Catching Up and Vacation Snafus!

I’ve been very quiet for the past month I know, and I apologize. There has been a lot going on in my little corner of the world and with a pressing deadline and a week vacation planned the blog had to take a temporary backseat.

I hope to have a new article for you next week, but for now I thought I’d just catch you up on some news. Most of it will be about my vacation so I apologize in advance if you get bored.

Currently I’m working on a super secret project. I’m not sure when we’ll be able to announce some news about it, but it shouldn’t be too much longer. We have a large author series that will start releasing one book per month soon. My book is the second one in the set, so it’s crunch time.

If you enjoy kinky romance, you’re going to recognize a lot of the authors in this series, but unfortunately, I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you who they are yet either. Soooo many secrets I’ve been dying to share.

Aside from that I also took a much-needed vacation to Washington D.C. and Baltimore with my husband, S. It’s the first trip since well before covid stormed into our lives, so it felt a little strange to be out in the world again.

The main reason that inspired the trip was an author meet-up with three authors I’m currently collaborating with: Allysa Hart (RawHide Ranch), Golden Angel (Stronghold Doms), and Stella Moore (Daddy’s Captive). We had plans to get some plotting and notes together for various projects, while also eating snacks and hanging out.

That was scheduled for Friday, but since a vacation was needed, I planned everything for us to come into town a few days early to have some fun before that. Plus the hotel had a large pool and a hot tub so I was looking forward to those.

Plans… did not quite work out as intended throughout the trip. On Tuesday we went to the Crystal Grottoes Caverns in Maryland, to explore a live cave system. That was awesome but exhausting on top of many hours of driving. No regrets though, it was amazinggggg!

Then we were supposed to meet up with my big brother and his lady (who I also consider a sister), but she injured her back and they had to cancel—boo!  I had hoped to see a very good friend who also lived in the area, but she happened to be going out of town on vacation as we arrived, so we missed out on that chance to see her too. Yeesh.

But after those early snafus, surely the rest of the week would be perfect right? Well… yes and no.

The hot tub in the hotel was broken and remained so for the trip—but I was able to swim and after a long drive that was great. Everyone who knows me will tell you I love pools and can’t resist them. It’s a never-ending source of sadness to me that I don’t have one—yet!

My husband S and I went to the Baltimore Aquarium on Wednesday and really loved it. But on Wednesday night Stella tested positive for covid and had to cancel on the author meet up. We were all bummed about that.

On Thursday we dared to take the metro into D.C. so we could go to the Natural History Museum. Traveling in and out of the city took a lot more time than expected so we weren’t able to hit any other museums unfortunately.

Honestly, considering we’ve mostly been housebound for two years just the one museum was probably enough excitement and walking anyway—but I’d really wanted to see a couple more.

And then it was Friday! First thing in the morning Golden had to cancel. She wasn’t feeling well. That left just Allysa and I to meet. Since Allysa couldn’t get in until the evening S and I decided to spend the day at the Baltimore Zoo.

We are very much zoo people and go to them every chance we get. This one was new to us and very interesting. I think my feet were about ready to resign by the time we left to go back to the hotel though. I had time to relax a little in the pool and the sad little broken hot tub, which was still nice and warm but without bubbles.

But then Ally arrived, and we had so much fun! I was honestly a little nervous until then. This was my first chance to meet other authors, since I started writing books, and there’s always the worry that their image of who you are won’t match the reality.

I try to be the real authentic me online, and I think Ally does too, so that really helps when you are meeting someone you’ve known from the Internet for the first time. After a few minutes everything felt perfectly normal. I relaxed and there was a lot of laughing and fun.

We actually did do a little plotting since I’ll be joining her Rawhide Ranch universe soon. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell you about it yet, so I won’t give you any more details.

So, a little work, a lot of snacks, and oh yeah someone got spanked. Look, what can I say that tends to happen when I’m around. It’s a whole thing. I mean the fact that I brough a whole suitcase full of toys might have something to do with it too… hmm.

(Yes, that’s the suitcase in the picture above. I came prepared!)

Anyway!

The next morning S and I had a lovely time with Ally and one of our wonderful readers, Leslie (and her husband) who came over to have breakfast with us—okay, mostly she was there to see Ally since they are very close, but I was a nice bonus, I hope!

So even though I’m sad about all the people I missed seeing and the things we didn’t get to do, the trip ended nicely. We’re considering making this a yearly adventure, which I’m absolutely on board with. Maybe by next year covid won’t make things like this so difficult to do. I hope so!

So that’s what I’ve been doing with my month, and why the blog has been a little quiet. I’d like to say I came home from the trip rested and ready to tear through the work pile, but the reality was that I needed a few days to recover.

I’m getting back on track now, so keep your eyes open for a new article soon!