A SURPRISE TODAY

This morning I went to the fitness center as usual and ran into my friend Melody Chatelle and she told me that she had mentioned my book on her excellent blog. She said she had also provided a link to the NPR interview that I did at the end of September (which seems like an eon ago!). What a wonderful surprise!

Melody is quite a talented (and beautiful) person herself. She has been a longtime hospice volunteer, and also owns and operates Chatelle and Associates, a nationally-known communication and advocacy consulting firm in Austin, TX. She, too, has written a lovely book, Journeys of Heartache and Grace: Conversations and Life Lessons From Young People With Serious Illnesses, which has been praised as insightful, honest and a “must read” for anyone who wants to support a loved one through a serious illness.

Melody was one of those angels who supported me when Mother was in the hospital. One day I was searching for some kind of snack in the candy machine at the hospital and looked up to find Melody standing there handing me a sack with a very comforting book and some HEALTHY snacks. Another day she brought me a HUGE piece of comfort-food cake at lunchtime and I wolfed down the WHOLE THING! She also sent me various encouraging notes and reading suggestions during those difficult three weeks that Mother was in the hospital. She obviously really knows how to help those who are going through challenging times!

Thank you, Melody, for the gifts, the support, and the mention of my book on your blog! You're the greatest!

FRUGAL FRIDAY

Well, I guess this "frugal thing" has caught on in our society! I went to our local Barnes & Noble this evening with my husband for our date night. Our favorite thing to do on Friday night is to go out to eat (using a coupon that entitled us to one entree and the second one at half price) and then stop by B&N for a look at the latest books. Tonight I saw several that I want to read so I wrote down the names of the books and authors and will soon go to our public library to check them out--at no cost to our pocketbook.

The thing that caught my eye was a table of books labeled "Frugal Living." I immediately went to see what was there. They had books on traveling cheaply, saving money on food, shopping wisely, simple living, making your own mixes, and even preparing your mind to live in a more frugal manner. I guess this is what our economy has led us to--a more frugal mindset.

I think the past year or so of focusing on frugal living has made me much more aware of ways to save money. Since my husband and I are living on a retirement fund that has no cost-of-living raises built into it, (AND the government takes a portion of that each year!) we have definitely become much more aware of living frugally! Perhaps I need to go back to B&N next week, pull up a chair near that "Frugal Living" table in B&N, and begin taking notes!

FRUGAL FRIDAY

We used to go out to eat on Friday nights and then on over to Barnes & Noble for coffee, dessert and a few books to add to our stash to read. However, lately we have been pinching our pennies a bit tighter and have cut back on eating out and buying books. Instead we have made a couple of changes.

Last Friday my husband called from the grocery store and said they had some lovely salmon. I told him to get it and I would fix it for our evening meal. I figured out the cost of that meal and found that even though the salmon cost $7.28, our entire meal cost less than $15 and was delicious (although I did have to cook and clean up!). That is at least half what a good meal might cost at a nice restaurant. We also skipped going to Barnes & Noble because I have been checking my books out of the library. My husband likes to write in his books, so he either goes to sales for his books or goes to the library to buy his books--they have a large room of used books for sale there. My books cost nothing now and his cost a fraction of what they sell for at Barnes & Noble.

Occasionally we still go out to eat, but we pick less expensive places to eat or we share a meal (better for the waistline, too!) when we go to an expensive restaurant. Also, the dilemma of where to store books has lessened because I do not buy so many anymore. Less clutter! Whee!

FRUGAL FRIDAY

Today I stopped at the library and picked up a book on oil painting, a cookbook, and a copy of Susan Albert's new book, The Tale of Briar Bank. That stop on the way home from the gym did not cost me a cent, although those three books would have cost me $74 and change, plus tax, from the book store.

About six months ago I realized that our books out-numbered the spaces on our book shelf. I had a cleaning out frenzy and took a load of books I thought I could part with to Goodwill. I totaled up how much money I had spent on those books and realized I had just given away about $200 worth of books. That was the day I decided that I would just check out books from the library for a change.

And that is my FRUGAL hint for today. Hope you will share your frugal hints with all of us.

A QUICK REPORT

Just wanted to check in and say that I am working on my book--a collection of stories about my growing up days. I have downloaded a number of the stories (some that you might have read on my blog plus some new ones!) into the files of a self-publishing company and am anxious to see how they turn out. Perhaps I will have a book before Christmas! That sounds exciting!


And I had another lesson in furthering my technological knowledge this morning. Yesterday I read Susan Albert's blog and she talked about downloading a book on her Kindle. I had no idea what she was talking about and I intended to look it up on the Internet, but forgot. Today I was talking to a friend about forming a book club at our church and she mentioned a book that she had just downloaded on her Kindle. She offered give me a quick lesson on the newest way to acquire and read books through Amazon.com at a fraction of the cost of buying the book. She told me that she had recently gone on a vacation with 25 books loaded on her Kindle that is about the size of a paperback! She was jumping all around on that thing, showing me different books, how she could underline and highlight passages, store her notes, and upload a book onto web storage for future reference. Mercy! I have a lot to learn to keep up with all these advances in technology!

AN INTERESTING BOOK!

Last week I received a delightful book, Elder Expectations: My Life in Rictameters, by Marlys Marshall Styne in the mail. Rictameters are unrhymed, nine-line poems with a regular pattern of two, four, six, eight, ten, eight, six, four and two syllables. The first and last lines must be the same.

I was first exposed to Marlys' poems on her blog last March when she decided to do one rictameter a day for the full month and I became hooked on the poetry form. I have never really cared much for writing any type of poetry but I began writing my own rictameters and encouraging my writing groups to do the same. It is fun and a bit of a challenge for the ole brain to write a rictameter!

Another intriguing thing about Marlys' book was that she self-published her poems through lulu.com. The poems were written in March and the book was in my hands in July. Amazing! Marlys says "As for self-publishing (Print on Demand), I'm a great believer in it. Traditional publishing is about making money, and my books don't have the sales potential to attract a publisher's financial interest. Besides, I'm too old and impatient to seek agents and publishers and wait years for a book to come out. I didn't even try that route. I guess I'm the ultimate do-it-yourself person and I enjoy doing the book layout myself. Self-published books have had a poor reputation in the past, thanks to the old "vanity publishers," but things are gradually changing."

Thanks, Marlys, for encouraging me to self-publish a book of my own stories, and also for the gift of your rictameter poetry!

Here is my own poem:

Thank you,

Marlys, for the

gift of your poetry

that you have shared with us via

your lovely rictameters in your book,

Elder Expectations, and your

blog, where I first saw them,

then tried my own.

Thank you!

They are tricky, but they are fun to work with!

By the way, you can buy the book on Amazon.com.

Happy Father's Day

My father was a quiet man, but very interesting. He worked almost his whole life for a wholesale hardware company where he began in the warehouse stocking inventory for shipping materials out to a five-state area. He moved up to salesman and traveled a large territory in the upper Texas Panhandle for many years. In his later years with the company he moved to the main office as head of the buying department.





Daddy loved to read. As I learned to read, he took me to the library where I was allowed to check out two books. I could not go back to the library until I had read both books--usually in two weeks, when they were due. Daddy loved mysteries and westerns, especially Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey, and others. As I grew older, I was allowed to ride my bike to the library by myself and pick out new books even if Daddy was not ready to return his own books. I really felt grown up then.


The best vacations that I can remember are the ones that Daddy used to plan for us. His company gave him two weeks of vacation each year and he always “put in” for the last two weeks in July. In his job he drove miles and miles each week to cover his territory. However, for his vacations, he always took us on marathon trips throughout the Southwest. We visited national parks and stayed in small motels along the way. Most of our trips west followed the now famous Route 66 from Texas to New Mexico and across to Arizona. We also took trips up into Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado.




My sister remembers our trips to the local train station and how Daddy depended heavily on the local trains to deliver his carefully completed orders to his company by Monday morning. On Sunday evening, we would all pile into the wood-paneled station wagon and head for the local depot which was built up on an incline surrounded by green, grassy slopes that provided us with the perfect playground to roll or slide down. Sometimes we walked down the brick platform and jumped onto the tracks to practice balancing with our arms outstretched like graceful gymnasts. We were never far from Dad's long reach, and he always knew when the train was approaching the depot. He thoroughly enjoyed explaining to us the facts and pitfalls of business along with his life's wisdom. Mailing his work orders to the company and getting them there on time were very important to him. He had marvelous work habits that left lasting impressions on all of us children. He let us carry the large manila envelope containing his purchase orders for the week to the depot's mail room where he paid the postage so that the envelope would be placed on the next freight train headed for Amarillo.



We could hear in the distance a faint whistle as the train approached and we could see it stop at the water tower to fill up on water. I then chugged slowly into the station area. Many times a passenger train would roll into the station dropping off travelers coming home from an exciting excursion or picking up new passengers headed somewhere beyond Pampa. We watched fascinated as men unloaded baggage onto carts that could be pushed from either end. We liked to play on the baggage carts, and Dad at times pushed us up and down the brick walkway while waiting for our train.


The mail car usually followed the engine at the front of the train and had a double Dutch door located at the rear of the car. The top half of the door would be open, and we could see the lighted interior that contained a wall of small cubicles where mail was sorted. The mailman positioned himself at the open door where he leaned out and grabbed the mailbag hanging on a hook over the tracks. As the train left the station, we could see the red light on the caboose twinkling and dancing as it disappeared into the night. We returned to our car where mother was patiently waiting and sometimes we headed to the local Dairy Queen for a brown derby before heading home for bed.


My sister says that she treasures those moments spent with Dad when he offered his bits of wisdom. These talks with Dad are now gone with the passing of time--never to be repeated but only to be relived through family stories.



Happy Father's Day to all fathers who might read this blog today.

An Inspirational Book

I mentioned Melody's book last week. Here is her response to my request for more information about her book. I love her description of her writing process and her struggles with publication. I hope to say more in the future about publishing our works.

Hello to all of the wonderful readers of Pat’s Terrific Blog:

My name is Melody Chatelle. Pat and I work out at the same place and time (early in the morning around 6, I might add) several times a week. Pat has been just wonderful in her support of my recent book as published by LangMarc Publishing (http://www.langmarc.com/) entitled Journeys of Heartache and Grace: Conversations and Life Lessons from Young People with Serious Illnesses. Pat invited me to say a few words about the book, which I am honored to do.

This is my first book published and stems from interviews with young people ages 6 – 20 living with life-threatening illnesses in amazingly strong, determined, realistic and honest ways unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Of the 13 young people I interviewed, five are still alive. All of the stories are powerful, practical and paint a realistic and hopeful portrait of times we all face in our lives involving serious illnesses of loved ones or for ourselves. In the book I offer a learning piece based on each story and I lay out specific phrases of what to say and what not to say during times of serious illness. The applications apply to people of all ages. My own story of losing my mother and grandmother within a 12-day-period sets the stage for the stories from the young people.

Pat also asked me to say a few words about the process of writing and getting published which I am thrilled to do. Doing this book took four years, not including the work I did on the dissertation itself which took about two years. Finding a publisher took time and most of all perseverance given that I did receive many rejections and non-responses to my submissions. In fact, my original response from LangMarc Publishing was a decline given that the owner of the company was thinking of retiring. Yet when I noticed that she was from Austin where I live, I called her up, thanked her for the very nice decline letter, and asked if I could buy her a cup of coffee to ask about the unfamiliar world of publishing. She agreed, and out of that conversation she changed her mind about retiring and agreed to do the book. So the moral of that story is this: never give up, and never assume ‘no’ means completely no – there always might be an opening somewhere! In terms of writing the stories themselves, while they were challenging in some respects, they also flowed quickly out of my mind and onto the computer pages because of the passion I have for the young people themselves and the value and importance of stories themselves, like Pat has known for years.

If anyone reading this blog is interested in the book, please contact me at 512/502-9545 or mchatell@onr.com or visit my website at http://www.chatelleandassociates.com/. Also, I am very interested in speaking to groups of any kind about the book. Thanks for your interest and most importantly, for your love of stories and your connection with Pat! -Happy Story Sharing Always.

Melody

A Quick Visit

We just returned from a quick visit to son #4 and his family. We had a great time and I wanted to share some pictures. This first picture, on the right, is of Ella opening a Valentine present from Grandmommy.

The next picture, on the left, is of Ella and her dad on their back patio on a warm February evening with just a few sprinkles. Ella is wearing her "Big Sister" shirt.

This third picture, on the right, is one of Ella listening to her mother read one of the new books that Granddaddy bought for her at Hastings. Ella LOVES books!

This next picture, above, is one of Ella sitting in a "big girl chair" at the restaurant for lunch. She sat there for the whole meal and was so good!

And this last picture, on the left, is one of Ella with her dad and granddad just before we had to leave and return home.

I Got Tagged Again...

Book Meme

Connie tagged me for a book meme and I had to inquire as to the process. It has taken me a little while to get around to it, but here it goes. The instructions are as follows: Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages). Open the book to page 123. Find the fifth sentence. Post the next three sentences. Tag five people.

I just happened to have the book, Writing from the Heart: Tapping the Power of Your Inner Voice, beside me on my computer desk because I heard the author, Nancy Slonim Aronie, speak at our Story Circle Network conference weekend before last. She was a wonderful speaker and charmed us in her talk entitled, “We Are All Alchemists: How to Turn Your Sorrow into Gold.” She kept us laughing even when she was talking about difficult topics and easily moved from laughter to tears and back again. She was most inspiring.

Here is the quote that I found on page 123: (she is talking about her writing workshops in this section of the book) "So in a group setting, the participants become the teachers for each other. I have come to understand that writers need help undoing the red marks that scarred their tender creative tissue, tissue that developed a hardness, a callousness that keeps the writing cold and the reader out. But safety and unconditional love are the salves that soften those scars.

As writers, you must learn how to translate your emotional experience onto paper."

And now I tag two bloggers that I enjoy visiting from time to time:

Boo Mama

Big Mama