This is definitely a holiday I can get behind! I looooove ice cream. Ice cream with waffles, crepes, or pancakes sounds divine!

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle, then tell me how you would eat your ice cream for breakfast!

Open Contests

Since I have a guest on my blog tomorrow, I’m posting the contest list early. Be sure to enter while you still can!

1. Flashback: Tailgating at the Cedar Inn (Contest–3 Winners!) — Last day to enter! Win a FREE story! THREE winners!
2. Word Search: Hot Sauce Day (Contest) — Last day to enter! Win an Amazon gift card!
3. Anna Taylor Sweringen/Michal Scott: Ellen F. Eglin — Inventor of the Wringer Washer (Contest) — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
4. Saturday Puzzle-Contest: A Wishing Well — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
5. A Tale of Two Cats (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
6. Flashback: Hook (Contest–3 Winners!) — Win a FREE book! THREE winners!
7. Memory Game: Happy Chinese New Year! (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
8. Get your F*R*E*E download! — Everyone, get your FREE download!
9. Tell me a story… (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!

UPDATE: The winner is…Charlene!
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Yes, Thanksgiving is barely over, and I’m already looking toward Christmas! Thanksgiving was lovely here. The daughter outdid herself so far as the meal was concerned. We’re eating the last of the leftovers today. Tonight, we’re eating Haluski because we can’t face another day of “buzzard” leftovers. Don’t know what Haluski is? It’s so simple—egg noodles, fried cabbage, and kielbasa sausage all mixed together. We add some Frank’s sauce to spice it up. Yum! Simple, but filling. Then we’re watching a Christmas movie, probably Jack Black’s Dear Santa.

Every day, counting down from the 1st to the 24th of December, I’ll give away a small prize on my Friends page on Facebook. If you aren’t already a friend, you can head over here to join: Delilah’s Friend Page. You can also join Delilah’s Corner group and post your entries there. When you comment on my daily FB advent posts, you’ll be entered to receive a small, simple prize, whether it’s a signed book, a hand-painted (by me!) bookmark, or a pretty beaded pen.

Let me know if you plan to follow the daily giveaways for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card here! Enjoy the puzzle!

A quick note: I’m healing well from my surgery to remove my chemo port. My daughter has to change out my bandages, including packing the chest wound (it is as gross as it sounds) twice daily. Other than that little bit of discomfort (PAIN!), we’re going about business as usual. I see the oncologist again next Monday to see when chemo resumes.

My family sprung me from the hospital yesterday, so I’m home for the holiday!

In case you didn’t know, my chemo port area was infected. My body rejected that contraption. So, I have a hole in my chest that my poor dd has to pack with gauze twice a day as it heals. Painful, yes, and it’s impeding my chemo—which will resume in two weeks. But I’m home for the holiday. Yay!

The hospital wasn’t bad. The staff was kind, and they gave me a lovely, large private room (I guess my insurance is pretty damn good—thank you, U.S. Army!) while they ran me through surgery to remove the port and took care of the wound for the first couple of days. The food? Ugh. My dd made the trek daily to spend hours with me. The 15-year-old spent quite a bit of time with me to keep me company. I couldn’t access my website to do any updates, though, because the hospital’s internet kept slapping a “porn” warning on all my accounts. I went in Sunday and came out yesterday afternoon, so you know I was dying to get home to read my email.

Anyway, I’m back. I hope you’re all doing well. My dd is in the kitchen as I’m writing this, preparing the turkey for the oven. My SIL made his “famous” deviled eggs last night. Three pies are in the fridge. Everything else will be made fresh today. Yum! We’ll eat too much, take breaks to nap and watch something family-friendly, I’m sure, then back at the feast. Tomorrow, we’ll all be complaining we gained five pounds.

I love the start of the holiday season! I wish all of you here in the U.S. a lovely holiday, filled with too much food and pleasant memories to be made.

UPDATE: The winner is…Sandy Kelly!
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It’s another of those weird holidays I so love. This one actually makes sense for its timing. It’s “Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day!”

My daughter actually tackled that chore a few days ago, clearing out room for Thanksgiving meal storage. The amount of condiments we had accumulated was unbelievable—and yes, quite a few had expired. Leftovers in Tupperware—gone. Fuzzy fruit and vegetables—gone. She’s always death on old cheese and lunchmeat. She watches those pesky, almost unreadable expiration dates, where I tend to do a sniff test before eating. And has anyone ever watched the comedy with Al Brooks and Debbie Reynolds, Mother? The funniest scene, to me, was her cutting the green off a huge block of cheese she’d gotten from the senior center while Al Brooks curled his nose in disgust. My mother would always cut off the edges of old cheese. My daughter? Oh no. I have to be quick to finish a lovely wedge of cheese before she tosses it in the bin.

Anyway, does this holiday sound like one you could celebrate? Do you have any old foods stories to share? I think we actually found spices in the cabinet that had expired in 2012… Answer for a chance to win a free download of one of my books!

UPDATE: The winner is…Kim Croddy!
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It is a thing! And definitely a holiday I can get behind. Some Canadian computer museum started this holiday in 2010. How can you celebrate it?

Start with the files you have saved to your desktop. Did you save a recipe you never tried and won’t? Delete it. Do you need those files cluttering up your desktop when you open up your computer every day? If not, delete, or save them somewhere that makes better sense.

Then open your files in Explorer. Have you accumulated more junk there? I know when I’m working on a book, I can accumulate a bunch of pictures of settings I want to use, but when I’m done with the book, why keep them? Delete. I also don’t need every version of the book file I saved. Delete, delete!

When I’ve gone through all my files, I like to follow with emptying out my Downloads and Recycle Bin, followed by running a quick Disk Cleanup to clear out my computer’s memory.

Afterward, I feel virtuous for cleaning out my virtual files. For a chance to win your choice of download from among my backlist of books, tell me how often you clean out your virtual files!

UPDATE: The winner is…Debra Guyette!
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‘Tis the season and all. No, not that season. However, Halloween is drawing closer, and I know there are romantic tales to tell.

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, study the picture above then tell me a story about this couple. The story doesn’t have to be long or even any good. Just have fun with it!

UPDATE: The winner is…Pansy Petal!
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Halloween is always a fun time of year for our family. It’s the kickoff to the holiday season—Halloween, Thanksgiving, St. Nicklaus Day, Christmas, New Year’s Eve… We celebrate them all because we love excuses for celebrating.

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle, and then offer suggestions in the comments for Halloween movies or activities that would be fun for the family!

For those interested, here’s my health update:  Read the rest of this entry »