I was honored when author, Karen Wiesner, asked me to become a member of Jewels of the Quill. The other members approved of me joining this group of award-winning authors. After I accepted this exciting offer, Karen told me to choose a jewel. It couldn’t be one already used by any present member or any past member. A lot of the ones I liked were taken, but that turned out okay because I found one I like. It’s morganite so now I’m Dame Morganite!

Please check out my BRAND NEW PAGES for my new status as a Jewel of the Quill member! Here are the links and the pages are gorgeous:
http://www.angelfire.com/stars4/kswiesner/jewels2.html
http://www.angelfire.com/stars4/kswiesner/jewelsbooklists2.html

Become a member of the JOTQ fan club to be eligible for giveaways, prizes and offers! There are monthly prizes so you don’t want to miss out! Scroll down to the bottom of my pages, to sign up for the Fans of the Jewels of the Quill Newsletter!

How about a short summer read to enjoy at the beach or pool? Check out some great books by the JOTQ authors to read. Click here to choose from the wonderful selection of beach reads.

Here are the names of the other members of the Jewels of the Quill:

Margaret L. Carter (Dame Onyx) Christine DeSmet (Dame Moonstone) Liz Hunter (Dame Garnet) Dee Lloyd (Dame Aquamarine) Carrie S. Masek (Dame Topaz) Nancy Pirri (Dame Sapphire) Barbara Raffin (Dame Jade) Jane Toombs (Dame Turquoise) Janet Lane Walters (Dame Amber) Karen Wiesner (Dame Amethyst) Karen Woods (Dame Coral)

I plan on featuring each one of these ladies on my blog in the future!

Eat These 3 Fruits for Great Summer Skin
By RealAge

Slather on that SPF every chance you get this summer.
But for extra sun protection points, eat plenty of these fruits as well: cherries, nectarines, and watermelon.

These juicy treats not only cool your mouth in warm weather but may shield your skin from warm weather, too.
Compounds in the fruits may boost your skin’s natural resilience against wrinkles and sun damage, according to Allison Tannis, author of Feed Your Skin, Starve Your Wrinkles.

In-Season Skin Savers
What’s so special about this trio of fruits?
Check out their unique protective benefits.

Cherries:
Eat a daily handful and you may enjoy fresher, less puffy skin. It’s all thanks to the inflammation-fighting anthocyanins and melatonin in cherries, writes Tannis. Melatonin may boost UV protection and cell growth as well — two great ways to keep wrinkles at bay. Tart cherries tend to be highest in melatonin. (Find out how tart cherries help fight cancer, too.)

Nectarines:
These smooth-skinned sisters of the peach provide a mini-spa’s worth of nutrients that may help correct sun damage from the inside out, according to Tannis. They offer skin goodies like lycopene, lutein, niacin, copper, and vitamins A, C, and E. The A, C, and E trio also works to control inflammation and free radical damage in both the watery and the fatty layers of skin. (Add nectarines to dinner with this recipe: Tarragon-Rubbed Salmon with Nectarine Salsa.)

Watermelon:
Nibbling on watermelon wedges has the power to refresh your face as much as your palate, thanks to the high water and lycopene content. Lycopene helps protect and preserve connections between skin cells so skin is tighter, smoother, and better able to retain moisture. (Store your watermelon this way to get the most lycopene from it.)

5 Foods That Take Years off Your Skin
Perhaps the only food you associate with skin is a little whipped cream on Saturday night. But plenty of other foods (ones you can eat in public) can help protect your skin, so you look and stay younger:

1. Legumes, avocados, soybeans, nuts, and egg yolks:
These contain biotin, and a lack of this chemical can lead to dry skin and brittle hair and nails.

2. Salmon:
The carotenoid that gives this fish its pink color, astaxanthin, also improves your skin’s elasticity. And it’s full of the good fat — DHA-omega-3 — that makes your skin and hair look younger and healthier.

3. Green tea:
Its polyphenols act to protect you against sun damage and help thicken your epidermis, your body’s primary barrier to the outside world.

4. Pomegranates:
In addition to thickening your epidermis and helping to produce more collagen and elastin (the stuff that keeps your skin firm and springy), pomegranates contain antioxidants that seem to accelerate wound healing.

5. Tomatoes:
The nutrients in tomatoes reduce the chance you’ll get a sunburn (but you still have to use an SPF 50 and 4-star titanium dioxide or zinc oxide sunscreen!). It may be due to their lycopene content, but we really don’t know the active ingredient. So if there’s a choice between a lycopene supplement and the real tomato, choose the product from the vine.

There’s plenty more you can do to be more beautiful inside and out (in fact, we just wrote a whole book on it, called YOU: Being Beautiful). But these shifts give you a smart and easy start.

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I LOVE TOMATOES and I also like nectarines, cherries, and watermelon! Green tea is good sometimes but I’m more of a coffee drinker and I like iced tea in the summer. Especially raspberry tea.

Any July 4th plans, anyone? I can’t believe it will be here soon.

On Wednesday, I have some news to share about a new group I will officially become a member of on July 1st!

On Friday, July 2nd, author Stephanie Burkhart will be visiting to share a new release!

As you know, I promoted my chick-lit mystery, A Fiery Secret, recently by giving a raffle basket with a coffee maker and a signed print copy of the book at Lori Foster’s Get Together. I should write another chick-lit book. I enjoyed writing A Fiery Secret - it was so much fun. Celina Jacobson sent me a link for a very interesting article. Click here to read, “Chick Lit Novels That Are Still Worthwhile Reads.”
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I’m posting pictures from the Get Together. I made a mistake in going to get my ends TRIMMED before the event. When I went to get my hair trimmed the day before the event, I told the beautician twice that I only wanted a trim. Instead she cut 2 inches off and I even mentioned to her again that I didn’t want it that short when I saw long strands of hair on my lap. I’ve gone to this beautician before so was disappointed. It now looks better since it’s grown out a bit.

I’m next to Lori in the big author pic, a bit behind her, on the left side. In the Desert Breeze photo, I’m posing with two fantastic authors, Michelle Levigne and Nicole Zoltack. Nicole’s expecting a baby on August 2nd which is our wedding anniversary! She’s busy trying to get a lot done before the new baby arrives. Nicole’s been a guest author on my blog, and I’m hoping to have Michelle sometime here, too.

Desert Breeze Authors:
from l to r - Me, Michelle Levigne, and Nicole Zoltack

I want to get a bike ride in before it gets too hot - I’m motivated after seeing my pic with my chubby body. Have a great weekend!

We finished our 6th grade Washington Reading scoring project EARLY. It was scheduled to end July 1st! I turned in my badge and went home early this afternoon. It went faster than the scoring director expected because some of the tests were typed instead of handwritten. It’s much faster to score typed tests than trying to decipher the poor penmanship some students used. It was a pilot year for the typed responses so they didn’t factor that into the time allowed for the project. I might get another project later this summer when the retest papers need to be scored.

Tomorrow I’ll get busy on getting my partial ready to email to HQ editor. I wanted to get it ready before but couldn’t because I never backed it up. I can now that I have my laptop back.

I just finished reading two books - one I purchased from author Kay Stockham at Lori Foster’s event. I’ve never read a book written by Stockham and enjoyed it. It’s a Super Romance Harlequin titled, She’s the One.

BLURB:
Undercover travel writer Alexandra Tulane wonders if maybe she’s in way over her head. A men’s hunting and fishing retreat in the wilds of Alaska? Not exactly her stylish scene. Fortunately, there’s plenty of breathtaking scenery…including good-looking bush pilot Dylan Bower.

Despite the magnetic attraction between them, however, Alexandra is everything Dylan is not–she’s a rover, always looking for the next adventure. For Dylan, the scars of the past run deep. He’s hidden himself and his silent son in an isolated haven for their protection. Yet Alexandra engages both of them and soon they’re under her spell. This–she–feels so good Dylan doesn’t want it to end. So how can he convince her to stay?

The second one is WRECKED by Carol Higgins Clark. I thoroughly enjoyed this book too. I’m a big fan of her books.

Here’s a blurb of WRECKED:
Private Investigator Regan Reilly and her husband Jack “no relation” Reilly, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad, are about to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. They are looking forward to a quiet romantic weekend out of town. Wouldn’t you know their choice of destination provides them with anything but!

Patty Lacey from Maryland. Congratulations, Patty! Amanda drew her name for my book cover contest! Patty, let me know where you’d like your gift certificate from and I’ll get it to you tonight. I have to leave for work soon.

Thank you to everyone for the wonderful comments - I really enjoyed hearing your reasons for choosing certain covers. Please stop back soon. I’ll have a contest again. I’ll be better about posting my 3 days this week - I like to post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but it was hard without my laptop. The old computer is so slow. Great news because my laptop is now repaired.

How was everyone’s weekend? Father’s Day was fun here with hanging out by the pool most of the day. The water was 82 so was nice.

Happy Monday - hopefully I can stay awake today - didn’t get very much sleep last night. I know it will be a long day scoring.