Makes you want to scratch your head

We went out to dinner Friday night. The things you hear! Across from our table sat a nicely dressed grandmother and her granddaughter who looked to be about 20 years old. The grandmother asked who the girl was dating.

Girl: "Joe."

Grandmother: "Oh, this is a  new guy? How old?"

Girl: "He's 29."

Grandmother: "Oh that's quite an age difference. He's older than the last guy. How old was he?"

Girl: "He was 27."

Grandmother: "Oh, I see. Well are you going to bring him to Thanksgiving?"

Girl: "Yeah, sure. I'm going to wear my short dress."

Grandmother: Shook her head. "No, you shouldn't wear that one. What is he wearing?"

Girl: "He wants to wear his wife beater undershirt so he can show off his tattoos."

MY HUSBAND: "Wonder where she parks her trailer?"

Now for the writers out there, that's a "character" in development. Look and listen to those around you when you need a writing prompt. Have fun.
  

Chihaua WHAT!

Many decades ago during my first marriage, I talked someone into eating out. He said he'd be more comfortable eating if they had curtains in the booths. When the waitress came to take our order, he ordered an entree. She asked "super salad?" He replied, "Yes." She asked again. He replied yes. She asked two more times, then finally, very slowly, she said, "Soup OR salad?"

Now I can laugh about it, but then he didn't think it was at all funny.

Recently, someone I love and I went to a Mexican restaurant with friends, Phil and Pat. Upon leaving my honey asked, "What was that white cream on top?"
I told him it was melted Mexican Chihauhau cheese.

On our way home, he commented that we could make chicken Chimichnagas at home. I nodded.

He asked, "Where would we buy BULLDOG cheese?"

I am still laughing, but he who teases me, does not think it as funny as I do.

 

Say it. Sing it. Tell it like it is, girl!

So many kids have been told they can be anything they want to be. We encourage and empower children from the day they are born with our words, facial expressions, a tender touch.

A few years ago I sent a self-confident class of preschoolers to a new kindergarten teacher who had been a former middle grade classroom teacher years before. For the past ten years, she had been a resource teacher where she dealt with 1-3 children at a time. When I saw her in the hall, I asked how my former students were doing. She said with disgust, "They're all so bold and smart and confident, the entire class."

I believe that people in power should not overpower. Compliance and obedience are not synonymous. Gaining cooperation is different from demanding control. Kids are people too, and they have rights!

Before I go off on a tangent, let me tell you one more story about Nicole who is reading and writing.

She spent the night. I quizzed her on personal information: name, address, phone, city, state, parents/sibling names etc. With 100% accuracy, she answered all of my questions. Then she added, "And my nickname is Molly Rose. When I grow up I'm going to be a rock star, and that will be my name, Molly Rose."
 
And then, for the next hour she sang... Every. Single. Question. Comment, Request and Thought that popped into her head. Sometimes she sang like an opera star, sometimes she ch-ch-ched the ends of her songs.

Finally, I replied back in song, which startled and stopped her. "Hey, how did YOU learn that?" She asked and beamed proudly, probably thinking I was a former rock star.

With her every different voice inflection and delivery I had to smile, knowing that no matter which stage she takes to in her life, she WILL be a super star. "Molly Rose" is going to rock this world.

As I tucked her in at bedtime, I asked if she said her prayers. I began to recite, "Now I lay me down to sleep..."

She looked at me and said, "Nana, when I get under my covers, I just talk  to God, every night."

Amen!

She's my Yankee Doodle girl!

It's a big deal when you get to go on stage and stand on the risers for a musical performance with your fellow kindergarteners.

Six-year-old Nicole was very excited to tell me she would be doing a patriotic salute on Monday at school.

"And I get to REALLY salute!" She showed me HOW to salute. She stood, chin in air and sang all of the words to I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy.

When we were snuggling on the couch, I told her she will always be my little girl. She said, "Nana, YOU love me so much, don't you? I just KNOW you love me more than anyone."

Everyone should have someone in their life who loves them SO much...just because they were born, despite all of their "problems", real or imagined. How many people of all ages go through life trying to feel loved? I want my grandchildren to feel loved despite their inadequacies, and not because of some fantastic attribute, report card grades or claim to fame. Despite teen rebellion, no matter how married or how old they get, even when they have children of their own.

I am leaving my legacy. After I am gone I want my grandchildren to say, "Nana loved me best."
"Huh -uh, she loved ME best."

Nicholas is 11, and as soon as he comes in and sits by me, he still raises his shirt and asks me to rub his back. He says, "You tickle backs better than anyone, ever."

"Well, I'm an expert. I tickled your dad's back when he was a little boy," I say.

So, as Nicole and I were snuggling on the couch, I whispered in her ear that Ashley is going to have a baby.

"Is it out yet?" she asked.

"No, it's growing inside her. But it will come out around the fourth of July."

She sat up, wide-eyed and exclaimed, "Not out; you mean BORN. On Yankee Doodle Day?!"

"Yep!"

"Yay!"

She smiled broadly and curled beside me. I'm sure she thinks that her singing that song had something to do with it.

After thinking about it, we decided to call Ashley so Nicole could sing Yankee Doodle Dandy for her and the baby. We left that message on her answering machine.

Nicole's my Yankee Doodle girl!
 

Three pies, a dozen brownies, five women...you do the math

ON SALE TODAY!

What would we do without our women friends? My writing critique group, the WWWPs is the absolute best, and I feel blessed.

This is my opening for my story:

Wild Women Wielding Pens, page 303

We haven't been BFFs since kindergarten, and the only thing we had in common when we met was a desire to write and publish our work. Our girlhoods are thirty to fifty years in our pasts, but the five of us will always be girls at heart.

We have collectively mopped our foreheads and mouths as we have sweated out an essay, dealt with an ex-husband, had a hot flash, shared personal details, or devoured delectable cuisine.

Lest you think my story is only about writing, you will have to read on to find out the gossip I dished on each of my friends. We got caught on a "nanny cam" while on "retreat."

This book is available now. Please leave a review on Amazon if you liked it.

Last night was our critique meeting. We celebrated one of our birthdays with the best and funniest gifts and most delicious desserts. Sioux attempted to make the birthday girl's favorite, a coconut cream pie. According to her, by morning the pie filling still hadn't set up. Instead of forks we'd have been sucking it through straws, she said. She figured in six days it may set, so she left it in her fridge. She stopped for a Marie Callendar coconut cream pie on her way home from work. Funny though, her dear, thoughtful husband stopped by the bakery when he discovered her pie hadn't gelled, and he bought another coconut cream pie. That was three coconut pies!

Sioux had to panic stop while driving, and the bakery pie slid like a kid on Art Hill on a snowy day. It lodged under her seat. She imagined whipped cream and coconut smeared all over the lid.

She apologized. "I don't know what condition this coconut cream pie is going to be in after that panic stop." She opened the lid, looked inside, frowned and shouted, "What the... APPLE pie?!"

We laughed every time we thought about it. Sioux outdid herself; she brought brownies, too. See what I mean about women and friendship? Nothing...nobody stopped us from sampling all the desserts. Yes, all!
  

Baby steps

I'll bet most writers are aware that November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where authors produce a 50,000 word novel (not polished) in thirty days and submit it to NaNoWriMo.com.  That's a minimum of 1,667 words per day. That is not for me. But I admire those who can do it.

Many folks do not know that November is also National Life Writing Month. That is right up my alley! I can write a 1-2,000 word personal essay in one sitting. But if I had to do that everyday, I'd burn out.

Life writing takes many forms. Think of journal entries, pictorial displays at funerals, or Grandma's hand stitched quilt with squares from family clothes. If you find it difficult to get started, dig out old letters or greeting cards and read the handwritten messages from your loved ones. These are treasures. Look in the back of  your closet at an item of clothing. Trigger a memory by handling treasures in a trinket box, or dig through the junk drawer and dicover a key to...where?

Begin writing and don't stop to edit, just pour your heart onto the page until your words overflow. Sometimes they get messy and leave a flood of debris. Our lives are rife with debris and it is YOUR debris, your story. No one else owns YOUR memories. Begin your memoir by writing a memory. Before you know it, you may have a collection of rememberances that will lead to a story worthy of publication.

These leather baby shoes are over 100 years old. They are very fragile. Don't you love those tassles? There is a life story attached to those shoes, but I do not know the story. I bought them for a dollar at a yard sale, but the seller did not know the story. I keep them close by to remind me that someone a century ago, took baby steps, put one foot in front of the other and headed toward a goal. He or she fell frequently and then got back up and tried again. That's all any of us can do whether we are writing or just struggling to  get through one more day. You will  hear, "No". You will get bruised egos, and some days you will take  two steps forward and three back.

Begin with baby steps...a begining to an unknown destination where you'll make discoveries along the way. You have buried treasures in your past. Unearth them. If you are burdened by something, don't give up. Put one foot in front of the other and take baby steps.

Not 50,000 words, perhaps 150 to begin. Do it...your way, but DO IT.

Nana does cakes, too

 

 

 Nana's girl is 6. She was thrilled when Grandpa walked in carrying her cake with the littlest Pet Shop fairy and her dog on top of her cake.

 

 

 

When I walked in with her very own Barbie cake, she squealed with delight.

I loved decorating these cakes, have never taken a class, but wouldn't want to do it for a living.

 

This is my oldest granddaughter who is expecting my first great grandbaby in July. Are we thrilled? Do you think? Twins run on both sides of their families. In fifteen days, they will know if there is one heart beat or two. They are hoping for two so they can get it over and done with all at one time.