It's Raining...

I love Spring in Atlanta.

I know, that's a loaded statement. Let me clarify by saying I also detest the pollen we are 'blessed' with during the months of April and May. When the allergy clinic reports the pollen counts are in the 4000's and the air is tinged a vague yellow from the wafting sperm of tens of thousands of varieties of trees, shrubs, and flower, I grab the Zyrtec and another box of Kleenex and carry on. What I love is the fresh coat of green the city wears, a soul thrilling change from the drab browns of winter.

I love the warm breezes and sunshine that make you lift your face to soak in the vitamins and renewing energy missing during the short days of grey clouds and darkness. Pausing to watch in amazement as overnight the brilliant universe of colors from ancient azaleas and spreading dogwood trees burst forth, proudly displaying their Easter finery and challenging us to match their splendor.

In the suburbs the hardware stores bring out racks and tables filled with every possible starter flats, including tomatoes and pepper plants. The smell of composting mulch fills the air as the weekend farmers sally forth with their trucks and SUVs to accomplish in one sun-filled weekend all they missed during the work week.

Hanging baskets of every size swing in the breeze, reminding us of wide front porches with lazy swings and tables holding glasses of sweet tea and lemonade. Children run through the vibrant green grass looking for multicolored plastic eggs or just to feel the cool happy blades between their no longer woolen clad toes. Life is renewed and the earth welcomes plant and animal to the eternal change of season.

Yesterday I sat on the swing and watched the clouds swing by and wondered to myself whether Heaven enjoys the different flavors of our seasons or if it is eternal spring. I came to the conclusion the reason we desire the return of spring each year is to welcome the promise of something better. Summer is freedom and fall is aging, winter is waiting but spring is renewal. It is possible to bear the waiting because something better is coming.

Which is why Easter falls in the spring. The promise of something better coming is why Jesus committed himself to the cross and what millions of Christians like myself hold as the most sacred tenet of our faith. It makes the waiting and enduring of all the twists and turns of our life worth the pains and pleasures of this messy planet hurtling through the infinity of space.

So again I say, I love Spring. In spite of all the turmoil our lives have experienced these past few years, I know better days are coming.

Upcoming Book Signing

The Novel Experience - April 7-9, 2016

I will be attending the Novel Experience Event at the Sheraton Hotel in Atlanta, Ga April 7th - 9th, 2016. There will be a ton of authors, which means a ton of swag and raffles. If you love romance, and want to spend some time getting to know us better, be sure to check it out!

(Yes, I know the header says Las Vegas, but it is in Atlanta. They also go to Vegas.)

It's a beautiful fall day here in Georgia. The sky has that amazing blue that almost hurts your eyes to stare at, and the brisk chill in the air reminds us that fall is winding up in all its amazing colors and smells. 

I have two pieces of news to share: First, Book Two of 'The Guardian Stories' will be released soon on Amazon.com, so be sure to check this space for an exact release date. The Title is "The Price for Redemption" and continues Vivienne's race to defeat her dark enemies.

Second, and I cannot express how excited I am about this, I have signed a contract with The Wild Rose Press, to publish the first of a series set in and around Atlanta, 'The Family Devlyn'. Book One is 'Welcome to the Family'.

Here is a little blurb/teaser for this contemporary tale of family and greed:

Everyone has something about their family that drives them crazy. Some families are neurotic, others are chaotic. Some are so in your business it feels like you still live at home. And others feel like the death of you. In Cassandra Devlyn Ferguson’s case, that death might literally be her own. The Devlyns aren’t your normal all American family. Their company ships freight world-wide. Most of the freight is legitimate but somewhere along the way, as the money spoke louder, the lines between good and bad became blurred, until soon a monster was born, and now the dirty deals are coming back to haunt them. Just one problem – they’re after the one Devlyn who has no idea what people are upset about.

Cassie Ferguson’s been kidnapped, and her husband and brother intend to move heaven and earth to get her back, preferably before she discovers what her father’s job really is. When working with the FBI and the Atlanta Police don’t bring satisfaction, Kevin Devlyn calls in his long-time friend, and Cassie’s husband, Irishman and former Black Ops specialist Sean Ferguson and asks him to return to Atlanta, conduct his own investigation and find Cassie before any harm befalls her. It sounds great in theory; too bad all the men involved, other than Sean and Kevin, loathe the very mention of each other.

I'm so excited to be working with The Wild Rose Press! I will have more updates soon!

The New South

I was born in Pennsylvania in the early 60s. My siblings were all born in West Virginia and my father from New Jersey.

My Mamma was born in Alabama.

I state this to say, I've spent more than two-third's of my life in the South. First Florida and then Georgia; two states with very different atmospheres. Most of my family at that time lived in the South. We ate what my very Southern mother cooked, which was an interesting combination of both regions. I was never forced to eat turnip greens, or any other green, or even grits. I like oatmeal.

In school, and from grandparents, we learned about 'the war of Northern Aggression' or, if you will, 'the war of Southern Defiance'. I soon learned the point of view was important. Either you where with the South, or against them. There was no neutral ground; a point which I never understood. In a war where affiliation split and lost an entire generation, it truly was 'Us against Them',

I heard stories from my material grandmother about her grandmother, a small girl who took the livestock into the woods by the river in Alabama where they are from; their home place. Home Place is important in the South. It describes not only where but how they were raised. Down to the street it made a distinction.

That brought me to mind of the neighborhood in Pennsylvania where we lived when I was born. A Polish neighborhood. And when we lived in Florida, in a Jewish neighborhood. Or the Italian section of New York. The Irish when they moved into the tenements of New York and the fighting which occurred in those events.

Yes, there are Black neighborhoods and White neighborhoods in Atlanta, where I have lived long enough to remember the 'Blacks Only' signs in the department stores, and the separation that we are always accused of by those who lived anywhere but here. I was in elementary school when the government built a housing project down the street from our school and the dynamics of the county began to change.

But I also know the tremendous strides that have been made here and in other places around the South. Place like Charleston, which handled their tragedy with grace and decorum. Please let their example be held up as a picture of what can happen when everyone works together. And let the media find some new target for their 15 minutes of fame.

There will always be Korean neighborhoods and Mexican neighborhoods, just as there has been since the Hebrews settled in Egypt (in their own neighborhood). When we move, especially from one land to another, the comfort of hearing one's own language and customs helps ease the pain of leaving an entire life behind to start a new one. Neighborhood merge closest to cities where people mesh through work and common life experience. True diversity is achieved only through a lot of work by all peoples, regardless of skin tone.

So as you settle down in your Indian neighborhood or Cambodian neighborhood, remember when we point a finger at someone else, there are three which point backwards toward ourselves. Instead of pointing fingers, why don't you take a look around and see what needs to fixed in your own sphere of influence? True charity and mission work begins in our backyard.

The Independence Day holiday is closing in fast, and I should have some news on Book Two of the Guardian Saga. The title is "The Price for Redemption." That's all today, from my middle class, mixed ethnicity neighborhood where no one flies the Rebel Battle Flag, or any other offensive flag regardless of the season. (Although some of the Halloween decorations make me question their sanity!)

How the Time Flies!

Merry Christmas, a day late!

I thought about posting this yesterday, but Christmas is a time to spend together with family and friends. This year was my son's first with his girlfriend and her 2 year old son, so he got to experience for the first time, all the craziness that goes with making accommodations for two sets of parents and grandparents. It brought a smile to my face, watching my first born take those steps in manhood, a rite of passage I didn't even know existed until it happened.

With 50+ Christmas' under my belt, I sat and thought long and hard about the most memorable holiday experiences of my life. Most are happy, family and friends; the worst stands out every year: the year my father was in intensive care with an unknown infection and a fever bordering on 104 degrees.

My father went into the hospital the first week of December 1982, with a high fever and general aches and pains of unknown origin. Three days into the stay, he suffered the first seizure, while I was on the phone with my mother. Racing to join her from three different directions, my siblings and I made our way there. The news - Daddy had a stroke. Then came the phone call I dreaded, come to the hospital now, your father is dying.

Upon arrival I was informed my strong, invincible father had a hole in his heart. Conferring with my brother the doctor in South Carolina the decision was made to move Daddy to Emory Hospital, where my brother had a friend in the cardiac department. Since he was too sick to move by ambulance, a Life Flight helicopter was arranged.

The worst feeling I ever had was watching the 'copter leave not knowing that when it landed he would be alive. All three of us had our own cars, so we each drove across town, reconnecting in the parking lot. As we walked into Emory, there was the Life Flight crew walking back out to leave for another mission. Seeing us, they stopped to tell us Daddy made it through the flight and was in the Coronary Care Unit.

Speaking with my brother by pay phone, I sat by the window of his room, watching the action through a crack at the bottom of the blinds and relaying everything to John as he drove through the night to join us at Emory.

Everything eventually calmed down and Daddy stayed at Emory for 9 months before returning home a most different man than the one who left. But I will never forget that first Christmas without him at home, when my sister and I decorated a palm tree in Mother's living room with bows and ribbons and called it a tree.

Daddy died 9 year's later, 22 years old come next March, but I will always associate his illness with Christmas. It makes each one precious, knowing that at any moment it could be the last you have.

Happy Holidays, and as today is the first day - Happy Kwanzaa for those who celebrate. Please stop back by starting on New Year's Day and continuing for a week for a chance to win a $25 gift card to either Amazon.com or B&N.com; or a signed copy of my e-book, "Catalyst - Guardian Rising".

"A Hard Candy Christmas"

I'm not by nature a country music fan. Most any style of music is fine as long as it has a melody and harmony. But I must admit I have always admired Dolly Parton. Even before I knew what she sang I appreciated a small woman with a big heart, and the tribute she always gives to the place she came from - the mountains of Tennessee. Today I appreciate it even more, as this morning a piece of my childhood, my elementary school, burned to the ground.

It was a grand old building that had fallen on hard times. Built long before I arrived in the late 1960's, it had been used as a training facility by the police for a while.  Closed and vacant for more than five years, it became a dumping ground for appliances and furniture and anything else no dump would allow. Several years ago some alumni went into the building to document the decay and damage inflicted by both time and men. Everyone agreed it would be the last time. It was too painful.

This was the front entrance. In my mind I can still see the line of yellow buses standing in the steaming afternoon sun, windows down, all waiting in anticipation of the children, loud and gleeful, pouring out the door and down the stairs. I still see the cars waiting for their riders, and the safety patrol with their orange straps directing the chaos. I watch the walkers heading in groups of three and four, vanishing into the pine wood between the school and the subdivisions where most of us lived.

Here is the front office, where the secretary checked us in and out of school, allowed us to call home when we forgot something, or let us do the daily announcements. I still see the desks and counters, see the curtains fluttering as the principal comes from her office or the infirmary calling parents for checkouts. Still remember when the most difficult decisions were which team would pick you for dodge ball.

 

 

Closing my eyes I can see my first grade teacher standing at that blackboard, trying with all her patience to make seventeen 5 and 6 year old children be quiet when the sun was shining and the playground was calling our names.  Where the punishment for excessive talking was to write reams and reams of pages about "I must learn not to talk in school" which I must admit to her credit I did finally learn. I can feel the excitement and joy of reading groups, of knowing that in books I found a place where I could fit in, no matter how alone I felt.

 

All good things come to an end, no matter how hard we try to help time stand still. But we close our eyes, and the pictures come back, the laughter on the playgrounds and the hum of fans buzzing in un-air conditioned rooms, where the feel of chalk dust on our fingers mixed with the smell of old hardwood floors polished to a gleam in a building that was already old when we were young, and we know the truth about memories. The heart remembers, especially when you still have those friends whose bonds of friendship were forged in a time and place that even today we remember with smiles and laughs. And as we smile, the embers of our building grow cold, and our heart beats hot for the grandeur that was once our elementary school.

 

 

 

Good bye Eastern Elementary. Once an Eagle, always an Eagle. We will always remember those we met here.

 



Only 11 Days Until the End of the World?

Well, despite my constant complaining, December keeps rolling along. This month is almost half over, there are fourteen shopping days until Christmas and this year I might still be out there come December 24th. First it has been too hot for shopping. I mean really, how can anyone listen to "Sleigh Ride" or "Winter Wonderland" when it it pushing 80 degrees outside and you have the air conditioning running because the hot flashes are getting help.

Now, it is raining and a long overdue cold front is pushing through the state. Rainy days are good for two things: napping and reading. Nothing else seems to get accomplished when the clouds hang low and grey in the sky. The days are still getting shorter and the people in this town cannot seem to handle driving and rain at the same time. So, rather than scare myself out of five years of life, I elect to stay close to home when it rains.

But the tree is up, and the decorations are out. The dining room table is almost free of the year's worth stuff with no other home and my shopping lists are complete. Starting tomorrow the run to the finish line begins. I know which stores I want to hit, so I can maximum my trips to the mall (I like to park near to exits, for quick escape). I've picked up all my layaway, and there is room in the freezer for Christmas Dinner.

Just a quick note to say I hope everyone is enjoying a happy Holiday season, regardless of what religion you follow. I will have some great news (hopefully) coming up right after the turn of the year, and I will be blog-hopping for New Year's, and raffling some awesome prizes. So take a deep breath and remember - this only comes once a year Thank God!

Happy Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is that most American of holidays - Thanksgiving. In the spirit of the occasion I have decided to list the things I am most thankful for.

1 - I am thankful for my family. God brought me the perfect man, and we have been together for 25 years. My children aren't perfect, but they are to me and I am amazed everyday I created these two exceptional humans.

2 - I am thankful for the country we live in. America isn't perfect, but I'm glad to be here where I have the freedom to disagree with others and grouse about taxes and other issues without having to worry about who is going to show up at my door.

3 - I am thankful God blessed me an incredible imagination and the gift of gab. It makes being a writer much easier.

4 - I am thankful for my friends and colleagues in all three professional areas of my life: as a business owner, as a writer, and as a volunteer with rescued horses.

5 - I am thankful for all the varied blessing in my life. They are too many to name, but I try to acknowledge them each. I look carefully each day because sometimes a blessing can be disguised as a problem. It's all in how you perceive things!

6 - I am thankful for my animals, all of them. Whether small or large, my animals are my children just like darling daughter and sensational son. Our family would be lost without them.

7 - Most important, I am thankful for each and every one out there. What a wonderful world this is!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Enjoy your turkey and dressing, don't eat too much pumpkin pie, and I'll see everyone next week as we begin the countdown to the end of the world (or at least 2012!)

Happy Halloween!!

Just a quick note with my thoughts on the current issues around the country:

1) - Hurricane Sandy - Truly a monster of a storm when you can be affected by the storm more than 1000 miles from the center of the storm. I am glad all my family and friends are safe, and my thoughts and prayers go out to those not as lucky. Having gone through more than a dozen hurricanes in my life, I am glad that another area of the country go socked for a change. (Not really - I hope everyone knows that is only a joke!)

2) - Election 2012 - I promised my family I wouldn't get on a soap box about the elections, so much as I would love to sound off I will only say this. Don't forget to vote. It is a right many people have died protecting. Do not use that right without being informed as to each candidate's positions.

3) - Halloween - I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween. The Charlie Brown special has been played, the pumpkin's have been extinguished and I took my grandson in  love out for his first trick or treat. He was dressed as a Transformer. It was magical.

Don't forget to join in on the Autumn's Harvest Blog Hop, sponsored by Carrie Ann's Blog Hops! Be sure to leave a comment to be entered into a drawing to win a $10 Amazon gift card from me, and entered to win the Grand Swag Prize through Carrie Ann. Dates for the hop are November 9th through November 12th.

Wait..What..Not Again!

As June progressed, I finally got all the turnip greens out of my garden, and it seemed things were well on their way to a fabulous summer. I peeled and chopped and canned zucchini and summer squash while dreams of mountains of beans, rivers of sweet peas and bushels of tomatoes danced him my head. Once again, Mother Nature had other plans.

That's right - we have another drought on our hands. Just as my corn was tasseling and the bean pods were plumping, the rains went away. For more than three weeks, not a drop fell from the heavens. When the grass starts crunching under your feet, then you know it's dry out there.

So, I harvested my cucumbers (apparently they like it hot!), and squash and monitored the damages. Both my helpful hubby and my father-in-law pronounced my garden dead on more than one occasion, only to see me harvest baskets of potential pickles. My corn popped inside the husks but the beans popped out in full force, leading to a basket so full I had to have my son carry it to the house.

At last I relented and pronounced the harvest done. Some seeds were extra prolific (Squash of all kinds, cucumbers, pole beans) while others never ever popped through (carrots, peppers, peas). But for what did come up I reaped gold.

My final tally for the first Reece garden is: 20 quarts of beans, 15 pints of pickles and pickle relish, 5 quarts of summer squash and onions, 10 pints of lemon honey jelly, 8 pints of zucchini pickles, and 3 quarts of pickled butternut squash. All in all not a bad haul.

The tomatoes came in slow and never in any great quantities, so I just shared them with friends and co-workers. We got 5 full grown pumpkins, which were ready by the end of July. I am saving mine for Halloween. The biggest failure was no watermelons. I love watermelon in the summer. This year I had to resort to grocery store melon. Boo.

I gathered seeds from all the produce that I could and I intend to try again next year. No winter garden, I'm not ready to fight another battle against turnip greens. No, we are going to plow, rake, plow, rake, and hope for cleaner dirt next spring. I had a lot of fun, recalled a lot of good times with my father, and I wouldn't trade a callous or twinge in my carpal tunnel for anything else. Good times from the simplest thing - a new memory to join the many from childhood.

Thanks for listening to my summer saga. It might not sound like all that much fun, but trust me. It was a blast.

Spring Showers Bring...Road Trips

Once the great Turnip Green disaster of 2012 was averted, I thought for sure my garden was on its way. Seedlings were popping up, squash and cucumber vines began sending out their first runners, and my pumpkins appeared to have been set into pure fertilizer. Visions of fresh vegetables danced through my head at night, and on Sunday mornings I couldn't wait to be on the road to measure the week's progress. Then - another crisis.

From Mother's Day until Father's Day, I was out of town. Not for business, not for fun, but for family issues. First, my 92 year old mother lives with my brother and his family. My sister-in-law was getting a well deserved break and would be gone for two weeks. Since my brother has odd hours (he's a doctor), my sister and I decided to split the assignment between the two of us. So for ten day I 'baby sat' my mother. It was wonderful.

I had always been a Daddy's girl,. My mother and I get along, but I'm a strange child (it says so in my baby book). Only when my dad died early did Mother and I finally come to a mutual place from which to base our adult relationship. When she could no longer drive herself around, my brother moved her into his house in South Carolina. It was the best thing (did I mention she is 92?) and we all agreed it was time, but afterward I discovered it hurt.

Spending ten days sitting with my mom, talking, working crossword puzzles, watching every game show on television, fixing her meals - it was glorious. For really the first time in my adult life we related and bonded and discussed past history which cannot be undone. When Memorial Day weekend rolled around and it was time to go home, I was so sad I didn't even listen to the radio the entire three hour drive. I wanted to just savor the moment.

Well, the next day I returned to my little slice of vegetable heaven, only to discover nothing had been done in 10 days. Okay, in gardening terms, ten days is an entire season. The weeds were taking over. I lost my carrots, my lettuce, my peppers, everything that wasn't a squash, pumpkin, cucumber or beans had simply been overwhelmed. For five hours I pulled and grunted and cursed (again) my city-slicker hubby, but as the sun began to sink over the horizon there was a semblance of order in my plot.

Then, less than a week later, my aunt died. Back out of town I go, knowing that when I returned there would be more weeds to wrangle, plus they were cutting hay that week. I prayed no one would run over the pumpkins, which by this time had already started to bloom. Returning six days later, I raced up the expressway only to discover - more zucchini and summer squash than Carter has Little Pills (obscure 60's reference - look it up!).

When I say zucchini, I mean green blimps! These monsters were at least 7 pounds a piece and as long as my arm. Nothing close to the grocery store zucchini. My first thought was: did I plant the wrong seeds? But then I looked at summer squash and they were enormous yellow pillows! You think I am kidding? One summer squash made a casserole that fed three people for four days! My hubby asked if I bought the seeds from some mutant source. They were huge and they didn't stop coming for weeks. Even my usually eager town friends were saying no thanks, we've had enough.

Harvesting everything that was ready took two extra large storage tubs from Wal Mart. After some more weeding (those turnip greens were stubborn little twits), I left knowing that upcoming weekend I would again be out of town - this time for a family wedding in Ohio!

Well, the gardening fun didn't stop there. Next time, we will discuss who knows more: my city boy husband, or me?

Welcome To My Mid-Life Crisis

This fall I will turn fifty, a point of dread for me since my mother turned fifty. Of course I was only 8 at the time and thought my mother would shrivel up and die. I mean, really - half a century seemed ANCIENT! Of course, as the magic age has steadily approached my opinion has changed. I know I won't shrivel up once my birthday arrives. Or at least I hope not.

But in preparation for this momentous occasion I decided to learn new skills, or resurrect skills not used since my childhood. First up on the list: plant a garden for the purpose of canning and freezing food for the winter.

My father's family were farmers and every year, no matter where we lived, there was always a garden. Fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, not to mention trips to the big farmer's market would provide plenty of fresh vegetables for the months when good produce was hard to find. While it isn't such a necessity to have a personal garden any more, nothing can beat the taste of good, fresh produce.

Helpful hubby promised to be of assistance and my father-in-law plowed the garden up at his farm, about an hour north of where we live. After carefully searching the Internet for heirloom seeds (plants which can produce seeds for replanting) I made my selections and off we went to create our first garden together in 25 years of marriage.

Little did I know that I have married the only man in North Georgia to never have spent any time in a garden!

Join me for my series: So... You Want to Plant a Garden! as I provide a play-by-play commentary on my summer project. It will make you laugh. I promise!

Rain, Sunshine, Warm and Cold - Welcome to Georgia

Having lived in Georgia a majority of my life, I am never surprised by the weather. There is no true 'normal' when it comes to our weather, especially at this time of year. One day it is raining and 65 degrees and the breeze is from the South. Then the wind will blow harder from the North followed closed by sunshine and freezing temps. Take this pattern and repeat for three months and you have Georgia in the winter.

The only good part of winter here? It brings about a glorious spring. When the dogwoods pop out and the azaleas bloom and the breeze from the South bring a hint of warmer days to come there is not a place in the world I would rather be then here. Living for a while in South Florida, I grew inured to the blooming of flowers and the leaves on the trees. Then we were transferred to Atlanta.

We arrived here in the heart of summer, July I believe it was, so the heat and humidity were familiar. Then came fall and the glorious colors I had never experienced before. The crispness in the air and the smell of campfires competed with deep blue sky and a touch of chill in the air from the north. The winds began to blow again, removing the last of the now brown leaves from their perches and reminding us that winter would soon be here again.

Don't get me wrong. I love the beach. I love the touch of a tropical sun on my skin. But I love the change of seasons too, especially the way my city changes along with the seasons. I lived here and there and I've visited around and about but when push comes to shove, North Georgia is my home. Always.