Happy Birthday, Brenda!  Thanks for all you do to put out great books each month for all of us.  Here’s to a Blazingly good day and a celebration of wonderful you.

And not to beat a dead horse but while Brenda doesn’t seem to age, if  you want to post your favorite beauty secret or product, well, some who shall remain nameless would appreciate it.  Really…it’s not about me…I’d never try to get beauty secrets for myself on Brenda’s special day…but you know, there could be someone out there who needs it….

Or, you can just wish the inestimable Ms. Chin a happy day.

Here’s to ya, Brenda….

That’s my 2012 motto. I figure it’s somewhat appropriate for a romance writer to adopt KISS as their motto. Now for years I’ve heard KISS referred to as Keep It Simple Stupid. Uh, I’m rolling with Sweetie instead.

My goal is simplify, simplify, simplify and that goes hand-in-hand with if it is negative — “it” being people, places. things, or situations, let it go. Hence, my decision to go with Sweetie as opposed to Stupid.

Okay, yeah, I know there’s maybe some eye-rolling going on like, that’s cool Pollyanna but I hate my (circle one or fill in the blank)  boss/job/co-worker/husband/ex-husband/the neighbor whose dog poos on my lawn/_______.  Do the best you can.  Change what you can and let the rest go.

A friend jokingly told me I was a hoarder.  Uh, hardly, but I have noticed a tendency to hang on to things “in case I might need them one day.”  No more.  I’ve culled and cleared quite a bit, trusting that if I need something obscure in the future like the round table with the glass top that I recycled, well, it’ll come back to me.

I figure it’s better to de-clutter my house, my closet, my life, my emotions so I can really enjoy what I have instead of always search through the mess — be it clothes, “friends”, or emotions.

And then there’s the physical aspect of KISS — as a verb, rather than an acronym.  I’m going to KiSS more, both literally and figuratively — whether it’s my dog, my daughter, my family, or my friends.  You just can’t tell people too often that you love them or give a hug or kiss.  Well, actually, I guess there are some instances where you just begin to look like a weirdo if it’s some stranger on the street so you’ll want to employ good sense but for the most part, I’m going to tell and show the folks I love more often that I love them.

In the spirit of KISS, I’d like to say thanks to all of you.  I know some people write for the sake of writing. I write to tell a story.  It’s you, the reader, who makes my circle complete.  So, thank you.  Thanks for reading and loving the Blaze books.  That’s my KISS to you!

Roll on with your day and remember — Keep It Simple Sweetie!!!

Yeah, I love it like that. I’m a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas, and I’m allowed to be, which makes me very lucky. I think about all those who have similar traditions handed down from generation to generation and who treasure those rituals as much as I treasure mine. But they’re employed as a nurse, or a firefighter, or a cop, or a soldier on patrol.

So as I watch my daughter unwrap the special present I found for her months ago and snap a picture of her happy smile, I bless those who are hard at work during the holidays. As I sip cocoa by the fire and gaze at the sparkling tree, I’m aware that the moment is made possible by all those who aren’t celebrating Christmas this morning or couldn’t enjoy Christmas Eve with family because they’re busy tending to the jobs that must be done, no matter what day it is.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Whenever and wherever you’re finally able to enjoy the holiday, have a very Merry Christmas!

There’s just no ambivalence when it comes to fruitcake.  You either love it or you hate it.  I can’t profess to loving it across the board because I’ve had me some bad fruitcake over the years. However, I love my mother’s fruitcake.  It’s a recipe that she got from my grandmother, who had passed on years before I was ever born.  My grandmother, according to mom, used to make it and bake it in a huge washtub every December.

For several years now it has become a tradition that I would go home and the first weekend in December was devoted to decorating Mom’s house and fruitcake baking.  We’d make several with half of one being shipped to my brother in Maryland and the other half of one being shipped to my brother in Minnesota.  My sister in Florida doesn’t like nuts so she just skipped the experience. We also put a half or whole cake in the freezer to be enjoyed throughout the year.

This year the tradition came to a halt.  My mom broke her hip late this spring.  Rather than the recovery we’d all prayed for, she, instead, has had a fast, fast decline.  This year there was no sitting on her glassed-in porch laughing while we chopped pecans and candied fruit to prepare for the “mixing.”  We didn’t hang wreaths or put up the tree that held crocheted white angels.  Instead,  my brother from Maryland, his wife, and I hung a Happy Holidays sign on the wall beneath the clock in her room in the nursing home.  It’s the wall facing her bed.  None of us are sure whether she really sees it or knows that it’s there, but at least we “decorated” her room.

And last Saturday night, rather than cutting into a fresh cake, because there was no baking going on, my stepfather and I each had a slice of the fruitcake from the freezer.  We didn’t say much other than how good it was as we ate.  I don’t know  about him, but as I savored each bite, and I did, it also tore at my heart.

Wow, this was not the blog post I started out to write but this one has sort of written itself.  As you can tell from the title, I just wanted to know whether you liked it or not…cause you either do or you don’t.  Which is it?  Where do you stand?

 Seriously though, I enjoy it when copies of my latest release show up at the office Christmas party as coveted door prizes, or when a former Marine brings one of my books to work and asks me to autograph it for him.  But I really enjoy it when the guys in my office ask if they were the inspiration for my most recent cover!  Sadly, none of the men  I work with look anything like those gorgeous cover models.  But that doesn’t stop some of them from auditioning for the part, like this guy, whose photo was sent to me from Afghanistan.  I have no idea who he is, but love that he is holding a copy of my book Hot-Blooded in the crook of his arm, and is wearing the same outfit and striking the same pose as the cover model!   

Who knows…?  Maybe he could end up on the cover of his own book!

To make matters worse, I’ve discovered Pinterest and between the home decor, craft and baking tabs, I’m in heaven.  Did you know that you could make a cool bird feeder out of a slinky and a coat hanger?  Neither did I!  Or that stair risers can be painted like the spines of classic books and add a whole new dimension to your home?  One that says something about you personally in the process?  I don’t have stairs, but wish I did just so that I could paint them.  I also found a wreath made out of nothing but round Christmas ornaments and an old wire coat hanger–useful things, those–and I’m on the lookout for the perfect ornaments so that I can try it as well.

 So far I’ve only made these little Santa hats out of brownie bites, white icing and strawberries, but they’re adorable and tasty.  Aren’t they cute?

 What about y’all?  Any cool crafty ideas to share?  Any never fail recipes?

     Alas, I don’t have your talent for hunting the wily shopping bargain.  I suck at it, in fact.  I can’t even manage coupons correctly, let alone a major bargain smack-down like Black Friday.

Whenever I get a coupon, I stick it on my bulletin board and forget it’s there until I arrive at the store coupon-less.  Or, on the rare occasions I actually carry a coupon to the store, I whip it out only to discover it expired yesterday.

I’ve concluded that bargains belong to the well-organized, and I’m . . . not.  A friend told me she’d already mapped out her shopping route for Black Friday.  The entire concept of a shopping route eludes me.  I can only run one errand at a time.  Seriously.

The only way I manage to get a bargain is by total accident.  I scoop up a couple of items I love, take them to the checkout counter totally prepared to pay the sticker price, and the clerk informs me they’re discounted.  Somehow the bargain fairy has taken pity on my miserable self and touched me with her magic wand.  But trust me, if I’d tried to accomplish that discount thing, it wouldn’t be happening.

So happy bargain hunting, everyone!  And while you’re at it, I hope you snatch a few holiday Blaze books from the shelves, because you so deserve a break later.  If it wouldn’t be too forward, I’ll mention MERRY CHRISTMAS, BABY, a December anthology featuring moi, Jennifer LaBrecque, and Rhonda Nelson.  Gift yourself.

If you have managed to stumble to the computer so you can read this blog, what did you get?  If I can’t find my own bargains, I can live vicariously by listening to your shopping triumphs, so do tell!

The cobwebs must go, and the dings, gouges and black marks on the walls . . . because you want your dysfunctional family to think that you live in a magazine, right? I’m not sure why most of us get into this frenzy of preparation, but we do. And then everyone arrives to create chaos. 

Little Irwin spills grape juice on your couch. Susie drops her Barbie doll onto a hot burner on your stove, and shrieks to the heavens when her sequined-clad butt grafts to it permanently.  (Barbie’s, not Susie’s, thank God.) And to top it all off, your cousin, who talks with her hands, sweeps the pumpkin pie off the sideboard as she tells a story. Splat! Um, ice-cream, anyone?

The oven door may be fixed, but a hinge on a cabinet door will malfunction, leaving it hanging drunkenly just in time for pictures. The toilet may now flush, but the coffee pot will die. And the new rug looked a lot better without burnt-orange smears all over it.

Are you feeling thankful? I am.

I’m thankful that my dogs have already gotten mud all over the deck that I slaved for hours to paint last weekend. I am thankful that the outdoor cushions I scrubbed are already re-growing mold. I’m thankful that the new plants I put in the front beds are hanging out with the wrong crowd: weeds.

Murphy and his Law like to laugh at people before the holidays. What can you do?

Seriously? Be thankful. For your family, your home, the blessings you’ve been given, and for the opportunity to have people mess up your house! They’re there because they love you . . . and everyone knows that you don’t live in a magazine. Get real!

Wishing you the very best for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday–chaos and all,

Karen Kendall

However, one of my favorite things to do is hiking.  I’m lucky enough to live in an area with an abundance of hiking trails.  There’s something about walking along tree-lined trails as leaves flutter to the ground around you.

On Saturday we were hiking one of our favorite trails up at Red Top Mountain in Kennesaw, Georgia.  There were surprisingly few people out and as we walked along, we were fortunate enough to have a white-tailed hawk fly directly across the trail in front of us.  He or she — I’m really not versed in determining the sex of hawks :[ — landed on a tree to our right.  He sat there for a moment and then decided the right-hand side of the trail suited him better so he treated us to another in-flight display.  My hiking partner had brought a camera.

Enjoy…