I ran away from home and found the sun (and a lot of fun!)

Spring isn’t officially here until the Equinox next week, but I’m ready to celebrate the news season ahead of schedule. The long, dark nights of winter are almost gone for another year – hurray!

I got a jump start on the season this year by cheating. I flew to Texas at the end of February and spent the better part of a week roaming the streets of San Antonio, hunting cowboys and soaking up the sun. It was t-shirt and short weather down south, warm enough to confuse even the locals. Thirty-five-degree weather in February? Bring it on! Even warmer than the weather was the welcome I received from the other authors and readers at Wild Wicked Weekend. If you’ve never been to a romance reader/author get-together, then you’re missing out on an amazing experience.

River Walk - San Antonio - Yes, it was a balmy 35 degrees that evening. 

Imagine it. A hundred or more fellow readers - each and every one of them passionate about the romance genre - thrown together for a weekend of laughter and fun. Every event I attend, I make new friends and discover new authors to read and books to fall in love with. Attending events gives me an opportunity to travel to new places and explore cities I would never otherwise visit, in the company of amazing people I would never meet anywhere else. I’ve eaten on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, wandered the streets of the French Quarter of New Orleans, watched the sunset over the mountains of Denver, and laughed with friends over drinks in Ottawa, Canada.

Me dressed up for Western Saloon night

Attending a romance reader/author event is like walking into a room full of people and realizing “this is my tribe.” It’s an experience like no other, and if you’re as fortunate as I have been, you’ll make friends and memories that will be with you the rest of your life.

Male hosts serving us ice cream at the opening event 

I came home from San Antonio with amazing pictures, memories, and sadly, a Texas-sized flu bug that knocked me off my feet for almost a week, but it was worth it! Wild Wicked Weekend is an event I plan on returning to next year, and maybe I’ll get to see some of you there in 2018. What better way to escape the winter blahs? 

My favourite picture from Wild Wicked Weekend. (of course)

Musings on the shortfalls of being hobbit-sized

I’m a fan of short things. Short work weeks. Short speeches, hobbits, short stories, and shortcake!

My bias comes in part because I am a short person. Slightly bigger than hobbit-sized, but not by much. In my twenties, I worked in the records office of a police department and wore heels to work every day. Not for fashion reasons, or because it was in the dress code. No, I wore heels because it was the only way I could reach the "not even close to the top shelf" without the use of a ladder.

Last weekend I did some early spring cleaning. I lugged a stupidly heavy bag of garbage down to the condo garbage room, and then struggled for ten solid minutes to get the damned thing into the Dumpster.

The lip of the bin comes to about chin height, and I was trying to toss about forty-five lbs of garbage over the edge. Physics was not on my side. I eventually had to give up and go back up to my suite to get a stool. I should probably just give in and carry one with me everywhere.

**Warning, making short jokes can become hobbit-forming** 

So, to summarize - Short things, I'm generally a fan.

I'm not really fond of the shortest month of the year, however. February is a dark, gloomy, time where the damp weather chill settles into your bones and sunlight is a rare, fleeting gift quickly lost behind the ever-present grey clouds that shroud the sky.

It's a good month to nestle in with a good book, spend time with friends, and if you're lucky, take a vacation somewhere with longer days and more sunshine. To beat the February blahs, I'm packing my things and taking a short trip to San Antonio this month. Barbecue, cowboys, sunshine (hopefully) and a whole lot of fun. (definitely.) I'll be attending Wild Wicked Weekend February 23-25th, signing books and hanging out with some truly amazing authors. (and readers!) I love traveling, and this time of year it's wonderful to be making a break for southern climes. If you happen to be in the San Antonio area, I hope you come down and say hi!

In keeping with the "short" theme for this post, I'm happy to announce that my new book, Wild Card, will be releasing shortly! (see what I did there?)  In fact, it comes out February 21st, which, thanks to a short circuit in my planning process, is the day before I leave for San Antonio. I expect to be bouncing around like a hyper-caffeinated hobbit for that entire week as I prep, pack, and celebrate.
See you next month, and until then, be happy, chase your dreams and keep reading!

Susan

http://susanhayes.ca

Susan lives on Vancouver Island, off the Canadian west coast where the waters are patrolled by orcas and the sighting of snowflakes leads to citywide panic. She’s jumped out of perfectly good airplanes on purpose and accidently swum with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef.

If the world ends, she plans to survive as the spunky, comedic sidekick to the heroes of the new world, because she’s too short and out of shape to make it on her own for long.