Thursday, September 25, 2014

Harvest Fun and Cover Reveals!

Well, I am having the time of my life! I am knee deep in cowboys, ranching, weddings (fictional!), revisions (real!!!) and harvest at the farm.

Throw in a passel of cute kids, messy faces, scraped up knees (we have two 4-year-olds who are riding two wheelers on our big stone driver with no training wheels. OUCH!!! We wipe out often, but they climb back up! So cool!

Of course that fun load of work means there hasn't been much in the way of cookin' goin' on 'round here, and that's okay. Most nights! But tonight I made Lindi Peterson's Mac and Cheese...

And ol' Dave is grilling pork chops later so we've divvied up the work. And with this being Derek Jeter's LAST WEEK OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL....

sigh.

There's been a lot of ballyhooin' going on around here! And if you want to see what all the hullabaloo is about, just imagine a 20 year career in the majors and NEVER BEING EJECTED FROM A GAME.... Plays like a gentleman. #loves the game.

Here's the Gatorade commercial they put together and released last week,

"The Captain says Goodbye to New York."

....runs.... grabs tissues..... recognizes these streets, this side of the stadium, the local bars and grills and eateries.... and the normal folks, coming to see a Hall of Famer in their time.
Okay, back to HARVEST!!!!

Oh, wait, cover reveals first! Silly me!!!

First there are these (and forgive me if you saw these in Seekerville, I posted them Monday, but I cannot resist (nor would you want me to!) showing them again!

Our soon to be released Seekers "Hope for the Holidays" historical collection:

 I ♥ History!!!!

AND....

Our also soon to be released "Hope for the Holidays" contemporary collection!!!!

Release date is November 10th and the price for EITHER COLLECTION is $2.99.... How cool is that??? 4 delightful novellas from old-time America or 6 wonderful present day Christmas stories of faith, hope and love.... and (being romances!!!) the greatest of these is love!

And then yesterday I got THIS!!!!


Scheduled release is February 1, 2015 and look how stinkin' sweet that is? My story "Prairie Promises" was so much fun to write! A very pregnant Irish immigrant has become a young widow, but will she give up her homestead? Throw in the towel? No, she will not! She teams up with the older widow on a neighboring claim and when the older widow's son comes west to bring his mother home to Philadelphia, well.... let's just say Jack's got a fight on his hands. A fight that ends with home, sweet home and the happily ever after neither one expected and both deserved!

AND THEN!!!!! A little later in February, there's THIS!!!!!


Charming, delightful, fun, poignant, I got to take 8 years of working in the wedding industry and be part of this amazing collection! Thank you, Zondervan and Becky Monds for including me! This story was so much fun to write, I don't want to belabor it because we've got a few months, but oh... DELIGHTFUL STORY AND OPPORTUNITY! I owe this to my friends at Bridal Hall, the wonderful family business run by the Hall family in Rochester NY. The Halls gave me a chance to work with brides and their families to put together each girl's wedding of her dreams. #love!

Okay, Harvest Stuff.... Kind of! Because in lieu of cooking, I promised facebook folks we'd let the scarecrows out of the CLOSET!!!! They've been in there for years, and this year I had Casey and Christina grab hold of some fall bounty and decorate!  SO FUN!!!!

Here's some of their handiwork:


Stinkin' cute, right? Scarecrows, blossoms and veggies!

And then they got creative with this:


And this!

And this was Seth's job over the weekend, bringing up pumpkins....

And lest you think I squander the minutes between writing bouts, this was my GUILTY CONSCIENCE pushing me to... yes.... I admit it.... wash curtains.

Sigh.

Here's a kitchen glimpse for you, LOL! I won't tell you how much dust and how many webs I destroyed to attain clean curtains, but yes! They're clean and ready to be re-hung. Who knows how long that will take????

I love doing cooking stories and blogs, but the past few weeks have been grab this and that, but soon....

Oh, soon!!!! We'll be cozying (once the firewood is in the garage!!!) inside at night, not rushing around doing this and that, and the busyness of spring/summer/fall will morph to a quieter time.

And then I'll cook again! And look what happened two nights ago!!!

Sweet babies! We always love to see sweet babies here on the farm!

Now, whilst Jan and Mindy are meeting up with sweet Seekers and Villagers in St. Louis, we'll stay here tending animals and brush-burned knees, grilling pork chops and grabbing a quick tuna sandwich, a Ruthy mainstay and celebrating how blessed we are to be Made in America!


22 comments:

  1. PUPPIES!!! You didn't mention puppies! How could you forget that? :)

    Love the pumpkins. They're so, so beautiful. I love orange! I even love to wear the color orange. (I know, you're all cringing.) LOL

    Tell the girls they did an amazing job decorating! I love your door and walkway, Ruthy! So homey and welcoming.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I laughed at the puppy comment, then saw you figured it out! I didn't want to move the box to get closer so I ZOOMED through the slats of the big dog kennel where Mama had her babies. And lest you think that's MEAN, Mama would have been fine hollowing out a dirt nest under a wood pile by the chicken coop and leading us on a merry chase/kitten hunt. This way kittens are raised with us, happy and healthy and then go to homes in 6 or 7 weeks.... But aren't they so tiny and cute? (But yes, I'm a puppy freak, too, Missy!!!

      Delete
  2. Wait… I just zoomed in some. I think they're KITTENS! Well, that's exciting, too. But not as exciting as puppies for me. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. for me kittens are much better than puppies. I love kittens

      Delete
  3. I'm so jealous of your decorations! They all look fabulous! Mine consist of one moderately big tub of single white chrysanthemums! (It's a long story ... they're the rejects when we found bigger and better ones for this weekend's wedding.) We were away most of the summer so didn't plant a veggie garden, so no garden harvest for me this year. But I'm hoping for coloured leaves from the vine maples and the blueberry bushes in a few weeks.

    Those are mighty sweet kittens!! That reminds me: along a backroad on the way home from our son's house late this afternoon we passed a doe with *two* nursing fawns. And me without my camera! The fawns were a good size, but she was tolerating them, although was looking a little frantic standing there in the grass at the edge of the road as we went by. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Carol, what a pretty picture, a mom and her babies!!! I love it! And of course, no camera.... but a memory, and that's just as good!

      Shame on us, those scarecrows have been pushed into the closet for years, buried. So when I finally targeted that big closet for cleanout and painting, there were 14 scarecrows and various fall things.... Mary Connealy and Tina Radcliffe remembered to e-mail me to get them out of the closet this year!!! How funny, but those e-mails helped and it was a perfect job for my two teenage helpers!

      Delete
    2. Mind you, the teenage helpers refused to be photographed when they did this Wednesday because THEIR HAIR WASN'T GREAT.

      Oh my stars. :)

      Delete
    3. Carol, that must've been a beautiful scene! We have a good many deer in our neighborhood, but I've never seen any nursing.

      Delete
  4. Wow....Ruthy you make me dizzy!!!!!!!! Jumping up and down over all those releases coming out. How exciting is that?! Maybe I won't mind winter at all if I can stay at home and read Ruthy through the blizzards. :-)

    Love the Autumn decorating. Our leaves are just starting to turn here. The days are warmish, the nights crispish....I just love this season!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kav, I love it too!!!!! And aren't those covers so fun????? I probably should have waited to share the February ones, but I was so excited!!!! We'll talk more about them after Christmas, but I'm just over-the-top pleased with how beautifully the covers came out!

      And our leaves are just starting to tinge here. Lake Ontario keeps us warmer for a couple of weeks in the fall.... and then COOLER in the spring when we desperately long for warmth! But that's what makes for great apple growing areas, long falls, crisp/cold nights and sunny days. Perfect for ripening apples!!!

      Delete
    2. How fun to have the leaves changing! We haven't seen anything yet here. It's still been pretty hot. Just now getting down in low 60's at night (which feels freezing to me when I take the dog out and am barefooted!).

      Delete
  5. You're just BUSTING with good stuff to share. Don't forget to send me those covers BTW with release months for Seekerville.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh, this post made me smile from beginning to end. Except for the Jeter bye-bye and even then you have to smile at a gentleman, right?

    I am so all pumped for your wedding book especially since I've heard you talk about your bridal store experience.

    Getting the fall stuff out here too. It was so great to come home to changing leaves and pumpkins!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Julie, welcome back! I love this season too, and the colors rock! And I sense PUMPKIN food in my future!!!!

      Delete
  7. I thought they were puppies too at first. been a while since puppies...what do you do with all the cats?
    ok too many books for me to keep up with- haven't caught up wtih the September releases from everyone yet! guess when I have December vacation I'll be doing a lot of reading
    Susanna

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Susanna, it is a lot of books, right???? HAPPY DANCING!!!!

      But they're spread out over 3 months, November-January, so that's good!!!!

      The kittens go to homes in about six weeks. Mama cats make the best mousers and with all these acres of veggies and chickens, we need cats to keep the mice and rats in check.

      I much prefer cats to mice and rats!!!

      Delete
    2. I'd prefer cats to mice and rats any day! I'm happy dancing I'll have stuff to read on vacation in a few months IF I can wait that long! I get grumpy when I'm interrupted at work when reading hee hee so I have to do re-reads or something just interesting enough to keep myself occupied then I feel bad because I wasted my time. I still have yours, jan's, tina's, missy's...pretty much all the ones that came our in the last month or two but night shift is coming up in a couple of weeks so may not make it that long!

      my grandma always had puppies and kittens and managed to find all of them homes - more kittens I think than puppies. I think my brother preferred the cats- I didn't like the claws but they were cute. here mama cat wasn't friendly though - Candy - but she had some cute kitties we could sometimes tame if we managed to get to them without Candy scratching us. :-(
      Susanna

      Delete
    3. Susanna, good point! That's why we have all the babies here at the house. I can make sure they're acclimated with people, they're held, petted, cuddled, um.... the kids devise KITTEN RACES for them, and built them houses out of pillows. :) They're very accustomed to children by the time they go to homes, LOL!

      Delete
  8. Exciting! Love ALL the covers! The wedding series will be so perfect since our younger son and his fiancée are planning a wedding for 2015. You've inspired me to dig out the fall decorations. KITTENS!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sherida!!!! I had so much fun working at Bridal Hall, learning the ins and outs of such a great and fun industry, that when this opportunity came up with my BELOVED AGENT!!! Natasha Kern, I was over-the-top. The wedding industry is unique in so many ways, that between that book and my upcoming Wedding trilogy with Love Inspired, I'm reliving my time with brides, grooms and families! And the occasional Bridezilla!!!!

      Delete