The Grass is Always Greener ...

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." Why am I one of THOSE PEOPLE? Why am I always looking beyond the next hill? The next mountain? The next whatever? That is something I have asked myself over and over again since I was a small child. I have never been content to stay in one place. I always want to see whatever lies over the horizon.

I'm a descendant of a long line of adventurers, malcontents, nomads, travelers, wanderers, pioneers. In my lineage are Viking raiders, Scottish Highlanders, Irish warriors, British pilgrims, German immigrants, American pioneers. So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I'm always wanting to travel somewhere else, to move to a place I've never lived before.

In my last post I mentioned that my husband, Ben, and I have been married for thirty years as of last Friday. My response was, "Let's go for another thirty years." Ben said, "What???" Of course, we fully intend "to keep on keeping on" until our final days, whenever that may be. In the meantime, we both have "itchy feet" and are ready to try something new for the years ahead, assuming we do have some years ahead.

We started out so many years ago as kids living next door to each other in southern California. No, we never dated as kids, just neighbors and friends. It wasn't until many years later, as adults, that we met up, married and started our adventures together. In thirty years we've lived in Florida, Nevada, Florida, Nevada, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Florida. Are you seeing a pattern here?

For some reason we keep returning to Florida as if drawn by a magnet. It must have something to do with the glorious beaches, the tropical temperatures and all that nature which surrounds every bit of Florida. It certainly couldn't be due to the hot/humid summers, the vicious mosquitoes and no-see-ums that sometimes eat us alive, the hurricanes that send us into hiding now and then, the alligators and water moccasins that cruise our inland waterways, or the sharks that cruise our beaches.

There's just something about Florida that draws us back every time we move away. We've been back here for three and a half years this last time. Now we're getting antsy to venture off to parts unknown. We've been cruising the Internet looking for that perfect place to retire, at least for the next few years. Maybe not a forever place, but someplace to "sit a spell"

Our current sights are heading in the direction of New Mexico. We've vacationed there through the years and always thought it would be a great place to live. So much beauty, so much history. To live near the Rio Grande and the Santa Fe Trail. Taos? Santa Fe? Abiquiu? Angel Fire? What incredible places for we two dreamers.

So the last few days have been spent looking at houses via Realtor.com and other real estate sights online and talking to a realtor friend about selling our house here in Florida. The housing market in our part of the state is starting to make a comeback. So maybe our timing is right? Or maybe our timing is all wrong. We're adventurous souls, so we'll toss the dice and hope that lady luck is with us this go-round.

I don't know if we'll follow through with this idea, but it's certainly worth dreaming about.  So what do you all think? If you could drop what you're doing and venture off to somewhere else, where would you go? I'm hoping that you all will add some comments and let us know about those places you'd love to live, even if it's just in your dreams.

By the way, Ben just reminded me that "The grass is always greener over the septic tank."

Looking for Readers/Reviewers for "Outback Love"

One of the things new authors need more than anything else is readers who are willing to review their books. For that reason, I am offering a free copy of my debut novel, "Outback Love," to the first few people who respond to my request. It will be a Kindle Edition and sent to your email address. Since I have to pay for these copies, I will only be able to send a few free copies. In return, I would appreciate it if the reader would follow up with a review on Amazon/Kindle. Of course, I can not force you to write the review, but hope that you will do so in return.

As a new indie author, I don't know if this is the appropriate way to do things. So please understand where I am coming from here. I wrote what I believe is a very entertaining novel, a contemporary romance set in the Australian Outback. This book was a labor of love inspired by an adventurous three week, 5000 mile trip my husband and I took through Australia a few years back. It was a grand adventure and I write about all the locales we visited on our trip.

Priscilla Alexander is a city girl from San Francisco who never travels anywhere. However, her high-stress job, in addition to family problems, drives her to escape as far away as she can get. So Priscilla ends up in Australia with an old conversion van and a plan to drive through the Outback on her own. Only her vehicle gets stuck in the mud at the very start of her trip and things after that don't go quite as planned.

Ian MacAlister, who comes across Priscilla and her van, doesn't have time to help a damsel in distress. On the other hand, he still feels obligated to help her out. Priscilla doesn't want Ian's help. He looks too dangerous to her. Besides, she's an independent female and believes she can do everything on her own.

"Outback Love" is the story of Priscilla and Ian and their trip through the Australian Outback. Priscilla fears she has found her Mr. Right, but at a time and a place that is totally wrong. Will Ian be able to convince Priscilla and himself that they're meant to be together? Please read "Outback Love" to find out.

As I've already said, if you'd like to be both a reader and reviewer, please let me know. I'm anxious to hear from you.

"Outback Love" - The Story Behind the Story - Part 1

It was very exciting this morning to see that my debut ebook, "Outback Love," is now available at BarnesandNoble.com. This is one more milestone for a new indie author. "Outback Love" should soon be available online at Kobo, Sony, Apple and Diesel. Now all I need is some more readers.

For those who don't already know, "Outback Love" was inspired by a three week, 5000 mile road-trip, my husband Ben and I took through the Australian Outback a few years ago. It was a grand adventure that we began in the end of June, which was the beginning of winter in Australia.

We arrived in Melbourne, New South Wales, Australia in the middle of the night following a 13 1/2 hour flight from Los Angeles, California. We were tired, exhausted, ready to get some sleep, because I'm never able to sleep on a plane. Unfortunately, our new luggage was damaged in flight due to a hydraulic fuel leak on the plane. So here we were in the middle of the night with an oily mess of luggage. When we unzipped the luggage, much to our horror, at least half of our clothes were covered in that same oily mess.

It took close to an hour to convince the airline that they were responsible for the damage. Finally they handed us a bunch of red, white and blue striped, zippered bags and told us to put whatever we wanted to keep in those bags. Then they took our two duffel-style roller suitcases and gave us a receipt. We were told to come back at 9:00 the next morning to receive a check for $200 in damages.

I then called the hotel I had booked to ask for the free transportation that was part of our hotel stay. Only the desk clerk who answered said they didn't do airport pick-ups after midnight. Huh? No one mentioned that when the hotel was booked. Well, the next step was to get a cab. Only it turned out the cabbies wouldn't accept American dollars and the money exchange booth at the airport was long since closed for the night.

At this point I was about ready to sit down and cry. I had done all the bookings for this trip and it was all starting out bad. Then a Good Samaritan stepped forward in the form of a friendly, middle-aged, Australian business man. This kind man said he'd listened to our whole ordeal over the luggage, no transportation from the hotel to pick us up and now no Australian money to get a cab. He handed me a twenty in Australian dollars and assured me that would be enough for the cab ride to the hotel. I tried to offer him American dollars in exchange and he declined. He said that sometime down the line I was to help out another stranded tourist in return. Definitely a "pay it forward" kind of agreement.

Totally exhausted, we finally made it to the hotel. By this time we were well into the wee hours of the morning. After a quick shower we fell asleep in very hard twin beds. No, I hadn't requested twin beds, but the desk clerk said all the doubles were already taken. I managed to fall asleep in spite of the hard mattress.

My husband's older sister, Barb, and her husband, Dick, were traveling with us. They'd managed to sleep on the plane so hadn't been as tired. Their luggage and clothes were not damaged by hydraulic fluid. Though their hotel room also had hard twin beds.

In the morning I was counting our blessings. Only half of our clothes were oily. So the oily clothes were in separate striped bags from the good clothes. We'd traveled pretty light, so we didn't have much of a wearable wardrobe. We got some weak coffee for breakfast, but that was better than nothing, but no food was available. I swear that when I booked with that hotel they'd advertised a free continental breakfast.

To make a long story short, we exchanged some money at the front desk so we could all take a cab to the airport. Then, after a little haggling, we finally got our check for $200 U.S. Then another cab ride to the rental place where we were supposed to pick up our rental conversion van to start our trip through Australia. My husband, who was going to do all the driving, noticed immediately that the van's four tires plus the spare were all bald. We weren't about to venture into the Outback in a vehicle with bald tires. So after more haggling the rental people agreed to put new tires on the van. Only we had to wait in their lobby for several hours while that was done.

It was mid afternoon before we were ready to start out. I was very apprehensive by that time. I'd planned our trip day by day, having figured out how many miles we could travel each day and had booked all the hotels in advance. We had our doubts about making it to that night's destination. Because of the long delay waiting for the tires we didn't get to visit the sights I'd planned for us to see in Melbourne. We had to head out immediately and didn't even have time to search for a market where we could stock up with some food and other supplies.

I think at this point Ben, Barb and Dick were not that happy with me. With the trip starting out this way, what would happen next? I had my fingers crossed and I was praying that the rest of the trip would go smoothly.

Please continue to check back to read the rest of "The Story Behind the Story" of "Outback Love."

"Outback Love"

I'm really excited about the ePub of my debut novel, Outback Love, a contemporary romance set in the Australian Outback, which is now available as an ebook on Amazon.com. It's currently listed for .99 cents, which is a bargain in this economy. Please buy my book today and help out a "starving writer." That said ... I had a fun time writing Outback Love and hope that you will have just as much fun reading my story.

Priscilla Alexander, a city girl from San Francisco, is taking an extended vacation, alone, through the Australian Outback. She is not looking for Mr. Right, not in Australia and not in the Outback. But Ian MacAlister, an Aussie hunk wearing a bush hat adorned with crocodile teeth, comes to her aid. Will Priscilla decide that Ian is her Mr. Right after all? Will Ian decide he wants to fill that forever role in Priscilla's life? Please read this story of Priscilla and Ian's romp through Australia and the Outback as they struggle with their momentous decision to stay together or walk/run away.

The inspiration for Outback Love was a 3 week, 5,000 mile journey through the Australian Outback which I took with my husband, Ben, a few years back. It was a grand adventure and many of the locales we visited are written into the book. We traveled the Outback in a conversion van and actually stayed at all the hotels and motels I wrote about. We came back home with bunches of photos, a very long home-movie and lots of memories and dreams. Would we venture back to Australia and the Outback? Yes, in a minute, only we'd take more time to visit all those places we missed in the first trip.

As far as writing goes, I've been writing since my grammar school days. I had a vivid imagination even then and wrote about cowboys and Indians, traveling the Oregon Trail, dogs, horses and adventures.

I'm so excited that, with today's technology, books can now be published as ebooks. So Outback Love is my debut novel on Amazon.com. It's now available as a download to your Kindle, PC, iPhone, Blackberry, Nook or any other eReader.  If you don't own a Kindle, then just download the free Kindle Reader App from Amazon.com. It's a wonderful way to enjoy reading.

Outback Love should be available on Smashwords.com within the next few days or so. I'll be sure to announce it here on my Blog when that happens.

I'm currently working on my next novel, Murder on Sunday Beach, which is a mystery/romance set on the Florida Panhandle amidst the white sugar-sand beaches and turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This is the first book in the Abby Love Mystery Series, which should be available on Amazon.com and Smashwords.com in the next few weeks.

My husband, Ben Heyer, and I also wrote a Futuristic/Thriller, Firefall, which will be offered on the same venues as Outback Love. The trilogy, which should be available in the fall, is Firefall: The Rising (Book 1), Firefall: The Journey (Book 2) and Firefall: The Dawn (Book 3). I'm working on the final edits now.

In future posts I'll be adding some of the photos I took in Australia, in addition to photos of our beautiful Gulf Coast beaches.

Please check back to hear the latest news on my writing, future ePubs, and adventures.

You can read more on my Facebook page and my Amazon Author's Page.