You know me and food! :) Hero Material bought me roses, and then afterward, we went out for some really good French food and the most decadent chocolate dessert for dinner.

The candle looks super authentic, but it's actually fake.

Macadamia nuts actually, not balls of chocolate. :)

The best duck I've even had. I don't generally eat poultry skin, but I ate it off this one. Yum yum!

Dessert… A big solid block of pure chocolate with sauce and chopped strawberries. Just divine.

How was your Valentine's Day?

(This is what happens to the dining table at my place every time I'm revising something. I'm currently revising Forever in Love.)

I've been super busy this past week. I suspect that this week's going to be insanely busy as well. Just to let you know what I'm working on (and what you can expect from the Hearts on the Line series):

• Sweet in Love proofreading and formatting / correction
• Forever in Love revision (1st round)
• Look for somebody to read Damian and Victoria's story (they're from Redemption in Love) and let me know if I should republish this or hide it forever. (I'm getting my rights back in April.)
• Make a teaser graphic or two for Sweet in Love, which is going live early March. (I'm hoping for March 2, but I'm not sure yet…)

Anything else I get done is going to make me smile like a happy rubber ducky. :)

What are you hoping to accomplish this week?

Last time I wrote about this most inauspicious January, and I said I'd talk briefly about how I'm trying to stay more positive and have more energy (other than exercising).

Last December I finally bought a Philip BluLight from Amazon. I'd been resisting buying this product mostly because it's not cheap and I wasn't sure if it'd actually work. But since I got really really tired of feeling SAD and lethargic in winter, I broke down and bought it.

Despite my skepticism, I've been using it for close to a month now, and I think it works.

I use it at the lowest setting for about 30 minutes in the morning after breakfast. (I may try the medium intensity at some point, but the lowest setting seems to work fine for me.)

The days I use it, I don't really need to drink coffee or anything, provided that I had at least 7 hours of sleep the night before. (And the BluLight helps with getting to sleep at night — double whammy!) I also feel less blue and depressed despite the cold and dreary weather. However, it doesn't help my joints feel better. They ache when the weather's bad.

I only use it once a day, but some people use it more often. It is not recommended for use in the late afternoon / evening because it might make it hard to fall asleep. Since I only use it in the morning, I haven't felt any adverse effects. But just because I feel refreshed and more alert in the morning doesn't mean I need less sleep.

The only time I didn't use it is when I was deathly ill around the time Reunited in Love was released. I slept so much during that time that it didn't make any sense to use the product (I didn't get up until almost noon anyway).

I remember seeing some questions about the BluLight from my Tweet followers. Feel free to either @ me on Twitter or leave some comments / questions here, and I'll be happy to answer them. :)

This year didn't start out very auspiciously. On January 5th I became very ill and feverish with chest and stomach pain, and by January 9th and 10th, I was too sick to sit up or move. Hero Material had to carry me to the local hospital. The nurses there had initially told him over the phone (he called before taking me there) that the wait time was going to be long, so I girded my loins for hours and hours of waiting. But once they saw me, they immediately rushed me to the back room where they drew some blood samples and started an IV.

As much as I appreciated not having to wait, I couldn't decide if it was something to be happy about. Really.

I sort of recovered by the 13th, but it's not until now that I've felt somewhat normal. In some ways the whole experience was surreal since I'm rarely that sick. Not to mention I had a book coming out (Reunited in Love) on January 9th, so my release day activities were limited to RTing a few things, then getting two bags of IV fluid, and then hoping that I'd be well enough by the end of it that the doctors would allow me to go home.

I promised myself that this year I'll become healthier — eat more veggies and exercise at least two times a week. Of course I haven't been able to hit the gym—nobody there wanted a feverish woman collapsing on a treadmill — and I wasn't in the mood to go outside when I felt dizzy and fatigued at the slightest physical exertion, including sitting in front of my computer for more than a few hours.

BTW — despite all the blood work and X-rays and so on the doctors did, they have no idea what was really wrong with me. I don't know either, and Hero Material's been puzzled by it as well since it's not like I have the flu or something contagious. (Neither he nor The Boy were sick.)

It makes me wonder if it was due to stress — I'm terrible at managing it — and not sleeping well. I've started a few things since late December to better manage both. (I'll talk about them later this week or early next week.) I even quit drinking coffee. Regardless, I'm taking it easy for the rest of the month — and hope and pray that I don't become sick again for the rest of the year, if not longer. I need to stay healthy for my own sake and as well as my family's.

And if anybody has any tips on how to stay healthy, I'd really appreciate it!

It's been a while since I posted foodie topics. It's impossible to go out to eat when you have a two year-old child.

Anyway, Hero Material and I finally (!!!!) got a chance to revisit our favorite French Bistro tonight for the glorious night out!

sparkling wine

first course

appetizer with pate and other delish things

fish course

meat course

dessert — the best chocolate in town…OMG…

What are you having for Christmas?