Southern Living Yankee

I'm not joking--mark this coming day, April 1. Tom and I WILL start the diet. There's no better date! April FOOLS day! Not in the ha ha fooled you sense. We're not trying to trick anyone, we're just admitting we're fools to have gotten to this point on the scale! We also have incentive! We're looking forward to a little getaway to Myrtle Beach the end of April. As we picture the lovely oceanfront with its sandy beach, endless blue sea, we can almost feel the warm sunshine on our skin, hear the lull of the waves . . . and then the reality camera zooms in and we see BW's. That could stand for Beached Whales but let me finish--BFWOPS--Big Fat White Ohio Peoples.  I've spared you from the picture by using this photo of the empty beach chairs. Yes, you should thank me. If we washed up on a jungle beach the cannibals would be heating up their kettles, poking us with forks and saying "Yummy, tender, juicy!" We wouldn't want that to happe...

Brad came for the weekend and shared his new career skills with us--amazing sirloin burgers, Oh my!Here are the half pounders he made, stuffed with onions, mushroom, Au jus and a kick of red pepper! We didn't/couldn't eat all of these, so the rest are in the freezer for a rainy day, or a day I just won't feel like cooking--probably tomorrow! Do you think maybe he should be a hamburger model, too? Such a handsome and talented guy! :) I found a yeast bun recipe I'm totally in love with so after Tom and Brad grilled these beauties, we lovingly folded amazing homemade buns around them. Yes, everyone say "Aaaahhh!" We could barely push ourselves away from the table, but Tom had a car race to watch, Brad wanted to visit Aaron at his workplace, and I had a poetry reading to go to, so we managed. (Did she just say "Poetry Reading?") Yep. Me, a poetry reader and writer! It was really kind of fun. A fine art gallery in the area has been hosting this once ...

Like a shot out of a cannon, a kite lost to the wind, or hours wasted watching a pathetic movie some things can never be undone or brought back to enjoy again. Today I hit the "send" button on a query letter about my book--ush and ugh, I can't put it back in the comfortable land of mere dreams and possibilities. The butterflies in my stomach are getting dizzy from all their fluttering and spinning and "what if" disaster imaginings which only writer-butterflies conjure up. But it's over and done with. Now I just wait for the results, and I'll deal with those when the time comes. Despite my fears that the results will include a good deal of self-imposed butt-kicking, I really have to let this go. I had this query letter written over a month ago, and I was quite content to just let it lie dormant in a Word file. Content to wait for another impossible re-write or quiet dismissal as the rest of life stifles it out. But then this preacher preaches words th...

Seeing is believing--yep, we were there! Missing Lisa already.