Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone! Is everybody out there donning those costumes and getting zonkered? Dang, wish I could be there.

Halloween used to be one of my favorite holidays....that was before I nearly caught the kitchen on fire. I guess it's a blonde's perogative to walk out with water boiling on the stove. Go figure.

I remember it as if it were yesterday...

The kids were maybe 10 and 14, I suppose. Maybe a little younger. I fixed them hot dogs and french fries being as they were in a hurry to get out, and that was the quickest thing I could whip up. I'm not sure where their father was...he had a habit of leaving it to me to take the kids trick-or-treating, while he did a little tricking and treating himself (another story for another time).

The kids downed their dogs and fries, and we flew out the door.

Took us about an hour, then we headed back home with enough cavity-producing sweets to last a lifetime.

It was about when I got to the back door, I saw it. SMOKE.

I ran inside, and the kitchen cabinets were on fire. I paniced, then grabbed the phone.

And dialed 411.

"Operator."

All I can remember is shouting, "My house is on fire!"

The woman on the other end said, "Dear, you've called the operator. Dial 911, not 411."

Talk about blonde!

Well, I said to hell with that, took a pot, filled it with water, and put the damn fire out myself.

As this was a rental, and I sure as hell wanted my deposit back, I tried painting over the burnt cabinets with white paint. Don't even waste your time, folks. Doesn't work.

So, this is one of my not-so-fondest memories of Halloween. I never fail to screw up holidays, and this was my one last holiday I didn't have horror stories to tell, and now I managed to add one more to the pot.

I hope everyone is having a safe Halloween. Just remember it's 911, not 411, and you'll be all right.

Don't forget tomorrow I'll be guest blogging on Kathy Holmes' blog, "Women's Fiction With Attitude"! See you there!

FREE HALLOWEEN EBOOK

Okay, I know everyone has wondered where in the heck I've been....errrr...maybe not, but anyway, I've finally released an eBook that my writing group, The Writersville Gang, and I have been working on for months.

The ebook is called "Haunted Happenings" and is absolutely free for the taking. All you have to do to get your free eBook is visit www.writersville.homestead.com/hauntedhappenings.html. Sign the guestbook while you're there to let us know you stopped by!

Tomorrow I'll be announcing the participants in my virtual blog tour so you can come along and find out what it takes to promote a self-published eBook of your own.

Yak at you tomorrow...I've got a billion press releases to send out!

The Official "A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook" Virtual Book Tour

I'm happy to announce that November 1, 2006 kicks off my national virtual blog book tour to promote my first self-published eBook on promoting eBooks, "A Complete Guide to Promoting & Selling Your Self-Published eBook," and will run through the end of the month!

I will be visiting blogs and websites all over the blogosphere, giving interviews, answering questions, and hopefully get my message across that self-publishing your own eBooks can not only be fun, but can turn out into a really lucrative business.

This virtual book tour began as an experiment to see how well something like this would go off on a book that you can't exactly buy in a bricks & mortar book store. Not only that, it's a...oh cover your ears say it isn't so...SELF-PUBLISHED eBook. So, this ought to be mighty interesting, and if you follow along, it might give you ideas on starting your own virtual book tour to promote your own self-published eBooks, or any books for that matter!

I'm going to list the blogs and websites I will be visiting as each are signed up. If you are interested in having me visit your blog or website on a certain day in November, drop me a line at thewriterslife(at)yahoo.com, but hurry as slots are filling up fast, and November will be here before you know it!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Okay, Boomer Chickie is back. Week-ends are horrendous as far as workload goes...heck...any day is horrendous around here.

And, it's FREAKING COLD. Wasn't summer just yesterday? I'm sitting here with a hot cup of coffee and a portable heater aimed right at me, and I'm still cold. Of course, browsing through someone's blog and looking at the snow-topped mountains in Colorado only wanted me to grab my fuzzy bathrobe and turn the heater up a notch further.

I'm not a cold weather person, but I do respect the change of seasons. But, the problem is that in my corner of the world, when it gets cold, THERE'S NO SNOW.

Oh, we've had snow...like waaaaay back when I was a boomer chickette, but in the last few years, we're lucky if we get a dusting. And I hate it.

My fondest snow memory was when I was about twelve or thirteen, and my grandmother who worked as an LPN at the hospital would have to get up at the god-awful hour of six in the morning to be at work at seven. It wasn't that she minded, only if it snowed the night before, it was my job to climb out from the warm blankets and go shovel a path so that she could walk from the house to the car.

It's not that I minded anyway because my grandmother was my sole supporter/provider/guardian, as my mother was still in California, and it was my way of helping her being as she was helping me.

Not only that, when I was a young child, she was hit by a car which broke one of her legs which resulted in it not being able to bend at the knee, and it was hard for her to get through anything that was a bit slippery.

So, it was on one Saturday morning, I climbed out of bed and looked out the window to see just how snowbound we were. The moonlight was the only source of light that early in the morning, but I could see where I had no choice but to grab the shovel and make a path for my grandmother to get through to go to work.

You know, it's funny. Since the last few years have been practically no snowfall, when it does snow even a flurry, the schools close up and we all call out from work. It's the perfect day to stay home, and after all, who knows...we could have an accident in all that 1/10000th of an inch of snow, you know?

But, not back in '66. When it snowed, IT SNOWED, and the funny thing about it was, people still went to work. Maybe they had to as in my grandmother's case, but it really did make me realize just how strong a woman she was. Did she call out when there was just a smidgeon of snow on the ground? Nope. Hard-working woman, I have to say that.

Anyway, back to my story.

Because we were too poor to afford boots, I tied two plastic bags on my shoes, threw on my coat and mittens, and headed out the back door. While I hated being out of bed and on a sleep-in Saturday at that, I knew I couldn't let my grandmother go out the door and risk falling.

But, despite all that, it was one of my most beautiful, memorable and perhaps spiritual memories I have, and definitely worth sharing.

Standing in the snow with the moonlight to guide my way, with only a slight breeze to stir up noise, it was magical. Everything around me was white, and clean, and pure. It was a Norman Rockwell painting. The snow clinging to the branches of the cedar trees out front gave it a fairyland feeling. But, it was the moonlight that really made all the difference. If anyone wants to see what it feels like being in a magical wonderland, go outside when it snows before the sun comes up. I'll never forget it.

And I didn't want it to be over. I stood there for a long while, leaning over my shovel, and just gasping at the beauty and the wonder of it all. I think it was the quiet that really did me in. No sound at all, just me and nature sitting side by side, and not having to breathe a word to each other. Just knowing we each were there, and respecting each other's place in the world, was enough for the both of us.

I sit here with my hot cup of coffee, and the heater blasting hot air on me, thinking back to a time that will never be again. I'll never be able to get up and clear a path for my grandmother again, I'll never be able to see what it's like to stand outside in the wee early morning with nothing but the moonlight to guide my way through the snow, and I'll probably never see a winter wonderland out my front door again.

I don't know...maybe it's the global warming thing, but I sure do miss it.

For One More Day

Has anyone read this book by Mitch Albom? I was checking out his book tour schedule here, hoping I could snatch up an autographed copy, but I don't think I can wait that long. This book sounds absolutely wonderful.

Here's what it's about...

For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?

As a child, Charley “Chick” Benetto was told by his father, “You can be a mama’s boy or a daddy’s boy, but you can’t be both.” So he chooses his father, only to see the man disappear when Charley is on the verge of adolescence.

Decades later, Charley is a broken man. His life has been crumbled by alcohol and regret. He loses his job. He leaves his family. He hits bottom after discovering his only daughter has shut him out of her wedding. And he decides to take his own life.

He makes a midnight ride to his small hometown, with plans to do himself in. But upon failing even to do that, he staggers back to his old house, only to make an astonishing discovery. His mother -- who died eight years earlier -- is still living there, and welcomes him home as if nothing ever happened.

Can you just imagine the implications?

I am sitting here crying about that one more day I could have had with someone - my mother.

Mitch tells us there is a ghost story within every family. There is always going to be someone who dies, and someone who you wish you had one more day with.

If I had one more day with my mother, I'd tell her that mushrooms definitely make a good spaghetti sauce, even if you have to pick them out of the sauce before you eat it. My mother made a humdinger of a spaghetti sauce, and it wasn't until about 30 years after she died, did I discover that awful truth.

If I had one more day with my mother, I'd ask her to tell me stories of my childhood that I would never recollect.

If I had one more day with my mother, I would tell her how awful I felt as a child when my aunt took us away from her to live with my grandmother 3,000 miles away. I would have told her I wanted to wake her up, but my aunt wouldn't let me. I would tell her how agonizing it was for me to be away from her, and that I never stopped hoping she would come to get me.

If I had one more day with my mother, I would tell her that I really felt it was a raw deal for her to die one month after I was married. She never got to see her granddaughter or grandson born, and they never got the privilege of knowing one of the kindest women you'd ever want to meet.

If I had one more day with my mother, I would have asked her what really happened between my father and her. Even though I knew she had to get married because I was soon on the way, I would have wanted to ask her what it felt like to find out you are pregnant at only seventeen years old. Was she upset? Did she ever wish it never happened? And why, to this day, even though my father knows of my existence, why he never wants to see me, the child he never laid eyes on?

If I had one more day with my mother, I'd ask her why it is I have this inner craving to go back to my home in California--the same one I was abruptly taken from. What is it that is calling me to return? I'd ask her if it has anything to do with her spirit inside of me, urging me to take this trip, and maybe is it to find out things I need to find out?

And, finally, as if I could ever run out of things to ask her, if I had one more day with her, I'd tell her to tell me she loved me once again, and to take her fingers and brush my hair behind my ear like she used to do to me as a child, and to let me know that these years I have spent growing up without her, having babies without her, trying to keep my life afloat without her, was what I should be doing and that I am on the right track.

Even though I can't have one more day with her to ask her these questions, maybe I can find it within myself to come to the conclusions. But, it wouldn't be the same. I could only guess, and guessing only makes you more confused.

I ask you, if you had one more day to be with someone who isn't here anymore, what would you say?

My 15-Minutes of Fame with OK! Magazine

You will never believe this in a million years. I just got quoted. For a celebrity magazine. Which will be in this Thursday's edition of OK! MAGAZINE.

Okay, I'm going to sound totally professional here...

HOLY CRAP!!!!

I was sitting here, just called out from work for my 3rd day straight with this B word thing, feeling mighty crappy, when I got a phone call. BF answered if for me, and I whispered, "If it's for me, I'm not home."

He told whoever it was on the other end that I would be back home in five minutes, and to call back. I was livid, as I'm not talking to ANYONE feeling like hockey poot. He then said, "I think you'll want this call. It's from a magazine who wants your opinion on something. He said if you're not available, he'll call someone else, so that's why I said five minutes."

Well, I forgave him, but not totally. Even if this were a magazine, which I was sure wasn't, I still wasn't in the mood to talk.

But, curiosity got the best of me. I'd not even heard of a magazine called OK Magazine, so I looked it up on the Internet. Sure enough, there it was. But, what would a national celebrity magazine want with me?

"He found your relationship stuff on the Internet, he told me," I remembered BF telling me.

Well, hell. But I still didn't get it. I'm not famous. My name isn't Dr. Phil, and heck, I don't even show up until #6 in Yahoo search and #32 on Google search for relationship expert, so why me???

I awaited his call. Sure enough about five or ten minutes later, I was sharing my soul mate wisdom with a Ryan Smith of OK! Magazine concerning the Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt relationship. I sure hope I sounded like I knew my stuff. The B word takes a lot out of you. I had to ask him to repeat himself, and that really sounded dorky, but my brain feels like one big cloud, totally void of anything comprehensible.

He was so nice, though. Especially because he chose ME. Wonders will just never cease. So, my question is, does this make me famous....or not?

Incidentally, my quote will be in the Thursday, October 12 issue! Can I get a whoop-whoop?

A Twilight Zone Kicker Med Story

This is a Twilight Zone Kicker Med story. I was feeling bad, took an Omixilyn (terribly misspelled), and some other pill...something with codeine..oh tylenol...and I was feeling sleepy. I went in the bedroom where BF was watching TV, and climbed under the covers. Before you knew it, I was asleep.

I had this kicker ass dream that would put Harry Potter to shame..just wish I could piece it together and make millions like the author of that book did (sorry I'm half asleep and have the CRS syndrome). I remember one part where I was a little girl, and I had on this blue-waisted dress with the skirt part that would fly all out when you twirled in it, and I was standing on this path in a woods and omg it was just the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and the sunlight was coming through the trees, and I had my arms outstretched, and I started going round and round and round. Pure extasy.

In the middle of this most beautiful dream, a beeping noise woke me. It went on and on and on, and I didn't want to get up to turn it off, as I was having such a lovely time in my dream world. And, waking up would mean I would be sick again, so I ignored the beeping. In a few minutes, BF turned it off.

Well, a little while later, Cassie was licking me and I thought it strange because she's like dead as a doornail in the mornings when I get up. In fact, she was lively and I thought this must be part of this strange ass dream I'm having.

Well, I patted her, she wouldn't let me stop, then Max came over and plopped the ball on my head for me to throw it, and I was going what in the hell is going on here? They must be feeling really good.

I contemplated getting up. I really was comfortable. ..think the medicine must have helped some, but my eyes wouldn't close. I said what the hell, I'll get up and when I feel sleepy again, I'll go back to bed.

The first thing I looked at was the clock in the bedroom. It said 8:30. I went wait a minute...it can't be 8:30...the sun hasn't even come out yet. I started freaking, like it was some kind of eclipse thing going on. I went out into the kitchen, the light was on. I got mad at both BF and Melissa for leaving it on overnight, and the lights that I have on a fake tree in the living room was on, too. I thought, wtf, do they pay the light bill or something? Well, on top of being mad at them, and confused because the sun wasn't out at 8:30 in the morning, I turned the computer on to check. And it said the same thing. But I looked a little further.

It was 8:30 p.m.

Now, these are some kick ass meds.

Now only did I clear that up and wasn't going crazy, and the sun didn't disappear from oblivion, but I have a whole more night to sleep in a few hours. Isn't that a kicker.

Don't Say the B Word

I hate to be the one to give you bad news...but...Boomer Chick is sick. Bring out the Boomer Meds and Boomer Chicken Soup, guys...I sure do need it.

It started out with a sore throat...then...BAMMMM...I think I have the B word. Can't say the B word because then my brain will see it, and it will be confirmed. I get the B word once a year for the past three years, and always in April..my doctor even joked about it. But, last year, just before April, I told myself I wasn't going to get it. And, miraculously, I didn't get it.

I thought, now this must be the way to cure yourself! Tell yourself that you aren't going to get something, and dang if it doesn't work!

Well, B sneaked up on me. April has long since been gone, here it is October already...I don't get the B word in October!

Well, it caught me off guard. Damnit.

So, anyway, I've not had to buy cigs for 2 days...first time that's happened since the last time I got the B word.

But, I still feel like shit.

So many projects have to be finished, so many emails I need to answer, so many this, so many that, and it's all I can do to hold my head up long enough to finish a blog post.

I will have some good news in a few days. The Writersville Gang and I are working on a Halloween eBook which is going to be absolutely free for the taking. Hopefully, I'll be able to announce the eBook's release soon...just have to find the energy to get the webpage finished, and the book edited/finished.

We'll be having a Christmas one come out, too, so lots of good things ahead.

Going back to bed now...have a wonderful Tuesday!