My daughter has friends over tonight and laughter fills my house every few minutes. I love it.

This week started off as a difficult one with a doctor visit, a migraine etc. All’s well now but knowing dd’s friends would be here had me remembering when I was her age, how my BFFs and I were inseparable. We’d talk for hours on the phone, even though we’d spent most of the day together. And every summer we lived at each other’s houses with my parents and theirs trading us off. :winner: :crowd:

I’m still very close with one of my BFFs from school. We’ve known each other, oh…*doing the math* OMG 32 years now? (Yes, I am that old. Heh.) But anytime I see girls hanging out together, laughing, talking, etc, I think of her. We were in each other’s wedding, spent day after day soaking up the sun by the pool, had classes together. You name it. So much fun.

Female friendships are priceless, precious, and I hope you have someone in your life that fits that spot. If you do, tell me about them. I’d love to get to know your BFF.

Kay

A reader asked me to write about motivational tips. Things to keep us going when, let’s face it, the world is pretty gloomy right now. Why bother writing when the publishing world is struggling so badly due to the economy and piracy?

Why?

What else are you going to do? Do you want to quit, never to realize your dream? Or do you want to write (or sing or paint or whatever) for the sheer enjoyment of it? Because it makes YOU happy? And if you’re happy, it carries forward into the other things you do.

I’m not a sit-back-and-wait kind of person. In fact, this more than anything shows my impatience to move forward, I think. One day I’m going to get to THE END of my journey but the time between now and then won’t be spent mourning things beyond my control but working toward achieving dreams, goals etc. I know a person with no goals. Literally, NO goals. She exists day to day, fretting over this and that and stuck in the same place she’s been for the last thirty years. Do you know people like that? Do you want to be them?

No. No one does.

To borrow a phrase from Nike, JUST DO IT. Whatever it is, just DO it. And when the going gets tough, and it will, keep plugging on because it makes you happy, because it means something to someone else. Not everyone fits into a box. Writers know this especially well. We view things differently than other people, always thinking, analyzing, looking for story angles, emotions, the core of why whatever it happens to be matters.

Why do I write?

Because I know life can be tough, it can be painful, it can shatter us when we least expect it. But I also know we have choices to make. When our hearts are broken, we either pick ourselves up and move on, or we allow a bad thing, or a series of bad things, to break us. Those emotions:: love, sorrow, joy, fear? I loooove writing about them because we can all identify with them.

I’m not sure this is what my reader had in mind when she posed the question to me but… there you go. My motivational tip for the day is to keep moving forward. By kindness, by the scrape of your fingernails. Always with prayer.

Still need something to motivate you? Imagine, just for a moment for those of you who don’t believe, standing before God at the end of your life and saying, “I did nothing.”

That’s motivation enough for me to nurture my talent. I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I don’t have an ear for second languages and my patience is sorely lacking at times. But I can write and I care about what I write, my characters, the problems they face. I like sitting down and getting those emotions on the page. (Heh. When the writing is going well! Talk to me on a day when the words aren’t there and see me frustrated! LOL)

What’s YOUR talent? Your gift in life? You have one (or more). Never think for a single moment that you don’t. Are you going to share it with the world today? Why not?

Kay

Yesterday the fam and I took the car to the shop in Cincinnati. It was the first time I’d been to the dealership (especially the maintenance department) and I have to say WOW. The waiting area was absolutely spotless. Heh, who am I kidding, it was cleaner than my kitchen. Lots of tables and chairs, magazines to look at, newspapers on every table. But that wasn’t what wowed me. Being a total kid at heart my eyes widened when I saw the counter on the far wall lined with clear glass jars of–CANDY. I thought, Are they nuts??? Oh, my word! There were at least ten jars with plastic scoops and paper cups to fill. We knew we’d be there an hour, maybe two.

Truth be told, I think I was more excited than my kids. LOL

Anyway, I politely managed to snag ONE Tootsie Roll Pop (my favorite sucker of all time) and worked while we waited, finishing the outline on my current WIP. Best of all, the fam managed to restrain themselves and carefully made their selection as well. Maybe even more surprisingly was that there were quite a few kids happily coming into the repair center with smiles on their faces (remember being dragged there protesting every step of the way as a kid?) but they didn’t go crazy over the counter of candy. Each minded their manners and made one trip. Since we were there the longest of any of the others, it was great seeing well-behaved kids instead of sugar-crazed monsters. LOL

Kudos to the service department and to the parents of those kids. Hopefully I won’t have to return any time soon but if I do, I know there’s a Tootsie Roll Pop with my name on it.

No one *likes* to take their car in for repairs (Heh. Not unless it’s free!) but what’s your experiences with repair shops? Are they clean? The employees polite?

Kay

No, I’m not talking about a thing but something I’m experiencing at the moment. I woke up this morning stiff, with pain on one side of my neck from sleeping ‘wrong’. Why is it when you’re asleep, you don’t know you’re wrong? :scratch: Anyway, I got up, got moving–and the pain got worse! Uuuugh. My osteo isn’t in this week, either. The dh had mercy and gave me a massage (he hates giving massages *sigh*) and it helped a lot. Hopefully I can sweet talk another massage soon. In the meantime, I’m thinkin’ a neck brace wouldn’t be bad right now. LOL Just kidding. It’s not *that* bad, thank goodness.

Have you ever experienced one of these mysterious pains in the neck? What did you do about it?

Kay

ps–thanks to everyone for the music recommendations!

And a WINNER!!! My sincere apologies. I totally forgot to draw a winner for May’s Blog Contest. So, are you ready???

The winner is RobynL!!! Robyn, please email me privately with your shipping information.

Now for the blog…. I’m always on the hunt for new music to listen to while I walk. I like a variety of music but when I exercise the music has to be fast, upbeat and fun. You know what the next questions are going to be, don’t you?

What are YOU listening to? What do YOU recommend?

Kay