A little something for my fellow writers

A wonderful website for all my writer friends:
http://www.writeaholics.net/writingmarkets.html
You can spend a long time here. Have fun.

Thank you for the cat names. I think we have decided to go with Friskee because he is the laziest old boy you've ever seen. Like calling a huge guy,Tiny.

Mevely we also liked Sweeney, so you get the book. Send me contact info at billin7@yahoo.com and I'll give you your title selection.

Kathy, kudos to you for taking your dad's cat.

Name the cat; win a book

We have adopted my son's eight year old cat because he did not make the adjustment when he went back home after being with us for five months. We went to visit him a week later and he was crouched under the bed, terrified of the dog and rambunctious kids he grew up with. He'd been under the bed all week. I couldn't stand seeing him so traumatized, and when Bill looked under the bed and saw him shivering, wide-eyed, he nodded. I scooted the cat out with a broom and he ran right to me and rode home in my arms.

He's home. He became accustomed to a quieter lifestyle, and must have wondered where the heck he was (they built a new home) and where we had gone. When I put him down in our house, he purred and rubbed against everything. He would not leave us alone. I'm sure it was his way of thanking us.

He's a big fat cat, with a hang down belly, although he looks smaller in the picture above. No matter how quietly I sneak down the basement stairs, he hears me and comes bounding after me with thump-thump-thump. He wants to be near us. Climbs on one of the office chairs to be next to me. He's a sweety boy.

He's so easy going, maybe even a bit slow in his processing, but he loves his toy mice and tosses them. He also likes to leap and catch a stretchy band toy. He's OURS.

I need your help. When my son and his family adopted him as a kitten from the Humane Society, they kept the name he'd had from his previous family. TWEENY sound silly. We've tried calling him Buddy, but he only responds to that high pitch "EE."

So, who has an idea for his new name?

Bill, who babies him to excess and sweet talks him, and takes him outside to sit with him and brush him on the patio table, calls him Queeny. I have called him Twinky, but I would sure appreciate YOUR ideas.

If I choose one of the names you suggested, I will send you a Chicken Soup for the Soul book or Not Your Mother's Book. GO!

25 years ago I influenced a doctor

 Nana's girl, Ashley Anne was born to my daughter on Oct.12, 1989. Tracey was forced to deliver a couple weeks early and was induced in the afternoon. I lied to her all day as her contractions worsened and the numbers climbed...I told her they were half the intensity and coached her to breathe. At 11:30 p.m. I coaxed her to work harder, because if she had a Friday the 13th baby, I said I would call her Freddie or Jason.

 

I told the doctor we didn't want a Friday the 13th baby. At 11:48 he tried to plunger her out, but no success. I nagged and nagged. At 11:58 he tried again, and at one second after the stroke of midnight on Oct. 12th she was born. The nurse who recorded the birth shouted, "12:00.01 a.m. Friday, October 13th." I shot the doctor a look, and he said, "It's not Friday the 13th until one minute after the stroke of midnight. Record her birth as October 12th." We exchanged smiles.

 

 

Yes, we were once young, thin, so in love with one another and our first grandbaby. We are no longer young and thin, nor do we have natural color in our hair. This baby has given me more laugh lines. She was very bright and precocious with an above average vocabulary.

 

 

This is Nana's girl with her baby boy. I am so proud of the woman Ashley has become and the accomplishments she has made so far. She was raised by her mom, my mom, me and Bill. She had a lot of positive influences, and I know Liam will too, with all of us, his daddy, and his daddy's family doting on him.

Monsters everywhere...

 

Preschoolers can be messy, mouthy little monsters.

 

This is a craft that is so easy to do. Draw a monster on paper, add a few drops of food coloring, give the child a straw and have them blow the liquid. This is the perfect time to recognize and address fears and talk about how monsters are not real. I bring in a scary monster mask and tell the children the only real monsters are on Sesame Street: Cookie Monster etc. I allow them to try on the mask and look in a mirror. Usually they giggle.

I address parents with a note about why kids are so messy. They don't have the motor control of an adult, therefore, they have lots of spills. Why they are so mouthy: they are declaring their independence. Even when we don't like their behavior, we love the child.

Three and four year old authors? REALLY?

My preschoolers are storytellers, and that's a good thing. I believe literacy is a gift that can be instilled at an early age. When children see their words in print and realize their teacher or parent is reading a story they wrote (dictated), they are interested in adding details to their next story.

I start by showing them an interesting picture, and I say, "Tell me a story about this." Immediate reactions are generally, "I can't!" or, "I don't know."


I reply, "Sure you can. It's not MY story. It will be YOUR story. You get to make it up. Pretend. Use your imagination."

Amazingly, after I ask them the five "W" questions: who, what, why, where, when, the three year olds can stay on topic for three related sentences. If they get stuck, I ask, "Then what happened? Tell me more?"

The four and five year old pre-kindergarteners add rich details, learn to describe and create dialogue. This story project was done by a little boy who will be four next month. The kids think they are just twisting tissue paper, but actually they are strengthening hand and finger muscles that will make them good printers. By the end of the year I can see the future writers in my class just by looking in their story folders.


This fall tree was made by cutting off the bottom of a lunch bag and twisting half way up, then cutting the top into 1/2 inch strips and twisting each. Scrunch up 3 inch squares of tissue paper and glue on the branches.  Vocabulary enrichment: branches, trunk... and so much more.
 

She was no Julia

Did I ever tell you about my late friend, Millie, who was married 37 years when her husband divorced her?

She worked at a big corporation in town and after a year of not dating, she invited a male coworker to dinner. She bought steaks and made a salad and baked two potatoes. When he arrived, she placed the steaks in the broiler and went in the living room to entertain him. Fifteen minutes later she went to check on the steaks, but they were still raw. The oven was hot; after all she had baked the spuds. She told her date it would be a little longer. Another fifteen minutes passed, and she hustled off to the kitchen, opened the broiler door and peered inside at the still-pink meat. She went back to the living room looking confused.

"I don't understand why the meat's not cooking. I can feel the heat, and I have the broiler set to 500 degrees."

Her friend accompanied her to the kitchen, opened the oven door. Blast furnace air escaped. He closed the door. Looked at Millie confused, and said, "Where ARE the steaks?"

"In the broiler drawer, down there," she pointed.

He opened the storage drawer and found the raw steaks resting on the broiler tray.

They laughed themselves silly. But it was really embarrassing to my friend, and she begged him not to tell coworkers. Of course he did.

Since her divorce, she had mainly used her microwave and had barely heated water or fried an egg on her new stove. She had no idea the broiler was inside the oven door and not under the oven like her old stove.

I incorporated this incident into a fiction story which was published a couple years ago.

Pays to always read directions, and if you are a writer, it is important to carefully follow submission guidelines. Agree? Or are you a rule breaker?

Who needs a dozen pairs of pajamas anyway?

Great grandson, Liam, who is 3 1/2 months old eased me over a rough spot yesterday.

It was my best friend's funeral in Boston. Sheila developed brain cancer in 1989, the year my first grandchild, Ashley, who is Liam's mommy, was born.

I'll never forget that phone call.  My first words to Sheila when she told me she had a cancerous brain tumor were, "Are you KIDDING me? Tell me you are. My neighbor, Vicki, just suffered a brain aneurysm. Not YOU too?!" (Vicki survived.)

"I wish I was kidding." Her voice was flat, my questions many. My heart was racing.

When she told me her prognosis: 2 years survival, I held my breath and didn't exhale for those next two years, it seems. I wrote her once a week, even when her letters were not reciprocated during that time as she dealt with chemo, radiation, depression and fought valiantly.

She went into remission, and in 1993 came for a visit with her husband to meet my guy who was so much in personality like her. We had glorious and fun vacations together from then on. She came for a visit four years ago for her 60th birthday. It was a bittersweet week, as she was fading fast.

Sheila made medical history. She survived 25 years. Her physician Dr. Jorge Dietrich took excellent care of her and now does brain research at Massachussets General Hospital.

I was blessed a few weeks ago. She fell and broke her elbow and was in hospital because her surgery had been postponed a day. Her family put her on the phone, and her voice was strong, her mind alert. We had a real conversation. Usually she was weak and confused on the phone. It was a gift, I tell you.

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Saturday was blustery cold. A day I equally dreaded and looked forward to for a week. The temperature was in the 40s and 50s, but my daughter and I were determined to weather the weather with little Liam bundled up in a stroller. A nearby high school sponsors an annual outdoor Baby Mania sale. No babies for sale, but some of the mamas there would have considered giving their wailing babies away for a few minutes. There were so many.

The parking lot was filled with over a hundred vendors selling every gently used item a baby would ever need.The gusting wind unexpectedly powered baby strollers, causing moms to chase after their offspring. It sent tents and tarps toppling, and toys and clothing skittering off tables and across the black top.

We bought Liam's winter wardrobe: pants, long sleeve shirts and onesies, three pair of cute little shoes; a soft pair of Nikes, a suede pair of moccasins and Winnie the Pooh light blue cloth lace ups. We bought him a dozen pair of footie jammies. He's set.

I also bought Liam's next year's birthday present, a brand new set of Playskool blocks and cars. I think toys that allow children to use their imagination are the best.

 My daughter purchased items for her new day care, which she will set up soon in her home. You should have seen us stuffing the car.

As we were driving away, I saw a young police officer friend and shouted, "Hi Charlie. I'm loaded with baby stuff."

He tipped his fingers to his mouth and moved his hand back and forth. "Loaded? You must be; you're exiting out the entrance." He laughed.

Oops! We laughed all the way home. My daughter and I had a great day, shared the baby, ate a yummy lunch, and then we dumped our treasures out and went through them like they were Christmas presents.