I See What You Meme

Do you miss me?    I miss blogging.   I miss having time to write on this blog.   It's just not in the cards right now.  As I mentioned last week, life has been busy .  The good news is that it's all good stuff.  I'm so excited about the CJSTUF Art Auction tonight .  I've also been busy being satirical at Insert Eyeroll and imparting my knowledge on a variety of topics at Richmond Mom. My recent article about pediatric cancer  received an interesting response from a representative of the Children's Cancer Research Fund.  You should check out her comments and my response.  Add your own two cents while you're there.  I'm distracting myself in my own blog.  Back on topic.  So what else is distracting me from blogging? I'm continuing to work on the book.  I went through another major edit over the weekend.  Back to the publisher for more ideas, tweaks, and suggestions.  We have some important news to share, though, and I'm sharing it firs

Holy Crap, people! Where does the time go?  Ten short days ago, I was celebrating my birthday . I haven't blogged since then.  What's my excuse this time? I ' ve been super busy between my job, CJSTUF , and other assorted tasks.   My godson, Thor Thatcher I also got to make a weekend trip to Roanoke to celebrate my godson Thatcher's first birthday and baptism.  I'm a proud god-mama. Please don't make any surprise visits to my home. I think another hurricane may have hit the house.  I have wanted to write. I have needed to write.  The days have been long and time has been short. I haven't even had time to do much reading lately.   Can anyone relate? For this week's Follow Friday, I'm going to give you a few things to read.  If you're like me, you haven't got a lot of time, so here are some options: If you have a few minutes: Read this post from the Brave Girls Club . I found it through a friend on Facebook.  It spoke to

Woke up this morning to this witty and heartfelt post from my husband. Happy Birthday to Me! The World's Most interesting Man Wishes He Was Her by Roger Reynolds On this day in 1975, a child was born in Daytona Beach, Florida.  Upon entry into the world,she promptly looked around the hospital room and began organizing things alphabetically and by color. During a 3rd grade field trip to the Kennedy Space Center, a NASA scientist heard her ask, "Are you sure you want to do it that way?" And then she showed him how.  After that, Tang became obsolete. When she entered college, extra staff were assigned to manage her file and break it up into smaller components so as not to make the senior faculty feel inadeuqate. That's what I've had to live with for 14 years. Happy Birthday to the love of my life! Aw, shucks.  Thanks, hon'!

Like many of you, I will never forget September 11, 2001.   It was my first year working as a school speech therapist and I was only about a week into the school year. We lived about an hour from the Washington, DC area and many of the families at the school worked for the military or the government. The news came in spurts throughout the day but it was only on my drive home that I started to learn the whole story. As I sat in my car, listening to news coverage on NPR, I tried to absorb the weight of the events of the day and it was incredibly overwhelming. I just leaked . As the day waned, I alternately found myself drawn to and wanting to avoid the news. It was just too much and yet, I needed to take it all in.   Did I mention that it was also my birthday? Although I do not know anyone personally who died during the events of the day, we had quite a few friends who were in the vicinity of the Pentagon and the Twin Towers on that day.  Even though we did not feel a personal lo

I love to read. I have always  loved to read.   I blame  credit my mother.  Either it's genetics or the fact that she read to me (even before I was born) every day until I was able to read by myself. Once I could read, I always had a book with me.   I read a little bit of everything: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Mysteries, Horror, Romance, Thrillers, Humor, the Classics.   Roger loves to read too.  One of the reasons we bought our house is because the living room had a huge wall with built in shelves.  They are filled to overflowing.   Did I mention that I love to read? So for this week's Follow Friday, I'm going to feature my favorite tools for the voracious reader: First, if you like to read, you should check out Goodreads .  This social networking site is Facebook for bookworms.  You can list the books that you're reading, list the books that you want to read, and write reviews of the books that you've read.  Perhaps you've noticed that

It's been quite the 3-day weekend.  I was happy to have time and energy to work on the book   but writing can (and usually does) offer a mixed bag of emotions. It seems that every time I read those chapters, even though I've read some of the words 1000 times and wrote them all myself, memories and feelings come flooding back. I found myself leaking at Starbucks.  Fortunately, nobody else seemed to notice. Another round of editing is done. I think we've picked a title (stay tuned!) and now I need to determine which pictures we're going to use in the book. It's hard to narrow down those choices. There's also been a lot of talk about the first day of school and that makes my heart heavy.  I used to love the first day of school. When I was a kid, I looked forward to fall for so many reasons. Fall meant new clothes. Fall meant a birthday party. Fall meant new beginnings and fresh starts.  Even after I graduated from college, I worked for schools so my mind has al

Ok, I know it's not Friday. I missed my deadline.  It's a long weekend. You have plenty of time to relax and read. Besides, life has been a little busy for me here.  I wrote another piece for Insert Eyeroll .  Plus, CJSTUF has been preparing for our Art Auction on September 30th .  Have you bought your ticket yet? It's shaping up to be an amazing event with art of all types .   Oh, yeah, and I do have a regular full-time job that keeps me kind of busy most days. And did I mention that I'm working on my book ? Editing continues.  I think I'm kind of busy.   But I digress. So it's September. For those of you who may be unaware, that means it is also Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.   Did you know that every school day, 46 children are diagnosed with cancer?  While this is extremely unfortunate, there are some great organizations out there doing wonderful things in an effort to fight pediatric cancer. Cookies For Kids Cancer  is dedicated excl