So many great entries from people thankful for wonderful things. Family, friends, safety of service members--home and abroad, pets, Thanksgiving off--finally, having a job, kids leaving the nest, waking up each morning, health, happiness and a Kindle (I can relate! *cackle*).
Wonderful entries! But you really want to know who won, right? So here goes. I'm thankful for Randomizer.org for taking the choice out of my hands.
The prizes were:
Prizes
Grand Prize: $25 gift card to Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.
Bonus Drawings: Winner's choice of one of my ebooks.
And the winners are:
Grand Prize: $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble Gift Card - Brandy W.
2nd Prize: Joey W. Hill's Rough Canvas - Jean P.
3rd Prize: Shayla Kersten's Eternity series in print - Brandi M. R.
Bonus prize #1: Choice of one of my ebooks - Tara W.
Bonus prize #2: Choice of one of my ebooks -Perpetua
Congratulations, everyone! I'll email you for details of where and what to send!
This time of is always hectic and it's even more so since I went back to work full time. As crazy as things get, I think about the things I'm thankful for.
1. As always, I'm thankful for my family. Too many people dread the holidays because of the stress of family gatherings. My mother and younger siblings, my nieces and niece-in-law, are fun and I enjoy being around them, spending time together. They make the holidays something to look forward to and not dread and I'm very thankful for that!
2. Writing. Although the return to full time work has severely cut into my writing time, I'm still thankful for my only creative outlet as well as the readers who honor me by reading my books. I'm also thankful that a lot of those readers like my books. *cackle*
3. The evil day job. Unfortunately a necessary evil. I'm thankful for my staff making the transition smooth and relatively painless. I'm grateful my Evil Boss hasn't been that evil. And I'm really thankful for the full-time paycheck and benefits!
So on to the contest...
Thanksgiving Contest!
Go to my contest page at http://shaylakersten.com/shaylacontest2.htm. Find the turkeys on my website. Tell me which pages you found the turkeys and what you're thankful for!
(Hint: There will be three turkeys.)
All responses will be entered in a random drawing for the prizes. Contest will run from Monday, November 22 to midnight US CDT Sunday, November 28.
Bonus drawing #1: Post the link to my contest page on your favorite social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc). Paste your link in the form with your answers from above.
But I'm not sure it's because I'm having fun... *cackle* I just noticed I hadn't blogged in two and a half weeks. No idea where the time went. Working full time seems to have created a time warp of some kind.
However some of the time was really fun! High points of the last two and a half weeks...
My last post was about the release of RIVER OF NEED (TN Cop #4). So far, I've had some wonderful feedback from readers. Love that!
Big highlight! Wicked! The Broadway musical about the real story of the witches of Oz opened in Little Rock on November 3. My sister--who never wins stuff--won tickets to opening night and invited me to go with her. Freakin' awesome show!
The 1939 film The Wizard of Oz began airing on TV in the US before I was born and it seems I watched it every year from the cradle on. I'll never see the show in quite the same light again. The clip below is from the Tony Awards with the original Broadway cast and only shows a small part of the sheer awesome known as Wicked.
I finished and submitted my short free story to Ellora's Cave. Haven't heard anything from my editor yet. I hope it passes muster for the Naughty Nooners freebie series. It's a glimpse of ICING ON THE CAKE's Jeff and Ollie three months later tentatively titled ACQUIRED TASTE (Thanks for the title, Debbie! *cackle*)
I started a new story on November 1st as yet another attempt at the annual writer phenomenon, NaNoWriMo. NoNo is an attempt to write 50k word novel in a month. Considering today is the 13th and I'm barely 4k into the story, I'm guessing I won't make it again this year. Work has me drained in the evenings and my weekends have not gone as planned. But hey, I started a new story! This one has a BDSM theme and the idea is begging to get out. I have to make time to let it. The book is tentatively titled AFTER HOURS.
Oh, and I had an offer on another short story--my lesbian vampire one. I'll wait to go into details until the contract is signed.
So a lot of good things going on. I just wish they'd figure out how to come up with 36 hour days!
Most of today has been dedicated to resting. Guilt plagues me when I do this but sometimes it's necessary. I've been on the go and out of the house every day except one for the last three months. Hard to believe I've been back at the full time EDJ that long already. Things are going better than expected there. Me being the pessimist I am, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. LOL Kind of like I keep waiting for someone to tell me my publishing career is all a joke. *cackle*
But I'm not sure it's because I'm having fun... *cackle* I just noticed I hadn't blogged in two and a half weeks. No idea where the time went. Working full time seems to have created a time warp of some kind. 
