Make a Smilebox greeting

The season and the spirit

Thanksgiving is over and Christmas will soon be here. The lights are on the tree and outside around the door. Christmas music plays on some of the radio stations, displays are in the stores.
There was much to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving. Most of the family was together and that's what made me most thankful. My grand-daughter was home from India, safe and sound one month before that terrible event. We have much to be thankful for in this country.
Christmas was always my favorite time of year. The good wishes around the town, the cheerfulness of friends and family. The spirit of giving and wondering just what would be the right gift for someone and giving to your favorite charity. This year I sent for the DVD of the Christmas show at Rockefeller Center. I was fortunate enough to go there many years ago and see the Christmas show. I'll never forget it or the rockettes. It truly is spectacular. I wish everyone would have an opportunity to go there someday.
Yesterday the writing group I belong to had its Christmas/Holiday party. It was so nice to be together with them. They are a great group of people and we all had a wonderful time. The people in charge worked very hard to have things perfect.
I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Ann

Halloween 2008

It's Halloween and soon the little goblins will be coming to the door asking for treats. Thankfully, people don't seem to mess up things as much as they did years ago by soaping windows, cars, wrapping trees in toilet paper, etc. Halloween parties are the way to go.
The little ones look cute and enjoy the thought they are scaring someone. Don't forget to tell them not to eat anything from their bag of treats until they get it home to the adults in the family so they can check it out to make sure it's safe.
I've noticed there are so many people walking on the sides of the road lately in dark colored clothes. Please tell them to carry a light and try to find some article of clothing that is light in color or have a fluorescent patch, or something that will show up easily with the headlights of oncoming cars.
Above all, have fun. Life is to be lived.

Cookie anyone?

I've been spending the morning making cookies. That seems like a strange thing to do as a nurse, but that's what's happening. We have an organization here, in Williamsburg, called The Nightengale's. Appropriate for a bunch of retired nurses, and there are quite a few. Once a year we make cookies for the student nurses at the local hospital. I remember when I was a student nurse how some homemade food was so tasty and hope the students, here, like the ones I made.
Student nurses are a blessing. They are so caring and comforting. They want to do everything perfectly. What would we do without them? I remember when my mother was a patient in the hospital. She was in a coma for three months. Those were the days when the hospitals sometimes kept patients for long periods of time. The students would come in and care for my mother and they were so gentle and nice to her. I loved the students.
I have written a story about student nurses, which takes place in the 1950s. It took me a year to complete this story and that was in 1995. It is around 90,000 words long. I was going to try to publish it myself, but the cost is very high. Now I've decided to try to get it published. I know that will be difficult, but I have a reason to want it published. There were certain differences between the 50s and now and I wanted people to be able to see some of this in the context of a fiction story.
Well, got to go check on the brownies that are in the oven. Decided to add them to the bunch of cookies. Just about everyone I know likes brownies.
Bye for now.

The Joy of Writing

The kids are all home and so are the adults so it's too noisy to think straight. The world was on the brink of disaster it seems, a bill was passed and everyone is holding their breath. Not many people are looking to see how much money they have lost, but optimistically are counting on it coming back.
So, what do you do when things seem to be beyond your control?
I began to think of what, besides publication, is good about writing?
The old saying, "it keeps you out of trouble" would be one thing.
Preventing early Alzheimers would be another. Flexibility of the hands and fingers. I've been fortunate not to have arthritis, but know people who are plagued by this unfortunate condition and it's not pleasant. It gives you a space in the house you can call your own. It's that little cave you can crawl into when you feel the need. It's a great outlet for your creativity. One thing I think is great about writing is that it gives you a very good excuse to travel. It gives you mail if you get the submission back. You might have friends or organizations of other writers. Most of all, though, it gives you hope and joy. You're doing what you love most.
And that's the joy of writing.

Strength

When I heard that a woman was chosen to be the Republican running mate and that she hunted moose I knew someone with a great deal of guts had been chosen. Moose are very big and if provoked I believe they can do a lot of damage. See the picture of the moose in a previous blog. Three cheers for women.
Another group of people with a great deal of strength are writers. It takes guts to tell the world what you think and to send in stories and have them rejected. And even more strength to send them in again.
Three cheers for writers.

There's something about palm trees that puts you into an island mood. It makes you want to lie in the sun, shade your eyes and listen to the ocean. It's a good time to take along a book, preferably written by a romance writer. To get back to the medical reference, there were two doctors aboard our ship. We didn't meet them since we stayed healthy, thankfully. One or two people were sick when we first left and they were using alcohol wipes and telling everyone to wash their hands. Apparenly they were just sea sick because no one else was sick during the trip to my knowledge. In the story I'm editing now there is a scene that takes place at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg and I thought it was interesting to find out that they do have two nurses there at the First Aid Station. I imagine they keep busy since there are so many people who go through Busch each year.

This is a picture of Horseshoe Bay in Bermuda. The water is so clear you can see the bottom and the waves are just high enough to be fun. The color of the water is turquoise with darker shades probably where it's deeper or there is something like seaweed, reefs or rock. Lighter areas can be seen where there are sandbars. The sun is very hot and you need to use plenty of sunblock. On the far side of the beach are rock.

This is the ship that took my family and myself to Bermuda from Norfolk, the Royal Carribean. It was my first cruise and I must say it was delightful. Everything was well organized from beginning to the end. The entertainment was good, the food was terrific and all the workers went out of their way to give us great service. Bermuda was beautiful. The water is turquois with variations of light and dark areas, according to depth and sand. The island is shale rock. The houses are made of stone from the shale and covered in stucco, then painted in white or light pastels. All the roofs are made of the shale, sliced like bread, according to the driver of the taxi in which we drove from Horseshoe Bay and then the roofs are painted in white, which is a requirement.

As a student nurse I came in contact with quite a few people from the southern Russia area, Ukrania and Poland. The school of nursing was in an area heavily concentrated with people from these areas. I found them to be fun loving, friendly and warm people and so I found it disturbing to see Georgia invaded the other day. The people want to be free and independant. I think all people want to be free and sometimes pay a hefty price for freedom. Now you have to think of the casualties. People killed and wounded, homes destroyed. I do wish them well. Thank God for nurses and doctors. Thank God for America.

The loon is an interesting bird that looks somewhat like a duck with red eyes. This is not a very good picture but you might be able to see the image somewhat. It's from an old calendar put out by the National Wildlife Fed. The loon has three distinct calls which some people feel sounds like the cry of a baby. It is a eerie sound. "It is said when you hear the call of loon, someone will drown." It is also said that "if a loon calls during a funeral, he's helping the dead person's soul to make it;s way to heaven." The native American people had many myths and legends built up around the loon. Some other points of interest about the loon are that it can dive very deeply without coming up for air and that it carries its young on its back for protection. The library north of Lake Placid is a wonderful place to do research. Unfortunately I had very little time to spend there. I would like to go back someday.

I'm editing a story which takes place in the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. This is a beautiful animal that is prevalent in that area and is the cause of some auto accidents. Like the deer, we have invaded the territory where they have lived and their long legs sometimes go over the hood of a car. The picture of the lake is where most of the story takes place. This particular lake is named Loon Lake and is north of Lake Placid. The loon is an interesting bird that looks somewhat like a duck with red eyes. I hope you'll be able to read the story to learn more about it. Ann

I finally have a picture. My grandson put this one on for me as I am not that familiar with this technology. This is me, years ago, when I was working as a nurse in the nursing home next door to my house. I was working at night and ready to go home when someone took the picture.
Just thought I'd add it to the blog. Now we have to get ready to celebrate a birthday. There are five in our family this month.
Ann

Health issues and the family

I've been involved with a health issue with my grand-daughter lately where the insurance company doesn't want to approve an MRI. Of course they're expensive and might mean that something more expensive will come from the results, like surgery. I realize that sometimes tests are ordered when they aren't needed, but I do believe the majority of doctors order tests which they believe are necessary. I think it's a shame that the doctors have to fight the insurance companies in these cases, but that's what it leads to and sometimes the families have to fight also. All that means time wasted, which could be vital for a patient.
I'd like to hear your comments on this matter.
Ann

I was working on a story the other day and thought I had a theme in it which was in some of my other stories. I never plan on themes when I'm writing, but somehow they creep through. It seems to me what we learn and experience through life, our lessons learned, become our beliefs and account for our themes in the stories. Romance stories have an overall theme about the power of love, but as we write, our characters show us their natures, beliefs and views on life. This might reflect our own or in some of the characters may be the direct opposite. Think I'll look for themes now when I write something.

T.P.R.

I was reading a message on a loop today and they were mentioning the stories of survivors of Nazi Germany. It made me think about the importance of writing as a means to record history. We don't think about it when we write a contemporary story, but we're recording society as it is.
We record the dress, food, slang, what our houses and communities look like and what is important to us, even the type of crimes that might be in the news today and our social mores. I think romance books do a very good job in this respect.
I once gave a blood transfusion to a woman who was a survivor of the second world war and had been in a concentration camp. According to her she was used in an experiment which left her with blood problem and so had to get transfusions. Some of the survivors wouldn't talk about their experiences because it was too painful for them, but the ones who did left the listeners with an indelible impression. What if we were to tell all these survivors that what they said was unimportant and shouldn't be told? How much we would be missing of history.

T.P.R.

I was thrilled today to receive a contract for a short story for the new Love Stories magazine to be published by GrassRoots Publishing. I'll keep typing with my fingers crossed until it actually comes out. I wish the publishing company the best of luck on their new pub.

Hello,
It's quiet in the house for a little while, so I can concentrate on the story I am beginning. It will be a romance/mystery of a sort. Mysteries are fun because you have to figure out what persons can be suspects, why they hated the person who was murdered and how you can make it look like they were the ones who "did" it. They are also pretty hard to do, as I'm finding out now. As usual there will be medical personnel involved.
At the same time I'm still mulling over the long story I wrote about the student nurses. I pretty much have decided to draw out some of the stories in it and use them to write another story. This could go on
forever. Too bad I'm not younger.
Well, there's lots to do today so I'd better get some coffee and start. Have a good day. Ann

T.P.R.

The letters, T.P.R. stand for temperature, pulse, respiration. That's what nurses did all the time when I was working in a hospital. We had regular times when we went around taking everyone's temperatures, pulses, and respirations. The more critical patients had their T.P.R.s done more often.
In between times, I wrote. I was editor of the school newspaper in my first year of nursing school.
My love of story telling began when I was a pre-teen and helped to watch a toddler. Another girl and I would make up stories to entertain him.
In junior high school I had a column in the school paper I named "Flash". I went around every month and tried to get information and news to put into my column. In high school I helped out on the year book staff. I loved my English lit. class.
In college, after nursing school I took quite a few English and writing classes, which I enjoyed.
Life gets busy, as you know, and the next time I began to write was when I ripped the tendon in my knee. I was working at a nursing home at the time and the halls were long. The work stopped and I began to read some of the Harlequin books. One day I decided to try writing one. That was a happy day because I found I enjoyed making up stories and characters almost more than I enjoyed reading about them. I wrote a couple short stories and had them published in a nurses magazine. They asked if I would write articles and I did that, too.
That comes down to the T.P.R. I write mostly, but not entirely, about nurses and doctors. I write short stories, novels, and some poetry, too.
I'm looking forward to having a short story in a magazine soon.
I wrote a long story about six girls going through nursing school in the 1950s and am trying to decide what to do with that. I might break it up into smaller stories. Next time, I'll try to tell you more about the nurses.
Have to go for now.