on the laptop, I had to transfer everything to my old desktop.

I’m hoping the next few days will be more productive, but I need to take kids places plus have some major cleaning to do.

I’m happy to see many writers are doing much better than I am. I’m so impressed with all the progress and thousands of words written by the other ones in the challenge!