Back Pain!

A pond of fish.

Hello bloggers!

First off, I am still having back pain.  Ugh!  This is my reason for not getting my blog up till today and this will be a short blog because of it.

My back would probably be doing better if I wasn't such a war horse.  I mean the minute my back feels better, I go and do something that makes it hurt again.  You know, like sweep and mop the floors.  Move the furniture around and etc.  I know your saying what an idiot and I agree.  

I went out to dinner at the Olive Garden with my son Wayne and his two kids Grace and Grant.  My grandkids entertained me and put a big smile on my face.  Grant was complaining it would take too long to get the food and his sister was telling him there would be a wait where ever they went.  I enjoy spending time with them and my son.  The food was fantastic as usual and I left there feeling stuffed.

I need you guys to spread the word about my books.  Especially my Charlie story.  I am really proud of it and I think it is an enjoyable book to read.  I have one five star review now.

You can buy it at Smashwords   and at   Amazon



I'm Trying!

Hello Bloggers, I am back, but not at full steam yet. 

Back is still acting up, but I am trying to ignore it.

I become very impatient with my body when I am in pain.   This doesn't happened often, but when it does I think my body takes advantage of it.  I can hear my body now talking to the pain receptors, "There's pain?  Wow, let's make the body immobile and gain weight.  That should really make her day!"

Yep, it does make my day.  I have to lose the same five pounds over again!  Really life would be much easier if scientists would come up with something to help us lose weight that doesn't bother the heart or some other vital organ.  Don't you think?

I met up with my daughter in law Tina at my youngest son's house on Wednesday to take her to the airport.  My son Toney was working from home and I asked one simple question, "Do I take the ramp at the 202 or do I stay on the 101?"  Toney looks at me and grins, "I'll drive you both to the airport."

So Tina made it to the airport without any sight seeing.  She doesn't realize she missed out on an interesting trip!

I think he took the ramp.  I told myself to remember, but unfortunately that didn't work.  I'm still not sure.  Ugh!

I love the warm weather we have been having.  This is the time of fantastic weather in this part of Arizona.

Remember to buy my new book Charlie at Smashwords

and

Amazon

I am working on the sequel:  Not Again, Charlie!

But since I have been down in my back, I haven't done much.  It hurts to type or sit too long or stand too long.  Bah!  Humbug!!!

Smart Bitches  has a wonderful video of a ballet dancers.  His muscle tone is unbelievable.  Enjoy it!  I know I did.

See you around the block.

Look For the Butterflies!

Hello Bloggers!

This will be short and sweet.  I am down in my back and I can't sit that long at the computer.

This is why I didn't have a Monday blog.

Lord, I will be glad when my back stops hurting.  Can't sit too long or stand too long before I am making faces of pain.

Remember Charlie can be bought at Smashwords and Amazon.  Sorry not supplying the links.  Please go to my last blog for them.

Hopefully by Friday, I will be able to sit longer.

See you around the block.

Charlie is Available

Charlie can be bought at:

Amazon


and also at Smashwords


Buy your copy today!!!

Can't You See, I'm Working?

Pretty Roses!

Okay, today this blog has decided it wants to be centered and no matter what I do, it will not change.  Ugh!!!

Taking a deep breath, I will move on.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines Day.   My son Wayne brought a card over to me.  It is cute and sentimental.

He can now tell his siblings, he back in the well!!!

I am working on trying to create a blurb for my new book.

I have three options so far, but I'm not sure which one to use.  I REALLY want one that will make people want to read my book.

I've posted them on face book, but I think I will post them here also,  SINCE no one has responded yet!

Number 1:

High school science teacher Wendy was looking forward to a quiet summer.

Then Charlie a talking parrot saunters into her kitchen crying murder.

The daunting task of finding Charlie’s old home and his murdered owner is not the only obstacle she faces.  She has to convince the police Charlie is telling the truth, his owner has been murdered and convince her ex-boyfriend it is over.

Wendy thinks her summer can’t get any worse when in walks the detective handling the case.  None other than Tony Brandon, the one man on earth she had never hoped to run into again.  He and his elite group of friends had made her life hell in high school.

Could the summer get any stranger Wendy wonders, as she fights the attraction she feels for the detective?

Number 2:

Charlie, watched helplessly as his owner was beaten to death by her lover.  He realizes his own life is in jeopardy.  Charlie flies away searching for someone who will help him to stop this mad man before it is too late.

Charlie saunters into a young woman’s kitchen crying murder and with her help the police become involved.  Charlie knows who the murderer is, but he can’t make Wendy or the police understand what he is telling them.

He knows Wendy could be the next victim of this murderer and he is determined to keep this woman safe.

 

Number 3:

Could life become more complicated?  Wendy was finding out the hard way it could.  First a parrot by the name of Charlie walked into her life yelling murder.  Her ex-boyfriend is making threatening phone calls and then Detective Brandon who is checking out the murder of Charlie’s owner is the bully who had made Wendy’s life hell in high school.  Fate was laughing its butt off.

There they are, which one should I choose. 

Please choose wisely!!!!

See you around the block.

Let's Talk Grammy Awards

Nature in all it's glory!



I am having all sort of trouble with my blogs today.  They refuse to cooperate.  Dumb blog or is it dumb user?

Did you watch the Grammy Awards last night?

It was fantastic!  I loved a lot of the music they played.

I also was able to see what the singer looked like, whose music I am listening to on the radio.

I was totally happen to see the young men dressed like well put together men.  I mean really how long were they going to wear pants with the crotch down between their knees?  Every time I saw them like that, I thought of a baby with a dirty diaper on.  Flash back to cloth diapers.

A lot of the young men dressed like they did in the 50's and 60's.   I know  I'm old, but I did fine it very nice.

I love Bruno Mars Gernade song.  I have heard it a lot on the radio.  I enjoyed his performance on the Grammy Awards. 

I own three or more Coldplay CDs and I have never seen them before.  I know I must live in a cave.  I just haven't paid that much attention.

I enjoyed the Foo Fighters (what a name) singing and I also agreed with what their lead singer said about musician learning to do their craft and sing without all the electronic help.

But sadly there were parts I did not enjoy.  I'm sorry but people do get to old to sing.  Their voices are strained, thin and a tiny bit off key off and on.

Don't get me wrong I adore the Beach Boys and Paul McCartney, but I found it painful to hear them.

Paul is such a great song writer and I think he needs to let the younger singers sing his songs from now on.

I was tickled to death when the young men who had sung the Beach Boys intro, joined the Beach Boys to sing with them.  It sounded so much better. 

I didn't catch the names of the two groups that sung the Beach Boys songs, but man they did a fantastic job.  I thought they sounded like the Beach Boys of long ago.

Glen Campbell, what can I say?  The voice isn't there any more and you need to let go of the reins.

Then there is Tony Bennet, who has continued to release CDs.  His voice has been gone for a long time and if it wasn't for doing duets he wouldn't still be out there.

I know, you are gnashing your teeth, thinking how dare you!   What did you think of the Grammy Awards?

Anyway these are my thoughts and feelings.  This is my blog and I can say what I want too.

I love Taylor Swift and her performance.  I enjoy seeing a young lady dress like a lady and that includes Adele also.

I am so glad Adele's surgery did not harm her voice. 

The strangest performance and song was Nicki Minaj "Roman Holiday".   Yeah I kept thinking okay as I watched it.  I wasn't crazy about it at all.

Jennifer Hudson did a fantastic job singing Whitney Housten's song.

We all have our own demons inside us and this time Whitney lost the battle. 

Of course I had to miss Downton Abby to watch the Grammy Awards.  I will have to catch up with it next week.

I will be uploading my new e book this week to Smashwords and Amazon.  Please drop by them and buy my book "Charlie".

See you around the block.

Vivid Imagination

I wish this was my garden.

As promised we will be talking about vivid imagination today. 

The good and the bad  of having a vivid imagination.

The good of having a vivid imagination: You can come up with stories like crazy.  They play in your mind like a movie.

I could write a lot more if I had the new Dragon program.  It is the one where you are talking and it is writing down what you are saying.  I mean let me get busy with something else, like sweeping the floors and a story runs through my mind.

I pretty much have a movie (story) running through my mind constantly.  A sound, a smell, just about anything will start it.  I think this is one reason I get lost a lot.  I am paying attention to the movie in my head and not looking for the street I need.  

Really I have arrived at the place I want to be and wonder how I got there.  I feel like doing the victory dance, I'm so pleased with myself I arrived where I was suppose to be.  Ha!

Alright, back to vivid imagination the good.  Because of a vivid imagination wonders have been created in books, arts, technologies and etc. 

I wonder how many of these things came to the person in a dream?

The bad of a vivid imagination means we can scare ourselves pant less.

We hear a noise and suddenly pictures of monsters, snakes and etc are in your home.

I mentioned snakes because as a kid I dreamed snakes surrounded my bed.  I woke up and was dying to pee, but knew if I got out of bed, I would be bitten.  Talk about a dilemma for a kid.  Really think about it.  I had to figure out what I would rather face, a mom mad because I wet the bed or a bunch of biting snakes.  I chose the snakes and leaped from my bed as far as I could, hoping to jump over them.  Of course the snakes didn't exist and yet I shivered when I came back into my room and leaped on the bed.  I knew they weren't there but I wasn't taking any chances.  I finally shivered myself back to sleep. 

Talk about nightmares!  We have sleepless nights because a nightmare woke us up and we can't get back to sleep.

We try to reason our selves out of the terror, but nothing works.

A strange sound wakes us up at night and we do the one thing we tell the people in movies not to do, we search out for the sound.  "Don't open the door!"  Expecting any minute to be grabbed or bitten.  You name it we expect it.

We see a shadow against the window and suddenly we know someone is trying to break in.  Terror grips us and we weakly lean back against the wall trying to figure out what to do.   Suddenly we realize it is the shadow of our desk chair against the window and sigh loudly. 

No one is out there.  Still we are up and decide a cup of tea is called for.  We need time to get our imagination under control.

So as you can see there is a good side and bad side of having a vivid imagination.

Do you suffer from a vivid imagination?  Drop a line and let me know.

Sometimes Lessons are Painful!

There is a butterfly in this picture.  Can you find it?



I have always refused to watch scary movies since I was about three years old. 

 My children would beg to see a scary movie and I would veto it big time. 

I have been called afraidy cat most of my life and I figure the name is worth it.  I don't have to experience the feeling of terror.

 Mama and grandma were attending evening service at church and being the urchin I could be, I insisted I would stay home with grandpa.  Grandpa never went to church, since he had lost both of his legs to diabetes.

I innocently insisted we stay on a certain channel.  I don't remember why or what had caught my attention. 

Grandpa tried to get me to change my mind, but like a fool I didn't.  So he told me I would have to watch the movie.  I could not leave the room or cover my eyes.

Knowing me I gave him a smile of victory and agreed. 

Lord have mercy, it turned out to be a frightening movie, about some campers in the woods and a monster who ate moss off the trees.  That is all I remember from the movie except for the fear and revulsion I had felt.  All scary things give me these same feelings.  So I try not to do anything scary.

The movie was still on when mama and grandma returned and I begged mama to let me leave the room. 

Grandpa told her what had happened and mama sided with grandpa.  I had to finish watching that movie.

Afterwards grandpa was very smug and told mama her little girl wouldn't be throwing fits any more to do something.  He knew I had learned my lesson.

He was right, from that night on I did not insist on having my way.  But did the outcome out weigh the terror I had experience from this movie? 

The spoiled child had become a very easy going child.  Who hid all that she was thinking and feeling from the people around her. 

The only problem is I have fears of spending the night in the woods even though I am grown up and have grandchildren.  This made it hard to go camping with my own family.  Without sleep and living on raw nerves, emotions,  I became a very cranky person.  The only time I would fall asleep camping is when exhaustion would catch up with me.

I wonder how many people still use fear of the unkown to handle their children?

Did experiencing this cause me to have a very vivid imagingation?

We'll talk about the good and the bad of having a very vivid imagination next time.

See you around the block.

Second Chance  buy at Smashwords.  

  Fainting Damsel buy at Smashwords

Links to Amazon:

Second Chance    This one does not have the same cover as Smashwords.

Fainting Damsel

Super Bowl

Did you watch the Super Bowl game?

I don't watch sports.  The only time I was into sports was when my children played in them.  Otherwise I can take them or leave them.

I did catch the half time entertainment.  I was flipping through the channels at the right time.

 Every time Madonna squatted I cringed.  The reason is very simple.  As you age different joints decide they don't like certain positions and the knees  hate squats.  Lord, the woman probably can't walk today and her knees are probably aching big time.

She looked great for a woman her age, but didn't she sing an old song?

  The talk on the Internet is some obscene gesture.  I missed it.   But I wasn't really crazy about the performance.

Except where the two guys laid on the stage and another guy stood on their backs and they rose to their feet.  I wonder how long it took for them to be able to do this.  I thought this was the best part of the show.

 I was also busy wondering how the crowd behind the stage and cameras were enjoying the show.  Did they just watch the backs of the entertainers and look through the metal supports or did they have to watch it on a big screen?

I know you are thinking I wonder about the strangest things.  Hey that's just me.

This morning I watched the commercial I had missed on the Internet.

I loved the Broderick one, main reason it reminded me of the movie Ferris Bueler.

I am a sucker for Polar Bears in commercials.

The Chevy truck commercial was interesting.  Why did they have all the frogs falling down from the sky at the end?

I the the VW dog was adorable, doing all that exercising to be able to get through the doggy door to chase cars.

The Doritos bribing dog was funny too.

Which commercials did you like?

I have some interesting blogs for you  to check out today.

Jenny Hanson   blog is funny.  It is about a twelve year old boy and his father concerned with how each other is dressed.

Joan Reeves  blog is about defragging your computer.  It sounded a little complicated, so before I even try this I will talk to my sons.

Lynn Viehl blog has information on submission places for stories.  Check it out, there might be a place for one of your works.

Evelyn David blog has written about her adorable granddaughter again. 

K. B. Owen has a fun blog about ground hogs.

See you around the block.

Third Time

Pretty Flowers

Lord have mercy, do you know how many times I have been through my Charlie story trying to catch all the typos, tenses and etc?   More than I care to tell you.  I found I use was a lot and usually in the wrong place and not realizing the tense.   Hmm, I write like I talk and I have the dialect of my family that has been passed down through generations.  You would think those of us who have a degree from college wouldn't have this problem still, but we do.  So when we are thinking of a word in our head we write it down like it sounds when we say it.  WRONG,  our words sound past tense even though we don't mean them that way.  Yuck!   So it means I have to do a lot of correcting of my WIP. 

I now have a third reader reading my story to find the rest of the things I did not catch.  She has already found some typos.   Geez, I thought I had caught them all.  I am chomping at the bit wanting to get this book uploaded to Smashwords and Amazon, but I also want to put out a good product, soooo I am holding back on the reins, trying to be patience. 

While I am waiting I am working on another WIP.  I know your thinking why don't I slow down and catch the wrong usage of the words.  If I slowed down I would lose some of the story taking place in my mind.  I type quickly to keep up with the scene I am watching in my mind.  So I can't catch what I am doing wrong until later.

Then of course as the author of the piece when I read the story, it sounds find to me, without realizing as I read I said the word correctly in my head even though I have it spelled wrong or in the wrong tense.   I try to put some space between  The End  before I go back through the book, but it doesn't always work at catching all the little no nos.

I was reading Amy Bourret today about bad writing habits and I could relate to it.  I do find my self procrastining when I am writing.   But than again we are writers and we have our totally driven moments to were the house could burn down and we would still be writing.  We seem to be people of extremes, working flat out or finding excuses not too.  Oh well, we all walk to a different drum beat.

Susan McBride compared writing to having a baby.  I think she is right on track.  We all have the swollen ankles and sleepless nights from our WIP.  We worry about what people will think of our books and we tall everybody how our book (baby) is doing and some of us do take nine months or more to finish our books. 

K. B. Owen  has an interesting blog about Moriarty and has a link to another blog Bruce Rosen with more information.  Very interesting read.

Will that's all for today.

See you around the block.

Short but Sweet

Don't Ask, I Don't Know!

This will short and sweet today. 

A am in the middle of editing my Charlie book once again!

I would like to be able to upload it before the week is over.

Even though I have gone through this book a dozen times I am still finding typos and of course now I am searching out words I have used way too much.

Also if I used than when I should have used then or as even though I wasn't comparing something.  Also I have the tendency to use was a lot.  All the writers out there know what I mean.  It is hard work getting the grammar correct.

So instead of reading my ramblings I am putting a link in from Tonya Serra, a face book friend to a small movie.  It is adorable and all about books.

You will enjoy it I promise.

The Fantastic Flying Books

See you around the block.