Local schools announced a holiday—likely because they knew few students would show up and teachers would want to watch the total eclipse of the sun, too! So the three kids were with us.
All my siblings—two brothers and my sister—my daughter and her kids gathered at my brother’s place across the highway for a viewing party. We arrived at 11:30, set up the chairs facing the sun, handed out approved eclipse glasses, and roasted. The temperature was a very balmy 84 degrees, hardly a cloud in the sky. By the time the show was all over we did have sunburns. 🙂
Of course there was plenty of time for silly photographs. My daughter played “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and we all sang so loud we could hear neighbors laughing. The 10-year-old was our self-appointed timekeeper who let us know the countdown to the “totality.” There were plenty of goosebumps and oohs and ahhs when the totality occurred and the world grew dark.
Afterward, we weren’t as interested in watching the sun “grow bigger.” My brothers set up the grill to fry a ton of fresh-caught bass with hush puppies and tons of yummy sides. So, so, good. I am so grateful we could all be together for these few days, and to enjoy the eclipse. We’ll all carry memories of a very unique event.
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me when your family gathered for some fun event! And did you get to watch the eclipse?
This morning, in the rush to get kids ready for school, the 15-year-old came to me in a panic because today is picture day and she needed a shirt ironed. It hit me (yeah, sometimes, I’m kind of slow) that I’m the only person in the house who knows how to iron clothes.
It gets worse. My daughter doesn’t buy clothing that has to be ironed. If she sees something she likes, a shirt, for example, she won’t buy it if she thinks she can’t wash and dry and then immediately hang it to avoid ironing it.
I remember being ten and being given a huge garbage bag filled with clothing, sheets (even T-shirts) that had been sprayed with water and rolled into tight balls, which I would take out one at a time and iron. I hated ironing, but the skill came in handy when I was in the Army, because at the time, you had to iron your fatigues or pay to have them laundered for you.
Today, there’s not a person in our 6-person household, other than me, who knows that to create steam you have to add water to the hole on the top of the iron. I feel like a failure as a mother and grandmother. It’s a survival skill just like learning to cook, which thankfully, the kids have learned to do.
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me whether you have an ironing board and iron that you use. Or is there another “lost art” that today’s generation has forgotten?
Before I get started with the end of month rundown,
Happy Easter to all who celebrate!
March
Work-related:
I completed work on What Happens in Bozeman (Book #3 of We Are Dead Horse, MT) and published it!
I began work on Tyson’s Mission, my next Brotherhood Protectors book!
I continued to read short stories for inclusion in my upcoming Secret Identities: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology.
I completed 3 editing projects for other authors in March.
Health-related:
I haven’t done well taking care of myself this month. I ate too many salty, fatty foods and didn’t monitor my blood pressure!
My sleep suffered this month, likely because of diet and lack of exercise.
The only good thing I did was drinking one cup of Turmeric tea a day.
Happiness-related:Â
I continued working on the #the100dayproject art challenge.
Here are some examples of art projects I completed in March.
April
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For work-related, I plan:
To complete writing Tyson’s Mission, my next Brotherhood Protectors, book, which releases on April 23rd!
To complete 4 editing projects in March!
To finish reading and selecting stories from among the submissions for the upcoming collection—Secret Identities: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology!
For health related, I plan:
To start back on my Weight Watchers diet, because it’s time to get serious! I HAVE to get back in the saddle!
To reduce salt and processed food, and incorporate foods good for blood pressure (spinach, broccoli, bananas) and my liver (apple cider vinegar, flax seeds, sunflower seeds).
To begin daily workouts using my recumbent bike and some chair yoga exercises.
To take my BP every day and log it!
For happiness-related, I plan:Â
To continue #the100daychallenge where I’ll be painting something every single day!
To spend time with extended family during the ECLIPSE!
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 April…
Like I said, comment on anything for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
I’m one of those people who doesn’t understand depression. I’m sure I’ve felt it. Perhaps after the one time I was fired from a job. Maybe when I was diagnosed for Graves disease and had my thyroid fried with a radioactive pill, then spent a month in bed so I wouldn’t have a heart attack. Talk about fatigue. Lordy.
However, both times, I gave myself a day to feel some self-pity then I sat in front of my PC or pulled my Alphasmart out of my bag, lay it across my lap in bed, and typed for just a minute at a time. When I was in bed for that month, I literally could only write in very short spurts then I’d crash. But I wasn’t depressed. I pushed forward.
Maybe it’s a physiological thing? Maybe it’s brain chemistry? I don’t know, but I am a naturally happy person. If I feel a little “flat”—I sit outside and watch the deer at the pond. Or, I pull out pictures of things that make me happy.
Or, I pull out the paint like I did last night…
For a chance to win your choice of a download from among my backlist of books, tell me what makes you happy.
In honor of National Barbie Day, I’m sharing my Barbie experience, and I’d love to hear about yours!
My parents didn’t have much, but we kids never knew it. I had a couple of Barbies, and my mom made me a Barbie case full of Barbie clothes to play with. Not that Barbie was huge for me for very long. I preferred the library and learning about plate tectonics, dinosaurs, quasars, and ancient civilizations. Yes, I was a science book nerd. I even kept my own personal set of encyclopedias—notebooks with handwritten book reports about the topics I loved. I mean, what kid doesn’t write an article about volcanoes and tar pits and the like? But there were still Barbies. My mom even used to make Barbie Birthday Cakes with a Barbie stuck in the middle with a skirt of frosting!
Now, I’m lucky I still have a child in the house. A girl-child, at that. She’s ten now, and caught between loving biographical and historical books (she loves WWII stories) and her love of Squishmallows and Barbies. In fact, the one gift she wanted from Santa this past year was a Barbie Dream House. Thankfully, he brought her one. 🙂
She has a huge collection of dolls–some gifted new, and some “treasures” she’s found at flea markets, a trunk full of Barbie clothes, and a rolling plastic cart that holds accessories. She’s not spoiled at all.
So, you know, this past summer, the Barbie movie was high on our list of movies to see in the theater. We did the whole “Barbenheimer thing” (I even have the T-shirt!)—the adults seeing Oppenheimer on a Thursday afternoon, and then all the girls, my daughter, the 19-year-old, the 15-year-old, the 10-year-old, and I saw Barbie on Saturday. We loved it! And to a person, our favorite scene in the movie was the “I’m Just Ken” musical number. If you haven’t seen it, take a look here. Ryan Gosling was truly born for the role.
I hope you all have a wonderful Saturday! Do something that gives you joy!
For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me about your “Barbie” experience.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve fallen out of the habit of writing letters—and I think it’s a damn shame. Worse, I think it’s very sad that penmanship and letter-writing are no longer taught in school. Did you have a teacher who helped you find a pen pal somewhere in the world for you to exchange letters with?
It’s such a civilized thing to do, I think. A tangible way of connecting. I think the last time I exchanged letters with someone on a regular basis was with my grandmother. She enjoyed getting letters and saved them. I have letters of hers that I saved. They were never of anything very important, just notes to catch her up on what was happening in my life. There was real joy seeing a letter from her waiting in my mailbox. She shared little tidbits of her daily life, and I could hear her voice when I read them. Again, that tangible proof of love.
My question to you today, for a chance to win a FREE download of one of my books, is… Do you write letters? Not emails. Physical letters? Do you receive them? And do you miss them, too?
