Let's talk about sex, baby!

Even though we have progressed technologically the subject of sex is still a little stuck in the dark ages.  It's a taboo subject in that is never fully explored and labeled gutter-talk.  Women don't really share their wants and desires which are deemed too personal to discuss.  But if you never discuss it and keep all your thoughts secret, then how will people ever know what you desire.  Glitter is a ground-breaking book put together by Mona Darling, an ex-dominatrix.  This anthology of true stories and real experiences will open your eyes and make you think.  Warning:  Do not attempt to read this book if you don't have an open mind, some of the stories might educate you.  Then again some will make you laugh and some will make you cry.  A great honest read.

Book Description:

Glitter is about the female sexual experience, which contrary to what the media would have you believe, is not all bubble baths and chick flicks.
Women are constantly judged as slutty, or uptight, but the reality is somewhere in between those two, and sometimes, nowhere near either. We have secret shames and private desires and we all feel we are the only one.
We are good church-going girls with a fondness for the paddle, PTA moms who hire escorts, feminists who like to bottom in the bedroom, slutty virgins, bi-curious married laddies and women with a past. We are gay, straight, and undecided.
We are all over the map, and we are amazing.
10 facts about Glitter. 
People reading that Glitter is about the female sexual experience automatically assume it's erotica, self help or how to. It's none of those, yet at the same time, it's a bit of all three. It's not like any other book you've ever read. It's not fiction telling you what could be. It's not self-help telling you what should be. It's simply other women talking about their desires, their sexual histories and how they've been effected by shame and abuse. 1.  Glitter is about destigmatizing the female sexual experience. 
2.  Glitter is NOT about being sexual. It's about realizing that everyone is different sexually, and respecting that. 
3.  Glitter is not about having the most amazing sex life ever. 
4.  Glitter is not about convincing you that you need to be more open sexually. 
5.   Glitter is not just about fetishes or BDSM. It's also about desires that are shaped or distorted by abuse. I find that a common feeling from those with what is considered non standard desires and those who have suffered sexual abuse is the shame of feeling broken. I feel that shame needs to be removed from women's sexual desire in both cases and that they are inseperable. 
6.   Glitter Girls are women from every walk of life, every age, and every race and religion. 
7.   Glitter Girls are both CIS and Trans.This means that some Glitter Girls have always been fine with their anatomical gender, and some have not. In the end, we are all Glitter Girls, even if we were born with the wrong bits. We all need sisterly love and support. Not judgement. 
8.  Glitter Girls are encouraged to find and voice their limits, as well as their interests. 
9.  Glitter encourages women explore their interest and limits, but also to realize that other women have different interests and limits. 
10. The number one goal of Glitter is to get women to stop shaming other women by acknowledging that there is no norm for us to aspire to. We are all different and that's ok.

About The Author:

 Mona Darling aka Dead Cow Girl, spent close to twenty years as an A-list professional dominatrix before becoming a D-list mommy blogger. After spending many years traveling the world being told that she is fabulous, she now spends her days being told she doesn’t drive fast enough by her three-year-old son.

Dead Cow Girl was a nickname she received in grade school after a humiliating morning involving a mobile butcher and a school bus. She chose to use that name to reclaim the part of her that spent much of her childhood red-faced with shame, embarrassed for her unique childhood. She also likes it because it is readily available on nearly every social media platform.

 She writes, sporadically, about food, sex and toddler-related mayhem at DeadCowGirl.com.

Her website is www.glitterhood.com.  You can find Mona on Twitter http://twitter.com/deadcowgirl or Facebook http://facebook.com/glitterhood.  You can buy Gliiter as an ebook or paperback on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

The Lost Keys Goodreads Giveaway

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Lost Keys

by Cindy Vine

Giveaway ends July 07, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

The Midnight Mouse Goodreads Give-away!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Midnight Mouse

by Cindy Vine

Giveaway ends June 25, 2013.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Book Trailer for C U @ 8

Check out the 1 minute book trailer I made for C U @ 8.  You can buy the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the Apple iStore.
Cindy Vine is also the author of Not Telling and Defective.

Winning Recipes

After reading and writing, my next big love is cooking.  I enjoy spending up in the kitchen concocting all kinds of tasty dishes but I seldom work from recipes as I experiment with what I find in my grocery cupboard.  Nothing is carefully measured but somehow it all works.  So when people ask me for my recipes I really have to give it a lot of thought and consciously try and remember what I've put in,  Recently, I've been asked for my sweet and sour pork and butternut soup recipes, so here we go!
Sweet and Sour Pork (have used this with peeled prawns/shrimps and chicken)
Sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 and 1/3 cup stock (water with a stock cube in)
2 tablespoons sesame oil
3 tablespoons vinegar
3 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons tomato sauce/ketchup
1 finely chopped onion
1 carrot sliced into julienne strips
a half a green or red capsicum or mixture of both, chopped into small blocks
ginger and garlic to taste
a dash of chilli
4 teaspoons cornstarch mixed to a thin paste with a little water
Put everything in a pot except the cornstarch paste, and bring to the boil stirring constantly.  Reduce heat to a simmer and add the cornstarch paste.  Keep stirring until it has the desired thickness.
Batter
4 eggs
1 cup apple cider
2 cups flour
salt and pepper to taste
Mix all the ingredients together, as easy as that.  I put some cornstarch in a container with a lid, drop the meat pieces in that first and shake it so they meat is coated with cornstarch, before I dip the meat in the batter.  I use chopsticks to hold the meat when dipping into the batter.
Preparing the meat
If using shrimps keep them whole.  Chicken or pork dice into bite-sized cubes.  I marinate them for a little bit in a mixture of 2 tablespoons apple cider, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sesame oil and a pinch of ginger, garlic and chilli.
Fry the batter dipped meat cubes, cover with some sweet and sour sauce and serve on a bed of rice.

 

Butternut Soup

Ingredients

1 finely chopped onion

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

2 teaspons finely grated ginger or ginger powder

1 finely chopped chilli

Oil to coat bottom of pot

4 medium-sized butternut squash, peeled de-pipped and cubed

1 tablespoon sugar

2 cups stock (vegetable or chicken)

1/2 cup orange juice

1 cup plain yoghurt

Salt and coarse black pepper to taste

1 tablespoon curry powder

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon thyme

Method

Coat bottom of pot with oil and saute onion, garlic, ginger, chilli and butternut.  Sprinkle on the sugar and caramelise.  Add the stock and simmer for about half an hour until the butternut is soft.  Puree the butternut/stock mixture in a blender.  Put the puree back into the pot and add the orange juice, yoghurt, curry powder, nutmeg, thyme, salt and pepper.  Bring back to the boil.  Reduce heat and serve.  Enjoy!

Cindy Vine is the author of Defective, C U @ 8 and the children's picture book The Midnight Mouse.  All books are available as paperbacks or on Kindle.

Procrastinating Packer

After four years at the foot of Kilimanjaro I am moving on.  The time has come and now once again I have to pack up my life.  Easier said than done.  For I am the ultimate procrastinator, the person who says "I'll do it next weekend."  Unfortunately I am starting to run out of weekends.  The movers have dropped off the boxes which are stacked against the lounge wall staring at me, willing me to assemble them.
But as I am about to start I decide it's very necessary for me to check my email first, see what friends are doing on Facebook, maybe have a shower and wash my hair.  Procrastination.  It's my worst enemy.
It's not like I don't want to leave, I do.  I am over power cuts, slow internet, ants, geckos, barking dogs and all the other things that wear me down.  But it's the people who are hard to leave behind, friends and co-workers and the mountain which looked so beautiful yesterday evening as the sun's last rays turned the snowy top pink.  Four years is quite a long time, you make connections and leaving them behind is never easy.  This however, is the lot of the international school teacher.  It's a transient world with people coming and going all the time.  Something you never get used to.  Some connections you'll keep for a lifetime and others you'll make empty promises about keeping in touch.  But of course this has nothing really to do with the packing and sorting I should be doing now.  Best to get started I guess.

My new children's book

The idea for The Midnight Mouse came up about two years ago.  I had just had my second mastectomy and was staying with my parents while I was recovering from the surgery.  My stepdad came into the kitchen and asked who'd been eating all the cheese as there was none left.  That night when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, there was my stepdad in the kitchen having a midnight feast.  He was unaware of my presence and seemed to be sleep-eating as opposed to sleep-walking.  It seemed he was the culprit who was eating all the food!  My eldest daughter Kerri and I began calling him the midnight mouse.
As I have young nephews and a niece, I thought there had to be some way that I could incorporate them in the story.
My idea was to use actual photos for the illustrations, but change them into watercolors using Photoshop.  This proved to be more difficult than I could have imagined.  I google-searched many tutorials on how to do it.  I followed the instructions step-by-step.  I never liked the results and the steps were so complicated.  I figured there had to be an easier way.  Fiddling around with Photoshop wasted about a year of my time.  I shelved the idea and focused on my medical problems.
Last Wednesday was a public holiday and I decided if I did nothing else, I was going to get the illustrations for The Midnight Mouse sorted.  Once again I started worked my way through Photoshop watercolor tutorials.  And once again I got completely frustrated.  At some point bad words probably even flowed liberally past my lips.  Another search on Google and then I discovered BeFunky.com.  This is a great website that takes your photos and turns them into cartoon-type illustrations.  Just what I needed!

Here is an example of a photo turned into a cartoon with BeFunky.com.  So easy and user-friendly, I highly recommend Be.Funky.com.  It makes me want to write more children's books!
Modern technology is really amazing.  You can illustrate your own books, upload them onto Createspace and get them published all within a day!
The Midnight Mouse is available for purchase as a paperback or kindle book on Amazon.com.  It is a free giveaway from Sunday 5th May through to Tuesday 7th May.  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CMVT6VO