Category: My Life

  • Just Rewards

    Ten Extra Pounds, Part 2 Last week, I confessed to gaining ten pounds. Mom suggested the extra weight was muscle from working out so much. Isn’t she sweet? Exercise did play a role. Working out explains maybe one or two pounds – and that’s being generous. Running is to blame for the remaining eight or nine…

  • Weighing In

    Ten Extra Pounds, Part 1 I weigh myself throughout the day and record my weight once a week. Vigilance works. Checking the scales enables me to act before an extra pound or two turns into ten. Since 2010, I’ve paid twenty bucks a month to track my weekly weight online. Yeah, I could do the…

  • My Feeble Eyes

    In 2010, the retina specialist discovered macular degeneration in my left eye. The macula is the central portion of the retina. It focuses central vision for reading, identifying colors, recognizing faces, and seeing fine details. Only about ten percent of cases — including mine — reach the advanced stage. With advanced macular degeneration, also known as wet macular degeneration,…

  • A Taste of Retirement

    Submission deadlines make me nervous. Working without an outline and only vague ideas about where the story might go means I could hit a wall at any time. Prompted by a May 1 deadline for Whippersnapper, I took a week off from the day job in mid-April for a taste of what life will be like after I retire. I finished the first…

  • My Best Friend

    According to wikipedia, a friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between two or more people. That casts a pretty wide net. I’m fond of a whole lot of people. Lucky for me, some of them feel the same way about me. By definition, that makes us friends. I’m grateful for each and every one of them. Many…

  • Birthday Presents

    For my 57th birthday earlier this month, I gave myself a new car and a trip to Orlando. The new car was somewhat of a requirement. The PT Cruiser I bought in 2005 had enough miles on it to make me nervous about driving to Florida. I’ve known for months what kind of car I wanted to…

  • Finding Myself in My WIP

    A bit of me goes into everything I write, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. Reading my novels gives you some idea of who I am and how I see the world. Mental health professionals who read all three probably see enough to offer a diagnosis. Since penning my first novel, I’ve struggled to figure out who I am as a writer.…

  • A Man and His Hat

    Growing up, I rarely wore a hat. Covering my head messed my hair up too much. If it got really cold, I’d break down and put on a sock hat or pull up the hood on my sweatshirt. You do what you gotta do. Until he got older, my father never wore a hat either. In…

  • Best Pants of All Time

    Next to Philip Potter — the man at the center of the holiday series — Harold Clarkson is the character from my novels readers comment on the most. Harold plays a supporting role in After Christmas Eve and Happy Independence Day. His fans are especially impressed with his fashion sensibility. Because of Harold, readers often ask where I…

  • My New Steam Mop

    Buying gifts for me is a challenge. I don’t want much, and am perhaps a teeny bit hard to please. When I do want something, I tend to just buy it myself. If I’m not happy, it’s nobody’s fault but mine. Devoted readers of this blog may recall I get off on clean floors. My vacuum cleaners…