Roxanne Snopek's Blog: From the Mind of Roxanne, page 6

Anyone else here addicted to bags? We recently visited with friends who have a very large, beautiful house, with the best walk-in closet and laundry room I’ve ever seen. I confess, I had storage-envy after seeing their place. And I immediately recognized another bag-lover. Not only does my friend has a long shelf in her […]

Each year, Melissa McClone puts together an amazing donation for her local Fisher House. For those who don’t know (I didn’t) Fisher Houses provide military families housing close to a loved one during hospitalization for an illness, disease or injury. As you can imagine, this is a traumatic time for families, many of which includes […]

Collect the Eggs and Enter To Win! Bring the Men of the Zodiac home with you! Enjoy all 12 of these alpha heroes today. Take part in the fabulous Men of the Zodiac Easter Egg Hunt. All you have to do to win prizes is to find all twelve of the eggs on each of […]

So, I got my hair cut today. I’ve worn it long for quite some time now – usually in a ponytail or clip – and I’m a little tired of it. I tend to chicken out when it comes to major change, so I figured I’d just get a trim and color touch up. If […]

Today at Tote Bags ‘n Blogs, I’m sharing one fitness tip and one recipe. (Just in case, I’ll post it here too.) How great is that, being that it’s the first week in January and we’re all focused on starting the new year off right, and aren’t yet depressed because we ended up eating the last of […]

From MACLEANS, April 26, 2015, by Emma Teitel:

When American filmmaker Laurie Kahn set out to make Love Between the Covers, a documentary about the women who read and write romance novels, she was struck by how often she heard the same story. It wasn’t a tale of beefy bodice rippers or love at first sight; it was a story about snobs. “I can’t tell you how many people I interviewed,” says Kahn, “who told me that people will walk up to them on a beach and say, ‘Why do you read that trash?’ ” Apparently, where lovers of romance novels go, contempt follows. Sometimes it’s subtle contempt—a raised eyebrow from a colleague, or a snarky comment from a friend (usually the kind of person who claims to read Harper’son a beach vacation). Other times it’s more overt, even potentially damaging. When Mary Bly (pen name Eloisa James), an academic and New York Times bestselling author, began writing romance, she was advised to keep her fiction writing secret or risk not making tenure at the university where she worked.

For some reason, argues Kahn, perhaps because its subjects are female, romance novels are perceived as fundamentally silly, when other popular “genre fiction”—namely, fiction by and for men—is not. “Nobody,” she says, would walk up to “a man reading Stephen King, or a mystery or sci-fi novel” and scoff. And she’s right: Stephen King may write circles around romance novelist Nora Roberts, but mystery-thriller buffs James Patterson and Dean Koontz most certainly do not. Yet Roberts is the butt of jokes—a universal default example of “bad writing,” while her equally schlocky male contemporaries get a free pass.

Read the full article at: Why romance novelists are the rock stars of the literary world.

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So you know how you go to the mall for shoes sometimes and end up buying a couch? Well that happened to us recently. To be fair, we’d been toying with the idea for a long time. A long time. Because you know, there’s always a better use for the money, right? Anyway, it all started in the Bay, when hubby went to the bathroom.

I’m in line to buy a housecoat to replace the one that got amniotic fluid on it when I was in labor with baby #3. (She’s in second year university now. Don’t worry, I washed the housecoat.) Hubby texts me. Meet me in furniture. Ah yes. You have to go through the furniture department to get to the washrooms.

Be right there I respond. Shouldn’t be long; there are only two women in front of me. The first one has three bras from three different tables and one second AFTER the cashier completes the sale, exclaims, “Hey. They’re supposed to be on sale.”

“Sorry,” says the cashier. “The ones ending in .98 are excluded.”

“That can’t be right,” says the woman and proceeds to usher the cashier to the various tables, arguing with her about it. This goes back and forth for awhile.

You coming? texts hubby. I want to show you something.

Seen it I respond.

No, not that. It’s a couch.

The woman with the bras is considering whether or not the $2.50 is going to make or break the deal. She goes with break and stalks off, affronted.

“Wait!” calls the cashier. “I need your credit card to void the purchase!”

A chase ensues.

A few minutes I text.

Hurry he responds.

They get rid of the bra-less wonder, finally, and what do you know. The next one is using a gift card that may or may not have expired.

On my way I tell him. The tide turns. The gift card works. My housecoat is on sale. All is well in my world.

We cross paths on the escalator, he coming down to find me, me going up to meet him. He leaps the divide and drags me over to this enormous Natuzzi sectional.

“Sit,” he says. “Isn’t it comfortable?”

“You win the lottery?” I ask, running my hands over the buttery-soft leather.

It’s solid, big and gorgeous, just the kind we’ve been drooling over forever – and way, waaayyy more than I want to spend. Ever. For that money, it should have wheels.

“Look,” he tells me, pointing to the tag. “Half price.”

Okay, I’m impressed. But it’s still more than I want to spend. But he has a triumphant, hopeful expression on his face. He takes me over to another sectional. It’s disassembled, so it looks a bit sad, but it’s exactly the same as the one I just sat on.

“What?” I said. “It’s the same one. Still too expensive.”

He points to a teeny, tiny scuff mark. “See that? Twenty percent off the sale price. The sale price!”

Whoa.

We go home, take some measurements, think about how to rejig the room. And yup, two days later, it came home. We spent the day moving stuff, reorganizing and cleaning. My back hurt but you know what? I got to alternate hot and cold packs while sitting on an awesome new couch!

The room, before. Kind of a jumble, right?

The room, after. So much better!!

What do you think?

Related Images: [See image gallery at www.roxannesnopek.ca]

I love soup. It’s the best part of the autumn-winter stretch, when we’re often cold at the end of the day. I love to make a big pot of vegetable-hearty soup on Monday and usually the leftovers stretch for lunches and on-the-run meals until at least Wednesday. Add some bread and cheese to mix it up a bit and we’re good.

(Also allows us to eat pizza and cheezies on the weekend without feeling completely dietarily irresponsible.)

Boxed broth makes it a lot easier to cook soup quickly. But this article reminded me that I used to love making my own broth. Maybe it’s time to start again!

Why New Yorkers will be sipping bone broth (in coffee cups) this winter | Well+Good.

There are two characters in my Three River Ranch series of books that love to cook for, fuss over, and generally take care of those around them. Their names are Bliss and Blythe, twin sisters of “mature” years and this kind of meal is just their thing. FYI, all books in the Three River Ranch (4 Book Series), including the Christmas novella Saving the Sheriff, are on sale for 99c from November 2-6.

Related Images: [See image gallery at www.roxannesnopek.ca]

Candy isn’t Everything!

Treat yourself to some new books, for when the tricksters are all gone and you can finally relax. Online retailer KOBO is having a fabulous sale right now, but in the USA, it ends TODAY. Here are the details:

United States/Australia/New Zealand – ends Friday October 30th

Promo Code: GET50SALE

Canada – ends Saturday October 31st

Promo Code: CA50SALE

United Kingdom – ends Monday November 2nd

Promo Code: UK50SALE

 

It’s the perfect time to try some new books!

 

Related Images: [See image gallery at www.roxannesnopek.ca]

Thanks to YOU, dear readers, A Montana Born Christmas hit the USA Today list, debuting at #78 this week! We couldn’t be more thrilled! This news is a wonderful early Christmas gift to me and the seven other authors in this bundled set. Book lovers really are the best people, aren’t they?

Related Images: [See image gallery at www.roxannesnopek.ca]