June was a busy month and July is shaping up to be the same. Yea! If I'm occupado, I can't get into too much trouble...or can I?

So what has T. been up to, you ask. Wellllll...

In June, I participated in a podcast with a friend. Her website is MidlifeSchmidlife.com and her podcasts focus on people who take a left-turn after the age of 40, aka The Midlife. She is having inspirational conversations with those who have quite their jobs or altered their existence to pursue their dreams to start a business, perform burlesque show or write a book after reaching midlife. I have to say this is a much better plan for a midlife "crisis" than buying a motorcycle or a sports car (Ooh, look! A Ferrari!) and/or trading in your spouse for a younger/newer model. Sooo... in episode #3, I discuss my journey as an author. Check it out.

Also, as previously hinted at, I pulled the trigger on Book Baby #2.

Ta Da!

Keep Your Eyes On Me. This link is for the ebook, but if you're like me and prefer a physical book, it is available in paperback. If you have an opportunity, please leave a review on either Amazon or Goodreads (or both). Reviews are the lifeblood of independent writers and help us reach a larger audience. So please!

If you think I only write my blog when good things happen, you might be somewhat correct. But I'll share something on the less positive side: I've got a doozy of a losing streak going in Words With Friends. I can't get a handful of decent tiles to save my life. So if you want to up your stats, now might be a good time to challenge me to a game.

T.

A Little Behind...

I know, I know...I'm a little behind on writing. In my defense, it's been a busy month. I'll make this quick:

Myrtle the Elder graduated with her associates degree in May. Later this summer she plans to move to Georgia and go to nursing school. Why Georgia, you ask? That be where the fiance be. Assuming the army keeps him there. We have no idea. Stay tuned.

The wedding?  Inquiring minds want to know. That's on hold for a year or two. Yea! Maybe by then I'll have lost a few more pounds and can rock the Mother of the Bride dress. I really don't want to look like a Mother of the Bride. That would be bad.

Myrtle the Younger graduated high school last week, along with 1542 of her nearest and dearest friends. The ceremony took nearly 3 hours. Yes, my butt was numb. The things we do for our children.

Family trekked in to sit through the event so we had a lovely weekend. Mi espouso took The Nephew fishing at the local hole. The fishing kid caught about a 1/2 pound bass. The rest caught a variety of perch and sunfish. No one got sunburned. Yea!

Last, but not least, I revealed the title, cover and blurb for book 2. Myrtle the Younger did the cover art again. Here they be:

Mitch Monzingo thought he made all the right decisions: leave small town Texas for the bright lights of Los Angeles, answer the seductive lure of Hollywood, and support his family back home. Stunning success should be enough to make everyone proud, including the girl he reluctantly left behind.

Abandoned by her high school crush and best friend following one perfect night, Dora Therrell fought to make her dreams come true. After years of hardship and secrets, with a best-selling novel, she has finally achieved the success which leads to security.

A desire to please confronts the need to protect when a chance encounter thrusts Mitch and Dora together again. It is up to self-proclaimed matchmaker, Faye Santiago, and respected psychologist, Annabelle Joshua, to tackle the secrets and demons which separate Mitch and Dora from true happiness.

Anyway, back to editing. The next post will probably announce the publication of KYEOM. Stay tuned.

T.

New Career Path?

First off, allow me to state that I am not currently in my most lucid state of consciousness. Sans mind-altering substances. It happens.

I would also like to state in my defense that I make every attempt to be a model parent. And I am pleased to humbly report that The Myrtles assure me (without much bribery on my part) that I am successful to a degree of minimal standards established by someone, somewhere and somewhen (I know it's not a word but see sentence #1).

By my definition of model parent, I have endeavored to be involved in The Myrtles activities as warranted. My philosophy is/was that if my children wanted to participate in an activity, then I should step up and help make it happen. Need a field trip chaperone? I can take a day or two off work. Children's Choir leader? Ok. Destination Imagination Manager or judge? Count me in. Need a female youth counselor? Sure. Blackjack dealer? Okie dokie.

Wait! What? You heard correctly. (Hence the reason for sentence #1.)

In case you haven't realized, Myrtle the Younger is a senior in high school this year and is having the time of her life and has been plotting and planning one of the biggest events of the year for several months. Yes, Folks, we are talking about Prom.



Ain't she pretty? (Those are the Hot Mess Shoes, by the way, so dubbed by the color and the height of the heel. Apparently they remained on her feet until she got inside the door of the event center. Why did we bother?)

Anyway...Our high school has what is known as After Prom. At some point in time, some parents got together and decided they didn't want their precious darlings going to parties for the usual, questionable, after prom activities with equally questionable supervision. So they came up with After Prom. Rumor has it that the kids look forward to After Prom as much, if not more than, Prom itself. Why, you ask? Inflatables! Door prizes! Games! Running amok with friends all freaking night! And the piece de la resistance (sorry, I don't know how to make the accents happen)-Dun-dun-dun!-the Casino! Yes friends, Let's teach our budding adults how to gamble in the sacred halls of public academia. Who says schools aren't teaching real-life, practical skills?

As with most children's activities, volunteers are necessary to make the night successful. That's where I come in. As with Myrtle the Elder's prom, I got roped into being a Blackjack dealer again. It's wasn't a bad gig 2 years ago. I sat at my little table all night, chatting with the lovelies while pretending to be able to count to 21, before leaving to crash in my little bed.

That be what I expected for last night. I be so very wrong.



Here was my "office" from 11 pm until after 4 am this morning. Notice something? Anything? Yeah. No stool. This THERAPIST stood on her feet for 5 solid hours with no break, dealing blackjack, then helped tear down, before finally getting home around 5:30 am. Needless to say my neck, back, arms, legs and other parts of my carcass are back-talking LOUDLY. To add insult to injury, my FitBit thingie only registered about 500 steps for the whole night. (#%$%&&*&*!!!!!!)

Now I will give myself a pat on the back: I did manage to stay sane and friendly throughout the evening (I only had to tell the supervising Pit Boss to get lost once) and I managed to count each hand with relative accuracy (although determining the winning hand between 20 and 21 took a few extra brain cells). I even spoke to the kids at my table and figured out that they might be human after all. Who knew?

After all was said and done, the evening was fun. The question innocently arose if I might consider moon-lighting as a blackjack dealer. (Hysterical giggles and hyperventilation galore.)

Uh. No.

G'Night, all (it's 2pm).

T

I Love This!

Yesterday was awesome!

I held my first official book signing in front of The Book Gallery in McKinney, Texas. A friend is the owner and he specializes in rare and antique books. I'll come back to that in a minute.

Downtown McKinney is a lovely, historic square with old buildings and a great courthouse. The town powers close off the square once in a while to host festivals like Oktoberfest and Arts in Bloom. The latter occurred yesterday, so I was surrounded by artists, live jazz, and some of the best BBQ I've ever eaten (and that's saying something, y'all!). While I enjoy wandering around art festivals and would have loved to peruse the Texas Wine Garden or watch the beef grilling demo/tasting, I was working my little table so I didn't get out much. I did send family and friends out and about and lived vicariously through them.

Mi espouso was firmly ordered to attend part of the grilling demo. (It was a hint. A big hint. Grilling season is here. Me no cook. Comprende?) Instead of coming back with motivation and recipes, he returned with his eyes rolled back in his sucker-shaped head. Apparently there is a rare cut of steak from around the rib-eye called the spinatus or some-such, and the taste was orgasmic. At $26.99 a pound! In the words of my great-great-uncle Bunkie, "By God, it oughta!" (I couldn't tell you what Bunk's real name was, we all just called him Uncle Bunkie. I don't know why either.) Anyway, if my beloved behaves himself, he might get one for his birthday (and I do mean MIGHT 'cause $27 is outside the birthday budget). If I remember. Someone better mark a calendar and remind me, cause methinks I have to order that bad-beef-boy ahead of time.

Back at The Book Gallery, the book restorer guy was there and he does some fantastic work. He showed me a 1753 (?ish?) copy of Milton's Paradise Regained that he restored. Amazing and gorgeous! The fact that he found the book, sans cover, for $3 was pretty cool too. This guy also makes journals. All of them are made of leather and exotic papers. Some had Roman coins embedded in the cover. (Have I mentioned I love handmade, artistic stuff?)

Mimi bought me this as a 1st Book Signing Gift (Merci beaucoup, Mimi!). It was one I drooled over. I don't know who the Egyptian guy is but I think he might be Horus or one of Horus's goonies. The falcon over his head is a Horus symbol. (I think-me being an Egyptologist-NOT!) The trim is green leather and the restorer guy hand-sews the page binding. I didn't know there were different styles but he showed me about ten which he practices. He mentioned something about single-stitching versus double-stitching. This is double. (I think) No wonder old books hold up so well over hundreds of years. Paperbacks? Not happening.

 All I know is that I've got a pretty cool journal that I do not want to mess up with my ramblings. Anyway, if you need a different kind of gift for a journal-y, write-y or sketch-y (or sketchy) type person, call The Book Gallery and ask Jim about the journals or any old books you might be hunting for.

T

Late Blooming

If I followed family tradition, I would be a pilot, gardener, musician and visual artist to name a few. Despite many opportunities and attempts over the years, my genetics are suspiciously absent when it comes to some important aspects to my family history. Or maybe I'm just a late bloomer.

I should be a 4th generation pilot. I think my grandfather ruined that for me when I was 3 weeks old and decided to get the noisiest plane he could find to transport my mother and me from Lubbock to Killeen for the holidays. I paid them dearly for that effort; I screamed the entire way. When my grandmother (an FAA inspector) was teaching my brother to fly, she took me up "just to see" if I had any interest. My response? You guessed it. Poor woman never let me live it down.

Gardening? How simple is that? Anyone can make a simple garden. Ha! I kill cactus, people. Literally but not intentionally. Despite coming from generations of gardening experts, including my father's relatively recent Master Gardener designation, I can't keep anything alive. I've tried (and I do mean try) herbs, terrariums, pots, succulents with nary an ounce of luck. If they do survive longer than a month or two, the poor plants are decidedly unhealthy and do all sorts of weird stuff like leak sap all over the place.

Music and Art? My lack of talent is not from lack of opportunity or encouragement. My mother and her brother are professional musicians. Both grandmothers, a great-grandmother, my uncle and brother are/were fantastic painters. I even married a creative and had 2 artistically/musically-inclined daughters. After studying piano and singing for most of my life, I can read the notes and have a good ear, but I can't keep a rhythm to save my life. Tagging along to painting sessions and attending art lessons did not teach me how to draw a stick figure. Harrumph!

For some mysterious reason, I feel the tides changing. For better or worse remains to be seen. Last night, my cousin arranged a painting class for us to celebrate our grandmother's 105th birthday. Luckily we had wine and the instructor was good enough to say, "Put a square here." I could do that! Hallelujah!

So after two hours of step-by-step instruction, here is the my interpretation of Cezanne:

Yeah, me! I might actually try this again. Please don't send me a plant as congratulations, though. I've committed enough herbal and floral homicide as it is.

T.

Bursting with Pride

SXSW, better know as South by Southwest Music and Film Festival is an international event held in Austin, Texas. This year I had the opportunity to go for the sole purpose of watching my daughter (and cover artist) and her high school animation team screen their animation short, Out of Reach. Their's was one of 24 short films (of which 3 were animated) chosen out of who-knows-how-many to be screened and juried. A second team from her high school was also selected for their animated short, Goin' Nuts. We will find out a winner on Tuesday evening.

High school students can come up with interesting (and dark) material to compete with anything a twisted adult can dream up. Maybe more so. Most of the shorts involved disturbing subject matter: cutting, shooting, throats cut, child abuse, kidnapping, torture, to mention a few off the top of my head. Weird, blood-letting videos aside, there were several redeeming and "pretty" films that I understood and enjoyed. There was one music rap video which I actually understood enough to enjoy. A few shorts were PSA or documentary material including one amazing video by an autistic boy on what it is like to be autistic (He said his mother made him do it. Go Mom!). I happened to sit directly in front of the 3 jurors and overhear some of their comments. The only comments I paid attention to were regarding our 2 teams.

Out of Reach earned several laughs and giggles from the audience and jurors, with a final collective comment of "Wow" from the judges. Goin' Nuts got a resounding "That was nice" from one juror with agreement from the other 2. (YES!!)

Now, I do not care if either team wins the prize, in fact it is unlikely when compared to some of the live action shorts presented. I understand and do not envy the jurors decision-making to choose an overall winner. The fact that these 2 talented teams were selected for this prestigious event is a fine addition to a respectable portfolio or resume any day.

A mama was never more proud of her baby. I can't wait to see what Myrtle Sue comes up with next.

T.

Something New

It's been a while. I know, I am a lousy blogger.

Life has been a little on the busy side: Myrtle the Younger is now a senior in high school and officially an adult, Myrtle the Elder is trudging her way through college, and I am trying to figure out this book promotion/marketing thing. That part is harder than actually writing the book! All of this is on top of my day jobs. (Yes, plural jobs. I ditched one, so I currently have 6 jobs that I claim. I'm trying to whittle them down, but I gotta bring home the bacon, people.)

As I've mentioned before, I am an Occupational Therapist. This title accounts for 5 of my 6 jobs, one of which is private practice. Today I had the opportunity to speak to about 20 college students about health and wellness. We covered a lot of territory in just over an hour, including posture, breathing, stress management and a few other challenges that the average college student (really, all of us humanoids) deals with in this day and age and the effect of those challenges on health and well-being. Things started out a bit on the random side (typical of me) but then we got down to the nitty-gritty and all was good.

Personally, I had a great time and was sorry for it to be over. The students seemed to really enjoy the discussion and asked great questions. I've done other speaking events before and nothing beats having an audience that appreciates your efforts and participates.

I have another event coming in November. This time I'll be presenting my book. It's one thing to present information that I've taught to patients for over 20 years. This will be a new opportunity. I've never been to a book review, I have an idea of what I should say, but I'm open to any suggestions. (Hand-holding is welcome, too.)

T.