Love Is...

sharing a little laughter!

What makes your hubby laugh? A good comedy? A clean joke? Funny prank? Or an all out tickle fight?

If it's a prank, I've got one for you to try. If your hubby isn't fond of snakes, but has a very strong heart, and might get a kick out this, have fun with it. Find a curled English cucumber, the longer the better. Be sure to clean off all the prickles so that it is nice and smooth. Slip between the sheets on hubby's side of the bed far enough down that he won't notice it until he crawls in and feels it. Be ready for a quick exit from the bed and a good laugh when he realizes it's only a cucumber and not the dreaded snake he thought it was!

My challenge this week is to share a good laugh with hubby while we are at the cottage. Would love to hear what gets your hubby laughing.

Surrendering to Him,

Eileen

Winner of Return To Love...

Congratulations to T. Anne! My middle daughter picked your ballot. Please send me your snail mail address to eileenastels[at]rogers[dot]com for me to send this fun read out to you.

Thanks everyone who commented on my slush pile post. You guys are an awesome, encouraging, and wonderful bunch of blogging buddies! Have no fear, I am right back into finishing my current ms. The goal is to have it ready for conference too. Big goal, so I must stay focused.

The ROM was great yesterday with hubby. They only had fragments of a few of the Dead Sea Scrolls on exhibit and no pictures were aloud. But the wealth of information displayed was awesome, and we loved seeing so many other exhibits as well. The highlight of the day, though, was the flooding. Seriously, what took us one hour and twenty minutes to travel in the morning, took nearly four hours in the evening because of stalling cars and the highway getting flooded from a torrential downpour. AMAZING!! Like driving through a lake, and we could only that by squeezing into the left lane. Definite sewage or engineering issues in that part of the highway.

What's the weirdest thing you've ever experienced on one of your excursions?


Surrendering to Him,

Eileen

Welcoming Me into the Slush Pile

I don't know whether to cry or leap for joy, but yes, I've finally done it!

On this, my nineteenth wedding anniversary, I'm joining the ranks of you wonderful writers who have submitted queries and synopsis into the infamous slush pile of Steeple Hill Books, or any other editors/agents slush pile for that matter. We're just one big happy slush family, no matter where our labored pages reside, right?

After mailing my baby out this morning, hubby and I will be celebrating our anniversary in Toronto, checking out the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit there. I still can't find my camera, so I'm bumbed about that, but hopefully one of our daughters will loan me theirs for the day.

So, for you experienced ones, just how do you manage the slush pile wait? I'm actually looking forward to receiving my first official rejection letter to start the progressive writers process. It's got to happen some time, so I'm gathering courage and just praying that some helpful advice will come with the expected letter. I think I might curl up and die if I receive only a form letter rejection. Don't even want to think of how I would handle that after nearly seven years of writing my heart out. That's yet another scenario to add to my prayers.

So how long of a wait have you all endured? And how did you keep from splitting from anticipation as those final weeks approached?

Surrendering to Him,

Eileen

Can You Take Just One?

Last week I got some wonderful activity ideas from you great blogging buddies for our upcoming week at the cottage, so today I'm going to share a couple recipes that will be going with my family to the cottage. If you have some tried and true recipes to share too, I'd love to have them. My family and I will be in the kitchen pre-preparing for our week at the cottage, as well as packing up a storm. So here's my recipes to share:

Elephant Ears

1/2 dozen eggs
4 to 6 cups flour
1 cup sugar

Mix ingredients until dough is firm, not runny. Keep adding flour until a good consistency for rolling is achieved, but not too dry.

Roll dough flat until just under a 1/4 inch thick. Cut into strips about 1 inch wide and then cut those strips diagonally every four inches or so. Cut a hole in the center of each 4-inch segment and draw one end through the center to make a twist in the dough.

Fry in pre-heated oil until golden brown. Remove from oil and sprinkle with sugar immediately, while still piping hot. (Must be careful of not heating the oil too much, or these will burn easily.)

The recipe doesn't sound like much, but trust me, these are addictive, and a great change from chips. They stay fresh quite a while sealed in an airtight container, too.


And now for a recipe with some alcohol in it for those who don't mind a drink now and again. We used to love sipping on one of these while walking the beach of Lake Superior in Batchawana Bay, Ontario. It's one of my sister's favorites, and even the men enjoyed this girly drink too. It makes a huge batch, so you'll want to have lots of adult friends around to share it with.

Slush

1 cup Galliano
2 cups Vodka
2 cups strong tea
2 cups sugar
1 can orange juice
1 can lemonade
6 cups water

Dissolve sugar in hot tea and add all other ingredients. Freeze in a 4 litre ice cream tub. At serving time, mix half cup slush with half cup gingerale or sprite, and enjoy! Very tasty!


Don't forget, I'm giving away a copy of Betsy St. Amant's Return to Love on Wednesday of this week. If you haven't entered the drawing yet, click here and leave a comment to be entered.


Surrendering to Him,

Eileen

Save the Penguins... and a Book Giveaway

We interrupt my Love Is... Friday post for a peek at author Betsy St. Amant and her debut Steeple Hill Love Inspired novel Return to Love that released this month, July 2009.

Return to Love is a fun read! I loved the penguins in it, especially their names. And the youth group involvement brought back so many fond memories for me. The main characters, Gracie and Carter, were well developed and I could connect with and understand each of their reservations and concerns. Betsy St. Amant offers some wonderful one liners in this novel too. She had me chortling more than once at her unique characters.

I'm really looking forward to her next story, A Valentine's Wish, being released February 2010 by Steeple Hill LI as well.

Betsy was kind enough to answer a few questions for me. So here they are:

1) Your writing is so fresh, fun, and telling, Betsy. And I've just got to know where a couple lines came from. Lines like: "You're making a bird's nest out of French fries." and "Carter shifted in the dark theater, wishing he were sitting beside Gracie instead of Andy, who smacked popcorn like a six-year-old." Did these come from life experiences, or is this solely your creative mind at work?

Well thank you! I guess it was just my creativity coming through, because those lines weren't premeditated. That's when writing is so fun to me, in those moments where something funny or completely random pops out of your fingers onto the keyboard and you laugh at yourself. =)

2) I know you have another book contracted for Steeple Hill LI to come out in 2010, so can you tell us now that you're on the publishing treadmill, how long does it take you from start to submission to write an LI novel? And just for comparison, how long did it take you to write and prepare Return to Love before you submitted it?

I have two books scheduled for 2010 so far. The first is the sequel to Return to Love, titled A Valentine's Wish, which picks up with Lori's story at a chocolate boutique in the French quarter. It releases February 2010. My third Steeple Hill novel will release April 2010 and its a separate story, set on a dude ranch in Texas, titled Rodeo Sweetheart.

Now that I'm selling on proposal to Steeple Hill, I have to have my story plotted out, obviously, to make the sell. I have deadlines to work with now too, so obviously I am more motivated! On average, from proposal submission to turning in the final manuscript is about 4 months. Then of course the rest of the process varies over the next several months, back and forth with my editor--revisions, line edits, final galleys, etc.

Return to Love took me much longer to write compared to my second two SH novels because of the circumstances. I wrote the story and my agent submitted it. Then a few weeks later, SH sent me a revision letter, saying they were interested but would need to see major changes before saying anything about a contract. I made the revisions, resubmitted, and then was contracted. Upon contracting there were a few more plot tweaks, then line edits, etc. And WHEW, we finally had a book. =)

3) And lastly, what compels you to write short (55k to 60k word) category romances? You do it so well, that I'm assuming your compelled.

Well thanks!! I don't feel that way! haha!! I guess I do what I have to. Some stories it's easier to write "short", but other times its a struggle and I go over my word count and then have to cut. One day I do hope to publish my full length stories, I have several--but that's in God's timing! =)

And here's Return to Love's Back cover blurb: "I'm not the man I used to be!" - if only Gracie Broussard could believe that. Years ago, Cater Alexander broke her heart and betrayed her. Now, just when she needs him most, he's back--asking her to believe he's changed. But this time, it's not just Gracie who'll be hurt if he disappears. A penguin keeper, Gracie urgently needs to find a new home for her beloved birds. Carter is the only one who can help. He promises that she can trust him, that he's not the rebel he once was. And that he needs Gracie as much as her birds do.

Now, to order a copy of Return to Love, click here for the Amazon.com link. You can also try and win a copy through my blog by letting me know you want your name put in the drawing in the comment section. I'll draw the winner next Tuesday evening and post their name on Wednesday.

Good Luck Everyone!!


Surrendering to Him,

Eileen

Preparing for the Cottage

I'm getting so excited. In less than two weeks we are packing up and heading to cottage country--the whole family, dogs included--one full week of bonding, fun, and relaxation time together.

We won't have Internet access, so that'll be my unplug week. Now, this could be a problem, though, for my munchkins, two of which are huge fans of the Internet and use it to interact with their multitude of teenage friends. So, in order to keep them busy and minimize their Internet withdrawal symptoms, I'm trying to come up with some fun activities that can keep us all busy, and happy.

Here's what I have so far:

Cards
Balderdash
Go-karting (it's near our cottage, but $$ dictates that this won't be a regular event throughout the week)
Camp fires with lots of smore ingredients and spidy wieners

and...

that's it. I know, that's a sad list, isn't it!

Anyone have any suggestions? I'd love to hear them!

Hope you'll stop by on Friday for a quick interview with author Betsy St. Amant and a book giveaway offer, and then on Monday, I'll share a couple favorite cottage recipes I have from many moons ago that we always took to the cottage prior to becoming parents. If you have a great cottage recipe of your own, I hope you'll share it on Monday too. We'll be pre-preparing snacks and meals to take with us on vacation throughout next week. Some new ones to try would be wonderful!


Surrendering to Him,

Eileen

Got the Call last week

No silly! Not one from an agent or editor. Are you crazy? I haven't even sent anything out yet.

No, this was an inner call that sent my writing in a new direction, no, actually, in an old direction. I still have about 15,000 words to go to finish my first draft of the story that's a Genesis finalist, so I'm in a bit of a quandary getting this call or tug or whatever you want to label it at this time. But what do you do?

An old story beckoned me to make another pass of revisions, and man, I'm finding myself falling in love with it all over again. Don't you just love it when your inners flutter and dance in anticipation of the scenes to come? And the neurons in your head churn and spin ways to make the current scene more active, conflict riddled, and tight. These are the experiences that verify that I followed the right call this past week.

But...

And there's always a but, right?

I'm investing a good chunk of savings to head to Denver in September to attend my first (and probably last, considering the expense) ACFW conference, and I need that Genesis finalist ms to be complete with at least one round of revisions under it so that I can take full advantage of being a finalist, and pitch that baby in hopes of receiving some partial requests. But the revisions to this other novel are taking more time than I expected, though they really are helping, so I must keep going. So I'm reaching out and asking for prayer.

If you can squeeze another item into your prayer agenda, I'd really appreciate your prayers regarding my fitting all this in while maintaining a relationship with my family. God is huge, and I know if I listen to His guidance He'll show me the way to accomplish all this within two months. But I'm a little deaf at times, so I'd appreciate you asking Him to shout when He's talking to me.

I'm praying that we all have a productive and eventful week ahead! Blessings to you all!


Surrendering to Him,

Eileen