pssst...got cookies?

Has the world ended and I didn’t get the memo?

I mean…it’s less than a week until March and I haven’t seen a single Girl Scout selling cookies. Isn’t it about that time? Has my internal clock reset itself? I distinctly feel the unshakeable craving for a line of Thin Mints, fresh from the freezer.

I can almost hear the familiar crackle of the clear wrapping as I tear it open with my teeth, and the snap of the first cookie as I bite into the cool, minty goodness. Just thinking about it starts the tingle at the tip of my fingers as I long to rip open a brand new box!

Can someone please tell me if I should be having heart palpatations at the mere memory of the taste? I keep checking out that picture right there and I’m seriously considering taking a bite out of my laptop! Does anyone know a Girl Scout I can talk to? Or an addiction counselor? I knew I had a thing for chocolate, but since when does a picture of a cookie send a person into withdrawl? The addiction is real people…real, I tell you!

Ok…I need to get a handle on this. I’ve done an internet search to see if they’re selling cookies in my area, and I’ve come up blank.

Yeah…I know. You don’t have to say anything. I can feel an intervention coming, and I haven’t even touched my first cookie.

It’s going to be a long spring.

Until the next time…I’ll be calling my local Girl Scouts to pre-order a case.

12 blogs of Christmas: somewhere in my memory

Who doesn’t have at least one of those incredible moments from long ago, locked in our memories for all eternity…a magical place in time from childhood…or a precious moment from when our children were small? Special all year round, but somehow even more so at Christmas. I tend to find myself reaching for the photo album the minute I hear the first bars of Frosty the Snowman play. There is just something about the holiday season that takes me back.

Tonight, I’ve invited some of my favorite writers to share their special memories with me….and you.  And once you’ve dry your tears from our holiday memories…click on the link under their pictures for eleven more blogs of Christmas!

Enjoy!

T’was the night before Christmas And all through the house, Not a creature was stirring; Not even a mouse…

Visit Marie for Favorite Holiday Cartoons

Thus began our traditional bedtime story, every year, on Christmas Eve. The Little Golden Book that my father read to us, year in and year out, was placed on a special shelf on my parents’ bookshelf, safe from the daily wear and tear that all of our other books received. On that one special night of the year, like clockwork, my sister and I snuggled into a chair on Daddy’s lap and listened as he recited the traditional verses and turned the pages of the picture book. It didn’t matter how old we were, although eventually we moved to the couch with me on one side and my sister on the other, (we outgrew Dad’s lap, as all girls do), my father read us this story, every year without fail. To this day, I can recite the tale by heart. In my memory, it wouldn’t be Christmas without “T’was the Night Before Christmas”. If I close my eyes, I can still hear my dad reading while visions of sugar plums danced in my head.

Merry Christmas from Marie Patchen

Christmas Eve is my favorite part of the holiday season. Every year my family sits down to a candlelight antipasto dinner filled with everything from cold-cut platters to petit fours. We turn off all the house lights, plug in the tree lights, and place candles throughout the dining room. For years, the centerpiece was a candle powered carousel. The heat from the candles made a little tiered nativity spin. Ours broke several years ago, but here’s a picture of a similar one. Maybe one day I’ll be able to replace it, but either way, I’m looking forward to dinner already.

Merry Christmas from Natalie Kenney

Visit Natalie for Yummy Christmas Cookies

Visit Raine for Favorite Christmas Music

When I was six and Christmas approached, it seemed my mom was always off in the dining room working on something. I remember being impatient and upset with her lack of attention. It turned out she was working on a project for our elementary school. She created a stunning display depicting the 12 Days of Christmas for the school, as the budget had been cut and their art department was suffering. She did it on her (limited) time off of work, using supplies that she kept around the house. It was so loved by the school that they laminated everything they could and used it year after year. That was the year I learned what Christmas really meant!

Merry Christmas from Raine Thomas

Visit Ciara for Favorite Christmas tree decorations

It’s 1999 at my family’s house and I am 18. The family is sitting in the lounge room after opening presents, Mum, Dad, me, my brother, and my high school boyfriend. It’s barely 8am and Mum says to my boyfriend ‘Would you like a bourbon? I’m having a Jim Beam and Coke’. The look on his face was priceless. ‘Did you really just offer me a bourbon at 8 in the morning?’ he asks. ‘Yes,’ Mum says. ‘I need to get an early start before my mother gets here!’

Cheers from Ciara Ballintyne

“D.C., can you come out here please? You have a visitor.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes but did what my mom asked. When I entered the tiny kitchen area, my jaw dropped. A giant fat man in a red and white suit took up most of the linoleum floor.

“Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas, little girl. Have you been naughty or nice?”

“Um…nice?”

“Well okay then, why don’t you hop up on

my lap and tell me what you want for Christmas,” he asked, lowering his considerable ass onto a chair.

Okay, I thought to myself, I’ll play your little game. I crawled onto the fat man’s knee, pushed his fluffy white beard away from my face and tried not to stare at his bulbous nose. After some small talk, I politely requested the orange and blue soccer ball I’d seen at the Kresge’s two weeks ago and had yet to shut up about.

“Well, little girl, let’s see what I have in my sack.” Low and behold, he produced a perfectly spherical, wrapped gift from his red nylon bag.

“My soccer ball!” I shouted as I hopped off the fat man’s lap. Forgetting my manners entirely, I snatched the ball from his chunky hands and ripped away all traces of paper.

“D.C., what do you have to say to Santa Clause?” asked my mom.

“I have to say he can scratch the soccer ball off my list because Uncle Larry beat him to it!”

Merry Christmas from DC McMillen

Visit Justin for Christmas Faux Pas

One early Christmas morning, five Bogdanovitch children gathered in front of the motherlode of all present piles (my twin brother and I were seven, my younger siblings, also twins, were three). There, dwarfing every present, sat the largest gift box we had ever seen. The oohs and aahs wouldn’t stop: “Who gets it?” My weary-eyed parents gathered and distributed the presents, saving the Midas-gift for last. They held the five of us in collective suspense like magicians, until they placed the box, which was bigger than her, in front of my older sister (by two years — she didn’t have a twin sibling of her own). The delight on her face grew in proportion to the silent mugs the rest of us tried to hide without much success — we were pea-green with envy! Saved for last, she tore into the gift wrapping, opening the box with determined gusto, and finally pulled back the box flaps to find tightly packed balls of newspaper; she kept throwing out ball after ball, adding to the heaps scattered about. Then she got to the bottom of the box. The present was a bunch of paper? No, she pulled IT out, the gag gift — we didn’t even know the concept until then. I’ll never forget my sister’s expression as she went from delight to steaming mad. At the end of her tiny fingers she held a rotten, brown-spotted banana peel! She dropped it back into the box as the rest of us roared with laughter. My dad led the group. He started this particular Bog tradition, but lovingly consoled my older sister back to sensibility, and we all moved on, until the next year when she opened a beautiful, intricately-wrapped gem and held a ragged, dog-chewed slipper up for all of us to see. Now, we were all in on the joke and laughed together, but that first time I’ll never forget someone saying: “Why would Santa send our sister a smelly old banana peel?” And the giggles wouldn’t stop…

Merry Christmas from Justin Bogdanovitch

Visit Melody-Ann for Favorite Christmas toy

My favorite Christmas memory was one of the early years in my marriage. Kurt and I had just found out the year before both boys were autistic and paying for therapy had pretty much wiped out the budget. We had just found out that insurance wouldn’t pay for any of either of the boys therapies so to Keep them in therapy we liquidated our retirement accounts.

My ex-husband was nearly 20K behind on child support and there was just not going to be money for Christmas. This wasn’t much of a problem for my youngest as he really wasn’t interested in much outside of his world due his age and the severity of his autism so a couple of stuffed toys from the dollar store would make him perfectly happy. My oldest though was at that age where Christmas was a really important time & toys were a big part of that. I was worried and sad.

We dug in to storage where I had my comics and non-sports trading cards that I collected before I had children. I was planning to sell them. We found a ton of original G.I. Joes including big vehicles and the original planes. Everything had been storage in plastic and the guns and accessories were all there – this stuff was in perfect condition. We wrapped all of it – there was a lot under the tree. My son when he found out that these had been Kurt was even more excited than ever. He played with them non stop through the whole break. I asked him if he was upset about not getting new toys. He said no. He liked his Kurt’s toys because “Dad’s only give their toys to their sons that they love.” To this day my teen age son has his Dad’s G.I. Joes and talks of passing them on to his boys.

Merry Christmas from Melody-Ann Kaufmann

Visit Karen for Favorite Holiday movies

For as long as I can remember the first weekend of December has been designated “Tree Weekend.” Saturday morning my mom and I, along with my aunt and uncle (when they were alive) would go to a local church for a huge craft fair. After walking around buying Christmas presents we’d hop in our cars, pick up my dad and head out to the mountain to find the perfect Christmas tree. What’s the perfect Christmas tree you ask? In my family its a 9-10 foot tall tree and 16-18 feet around. It doesn’t matter that our ceilings are 8 foot and that the dog once got lost in the girth of one when he mistakenly took the tree for a big bush. When it comes to trees the fatter the better, that’s my family’s motto. We would spend hours in the sun, rain, snow, whatever weather, it didn’t matter. We’d visit every tree farm on the mountain and when all the “good” trees were picked out, we’d drive further north to find new farms. It’s just my parents and my husband and I now since my aunt and uncle passed away two years ago. The tree hunt lost some luster without the taunting between the families but we bring our girls now. To see their eyes light up at that gigantic tree gets me every time. My favorite is when my oldest noticed someone carrying their tree in their hands to pay for it. She looked up to me and said, “That’s not a Christmas tree, he can carry it by himself. Look! It took Daddy, Pop-Pop and that man over there to bring our tree down.” I’ve taught her well. :)

Merry Christmas from Karen DeLabar

Visit Amberr for Favorite Holiday Food

As corny as it sounds, my best Christmas was the first one I spent with my husband two years ago. We had just gotten into the relationship (the official date was December 10th), and we were still in the honeymoon period. Things were wonderfully exciting, as new love always is, but I had one huge fear. I wasn’t sure if we would actually work out, because I had a small child, and I knew he’s have a lot of exposure to her during Christmas. I should never have worried. Christmas day rolled around, and unless you knew better, he acted just like a loving father. I didn’t prompt any of it. Without me asking, he helped assemble all her Christmas toys, and even brought out the gift Santa had “hidden” behind the tree. As I watched them playing together while sipping on my eggnog, I knew he belonged with us, and he’s been here ever since. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Merry Christmas from Amberr Meadows

Visit Kelly for Favorite Christmas book

My grandfather was a big jolly man with a hearty laugh,and in my family, it wasn’t Christmas unless it happened at his house.   So of course, I thought he actually was Santa Claus.  And he played along.  He used to tell me, “Shhh, don’t tell anyone. It’s our secret.”  I always thought I was special because my grandpa was the real Santa, and I was one of his elves, keeping his identity a secret.

Merry Christmas from Kelly Gamble

Visit Maureen for the clothes in the Christmas Clauset

I once got volunteered into doing the Christmas wrapping for the Army post’s PX.

I’d conquered the midnight meals when they’d come in from the field, bundling up honey-dipped rolls and large slices of beast. I thought I had this soldier wife thingy all figured out.

Until the wrapping duties.

I’ve always figured that a tootsie roll wrap was the way to go, twisting either end and applying copious amounts of tape to seal the deal. Evidently…shoppers don’t feel the same way.

The first sergeant’s wife and her big fat hairdo shook at my festive flair and glared a re-do it look my way. I sighed and tried my next trick at such papered madness: The envelope. I call it this because I fold it over and end it with a great big V, shoving all the extra pieces under the last flap. I was pretty proud that I’d matched Santa’s nose to his face at the last, but I did have to give it an extra fold to squeeze it just right.

But nooo…there are a lot of picky people in this world evidently. It all wound up with me being told that perhaps I should go on home. I did make sure to let big fat hairdo wrap up a few things before I went though. I mean, I was there already, right?

Merry Christmas from Maureen Hovermale

That’s me with the Barbie doll and the cheesy grin…the other one is psychic.

Christmas is filled with special memories…it’s almost impossible to single one out as my favorite. But if I was pressed (and it would seem I am) I would have to pick one particular Christmas memory as my favorite above all others.  It was the year my sister and I were both expecting (my first and her second), and for the first time in several years we were spending Christmas together at my mother’s home. My sister woke up that particular Christmas morning and informed her husband she had had a very vivid dream. She dreamed our Aunt Phyllis had presented us each with a carefully wrapped package that turned out to be a single Italian Christmas cookie. It was the cookie that reminded us most of our aunt, the kind she made each holiday season by the dozen. Yet, my sister dreamed she gifted us each but one. Of course, she told the same story to me when we arrived at our mother’s home for the Christmas festivities.

It wasn’t unusual for my sister to have strange dreams. She often said she believed herself to be somewhat psychic after dreaming about a plane crash that did in fact occur. A strange coincidence, we all believed… well, until Christmas day. My aunt arrived in full holiday attire as she did each year, laughing and giggling like a round elfin woman, bearing gifts for everyone, my sister and me included.

In fact, she handed each of us a tiny gift that eerily resembled a wrapped Italian cookie. I’ll admit I felt a slight chill run down my spine. It was very strange. Too creepy to imagine, really. My sister looked over at me with her mouth slightly agape, and then back to the small gift. I took her cue and opened my package.

It was a single Italian cookie.

What happened next could only be explained as electrifying. My sister, seven months pregnant with her second child, began jumping up and down, exclaiming over and over again, “Oh my God, I’m psychic!”

I was no better, repeating her words, “Oh my God, you’re psychic!” She continued by describing her dream in each minute detail. She held up the wrapped cookie as ironclad proof, and then retold the story of the plane crash she had dreamed of years earlier. I backed her every word, just as convinced she was indeed, psychic!

We were in a whirlwind of chatter, completely oblivious to the laughter across the room. I don’t remember how long before it set in, and I can’t remember the exact words that were said at that point. But, the gist of it was this … my brother-in-law (the infamous Uncle Paul) had called my aunt in the early morning hours and relayed to her the strange cookie dream. The two of them concocted the idea of staging a harmless Christmas prank. It was a good one too. It always brings back fond memories of Aunt Phyllis, who has since passed on. To this day, more than twenty years later, we still toss out the line my sister was so fond of that day, “Oh my god…you’re psychic!”

Merry Christmas from me…Erica Lucke Dean

Until the next time…I’ll be watching Home Alone with a box of tissues! Don’t forget to click on the links to visit the rest of the 12 blogs of Christmas.

it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

Cue the music...

I have a tree!

And not just a tree. I have a decorated tree. With lights and ornaments. And I have a wreath on the door. And a few assorted decorations scattered around the house. I think I’ll even hang a few jingle bells from the antlers on the wall. Why not? It’s Christmas!

My terrible funk has miraculously lifted, thanks to my new book deal and all the excitement that brings, and just in time for the spirit of Christmas to work its way under my skin. What does that mean in the grand scheme of things? Well for starters, it means I went shopping today. I picked up some gifts for the kids…a few shiny silver jingle bells for the tree.  Oh, and some socks. It’s getting cold out there.

I even made cookies.

I have a sudden urge to decorate and bake. I might even paint something. Well…maybe not paint. But I’m definitely going to hang wreaths on all the windows, and some lights on the porch.

And more shopping. I have so many to shop for this Christmas.  I’m making a list and checking it twice. Gotta figure out who’s naughty…who’s nice.

And for my readers? Well…I have a few surprises in my stockings for you too! But you’ll have to wait for Christmas.

Ok…maybe I’ll let you peek….next week.

Until the next time…I’ll be at the mall!

death of a rooster (clooney's last crow)

Well, it finally happened. Clooney’s number was up, his days ran out, and his chips were cashed in. I’d like to say he went out like a man, but the truth is he went out like a crazed chicken, screeching like a little girl staring down the business end of a spider. And, well…I would have tried to save him, but the whole thing happened so quickly I didn’t even realize it was going down until the deed was done.

The first scheduled execution at the haunted farmhouse.

Baby ClooneyThe sad end to Clooney’s tale (or tail depending on your point of view) was actually set in motion last weekend when Mike and I ran across a full grown rooster for sale in the breed Mike wanted (a buff orpington for chicken lovers out there). Chester (the new resident cock) will make perfect chicks with the ummm…errr…chicks around here. So for the bargain price of five dollars cash (counted out in coins because who carries cash anymore?) we had ourselves a new stud for the fock. Unfortunately, this addition didn’t go over so well with the current big man on campus and we witnessed our first ever cock-fight in the yard. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it would be, and I found myself torn as to who to root for. In the end, it didn’t matter. Chester was in. Clooney was out.

As it turns out, poor Clooney’s days were numbered from the minute he came out of his shell. He wasn’t supposed to be a rooster. And like Mike said from the day we realized he was exactly that, “Well…he’ll make a good crock pot meal.”

Of course, I fought for the big cock right from the get go. He may not have been the right kind of rooster, he might have even been a big dick most of the time (crowing at all hours of the day and night with no regard to normal rooster schedules) but he was my rooster, and I wanted to keep him.

Clooney last weekSo the Save Clooney campaign was born. People from all over the world wrote in, begging for Clooney’s life (and a few asking for the recipe we intended to use if we cooked him). The neighbors even seemed to like him, despite his tendency to go off like a broken alarm clock.

But sadly, in the end, no amount of petitioning or begging would save the little pecker from the executioner (my husband). And now it would seem instead of feeding Clooney dinner, we’ll be having Clooney for dinner sometime in the near future.

So here’s to you Clooney. You were a damn good rooster…I hope you’ll make a damn good chicken stew too!

Until the next time…I’ll be making room in my refrigerator for one of my favorite pets.

the fall from a sugar high

Remember when you were a kid and you’d eat your whole bag of Halloween candy before bed, then you couldn’t sleep because you were bouncing around the room on a wicked sugar high, then you’d pass out around three am from the crash? Well, maybe that was just me, but yeah, I kinda feel like that today. And not in a bad way, like I’m sad or miserable. I’m not. I’m still super happy, but I’ve mellowed out a little. Other than the little bursts when I remember I got a book deal.

Yay! I got a book deal!

And then I calm right back down, because at the crux of it, it hasn’t really sunk in yet. I’m thrilled…don’t get me wrong. But I seem to have burned through that first burst of energy, and now I’m floating on a happy cloud. In my pajamas, because I have absolutely no reason to get out of my pajamas today, and it’s really cold.

But I really need to pull myself together, hop in the shower and get dressed so I can get moving. I still have Christmas decorations to hang, and chickens to feed. Honestly, I can do all of that while still wearing my pajamas, but my husband frowns upon me wandering the yard looking like the walking dead.

Oh, and I need to write a bio today…and find an appropriate photo…both tasks are harder than I expected they would be. So far all I have is,

Erica lives in the North Georgia Mountains in a 90-year-old haunted farmhouse with her husband, her 180lb lap dog, a collection of chickens and crazy ducks and at least one ghost. When she’s not writing, she’s either reading bad fan fiction or singing karaoke.

What do you think? Sounds like me, right?

Ok, I really have to get to work.

Until the next time…I’ll be trying to find a decent photo of me.

the ghost of christmases past

I watched a modern adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol this evening and it got me started thinking about my past Christmases and what would happen if a ghost were to come and take me on a journey to revisit some of the more memorable ones. 

Where would I begin?  Which Christmases would I include?

Of course it would only be natural to include a few of my first Christmases.  My ghost would undoubtedly catch me in the act of meticulously unwrapping my presents under the tree to peek and then carefully rewrapping them and tucking them back in their places so my mother wouldn’t know.   I wonder if she has any idea that I have been doing that for years.  I suspect my children might do the same thing (it could very well be a genetic trait.)  This may be the main reason I don’t put presents under my tree until Christmas Eve.

Or maybe I don’t put presents under the tree because of that one childhood Christmas when the dog tore through all the presents about two weeks before Christmas.  We thought we had been robbed…until we saw teeth marks in the packages. 

Surely the ghost would take me back to my first Christmas after marrying my ex-husband.  My mother, my sister, and my sister’s husband (Uncle Paul) traveled to New York to spend Christmas with my new in-laws on Long Island.  It was interesting at best.

Like the Osbornes spending Christmas with the Obamas. 

Uncle Paul wreaked havoc with the water lines, ensuring that everyone got a nice little shock in the shower at least once. And my sister’s morning sickness, combined with my former mother-in-law’s dictator-like regime with regard to the kitchen, sent my family trekking through the backs of yards to the closest McDonald’s at all hours of the day and night. 

The only worthwhile moment of the entire trip came in the form of a tour of New York City in the back of a beat up pick-up truck driven by my ex-husband’s crazy Uncle Jimmy. 

Uncle Jimmy was not my ex husband’s real uncle, but rather a very close family friend.  I believe he had served in World War 2 with my former father-in-law.  He was in his sixties, and missing a few teeth as I recall, but he was a live wire who enjoyed life to the fullest. 

It was December in New York, and the city was covered in snow.  This particular night was especially cold, and even with a camper top on the bed of the truck, it was still freezing cold.  Because my sister was pregnant she was allowed to sit in the front of the cab, and I was allowed to ride up there with her.  That might have been a perk if the passenger window hadn’t been stuck in the open position.  The heater was turned up to full power to keep the frostbite from setting in, but we were still wrapped up in wool coats and scarves like foreign immigrants landing on Ellis Island circa the turn of the twentieth century. 

My mother rode in the truck bed with her sons-in-law, and had to listen to them whining about dying from breathing in exhaust fumes, despite the fact that the back window and the window to the cab were both wide open.  I remember looking through the small opening at the three of them, shivering in the back as they sat against the side walls of the truck like a load of illegal day workers.  My mother laughed the entire time as the men complained.  

In the front of the truck, Uncle Jimmy narrated our journey…loudly…with more than a trace of Jack Daniels on his breath.  We were introduced to every sight the city had to offer. 

Uncle Paul shouted from the back that he wanted to see a real prostitute, so Uncle Jimmy drove us to 42^nd Street to find one.  As we set out on foot, Uncle Paul approached several women dressed in flashy winter attire and inquired, “Are you a hooker?”  

He was asked to leave two separate topless bars for similar questions.

We even ran across a religious zealot, shouting for us to save ourselves while we still had time, and carrying a sign that promised the end of days was nigh.  Twenty two years later we’re still here, so I gather his timing was just a bit off.

There were many Christmases before that year, there have been many Christmases since, and hopefully there will be many yet to come, but I will never forget that night in New York City.  It was the best tour I had ever taken, and the best tour guide a person could ask for.  We even got to see the heart of Harlem and Lady Liberty from afar. 

Uncle Jimmy past away several years ago, but he will never be forgotten, I am certain. 

Until the next time…I’ll be waiting for the spirit of Christmases yet to come!

all it takes is a little determination

So, if you’ve been paying attention, you know I’ve been having a bit of an issue with my printer lately. And seriously, how hard can it be to print something, anyway?

Harder than it would seem, apparently.

Remember how over Thanksgiving, I trudged out to Walmart…twice in one day, twenty miles in each direction…to get ink, only to run out of the one color I didn’t buy. Well, fast forward a week or so, and my need to print something became more than just pressing…it became life changing. Overly dramatic, you say? Perhaps, but work with me for a minute.

So, on Friday, I asked my husband to pick up the black ink on his way home from his unscheduled (yet unavoidable) trip to Florida to visit family. Unfortunately, he didn’t get home in time for me to print and rush to the post office, so I had no choice but to wait until Monday. So first thing Monday morning, I flew out of bed and ran to the printer. (Yeah, I’m lying again. I dragged myself out of bed around 10:30, but that’s still morning. Don’t judge me.) I plugged the printer into the power, then connected the USB to my laptop, loaded it with paper and pulled up the file I needed to print. (I’ll get to this in a minute…be patient.)

What I didn’t do was realize I had an unfinished print job from when I ran out of ink. I also didn’t realize the paper tray was shut, thus preventing the printed pages from escaping the machine. Yep…paper jam. Wicked awful paper jam, in fact. But I had this…I snatched the trapped papers, yanking them out without missing a beat. And without turning off the power like the warning message said. Apparently, that was very bad. All attempts to print after this were blurry. And not just blurry, but sort of like drunken ramblings. The words were all over the page.

And it was now creeping up on afternoon and my document had to be printed, notarized and mailed before the post office closed.

I won’t bore you with the torturous measures I put my poor printer through, but I will say, it won’t screw with me again.

So, an hour (and several unusable copies) later, I rushed out the door, with my perfectly legible document in hand, to find a notary public in this one horse tourist town I live in. After calling the only mailbox store, the local grocery store and a few other usual suspects, I was informed the only place to get a notary done would be at a school or a bank, and since I wasn’t about to wander the halls of the local high school, I decided to visit the bank. Lucky for me, they weren’t picky about helping a non-customer. I should have asked them for directions to the post office, because the last stop on my little journey turned into a scavenger hunt. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good scavenger hunt, but not when I’m on a tight schedule.

With my letter finally signed, notarized and safely mailed away, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and hit up the local Sonic for a smoothie and some onion rings. (Hey, scavenger hunts always work up a good appetite.)

So, I’ll bet you’re wondering what was so damned important that I had to wrestle an ornery printer, visit a bank I don’t do business with, and drive around like a rat in a maze searching for the post office on a Monday afternoon.

Remember last week when I said I had a secret, but I couldn’t announce it yet? Well, I can announce it now. That little document I worked so hard to print and mail just happens to be the contract to publish my book, To Katie With Love. So yeah, it was worth every eff bomb I dropped and every calorie in those onion rings. I’m going to be a published author. And that is just the coolest thing ever.

Until the next time…I’ll be buying a back up printer.

Oh Christmas tree

My husband went to bed angry last night. Oh, I suppose that’s nothing new, despite my original plan of “never go to bed angry”. I wonder if we were married a week when that flew out the window. But last night’s argument was hardly the blow out of epic proportions one would expect from us (we do have a history of fiery verbal exchange). It was more of a quiet burn…like a candle, or a string of Christmas lights.

Right. Christmas lights. That’s exactly how we got into this mess. I decided to put up the Christmas tree. It was time…December first…and I was more than ready. I’d been itching for days to pull out the decorations and get down to business. I may have been a bit overzealous. Ok, more than a little.  I was like a rabid chipmunk hepped up on coffee and sugar. So, I like Christmas, a lot. Don’t judge me.

The husband does not like decorating for Christmas. He avoids it as fiercely as he avoids setting foot in a karaoke bar filled with single cougars.  I might be exaggerating…slightly. After all, he agreed to help me with the lights last night.

Ah, regret. Yes, I regret asking for his help, at all. The longer we tangled with lights, the more annoyed (and annoying) he became. But the nail in the Christmas coffin was when I plugged in the tree to discover more than half the lights didn’t light.

A Christmas catastrophe of the worst kind.

I won’t go into details (they’re far too painful and fresh) but suffice it to say, he went to bed angry and I stayed up, staring at the randomly lit tree from across the room, willing it to fix itself.

It didn’t.

I used to laugh at my parents and their annual Christmas tree fight. I used to think they were overly dramatic and silly. I used to think decorating was a team event and everyone would help out with big smiles and frothing mugs of cocoa as we moved in tandem, listening to classic Christmas music as we worked.

Yeah, right. People bitch and moan as they untangle lights, then storm off to find brown liquor to drown their sorrows. 

This is why I start decorating early. I need time each year to cool off and enjoy the season after the whole tree debacle.  My tree is still bare. Or at least partially bare. My husband woke up early, grumbling like a bear with a thorn in his bottom, trying to find swap the broken lights with fresh ones…with little success, unfortunately. I guess I’ll be making a trip to Home Depot today if I want Christmas lights tonight.

Maybe I’ll pick up a bottle of that brown liquor while I’m out. I might need it.

Until the next time…I’ll be making Christmas.

what's wrong with a little harmless obsession?

I admit it.  I collect magazines.  And not just any magazines…home decorating magazines.  You’ve heard of them…House Beautiful, Country Living, Cottage Homes, Traditional Home, Southern Accents…and the list goes on.  My husband has repeatedly asked me to pick a few and get a subscription rather than picking them up for full price at the store.  I keep telling him that I will narrow the choices down after sampling them just a few more times.  I just can’t decide which ones to get.  Why can’t I just have them all? 

Because the magazines are piling up all over the house, that’s why. 

And my wonderful husband spares no opportunity to remind me of that fact.  I have vowed to weed through the current selections (some of which date back as far as 2005) and recycle the ones I don’t want anymore.

Again, a very difficult decision, I sort of want them all. 

Oh, sure…I’ll weeded a bunch out when we moved to the haunted farmhouse, but I couldn’t exactly get rid of them all when I obviously had a need to decorate the new (old) house, right? Can my husband really expect me to toss out such a wealth of decorating resources? Oh, yes…he can.  So, not so long ago, I actually tossed quite a few of them into the recycling bin, only to fish them out a few days later.  You just never know when I’ll have the opportunity to remodel my Paris apartment…right? That is, if I had an apartment in Paris…which I do not.

But I can dream can’t I? 

My dreams notwithstanding, I believe my husband has enlisted the help of an accomplice to rid himself of my magazines. 

Enter Indiana Jones, the accomplice.

Indy has developed a new habit of shredding magazines, more specifically, my magazines.  I found a Country Living torn up on the living room floor yesterday.  Two different Traditional Homes bit the dust in the days before that.  And I lost a prized Martha Stewart Living to the powder room toilet just this evening. 

Don’t ask me how or why my 180lb Mastiff put a Thanksgiving issue circa 2008 into the toilet, because I have no idea.  But I really liked that particular issue.  I’ve decided to attempt to dry it out.  I know…I know…yuck…but there are some really good recipes in there! 

I am convinced my husband has told him to do this.  What other excuse could there be?  I have had this dog since he was 10 weeks old and only now; coincidentally coinciding with my husband’s requests to “throw some of those damn magazines away,” my 2 year old dog is tearing through my magazines faster than I can replenish them.  He’s not going for the newest issues—the ones I can replace—he’s going after the out of print issues! 

And it’s not like he found them lying on the floor…he has fished them out of magazine racks!  Pulled them off the coffee table!  Taken them from my bedside table! 

It is a conspiracy.  And my husband is the head conspirator.  The next thing you know, he’ll be convincing the cats to push the magazines from their new perch on the top of my dresser so the dog can get them. 

I suppose in the grand scheme of things I can’t complain.  If I try hard enough, I can look at the positive side of things.  Perhaps this is just Indy’s way of helping me make room for more new magazines.  Maybe it’s time I actually sent in those subscription cards after all.  I think I can pare it down to four choices.  Well, maybe five. 

I’ll do that next month.  I want to make sure I get all of the holiday issues first.

Until the next time…I’ll be pulling out the blow dryer for Martha’s stuffing recipe!

the time capsule

I’m sitting here trying to figure out why I’m still awake at 3am. I’m not watching TV, I gave up on reading, and I couldn’t muster the energy to work on anything important, so what the hell am I doing in my chair in front of my laptop in the wee hours of the morning?

Oh yeah, I’m debating the merits of 80s music with my son. And we’re doing this over Facebook, because nothing of significance happens unless it happens on Facebook, right?

I keep telling him I lived the 80s, the decade just before the internet. The bygone era where shoulder pads weren’t just for linebackers and gloves didn’t come with fingers (and some of those were only worn on one hand). A time when people wore their sunglasses at night while cruising the streets in sleek sports cars, blasting the Miami Vice soundtrack into the air. Oh sure, it was fun the first time, but that doesn’t mean I want to dredge it up again, thereby triggering memories best left buried in the dusty old time capsule with the bones of REO Speedwagon and the Thompson Twins.

And leg warmers. By the way, thanks for the tweet early this morning reminding me about leg warmers. I can almost smell the sweat from the aerobics classes. No thank you, I’ll gladly leave the 80s music where it was…happily hidden in my bottom dresser drawer, under the Purple Rain VHS tape, with all the other embarrassing mementos of my youth.

Now if you ask me about the movies from the 80s, we’ll be getting into a completely different sort of debate. And I’ll leave that for another time.

Until the next time…I’ll be purging the Duran Duran earworm with a Brady Bunch marathon.

give me a reason

“Things happen for a reason.” My husband’s words as he packed his clothes to leave this afternoon.

Oh wait…not leave leave. He’s going out of town for family reasons and I’m staying here, which is more than fine with me. But still, this is cutting his vacation in half with barely anything fun having taken place. And I had such plans for vacation time. Well, ok…I had no plans. I was going to paint the dining room, and he wasn’t going to help me do that anyway. I was going to get up early and…caught me again. I wasn’t going to get up early. I’m lucky if I’m even in bed when normal people get up early. No, I was going to sleep in like always and maybe organize some things. You know…finish putting away the Halloween decorations and take out the stuff for Christmas. I probably would have begged him to hang lights on the house. Well, I can scrap that plan…for a few days anyway.

But, like he said, things happen for a reason. If he hadn’t been on vacation, he wouldn’t have been able to leave town for his family emergency.

And when it comes to perfect timing, I have to agree. Life always seems to give me what I need, just when I need it. Like that phone call I got today. The timing couldn’t have been better, and the news was…well…life changing. But that’s a secret for another day. You’ll just have to come back to find out. We’ll call this a cliffhanger, ok?

I love a good mystery, don’t you?

Until the next time…I’ll be digging out the decorations by myself.

a tale of broken dreams and billowing sails

Life is a struggle. It puts up a fight and rarely plays fair. But you can’t let it get the best of you. You have to ride it like a tornado, into the sunset, gripping onto your dreams with all you have…and never let them go.

My father once told me we have to hold onto every bit of happiness we can because life will work hard to take those moments away from us. And although, admittedly, it’s not always easy, I have strived to live by these words, digging every last drop of positive out of all the negative thrown at me along the way.

So I can’t help but wonder what happened to me? When did I become this person who crumbles at the dark clouds? What happened to embracing the rain?

Life happened, that’s what.

For those who don’t write, being a writer may not seem like an important goal. It may appear as if it doesn’t benefit the world at large, or bring anything significant to the masses. But for those of us who do…it isn’t just a lifeless thing we dabble in. It is very literally the first and last breath we take and every breath in between.

Even though I know this with every fiber of my being…little Miss Positive in the face of negative…I listened, instead of sticking my fingers in my ears and humming when I was told to put a deadline on my dreams.  So, rather than locking my doors and closing my blinds, I let the negativity walk right in and set up house. And before I knew it, the fight was wrestled out of me while I slept.

I don’t even recognize the person in the mirror anymore.  Who are you, and what have you done with the determined, stubborn girl who could argue herself out of just about any situation? Where is the girl who could find the silver lining on every cloud…the prize at the bottom of every Cracker Jack box?

She would have never given up so easily.

The truth is I think I’m still in here…somewhere. I can feel the flicker of light fighting its way through the darkness.  Even despair can’t let the air out of my sails…not completely. As long as there is the tiniest gust of wind, I’ll catch it, and I’ll be off. You’ll see. You can’t tell me to give up that which is like the blood flowing through my veins. I may shed a few tears but I won’t do it…not without a fight.

The voices inside me will always fight to be free.

Yeah, I totally sound like a nut job, don’t I? But my fellow writers will surely understand what I’m talking about.  Let’s shout it from the rooftops for the world to hear…

A writer is not what I do…it’s who I am.

And you can’t take that away from me. Not ever.

Until the next time…I’ll be dreaming the same dreams with determination.                                             

black friday

Today was the biggest shopping day of the season, and what did I do?  I stayed in bed until ten, when my mother dragged me up saying we had things to do. Thankfully (see, I have been thinking up more things to be thankful for)  I wasn’t up at three in the morning standing in line at a Wal-Mart (no matter how much money I could save on a 32 inch television.)  That sort of thing is something you do once in your life, and I already did my time.

It was a lifetime ago.  At least it seems that way.  It was Christmas 1998 and it was the year the Furby—the furry little talking robot toy that looked like one of the Gremlins before they ate after midnight—hit the store shelves.  It was the most popular toy that year, and nearly impossible to get your hands on one.  The only surefire way to get one for Christmas was to stand in line at any toy store at three am when the doors would open on Black Friday. 

I wasn’t overly interested in a Furby, myself.  My kids hadn’t requested one, so I had no intention to lose any sleep on the day after Thanksgiving just to buy an overpriced toy. 

My sister had other ideas.  And she was determined to pull me into her plans. 

My younger sister has always found inventive ways to earn extra money, and this particular year her idea was to buy as many Furbys as we could get our hands on, and sell them for more than what we paid. 

On paper it sounded ingenious.  In reality, it was horrible.

We were not the only ones who were planning on turning a profit on Furbys.  There were hundreds of people standing outside the local Wal-Mart.  I lost count of all the people whispering about where they would sell their treasures.  The rest of the crowd was there to fulfill the wishes of their own children.  And then the store manager risked life and limb to squeeze out the door to inform the growing line that there were far more people in line than Furbys in the store, and we would be given tickets in order of our place in line.  Each ticket could purchase one Furby. 

Just one.

This meant that we would only have two Furbys to sell on the black market.  That is, if we survived the running of the bulls once they opened the doors to let everyone in. 

Somehow we survived.  It was a close call…there was more than one scary woman with a black belt in shopping pushing her way through the jam packed aisles.  But we got our Furbys and escaped Wal-Mart.  And with several hours left before sunrise, I was more than ready to head back home and crawl into my nice warm bed. 

Again, my sister had other ideas.

The toy store at the local mall didn’t open until five, so we had plenty of time to get there for another chance to buy a few Furbys.  We piled back into the car and headed to the mall. 

The line wasn’t as long at the mall, but the stash of Furbys was even smaller.  Somehow we still managed to get our one Furby per person and make it back home just before dawn. 

I don’t remember how much the Furby’s sold for, but I do remember that it wasn’t the huge profit my sister was expecting.  Certainly not enough to stand in line for hours in the middle of the night.  Definitely not enough to withstand the pushing and shoving by women with rollers in their hair at the local Wal-Mart. 

But I suppose it was one of those things you just have to do…once.  And then never do again.

Sort of like pole dancing…or self bikini waxing.

Until the next time…I’ll still be cleaning up the kitchen from Thanksgiving!

giving thanks

Thanksgiving is almost over, and I have yet to list all the things I’m thankful for. But in my defense, it’s taken me a few hours to recover from the turkey coma…and the pie coma that followed the sugar rush. I’m ok now, but I probably won’t sleep tonight. The good news is, I’ll have a lot more time to think of things to be thankful for. For now, I’ll have to settle for this meager list…

In no particular order, I’m thankful for:

My family…all of them (I listed them first because if they found out they actually come somewhere between chocolate and cheese, they’d be pissed)

Chocolate (see above comment)

Cheese (who doesn’t love cheese?)

My dog (because he’ll keep me warm on a cold night even if he’s mad at me…and as it happens, he’s never mad at me)

My chickens (they have a way of making me smile just because)

My mother (she gets a special shout out because she did the dishes every day while she’s been visiting, even when asked her not to)

My ducks (because everyone should be thankful for anything that keeps them on their toes at all times)

Warm sweaters (because not only are they warm, but they camoflage the damage caused by too much chocolate and cheese)

My friends (both old and new…I don’t mean old…I mean, ok yeah…old)

Reversible underwear (I don’t think they make this yet, but they would be cool, because it wouldn’t matter if I wore them inside out)

Turkey (I really love turkey, and it’s sort of sad we don’t eat it all year round. I mean, is twice a year sufficient for something so magically delicious?)

Toilet paper (I don’t think we give thanks for this often enough. Imagine the world without it. Seriously…imagine)

Butter (yes, I’m thankful for butter…get in line Paula Deen, you’re not the only one in love with butter)

Pie (did I forget to say pie? Pumpkin, apple, banana cream…the list is endless, the thanks are many)

Eyelashes (I didn’t know how important they were until mine started to thin out. I miss thick eyelashes)

Sweat pants (this doesn’t really need an explanation after eating turkey all day, does it?)

High speed internet (endlessly thankful for this on a regular basis)

My KitchenAid mixer (because it did everything from mashing my potatoes to whipping the cream for pie)

Fuzzy socks (because it’s cold as I type this)

You (if you’re reading this, I’m infinitely thankful for you…Thank you! Really.)

Until the next time…I’ll be heating up leftovers and watching late night TV.

the printer ink blues

All I needed was blue ink. My printer told me so. The display was very specific. I needed blue ink. Not pink. Not yellow. Not black. Just blue.

How hard can it be to find a blue ink cartridge?

In a town where the closest Walmart is a whole county away, finding a place that sells ink is like searching for a sliver in the bottom of your own foot. It’s not impossible, but it’s certainly not easy or fun.

So we hopped in the car and headed out to Walmart. It’s a twenty five minute drive each way, so we decided to take advantage of the trip and pick up a few things for Thanksgiving dinner while we were out. An hour or two (and $150 later) we were back in the car, trudging through the holiday travel traffic to our home in the mountains. When I opened the packaging on my new blue ink, I discovered I’d bought the wrong one. Why do they have to number them so closely together? My printer will take a number 68 in black, but in the colors it has to be a 69. You’d think I’d remember 69, but I didn’t. I bought 68. So after a mini temper tantrum (don’t judge me, it was the day before Thanksgiving and an almost hour long round trip the first time) I climbed back into the car to head to Walmart to return the ink.

Now let’s just say, the last place I wanted to be on the evening before Thanksgiving was the customer service aisle at Walmart, and yet, that’s exactly where I found myself. Luckily, the wait wasn’t bad, and I was quickly able to grab the correct ink and head home again.

Before I knew it (you know…an hour or so after my first attempt to print) I snapped the ink into the printer and smiled at the familiar whirr of the paper loading into the machine. After the first few pages, my printer came up with another warning light. I was almost out of the pink ink now. With a self-satisfied grin on my face, I pulled out the spare pink cartridge I already had and loaded it into the chamber before returning to my print job. A few more pages came out before another warning light flashed. Yellow? Now I’m running out of yellow? I was printing black and white, I didn’t even understand the need for colored ink for a black and white print job.

Speaking of black…I didn’t get further than a few more pages when the warning light went off for black ink. I was running out of black ink too.

I’d already been to Walmart twice in one day. Twice in less than a few hours, in fact. I wasn’t prepared to make another trip. I held my breath, crossed my fingers and toes, and watched as my pages spit out of the printer, hoping my document would finish before I ran out of ink. I couldn’t be so unlucky, right? It was a day before Thanksgiving. I wanted to put up a Facebook status saying I was thankful for having enough black ink.

No such status will be created. With one page left to go, my printer stopped cold, the message “out of black ink” flashing at me like a cocky smirk. I hate my printer. Hate it. And I hate Walmart. And I hate that I was standing in the printer aisle at said Walmart, staring at the black ink cartridges, certain I could escape buying one this time.

I’m sure there’s a lesson somewhere in there. I don’t really want to think about it, but I’m sure my loyal readers will dig it out for me, and let me know. And I’m also sure I’ll find myself at Walmart on Friday…the absolute worst day of the year to step foot into a Walmart. I may need to self-medicate first. I’ll need an IV of chocolate and a liter of Diet Coke to go with my leftover turkey and stuffing. This had better be the best damn document I’ve ever printed. And you know…with my luck…I’ll run out of blue again before I’m through.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

Until the next time…Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

bare today...hair tomorrow

Another crazy Tuesday night of karaoke. Another reminder that even if my eyelashes are falling out, I still have to shave my legs. And another reason to replay one of my favorite blogs from last year. I think you’ll agree.

Fashion is a fickle friend.  Whether we’re talking miniskirts, skinny jeans, or platform shoes…long hair on men, short hair on girls, or the question of whether or not to shave. 

And I’m not just talking about beards here.  Well…maybe I am. 

I’ve done a lot of crazy things. I would be the first to admit it.  Not only did I attempt to wax my own bikini area, and with disastrous results I might add, but I went ahead and wrote it down for all the world to see. Or rather read.  So why not take it a step further.  Why not discuss the other popular options?

I spent the better part of last night chatting with a bunch of women about that very thing.  

It would seem I’m not the only one with a disastrous waxing tale.  Apparently horrible things can go wrong even when a professional is in control of the hot wax.  Especially when talking about a Brazilian wax.  I don’t know about you, but sending a strange Brazilian into my nether regions with boiling hot wax is NOT something I will be adding to my bucket list. I burned my mouth on a barbeque chicken sandwich the other day and walked around sucking on ice chips all day…my tongue still hurts.  That is not something I want to experience anywhere in the vicinity of my crotch.

So yeah, hot wax is out.  But laser hair removal treatments might just be in. 

It was brought up in the conversation last night, and I remembered it was an option at my doctor’s office.  I mean, I’ve been known to remove my pants at the doctor’s office for medical reasons, right?  It’s a yearly thing, in fact.  So how much of a stretch would it be to put my legs into stirrups for fashion?  Well…fashion, hygene…hey, in some circumstances it could actually mean going down a size in undergarments, and let’s face it, ladies…any opportunity to go down a size should be seized!

But the more I thought about this whole, permanent hair removal thing, the more I started thinking about fashion and her fickle moods.  How many times have styles changed in the course of my life?  Eyebrows have gone from pencil thin to thick and bushy and back to groomed again.  Skirts have gone from long to short to even shorter in the blink of an eye.  How can I be sure bare down there will always be in style?  I mean, I remember the seventies and the popular back to nature bush-fro of the era.  Sure, it was a little National Geographic, but you just never know when I might feel the urge to go all retro and sport a vintage look…it could happen.

Besides, who knows what all the grannies in the nursing home will be wearing.  Sure, that’s a very long way off, but one has to be prepared for anything that may come up.  I certainly don’t want to be the only one who isn’t up with the current trends.   I’m nothing if not trendy. 

So I guess for now I’ll be sticking with the expensive five blade shavers they keep behind lock and key at the grocery store…even they know the value of fashion…that is until someone comes up with something a little less dangerous, or the tide turns again and the retro bush-fro comes back in style. 

I won’t be holding my breath.

Until the next time…I’ll be lathering up!

that's a whole lotta wishes

I know I’ve talked about this before, in fact, it always seems to come back to the topic of hair removal with me, doesn’t it? I mean, who hasn’t heard about my disasterous attempt at a self-bikini wax? If you haven’t, you just haven’t been paying attention. And that’s ok. Not everyone likes horror stories. I know I don’t. And speaking of horror stories and hair removal…age is the most evil karma I’ve ever run across.

Ok, I’m going to break it down simply. What the hell has happened to my eyelashes? I used to have the thickest, longest, most luxurious eyelashes ever. And now…nothing. Well, almost nothing. I even find myself browsing the false eyelashes in the make-up aisles, but my history with things found in the beauty aisles at the local grocery store freaks me out a little. That is where I found the home waxing kit, after all. No, I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do about the situation, but I can definitely say, if I had to have hair fall out somewhere, this is not where I would have chosen.

Ok, I know I’m lucky the hair on my head is still lush, but so is the hair on my legs and bikini area, and people, that shit could fall out tomorrow and I wouldn’t shed a single tear. Not one. Hey, I’d be happy if the hair under my arms would cease to grow. Or those stray little hairs that crop up in weird places where they never grew before…yeah, those can go too. But my eyelashes? Seriously? What did I do in a past life to deserve this? And does this mean I get a wish for every lash that blows away? Surely that’s a fair trade off, even if I do waste them wishing for more eyelashes.

And as I try to make sense of what’s happened, I find myself wanting to blame Obama…everyone seems to blame him for something these days, but I just can’t come up with a cool enough scenario…and yeah, I’m a writer. Surely I can come up witih some valid argument for why Obama is the reason my eyelashes don’t seem to want to grow and cooperate anymore. 

Otherwise, I’m going to have to blame my age, and that totally sucks. I keep telling myself I’m not old, and the evidence against my theory just keeps building up. I can lie to myself and color the gray all I want, but nature simply won’t play fair.

Eyelashes. Seriously? Karma, you got this round. I’ll buy the next.

Until the next time…I’ll be feeling sorry for myself.

life with a writer

Welcome to the Weekly Guest Spotlight

Michael DeanTonight we have a replay of our visit with guest Michael Dean. Although, he’s not a writer per se…he does have a blog of his own…and he has his very own special brand of insight. He’s my husband. For more about Michael, click his picture to visit his blog.

It’s not easy being married to a writer. Especially one with some degree of public notoriety, and who occasionally likes to tell all.

You know Erica’s antics and the things she writes about. I’m unfortunately going to divulge that they are all true. I don’t always read her blogs. Mostly I’m afraid to know exactly what the world knows. What I do read is sometimes a little close to home, and I’m certain I wouldn’t have painted such a vivid picture of our lives.

I’m a private person living in a fish bowl.

I suppose you could say my role in the fish bowl is that of the sucker fish. I lurk in the background and corners of the tank, doing my duty, not really asking for much attention. I don’t have flashy colors. I don’t do tricks or chase the other fish, or make bubbles (unless we’ve had Mexican food). And I definitely don’t order food in the drive-thru…using a fake accent…and asking for my food to go! (And yes…she really did that once.)

I do get annoyed sometimes when folks come along and tap on the glass…it sounds like baseball bats on trash can lids to me.

Erica doesn’t seem to mind the crowd standing outside the glass. And I guess that’s good for someone trying to make a living in the public eye. Sure, Erica is interesting, and creative, and a walking encyclopedia of useless trivia, and sometimes a bit flighty even if she’s always funny…even a bit odd sometimes. She’s also a fiercely protective mother and leader of her family when needed. It doesn’t seem to matter that she didn’t give birth to, or even meet the rest of us until not so many years ago…all factors that made me love her. I had no choice.

So, in the end, I guess it’s not that hard after all having Erica for a wife. I do get to meet a lot of interesting people (vicariously) and discover their angles on life.

Besides, I suppose it’s not always easy being married to me.

I told Erica, not so long ago, if it weren’t for the simple fact that she lives in different world than most people, she’d have gotten rid of me a long time ago. She hasn’t noticed many of my flaws…yet…and the ones she has noticed, she just labels them as quirks.

Like the time I paid a LOT of money for a domain name I thought would be a good investment…but it wasn’t. Or the time I insisted on buying a piece of land in North Carolina that we didn’t do a thing with…but I still might someday. And then there was the time I had the idea I could build a shed in the back yard cheaper than what Home Depot could sell me a kit for…and make it better.

I ended up spending four-times as much on the materials, with the end product being a tornado-rated structure. But I’ll bet a lot of people build a $8000, 12ftx 12ft military bunker-style shed in the back yard…sure they do!

Afterall, when your wife has Salem witches in her lineage, you don’t want any loose houses flying around.

That just goes to show how she puts up with my antics just as much as I put up with hers. I guess you could say we have an interesting life. Sometimes I have to meditate on a saying of Helen Keller’s to help get me through.

“Life is a grand adventure, or it is nothing.”

I’m sure I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the pict…errr…the idea.

Until the next time…I’ll be tapping on the glass.

the lost art of negotiation

Who hasn’t cringed at the words, “Mom, can I stay up just a little longer?”  Or, “Mom, can I take the car and drive to Mexico with my friends for spring break?”

Those might be completely different scenarios, but they can both be resolved by using the exact same technique.  It’s the art of negotiation, and I am the queen.

In my previous life as a business banker, it was no secret I knew how to negotiate with business owners, corporations, and executives.  I don’t think anyone who has known me for more than a few minutes would question my ability to negotiate my way through almost any situation.  And not just for myself.  My family considers my skills invaluable.  I have negotiated better prices for my sister on a number of occasions.   My mother took me with her furniture shopping so I could get her the best price at least once.  My aunt once drove to almost three hours, specifically for me to take her to garage sales, so I could negotiate her deals. And I even managed to negotiate a free year of cable thanks to my superior skills.  I have always been the one that gets put into the game when a price negotiation was required.  I’m like the clean up pitcher of the shopping circuit. 

After I managed to get a department store to lower a fixed price on an item I desperately wanted, my son told me I had a black belt in bullshit— and what mom doesn’t want to hear that?  I can’t help it, I take these things seriously. I’ve even made a car salesman cry (and I’m not talking about my ex-husband.)

Today’s negotiations started the minute I put on my favorite pants and discovered that they were a little more snug than the last time I’d worn them.  I managed to half convince myself they were only tight because of the dryer.  Everyone knows the dryer makes everything shrink a little.  You just have to wear it for a while so it will stretch back out.  Never mind that they aren’t made of stretchy cotton or that I only threw them in the dryer for a few minutes to chase off the wrinkles from being on a hanger.  Still, I had to allow that it was possible—although highly unlikely—it wasn’t the pants that had gotten smaller, but my butt that had gotten larger.  Even if it was only slightly.  So the negotiation turned in the direction of the kitchen and the sweets hidden within. 

The problem with negotiating with one’s self is it is far too easy to switch sides. I have been debating all day about cookies, pies and assorted other “non-essential” food items.  I won…or maybe I lost.  Either way, no sweets for me today. Oh, and no more Diet Coke…right after I finish what’s left in the fridge…cuz waste not want not, right?

See how good I am?  I even managed to beat the Diet Coke addiction with a few well placed arguments.  And it’s a good thing I am that good.  I have to engage in the most challenging of negotiations on a daily basis.  I have…

Teenagers.

Ok, so they’re currently adult teenagers, but legal or not, living with teenagers is living a life of constant negotiations.  And when you are negotiating with teenagers you have to approach the task the same way you would an auction.  You have to start your bidding low, and let them try to drive you back up.  Such as with curfews. 

“Be home by eight-thirty!” 

See?  Bring that first offer in low.  Don’t give away the store right from the get-go.  Is eight-thirty an early curfew for a pair of sixteen or seventeen year olds?  Probably.  But if I had said be home at ten, they would have still come back with another offer.  They would have been pushing for eleven.  By starting with eight-thirty, I could give up nine o’clock and they felt like they’d won a battle.  I would have given them ten, but because I started at eight-thirty, they felt like they’d gotten over on me by coming in at nine!  And don’t forget to make it seem as though giving in was difficult or they’ll smell a false victory.  It was a sad day for me when my teenagers caught on to the logic, but by then, I’d already taught them a very valuable lesson. 

Now if I could only take my negotiating skills to the next level and convince my obnoxious rooster that seven o’clock is a perfectly good time to crow…rather than every fifteen minutes between the hours of midnight and seven. If I could somehow manage that, I may even make it into the record books or something.  I think even Donald Trump would bow down to my expertise if I could pull off that feat. 

Until the next time…I will be negotiating with my ducks for some nice duck eggs.

the pretend life of a writer

When I was a kid, the highlight of most days was the fort my sister and I threw together with an old sheet, dining room chairs and the cushions from the couch. We’d crawl in with a flashlight, a bag of Cheetos and plastic cups filled with Kool Aid. We could sit in there for hours just scribbling into a coloring book, arguing over who got the red crayon. Life was simple then, and daydreams were grand adventures that took you to far off places without leaving the comfort of your own home.

Yeah, the life of a writer isn’t much different. I just don’t build the fort anymore.

I was having a particularly bad day yesterday. Reeling from the accusations of family members, angry because I couldn’t “fix” things out of my control. And I hated it. I hate not having control of my entire world, because in my head, I control it all. If I was a character in one of my books, this is the part where I’d off the rest of the characters and bury them in the backyard. You can do that in fiction. No one will arrest you, like they would in the real world. Or you can just pop into another dimension and fall in love with the supernatural (literally).

Being a writer is just like being a kid. There are no boundaries the imagination can’t conquer. An empty tube from a roll of Christmas wrap becomes a sword you can wield in an epic battle. The little garden around your house becomes a deep, dark forest filled with amazing creatures and untold dangers. And a pile of cushions and a sheet becomes an oasis you can hide out in for days.

I just need to find the red crayon, and I’ll be set.

Until the next time…I’ll be hanging out in my fort.