Carol Moncado

You had to know it was coming. Really. You did.

Overall, I’m doing pretty good with this whole Bells Palsy thing but there’s some stuff that you just have to whine about. But that’s okay – because we’re gonna get to the cheese too :D.

Thing to whine about:

1. I can only use half my face.
2. I can only use half my face and they have me taking EIGHTEEN pills a day. [Okay, today it’s down to sixteen as they wean me off the steroids.]
3. Brushing your teeth when only half your mouth works. Think about it. You’ll figure it out. There’s no picture to go with that one.
4. No vision on one side when wearing a patch over your eye. This may lead to running into people or throwing off your balance so that you run into walls going up stairs or though narrow areas with a laundry basket.
5. Can’t sleep well at all. Getting better but not great.
6. Plus I still have this sinus infection. That doesn’t help.
7. Eating is hard. Try slowly enjoying a spoonful of ice cream or yogurt or what have you with only half your mouth.
8. Spilling. All the time. If I’m careful it’s all good, but still not easy. And still dribble down the front of my face…
9. Cranky. I am. I know this. I’ve warned my kids that it doesn’t take much to get on my bad side right now and for the most part they’re cooperating. But I still hate being cranky. Especially around bedtime on the night’s Matt’s not home cuz they always push push push their bedtime back [I need water, I need this, I need that*] and then I kinda snap a bit. And I hate that.

There’s probably more but that enough for now.

So… the cheese. Because I love cheese.

1. Cheese bread. Have been making some and it’s yummy and I can actually eat it. [Pic coming tomorrow]
2. Cool eye patches made for me by my sister [who is still making fun of me, by the way ;)] that I can coordinate with my outfits.
3. Weight loss. Since the stomach bug hit us a couple weeks ago, I’ve lost about 10lbs. Probably not the best way to do it, but I’ll take it and go from here. Workouts [hopefully] start again next week.
4. Blog fodder. Let’s be real. I don’t post as often as I should and I don’t ‘market’ my blog as much as I should, but yesterday was my second highest hit count ever [I think – if not, 3rd] ;).
5. Story fodder. I’ve already started the story where the heroine has Bells Palsy and the hero has the paparazzi…
6. Brainstorming**. Lying in bed with a sleep mask on but unable to sleep makes for some great brainstorming sessions. Now if I could just remember what the super cool profession I had for that Bells Palsy heroine was…
7. Grateful. By the time it’s back to working right, I’ll never take a working face for granted again!
8. Hugs and support. I’ve gotten so many hugs and so much support from all my family and friends. That’s always good.
9. Lopsided kisses from the 4yo. Let’s face it. He’s cute. And a riot but you guys doing get to see as much of that. Not till the books come out with his antics in them. He’s been so sweet to me the last few days [the other kids too, but especially him].

Plus I still feel like I look cute. Even if I am getting funny looks ;).

*See? I’m getting cranky just thinking about it ;).
**Not to be confused with barnstorming, which is a totally different thing.

First off, huge props for Janella coming up with the other E word – EBOOKS! So the last post [well, besides the ‘ad’ for Kathleen’s visit] should have been “Easter, Eyepatches, and Ebooks”. Duh. Thanks, Jen! [Seriously – do you know her yet? Cuz she’s awesome :D.]

Plus this is my 200th blog post. Deserves a party but I can’t enjoy the cake anyway ;).

So… Tuesday. Back to work. I work part time and am a mama, housewife and author. My part time job [that I love] is teaching American Government at a local community college. And that’s great. Except it means today I had to talk for two and a half hours. And my speech* deteriorates the longer I talk. The F, B, and P sounds are especially hard for me so talking about things like the Federal court system and Brown v. Board and so on was loads of fun. My students were pretty cool though and didn’t give me too hard a time, though they did ask me to repeat things a couple times.

Plus, I felt like I looked cute ;).

My sister has finished a couple more eyepatches for me, but the hubs forgot to pick them up on his way home Tuesday night so I’ll have them Wednesday night. They work well, forcing my right eye to rest so that when I really need it [for say, driving], it’s not already worn out. But my left eye wears out faster, too, because it’s picking up more slack.

Tuesday, several people, including students and co-workers, said they could see an improvement from first thing in the morning to the time I left about 1:30 in the afternoon. Asked Matt tonight after he got home and he winced and told me he didn’t think so, but by then it had been a long night so that could be why.

So where’s the lopsided love come in?

Monday, I asked the four-year-old if he wanted a kiss. He scrunched up his face and said, “Mama, you’re lopsided.”

I laughed and said, “Well, how about a lopsided kiss?” And this is the face I got:

What a sweetie! Love that boy!

Next time… Whine and Cheese – don’t miss it!

*See, Janella, told you I’d talk about speech this time ;).

This month, Kathleen Y’Barbo is our special guest at MozArks ACFW! Be sure to join us if you can!

[Yeah, so another E word wasn’t coming to me – ideas anyone? You’ll get props in the next post… for whatever that’s worth ;)]

First a few notes – there’s some FABULOUS free ebooks right now! These are Kindle links, but I believe all of them are also available on Nook.

Candace Calvert : Code Triage [the heroine from her forthcoming Trauma Plan Preorder  [not free] is introduced in this book]
Mary Connealy: Out of Control – book 1 in the Kincaid Brides books
Sandra Bricker:
Always the Baker, Never the Bride is currently 9.98 and is book 1 in the series [I’ve read this one and my sister has read both the others – they’re up soon in my queue – watch for reviews]
Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride book 2
Always The Designer, Never the Bride book 3
Janice Thompson: Fools Rush In – book 1 in the Weddings by Bella series – all of them sooooo worth it! And she’s got another series of four related books coming out sometime soon – or the first one is anyway ;).

Be sure to double check before you buy, but there you have ’em.

Easter was yesterday and my kids looked so nice!

At least until it was time to hunt for eggs with Grandma – then they looked goofy ;).

So… me…

My face is still only half working. I’ve been pondering this post since yesterday, trying to figure out what I’m going to say. I want to be witty and funny and make you smile [since I can only half smile so that between the two of us we’d each have 3/4 of a smile and that’s pretty good] but I just can’t at the moment. A big part of that is probably because I’ve been trading kids’ clothes today. You know, that day twice a year where you trade winter and summer clothes. All the appropriate clothes are out of the closet under the stairs, but the winter clothes aren’t ready to go back in, so have to finish that laundry and would REALLY like to get it all put up RIGHT this time so it’s super easy in October, but I’m not holding my breath on that one. I do have a big black trash bag overflowing with clothes we’ll be giving away and another one full of shoes [and we have some more shoes to go through – see what still fits or will fit someone in the future and all that good stuff].

You’d think “Hey, it’s half your face. It’s not like your body isn’t working right. It shouldn’t be that hard.” And I’d agree with you if it wasn’t me. But it wipes you out. I thought the same thing a couple months ago with the whole nose thing. “It’s my nose! It’s not like I got my leg cut off!” But the same thing was true then.

Yesterday, I went to church looking something like this [here is your promised pic, Mary, dear]:

I felt way cuter than I looked, I think. The people at church fell into three groups:

1. Random people I didn’t know who didn’t look at me TOO funny, but still did see a few sideways glances [but only from people on my left… cuz of the eye patch on my right eye ;)].
2. Friends who already knew what was going on – gave me big hugs and sympathized.
3. Friends who looked at me, double taked and asked “What on earth? Are you okay?” or some variation thereof, then hugged me and sympathized.

All in all, not too bad. I felt cute and I don’t feel like I look weird, but then I can’t really see that only half my face is working. The eye patch helps my right eye rest when I don’t need it so it’s not too tired when I do [like while driving, etc.]. My left eye is overcompensating though and it gets tired too.

Do you know how hard it is, though, to take 18 pills a day when only half your mouth works?! Fortunately, my biggest group of pills is “only” 8, but I did almost choke on two of them the other day so I make sure not to do it when no one is around ;). Should take a pic of all of them for next time…

I hadn’t planned to start a new WIP until I’d finished editing/polishing-until-shining both Finding Mr. Write and the Speedbo* project. Possibly not until July at the Novel Sisters Writing Retreat with Jess and Kristy. But, as I mentioned the other day, ideas were fomenting and yesterday during praise and worship, the opening scene wrote itself in my head. Last night, I wrote 2500 words and today another 350 in between everything else. I had some really good ideas last night on the heroine’s** profession and some good conflict, but I had my sleep mask on [another part of the whole Bells Palsy thing] and didn’t write it down. :p

I really wanted to work in some more $5 words so Janella*** could find another red sticker under her seat****, but none are coming to me…

So I shall end this here and try to have more fun stuff next time. The urgent care guy called yesterday and said I should be seeing some improvement in the next couple of days though it’ll be several weeks to several months before I’m back to normal [Quiet, Ruthy! You too, Mary!]. Haven’t seen anything yet and tomorrow, teaching two classes should be interesting as my speech tends to deteriorate when I talk a lot. Just do my best I suppose. It’s all I can do :D.

*Be sure to check out my Seekerville Speedbo page – I finished! I reached the end and hit 70K – even though I did that on 4/1]
**Named after dear friend, Pepper Basham. Cuz Pepper is an awesome name.
***If you don’t know Janella, you should. She’s awesome.
****See comments last time

I’m having the most random year.

Seriously.

First the whole unintentional nose job thing.

Now a sinus infection turn Bell’s Palsy.

Seriously.

What’s with that?

Basically, the right side of my face is mostly paralyzed. Not completely. But mostly. I can still blink. But I can’t close the right eye to wink. I have a creepy half smile. And when I open my mouth wide it looks like the creepy white mask from the serial killer movies.

You know. This one:

Lovely, no?

Will detail more later. And may even provide a pic or two. Though maybe not with the eye patch.

We’ll see.

Oy. Random is fun, right?

And research. The plot lines are already fomenting… 😀

Have you seen this live video feed?

Decorah Bald Eagles
Facebook Page

I haven’t been able to [easily] find a history on this, but apparently this video feed has been going on for at least a couple years. Mom and Dad were both on hand for the second egg hatching on 3/28.

Christopher [age 4] and I have been watching off and on all day. A couple times we’ve seen Mom [at least according to the comments in the live chat feed, it’s Mom] feeding the two babies. If you look closely, you can see part of a fish and part of a squirrel and Mom pulls off bits and feeds them to the babies. Volunteers control the camera and, from time to time, will zoom in or pan around the area.

When the girls get home, I’m going to put it on the 46″ flat screen so we can all watch – and maybe, just maybe, we’ll get lucky enough to see an eaglet being born*!

*Did anyone else go to the musical 1776? No? Just me? Never mind then…

First, join me in happy dancing over at Seekerville! I’m the guest blogger today! Come by and say hi!

Anyone who knows me or has seen me comment on other blogs [like Seekerville] knows I love Panera and that I work well there, but why?

First, it’s a Panera. What else is there to say?!

But once I’d been going there for a while regularly, I started to get to know some of the employees. Especially a couple of the managers. Now, it’s nothing deep or anything, but they know me. They know I like my potato soup in a bread bowl with the bread bowl on the side. [Hey! It’s dippabler that way!]

And they love that I sit there and write books.

So last April, when I was looking for a name of a character [the next door neighbor, mentor type] I picked “Doyle” after one of the managers who’s been kind to me. Doyle, in the universe I created, is married to Deeanne. They’re the Doziers.

Doyle and Deeanne Dozier.

What great names, right? And secondary characters so the alliteration shouldn’t get too annoying ;).

A couple weeks ago, I was at Panera, typing away when I got stuck. Just a bit and ended up staring into space. Space where another manager – Travis – walked into and thought I was looking at him.

We had a good laugh over it and got to chatting. Doyle already knew I’d named a character after him by this point and got a good laugh over it. Travis and I were talking about it [he insisted I needed to name a character ‘Travis with the faux-hawk” – guess who my new hero is? ;)].

Told Travis the whole character name.

Two guesses what Doyle’s [the real one] dog’s name is.

Yep.

You got it.

Dozier.

Doyle agreed to send me a pic of him and Dozier to use on the blog, but I don’t have it yet, so I’ll post it when I do.

I love my Panera because of how much work I can get done there and because of the nice people who take good care of me while I’m there.

Plus, I just may get to have a book signing or two there one day.

You know.

When I have a book to sign ;).

First off… look at me! I got a mention on Real Life Petticoat Ranch! That’s Mary Connealy’s blog :D.

Second… Nose news.

The last month qualifies as a saga, I think…

About a month ago, I had a routine trip to the dermatologist. I’ve had this spot on my nose that wouldn’t heal – though it finally had. Like a good girl, I told her about it anyway and she decided to do a biopsy.

It came back as a basal cell carcinoma.

Skin cancer.

I freaked out [silently since I was still on the phone with the nurse] but it turns out, it’s the least bad kind of cancer ever. In fact, we haven’t even used the ‘c’ word with the kids. My oldest daughter is literally the same age I was when my mom died of stomach cancer and the kids know this. We didn’t think they’d be able to truly differentiate between the two different kinds, so we told them it was an ‘infection’. That’s more or less true…

February 3, I went in for a Mohs procedure. Basically, they cut out the bad stuff, test it to make sure they got it all then cut out more bad stuff if needed and so on. By the time it was all said and done, I had a hole about the size of a nickel on the top of my nose.

In fact, it was so big [and my nose is apparently very taut – I guess that’s better than a flabby nose…], that the doctor decided he couldn’t close it up in the office using local anesthetic and sent me to a plastic surgeon.

On February 8, the plastic surgeon knocked me out [well, the anesthesiologist did…] and fixed it. By the time he was done, I had about 30 stitches in my nose and two black eyes.

I spent twelve days on hydrocodone…

I missed two days of work. This is another time I thank God for my job at OTC and only working two days/six hours a week. The day after my second surgery, I was giving a test and they proctored it for me. And I was able to cancel the next Tuesday without any fuss.

It still hurts. I have a constant ‘noseache’ [like a headache but emanating from my nose rather than my forehead], but it is sooooooo much better than it was and, once fully healed,   you won’t hardly be able to see the scar. You can already barely see it in a couple places.

But here it is:

I won’t post pics of the nickel sized hole or the grotestqueness it was the day after surgery. when it was all swollen and stitched up under that gauze. You can still see the remnants of one of the black eyes, though.

But good comes from pain, right?

I read a bunch of books – including Mary’s In Too Deep – because there was no way I could focus enough to write.

And I figured out a plot point for Finding Mr. Write. I wonder… if I give a character skin cancer on her nose, can I write all this off as research? 😉

Somehow, I doubt the IRS will go for that 😀

In Too Deep – Mary Connealy

This is the second book in the Kinkaid Brides series by Mary. While not strictly necessary to read Out of Control first, those who have will understand some of what’s going on a bit more readily as the storyline picks up just days after the first book ends.

Ethan agrees to marry young mother, Audra, but has little understanding of what it means to be married. Other than his parents’ poor example, the only real “role models” he has is his older brother – who is married to Ethan’s new wife’s step-daughter and has been for a whopping few days.

Audra is coming out of an abusive marriage to a man who cared more about his “cover” than he ever did about his wife or daughters. She’s tired of men running her life and agrees to the marriage only because she has to protect her girls.

I absolutely loved this story.

That’s not really surprising since I’ve loved every Mary book I’ve ever read [and I love Mary, too, but that’s neither here nor there ;)].

I had surgery last week. More on that another day, but I needed something fun and not too heavy to read and Mary’s book fit the bill. I even made the hubby drive around town to find it [I couldn’t! I was on narcotics!] =D.

Ethan and Audra are wonderful! Ethan is wonderfully clueless about marriage and Audra is wonderfully willing to be wrong about marriage. Eventually.

Her two little girls are adorable and I’m always impressed with how much Audra in particular, but Ethan and the others, too, are able to get done with a baby/toddler in arms.

I think Mary has been taking lessons from Julie Lessman because there’s much more kissing in this one – and they were wonderful, too :D.

Ethan has spent his life avoiding caring too deeply because when you care you can get hurt. Audra and the girls are about to make that impossible for him. Audra has to learn that sometimes it’s okay to let the man in her life take care of her – because this time he’s worthy of her trust.

And when they finally allow themselves to feel everything for each other? Well, it’s wonderful.

Even the bad guys – and especially, the bad gal – are well-written and worthy of a Mary Connealy plot line. They’ve got their work cut out for them with the Kinkaid brothers on the other side. And the Kinkaid brothers won’t just roll over.

One of the other things Mary did wonderfully well was to use a geographic feature as a character in itself. The cavern is amazing as it comes to life – in the present and in the memories of Ethan and his brothers. It would be a wonderful place to see in a documentary/docu-drama on Discovery or the Travel Channel – but I don’t know that I’d be comfortable exploring it :D.

The only down side to In Too Deep? The end. You know. Where it ends. Because it seems that this trilogy has a couple of overarching storylines that will draw them all together. And because Over the Edge doesn’t come out until August. :

Overall Rating: 9.25 out of 10 stars [because August is sooooooo far away!]

This review has been brought to you by the letter W and the word of the day – wonderful.