Giving Birth - To a Book

Bringing a book into the world is a lot like having a child (except they don’t talk back to you, at least not very often).  And the book isn’t a tax deduction, it’s actually taxable income, but if you make the piddling amount of money that I do on books, the taxes owed wouldn’t pay the salary of a government flea.

The conception of a book idea is like the conception of a child--through-the-roof ecstatic.  Then the idea grows in your mind as the fetus grows in one’s stomach.

Comes the day you sit down at the computer and type the first chapter and, voila, a book is born.  It’s no longer a wisp of an idea lurking in the back of your mind; it’s right there in black and white.  Wobbly, of course, as it needs a lot of nurturing for it to become a full-grown book.

Over the days, weeks, months, you watch the book develop and grow.  You see it struggle to become independent; to go down a different path than the one you so carefully laid out for it.

And before you know it, the book is ready to graduate and go out into life on its own.  That is when you publish it and it’s out of your hands.  You have done all you can to make it the best it can be.  There’s no more time for tweaking here and fixing there.

I say all this to let you know that my second and latest book in the Cranky Seniors Series has now been published on Kindle.  The title is: Waterbeds and Wedding Vows, begging the question, can two cranky seniors make it past “I do?”  (Obviously we can, because Fred and I are about to celebrate our 18th anniversary.  And nobody is as cranky as the two of us!)

If you don’t have a Kindle, you may be able to go to www.amazon.com and order it to read on your computer.  At any event, it is not in print form, only in digital format.  Here is what the cover looks like.

I am now working on the third in the series, called, Hamburgers and Headaches.  I’ll let you know when it’s published.

Quote of the Day:  Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about. Oscar Wilde -  Lady Windermere's Fan, Act I.

Boxes, Boxes Everywhere

Well, our house has been sold.  We’ll still be here for a few months while the short sale goes through, but at least we have a buyer.  There is a SOLD sign posted on top of the For Sale sign outside our house.   We've been here eleven years and that is longer than anywhere I've ever lived my whole life.  Reality is setting in that we really are going to be moving out of this house.  For even more reality, you should see the boxes, empty and full, piled high in our spare room!  The ones that are packed, are going with us.  The empty boxes are yet to be packed, either for a yard sale or for moving.  The bare bookshelves and certain empty cupboards give further evidence that we really are moving.  Or else getting a really good head start on spring cleaning!

For those who don’t know about a short sale, let me explain according to what we've heard and experienced.  Our house is under water, and probably would continue to be for another year or two before we could sell it for more than the mortgage we owe.  With a short sale, and a hardship reason, we can sell the house while it’s upside down and walk away owing no first or second mortgage.  We won’t make anything on the house, but we won’t owe anything, either.  We also, and here’s a biggie for us, have been advised that we do not have to repair, fix, paint, or do anything to improve the condition of the house.  Since Fred and I are financially and physically unable to make any repairs, this is super good news for us.

So why would a bank offer to do a short sale?

Scenario One: The homeowner can’t make the mortgage payments and lets the house go into foreclosure.  The bank now owns the property and, in order to sell it, has to repair, fix, and paint, the property.  They have to advertise the property for sale and maintain it before a new owner moves in.  In addition to losing the mortgage money, it is now pouring money into the house.

Scenario Two:  The homeowner can’t make the mortgage payments because of a hardship and applies for a short sale.  The bank is no longer getting the mortgage payments, but is also not having to repair or sell the property.  The real estate agent sells the property and the new owner makes the repairs.  It’s almost a win-win situation for the bank.

With a short sale, you cannot buy another house for two years.  That’s fine for us because at this age, we’re not about to be starting a thirty-year mortgage.

To add a cherry on top, to keep the homeowner from foreclosing, the government and the bank offer a “Relocation Incentive.”  That means we will get our moving expenses paid!  We couldn't have asked for a better ending to our story as we get ready to close the book on this chapter of our lives and prepare for a new chapter in North Carolina.

Today’s Quote:  Everything happens for a reason, people change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so you can appreciate them when they're right, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can come together. Marilyn Monroe
 

Dogs Don't Wear Sneakers

While working in the elementary school library the other day, I took note of some of the book titles for beginning readers.  Long gone are the Dick, Jane and Spot books that were around when I was a beginning reader. After all, you can watch Spot run just so long.  Now, the beginning readers have an amazing array of fun books to choose from.  For instance:

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Never Ride Your Elephant to School by Doug Johnson
Never Mail an Elephant by Mike Thaler
Dogs Don’t Wear Sneakers by Laura Numerof
The Flea’s Sneeze by Lynn Downey
Never Give a Fish an Umbrella by Mike Thaler.

These book titles would tempt anyone to pick them up and start reading.  And the kids do read.  You can see how much they love books by the way they groan when told the library will be closing for the summer.  Every class period, kids are lined up waiting to check out the book(s) they’re taking home to read. I see this and am encouraged about our country’s future.  Dick, Jane and Spot have left the building.

Speaking of books, I’ve started sorting and packing for our upcoming move.  So far, all I’ve done is one bookcase.  Every book I pick up has to go in one of two boxes--take it with us or put it in a yard sale. It has taken me hours just to go through those few shelves, looking at all my “friends” and deciding their fate. Autographed books by Buddy Ebsen, Mike Huckabee, and local authors, should command a higher price at a yard sale.  And there is yet another bookcase to sort through. A third bookcase contains just photo albums.  Nothing to sort, they’re all going with us.

Today’s Quote:  How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. George Washington Carver

From White Sand to White Snow

April is almost over and with May comes summer!  It can't come too soon, even though I live in an area that never really sees winter.  In the winter months, if I want to see snow, I only have to "Lift my eyes unto the hills" and see white along the ridges.  And believe me, that is as close as I want to get to snow.  In this area around San Diego, people go crazy when snow falls in the mountain regions.  They bring snow back by the truck load so they can dump it in their backyard and play in it.  One day I even saw a truck bed full of snow with a surf board sitting on top.  Not having a shovel, they scooped the snow up with a surf board.  That's Southern California for you!  Even as a kid in Vermont, I hated to go outside and play in the snow.  I haven't changed.

Fred and I may be heading back to snow country.  Our house is on the market and our plans are to move to North Carolina.  They don't get as much snow as New England, but we will get a bit now and then.  We are both retired so looking for a job is a non-issue.  I can write there as well as here.  And speaking of writing, I told you all that I published Mishaps and Miracles, from the Cranky Seniors Series, on Kindle, and last week I received my first royalty check from Amazon (maker of Kindle)!  The check covered January and February and was for a whopping sum of $11.82, not enough to get rich on, but enough to tell me that people are actually downloading my story and paying for it!  I couldn't be happier!

In about a week, I'll be downloading the second story in the Cranky Seniors Series--Waterbeds and Wedding Vows: Two Cranky Seniors Get Married.  Here's a short exceprt:


Fred’s boss gave us a trip to Cabo San Lucas in Baja, Mexico for a wedding gift, telling us we could stay at his condo near the beach. We took advantage of his lovely offer six months after the wedding.  On Christmas Day we flew down to Cabo and spent a beautiful week. It was certainly a white Christmas--white sand everywhere reaching out to touch the white foam of the sea!  We had breakfast and dinner at a restaurant on the beach with table and chairs outside, our bare feet buried in the sand. A very tacky multi-colored foil Christmas tree was nearby, reminding us that it was, indeed, Christmas. And here we were with warm air, blue sky, white sand, and gentle breezes. What a life.

At one point during the week, I went parasailing and Fred enjoyed time on jet skis. Then he said, “Let’s go scuba diving!  You’ll love it. I‘ve done it before and it‘s so much fun. You get to see things under water you can‘t see from land.”
 
     I tentatively agreed, even though I don’t like to get my hair wet. Or my face. Or go under water. I’ll go as high in the air as you want, but I’m not fond of going under water. I’ll sky dive, just not scuba dive. Turns out, we needed a doctor’s okay in order to go scuba diving. They called a local doctor and while waiting for his return call, they gave us a quick rundown of the dos and don’ts of scuba diving. Forget learning how to use the air tank and practicing rolling over the side of the boat into the water, I couldn’t even get the rubber jacket on. No matter how I tugged and wrestled with it, that tiny thing was not going on me in any way that could be zipped up.

I turned to Fred and asked, “What have I ever done to you that you should want to put a heavy tank on my back and throw me overboard?”

He ignored my sarcasm and said, “You’ll love it once you get down under the water.”

I said, “No, I won’t.”

As it was, the doctor called back and reviewed both of our medical histories and declared us both unfit to go scuba diving. YES!  God and the doctor were on my side!

Quote of the Day:  Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and dogs before he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriage, he rarely, or never, takes any such care.  Charles Darwin.

A Feel Good Book: An Amish Holiday

After the horrendous events of this past week, I plan to lighten the mood a bit and talk about a book and an author that I have fallen in love with.  The book is An Amish Holiday and contains two stories within its pages.  The first is, An Amish Christmas and the second is  A Plain & Fancy Christmas.

The author is Cynthia Keller.  I know nothing about her except what the last page of the book says: She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two children. It must be the Connecticut tie that makes me love her writing.  :-)

I have to assume that at some point Ms. Keller lived among the Amish because she seems to know their ways far more than would you or I.  I like to read a book where I learn something and I have certainly learned a lot from this book.  I was in Amish country once, and saw the horse-drawn wagons stop at a grocery store then move on down the street.  I have to admit I gawked at them.

An Amish Christmas is about a dysfunctional family in North Carolina--mother, father, daughter and two sons--who, through a twist of fate, end up living with an Amish family in Pennsylvania.  We watch them as they learn to slow down, extricate themselves from cell phones, iPods, television, schedules, all the things they once thought were important, and begin to live in harmony with each other and their surroundings.  Here’s an excerpt:

Meg shivered in the cold morning air as she dressed.  Tucking in her shirt, she felt something in one of her pants pockets.  She reached in to discover the refrigerator magnet she had taken from the house as she walked out the door in Charlotte.
    Esse Quam videri.  To be, rather than to seem.
    She stared at it.  The motto had been her inspiration for so long, as she tried to feel the way she thought she should be, rather than just to seem to feel it.  Now she saw it in a completely different way.  These people, Catherine and David and even their young children, had shown her what it meant to be rather than to seem.  They didn’t talk about what they did, how they felt about it, or what it meant.  They knew how to just be.  They knew what they valued: religion, community, work.  They followed those values, and as a result they were completely genuine in everything they did.  

The second story, A Plain & Fancy Christmas, tells of two babies accidentally switched at birth, one to Amish parents and one to New York City parents.  The girls, both named Rachel, grow up feeling out of place; the one brought up in the city longs for a quieter, more peaceful life and the girl brought up in the Amish community wishes she had more excitement in her life.  The girls eventually meet and, well, you just have to read the book to find out what happens.

Quote of the day: The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. Henry Miller

Can What You Eat Affect Your Mental Health?

Today I’m talking with friend and fellow writer, Dr. Ruth Leyse-Wallace, author of Nutrition and Mental Health.    

Welcome, Ruth.  Please tell us where you live?

Since 2002 I have lived in Alpine, California which is on the east edge of San Diego County.

How long have you been writing?

My first publications were in the early 1980s and continued rather sporadically until around 2004. At that time I buckled down and started writing my first book. I had just retired, had a supportive husband, and a file full of material about the links between mental health and nutrition that I had been telling myself “someone” ought to write about. In 2004 I decided that “someone” was me and the time was right for such a book to be published. I joined The San Diego Writers/Editors Guild, heard about self-publishing, and sat down at the computer.

What type of writing do you normally do?

I really enjoy working on non-fiction -- either in my professional area of expertise or memoir/life story/family tree writing for my children and grandchildren. I’ve also written a few articles about the time I owned and piloted my own hot air balloon.

Give a brief synopsis of Nutrition and Mental Health?

Nutrition and Mental Health is an introduction to the research and ideas behind the concept that nutrients and nutritional status affect mental health/status/well-being.  I have reviewed scientific research from hundreds of journals and scientists to summarize the topics, the findings, the continuing questions, and the incorporation of nutritional assessment into current psychological and psychiatric health care. The research includes specific nutrients (vitamins minerals, fatty acids, supplements, etc) and the effect of dieting, and mental health issues of ADHD, alcoholism, Alzheimer’s, Disease, bipolar disorder, caffeinism, depression, eating disorders, schizophrenia, stress, violence, etc. 

It is phenomenal how much is known and how much research is done on these topics. Genetics and environmental issues are additional factors that are being related to the fields of nutrition and mental health. I coined the term The PsychoNutriologic Person, which is defined as any individual who has concerns related to nutrition and to mental well-being that interact and influence the quality of life.

What are your qualifications to write this book?

I practiced clinical dietetics in psychiatric hospitals, substance abuse programs, and eating disorder treatment programs for thirty years. I have always read professional journals and books that report on new research, copied or clipped out articles, attended workshops and conferences, and kept the notes. When I decided to go back to graduate school at age fifty-one to see if I still had it in me to achieve a life-time goal of earning a doctorate degree that included learning the process of researching and writing scholarly papers. I received my doctorate degree in 1998.

What prompted you to write it?

My files were full and I was passionate about getting that knowledge out to professionals and patients who would benefit by knowing this information. The public and professionals alike had become educated in the effect of nutrition on physical health: it was time to feed and integrate the separate interests in nutrition and mental health!  Things were coming together in my personal life, in the public interest, and in health care. It was time to write this book! I felt a sense of destiny and life purpose about it. A publisher was interested, felt it was timely, and was convinced by my earlier self-published book, Linking Nutrition to Mental Health, that I could do it.

How long did it take to write it?

I told the publisher, it would take about 2 ½ years, but it was ready to submit several months early.  

Do you have a favorite chapter from the book?

A most amazing chapter for me was to learn about the work with incarcerated juveniles and the seeming relationship of poor nutrition on hostility, aggressiveness and violence. I read about the eating habits of today’s youth and then about the level of violence in today’s world and the lack of available food in many places. I wondered that if everyone around the world had adequate, nutritious food, might such hostility actually go down?

Is it published and, if so, when and by whom?

It was published by CRC Press, a division of Taylor and Francis, Inc. The publication date was late January, 2013. 

How can my readers get a copy?

It can be ordered from the publisher or from www.amazon.com . Any book store could order a copy if it isn’t on the shelf.  

What do you do besides write?

I spend quality time with my four-year-old-granddaughter, son and daughter-in-law, who live not far away.  I enjoy growing a variety of flowers in my yard, from amaryllis, bird of paradise, to shamrocks, etc.  I have always been an avid reader, and am currently a member of a discussion group reading our third series from the Great Books Foundation. I spent a fair amount of time and energy acting as the President of The San Diego Writers/Editors Guild during 2012 and am continuing in that position in 2013. Some day I may follow-up on my wish to join a drumming circle.

What is your advice to would-be writers?

Write about what you are passionate about, where your intense interest lies. When you have something you want to say, it is easy to sit down every day and work on getting it said.  Actually it is easier to sit down and write than doing other things when ideas are coming and you want to get them down before you forget them.

What do you wish you knew when you started your writing career?

If I had known how good it would feel to have in your hand a book you wrote, and have people want to buy it and read it, I may have started earlier! 

What’s next for you?

I want to learn how to self-publish on the web, resume blogging on my nutrition and mental health blog, learn how to self-manage my website, and perhaps write more focused articles for journals and magazines.  I enjoy speaking, teaching, and spreading the word on nutrition and mental health, so I hope I have an opportunity to continue.  And, of course, I’ll keep on filing!

Thank you, Ruth.  It's been a pleasure.

Today's Quote: Life is the sum of all your choices. Albert Camus

A Visit to Easters Past

Easter is in two weeks.  In seventy-two years, I’ve celebrated a lot of Easters.

This is a picture of my sister and me when we were teenagers and all dressed up with hat and gloves for Easter.  I’m on the right.  It was the mid-fifties and we thought we were stylin'.

I remember one Easter when my kids were little.  As we left the house to visit family, there was about ten inches of new snow on the ground.  It made a good background for the colored eggs I’d hung from the branches of a bare tree.  This was April in Connecticut.

Every Easter afternoon, my then husband and I and our two young girls would go visit Jack and Irene.  They were like parents to my husband and grandparents to our girls.  They were Hungarian and we could always count on having boiled eggs and kielbasa for dinner.  One Easter, Irene met us at the door with a big grin and said, “Look at my  new Easter outfit!”  I looked at the old shirt and sweat pants she was wearing and wondered what she considered a new outfit.  She saw my puzzled look and said, “I’ve got new sneakers!”

Now here’s my favorite Easter story.  One Easter we were all in their living room after dinner, the TV was on and the girls were keeping themselves occupied.  Jack and my husband were celebrating by downing a couple of shots, maybe more.  I sat in an easy chair and Irene sat on the footstool  in front of me.  The girls and I were dressed in our Easter finery as we had been at our Baptist church services that morning.  Irene, being Catholic, wanted to impart her theological wisdom to me so she leaned in close, looked around, and in a low voice whispered, “Jesus was a Jew you know.”  Then she sat back up and declared, “But it’s okay because he turned Catholic before he died!”  I almost fell out of the chair I was sitting in.  

Have a good Easter everyone!

Today's Quote: Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.
Ashley Smith