That’s the name of the big horse and coach expo I went to with The ”Istituto d’Arte Equestre”. The classical dressage institute from Maestro Giorgio Mereu Pez who is my riding instructor. The whole weekend was a good time. I had some paintings, to cheer up the stand, and made drawings, and finished a painting of the maestro himself.

I sold quite a few of my diary paintings, and got some commissions, but unfortunately I invested the proceeds in a very good Champion and Wilton side-saddle….

I’ve got a bit of a writer’s block, besides being very busy, with painting, cleaning, horse and saddles, (I’ve brought the Champion and Wilton side-saddle remember!!!)
Everything’s going swell, and I will be with the Q again soon. And will be stuck in America with lots of time to write

This is a drawing I did last weekend, sorry for the bad quality, I had to photograph it and it was dark, all my photos of the weekend are bad

well three pieces to be exact

1) we have a winner- remember my competition with Funky Junk jewellery? Of course you do, well that closed today and it was so hard to pick a winner that I had to enlist the help of my lovely friend Katie Marsh we came down to four; Rosie, Sarah, Bethan and Cher

which we eventually wittled down to just one lucky winner-Sarah with this entry

http://www.funkyjunkjewellery.com/epages/es109911.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es109911_shop/Products/DSCF0090.3

This is my fave (although it was very hard to pick one!!) I love it as I love silver and it would go perfect with a dress I have. Might have to buy it!

2) happy 1,000th!- I was shocked and overjoyed last night when i checked out my stats and realised that my blog at the time had been viewed 1,013 times. The blog has been running three weeks tomorrow so I know this isn’t amazing but it meant alot to me. I just want to thank you all and hope you keep reading

3) writer Rachy- In december I will be submitting a piece for the next issue of YEAH Magazine, an online publication which is published every three months. The Theme of the next issue is simply “Boys and Girls” leaving me many options and poutes to take!  So keep your eyes peeled for that!

Thats about it my lovelies; keep reading, keep replying, keep reposting!

*Snaps open the umbrella and stands beneath* Yep, thats right, just waiting for the safe to drop from the 80th floor. Why? Glad you asked.

Life is suddenly going much better. No my husband still hasn’t found a job. We’ve decided to spend Thanksgiving in the hills with the family this year. Yeah, I know financially it’s a stupid move but you know what? I’m looking forward to it.

Then yesterday I received not one but 2 count them 1, 2 EXCELLENT reviews for my latest release Noella’s Gift. Both of the reviewers loved this little story. I was totally stoked. Here’s a snip of each:

The first, from LASR can be found here: http://longandshortreviews.blogspot.com/2009/11/noellas-gift-by-donica-covey.html

(Thank you Fennel!)

4 out of 5 Books
There is a saying that the loneliest place to be is in the middle of a crowd. Well for many Christmas is not the joyful celebration of happy memories most people assume it is, and in Noella’s Gift we have both Holly Harper and Jaxon Cole, who, for reasons unexplained, would prefer to forget its existence…You can’t help but fall in love with Holly, Jax and Noella and I thoroughly enjoyed this short story.

Thanks so much!

And the second review comes from You Gotta Read reviews:

http://yougottareadreviews.blogspot.com/2009/11/review-noellas-gift-by-donica-covey.html

Martha E says this book is a GOTTA READ–Thank you Martha!

Here’s a little of what she had to say:
This is a charming story of Christmas magic breaking through the barriers of two hearts! It is a very short novella that can be read in one sitting…I hope you will read this and find the magic and joy yourself! I will look for longer stories from this author based upon the fine characters and plot presented in this short story…

The third (and final book) in my Gateway Guardians series, Hunting Mickey, has been flowing like water! Page 106 and still flowing away–YAY! After being blocked for so long it’s finally hit a groove HURRAY!

AND THEN, today I learned that the editor from Samhain has offered a contract on Cry Wolf! I’m so happy I haven’t stopped dancing in my seat! This morning I even messed around for a few minutes coming up with my vision for cover art. When I fill out the cover art form I like to attach a visual of what I see as the cover so the artist has something to reference. Of course each artist I have–Samhain, Champagne and Resplendence, the artists ROCK so my suggestions aren’t needed.

But anywho, I KNOW you want to see what I came up with so here goes:

So, which do you like? Just very curious to know.

Whoops, pardon me…
*peaks out from under the umbrella then steps back* nope, not yet!

Better get back to work, Mickey is still waiting to find Terese.
See ya soon!

Hugz
Donica

“Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration. The hummingbird’s delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest creation.”

 (though I may beg to differ slightly on the last bit – as much as I love laughter, and we laughed a LOT together, I personally think that our two little girls are life’s sweetest creations . . . )

There are countless ways hummingbirds remind me of you. Even a fleeting glimpse of a hummingbird can brighten almost anyone’s day. They are undeniably amazing, beautiful creatures. A hummingbird’s life is ephemeral, just as yours was; but the swift nature of their existence doesn’t take away from what they bring to the world – it only adds more.

I love the symbolism of a hummingbird. Their fluttering wings form the infinity symbol. Infinity. Eternity. They can fly backwards – looking back on the past, but not dwelling there. Remember what was beautiful. Move forward, but pause – hover. Savor each moment – live for it. Sip the nectar. Appreciate the things we love.

They are tireless. Pure energy. Tenacious. They accomplish that which may seem impossible and handle the twists and turns of life with grace and dignity. They seek out the good in life and the beauty in each day.

Hummingbirds love honeysuckle flowers. We have one in our yard and I’ve seen them there. I’m sure they love the nectar, but perhaps they also appreciate the symbolism of the honeysuckle – generosity and devoted, true, undying love.

In some cultures, hummingbirds are believed to be the souls of departed loved ones, or a messenger between worlds. The hummingbird is also said to be able to heal the saddest heart and make anyone glad to be alive again, and that it can heal any grief or pain . . . .

(posted in b/w so skin irritation doesn't show - it was only done last night - and there is no actual colour in it anyway)

Regardless of the effect, I feel honoured to bear a permanent display our everlasting, unconditional love.  Life’s greatest gift.  A reminder of all that we learned from each other. Of all that you taught me. The writing is even yours – the word, ‘Love’, traced from a note you gave to me over a decade ago – now permanently a part of me, inside and out.

You learned to live the life of a hummingbird – and now you are mine.

~Chelsea

P.S.  I Love You

Another year has passed, another Barbarian festival. Last night I went with some friends to ”Muziek theater Romein” in Leeuwarden for another ”Barbaars” heavy metal concert. And this time I managed to make some acceptable photos. We were late. We had a nice dinner at M’s, and then drove to the city of Leeuwarden. So we missed the first band, and as one of the other bands didn’t turn up, we saw three bands. And Waw! Were they good!

The first band was my fovorite; Methusalem. Great music, great musicians, and a great singer!
Check them out on mySpace.

The next band was Wizard, also very good!

The last band was Freedom call.
Some of their songs were “Party-Metal” they really got the crowd going!

I had a great time!

Me and the singer of Methusalem.
Or the Singer of Methusalem and me…

I made these paintings.

Read all about them on my Art blog!

Photo: Stella & Rose's Books

It always amazes me how your mind works. What memories are stored away in there, inconsequential as they might seem, if you even remember them, until some trigger goes off.

I was reading Happy News tonight that there is a new book called “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood” which is written by author David Benedictus and picks up where A.A. Milne’s original series published in 1928 left off.

There is something oddly comforting in reading Milne’s Pooh books, perhaps it is the magic of childhood and the pleasure of imagination unleashed or maybe it is the reconnection with a past that was much simpler than our lives are in these “grown up” times.  I read an excerpt of the book from MSN’s Today website and I was pleased to see that Mr. Benedictus is able to capture the spirit of the characters that reside with such simplicity in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Here is an excerpt:

Who started it? Nobody knew. One moment there was the usual Forest babble: the wind in the trees, the crow of a cock, the cheerful water in the streams. Then came the Rumour: Christopher Robin is back!

Owl said he heard it from Rabbit, and Rabbit said he heard it from Piglet, and Piglet said he just sort of heard it, and Kanga said why not ask Winnie-the-Pooh? And since that seemed like a Very Encouraging Idea on such a sunny morning, off Piglet trotted, arriving in time to find Pooh anxiously counting his pots of honey.

“Isn’t it odd?” said Pooh.

“Isn’t what odd?”

Pooh rubbed his nose with his paw. “I wish they would sit still. They shuffle around when they think I’m not looking. A moment ago there were eleven and now there are only ten. It is odd, isn’t it, Piglet?”

“It’s even,” said Piglet, “if it’s ten, that is. And if it isn’t, it isn’t.” Hearing himself saying this, Piglet thought that it didn’t sound quite right, but Pooh was still counting, moving the pots from one corner of the table to the other and back again.

“Bother,” said Pooh. “Christopher Robin would know if he was here. He was good at counting. He always made things come out the same way twice and that’s what good counting is.”

“But Pooh…” Piglet began, the tip of his nose growing pink with excitement.

“On the other hand it’s not easy to count things when they won’t stay still. Like snowflakes and stars.”

“But Pooh…” And if Piglet’s nose was pink before, it was scarlet now.

“I’ve made up a hum about it. Would you like to hear it, Piglet?”

Piglet was about to say that hums were splendid things, and Pooh’s hums were the best there were, but Rumours come first; then he thought what a nice feeling it was to have a Big Piece of News and to be about to Pass It On; then he remembered the hum which Pooh had made up about him, Piglet, and how it had had seven verses, which was more verses than a hum had ever had since time began, and that they were all about him, and so he said: “Ooh, yes, Pooh, please,” and Pooh glowed a little because a hum is all very well as far as it goes, and very well indeed when it goes for seven verses, but it isn’t a Real Hum until it’s been tried out on somebody, and while honey is always welcome, it’s welcomest of all directly after a hum.

This is the hum which Pooh hummed to Piglet on the day which started like any other day and became a very special day indeed.

If you want to count your honey,

You must put it in a row,

In the sun if it is sunny,

If it’s snowy in the snow.

And you’ll know when you have counted

How much honey you have got.

Yes, you’ll know what the amount is

And so therefore what it’s not.

“And I think it’s eleven,” added Pooh, “which is an excellent number of pots for a Thursday, though twelve would be even better.”

“Pooh,” said Piglet quickly, in case there was a third verse on the way which would be nice, but time-consuming, “I have a Very Important Question to ask you.”

“The answer is Yes,” said Pooh. “It is time for a little something.”

“But, Pooh,” said Piglet, the tip of his nose by now quite crimson with anxiety and frustration, “the question is not about little somethings but big somethings. It’s about Christopher Robin.”

Pooh, who had just put his paw into the tenth pot of honey, left it there, just to be on the safe side, and asked: “What about Christopher Robin?”

“The Rumour, Pooh. Do you suppose he has come back?

Eeyore, the grey donkey, was standing at the edge of the Hundred Acre Wood, staring at a patch of thistles. He had been saving them for a Rainy Day and was beginning to wonder whether it would ever rain again and whether, by the time it did, there would be any juice left in them, when Pooh and Piglet came by.

“Hallo, little Piglet,” said Eeyore. “Hallo, Pooh. And what are you doing around here?”

“We came to see you, Eeyore,” said Pooh.

“A quiet day, was it, Pooh? An if-we-haven’t-anything-better-to-do sort of day? How very thoughtful.”

Piglet wondered how it was that every conversation with Eeyore seemed to go wrong.

“Time hanging heavy, was it, Piglet? And, Pooh, I would thank you not to stand on those thistles.”

“Which ones would you like me to stand on?” asked Pooh.

“But, Eeyore,” squeaked Piglet, “it’s C–C–C–”

“Have you swallowed something, little Piglet? Not a thistle, I trust?”

“It’s Christopher Robin,” said Pooh. “He’s coming back.”

While Pooh was talking, Eeyore went rather still. Only his tail moved, brushing away an imaginary fly.

“Well,” he said, rather huskily, then paused. “Well. Christopher Robin … That is to say … heretofore …” he blinked quickly several times. “Christopher Robin coming back. Well.”

Finally, the Rumour was confirmed. Owl had flown to Rabbit’s house, and Rabbit had spoken to his Friends and Relations, who had spoken to Smallest-of-All, who thought he had seen Christopher Robin but couldn’t be absolutely certain because sometimes he remembered things which turned out not to have happened yet, or ever, or at all. And they asked Tigger what he thought, only he was hopping across Kanga’s carpet avoiding the yellow bits, which could be dangerous, and paid no attention. But Kanga had told Rabbit that it was true, and when Kanga said something was true, then that thing was true. And so, if Pooh and Piglet thought that it was true, and Owl believed that it was true, and Kanga said that it was true, then it really must be true. Mustn’t it?

Remembering Pooh from my own childhood, lead me to look up A.A. Milne and his poetry. I came across the cover of the book at the top of this post “When We Were Very Young” and it looked strangely familiar. Recesses of my mind pulled up why it was so familiar – that book along with Milne’s other book “Now We Are Six” both sat on a bookshelf at my grandparents’ home. A bookshelf that I, the child that loved to read, would often scour while I was there. These two books and their poems were read over many times, with their simple illustrations and simple verse. As I type this I can remember turning the pages that, even then, some 35 or so years ago, were already very fragile and needed to be treated delicately. My grandparents have long passed from this world and while fond memories are also locked away deep inside, it was both very cool and very bittersweet to stumble upon this image, which conjured up so many good memories and images of my own childhood.

New favorite Web site! (linkage)

The tag line is “Real News. Compelling Stories. Always Positive.”

You know, for when you get sick of all the rapings and bombings and murders and so on.

Despite a major player mothballing its erotic fiction lists, the category is on a recession-busting rise.

Yay!

You can read the whole article here in The Bookseller. I scanned the double-page spread from the mag because, oh boy, isn’t it wonderful to see a range of covers up there instead of the usual glut of half-naked chicks?

And great to hear that friends of Erotica Cover Watch, Xcite Books and Bookkake, are both thriving. It’s a thrill, too, to know that Erotica Cover Watch and our fab supporters were largely responsible for Xcite’s decision to start featuring guys on their book covers. Yup, see him in the top left? He’s mine! Oh, OK, then: ours. We can share. I’ll be taking a closer look at Xcite’s new Temptations line on ECW in the near future – and am very much looking forward to him it.

If you missed the news from earlier in the week, Adam Nevill, former Black Lace editor, will soon be joining Xcite books as editor. All in all, an excellent week for erotica (um, apart from my blacklisting)!

Ok I know I have been very remiss in posting! Not that I don’t have any good ideas, I have many, many, many!

But….
I have been travelling.
To my dreamrabbit and have now spend  five days in the Q-continuum!
I’ve also had some problems with my computer.

Tomorrow we are leaving for a roadttrip to California! And I will try to put up good photo’s of the trip. The Q has business and we will stay there for two weeks.

Here is a very pretty Texas tree, they are all over the place!

Ofcourse it’s almost universally ”good weather” here. Meaning lots of sun, very hot, no clouds. Pfffff! Yay for airconditioning!
America is a weird country, you can’t imagine the weird foods they have here! Freaks me out completely! Especially as I have been going even more into health and nutrition lately!
But I have been making some very nice dishes, Q liked them very much, and I will put them up, together with the recipes for my ”Ramadan-Torture-Program”.

Afterdinner we sit on the terrace and smoke hooka, last night there were fantastic thunderstorms, ànd a full moon! For most of the time we saw both!

I made this photo, the full moon coily hiding behind a thundercloud which was lit up with lightning from the inside!

When the thunderstorm was over the moon returned

Later at night it rained, and this morning the air was so increadibe sweet!

So, what’s up with the media and all those scientific studies which prove vitamins are a hoax? That they are actually bad for you? That only patented expensive drugs can cure you? Well, there’s an easy way to find out: follow these guidelines when reading a media piece on Swine flu, or any disease, and/or natural healing, vitamins etc.
Because you can’t rely on the truthfulness of financially dependant doctors, scientist and journalists. But what you can rely on is your own!
In other words:

Think For Yourself!

1. Where’s the beef?
How much of the original study is quoted in the media?  Are you just getting factoids, or are data provided?  Has the journalist writing about the subject actually read the original paper?

2. What exactly was studied, and how?
Was it an IN VITRO (test-tube) study or an IN VIVO (animal) study? Was there a CLINICAL STUDY on people, or is its application to real life a matter of conjecture?

3. Follow the Money.
Who paid for the study? Cash from food processors, pharmaceutical giants, and other deep pockets decides what gets studied, and how.  It is very difficult, if not impossible, for researchers to present findings that embarrass their financial backers. Published research will often indicate sources of funding, possibly at the end of the paper in an acknowledgements paragraph. If not, correspondence addresses of principle authors are invariably provided. Write and ask.

4. Check the dosages.
Any vitamin C study using less than 2,000 mg a day is a waste of time. Any vitamin E study employing less than 400 International Units (I.U.) is a waste of time. Any study using less than 1,000 mg niacin a day is a waste of time. All low-dose studies are set up to fail. Low doses of vitamins do not cure major diseases.  Large doses cure diseases.

5. Check the form of supplement used.
Was the vitamin used in the study natural or synthetic? Any carotene study using the synthetic form of beta-carotene only is a waste of time. Any vitamin E study using the synthetic DL-alpha form (instead of far more effective natural mixed tocopherols) is a waste of time.

6. Use the Pauling Principle: read the entire study and interpret the data for yourself. Do not rely on the summary and/or conclusions of the study authors.  As Linus Pauling pointed out repeatedly, many researchers miss, or dismiss, the statistical significance of their own work.  Such behavior may be human error, or it may be politically motivated. Beware of editorializing.

7. Beware of Pauling-bashers.
If a media article is critical about twice Nobel prize-winning Linus Pauling, you can be confident it has been spin-doctored.

8. Watch for these throw-away slams against supplements:

“You get all the vitamins you need form your daily diet.”
”Vitamins are dangerous if you take too many of them.”
”Excess vitamins are just wasted by your body.”
”More research is needed before supplements can be recommended.”
”There is no scientific support for large vitamin doses.”

9. Watch for pontifical public recommendations at the end of the article

such as:
“Vitamins can do some good things, but can do some bad things as well.”
”You are better off not popping vitamin pills.”
”Just eat a balanced diet.”
”If you take vitamins, take no more than the US RDA.”

10. Use the media backwards.
The more headlines about a particular study, the more politically charged the subject and the less likely that the reporting, or the original study, is positive towards vitamins. Negative news sells newspapers, and magazines, and gets lots of viewers. Positive drug studies do get headlines, of course.  Positive vitamin studies do not. Is this a conspiracy? You mean with shady people all sitting around a shaded table in a darkened back room? Of course not. It is nevertheless an enormous public health problem with enormous consequences. Consider what might be called Saul’s Law of the Media: “Press and television coverage of a vitamin study is inversely proportionate to the study’s clinical usefulness.” In other words, the more media hoopla, the worse the research. Truly valuable research does not scare people; it helps people get well. There are over 3,000 scientific references at Doctor Yourself.com for people who share in this goal.

Copyright 2007 and prior years by Andrew Saul. Andrew Saul is the author of the books FIRE YOUR DOCTOR! How to be Independently Healthy (reader reviews at http://www.doctoryourself.com/review.html ) and DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works. (reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html )

Doctor yourself is a very interesting read and I can really recommend it to everybody, especially if you have kids I think you should read this. I am following the advices given and making serious changes to my eating habits myself.
Check out the website, mostly everything is there including thousands of medical studies proving the efficacy of large doses of vitamins which are completely ignored by the established, pharma-run medical establishment.