Weekly DiVa | Feb 18, 2024

Hello and happy Sunday!

 

Have you had a nice week? Did anything unexpected happen? Are you safe? (I am currently reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and I feel like none of us are truly safe ever! But I do hope you're safe, even if nothing eventful happened.)

 

We are motoring along through our booklist count to my 40th new release, RANCH DRESSING. Today is #31, so you can see we are nearing the finish line! If you've missed any of the videos or just want to check out your favorite book, you can access them all on my website. Click the image with the book in it and it'll take you to YouTube to watch. I've tried to keep them all around the five minute mark, but when I get particularly enthusiastic, I go a little over! :)

In the runup to RANCH DRESSING, I am making a few appearances as a guest on really wonderful mystery blogs. This past week I visited the Wickeds, where we talked about being along for the ride. If you missed it, you can read it here. 

 

Today, I'm sharing my clone recipe for Butterscotch Krimpets, on Mystery Lover's Kitchen. I had to call in an expert for help (my mom, the baker in the family), so this was a team efffort. You can get the recipe here. 

You may ask, why Butterscotch Krimpets, Diane? As you may know, Samantha Kidd likes snack food, and there is usually a recurring food in each book. This time it's Krimpets. She uses them to negotiate in chapter one (sneak peek below!) and late on, convinces the chef at the ranch to make a clone recipe like this one.  

Today is also the final day of the Storygraph Giveaway for RANCH DRESSING. I've never done a giveaway on The Storygraph before so I don't know exactly when “today” ends, but if you haven't entered and want to, then you'll want to visit this page. 

For all of my go-with-the-flow bravado, I get annoyed when I get pulled out of my schedule. It's not that I'm a creature of habit, but more that I like doing what I do, so I don't like when I don't get to do it. 

 

(Clear as mud! More coffee, please!)

 

The way I see it, there has to be a compromise in there, somewhere in between a rigid schedule and Life Happening, but the problem is that Life doesn't poke us for our attention when it's convenient. It's usually when we're rushing somewhere, or running late, or approaching a deadline, or not feeling well. 

 

But if we stayed on a schedule all of the time, then we might not fully appreciate those beautiful moments when we get to do what we love to do, when we actually make forward progress despite the distractions around us. It's possible we need the inconvenient things as bumpers in the grand pinball game of Life, where we occasionally get knocked off course, but we bounce back. Maybe it's all of the annoying things that get in our way that help us see what we really wish we were doing instead so we can find our true paths. 

 

Maybe the beautiful moments are the ones we don't plan, the ones we don't expect, the ones that wake us up and give us context for how we spend our time. 

 

I'm still not a fan of being pulled away from what I love, but maybe those moments helped me find what I loved--and that seems totally worth it. 

 

xoxo,

Diane