Here are some fun facts:

• Mimi is based on my teddy bear Ginger. My Grammy gave me Ginger for Christmas when I was ten years old. (She’s obviously been loved! :))

• Tro is part of the Drom. The word drom means dream in Swedish.

• I designed the book cover

• Lucky the Cat was inspired by MacGyver.

• Eclipse was inspired by a black that hangs around my husband’s place of employment

• I first thought about the black cat fighting squad while volunteering at the SPCA. Some years ago, there was a bunch of black cats hanging around and climbing on things. They reminded me of ninjas.

If you end up reading the book, don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions are are curious about anything!

  Cookie, from my children’s’ book series, Cookie and Olivia, is based on my cat, Oreo.

  Oreo and her sister, Olivia came into our lives in June 2009.  My husband and I were enjoying a walk around our neighborhood when one of our neighbors stopped and asked if we wanted to see some kittens.  She also asked if we would be interested or if we knew anybody that would be interested in adopting them.  She had found a momma cat and her kittens in a box.

  I said no because I never pictured myself as a cat owner.  (Don’t tell my cats, but I wanted dogs.  Ha, ha.  Jokes on me because the cat are now my very spoiled fur babies. ) We also had plans to travel to New York to see our families and then we were off to Europe to visit my brother in law.

  However, at the same time my husband enthusiastically said yes.  He was so excited, and he rarely gets excited about anything, that there was no way I could say no!

  So, we followed my neighbor to her house and out on her back porch was a long haired brown and black cat just relaxing.  In different areas of the porch, were four kittens playing.  Two black and white ones and two tabbies.  (I still remember Olivia playing with a sparkly ball when I first saw her.)

  Our neighbor had a ten year old son at the time who had already named the kittens.  Oreo was originally named Black and Whitey.  However, I had decided long ago if I ever had a black and white animal, I was going to name it Oreo.

  Olivia was originally named Hidey, because we were told, she liked to hide.  However, a few days before, my husband had joked that if we ever got a cat, they were going to give it a regal sounding name.  Olivia’s full name is Olivia Fluffybottom the III.

  Since we had been talking about getting pets, we decided to adopt two of them.  It’s a coincidence that we ended up with two girl cats.  Our neighbor asked us which ones we wanted.  I chose Olivia because she was adorable playing with her sparkly ball and Oreo got chosen because se was closest to us.

  Don’t worry though.  Their brothers and mom are living their best kitty life with a nice lady in South Florida.  It’s weird to think there is another Oreo and Olivia out there, but boys.

Some fun facts:

• Cookie and the Frowny Face Day came about from a time I was going through a bought of depression.  I decided instead of wallowing in my misery, I was going to make something positive come of it.
• Oreo’s name got changed to Cookie in the books because I didn’t want to worry about trademark issues with Oreo cookies.
• Oreo loves to cuddle!  She also enjoys lounging in boxes, paper piles and the sun.

• She loves soft food and tuna! (Which she only gets as a treat.)
• Oreo has several nicknames. They are: Cuddle kitty, the black and white one and Sunshine Kitty.
• Not only has Oreo been the inspiration for Cookie, she’s also been the inspiration for various art pieces such as Cat Rave Dance Party, Here’s Looking At You Cat and I Can See You Cat to name just a few!
• Cookie and Olivia also have their own store! You can check it out on Zazzle.

Do you have any pets?  How did they come into your life?

Unfortunately that means I haven’t been updating about The Sock Challenge as much as I would have liked to. However, I’ve finally gotten around to doing a design based on the socks I wore on February 2, 2013! Here’s a picture of the socks I wore:

Photo Credits: Valerie Waters 2013

I know, white socks. Not overly exciting. (I was traveling at the time and when I travel, I usually bring white or black socks to keep things simple.  This way, no matter what I wear, I know I’ll have a pair of socks that goes with it without having to bring a lot of extra things.)

However, I did come up with what I think is a cute design:

Polar Bear Eating Ice Cream Napkin by ValeriesGallery

Chocolate Ice Cream Cone T Shirt by LittleThingsDesigns	Parfait Perfection Happy Sweetest Day Card by Olivia A. Kneibler	Cute Kawaii Ice Cream Postage Stamp by Supercutekawaii
Guilty Penguin and Crying Polar Bear Greeting Cards by curiosityshop	Happy Holidays- polar bear photo card with lights and tinsel card by Maria Dryfhout	polar bear mug by greendeer
Pink Ice Cream Cone Children Play Date Card Business Card by DizzyDebbie	ice cream social invitation card by asyrum	Strawberry Ice Cream + Sprinkles + Your Text iPad Mini Cases by TrastoFino
Ice Edge Polar Bear iPhone 5 Case by Bluestar48	Polar Bear Christmas Card by makiko kimura	Polar Bear Leap Note Card by FalconsEye
summer joy pins by almawad	Cats Eating Ice Cream Birthday (Bud & Tony) card by Betty Matsumoto-Schuch	Cute Ice Cream with Pink Daisies Tees by Amethyst_Mouse
TEE Polar Bears Custom Jewelry by teepossible	Big Bear Hugs For Granddaughter On Valentine’s Day Greeting Cards by Tammy Moody	Polar Bear Electronics iPhone 5 Covers by AnimalParade
Kitten Socks Tee Shirts by fstasu51	Missing Sock Funny Father’s Day Card by NobleWorks Funny Cards	Make Socks Not War Knitting Design T Shirts by Sideview
Neutrino Flavors Physics Fun Shirt by Pastimedesigns	good luck card by brenden howard	So Sweet Ice Cream Shirt by RoseFleurDesigns
Ice Cream Pattern Pillow by JenHoneyDesigns	Polar Bear Cubs T Shirts by fstasu	Save Me Polar Bear Shirt by ValeriesGallery

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a writer. In elementary school, I actually wrote a series based on my dog, Betsy. She was an over weight beagle. The series was called Detective Fat and Furry. It starred Betsy as a detective. She had her own detective agency and every dog I knew (my grandmother’s dog, Bear, my neighbor’s dog, Rover, etc.) worked for her and together they would solve mysteries and crimes! I even went as far as making the pages the size of a paperback book and making a front and back cover for them.

So, I am very proud to say, that I have published my first ebook! It’s called Cookie and the Frowny Face Day. It’s about a cat who is having a bad day and tries everything she can to make it better.

The book came about because I was having a frowny face day (aka bad day) myself. It had seemed like I had been having a lot of them at that point and I was determined that something positive was going to come from this bad day.
I don’t quite remember why I chose my cat, Oreo to be the star of the book, as opposed to my other cat. It could have been for a couple of reasons. It may have been that Oreo was the cat that happened to be in the room when I started writing. It could also have been for a while, Olivia liked to chase Oreo around the house much to the black and white cat’s chagrin.

I changed Oreo’s name to Cookie in the book. The reason being I wasn’t sure if I could use the name Oreo because of the cookies. (And don’t worry, Olivia does make an appearance!)

For some reason I thought making a children’s book would be easy. It actually turned out to be tougher than I thought. Writing and illustrating the story was the easy part! Figuring out how to convert it to a format that could be uploaded and read on different devices was the tough part. It took me a while to get it right, but in the end it was worth it!

For those of you that are interested, Cookie and the Frowny Face Day can be found on Amazon.

I love writing and look forward to writing many more books in the future? Have you written a book? Have you achieved a life long dream?