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Canadian sledding

13 Thursday Dec 2018

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When we got our lovely dump of snow, we did what every family with a 10-year-old boy does, and we went sledding. 🙂

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It was fun! I was expecting for it to hurt more. It’s been that long since I’ve gone sledding,  and there is a fair amount of falling out of the sled, and laying on your back wondering if you sprained anything. But I walked away with minimal injury.

This is me after dumping out the sled. Just proof that I actually went down several times, in case you needed it.

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Mr. Johns got cold before me or our son did. But in his defence, our son is ten and was born in northern Canada, so he’s acclimatized. And I was wearing an arctic parka.

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I hope you’re enjoying your winter as much as we’re enjoying ours! Have a wonderful Christmas season, everyone! ❤

~~~~~~~~~

Have you ordered my book yet? You can get it now, or you can wait to find it on the shelves in your favourite bookstore later this month. 🙂

4.280109.512.9781335478924

 

Two stubborn hearts. One ranch.

Could Montana Twins unite them?

With orphaned twin infants to care for, Casey Courtright hoped to buy the ranch he works on—but he can’t match Ember Reed’s offer. Nevertheless, Casey agrees to show Ember the land she plans to use for her therapy center, but only if she’ll help him with the babies. And as the twins draw them together, Casey might just find that Ember is his perfect partner.

 

 

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Peanut Butter Snowmen

10 Monday Dec 2018

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We are an allergy family, so making Christmas cookies can be a challenge. But there is one kind of cookie we CAN have, and that’s peanut butter. So back when my son was small, I started making peanut butter cookies in the shape of snowmen for the holidays.

It’s become a tradition in our home, so last week my son and I started our first 2018 batch of snowmen. 🙂

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They’re easy! Just pick a peanut butter cookie recipe, and they turn into this!

 

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Delicious! I took the pictures to show family my handiwork, and by the time I thought, Oooo! I should be put these in a blog post, well, this was what was left. 😉

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They were delicious! And there will be more. This is how we roll at the Johns home. ❤

 

***********

Have you ordered my book yet? You can get it now, or you can wait to find it on the shelves in your favourite bookstore later this month. 🙂

4.280109.512.9781335478924

 

Two stubborn hearts. One ranch.

Could Montana Twins unite them?

With orphaned twin infants to care for, Casey Courtright hoped to buy the ranch he works on—but he can’t match Ember Reed’s offer. Nevertheless, Casey agrees to show Ember the land she plans to use for her therapy center, but only if she’ll help him with the babies. And as the twins draw them together, Casey might just find that Ember is his perfect partner.

Christmas lights

06 Thursday Dec 2018

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Our town is officially all lit up for Christmas. We have this little park in the centre of town–it’s a spray park in the summer for the kids to cool off, and in the winter, they flood the running track and it turns into an outdoor skating rink through the festive trees.

When I took these pictures a few days ago, we’d melted.  But it still looked so pretty!

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We’ve since gotten a nice dump of snow, but I haven’t gotten back to the park after dark, so these are still my best pictures of the lights from this Christmas.

I hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday season! Take good care of each other. ❤

*****

Have you ordered my book yet? You can get it now, or you can wait to find it on the shelves in your favourite bookstore later this month. 🙂

4.280109.512.9781335478924

 

Two stubborn hearts. One ranch.

Could Montana Twins unite them?

With orphaned twin infants to care for, Casey Courtright hoped to buy the ranch he works on—but he can’t match Ember Reed’s offer. Nevertheless, Casey agrees to show Ember the land she plans to use for her therapy center, but only if she’ll help him with the babies. And as the twins draw them together, Casey might just find that Ember is his perfect partner.

A most Canadian evening

03 Monday Dec 2018

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It’s probably been a few years since I went out somewhere alone with my dad. It’s not that I haven’t seen him, it’s that we’re normally in a bigger family group. So going on with my dad one-on-one is more rare.

This year, my dad bought season’s tickets to the local hockey team for our smallish town. He’s been taking my son to a lot of games–and he just loves that time with his grandfather watching the game and eating too much junk. Sometimes Dad takes my mom with him and they make a date night of it. But this time, I asked if I could get a turn at going to the game.

And I think we had the most Canadian evening possible.

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I thought I’d give you a handy list of Canadian experiences:

  1. Hockey.
  2. The sheer number of people holding Tim Horton’s coffee cups.
  3. The polite Canadian tendency to clean up–someone threw a bag down toward the garbage and didn’t make it. There was a sigh. Someone got up, cast some side eye in the direction of the miscreant, picked it up, and put it in the trash. At the end of the game, there was no garbage on the ground.
  4. Beer. There was a lot of that, too. I don’t drink, but I noticed it.
  5. Trash talk--it started slowly, but the more beer/Timmie’s people consumed, the more they trash talked the other team. It was hilarious to listen to!
  6. The orderly queue of cars leaving the absolutely packed parking lot. There were over 1000 people at the game, and that’s saying something for a town of 35,000.

Canada–we do hockey, coffee, winter, beer and gentle trash talk. Then we grudgingly admit the other team had a really good goalie and make our way out. When we’re well behaved. There have been times when we Canadians have embarrassed ourselves, but my experience is more common, I can assure you.

It was fun! I’d do it again! 🙂

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~~~~~~~

Have you ordered my book yet? You can get it now, or you can wait to find it on the shelves in your favourite bookstore later this month. 🙂

4.280109.512.9781335478924

 

Two stubborn hearts. One ranch.

Could Montana Twins unite them?

With orphaned twin infants to care for, Casey Courtright hoped to buy the ranch he works on—but he can’t match Ember Reed’s offer. Nevertheless, Casey agrees to show Ember the land she plans to use for her therapy center, but only if she’ll help him with the babies. And as the twins draw them together, Casey might just find that Ember is his perfect partner.

My Christmas tree goals

29 Thursday Nov 2018

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I would love to have a Christmas tree that has only unique and interesting ornaments. No generic balls at all! Now, it’ll take me a few years to get there, because I only buy a few new ornaments a year. But this year, I bought some new ones to add to the tree.

 

This one is because I’m writing Amish romance, and when I saw it I just had to have it. 🙂

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This one was for my son who is super into Spiderman this year, and it’ll be fun to remember all these phases he goes through. 😉

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These are because I love Star Trek… so… that’s pretty self-explanatory.  I’m STILL trying to get Mr. Johns into Star Trek with me, so but so far no luck… 😉

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 I hope you’re building precious memories, too. ❤ 

Housekeeping tips for writers

12 Monday Nov 2018

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When you work from home, there is the unique challenge of keeping your mitts off the messes in your home, and actually doing your work. It’s harder than it looks to balance it out. I’ve been writing full time for about ten years now, and I’ve realized that I have a choice–write full time, or clean full time. Pick one.

It might not surprise you to know that I’ve chosen the writing option. 😉 But that doesn’t mean that keeping up with everything else is easy! So I have a few tips for you work-at-home types.

  1. Delegate! You are not the full-time housekeeper. You are a writer, and your working hours are sacred. That means you don’t have time to do all the things people hope you’ll do. Learn to delegate jobs to other members of the family to make that workload a litter fairer.800px-Patsy_Grimm_helping_to_do_all_the_housework._8d29104v
  2. Wait before you clean the bathroom… just a bit. With your long hours of writing, there is nothing more irritating than rushing around cleaning up, to have nobody notice or recognize just how heroic your efforts are. That is why I recommend waiting two days longer than you usually would to clean the bathroom. I can guarantee that not only will your family notice when you clean it, they will thank you for it. You’re welcome.Doing_housework_(1993-1997),_bathroom,_1
  3. The dishes can wait. If you were in an office across town for 8 hours a day, you wouldn’t worry about the cereal bowls sitting on the counter. And neither should you worry about them during your writing time. Dishes, laundry, the carpet… whatever it is that irritates you just to see it–turn your back! You have a chapter to write. Get to work.800px-Housework_(5978829002)
  4. Don’t forget to rest. When your work hours are over, turn off the computer and spend that time with your family. It’s too easy to let work take over when it’s just a matter of sitting down at your computer and doing a little blogging or emailing to catch up. You love these people, remember? They deserve your time, too.

 

And there you have it–the best housekeeping tips I’ve got. You can tell that my writing hasn’t been going well when my home is sparkling. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t clean your home, but I AM saying the you and your family should do that cleaning outside of work hours. Because at the end of your work day, you can have a chapter written, or a clean floor/stove/kitchen/whatever. One of those is going to feel more satisfying to you. You have to decide which one you want.

Best of luck!

I’m not going to apologize

08 Thursday Nov 2018

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The Christmas tree is up! And I won’t even apologize for it. I love Christmas, and while I could have waited a little bit longer to put up the decorations, my ten-year-old couldn’t. He was just dying to get the tree up, and since we got some snow, which put me right into a festive mood, too, I caved. (As I always do.)

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So I put him to work. I have him a bit of help in the actually putting up of the tree,  but he decorated it.

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He loves Christmas more than I do. He’ll go over the decorations, remembering where they came from. He’ll laugh about things he remembers from when he was little. It’s not just a piece of decoration for him. It’s a piece of our family.

Mr. Johns is less of a Christmas person than I am, but he always brightens up when he gets home from work and finds that Christmas has hit our home. The tree is up, the lighting is soft, the garlands are hanging above the windows, and it just feels… warm.

Of course, we’re in Canada, so our Thanksgiving has already passed in October, so there aren’t any other holidays between us and Christmas. So it might be a little different for you if you live in the US.

But Christmas has come to the Johns home. And it feels good!

Library cards and cows… sigh! <3

05 Monday Nov 2018

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I have a photographer friend who lives a few hours from me. She’s very good, so if you’re in the Lloydminster, Alberta area and want a photographer, she’s the one to look up! Her name is Barrie Jane, and she has such an eye… Take a look at her work if you don’t believe me. I’m not just a gushing friend, I promise! When I next need pictures, I’m going going to her!

Anyway, Barrie Jane and I have been friends since junior high, and she recently sent me the most beautiful gift!

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It’s an apron with a vintage library card and cow theme! It’s lined with lace, and is nice and roomy so it wraps all the way around my sides. I just love it!

She had it made by her friend, Jennifer Herron, who has an Etsy shop called For Fabric’s Sake. Check her out if you want an apron like mine! 🙂 Or, hey–Christmas shopping!

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Forgive the hallway selfie–it was the best I could do under the circumstances, but it’s just a gorgeous apron, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!

 

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Feeling the jiggle

01 Thursday Nov 2018

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Last New Years, I jokingly wished for a parrot. It was one of those wild wishes that I never thought would come true for me, but here we are–and I’ve got a small parrot of my own–Pichu.

He’s my little writing buddy. He loves to sit with me while I hammer out my novels, and he’s just so much fun. He talks and imitates, which is very cute. He’s such a smart little guy, and I’m so glad he’s ours.

Here he is is dismantling Lego man legs on my shoulder while I write. He has a very big, strong beak, but he’s trained now so that if he gets too nippy or rough, I can hold his beak and tell him to be gentle, and he stops right away. I guess it communicates that I’m the boss, or something. It works!

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And here he is sitting on my wrist because he likes to feel the jiggle while I type. Such a funny guy!

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This is the writing life–lots of time alone. 🙂 But I’ve got a little parrot to keep my company, and I couldn’t be happier.

It’s a good set up. No complaints from me.

Montana Twins–2019

29 Monday Oct 2018

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Rugged, hard-working cowboys and adorable twins to melt their hearts… what’s not to fall in love with?

I recently found out that my full, three-book Montana Twins miniseries is going to be coming out in the 2019 calendar year, and I’m so excited! That means you don’t have long to wait between books if you’re following this series. 🙂

January 2019: Her Cowboy’s Twin Blessings

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May 2019: Her Twins’ Cowboy Dad

 

August 2019: The Cowboy’s Forgotten Twins (title subject to change)

 

I can’t wait for these stories filled with faith, family and tiny, bouncing twins to hit the shelves. I hope you love them as much as I do!