Writer on a Horse
And a Dog

The world looks better from the back of a horse and the roads of life are easier with a good dog beside you.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Days are getting shorter


Don't you just hate when DST changes back to regular time and it's dark before 6 and you feel like you need to go to bed by 9 and your body is screaming give me more light, what the heck happened to the sun, I'm going to make you sad because I want sun.

Do you know that is the reason so many people suffer with depression during the winter, because there is less light in a day.

I like the dark, myself... kids say I'm a vampire. I like the light too but I've never minded the darkness. It doesn't cause fear or make me unsure. I've been known to hang out clothes at midnight with just the light of the moon.

I love watching clouds race across the sky on a moonlight night as much as I love watching sunrises and sunsets. If I would allow my Indian blood to guide me I would be a gypsy with no cares.

Lift you face to the storm and let it strip away your layers of useless wants that cling like parasites. As it fury rages, feel the charge of power of it's greatness. You are a speck on the windshield of universe, yet you matter in the universe of your life.

Run at life... don't let life run you.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Small town, bank robber and school lock down



Small towns are great for everyday life... peaceful, everybody knows everybody and quite .... UNTIL today

The bank just a few blocks from where I work was robbed by a man that claimed he had a bomb. And he fled on foot toward the grooming shop and the school where my two youngest grandchildren attend.

To date they have not caught this man. But my babies had a tale to tell after school. They went into hard lock down and the FBI swarmed their school or as Ella age 9 said, "The dark men with the pointy guns" I didn't understand the dark men part... she said you know black shirts, pants and glasses"...okay got that now but pointy guns?? she sighed "Granny, their guns wasn't like Daddy's square (he has a 9MM) theirs were pointy" (theirs were assault rifles).

I hope she keeps calling assault rifles, pointy guns... wouldn't it be wonderful if all 9 year old kids didn't know what to call weapons meant to kill.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Shaking family tree





You know how one person can shape you into the person you are... that their wisdom haunts you

Watch that temper, Patty Jean... that is the devil's tool
Treat people better than they treat you...
Give your best in everything, if you're giving a cake make it the best.. if you're giving money, give all that you don't need... if you give a quilt, give the prettiest newest one, if you give your heart, all of it because it doesn't help you to keep it, only when you share it does it bring you joy. Sniff, sniff I still miss my Granny and she has been dead 42 years

Granddaddy's advise was
"Don't ask people about their business because they would have told you if they wanted you to know and since you asked they're going to lie to you."

I lived next door (country next door... I couldn't see their house but I could walk to it) all my life and these people helped to shape the person I am... good and bad

I also included a picture of my Dad, my brother (Jimmy) and my daughter Missy from 1971

The picture with five people is Granny and Granddaddy, Aunt Stella, cousin Stephanie and her daughter Alesia This picture is how I remember Granny.. not sure exact year but it was just a 1966-1968 just a couple of years before she died.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Okay, the ugly truth



Finding a good book that I WANT to finish is like bobbing for apples... you know you're going to get wet and might not even get an apple for your efforts.

I'm not a tell all -- beautiful 60 word sentences that paint you a picture... nope, I am a meat and potatoes reader. I know, how can I write and not enjoy all the poetic prose of the English language??? Don't know, but I don't like the deep meaning books that seems to win awards right and left.

There are exceptions to the rule, like when there is a mule in the story :)
or a comet
or about Egypt

I was asked what Newbery books did I like... well I couldn't name many

As a rule, I enjoy the honor books more. Now I just know the committee is going to blow up my email asking me to be a member... NOT hehehehe

This is the list of Newbery books I would read again. Most of the time I like the movie better. But let me put a disclaimer.... there are few books I would read more than once.

Okay dear friends, I have to agree with you... I am a hard reader... but look for the silver lining...if you hook me I have a big mouth and tell everyone.


When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo

Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

Holes by Louis Sachar

Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Quilts, stories and pollen count



What does these things have in common... ME

If I get up and feel like I'm drowning in snot... gross I know but you should be on my end of it... it is a quilt day. After I take the meds to stop the flow, well I'm detached from my body, floating around in a dry, sleepy place.

If I get up and the drip is gone... yeah.. it's story time.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Is it just me or does this make you nervous???


Oh not the Jack-O-Lanterns... I think they're cool but would you put them on your roof??? with lit candles??? Isn't that asking for trouble???
What have I been doing lately... well writing of course! What, you might ask? A picture book.... I know, hard sale---got to be great---should be working on novel but you know this story went, "Phissss, put me on paper... I need you to enter the world. Write me. HEY YOU, CAN YOU HEAR ME HOW!" So I wrote it. Now I can move on. Yes, I'm going to send it out. Yes, I know it's a long shot. But, I'm doing it anyway. :)

Friday, October 7, 2011

Be careful cleaning up those yards



First, fall weeds have all these prickly things (that are the seeds) but they love to stick to your shirt, pants, socks. They also love traveling on your dog.
Second, do not pick up a pile of leaves with your hands. Snakes are blind now, getting ready to sleep all winter after a long summer of eating, they are shedding their skins. Snakes are very irritable when they shed and will strike at sound and movement.
Let me tell you that it's not fun being bitten by a copperhead.. very painful. One bit me fifteen years ago.
Would you have seen these snakes before you stepped on them.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Why did the chicken cross the road?



I know corny but have you ever stopped and listened to yourself??? we ask the dumbest questions! And... we get ticked when people ask us those same dumb questions. When my daughter was a teenager... need I say more... and I would ask "Where you going? Who you going with? Be home on time." She would always ask me "Are you writing a book? And what time is on time?" Now she knew what time she was to be home but for some reason she could remember everything but that! And the book part, well I think I might. Do you think it would freak her if I wrote about all the things I know she did and then talk to friends and find out what I didn't know....hummm...wonder if she reads this if she'll ask "Are you writing a book?"

Here are a few more questions to ask if you want to drive someone crazy,

Funny Stupid Questions to Ask People

•What happens when you get 'half scared to death' twice?
•Is it true cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?
•If all the world's a stage, where does the audience sit?
•It it's tourist season why can't we shoot them?
•Why are the alphabets in the order that they are? Is it because it's a song?
•If you write a book about failure, and it doesn't sell, is it called success?
•If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
•If work is so terrific, how come you get paid for it?
•If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the others drown too?
•Are the good things that come to people who wait, the leftovers of people who went before them?
•Why did Yankee Doodle name the feather in his hat Macaroni?
•Isn't Disney World a people trap operated by a mouse?
•If electricity comes from electrons, does morality comes from morons?
•Why aren't blueberries blue?
•Why is Greenland called Greenland, when it's white and covered with ice?

Stupid Questions to Ask Someone

•Why is the word for "a fear of long words," hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, so long?
•Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?
•What if Batman gets bitten by a vampire?
•Can we spell creativity however we want?
•Was the person who invented the Express Lane at the grocery store properly thanked?
•Why don't you ever see ads for advertising companies?
•Why is it that when things get wet they get darker, even though water is clear?
•If a fork were made of gold would it still be considered silverware?
•Why isn't chocolate considered a vegetable, if chocolate comes from cocoa beans, and all beans are a vegetable?

Stupid Questions to Ask Your Friends

•If something "goes without saying," why do people still say it?
•You know the expression, "Don't quit your day job?" Well what do you say to people that work nights?
•Why is the 0 on a phone after 1 and not before 1?
•Why do all the superheroes wear underpants on the outside?
•Did Noah have woodpeckers on the ark? If he did, where did he keep them?
•Why doesn't the armpit hair have split ends?
•If you don't pay your exorcist, do you get repossessed?
•Why do we teach kids that violence is not the answer and then have them read about wars in school that solved America's problems?
•If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?

Monday, October 3, 2011

Retreat... music to my ears




Do y'all want to know how long it has been since I wrote anything other than a short story or a bad poem... lordy I can't even remember the last time I sat and let the story talk to me.
If this weekend doesn't unlock my muse... well I'm going to try a quit ... at least tell myself that I do... I hate being told anything :)

I gave twenty of my young chickens away tonight. I kept fifteen. Why did I give them away? Do you know how much those little buggers eat each day and I do have fifteen big hens and one guinea, bless it's little heart.

Finished another quilt today... well finished putting the pieces together. I took it to the quilter. This one is for my friend Pam.