Cindy – Page 18 – Muse Interrupted

Diamonds Really are Forever

In mid-January, I had a milestone birthday. My Liege and I celebrated by flying to Cuba for two weeks. I would say I’m gonna blog about the trip, but we know how well I did with China (2012) and Australia (2013)….

A couple of days before we left for Cuba, he surprised me with a beautiful three-diamond necklace in a gold setting. Stunning. I love it. Adjustable chain, so it can be worn short or long.

I thought, if only I hadn’t lost my tiny diamond stud earrings–or one of them–last summer, they would go perfectly with my new diamond necklace (except the earrings, a gift for my university graduation decades ago, are a lot smaller).

Too bad, so sad, I had lost one of my earrings. I cursed my neglectfulness and went on with packing for our trip.

We’ve been back for a week and I’ve been digging myself out from under a ton of laundry while catching up on biz-of-writing stuff. Something kept clunking in the washer. After about four loads (and a few half-hearted attempts to find out what was clunking), I did a super-sweep of the washing machine. You’ll never guess what I found. The tiny diamond solitaire stud earring I lost last summer! Looking so sparkly and new!

Just this morning I was wondering WHERE it had gone. Under the dresser? No, I checked. In the return air thingie in the floor? No, I checked that, too, before we left for Cuba. When we returned, I emptied my jewelry box and checked every square inch (and the rectangles). I began to realize I might never see my university graduation earrings again. Le sigh.

After finding it–IN THE WASHER???–I announced my discovery to my husband, then ran upstairs and found the match. The match doesn’t look anywhere near as sparkly. I would put it in the washer, but it might get lost in one of the holes the water swishes around in.

I can not believe I found my diamond stud earring!

But I guess I should not be surprised.

My husband and I will have been married thirty years this coming August. In 1984, he gave me a diamond engagement ring comprised of two tiny diamonds and a larger one in the middle. It’s a very delicate ring–thin band, simple setting. In fact, it’s darn near wore out. The band part is very narrow and has worn away so much over the years that it’s about to wear through (even though I did get it repaired once already). Also, the band part is…bent (I got my hand stuck on something in the washer one year). Unless we’re traveling, I wear a simple 14k gold wedding band with my engagement ring, no diamonds or other stones on the wedding band at all. I wear them opposite from how you’re supposed to. Instead of wedding band THEN engagement ring, I wear the engagement ring first. I have to, because it’s so worn out that last summer, when it was in its traditional position, it slipped off my finger into a bag of movie theatre popcorn just because my fingers were…slightly butter-drenched. Sheesh.

Anyway, after about seven years of being married, we were in the midst of raising babies and toddlers, and I guess I hadn’t kept up with the professional ring cleaning like I should have. So one day I’m doing laundry (a common theme in my life), and as my hand came up out of the washer, I realized the middle stone from my engagement ring was missing!! Agh!! My Liege and I scoured the house, but the diamond could not be found. He said he’d buy me a new diamond. I didn’t WANT a new diamond! I wanted the diamond he gave me when he proposed. I was so incredibly upset.

I went to bed with a heavy heart.

The next morning, I got up and picked up the cat’s water dish (which sits on the portable dishwasher so the dogs we’ve had over the years won’t steal the cat food) to refresh the water…when I noticed something sparkly in the bottom of the cat’s clear water bowl.

It was the diamond from my engagement ring!

I kid you not.

I can not lose diamonds. They always find their way back to me, it seems.

Or maybe it’s what they represent that I can’t lose. A young love that I never expected, when I met him, to endure for thirty married years (and seven years of dating before that). When I moved hundreds of miles away to attend university only four months after we met, I thought, that’s it, one of us will meet someone else and move on.

But we never did.

I feel blessed.

Head Over Heels Japanese Manga News

A nice surprise in the mail today! The Japanese publisher of HEAD OVER HEELS has now released the book in a multi-author volume that I think (given my extremely limited Japanese) contains 6 stories in total. At least the numeral 6 shows on the cover, so that’s my best guess. So I received a couple of author copies.

The book was previously released by Ohzora Shuppan as an individual paperback and then in ebook manga editions. Now, the multi-book edition.

This was totally unexpected (as was the royalty cheque that arrived in the mail the other day), so what a fun surprise.

HEAD OVER HEELS appears to be the second book in the volume, if you count from the “back” cover. Shown below are the final pages of my story within the volume, which is on the right. The volume is read “back to front” (to Westerners).

HOH_MangaVolume2014

In case you’re interested, here is the single volume edition, which was originally published in 2011 and is still available from Amazon Japan:

Back Cover (which is where it is easiest to actually see my name!):

You know, I needed a lift-me-up, and this did it!

Where She Belongs in Kobo October Promotion!

Kobo is having a 25/35/50% off promotion now (October 17th) until October 20th, and WHERE SHE BELONGS was selected for the 50% promo! Thank you, Kobo! To get WHERE SHE BELONGS, my small-town contemporary romance set in a fictional British Columbia logging town, at 50% off exclusively through Kobo, please visit the book page and make sure to use the Promo Code SAVE50 at checkout.

Here’s the landing page for other titles in a wide variety of genres:

Kobo 25/35/50 Promo.

In each case, remember to use the appropriate Promo Code, which vary from SAVE25, SAVE35 and SAVE50.

Interested in the new Kobo Aura H2O waterproof ereader? Check it out here.

Sweet Potato Recipes Filched from My Mom

Whenever I am invited to Thanksgiving dinner, which invariably occurs because I never host Thanksgiving dinner, often I am asked to provide a sweet potato casserole of some sort. Considering I hate sweet potatoes, at first that struck me as sort of absurd. I had no sweet potato recipes! Alack, alas, a mess, turns out I can steal them from my mom!

It is Canadian Thanksgiving this coming weekend. Whether or not you are Canadian, you can make of these two sweet potato casseroles what you will. Apparently, they are quite tasty. Don’t believe me? Try them out. You can’t rely on me to tell you, because the only way I can handle eating one of them is by doubling the maple syrup ingredients.

My mother insists I am remarkably talented at making sweet potato casserole, so I must be doing something right. Your blood sugar, however, may not survive.

Maple-Sweet Potatoes:

– Preheat oven to 350°F. No, I do not know what the equivalent is in Celsius. Don’t worry about it. If you are Canadian, you know darn well that your stove is not in Celsius. Just suck it up that the stoves are still in Fahrenheit. If you are American, I’m sure you are thrilled that this recipe is in Fahrenheit. You’re welcome. If you are Canadian and you have a stove that is in Celsius, then you’re a lot richer than me, because I have no idea if they even exist.

– You want Celsius? Go outside.

– Take about eight sweet potatoes. Boil them in skins until tender. Cool them and cut them into slices.

– Do not ask me what happens to the skins at this point. They do not wind up in the casserole, so I am assuming they just kind of slide off after the sweet potatoes are boiled. If my readers are supposed to peel the sweet potatoes before boiling them, somebody please let me know in the comments and I will edit this post.

– Turn the potatoes into a baking dish that can hold all the potatoes. It has been a couple of years so I cannot remember if I grease the baking dish with margarine or cooking spray, or not. I’m thinking not. But if you thive on cholesterol, go ahead.

Here comes the sauce! Warning! Warning! Warning! The sauce in this recipe may be doubled. By that, I do not mean that you may choose to double the sauce if you wish. I mean that I might’ve doubled the sauce before writing it on the recipe card, but I do not recall.

SP Tip! If there are folks in your family who hate sweet potatoes, you may get them to eat the casserole by using my version of the sauce. If everyone in your family adores sweet potatoes, go ahead and cut the sauce portions in half. I would advise you not to cut the pecan pieces portion in half. I mean, who can have too many pecans?

You need:

– 1/4 cup butter, a half cup packed brown sugar, and a half cup maple syrup. Don’t scrinch on the maple syrup. Buy the best maple syrup you can find.

– Apparently you also need a quarter teaspoon salt and some pepper, but I don’t know why. Do with these condiments what you will.

Combine the butter, sugar, syrup, and salt – there you go, a use for the salt! Still no mention of the pepper… I tend to add pepper to practically everything I make, so take that under advisement. Combine all in sauce pan and heat to boiling. Lower heat and cook, stirring constantly until clear and thick. Then slop the sauce over the potatoes in the baking dish, and top with at least a half cup of pecan pieces.

Bake until bubbly. Voilà!

Sweet Potato Casserole:

This is a mashed potato type casserole. Preheat your oven to 350°F.

I do not like this recipe as much as the first one, but considering I eat about half a tablespoon of sweet potatoes every Thanksgiving, I am not really one to judge. Try both recipes and let me know what you think!

– Boil some sweet potatoes until tender. Do not ask me how many sweet potatoes to boil, because my mother leaves such things out of her recipes. The details are beneath her. I swear, she lives to mess with my head. Again, I am assuming that the skins somehow come off after they are boiled. I don’t know, that just makes sense? I should try it sometime with real potatoes. Hmmm.

– Judge how long it takes to boil the sweet potatoes until tender. While they are boiling, combine the following ingredients in a pot and heat until melted:

– Half a cup butter, a quarter cup maple syrup, half a teaspoon nutmeg, half a cup heavy cream, and 2 tablespoons brown sugar. I do not think I have messed with these ingredients, because there is only one quarter cup of maple syrup listed. If I messed with the ingredients, there would be more maple syrup.

– Eat one of the tablespoons of brown sugar and then get another tablespoon to add to the sauce.

– Use only the very best maple syrup at your disposal! None of this using pancake syrup that is flavored to taste a bit like maple syrup instead of real maple syrup. Got it? Sheesh, I mean, we are Canadian here.

Once the potatoes are tender and the skins somehow come off, mash them. Really pound them. Destroy those suckers until they don’t have any eyes left. Potatoes are not steak. You cannot over pound them. Or maybe you can, and I just don’t know. Whatever!

Take the aformentioned heated ingredients (the stuff in the sauce pan) and beat it into the mashed sweet potatoes.

Transfer all to a baking dish and bake until bubbly. No, I do not have any conceptualization of how long that takes. Thanks, Mom.

I would show pictures, but I do not have pictures. If you use one of my recipes and it turns out, please send me a picture! If it doesn’t turn out, I don’t want to know about it.

*Blog post will be updated if I ever remember to take a picture.

Happy Early Canadian Thanksgiving!

Real Life Heroines: A Be the Match Donation Registry Experience

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting American resident Tracy Hansen during a cruise of the Galapagos. We quickly hit it off and have remained friends. Recently, Tracy did something she probably doesn’t consider heroic at all, because what true-life hero considers themselves heroic? No, they’re just doing something that in their minds needs to be done. Tracy donated her marrow to a fellow human being suffering from leukemia. I don’t know about you, but I consider that pretty darn heroic! One of my aunts has a rare blood disorder that mimics leukemia in some ways, but is not cancer (I don’t even know the name of the disease, just that she has it and has survived all the members of her original support group, including the doctor who started the support group). This aunt, now in her early seventies, has required several blood transfusions over a span of decades, and she definitely relies on heroes and heroines like Tracy willing to donate their blood, or marrow, or whatever necessary.

Tracy posted her story on Facebook and gave me permission to reprint her experience on my blog. If you are inspired by Tracy’s story, please consider registering for the U.S. National Donor Program’s Be the Match Registry. Canada has a similar registry called OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Network

Tracy’s Story:

A little over a month ago, I donated marrow to an adult female with leukemia. I thought that I would share my experience in hopes of someone else signing up to be a donor and, hopefully someday, having the opportunity to potentially save a life of someone in need of a transplant.

My journey started almost 19 years ago when I signed up for the National Donor Program’s ‘Be the Match Registry’. It was so long ago that I can’t remember for sure, but I think that they just took some extra blood during one of my regular blood donations to send off to the Registry. Now, all they do is take a cheek swab.

Fast forward to early 2014… I received an e-mail from the Be the Match Registry notifying me that I was a potential match for a specific patient. It had been so long that I had forgotten that I even signed up. I called the Registry and told them that I was still willing to donate. I went through a fairly comprehensive set of questions over the phone that day, where they tried to determine if there were any obvious reasons that I would not be eligible to donate – the same set of questions I would have to answer several more times throughout the process. There were possibly other potential donors going through the same process for the same patient.

A few weeks later, I got another call from the Registry asking permission to do further testing on my sample that they had from 19 years ago, which I (of course) agreed to. This step was to get a better idea if I was a close match. Two months later I received another call that my 19 year old sample showed that I was a close match. The next step involved additional blood testing. I went to a lab close to my home where they took around 15 vials of blood. That may sound like a lot but it was one poke in the arm and I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. These vials were sent off to test my current blood for all sorts of things, including determining if I was the best match for the patient. Then, more waiting…

A month later, I got THE call. I was the best match for this woman. I needed to go through final testing (more blood testing, an EKG, chest x-rays and a physical) but, barring any issues found during that final test, they asked me if I was willing to donate about a month later. I would be donating peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC), which is a much easier process than a bone marrow donation. Most donations today are PBSC rather than bone marrow.

I received an injection of a special drug each day for the 4 days leading up to my donation day. This drug helps release stem cells from my bone marrow into my blood stream so that that they can collect them through apheresis. On the first injection day, they drew a couple of vials of blood to get my starting counts. The injections themselves were basically painless but starting day 3, my bones got a little achy. Nothing horrible, I just had to stand up or sit down slowly. That achiness went away as soon as I stopped getting the injections.

On donation day, they took 2 more vials of blood to get my ending counts so that they could make sure that I had enough stem cells floating around in my blood for a successful donation. They normally do a final injection on donation day but I had so many stem cells in my blood that I didn’t need the last injection. For the donation itself, they inserted a needle in the crook of my left arm where they would draw the blood out. They inserted another needle in my right wrist where they would return my blood after it went through the apheresis machine and removed my PBSCs. I had to sit/lie in a hospital bed for about 6 hours. I couldn’t move my left arm but I was free to move might right arm. It was a little hard to lay there for 6 hours but I had a book and I could watch movies if I had wanted. All in all, it was a relatively painless process.

So here is what I had to ‘give’ during my donation process:

– My initial sample, which is done as a cheek swab now
– About 2 hours of my time for various phone calls with the Registry throughout the entire process over 4 months
– Lots of waiting
– About 30 vials of blood (in total) for 2 sets of testing and 2 rounds of blood counts for the donation process.
– About 7 hours of my time for other testing to make sure that I was healthy enough to donate
– About 90 minutes of my time for injections over the course of 4 days leading up to donation day
– About 8 hours of my time on donation day
– And, most importantly, one bag of peripheral blood stem cells

I don’t know anything about the person that I donated to other than she needed a donation and did not have a match within her family. I do not (yet) know how well the patient is doing after receiving my donation. I should receive an update at 6 months and one year after donation. I may potentially find out who she is after one year, if she and I are both willing and if the country that she lives in allows that information to be shared. Either way, I hope she is well on her way to recovery.

I hope that by sharing my experience, at least one of you will consider signing up with Be the Match Registry (www.BeTheMatch.org) in hopes of making a donation in the future to potentially save someone’s life.

Be the Match (U.S.)

OneMatch (Canada)

Go forth and register! (This last from Cindy, whose writer’s mind is bubbling with possible story scenarios, but that’s another post).

Summer, Summer, Summer!

And so far it’s been a great one. Eldest Son returned home from teaching abroad, and we went on a road trip to see Youngest Son at his co-op job in northern Alberta. A great family time was had by all.

I put the final touches on a submission for Evil Twin and sent said sub off to ET’s editor. Being ET, the submission got caught in cyber-space, an issue that has now been rectified. ET’s editor is looking at her submission now.

As for moi, I’ve gone over critique notes for PICTURE IMPERFECT, my upcoming single title mystery romance, and figured out how I’m going to layer in extra emotional depth. A key to uncovering extra depth to the emotion came through rewriting the synopsis, for once without a care as to the length but to what the synopsis could reveal to me about the characters and their journey. I am super excited to get into the revisions (my last round before the book hits a copy editor’s desk), but, alas, first I must hie myself down to San Antonio for the RWA National Conference!

I’ve visited Texas before, but never San Antonio. I’m really looking forward to exploring what sounds like a beautiful city. To connecting with writing friends, networking with writing professionals, and attending excellent workshops.

I’m taking a small camera. I’m usually not very good about these things, but if I can manage I’ll post a picture or two.

San Antonio, here I come!