Aloha from Hawaii!

Aloha! Part of Tribe Cahill are currently on holiday. We arrived today or yesterday or sometime. I can never work out the time zone thing. So far we’ve shopped, eaten, drank, shopped, shopped and eaten. Our hotel is across the road from the Cheesecake Factory and on the other side of that is Waikiki beach.

One of the shopping mall/hotels has a huge fountain inside -

While shopping today (which has been double for us as we left Sydney Thursday afternoon and arrived in Hawaii Thursday morning!) I spotted this cool pj’s set –

The pic is a bit wonky but is says ‘come to the dark side…….we have cookies’.

We’re off for more shopping tomorrow and sightseeing the next. That’s pretty much the plan for the whole eight days we’re here. And once those days are up Mr.C and I are off to LA for a couple do days before heading on to the Romantic Times Convention in Kansas City. It’s going to be an amazing, busy, insane few weeks.

Rhian Cahill
http://www.rhiancahill.com

TGIF!

*sigh* It’s actually Saturday here in the land down under but I figure the title of the blog post fits.

I’ve had a very productive week along with numerous ‘away-from-writing’ things to do each day but I somehow managed to finish a novella, read an ARC and get it back to my editor AND keep the tribe fed and the washing up-to-date. Go me!

But now I’m exhausted. I just want to curl up in a little ball and sleep for a month. Of course the freezing cold weather isn’t helping any. Everyone who knows me knows how much I hate the cold and as I get older my tolerance of the winter months grows less and less. So here’s a pic to warm cheer me up.

Ah, yes, much better.

Oh, and because I’ve been busy, flat out like a lizard drinking, I’ve extended my App Celebration Contest over on my blog. Head over HERE! to get all the details on how to enter and download my app.

Rhian Cahill

www.rhiancahill.com

Frisky Friday

Because I can’t seem to get my act together and blog properly….

And one more just because.

Oh yes, that makes up for my slackness.

Rhian Cahill

www.rhiancahill.com

Life and the wisdom of wisdom teeth.

It’s Friday of a very long week for me as a mother. Actually, it’s been a really, really long month. *sigh* First both the Princesses developed nasty chest and throat infections and while suffering the illness of the damned both had to have wisdom teeth extracted. Princess One’s procedure was quite simple. One tooth. Princess & the Pea however had to have all four of hers removed so we chose to do it under a general but as she had a throat infection……yeah, that was put off until yesterday. Which went exceedingly well and today she’s in a little pain but honestly the girl either isn’t suffering that much or has one hell of a pain threshold. Mean while, not to be left out, The Kid was playing tug-of-war last week at school. With a stick. You know as parents we tell our kids not to play with sticks because they might poke an eye out but did you ever consider what other calamities may occur? I certainly hadn’t but leave it to The Kid to show me the possibilities. After a short game he took a trip to sick bay who of course rang me and I immediately took him to our doctor. Three stitches later……we went home. Seven days later the stitches were removed to find the finger hadn’t fallen off in spite of the disgusting smell of his bandage and the wound had in fact healed perfectly. The Kid of course is constantly ‘checking out’ his new scar. I swear, if The Kid had of been the first he’d have been the last. Lucky for the other three.

So today I’m exhausted. EXHAUSTED!! I can’t find the energy for anything. Including blogging. So I’m gonna give you some pix for the weekend instead.

Oh man. There’s something to be said for a good set of abs…….*fans self*

Rhian Cahill

www.rhiancahill.com

A Lesson in Oz-isms

This is a joke. Sort of.

Whilst over in the US recently, Lexxie C and I were discussing our use of Australianisms and how important it is to us to keep them in our books whenever we can. For us it’s what makes our characters authentically Australian and gives them a unique voice. Whilst many publishers ask their authors to ‘de-oz’ their books (phrase coined by me just now), we’ve both been pretty lucky because we’ve been able to keep most of ours in. Thought I’d share a few of the more recent ones my lovely editor/s has let through to the keeper (a cricketing term meaning let pass).

• Crack on (said when referring to a person of the opposite sex you’d like to charm out of their pants, i.e. ‘I’m going to crack on to that hot guy who looks like Ryan Gosling if it’s the last thing I ever do!’)
• Having a lend (Pulling someone’s leg… oh that’s Australian too. Trying to pull the wool over someone’s eyes? Using a serious face while telling a tall tale, trying to take someone for a fool, that sort of thing)
• Piss weak prick (US example might be chicken shit. You are a cowardly bastard who can’t get it up)
• Punching on (Having a fist fight)
• Jocks (Mens underwear, specifically brief style. A final line editor recently wondered at the use of the plural. How to explain men don’t wear a jock here? Did she think I was referring to a jock strap? I have no idea. I don’t know where jocks comes from but Australian guys wear either boxers, occasionally boxer briefs, or jocks. Or possibly nothing, but I don’t want to go there)
• Tracky dacks (Actually I didn’t use this but I was tempted. These are sweatpants. The proper name is tracksuit pants, we affectionally call them tracky dacks {dacks=pants}
• Fined up (It has ‘fined up’ when it stops raining, i.e., it is now fine {sunny} as opposed to pissing down {raining really hard}.
• Jumper (This is what we call a sweater. I don’t know why. Because they were initially made of wool and sheep sometimes jump fences, ergo, you’re wearing a jumper? I have a hero and heroine discussing this important issue in a WIP that I’m hoping will find an editor who will let my jumper discussion go through to the keeper, unless she thinks it sucks big hairy dingo balls)

Something to chew on this weekend (something to think about) which is better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick (self explanatory, yes?)

Sami

5 Things RT12 Taught Me

1. Zombie makeup takes a week to scrape from under your fingernails, but with perserverence and a good soaking agentit can be removed from white cotton.
2. Connecting flights suck. Big hairy dingo balls. Next time I travel anywhere in the US I’m spending a night in LA before flying anywhere else.
3. I’m still an introvert at heart. While I love getting together with other writers and doing the wild wacky stuff (did I mention zombie makeup?), and I adore connecting with readers, by the end of the the intense, week-long festival of human contact I long to curl up inside my shell and hide for a while.
4. Going to conventions like RT is gold for a romance author. It gives us great ideas about promotional stuff, what works, what doesn’t. It’s a fantastic opportunity to meet editors and publishers face-to-face, the kind of opportunity we rarely get in Australia. And it’s all tax deductable (hubby’s 2 favorite words)
5. Being Mummy is the role of the many I play that I cherish the most. Again, while I love going out and being ‘Sami’, there’s nothing like being there to hug the Princess and the Cherub goodnight, to help them learn to read and swim and become budding grown ups, to watch as they turn into little people right before my eyes. Everything else, including US trips and book releases and reviews and online friends and real-life friends and all that, is gravy. I’m so fortunate to have real meaning in my life AND lots and lots of gravy.

Thanks to everyone I met in Chicago for showing me such a great time. Hope we can all meet again soon!

Sami and Lexxie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Sami

We’re Heeeerrreeee

Was that suitably poltergeisty? It’s been a teensy bit of a while since any of us blogged when we’re supposed to. This is all good news because we’ve been writing up a storm. At least I have. I can’t speak for the others maybe they’ve been goofing off.

That’s not true. Definitely not. In fact myself and Diva 1 and 2… or is that 2 and 3 or 1 and 4…? I don’t know, we’ve never bothered with numbers. Anyhoo, three of us have been working on a 3 book series that we’re going to announce here very very soon, as soon as we can share some cover love with you all.

For now I thought I’d post a few man pics, coz that’s one of my favorite things to do. A month or so back I discussed in great depth my concern that I’d turned into a dirty old woman because I was finding a lot of young guys sexy. Well, just to prove I’m not as lascivious as it might seem, I’ve decided to post a few pics of some silver foxes that make me drool… a little. Sometimes a lot.

 

 

And one more…

OMG There’s a Flower Growing Out of it!

Here are a few pearls of wit from my kids, to be filed under category, you gotta love ‘em”

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The other day Princess and Cherub were wrestling on the couch and this was the conversation I overheard:

Cherub: (presenting buttocks) Smell my butt

Princess: No way!

Cherub: Come on, it’s grown into a flower

I was laughing too much to reprimand her for, I assume, attempting to fart in her sister’s face.

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One night this week we were playing ‘What am I?’ with the girls. Princess was giving clues like; I have lots of wheels and a big body and I drive on the road. Hubby tried to help Cherub out by whispering ‘Truck’. Having misheard his clue she shouted, “Dragon!”. When Princess said no, it was a truck, Cherub rolls her eyes at her dad, as though he were quite dense. “I didn’t think it was dragon!”

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While playing the same game, it was Cherubs turn to give clues. This was how it went:

I have no legs, no arms, no face, no anything at all.

The answer in case you were wondering (we all were), was “I’m a cup”

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Last week Princess and I were in the supermarket, going through the chilled food section. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she commented, “I’m cold. You can tell because I have chicken pops.”

I then had to explain the difference between Chicken Pox and Goosebumps. Why do we name these reactions of the flesh after birds?

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One night when I was putting Cherub to bed, I asked her, “How much do I love you?”. She spread her arms out wide to show I loved her as far as I could stretch my arms and beyond (she’d done this before, you see). On this particular night I asked her in return, “How much do you love me?”

Cherub replied, “Six.”

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Recently Princess was on the phone to her grandparents. Her grandma asked her how she was, to which Princess responded, “I’m perfect of course!”

Nothing like the confidence of a six year old

Have a great weekend,

Sami

 

Sharing the Cover Love

This is the quickest post ever, because a picture is worth a thousand words. I’m so thrilled I can finally share it, the finalised cover of my next release, Erica’s Choice. Ain’t she beautiful?

Dirty and Dangerous

Well our tagline says it all. We are all of us flirty, dirty and dangerous. I just never thought that translated to dirty old woman.

I was browsing for pics of Bradley Cooper today… just coz. I heard he’s actually super smart and that’s kind of a turn on so now I’m swooning a little. But in my quest to find sexy pics of a man who’s a perfectly appropriate age for me (only 4yrs younger so yeah, appropriate. Now if I could just work out the geographical distance thing and the fact that he’s made out with Scarlett Johanson and named sexiest man of the year and, oh yeah, the fact I’m married, then we’d be sweeeeet. Me and Bradley would be ON it tells ya), I came across a lot of images of other guys too. What can I say my mouse just works without my consent a lot of the time. But after a while I started to realise all these cuties were sadly WAY TOO YOUNG for a 40yr old mother of 2 such as myself. I started to wonder if I was a dirty old perv. I mean when I was younger I was into guys like Harrison Ford (Han Solo and Indiana Jones, you know it) and Richard Gere, men older than me by quite a bit. And while I’d still give those silver foxes a run for their money (or at least a really spritely walk), more and more I’m finding the men I see and go WOW LOOK AT THOSE ABS are so YOUNG.  Argh.

I was perfectly fine with turning 40. Now I think getting older sucks. What do you think?

This boy was born in 1992. I’d been legally drinking in licensed establishments for 4 yrs by then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I mentioned this shot on twitter today because it had so thoroughly distracted me from my work. Jared Padalecki is a little closer to my age, but he was born the year before I started high school, so still not really in my bracket. But now I want to break something in my house so he can come and weld it for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aussie cutie Liam Hemsworth starred with Miley Cyrus in The Last Song. After that he began dating her. A man who’s in Hannah Montana’s age group, really isn’t in mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no idea who this guy is, but I bet you $100 he’s not a day over 25.

I think it’s official. I’m a dirty old woman. Perhaps Bradley, who started this whole thing, ought to make me feel better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now he’s more my age, and he’s wearing a suit like a real grown up and all. There’s hope for me yet .

Have a great weekend,

Sami