Feature and Follow Friday

For feature and Follow Friday I am supposed to respond to the question:  What is your favored reading format?

I honestly cannot say.  I love to pick up a book, new, used, (love Alibris) and library.  Also love my Kindle.  I will never catch up.  But I am getting very used to reading on my iPhone, mainly because of a lot of stuff going on lately.  It is the most convenient and not at all uncomfortable when you get used to it.  Uses up battery like crazy tho, and the Kindle has pretty good battery life. And, actually, with the iPhone, I love to stop reading where ever and know it will open exactly where I left off.  (That is also true of the Kindle and paper bookmarks, so what am I saying?)  And I can switch over to a game or Netflix whenever I need a break. 

I just have to read.  Did you ever notice the cups and napkins at Chipotle?

 

Today's featured blog:

 

Death Lists

So my husband, Louis, had a fall today and went to the hospital in an ambulance.  His pelvis is broken but not near the hip socket, so, instead of pinning it, they are "just going to let it heal". 

I wonder if, because of his age, he has been put on one of those death lists I have been hearing about. I am not an orthopedist, but I have to wonder how quickly weight-bearing bones heal in a slightly over weight man of his somewhat advanced age. What is a little lingering intense pain when you have out-lived your "usefulness"?

I will not sarcastically thank the voters of America until I have more information.  I'm good that way. 

  

Illustration attribution:  crosbiew.blogspot.com

An Award

As a sort of preface, I must first state that I have been banned from the Reddit subgroup "writing". It did not say why, so I have made a formal inquiry.  It did state that I have been banned by "those who write".  I kind of don't get Reddit, but I do get referrals from the site, so I give it a go every now and then.  Anything any of you know about Reddit, please enlighten me.

Then I must say thank you to Lord David Prosser who was kind or deluded enough to nominate me for the Super Sweet Blogging Award.

As with all of life's pleasantries there are rules to abide by.

1.  I must thank the person who nominated me.  OK

2.  I must answer 5 Super Sweet questions.
 
1.  Cookies or Cake?
         Usually cookies but I am fond of cake, just not carrot.  It seems so subversive.
 
2.  Chocolate or Vanilla?
          Vanilla, hands down.

 3.   Favorite sweet treat?
         I am currently unable to resist the Little Debby Chocolate covered wafer snack cake.  It has to
        do with a bizarre ritualistic way of dissassembling the snack before consuming.

4.  When do you most crave sweet treats?
         Bedtime.

5.  Sweet nickname?
         Well, my husband usually calls me, "JesusChristVirginia"  but I have many nicknames, none
          very sweet.   The one with the least amount of negative subtext at this time would probably be
         "Myrna".
          No explanations will be offered.


3.I must include the Super Sweet Blogger Award in my blog post.

4. Nominate a baker’s dozen of deserving bloggers.

Roy York
http://grandpayork.blogspot.com/

Wally Tomosky
http://waldotomosky.wordpress.com
He has said he doesn't have time, and I am not checking back, but he is sweet and a wonderful story-teller.  I should cheat and list all his blogs separately.

Sherry at The Redhead Riter cuz she has stuff like this on her blog:

And lots of other various things, funny and informative, and cuz she is a redhead.
http://www.theredheadriter.com/

Shayna Gier cuz she has been very helpful and works hard and is a cutie:
http://shaynagier.com

Darcy Perdu cuz she visited my blog once. And might again.
http://www.sothenstories.com/

Brenna Wildung because she said she enjoyed the last award and was kind enough to participate.  Her blog is amazing.  It looks so professional and is very interesting.
http://two-tall-tales.blogspot.com

I am kind of tapped out here.  I would have to go to Wordpress for more addresses and I have too many windows open.  So if you have time to do this, thank you, and pass it on to a deserving friend.

5.Notify my nominees on their blogs.
I did this in a somewhat half-assed way.

Father's Day

 

I wanted to put this up for Father's Day, but our printer was on holiday, so here it is.  In the white coat is Louie's dad, Louis Philip Sr,( Don Luis).  He died in 2001 at the age of ninety.   In the dark coat is my  dad, Robert McDaniel who was born in 1919 and is still with us.  In the middle is me, I was right around thirty, and I will not say what year this was.

It was in Fort Meyers, Florida, and both sets of our parents lived in Coachlight Manor.  Let me tell you, for sure, they had some high old times, and I am so glad to have this picture that caught them in their prime. 

These two men, both, were excellent rogues.

Paying Attention

I notice that several of the people who's blog I read also read mine.  I am pretty sure not everyone who hits on my blog reads it.  I could be wrong about that because every now and then I will get a nice comment from some one who got what I was writing about.  I sometimes get comments that make me think they were reading a different blog altogether, but it is nice to know my words can mean different things to different people. And then there are the New Zealand Plumbers.

Someone just went over a million hits and offered a little contest event to celebrate.  She did mention that it would be nice if each of those hits was a dollar.  I have mentioned it would be good if each of my hits represented a book sale.

I just went to a book promo site and literally begged people to purchase one of my books that was not doing well.  I really have no expectations that it will help, but I am beyond being reasonable about that book.  It is not my usual fare, but it is a quick little non-fiction read that is fun.  I honestly thought it would be a big deal.  I have read so many articles about gender issues lately that I almost think I started something.

In a blog that was about giving a certain type of speech to certain audiences and the pros and cons of it, I chose to comment not on speech giving but on the content of the speech (politicizing gender issues).  No one commented back but two comments after someone left a comment about gender imprinting that was almost exactly what I had said in my book.  That affects me the same way that writing about washing the counters and having someone I know is a reader write about washing counters the next day.  Ditto:  boys haircuts, pets, serendipity, destructive storms, etc.  Sometimes I think it is flattering, but sometimes, when it is really noticeable, I would like a nod. (Yes, Roy.  I saw your wonderful reference and link.  Have you thought about cloning yourself?)

I have been on what, for lack of a better term, I will call the downside of having interest in this project.  I look at my past results and I know exactly what I have to do to duplicate that.  It is time-consuming and boring, but it is not difficult and it bears very sweet fruit.  Yet, I sit, I mull over the phrasing of a scene in my mind.   I know I should write the scene down and then work over it, but I don't.  I mull til I fall asleep.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to be noticed, to have people pay attention to what I have to say, but lately, ironically, since I have more blog hits every day than I ever imagined, I kind of don't care.  Well, it isn't really that I don't care because I know how I react to nice reviews and good numbers or compliments, (I probably get much more pleasure out of it than it deserves, but I think I already wrote that blog.)  but I am wondering what difference does it make.  Anything I do, some one else can do, does do, is doing, is maybe even using me for inspiration.  I know I never thought I would come up with a game changer so I do not know what is lacking in my approach to the process right now.  I do know that I am dying to reunite Maisie and her husband and will play solitaire on my iPhone for an hour and a half to keep myself from doing that.

If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding.
You can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat.

Balance Sheet

How is the weekend going for you?  Mine started out with my grand son hitting a wonderful home-run.  That joy was off set by his team losing their first game of the season.  They had lead the whole game but the opponents drove in several runs in the bottom of the sixth and were ahead by one.  Then they decided to call the game (not play the seventh) because of the time.  They are a Little League team and bound by a pretty strict set of conventions and rules.  Of course, I have to keep bringing up that those rules have been bent a little at times depending on who the umpire is and who the coaches are.  So the opponents were given the win.  Well, yeah.  Of course I am bitter and pissed-off.

Then I noticed a sale on my cornerstone book had caused the ratings to rise dramatically which was super encouraging since I am so sick of the whole writing routine, tired of promotion, un-inspired to continue the story. Of course I am totally prepared for the numbers to drop like a rock the minute someone else sells a book, but it is reassuring to note that particular book has a place in the Amazon algorithm.  And today Smashwords posted a bunch of sales on almost all of my books, maybe all--I didn't look too closely--from their many affiliates.  So I guess I am still in the game.

I worked on cleaning up the Buick which had taken a pounding from the South Dakota trip.  The Dawn-vinegar combination works very well on ground in gummy bears. But the which vacuum cleaner is the best routine was exhausting since it involved so many treks up and down stairs.  Sometimes this house seems to have way too many staircases. 

It cooled off a lot today.  We were on the edge of some storms that we could see and hear, but we received only a few sprinkles.  I prefer full-blown, roof-shaking thunderstorms, even if they do shear off my deck and crush my car.  God, isn't that fascinating to read?

Not much else is new.  Exposed myself to an hour long presentation on the Narcissistic Personality Disorder which was illuminating.  It is hard to find much illumination at my age, and I think y'all can guess which parts of my life were illuminated.

So I am just stopping by to pimp out my blog again.  You are on to that, so I am not going to try and sugar coat the reality.  Thanks to all of you, though, for stopping by.