UPDATE: The winner is…Deb Brown!
*~*~*

International Panic Day is a “mock” holiday meant to give people a day to intentionally de-stress.

I’m all for that! Well, I’m all for another odd holiday and all for destressing! How ’bout you?

I thought making a list of ways I like to destress would be fun…

1. 🐈 Pet a pet
2. 📻 Listen to music
3. ☕ Drink a cup of tea
4. 😮‍💨 Breathe
5. 🧘‍♀️ Meditate
6. 🏊‍♀️ Swim!
7. 👭 Spend time with friends
8. 🚶‍♀️ Go for a walk
9. 👩‍⚕️ See a therapist
10. 🏝️ Get away from it all!

The last two aren’t things I generally do, but I was struggling to get to 10! I also managed to fit in a puzzle for you all since so many of you enjoy them!

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle, then add to my list of 10 or tell me which items on my list you use!

UPDATE: The winner is…Eileen McCall!
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June 17, 1965: On this day in history, Bob Dylan recorded…

You either love him or hate him. And sometimes, you’re not even aware you love him.

My SIL says his voice scrapes like nails on a chalkboard. My daughter, who is a singer herself and hyper-critical of many current artists, adores Bob Dylan for being real and raw. I’ve loved him since he first appeared on the music scene in the sixties. Yes, I’m that old. Along with the Beatles and the Stones, whom I’ve loved forever, there was Bob Dylan, whose music I played when my dad brought me home a guitar from one of his many trips to Asia during the Vietnam War. “Blowin’ in the Wind” was one of the first things I learned to play. I loved music and poetry, and Dylan’s work was both.

There are songs you probably don’t even know are his. “All Along the Watchtower” will forever be associated with Jimi Hendrix, but Dylan wrote it. If you loved the movie Hope Floats, you remember that gorgeous love song, “Make You Feel My Love” that Garth Brooks sang. Adele covered that song more recently. Yup, Bob Dylan wrote it. You’ve heard Eric Clapton’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” right? Again, Bob Dylan wrote it. That’s just a slice of great covers of his great songs.

But everyone’s heard Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” Can you imagine the 1960s without it?

Anyway, I have Dylan’s greatest hits I pull out every now and then when I’m feeling nostalgic. My favorites include these titles which I had to snip and slaughter to fit into the puzzle. Hope you enjoy it. For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me whether you’re a Dylan fan and which song you love the most!

My faves are in the puzzle in no particular order…

1. Like a Rolling Stone
2. Blowin’ in the Wind
3. It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (This one’s so cool, like Folk-Rap!)
4. Make You Feel My Love
5. All Along the Watchtower
6. Just Like a Woman
7. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
8. Tambourine Man
9. The Times They Are A-Changin’
10. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

UPDATE: The winner is…Beth!
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Do you sometimes wake up with a goal you can’t shake?

I watched a trailer for a movie yesterday and got so excited about it that I messaged the link to my daughter for her to watch. She never replied. So, I take that as she’s not excited about the idea. But how can she not be?! A giant shark in the Seine, IN PARIS?! It’s going to be epic!

Okay, so it’s not as over-the-top as the Sharknado movies (has there ever been anything as gonzo?!), but I can see the possibility of a fun movie night. When the Sharknado films came out every summer for all those years, we made the releases a big event. We’d binge-watch the preceding movies and hunker down with finger-foods and popcorn, our attention glued to the screen. They weren’t meant to be great art, and they weren’t, but oh what fun they were. I have the same reverence for The Meg movies. I just love shark movies and Shark Week. Summer isn’t summer without watching some new shark-disaster movie.

So, this morning, I awoke determined to watch the new movie tonight. I’m pretty sure I can talk the 15-year-old and the 10-year-old into watching with me. We’ll get a huge tub of popcorn and dim the lights. Under Paris will be watched!

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me whether you love shark movies like I do. Have you watched Jaws, the Sharknado movies…Shark Tale?

UPDATE: The winner is…Charlene Whitehouse!
*~*~*

Yes, it’s another weird holiday! And such a fun one!

First, raise your hands! How many people here own a sewing machine? Do you own more than one?

We have…three?…in the house. One I purchased. One my daughter brought when she moved in. Another I inherited or was given. It’s been so many years, I don’t remember!

Now, tell me, when was the last time you used yours?

I used mine last when my dd challenged me to make some handkerchiefs for men. We had an idea we would make them using material with superhero patterns then give them away to the cops my SIL works with. We made two. If you can imagine it, we had to look up a YouTube video to remember how to thread the machine! It’s sad because I made clothes with mine back in the day.

So, why do people celebrate the sewing machine? It was an agent of change. No longer did women have to spend long hours to make their family’s clothing or mend their husband’s sleeves. They had an efficient way to take care of that task, which gave them more leisure time—to do what? Maybe dream of doing things outside the home… Yes, a sewing machine can be considered an agent of women’s empowerment! Do you see my Rosie the Riveter arm flex?

It’s Friday. It’s a holiday. Now, I’ll have to figure out how to celebrate. No, I’m not pulling a sewing machine out of a closet. 🙂

Answer the questions I posed above for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

UPDATE: The winner is…Dana Zamora!
*~*~*

Y’all said you wanted more puzzles, so…

I’ll be out of pocket today. I have a doctor’s appointment in Little Rock and will be away from my desk. I posted this early, so you’d have something to play with while I’m gone. Hope you enjoy it!

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle, then tell me what he’s hunting. I always enjoy what you come up with!  

UPDATE: The winner is…ButtonsMom!
*~*~*

No excitement around here. We’re awaiting a part for the pool to see if it will fix our filter problem. Then we have to go back into wait mode while the pool clears to a sparkling blue. The summer will be half over before I get to do my daily swims! In the meantime, the only excitement we’ve had is the news that a dollar store is going out of business. With 75% off sales, my daughter is going into hoarding mode, buying up enough shampoo, deodorant, and pet food and treats, to keep us going for a year or two—no exaggeration. She heard rumors of a 90% off sale coming next Monday, so you know she’ll be scraping what’s left off the shelves to bring home. She’s also said she plans to be parked in front of the store when the doors open. They have AC. Good for her! She does love a good sale, and the 10-year-old has the fever, too. She came away with an astonishing amount of Squishmallows  and hair products.

But back to the contest…

As a way to solve my book-hoarding problem and make room in my bookshelves, I’m continuing my Clear My Bookshelf Giveaway! I have a ton of my books, collected over my 20 years of publishing. So, rather than consign them to the burn barrel I thought maybe a bunch of giveaways would be fun. As the first couple of giveaways seemed to garner a lot of interest, I’m happy to offer more opportunities for readers to win a signed copy of one of my old books! Check to see who the last winner was! It may have been you!

So, for a chance to win a randomly chosen by me (I might say, do you want a western, an erotic novel, or a paranormal?) book, which I will of course sign and fill with a bookmark and a postcard, painted by me, tell me whether you love to shop a good sale!

UPDATE: The winner is…Pansy Petal!
*~*~*

Cue “End of the Road” by Boyz II Men to play in the background.

Besides writing romance, I am an avid reader. I try to read a book every two days.

Now, before you credit me with being a speed reader, I will admit that my husband and our bossy mastiff fall asleep early, so I have about three hours to read. I usually pick out a book and start after dinner with interruptions, and after the males are quiet, I can get my reading groove on.

Eighteen months ago, I decided to clean out my Kindle. I had books from 2012 that I had never read. So, I made a deal with myself:  read one old and then two new (published in 2023 or later) to make a dent in the TBR list.

For years, I finished the book no matter what. After I started publishing, I felt like I had to hang in and finish a book as a sign of commitment to the writing community.

However, life is too short for bad books.

I felt guilty for not finishing. I’d message my friends and defend my decision not to finish as if the “Kindle Police” were going to report me for having DNFs (Do Not Finish).

Then, I started to notice more people talking about not finishing books. What once had been a somewhat taboo topic was discussed openly.

I have reasons for not finishing. The first is if I find five proofreading/editing mistakes within the first three chapters. Authors are taught that the first three should grab the reader’s attention. So, misspellings, incorrect word usage, or poor grammar causes me to stop.

Recently, I’ve come across three published books where I believe the authors forgot to tap “Accept Changes” before uploading the manuscript and pressing “Publish.” These were not intentional cross-outs—no, they were unnecessary extra words. Again—DNF.

This is a hard rule for me—if the pet dies. I won’t finish and most likely won’t read anything else by the author. True story:  I almost dumped a friendship because she sent me a book where at the end, the dog died. I still feel upset about the poisoned pet, and I never read another book by that author.

Excluding Dark Romance, another stopper for me is when a main character is written to be so ugly and hateful that I can’t believe that they are worthy of love. There are times that I think that authors intend to create a strong, outspoken character and instead, they read as a total jerk. I try to keep toxic people out of my life, so I’m not letting them in my reading.

Filler. I accept that some stories are shorter than others. What makes me quit a book is when the author stretches out the tale with multiple-page passages in another language, recounts a prior scene two or three times, and repeats the same reasons for why the couple won’t work. I have a running joke with a friend about a series that we both love. In each book, the couple has officially committed and marching to their HEA. The author adds a final kidnapping, an explosion, or a car chase. Those events don’t add anything else to the story except an action scene and another deep kiss. If I discovered the series today, I might be annoyed by the “one more” to consider DNF-ing.

That brings me to the most difficult to explain—I didn’t connect with it. There are times that I just don’t like the book. It could be that I had figured out who committed the crime too early. A character is too stupid to survive in the real world. I will admit that as my years increase, I find myself getting irritated by characters in their early twenties who run crime syndicates, are running billion-dollar, large corporations, or find the answer to a problem that people have been working on for years.

The great thing about reading is that there is always another book to read. With the explosion of Monster Romance and Alien Romance shorts, I can devour two a night, and that makes me feel accomplished.

Now, I’m curious- What causes you to DNF? A Winner will be chosen at random to win a $10 Amazon Gift Card.

About the Author

Melanie/M. Jayne is the teller of tales of the Novus Pack and an Amazon Bestselling Author. See Me was a finalist for the Holt Medallion. In 2022, the Duchenne Vampire Series enriched her portfolio. She loves reading, luxury handbags, watching sports, and the Bravo Housewives. Learn more at www.readmelaniejayne.com.