Happy Gay Friday off sorts... An Update

It’s been a while since I last wrote a Happy Gay Friday post, so I thought maybe it's time for a little update...
I can honestly say that I feel much better than I did back then. I’m slowly starting to get my energy back and getting my head cleared of the chaos inside. But I’m not completely my old self yet. Far from, to be honest. However, the difference with a few weeks ago is that I now cautiously believe that I’m going to be alright again, eventually.

Although it often still seems as if - once more - all my energy suddenly went on a vacation, I at least have got my appetite for reading back again! It’s a rather versatile dish these days, but the main course is still romance (MM, but also a slash of Military MF & Romantic Suspense).
And I'm very happy it's the time of year for Christmas stories as well. I gobble these up like my favorite dessert.

As for the future of my Happy Gay Friday posts: I'm still not in the right mindset to decide wether I'm going to continue with them on a weekly basis or not. So for now I think it's best to go on as I did the past months and to postpone a decision for at least another 6-8 weeks. I also keep on writing reviews just when the mood strikes. So, it’s a continuation of the low key and irregular posting of the last couple of weeks. Meanwhile I’ll do my best to get better and all healthy again as soon as possible. :)

Happy Gay Friday!
~

Happy Gay Friday: An Abyss? Well...

This will be the last regular Happy Gay Friday post for a short period to follow. I’ve decided that it’s best for me when I free myself from ‘blogging with a schedule’ for a couple of weeks. At least for the next 4-8 weeks, maybe more, but I’ll keep you posted on that. This doesn’t mean there won’t be any HGF posts during those weeks, I might write one (or two) in the spur of the moment (but no promises). Nor does it mean there won’t be reviews or guest posts for the next couple of weeks, they probably just will be posted more at random. After this period of 4-8 weeks we hope to be back with our regular schedule of Monday, Wednesday and Friday posts.

Belated Happy Gay Friday

I kinda miss them sometimes: Deniz & Roman

I know it’s Saturday, and I forgot to post yesterday... Sorry! Actually, Leontine and Larissa are the ones to blame for my being so late with the HGF post, hahaha. ;) They were here last night and I tried to trick them into writing the post for me, but they didn’t budge. *sulk*giggle*snort*

Happy Gay Friday: I'm Back

It feels like I've been away for a very long time, while in reality we were only 8 days in Egypt. This was one of the most intense vacations we ever had. 

Partly because of all the family dynamics that went on in a group of 10 people (and wow, do I have some selfish and/or obnoxious siblings) and partly because of the beautiful experience of diving and snorkeling between the exotic and colorful fish and coral reefs of the Red Sea. I definitely want to do that again soon. The quiet and beautiful world under water is truly mesmerizing! I couldn't get enough of it.

This is probably also the first vacation during which I didn't manage to read much books. There simply was no time and when I happened to have a small window of time for myself, I couldn't concentrate enough on the words in the book because of everything that was still whirling in my head. Things we did, things that were said, things that happened. So, no book talk this Friday... I have to find my reading groove again first and then hopefully next Friday's post will be more 'bookish'. :)

Happy Gay Friday!

~

Happy Gay Friday: Short Vacation at the Blog

This is going to be my view next week: the desert of Egypt. :) Or something like this…
The above picture is actually one of my husband’s that he took when he was in Egypt a few years ago. I’ve never been there before; it’s going to be my first time.

Happy Gay Friday: UK Meet, Gay Mermen & More

This weeks HGF illustration is a video compilation of one of my favorite gay You Tube channels: JJ Prods. This compilation is from three Eating Out movies (3, 4 & 5), which I’ve never seen and which don’t seem to get very high ratings at IMdB… but who cares: there are hot guys kissing hot guys in it. *g*

Happy Gay Friday: This Week’s High 5

This HGF post is going to be completely random about me, my friends and my books. :)

1
Let’s start with the boring part, the part about me: the above picture is one of my drawings made on my iPad and the isolation it conveys is kind of how I’m still feeling.

Happy Gay Friday: September M/M Releases I Look Forward to

September is going to be a good month again in terms of anticipated m/m releases! Here's my selection:

Maybe This Time

Shawn Lane

Sept 02, 2012

Three years ago, Winston Abernathy did something completely out of character - he had a one night stand with a gorgeous dancer. But the next day the dancer left for New York to try to make it big on Broadway and Win went back to dating men who were like himself - boring, bland paralegals.

Now that dancer, Randy Lincoln, is back in Los Angles. That amazing night with Randy h...more

Happy Gay Friday: A Book-free Week & Discovering New Creativity and Apps

TGIF! And thank goodness for surviving this week. It’s been a bad week for me emotionally. Without a reason I’ve been sad and unhappy. And it wasn’t even that time of the month (no hormones in sight). I think maybe going back to work didn’t agree with me very much. Hubs started to become desperate from seeing me like this for so many days in a row, instead of my usual 30 minutes of hormonal fits. This whole week I felt so unbalanced that I couldn’t read any books either. That was not just due to the fact that it was hard to decide what book to pick after the last Ty & Zane book...

Happy Gay Friday: Bye Bye Vacation & My Vacation Reads

Our time in Greece has come to an end. Sadly. But it's also nice to be home again. I was glad I could catch up again with my BFF while lounging in her garden today. And at least it's less hot here while still sunny. After a heat wave in Greece with temperatures near to 40 degrees (104.0ºF), the hotness of 30 degrees (86.0ºF) here is nice and cool, lol.
So, summer has finally come to the Netherlands it seems. Which means beach time! Woohoo! Tomorrow I have a date with Lis and author Blaine D. Arden to go to the beach together! And with a bit of luck we'll see Leontine as well.

Anyway, hubs and I had a great vacation, with lots of doing nothing, swimming, reading, lounging on our veranda with a family of little kittens, watching the Olympics, eating Greek food, strolling through the small (and steep) streets of the old village and sleeping. It was a really lazy vacation and it was just what we needed.
Here's a small selection of the photo's I took:

Happy Gay Friday & Sexy, Smutty Scene from Summerschool by Tam Ames

While I'm still doing the lazy vacation thing in Greece, I've gotten Tam's permission to post a little teaser from her latest m/m release Summer School. It's the first 'Sexy, Smutty Scene' feature I'm posting since a long time, but I hope to do it on a more regular base again in the future. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to search for one of those scenes! Here's a very hot encounter from Summer School by Tam Ames. I love the battle for control and the level of anticipation between the characters Jeremy and Lucas. Enjoy!

Happy Gay Friday & Pre Vacation Stress

Sunny Greece

I wrote this post yesterday because early this morning (very early!) hubs and I left for a vacation in Greece. It’s nice and warm over there and it’s rather cold over here, so a couple of weeks ago we spontaneously decided to go. Our destination will be one of the islands, Lesbos.
Unfortunately this means that I won’t be able to go to the Amsterdam Gay Pride with Lis, Leontine and Blaine this Saturday. I feel really bad about that. :(
But they will take lots of pictures, they promised me and Lis will write a blog post about their entanglements with lots of photos (I hope) and she’ll post it here next week, probably Tuesday. Yay!

Meanwhile, I’m having a bit of pre vacation stress. Oi. It’s just that I feel like I have to do so much before we leave.

I’m Sad But It’s Happy Gay Friday… Without Cookies

Free picture from Stockvault

I’ve been busy with deleting the Man Candy, Hot Couple and Happy Gay Friday pictures that I used over the years on my blog. It made me kind of sad, because all those beautiful photos were a big part of the joy of blogging for me. Especially in the early days of my blog I posted a lot of pictures. But after reading Roni Loren’s post “Bloggers Beware: You CAN Get Sued for Using Pics on Your Blog – My Story” I realized I was using other people’s intellectual property without their permission. And apart from the possibility of getting sued, that’s just not something I want to do. It has been ignorant of me to not realize that before, but now I know and don’t want to continue with it.

Hence, all the black squares where there used to be pictures in previous posts. That’s because I deleted the pictures directly from my Picassa-album, instead of going through all the posts one by one. It makes a bit more of a mess, but

Time for A Change & Some M/M Recommendations & Happy Gay Friday

I’ve been feeling a little meh about m/m books lately and last weekend it had gotten to the point that I picked up the first book of an m/f series: Flat-Out Sexy by Erin McCarthy. It’s a series, called Fast Track, about a bunch of friends/siblings who are stock car drivers or are involved with them or the race track in one way or another. After I finished the book, which has the hottest and sweetest hero I’ve seen in a long while in m/f romance, I immediately picked up the second book, which was just as good as the first. That was enough for a little while and I returned to an m/m read again, but I think I’m going to switch between the two more often from now on, just to avoid that meh feeling.

Happy Gay Friday & The Sh*t Hit the Fan

I sweet HGF picture this week, because... what a week! *sigh*
With a post title like that you probably think I’m referring to the latest brouhaha in our little part of the internet world, but I’m not. I don’t feel the slightest inclination to give you my 2 cents about the stoptheGRbullies debacle that hit my rss reader and twitter timeline this week, because I hate how the discussions about issues like this always get so completely and utterly simplified, no matter how nuanced or well-worded some comments are, there’s always someone who finds a way to simplify such comments and the complete discussion/issue at hand. And like it or not, most of the times these issues aren’t that black and white at all. So, I try to stay away from them as far as I can.

Happy Gay Friday, Ty and Zane Are Like Crack & Amsterdam Gay Pride

I guess I’m the last one to find out about this Goodreads group, but I discovered yesterday that there’s a group called ‘Ty and Zane are like crack’ for people who like the Cut & Run series by Abigail Roux (and Madeleine Urban). I thought I just share it here in case I’m *not* the last one… ;)

This week another period of deadlines at work ended, thank goodness. I shifted back from a bitching hell cat into my ever graceful and mild-mannered self. *g* I was afraid to get stuck in the former form if the stress would’ve continued for just another hour. But it ended Wednesday! :)
And Thursday night my mood improved even more when my friend Leontine and I succeeded in inviting fellow reviewer and friend Lis and author/twitter buddy Blaine for a date on August 4 to go to Amsterdam together for Gay Pride! We’re going to party! Woohoot! (Here’s a link to the Canal Parade site in English)

So, my weekend started with fabulous news and I have some fun things planned with friends to look forward to as well the next couple of days. Summer is smiling at me. I hope it’s going to be a great weekend for you too. :D

Happy Gay Friday!

~

Happy Gay Friday & Some Random Stuff

First, for those who are curious about Sharon’s interview with Abigail Roux from last Friday: Sharon already sent it to me and it is scheduled to be posted coming Wednesday! Abigail told lots of interesting things about her work and Ty & Zane from the Cut & Run series.
Also, Sharon came up with the cutest idea for giveaway prizes and she did get Abigail to sign them. :)

Happy Gay Friday From Somewhere Else

Look what Sharon found. An almost-kiss. :)

When you’re reading this, I’m on the train to Germany (or maybe already there). We’re going to visit the city of Leipzig where hubs is attending a congress. For me it’s sort of a vacation week. Yay! I’m bringing my laptop, my ereader and my camera so I have all the time in the world to catch up with my reviews, my reading, my movies and tv shows, my favorite blogs and to discover some new foreign places with my camera at hand. Heaven!

When you’re reading this, Sharon is about to have, having or just had a coffee date with author Abigail Roux! Squeee! Sharon’s meeting her Friday afternoon and I’ve sent her all the questions that I received from you by email or via responses on the blog. There were many, many questions and I hope that Abigail will be able to answer them all. Sharon has let me know that she's got something pretty damn cool for Abigail to sign to give away with the interview. So, keep an eye out for the interview that we'll try to post as soon as possible. :)

Happy Gay Friday everyone!

~

Happy Gay Friday & My Growing Feelings of Guilt

It’s been a few hellish weeks for me with a couple of deadlines and persistent problems at work, but also with some nice social events and meetings. However, I’m glad it’s Friday!

In fact it’s late Friday night already and I must admit that – although I promised myself I would never again – I feel a little guilty for neglecting my online activities these past few weeks, because as a consequence I’ve been neglecting my blog and twitter friends.
Worst thing is, the hectic will go on for another week, but I hope to catch up with the blog community the week after that, when I’m heading off to Leipzig, Germany with my man. He’s going to a Cytometry Congress and I’m tagging along. This means, lots of free time for me. Yay!
Aside from catching up with my online activities, I’m also planning to explore the city, write some long due reviews, make good use of the hotel’s spa and in-room-massage facilities, heh, and eat lots of German rolls.*g*
I also hope to find some inspiration during that week in Leipzig, because lately I feel more than a little uninspired when it comes to blog matters. I want something new, something different, but these days I’m already glad when I can keep up with the regular stuff… (which is for a great deal prepping Lis and Sharon’s reviews for the blog. Without those wonderful ladies I wouldn’t even know how to go on!).
Gosh, next Friday can’t come soon enough for me. :)

So, I hope your weekend and coming week is a bit more relaxed than mine!

Happy Gay Friday!

~

Happy Gay Friday & Guess Who's Back?!

I’m running out of time because an old friend of mine visited today and she only just now left (it’s nearly midnight here). We spent so much time chatting and gossiping that we completely forgot the time.
So, it’s just going to be a HGF picture today and a big, big Welcome Home for fellow reviewer and my friend Lis!!! She flew home from Australia yesterday and landed in Amsterdam this morning! I’m very happy that she’s back home, so we can meet and catch up again whenever we want. :) This sure is a happy Friday!

Hope you’re having a Happy Gay Friday too!

~