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 »

UPDATE: The winner is…Jackie Wisherd!
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It’s not an official holiday, but it’s one I can get behind! I looooove coffee. When I was younger, I drank it all day long. Black. No sugar. All day long. These days, I have to keep it to two cups in the morning or I wreck my ability to fall asleep at night. My mornings, though, are always super-charged by the mighty coffee bean.

I know there are folks who detest the taste. Not something I understand. I drank from a large community urn when I was in the military. You were lucky in the morning to get a fresh, aromatic cup. By late afternoon, it was sludge, but I still poured a cup of ambition.

Coffee is more than a drink. It’s a ritual—for me, anyway. I have my first cup sitting with my daughter as the kids scurry to get ready for school. I carry the second cup to my desk to begin work for the day. I set it on that old cup warmer at the corner of my desk and drink it, one sip at a time, while I check my To Do list, begin my blog—and I’m off. I love this particular cup. The kids gave it to me one Christmas as a joke, a gentle funny dig because…guess what? I’m not so silent about correcting their grammar. I have tons of writerly mugs. Tons of Grandma mugs. They all have meaning and memories. I have cups my dad used for years that I cry over whenever they break or crack. Some I glue back together and use as pen holders because I won’t consign them to the trash. I’m sure you have some of those meaningful/memory-packed cups, too.

Enough about coffee and cups, though. It’s Tuesday. The first day of the month. I have a calendar to update, bills to pay. Pages to edit. It’s time to get to work.

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me whether you’re a fan of coffee. If you are, how do you like it? Black or doctored? If there’s another beverage you prefer, tell me what it is and how you like it, too! Have a wonderful day, y’all!