So sorry to have missed blogging Monday! I injured my back lifting up the cutest grandson EVER one too many times (but who could resist?). I’ve spent two days sleeping off the Flexaril.
Here is my new bookcover! Bound by Duty hits bookstore shelves on March 17 and will be available as an ebook on April 1
I should be back to new by next week!
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you’ve been enjoying the holidays, and found some time to relax, read, write, or at least spend some time with loved ones. It always feels refreshing to me when we start a new year. I like to do the Janus-thing –you know, the Roman god of new beginnings & reflection, who looked both forward and backward. Do you like to do that, too?
Looking forward, we are considering some changes here at the Riskies, and we would love to have your feedback. So, below I’m going to post some questions and hope you’ll take the time to consider them and share your thoughts with us. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on any changes we decide to make!
Before I post the questions, I’ll share a little of looking backwards over my holidays. First, I learned why it’s best to spoon the brandy already in the pan over the plum pudding after it’s alight. My family always has plum pudding (with hard sauce) at Christmas dinner, a nod to our English heritage. But you must understand the job of flaming the pudding is usually undertaken by my sister, who could not be with us this year. Here’s what happens if you light the pudding, then decide to pour more brandy on it after it’s flaming nicely –the blue flame travels up the stream of brandy to the receptacle you are pouring from, making you dump the rest quickly and without much grace, before your sleeve catches on fire. <g> 
I must say that creates a really good blaze!! Good thing I was using a heat-proof glass measuring cup! Hmm, maybe that’s why the pudding package says to use just a teaspoon or two of brandy, but we have found that’s nowhere near enough! I might have to use this in a story…
Second, I learned a lot about foods that are considered to be lucky, or lead to prosperity and good health, if eaten on New Year’s Eve. We usually stay in and have friends over for dinner on New Year’s Eve, so this year I planned a menu made up almost entirely of these sorts of foods: shrimp (before dinner), lentil soup, butternut squash soup, roasted pork tenderloin, soba noodles (with water chestnuts, spinach, and curry sauce), salad of dark leafy greens with poppyseed dressing, sour cream & chive mashed potatoes colored gold, lemon poppyseed muffins. Explaining them all would be another whole blogpost! (Desserts were exempt from the theme.) Aside from the fact I prepared almost twice as much as we needed, we had a lovely evening, watched the 2006 movie Miss Potter (about Beatrix Potter) and all managed to stay awake to watch the NYC ball drop on TV and make a toast to the new year at midnight. Now we are all expecting great things from 2015.
I am sure I should be posting profound insights here, but after also having relatives over for dinner on New Year’s Day who couldn’t come on Christmas, I am still (or again) cleaning up my kitchen and am too tired to think that hard. I do love the holidays, but still, I can’t wait to get back to work on my Christmas novella (for release next fall), my rewrite of The Magnificent Marquess, my series and other writing projects. Do you feel a bit relieved when life starts to return to “normal” routines?
The normal routines here at the Risky Regencies are already a little changed with the departure of Megan and Myretta. We will miss them greatly! Thank goodness we can still visit with them in their other online homes. And we’ve invited some wonderful guests and may be expanding the ranks of the Riskies, as we have before. But we are taking a hard look at our blogging schedules, and wondering about making changes. So here are some questions we’d love to have you answer:
1) How often do you read the Risky Regencies blog? Daily, every few days, weekly, or less often?
2) Do you read several postings at a time, to catch up, if you don’t visit every day?
3) If we cut back the posting schedule so there were only three or four posts each week, would you still check in with us to read the posts?
4) Do you tune in to read only certain Risky authors, or do you read all/any of us? Do you pay attention to the schedule of who posts when?
5) Do you prefer one type of post over another? (i.e research posts, personal posts, writing related posts…)
6) Are you on Facebook? Do you think we should make the Riskies Facebook page a more active venue for discussions and posts?
We have tried to keep a schedule where there’s a new post almost every day. While we love the sharing with you, keeping to that schedule can really cut into writing time, and we are thinking a somewhat reduced schedule might be a help to all of us. What do you think?
Please, share your thoughts with us? We really would like to know. You can post in the comments here, or on the FB page, or in anyone else’s comment spaces in the next week.
In the meantime, I (and all my fellow Riskies, I’m certain) wish you all the very best in 2015, and look forward to many more conversations in this space!
To all our Risky friends. May you have a great 2015 of reading, writing, research, or whatever moves you most; time with family and friends; and good health.
Well, not ALL is well, because Risky Regencies is bidding a fond adieu to Megan and Myretta, who both are needing to put their energies elsewhere in their busy lives. We will miss them terribly. It is not really a goodbye, though, because we can find them on Twitter and Facebook and their own websites. Who knows? We might even be able to entice them back for some guest posts. We wish them all the best!
But one good thing is that my dh, who spent Christmas in the hospital, came home the day after and is feeling pretty good. He had a horrible Christmas, but the rest of us made the best of a bad situation and managed to have some nice moments, like watching my 18 month old grandson open presents.
Amazingly now at home the dh is up and around, so I don’t have to reenact this scene:
I’m so glad I only live in Regency times in my imagination! In reality, during Regency times, there was no knowledge of bacteria, no penicillin or other antibiotics. My husband would have been tended at home and the treatment would have been bleeding, warm baths and purgatives (laxatives – ick!). In all likelihood he would not have survived.
He probably won’t be well enough for us to go out celebrating on New Year’s Eve, but, then, we never go out on New Year’s Eve. We stay at home and treat it like a regular night. This year, though, I’ll be saying a grateful prayer that the dh is home and well. I’d even be willing to read to him, if he could stand it!
Has illness ever spoiled a holiday for you?
This is the last regularly scheduled post from Megan Frampton and me.
We have loved being part of Riskies and hope to be able to stop back from time to time to check in. But life intervenes and we both find ourselves very busy, so are stepping away for now.
We’d like to leave you with some reminders of of our Risky Regencies history and a few hints about where to find us.
For a look back over Megan’s time with Risky Regencies, I give you the Megan Blog Search. And to see what my shorter term looked line, here I am.
We will not have disappeared from the Internet, however. You can still find Megan at meganframpton.com, on Facebook, and Twitter and, of course at Heroes and Heartbreakers. You can also find me at myrettarobens.com, on Facebook, and, less frequently, on Twitter. I am also always find-able at The Republic of Pemberley.
Being here with all the rest of the wonderful Risky ladies and with our excellent readers, commenters and guests has been a treat. We hope you have found some of it educational, or entertaining, or maybe both. And we hope to see you out and about in cyber space and other gatherings of the romance-minded.