Between reading, writing, walking and the holiday weekend, I’m a little behind on blogging.
Here’s a couple of short reviews as a catch-up:
Glitterati by Oliver K. Langmead
A Few Reviews – Good Reads and Watches
Tag: what is old
Gray Mare’s Summer of Writing!
This is the first official day of Gray Mare’s Summer of Writing!
I thought I’d just show a couple of the tools I’ll be using to keep myself on track.
The Daily Check List
Not everything has to be done every day. And The Husband is off on Sundays and Mondays, so that’s my new weekend.
Things I Like Thursday – Write Before Christmas
I wanted to see this movie on the recommendation of Racquel Henry, the owner of Writer’s Atelier, a group I belong to. But I couldn’t find it streaming anywhere, so I ended up buying it. Good decision!
As you’d expect of a Hallmark Christmas romance, it’s light and fun and full of romantic miscues but also has its share of orphans, loneliness and an adorable dog looking for his furrever home. Here’s the story-Jessica, newly single again, takes Christmas cards intended for the guy who just broke up with her and sends them to five people with notes telling them how they have influenced her life for the better:
Continue reading “Things I Like Thursday – Write Before Christmas”High School Commencement Speech
Social media and the Real World are filled with graduations right now. If I’m ever invited to give a high school commencement speech, here’s what I would say:
Greetings Students, Families, Teachers and Administrators,
Let me say this right at the start so it’s clear and out in the open.
I hated high school.
Pretty much every minute of it.
Continue reading “High School Commencement Speech”Things I Like Thursday – My New Hat
Just a quick one today.
I have a new hat.
I’m not really a hat girl but I’m anticipating some morning walks, so I wanted a little protection for my fragile silver hair and scalp. Hats usually make me hot but I was thinking the mesh on this may be a saving grace.
Continue reading “Things I Like Thursday – My New Hat”Anniversary 42
Since the pandemic put the kibosh on travel, our anniversaries have been extremely low key. In the Before Time, we at least took a weekend away and the five-year anniversaries were usually a little more special-the train from Williams, AZ to the Grand Canyon, a night at East Brother Light in San Rafael Bay. We’d been planning our dream trip to Paris and Normandy for our 40th in 2020. You know that ended up a non-starter…
Keeping it low key again this year, we’re off to Simi, CA, to take in the Secrets of WWII exhibit at the Reagan Library and spend a couple of nights in a favorite hotel. With gas prices over $6 and Covid once again on the rise, we plan to stay close to the hotel, walking when we can, and keep as much to ourselves as possible while wearing masks at the Library. But despite those travel drawbacks, we’ll have a good time learnin’ and relaxin’.
I thought I’d share some of our wedding pictures on the blog today, even though it’s a day early. It was a bittersweet journey through the photo’s this year, since we won’t be getting an anniversary card from The Mom. Also missing my grandparents, especially my grandfather, who walked me down the aisle.
SO!
42 YEARS!
Enjoy these photos from our Big Day.
Things I Like Thursday – Leap of Faith
I’m not really into sculpture particularly but there was something about Thomas Blackshear’s Leap of Faith that struck me the first time I saw it in Virginia’s Gift Shop at Knott’s Berry Farm years ago. I kept coming back to it, fascinated with both the detail of the piece itself and the effect it had on me.
The figure is balancing on his toes and it is literally the moment before he raises his wings and leaps into the unknown. What a terrifying thrill! And what a thrilling inspiration!
Leaps of Faith
You know I’m a signs and woo woo kind of girl, right?
I’ve been working from home the past two years and three months, after four years of a long, stressful Southern California commute. I decided that my sign to quit this job would be the call back to the office. Since I’m over 65, I was considered an exception when the call back came earlier this year for most everyone else. I thought I ‘d be safe until the pandemic is eventually downgraded. So, I was a little surprised when I was told my accommodation is no longer being honored and I needed to come back at least two days a week. True to my own word, I put in a month’s notice last week.
Things I Like Thursdays – My Writing Bracelet
I keep this on my lap desk when I’m writing.
I bought the purple “A writer is a world TRAPPED in a person” bracelet from an artist on Etsy somewhere around the beginning of the lockdown, when I’d decided to pick up an old half-finished story and work on it again. Since then, I finished another story and now I’m two or three scenes away from completing a novella.
Continue reading “Things I Like Thursdays – My Writing Bracelet”Lessons in Grief – Part 3
Fulfilling Final Wishes
At the hospital the night before The Mom passed away, she asked that she be buried with a particular ring that she’d left in her apartment. Two years before that, she’d asked that a postcard I sent her from a visit The Husband and I made to NASA also be buried with her but when I asked her that night where it was, she didn’t have any recollection of it. She was pretty out of it by then.
When we got to her apartment, The Husband found the ring, a circle of calla lilies entwined with the word Jesus, on her nightstand. I stored it in a small box in my purse for the trip to the funeral home.
The day after she passed, as I started the sad task of cleaning out her apartment, I came across this magnet on her fridge:
I'm Writing As Fast As I Can 