Tag: Mare Carter

Resistance is Futile

~ Graymare725 ~ 2 Comments

The last week or so, the writing of my novel has come to a bumpy stretch worthy of California surface streets after this rainy winter we’ve had.  I thought it might be the fact that I’m wrestling with the business side of indie authoring.  Yes, I will admit that I’ve been consciously avoiding that quagmire, while also coming up with a name for my indie publishing business and budgeting in my head.  This has been a very Jekyll/Hyde process.

But this morning, I caught sight of Steven Pressfield’s book, Do The Work, buried under a bunch of other books in one of the many piles around the bedroom.  So, I carefully pulled it out and opened it up.  And right there, in front of my face, was the truth. 

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The 100 Day Project

~ Graymare725 ~ 2 Comments

So, I’ve been sorta missing jewelry making lately.  Bear Chick Originals, the handmade jewelry company I started in 2001, is long defunct but I still have drawers and boxes of beads and findings and other sparkly things.  They’ve been calling to me, like the square-wheeled train on the Island of Unwanted Toys.  They want to become things of beauty, useful and loved.

Jewelry making, whether stringing beads, bending and shaping wire or creating patterns with jump rings, always made me feel like an artist.  I especially loved combining colors and working with wire.  But since I retired, writing has dominated my creative hours and the jewelry bug just never got a reboot.  (Although, I have been thinking about making themed jewelry as contest giveaways for marketing my books when they’re published…)

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Houdini at Muzeo Anaheim

~ Graymare725 ~ 1 Comment

Today, The Husband and I spent a few hours at Muzeo in Anaheim, California, one of our favorite museums.  It’s a small exhibition space with the flexibility to be set up individually for each show.   Previous shows have included selections of Cheech Marin’s Latino artwork, Napoleon’s hat, Russian religious icons and costumes from Downton Abbey, just to name a few.  The current exhibition, continuing until January 22, is Houdini Unchained: The Legacy of Harry Houdini.

Here are some highlights:

One of the more lurid posters.

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My Word of the Year 2023 – Compose

~ Graymare725 ~ 1 Comment

Happy New Year, Everybody!!

Can you believe it’s 2023?!  Whether you’re a young whippersnapper or a young-at-heart boomer, time flies. Whether we’re having fun or not.  So I hope you’re making the most of it!

Do you pick a word of the year to focus your intentions?  It’s a January thing and usually falls by the wayside by February but here goes anyway! 

My word for 2023 is:

COMPOSE

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Holiday Movies in Disguise

~ Graymare725 ~ 1 Comment

So, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) went well.  I added over 10,000 words to the 11,611 I started with on my cozy mystery, so I’m happy.  Lots more to write, then edit, so still slogging merrily away 😊

But it’s also the holidays!  We don’t do a lot of decorating but we do have a lot of favorite holiday movies we watch.

Here are a couple of movies I watch during the holidays that you might not necessarily associate with Christmas.

I’m starting with the movie I’m most conflicted about.  I shouldn’t like You’ve Got Mail.  It’s about a big box book store moving into a New York City neighborhood that wants to close all the competition, including The Little Shop Around the Corner.  Tom Hanks plays Joe Fox, the charming figurehead of the big bad bookstore, Fox Books and Meg Ryan plays Kathleen Kelly, who is desperately trying to keep alive her late mother’s childrens bookstore.  Hanks and Ryan are at their peak, playing people who are sworn enemies in real life, not realizing that they’re falling in love via anonymous email (the sound of AOL connecting to the internet!  LOL!).  Part of the story takes place during December, so there are Christmas trees and gift buying, which makes this a holiday movie to me.

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Gray Mare’s Oatmeal Survey

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It’s been a while since the last blog post!  October was National Novel Writing Month prep and this month I’ve been working on the cozy mystery I was prepping for.  It’s going slower than I’d hoped but I’m a slow writer and just getting the words down is a win!  I do tend to go down research rabbit holes—this week, I learned a lot about electronic fingerprinting…  So, if I can get halfway through during NaNoWriMo, I’ll be very happy.

As it’s gotten chilly here in SoCal, the urge for some comforting oatmeal has been strong.  I thought it might be interesting to compare the different offerings I’ve ordered recently.

Corner Bakery

The only overnight oats in the bunch, I’d ordered this at the Santa Ana restaurant and loved it.  The oatmeal is refreshingly cold, thick and flavored with vanilla yogurt.  Add the dried cranberries, raisins, apple and banana slices for even more texture and goodness.  Plus, it comes with a raisin pecan sweet crisp!  It’s pretty yummy and there’s also a version that adds almonds, strawberries and blueberries.

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Gray Mare Gets Movin’

~ Graymare725 ~ 1 Comment

So, preparing to take a walk this morning, I went to the front door to see how cool it was.  Didn’t expect to see a light drizzle dripping from the eves and the street all shiny.  Bummer!  The pleasantly overcast mornings lately have made for really good walking weather.  Oh well, Plan B!

I have a couple of Leslie Sansone’s DVD’s but this is my favorite.  Lots of walking, knee lifts, side to sides, etc.  Like any exercise program, you can be as lazy or as energetic as you feel on any given day.  Today was medium energy and I used the hand weights.  And, like many exercise programs, there’s lots of encouraging patter that you can easily tune out and let your mind wander as you try not to bang into the furniture.  It’s a fun alternative when I need it.

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A Ghost Story for October

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It’s been a minute since I last posted.  I’ve been doing some writing and editing.  Also, planning for NaNoWriMo next month (that’s National Novel Writing Month), hoping to write the first draft of my cozy mystery during November.   

And I binge watched Younger, a show about a 40-year-old posing as 26 when she can’t find a job in publishing at “her age”.   Starring Sutton Foster, Hillary Duff and Debi Mazar, I was alternately charmed, frustrated and amused.  Highly recommended-it’s a great show but you’ve been warned, there will be times when you’ll want to take characters and shake some sense into them, which really is the sign of any good soap opera!

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Lessons in Grief – Part 5

~ Graymare725 ~ 2 Comments

I woke up this morning to a notification on my phone.  The royal family had been summoned to Balmoral Castle as Queen Elizabeth was under “medical supervision”. 

It brought me straight back to the morning last March when I got a similar summons.  Off and on all morning, memories of the panic to book flights and the dread of the next few days surfaced.  Signing into the hospital for the End of Life ward.  Feeding The Mom orange sherbet.  Too much emotion to process.

When the announcement came later in the morning that the Queen had died, though her death wasn’t totally unexpected, it was a shock because she’d been on her feet, greeting Liz Truss, the new Prime Minister, on Tuesday. 

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Books of a Lifetime ~ The Cracker Factory

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The third book in my Books of a Lifetime series is The Cracker Factory, by Joyce Rebeta-Burditt, one of my top three favorite books ever.  Written in 1977, I probably picked it up in the early 80’s.  It tells the story of Cassie Barrett, an alcoholic wife and mother.  Her life is the definition of chaos as she tries to get her problems under control; dealing with her husband and mother, who she thinks are conniving against her (they are!), her three children, her lover and her shrink.  Plus all the patients and medical folks she meets in her stays at a psychiatric hospital.

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