One Angry Turtle I’ll tell you: Humans are Dumb. Yes, most of the world moves faster than we southern turtles, but, when it comes to missing the obvious, people take the prize. Y’all are ridiculous, and I can prove it. Take what happened to me last Saturday morning. There I was, moving at my own pace across one of your roads, (which, by the way, are too many, to begin with, and far too wide for the rest of creation) when this car comes over the hill, barreling down right toward me. Now, a squirrel or a dog would try to race that machine, but squirrels and dogs aren’t all that smart either. Humans can be outrun when they’re afoot, but none of us is faster than one of them in a car. Anyway, the stupid car started squealing its tires, making more noise than before, and it screeched to a stop…directly over me. Then it backed up, stopped again, and a human jumped out and ran toward me, making the same kind of high-pitched sound her automobile just made. “I’m so sorry, I tried not to run over you,” she cried, and I would have accepted her apology if she hadn’t…
Looks warm but this was a 45degree morning! One of the local jokes is, “If you don’t like this weather, just wait five minutes. It’s due to change.” In April, that isn’t a joke, it’s the damn truth. Days when the mercury touches 85, are followed by fronts containing frost warnings. Gardners, who put in plants weeks ago, get chilblains covering up seedlings and cursing the cold snap that just showed up in the forecast. On its seesaw course from late winter to spring, the weather here defies prediction, not just from day-to-day, but hour to hour. This is especially hard on GRITS (aka Girls Raised in the South). Southern Women are raised to believe despite, limited income, energy and time, they must always appear “dressed for the weather.” This means April can drive a girl plumb crazy. I’ll show you what I mean 6 a.m – 45 degrees (F) – forget the sundress you set out last night and reach for the fleece hoodie and corduroy slacks you’ve been wearing since November. 10 a.m. – 65 degrees – You are smothering in corduroy and fleece, and you look like an idiot next to the spring flowers. Go back and change…
Me at the Beginning: Hair washed,earrings in place and a pan-fried disaster This time, a year ago, I weighed 285. I’m not whining about this, and I’m certainly not bragging; I’m just stating a fact. A year ago my extra weight brought my life crashing to a halt. This seems like a good time to take stock. If you had asked me, back then, if I could lose 100 pounds in a year, I would have cried and told you “No.” It takes energy to burn extra pounds off, and I didn’t have the “oomph” to clean my house or keep up at work, much less exercise. My house and yard needed cleaning and maintenance, my in-box was 7 inches thick, and I was in the middle of the disaster area, exhausted and overwhelmed. Get my life and my world back on track? I wasn’t sure how to begin! That’s me on the left at 30 pounds down.I can tell even if you can’t! I couldn’t have made it through those first few months without the help of Weight Watchers. They didn’t judge me, they taught me to consider what I ate, and they rejoiced over every ounce I dropped….
I fell in love with it the first time I saw it. My faux suedeskirt circa 2008 There, in the 2008 autumn catalog from Coldwater Creek, was the kind of skirt I’ve dreamed of most of my life. Long. Full. So Western in style it could have been used on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. (Okay, so my fashion sense is cuckoo.) Draped on the model with a Squash blossom necklace, it was the essential Southwestern Dream, or so I thought. And, of course, it looked great in the picture. Even better, although the skirt looked and felt like suede, it was made of washable material. Even though it cost an outrageous amount, I ached to have it. That was the year I gave up carbohydrates and lost about 40 pounds. I intended to lose more but as a partial reward, I bought myself the skirt and for the next few years, measured my self-worth by it. If the skirt fits me comfortably, I am a terrific human being. If I can, at least, manage to zip it, my overeating isn’t that bad. If I have to wear a sweater over the waistband to cover an inch of unzipped zipper, I need to…
I guess it’s no secret I’ve finished writing a book. Well, up till last week, I thought it was finished. After 5 years of slaving away on paragraphs and polishing each sentence, I thought The Plucky Orflings was complete. I liked it, my sister liked it, and my friends loved it, so I figured it was just a matter of time until some agent agreed. Well, if so, that time isn’t now. Now, I suspect most agents are decent people. They work incredibly hard in a difficult industry that gets more challenging by the day. And, so far, not one of those that turned me down has said the dreaded words, “You can’t write.” But none of them are interested in representing my book. They say, it’s “not right for us” or “not what we’re looking for” and then they wish me well finding somebody else. Since I only write to agents who work in the genre my story falls within (Historical Fiction for Middle-Grade readers), I had no idea why my book was wrong. It’s like being told you aren’t some guy’s type when you resemble his last three girlfriends. Okay, what am I doing wrong? Last month, my rejected novel…