Romance Readers Rock

Readership growing

(Romance Writers of America, 2009)

http://www.rwanational.org/cs/readership_stats

This is the kind of news that makes my heart sing.  I'm a fledgling romance writer and avid romance reader.  Hold them books up high, girls!  Can't get enough of them.

Finding your tribe...

How does a fish shoved through a brick building relate to finding your writing voice? I don't have a clue but I utterly love this photo.

Gotta feel for the fish, don't you? It really belongs in the water somewhere and there it is struggling in red brick.

Sort of how you feel when you love to write, but you can figure out your genre? Or you are writing what you think others want you to write, but you really in your heart of hearts want to write something completely different?

Well, sometimes you have to give in, submit (ooo, pun!) and write what you like to read. And what's fun...and what gives you pleasure....

How long did it take me to come to that conclusion? Way too long. But at least I've found the true muse and having a blast.

Writingly yours,

..................

Beauty

Take time and give yourself permission to enjoy life.

There is unique beauty around us....the perfect rose, the detailed raindrop, even the slightly brown edges of yesterday's bloom.

It is all around us for the taking.

True beauty doesn't ask to be noticed.

It doesn't have to.

Where have I been?

Like to say I was abducted to another planet or frozen in the North Sea or swallowed by a Chinese Duck...

But alas, just distracted by life.

So much fun last week! Anhinga Writers Writer's Studio Summer Conference.

http://www.anhingawriters.org/

Check this out for next July. An amazing opportunity to be up close and personal with published writers who give you their full attention, tips and strategies for writing.

Charlaine Harris
Roxanne St. Claire
Mary Anna Evans
Gayle Wilson
Rhys Bowen
Lauren Goff
Rick Campbell
Diana Tonnessen
Bev Browning
Peter Meinke
Rick Campbell
M.C. Finotti
Murray Laurie
Victor Bockris
Kevin McCarthy
Jerry Sanford
Marcheta Cole Keefer
Lola Haskins
And Literary Agent Anne Hawkins

Can you believe that talent line up? You gotta do this next year!

It's Orlando Fringe Festival Week!

The best week of the year, in my humble opinion. If you've never fringed you just don't know what you are missing. All shapes/sizes/flavors of people, plays, entertainment. It's reassuring to know that Orlando has more than just vanilla.

Where did April go??

Back at the ranch...egad how corney. OK. I come to blog page when I have a bug up my 'ear'. I live in Florida and complain about the heat. There's a fool, don't you think? Alas, I do, on both counts.

Wouldn't mind it so bad if we had air conditioning...or make that, at the end of the day we'll have A/C.

Why didn't we test the system in the winter when prices would probably have been cheaper? NOOOOOO....turn it on the first hot day of the year and the 26 year old compressor blows out. The nerve of the thing, anyway.

So, in the new one comes today.

I'll be a happier camper by nightfall.

Organic Farming Threatened???

This has the kitchen master in a dither!!! Read this...

******************

US House and Senate are about (in a week and a half) to vote on bill that will OUTLAW ORGANIC FARMING (bill HR 875). There is an enormous rush to get this into law within the next 2 weeks before people realize what is happening.

Main backer and lobbyist is Monsanto – chemical and genetic engineering giant corporation (and Cargill, ADM, and about 35 other related agri-giants). This bill will require organic farms to use specific fertilizers and poisonous insect sprays dictated by the newly formed agency to "make sure there is no danger to the public food supply". This will include backyard gardens that grow food only for a family and not for sales.


If this passes then NO more heirloom clean seeds but only Monsanto genetically altered seeds that are now showing up with unexpected diseases in humans.

Here is an excerpt from Organic Consumers Association's weekly newsletter. If you follow the link and several others you can go directly to the bill on line and read for yourself.


Web Forum Posting of the Week:
Will the New HR875 Bill in Congress Outlaw Organic Farming?

In last week's issue of Organic Bytes, the OCA had a story entitled "Internet Myth of the Week: Congress To Pass Bill That Will Outlaw Organic Farming?" The article focused on our stance on a new controversial bill in congress: HR875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. There's been a lot of hype circulating the internet about the possible ramifications of the bill, and the OCA felt it was necessary to weigh in on the issue. Linn Cohen-Cole, the most vocal opponent of HR 875, and the person who initially shared her concerns about the bill with the OCA, responded to our article in Organic Bytes last week with deep concerns. We've posted her main points in our web forum for our readers to discuss. OCA has taken a middle-ground position on HR875. We think food safety legislation is needed. We'd like to see factory farming stopped along with the practices of confining animals, feeding them slaughterhouse waste and manure, and not letting cows eat grass. These practices would virtually eliminate mad cow, salmonella and E. coli. HR 875 doesn't do this, but it does make food recalls mandatory and allows for civil penalties, two important tools the government could use against the factory farms that are making us sick. Read more about the HR875 Debate and Discuss
http://organicconsumers.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=2564


There is a video on the subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epXNJNjYBvw&feature=related


And another one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeWVkTU1s1E


The name on this outrageous food plan is Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 (bill HR 875).

THIS IS REAL! PASS THIS ALONG TO ALL CONCERNED ON YOUR MAILING LISTS & CALL YOUR SENATE REPRESENTETIVES TODAY!

The best thing to do is go to www.house.gov/writerep all you have to do is put in your zip and it will give you your congressperson and how to get in touch with them. When you call their office someone will answer the phone, just tell them (politely) that you are calling to express your views on HR 875. Tell them your views, they'll take your name and address and pass your comments along to the congressperson. The following link http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm is a list of the U.S. senators and their contact info.



Also, if you are interested in learning more about genetically modified food, the future of our seeds and food supply check out a book called Uncertain Peril by Claire Hope Cummings and a DVD called The Future of Food.

*****************

Outraged? Sure am.

Critter's under control

Bats be gone! Amazing amazing amazing. Now, some of you might be aware that NASA launched a shuttle last week with an unauthorized passenger affixed to the outside -- a bat. What a joy ride he must have had.

I love bats, don't get me wrong. But not flying around my head at night in my bedroom like we had a few weeks back.

So, after a very humane approach to relocation, we've dis-invited a fairly large colony to move out.

Cute little buggers, but they belong OUTSIDE thank you very much. But, methinks, a poem may come from this experience....stay tuned!

"There once was bat named freddie...
his attachment to the shuttle was steady........

Finally Fit!

OK, we are back at it. A bit of a vacation from lifting weights -- ummm...what's a vacation, you ask? Don't ask. Anyway, Eric has me on an circuit training I can handle. Who's Eric? Check out the link.

Now, am I going to be one of those competitive body builders? Probably not. Make that, definitely not. All I ask is to go into my next decade stronger than I was in this one.

It's all good.

The day after Elvis

OK, this is Orlando. Anything's possible right? But Elvis in the Vi-Mi district? Nah. At 6:56 PM on a Thursday night? Nah. Driving an old (not in nostalgic antique old, but in beat-up and used old)car? Nah.

Did it happen? Yah. Driving home from getting my taxes done -- say amen, friends, my taxes are done -- I look to my left on 17-92 (Mills to y'all from out of town) while waiting for the light to change at Colonial (Hwy 50 to y'all from out of town) and there he was. Elvis. Driving a convertible Chrysler Lebaron next to me. Hair all jacked up, black grease holding it it place. Shiny suit with a starched collar all nestling his neck. Rings on every finger. I could tell he had the rings, he was driving.

No. I'm not kidding. This isn't one of those Hank Williams, Sr sightings in the desert. A real live almost-but-not-quite-unless-you-were-drunk-look-alike of the one and only man. Some chick sitting next to him on her cell phone gabbing away -- she was NO Priscilla Presley as she was then or as she is now, bless her messed up plastic surgery heart. They must have been trying to find the senior center where they were supposed to be performing. Neither of them looked any too happy about the traffic (hey, it's Orlando -- chill!) or something else was irritating them.

Anyway, seeing Elvis in and of itself should be the point of this, right? Nah. The point of this was that not another living soul was looking at them, besides me. People here are just way too blase. Or predisposed to their cell phone conversations. Or lost in their satellite radio. Or who the heck knows.

But they missed Elvis. They really missed Elvis. OMG, you don't think it was because most of the drivers didn't have a clue who Elvis was? Oi. I never thought of that till right now.

I miss Elvis.

Is it a full moon?

Where have I been? I wish I could say I was in a fairy tale slumber and the prince kissed me awake. Nope. Just lolly-gagging around and not posting for awhile. Where does time go?

Lest you think this is a morbid site for deathly matters -- the name embalmer's kitchen is a bit odd -- it's not. It's for rambling around with words.

So, my friends, let me hit the old "publish" button and make a deal with myself to come here a little more frequently!

Sleep deprivation

Only postmenopausal females can relate to this at the granular level, but from what I'm watching of the political convention coverage, these commentators need a nap!

Scrapping and squabbling is a first sign. Everything irritates like a grain of sand in the oyster. One guy's Bla bla bla returned for another guy's alb alb alb (backwards, but makes about the same sense).

A sign of too much coffee and not enough sleep. Give these people a break and let them go home.

The media is not the message.

Take a look at http://huffingtonpost.com and witness.

Remodeling a kitchen...

This is not the smartest project to tackle when you can't do any of the work yourself and you have to live in the hovel while you watch non-hurricane Fay (and my money) go bye-bye. Arrrgh. But it was way past time.

OK OK OK.

I'm not one of those home improvement TV show addicts. Well, with one exception: Clean House. You've got to love how Niecy and crew swoop in and within a matter of minutes, or so it seems with the magic of television editing, transform god-awful squalor into design elegance (sort of).

http://www.mystyle.com/mystyle/shows/cleanhouse/

Have you ever wondered what's wrong with some of those families? How can people live like that? Boxes piled to the roof. Collections of absolute nonsense. Those people have clinical neurosis. Why are they hanging on to their stuff, anyway? Watching grown men break into tears over the potential loss of a box of 20 year old petrified gym socks never ceases to amaze me.

So, back to remodeling a kitchen. What did I find snarfed away in my cupboards that might cause some tsk-tsking? I'm a little embarassed to admit, but what the hey, this is a blog. And who reads these?

Shall I start with the Publix grocery bags under the sink? Close estimate: 50, or maybe 60. Who counts grocery bags?

OK OK OK.

So, I use two (you all know they always have micro-holes in the bottom) every time I clean out the kitty litter pan. No, my cat doesn't go outside. Please.

OK OK OK.

I'll let most of them go. But I better keep at least 10. That's 4-5 days worth. Remember, I double-bag.

OK OK OK.

The six boxes of individually bagged instant oatmeal. You know, the boxes that fall on your head every time you reach in to get something you really need, say like one of the 10 bottles of fat-free dressing that no one likes. But, they are all buy-one-get-one-free. That oatmeal might have come in handy this winter, except for the bugs that consumed all their little gullets could handle. Oh, and the use-by date was 2006. Getting rid of those took two Publix bags, right there. Ha! Told you so.

Then there was the spice shelf. So, you don't think I'll need six bottles of essentially empty flavoring extracts? You never know when I might get that urge to bake again (probably never). Or, go back on the South Beach diet and add funky flavoring to my ricotta cheese desserts (guaranteed never). Then there was the Tupperware tub of flour. Whoops. Bugs again. Another two bags, please.

OK OK OK.

We get the picture. Well, somebody needs to make me straighten up and fly right on this kitchen thing. Once the dust clears, the tiles are grouted and the granite's sealed, please don't let me act on my neurotic urge to hoard again.

Until, that is, Publix has another buy-one-get-one-free promo. Gotta love those boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese!

I Could a Write a Book

Miss Ella says it all!

Fresh and new!

You might be the first to visit this blog! Aren't you the lucky one? We'll cook up some fine literary stew in the kitchen any time you want. It's said that you should write something every day or that muse will get up and leave you in her dust. Well, blog writing counts, doesn't it? Fooled that little vixen today.