needs a plumber.

I suffered through another plumbing near-disaster this morning with a spray faucet that wouldn’t shut off. It put me in an interesting dilemna as I was in the basement and the shut off is upstairs in the laundry room. The shuts off on this particular sink were frozen in open, and of course my pliers were in my toolbox — yep, upstairs.

No way could I let the hose go and dash up the stairs without flooding the place. (I also had Sam underfoot, uber curious over all the water.)

*sigh*

Thankfully my benchpress was close and I could just reach the weight discs. I pinned the hose down with them so the water would at least go down the drain instead of hosing down the ceiling, walls, furniture.

And then I made the mad dash upstairs to turn off the water supply.

This was not the way to start a Saturday.

After drying myself and my hair, I headed to the hardware store. Forty dollars later I had what was needed to either 1) fix the water problem or 2) create one helluva mess.

The luck of the Irish was with me, and ninety minutes and several skinned knuckles later, I had new washers in the faucett.

And the day ended great too, for I met friends for dinner. Amazing how good food, margaritas and laughs can lift the spirits. 🙂

I’m blogging today at Seduced by History about research for A Cowboy Christmas. Drop by if you can. Comment for a chance to win a copy of my western short story, Christmas Showdown.

Ahem! Well, I have tried to access my newsletter account host for three days, and I suspect that the host has gone out of business. Nice that they let me know! Not

So there won’t be a March newsletter. There IS a winner of the February contest.

Roberta J. aka house_mouse88 is the winner of Bachelor Boss by Christie Ridgway. Congrats! Roberta, please send me your mailing address via my contact form on my website.

The way I conduct future contests is up in the air right now. I’m weighing options — one of which is that readers of my blog will be entered in the monthly contests.

Whatcha think? Feel free to offer your suggestions on the blog, or drop me an email.

Looking for a good read? Try Kay Stockham’s latest novel. Her Best Friend’s Brother is an RT Top Pick!

How could this have happened?

They had one night. That’s all Shelby Brookes would allow herself to indulge in with Luke Tulane. Yes, he’s gorgeous and yes, he’s the greatest guy she knows, but he’s her best friend’s brother for crying out loud! And she’s pretty sure there are rules against sleeping with friends’ brothers.

Then Shelby discovers she’s pregnant. And Luke’s determined to do the right thing—down to the bended knee proposal and the meeting at the altar. As tempting as his offer is, Shelby’s convinced she’s not the marrying kind. She’s bound to hurt him and that’s definitely against the rules of friendship. Still, she doesn’t count on how persuasive Luke can be when he really wants something…her.

“In Stockham’s heartwarming and delightful tale of love, Shelby and Luke overcome their personal tragedy. The author does an excellent job detailing her characters’ emotional growth.” -4.5 Stars! ROMANTIC TIMES RT Top Pick!

My copy edits for A Cowboy Christmas arrived. Nice timing with the last Rita book to judge and a proposal due on my agent’s desk. All at about the same deadline. 😯

So it’s burning the midnight oil and then some time again.