First Cup of Coffee – June 17, 2026

NEVER THE ROSES in ebook is on sale for $1.99! All of my other news is life-based: getting in-home care for David, setting up trusts, taxes, purging my bathroom, and generally feeling lighter getting over these big hurdles.

Indie Booksellers! You can buy my indie books direct from me at discount!! Submit a Request for an order here

New Releases ~

Blades, Books, and the Bandit

Love, Lies, and Ley Lines

MAGIC REBORN

Never The Roses

Preorder ~

Among The Thorns

The posture correcting sports bra I love almost more than life itself can be found here

Thank you for listening! You all take care. 

Transcript

00:01.24
Jeffe Kennedy
Good morning, everyone. This is Jeffe Kennedy, author of Epic Fantasy Romance, also writing as Jennifer K. Lambert. I'm here with my first cup of coffee.

00:15.80
Jeffe Kennedy
Delicious. Today is Wednesday. June 17th, we are on the new podcasting schedule, which I believe I'm going to stick with. Well, who knows? I may change in the future, but so far i am liking the new schedule.

00:34.65
Jeffe Kennedy
For those who don't keep up all the time, I am trying now writing on Mondays and Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, taking Wednesdays for business.

00:45.62
Jeffe Kennedy
And so far it's working really well. um This has been a bit of a topsy-turvy week. I've had to do a bunch of doctoring things. Like I have all these doctor's appointments. It's just all the regular check-up-y things. Although I did have to do teeth stuff.

01:02.58
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, For those who have been listening for a while, you know, I was like agonizing about this whole periodontal thing that I had to do. i had to do this descaling on my teeth. And, and um yeah, it it sucked.

01:19.19
Jeffe Kennedy
It sucked as much as I thought it would. Yeah. I am, I am just a princess. I always joke that I've got princess skin. I, you know, get rashes easily. I can't wear any metal, but gold for any length of time. um I have a sensitive mouth and like,

01:38.94
Jeffe Kennedy
So here's the thing about me. I don't like toast. I don't like croutons because they cut my mouth, right? I don't know how you people do this. i I don't know how people in the world eat things like toast and croutons without cutting the roof of your mouth and your cheeks, or does it cut it and you don't notice is my skin just that much more sensitive.

02:05.69
Jeffe Kennedy
I don't know. But yeah, so like, I'll try to remember to tell them to leave croutons off my salad. Um, if I eat toast, it's going to be like, please make it lightly toasted.

02:17.37
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, so anyway, having something like this done is just agonizing. Uh, I hate those Novocaine needles. Why are they so huge? Cause they're putting so much volume in there, I guess. Uh, my jaw, my jaw is so sore cause she's like in there like when getting all this tartar from underneath my gums. And so they, they numb you completely because otherwise you wouldn't be able to sit still for it, I guess.

02:45.40
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, so last week they did the right half of my mouth yesterday. They did the left half of my mouth. Um, I'm very sore. Yeah. but and My teeth are sensitive, but I hope that I will never, ever have to do this again, except that she wants me to come in like every three months, stab my gums clean. Do I really have to do this, people?

03:07.42
Jeffe Kennedy
She says I'm that kind of patient, and I just don't know whether to believe her.

03:15.13
Jeffe Kennedy
We shall see. Um, cause I always felt like my gums were already fine. It's a thing. Anyway, it's done. It's done. And I'm feeling good about things because I'm getting a lot of stuff done lately. I don't know if it's partly the new schedule.

03:34.23
Jeffe Kennedy
I'm just finally able to move ahead with a bunch of things that have been weighing me back for like four years now. I've had a couple of reminders of things that, like the last four years have been kind of hard. I saw that um my friend Megan and Charlie got married four years ago in June, and it reminded me of...

04:01.98
Jeffe Kennedy
being at their wedding reception and having one of those drunken conversations with someone who had been a stranger to me up until that moment. A friend of theirs I had never met. His husband was off.

04:17.38
Jeffe Kennedy
chatting with people and he and I ended up sort of sitting in this corner drinking and talking about our lives. You know how that is when you have a conversation with someone you've just met that you might not with people who know you well, right? And they ask you questions in a certain way that people who know you well don't or don't have to.

04:40.50
Jeffe Kennedy
But and I don't remember exactly what he asked me, but I ended up saying well I'm losing my mother and my husband at the same time and I didn't expect to be at have that in my life right?

04:55.58
Jeffe Kennedy
And that was four years ago. I saw the memory pop up on Facebook, right? And I even sent me again a happy anniversary and she was like, oh, I didn't know. It's like, well, for Facebook knows all.

05:11.93
Jeffe Kennedy
So, uh, yeah, four years, a lot has happened in the last four years. then the one of the things that has been sliding down my to-do list is getting our trusts and powers of turn and uh, powers of attorney in place.

05:34.86
Jeffe Kennedy
Don't lecture me. I know, i know that it's bad that I hadn't done this yet. Um, i started it two years ago, two years ago in June. I knew that we had met with the lawyer in 2024 and then I had gotten this worksheet, this 17 page worksheet.

05:53.14
Jeffe Kennedy
to fill out and that just kept sliding and sliding and sliding down the list And I'll tell you what, people, I finally finished it. It's like a weight off my back.

06:05.11
Jeffe Kennedy
And I sent it, and now we've got an appointment to actually get these set up with the lawyer. And that's going to be terrific. um But I had a moment of panic when I went and opened this worksheet because I knew it had been two years. I was just sure it was 2024. And when I went to open this 17-page, did I mention worksheet?

06:28.54
Jeffe Kennedy
ah It said 2022. And I had this moment of, I don't know, full time loop disorientation where I was like, has it been four years?

06:43.50
Jeffe Kennedy
Killian is looking like he wants to come up here. ah Here he comes.

07:04.92
Jeffe Kennedy
Sorry, it doesn't always pause right? Um, so yeah, you got to see some of that kill ends up here and now. Ah, what was I saying?

07:15.42
Jeffe Kennedy
Oh, so yeah, I thought has it really been four years and I didn't realize and with the four years since Megan's wedding and that conversation but. I realized that that was just their titling the 2022 worksheet that they had like created. And yeah, it's only been two years, only, only been two years since we had that trust meeting. Yeah.

07:43.45
Jeffe Kennedy
So, but it's getting done and it feels good to get that off of my list. I finished some other things. I am getting my mom's 2024 taxes done. That's not entirely my fault. I couldn't get the Air Force to send me some documentation I needed for that, but that's finally getting done. um And then I need to get 2025 taxes done for both my mom and for David and for me, but that's feels doable. That's not such a crushing weight.

08:13.82
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, the other thing that I got done over the weekend was i I purged my bathroom cabinets and drawers. This was something I had been wanting to do since last August.

08:27.06
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, and I know it was August because it was my birthday and David gave me for my birthday, um A micro germatone, germabrasion. Yes, that's it. Microdermabrasion machine, which is apparently what a woman of my age needs.

08:46.55
Jeffe Kennedy
and it's kind of big and I thought well what I need to do is get a lot of this crap out of my bathroom you know under sink cabinet so that I have room for this thing and that's been sliding down my list ever since then and you know what is it about like shampoos they they proliferate right you know you try different ones and then you put them under the sink and you think oh well you're going to try them someday but you don't and it hard to have a cat for a podcast guest.

09:20.44
Jeffe Kennedy
ah So anyway, um, yeah, so I threw away a ton of stuff. There he goes and it's all beautifully organized. But for those of you who have may have may have listened to the podcast on Friday, one of the things I complained about was that I'd lost a contact lens. And normally I'm very good at looking for my contact lenses. I wear the, um, the rigid gas permeable ones and I very rarely lose them. And I ended up doing an emergency trip to the eye doctor and it worked out fine, but it annoyed me that I couldn't find this lens. And I'd like shaken out the little throw rug from in front of the sink and all of this and looked everywhere. So I started this purging Friday afternoon

10:11.19
Jeffe Kennedy
Finished it on Saturday, I guess, or Sunday. Well, doesn't matter. I started one afternoon and finished the next day. And I hauled out a hefty bag full of stuff that I was throwing away.

10:23.93
Jeffe Kennedy
And everything's beautifully reorganized. I put everything back in. i picked up that throw rug and I took it. Oh, and so it was Sunday because I was doing laundry and went and put it in the laundry with the other throw rugs. My last load of the day. I always do the throw rugs last and I walked back in the bathroom after all of this and what is lying in the middle of the floor?

10:51.41
Jeffe Kennedy
My contact lens. Where was it all that time? Who knows? So at least I can see I'm getting new lenses but I would have gotten new lenses in July anyway. So it's just a mystery.

11:06.97
Jeffe Kennedy
i can't believe I didn't break it. So yes, I put it back in I disinfected it and all of that but it's still good ah wherever it was hiding.

11:23.70
Jeffe Kennedy
The other thing that's been a big step is this week we met with a gal from an agency called visiting angels about getting David some in home companionship.

11:37.40
Jeffe Kennedy
This is something we have been talking about doing for a while, that a number of my friends have been talking to me about doing, just to get David some companionship and me some help.

11:51.74
Jeffe Kennedy
For those of you who may not know, David has Parkinson's and he is 16 years into diagnosis. So that's my whole thing about both my mom and David sort of being in decline at the same time.

12:07.13
Jeffe Kennedy
And now my mom's in assisted living. And I know I talk about this all the time, but she's so stable and so great. And that's been amazing and totally worth it.

12:17.56
Jeffe Kennedy
And I'm It has been such a weight off and I've hesitated on taking this step on bringing someone in to help with David, but I think it's time. And of course, insurance does not cover this, so we'll be paying for it.

12:36.22
Jeffe Kennedy
But I think it's going to be worth it. I really like this gal. She's going to hire someone ah particularly for David because he needs someone who's a little bit more active. Why? Because David doesn't drive anymore could take him to the store or fishing or to the casino.

12:54.90
Jeffe Kennedy
help him with some projects around the house, maybe play music with him. ah Come in like two or three days a week. We're still going to fine tune what it will be. um Someone who can also ah come and see him when I have to travel to check on him and look after him.

13:15.77
Jeffe Kennedy
one of the really nice things about this program too is that they will help with light housework so things like meal preparation and dishes just kind of picking up um I think that's gonna be really great so I'm sort of looking on this as it's weird to think about bringing someone in to be in your house for hours at a time that you haven't met um but I really trust this gal to find someone who's a good mesh with both of us.

13:46.10
Jeffe Kennedy
And I think it's, some it's going to be kind of like having a part time live in housekeeper, right? I'm getting very fancy.

13:59.06
Jeffe Kennedy
So that's been a relief to feel like we're getting that handled. And so all of this is about like all of these businessy things, life things that I'm getting handled and getting into place. And it's, it's making a much ah big difference. I, I feel so much better.

14:15.64
Jeffe Kennedy
Um, And it will be a load off my mind when I'm traveling because I'm going to be doing lots of book tour type stuff. And i've won't have to worry about what he's doing or if he's okay or if he's having a bad day um that there will be someone who can come in and help him. And it's going to make a big difference.

14:42.94
Jeffe Kennedy
Probably worth spending. worth investing in, right? and but But yeah, buy my books. ah I do have um someone coming to stay in the Casita for the writing retreat, Hummingbird House. If you're not familiar with it, I am having so writing retreats. You can check it out at hummingbirdhousesantafe.com.

15:10.67
Jeffe Kennedy
There's different packages, weekends or a few days or a week or longer, I guess, if you want. And there's a gal coming from the UK who's going to be staying there in July. So that's going to be really fun.

15:26.02
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh, yeah, so, so that's kind of getting going to it's, uh, interesting how like things don't happen for a long time and then things get going when, when they're supposed to write that's that's the Taoist in me.

15:40.99
Jeffe Kennedy
Uh. Exciting news sale-wise is there is an e-book sale going on for Never the Roses, which is otherwise an expensive e-book. I think it's an expensive e-book, ah but it's on sale for $1.99. think anywhere you look, there's a special Kobo Father's Day sale starting tomorrow, going through the 23rd. There's a stock your Kindle deal going on.

16:10.66
Jeffe Kennedy
There's going be a book bub for tomorrow. So here's your chance. If you're like me and want to read on ebook. Here's your chance to get it.

16:21.75
Jeffe Kennedy
ah If um you're one of those completionists who likes to have your favorite book in every format. Here is your opportunity to obtain the ebook of never the roses.

16:37.18
Jeffe Kennedy
I am looking at various drawings for these special editions so exciting to see those things shaping up. It's really fun to see Jillian.

16:51.89
Jeffe Kennedy
fancy' Now he wants out, but he can wait. It's really fun to see what artists do with my stories. Like when they read and then they create images from that.

17:04.92
Jeffe Kennedy
i I just love seeing that. um <unk> It's an amazing creative circle and that's really cool.

17:14.61
Jeffe Kennedy
Hold on. I thought he could wait because i was... Nearly done anyway. I don't think I have much else to say. ah Today was a lot of life things, but that's part of like being a writer, right? Is just handling the life things.

17:33.11
Jeffe Kennedy
I, um, A friend of mine the other day was saying how fortunate I am that I get to make a living doing something that I love and that I'm really good at which was very nice to hear. Um, yeah, I am fortunate but also life also life. So, um, getting those things locked down so that we can write more books. That's the way right.

18:03.29
Jeffe Kennedy
So hope you're all okay with the once a week podcast. Always happy to get questions and feedback. Thank you all for your very nice thoughts on me being sad about Jane Yolen's passing. And those of you who said lovely things about me following in her footsteps, that meant a lot to me.

18:23.83
Jeffe Kennedy
So I hope you all have a terrific rest of your week and beginning of next week. And I will talk to you all next Wednesday. You all take care. Bye bye.