CATCHING UP!

So as usual...I'm catching up with you again...such is life.
Well, considering I had a wedding and am promoting a book, and writing a new one, and Xmas is tomorrow...I think I deserve a break!

So the last bit of travel had us down to LA where we got to see our daughter for a couple of days...great visit..just the three of us.  She's really an amazing teacher with her little babies learning about art...we enjoyed being flies on the wall for a bit and watching her at work...very proud we are!

And we got to stop by for a quick 40 minutes to visit with my oldest and dearest of friends Lin, and her hubby Alan and gorgeous daughter Brit, to thank them personally for the tremendous wedding gift of two nights on the beach in Monterey, yes that was from them and that spectacular stay was shared a post ago in case you missed it...whirl wind visit, but great non the less....so many many years we've known each other, since we were 15, inseparable back then up till our thirties...all that history....and we hadn't seen each other in twenty some odd years..so wow!

And a GREAT lunch with another good old friend of mine Rona...what fun we had dishing over a nosh at the Daily Grill...my family really got a kick outta her...she's one of the best!

The book is going full barrel right now...Got a huge event planned this weekend to introduce the book to the community, posters out and word buzzing...loads going on to promote this project.  Then the featured article about the series on the 21st in the Good Times...now THAT is big!  Really looking forward to generating some serious momentum from that...wish me luck.

Almost finished with the book cover for the second book...the Wizards of Coranim....hoping to have this book published before Xmas..HA!!  Why why why is time moving so freaking fast!!

Then we had Taylor's 21st birthday..our youngest son's girlfriend..so she's our daughter too..hosted a bunch of kids at the house here, while we hid away in the den..pretty tasteful all around...she had a great time..we really love her!

And last but not least...the chickies...they are truly growing...look at the difference!  ps. something just went haywire and I can't enlarge the text on the bottom few photos...sorry for the minuscule reading folks...put on your reading glasses!  and just in case you're wondering the word is schnuggie..it means cuddle around here...later.

GORGEOUS! Right? (yeah, both of them)

she is an artist, with an artistic home...
one treasure that I LOVE

this one with her biker boots and curly orange hair...
reminded me of someone...oh yeah!
my favorite character in my book...Mathilda!

intriguing..yes?...ha! you'll have to wait!

Beauty Queen

who let the old broad in?

the big birthday dinner the night before with our other kids

My baby...can you believe this gal used to fit in the
palm of my hand?
She's magnificent...seriously..huge, fluffy and all chicken...Petunia!

and this little gal...Marilyn...
her head is almost grown in after her
scalping a few months ago..
she's so freaking cute...
a little ball of fluff...just like her namesake

aww...she's just the most amazing hen
you've ever seen in person..giant feathered perfection!

Winnie...not as fluffy as I had assumed she'd be...but look at those feathers,
a living piece of art!

And last but not least Maxine..the epitome of what a hen is supposed to look like
black and white stripe with a big red comb..she let's me pick her up to pet...we call is schnuggie

So hope your life is going along smooth and the change in seasons is making you smile...I  LOVE Autumn...in the meantime, keep warm and close to your loved ones...it's the best thing ever!
Mucho love to my besties...xoxo juner

FINAL LEG OF HONEYMOON

So I'm finally getting around to sharing the last weekend of our honeymoon month...ha ha.  Unfortunately, on our way home from Monterey we got a call that my cat, Frankie was sick....long story short, he almost died that night and had a two day hospital stay...he's still with us and being the cool cat that he is...however, had another emergency visit a couple days ago as he's still bleeding a bit and stressed, so here he is with me today, on some serious kitty meds that I had to sign for since they are narcotics!  So hopefully he'll make a full recovery soon...since we're leaving this weekend for a couple quick days in LA to take care of some business and visit our daughter, he better perk up before then or I'll be stressing the entire time...I'm traditionally NOT a cat person...but this guy is something else...I really love him.

So here goes, the Hotel stay from Heaven, and by that I mean the Barmapers...what an amazing place to stay.  Right on the beach, your own little suite with a fireplace and big screen for Sunday football, we were lovin it!
They give you a golf cart to keep things quiet for the guests...so that wasn't fun or anything..I did all the driving..ha ha...then wouldn't you know it, but the whales were migrating that weekend...so we stood for a while and watched as blow hole spray went up everywhere...

view from our deck

                            

that black spot in the middle is a whale breaching,
 it was so cool to see his head popping out of the water

and the sunsets weren't bad either...

Next day we went off and explored Monterey and had fun bar hopping and Ray tested different beers and that evening we went out to the bonfire and roasted marshmallows and made s'mores...my first ever by the way..you know I never liked chocolate, so I had mine without...a little side gift from our hosts...

not a bad place to hang out for Monday nite football!
We stopped and brought in some food and lounged on the sofa.

 So after a nice visit sitting on the cliff overlooking the ocean the next morning, we headed on out to Carmel for lunch. And if you've never been, it's like being at Disneyland...it's all gingerbread houses and quaint little shoppes with perfectly planted flowers on the sides of brick lined roads...it's like visiting another world...and we found the perfect place to hang for lunch and say our good byes...

 So thx to our dear old friends, Linda, Alan and Britan for giving us such a lovely gift, and a great way to end our month long honeymoon round one...ha ha...off to LA like I said, but this really isn't a visit visit, it's more about work..however, we'll soak a little honeymoon vibe out of it...it's just another excuse to celebrate!

The happy couple...Mr. and Mrs. Schneider....I like the sound of that....enjoy!! mucho love to all!!  xoxox juner

MINI HONEYMOON TO TAHOE

Okay, so I woke up last Monday (or actually the one before this past one), one week after our wedding, and still had the doldrums...we both did.  I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that half the party was still laying around our house and yard..my dress was hanging on the door, staring at me, taunting me...so I finally put it in the closet....out of sight out of mind.
Amid my tears I sat in our bed and talking to my husband I realized, what are we doing?  This is probably why people leave right after their wedding...it's too much emotion to just sit in it.  So I said, "let's just go to Tahoe today...just stay one night..."  

His best man had given us the money to go as a gift, however, after the explosion of cash that went out, we were less than willing to spend anything more, gift or not.  Which is why in the beginning we decided, we live in a great little town with plenty to see and do...let's just tool around here...so we did, for the first few days...but now it wasn't enough..it wasn't working for us...so he looked back up at me and said, "Seriously, leave today?" and I said, "yeah, just go, what's really stopping us...we have this money, we'd spend it here anyway on going out to dinner and such...let's just get outta here...besides, Mark really wanted us to go.."  So he looked at me like I was crazy for about a minute and then simply said..."Okay, let's just get out of here right now." 

And so we did...and let me tell you...two days in Tahoe works miracles!!

Someone else had left this in the sand for us to
stumble upon...how fortuitous !

Fallen Leaf Lake...like home to me...

Not for me in Sept....brave man

Hubba hubba hubbie of mine

Works for me....(a nod to my niece)

So thx Mark for the lovely gift and we're so happy we did this...it really felt like more than two days...we stayed at the lodge in Camp Rich and enjoyed ourselves immensely!!   So the next day we got home I got a cold and it's still here a week later...so not like me...however, all the months of stress and no sleep finally caught up...so now I need to get healthy for round two of our mini honeymoon month with a stay at a resort on the beach in Monterey...another gift from my old friend Lin and her husband Alan...so until then...we're still in honeymoon phase over here..can't be less than a few minutes away from each other...marriage changes a lot...and in our case...wowza!  Hope this lasts forever, it's a tremendous feeling!!
Mucho love out there...until next time...xoxo juner

MY FIRST WEDDING DAY!

Sunday, September 1st I married my best friend....too much too share right now...still in the doldrums of the after emotions...you know, months and months of planning then poof! it's over in a heart beat and the roses are all dying now, I've been crying on and off for the past six days...we are both walking around here moping like someone just killed our cat!  We won't leave each others side...honeymoon plans postponed till end of the month...(a very special gift from my very special friend Lin), however, we are acting like honeymooners anyway.  

Walking around our sweet little town and strolling down the wharf, sushi lunches, sitting on the big cushy pillows on the bench on our patio sharing a toast and talking about how wonderful everything in our world is right now... we have plans tonight to see our friends band so we'll get to see some of the people from the wedding so that will be great..then lunch with the kids in San Fran tomorrow...and more little lovely, tender, personal moments we are planning...
for me, however, unfortunately I'm rewinding everything and now the things that were not completely "right" are jumping out at me like a boom and I'm second guessing if everything was beautiful or was it just my imagination.  You know the let down of not seeing your vision come together.  Even though everything looked great, and no one would know it was supposed to be different in any way...I know...

For starters my hair and makeup were not even close to what I had planned, which is a bummer...I ended up looking like my everyday hair, so that really was a huge let down. Right after our ceremony I ran upstairs with Caroline and we cut my bangs and reblew them and that was that...or my bouquet...although beautiful, seriously beautiful...not my vision in color or flowers. I had studied bouquets since Ray proposed to me and even got the perfect roses that I wanted, they just somehow disappeared into a different theme and my vision was lost and my dearest sweet friend Cheri did an amazing job, she didn't do anything wrong, just wasn't quite what I wanted, but she gave this to us as a gift and there was no way I wanted to hurt her feelings..and like I said, it's not like it wasn't gorgeous, just not my dream....these things happen, I suppose.   

I was just so ridiculously exhausted from not sleeping for three/four months straight and so many people running around and their opinions and ideas of where things should go, or my surprise later when I saw the tables that I had set the way I wanted and someone went around tying random ribbons on things that shouldn't of had ribbons...I know they all meant well...just not my vision.  I just pretty much let it all go and just showed up at the door to walk down the aisle.  
Oh, yeah, that brings up my other big peeve, the music, the two people that were performing "At Last" were not situated up by the alter where I really wanted them..so that took the "dramatic effect" of what that song means to us out of the picture as I walked up to my man...I even had the officiate announce that no one was to stand up when I walked out so that everyone could "sit" in that aura, that moment, of the magic of that song and Cindy's perfect voice singing about a love that had finally come to us...but that wasn't so much the case unfortunately...and I should have insisted they hook up the extension cord and make it happen the way I had been dreaming about it for eight months...but it was late, my hair wasn't done and I didn't want anyone to worry about it..so I said, okay...however, when I walked up next to Ray I hugged him and we began to sway and dance to the last bit of her rendition that we could almost hear and I hooted for her and applauded and then the ceremony began...and it was perfection!! 

I was completely present for this part of the whole day and it was everything I had hoped for...even if other things changed up a bit...like the gigantic balloons covered in lace that hung from the high tree limbs above the party began to deflate during the event and looked like huge ball sacs hanging down..ha ha..

But in the end I've never been so happy in all my life...I'm so in love and I have the best partner to walk beside me for the rest of my days....now who could complain about that!  The thing that was the most important, the words we said to each other, the way we looked at each other, the looks on our kids faces when they stood up with us...this was ALL I had been dreaming about for eight months...so in the end I ended up with everything I ever wanted and more....people have told me it was the best ceremony they had ever witnessed...now that's a love story!

I only have three photos at present to share...

Our dance...Fly Me To The Moon!

my sister in law Joy, her daughter in law, my new niece and photographer, Bonnie, and my maid of honor Jamie.

Later that night walking back from our room I turned to say something to Ray and he said Freeze don't move and snapped this photo...the look of love..xoxo juner

The Benjamin McTish Series: BLOG TOUR BEGINS

The Benjamin McTish Series: BLOG TOUR BEGINS: Buy the Book Blog tours is hosting a six week tour...the dates and hosting blogs are listed and the giveaway is open...good luck!  Have fu...

just follow this link to get to all the information regarding this tour and the hosting blogs with all my guest posts...writings about the characters in the making of this series...reviews, a giveaway...enjoy!