The Real World.

Big excitement of the week is the installation of an exhaust fan in my kitchen. This has been an ongoing saga. Last year, we repainted the kitchen and discovered just how deep the grease from the stove had penetrated the paint. We had to scrape it back to the bare wood. So we decided an exhaust fan was a necessity. The only problem is that the stove is in front of a window so I can stare at the view while I stir the pot. (one of my favourite occupations…stirring).

This meant that any of the normal exhaust fans which fit to the wall or cupboards above the stove were useless. So we started looking for an island stove exhaust fan. Apparently this is a luxury design because the prices were *cough* a little expensive.

Finally I found a display model at a Harvey Norman store. And this is it. Now I just need to renovate the entire kitchen to match it.

ARC Reviews

I’m reading Nicole Helm’s All I Am, number two in her Farmer’s Market series from Harlequin Superromance this week. I don’t read a lot of Superromance but I’m really enjoying this. Especially as the hero has that special quality I particularly like in my romantic heroes and heroines. *nods* He’s an injured veteran who wanted to be an animal vet. She’s the town party girl. It’s a small town world with ordinary people you can’t help but like.

Movies I’ve Seen

No.4 and I went to see Daddy’s Home with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. I’m not a big fan of the type of comedy Ferrell usually stars in. The only movie I’d willingly watch twice is Elf and then only at Christmas when the gooey sentimentality of the season overwhelms my critical faculties. Daddy’s Home had some really funny moments. It had some moments of pathos for Will’s character as the step-father of two cute but resistant kids and the slightly dorky husband of a VERY attractive woman. He spends a lot of time trying a little too hard to be the best Dad ever.

He’s just starting to make some headway with the kids when biological dad turns up. Mark Wahlberg does a good job as the free-wheeling guy who knows everyone and has been everywhere. And his animosity to the man who is trying to take his place with the kids is obvious from their first confrontation at the airport.

The good things: These two guys have something to teach each other and eventually it works. There is enough slapstick comedy that my son was entertained. The ending worked well and the epilogue is funny if clichéd.

The bad things: Well, there was nothing particularly bad in it. Just a vague distaste for two grown males competing over kids and wife without considering the fallout.

With Alan Rickman’s death I naturally had to watch Sense and Sensibility. I love the depth he brings to the role of an older man with a tragic past, falling for a young woman who cannot even see him, especially once the younger Willoughby enters the scene. Watching it last night, I noticed that first moment when she really sees him, after her illness when he has ridden ventre à terre to get her mother. *swoon*.

Then I started watching Harry Potter of course.

What I’m Writing

I’m still working on my Sekrit project but it’s been a slow week with only 500 words. Mostly this is because I’ve received responses back on my The Spy Who Saved Me submissions. It was a standard form letter from Carina UK. The agent from the #Pitchmas request also didn’t feel she could represent the story but she did say…

I really enjoyed your strong narrative voice in these opening pages…

So that made me feel pretty good. I didn’t actually receive any notification from Momentum but they say if you don’t hear from them within a month, they aren’t interested. The month was up on Wednesday. I still have two more responses to come and the results of a competition.

As mentioned last week, I had an urge to write a road trip story after watching Need for Speed. So I’ve started what will be a short novella for Wattpad. I’ve written 2k so not a bad effort for the week, even if it isn’t really what I should be working on. I’ll start posting it after the weekend. Even though I don’t get a lot of reads on my Wattpad stories, I do find the occasional positive comments helpful when I’m feeling like nobody loves my work. Of course I know everyone loves me…

I’ve been sorting through some boxes of older books that were dumped into the shed when we did some rearranging a couple of years ago. So I ended up Prozac reading Penny Jordan’s The Caged Tiger, Margaret Mayo’s Return a Stranger and several Diana Hamilton reunion romances. I also finally read Anne Gracie’s Tallie’s Knight, one of her very early works.