Random drawing winners of an advance copy of STETSONS, SPRING & WEDDING RINGS are:
Roberta Harwell and Cheryl C!
Congratulations!!
Please email your address to staceykayne@gmail.com
Thanks again to everyone for stopping in today and for checking out the auction.
Wishing everyone Happy Bidding 
May is fast approaching, as is author Brenda Novak’s annual action to raise money for diabetes research. As I shared with you last year, I’ve known Brenda since the start of my writing journey and she is one of the sweetest and most encouraging authors you could hope to meet. I had the pleasure to sit beside her during my flight home from my first RWA National Conference. We talked about our families and missing our kids and Brenda shared her worries over her youngest of five children and his life-threatening struggles with juvenile diabetes. Nothing can be more frightening for a parent than to have their child be under constant siege of a life-threatening disease. A few years later I was thrilled to hear about the benefit she was putting together to aid diabetes research. The support she managed to rally inside and outside of Romance Writer’s of America was awe-inspiring. In the past four years her auction has continued to grow. Last year the auction raised $252,000–that’s more than A QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS!
Click on the banner above to browse the massive list of donated items. There is a vast assortment of items to fit any 
budget and listed in a number of different categories on her auction site.
Bidding begins on May 1st, but it could take a day or so to preview all the donations. Be sure to bookmark the page! Bidders can also register early and click “watch item” on those of interest to get automatic updates!
This year I’ve donated a western style (of course!) purse filled with my complete Wild Trilogy and other goodies. Hope you’ll stop in to check it out!
I did some digging on the history of diabetes and was surprised to learn this disease was identified more than two thousand years ago in the first century A.D. by Greek physician Aretaeus. He named the affliction “diabetes” from the Greek word “siphon”. He recorded that “fluids do not remain in the body, but use the body only as a channel through which they may flow out.” While ancient doctors could identify the illness, they were powerless to treat it. In fact, doctors had little success in aiding their diabetic patients until the 20th Century. Until 1921, the best a doctor could prescribe was a low-calorie diet to help prolong a diabetic’s life, but this did not stop the progression of the disease or help the patient’s suffering.
In the fall of 1921 Frederick Banting and his assistant Charles Best made a discovery breakthrough with a concoction of canine pancreas extract–insulin. When administered to a young boy dying of diabetes, his dangerously high blood sugars dropped to near normal levels within 24 hours. Until the discovery of insulin, most children diagnosed with diabetes were expected to live less than a year. Since insulin’s discovery, medical breakthroughs continued to prolong and ease the lives of people with diabetes.
I’ve always thought of it as a the “sugar” disease, but had no idea until these past few years how devastating a disease it truly is. When I was a kid I recall a few diabetic kids in my classes and thinking they were the lucky ones, because they got to have mid-morning snacks while the rest of us had to wait until lunch to get any food from our lunch boxes. Some of my relatives were diagnosed with diabetes later in life. How about you, know someone who has diabetes?
Today one comment poster will win an advance copy of my June anthology STETSONS, SPRING & WEDDING RINGS!
The Preacher's Wife
All the names went into the cowboy hat. Tension was high as the winning name was drawn….
The winner of a copy of my June LIH The Preacher’s Wife is….
Anita Mae!
Thanks to everyone who participated today and fessed up about their passions for games.
Well, bless my hide! I see Miss Vicki Bylin coming around the crook in the road.
Woo-Hoo! This is cause for dusting out the place and getting down the real china. The Fillies are proud to have her company. Ah know you’re excited too.
Miss Vicki is going to talk about her favorite women of the West and how they helped tame the wildness out of their men. She’s also going to talk about her story in a new anthology called In a Mother’s Arms. Sounds real interestin’.
And bless her heart, she’s not coming empty-handed. She’s bringing a book to give away to one lucky commenter.
Come early and stay late. You’ll have a good time.
I finished a book yesterday! It’s a June Harlequin Historical for next year, and it’s tentatively titled Her Make-Believe Husband. I almost blogged about breweries in the 1800s, part of the research for my book, but then I decided to share how I celebrated last night. I bought five beachfront properties, a couple of mega casinos, fifty chain guns, a couple of getaway cruisers, and then I wiretapped the cops and robbed a couple of five-star hotels, putting them out of business. What a night.
I’m talking about a game, of course. Remember your first computer? If you can really stretch way back, you might remember when Apple came up with a few games on floppy disks and they were revolutionary! Schools even used Oregon Trail for the elementary kids.
And your first real computer, remember how it came with solitaire and minesweeper? Land o‘mercy, who could have anticipated the games that were to follow, and even online games?
I used to play hearts. And an occasional game of spider solitaire. And one of my computers came with a really addicting game where you lined up matching rocks to make them disappear – sort of like Bejeweled, but I liked it better. I was never able to find that game again. I do play Bejeweled occasionally.
I’m not a big game player, but I do go through periods where I play something to unstress, and it’s most often late at night. I didn’t realize until I asked around, but Facebook has a lot of game applications, like Poker, Risk and others. I have a friend who is addicted to Fashion Solitaire. Most of the kids I know play some type of online game, like Tunetowns, Millsbury, and of course the online pets.
I was never really HOOKED until my daughter talked me into trying a My Space application called Mafia Wars. Oh, my goodness. It didn’t take me long to climb the ranks in the mob. Once you join, you need members for your mafia, and there are all kinds of people out there whacking each other with tommy guns and crow bars and robbing each other’s convenience stores who are more than willing to join your mafia.
You start out as a street thug and earn your way up by doing jobs and fighting other gangs. You buy property and getaway vehicles and earn loot in heists. I own more bulletproof vests and body armor than I will ever use in a lifetime. And, of course, you snuff the occasional bad guy. And every once in a while when someone beats the tar out of you, you add him to the hit list. Revenge is sweet.
There are other My Space applications, and my family has tried a lot of them, but this is our favorite. We played Fashion Wars for a while—too girly—and right now we’re also playing Pirates.
Do you have a secret—or not so secret—obsession with a game? Which ones test your skills? Do you play a few hands of solitaire before you go to bed? How about Word games like Scrabble?
If you confess a passion for a game today, I’ll add you to a drawing for an advance copy of my June book, The Preacher’s Wife. Come on, spill it!
Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I have an illegal poker game to run.
Oh, and if you play Mafia Wars, come find me. I’m Bad Bama. 
Wow! I loved visiting with everyone about gardening tips today. So much great advice–yee-haw! I’m ready to dig in and win the challenge!
PATRICIA BARRACLOUGH came in just under the wire, but she’s my winner of an advance copy of The Cattleman’s Unsuitable Wife!
Patricia, thank you for your long list of garden wisdoms. Your expertise really showed through!
Please email me at pacrooks@radiks.net. Send me your snail mail addy, and I’ll get your book off right away.
Happy Gardening, friends!
It’s been years and years since I’ve planted a vegetable garden. So long ago, in fact, that the girls were all still home and in elementary school. Oh, I’ve had a pot of basil for the past couple of summers, and a pair with tomatoes once or twice. But for some reason I can’t quite fathom, a la Michelle Obama, I’m so in the mood for my own home-grown veggies this year.
Now I have to admit there’s more to my craving. I’ve been challenged. Let me rephrase that. I’ve been insulted by my darling husband. I guess he’s been married to me long enough to be convinced that the care and upkeep of my garden will eventually fall to him. He’s ver-ry skeptical that my interest in caring for my little plot of veglets will continue once the temperature raises above 90 degrees (which it will certainly do) or once I fall in the throes of deadline hell (which I will most certainly do). He knows I don’t like the heat. Worse, I hate bugs and worms. Even so, I can’t let him win.
Let the challenge begin!
But first, I have a few questions for all of you. Not only do I want to plant vegetables, I also have this driving need to plant more flowers around the house. (Remember that wedding I blogged about not so long ago? Yep. It’s right around the corner. And lots of people will be traipsing through the Crooks’ yard. It’s important that they be impressed.)
So I desperately need your help. Share with me your favorite ideas. Be generous with your advice. Give me all your tips. Help me win the challenge!
(And because I’m that desperate, I’m going to bribe y’all by giving away a copy of my brand new book–THE CATTLEMAN’S UNSUITABLE WIFE–to the person who gives me the most help!)
I have a few questions about vegetables:
1. A friend told me to save my banana peels, then put them in the ground before adding the plant. I presume one banana per plant. Has anyone ever done this? And would I do it only once during the initial planting? Would I ever put them above ground?
2. Coffee grounds are another common way to use compost. Again, how often? Once a week? Once a month? Does it work? 
3. Any other kitchen waste ideas?
4. What’s your favorite Tomato plant? I’ve never grown lettuce before, but I want to. What’s your favorite kind of lettuce?
5. Rabbits are an *annoying* pest. Have you had any luck in keeping them away, besides unsightly chicken wire?
I came across an informative article in our local newspaper on how to fill containers with flowers. I’m happy to share:
Thrillers, Fillers and Spillers.
Even I understood this. Flowers/plants that fall into the Thriller category are those that are bold, give color and dramatic height, like the popular spikes. Fillers give texture and are of more medium height, coleus perhaps. And Spillers are easy enough–ivies or trailing petunias.
What do you put in your planters?
1. Last fall, we planted pansies. They were so pretty, but I’d read they’d come back in the spring. Alas, they didn’t. Are they supposed to? We have new ones planted now, but once they wilt from the heat of the coming summer, must I re-plant again in the fall?
2. Anyone have any luck with spring tulip bulbs? Do they really come back every year?
3. The north side of our house is a problem. We have some hostas, but they grow spindly. Give me some suggestions–what has worked well on the north side of your house?
Okay. I’ll stop the questions, and I’m looking forward to your answers.
(Don’t forget my bribe. THE CATTLEMAN’S UNSUITABLE WIFE–in stores very soon–to one very helpful winner!!)
April is National Poetry Month and I’m sure some are even aware of it, although it is steadily gaining in popularity they tell me.
The notion to set aside a special month was first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets as a way of increasing appreciation of poetry in the United States. Each April, publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. One year, the post office designated a stamp for the poet who got the most public votes.
Now, I’m not a big poetry person but I do have an appreciation for those who can write it. I know it does take lots of talent and a love for vivid words, words that draw pictures in a reader’s mind. I’m just too darn long winded for writing poetry. It takes me 400 pages to tell a story. I’ve never been one to think short. That said, I’m going to share my favorite poem with you. It was used in the John Wayne movie El Dorado. A young James Caan, who played the character Mississippi, quoted part of it in the movie.
Eldorado
By Edgar Allen Poe
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.land of Eldorado?’
But he grew old -
This knight so bold -
And o’er his heart a shadow
Fell, as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow -
‘Shadow,’ said he,
‘Where can it be -
This
‘Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,’
The shade replied, -
‘If you seek for Eldorado!’
Written in1849.
Do you read poetry or have a favorite one? If you do, what draws you to it? Or maybe you saw El Dorado? What did you think about it?
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When my blogging time comes along, I retreat to my personal western library. I love finding those odd little tidbits in history that make the past a little more alive and personal.Take Virginia City, for instance. As western fans, we are probably all aware of Virginia City, home of the Cartwrights and the Ponderosa. I visited there not long ago and, as I am apt to do, spent all my money on books about its history and characters. And colorful characters it had abundance.One of them was Mark Twain who worked at Virginia City’s “Territorial Enterprise” in the early 1860′s. The newspaper office exists as a museum, and one of the exhibits is the toilet he used. Yes, the toilet. It was preserved if not much else. I can’t say it was the highlight of the trip, but as an ex-journalist myself, I found it of considerable interest.
As I have blogged previously, newspapers were extremely abundant and powerful in west. Some 17 different newspapers were published in Virginia City between 1860 and 1880 but the distinctive style and editorial policy of the Enterprise kept it from ever being surpassed. It’s one of the great journalistic legends.
And then there are the prostitutes. We’ve written about the “Soiled Doves” before but because they were such a vital part of the west and I’ll soon have one as my heroine, I have to tell you about one in Virginia City. She’s the model for one of my characters.
As in all early day Western communities, prostitution was an ubiquitous and accepted facet of local society. The ratio of men to women was twenty to one. In 1860, Virginia City had 2,390 men and only 118 women. Something had to give.
While never officially legalized, prostitution was nontheless regulated to a certain degree. According to “Virginia City and the Silver Region of the Comstock Lode,” there were three main districts where this activity was allowed – the main red light district, the rude bordellos of Chinatown and an infamous “Barbary Coast” area.
The best class lived in fancy brothels, often with parlors containing a piano played by a paid musician which gave rise to the term, “parlor house.” Women employed there often charged $10 to $20 a customer.
Next down on the social ladder were the single prostitutes who lived alone in rented cabins. One of these women was Julia Bulette, the most famous of all Comstock prostitutes. These women, also according to “Virginia City and the Silver Region of the Comstock Lode,” were usually quiet, discreet, of “good” character and often allowed only one customer per night.
Below them were the women employed in disreputable brothels, those who worked in the back rooms of saloons and dance halls, and Oriental women sold into slavery.
Julia was the stuff of legends, some true, some not so true. Born in England in 1832, she married a man named Smith in New Orleans. No one seems to know what happened to Mr. Smith but she showed up as a prostitute in California, then changed her name to Julia Bulette before moving to Virginia City in April, 1863. There she won the hearts of the fire department’s Engine Co. No. 1 and was even named an honorary member of the company.
The Territorial Enterprise once described her as being kindhearted, liberal, benevolent and charitable, although she was never wealthy. She was well liked by everyone.
On the morning of January 20, 1867, she was found murdered in the small frame house she rented and the deeply shocked firemen turned out en mass to bury her, then sought the murderer. Five months later, a Frenchman was tried and hanged for the crime. In the summation, the district attorney, said, “True, she was a woman of easy virtue. Yet hundreds in this city have had cause to bless her name for her many acts of charity. That woman probably had more real, warm friends in this community than any other. . . ”
The legend grew and in the early 1950′s, the fence around her grave was moved to make it visible from C Street salons. A highly fictionalized episode about her was televised on Bonanza. A fictitious painting purported to be her was placed on display, and erroneous books on her life story were published.
No one will ever know the specifics of her life. Why and how she became a “soiled dove.” Why she gave most of her earnings to help others. Or even why she was murdered. But she must have been a truly remarkable woman of the west.
Have you ever been to Virginia City? It’s one of the best preserved of the old mining towns. Many of its buildings date back to the mid and late 1800′s, and its cemetery is fascinating. The tales are endless, and you feel as if you’ve just stepped back in history.
Yee-haw!
Kay Thomas’s Bulletproof Texas will get to go home with………
Becky Ward
A big round of applause for Becky!
Becky, please email me lindabroday@live.com and send me your mailing info. I’ll get it to Kay pronto and she’ll drop the book in the mail to you.
Thanks to all who came to make this a great weekend for Kay. You were awesome, ladies!
