I've Been All Over The Place!

By now, everyone in the world knows that I'm infatuated with the full moon and I run outside winter and summer to get the perfect picture. But this week, the half full (not half empty) moon got my attention. Look at this!                                                                                                                                                                                                  

So perfect! So what? Well, I stepped out of my shallow little box- maybe?!?!? Maybe not. It's been there all the time. Did I ever particularly notice?  It's kind of like my writing. I'd written a pretty perfect picture book story, or so I thought (and so did Barbara Karlin Grant judges) but it took an agent man's suggestions to make me look at it in a different way. I didn't get it at first. I "couldn't" change a word and keep my lyrical tone. But I had to. So, I stepped away and thought and came back and jotted and pondered and jotted and sent it to my critique group. Now, with not so many changes later, I feel a different strength to the main "character". I "see" that character.  The moral of this story is: Use your senses (s) In this case,  Listen! Look!  

The whole week's been a step outside of my norm...lot's of things going on(hospital visit, worked at flower shop), but the biggest was that my wireless modem stopped. I made my first big mistake when I called the company and asked a simple question-"can these things un-configure if the computer lines were on and off for a few day?"  Wrong! Wrong! Wrong thing to do!  The guy in India gave me a sales pitch and before you knew it I was calling the bank to finance our house to pay for his wonderful service of reconfiguring and boosting my power!!!!!(not really but seemed that way after a few hours and 6 different techies) Anyway, in a few days, I got one for Mother's day and came home and got it all up and going with a bit of help from same company's 'other' tech guy.

But....

don't you just love that for a page turn?

But...

I called another one and told him my wireless printer, iPod and Kindle weren't working. He wanted me to refinance again to get this wonderful service added to my other wonderful service. So I huffed and puffed and frumped and grumped and like the little red hen,  said, "I will do it myself."

And I did! 

So now,  I'm catching up on blogging, writing, critiquing and yes, dancing!

My diehard Zumba friends did a 24 hour dance-a-thon to raise money for a new dance floor. I only joined them and brought coffee and doughnuts at 6:30 this morning. Yes, I had to stop, roll down my window and take this beautiful shot...look at the sun rays that said good morning!

They were still moving slowly slowly slowly.... but boy they made it from 8am to 8am! Congratulations for the accomplishment and to all for the pledges and donations.

Hope all you mothers out there had a wonderful and happy day!                                                          

Happy May Day

     Ever you ever "hung" a May Basket, or been the recipient of one (or more!)? My daughter and I hang them on the "kids" every year. This year was no exception.(velvet beret for T and teal bow tie for C-roll of quarters for each) No running match anymore. they catch us quick!
   Last year a few neighbors and I thought it would be  nice to go to a few of the shut-ins neighbors. We almost left to the wayside until this morning, but we couldn't not do it. So between us, we hurried and  cooked brownies, peanut butter cookies, molasses cookies. We tucked in packets of tea, daffodils and a bit of tissue, tied with curl ribbon. The brown paper bags looked pretty good to the ladies around town who remember the tradition. It didn't take a lot of effort, and I feel good!

      If you don't know the tradition, it's fill a basket with candy or flowers,  "hang" it on someone's doorstep, holler "May Basket" and the recipient has to chase the givers, then give a kiss when they catch them. We got "caught" and kissed and sooooo glad we did this last minute thing. You know what, there's still time for you to play on May Day.

      On Friday night, some of the Zumba girls participated in the local "Dancing with the Stars" Of course, you know I did!  On the way there though, I wondered what I was doing!!!!  Here's our "crew" waiting to go on stage...I'm still shaking my head thinking, "what was I thinking!"

     Turn the page on that... and turn another. And speaking of turning the page, I've been so busy tweaking and retweaking a little 500 word PB per suggestions from one of the professional critiquers at our conference. I'm placing words so the reader will want to turn the page and each word, each sentence has meaning. 500 simple words-how can it be so tough!?!?!?! One of the 'rules' is to set your manuscript aside and let it rest, but that's hard when it's all you can think about. I've got to though...let it rest, let it rest, let it rest...(for a minute anyway)

      I've let things rest enough...just wanted to pop in wish everyone a Happy May Day.
       Be Happy and make someone else happy too.