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.

Of New Years and Old Things by Konnie Enos

Here it is, nearly the end of January and I’m thinking about all the things I have not done with this new year.

I have not read a single book, not even that pile of books I got for Christmas. (I got somewhere in the amount of nine or ten new books.) Or any of the new-to-me books I acquired in the few months preceding December. Though I admit I have tried to read a few of my books. I think I have three that I’ve started in the last few months and just never picked up again.

I have not done a single handcraft. I not only have tons of yarn, hooks, and needles in easy reach, but I also have some knitting looms and some cross stitches I can do. I have all sorts of plans for all of it, and I have picked them up at least once or twice, but I have not put any serious effort into it.

I have not consistently kept up with my chores. I’m not cleaning the kitchen regularly and I haven’t been helping Melinda with planning our weekly menu or writing our weekly shopping list. I’ve cooked dinner only once, leaving the bulk of it to Melinda. I’m also behind on keeping my checkbook up to date.

I have not been making my church meetings. Most of that is I cannot seem to stay awake long enough to get dressed and ready to go. Most of what I’ve spent my waking hours on is getting lost in the rabbit hole that is Facebook.

Most importantly, I have not been writing, or editing any of my work. Or in fact, anything to do with writing except contributing to this blog. Unless you count thinking about how things I could change in my current WIPs. I’ve done that but come up with no solid ideas.

Now I know a lack of desire, or interest in doing things you normally do would be seriously concerning. However, my lack of action has nothing to do with my lack of interest. It has everything to do with my lack of energy.

You see, I’ve also been falling asleep randomly throughout the day and taking two to four-hour naps. That’s on top of a full night's sleep.

What I have done this month (besides wasting time on Facebook) was go to multiple doctor’s appointments to be poked and prodded to find out why I’m feeling so lousy.

One of the first concerns was cancer. Fortunately, the test results have already ruled that out. My doctor also found I had a mild infection, which might account for my tiredness. So, I’m on antibiotics again. If that doesn’t work, I’ll probably be poked and prodded some more.

My doctor was also able to determine that I do need a simple surgery. Nothing major. In and out in the same day. I’ll be having that done in the next month or so.

Hopefully, I’ll get back to having enough energy to attend all my church meetings and keep up with my chores. The things I normally do.

If I can get that down again then I can work at adding working on my writing, reading new books, and doing some handcrafts. I mean there are plenty of hours in the day when you aren’t falling asleep randomly or wasting time in rabbit holes.

One thing I have done this month, which I’d like to continue, is watching some movies. Ones I remember seeing at some point and liked. I started with the original Star Trek movies, those with the original casts from TOS and TNG. The new ones are available too, so I may watch those too.

Next, I watched The Quiet Man and McClintock. No, I’m not what I would call a Duke fan. I just like some of his movies, especially those with Maureen O’Hara.

Then I wanted to watch some movies from when I was young. Netflix has a classics section. I looked there. The oldest one was from 1984 and most of the rest were from this century.

How can the classics be less than 40 years old? That’s right up there with songs released while I was in high school being played on the oldies station. Or high schools having retro dances with an 80s theme. In my day it was the 60s. Then again, they are probably doing 90s themes now.

Then in the process of trying to find some of those old movies I remember from my childhood, I discovered they were “old” before I was born.

I guess I just prefer the stuff from my parents’ childhoods.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Too Cold! by B. L. Hamilton

 

There is something weird going on with the weather around here. Today I saw something on Facebook about the temperature in Dallas Texas being 23 degrees and the temperature in Salt Lake City Utah being 30 degrees!

Of course, when I saw it, the first thing that hit me was that it was a whopping 30 degrees in Salt Lake City! I found myself wishing it was that warm here. Then I noted the other city in that meme and wondered what was going on. Is it really colder in Dallas than in Salt Lake?

Though before I could fully absorb that information, a friend of mine, who lives in New Orleans, posted it was 17 degrees at her place.

My response was, well at least it wasn’t -2!

That isn’t to say it was -2 at the time I commented. No, at that time it was 23 degrees out, just like in Dallas, but it had been, well it got to -3 Monday night.

How is this happening?

Dallas and New Orleans being colder than Salt Lake is bad enough, but to have to deal with negative temperatures here, well, I’m not the only one having problems.

I wasn’t the only one at Auto Zone yesterday because of battery issues. There were three other people there with the same issue. And as that was afternoon, I’m sure they had a lot more come in earlier.

Then a friend of mine came over to help me with the new battery I needed, and he told me he moved from Bear Lake to get away from below-zero weather.

I said at the time that I didn’t think he had moved far enough south for that and I even wished I lived in Vegas with Konnie right now.

He told me Bear Lake gets colder. 

Yeah, it probably does. Bear Lake, like Rexburg, is at a much higher altitude than down on the Snake River Plains where we live. And let’s face it because Pocatello is situated in such a small valley, most storms skip over us and hit Blackfoot, I.F., and Rexburg with way more than we get here.

I should know, I’ve lived in those places, and even Salt Lake. Pocatello does not get hit with winter weather as hard as places further north or at least in much bigger valleys than here.

Which isn’t to say we don’t get hit, because we get hit, there’s a good six inches outside from this past weekend’s storm. And from all reports, it was worse out of this valley. Chubbuck and Fort Hall got it worse. They always do and considering how close they are to Pocatello it still seems amazing.

For those of you who don’t know the town I live in, to get from Pocatello to Chubbuck, you just have to cross a street. And, while driving through Chubbuck on Yellowstone Ave, about the time you hit the suburbs, you cross into the Reservation, which doesn’t end until you hit Blackfoot.

Taking Yellowstone Ave, the other way, you get to farms before you hit Inkom, but there isn’t as much open land there as there used to be! And Inkom isn’t in this valley either.

And I promise Inkom tends to get hit worse than Pocatello. Again, this small valley.

I just wish this small valley could protect us from the cold. At 9:30 last night, it was -4 outside! Yikes! I’m glad I was inside.

By the way, that doesn't include the wind chill factor.

It’s dang cold out there!

But we’re supposed to start warming up tomorrow.

The forecast is for the high 30s for tomorrow. That is tolerable, that is what we are used to for this time of year; we are in the north. If this is the kind of weather down in New Orleans, I can see how they would be miserable.

Like how I was in a hot, muggy, Virginia summer. Give me arid heat any day.

Actually, arid weather period. Humidity kicks it up several notches either way I think. Though it never got this cold in Norfolk while I lived there.

I had quite a few laughs at the reaction of the locals to the snow. They actually closed the schools over a skiff of snow! I mean you could still see the grass between what little bits of snow there was, and it wasn’t laying on the asphalt or concrete.

It was even funnier when there was a run on groceries when a winter storm was predicted. They acted like they’d be snowed in for weeks.

Sometimes you just have to stop and consider where you are, and what you are used to compared to the people around you.

We all have different experiences, or perspectives.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!