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Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Christmas at Fireside Cabins by Jenny Hale

 The warmth, love, and cheer of Christmas are in every page of Jenny Hale's story.  

The atmosphere couldn't be warmer than the cabins in the mountains of Tennessee with white snow draped over the evergreens.

Here's the problem...  Lila is a wonderful woman who followed her sweetheart to Nashville and promptly got dumped.  Her job sucks, and she doesn't know what to do next.  Fortunately, she has a fabulous group of girlfriends.  That's not enough because they're all moving on in their lives with work and family.

One last grand Christmas week together is what Lila has.


The girls rent a spot at Fireside Cabins.  The cabin is worn, the host is lonely and in need of spirit, and the coffee shop has a handsomely, cranky bachelor ignoring his customers.

Theo owns the coffee shop, but closes himself from feeling, well, anything.  He could be a thoughtful and caring man, if he didn't have to hide.  

Lila sees all the beauty and anguish in the merry week of Christmas with friends, and needs to fix it.  That's what she does.  And Theo is on the list of needing fixing.

A delightful holiday romance.  Hale gives me goosebumps of cheer and many other Christmas stories to read.

Happy holidays,

Dawn  


Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Killer Christmas by Harper Lin

Emma Wild is an extraordinary singer.  She's lived her dream by hopping down to New York and singing songs of the trials of love.  Her fans see her as famous, talented, and living the life.  Even her now ex-boyfriend, Nick, was a famous movie star.
When she figured Nick had moved on to Victoria Secrets' lingerie models, she fled to her hometown in Hartfield, Canada, to celebrate Christmas.Killer Christmas
Emma's sister owns a delightful coffee house where the chocolate and coffee go hand-in-hand.  That's where the mishap, or murder begins.  The killing of a fan of Emma's brings her former high school sweetheart, Sterling, a detective, into the picture.
It's quite uncomfortable when Emma clues into the fact that she had been the target and has to interact with Sterling.  Repeatedly.
Sterling never lost his love for Emma.  How is it possible he can be around her, investigate thoroughly, and keep his lips off her mouth?  From the tabloids, he knows she dates men much better than himself.
Glamour doesn't make one person better than another, and that's a lesson taught and hopefully learned in both their minds.
There may be murder and jealously intertwined in this Canadian Christmas, but it's a spectacular light lit on top the Christmas tree that can enlighten the heart with love.

Merry Christmas,
Dawn

Friday, May 27, 2016

You Absolutely CANNOT Fix Stupid...No Matter How Hard You Try!

Hey, all!  How are ya?  Long time no talk.  I know…I know…that’s totally my fault!  I took off for the convention in Nashville without the power cord for my laptop.  So I had to go online and order a new one from Amazon and have it shipped to the hotel…but, alas, too late to get my blog written.  So my apologies for being MIA!!!

Okay, so I’m back online with my new power cord, and this week’s blog is about stupidity.  Those of you who know me know that there’s nothing that gets me spun up faster than stupid…and like Ron White says, “You can’t fix stupid.”

And I know it’s not just me that agrees with that because I used to have a trailer hitch cover that said, “You can’t fix stupid.”  Used to.  Not any more…someone stole it.  Speaking of stupid, I think that one speaks for itself!

Anyway, my friend, K. T. Roberts, and I drove across the country for the Nashville conference, and I’m happy to report that stupidity is alive and well everywhere!

For starters, we stopped in New Mexico at a fast food restaurant, which shall remain unnamed.  Suffice it to say, when my son was very small, he misunderstood the commonly accepted nickname of the restaurant chain and insisted on calling it “The Gold Narches”.  Enough said.

Anyway, K.T. and I pull up to the speaker and I order “two large iced coffees, black…one decaf, one regular.”  Seemed easy at the time.  Oh, silly me!

“Two large iced coffees?”

“Yes, black…one decaf and one regular.”  I’m making sure they don’t miss anything.

“Would you like cream in that?”

Seriously?  K. T. and I look at each other and shake our heads.  “No, black.”

“You want sweetener?”

Really?  “No…black.  Just coffee and ice.”

“You want that iced?”

Sigh.  “Yes.  Two large black iced coffees, but we need one of them decaf and the other regular.”
“Okay.  That will be (whatever the price was) at the first window.”

Finally!!!

So we get to the window and the coffees come out.  I look at them and they look suspiciously identical.  So I ask, “Which one is decaf?”

I get the blank stare.  “Decaf?”

Sigh.  “Yes, decaf.  One is supposed to be regular and the other decaf.”

She shakes her head.  “They’re both regular.  We can’t do decaf iced.”

Are you effing kidding me?

I take a deep breath, glance at K. T., and struggle not to laugh at the look on her face.  “Do you have decaf coffee?”


The girl nods.  “Yes.”

“Do you have ice?”

She nods again. “Yes.”

I know it’s wrong, but this just called for condescending.  “So just pour the decaf coffee over a large cup of ice.”

I get the blank stare.  “But the ice will melt.”

Are you freaking kidding me?

I take another deep breath and smile.  “Yes, it will.”

She is still confused.

How?  How is this confusing?  How?

I must be skating dangerously close to the “out of control” foul line because she now has to go get the manager.  Clearly annoyed, the manager comes to the window and informs us they don’t have iced decaf coffee.

Noooooooooooooo…not the manager too?!

Again, “Do you have decaf coffee?”

The manager nods.  “Yes.”

“Do you have ice?”

She nods again.  “Yes.”

“Then put lots of ice in a big cup and pour the coffee over it.”

And I am NOT freaking kidding you…I get, “But the hot coffee will melt the ice.”

I’m still smiling…now it’s because I’m desperately trying not to laugh because I can’t take much more stupidity.  And I don’t dare look at K. T. because her internal thoughts (and mine) are shrieking though the cab of the truck—Are you effing kidding me?  It takes all I can muster to reply, “Yes, it will…and that’s fine.  Just use lots of ice.”

Problem solved.  The manager now turns to her employee and gives her permission to pour hot decaf coffee over the top of a cup of ice and give it to the morons at the drive-thru window.  Yeah!!!

Oh, wait…one more thing she needs to confirm—“Do you want cream and sweetener in that?”



WTF?!!!!!  NO!!!!!!!!!!!!  When did “black” stop meaning “black”?



We get our drinks…finally…and we leave the drive-thru, about to pee our pants because we are laughing so freaking hard.  I have never in my life had so much trouble trying to order an iced decaf coffee, black.  What the hell is so hard to understand about that?  Seriously?

Well, the story doesn’t end there…not only did we encounter the same scenario at least twice more on our trip…almost verbatim…but our next stop was a dollar store.  Now, keep in mind that this is one of those dollar stores where EVERYTHING in the store is…wait for it…ONE DOLLAR!

So K. T. and I do a little shopping and take our treasures to the checkout.  I’m the first to be rung up and my bill comes to $24.00 and change…which means I’ve purchased…you got it…23 items, give or take a bit for sales tax.  I swear on my life, the checker processed my card and then looked at me and asked, “Would you like a bag with that?”

Really?

I cut my gaze to K. T. and she had the same stunned look on her face that I’m sure was on mine.  Now, I don’t care if all I bought was chewing gum…23 packs of chewing gum would be tough to navigate to the truck without a freaking bag!

You would have been sooooooo proud of me!  I didn’t give her “the look”, I didn’t point out how difficult it would be to carry 23 items—makeup bags, bows, nail files and brushes—to the car without a bag.  I didn’t do any of that.  Nope, I didn’t even smile and say, “Here’s your sign.”

BUT I WANTED TO!!!

No, I just nodded and said, “Yes, a bag would be good.”

She gave me a bag, we bagged my stuff, K. T. paid for hers (and got a bag too), and we hightailed it out of there.  And you can bet we didn’t drink the water…it could be contagious!



Ron White is right…YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID!  And as his buddy, Jeff Foxworthy, would say, “Here’s your sign.”



That’s my story, stupid and stupendous, and I’m stickin’ to it.  Hang on tight now, ‘cuz we’re gonna go real, real fast!



Love ya,


Kayce