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Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

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Time For A Spring Whittle?

March 13, 2019 By Kimberly A. Cook 3 Comments

Wreath bells and decorations. The pine cones are in the garage. Somewhere.

I’m rebooting myself. If we can do it to computers, we can do it to ourselves. Between the crazy cold weather, my too long sick bay recovery and the state of my house, something needs to be rebooted. So I’ve decided to start with moi.

Mucking out the house seems a first priority. Since Spec Ops Cat refuses to do dishes and housework, I had to keep up with those necessities. But cleaning out closets when homebound has led to a plethora of boxes in the living room bound for Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity and recycling.

Normally I would move all this flotsam into the garage, but it’s a mess too. Seems when I’m not feeling well I order things from Home Shopping Network to cheer me up. Then I throw the empty boxes into the garage until I can break them down. That also includes my Christmas wreath.

Miracles of miracles Monday, the sun came out and it was pleasant outside. I toddled out to the garage and proceeded to breakdown cardboard boxes and fill the entire recycling cart to the brim. Then I actually unwound the wire off the wreath, salvaging the bells and pine cones, and put the very dead fir limbs into the yard debris. 

Now I also kept the round wire frame. I’ve been doing this for years, buying holiday wreaths and then saving the frames. Haven’t used one yet. But I might. I’ve watched too many YouTube craft videos this year and I own an unused glue gun. Chaos will certainly reign at some point when it comes to these two items. I can only imagine the things I can stick myself to with a small amount of effort.

Yesterday I almost took the electronic recycling in the back of Subie to the drop off place, but I couldn’t get my butt out the door. Today is another day! The old HP printer and monitor belonged to the ancient computer I finally switched to my new computer. It only took six months, two technicians and a ton of chocolate. I’ve kept the old desktop just in case. I might need a doorstop or a boat anchor.

But I like to think this is progress. I also dragged some boxes to sort from my parent’s house out of my exercise room, it holds equipment, not that I use it. I am happy to say Subie will be driving a vintage punch bowl set to a friend of mine to donate to her church. One more box out of the house.

I watched a lot of videos while cooped up and stumbled upon Mari Kondo’s Netflix series about Tidying Up. Basically it all comes down to one thing – you have to sort your crap, er stuff. But the series gave me hope that one day I will again park Subie in the middle of the garage and perhaps see the rug in the exercise room.

Don’t get me started on my office. Between papers and books, it’s easier to fight my way to the computer and ignore it. But I am whittling on it all. That’s my new word for sorting and cleaning. Whittling. Doesn’t seem that hard to whittle away a box at a time.

My goal is to have it done by this Fall. Or at least by the time I buy another holiday wreath.

It could happen! 

Got anything to whittle at your house?   

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Filed Under: home Tagged With: cleaning, decluttering, Kimberly A. Cook, reboot, romance readers, romance writer, Spring, Spring cleaning, stuff, Tidying Up, writer

Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 14, 2019 By Kimberly A. Cook 2 Comments

This is the mini chocolate cake heart I made for my Mom’s 94th birthday today. She is a Valentine’s Day baby! The leftover cake batter produces a dozen cupcakes. Cake AND cupcakes. Perfect!

Wishing you a very merry Happy Valentine’s Day! Sending everyone chocolate cake wishes and gifts you buy for yourself. I am always a hopeful romantic, but life doesn’t get to decide if I get Valentine’s today or not. Thanks to Amazon I bagged myself a bunch of Hayley Mills movies arriving tomorrow to add to my collection. Binge watch party this weekend!

The other day I was pondering where I got my sense of adventure and crazy from, besides my family. Who were my roll models growing up? Hayley Mills definitely sticks out. One favorite Disney movie of hers is “That Darn Cat,” but my all time favorite Hayley Mills movie is “The Truth About Spring.”

In the past only bootleg copies of the movie were available, but low and behold the other night on Amazon I discovered Universal released a new copy. It is winging it’s way to me as we chat. My military romance writing incorporates a dash of my real background, the fiction characters who inhabit my head and a healthy dose of Hayley Mills. 

No matter where we are in our life, romance and adventure spectrum, we need to keep a piece of Hayley Mills alive in our hearts.

Rock this Valentine’s Day! Buy yourself an oldie but goodie something and celebrate. (I got a pink light up rubber ducky at the store this week. Just saying.)

Hugs and pink hearts to all!

Thank you for being my Valentines! 

And a Veteran’s Honor red rose and pink The Fairy roses from my backyard last summer for you all too!

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Filed Under: Fiction Writing Tagged With: baby boomers, chocolate cake, Hayley Mills, humor, Kimberly A. Cook, laughter, romance, romance readers, romance writers, That Darn Cat, The Fairy Rose, The Truth About Spring, Valentine's Day, Veteran's Honor rose

Unleash The Hedgehog!

September 28, 2018 By Kimberly A. Cook Leave a Comment

Obviously I’m not the only one starting early to celebrate Fall. Fufu, the hedgehog from the Oregon Zoo, had herself a wonderful time chowing down on grubs in Fall gourds. How cute is she?

So stock up on supplies of your choice, grubs or pumpkin, and get ready for winter. Don’t let Fufu get all the gourds!

Have a great, safe, weekend and Happy Quirky Friday!

 

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Filed Under: Quirky Fridays Tagged With: animals, Fall, Fall Harvest, food, FuFu, gourds, hedgehog, hibernate, Kimberly A. Cook, Oregon, Oregon Zoo, pumpkins, romance readers, Unleash The hedgehog!, Warrior Tales, writers, zoo, zoo animals

Ever Been Kissed By An Alpaca?

September 18, 2018 By Kimberly A. Cook 2 Comments

So this is what the alpacas were doing outside my window at 5:41 a.m.; cuddling. Moms and babies. Took picture through glass window, but how cute are they?

Bugged out last week and took off on a research vacation. Stayed at Alpaca Country Estates Ranch and B&B in Terrebonne, Oregon. More than a thousand alpacas. And new babies. I know. So exciting!

Needless to say, I used two cameras, the video camera and the video on one of my cameras. I have so many pictures and digital video I don’t know where to start. Learned so much about alpacas from our airbnb hosts Nancy and Art.

Check out the morning view. Alpacas and the mountains.

This one-hundred-thirty-four acre working alpaca ranch is one of the largest in the United States. We got to see the alpacas up close and personal. We even got kisses from one of the alpha males, Classy. Yes, I have pictures taken by Gate Girl.

Our room was on the second floor almost directly over the barn and right across from the nursery. I actually bounced out of bed at dawn to take alpaca pictures and watch them rotate the alpacas from pasture to pasture. Breakfast was at a civilized 8:30 a.m. Pumpkin pancakes!

Many of the alpaca facts I learned are going into one of the fiction books I’m working on right now. While I write fiction, I want to make sure my facts are correct. Never a good idea to upset the alpacas. Or readers.

These fine ladies were waiting to see if they were among the few selected to be bred that morning. They also looked like they might wonder who the heck I was taking their picture.

Spent two nights on the ranch, then headed into Sisters to stay, shop and eat. What I do best. Also hiked along the Metolius River, a favorite walk, due to the eating thing I mentioned earlier. (Peach pie, bread pudding)

Of course, any trip has its hiccups, which included the check engine light coming on as I started the drive over the Santiam Pass. At 4,600 feet elevation and no cell service, we pulled over and I reset the gas cap, a common Subaru cause. Decided to go for it and keep driving until we got cell bars, then called the Bend Subaru dealer.

They said we should be okay to keep driving to Bend since the check engine light wasn’t flashing. Good to know. Would have been nice to have that in the manual instead of having an ongoing pre-stroke waiting for the engine to blow up on me.

So we tacked on an extra twenty-two mile drive at the beginning of the trip to the dealer and it turned out to be the gas cap as I suspected. It was fine then, but I didn’t trust it. So the first thing I bought on vacation was a new gas cap, just in case. Every girl’s dream is to buy a gas cap on vacation.

So we arrived at the ranch later than expected but all was well when we saw the baby alpacas. Gate Girl and I were trying to figure out how many we could stuff in the back of the Subaru, but we would need to take their mom’s too, so that became a logistics packing problem. We took pictures instead.

Wanted to take baby 324 home to become Spec Ops Cat’s sister. But, not enough room in Subie and her mom and a few buddies would have to come too. Sigh. Love at first sight!

Later when we couldn’t visit Suttle Lake due to an algae bloom and the hotel hot tub broke, we were still good. Cranky, but good. We’d been up close and personal with baby alpacas. That beats gas caps, algae bloom and broken hot tubs any day.

Make the most of the last days of summer here in Oregon! 

 

Check out the ranch:

https://www.alpacacountryestates.com/

 

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Filed Under: animals Tagged With: airbnb, Alpaca Country Estates, Alpaca Country Estates Ranch and B&B, alpaca gift shop, alpaca ranch, alpaca yarn, alpacas, animals, baby alpacas, Ever Been Kissed By An Alpaca?, Kimberly A. Cook, knit, Oregon, pets, ranch vacation, romance readers, romance writers, Sisters Oregon, Terrebonne, travel, vacation, Warrior Tales

Fierce Little Lamb Becomes Leader Of The Pack

September 7, 2018 By Kimberly A. Cook Leave a Comment

If you’re one of the four people who have not seen this video this week, you’re in for a treat. How cute is this little lamb? Proves the adage good and fierce things come in small packages.

Where do we buy the designer lamb sweaters? Get patterns? Anybody know?

Have a great weekend and Happy Quirky Friday!

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Filed Under: Quirky Fridays Tagged With: animals, baby lamb, barnyard animals, farm animals, fuzzy lamb, humor, Kimberly A. Cook, knit, lamb, lamb sweaters, pets, romance readers, romance writer, Warrior Tales, writer

Beware Of Handsome Marine Biologists

September 5, 2018 By Kimberly A. Cook 6 Comments

Think this was my overnight guest. As soon as said pup was put with the other three, could not tell them apart!

I’ve done some stupid things in my life for handsome men. I’m a sucker for a pretty face and biceps. (Lordy, there were men with amazing biceps in the Army!) But, last Friday’s harbor seal video reminded me of an adventure in my newspaper days.

While working as a reporter and photographer at the Newport News Times in 1984-85, two of my favorite (very handsome) marine biologists asked me to deliver something to Portland. I was driving to my parents house after work on Friday night. They did not tell me what it was.

I figured papers or something that needed to go to the big city. Showed up at the Hatfield Marine Science Center to find the guys tube-feeding a baby harbor seal who needed a ride to the Oregon Zoo for rehab. Surprise!

“Since the zoo will be closed when you get there, you can keep him overnight in the bathtub and take him up in the morning.”

Right. A quick call to Mom and Dad to see if that was okay. God Bless my suffering parents, they never knew what the next adventure might entail. They said fine.

Baby seal was put in a largo red Igloo cooler with the lid propped open for air and stowed in the front seat of my 1974 maroon Nova. We seat belted the cooler in and I was instructed to drive carefully.

“What if I get stopped by the cops?” I asked. “Don’t I need papers?”  I knew it was a federal offense to handle or transport marine mammals due to the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

“It’ll be fine,” they said. “Just give us a call if you get stopped.”

From my jail cell no doubt.

Another possibility of foster pup.

It’s a two to three-hour trip to Portland from Newport given the weekend traffic. My memories of the trip are fleeting incidents.

The smell of seal poop. Can’t really describe it. Think of eating only fish and then it being poop. Baby poop. Killer light yellow-greenish baby poop.

Baby seal did not like riding in the cooler. He especially did not like railroad crossings and curves in the road. He called for his mother. “Ma, ma!” That is exactly what it sounds like.

It was summer, so luckily I had the windows rolled down. Remember seal poop. This was fine until I stopped at a red light in McMinnville. Folks next to me had their windows down too. “Ma, ma!” kept coming from the cooler. I knew they were looking at me. I stared straight ahead. Ignore the seal in the front seat.

The drive seemed to take forever and I worried about him the entire time. The guys told me he should be okay, but it’s always iffy with stressed marine life. I was now his foster mom.

When I got to my parent’s house, Dad took the cooler into the backyard followed by a  group of neighbor kids. We washed the little guy off with the hose to clean him up; seal poop marinade. Then Dad airlifted him into the bathtub, complete with the non-skid pink shells on the porcelain surface.

By this time, he was hungry. I had nothing to give him or any way to feed him. We opened the bathroom window to the backyard for cool fresh air and in case of incoming or outgoing seal poop. “Ma, ma!”

Nobody slept that night.  The constant “Ma, ma” broke our hearts. The little guy also had a damn good set of lungs. Since the main bathroom was surrounded by the three bedrooms, we all felt his pain.

About 7:30 the next morning the front doorbell rang. I was getting ready to take pup up to the zoo. I answered the door. It was the neighbor who lived behind my parent’s house.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“We heard odd noises during the night.”

We’d never been huge friends with our backyard neighbors. “It’s the seal in the bathtub,” I said.

He looked at me. A confused expression on his face.

“We’re going to the zoo,” I added. It took everything in my soul not to say, and then shopping and a movie. I did not elaborate.

He stared at me a bit longer. “Oh, okay,” he said and then left the front porch, shaking his head.

I delivered my “Ma, ma” package to the zoo staff and took some pictures. I couldn’t bring myself to take his picture while he was in the bathtub. I felt it would be exploiting his situation.

Minor damage to the bathtub included repairing the shell non-skids he had managed to loosen the edges of during the night. Which was then followed by a thorough washing with bleach.

My handsome marine biologists, who got out of driving to Portland that weekend, let me know my foster pup did make it through rehab and was released back into the wild. Think that is one reason I take so many harbor seal pictures. It’s personal. Might be great-grand kids of my overnight guest.

Beware of handsome marine biologists.  Trust me.

Pup visitor is one of these four guys. Notice the 80s gear on the zoo staff. The quest to find these pics was epic.

 

 

 

 

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Filed Under: animals Tagged With: animal rehab, Beware Of Handsome Marine Biologists, handsome marine biologists, harbor seal pups, Harbor Seals, Hatfield Marine Science Center, humor, Kimberly A. Cook, marine biologists, military, Newport News Times, newspaper reporter, ocean, Oregon, Oregon Coast, Oregon Zoo, reporter, romance readers, romance writer, sea life, Warrior Tales, writer, Writing

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