Things I Like Thursdays – My Top 5 Magazines

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So, it comes as no surprise that I love to read.  From Seventeen to AARP, this girl has always had piles of magazines almost as high as her towers of To Be Read books.  I’ve been trying to curb my magazine buying because 1.) who has time to read them all and 2.) they’re getting ridiculously expensive.  I’ve finally weened myself off the most expensive craft and British women’s magazines, often $15USD a pop!

So, here are the magazines I’ve deemed worthy of my hard earned dollars, in no particular order:

Magnolia

I never really got into the whole Gaines empire but I do love the magazine.  Every quarter, there’s a different theme, like Delight or Mindfulness, with corresponding articles and photos.  Flipping through Magnolia is like taking myself to a spa—it’s soothing and positive and relaxing.  Sometimes I just need a break from social media, news…  ya know, real life…  Magnolia gives me a restful place to go.  Usually with a cat on my lap…

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My iPhone 13 Saga

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5G

A simple number and letter.  That cost me a ridiculous amount of money, buying a new iPhone 13.  It had to be a 12 or 13 to be able to access the new 5G when 3G goes the way of dinosaurs, tv tubes and Howard Johnson restaurants.  Maybe I could have gotten away with something a little cheaper but I figured if I get top of the line now, I won’t have to buy another for a very long time.  Yeah, yeah, I know—in technology time, that’s probably 3-5 years, if I’m lucky…

Even when you’re dealing with technology…
The graphic on my home screen.
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Things I Like Thursdays – Literary Pins

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I collect pins.  Pretty much everywhere I’ve traveled, be it museum, historic site or tourist attraction, they all have pins.  And they’re easier to pack and display later than t-shirts, figurines or even books (but you didn’t hear me say that!).

Later in the year, I might start showing some of the hundreds of pins I have on a denim duster that hangs in my hallway, but for now, I’m showing off a small collection of literary pins I’ve gotten in the last few years.  To keep them all together, they normally live on a gray wool motorman’s cap.

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Irreplaceable Martin Luther King Jr.

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When I think about the 1960’s, it brings back memories of death and funerals.

I was 11 years old when the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis.  I would have sworn I was watching The Girl from U.N.C.L.E on a black and white tv in my room but it turns out it was probably The Flying Nun, which just illustrates my faulty recollection.  I also thought his was the funeral that involved a train journey but no, that was RFK a few months later.

ATLANTA, GA – 1960: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preaching from his pulpit circa 1960 at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Dozier Mobley/Getty Images)
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Things I Like Thursdays – Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant

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As I’ve been laboring over a Christmas romance novella I hope to have ready for this fall, I’ve been thinking about what readers want most when they pick up a book.   Snappy dialog, action, romance, suspense.  A few laughs, a few tears.  Any combination of these can make a passable story.  But what I really want when I read is someone I can root for.

Tessa Johnson is definitely someone to root for.

Sixteen-year-old Tessa, who’s moved not only to a new city but is also the new girl at a prestigious arts school, has to prove to herself, more than anyone else, that she’s a romance writer.  But that’s hard to do when your words suddenly ghost you and your best friend is hundreds of miles away, even in this technological age.

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Things I Like Thursdays – The Cleaner on Britbox

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When I first heard of The Cleaner, the premise of a crime scene cleaner originally had me prepared for CSI style storylines.  But I wasn’t disappointed to find stories centered on the living, not the dead.  So far, there are six half hour episodes of this British series told through the experiences of Paul “Wicky” Wickstead, as he goes about removing the signs of violent death.

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Thoughts About A New Year

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Honestly, after the last two crap fest years, I really don’t want to say anything to jinx 2022.

Two years ago, the prospect of 2020 and its clear vision of normalcy with a little travel thrown in, began with a late December 2019 trip to Texas, taking a train from San Antonio to Houston for Christmas at NASA.  March 4, 2020, found us on a day trip to San Diego on Amtrak, wondering how worried we should be about a virus we’d heard about lately.  Nine days later, we were locked down.  The Husband didn’t work for months, while I was lucky enough to work from home.  In hindsight, the word for 2020 would be Uncertainty.

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An Angel Named Hector

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Who says angels can’t be furry?  And have a big pink mouth and giant brown feet?

Hector didn’t begin life as an angel.  The happy little hand puppet was a 21st birthday present from my BFF, Zan, the month before I set out from Massachusetts to California with my mother in an LTD station wagon packed full of our earthly goods.  He relaxed on the bench seat between us down the Eastern Seaboard and shared our shock as, driving from Nashville to Memphis, we heard about the death of Elvis.  He quaked as we drove through blinding sheets of rain in Arkansas and dodged bats at an eerily dark campsite in southern Texas.  He soothed me as I experienced my first desert—all that empty space and endless horizon freaked out this suburban girl.  He settled with us in Orange County, where we decided to start our new life.

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Thanks Pop!

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Like most families, our story is complicated.  After a fairly idyllic childhood, my father walked out the door and never returned.  Naturally, even that part is more complicated than a patently dramatic statement.  Suffice to say, there’s a longer story and someday, maybe I’ll publish it.  But for now, the fact is he turned the world my mother and I thought of as solid and comfortable into chaos one August morning in 1973.

For the next 47 years, after awkward initial attempts to stay connected while I still lived back East, I only saw him once.  I kept our contact to exchanging letters because talking to him was just too painful.    Even though he had my phone number, he never called.  But he did ask to pass it to his step-son, so he could call me in an emergency.

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