Hanging the Stars hits in a little more than a week and today is the day of immense consumerism here in America. Or so I’ve been told.
So… first things first… be nice to retail workers today. It’s a crappy job at times and you know some people are really asshats. Balance that shit out for the person behind the counter.
Secondly, let’s do a flash giveaway to celebrate Hanging The Stars impending release!
Comment here on the blog and be entered to win a prize!
I will be giving away 1 $25 gift certificate and 5 Audiobook codes from Audible for a total of 6 winners!
Tell me about your favourite memory! Winners drawn on Wednesday Nov 30th.
Purchase Hanging the Stars (Half Moon Bay #2) at: Dreamspinner, Amazon, and ARe .
OH! And DO NOT forget to follow the Hanging the Stars Blog Tour. I’ll be giving away a $25 gift certificate at EVERY stop!
Hanging the Stars Blog Tour Stops
Nov 30: It’s About the Book (http://itsaboutthebook.com/)
Dec 1: Boy Meets Boy (www.boymeetsboyreviews.com)
Dec 2: Love Bytes (http://lovebytesreviews.com/)
Dec 3: Prism Alliance (http://www.prismbookalliance.com/)
Dec 4: Sinfully Gay Romance (http://sinfullymmbookreviews.blogspot.com/)
Dec 5: The Novel Approach (http://thenovelapproachreviews.com/)
Dec 7: Joyfully Jay (http://joyfullyjay.com/)
fave memory is walking with my grandpa in his orchid shed. he loved those plants. i wasn’t really into gardening or anything but i did enjoy listening to him talk about them and he knew all the scientific names for the orchids, he even had little tags on each plant with the names. it was our little bonding experience 🙂
As a fellow animal lover, here is my favorite memory. My daughter had adopted 3 kitties and the black as night one would hide in the cupboard every time anyone would visit. Later, she had to give up one because she couldn’t have 3 cats in her apartment. So, I volunteered to take her even though I knew how skittish she was. She hid under my bed for a month, afraid to come out except to eat and p##p, Then one night I was falling asleep in the bed and she crept out, jumped up and snuggled into my side, purring like mad. She has been my sleeping partner ever since and that night she trusted me was phenomenal and I’ll never forget it.
This is so not good. I’ve been sitting here for 5 minutes and I still haven’t thought of one. But I will. Ah – visiting Wales! I could still walk well then and I loved it so much I went 3 times in 3 months and since I live in Florida, it was quite a trek. On the 3rd trip it was a little hard to convince custom agents that I just loved the country.
Have I told you lately how awesome you are? No,? Well, you are! Thanks for the chance of entering the giveaway draw.
My favourite memory is from when I was about 5 or 6. We had a cleaning lady helping my mum once a week and I would have lunch with them. This particular day we’d for some reason been talking about teeth (I probably didn’t want to brush mine or something) when all of a sudden she pushed her lower jaw dentures out so that they were halfway out. I remember staring in disbelief for a second or two before running to the top of the stairs calling down to my friend who were waiting for me in our play/games room: “Ingrid, hurry, come see Mrs X has taken her teeth out!” I’d obviously never seen dentures before (nor have I seen any since). Meanwhile my mom and Mrs X were crying with laughter, as my eyes had been the size of saucers. 😂 Good times!
Hanne
Memory? hmmm…
I think I am about to eat. There you go.
My favorite memory is hugs from my kid. When he was little he was affectionate to the degree where it could be considered clingy.
My favorite memory is coming home from a business trip and my husband meeting me at the airport with a social worker. Sounds scary – but the social worker was from the adoption agency and she had our new baby daughter with her. It was the day we got to take our daughter home for the first time. (I thought it was to be the next day, hence the flying home.)
hmm, singling out one favorite memory is tough. I would have to say though spending time in my mother’s garden when we visit. It’s so peaceful.
When I was a teenager, my dad was stationed in Germany. We took the train from Frankfurt to Berlin to visit friends for a few days. This was the first time my family visited Berlin, so our friends gave us a whirlwind mini tour. The highlight for me was the Egyptian Museum of Berlin and the Queen Nefertiti Bust. I stared, transfixed; it was without a doubt, the single most profound moment of my life.
I’d probably still be standing there if our friends didn’t hustle us out of there to catch the return train home.
One of my favorite memories was returning from camp to find my father had returned home from viet Nam. It was wonderful to see him.
A fave childhood memory is going down to the Legion with my dad while my mom was at work so he could work on their books. I enjoyed the father daughter time
I went to the airport to pick of my friend who was to be visiting. With her was a present from my mom and stepdad. It was a wee wiener dog puppy. She was only 8 weeks old and sooo very small! What a great surprise!
A favourite memory?…hmmm I can’t pick out just one, but I cannot help the grin that stretches across my face, whenever I recall the times my sister and I have been literally helpless with laughter in the street, a shop, a cafe. If fact anywhere and anytime we’ve seen or heard something quite innocuous, but it’s struck a chord and we’ve caught each others eye…..I’m 55 now and she’s 61 and we still laugh like drains over nothing….😂
I was stumped because just choosing one memory made me feel weirdly disloyal to all the other wonderful memories, so I am just going bite the bullet and choose one – the day I met my favorite actor Gale Harold. I dragged my husband to the closing matinee performance of a play that Gale was doing in LA. My husband and I flew into LA in the morning (it’s barely a 1 hour flight), rented a car, drove around LA for a bit. Had lunch at a chicken and waffles restaurant near the theatre (I had no idea that was a thing until then). The restaurant was held up by what looked like a couple of guys from a biker gang, seriously – leather vests, tats, bandanas it was crazy! I think it was their outfits that made it seem so surreal. (After it was over we joked that we were just getting the full LA experience, that’s all.). Anyway, it ended peaceably, and after we gave our statements we went to the theater with like 5 minutes before the play started. Immediately after the play ended there was a closing night party right there in the theatre with the cast and audience. It was amazing, getting to meet all the cast members (and getting a hug from Gale!!), standing around discussing the play while drinking champagne, just everything was perfect. After the party we rushed to the airport in a very happy daze to catch the flight back home. I still get so happy even just thinking about it, almost 7 years later.
All my favorite memories are since my son was born, specially every time he tells me he loves me and that I am the best mom. He’s a very sweet kid and I love his hugs.
Wow! Everyone shared such great memories and they all sparked a reminder of a great time from my life, so i decided to go with one that combines a lot of the themes that kept popping up: family, travel, and art.
When my sister was in college she spent a year studying in Heidelberg, Germany, so I decided to visit so we could travel around Europe together. We went to Paris and spent a day at the Louvre. My sister really wanted to see the painting “Study (Young Male Nude Seated beside the Sea)” by Hippolyte Flandrin (Google it if you’re not familiar and you’ll see why she had to see it. *g*), but it was in one of the galleries with paintings from floor to ceiling (really high ceilings) on each wall; literally hundreds of paintings and we tried searching, but couldn’t find it. We were ready to give up and head out, but we decided to sit down on a bench and rest first. I looked up and there it was, the painting we’d been searching for! It was a magical moment. I still get chills thinking about it. 🙂
Hard to choose a favorite memory, but a memorable one is when I was working my first “real” job out of state, and I flew home for the day after Christmas without my parents knowing and my brothers smuggled me home in the dark of the night. Then the next morning, I walked downstairs and asked my mom, “What’s for breakfast?” The look on her face, priceless.
Traveling to England and sitting on Hadrian’s Wall. Looking around me at the mist hugging the hills and the sheep grazing in the pastures. It was very peaceful.
I’m going to go with those unconditional hugs from the kids when they were little, espec my son who was very cuddly. Now as teenagers, I have Mr Grumpy and at most get the top of his head to kiss goodnight and Miss KnowItAll but who does still give out hugs!
My son finally coming home from hosp. He was premature, and a teeny weeny thing. He’s 6 ‘ 5″ now and lifts weights, so carries a lot of bulk. But in my minds eye he’ll always be a tiny little thing (that closely resembled ET 🙂 ).
So many good memories but when I was 18 I applied to do my nurse training and was told I’d have to lose weight to be considered! The day I went to the interview and being told I had been accepted was one of the most memorable and made me really happy! I really really wanted to be a nurse!
Such a wonderful idea. Thanks for the chance.
When I was young we had a huge swing. Lucikly we could move it all over the yard, front and back.
Cannot remember how many times I took a blanket, pillow and book and layed on that swing only to at some point wake up still on it..
I now have a smaller version in my yard and I still do the same..lol
I will always have fond memories of time spent in the backyard of my childhood home.
My favorite memory is when I went skydiving. I remember the nervous plane ride up and jumping out the open door. There was an immense rush during the free fall with the wind blasting by and the ground speeding closer. Then poof, the parachute opened. Everything seemed to instantly go silent and still. The world around me seemed frozen. I drifted like a dandelion blossom blowing in the wind. Touching down on solid ground felt like returning from a foreign world.
When my youngest daughter was about 6 months old, and her older sister was 3 years old, they played together for the very first time. This was a big deal as my oldest daughter is on the autism spectrum and was not really aware of anyone other than herself at that time. I showed her how to “boop” her baby sister’s nose with a soft ball. She then did it repeatedly saying “boop” (she didn’t have many words at that time) and her sister would giggle, so she would laugh. Of course I captured it on video where my sniffles of joy could easily be heard. They are now 11 and 14 and the best of friends!
My favorite memories are from when I was around 15 and I had a big group of friends (nowadays we lost touch and the rest is too busy with their own life) and durin our summer holidays, we used to go to the riverside, enjoy the beach and almost every weekend we went clubbing. Such good times. Nowadays, I don’t like clubbing and I prefer to stay at home or have dinner at a friend’s house.
Thanks for the chance!
When I was in the 4th grade I had to do a science fair project. I needed wire for my project so being stupid about wiring I cut the first 3 ft piece I could find, which turned out to be the neighbors telephone line. When she told my parents what happened and to watch out for vandels my mom was mad and yelling but my dad was laughing. He always had a really good since of humor. He always made me laugh and smile. He passed away this August. I still miss him terribly bad.
Favorite moments-my dad passed away last year and last week when cleaning out my son’s closet I came across pictures I took when they were building his duck pens. I remember dad showing how to measure 2x and cut 1x. The 2 of them standing side by side as they worked. Smiles for my heart on Thanksgiving day.
So many to choose from. I remember my little neice (about 3 years old) taking my hand to take me out to my Dad’s garden. She wanted to show me Grandpa’s “a…. a…. MASHIES!”. She couldn’t remember sqush. Lol.
The week of the County Fair the summer I was 17! I met the boy of my dreams! It didn’t work out, but still some of my best memories ever! And no, this isn’t a plot bunny or a country song! 🙂
I’ve pre-ordered Hanging the Stars and can’t wait for the blog tour!
One of my favorite memories is driving my son somewhere his senior year and him just belting out songs with the radio! This was so outside his comfort zone and I loved it.
I have a lot of awesome and really bad memories, and in between, most surrounding my husband and kids. But my favorite has to be the first night I was alone in a strange place with no family around, not basic or a school where everything was controlled. I was 19 my first night at Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in PR. I was scared out of my mind. I went down to get a soda I was surrounded by all these big sailors (I am short and at the time small) This sailor stepped on my toe and scared the tar outta me. I turned around and had to keep looking up because he was right there. I called him a SOB and kept cussing him. When I was stopped he asked me of I was done and then told me if I ever called him an sob again he would treat me like a man and knock me out. Now you might ask why this is my favorite memory. It is because I called my future husband a SOB that night, if it wasn’t for that moment I wouldn’t have all the other memories of the last 34 years.
Lots to choose from (I’m lucky), but I’m going to go with meeting my best friend on the first day of eighth grade. We’ll celebrate our 30th anniversary next year.
Favorite memory, oh wow…I am 52, so lots of good ones. Today, it would be a Saturday afternoon tailgating at a college football game. Both my parents alive, my sister and her entire family there with us, and my fiance’ (husband now since 1988) with me. Just a nice, sunny fall afternoon at the college I attended, with all the people I loved most alive and healthy.
I woke my brother up one Christmas by sneaking into his bedroom at, like, 4:30 and peeling his eye lids back. Our parents had a rule about not waking them up before 7 on Christmas morning, so I asked him how many more minutes until 7. He looked at his watch and calculated it up to 157 minutes until Christmas. Then he let me crawl into his bed and go back to sleep.
One of my favorite memories was helping our mare, Prophecy give birth to her first foal, Eureka. Or every time one of our girls had a healthy foal, it was always amazing. Too many to go into details. Life can be awesome.
My dad is a carpenter, and I loved the smell of wood in his workshop at our house when I was little. I love the smell of wood, since it reminds me of home, safe, and my dad, standing in a pile of wood shavings, while I’m looking over his shoulders. 🙂
One of my fave memories, and it may be partly the drugs talking, was after my molar extraction. My husband, then boyfriend, was helping me get settled and it just felt so good and warm to have someone taking care of me and showing that they loved me.
I’d have to say listening to my kid make up songs when he was little. He would only sing them when he thought no one was around to hear. My favorite was about Clifford the Big Red Dog being bad because he wouldn’t brush his teeth.
One of my favorite memories was when my nephew, who I am fostering/adopting with my twin sister, walked into pre-school all by himself. He was 2 years old and is speech-delayed, due to Autism Spectrum Disorder. It was the best feeling, seeing him walk in with a smile on his face, and no tears or clinging!
My favorite memory is my first grade teacher and learning to read. Mrs. Gaylor gave us stars for every book completed and I still get that happy funny feeling in my stomach when I see foil stars. And I named my first cat from one of the first books I read. The book was Pinocchio and Geppettos cat was named Cicero, so that’s what I named my boy kitten. He helped me read many times in his 19 years of life.
Congrats on the release! Probably my favorite memory was bringing my dog home as a puppy. She was so rambunctious and lively. She has been gone now for many years. But the memories are all good ones.
Picking a favorite memory is a hard one. Every great memory would have to include my daughter or grandchildren.
My favorite memory is spending holiday when I was a kid at my grandparent’s’s house; they happened to have spacious yard and there are lots neigboring kids to play with. Living in a city I hadn’t had the luxury to running around, so those awesome holidays had been the most awesome chance I got. 🙂
My favorite memory is either stepping off the plane in England for our 10th anniversary trip or picking our adopted daughter up from the airport when she first came to us
My favorite memory is when I lived in Phoenix, AZ and was introduced I got my newborn son to our dogs. We had placed a bear in his car seat to practice buckling it up properly and the left it on the floor so they would get used to seeing the car seat. Then she. He was born my hubby took a blanket and put it in the car seat and let them smell it So they know someone new wa coming. The day we cam home we placed my son and the car seat on the floor (yes I was next to it) when the Damsel came up to him, he moved and scared her so bad she jumped back after a minute she came back over and never left his side when he was home she would follow us around like a 2nd mom. I loved it
My favourite memory is when I was about 8. That year the Sears catalogue featured a whole family wearing red & white striped night shirts. The whole family. So my aunt, who only had one daughter, was very inventive for Christmas presents to her niece and 3 nephews. We always open youngest to oldest. So my 4 year old brother opened his, and there was this little red & white striped night shirt. Dean just knew it was a dress and he was having none of it. My 6 year old brother, Alan opened his, and was even less impressed. Well, I opened mine and there was my night shirt. To be honest, I never liked nightdresses, so it wasn’t a bad gift, just not a favourite. You can imagine, my older brother, Keith at 13 was highly suspicious. He wouldn’t even open it. So my older cousin Annette got Keith’s and my younger cousin got Alan and Dean’s then eventually mine and Keith’s. So while they were well-worn, they were the funniest gifts we ever got. That story always makes me smile and appreciate my aunt, who just had no clue about boys.
Helping my grandma make chicken noodle soup from scratch. I mean everything. The noodles she made by hand, the chicken was from her coop, the veggies were from her garden. Then everyone in the family finding out and we’d all get together and eat the soup. She’d make at least 3-4 quarts of the stuff (used a 5-quart kettle) and we’d all get one bowl, maybe two, and we’d all sit and talk and eat. My grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins. It was great and I really miss that.
One of favorite memory is making cookies with my late ant. She was my favorite aunt. Still is. I remember one time she came to our house. She was my mom’s sister. She was one strong woman, always smiling, always positive. She gave me the best tips about food and boys LOL. Anyway, that night she was talking to my mom and said, well, I could eat something sweet. We didn’t have any at the time so she said, well, let’s make some. And we did. She did the most of it and she was good at it. We laughed, we talked, we sang some silly songs, we had amazing cookies. All for no good reason, really. She’s gone now, but moment stayed with me. One shiny moment in life.
Like all others, I have too many good memories to choose from. I that, I am very fortunate. There are two:
As a child, I was an early riser (still am). One summer, when I was about ten, I would get up and watch the sunrise from different places in the neighborhood. It was a peaceful time, when all was new and beautiful.
The second was when I was an adult, and my grandmother had me clean out some of the things from her dresser and closet. We found a metal box that had letters to my grandmother from my grandfather when he worked on the CCC Project. She was a bit worried about what the letters said, and was reluctant to have me read them. Then she asked me to read them aloud. They were lovely letters. My grandmother then told me she didn’t know why he was still interested in her, as she never (or in frequently) wrote to him while he was away. My grandmother was not one for romance, but she was impressed all the same by his persistence. When he got back from his term in the CCC, they got married.
One of my favourite memories is when I came out to my mum when I was a teenager (not an easy thing to do the mid 70’s in the UK) and her response was to hug me and tell me how proud she was of me
My favorite memory is when my parents visited for Christmas and we picked out a new cat. Mine had passed on my birthday and I wasn’t ready until then to get a new one. Plus it’s the last time I saw my father alive in person
A favorite memory? Hmmm…
I went to Fabulous Felines, a cats only pet shop in NYC (now sadly gone) to pick up cork rings for my 4 cats’ scratching post. When I got there and was rung into the store, I found nearly all the cages were open and the kittens were everywhere, playing, pouncing, riding the food cart, and sleeping in carpet-lined bowls around the floor.
I have a great fondness for siamese cats. My first 2 cats were siamese. My cats at that time, though, were plain old domestic shorthairs, 3 from North Shore Animal League, and one grumpy lady found on the street. I missed having a siamese and still do.
Needless to say, I had to pet every siamese kitten in the place, and there were numerous. Fabulous Felines only sold purebreds (No judging, please.)
As I was petting a himalayan kitten flopped in one sleepy bowl, the orange fluffball in the next bowl woke up, looked at me and opened its mouth as if to meow. Nothing came out. I literally asked it speak a bit louder, and it tried again. Still nothing. Again? Nothing. I finally picked it up and brought it to my ear and said “One more time.”
And Flinx squeaked in my ear, licked my cheek, and gazed at me with his huge copper eyes. He was my orange shadow, my bestest buddy, the chin on my shoulder as he sat on the back of the couch and watched tv with me, for the next 15+ years.
I first saw my soulmate when he was half an hour old. Born a week early because his Mum had had a fall, he was the only one in her small litter to survive, a tiny, black kitten small enough to curl up on my hand. I thought kittens had fluffy coats and pointy ears; Charles had a smooth coat like raw silk and small, almost-transparent pink half-moons part-way down his head. (And we realised that unborn kittens did a lot of developing in their last week!) He was put into my hand, where he stretched, sighed, grinned at me (even though his eyes weren’t open), curled up and went to sleep. And I was lost.
We’d gone up to my friend, his breeder, to see how Mamma Tiff was, to find her with the new arrival, no milk, and a hyped-up first-time mum who saw no reason to keep an undersized, wriggling bundle which seemed intent on keeping her awake with high-pitched demands for food. We’d intended to stay a couple of hours – we stayed six weeks. Tiff needed a lot of reassurance, but never really bonded with The Embuggerance, even when her milk came in, so we stayed on, and became his playmates, comforters, family and food source. By the end of it, I couldn’t have walked away from him and he loved me just as much.
Kitten Charles would run and jump into my arms when I went to visit him. Adult Charles waited in an upstairs window whenever I was out, and ran down to meet me. We walked round the neighbourhood, him on his harness and lead, me the regulation three paces behind him (who’s dominant? He was.) We were together for almost eighteen years, until cancer took him, quickly, in two days – he had shown no symptoms. His final gift to me was to slip into death quietly at home, with us all beside him, so I was spared having to have him put to sleep.
My favourite memories? Too many to count.
(Too long, Rhys? Please cut or delete if you wish.)
When I enter things like this I can’t help remembering the first time I discovered the author. In the case of Rhys Ford, I grabbed “Dirty Kiss” not long after it came out. I was delighted by it. I was fairly new to M/M novels, and one of the things that delighted me was that Cole had other things going on in his life besides sex. The plot was darned interesting, and the poke into Korean (and particularly Korean-American) culture gave even more flavor to a read I absorbed with great dedication. It isn’t the only book of Rhys Ford’s that I couldn’t put down before I finished, but it certainly nailed my determination to not miss any of her stories (if I can help it)!