Even the Tiniest Among Us Grieve

    I feel as though I have been neglecting my in recent weeks.  So much has been happening in my world that it seems as though writing for relaxation has been shoved to the way back burner.  I would first like to thank those of you that have checked out my first "publication" on Amazon.com.  The process of publishing the first book went so well that I have decided to post some of my other completed works.  "Four Lucy Fight Club" now has some company on my Amazon bookshelf.  If you take a minute to check it out, you will find my first romance with a little twist of Greek mythology entitled "Atlantis Had a Sister" as well as one of my crime novels "The Devil and Kate McNally".  I have a couple of others that I intend to place on the digital bookshelf as well in the coming weeks.  Amazon has also set me up with a Web Page on their author central site.  As soon as I have done some work on it I will post a link to that for you all to check out.

   I just have one favor to ask.  Anyone who has read any of these books, even prior to digital publication, please take a few minutes to find them on Amazon and write a review.  I would really appreciate it.

    Anyone who is interested in reading them, you do not have to have a Kindle reader to access them.  A PC, Mac, Ipad, Itouch, blackberry and several other electronic devices have or can have the free Kindle App or software.

    I am just so excited that I can finally get my work out in the world!  It makes writing fun and worthwhile again knowing people will actually get to read the things I create. 

   By the way, I made them as cheap as Amazon would let me! 

    I wish I could say that all I have had to worry about is publishing my books but alas, as the way of the world always goes, there has been a wagon load of goodies to deal with at home as well.  As many of you may remember, my mother in law passed away about four weeks ago.  Last week my father in law came for a visit to bring some things to us and take care of some business with my husband.  He has been here for almost two weeks now and I have got to say that as much as I have enjoyed having him here it has been tough not having his other half with him.  My little one has been under a great deal of stress- not sleeping well, crying at school and even regressing to baby like behaviors at home in an effort to get extra attention.  We have determined that he is indeed grieving not only the loss of his grandmother a few weeks ago but his grandfather barely a year ago.  His separation anxiety is out of this world and I have felt so helpless- I don't know what to do to make it easier for him. 

    I suppose it is a testament to how much his grandmother was a part of his life.  Five is so young to have to deal with loss, not just once but twice even.

   When I think how hard it has been for me though, and I understand what has happened, I can not imagine how his little mind is trying to wrap itself around the loss and make some sort of sense of it.

   I have determined that death sucks just about as much as cancer and war and poverty and the recession.  The everlasting reprecussions of the death of a last one are like the ripples in a pond- one blends into the one in front of it and we never quite make it back the calm, smooth existence we had before we lost someone we loved.

   In just a few minutes I will head over to pick up my baby from school.  I will hug him and shower him with attention and affection.  We will cuddle and read stories and play together yet nothing I will do this weekend will ever be enough to mend the tiny little break in his tiny little heart.

New Frontiers

The other day I read an article on a website called WOW!- Women on Writing-  about five women like me that had little success finding represenation for the works they had written.  Each one of them decided to strike out on their own and explore the world of digital publishing and had experienced great success.  According to statistics on the site, the purchase of digital reading material increased by 116% in the first quarter of 2011 while sales of paper copies dropped something like 25% as compared the same time last year. A month ago I would have told you this was rediculous.  I recently inherited a Kindle e-reader.  As a die hard paper copy reader, I wasn't exactly sure if this method of reading would work for me.  I went on Amazon.com and sought out a couple of free books.  They downloaded almost instantly and within minutes I was happily reading away.

I love my Kindle!  It has changed everything for me!

Each of the women had found not only financial success with digital publishing but personal satisfaction as well.  They could stand proud in the knowledge that they had achieved their main goal- getting their words out there and read by others. A goal I have struggled with repeatedly for several years. 

So, I thought to myself, why not give it a try?  As of yesterday, my novel Four Lucy Fight Club is available on www. Amazon.com!  Just type in my name or the book name into the search bar and there it is.

There was nothing more exciting then seeing my work with my name on it somewhere other than my flashdrive! 

The coolest thing about publishing with Amazon is that you DO NOT have to have an e-reader.  Kindle books can be viewed on any PC, MAC, Blackberry, Ipad or Itouch! Anyone with a computer can now read my book. 

I have always dreamed of being pulished the traditional way with an agent and an editor and the box of printed copies showing up at my doorstep so I resisted the idea of digital publication despite my husband's repeated suggestions to try it out.  But honestly, this is the 21st century and everything is changing so I figured maybe I ought to change my way of thinking as well.

Please take a moment to check out my book and let me know what you think either here or on FaceBook.  Thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way, those of you who have read excerpts and those of you that encouraged me to keep on writing even when I was frustrated and determined to hang up my laptop.
I have included the link here:
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Lucy-Fight-Club-ebook/dp/B005O0Q438/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

I doubt that I will ever make it to the New York Times bestseller's list taking this nontraditional route but I honestly don't care so much.  I hate to be photographed and television interviews wouldn't work for me anyway- I get all tongued tied with a microphone pointed at me! 

All Good Things Must Come To An End- Or At Least Change Course

    My oldest hopped a bus to third grade this morning, my youngest donned a uniform and began his educational trek with his first day of kindergarten and I swear I hardly cried at all!
    We had a good summer.  The end was a little dicey with the hurricane and my mother in law's passing but all in all, it was a good break from the rigors anf rogamarole of the school year.  Despite the broken pool, we all worked up a good tan at the beach, my baby sister got married and we managed to slip away on a quick three day camping weekend.  The boys attended their first (and second) minor league baseball game and we had many, many good nights of friendship and fellowship with the other members of our little village.  All in all, I am rested and ready for the new year- a very different feeling from last year at this time.
     Since my husband was gone for the last two weeks of summer vacation, we decided that :Labor Day weekend was going to be about family fun- we were going to take summer down to the very last minute! 
    On Saturday, I learned to drive the riding lawn mower.  Later, my little sissy and her baby man spent the day with us (Mom is still visiting!) and we ended up with a big dinner at our favorite restaurant- kids eat free on Saturdays!!  Following dinner, we tucked all the kids in bed and when my brother in law got out of work, we had out last official Summer Game Night.  (Now that does NOT mean, game nights are over by any means, just that summer is ending....) 
   '90's Trivial Pursuit is the bomb by the way!!
   Good snacks, good friends, good family- cheap, old fashioned fun! 
   We always play guys against girls- even Mom stuck around and played with us.  Thank you Mom, for sharing your wisdom! 
    The girls won, by the way.  And no one cheated!
    Sunday my new brother in law cooked up the most massive piece of prime rib ever with all the fixings and we all feasted until we were closing to exploding. I told my sister that if they ever divorce, weekly meals cooked by my brother in law needed to be a part of the divorce decree!  After dinner, my neighbor whipped us up a batch of Mommy Milkshakes for the women and we sat on the deck in the summer twilight as our men spent some time "bonding" around the kitchen table.  I am pretty sure Sam Adams and Mr. Daniels may have attended the session as well.  It was a really great day and night.
   On Monday we met the neighbors at the stadium for the last minor league ball game of the season.  The boys had a blast, I got some last minute sun and we all relaxed in the final hours of our summer vacation. 
   A dip in the neighbor's pool followed by some good old fashined hot dogs and hamburgers topped off the day and wrapped up the last weekend of summer quite nicely.
   All in all it was a really great summer- the only real down point was losing someone we cared about. 
   Now, as the new year gets started I find myself thinking back on the past couple of months and I can't help but smile.  I survived my first real hurricane on my own, learned to operate "heavy" machinery and grew actual, edible watermelons in my back yard!  (Nothing grows in my back yard...) 
    I have two goals this year- to vamp up my lesson plans and really try to instill a love of chemistry in my students and finish my most recent novel.  I am also conisdering organinzing all the closets but that may be asking way too much!
    They say that all good things must come to an end and a really good summer vacation is about to end.  I refuse, however to say that the things about summer that I really enjoyed- family and friends and just enjoying being alive are coming to an end.  I have learned so much in recent months about what it really means to live and discovered so much about what life is really about that I want to keep going.  I want more game nights, more big family dinners, more sharing time with people I care about. So I am decreeing right now that I refuse to let it end.  We will just change course, adapt life to the changing seasons and keep on living, learning and loving.
    There is a picture in the faculty restroom at the school where I work that I love to read.  It begins with somethign about when we die, no will know how much money we made or what kind of car we drove but they will know the mark we have left on the world.  I want to be remembered because I was loved.  I want people to feel my loss because of me, not the stuff I have or the places I have been to. 
   Some day when you are gone from this world, people are going to sit around a table and talk about how they remember you.  How will you be remembered?

I Fought the Hurricane and I Won!

    I am now officially a hurricane survivor!  I want a t-shirt to commemorate the fact that Hurricane Irene was strong but I was stronger.
    As many of you probably know, my mother in law passed away last week.  My husband stood by her side with his siblings and father as she took her last breath and I am so glad that he was there for his father in the days following her passing as they prepared for the funeral services and took care of other necessary business.    As much as I missed him, I know that he was where he needed to be. 
    In the days leading up to Irene's visit, mom (who is staying with me currently for an extended visit) and I readied ourselves not so much for the storm itself but the days after she passed over us.  Tales of weeks without power from Hurricane Isabel in 2003 urged us to store drinking water for us and the pets, nonperishable foods and even extra cat litter.  I have to say that my mother is the queen of preparedness and I learned a great deal from her about being ready for anything.  Thursday, two days before the storm, we booked my husband on a flight home for the next day.  I was so glad that he was going to be with us for our first real hurricane!
    Since moving to the coast, I have experienced tropical storms and nor'easters but never a real live, official hurricane.  I would be lying if I didn't admit that I was nervous.  We have an old, worn out roof and not yet enough money to replace it as well as a rickety old fence that I was certain would go down flat in hurricane force winds.
   So, I prepared the house as best  I could.  With the help of my wonderful neighbors, I battened down the hatches- locking away lawn furniture, the grill, a mess of toys and other possible projectiles just waiting for 80mph winds to toss them around like nobody's business.
   On the friday before the storm, the day my husband was set to return, the weatherman reported a change- the storm was moving ahead of schedule!  An hour later, my husband's flight was cancelled.
    Until that time I was doing all right.  I was holding my nerves in check and just doing the things that needed doing.  When I got that message, everything changed. 
    It was the straw that broke the camel's back.
   After all the preparations that led up to my sister's wedding and the planning that led up to the hurricane, I was emotionally roasted.  If you could have stuck a fork in me I would have gone up in steam like the turkey in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  To find out that my husband, the one I depend upon in trying times, was not going to be present for something like a hurricane was overwhelming. 
    I became even more obssessed with the weather reports, prehurricane coverage and pleading with God to spare our home from major damage.
    By the middle of that night, the winds had moved in.  Vinyl siding has an eerie way of creaking and whining in the wind so by four in the morning I was wide awake tracking tornado warnings.  Rain fell in a steady, repeating pattern of downpour and light mist with the occasional torrential drenching to spice things up.
   The dog refused to go outside and relieve herself unless someone was with her so I stood in my backyard barefoot, protected only by a light rain jacket every two hours as my elderly pup sniffed the soaked lawn for a place to go. 
    Every so often there was a lull in the storm where the winds calmed down just enough and the rains held back just enough to make it safe for me to step outside and assess damages.  Each time we had that short burst of calm I would run out front and check the fences, the roof and the cars.  Then I ran through the house and made a check of the back roof and the deck.  After eight hours of near constant wind and rain we lost our first major limb in a tree in front of the house.  After twelve hours a few of the shingles began to flap in the breeze and I was certain we were going to sustain some serious roof damage before all was said and done.
    Eighteen hours after Huricane Irene began her assauly on our humble home, a window screen bent completely in half and hung perpendicular to the house.
    By Sunday morning the rains had gone, the winds were nothing more than a pleasant breeze and the sun shone bright in a clear, blue sky.
    The Outer Banks in North Carolina had flooded, parts of south eastern Virginia were under water and power was out all over the mid- atlantic.
     We had one broken limb, a bent screen and the boys collected one hundred and ten sticks from the front lawn.  The power blinked out a few times but never cut off completely and the entire roof was still intact.  All along our cul-de-sac the story was the same.  A few broken limbs, part of a fence that had fallen over and tons of leaves on the ground.  But that was it.
    We had survived Hurricane Irene virtually unscathed and everyone we knew and loved were safe.
    My little sister and her family lost power and had a run in with some flood waters in their basement.  They spent a couple of days with us at our house.  We had a huge cookout, tons of family bonding and the opportunity to show love and support to each other.  It was a great time for all.
    Two days later, my husband found his way home and life has slowly returned to a more normal speed.  I truely hope it is a very long time before I have to live through a hurricane again.  I am proud that I was able to protect my home and family and grateful for all of the help that others gave me in the process.  It was the sort of experience that teaches one alot about themselves and I, for one, learned some surprising things.  I am much stronger than I ever thought, capable of survival not only for myself but the ones I love and that all the worrying in the world won't change what is meant to be.