Carrots and Retirement

     Rusty Shipe, Anne Vartanian, Rusty’s four-year-old cousin Jimmy, and I had a project that summer.

Unfamiliar details

     My birthday came seven months late this year, or at least one of my gifts did. In September I opened a birthday card from my husband to discover a gift certificate for car detailing, an unexpected luxury I’d never experienced.

Homeless No More

Amazon Kindle books

          When I first retired from teaching, I decided to write a book, just to see if I could. And whadaya know, I could. I was such an innocent back then, I thought that would be it; I would have gotten it out of my system. 

          But there I was, with all these words I’d fitted carefully together. I wanted to do something with them besides leaving them to molder in a back file of my computer. Many edits, and many, many rejections later and I still had all these words following me around like the little homeless creatures they were. I needed to put this book I’d written somewhere. 

          What to do. The promises of that agent from the writer’s conference had grown fainter and fainter, and now were nothing more than a distant silhouette on the darkening horizon. And I wasn’t willing to print it myself and stand with my sad little piles of books at local flea markets and car washes. 

          Eureka! Amazon Electronic Books!.

          So if you happen to be looking for a beach read, or a sit-in-your-backyard-with-your-feet-in-the-kids’-plastic-pool read, you can find me in the Amazon Kindle Books section. And no, I don’t own a Kindle either, but no worries – they have a free (and very easy) download-able app that will then make it possible to read any Kindle book on whatever tablet you happen to have. 

          And what’s this book about, you ask?

          The description begins with, “Like too many other days, Lila Wallace’s begins with a kitchen duel with her cat Winston, who is convinced what she needs is a live squirrel. What she really wants is some clarity in her life, professionally and romantically.”

            You will find more at the delightful and very informative blog, The Book Connection.

          Well! Thank goodness that’s done. Now I can get back to editing book number two.

         

Ta Da!

     Yesterday’s weather was flawless – sunny, 72 degrees – so what better way to spend it than shoveling off the porch.

Spring Break!

     This past weekend saw me on Cape Cod for a two-day get-away at a friend’s summer home with three other members of our writing class. We initially named it the Wild Writers’ Weekend, but one of our more realistic members dubbed it the Madcap Medicare Weekend. 

Take Me Out

Yesterday we ventured into enemy territory. Fortunately, we had reinforcements, some in civilian garb, the better to infiltrate our opponents’ ranks, others in full uniform.

Foreign Hostility

                                        
             

                                

          My timing was off.

One Life

In the afternoons I’d come home from Washington-Lee High School and find her sitting on a hard-backed chair in the living room.

Reality Check

It seems every ladies magazine I pick up has a spread on tablescapes.

First Signs

          Spring is certainly taking its time around here. My husband reminded me yesterday that our neighbor Meghan will probably be having her annual Easter egg hunt this weekend.

Numbers Game

Today we received one of those phone calls you really don’t want to get.