Okay, that's it.  I have officially had it.  Every time I log in here to blog, I spend half my time shutting pop-up windows my pop-up blocker can't seem to prevent, and now, to make it all worse, voices have started speaking to me, advertising junk I don't want, from places I can't shut off unless I close the entire browser window. 

So you know what this means?  We're moving!  I've set up a new blog location at:  http://coaldancer.blogspot.com/ so please save the new location and visit me there! 

Today is my favorite nephew's birthday. 

Now before anybody starts thinking I'm an awful aunt for saying that, let me clear the air by admitting that Matt is my only nephew.  I also have two nieces, but we're talking nephews today. 

Matt's 20 today, which means that he has officially left behind the life of a teenager.  It's also just six months until my youngest daughter, Vanessa, turns 20.  Like a million other moms and aunts, I sometimes have trouble keeping up with the fact that the kids are getting this old.  I used to think the older generations were crazy for saying that something seemed like it happened just yesterday, especially when whatever it was had happened a good 30 or 40 years earlier.  Unfortunately, I'm discovering that while it doesn't exactly feel like yesterday, there are far too many things that feel as if they happened just a year or two ago that . . . well, didn't. 

When Matt and Vanessa were little, Matt was sometimes a little too enthusiastic about giving her hugs.  His efforts to show Vanessa how much he liked her were usually met with disaster, such as two kids and a walker tumbling down the stairs or crashing over in the living room.  In that way he hasn't changed much in the past 20 years.  He doesn't hug Vanessa often, but when he does, I always hold my breath, expecting the two of them to tumble over on the spot. 

He told me once that I had the second best hair in the world.  That might not sound like much, but one of Matt's comfort things when he was little was sitting on his mom's lap, playing with her hair.  He could sit there for the longest time, recovering from some injury, falling asleep, watching TV, listening to a story, just mindlessly running his fingers through my sister's hair.  So when he had to climb onto my lap once in a time of need, I experienced a moment of panic, wondering if I could possibly give this boy what he needed in terms of hair comfort.  I can't tell you how relieved I was to find out my hair was right up there near the top of the list! 

Like my uncle Ralph was for the cousins in my generation, Matt is just the right age to be considered the coolest guy on earth by his niece and nephew.  Since he was about 15, Matt has willingly -- even eagerly -- been known as "Uncle Pooh."  I think it's "Pooh" anyway.  Maybe it's "Uncle Poo."   Either way, a lot of 15-year-old guys might not get excited about being known as Pooh, but from the minute David was old enough to say it, Matt has thrived on it. 

Matt's been away at school for more than a year, studying to become a commercial pilot.  His dad is also a commercial pilot, a captain with Delta Airlines. He's also an avid sailor, a skiier, and tennis player, not to mention a gifted musician. 

Best of all, he's a good kid.  A really great kid, actually.  I'm lucky enough to be his aunt in this life, but I hope he knows that I'd like him even if I weren't related to him.  

    It's St. Patrick's Day today, and spring is coming.  At least, that's what I'm told.  You'd never know it to look at my yard, though. It's snowed twice in the past week, and we're expecting another big snow storm to hit tonight.  I'm not complaining.  After six long years of drought, we need the moisture.  But I am ready for spring to arrive.  I'm ready for crocus, tulips and daffodils.  For the sunny burst of forsythia blooms and the scent of soil on the breeze.  I'm ready to turn off the heater, to open the windows and let the fresh air inside. 

Meanwhile, I'm wearing a hint o' the green, my nod to that drop or two of Irish blood coursing through my veins.  It's also my parents' wedding anniversary today.  They've been married 59 years today.  59! Being married that long is an incredible feat anytime, but especially in today's society, where divorce is so prevalent and blended families are the norm.  

  I could tell you that my parents have been married for 59 blissful years, but that wouldn't be true.  Like any married couple, they've had their share of ups and downs.  They've disagreed--sometimes vehemently, but they've also stood together in the face of incredible odds.  The fact that they've stuck together during some rough times makes their 59 year marriage even more impressive to me. 

So this one's to you, Mom and Dad.  Happy Anniversary!  I love you both

I'm heading to San Diego this morning for RWA board meeting, and I don't feel ready.  Oh, I've read and studied the agenda and I've jotted down all the questions I have at the moment about the motions on the agenda, so I think I'm ready to work -- I'm just not sure I've been focused enough to pack what I need. 

This might be a hold-over panic from last March's board meeting which took place just weeks after I nearly lost my daughter, less than a month after she came home from the hospital.  I was NOT ready to leave her, and my head wasn't in the game.  It was so not in the game, I didn't even know what hotel I was supposed to go to in New York City until late the night before, and the only reason I figured it out then was because my mother called to ask which hotel I'd be staying at.  If she hadn't called, I probably wouldn't have figured out that I didn't know where to go until I landed at JFK. 

Once I got to my hotel room, I discovered that I'd forgotten a hairbrush, a tooth brush, toothpaste, deodorant, pajamas, and I don't remember what else.  I didn't want to sleep in the buff because the memory of having to race down the stairs at a hotel in Dallas at the national conference the previous year (thanks to a smoldering pizza box in an elevator) was still fresh in my mind.  New York might be a city that thinks it's seen everything, but even it isn't ready for the sight of me running down 18 flights of stairs in the buff. 

My head's in a better place as I get ready to head to the airport today, but I can't shake the feeling that I've forgotten something important.    One thing's for sure -- if I have forgotten something, I'll find out soon enough! 

I have just 10 minutes to write this blog before I have to run out the door.  Think I can make it? 

Today is a family day at my house.  It's the anniversary of the day my ex-husband passed away.  The first year was really tough on my daughters.  Not just my daughters.  That first year was tough on me, too.  Strangely, though Leon and I had been divorced for about 20 years when he died, we were better friends then than we'd ever been when we were married.  If you had asked me before he died whether I would grieve his loss, I would have said yes, a little.  I was shocked to discover that my pain actually cut quite deep. 

The second year a little easier on all of us.  We'd gone through everyone's birthdays without him, through Father's Day, Christmas, and Thanksgiving, and through Super Bowl Sunday (which was truly the day he celebrated most ) so the shock of not having him around wasn't quite as sharp.  This year marks seven years since Leon died, and for some reason this year's a little tougher on my oldest daughter than usual. 

That's how grieving goes, I guess. Losing a loved one is hard.  There's no doubt about that.  Our grief ebbs and flows, depending on our personal level of strength and what's going on in the world around us.  Some days we cope well. Some days we don't.  That's what makes us human. 

The older I get, the more I realize that none of us was meant to get through this life on our own.  Families and friends are here for a reason, and even though it's sometimes hard to ask for help getting through a day, a week, or a season, helping one another through is what it's all about. 

So tonight the girls and I are going to dinner together, to celebrate Leon's life and share memories of the time we had with him. 

There.  My 10 minutes are up!  Off I go

Today is Read Across America Day.  I had no idea until I turned on the morning news to find out what happened in the world overnight.  According to the National Education Association website, Read Across America Day is an annual reading motivation and awareness day originally created in 1997 to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss. 

I'm wondering why I didn't know there was a Read Across America Day.  My youngest daughter was just 11 the year they started it, so you'd think her teacher might have mentioned it.  Maybe she did.  Probably she did.  My kids were never that good at being conduits for transmitting news from school -- especially when that news was bad or about something they didn't like. 

Sadly, neither of my kids really liked to read all that much when they were younger.  Not great news for a woman who is an avid reader and lover of books and who went on to become a novelist.  Both of them liked to be read to, though, so at least I had that to cling to. 

Books are truly the great love of my life.  I remember once, years ago, when my kids and I had to move suddenly and unexpectedly from the house we'd lived in for nearly 15 years into a tiny 2-bedroom apartment.  It was a necessary move brought on by the ugly events of that February 13th I talked about in my last post.  Necessary to keep us all safe once we were back together again.  In order to squeeze into that apartment, I had to seriously scale back, and that meant that I had to get rid of boxes and boxes and BOXES of books.  

My uncle, who owned a building supply store at the time, let me hold a garage sale in his parking lot, and I can still remember standing behind this long table and watching people walk off with my books while tears streamed down my face.  Letting those books go was one of the hardest things I've ever been asked to do, and if my childrens' lives hadn't been at stake, I'm not sure I could have done it. 

Books have been the one constant in my life, and they represented something so deep, they were such an integral part of me, I hurt physically when I let them go.  I'm sure some people will think I'm weird for feeling that way, but I know there are at least a few of you who know exactly what I'm talking about.  My kids didn't understand me at the time, but I think they would now.    

My oldest daughter didn't read anything willingly until her senior year in high school, when her English teacher assigned her to read JANE EYRE.  She stayed up all night one night reading that book -- a fact which thoroughly delighted me.  I'd been telling her for years that anyone would enjoy reading if they could just find the book that clicked with them.  Naturally she didn't believe me, but now she has wide and varied tastes in books, ranging from everything by Dean Koontz to anything she can get her hands on about the Dalai Lama. 

My youngest daughter has been a sporadic reader from the time she started high school, but in the past year she has become almost consistent in carrying a book with her whenever she goes out.  Her favorite author is Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and meeting her at the RWA conference in Reno last year was a thrill for her, but she also enjoys Lani Diane Rich, Jennifer Crusie, and Stephanie Feagan, to name just a few. 

So even though both of my children are avid readers now that they're adults, I'm thrilled to discover Read Across America Day.  It makes me happy to know that somebody out there gets it.  If your kids don't celebrate Read Across America Day in school today, please celebrate with them at home.  Reading is so much more than entertainment.  It's freedom. 

  This may be a bad thing for a romance author to admit, but we really don't celebrate Valentine's Day at my house--at least not for the reasons most people celebrate it.  I don't have a husband. Don't have a significant other, and even if one of my daughters or I happen to be dating someone on February 1, by around February 10th the relationship bites the dust.  It always seems to happen, and it always happens big.  Such a fuss just to avoid shelling out for a box of chocolates or a couple of flowers. 

  It's more than just not having men in our lives, though.  February 13th happens to be a very unlucky day in our family.  Twice, now, life-altering things have come our way on February 13th.  Bad things.  The kinds of things I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, which means that February 14th is always more about taking inventory and making sure we're all still breathing than about hearts and     flowers. 

Just about 18 years ago, after the first major ugly February 13th, my oldest  daughter and I ate dinner at a local Mexican restaurant.  We had a very quiet, tear-filled dinner that night while we prayed that my youngest daughter, who had been abducted at gunpoint the previous day by her biological father, would some day come home to us.  Miracles do happen, and by the next year, we were all together, safe and healthy.  We went back to that restaurant for Valentine's Day that year and celebrated being together. 

Since then, with only a couple of exceptions, that's how my daughters and I celebrate Valentine's Day.  Dinner at the Mexican restaurant, thanking God that we're all together. 

One of these days, my daughters lives will change and they'll start celebrating Valentine's Day the way the rest of the world does.  I'm okay with that.  It's as it should be.  Maybe I will too.  Stranger things have happened, I guess.  But no matter where life takes me from here on out, I think that as long as my daughters are on this planet, I'll probably celebrate Valentine's Day with a taco or two

Maybe I'm just getting older, but I've been wondering lately when cartoons became so irritating.  I'm probably going to date myself here, but I used to love watching cartoons.  Mickey Mouse, Fred Flintstone, Donald Duck, The Jetsons, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear -- now those were cartoons you could sink your teeth into.  The voices were . . . voices.  Some high, some low, some mid-pitched.

These days, all of the the voices are so high-pitched, watching cartoons is about as fun for me as listening to someone rake their fingernails across a chalkboard.    It's sad, really.  I used to love starting my day with half an hour of cartoons. Now when my (almost 20-year-old) daughter turns on the Cartoon Network, I go looking for my headphones so I can drown out the sound. 

I've been thinking a lot about my "inner child" lately.  Wondering when I grew up, wondering why I grew up, wondering, as a novelist, whether growing up was such a good idea.  It's become quite clear that the adult side of me has taken over in the past couple of years.  Maybe she had to.  Life hasn't been easy lately, and somebody had to help us negotiate through the minefield, but leaving the adult side of me out here alone isn't exactly good for my career.

The inner adult is too -- formal.  Too fearful.  Too stiff.  Too afraid of risk, too  sedate to play.  She cares too much.  She worries too much.  If I sat myself down with a box of crayons, a sheet of paper, and instructions to draw a picture of a house, I would draw a very careful symetrical house.  Two windows on either side of the door that's cautiously drawn right in the middle of the house.  Five windows on the second floor, spaced exactly over the windows and door on the first floor.  The ceiling would be a sedate gray, colored very carefully between the lines.  The grass and leaves would be green. Flowers would be realistic colors, carefully balanced on either side of the house. 

My inner child is more playful.  She doesn't worry about risk, and she doesn't worry about coloring between the lines.  My inner child likes to mix bright colors that don't really go together.  She likes lime green grass and orange trees and purple dogs.  She likes bright red shingles on houses and wild, unbalanced flower gardens that look as if someone just tossed a mix of seeds on the ground and stood back to see what grew. 

  My inner child is the creative one; my inner adult is my internal editor, and the plain fact is, I need both sides to be working in order to do what I do, and do it well.  My inner child has been known to write 40 pages in a day because she doesn't get caught up in what's right and what's wrong and what makes sense, and whether the scene is motivated and what about the conflict, and did she establish the setting, and is there sexual tension, and is it all perfect?!? She just writes.  Writing, for her, is play. 

Writing for the inner adult is work, and she is a much slower writer (and her work isn't nearly as good.)  For her, writing 3 pages in a day is an incredible feat. Unfortunately, those 3 pages are usually quite boring and lifeless, even if they are technically correct. 

I don't know about any of you, but I would much rather spend my days playing than working, so I guess that means it's time to figure out where I left my inner child.  Wish me luck! 

The first time I used a laptop computer was back in 1994.  I had to take six weeks off my day job for major surgery, but I also had a looming deadline, so I borrowed a laptop from a friend, put pillows over my incision, and wrote while laying on my couch in front of my Christmas tree.  It was that experience that convinced me I could survive quite happily living and working as a full-time writer. 

The next time I used one was for a week in Monterey, California while I was there for Bouchercon (a world-wide mystery conference).  I still didn't have one of my own, so I rented one from a local computer shop and took it with me. I liked being able to write before panels and workshops so much, I bought a laptop of my own the very minute I could afford to.  For the next seven years, in spite of the fact that I had a nice desktop computer with lots of bells and whistles, I wrote on the laptop almost exclusively -- usually curled up in a comfortable chair where I could put my feet up, curl up with a blanket or an iced drink, depending on the weather, and tell myself a story.

  This really wasn't unusual for me.  As a kid, I needed background noise to concentrate.  My sister insisted on absolute quiet while she did her homework.  I did mine in the family room while watching old reruns of "Perry Mason."  I give credit to my mother for realizing that Perry Mason worked as well for me as all that quiet worked for my sister (though the difference in our report cards might not make it seem like it did.)  Perry had nothing to do with my lack of academic excellence.  My mother knew that, and so did I.  My lackluster grades were merely a reflection of my lack of enthusiasm for "official" types of learning. 

Even now, I need background noise before I can really lose myself in a story.  Music sometimes works, but the background noise that works best for me is still the television.  Go figure.  Stick me in a quiet room and tell me to write, and you'll witness a case of writer's block so severe it will make your head spin.  Let me sit in the family room with the Food Network or "Trading Spaces" on the television, and I'm in gear. 

My laptop worked like a charm for the first few years, but eventually the poor thing began to get sick.  Even sick, it limped along for a year or so before finally giving out completely last year. I tried to replace it with an AlphaSmart (which is wonderful for some situations, but all wrong for curling up in my favorite chair) but writing just hasn't been the same since that old laptop gave up the ghost. Without it, I've been limping along like a laptop with a bad power supply, a battery that won't hold a charge, and a broken disk drive. 

I'm happy to report, however, that at this very moment, I'm writing this blog entry, curled up in my chair with "Iron Chef America" playing in the background, using the brand new laptop which was delivered by the UPS guy last night.   

Oh yeah . . . life is good! 

Found this on Alfie Thompson's blog this morning and had to try it out for myself! 

My pirate name is:

Captain Charity Bonney

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.