I just arrived home after a visit with my sister! I have to unpack and get organized, but I thought I’d go ahead and post something quick about open contests before it’s too late for you to enter! ~DD

Open Contests

Be sure to check out these posts and enter to win the prizes that are still up for grabs:

1. Gabbi Grey: Rucking Yet Again?!?! (Contest) — Last day to enter! Win a FREE book!
2. Sliding Puzzle: A visit to the apothecary… (Contest) — Last day to enter! Win an Amazon gift card!
3. Story Cubes — Tell Me a Story (Contest) — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
4. Health Update & a Trip News (Contest) — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
5. Anna Taylor Sweringen/Michal Scott: Jessie Redmon Fauset — Mother of the Harlem Renaissance (Contest) — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
6. Puzzle-Contest, Report Card & More Open Contests! Tons of prizes to be had! — Win an Amazon gift card!
7. Ava Cuvay: Family Members, Family History (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
8. Word Search: Packing for a Trip (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
9. Tell me a story… (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
10. Puzzle-Contest: Sisters, sisters… — Win an Amazon gift card!
11. July into August (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
12. Saturday Puzzle-Contest: Lazy Dog — Win an Amazon gift card!

This is the last day of my mini-vacation. 🙁

The visit has been lovely. We’ve shopped. We’ve eaten lots of great food. We’ve had many, many laughs. We swam! Tomorrow morning, we’re packing up and hitting the road to get back home. I’ll miss my sister, niece and nephews, but I’m ready to sleep in my own bed.

I’m holding up well, though I do have a nagging backache that my daughter thinks was caused by laughing so hard when I fought the floatation device in the pool on the first day. Sounds like something that would happen to me.

Anyway, I’m going to do the most with the time I have left here with sis. I think we’re hitting Hobby Lobby and maybe Outback Steakhouse today. The 11-year-old sure perked up when I mentioned that possibility. I need a cup of coffee and to get moving this morning, so I’ll leave you with another puzzle.

The picture, when you finish it, will be me when I get home tomorrow. For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle, then tell me what you’re doing today!

July

1. I completed two sets of edits and began work on another author’s edits.
2. I began reading the Burn entries.

Health-related:

1. I underwent two more infusions of Keytruda, this month. I felt fatigued for a couple of days afterward, but no worrisome side effects.
2. I restarted the targeted immunotherapy, Lenvima, but dropped to an every other day dosage due to side effects. I’m tolerating the dosage better than the daily. I’m still fatigued, but not quite as much, and the diarrhea has subsided somewhat.

Happiness-related: 

1. I’m currently visiting my sister for a small vacation!
2. I continued my participation in #the100dayproject. I have just one more piece to finish my commitment. Here are a few small pieces I completed in July:

August

 

For work-related, I plan:

1. To finish reading the Burn submissions and announce the lineup for the next anthology!
2. To finish writing Ignition! Again—no excuses! This will complete the Delta Fire series, my erotic firefighter stories. The book will be out by the end of the month!
3. To begin work on Built Like Mack, the next story in my We are Dead Horse series.
4. To complete working on the edits I have for one author and await the arrival of two other editing projects to start working on.

For health-related, I plan:

1. To continue to focus on recovery! Rest when I need to, and some light exercise—housework and swimming (when the pool pump gets repaired!!!).
2. To endure another immunotherapy session this month.

For happiness-related, I plan: 

1. To spend time what little time we have remaining of the summer break with the family. We have plans for more fun meals, movies, flea market shopping, back-to-school shopping, and lots and lots of swimming.
2. To complete #the100dayproject and create more art.

Contest

Comment on anything you’ve read in this post. Tell me what you’re doing to make yourself happier and healthier, or tell me what you plan to read in August…

Like I said, comment on anything for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

I’m visiting my sister at the moment. We arrived yesterday and already we’ve had some great laughs—mostly at my dignity’s expense.

Yes, the trip exhausted me, but I didn’t head straight to a bed to nap; I soldiered on because I didn’t want to miss a thing. My niece and her boys joined Elle, my dd and SIL, a couple of our girls, and I for the afternoon and evening. We went to a pizza joint with retro pinball machines then came back and spent time in the pool together. I provided the entertainment while trying to get my fat a$$ into pool hammock chair. I needed lots of help to get myself balanced. Imagine beached whale/half-drowning, lots of sputtering while we were all dying laughing.

Anyway, I’m ready for another exhausting, happy day.

I’m sharing my favorite photo of my sister and I, playing dress-up when we were kids. For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle, then share a memory from your childhood!

Yes, I’ve been watching too many crime series lately. My current binge is Jane Seymour’s Harry Wild.

I love a good mystery. Heck, I love a middlin’ one, too. I delight in a chance for our sleuth to wander through a crime scene, pick up details no one else sees, then head off to track down more clues to unravel the mystery. So, let’s have some fun today.

You’re the detective. The body’s already been removed. You have an outline and a few evidence markers around it. How about you tell me a story about who you are, who is with you, and what you see (make up all the details!)? Where’s this taking place? Man or woman? Indoors, outdoors? Is it an establishment? Have fun with it!

Comment with your little story (doesn’t have to be fun or clever!) or list of clues for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card! 

I have a huge To Do List today. I have work to finish for another author, a myriad of chores to complete, and I need to pack for my trip. Since packing is on my mind, and I couldn’t think of anything else to load my puzzle with, that’s today’s theme! Yay for you, right?

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, what would you add to your packing list? I can already think of one I left off—my laptop!

Today, I had planned to talk about my newest children’s picture book I released in May… just in time for Summer and all the adorable flamingo goodies that are out there. Here is the Amazon link if you’re interested: https://www.amazon.com/Floria-Finds-Flavor-Tippi-Hickey/dp/B0F7FTR24P/

But what I really want to talk about—what’s been weighing heavily on my mind and heart these past several months—is family, family memories, and family history. And my seeming lack of.

Last December, my unmarried aunt passed away. I had been her POA the last several years as her health declined, taking care of the details so she could enjoy her final years living in the house her mother had built, surrounded by her beloved collections, and out in the quiet solitude of her rural home away from people. Then my task of settling her estate commenced. A huge part of that meant going through her house. The house my grandmother built just before I was born (so, just a few years ago 😜 ), which was large enough to tuck things away and forget about them.

I’ve unearthed three-plus generations’ worth of stuff while going through my aunt’s house. Framed photos, diaries, photo albums, Christmas and birthday and 50^th wedding anniversary cards and letters from people I never heard mentioned. Land deeds dating back to the late 1800s and even as early as 1810. The occasional random “momentos” such as Red Robin coupons from 2015 and canceled checks from the 1980s, in chronological order. But also the sketches of horses my aunt had drawn in high school, her binder of poems she’d written on work stationery, and “while you were out” notepads. My father’s baby clothes. And the Army decorations my grandfather, who passed away when my dad was headed to college, had earned as a Captain during WWII.

I’ve spent the past half year discovering my family and some of its history. And I’m bitter.

I’m going through the keepsakes and memories of people I never really knew. Many I didn’t know because they were long gone by the time I was born and no one talked to me about them. Or maybe I was too immature growing up to listen. But these are all strangers to me, even my aunt to an extent. This is a rich heritage no one ever felt was important enough to ensure the knowledge was passed along to me so I can pass it along to my own children. These are pictures of strangers.

Maybe it stemmed from the pragmatic attitude of being farmers. Maybe it stemmed from my grandmother being widowed and struggling as a single mother in the 1960s. Maybe it’s my own fault for not appreciating history until these past several years, when it was too late to ask anyone.

Whatever the case, I might as well be going through an antique flea market, for the emotional attachment I have with these items. And that’s sad; these treasurers should spark more than a simple “wow, that’s so interesting” from me. These people, their story, the items that were important enough to store for decades (but not important enough to store so that vermin and water wouldn’t ruin them), this heritage… most of it will fade away like a morning mist once I’m gone because I don’t have more than a smattering of family knowledge to pass along.

Fortunately, there are a couple of cousins who have more historical knowledge than me, and they are invested in documenting a lot of it. In fact, I’ve learned more about my own family from a couple days with them than I’d accumulated over a lifetime. Unfortunately, my own children are teens, and not at all interested in learning about family history. Hmmmm, sounds a lot like me when I was their age.

I urge you, if you haven’t already, to document your family history and share the stories and the people. Repeatedly. If we don’t know our roots, how can we truly grow?

Since I didn’t really talk about a book, I’ll give away a $10 Amazon gift card to a randomly-chosen person who comments.