Jenyfer Matthews

It’s been snowing like crazy and bitterly cold – almost too cold to type! My new laptop arrived this week and once I figure out how it all works and get to a place with wireless, I’ll share some pictures.

Don’t forget to stop by over the weekend when author Terry Odell is here to talk about her latest release WHEN DANGER CALLS.

If you’re in a cold place, stay warm. If you’re in a warmer climate, don’t brag…

Well, I made it – and actually it pretty much looks like the picture from yesterday! I have flown into Duluth countless times and this time was the first time they ever made us deplane on the tarmac – and wouldn’t you know it, the temperature was in the teens and it was snowing! Fortunately my father was waiting for us inside with some more substantial coats!

It snowed the entire drive back to his house in the woods and continued most of the night as well. When we woke up there were about four inches of light fluffy snow covering the ground, much to my children’s delight. It was a lovely calm day – no wind – and it was still snowing. Gorgeous. We suited up and they played outside for about two hours.

Today was something of a different matter. The wind had kicked up and the temperature dropped to single digits. Bitter. It didn’t deter the children from going outside. I sat inside with a cup of tea and gorged myself on holiday catalogs!

A nice way to spend a winter morning…

ETA: I just saw that my first book HERE TO STAY is now available in print!!

Well, if all went well over the weekend, this is where I will be for the next three weeks. If not, then I don’t know where in the world I am. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can (and assuming that I can type with frozen fingers!)

K.Z. Snow (formerly writing as Kate Snow) is the daughter of Milwaukee tavern keepers and learned her first words off a Wurlitzer jukebox. Nine years of higher education, resulting in a 2 1/2 English degrees and a stint as a teacher, did not dampen her enthusiasm for beer, Green Bay Packers football, classic R&B, and various forms of political incorrectness.

She’s been many things in her life, including a varsity debater, a Catholic, a hippie, a Girl Scout, a junker, a fag hag, a gardener, an editor, a saxophone/bassoon/tambourine player (not all at once), a damned good dancer, and a companion to most species of domesticated animals, including men.

One thing she has never been is a Republican. One thing she will always be is a writer.

She now lives in rural Wisconsin, not far from the birthplace of surrealism, a.k.a. “The Dells.” Her imagination and her hips continue to grow unchecked.

You cant miss the excellent dialogue, hilarious, or the imaginative role-playing, and Ralphie is a priceless addition to the story. The secondary characters are perfect; from Laurens mix of girlfriends and her sister all the way to Herb and Harriet; humor, compassion, true friendship and wisdom. I was DYING reading the scene where the friends go to meet Santa; hilarious.

The Romance Studio

Merry Christmas, everybody, and many thanks to Jenyfer for inviting me over! I’m K. Z. Snow, and in addition to publishing contemporary romances through Cerridwen Press, I also have books available at Ellora’s Cave, Loose Id, Changeling Press, MojoCastle Press and, under a different name, at Samhain and Double Dragon.

My holiday romantic comedy, Mrs. Claws, originally had a subtitle: The Nightsweats Before Christmas. I hated having to drop it, because it perfectly suited the heroine and the storyline. You see, Lauren Rose made her first appearance as Glenna’s droll, older sister in Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad, another of my Cerridwen titles. A reviewer said Lauren deserved her own book. So her own book she got — attitude, nightsweats, and all.

I wanted to make this multifaceted woman the star of a Christmas story. Not everyone is all happy-happy-joy-joy around the holidays. Christmas can be a stressful time, especially when other aspects of life aren’t going smoothly. So Lauren became, at least in my mind, not only the heroine of a novel but the standard-bearer for all Grinchettes — those of us who struggle, screw up (or get kicked), often feel humbuggy, and yet harbor undying hope for bliss, even though we doubt it’s every going to come our way.

Mrs. Claws developed into a story about a bright, sometimes ornery, but fundamentally caring woman who’s used to being in control. A woman who’s recently learned there are some things in life you can’t control, and those things can hurt you badly. Like a husband who’s been having a clandestine affair with some young doll then decides to scrap his marriage to be with that doll.

Although Lauren’s world has been painted black when Mrs. Claws begins, she’s been trying her damnedest to adjust. She loathes self-pity. So she’s gotten back on the dating track . . . but with no success. Not one of the seventeen men she’s dated has plugged in the lights on her tree, if you know what I mean. Desperate for some cheer as the holidays roll around, Lauren decides to apply for a job playing Mrs. Santa Claus at a huge, bustling shopping mall, figuring that might dispel her blues and help her revel in “the most wonderful time of the year.”

At first, it seems like an unfortunate decision. Lauren had no way of anticipating what the job would entail. She couldn’t foresee the unflattering costume and makeup she would have to wear. She didn’t know she’d be working with a little person (not child, but adult dwarf) named Ralphie who serves as Santa’s elf and has a wickedly mischievous streak. She hadn’t thought about the people of all ages and both sexes she’d be forced to deal with — people she would normally never choose to deal with — including and especially the man playing Santa. And she certainly didn’t know a couple of unpleasant exes would make unwelcome appearances. Lauren’s meddlesome group of girlfriends further complicates her month of employment.

But the tide eventually turns for this luckless lady. In the process, she learns some valuable lessons. One of the most important is that compatibility, like genuine happiness, often runs along hidden and unexpected channels. Little by little, Lauren manages to dig deep enough to find those channels. She also rediscovers the incomparable value of family, friends, and humor.

That is, ultimately, what Mrs. Claws is all about — searching beneath the surface to find the wellsprings that keep hope alive and make life worth living. So, from me and Mrs. Claws, a sincere wish that your holiday season is full of love and laughter!

Buy This Book!

Since the children and I are leaving on Saturday to spend the holidays in the US with my family, aside from my wreath I’m not putting up my Christmas decorations this year. There is one spot of color however:

This is a leftover from last Christmas and is turning red no thanks to me. I had to deliberately ignore my four poinsettia most of the year because the more I fuss the worse they do. You should see the two big ones (shudder) Kind of nice to see this one doing its thing though.

I checked the weather forecast for northern Minnesota, my Christmas destination – the predicted high for Saturday is 14F with a low of 1F.

It’s official: I am afraid – very, very, afraid!

I thought when soccer season ended I was done with baking – especially since we’re traveling for the holidays. I should have known better.

This is my children’s last week of school and all of the classes are having Christmas parties. I was asked to make brownies for my son’s class. No biggie – brownies are easy to make and for him to carry to school. However, I am one of three class reps for my daughter’s class and as such, I’m responsible for helping to organize her class’s party.

We’re trying to keep things fairly simple. The children will bring their lunch as usual only we’ll take them outside to have a picnic and play a few games. Duck-duck-goose with a Santa hat should get a giggle out of them. It was also suggested that someone should bring in cupcakes for a special treat. After the mix-up that occurred with my daughter’s soccer team where they ended up with no cupcakes, I felt compelled to volunteer to bring the cupcakes – all three dozen of them.

Sigh.

Oh well – at least they’ll actually have cupcakes. I’m planning to top them with white frosting and stick a peppermint to the top for a little extra holiday fun.

We stayed the night at a hotel near Lake Qaroun, a large salt water lake. The salt content of this lake is higher than that of the Mediterranean.

Fishermen on Lake Qaroun at sunrise.

The location of the hotel was lovely, as you can see. Though it looked pretty good on the outside, the hotel was a dump. Our room was unusually large – it was apartment sized and we all had our own beds which I wasn’t expecting. We couldn’t enjoy it however because the room was so disgusting. The walls were crumbling and speckled with bug splats, the tub had dried up mouse turds in it, and one bathroom was missing a window pane which allowed swarms of mosquitoes to join us. The housekeeping couldn’t be bothered to tend to any of those problems, yet they left fresh bougainvillea blossoms on our pillows!

As an aside, having had experiences like this before in Egypt, I have a list of things I bring with me when I travel:

Flip flops
Wash cloth
baby wipes
hand sanitizer gel
bar of soap
mosquito repellent (not that they paid any attention this time!)

I may have to add sheets / sleeping bag to this list! Needless to say, none of us slept much at all.

On the second morning we headed out to Wadi Rayan where we were supposed to go and visit an open air museum where there are some 400 fossilized whale bones preserved from millions of years ago. It was in fact the main purpose of the trip.

This is as far as we were allowed to go. There was some mix-up between the bus company and the tour organizer and argue though she did, she was unable to convince them to drive our buses down the gravel road to get to the site. The drivers were concerned they would get stuck and disappointing as it was to miss the fossils I can’t really say I blame them.

The road the buses refused to travel…

While our tour organizer argued, we wandered in the sand near the bus and picked up fossilized sea shells.

So, instead of whale bones, we visited the waterfalls of Wadi Rayyan. They are formed by the overflow of Lake Qaroun flowing down into lower areas, forming two more smaller salt lakes. They aren’t particularly impressive until you realize that they are some of the only waterfalls in Egypt, period.



Close enough to Cairo for a day trip, this is a big picnic spot for Egyptians – and they certainly seem to be enjoying themselves!

The people in the countryside wear much more colorful scarves than the city





The last place we visited was this Greco-Roman temple, with the remains of the city of Dionysias








My son claimed he liked this last site best of all because we were able to climb on to the roof – though perhaps it was the danger of falling through the open pits into rooms below that thrilled him most. That or the bat we saw.

All in all, it was a good trip. We returned to Cairo on Friday evening, tired, mosquito bitten, and dirty. But there is nothing like a night in a crappy hotel to make you appreciate the comforts of home.

We spent our holiday traveling this year visiting an area of Egypt known as the Fayoum. I’m no expert on Egyptian history, but in a nutshell the Fayoum region is a desert depression into which the overflow of the yearly Nile Valley flooding used to flow. Due to this, the area is incredibly fertile. But it wasn’t until the Greco-Roman occupation of Egypt that reservoirs and canals were built to bring the waters of the Nile to the area on a controlled and regular basis, allowing people to farm there year round, at which time the area, though geographically small, became a very important area of Egypt.

Our first stop were the remains of a village called Karanis, on the edge of the Fayoum region. This was an agricultural village populated by ordinary people. Not much remains of the village because their homes were built of mud brick which has eroded over time.

(click any image to enlarge)

The remains of a mud brick wall in the village. The holes in the wall were where the palm log flooring fitted to make multiple story buildings.






The ruins of the village with the lush greenery of the Fayoum valley in the distance





It wasn’t all mud brick – this simply adorned temple still stands.





The primary god worshiped in this area was Sobek, the crocodile god. There were niches in this temple into which mummified crocodiles would have been placed.



The Pyramid at Hawara, built by Amenemhet III during the time of the Middle Kingdom. It doesn’t look like much now because the outer layer of limestone has been removed over time, exposing the much less durable mud brick structure below. But it is an impressive number of mud bricks! And apparently this pyramid has one of the most complicated internal passage systems, built in an attempt to thwart tomb robbers. Shortly after this period, pharaohs abandoned pyramids in favor of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings down in Luxor.






The entrance to the pyramid. There wasn’t much to see – the water table has risen so you could only go a few yards in before the floor of the tunnel was covered in water. It probably wouldn’t have stopped Indian Jones but the caretakers stopped us!



One of the many policeman that guarded us at the various sites we visited over the two day trip, a necessary precaution.



The decor at the rest stop where we ate lunch was certainly interesting!



Farmland



Pyramid at Lahun, built by King Senwosret II



One of several openings leading to the tombs of the princesses



This pyramid survived somewhat better than the previous pyramid because of the way in which is was built, incorporating the stone of the hillside in conjunction with the mud bricks.

Stay tuned, more pictures tomorrow…