Life Goes On

Blog Post – September 2020

 

“Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life. Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true.” ---Ruth Bader Ginsberg

 

We find ourselves in a new, strange environment where words like pandemic, quarantine, fire, smoke and ash now impact our daily existence. I reached out on Facebook, asking people how they are coping with their daily lives. Some are authors, many are longtime personal or cyber friends. Here are the results.

 

Author Skye Taylor, www.sky-writer.com, says, “Personally, as a writer, I am struggling with a whole new way of writing. Up to now I've written character driven stories. Even when I knew the stakes and even the ending, I had no outline and was happy writing that way. But then I chose to try writing a mystery. So, now I need to know who did it, why, how and when.  I need to plot out when the hints will be revealed to the reader and/or my sleuth. So, I struggle with the progress on book two in this new series. It has not helped that I had a family crisis going on and have been distracted by that as well.”

Author Cathy Perkins, www.cperkinswrites: “Staying inside since the air is rated "unhealthy" here. I'm working on Book 2 in a new series and making short dashes to the garden to gather the day's produce. Okay, I'm also working on fused glass pieces.”

Writer Margery Walshaw, www.margerywalshaw.com keeps it simple. “Writing, yoga, repeat.”

 

Dawn Lavella Miller adopted a large, rambunctious puppy and is “now recovering from a complex elbow tendon injury from said puppy.”

 

Sylvia Eisenlord – “Missing my mom and our chats.” 

Longtime friend, Liz Angland – “Just moved into an apartment. Lying on my bed surrounded by BOXES! Twice as much stuff as I have room for!! A rest is required, but in 1/2 hour my dinner will be brought to my door! The menu tonight is lasagna and Caesar salad (that I don’t have to cook or do dishes). I have plenty to distract me from our awful reality by opening boxes, being surprised what’s inside, and finding the right spot for each thing!”

 

Author Erin Lale, https://sites.google.com/site/erinlaleauthorpage/ is going through a rough patch. “I'm overwhelmed with the work of trying to handle the life of a friend who is in the hospital dying of Covid.”

 

Elaine Donahue is “Sewing, making apple sauce and reading a little, ordering food and picking it up, trying not to go outside except to water my plants and mail.”

 

Helen Charlot – Wants to “Get out of this lousy smoke! I'm going to Utah on an off-road vehicle trip.”                                                                           

As for me, I’m looking forward to the release of my new cozy mystery, A Woman Scorned, on October 6^th.

 

 

 Until next time, hang in there and read good books!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this time of insecurity, our new normal is anything but. In light of this, I thought it would be fun to collect favorite quotes and sayings from my friends. They came through like troopers.  

Here we go!

Two of my faves:

“You gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,

Love like you’ll never be hurt,

Sing like there’s nobody listening,

And live like it’s heaven on earth”.... William W. Purkey

Irish Proverb

“Never approach a bull

From the front, a horse

From the rear, or an idiot

From any direction.”

From skydiving author Skye Taylor (http://skye-writer.com) Her favorite quote from Hunter Thompson is also a mantra for her life. 

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “Wow! What a ride!”

An original quote from Facebook friend, Phillip Schmeck: “My mom didn’t raise no dummy, and if she did, it was my sister.”

I hit the quotations jackpot from my friend, Paula Redd. Here are some of her favorites: 

“May the hinges of friendship never grow rusty.”

“You make a living by what you get, a life by what you give.”

“Winning is not always a victory, and losing is not always defeat.”

“The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves that they don’t give a damn.”

Long-time friend and fellow mahjongg fanatic, Judy Ozanich, selected the last part of an often-quoted Bible verse…”And the greatest of these is love.”

Wise words of advice from my golfer friend, Vivian Carl:

“Start each day with a grateful heart.”

“Never ask a woman drinking wine straight from the bottle how she’s doing.”

I stole this one from Larry Snyder’s Facebook post:

“Your mind is a garden

Your thoughts are the seeds,

You can grow flowers or

You can grow weeds.” (written by Julie Blanner)

Let’s keep it going, friends. If you have a favorite quote, you know where to find me.

Past, Present and Future

A wise person once said, “Never erase your past. It shapes who you are today and will help you to be the person you’ll be tomorrow.”

I’ve been thinking about the past lately. In part, because I’m trying to stay home and stay healthy. As a result of the quarantine, I tackled a project I’ve been putting off for years – decades of photographs. Strangely, I was unprepared for the flood of emotions elicited by the pictorial history of my immediate family as well as the fuzzy black and white photos of generations past given to me by my late mother. Baby pictures. School pictures. Photos of beloved pets. Weddings. Grandchildren. Love. Laughter. Tears.

The second source of my nostalgia is A Woman Scorned, my soon to be published book. It features my childhood home and a father named Ed who played golf, kept honeybees and had a love-hate relationship with a beat-up tomcat named Clawdius.

 This is not my childhood home, but it is very similar in size and appearance. We had an enclosed front porch, a big back yard and a full basement with two dank, dismal bedrooms and a windowless room dubbed “the fruit room” where canned goods were stored. Because of spiders dangling from the ceiling, I was terrified of the fruit room. All of the above are featured in A Woman Scorned.

I wrote this book for my sister. I wanted to evoke memories of our growing-up years, something we held in common and could laugh about together. We chatted often by phone and she couldn’t wait to read it. Sadly, this was not to be. Beth passed away last summer. Still, I feel her presence every day, cheering me on, toasting me with a celebratory glass of wine.

This is my reality today. What will tomorrow bring? I know one thing for sure: There will be love. There will be laughter. Their will be tears. Everything that makes us human.


What are you doing to pass the time while you shelter in place? Feel free to leave a comment. Enquiring minds want to know.