Getting it Together

I was doing so well at blogging on a schedule ... and then the holidays hit and then a cold or the flu or a wicked combination of both hit, and here I am, dragging myself back into the land of the living and trying to get back onto some kind of schedule...again.

I don't know how it is for you, but for me it's a never-ending battle. There's always much more to do in the space of 24 hours than one mere mortal can possibly get done. That being the case, the days become a juggling act for as long as a person can manage to keep all the balls in the air.

Eventually, though, luck runs out and we're forced to make choices, and much as I hate to admit it, that's where I am right now. Do I keep four different blogs running (and I use that term loosely) or do I give up on a couple and concentrate on the other two? Do I give time and attention on a daily basis to the books I wrote under a pseudonym a few years ago--books I still love, by the way--or do I focus on the books form my backlist that I'm releasing again in Kindle format?

I'd love to do it all. Really, I would. In my dream world, I would get all of the Dancing on Coals workshops for writers revised and published in Kindle format, and I'd even produce a few new workshops on subjects I hadn't tackled when I stopped actively conducting workshops every month.

I'd lavish attention on Candy Shop mysteries I wrote as Sammi Carter and I'd tweet and be active as Sammi on Facebook. In my spare time, I'd judge lots and lots of writing contests, while still having time to exercise and eat right and spend time with my family.

It's just not possible.

Still, it's hard to turn your back on a pen name that was a huge part of your life for several years and to let books you would love to see doing well languish instead. But either I give time and attention to the old books--at the expense of new books I could be writing--or I let the older ones find their own way while I nurture new books into the world.

After reading the six books in the Fred Vickery series again to get them ready for Kindle release, I realized why readers are still, all these years later, asking me for more books in the series. I agree with them: I can't leave the characters that way. And there's my current WIP, a book I'm calling by the working title Dead on Arrival that's been nagging at me since 2008.

And there are big books, contemporary and historical and maybe even a few more time travels, and that Christmas romance that's been niggling at the back of my brain for the past few months. And the novellas I'd like to have ready to give away to readers next holiday season ...

And there are blogs to write and social media to visit, and covers to design and approve and ...

I'm not complaining. We're all way too busy. This is just my particular brand of busy, and honestly, I wouldn't trade it for anything--except maybe unlimited leisure time to spend with the grandkids. I mean, a woman can dream, can't she?


photo credit: Tu tires ou tu pointes ? via photopin (license)

Think Happy Thoughts

It's been a rough few days with emotions running high. Nothing huge. Nothing major. Just a few of those days run together. They haven't been all my days, either. But you know how it is when someone you love is having one of those days. It kind of becomes your day, too.

I had planned to blog today about something I encountered online yesterday that bugged me, but as my youngest daughter was hanging up from an early morning phone call, during which we had been discussing her no good, horrible, very bad day (before the day even really got started) she issued a challenge to me to blog about something happy.

Well, clearly, venting about my new pet peeve didn't qualify, but having had a few of those days in a row, I wasn't sure where to find something happy.

And then a favorite quote from The Tao of Pooh ran through my head, and I set out on a search to find it to make sure I got it right (because clicking around on the Internet is infinitely easier than searching through all of my bookshelves to find my copy of that tiny book.)

Of course, any time I delve into the mind of A.A. Milne, I'm fascinated and charmed and I very quickly find myself smiling. Even though it took forever to find my favorite quote (it doesn't happen to be everyone's favorite, I guess) I found some other charming quotes along the way.

This one, for example. Because if you can get past the personal frustration of being disorganized, which can frequently lead you to think you're not only having a very bad day, but you're destined to always have bad days because you just can't get it together, you might just realize that being disorganized can lead to having surprising discoveries ...

Like that purse you completely forgot you owned, or a favorite shirt found at the bottom of a pile of dirty laundry, or change you left in the pocket of a pair of jeans. Really, the discoveries never end.

Okay, some of the discoveries aren't all that great, but some are. That's the important thing.

Or this one, which is my second favorite quote from A.A. Milne because it's one I so desperately need to remember. A life spent as a single mother working all the time and always feeling as if I was sprinting from one forgotten thing to another (or one thing I couldn't quite get myself to on time because of my day job), there were times when I really needed to just take a deep breath and remember that rivers are incredibly wise.

There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.

There's some real wisdom in this quote. Because, seriously, in this day and age, when it seems that everybody is busy talking at each other and very few people are actually talking to each other, it helps to remember that the other guy probably has a small piece of fluff in his ear.

In reality, that piece of fluff is probably a life just as disorganized as yours, and he's probably just as worried about what he's late for or who he's disappointing as you are.

It won't hurt to (again) take a breath and work up a little patience. I think most people would happily remove the fluff from their ears if we stopped getting irritated with them for having fluff in the first place.

I wish I had a nickle for every time in my life I've been caught up in worrying that a tree might fall down when I was underneath. I would be a rich woman, indeed.

It has taken a lot of time and energy and mental focus to occasionally suppose as Pooh does. Supposing it didn't!

It's good to anticipate problems to some degree, but it's not good to get stuck in an endless loop of problem anticipating. Yeah, today's tough, but supposing it gets better? And even if it doesn't supposing tomorrow is a great day? What then?

I think, like Piglet, I'm comforted by this.

And finally, my favorite quote:

Aren't you glad you stuck with me? Is that great, or what? The thing I've realized over the years is that, if I walk out the door feeling pretty sure than an Adventure is going to happen, one usually does.

Maybe it will be a happy Adventure, and maybe it won't, but Adventures almost always happen to those who are Ready for Anything.

So brush the honey off your nose and spruce yourself up as best you can. I hope your Adventure is wonderful and fluff-free!

The Road to . . .

I have the very best of intentions. Really, I do. I begin every year vowing to be a better family member, a better friend, a better author. I vow to buy birthday cards for those closest to me and (better yet) actually mail them—on time! I know! The very concept leaves me breathless.

Every year I promise myself that I’ll blog regularly and fill the internet with witty chatter about my interesting life (the one I vow I’m going to have this year) and all my amazing activities (the ones I swear I’m going to actually participate in.)

And then reality sets in and 10 months later I’m looking at all the things I promised myself faithfully that I’d do this year, but haven’t, and I wonder what happened???

Sure, there’s work to do and books to write and the house to clean and the dog to walk and the cat to continually move from my lap to the floor so I can actually do all of those things. And there are illnesses and emergencies that get in the way. But not every day, and not all the time. So what happened?

I used to be one of the most prolific authors I knew. I was focused. Dedicated. Determined. That was okay, but I was also . . . rude. I rolled my eyes at excuses and thought that anybody could write three or four really good books a year if only they’d put their mind to it. I was convinced that anybody who was struggling to write must not really want to write.

Yeah. I know. I apologize to every writer in the entire world. I’m not joking.

I was one of those people you asked to take on a project because, as we all know, if you want something done you give it to a busy person. I worked three jobs at a time, or worked two and went to school in my spare time. I was a single mom, so raising the kids, running the house, keeping up the yard, and bringing home the bacon fell on my shoulders alone. I had to do it all, and I did. (Admittedly, I fell a bit short on some things. I mean, c’mon. It’s impossible to do everything well, right? Right? So let’s not talk about the yard, okay?)


But for the past few years I’ve felt as if I’m on the proverbial road to hell and that road really is paved with my good intentions. Somewhere along the way I hit the wall. I spent so long burning the candle at both ends that, apparently, the ends finally met in the middle.
I also encountered a few very challenging life experiences, a couple of which shattered my entire world. It has taken me a long, l-o-n-g time (and a whole lot of prayer) to find my way back from those. Back in my “everybody can write if they really want to” days, I didn’t factor in those earth-shaking, rock-your-world, leave you empty and shaking in the corner things that eventually happen to all of us.

I’ve always been an avid list-maker and goal-setter. But now, instead of producing long lists of tasks I’ve accomplished every day, I find myself staring at long lists of tasks I haven’t managed to complete. Lists are no longer my friend, they’re my guilty conscience.

But no matter how it happened, it’s way past time to get back on track. And I mean it this time.

Maybe I can’t fill the internet with witty chatter about my interesting and varied activities, but I can be honest about where I am and what I’m doing to pull myself up by my bootstraps.

Today I’m going to declare a dream and write it down with a date. My plan is to read through the very first book I ever wrote, which is also the first book I sold way back when. I recently got the rights to that series along with the rights to a few of my romances back from my publisher, and I’m going to release them all in Kindle format. That’s my big dream, but let’s take it one at a time.

Dream: Start with No Place for Secrets.

Date: Publish the book by October 31, 2013. That makes it a firm goal.

Steps: Since this book was written back in the olden days, everything after the first draft was done in hard copy, so the manuscript on my computer needs some work before it matches the finished product. So my steps are to read and polish one chapter at a time and celebrate the tiny victories along the way.
I remember this from back in the day: celebrating a small victory leads to more small victories. Repeatedly beating oneself up over small failures leads to inertia.

Action: Well … that’s pretty obvious. Now that I have my Grand Master Plan, I have to do the work. My plan is to track the steps here on my website, chapter by chapter, to keep me accountable. Steps + Action.
As for those birthday cards … my oldest niece has a birthday coming up later this month. I could wait until the beginning of the year and start over then, but why wait? I say, begin right where you are.

What Makes a Book a Wallbanger?

I'm a writer, but I'm also a reader and every year when contest season rolls around, I'm reminded of that fact. I try to judge the books and manuscripts I'm sent as a reader, not as a writer. Your job, after all, is to create an emotional ride for readers, not to please other writers. So today, as I'm dragging myself through one of the books on my contest stack, I started asking myself what makes a book a wallbanger for me. 

Let me stop for a moment to say that this particular book isn't one.

But I've read a few, as I'm sure we all have. 

In my mind, there's a big difference between a book that's just okay and one that inspires me to throw it at the wall. 

I've read countless books over the years, and I can only think of a handful that I've actually tossed away in disgust. There are a whole lot more that I've put down and never come back to. I think there are 3 or 4 on the floor by my bed that fall into that category.

But we're talking about wallbangers here. What makes a book a wallbanger to you?  

The first book I can honestly remember flinging away in disgust is one I picked up about 30 years ago, while I was going through a divorce and struggling to support my daughter on my own meager income and sporadic child support payments. Life was tough. I was emotionally raw, spiritually battered, and struggling financially. Every day I had to worry about how to feed my child and how to give her enough time and attention, not to mention what was happening to her at the really lousy day care I could afford.

So I picked up this book about a wealthy woman going through a divorce. Life got a little unpleasant for her, so she decided to go to Europe for six months or so to "heal." 

Bang! 

I literally threw that book across the room. I don't remember ever doing that before, but I couldn't get that book out of my hands fast enough! I can tell you in all honesty that in 30-plus years, I never bought another book by that author. At that time in my life, at that moment, when life was so hideously painful and I was too poor to have any options at all, that book felt like a huge betrayal. In that moment, I realized that I don't read to escape my life. I read to make sense of my life and, for me, The Big Disconnect is probably the #1 wallbanger for me. 

What's top on your list?

Editing Mark Twain

By now I'm sure most of you have read and discussed the decision to publish Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, replacing the "N" word with "slave." I waited a few days to post on this topic because if there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's to not go public with a statement while emotions are running hot. Were my emotions running hot the day the news about the new version broke?

You betcha.

I'm an author. Words are my medium, and I don't take kindly to the notion of mucking about with anyone's words, even that the person who wrote 'em has been dead for a while. Even if the words make me uncomfortable or offend me. I may not like what you say but, like Voltaire, I defend your right to say it.

According to my grandmother, I'm also a distant cousin of Samuel Clemens. I suspect it's true because she was heavily into genealogy and she wouldn't have made something like that up. So even though I haven't personally seen the genealogy chart that links my family line to old Cousin Sam's, my blood was boiling out of sheer family loyalty.

But now that I've had some time to think about it, I've changed my mind. Now I say, by all means, make the change!

If there's one thing this country doesn't need, it's an old, tired book reminding us how horribly African Americans were treated in this country just a few generations ago. Nobody wants to think about slavery, but if we must, at least let's take some of the sting out of the subject.

All that ugliness has caused a lot of bad feelings over the years. And all those bad feelings have caused a lot of trouble. So, forgetting entirely about the sensibilities of the world's sixth graders, I say that the very last thing we need hanging around is a reminder that race relations weren't always perfect, the way they are now.

The very best thing we can do is to shave off the sharp edges and produce a much gentler history for posterity. To hell with the truth! (Sorry Cousin Sam.) Let's make sure the past looks pretty so future generations will look upon us more kindly.

On second thought, maybe Cousin Sam would approve of this change. After all, he did once say:

"Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it." -- Mark Twain

We can economize truth right now with the removal of one horrendously offensive word. We can soften the blow so that that this generation will grow up not knowing how bad things really were. By the time these kids grow up, they'll be ready to remove "slave" and substitute it with "servant." Or maybe "friend." Why stop short?

In two or three more generations, we'll have softened the truth so much, our posterity will be able to recycle the stuff we've removed from history and start all over again. And the best part of that is, they'll think they made it up!


While we're discussing the subject, let's forget that Twain wrote political and cultural satire that wasn't intended for sixth graders in the first place. So let's dumb down the books a bit further and remove all the other poky-out parts that might jab somebody else in the conscience. No sense letting the old man get a dig in now that he's not around.

And maybe when we're finished with Twain, we can take a swipe at Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. I'm pretty sure there are some things we'll want to soften in the history of the holocaust, as well.

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. 

It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." 

-- Mark Twain

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please." 

-- Mark Twain 

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word 

is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." 

-- Mark Twain

"All right, then, I'll go to hell." 

-- Mark Twain

_______________________________
from the blog On My Mind Today

Stony Stratford Strikes Back!

In between sentences in my current work-in-progress, I've been wondering what to blog about today. Yeah, I've been working on my list of 100 Books I Want to Read, but I don't plan to subject you to 100 uninterrupted days of me thinking about my massive TBR stack. I swear!

I was having a little trouble coming up with a topic that knocked my socks off ... until I saw this article scroll past.

First, major kudos to the folks in Stony Stratford for caring enough about the library to do this. It's amazing. At first, when I saw the image of the completely empty library, my heart sank. I thought the shelves were empty because the library was closing. But as I read on and realized that the library was completely empty because people in that village checked out all 16,000 books in the library to protest the possible closure, I experienced a huge feel-good moment.

I love the library, and have since I was a little girl when my mother took me there. I still remember the thrill of climbing the metal stairs into the Bookmobile when it came to my school and the joy of walking up and down the stacks, looking for books I wanted to read. The library meant that no matter how much money we had or didn't have, I could always get a book. The library meant that I could read thousands of books if I wanted to, and the only thing standing in my way was how fast or slow I read the books I had.

Librarians knew and understood the books. If I liked this, they could recommend that. If I couldn't figure out the Dewey Decimal System, they showed me where to find the book I wanted. As I grew older and my book needs changed, I discovered that the library meant even more than just good books to read. It means research materials, access to old newspaper archives and past issues of magazines. And if I needed a book that I couldn't find on the shelves, all I had to do was request the book and my library would get it from another library.

Sadly, that service is no longer available to me due to budget cuts. I'm not pointing fingers here or trying to place blame. There's entirely too much of that in our society already, and my thoughts today aren't about who's responsible and who's not. I just wish that more people valued books. I wish more people would realize how amazing the library is. I wish we'd put our money where our mouths are. When we claim that education of our children is important, let's not take away their ability to find a book to read, even if their parents don't have money or their parents don't especially like to read. (That's another thing that makes me sad, but it's a topic for another day.)

Everyone I know is struggling in this economy. There's not as much money for entertainment and travel. Food budgets are being slashed and people are downsizing. But at the library, you can always get a book to read. Even in my small community, where services are being cut, I can still access any book in the county-wide system, and they still provide monthly e-mails about the new books they've put on the shelves every month.  And that's a good thing.

Have any great library memories or just thoughts about their status in the current economy?  I'd love to hear what you think.


_______________________________
from the blog On My Mind Today

Things that go Bump in the Night

What happened at your house at 3:30 this morning? Was everyone in the family sleeping peacefully? Not at mine, apparently. We had the grandkids for a sleepover last night, and while the 3 year-old and I were doing our part with the sleeping portion of our adventure, Auntie Val was up, praying that the 1 year-old would go back to sleep and taking the dog outside to potty. When she stepped out into the front yard, this is what she found on our lawn.

We're not sure who the car belongs to, but we're thinking it probably belongs to the people who live across the street since the car on our lawn was pretty much lined up with the driveway across the way. Maybe our neighbor got himself pointed in the right direction, but put the car in reverse instead of drive. Who knows? 

I'm not saying that this empty, still-running car with its lights on was abandoned in the wee hours of the morning by a neighbor who'd had too much to drink. Not at all. In fact, our house seems to be the neighborhood's random parking lot. Just a few weeks ago, we came home to find a stray van parked in the middle of our driveway. And I mean the middle. No room for us to put our car on either side of the thing. Turns out, it belonged to another neighbor who lives across the street and down a house or two. We don't know why this is. We've only lived here a couple of months, and we're still feeling our way around the neighborhood culture and customs.

But this makes me wonder about the rest of you. What's the strangest thing you've ever found at your house?

_______________________________ from the blog On My Mind Today

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

About 18 months ago, my daughter, son-in-law and only granddaughter moved across country when Ian was reassigned to a new base by the Air Force. Because I've been a single mom for most of my kids lives, we're especially close, so saying good-bye was really difficult for me. I was excited for Vanessa in a way. I've never wanted my kids to live narrow lives, so I was happy that she got to broaden her world, meet new people, and experience new things. Living away has been good for her in a lot of ways. She's growing into an incredible woman, and I'm so proud of her. But that didn't stop me from wanting to be closer, to help when I could, and to maintain a close relationship with her and the incredibaby.

Earlier this year, Wonder Baby #2 came along, and I was lucky enough to spend three months with them, helping out, bonding with the new baby and cementing my relationship with her big sister. it was pure heaven, not just because I got to be with people I loved, but because the area where they're living is truly beautiful. I met many nice people while I was there and other than the humidity, I thought often that I could be happy there.

In fact, my oldest daughter and I set a goal of moving somewhere closer to them by October of this year, and we had every intention of meeting that goal. But then life happened, and plans went askew, and we finally resigned ourselves to staying in Utah for a few years longer. Maybe, we told ourselves, we need to be here, not there. Maybe we should just stay in case Ian gets assigned overseas. Maybe my mom needs me here. Maybe it's just not meant to be.

Last Friday, while I was happily researching for a fun new mystery series I'm working on, the mailman came to the door with a registered letter. Seems our landlady has sold the place we've been living, and the new owner wants us out. He gave us until the 23rd of October to pack up and move. After the shock began to wear off and my head began to clear again, it occurred to me that since we have to pick up everything we own and put it on a truck anyway, maybe we should be in Florida when we take it all off the truck again.

Little by little, the idea began to gel. I did some research. Lots of research. We thought a lot. Talked a lot. Cried a lot, and talked some more. By Sunday afternoon, the decision was made. In spite of myself, I'm actually going to achieve my original goal to be living in Florida by the end of October. It's a little overwhelming, but very exciting.

So here we go -- 23 days and counting! 

_______________________________

from the blog On My Mind Today

What's Your Myers-Briggs Personality Type?

I just took the Facebook version of the Myers Briggs personality test, and I'm a little surprised by the results. I took the Myers-Briggs test several years ago when I was working in the federal court system and the Clerks of Court arranged for specialists to administer the test to everyone who worked at the two different courts housed in the building. At that time, I came out a strong INFJ--introverted, intuitive, feeling, and ??? Judging? Yeah, I think that's it. Tonight, my results indicated that I'm an ENFP (Extraversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Perception) The pop-up window with the results said:

You are warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. You see life as full of possibilities. You make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns you see. You want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. You are spontaneous and flexible, and often rely on your ability to improvise and verbal fluency. Famous people with your same ENFP personality include: Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Andy Kaufman, Bill Cosby, Robin Williams, Sandra Bullock, and Robert Downey Jr.

Now, maybe this is silly, and maybe it's not a real Myers-Briggs test. It seemed to be, but in this day of rampant online piracy, who can tell for sure? There were about 50 questions, and they were pretty similar to what I remember them being all those years ago at the federal courthouse. The point is, I'm not surprised that my results are different. I know I've changed since I took the test all those years ago. I've been through too many things, experienced too much, met too many people, had my perceptions of the world changed, and done things that have challenged my long-held beliefs about life, about reality, and about how things "should" be. (A nasty word, "should." I'm trying to ban it from my vocabulary. But I digress.) The point is that I think I'd be a pretty sorry kind of person if I'd done all that and remained exactly the same. I'm interested, but not really surprised, to learn that I've changed from someone who's introverted to someone who's extroverted. I always liked people, but it used to be that I needed a lot of solitary time to recharge the old batteries. Now . . . not so much. I may not be the life of the party yet, but I'm a whole lot more comfortable in social situations than I used to be. I'm also a lot more open to new information and opinions than I used to be -- a direct result of serving on the board of directors for RWA. If spending four years doing that job doesn't open a person to new information and opinions, I don't know what will. And now, I think I'll take my extroverted self off to bed. All this self-awareness has worn me out! _______________________________ Copyright © 2009 Sherry Lewis

I Raise My Glass

Thinking About the Year Gone By

Two days until 2008? Good grief! Where did this year go? My mother used to tell me that the years seemed to pass more quickly as she got older, but I didn't realize it would be like this! The year 2007 hasn't been the worst year of my life, by any means, but I won't be sorry to put it behind me. I'm determined that 2008 will be a much better year. A much, much better year. I'm due. 2004 was the year my daughter began a very difficult battle with depression. In early 2005, she bottomed out and we spent the rest of the year recovering. By the end of that year, she was doing well enough for me to have a little mini-breakdown of my own. I'd just started dragging myself out of that when she decided to get married. After a whirlwind of planning on a shoestring budget, we had the wedding, and before we even had time to catch our breath, Abigail was born 13 1/2 weeks early. We spent the rest of 2006 keeping vigil in the hospital, and finally brought our baby girl home at the very end of the year. So along came 2007, and all should have been well, right? Except that after three solid years of difficult times, I really crashed and burned. I could have kept this blog running day and night as I chronicled my own battle with depression, but breathing and staying awake took all the energy I had on most days, and besides, it would only have depressed you. For me, 2007 was all about recovery -- which is good. At least things didn't get worse. You'll agree, won't you, that I'm due a good year? That's the only resolution I'm going to make. To be myself again. 2008 is the year I get my life back. It's the year I get my muse back. It's the year I get my drive and ambition back. I just hope I recognize myself when we meet again after all this time :)

Manic Monday Treats

My treat this week is that my computer is finally working again! My subscription to Norton expired and I started to install a version of McAfee, only to discover that it wasn't compatible with Windows Vista. I told it to stop installing but, of course, the computer didn't listen to me (my main complaint about Windows these days.) Naturally, the unacceptable version of McAfee played havoc with my computer. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I was able to boot in safe mode and uninstall McAfee, which left the computer running again except IE -- which still isn't running despite my efforts and those of my computer manufacturer's tech support. Of course, this had to happen when I was traveling to Chicago for some CEO training, so I wasn't able to follow through in my normal obsessed fashion, and immediately upon my return home I was inundated by a number of things that kept me from being obsessed about the internet and my computer's ability to function for a few more days. However, last night in a burst of (totally unexpected) brilliance, I remembered that there are other browsers besides IE and downloaded a copy of Mozilla Firefox. I've been happily reattached to the internet ever since!

It Drives Me Crazy

So I was clicking around the internet today and found a meme called Heads or Tails. The subject for the day is either Pets or Pet Peeves, and I'm debating which one to talk about. On the one hand, nobody wants to hear somebody complaining -- do they? Judging from some of the blogs I've stumbled across, maybe they do. On the other hand, I've talked about my pets so much, you're probably all sick of hearing about them. On the third hand, there are plenty of things that drive me crazy, so how would I pick just one peeve to call my pet?

So then I think maybe I should blog about peeves I have about my pets -- but that would probably be defeating the whole purpose of the Heads or Tails concept. So okay, I'll try to narrow my list of peeves down to one.

If I must pick one (and I must because I refuse to list all my peeves and alientate everyone who visits here) I'll pick tailgaters. Not the folks who get together for barbecue and what-not before football games, but the original tailgaters. The jerks who travel behind you on the freeway at 70 mph, leaving all of about 2" between your rear bumper and their front one. The idiots who actually believe they're in control of anything in this world, and who think they can anticipate everything that's going to happen on their journey.

There isn't much that happens on the road that irritates me as much as someone riding my bumper when I'm driving somewhere, and it especially irks me when I have my granddaughter in her car seat which, by law, has to be in the back seat of the car which, by definition, is the first place the idiot in back of me will destroy when he plows into me if I breathe wrong.

Yep, that's my top peeve -- at least today :)

Summer Blahs

So I was in the middle of writing a new blog entry yesterday when my laptop crashed. Just like that. One minute I was typing away about the rest of my week in Dallas, and the next I was staring at a blank, black screen. Okay, maybe it wasn't quite that sudden. I'd been fighting issues with my power cord for a couple of weeks, but I'd invested in a new one and the laptop had fairly hummed along the entire time I was in Dallas. The minute I got home, however, the troubles returned. Must be the "dry" heat. Anyhoo . . . I called a Very Helpful Tech at CompUSA, told him what the computer had been doing, and waited for him to tell me that there was a very simple fix -- one that would take less than 30 seconds and cost me less than $20. Instead, he told me that the trouble appeared to be centered in the Whoojiggythingamajog on the Mother Board, and that I might as well just buy a new computer because that would be cheaper than fixing the one I had. That was SO not what I wanted to hear yesterday. It's too hot to hear news like that, y'know? And I don't do well in the heat. I am a completely unapologetic creature of artificial comfort. Give me heat in the winter and A/C in the summer, and I'll muddle through, but I'm happiest when it's about 65 degrees out, with a slight breeze. I live in a desert, where a large percentage of the population still gets through the summer months with the aid of a thing called an evaporative cooler -- at least that's what it's called if you're searching for parts online. In the real world, it's known as a "Swamp Cooler", with "swamp" being the key word in that phrase. Swamp coolers operate by blowing air across water-soaked pads, and they only work when the humidity is very low. They also only work when the temperature is below 90 outside, and when the pads are clean -- all of which should help explain why, once again, I'm sweltering inside the place where I live, breathe, work, clean, and sleep. The particlates in the air from all the wild fires have made the air so dirty, swamp coolers can't work well. Even if they could, they wouldn't because it's been 100 or more for a couple of weeks now, and there's no end of the heatwave in sight. The poor thing on top of our roof grinds away all day and maybe -- maybe -- keeps the house at 85. CoolER, but not cool. Which might not be SO bad if I could "glisten" like a lady, producing little more than a delicate sheen of dampness, even on the hottest of days. Unfortunately, I don't glisten. I don't glow. I don't even perspire. Thanks, Dad Luckily, I've learned that keeping a glass filled with ice at my side helps a lot. Even though the temperature outside is clocking in at 108 today, I'll confess that I've hardly noticed the heat as I play with my new computer and try to figure out its new bells and whistles. Tonight, my daughters and I are going out to dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant, so we'll escape into actual air conditioning for a little while. The grandbaby too, even though she's still a little young for stir-fried beef and their one-of-a-kind egg roll. My son-in-law has been on TDY in Mississippi for the past 10 days, and they're picking him up at the airport around midnight, when the temperature has dropped to a cool 95 or so. Brrrrrr. Summer. Blah.

Dear Diary . . .

Once again, I've lost track of time and let an entire month go by without blogging. I think it's because I have so much trouble trying to decide what to blog about. Do readers really want to hear about all my internal struggles as I wrangle my way through a manuscript? Does anyone care what I think about Dancing With the Stars? How much can anyone stand to hear about the Wonder Baby -- who, incidentally, is 14 pounds 14 ounces now and who is beginning to eat baby food! Actually, I log in quite frequently, call up a new post, and then stare at the cursor blinking in the little square while I realize I have absolutely nothing to say. Much as it embarrasses me to admit, I'm afraid most days my blog entries would sound something like the diary I kept when I was 9. Dear Diary... Today I went to school and came home. I did my math and went to bed. Today's version would sound more like this, I'm afraid: Dear Diary... Today I booted up the computer, battled e-mail and ISP problems, read some e-mail, opened my manuscript, wrote a little, did some dishes, and went to bed. Fascinating stuff? Hardly! I guess I could share the news that seems to change almost weekly about when Ian, Vanessa, and the Wonder Child will be leaving us. Earlier this month, we were told they'd receive orders by the end of July and then have 8 months to make arrangements to move. Now, new orders are expected by the end of November, but they won't have nearly so long to make arrangements before they go wherever the Air Force is going to send them. Then there's the on-again, off-again question of whether or not Ian will be deployed to Iraq before he receives orders to change bases. But if I posted the news every time the news changes, you'd all be as confused as I am, so I'm just sort of biding my time, enjoying every minute I get to spend with the kids, and resigining myself to the fact that I'll know when and where they're going when Ian is holding orders in his hands. On the other hand, if you do care what I think about Dancing With the Stars, I'm breathlessly awaiting the results of this week's voting even as I write this. Is Billy Ray leaving, or will it be John? Everyone I personally found expendable has already been voted off, and this is the week it starts to become . . . well, not painful. I'm not obsessed, after all! But if I had to pick one of these two couple to leave it would have to be John and Edyta. (I hope I spelled her name right.) And how about that? It's John and Edyta! Who do I pick to take the whole thing? Two weeks ago, I'd have said Apolo Anton Ono, hands down. Now I'm torn between him and Joey Fatone -- although Ian and Laila have been giving those two a real run for their money lately. It really could be any one of those four. I'm not sure I can choose at this point. So, Dear Diary, that's been my day. I got up, booted up the computer, battled some ISP issues, finally got my e-mail accounts transferred to another hosting service, added some friends to my MySpace page, ate leftover chicken curry, and now I'm going to bed. Just another fascinating day in the life

A Night at the Oscars

Did you watch the Academy Awards last night? I don't always, but I was interested to see how Ellen DeGeneres did as the host, and I'd actually seen a couple of the movies that were up for awards this year -- which always makes the awards ceremony more interesting :) The Departed. . . best picture? Yeah, I guess. It was interesting and intriguing and fast-paced, and bloody and gory and filled with rough language, so I guess it's no surprise that it won. I do wish that Nicholson had remembered that he was supposed to have a Boston accent all the way through the movie, and I occasionally had trouble telling Damon and DiCaprio apart. (Yes, I'm probably the only one in the world, but I do predict that in time, Damon and DiCaprio will be just as confusing as DeNiro and Pacino are to some people now.) I haven't seen The Last King of Scotland, but everyone seemed so excited about Forrest Whitaker's performance, I found myself pulling for him, too. On the other hand, for purely sentimental reasons, I also wanted Peter O'Toole to win, but again I haven't seen the movie, so I can't judge the performance. I just realize how old he's getting and I wonder how many more times he'll be in that position. Helen Mirren had my vote from the beginning, so I was glad when she won the Oscar for Best Actress. The whole world seemed to be pulling for Jennifer Hudson to win Best Supporting Actress, but I'll confess I wasn't one of them. I'm not saying she doesn't have an incredible voice, or that she didn't turn in a great performance, but I'm a little peeved by the "Dumped by American Idol" story, and everyone wondering if this will teach Simon a lesson. I don't think Simon ever said that Ms. Hudson had no talent or that she wasn't a good singer -- just that she was out of her league in that competition. At the risk of having you all throw rotten tomatoes at me, I have to agree with him. She is not an American pop idol, but she will probably be a spectacular stage and screen actress. She reminds me of my cat, Vincent (or P. Vinnie, short for Piss & Vinegar, as he was named by my late-ex-husband) Vincent was raised with two dogs, and for the first 8 years of his life, Vincent thought he was a dog. When my ex-husband passed away, Vinnie came to live with us and met other cats for the first time. We watched in amazement (and amusement) as the weeks went by and he learned to do cat things -- like leaping onto windowsills and flopping onto the floor to lie in the sun, twitching his tail. To this day, Vinnie doesn't meow, he barks -- he just doesn't bark well. Because Vinnie isn't a dog, he's a cat. These days, he's quite a fabulous cat, but he makes a very small and ineffectual dog. Holding my breath until I turn blue and insisting that people admit he's a dog won't change that fact. I was pleased when Jennifer Hudson mentioned Jennifer Holliday in her acceptance speech, even if it was only at the last. To hear the Hollywood hype, you'd think Dream Girls was a brand new idea and that Jennifer Hudson created the roll. They've completely left out the fact that Jennifer Holliday has been playing the role for something like twenty-five years and that, in fact, she was responsible for getting the script changed for the character's return at the end. Little Miss Sunshine was a surprisingly good movie - although I generally like Greg Kinear, Steve Correl, and Toni Colette. Alan Arkin is another actor I usually like, so on a purely sentimental level I was glad he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Valerie (my oldest daughter) and I printed off a list of nominees and trie to pick the winers. I only guessed 4 right, which shows you how much I know! Anyway, all in all I enjoyed the awards ceremony last night, although it did get a little long and I was fighting sleep long before the "big" awards were announced. If you ask me, three hours is long enough for anything on TV, and for some things it's way too long! - - - - - - - - - - I found a cute new graph to keep track of my progress with. Just ignore the part that says it's an exercise ticker :)

Monday Gripes

There are a few things that have been bugging me lately, and I think it's time I got them off my chest. I figure there are two ways I can deal with them -- either I can journal about them privately, or I can share them with a few million of my closest friends. Guess which one I choose :) In no particular order, here are my Monday gripes: Anna Nicole Smith. Or, rather, the media's obsession with Anna Nicole Smith. I think it's tragic that the woman lived a miserable life and then died. I do. As a mother, my heart breaks for the loss of her son. No mother should have to endure that. It breaks for her tiny daughter, too -- especially since half a dozen men (only a slight exaggeration as of this morning) are claiming paternity. Yeah, I'm sure they all adore the baby. The fact that she stands to inherit several billion dollars has nothing to do with it. But come on, other things are happening to mankind all over the place. I hate to break it to the news media, but Anna Nicole's sex life is not the most important thing in this world. Paris Hilton. Do I really have to explain why? People who travel 55 mph in the fast lane on the freeway while talking on their cell phones. Rachel Ray. Not Rachel, exactly, just Rachel's voice. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Does she have to shout all the time? Pulling up next to an SUV or a truck at a stop sign -- especially when the driver keeps edging forward as if my car is difficult for him to see around. Have you ever driven a car and tried to see oncoming traffic over a vehicle that's twice as tall as your own? Don't get me wrong. I don't mind SUVs and trucks all the time. In fact, I'd probably drive one if I were going to buy a new vehicle right now. They just bug me when I'm next to them at an intersection and I can't see. The fact that I can't find an e-mail program that does everything I want it to do. Okay, so I'm picky. I'll admit that. Any news story in which the media implies that the death of a straight-A student is somehow more tragic than if that child earned Cs or Ds on his report card. Every child has value, and every loss is equally tragic. The fact that if ever I fall or trip, I always reinjure the same leg -- the one with the bad knee. What's up with that????? Not that I want to injure the other knee. Not really. Having one gimpy knee is bad enough. Still . . . . Maybe what really bugs me is the fact that I fall at all, and then, when I do, it's usually because of some careless move on my part, like missing a step. And finally -- the fact that I can never think of a clever way to end my blog posts!

Your Left, Your Right, Your Left, Your Right.....

Over the weekend, I finished crocheting a pink and purple afghan for my three-year-old niece (actually she's a great-niece, but that just makes me feel old!) so it's on to crocheting for the babies who will be joining our family over the next few months. As soon as my daughter brings back the digital camera she borrowed from me, I'll upload pictures for those of you who are interested. Who would have ever thought, back when I was 13 or so and learning how to crochet was a required part of our church's youth program--at least for the girls, that I would pick up a hobby that would last me a lifetime. I certainly didn't. Learning how to crochet was difficult for me. As a left-handed person, I'm hopelessly confused by most directions for crafts like knitting and crocheting. I'm slightly more ambidexterous than most of the right-handed people I know, but that's only out of necessity. Usually I fumble around with things created for right-handed people, trying to make them work backwards. Kitchen ladles are a prime example. Whoever created the kitchen ladle apparently never thought that a person would have reason to pour out of the other side of the ladle. One spout on the wrong side was enough. And maybe those of you whose right hands are actually functioning appendages don't ever need to pour out of the other side, but whenever I try to pour something using my right hand, it's a disaster. Not only is my hand non-functional, but so is my arm, and something seems to happen to my depth perception and peripheral vision whenever I try to use my right hand. For years I've struggled along with a right-handed ladle, right-handed scissors, right-handed can openers, a plethora of right-handed desks at the workspace, ergonomic mice for the computer, whiteboards and chalkboards (my left-handed mother taught me to write without twisting my hand around backwards, so I smudge everything I write on a whiteboard -- ditto the chalkboard) spiral notebooks and binders -- the world is created for the right-handed person. So whenever I find something that's actually useful for someone whose primary hand is the left one, I snap it up. My most recent treasure was the two-sided ladle I found at the Dollar Tree a few weeks ago. God bless the person who invented the two-sided ladle. As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, directions for crafty things are sometimes a problem. While crocheting the afghan I just finished, I came across the directions for a square using a slant stitch. The directions kept telling me to insert the hook in the stitch to the right of the stitch just made, and I did exactly what it told me to do. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that I needed to go left whenever it told me to go right. None of these things are insurmountable problems. A little vexing, that's all. Certainly not irritating enough to wish I weren't left-handed or to teach my right hand how to function. I'm just glad that the world has changed enough to make being left-handed acceptable. It hasn't been that long since people forced their children to use their right hands, and every year my mother had to teach my teachers how to teach me to write in the classroom. When my oldest daughter was little, I caught my grandfather-in-law holding out a treat for her and slapping her left hand each time she reached for the treat with it. Yeah, I came unglued, and no, it never happened again. I guess I was lucky. My left-handed mother always told me that being left-handed was a sign of genius. I haven't actually noticed that the left-handed people I know are more brilliant than the right-handed ones, but it was a nice thought to carry around me as I was growing up. Come to think of it, maybe that's why I don't mind the slight inconvenience that comes from stuffing my thumb into the finger hole in a pair of right-handed scissors . . . or prying it back out again when I'm finished :)

The Benefits of Aging -- Gracefully

I've been playing around with feng shui a little as I work on creating a serene and inviting office. What I really want is a serene and inviting home, not a house filled with chaos. It's a little difficult to do serene with two huge lab mix dogs bounding around, but I'm doing my best. (Have I mentioned that my daughter brought her dog when she moved in?) I think I've managed to get the hang of the most elementary feng shui principles. I've figured out, I think, which section of my house is associated with what, and I think I've managed a rudimentary understanding of the connection colors and different elements, like fire, water, wood and water, have with the bagua. Kind of. This is definitely something that could take a whole lot more study than I have time to devote to it. On the other hand, I finally have time in my life to devote to studying things simply because I want to know more about them -- like feng shui. When my kids were younger and at home all the time, undertaking a study of feng shui, even a minor study, would have been impossible. I still remember the soul-searching I had to do just to convince myself I could take time away from the kids to write. I guess it's natural. At least, it seems to be something women do on a regular basis. Between work and kids and the house and a husband (if you've got one) and parents and family obligations, and maybe a church thing or two, finding time to take a bath seems like a minor miracle. Finding quiet time to study something just for fun???? Forget it! The real tragedy is that when our kids start getting older and gaining independence, when we find ourselves rattling round the house with time we don't know how to fill, most of us have forgotten what once interested us in the first place. A couple of years ago, when I was going through a particularly difficult time in my life, someone (actually several someones) advised me to do something nice for myself every day. Trouble was, I had no idea what I might enjoy. On the plus side, if you're persistent enough and determined enough, eventually you do begin to remember what you used to find interesting. And you begin to figure out what you don't find interesting, too. About this time, you start realizing how many years you've spent pretending to be interested in things you couldn't care any less about. You also start losing interest in maintaining the pretense, which is why, by the time we're old, people think women are cranky. We're not actually cranky, we've just stopped pretending to be so sweet all the time. Pleasing others isn't nearly as attractive to me at this age as it was when I was 20. So other people may like me less, but I like myself better. In my opinion, that's not such a bad trade!

The Cell Phone Blues

I just finished posting my entry on the Super Authors blog this morning. Six Weird Things About Me. Come on over and check it out! I'm annoyed with my cell phone today, and I need to vent. When I signed up for my current service, I got a free cell phone. A nice little Nokia that, at the time, had a what I thought were a lot of bells and whistles. It worked great, never gave me a moment's trouble, but when my daughter upgraded a while later, the phone she chose looked so great I couldn't resist. I decided to join her and upgrade to a flip phone. The phone arrived and I loved it, except the ring tones were all so quiet I couldn't hear the phone when it was inside my purse and after a while the screen cracked and then stopped working. So back I went to my Nokia. A little while later, my youngest daughter bought a phone from a friend for about $30. It was a great phone. So great, that someone stole it from her while she was playing designated driver one weekend. So for Christmas, I found her another phone like it on eBay for not much money and decided to take a risk. They actually had two, and I thought, well why not? So we both got the nice flip phone with the camera for about 1/4 of what we'd have spent on new phones. They even worked great -- for a few months. But then the speakers went out -- not just on one phone, but on both of them. So even though the screens worked and we could hear that someone was calling, we couldn't hear a word they said. I keep trying to make that phone work because I like it. The screen is easy to read, even without my glasses, and the graphics are clear and sharp, unlike my little Nokia. But the receiver part (whatever that's called) is just dead. I even tried using a hands-free set with it, but that didn't work either so. . . you guessed it . . . I'm back to my old reliable Nokia again. :::sigh::: But hey, at least it works, right?