Sunday Sundries--Memorial Day Desserts

I always thought it was weird saying "Happy Memorial Day." I spent several late May days on the Wabash River Bridge and various cemeteries with the Job's Daughters, singing "Nearer My God to Thee."

This was a Masonic organization I belonged to in my teens. The DeMolay (boy's equivalent organization) would have someone play "Taps" and a woman from the VFW Auxiliary would throw a wreath off the bridge. After all:

My buddy, Mark Lipinski, recommended a lovely blog:

From Death to Ice Cream: Ideas for Fully Celebrating Memorial Day

Megan Cox discusses how to celebrate the dichotomy, letting kids visit a cemetery, go to the town parade and then enjoy the cookout.

One part of the holidays I really love is getting together with family and the food. I've been obsessing recently about desserts. When haven't I been obsessing about sweets?

Truth.
I love these things and I want to share with everyone:

One of my characters lives for dark chocolate, as do I. Hubby and I were in Hawaii for our 15th wedding anniversary and I had carefully packed some dark chocolate nuggets. My husband saw them and decided he was going to start eating chocolate again. I was distraught. I didn't bring enough to share. He gave up chocolate for a couple of years. I could never do that:

I do try to stay with the dark chocolate and I gave that to one of my characters.

I do have some Godiva Dark Chocolate Pearls in my purse. I haven't told my husband.....
I've tried to lose weight again. This made me smile:

I tease my husband about looking at other women's, um, assets. I sneak an admiring look every once in a while too. I may be fixated at this, I admit:

He loves horror movies. I have to admit, I was intrigued by this:

Wouldn't this broken glass cupcake be fun for Halloween?
I have some stationery with this on it:

This isn't exactly chocolate, but isn't this cool?

I have a package with two boxes of brownie mix that I got because they promised that for each sale, the company would contribute to the USO. Well and because they are brownie mixes....

Be cool and try not to drool over this one:

I don't know. It's almost too much. Almost.
One of my characters goes to Japan and I'm fascinated by their odd food options.

This display is of all the different Kit Kat flavor options.
Okay, enough talking about it. I'm going in to dig through my secret stash and get something sweet!

Have a good and peaceful Memorial Day--appreciate the sacrifices of those who went before and those you have with you now. And go get some chocolate!

Sunday Sundries--All About the Women

My husband and I finally got to see the new "Star Trek" movie at the theater Friday. I loved it--but I'm a certified fan girl geek. We actually met at a "Star Trek" event back in the mid-1970s, when we were both teenagers. It was hilarious when we realized we met before, after we were already married.

I liked it a lot. While there were several homages to past movies and the TV shows (don't worry, no spoilers here), there were also plenty of action scenes stuffed between nice touches of human minutes. I also admired the strong female characters this round.

Yeah, Zoe Saldana gets to kick some butt.

My heroines are fierce in their own ways. I've always loved strong female characters and I've felt a need to write them. I never cared for the wishy washy, demure ladies of the early Harlequins that my mom read like one eats popcorn. Maybe that was why she blew through them so fast.

One of the first heroines I wrote was Elizabeth, known to family and friends as Lizzy. She is an Indiana State Police officer who got three of her four sisters (the other was too young) out to Las Vegas for the oldest sister's bachelorette party. While on a daring rescue, she meets Will, a medically retired Marine, who is fascinated by her fierceness. They recognize they belong together and end up married. Elizabeth doesn't give up herself, she has to find out "how to rock this gig without losing myself."

I've seen some pictures of Rachel Weisz and Terry Ferrell that kind of remind me of Elizabeth. Here are two:

Her Chinese horoscope sign in a Dragon and I found this as a gift for her:

She does have several weaknesses, one being a fear of spiders:

A reasonable reaction. But, yes, she is fierce.

Her next younger sister, Mary Margaret, not so much. Oh, she comes into her own in my second series of books, but she is a self-admitted scardy cat.

She grows into her own, moving to Japan for four months, falling in love with Will's younger brother and finding herself as:

She's worried she will die a virgin, because:

She loves her garden. She loves her books.

And here are a couple of pictures of what she would look like:

Yes, Audrey Hepburn and Kiera Knightly. Here's an early jewelry gift for her:

Oh and she loves Hello Kitty and gaming:

For all you Halo players out there.

So, hope you enjoyed meeting two of my ladies. I have large character files. Do you do the same for your characters?

Sunday Sundries--Yo' Mama Edition

My mama passed away in March of 2004. Hard to believe it's been nine years. She was brilliant at a time when women weren't encourage to be, earning a scholarship to a business college in the 1940s. She didn't take it, because she was "in love." Her words. After my oldest brother was killed, she had several different careers, working at the town's library, the hospital and one of the banks.

This is one of my favorite pictures of her:

So, I had a fierce, strong example for my life. I am grateful. I also had strong aunts for mentors and my mother in law is an incredible woman. While I do not have children and my nieces live far away from me, I will try to be the best parent for my characters. Mom was an avid reader and I know she would be thrilled that I've completed two novels.

So, having said that, there have been lots of posts that really made me smile lately. this one was from last year:

Did I mention Mom and Dad were alcoholics and I was very proud they both quit my sophomore year in college?

Mom was a little perverse. While she would never hurt me, this would have made her laugh:

She definitely would have had this comeback:

Mom was brave enough to take out a wood spider that was the size of my hand that was in my room when I was in my early teens. While I'm sure if my child was in danger, I'd step up to the plate to pound something like that into oblivion (I think this was the origin of my irrational fear), I'm relieved I'll never have to worry about testing my bravery. Yes, I did put something in my fiction though:

 I know Mom did the best she could, but I feel this is part of what she felt:

This quote made me sit up a bit straighter. It wasn't always easy to be a strong girl or woman:

I'd like to ask all mamas to remember this, please:

I know Mom said this several times:

So, yes, I'm proud to be fierce, like Clara Maude:

Finally, all you mamas out there can be proud of your mission accomplished:

Happy Mother's Day to all you pet parents out there too. Take care and see you next week!

Sunday Sundries--Favorite Last Minute Trips

So, for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, my husband who does occasionally have a romantic bone in his body, suggested a day trip to Louisville, KY, to visit bookstores. We left town in the morning and had lunch at the Big Boy in Corydon.

Gotta love anyplace that serves sweet potato fries!

The drive to Louisville is very pretty.

We ended up at the Half-Price Books store on Hurstbourne first:

We found all kinds of fun things. Some of my characters are game designers and they had a section of games and all things geek:

We also went to the other Half-Price on the other side of town and the Books A Million in the area too. We got quite a haul:

This is just one of three piles of books. Not that we needed them, but it's what we've always done when we went out of town. I love running around with my husband to find out of the way stores. We spent the night and ate at Waffle House in the morning, making another stop off before we headed back home.

My first novels start out in Las Vegas, with four sisters on a bachelorette party for the oldest, who is getting married later that week. They had to move the trip and the wedding up when she got pregnant. Since they went during the week, the rates were very reasonable.

My parents were always up for an adventure too. Sometimes, before the time of cell phones, I'd try to call them and find out later they had gone over to one of the area casinos.

So, do you have a favorite, spur of the moment adventure? I highly recommend them, even if it's just getting out of town for lunch.

Anniversary Edition--The Big Two Five

Suddenly, I woke up and realized I had lived with my husband over twenty six years. Tuesday, April 30th, 2013, we are celebrating our twenty fifth wedding anniversary. While we went to Las Vegas earlier in the month, we both have the day off and will go out to eat at a special restaurant and maybe do something fun locally.

Here is our "official" wedding portrait, taken by a friend who has since passed on:

We were both a lot thinner, we were missing the grey and could those glasses have been any bigger? It almost didn't happen, because Chris put off buying shoes until the night before. It was a real test of our abilities to compromise and deal with each others' foibles. I always joke that it was only that I figured I may as well go through with it and collect the insurance later. Could always make it look like an accident.

It sure wasn't easy. I worked sixty-five hours the week of my wedding and had to find someone to work for me that Friday night. We had to delay the honeymoon a week, because Chris worked at a TV station and it was the end of ratings. When we finally got out of town, we spent a few days in St. Louis.

It kind of weirded me out that we flew out of St. Louis to go to Vegas this year. But, before we got married, Chris went out with some friends to a couple of the strip clubs in the area. He did tell me pretty much what all happened, but the thing that made me smile most was the DJ welcoming him to The Brotherhood of the Ring. Of course, the password was, "Yes, Dear."

 We were not starry-eyed teenagers.We were both in our late twenties. We met through mutual friends at the science fiction conventions in the region and found out we had met over a decade before at a "Star Trek" fan club meeting. So, this was pretty much how we rolled:

Financially, it hasn't always been easy, but we realize how lucky we are.

I really love holding hands. It's reassuring and comforting.

There were a few times our strong personalities clashed, but I can count them on one hand.

We've had some great adventures--from Martha's Vineyard to Key West, from Hawaii to Washington, D. C. We love wandering through a used book or record store or even spending time in our local library.

We've had some great role models. My parents were married almost sixty years and his parents celebrated their 60th last year.

This was one of my parents' favorite jokes:

That's been the biggest challenge is realizing we change, but still stay the same. The key is communicating.

I really have to say:

And here we are, in front of The Bellagio Hotel in Vegas, 25 years later:

Of course, everything is fair game and so many of our stories will show up in my fiction. We will have so many more stories in the future! Here's to 25 more years!