My family

My daughter, Teresa Gaskins, has a new story out in Promise in the Gold: A Cave Creek Anthology. If you enjoy cross-genre fiction, the Cave Creek series is a fun mixture of western, science-fiction, and fantasy:

Cave Creek, Nevada—Where the Unexpected Meets the Real World

Strange, unexplained events long plagued residents of Cave Creek, a former mining town nestled in a hidden canyon north of Las Vegas.

Promise in the Gold takes the reader into the future, where people who slip through the portals create new timelines—and past, present, and future cross paths in some very weird and sometimes scary ways.

Teresa’s story is sweet, not scary. And even better, it features a cat. I think you’ll love it!

Click Here for Details

Or if you prefer traditional fantasy, check out Teresa’s epic series, The Riddled Stone.

CREDITS: Feature photo (top) by Glen Rushton via Unsplash.com.

I didn’t get anything written to share today, so here’s a cat picture instead. My favorite shot from Puck’s babyhood.

He’s grown about two years’ worth since then.

Still full of puckishness, though. He had a time of it today, “helping” me put up the Christmas tree.

All the activity of packing and shipping books to fulfill Kickstarter orders was too much for Cimorene.

But now that the leftover boxes are empty (except for some nicely crumpled packing paper), she fully approves.

And she posed so nicely, I think this is the sharpest cat photo I’ve ever gotten. Good girl!

Clearly, I won’t need my desk chair today…

Only a writer who loves wordplay (my daughter) would name her cat Hypocorism. Hypocorism’s hypocorism is “Puck,” which well suits the little trouble-maker. He loves to climb up to the top of the bookshelf by the window, where we hung a couple of toys for him.

When he was little, he used to climb across the curtain rod to the opposite set of shelves. He still tries it from time to time, though the rod bends under his adult weight. And at least once he took a fall and had to grab for the curtain on his way down. We didn’t see it, but that’s the only explanation we could think of for the huge rip we found later.

One other disadvantage to growing up: The places he loves to sleep have somehow shrunk. After playing for a bit, he stretches out for a nap — and his back hangs dangerously over the edge.

Since I started a blog streak in early August, I thought I’d see how long I can keep it going.

So this is what’s called in the industry a “placeholder” post. It keeps the blog streak live, even though I really don’t have anything to say.

In addition to working on my Prealgebra & Geometry Games index and finishing up the math activity booklets, I’ve been getting to know Mariah — taking long walks, and just plain having doggy fun.

Friday night, we discovered that she loves to fetch tennis balls — although she’s not so keen on the idea of giving them back so we can throw them again.

Oh, and she can catch a treat in the air. Smart dog!

It’s been a busy day, though I haven’t gotten much work done on my book. We welcomed a new member to our family: Mariah.

Isn’t she beautiful?

And she’s just a sweet as she looks!