MONDAY MUSING: BLESS HIS HEART

I'm hiding the tan one from hubs. It's the one he'll love. Sigh.

I think I mentioned that I’m a multi-creative person. There are many things I enjoy doing using those skills. It works well with writing and I’m steadily plugging away on my story—one chunk of words at a time.

Then there is my living room. God knows it is in dire need of creative attention. It’s pictured in Webster’s as the definition of blah. Go ahead, laugh, but I swear it’s true.

When we bought our house, several years ago, there were so many things that needed attention. It was a sound house but honestly, it was the outside that was the draw—barns, pasture, room for my growing family of Great Danes. It didn’t help that I couldn’t actually move there until my son finished out his school term. Two separate households for almost a year. My husband, bless his heart, tried to put things in order and arrange the furniture set up the kitchen and bedrooms. But his idea of decorating and mine are, well, poles apart. I don’t do, gasp, naked walls. Especially naked white walls. Years in the military just put a major hurt in my soul over the color white—except for ceilings. I love bright white ceilings.

There was just too much to do outside to worry about the inside. I had hay fields to harvest, pens for the Great Danes to build, and I needed to prepare for the horses moving up to their new home. Fences fortify, a barn and outbuildings to clean, a new lagoon to build, replacing pipes some numbnut put in wrong.

When I had the chance to breathe I really got a look at the inside I calculated and decided oh, well, sheetrock will have to wait and we’ll live with white, shudder, paneling. That didn’t keep me from incorporating lots of color—after all, I had lots of experience doing that—pictures, wall décor, cushions, throws, and nick knacks. At least the carpet wasn’t a shade of white.

This is the year of redoing the living room. 


Hubs cringed when he saw my color selections. He looked lost over terms like focal wall and color accents, and he actually shuddered when he considered the upheaval and chaos involved.

“It’s called Pomegranate? Isn’t this color you painted the barn a couple of years ago?” 

“Nope, that was barn red exterior rustoleum. This will have a satin finish. Not at all the same shade. See?” I take him outside so he can look down toward the barn and hold up the paint chip. He squints in the direction of the barn and back at the chip.  “It’s really, um, bright.” 

“Yeah, isn’t it wonderful?”  He gives me that look he reserves for people who have seen UFO’s and met the aliens. “Are you sure this green and purplish color goes with pomegranate?”  I launch into an explanation of accent colors complementary tetrad colors. His eyes glaze over. 

“Honey, trust me. You’ll love it when it’s done. You’ll see how the lime green and lavender pillows will blend and make the room pop.” His jaw drops at the mention of lime green and lavender and mutters under his breath. I think I heard something about sunglasses. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t mention the turquoise and lime plaid throw I have on order.

So, with him being out of state for several weeks of training, it’s the perfect time to redo the room. It’s not done yet, but I am intimately acquainted with Lowe’s cavernous floor plan (I hadn’t set foot in this store until this week). I’ve trekked miles, the past week, in search for everything I need. I know the clerks by name. I’ve ferreted out all the sale items. I’ve ordered clearance sale (I love clearance sales even though I don’t love shopping) lamps online and saved seventy-five percent off store price (Pats myself on the back).

I’ll let you know how my traditional husband deals with the finished product. Wait until he sees the turquoise watering can vase with sunflowers and purple heather arrangement. He’s just going to love that throw I got for the back of his recliner, too.

Bless his heart. 

ROCK STARS—The Quintessential Bad Boys of Romance

My guest is erotic romance author, Olivia Cunning. She's here, today, to talk about bad boys and making them hero material. We all love them, or at least, we love to read about them. Olivia is also introducing her new series, One Night With Sole Regret.  

As an author (and a woman), I never really questioned the appeal of dating a bad boy. Romance with a bad boy is never dull. It’s fun. Dramatic. Hard on the heart. At first, the excitement fuels the romance—what is he going to do today?—but usually that excitement wears off and you realize he’s not a bad boy, he’s just a jerk. That’s a fine line to toe when you’re writing a romance novel. Readers love the bad boy hero—it’s fun to fantasize dating one—but no one likes a jerk.

So how do I take a man who has thoughts like this

Gabe caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and he turned his gaze on the sweet piece of ass beside him at the bar. Long, brown curls fell to the middle of her back, and her jeans clung to her curvy backside in a most distracting fashion. High-heeled sandals accentuated her long legs, which would look perfect wrapped around his hips. If the front of her looked half as spectacular as the back, he was definitely interested in hanging around a while longer. He wasn’t that exhausted. 

and turn him into someone the heroine and the reader can fall in love with?

Easy.

Introduce him to the right woman and turn his world upside down.

The ultimate bad boy fantasy is not to turn him into a good boy, but for him to show his hidden good side to one very special woman. He won’t change for her (that never works), but he will find all that’s good in himself because of her. At least, that’s my bad boy fantasy, so that’s what tends to happen in my rock star erotic romances.

It’s even more interesting when you start with a heroine who is not attracted to the bad boy type and he has to win her over. In my most recent novella, Try Me, that’s what happens when Melanie meets Gabe. She doesn’t realize that she’s talking to the drummer of a famous rock band.

Melanie relaxed into the sofa cushions, glad she’d found a normal person to talk to. She’d thought she’d have to spend the entire night pretending to be invisible. “Melanie Anderson.

Yours?”

He laughed. “You really aren’t enamored with the band, are you, Melanie?”

What did that have to do with telling her his name? “I like their music, but they’re not my favorite band or anything. A bit too heavy for my tastes. Nikki is the one obsessed with them. She dragged me here against my will.”

“ I’m Gabriel Banner.” He grinned at her and suddenly overwarm, she wondered if someone had switched off the AC. “Call me Gabe.”

A totally normal name for a totally normal guy. She would have felt uncomfortable talking to any of the other men in the room—tattooed, pierced, strange haircuts, chains and leather—but Gabe looked as normal as she did. She smiled and offered her free hand in greeting. His hand slid into hers. Though he clasped her hand with a gentle grip, she could feel the strength in those long fingers. Her heart fluttered when his fingers brushed the back of her hand. “Nice to meet you, Gabe. How did a normal-looking guy like you end up backstage with all these, erm, interesting folks?”

He hesitated and then laughed as if he thought she was joking. “They’re great, aren’t they? Are you from Tulsa?”

She shook her head. “Kansas. Nikki wanted to meet Shade so badly that she made me drive here with her. She couldn’t get backstage last night. I guess she got what she wanted tonight though. Where are you from?”

“Austin.”

She did recognize a hint of a drawl in his speech, but she wouldn’t have pegged him as a Texan—his jeans weren't tight enough to cut off the circulation to his balls. She supposed the Rangers ball cap should have given her a clue. “Did you drive all the way from Austin just to see Sole Regret?”

He laughed again and tugged on one earlobe. He was certainly easy to amuse. And the deep, rich sound of his amusement had her considering clown school to keep him laughing regularly.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” he said.

Gabe took the final draw of his beer, extended the empty bottle, and gave it a little shake. Within twenty seconds it had been replaced with a fresh brew.

Sipping her water, she wondered why the bartender was so eager to do Gabe’s bidding.

“So, do you know the band?”

He smiled again and Melanie feared she’d melt. She was very interested in putting a permanent smile on his handsome face.

“We’ve met…

When she does figure it out, that’s not what attracts her to him. What attracts her is all of those parts of him that he hides from the world because they don’t fit his bad boy image.

“Tell me something else that makes you less cool,” Melanie said.

“Gee, Mel, do you have all night? Don’t you know that most rock stars began life as outcasts who didn’t want to be weird but found a bunch of kindred outcasts to make music with? A few of us somehow manage to make a living off it. Most of us have to supplement our music habit by delivering pizzas.” 

"But being an outcast makes you normal."

He shook his head in confusion. “If you say so.”

“What were you like in high school?”

He groaned inwardly and considered making shit up. He’d been a walking disaster. “Braces.”

“That explains your perfect smile.”

She thought his smile was perfect? Maybe all those painful visits to the orthodontist had been worth it.

“What else?” she pressed.

“Tall and skinny.” Was she trying to talk herself out of sleeping with him or what?

She lifted the hem of his shirt to flash his belly. “Not an ounce of fat on those abs, but not skinny. Fit. And you are tall. I suppose that’s a benefit for a drummer.”

“I was so not attractive, Mel, I didn’t touch my first boob until I was twenty.”

“And how many boobs have you touched since?”

He grinned. “I don’t grope and tell.”

I love to dig deep into my rock star characters’ pasts and show that there is more to them than what the public is exposed to. Take a rock god and make him human. Take a bad boy and let him be bad, but have him treat his woman oh-so good.

BUY: AMAZON, B&N, SMASHWORDS

TRY ME by Olivia Cunning

For the five sexy rock gods of Sole Regret, finding love is easy, keeping it is hard.

Melanie has no desire to meet the members of the rock band, Sole Regret, but her groupie of a best friend gets them both backstage and then rushes off with the band’s lead singer. Left alone at an after party with a bunch of scary tattooed and pierced metal-heads, sheltered Melanie is relieved when the only normal-looking guy in the room insists on keeping her company.

By the time Melanie discovers that Gabe is the band’s drummer and not as normal as she assumed, she has already made a complete fool of herself. She can’t help but be interested in him, not as a rock star, but as the sexiest man she’s ever encountered. Strangely attracted to his hidden tattoos and body piercing, she wonders what it would be like to spend a night with a bad boy.

Gabe is more than willing to show sweet Melanie there’s more to him than meets the eye. All she has to do is try him. Will they only share a single night of passion? Or will their hearts entangle as quickly as their bodies?

Try Me is the first erotic novella in Olivia Cunning’s One Night with Sole Regret series.

Contains explicit sex, graphic language, and a hot rock star with a naughty and inventive mind. 

Available in ebook format only

Combining her love for romantic fiction and rock 'n roll, Olivia Cunning writes erotic romance centered around rock musicians. She also writes romantic fantasy under the pen name Olivia Downing.

Raised on hard rock music from the cradle, she attended her first Styx concert at age six and fell instantly in love with live music. She's been known to travel over a thousand miles just to see a favorite band in concert. As a teen, she discovered her second love, romantic fiction—first, voraciously reading steamy romance novels and then penning her own. For more information visit http://www.oliviacunning.com.

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

I believe our attitude towards a task colors how well we do it. It also determines how easy or difficult it is and how we feel when a task is done. Part of attitude is how we view life. Optimism and pessimism also play into the equation.

I’ve observed, over the years, that positive people find solutions to problems quicker. That could be because they don’t allow negatives to define them or shoot them down before they start. They realize that a negative attitude makes the task twice as hard to solve.  The positive person knows there is a solution. It might not be exactly what they would want the outcome to be, but the solution is there if they take the time to look for pieces and follow the threads. They don’t give up easily. Perhaps it’s that very persistence that yields success.

The past few months I had been analyzing myself and doing quite a bit of reading on craft and motivation. What was I doing different now than before. How could I turn on my creativity again and work through my negatives.

I belong to a fabulous writing group made up of successful professionals from all walks of life and at different levels of writing success. We regularly discuss all sorts of writing issues. One of the topics under discussion was regaining writing momentum. I had asked:

• If you've taken a break, what’s drawn you back to writing? 
• What keeps you putting one word in front of the other, even when discouraged, tired, or busy?

• What excites you about what you're working on now?

Most of my group work, have families, and write. We also have quite a few published authors. We have to juggle life and our writing, so as you can imagine, there were quite a few good points made—good answers. There was a definite pattern emerging and one I had seen for myself. One of our NYT bestsellers made a comment that brought it all into focus.

“When it's [the writing] hard, I think about the fact that it is a job that I've committed to…the first rule of a job is, you show up, whether you feel like it or not.”

Bingo! There it was. Attitude. It wasn’t about waiting for the muse to show up, or writing when the mood strikes. It was about the perception that writing was a job. You write. You have a routine you employ to do the job of writing. You sit in the chair and write whether it’s coming easy or hard. You are a writer. You choose to be a professional, not an amateur—or at least, if you wish to be a published author you do. If you want to succeed at any artistic endeavor to show up and go to work.

I needed to rethink my writing. What was my goal with my writing? Had it changed? Was I a professional or an amateur? Amateurs can afford to procrastinate; professionals don’t have that luxury if they want to do their job and meet their commitments.

I don’t have the stamina I had. I can’t write the hours I did, yet. It’s just as someone trains for a marathon. If you’ve never run or haven’t done it for years you aren’t going to fare well if you decide to run in tomorrow’s race. You have to build up to it and in smaller doable steps. Build up resilience and strength. You have to have determination and the desire to finish the race. That is what gets you to the daily practice no matter how you feel or what the weather is. It’s what keeps you at the sprints to build stamina, or the set of stairs you run up and down. You push through the resistance from your mind and body. You work through the sore muscles.

So I’ve set smaller goals (sometimes I can do a whole chapter and other times it’s only a few hundred words) and celebrate when I reach my goal. I’m setting up a workable routine. In the beginning it was a matter of setting a timer. When the timer goes off, I’m done. If the words are hard, I push through the resistance. Sometimes it means going to a different scene and coming back to the one that’s giving me fits. I’m not angsting over how it looks or over some of the word choices (sometimes that is the hardest part for me because I want it just so), I know I can edit it later—but I can’t edit what I don’t have down. As a good friend of mine says, looking at your writing as a job helps one depersonalize the process of creating—a way of distancing yourself from the process. Getting the words down is the job.

Honestly, for me it’s work in progress. I’m not ready to run the marathon but I show up and work. The amateur talks about it and does it haphazardly or not at all. I’ve determined that I’m a professional and I’m firm in my commitment to win—one chunk of words at a time.

MONDAY MUSINGS: Overcoming My Resistance

What do you do when you want to write but resistance fights you tooth and nail?

Any break we take from our regular writing routine can make it difficult to find the rhythm we once had—the longer the break the harder the recovery. This is the biggest problem I’ve faced since my recuperation from playing catch with my personal crash and burn comet.

I mentioned last month (Insecure Writers) that I have two different attitudes toward writing.  I’m very focused and disciplined when it comes to my professional writing. Even being sick I managed to get my blog up every week and on time. Granted it might not have been as stellar as pre-comet but it was done. The funny thing is? I never considered pulling back or letting the blog go fallow.

I wasn’t writing much fiction at all and what I did write, sucked, in my opinion. Part of that is how fiction and storytelling is different from non-fiction. For me, that is. I can’t speak for other writers. I paint scenes and emotion with words. There is an ebb and flow to it. You know when your creative gates are open. You also know when persistence will open the gates to your creative well. When you can’t find the words or the words you do find, in misty fog of your personal creative pool, aren’t working and aren’t connecting, it’s frustrating. For me it was like trying to play a musical piece I knew by heart and had played many times, and forgetting whole sections or fumbling over well known notes—like I had never played it before. No matter how hard I tried it wouldn’t come out smooth. I walked away. It was easier than facing my dissatisfaction with my performance.

It had gotten to the point that anytime I would consider the work of writing there was resistance to the whole idea. That became a pattern. One I didn’t like because I need to write. I need to get the words out. Whether they change the world or merely finish the damn story, I don’t care. It’s something inside of me that needs to be expressed. If it isn’t expressed it dims my joy in life. I’m a creative person and while I can find other things to occupy my creative spirit, it isn’t as satisfying because it’s a substitute for what I really want to do. 

My reality, at the height of my illness, was I couldn’t write. I couldn’t connect. But I also knew it was temporary. So, I appeased my inner writer by saying when I’m better and able to think clearly again, I’ll resume writing fiction. And that, ladies and gents, became a piece of fiction in itself.

Why?

Because as my mind cleared and I was again able to draw the words and emotions from my creative well I still found resistance to writing. Say what? Yeah. The pattern of quitting when I got frustrated or it became hard was pretty much entrenched. Yikes.

The writer that tells you that the words always flow and the stories are easy is either lying or living in an alternate universe. We all hit spots that required discipline and yes, work. Even when we get the essence of the scene down, the editing of the word choices, the phrasing and descriptions, and the action and emotion, is work. Hard work. You strive for painting the scene as clearly as you can and giving it the most impact. That may take several revisions. Revisions and editing are not easy. Or at least they aren’t in my world.

When faced with things that go wrong in my life I’m an analyzer. I have to find the problem and then ways to fix it. In my experience, there is a gap between identifying the root of a problem and adjusting that root so the problem grows a solution. Even when I see the solution I still must make the adjustments and that takes, groan, persistent effort and a strong desire to change. We don’t change unless we want to. No one can do it for us. We have to be self-motivating. We have to want it badly enough to modify our actions and create or recreate the correct pattern.

The question became: how do I get my creative mind to stay on and not shut off at the first sign of trouble? 


I now know the root cause of my inability to stick to my creative writing.

Attitude.

My attitude changed towards my creative writing. I was treating it as if it was an option instead of a job I enjoyed. Let me backtrack here a bit and say that while some of my writing has been a mood thing—poetry, experiments in other genres—my main storytelling work has always had a strict routine. I did it everyday. I had a set time to do it. I worked until that time was up. So while it was for pleasure there was a very proscribed routine attached. I looked at my routine, and excuse me while I laugh my ass off at using that word. Ahem. I made another discovery. I didn’t have a routine anymore. I also didn’t have the stamina to write in as long a session as I did before. I lost my energy and endurance.

I’m happy to report I am writing again and I’m rebuilding my routine. I’m feeling good at what I’ve accomplished. I’m not where I was two years ago. But I’m taking the correct steps. It’s coming.

I’ll share a bit more about that on Wednesday.

Weekend Musings: IN NEED OF HEROES

FYI: I will be taking vacation days the first week of July. 

We can’t deny that our economic situation is precarious to say the least. There are so many things out of our power to control in today’s world. The truth of the matter is we don’t like the feeling of being powerless. 

My husband and I were discussing some of the movies we’ve watched over the past year. What drew us to those particular movies? Those who know me also know I love kick-ass movies. While I do watch some romantic comedies, or drama, I prefer action adventure. 

• Captain America, which was a blend of old fashion values of a bygone age and a hero who could beat the odds. Win the day. A hero you liked and could respect.

• Fast Five because while this crew was considered criminals they had heart and values. Plus they outsmarted a really nasty bad guy. That I loved. It highlighted the point that a family isn’t always blood but can be comrades. Plus Vin Diesel and the Rock weren’t bad to look at. I loved the precision driving, hot cars, and danger.

• Abduction, because sometimes ordinary people become heroes in extraordinary circumstances, especially when their life is on the line (there are several movies I could add here that I've seen and fit that description).

• Sherlock Holmes harks back to an older time, which is part of the appeal, but a time on the edge of so many new technological advancements. It’s the feeling of optimism and hope that draws me as well as intellect. Naturally there is plenty of action to satisfy me. And Jude Law and Robert Downey are fine specimens of manhood, lol!

• Tower Heist gave me something to laugh over while and rooting for the little guy, the ones without a lot of power and influence. But they did have brains and used them to win. 

• The feel good movies: We Bought a Zoo, Friends With Benefits, Bridesmaids, Real Steel, and War Horse. 

• The safety valve and laughter movies: Bad Bosses, Bad Teacher, and The Hangover (Hubs and son and they also love horror movies).

Art by Joe Jusko

I look down my list and see a lot of heroes. I think in tough times people need heroes to save the day. It’s not surprising to find out that Batman (gotta love a guy named after a Scottish hero and inspired by Sherlock Holmes and The Shadow) and Superman (superhuman abilities and a strong moral values) were born in the 1930’s in the middle of the depression. The Phantom (one of my all time favorites) is another hero that was born in the 1930’s no superhero abilities but like Batman, a strong sense of justice, the ability to use intellect and strength to accomplish victory in their battles. Captain America was born at the beginning of WWII.

Heroes give us hope and something to cheer on to victory. They accomplish things we can’t but heroes like Sherlock Holmes, Batman (the dark knight), The Phantom (the gray knight) are very human. They merely use their brains and strength to effect changes in their world and win the day and that offers hope to a very human population. 

It tells us that individuals can make a difference if we stand for what’s right. We can win if we act.

zzzz

A few things:

Over Coffee will be on vacation the first week in July. I'll be rerunning some articles and I will do a Insecure Writers article. Hubs is off for training for a month starting the second week of July.

A few of my favorite heroes:

1 Those wondering when Anita Clenny is coming out with a new book--later this fall and it will be a new series, Guardians of Stone (you can read a brief excerpt) yay! And she will be releasing the third in current series, Unleash The Highland Warrior (hope to have a date for you soon). I've been missing her books.

Amazon, B&N, 

Amazon, B&N

• DONNA GRANT has a new book released in her Dark Warrior Series. The cool thing is, they're back to back releases. 
• Last month it was Midnight's Master (Logan) excerpt and just released, Midnight's Lover (Ian) excerpt.
• AND if that wasn't enough to look forward to she is also starting a new series, Dark Kings which will be released as a special ebook novellas July, August,and September. These two series will have overlap stories, which I think will be very cool.  

  

SUMMERTIME AND THE LIVING IS...?

Well busy, hot, and sweaty. I swear there are times there isn’t enough hours in the day to get what has to be done finished. At least the hay is cut. The garden is alive, despite the lack of normal rain and relatively weed free. I have a list of things to do and have enjoyed ticking off the completed items.

But the sad truth is we tend to focus on the things we have to do. Those are the things that weigh on a person. We’re adults and we have responsibilities. But summer isn’t just about the must do things. Isn’t also about fun? We need to take time to find the fun and joy of being.

Being a person who needs balance in my life, I realize I also need fun things to do. Things I enjoy. The quiet time sitting outside of a morning with a fresh cup of coffee and listening to the birds sing up the sun. The quiet chuckle over silly hummingbirds arguing over who owns the feeder—or the flowers. I have a pair of nesting swallows that have a nest every year in the eaves of my breezeway/patio. It’s always fun to watch them raise up their babies. My horses, cats, and Danes—all give me joy and I do spend a lot of time with them.


Laughter is one of life’s joys.

I've also had a chance to go to the theater and see some good movies. So far my favorite has been The Avengers. Visits to my family are always something I enjoy and in the summer I try to get down to visit every other week. Two weeks ago I took a day and just visited family. My mom and I had a great time laughing and joking and sharing life’s moments. My great uncle Buddy sent my mom a small book he put together of the fox ranch my grandfather had back in the 40’s and he raised mink in the 50’s. She grew up in the Hayward area of Wisconsin and the ranch was at Lands End. Very remote and still is.  Lots of pictures of the house he built for my grandmother, pictures of my mother as a girl, my great uncles and aunt. Some pictures I hadn’t seen of my great-grandmother and grandfather Adams. Weddings, holidays, and family parties. He did it in story form and my mom loves it. He’s a published author and a retired (well mostly) wildlife biologist. He written and co-authored quite a few non-fiction books on the subject.

Later that afternoon I spent time with my brothers sharing a few beers around the pool and talking kids, jobs, and the vagaries of life after forty. Damn those body parts anyway.

I’ve visited with a nearby friend; I call her the goddess of the woods. She’s full of laughter and fun. She is a fascinating conversationalist and natural healing practitioner. 

And I’ve read quite a bit. Currently I’m reading a really good thriller called 72 Hours by William Casey Moreton (and will be reading more of his work). Other excellent books I’ve enjoyed; I Own The Dawn The Night Stalkers, ML Buchman, The Flower Reader, Elizabeth Loupas, Midnight’s Master, Donna Grant. A non-fiction, You Are A Writer (So Start Acting Like One) Jeff Goins. I’ve read other good books but these are in the excellent category for me.

And writing. I’m having fun with my current story and characters. I’m writing slower than I normally do but it’s steady progress.

• What have you done to balance out all the Must Do things? 
• What are some things you enjoy doing away from the computer and internet?
• Any fun vacation plans?

Making a living is not the same as making a life.

MONDAY MUSING—In Need Of Brakes or Is It Breaks?

Has anyone seen my brakes? The one that slows down life to a manageable trot rather than a mad sprint to collapse?  Whoever has them give ‘em back, dammit.

Last summer wasn’t this crazy, but then I wasn’t terribly healthy at the time and didn’t notice stuff and what I did notice was a case of Pfft, who cares? This summer I’m totally present and pulling out my hair in the race to beat summer to the fall with all the accumulated chores of the past couple of years. They gotta get done before winter and snow and ice—I say that with temps over 90 degrees outside. I’m desperately striving for organizing chaos and feeling one step behind everything. Some days are middling, others fair (as in fair to middling), but some days are spot on. There is hope. 

But all this does underline the fact I’m not as present online as I have been. No offense to anyone or their writing or their blogs. I’m allotting the alphabet designations for the TO DO list, x-amount of time for online, y-amount for my writing, and zzzzz.

On to breaks and Guest blogging.

Something I don’t get asked to do very much is be a guest on someone’s blog. At least not as much as I did a few years ago. But Jo thought a break was in store for me so that’s where I’ll be *Musing* today.

JO ON FOOD, MY TRAVELS, AND A SCENT OF CHOCOLATE   My topic is, GEMSTONES—A POWER FOR HEALING? Can they be a force to heal or is it an old wives tale?

What are your thoughts on using gems as a means to heal? Stop by Jo's and share your thoughts on the matter.