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I couldn’t resist this link.

Happy Easter Everyone! 

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My five year wedding anniversary is tomorrow, March 22nd.  Looking back, I’m amazed that we’ve been married for five years, and known each other for almost seven.  Although, our running joke with each other is, “Is that all?  It felt like muuuuch longer!”  LOL.  Yes, we do have a touch of warped humor in our household.

As we were heading off to bed last night, I started thinking about how different my life was before Jon was in it.

When we met, I was living in a two bedroom townhouse with my son, still working full time in Corporate America, and had dated my share of total and complete losers.

Let’s see, there was the business card boy, the immature ex-boyfriend and the guy who knocked up his lesbian ex-wife while we were dating just to name the top three contenders for the loser crown.  After my frustration died down from contestant number three—who is probably the ultimate crown winner here—I remembered this good looking, sweet, funny, semi-shy guy I had met at a local bar during karaoke.  He liked to sing Elvis songs, and we could talk for hours about anything and everything.

I called him up and asked him out, which sounded something like this:

“Jon?”

“Hey, Tina.  How’s it going?”

I’ve always loved his deep gravelly voice, so I’m purely appreciative just listening at this point :)  “Great.  I was actually calling to see if you were busy tonight.”

“Not really.  Paul (his roommate) and I are just hanging out.”

“Do you want to go to dinner or something?”  (Yes, I usually just kept it this simple when I asked someone out.  Not profound, but it got to the point…lol.)

Silence for about four full heartbeats.  Then, “You mean on a date?”

Okay, deep breath.  It’s not easy for anyone to take the risk and ask someone out, but this isn’t a good sign so far.  “Yes, unless you would prefer we just keep it a friendly dinner.  Are you interested?”

“No, as a date is good,” he answers quickly enough to salve my ego.  “I just wanted to clarify.”

Anyway, once we hung up the phone, he apparently looked at his roommate and said, “This means I need to shave, doesn’t it?”  LOL.

He picked me up that night, bearing one of those little roses they sell at Circle K.  Yes, a bit corny, but I still have that thing.  We went to a local Chili’s restaurant with questionable food and we talked and laughed easily.  So far the date was going great!  I was sitting across from a really cute guy with deep hazel eyes with gold flecks, a killer smile with just a hint of dimple, dark hair that made you want to run your fingers through it, a great sense of humor and that wonderful deep voice.  Things were looking up!  Finally, maybe I had gotten off the “dating losers” train and was on the right track.  Woo Hoo!

Right after they brought the appetizer, I noticed they were playing Up Where We Belong on the overhead speakers.  I remember laughing and saying, “I remember when this song was really popular.  It was the theme song for my Senior Prom.”

A short pause while Jon listens, too, and then he smiles, which turns him from cute to totally hot and yummy.  “I remember this song!  A group of us did a lip syncing act to it for our fifth grade talent show.”

WHAT?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Thankfully, I was struck dumb at this point and it took several seconds for me to even form words as my brain processed all the ramifications of those statements.  Once it did, I said, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

As I did quick mental calculations to figure out our nine year age difference, my first reaction was, “Hell, no!  What am I even thinking?  A thirty-two-year-old divorced woman with a kid dating a twenty-three year old guy?  ACK!”  Of course, due to several years of muddling through social situations while my mind is screaming such things, I was able to continue holding a conversation, although I’m sure he didn’t miss my shock.

But over the course of the next hour, my reservations lessened and then disappeared.  I was reminded of the line from The American President where Annette Bening is talking to her sister about why she can’t date Michael Douglas, who is the President of the United States, and she says, “Yeah… I gotta nip this in the bud. This has catastrophe written all over it.”  To which her sister replies, “In what language? Sydney, the man is the leader of the free world. He’s brilliant, funny, handsome. He’s an above-average dancer. Isn’t it possible our standards are just a tad high?”

I knew exactly what they meant!  After all, here was a very attractive man I could talk to for hours, we could make each other laugh, he didn’t have four ex wives with twenty kids, and no lesbian ex-wife lurking in the wings like the last one, he didn’t do drugs and only drank socially.  He had a job, seemed fairly responsible, was articulate and seemed to enjoy my company.  So, somewhere in that hour, I just went with it, and now, nearly seven years later, I’m very glad I did!

Like every couple, we’ve had some doozey fights which we still laugh about today, and some ups and downs, but we have a good solid relationship and we really do complement each other well.  He was even the one who encouraged me to take my dream of writing out of the closet and finally go do it.  Even more than that, he and my son get along very well, and much to my chagrin sometimes—they even have very similar senses of humor.  ACK!

One of these days, I might even get an actual marriage proposal.  In fact, I’m not sure how I ended up at my fifth wedding anniversary without one, but I did.  But…that’s an entirely different blog. 

Tina/Cassie

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I thought since Easter is coming around real quick, I’d share some little known and interesting facts about Easter.

• The celebration of Easter has roots in three different traditions - Hebrew, Pagan and Christianity.
• Easter was given that specific name because early Christians wanted to convert others and they thought everyone was familiar with the name, because it was an old spring tradition.
• The White Lily is a symbol of Christ’s resurrection for Easter.
• The hare and the egg became the symbol of Easter.  Both are signs of fertility.  The hare changed over to the rabbit because rabbits were far more common than hares.
• The basket became a tradition, because it was a custom for Cathlolics to bring their food to mass in order for it to be blessed.  It was also an ancient agrarian custom to bring a family’s first crop to the local temple.
• Jelly beans didn’t become a tradition in the United States until the 1930s.
• The first edible Bunny began its tradition in Germany.  It wasn’t made of chocolate but of pastry and sugar.

Lynne Logan

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Hey everyone, I’m on overload with all the promo and getting ready for Desert Dreams and RT.  Thank goodness, I’m two. We’ve split up the workload and I’m starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe I’ll get though this after all. But I sure don’t know how you girls with full time day jobs do it. I had a very busy last week and it really put me behind with my writing. And my house, well that’s another story. I may have to break down and do some laundry soon, we’re about to run out of clothes.

I did make corned beef & cabbage for St. Paddy’s day. It turned out pretty good. For years we celebrated the day with our good friends, Bill and Mikel and she did the cooking, but they moved to WA last year,  so it was left up to me. I tried a different recipe for the carrots and used a brown sugar glaze. I have to say they were yummy. Easy to do too. Just cover baby carrots in water and simmer till tender then drain and return to pan, Pampered Chef skillet of course, then add butter and brown sugar and heat till glazed. Easy enough.

Okay, back to my promo. Tia Dani may try and put a basket together for Desert Dreams raffel. I’ll have to call Susan and see if there’s still time. I think today might be the last day to let her know. I need to check on that. I always put everything off till the very last minute. Someday I’ll change this bad habit. Well, someday I’ll work on changing this habit.

Oh, we have our edits back for Color Of Dreams. We’ll be working on them just as soon as Tia gets back from Florida. Our editor asked us not to get them back to her to quickly.  She is very busy right now too, and said for us to take our time. Works for us since one of us is on vacation.

Tia and I still talk by phone or im’s everyday. Good thing I have unlimited long distance, I think we were on the phone for 3 hours yesterday. We did manage, however, to plot out another book.  It will be a follow up for Color Of Dreams.  We love our characters so much from CoD that a couple of them will show up in our next book too. We’re hoping that everyone will love them as much as we do.

Well, I best be getting back to work. Here’s wishing everyone has a great day and gets everything accomplished that they have on their ‘to do’ list for today. As for me, I hardly know where to start, but I’d better get at something before the day gets away from me. Maybe I need to make a list. Speaking of list, I’m making a list of reasons why team writing is a good thing. I’m really finding out how much it works for me. Like I said earlier, thank goodness I’m two, and how in the world do you all keep up with everything and take care of your family and hold down a day job?  Writers are amazing!

Talk to you later.

Dani/Tia Dani

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What better day to speak about reading GREEN.  If you’re buying ebooks books, then you already know.  Just for today, let’s forget about the butterscotch martinis, grab a green beer and toast to reading GREEN.

And ebooks have gone mainstream with publishers worldwide jumping on the bandwagon, including many of the traditional New York publishers.   

Kudos to all of the ebook patrons who not only are on the cutting edge of technology…you deserve a pat on the back for environmentally friendly purchases.   The next time someone asks what you’re doing to save the earth, make sure to mention ebooks.  Mention Amber Quill.

Brit Blaise
Cave Creek Cowboy Ménage  - Jan. and Feb. bestseller at Amber Quill Press
The Blood Club - Jan. and Feb. bestseller at Amber Quill Press
Lady in a Box – Coming in April from Amber Quill Press
A Sure Thing - Coming in April from Amber Quill Press
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