Life In Hidden Pictures

by Caren Crane

I had a lovely daughter graduate from high school yesterday and it was one of those Significant Milestones that should be Caught On Film. I have a few pictures, most of which I am not in because I was taking the pictures, but I have some. They are now held hostage on my digital camera because I am too...let's not call it lazy, rather unwilling to take the time to upload all the pictures to my PC (although I did this one time, just to have a picture for this blog post!).

I have masses of picture prints from other Significant Milestones sitting in boxes in my dining room and guest room closet. (My husband would have consigned them to the attic and did not understand they would be ruined by being stored there!) I have no plans for these pictures, except to take them out from time to time and look at them or share them with others in the pictures. "Oh, look how cute they were then!"

I do not scrapbook (which I need to, because I'll forget this picture was Rachel's last day of school someday). I don't make cheesy photo collages to hang on the wall of the stairwell. There are no lines of framed school pictures from kindergarten through graduation on a mantle or wall or dresser in my home. I do have photos I have stuck in frames from time to time, more from shame and fear of being the Worst Mother Ever than any other motivation. I also have a very fragile and changeable collage of photos covering my fridge (ask anyone who has been to the house!) that spans the past couple of decades. I think there is even a baby picture of me up there!

I have great photos that I feel I should do something with, but I realize I probably won't. I may get them scanned one day - or I may give them to one of my kids to scan one day (seems much more likely). I don't want to lose them or be without them. I also would love for my kids to do what I still do at my mother's house: take down the boxes of photos and sift through them, remembering, laughing and smiling. Come to think of it, my mother never made scrapbooks or memory albums either. She tossed packets of photos in a drawer or box and still has them there. Maybe it's hereditary - or maybe, like me, she's just not a visually-oriented person. Then again, I've never thought she was the Worst Mom Ever, either. I am always thrilled to sift through and unearth the treasures that await me in her precious boxes.

So maybe I'll upload my photos to a memory stick and take them to Walgreens and have those Significant Milestones turned into pieces of colored paper. Then I'll stick them in a box, put them in the closet, shut the door and let them age a bit. By the time they are pulled out, sifted through, smiled over, laughed at and remembered, they will be Treasured Memories. I may even be in a few of them!


Do you make memory albums or scrapbooks or do you toss the photos in a box or file or drawer? Any particularly wonderful photos from your own Significant Milestones you would like to tell us about?Source URL: https://idontwanttobeanythingotherthanme.blogspot.com/search/label/Writers%27%20Life
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Lugging the Luggage on a Lugger...

by Anna Campbell

..to a Desert Island!

When this post comes up into the light of the lair, I'll be heading for the end of my wonderful two-week cruise on the 'Pacific Dawn' (that's it on the left) to New Zealand.

I'm so excited about this. In return for giving a couple of talks about romance writing, I get a free cruise. How cool is that?

I've never been on a cruise before and I've always wanted to go to New Zealand. So all round, it's wonderful. I look forward to sharing lots of photos with you in next month's Bandita blog.

I even went wild and bought a digital camera for the trip. It takes me forever to adopt new technology - which may turn out to be the subject of a future blog. Perhaps called Lugging the Luddite!

I'll be stoked if I take a shot as pretty as the one of New Zealand's South Island on the right! Isn't that beautiful? Wow!

So needless to say, I'm in the throes of packing because I leave on Saturday (it's the 25th November here right now - Happy Thanksgiving!). So far, I have a huge number of Anna Campbell books for giveaways, and ten books from the TBR for me to read, and all my Christmas cards to write, and the work in progress which I'm hoping is going to get some attention in amongst all the excitement. And I need lots of the sort of clothes I wear at RWA conferences. Thank goodness, it's a boat and there's no excess luggage charges!

So as I started putting out all this stuff that I'm taking with me, I wondered what were the five things I'd take to a desert island. And I came up with:

1. Richard Armitage (hopefully he can build and hunt and light fires and do plumbing and foot massages!)

2. A year's worth of Smith's potato chips, especially barbecue flavor

3. Sunscreen

4. 50 cases of champagne (hmm, I'm starting to like the sound of this island!)

5. MOBY DICK. Because while Richard is off catching dinner, I might actually read it in the absence of other entertainment

OK, what five things would you take to a desert island?

Oh, and if you want the Banditas as company, we count as one item. Oh, man, perhaps I should take the Banditas and their cohorts instead of MOBY DICK. We'd have a WHALE of a time!

As this is my last post for the year, I'd like to wish you and yours a very happy Holiday Season.

Thank you so much for all your wonderful support during the year. And thank you to all my wonderful Bandita sisters. You and the Bandita buddies are definitely something I give thanks for, not just today which happens to be Thanksgiving, but every minute of the year.

See you all next year!

Oh, and now for the bad news - I'm not sure what email access I'll have on the ship so I'm not sure whether I'll be able to respond to comments.

But hey, guys, party on! Source URL: https://idontwanttobeanythingotherthanme.blogspot.com/search/label/Writers%27%20Life
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Happy Songs!

by Anna Campbell

This morning, I was wandering around the house trying to get enthused about doing some work. I had the TV on to one of those video channels on cable TV.

I heard this short electronic fanfare and suddenly Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode was playing. My morning suddenly started to sparkle. It's such a happy song and it never fails to make me smile.

So I started to think of other songs that always make me smile. I thought, for the sake of brevity, I'd stick to the 80s. Partly because that's when I was as up with current popular music as I'm ever likely to be. Partly because I was of an age (early 20s) when the music around at the time really sticks with you!

Maybe also because a lot of '80s music is just happy anyway.

One of the songs that always makes me smile from that decade is Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper. Maybe because I was a girl and I wanted to have fun! I loved Cyndi Lauper - never really took to Madonna who was the other really big female star of the time. That song is such a buzz!

Actually girl singers back then had some great feel-good songs out then. Who can forget Katrina and the Waves' Walking on Sunshine? Or what about the Go-Gos and Our Lips Are Sealed? Walk Like an Egyptian will probably make a lot of lists but I got SOOOO sick of that one so I groan instead of smile these days when I hear it.

Other songs from the '80s that invariably lift my spirits include Ant Music by Adam and the Ants, Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins ("My job is very boring, I'm an office clerk!") and probably my favorite of all, Tainted Love by Soft Cell. I'm not at all surprised that wonderful song was sampled recently for a number one single. But nothing beats this version. Marc Almond's aching falsetto is full of pain and anger but somehow that driving rhythm puts this song into feel-good territory.

And speaking of falsetto so high only dogs can hear it, what about Take on Me by A-Ha? Yet again, you hear that keyboard intro and your life starts playing in a major key! Because I was living in London and didn't have a TV when this was a hit, I didn't see the video until a couple of years ago. I still think it's really clever with the mixture of animation and real action.

Oh, and another song that inevitably makes me smile is Feargal Sharkey's A Good Heart. Not sure why, perhaps because I was traveling at the time and it brings back great memories, but it definitely falls into the making Anna feel good category.

So what are your feel-good songs? They don't have to be from the 80s! Let's dance our way through the day! Oh, and if you click on any of the songs, you get to see the groovy videos!Source URL: https://idontwanttobeanythingotherthanme.blogspot.com/search/label/Writers%27%20Life
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The Day The World Changed

posted by Aunty Cindy aka Loucinda McGary

A few weeks ago, I gave a presentation at my local RWA chapter. During the Q&A portion someone asked me when I received The Call. When I answered, "It was Friday, September 14, 2007 at 8:30 in the morning." several people were surprised I remembered the day and time so clearly.

How could I not? That was the day my world changed!

We've all experienced a day that changed our lives forever after, sometimes in a happy way and sometimes in a not so good way.

I'll bet we all remember what we were doing that terrible Tuesday, September 11th when we heard about the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And I think we all knew that our world would never be the same.

I was a child in grade school, but I still vividly remember playing on the school playground at lunch recess with my best friend Gail that Friday, November 22nd. A couple of kids who lived near the school and went home for lunch came running up to tell us, "The President was shot!" My friend and I didn't believe them, and ran over to the classrooms where my teacher Mrs. Steele and her teacher Mr. Priest were standing. We didn't need to ask if it was true, because as we ran up we saw that both our teachers were crying. That was the first time I'd ever seen a grown man cry and I've never forgotten it. That was also the day I first heard the word assassination used without a reference to Abraham Lincoln. We all got sent home from school early that day, and my parents told me our country would never be the same.

Thankfully, not all life changing events are tragic. I'll never forget that sunny Sunday afternoon on the first day of spring when I became a mom. My life was forever changed by having my son, and in spite of a few years around puberty when I doubted either of us would survive, it has been one of the best things to ever happen to me.

Sometimes you don't know you're in the midst of a life changing event until long after the fact.

Twenty years ago, I accompanied my friend Yvonne to a singles event. She was new to the area and didn't want to go to a bar to meet men. I went along so she wouldn't have to go alone. I'm thinking it was a Thursday night, but it could have been Wednesday. I do remember we had to go to work the next day. I remember sometime in the course of the evening, I talked to a very tall blond man and when Yvonne and I were headed for the door, he came up and gave me his phone number. A week later, I called him, just so Yvonne would stop pestering me! She thought he was nice and she thought I should call him.

Well, she was right! That was twenty years ago and the DH and I have been together ever since!

What about you? Do you have distinct memories of the day you experienced a significant change in your life? What's said in the Lair stays in the Lair so c'mon and SHARE with us!Source URL: https://idontwanttobeanythingotherthanme.blogspot.com/search/label/Writers%27%20Life
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