Monday, January 25, 2016

Cozy Up to Reading! Clean Indie Reads Mid-Winter Sale

Here's the sale!
Looks like our extended autumn is over as winter roared into the Hudson Valley this past weekend, dropping loads of snow and wreaking its normal havoc. We were lucky - less than three inches covered our lawn, but others in my area had more than a foot, and New York City almost broke a record at 26.8 inches. Travel on city streets was banned on Saturday into Sunday and people were urged to stay in. I have no problem with that: a snow day is a perfect day to stay in and read. 

To prepare for the next storm take a look at the titles in Clean Indie Reads Cozy Up to Reading mid-winter book sale. CIR is the home of "flinch-free fiction," which means free of offensive language, graphic violence or gore, and erotica or sexually explicit scenes. It is the best ever data base for clean books written by independent authors.

You'll find a variety of genres including children's, YA, historical, humor, inspirational, mystery, suspense, legal thrillers, paranormal, fantasy, science fiction and romance. Some are free, others are discounted. Sale ends January 30th.

This is a great way to use up that Amazon gift card or fill your new Kindle. Happy reading!


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Blue Hydrangeas, an Alzheimer's love story.  
Value 2.99. Rated 4.7 stars on Amazon, 136 reviews.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Relax! It's Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day

© fotofabrika / Dollar Photo Club


Did you start 2016 with a list of resolutions? Did you promise yourself that this would be the year you'd write that book, run that marathon, take that much-needed vacation?

I think it's human nature to look at a fresh calendar with optimism and motivation to make more of the next 365 days. But most of us can stick to these resolutions for only a few weeks, maybe a couple of months. That's human nature too.

Bad habits are hard to break, and a lot of the resolutions we make are related to bad habits: Quit smoking. Lose weight. Start exercising. Spend less. Save more. We've all made these promises to ourselves at one time or another. And we've all broken them. Still, when the new year rolls around we start the cycle again.

But I have good news for you. Today is Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day. According to the folks who put together the Days of the Year, January 17th is the day when most of us give up on our resolutions. So if you've been wavering on your new commitments you have permission to throw them out the window right now.

I confess I didn't make any resolutions this year. I started the year off with a stomach bug and wasn't paying attention to much else. When I finally recovered it didn't seem important. But last year I wrote a wonderful list of resolutions and posted it on this blog on January 3. 

I'm looking at it now for the first time since, and I'm astounded by what I see. My long list of goals to write more, lose weight, control social media time suck, etc. fell by the wayside shortly after I put them in writing. Not one has been realized, nor one issue resolved. In fact, I could recycle the list for 2016.

But I’m not. My only resolution for 2016 is to go easy on myself, to make the most of this year without the added pressure of resolutions, because I've come to the conclusion that it's in my nature to not stick to these kinds of things. 

What about you? Did you make any new year’s resolutions? How's that working for you?

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Subscribe now and receive a free copy of 
Blue Hydrangeas, an Alzheimer's love story.  
Value 2.99. Rated 4.7 stars on Amazon, 127 reviews.