Taste of Kiwi: Blog of Author Shelley Munro

I’m so excited – no, I haven’t sold another book. In fact I’ve been receiving a lot of rejections, but I’m not talking about those today. No, I’m not. Hubby came home last night and said, “How would you like to go on holiday in September?”

“September?” I said. “I thought we weren’t going on holiday again until next September.”

He grinned at me and said, “How would you feel about Phuket in Thailand?”

My answer was yes. (of course!) and so long story short, we’ll be jetting off to Singapore and Thailand in September for 11 nights. I’m really excited since we haven’t been to Phuket. We’ve visited Bangkok and also Singapore, but Phuket is new territory.

A few days ago Sandra Cox posted the following called Ever Wonder? It made both hubby and I chuckle, so I thought I’d repost for your enjoyment.

EVER WONDER …

Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?
Why women can’t put on mascara with their mouth closed?
Why don’t you ever see the headline ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’?
Why is ‘abbreviated’ such a long word?
Why is it that doctors call what they do ‘practice’?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?
Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes? -
Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!
Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?

I wondered recently what Samoan men wear under their lava-lavas. In fact, I’m still wondering because I didn’t like to ask…

What have you wondered recently?

I’ve immersed myself in historical romances and non-fiction titles relating to Regency England during the past week, mainly because I’ve decided to write a historical for a change of pace. The Regency people were very naughty and I have a great idea for a story. I’m almost done with my planning and have a loosely-knitted plot. I’ll probably start writing this week.

I used to read a lot of historical romances, but I started to feel as if all the books were the same. I didn’t read any historicals for about three years and started reading them at the end of last year. Recently I’ve read books by Samantha Kane, Sherry Thomas, Jenna Petersen and Diane Gaston. I have books by Sharon Page, Jo Beverley, Anna Campbell and Joanna Bourne on my to-read pile.

Do you have any other recommendations for me?

As promised I’ve also worked on a family tree for my Middlemarch Mates series. It took me a while to decide how to present it, but I’m almost finished. Tomorrow I’ll load it on my website for readers to download. I’m quite pleased with myself. My next project is a cookbook of some of Emily Mitchell’s recipes – the things she serves in her Middlemarch cafe.

I’ve updated my photo album with fifteen photos from my recent trip to Samoa. Just click on the photos tab above and start exploring my album.

I’ve been thinking about food a lot this week, mainly because I’m having a bit of cut back and watching what I eat. I like food. One of my favorite meals is pasta. I love pasta and can eat it for several meals in a row. It’s a real comfort food for me. I’m also a big soup fan. There’s nothing better than a big bowl of soup with a couple of pieces of Vogel’s toast when the weather gets cooler. When it comes to dessert, I’d have to say ice cream, although I’m savvy enough not to buy ice cream these days. It doesn’t stay in my freezer for long!

What are your favorite comfort foods? Does your preference change with the seasons?

My name is Shelley Munro and I have big feet. Over the years I’ve become used to my big feet–after all, I’m atached to them. I’ve found a great shoe shop that caters for women with big feet. It’s all good, or so you’d think. My problem comes with socks.

My husband keeps stealing my socks. Last year I had lots of socks, but suddenly I have none. My husband has stolen them to wear to work. Once he gets his hands on them, I don’t want them back. If you saw the state of his socks and overalls you’d agree with me!

If I had smaller feet, I could buy pretty pink or lemon socks, ones in lovely pastel colors. I bet hubby wouldn’t steal those. Instead I have to buy socks from the men’s department where I end up with navy blue, white or black socks. These my husband steals. Today I purchased three pairs of socks in shades of green and brown. At least those will stand out in the wash, and I have a hope of getting them back. At the moment hubby grabs every blue and black sock he sees, they land up in his sock drawer and that’s it! I never see them again.

If this new strategy doesn’t work, I’m going to break out my embroidery cottons and sew decorative bands on the top of my socks. We’ll see how hubby likes black socks with hot pink embroidery!

What color socks do you have? Does anyone else have a sock-stealing husband? Does anyone know what happens to the lone socks that go off adventuring in the washing machine or drier, never to be seen again?

A complimentary fifteen-minute massage came as part of the package on our recent holiday in Samoa. Massage isn’t something I’ve had a lot of experience with in the past. I get a head massage whenever I have my hair done, and when I injured my shoulder in a fall, the physio treatment included massage.

On the first day of our holiday, one of our friends and I went off to check out the spa while the others attacked the golf course. (I say attacked because it was a brutal course and the sand bunkers were so deep, the players had to use the ladders provided to climb down inside to play their golf balls out of the bunker.)

My first real massage was great. I stripped off and wrapped in a towel before being escorted to the open-sided huts where they did the massages. They used coconut scented oil and below the table they had sweetly scented flowers and oils. The entire experience was wonderful. I thought about having another massage, but I have to admit the cost put me off a little. Feeling good is not a cheap business. Maybe when I win lotto I can have a massage every week.

Have you had a massage before? Did you like it?

Congratulations to Debby who is my blog participation winner for April. I hope you enjoy your prize!

Since I was so late in choosing my winner, I decided to choose an extra for April. Congrats to Roberta who should have received her copy of Fancy Free by now. Enjoy!

And finally, the winner in my April Newsletter contest is Titania. Your prize will be in the mail tomorrow.

Congratulations to you all!!

I like to keep up with the news, to hear what’s happening in different parts of the world. Keeping up with current events is one of the things I miss while I’m traveling. From experience, it’s difficult to keep abreast of current affairs in parts of Australia. Their news tends to mostly relate to whatever state you’re in. They don’t think New Zealand news is important. In America, it’s impossible. I’m convinced that the news people don’t know there is a New Zealand or Australia. The only way to learn what’s happening in the world is to tap into the Internet, or at least that’s what we do when we’re visiting the US.

In New Zealand our news coverage is broad in all medias—television, radio and newspaper. I generally know what’s going on in different parts of the world.

Just recently, I’ve noticed a trend, particularly with our television news. They sensationalize everything, in some cases making mountains out of things that are mere hills. Two cases in point.

Like the rest of the world, swine fever has been a big story down here. We had several groups of Auckland students who spent their school holidays in Mexico. They developed symptoms, were isolated fairly quickly on their return to NZ and given treatment. I thought our health ministry handled everything pretty well, the students, their families and others who were showing symptoms were put in isolation and monitored closely.

We’ve been lucky in New Zealand since we haven’t had any deaths and everyone has recovered. Anyone listening to the news coverage after the story broke would have thought all the students were a gasp away from death and the pandemic would be halfway across Auckland by the next day. Despite officials coming out with strong statements, telling of their progress and what they intended to do, the news coverage was scaremongering, plain and simple. I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

The second thing that happened was a shooting. A policeman was killed and others injured by a gunman who holed up in his house. The armed defenders were out, neighbors were evacuated and the press went overboard. Yes, it was a serious situation, but several of the things the press reported during the day were incorrect. I can see that news is big business these days. It’s a race to see who can get stories out to the public first, but it would make me happier if the gloom and doom reports were reserved for matters where the world really was going to end.

Lately I’ve been watching the headlines and leaving it at that. I don’t need to listen to the scaremongering from our reporters.

How do you keep up with the news? If you live in Australia or the US, am I being unfair about your parochial news coverage? Do you think, like me, that sometimes the news coverage is heavy on the scaremongering? What say you about news?

Look for the blog participation winner announcement later today. Oh, my newsletter contest winner announcement as well. I ran out of time today, but on the plus side, my website is looking more up to date. Check out my new covers for Make That Man Mine and Lynx to the Pharaoh plus details and an excerpt for CatNap, the next story in my Middlemarch series. I also have a new free short story for you to download.

Hi! It’s me again. I’m home again after a very relaxing holiday in Western Samoa. I hope you’ve enjoyed the photos. They were actually from my last holiday in Samoa. Good thinking on my part because the Internet connection at Aggie Grey’s Resort wasn’t the best. I have lots of new photos (because we did some more sightseeing this trip) and will load them in my website photo album very soon.

While we were at the resort there were lots of people setting up for the shooting of a new Survivor show. I’ve never watched Survivor before, but I think I might make an exception for Survivor Samoa. Have any of you watched Survivor before? Did you enjoy it?

Christina Phillips and I are over at the Coffee Time forum this month. We’re doing a round Robin-type story called Red Wolverton Howling. It’s a paranormal Space Opera featuring Django (our hero) and Carrie Holland (our intrepid heroine). Here’s the intro paragraph.

I’ve just read through all the posts to catch up on the story, and it’s a real hoot. I hope you’ll come over to the Coffee Time forum to join us and maybe add to the story. Readers, aspiring writers and published writers are all welcome! Christina has left the story with one of the characters doing a pole dance, and I’m off to add to the story.

I’m in Samoa. I might be waiting for the dinner bell…local style of course!