January 22, 2012 – Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, it finally arrived.  Today is my birthday.  I’m another year older.  I don’t feel older though.  Does anyone actually feel older on their birthday?  I’m stuck at 29.  I’ve been 29 for quite sometime now.  I don’t like having my birthday in January.  Right now the streets outside are ice covered.   Can’t go anywhere to celebrate so having your birthday in January is just no fun at all.  Most years it’s freezing cold with a foot or so of snow on the ground.  What fun is that?

So, here’s what I’d do to celebrate my birthday if it were warm outside. 

I’d throw myself a big surprise birthday party!  Yep, I’d keep the party a secret from me so I’d be totally surprised when it happened.  I’d block off the street where I live, set up picnic tables and have food brought in along with a big birthday cake – big enough to feed at least a hundred people.  Iwould have sent out invitations earlier and I would have found a great band to play some of my favorite music.  There’d be food, frolicing and everyone having a great time.  For those who just wanted to come and watch the festivities, there’d be plenty of lawn chairs to relax in.

Oh, but it’s winter here and there’s ice everywhere.  Guess I’ll just have to dream about my surprise birthday party.

Christmas Eve

It’s December 24,  Christmas Eve.  I realize some people don’t celebrate Christmas but I do so to me it’s Christmas Eve.  I’m sitting here in my office remembering back to when I was a little girl.  If my parents could afford it, I would get a new doll for Christmas along with some apples, oranges and different kinds of nuts.  Christmas was simple back then.  Not like it is today.

My mom and I would go into the woods and chop down a Christmas Tree, drag it home and decorate it with decorations we had made.  We didn’t have all the fancy store-bought decorations.  We made paper-loop garlands, popped popcorn and made popcorn garlands.  We even died some with food coloring.

Yet, with so little, we were happy.

Today, kids have to have a lot more than one toy.  That’s unheard of in this day and time.  No, kids get so much stuff on Christmas morning they don’t know which package to open first.  On top of that, a whole lot of kids have no idea why Christmas is even celebrated.

I like the simple times I grew up in.  Wish we could go back there.  Do you?

December 4 and it’s snowing outside!

Okay, who decided it was okay for that white fluffy stuff to be falling from the sky so early in the year.  I mean after all, 2011 has 27 more days before it’s over.  There’s still plenty of time remaining for it to be falling later – like December 31st for instance.

Not that I don’t like snow.  It’s pretty.  It’s fluffy and it’s white.  But with it comes c-o-l-d!  And I don’t like cold.  Not one little bit.  No sir.  Not me.  I like warm weather.  Sunshine is a good thing.  If it’s 99 outside, I’m happy.  If you can cut the humidity with a knife while it’s 99 outside, I’m really happy.

The only good thing about cold is a nice toasty fire blazing in an old-fashioned fireplace.  I don’t mean one of the new fireplaces with the gas fire.  Nope.  I’m talking about the kind where you pile in the wood you’ve cut (or in my case someone else cut and then delivered) and then you light a match to it and eventually you have this roaring fire.  Now that’s a fireplace.  You can smell the wood burning.  I can sit there in my rocker and just rock myself to sleep anytime night or day until the fire goes out.

Saturday Morning

Here it is another Saturday morning.  I’m, of course, in my office working.  This morning, I’ve been here since 7 a.m.  That’s a little late for me.  Usually I’m up at 2 a.m. writing but for the last six weeks I’ve been a tad bit under the weather.  Wound up in the hospital for three days (that was no fun, believe me!).  I would probably have gotten better sooner but the nurses kept coming in around the clock to give me more medicine and to find out if I was having any trouble sleeping, which I wasn’t until they woke me up to find out if I was having trouble.

Why must they do that?  Couldn’t they just as easily tiptoe into the room, take a look at me asleep in the bed and determine for themselves I must not be having any trouble or otherwise I wouldn’t be asleep.  Why must they wake me up and ask me?  It must be written in the Nurses’ Book of Rules or something or other.  Bless their hearts.

Otherwise they do such a great job!  I couldn’t have asked for anything any better.  They were there constantly filling my water glass, asking if I needed anything, fluffing my pillows, bringing me food, etc.

That’s another thing – food.  Seems the doc put me on a “heart healthy” diet while I was there.  Sucks is all I can say.  No salt is basically what that means.  Have you ever had “fake” eggs with no salt.  Can’t camouflage the taste of that!  It’s like eating cardboard.  Once I found a stash of salt, however, the taste improved!

Now don’t go snitching on me.  I can’t do without my salt – at least a tad bit of salt.  I did find one of those little packets of salt and I used it the remaining two days I was there.  You would have thought I’d found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Couldn’t wait for the next morning’s breakfast.  Didn’t use the whole packet however – only about half of it over the six remaining meals.  Not too bad for a salt junkie.

Cold Weather – Bah Humbug!

As you can probably tell, I’m not a huge fan of cold weather.  What can I say?  I was born in the South.  I like my weather hot and humid, not cold and windy.  It’s 41 degrees outside and the wind is blowing.  That’s about 50 degrees too cold for me.  I just hate cold weather.  Even Mouse, my little micro-mini teacup chihuahua, hates cold weather.  Right now she’s in her bed on her electric heating pad covered up in her baby blanket trying to say warm, too.  But I suppose that’s enough of the whining.

Fnished another book with my writing partners, Writers of the Lake, which we will launch at a book launch party on November 10, 2011.  You should definintely come.  We had so much fun last time.  Had over 200 people come through the door for the last one.  Have another book coming out in February with the fourth one in June. 

But, you know what that means, don’t you?  Means I’ll be tromping through snow in February to get to the book launch and I hate cold weather!  Have I mentioned that before?

 

August 28, 2011 – I’m Insane

No really, I have to be totally insane.  At 3 a.m. on Black Friday, I will be autographing books.  Yep, I let my writing friends talk me into it.  We’re supposed to be set up in a local mall and ready to go by 3 a.m. – that’s in the morning, before the sun even thinks about waking up.  How insane is that?

Now, these writing friends of mine tell me it will be fun.  Oh, it’ll be fun alright.  They’ve never seen me first thing in the morning without my first pot of coffee.  This could get ugly!

July 30, 2011 – “Blue Jeans and Stilettos” Got a Review

“Blue Jeans and Stilettos” was reviewed on Julia Barrett’s World.  Hope you’ll take a moment to read the review.  We, Jordyn Meryl, C. Deanne Rowe and myself, were all so excited when we read it.

When we set out to write “Blue Jeans and Stilettos”, it wasn’t to win any of the awards that go along with writing.  We simply wanted to write to entertain readers with fun stories.  From what we’ve heard, we did just that.  We’re already getting requests for sequels to the stories in “Blue Jeans”.

We had so much fun writing those stories!  And, now we’re having just as much fun writing the next book, “Ms. Claus Wears Stilettos”.  I know you’ll enjoy this book also.  Three different writers with three different styles of writing, three different stories, three different hunky heroes and three different heroines to enjoy.  The book launch party will be November 10, 2011, so make your plans now to attend.

We’re hard at work on our Valentine book and so far we haven’t come up with a name for it.  So, if you have any suggestions send them to me and I’ll name my hero or heroine after you!

July 8, 2011 – Bit & Pieces

The “Blue Jeans and Stilettos” book launch party is over.  Whew!  It takes a lot of hard work to launch a book.  I did finally find what I considered, at least, to be the perfect blouse to wear.  Now I have all these other blouses and I’ll have to come up with some place to wear them!  The event was a total success, however.  Expected maybe a hundred people to show up but instead had over two hundred people when I quit counting.  It was so much fun!

So what’s next?  More book signings are already scheduled and the “Writers of the Lake” (I am one of them) just taped a radio interview which will be aired Sunday, July 10 on five different radio stations here in Iowa.  Times and stations are:  1700 AM – The Champ – 5:00 a.m.; 92.5 FM -KJJY – 5:00 a.m.; 95 FM – KGGO – 6:30 a.m.; 98.3 FM – WOW – 7:00 a.m.; and 87.3 FM – The Hawk – 8:00 a.m.  Be sure to catch the interview.  The next book for Writers of the Lake, “Mrs Clause Wears Stilettos” will be out November 10 and you’re all invited to that book launch as well.

Catch me in August at Beaverdale Books for their multi-author event.

Mouse in her Pink Bed

Today, I’m writing as usual (have a book signing tonight) and just as usual, Mouse is sleeping in her bed.  In case you haven’t seen Mouse, here’s her pic.  She a micro-mini teacup chihuahua.  She arrived in Iowa via an airline.  LOL!  Yep, a stewardess and pilot brought her to me.  She got to ride up front with the pilot and the stewardess brought her off the plane to me.

I had originally thought of naming her Fifi Bridgette but once I saw the tiny little bundle of white fur and pink nose – well, she looked like a little white mouse so she was named Mouse.  She still has a “Fifi” attitude as her little hips really priss when she walks until she turns into “Killer” with a big dog attitude.  And she can go from Fifi to Killer in a heartbeat.  Just ask any of my friends who stop over.  Those little sharp teeth come out and from the sounds she makes she could rip your ankle to shreds!  But, when I’m busy writing, she’s asleep in her bed like any little angel.

June 5, 2011 – Fickleness

I’m fickle.  There I’ve said it.  At least when it comes to clothes I’m fickle.  For instance, I just recently bought what I considered to be a very gorgeous blouse to wear to an upcoming important event.  It’s a red blouse with gold paillettes all over the top yoke portion.  Very pretty.  It would catch the light just right for the evening’s event.

Two days later, I hate the blouse.  It’s no longer pretty but dull and boring.  It just hangs there on its hanger, next to the blue one I bought for the same occasion,  that hangs next to the green one, staring at me.  Somewhere in the last two days, it went from gorgeous to ugly.  Who came into my house and beat my beautiful blouse with an ugly stick?

So now I have to go shopping once again for a blouse to wear to this important event.  I know I’ll find just the perfect one, too.  It’ll be beautiful and even more gorgeous than the red one, the blue one,  the green one, the pink one, the peach one, or the purple one, I’ve already bought, I know.  But, and there’s always a but, I’m sure two days later I’ll hate it, too.  Fickle.  I must have been born with a fickle gene when it comes to clothes.

What about you?  Do you have that problem or am I the only one the clothing stores are making a killing off of, selling me six blouses (so far) for the same event and I hate all of them.  Guess I’ll go shopping.

Memorial Day – 2011

I was sitting here this morning working on my next book and listening to the radio as they read over the names of those serving or who have served in our military. What you don’t hear behind those names is the stories of the men and women – no, let me correct that, it’s the stories of boys and girls because that’s what they are – I was one of them, I know.

Serving in the Air Force I learned a lot.  I learned what it was like to be eighteen and away from home for the first time.  I learned what it was to be homesick, really homesick and not being able to contact the people you love most. I learned what it was like to be in unfamiliar territory, doing adult things with a child’s mind and body. I learned to do exactly what I was told, when I was told no matter what time the day or night and I learned to do no more and no less than I was told.

I learned what it was like to be afraid.  The kind of scared where your heart beats so loudly in your ears you wouldn’t be able to hear the enemy even if he was yelling at you from a foot away.  I learned what it was like to see a friend scream in pain as he/she loses an arm, a leg or God forbid his/her life.  I learned what it was like not to be able to do anything about any of it.  I learned.  I learned.

As a child of eighteen, I learned all these things that I will carry with me the rest of my life.  Now, while I was learning all that, just to help keep you free, what were you learning?

Next time you see a military person, thank them for what they learned.  Show them you appreciate what they learned for you.  Mow their grass, buy their family some groceries, buy them lunch, fix that drippy faucet.  Take the kids on an outing so mom can have a few hours to herself.  There are hundreds of things you can do for a military family.  Get out there and just do it!  Show them what you learned.