Southern Living Yankee

Focus, focus, focus--I can't do it! Whenever I sit down to write at either the computer or curled up on the sofa with a notebook, I don't know where to start! All day, every day, I'm filtering everything I hear and see through two questions--how could I write about this, or how does this apply to widows? I'm obsessed. I can hardly sleep at night! So when I lug my over-worked, stressed out brain to the notebook or keyboard, I can't do it. Oh, I can start! I can start a hundred different sentences. Or one idea a hundred different ways. And then poof! My brain then gives me another hundred options of where to conclude it, and a million daydreams of where it will go. I call this Artistic ADHD. Before I go to a medical professional for some powerful knock-me-outs, I'm going to try something else. I think I've trapped myself; I don't have enough time or energy to do both the book and the blog. My first love, the first commission God gave me, was the book. N...

I had a great suprise on Friday! When I just happened to check the voice mail on my cell phone (which I rarely do), there was a message from my sister, "Mind if we stop by tonight?" Almost 8 hours later, Tom picked me up from work, we grabbed a bit of dinner (we're still on the diet--so an itsy bitsy bit of dinner), and shortly after that Anjee called again to get directions to our doorstep! They were on their way home from a spring break vacation in Tennessee . . . well, I'm just so glad they stopped! And they thought they'd just stop in to say hello . . . but we talked them into spending Friday night and Saturday night! Took them out to breakfast on Saturday, and then it rained all day. :(  But we made the best of it and went to Jungle Jim's to tour that crazy grocery store and eat ugli fruit. When we got home, Jessica made supper! She's in culinary school and improvised the recipe she entered in the chili cook-off. Then she helped me write i...

We've made it to Day 4 of the diet. Ugh. After gagging on eggs at 6:30 a.m. the first day I now opt for half a cup of cottage cheese with some cinnamon on it. I know this might sound disgusting, but I find it easier to deal with than eggs-turned-cold-too-soon. I was so fond of toast with peanut butter with my steaming hot coffee! I miss toast. We're doing the South Beach diet, so no carbs. No bread or anything made with flour--good-bye bread, biscuits, muffins, cookies, brownies, cake, pie, good stuff! No starches--good-bye potatoes, rice, and salty crunchy junk food love! No sugar--good-bye Coke, chocolate, and the candy drawer at work.  sigh Hello salads, V-8, veggies veggies veggies. I'm getting really sick of veggies. Meat without gravy or condiments. whine whine whine.  But now it's time for the evening snack that I look forward to every day--a glass of low-fat milk and a no-sugar fudgsicle. yum.  Sweet dreams everyone, and enjoy those brown...

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.