Own background and June challenge

I have been playing around once again (yes, I know, I know) with the background of this blog. I wanted it to be a little bit more in line with my website, so I took the writing font of my website banner and tweaked it abit. I have been basically learning ad-hoc on Photoshop Elements. Must get some instruction on it.

So hope you like it.

And it's that time of the year again - the 50Ks in 30 Days which is in June. I'm joining in but have to be realistic with my time and energy, so I am aiming for 25K. The blog for this is up again here. Everyone is pumped, so I'm hoping all that positive energy will make its way down cyberspace to hit my little brain.

I have done some polishing this week - very slow process, and I've done about 3ooo words on a short story. I've enjoyed the difference between the two. HD is quest fantasy, while G is paranormal romance.

Currently listening to: James Brown

Just read: Kiss the night Good-bye by Keri Arthur

Currently watching: 30 Rock, season one

~Yia

Stavros Flatley continues - *SPOILER*

I just love this act - they are such fun and they have such a warm relationship, it's great. 

And Britain loved them also as they got the public vote to go through to the final. Can't wait to see what they come up with next.

UPDATE - Embedding NOT working. Click HERE to see the clip.

Yia!

Downtime

I've had a little down time in the last couple of days and found this on YouTube. Bruce Lee (all hail!) playing ping-pong (ie table tennis) with nun-chukkas. All right it isn't really Bruce Lee but rather an homage to the man. Still looks bloody great.

You Tube

And here's a funny look at ping-pong, kung fu, matrix style  :O)

You Tube

Happy Name Day!!

Happy Name Day to all the Konstantines and Elenis out there (or whatever variation of the name you have - Kosta, Kon, Helen, Elena - you know who you are).

For my family it is myself, my godson, my godsister, my cousin, my uncle, my cousin's child, and my aunts in Greece. 

Na heromaste tin yiorti mas (roughly translated to 'may we have joy for our name day').

~Yia!

R*BY finalists announced

Pronounced as 'The Ruby', this award is given to the best in the romance books in the Australian and New Zealand market and is judged by readers. There are four categories this year.  So basically it's the Big Kahuna Awards for romance books. 

This year, three of the SARA members are finalists - Trish Morey, Claire Baxter, and Elizabeth Rolls. Bootcamper buddy Melissa James is also a finalist. And of course there are the other writing buddies I know from the RWA and RWNZ groups including the fab Anne Gracie, Marion Lennox, Anna Campbell (remember I had her Claiming The Courtesan as a reward book),  and Paula Roe.

Well done ladies!!! Congratulations to all of you - you are all stars.

Winners will be announced at the Awards Dinner at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in August. What a dinner that is going to be!!

~ Yia!

Facelifts

I've been playing around with a background for the blog - well without having to change so much of the formatting. And the website The Cutest Blog on the Block is where I found my new background skin. Maybe one day, I'll work out how to do my own, but for now, this brightens it up but still keeps my black background.

I have made some changes to the website. I hope the colours are better for the eyes. Too much pink, so have compensated for that. Any suggestions or comments of how it's looking now, is most welcome. Another thing I had to do was change my contact form to include people having to type in the code word as I was getting all sorts of weird spam emails (which I didn't think could be done with the form, but there you have it, learn something new everyday). Hopefully the weirdness will stop!

Also I've added a rock/blues playlist to my website.

I've added here also :) 

I love my Mac most days....

Well truly, I love it everyday. It has really streamlined things for me. But the only frustrating thing with Mac is incompatibility or features not being the same as on a PC.

For instance, I wanted to use the webcam to talk to some family. No feature allowed this on MSN Messenger for Mac. I found  a different version and while I can see them, I can't hear them. I also wanted to do something on Microsoft Publisher but there's no Mac version and a 'version' I did find couldn't be opened the receiver on a PC. Urgggh.... frustrating. 

I suppose because this week has been stressful in other ways and so, it was just another thing to piss me off....ummm.... annoy me.

I did overhaul the Bootcamper blog, so that was good for the soul.

And this week, I hope to be a

Listening to: The Jeff Healey Band

~Yia!

Some days are like this...

Yep, we all have them. Those days when you wish you hadn't gotten out of bed. Today just happened to be one for me.  Been given the run-around-dance.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Hope your day has been a good one.

~Yia

Happy Mother's Day!!

My Ma has always been a big supporter of my writing. She has been there with all the CFS stuff in going on in my life, despite her own ill health. I am truly blessed to have her as a mum.

So Ma, Thank You and Happy Mother's Day!!! 

Filakia xx

And Happy Mother's Day to you all!!

~Yia!

Stavros Flatly!

I can't embed this Youtube clip onto the blog, but I loved it so much, I'm placing a link on it.

It's a 'Britains Got Talent' act with a Greek Cypriot flavour. Follow this link. Or click on the icon below.

I think I woke the house up with my laughter. Thanks to my cousins for passing this one on. 

~Yia!

Proud member

Anyone who has been reading this blog for some time, will know this already, but I am a proud member of the Romance Writers of Australia. Now I have a button to show this off created by our wonderful webmistress, Kiki.  It's also on my sidebar.

~Yia

My cute card

The card my family got me for my birthday was cute. It's by Mirropix.

So cute....

Not much to report this week - a little bit of editing, abit of mucking around on websites for SARA and Bootcampers 101. But nothing too strenuous  - my body is still recovering from the fall. Blah!

Did better this month for the Harlequin monthly reading challenge, so at least I got some reading done, but I've realised how much less I read compared to when I was at uni and just after. But I still read a variety of genres. The challenges are helping me clear out some books on my TBR pile - but it's really not making a dent since there are new ones to add. *sigh* I see someone's name I know on the shelf and it's 'yep, I'll take thank you very much'. 

I'm at 26 'books' read (book has to be around 50K words, so lesser amounts are added together to create one 'book' - eg graphic novels, childrens, novellas).

Yia!