I’m staring at this page wondering what I’m going to write.  Not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I have so much to say. At least I think I do.

As a child I was quite gabby at least I was told so and yes, I was. I guess I still am. One of my classmates friends mother thought maybe a bit boisterous.

I’m just friendly and I seldom meet a stranger, but I came by it rightly.

My ex husband constantly reminded me that no one wanted to hear anything I had to say. So for a time, I had toned it down a good deal and maybe it needed doing. Perhaps it was true, but perhaps not.

I remember once after the divorce, I moved into this cute little house next door to an older couple. I would do the backyard fence thing ala “Home Improvement” with the old guy next door.  I think at the time he may have been a little intimidated by me since I looked like this:

I thought too, maybe he was a bit shy and not used to young ladies wanting to talk to him.  In any case it took awhile before he accepted that I was going to continue being neighborly and after awhile I think he looked forward to our chats, not to mention my company as well.

What did we talk about?  His yard mostly. Now retired, Mr. “R” had the most amazing green thumb and his front and back yards were absolutely gorgeous. He had flowers planted cyclically in such a way that when one died out another would take it’s place, so there was always a plethora of color tastefully and artfully placed to please the eye. Since my new little place needed work, I needed tips trying to get it to look like the showcase his was so I was constantly picking his brain.  I think he was flattered overall and after some time, he got to where he was comfortable conversing with me.

Besides perhaps being shy, I think Mr. “R” had a little bit of a snobby thing going too, but I ignored it and in time he got used to me.

At some point later, my dad came out for a visit and in no time at all he caught Mr. “R” outside and started yakking with him. I came up behind Dad and I saw a twinkle in his eye and a smile crept up on Mr. “R’s” face as he looked up at me and said, “Now, I see where you get it!”

I guess he wasn’t used to friendly folk, but I could tell he liked it.  He was my neighbor for 13 years.  I went back to the old place and caught the neighbor who bought my place at the mailbox and he said Mr. “R” had since passed a few years ago, his yard no longer the prize it had been but my old place looks much smarter.

I went to the funeral of my cousin George this weekend.  I took a few days to spend with my aunt, doing my turn so the other cousins could get some rest.

It had been an arduous week for them, having only found out about George’s death the week before after not knowing where or how he was for a few years.  I know personally that every time I spoke with my aunt she would tell me how much she missed him and wondered where he was.

You might wonder what happened and I’d asked her all the usual questions, “Was there a disagreement between them or anyone else in the family?” “No,” she said, “nothing he just one day packed up and left.”

Let me explain. This is from the Hispanic side of my family and Hispanics in general are very close, but they can also be very proud. The men in general suffer from machismo more so than other cultures and George was ill.

He was a diabetic, but prior to that he had also been a very heavy drinker and who knows if there was even more than that in his past, I don’t know. But, he was a great guy! Loved his family and especially his mom. So what happened?

Well, he bought 10 acres east of LA county and held himself up for the last three years.

A neighbor of his was able to shed some light on the situation, the sum total being that he didn’t want his family see him suffer. George just didn’t want to see them see him going through his last days.

So, he died alone and among strangers.

My aunt, of course cried her heart out. In Spanish she kept asking “Porque mi hijo” “Porque queriste murir solo?” “Why my son? Why did you want to die alone?”

I was heartbroken. Yet there go I or any of my other relatives.

When I (we)don’t feel well, just leave me(us) alone and yet…

We all told my aunt how much good there was that came of this.  God had a plan and there was a lesson in it for us all. George may have thought he was doing us a favor but he didn’t and yet he did.

Family is there to help and they want to be there for us. To shut them out causes more pain.

THE FUNERAL

George had a Catholic funeral and I believe it is the only one I’ve ever been to other than my great uncles when I was about 5 and I can’t remember much of that.

When I was very young my family (my great aunts as well) was instrumental in helping my grandparents, aunt and uncle come to the states. Prior to that my great aunt had sponsored my mother at the age of 16.

My mom’s cousin or my great aunt’s son was an archbishop in the Catholic Church, though at the time he was just moving up the ranks.

My mom eventually met dad a “Gavacho” (white guy) and were married. She was 17 or 18, he was around 22. He was an old Alabama boy, who when he saw his first Hispanic woman, fell head over heels for her. She was beautiful and exotic looking.

I mention this because, as my aunt tells me, mother was never “Mexican” she was an American and thought of herself as only American. Mom spoke English in our home and so limited our contact with the Mexican side. She came to America to be an American and that was it. We spoke some Spanish but that was because Dad spoke it (he was fluent in both languages) and insisted we become bi-lingual though we were never fluent.

It wasn’t that I never saw my Mexican family, but I saw them less frequent after mom and dad were divorced. Probably more because they liked my dad so much and would bring him up in conversation all the time and she hated that. The fact that Dad embraced his new Mexican family endeared him to them and time spent after that diminished from what we did early on with them…

So, what I’m saying is, at this funeral I got reconnected. My other siblings weren’t there but I think they would have enjoyed it as well.

Having been the oldest of all the cousins and actually quite a bit older, I was the babysitter. I was not their peer, so they really never got to know me or me them as they did this time around.

I have to admit, I was never afraid of them despite my gavacho ex-husband saying once, when I took him up to introduce them, “they look like Mexican mafia,” followed by,  “even though they are very nice”.  It’s true.

Yes, they were a rough, carousing bunch, and no doubt belonged to a gang at one time, but I was exempt from that time period so exempt from details of what they may have been like, into or appeared to be like.  They are now older, settled and wiser.  All in various stages of life, they welcomed me and made me feel loved.

As many funerals have, they had a board up with family pictures. The kids in my family were not in any of them. It made me sad, because I could see that despite the rough edges, they were an awesome bunch and I could see they too wished we had been closer.

They are the first to admit with a mischievous grin that some had been of dubious character but that was then. Their sum total occupations (counting their children) range from an artist for Disney studios (now retired); teachers; electrical engineers, communications, masons, plumbers, hospital staff, other artists (one, who didn’t make it was working on a mural for an LA county freeway wall – Legally I might add.) Hey! What can I say? It’s in the blood! And, because it is a big family I did lose track of all their occupations.

The best thing is they thought I was amazing and I must admit I felt such affection for them as well. One cousin made sure he detailed my car for me and I don’t think it has looked that nice since I bought it.

My aunt’s house was like a revolving door of visitors and her kitchen open to anyone.  On the day of the funeral, we had not only the food my cousins had prepared, but food brought in.  There may have been 200 friends and family in this tiny house and ample yard. The only down side could have been the rain, but it didn’t dampen the event. The elderly were brought in and the young weathered the damp even though it didn’t last long.

Memories of George and our childhood were reminisced everywhere including the time my sister fell down this outhouse hole in Mexico. It was one in the process of being built, so there was nothing in it but none the less it was worth the retelling.

They asked me about my life in Alabama and the usual questions came up about racism. My answer being it’s really not that different than here. The only stereotypes are what we hear about.  They admitted that in certain areas of LA, various races don’t cross over. So we agreed that if stereotypes were not constantly perpetuated, we might actually be able to get along. We have to take people individually and go from there.

(It made me think about my writing. I know we are told that it’s the conflict that makes the story, but does it have to be racial?  Something to think about.)

In all, the event, though sad was of benefit in so many ways. Because of George we were brought together and those of us who hadn’t seen each other in years and/or didn’t recognize one another (especially me) went away vowing we would keep in touch.

Funny thing is they mean it.  I’ve been home one day and I’ve already heard from several.

Thank you George. Salut!

I just completed reading a book written by a friend of mine.  This is my content analysis.

“Bougainvillea Blues” is about an innocent’s journey of pain and renewal.

It is the story of a young boy crossing the threshold of puberty with a confused vision of what sexual normalcy is.  Torn between the examples and perceptions of those around him, add his Baptist upbringing and peer savvy, his mores get jumbled.

Yes, kids masturbate. To say they do so to this extent and at every turn, whether opportune or inopportune and with such reckless abandonment?  It’s hard to imagine. I don’t know.

My first impression was to believe it excessive but, as the story unfolds, it is necessary to the telling; there is a reason.

Having experienced sexual abuse, I do understand and know the uncontrolled triggers and feelings 12 year old Joey experiences. Sadly, that this happens to males was extraordinary. Or is it? Did it or does it happen more often than we realize? Statistics vary. **Some indicate that 10% of sexual assaults are male victims. 1 in 6 or 16% are reported but this may be an underestimation since men are less likely to report the crime compared to women which is 64%.

The story touches on the why’s and wherefore’s of Joey’s transformation with unabashed candor.

When I was done reading, I cried with such force as though I’d been on this voyage with him. The pain and confusion so eloquently expressed touches you so that you feel torn between compassion and fear. A part of you wants to hold and comfort this child while the other part of you is afraid of getting too close for fear of what it might trigger.

Written from the heart, I highly recommend this poignant telling.

** https://1in6.org/the-1-in-6-statistic/

http://www.jimhopper.com/male-ab/

https://www.rainn.org/get-information/types-of-sexual-assault/male-sexual-assault

http://books.google.com/books/about/Bougainvillea_Blues.html?id=eYiQoAEACAA

I don’t know if I mentioned this before but I had cancer.  Recently.

It was a small spot on the breast that was painful and solid. Everyone said breast cancer isn’t painful. Mine was.

I noticed it in May when we moved into our house in California. I had helped my husband lift a table to move it around and accidentally bumped my boob with a corner. Ouch! I expected it to bruise, but several days later it was more than a bruise. It was a scary sore-like bruise. Black,purple-green-like. I started putting some oils on it and just kept my eye on it.

So it had been bothering me for awhile when I finally made the decision to have it checked out.  Here I had all this amazing insurance with my previous job and now I had nothing unless you want to count Medicare.  Figures.  Armed with the only insurance I had I did try to make appointments with doctors.  I thought it was going to take an act of congress to get an appointment!  Just say you have Medicare and no one wants to see you.  Not knowing how these things work, I called around for supplemental insurance and that too took awhile to take affect and then  you are limited as to who you can see.  Finally, three months later, I got in to see a doctor.

That’s the other thing about these plans, it seems they all require you to see a primary caregiver first before you get referred to the doc you really want or need to see. So I finally get checked out.

At first my doc didn’t think it was anything more than a hematoma, a blood clot type bruise.  My daughter, who is in nursing school saw it and insisted I keep at it, so I did. I get referred to the GYN office who then sent me to radiology and get checked it out from several different angles and then followed by sonograms. Back and forth in one day. Keep in mind, up until now, no one thinks it’s anything, even though my gut says differently.  Finally, later in the day, the doc who evaluates the film calls me to set up a biopsy.  (I think they take their findings to others in their group and confer about the films).   A biopsy was done and it was positive. I wasn’t surprised.

However, I wasn’t upset, worried or anything.  I guess at my age, whatever happens, happens.  Then again, I have a great team on my side who have a higher power on theirs. So I put this information up on FB and made my request. All my friends got to praying real hard on my behalf and they gladly did it and continued checking my posts for updates. I was amazed at how many people rallied for me. Even though I wasn’t frightened, my mind kept racing around thinking of all the things I hadn’t gotten to do yet. (the proverbial bucket list of items everyone probably has)

In December, I had surgery and radiation was then scheduled. Of course, it being over the holidays all that was postponed for after that and after my big trip cross country.

Well, here’s the best part.  The radiation doc said he highly recommended I do the radiation because even though I was cancer free, the cancer they did find were high grade cells, however I was at zero stage. It had not had a chance to break out and invade my body. My question to him was that if I have nothing, then how can you tell what affect radiation on nothing works? You can’t, he says. ” It’s just insurance.” At least he was honest.

Hmmm. I was a dental assistant in my younger days and I had to wear this little gizmo to gauge how many rems my body absorbed giving x-rays and I know there is a small risk in getting these mammograms (they are x-rays which contain radiation) and I just had 7 within a short period of time?  I told him I’d think about it. He was actually okay with that, so he’s waiting for my reply.

Leaving his office, I got into the elevator and a woman wearing head covering joined me. As the door was closing, I noticed how many more patients had shown up and noted the varying stages of cancer. In the meantime, the lady looks at my luscious head of hair and says, “You won’t miss it when it’s gone. You’ll get used to it”.  She smiles. I didn’t know what to say. Then it dawns on her to ask if I was having to do chemo. I shook my head and said, “Radiation”. She looks at me and says, “You’re lucky”.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her I might not even be doing that either.  It was all I could do to get to my car without bawling.

I don’t  exactly know what it was, guilt or gratitude that I was not one of them up in that room or empathy that so many suffer with such a horrible disease. Perhaps a combination of all that. It could very well have been me.

In the meantime,  the next day I had my first appointment with the oncologist.  Okay. Up until now, I’d seen the PC physician, the NP, the radiologist, the sonogram tech, the surgeon, and several other docs and the sweet breast cancer survivor support lady. Everyone as wonderful as can be. Last step is the oncologists to plan the treatments.

As I’m waiting in the room, I hear this child like voice outside talking and wondered if there was a kid out there and why.  A few minutes later, she comes in.  A tiny little thing, no bigger than a minute. She smiles, introduces herself and shakes my hand with tiny cold fingers. She then looks at her screen and in her small voice, immediately addresses my concerns (apparently everyone had logged in all my questions and comments) and says. “It’s optional”. “if you were going to get cancer, yours was the best to get”.  She said most people want to attack it aggressively and want to do it all. I didn’t have to because my cancer was encapsulated in a cyst and had never had a chance to branch out and invade my body.  My lymph glands were clean, nothing was found in them, so I don’t need to do anything. It was up to me.

I told her I had already planned a health regiment to change my eating and exercise habits and she thought that was a good choice. We parted with her saying, “I hope I never see you again in my office.” I wanted to hug her and wish I’d seen her first or at least right after the surgery.

In any case, I’M CANCER FREE!!!! May I live a long and prosperous life.  I could you know. (wink) God is good, all the time.

I took my dog Ferguson to the vet for a dental prophylaxis today .

 

His vet is in Petsmart and even though he loves going to Petsmart, he doesn’t like going to the vet.

It was quite evident that this little guy knew exactly where he where he was headed because as soon as I set him down in the store he bolted and made his escape through the still open door and out to the parking lot. He was quick and this 4 pound power house drug me after him. I, of course took things in hand, laughing of course, and picked him up. He wasn’t counting on that.

The receptionist said that another patient, a very large German Shepard also came in reluctantly making it halfway through the store before realizing where he was going and sat down, refusing to budge.  However, he was not a picking up size so the owner literally slid him across the floor to the vet.  I guess I had it easy.

When you check in at the desk, the procedure is to have you sign all these releases, the usual people-type forms required for admission. One, was for something to pick up his heart rate should it drop during surgery; then there’s the consult (call) should they find he needs more than the intended work scheduled, in this case possible extractions.

So later when I got the call I wasn’t terribly surprised. I already knew Ferguson had bad teeth because when he first came to us via a tornado that hit Alabama several years ago (at least that’s what we surmised), he had been wandering the streets of town for several weeks eating garbage or whatever he could scavenge.  I remember looking in his mouth and seeing his gum tissue and teeth in various stages of decay. That was three and a half years ago.

When we first found him, he was sitting on our doorstep looking like this… quite pitiful.

 

He could have been the poster child for one of those SPCA commercials.  Big eyes, head cocked and patient. It was July and hot, so I put food and water out for him. On the third day, after much coaxing, he let my sister and I get near enough for me to pick him up, so we took him in. I tried not to get too attached as we determined to make a conscientious effort to find his rightful owner. It was apparent he had a pedigree of some kind so we were certain he had somehow gotten separated from his owners. As cute as he was I couldn’t imagine anyone deliberately dumping him.

Well we ran an ad in the paper for two months, took him to the vet to see if he had a chip, went to the various shelters and pounds, put up posters and checked online for displaced animals from the tornado, but nothing. Each day that passed I knew it was going to get harder to give him up even if it was the right thing to do. Finally, when I knew he was going to be mine, we made arrangements for shots and his first dental cleaning. At first it was awful, but they improved and the teeth that were loose recovered as his gums improved.  I would periodically brush his teeth to keep them looking as good as I could.  Still, there are issues.

We tried out various names when we first adopted him or him us.  I called him “Spike” but my sister didn’t like that. I thought it was ironic. Then I went to “little bit” and finally after noticing his gravitation to the gardens of Ferguson’s florist, where he loved to go for his walk, my sister suggested the name Ferguson. We learned a few months later from some of the shop owners on the street, that he had been seen him hiding under the gazebo benches at Ferguson’s for weeks, but that no one had previously been able to get near him. Call it what you will, it was meant to be, his name and me his owner.

Needless to say, the vet called and wanted to recommend a few extractions. Central incisors (maxilla and mandible) and a bicuspid or two on the upper and lower as well. I declined to do it at this time.  He’s not in pain or uncomfortable in the slightest as there were no impacted teeth, just dead ones and it was just a recommendation. Knowing what kind of care would be entailed in keeping them clean and rinsed and all that I opted against the procedure. The biggest reason being that tomorrow we are going on a big road trip.  Two weeks with a miserable pup was not an ideal scenario. Perhaps later.

I’m sure Ferguson is appreciative.  As it is, he has whimpered all night, an effect of the anesthesia. Poor baby.

Today I found myself being very lazy. I actually took a nap this afternoon and slept.

Russ and I had gotten up at the crack of dawn to go yardsaling.  Why isn’t that a proper word?

Why do we yard sale? Two reasons. To find bargains and to make a living.  However, around here, it appears everyone buys to resell. The competition is horrendous. I mean people tag team!!

You see about 25 years ago I had an affair which resulted in this awesome guy I’d had the affair with, to get in bad graces with his boss (my now ex-husband) in this business we all had together.  It was a weird crazy phase I was going through and I’ve come to regret it on numerous occasions, but appreciated it on many more. Hard to explain.

We continued working together in the business for a few years after the affair and my ex remarried this chiropractor and we all got along fine.

My ex father-in-law in the meantime had virtually turned the business over to my son-in-law who is now my ex brother-in-law (another goofy situation) Okay, I suppose I should explain so you don’t think we’re a bunch of perv’s.

What happened is that my first husband and I had divorced. My girls were 12 and 9 years of age.  I eventually married a guy considerably younger and he had an even younger brother who would later fall in love with my older daughter and marry her.

By the time I left his brother, the two brothers had pretty much taken over the business.  Their dad had retired to Las Vegas and left them to manage and run the business.  Prior to that we were all living in California planning a move to Colorado, where my  daughter and her hubby could plan a family away from the hubbub of the big city.  By now they’d been married about 5-6 years, maybe more.

Her husband, I’ll refer to him as “R”, got this great idea that we liquidate the majority of our product. He calculated that we were making 80% of our profit on 20% of our product. Do you see where this is going?  We had an import business and distributed to shops in addition to having our own catalog that those shops could order from. We were very popular because we had it all.

So an executive decision was made and we dropped 80% of our merchandise.  That in of itself didn’t kill us. The chain of events that followed were that in the move, I was sent on ahead to set the business up along with our warehouse manager.  We were alone a good while before the others came along living out of a hotel until our house closed.  But really, that had nothing to do with the business declining.

In the year that followed I shared an office with the warehouse manager and we would talk. A lot. Mostly about religion and sports. Yes, sports.

He was a total opposite of my husband. He was always doing things. Camping, hiking, skiing and just having outdoor fun. I envied his life. I married into a family that hated camping and any outdoor activity.  I never knew that and then guess what? We had boys. WE had TWO boys.  One turned out to be like his dad, somewhat of  a geek, but the other was like his mom, wanting to do things.  My feelings were that a father ought to do and teach his boys things. It didn’t happen. (BTW, my geek, loves to hike and thanked me for dragging him up his first peak. In fact, his comment? “oh mom, it’s beautiful up here)

I talked D (the father and my ex) into taking us camping one time and he insisted we sleep in the van instead of the tent on a hot summer night, because he just knew someone would come along and slit our throats in the night.  ( I know. He has some serious issues here) I told him we needed to leave the door or windows open, so he relented but by morning I awoke to find him sitting there wide eyed with a deathlike grip on a baseball bat staring at the now closed door.

I was angry.  He insisted there was someone out there all night. I argues that it was probably bears, a deer or some other critter. He insisted he saw someone!! We packed up immediately and left. We never camped again.

Next, I wanted to learn to rock climb. Here we were in the fantastic state of Colorado and I couldn’t do anything. He said,  “No, you’re a mother! You have two boys, you can’t be taking risks like that!”  He vetoed everything, except riding my bike. How could he veto that, that was our business?!

Long story short, I ran off with the manager.  Like I said, it was okay at first. Then D ended up divorced from his chiropractor wife and eventually remarried a Filipina he mail ordered and who couldn’t stand the sight of me or the idea of “getting along” with the ex wife.

But back up again, the business was not doing well. I could have told them that but then I wasn’t allowed any input. People like one stop shopping. Heck, Walmart thrives on it!!

Our biggest seller was still doing us good, but then mistake number two.  R decided he would help them establish a manufacturing plant here, so our business sponsored them to come to America and then they dropped us!  The Swiss screwed us over.

So now, our 20% is less than and we had already dropped the 80%, so what do we have to offer? We still had some of their product, but they were now competing against us and our loyal customers were going to companies they could buy more stuff from all in one place, including some of the people were sold to. Eventually, it declined to the point that they had to sell the business.

The new owners bought out other failing competitors and manufacturers and are now doing a thriving business.  My ex stayed on as an employee, while my now husband and I had to find something else to do.

At first Russ supplemented our income with reselling whatever he could find however he could find it in places he could find to sell them in until someone told him about eBay.  (Yikes! That was a mouthful.) Yes, eBay!

So yard sales has done us good for a very long time, in addition to buying closeouts at trade shows and working auctions.  At first, it was far more profitable than it is now.  What was in demand and sold for big bucks 15 years ago, has become commonplace now and as more people get into doing it, the competition keeps taking it’s toll. He is still an eBay top seller, but also does Amazon Prime now.

Today was a good day, but he’s a one man show so, no work, no money.

Me?  Up until we moved, I worked a normal day job. I hated it, but it paid the bills and gave us insurance. Like I said before, Alabama doesn’t have much to offer employment wise, but the job I did get, paid well enough.

Oh yes!  The second reason I like yard sales? I love the hunt for the bargain. I love refinishing furniture, so turning a plain piece into something unique and interesting is enjoyable. I may or may not sell it in the future. Sometimes it sits in our house until another piece comes along and takes it’s place. My style is eclectic and many people admire my distinctive renovations.

I used to also find some amazing jewelry and I don’t buy junk either, even though I will say, I have not found the selection here in Cali that I found in the south. Southern women are inclined to wear more jewelry and less reluctant to part with the their gems, either that or California women are more inclined to go to gold brokers rather that dickering with someone at a yard sale, who wants something for nothing. Can you blame them?

Can you believe it?  It’s the last day of the year!

This has been a very exciting year to date and we only have a few more hours left in it.  A year ago, I was spending it with my son, Ian and my sister Di.  We didn’t do anything except watch the New Year on TV in NY, then across the country until it hit CA, where my husband was living.

We had bought a house in CA but I stayed behind until the property we had in AL sold. It wasn’t moving any too soon either. In fact, it just closed a couple of weeks ago, after having been on the market since Daddy died three years ago. For us, it was like our work is done here, it’s time to go.

Don’t get me wrong, I love many aspects of AL, but it wasn’t near my family and even though neither is CA, one day is better than two to go see them and the grand kids. It was important to me for the property to sell because I had plans for the money coming out of it.  It would allow me to pay off cards and “retire”.  Additionally I wanted more time to write.

While caring for dad, I realized how much I wanted the time to do that, yet it’s funny, once I had the time, I wasn’t doing a damn thing!! Not how I imagined it anyway.  (Hence this blog.)

The other factor to selling the property was that Diana could get back to Florida to be with her family. I wanted her help and appreciated it very much but I always felt guilty and badly that she gave up her job to come up and help me.  I was so afraid that once in AL, neither of us would ever be able to get out and that we’d be stuck there.

Like I said, I didn’t mind AL in many ways, but it is a very depressed area and it’s hard to make a living there and even more difficult to prosper. Money comes from outside, or it’s old money, like the generational kind and you are definitely not going to “earn” it there. It is a poor state and the things that Diana and I had become accustomed to in both CA, CO and FL are just not available there.  They don’t even have a Starbucks!!!  i know it sounds frivolous, but it’s more than that.

Dining is countless buffets, Chinese, Mexican (or so they claim), your typical chains Red Lobster, Cracker Barrel, Ruby Tuesdays, Appleby’s, & Chili’s (that was it and some of those came in not that long ago) & lots of fried chicken & fish and fast food places. That’s it. No health food stores, organic or fine dining places or healthy anything.  Veggies available at grocery stores are pretty basic stuff. No whole grain breads just rows and rows of white!!! That kind of thing was frustrating. There was one health food store in the state and that was an hour a way.  We loved making trips to Birmingham for it though, but it was not convenient. The arts were in Bham also, so we didn’t do much in that regard, except for a couple of times a year we would go for the art or film festivals.

The other outstanding thing of 2014 is that I got to quit my job in April and I got to move to CA to be with my hubby.

My former boss and friend Robin retired and got to come out and visit. She loved CA!! I had time to go visit my kids and grand kids. That was a plus.

In 2014, I learned I had breast cancer, but I had surgery and the doc states they got it all. Radiation starts in 2015.  I’m ok with that.

In 2014 my son Ryan and his wife announced they were adopting a foster child and that she is pregnant with a girl. They already have a son, Hunter.

It’s been a busy year and we’ve lost some friends and some very talented people, but like everything else it’s a time of renewal and we are survivors.

I submitted and got good feedback from the Austin Film Festival for my screenplay “Baja Run” so that was exciting.  I’m now in the process of rewriting it.

I submitted another short screenplay to Sundance, “Lost & Found” so we’ ll see what comes from that. It’s all good.

NY had their New Year’s already, and now it’s moving our way.

Happy New Year! May it be the best year yet!!