Artist: Jessica Galbreth

One day I'm going to write a mermaid story. Well, that's not true. I already started writing a mermaid story, but it's not done yet. It would have been perfect for Ellora's Cave Pearl Quickie Theme, but alas, I wrote a Topaz instead.

Anyway, when I saw this rendering, I fell in love with it. The figure seems to me to be remembering, or dreaming, or hoping. The mermaid story I began doesn't feature a hopeful mermaid, though. When my story opens, she's in deep trouble, almost dead from having been held captive by a ruthless human. However, perhaps this painting depicts my mermaid at the end of the story.

The artist is the extremely talented Jessica Galbreth. I wish I could magnify this so I could see all the details. I used to pretend to be a mermaid when I was a little girl. I would swim with my legs together. I would marvel at how beautiful hair was when swirling in water. And I always HATED how the Little Mermaid became sea foam. (Bad, Hans, bad!)

Anyway, have a wonderful weekend. I hope you enjoyed this week's mini art exhibit.

Thursday 3: Groceries

I'm late doing my Thursday 3! All this week, I've been off a day. Tuesday, I thought it was Wednesday. Wednesday I thought it was Thursday. Then, today, I thought it was STILL Wednesday. Can calcium supplements mess with your brain???

Anyway, I find myself at a loss for a topic, so since, I just went to Trader Joes, here are three things I bought there.

1. Mandarin Orange Chicken - This stuff is great. It's frozen and all you do is toss it on a baking tray and bake it. When it's done, you toss it in the sauce you warmed in the microwave. I add white rice and a veggie. Dinner is done!

2. Marinated Wild White King Salmon Fillets - My kids love salmon, but we've never had white salmon before. And I'm not sure they're going to like the marinade, but too bad. Variety is the spice of life.

3. Raw Silvered Almonds - I like to add these to my yogurt to fool myself into believing I'm having a Substantial Filling Breakfast That I Have To Chew. I toast them in the oven to give them extra flavor.

And how cool is this? Because I brought my own reusuable shopping bag, I was entered to win a $25 shopping spree! Neato!

Tea Lattes

As you may know, I work at Starbucks. They recently rolled out a new batch of drinks: the tea lattes. I have always been a coffee person, but once in a while I'll take tea: always with Chinese food, sometimes when I have a sore throat or stuffed up sinuses, but never with milk. Yuck. So, these new drinks--the London Fog Tea Latte, the Vanilla Rooibos Tea Latte, and the Black Tea Latte--are not my favorite beverages on the Starbucks menu. (Although if we're going to talk SMELLS, the Vanilla Rooibos tea bags smell AMAZING! I want someone to bottle that as bubble bath. I'd buy a gazillion gallons of it.)

They also have two other new drinks--the Berry Chai Infusion and the Apple Chai Infusion. I like both of them, and they both come iced or hot. I like the BCI cold. The ACI tastes a lot like mulled apple cider, which I like. (I just realized I've never had that with whipped cream, and I bet that's pretty tasty.)

So, out of the five new drinks, I would highly recommend the Berry Chai, iced.

Economizing

Times are tough. I'm always looking for ways to cut back and recently we eliminated our monthly Arrowhead water delivery and replaced it with a PUR water dispenser. By doing so we're saving $190 over the course of a year. :)

Do you have any tips for me on how to save in other areas?

An Example of My Strangeness

I was in the Romance Diva chatroom recently and we were discussing various birds. We discovered this definition: "kestrel," 1674, from wind (n.) + hover; so called from the bird's habit of hovering in the wind. An earlier name for it was windfucker (1599).

We thought that was hilarious. I thought it sounded like a perfect name for a Dances With Wolves type erotic romance. So, here is a blurb I worked up for this fictitious fiction.

Windfucker’s Destiny

Windfucker is a spirit breed, born to blend with the night, sleep with the shadows. Throughout eternity he’d been content with his lot. Until Mariah swoops into his life. All of a sudden, his desire for night’s shadows disappear and all he wants is to claim Mariah as his own, drive himself into her body until she sings with pleasure.

Unfortunately, she's a bird.

Beautiful, fragile. And not of his species.

And with that pointy beak, she would never be able to give him the head he so desperately wanted.

But the moment he hears her warble the spirit breed mating call he can't help himself. Ancient instinct takes over and he finds himself driven to dig up worms and scatter seed for her. He spends hours, naked, flapping his arms about in a dance designed for her pleasure. All this he does in the name of love, a force much greater than evolutionary taboos. But is it enough? Can Windfucker truly forgo fellatio for the rest of his life?

As for Mariah, she can’t understand the strange pull this creature has on her. What she does understand is he provides her with food on a regular basis and if she could just get him to stand still, she could feast on the very fat worm that dangled from his body so enticingly.

Will these star-crossed lovers overcome their differences and find happiness, or are they trapped by cruel Fate, doomed players in a cross-species, Bobbitt-like tragedy?

This book is not available for purchase and never will be. LOL