Welcome to the First Annual Authors in Bloom Spring Blog Hop!  It’s that time of year again when the sun comes back to shine, the birds begin to sing and the flowers burst with the color of life!  It’s a time where we forget about getting more Facebook likes in order to focus on what’s really important. To celebrate this momentous occasion—okay, momentous may be a STRONG word, but not for us gardeners, it isn’t!—some of my author friends and I are sharing our favorite gardening tips and spring fresh recipes.  How great is that?  It’s like a having a gardening encyclopedia and cookbook in one!  LOVE it.  But more than gardening know-how and gourmet delights, you’ll receive over 70 chances to win stuff from this shop!  Woohoo!  I don’t know about you, but I love anything FREE.  So hard to come by these days, isn’t it?  My garden-inspired giveaway for this hop includes a wax melter for your fragrance tarts (a Cilantro Clementine tart included), Vera Bradley napkins and matching pencils, sugar scrub by Deep Steep (grapefruit & bergamot scented ~ mmmm….), custom-seed saving packets, a garden “help” booklet, adorable little “cauliflower” poodle figurine from Enesco and more! ($55 value, plant & plate shown in photo not included) Now to my gardening tip:  If you’re like most gardeners, tomatoes are on your list of must-grow or must-try.  And who can blame you?  Rich, ripe, ruby-red tomatoes are not only delicious fresh, but the key ingredient to the infamous “red sauce” ~ a recipe handed down through Italian generations like Blue Bloods hand down silver spoons and Southern folk’s dish out middle names.  Italian by injection is what I am and red sauce is something I’m working to master. :) So how do you grow these bad boys without spots, blemishes and cracks?  Epsom salts and eggshells.  Yep!  Go ahead and start them from seeds indoors and then, when you transplant them into the ground, add a crushed eggshell and a tablespoon of Epsom salt mixed into the soil around your sproutling.  No more spots!  (a.k.a blossom-end rot.) Got cracks?  (We’ve all got problems, I know.)  Watch that water schedule, because cracks are due to uneven watering–something awfully hard to prevent in Florida.  Just when you have the automatic timer attached to the hose attached to the sprinkler head which is positioned just so all figured out—WHAM! Mother Nature blasts you with a good soaking.  She calls it a sense of humor.  I call it bad timing. But like I said, we’ve all got problems.  And I like to look at my relationship with Mother Nature as a challenge rather than a curse.  Helps me keep the stress levels down, if you know what I mean.  So what do you say?  Aren’t these tomatoes gorgeous?  Willing to give it a try?  For more gardening tips & fresh recipes, visit my garden blog at BloominThyme! (You’ll find the template for my custom seed-saving packets there, too!) Now, for the really important stuff:  to enter my giveaway, you have more than one opportunity.  You can leave a comment here, follow me on Twitter (make sure I know it’s you by giving me a mention along with the Authors in Bloom blog hop, ie. *Authors in Bloom rock!* @DianneVenetta), “like” my author page on facebook and fan me on Goodreads ~ be sure to leave a message regarding the same!  For all you gardeners out there, here are a couple of more ways to enter:  you can subscribe to my garden blog:   BloominThyme and like it’s facebook page.  How’s that for increasing the odds?  Six chances to win PLUS a whole heck of a lot of garden fun! Phew, that’s a lot of entries per person.  Did I mention I like free stuff?  I like giving it away, too. :)   And if you’re a bloomin’ warrior, or if you’ve already done any of the above, please let me know in the comment section of this post and you’ll get credited for the extra entries.  (No penalties allowed here.) So what are you waiting for?  Grab the phrase below and hop on to the next author—you’ll find the entire crew listed in the linky list below.  (You may have to check the blog section of their website.)  Remember:  to be eligible for the grand prize, you must visit each and every site—but you have 10 days to do so! Line 1: Springtime is the season of blossoms. Line 2: Buds burst open, leaves unfurl, Line 3: and young flowers mature into gorgeous blooms. And as a reminder, if you have any questions how this hop works, especially how to win the grand prize, get full details here:  Authors in Bloom Spring Blog Hop.  While you’re here check out my novels!  JENNIFER’S GARDEN recently received 4 1/2 stars from RT Book Reviews…  Available for $2.99 on both your kindle & nook. :)  

April 9th –April 18th

10 Days of Giveaways-Gardening Tips-Recipes-and more!

Plus GRAND PRIZE you’ll be digging to win!

What kind of prize are we talking about?  How about an eReader (Nook or Kindle — your choice) and $25 gift card? PLUS you’ll have the opportunity to win at 75 author sites, everything from books to swag and garden goodies galore! 

As for me, I’ll be offering up a selection of garden-inspired delights including a wax melter for your fragrance tarts (Cilantro Clementine included), Vera Bradley napkins and pencils, sugar scrub by Deep Steep (grapefruit & bergamot scented ~ mmmm….), custom-seed saving packets by BloominThyme, a garden help booklet, adorable little “cauliflower” poodle figurine from Enesco and more! ($55 value, plant & plate not included)

Easy and fun, this is THE way to welcome spring.  So what do you say?  Are you in?  Need more information?

Of course you do!  Head on over to the Authors in Bloom blog hop page for full details and make sure to mark your calendars for April 9th.  It’s going to be 10 days of nonstop fun and giveaways you won’t want to miss. :)  

Happy Spring!

My daughter went to the spring ball with her cotillion group.  What is cotillion, you ask?  Manners class.  Dance class.  The formal training to whip our youth into shape. :)

I only know of this organization because as a youth, I was forced to attend myself.  My first year was in ninth grade and I didn’t know a soul.  The cotillion teacher happened to be a close friend of my Aunt Jan, a grand cotillion mistress herself, so having my brothers, sister and I join the club seemed to be a no-brainer.  For everyone else but us, that is!  You want me to dance with boys?  Boys I don’t even know?

Ugh.  The horror!  But alas, I must confess, I am forever grateful.  As an adult, this training has served me well.  Through the years there has been occasion where I was glad to know how to follow a man’s moves on the dance floor without looking the fool.  I was glad to be able to reply “yes” when the handsome fellow asked me to dance.  Cha-cha?  Of course I cha-cha!  Who doesn’t?

My daughter is now in middle school and like her parent before her, is forced to attend cotillion.  Do I have to go?  I hate it!

Yes, dear.  Once a month, it’s not going to kill you.  You’ll thank me later.  Good thing I can wait.  The child is not happy, though you couldn’t tell from this image, now can you?  Now slip on those little white gloves and paste a smile onto your face–you’re going.  And don’t forget your dance card!

While she’s no fan of dancing with boys at the moment, she does enjoy the fact that they have to wait on her.  Hand and foot, make sure she’s seated, isn’t thirsty, hungry.  Would you care for more lemonade? (Yea, that was one my favorite parts, too.)

And all of the young ladies looked divine, especially when escorted by their equally fine clad young gentlemen!

The attire for this ball was quite formal, with a black and white theme.  T he boys rented tuxedos and the girls secured beautiful ball gowns.  Most are probably bridesmaid dresses or prom wear, but it was fun to dress up.  Even my child will admit to that.

Next month?  They’ll have a fifties swing-fling. Not sure why we’re still stuck on the fifties.  That worked for my parents–they lived the music!  But me?  I have no poodle skirt stuffed into the back of my closet.  No saddle shoes or hair bows.  Hmph.  Perhaps I’ll be making my way to the thrift store.

Because it is fun.  Just to prove it, the cotillion headmistress allowed her third year students to line dance.

A kid’s gotta have some fun, right?  Absolutely!  Dulls the pain and convinces them to come back next year!  Really it’s not so bad.  Not once you get used to it–kinda like jumping into a pool of cool water.  At first it’s *shriek!* but then, not so bad.  Actually, once these kids get the hang of ballroom dancing, they tend to enjoy it.  Oddly enough, especially the boys. :)

Poor Daddy…  (Get your hands off my daughter.  Where’s my rifle–I need to clean it.  If she cries, you cry.  And so on…)  But he too, will survive.  Besides, everything is more fun when you have friends with you, right?  Our grand scheme for next year’s grand ball?

Enlist some friends to sign up for cotillion, of course!  How about you?  Ever had to endure the dreaded cotillion ball?  Did you enjoy it?  Would you recommend it to a friend?

Could prove to be a memorable experience for them.  Was for me.  And my siblings.  Thank you, Aunt Jan! 

And I’m living proof my daughter will survive her bout with manners school.  Not only survive, but thrive!  Not to mention being the only one at the table who knows where that fussy teaspoon is supposed to go.  Or which way the knife blade should face.  (I can hear my mother now:  Didn’t I send you to cotillion?)

Yes, dear.