St. Patrick's Day and Other Holidays by Bonnie Le Hamilton

In four days, it will be St. Patrick’s Day. I’m also informed, thanks to social media, that the holy periods of Lent and Ramadan are going on right now, with Palm Sunday on the 24^th and Easter on the 31^st.

All of this got me thinking about holiday traditions and which ones we, or our characters, follow. I know I have touched on traditions concerning big holidays like Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but what about the others?

I don’t know about schools today, but when I was a kid, St. Patrick’s Day was a big deal, mostly because of pinching anyone not wearing green. I have previously mentioned my cousin who was vicious with his pinches back then.

Anyway, on St. Patrick’s Day, I always try to remember to wear green.

In my husband’s family, their tradition was to have corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day, which is something my family never did, but now I do it every year. This year as usual you will find me at my sister-in-law’s place having corned beef and cabbage.

When it comes to Ramadan, of course, we don’t celebrate that, but we also never celebrated Lent. Growing up, Lent was just lighting a candle on each of the four Sundays before Easter, and the one we lit on Easter was white while the rest were green.

I was an adult before I learned some people give up stuff during Lent, but that is as far as it goes for me. Now Easter is a big deal. It's as big as Christmas really. But even still, it isn’t like it was when we were kids and everyone showed up at church in their new spring outfits complete with hats, gloves, and little purses. I hated those hats.

We still dress up for Easter, but then we try to dress up for every Sabbath day. Easter is on Sunday.

Other Easter traditions are the Easter egg hunt and Easter baskets, and way too much candy!

In our church, it is more about reading about the Resurrection of Christ than all those treats, just like we try to make Christmas more about the birth of Christ. However, I admit it is harder to find décor about the Resurrection of Christ than it is to find décor depicting the birth of Christ. Explaining why I have so many Nativities and only one “He is Risen” knickknack. I wish I had more. Though I do have a couple Gethsemane statues. Gethsemane had to happen before the tomb could be found empty! That’s important too.

But what about in our stories? Do we ever use some of these holidays in them?

I know I have used April Fool’s Day at least once, which is the day after Easter this year, but I don’t think I’ve ever done much about St. Patrick’s Day. Have you?

As far as stories go, I know Blue Bloods usually does something about St. Patrick’s Day, but that is a bigger deal in New York or Chicago. Wasn’t it the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parade that The Fugitive got lost in?

But how about in small-town America? What kind of things would they do?

I know we never had a parade on St. Patrick’s Day, but it is usually still pretty cold on St. Patrick’s Day, I’m surprised New York and Chicago have parades for it, then again, New York has their big parade on Thanksgiving every year, which is pretty darn cold.

Around here, it is normally a white Thanksgiving.

Though if you are making up a town, or using a small town that never did much for the holiday, what would that be?

Or would it be mentioned at all?

I’m sure in Sci-Fi the likelihood of them celebrating St. Patrick’s Day is pretty slim, the same in Fantasy, but what holidays would they celebrate? What would that look like? What is the tradition for it? Is the tradition different for separate groups?

I should consider this for my Sci-Fi because what sort of culture doesn’t have holidays? For my speculative fiction, I don’t think any of our holidays are mentioned specifically, but it does occur in late spring, right before high school graduation for some of the characters. And that is in the story.

But most of what I write is romance, and I have no idea why I don’t mention St. Patrick’s Day in any of them. I clearly could have in the one where I mention April Fool’s Day because the female lead’s little brothers would make a big deal out of that too! And I do not know why I didn’t at least mention it in passing.

Anyway, happy writing everyone! And Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

 

Of Weather and Differences by Konnie Enos

Time is flying this year. Here it is already March and like the old saying it came in like a lion, roaring. This past weekend we got what the weather reports were calling a Winter storm. But around here, that doesn’t mean snow.

What we got was intense winds, blowing things around and downing some trees, or at least taking some branches off them. My daughter said she thought the wind had blown a branch off of our tree because there was one lying under it. Though it’s not something you’d notice on our massive tree. I wasn’t concerned about it. It was planted nineteen years ago, and it’s supposed to have roots that go extra deep and long. I think it’d take tornado-strength winds to pull it out of the ground.

The power company warned us about power outages but all we got was one short one on Saturday morning. Long enough for us to notice the power went off, but not long enough to start worrying about issues from its loss. I don’t think it was out for five minutes.

By Monday, things had calmed down around here. We still have some wind, but it’s quieter. The sun’s out, we have blue skies. The weather report predicts temperatures hitting the low 70s this week.

Monday is also the day I read headlines about the major blizzard hitting Northern California and into Northern Nevada. Specifically, around the Tahoe and Reno areas. They got socked in.

My son, Tony, is working in Northern Nevada so I was happy when he called. I asked him how the weather was up there and how he was faring.

He mentioned that his bosses had shut down his job site on Saturday because of the weather and the fact they had more snow and ice. He didn’t mention any power outages or other issues with the weather though his call was about him needing a ride to come to Las Vegas today. Jerry, of course, willingly drove up to get him last night, though Tony had some warnings about the road conditions up there.

Now, having grown up in Idaho, I’m a bit familiar with the weather there and I knew that by March the snow is at least starting to melt, if not mostly gone. And while there might still be snow around, the roads are clear. But March tends to roar in like a lion so lots of wind. Prime weather for some kite flying, as I remember.

I didn’t see Idaho’s weather reports, so I assumed they were just seeing typical March winds and maybe some rain. Then learning about the blizzard, I thought they may have gotten some snow from it. Though being March already, and not seeing any headlines about them getting a storm too, I assumed it wasn’t more than a light snow, something that could melt off in a day.

Since this was Monday, and I had plans for the evening, I was contemplating if I’d even need a jacket and the possibility of digging my sandals out rather than wearing my tennis shoes for the evening when Bonnie surprised me by calling.

I very nearly panicked.

It was the middle of the workday! And unlike me, she has a job. Plus, she never calls in the middle of the day.

So, my first response when I picked up the phone was, “What’s wrong?”

 Her first sentence was bemoaning the fact that the snow was up to the bumper of her car, which is an SUV! Apparently, because of the slope of her driveway and the depth of the newly fallen snow, she couldn’t get out.

I’m thinking about the nice spring weather, and she’s snowed in! Not only that, but her anticipated company wouldn’t be able to get to her place because of it. (The slope of her driveway is at least half the problem.)

Talk about March coming in like a lion.

Then, after we’d hung up, I had to laugh about the differences in our lives. From the extreme differences in our weather to the differences in our living conditions. Her only companion is her cat while I live with most of my kids, my husband, and some dogs.

Of course, she also had tons of friends, not to mention family nearby, and she lives in the small town we grew up in. I live in a huge city with no family nearby and, as usual, I don’t have as many friends.

Though we still have our similarities. Saturday, Melinda was French braiding my hair and commented on my extreme lack of gray hair. Yes, I have some, as does Bonnie, but at nearly 62 years old, it’s not much.

And, as of yesterday, Dictionary (as we affectionately call her) is 63.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

A Rose By Any Other Name by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

 

I recently skimmed an article on a study about children with unusual or unpopular names. And it got me thinking about a lot of things.

My first thought was the fight we had with Dad when our youngest brother was born. I can’t remember the name he wanted to give Dan, but I do remember telling Dad, “He’s going to get teased enough as it is because of our last name!”

By the way, our maiden name is Westover. We got teased a lot for that.

That may be the only time teenagers have ever backed up their stepmother, but I’m sure Dan is glad we prevailed!

The article I scanned also mentioned the more recent penchant for parents to “creatively” spell their children’s names, which got me thinking about the “creative” spelling of our names.

I know that our mother got our oldest sister’s full first name off the headlines when she was born. Dictionary, otherwise known as Jacki, was born in March of ’61. Guess who was in the headlines back then. Our big sister always preferred Jackie over the longer version, but eventually, she dropped that “e,” making her name Jacki.

As kids, she was Jackie, and that is a common spelling. She never had problems with her name. I also never really had any problems when I stuck with Bonnie, but there were clear issues with my middle name, and that blasted “e” our father decided to exclude from my birth certificate.

Konnie and Bryon had significant issues.

As you can see from all our posts, her name is Konnie, not Connie. But while people sometimes misspelled her name, no one ever tried to tell her she was spelling it wrong; at least not that I can remember.

Bryon on the other hand did experience an issue with the spelling of his name. When he was in fifth grade and Konnie and I were in sixth grade we went to a school where the fifth and sixth grades were combined in the mornings and split in the afternoon, and well the fifth-grade teacher kept insisting on calling him “Byron.” When we told her that his name is pronounced Brian, she told us he was spelling his name wrong.

We tried to tell her he wasn’t, but she wouldn’t listen, if his name is Brian, it should be spelled B-r-i-a-n not B-r-y-o-n. Please note that the “r” is before the “y” in his name, so she mispronounced his name, but she wouldn’t listen to that argument either.

We gave up until we had a chance to tell our mother what was going on.

She resorted to taking all three of our birth certificates to the school the first chance she got and cussing the principal and that teacher out.

By the way, none of our names are spelled wrong. All three of us were named after family friends. Our first names are spelled just like who we were named after. The only “creative” spelling is when Dad dropped that dang “e” from both mine and Konnie’s middle names.

Nowadays, the creative spelling you come across can be so bad, that it is sometimes hard to figure out how it is supposed to be pronounced.

Not too long ago I embraced this trend by giving a character in one of my WIPs a creatively spelled name, but I also gave her a simple, conventionally spelled, nickname.

I do have a point in my story where the hero wonders what her full first name is because on the first day of school that year (her first in that district), all the teachers stumbled over her name and then asked her how to pronounce it. In each instance, she responded, “Just call me Wren.”

Anyway, what I got from my cursory glance at the article was that kids with unusual or unpopular names are less likely to be successful and more likely to be teased and or shunned.

And yes, I can see anyone named something like Adolf being shunned, but mostly kids just teased, and I don’t see how that teasing adversely affected me.

Though I assure you, I will always insist that parents think of their children, and how they may get teased when naming them.

Anyway, have you used “creative” spelling in your character names, or given your characters unpopular names?

What are some of your strategies for naming characters? Do you set different rules for different stories?

In one of mine, all the girls in the female lead’s family are named after flowers, so I had to give them flower names. In another story, I set up rules about the last names of a colony of aliens.

Happy writing everyone.

Apologizes By Konnie Enos

 Here it is Wednesday morning, and I haven’t got an idea in my head. All I can think about is how I didn’t get much sleep last night because I know I was tossing all night. That and I’m not completely awake now.

Racking my brain for an hour just to formulate a few words isn’t working so I’m going to have to apologize to our readers for not getting a post up this week. I’m afraid writing, well anything, is right up there with filing my taxes. I know I should do it, but I can’t bring myself to focus on it.

Even with my total lack of ideas, I also know it’s important to keep our readers apprised of the situation, so they don’t feel like everything is off-kilter in their routine. I read a blog every Tuesday, only it hasn’t been updating on its normal schedule lately. So, I personally understand that off-kilter experience.

Seeing that I fell asleep sitting here trying to come up with yet one more thing to make this post longer, I’m giving up and trying to get some more sleep. Though between the sun being up and family members moving about the house, which includes my daughter who is cooking her breakfast now, I’m sure it’ll be too noisy here for that to work for long.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Sleep Apnea and Other Issues by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I’m sure I mentioned that my cat has taken to waking me up in the middle of the night. For a while there I thought I would never get a decent night’s sleep again.

But one night I was having trouble getting comfortable and I ended up sleeping propped up in more of a sitting position. And Patches didn’t jump on me once that night! That isn’t to say he didn’t wake me up; he did, right around the time he decided he needed his breakfast.

Here is the difference; three or four times a night, he had been jumping onto me from my desk. Once in the pre-dawn hours, he would crawl onto me meowing and pushing his nose into my nose. He is still doing that. If I sleep in a more inclined position, he doesn’t jump on me.

Problem solved, right?

Around this time, I kept waking up with a headache, and I always seemed tired. I finally decided I needed to revisit the idea of a sleep study.

I wasn’t looking forward to this, because I’d tried it once before years ago while Tom was still alive. I didn’t sleep one wink hooked up to all those cables. Now though they can do the study with fewer cables and it is possible to do it at home.

It took some doing, and getting the appointment to get the device took some time, but I finally got the sleep study done.

They were slow to contact me about the results, but they finally called to set up an appointment for me to come in and learn the results.

So I went to the appointment, and the professional I talked to informed me that I stopped breathing three times that night!

Patches jumped on me three times that night!

Yeah, that’s right. Patches jumps on me when I stop breathing.

I did mention that he doesn’t jump on me when I sleep propped up, and she said that made sense, and suggested I do that until all the red tape is cut and I get a C-PAP machine.

At least Patches doesn’t wake me up as often that way.

In other news, I have been having a ton of financial issues these past several months, mostly due to how many days I missed work due to not getting enough sleep the night before. But it hadn’t been just that.

I missed several days because I put one or both knees out and I couldn’t walk. I missed at least one day because my blood sugar went sky-high on me. When my neighbor came to check on me, she thought what I needed was orange juice.

FYI, orange juice or candy is used when the blood sugar is too low; when it is too high, avoid carbs altogether and have protein.

Also, when it is too low, you are dizzy, faint, and woozy; when it is too high, you have dry heaves and you are sweaty, maybe also dizzy. There is a difference. I promise giving someone carbs or sugar in this case would only make matters worse.

Now my financial issues aren’t as easy to handle, though things are looking up. I paid off one credit card in December thanks to a generous gift from some friends. I paid off another bill last month, which was a big help because it was the highest monthly payment I had. And I am working on not missing so much work.

Of course, that is the hard part. I am still having issues with sleep. I don’t just have sleep apnea; I also have insomnia issues.

It turns out I am on the spectrum, and insomnia is a common problem for those of us on the spectrum. And here I just thought it was a family problem. Dad and our brother Bryon had problems with it too.

Has anybody mentioned that Autism most likely has a genetic component? And yes, they have.

The myth that it is caused by vaccines is bunk, but it is a fact that it is often hereditary.

By the way, I only received one vaccine as a kid, and I was displaying what is now known as clear signs of Autism long before grade school. And I know I have mentioned all my stims before.

Now I am wondering why I don’t write a character that is on the spectrum. That is certainly something I do know. And I might just do it eventually, or I might add some detail to an already existing character to make that person on the spectrum.

I’m thinking I should make the character female to help spread the work that isn’t a male-only problem.

Anyway, happy writing everyone! 

Rainy Days, Achy Joints, and Muses by Konnie Enos

 

Monday morning, I woke up craving pancakes. Now since I am diabetic, I don’t have pancakes very often. It had been months since the last time so I decided it would be okay to have some that day.

Now most people nowadays get their pancakes by ordering them at the nearest restaurant (fast food place) that serves them. Or they get a package of Eggos or Bisquick, whichever one they feel they have the time and energy for.

Me? I got out the recipe book and started gathering ingredients. Flour, sugar, salt, etcetera. I didn’t even get out a mixer but stirred them by hand.

When it came time to cook them my daughter and I discussed which pan we would use. Our largest frying pan is my cast iron. It’s only about ten years old so we still season it regularly. My daughter keeps it in pristine condition. It was already on the stove, so I just used that.

Once it was warmed up and prepped for cooking, I poured four nice round pancakes into the pan. While they cooked, I set about getting some eggs cooked to go with my pancakes.

Then I went to turn my four beautiful pancakes.

They stuck horribly. In the middle of trying to flip them, I realized I’d been standing too long. I had to sit down, and Melinda had to help me rescue the stuck pancakes. I found another pan to cook the rest of them in.

The pancakes turned out fine, though those first four were a mess. And if you are wondering, I only ate two, and both without syrup.

What wasn’t fine was my back.

Normally, when I stand for too long, I would sit, and rest, for roughly at least as long as I’d been standing to give my back a rest. That didn’t work on Monday.

After I’d eaten, I went to my bed where I could be more comfortable.

While I was sitting there, I was fine, but the minute I had to get up I could feel it. In my back and hips, even my knees. I didn’t just strain my back. My arthritis was acting up. Going to the bathroom, which isn’t that far from my bed, I was a stooped-over, little old lady, unable to straighten up all the way. I wasn’t in excruciating pain. Just enough to know I didn’t want to move much or far.

So, I was sitting in my bed, complaining about aching joints and being unable to walk when my husband mentioned that his arthritic shoulder was hurting. It was then I began to suspect that my issues were more than just strained my back. So, I talked to my son, who also has arthritis, how he was doing. He loves to complain so he had no problem mentioning that his feet hurt more than usual. I’m sure we weren’t the only people feeling the shift in the weather in our joints.

Once I realized I was miserable and in no mood to get out of bed, I remembered that Jerry and I had plans for the evening. Going out in the rain is one thing, but doing so when you hurt just trying to move? Yeah, not fun.

I opted to stay home and rest instead. And I did feel somewhat better on Tuesday. Not perfect. I still had some joint pain, but I could walk normally. The rain is supposed to let up after today so hopefully my remaining aches will let up soon.

On the bright side, somehow through all of this, I managed to spark my muse enough to at least work on my fantasy for a few hours. Mostly, I just read and edited the first eight chapters, but I have some ideas for fixing some things going forward now.

Though, those weren’t my only options for spending a lazy day in bed.

I could have worked on a couple of cross-stitches I have. There is also the fact I have crochet hooks, knitting needles, and knitting looms with enough skeins of yarn to keep me busy producing useful things for months.

Or I could have just picked up a good book, or two. I have piles of them including the nine new ones I got for Christmas and have yet to even crack the binding.

I didn’t do any of that. What I did was get lost down the rabbit hole. Somehow, whenever I open Facebook, I manage to think I’ve only been on for a few minutes when it’s been hours.

I don’t suppose I’m the only one who spends too much time on social media.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Reading by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I have been doing lots of reading this month. And by that, I mean I haven’t done any writing except for my blog posts.

At this point, I’m in the middle of my 28^th book for this month.

It started out with me reading what Jana Deleon books I did have on my reader, and then I decided to look up more of her works. I am currently on her Miss Fortune series. I have now read ten of those, there are 24 or 25, so I still have more to get. And that’s only one of her series! I just want to get through all the Miss Fortune books before I read anything else of hers. I plan to read the Mudbug series after the Miss Fortune series.

By the way, if you are looking for funny cozy mysteries, look up the Miss Fortune series. They are more of a fish out of water combined with a comedy of errors than anything. And they are hilarious, which is saying something since I don’t get jokes too often.

After I read those ten books, I thought I’d read another mystery. I read one that is more suspense than mystery, the author of that one gives the POV of several characters including the bad people.

Then I decided to read something less intense and switched to my Marta Perry “The Three Sisters Inn” series. That’s three books of cozy, sweet, mystery.

After that, I decided I’d had enough of mysteries for a while and switched to Brenda Minton’s Cooper Creek series, what I had of them on my reader. I am still one book short on them. I read the first seven, but somewhere along in there, I realized some of the characters mentioned were in her series about cowboys, which I have six of in hard copy, so I dug them out and reread them, only to discover I was missing the final two of that series both of which are before Cooper Creek starts.

I got those two at an exceptionally low price on my reader. The first one of those two is the one I am on now.

However, in talking to Konnie about authors she knows and likes, we got on the subject of Rusty Ellis, another mystery writer I like, and well, he is family. He’s married to a distant cousin of ours.

But in talking to Konnie, I realized he had more books out than the one I already had, so I looked him up on Amazon, and now I have four of his books. So, I already have my February reading list.

I have tons of mystery books. I know I have mentioned Dick and Felix Francis before, but I also have some of the likes of Agatha Christy and Patterson, as well as all the mystery writers I've already mentioned. I even have the first twelve of the Boxcar Children mysteries.

And as far as sweet romance goes, well, clearly, I have several by Brenda Minton. More than I have already mentioned. Three more to be exact. Brenda Minton is one of the authors in the “After the Storm” series on the “Love Inspired” line. That series is good too. And I have two of Minton’s standalone books.

I also have several “Love Inspired” books by Linda Goodnight, some are in a series, and one is a standalone. My favorites of hers are the “Whisper Falls” series and “Special Delivery Baby.” I have four of the “Whisper Falls” series and five of the “Triple C Cowboys” series. I really should look up if there is more sometime. Can’t afford to buy more right now though.

Then again, I got my first Linda Goodnight for free on Kindle. Yeah, I’m hooked. Of course, I know that any “Love Inspired” book isn’t going to have scenes I don’t want to be reading.

This reminds me, I received three books as Christmas presents this last year, and I’ve never heard of any of the authors, so I have no idea what I’d be getting into with them.

Years ago, I first read Nora Roberts in a Reader’s Digest condensed book. On reading a full book of hers, I discovered I can only handle her in the condensed form, and that made me hesitant to read any full works of Dick Francis. I didn’t delve into his uncondensed works until a friend promised me his writing was clean.

Hence why I am reluctant to read unknown authors.

Not that I haven’t done that. Any book published by Deseret Book or part of the “Love Inspired”, “Sweet Romance” lines, or family, guarantees to be a safe read.

Anyway, happy writing everyone.