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Publication Announcement: Short Story in Crack the Spine Literary Magazine
Hello my lovely readers!
Just a quick post to let you all know that my literary short story “Closest Thing to Heaven” published today in issue 40 of Crack the Spine literary magazine.
Here’s the blurb:
Mama’s sleeping, and it’s super-hot out, so Brother says he’ll take me to the swimmin holler.
I do hope you all will check it out!
Friday Fun! (Family Visit and Blood Pressure)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope your weeks have treated you well. Mine has been incredibly busy (I feel like I’m always saying that in these posts……) My brother and his family were in town taking their daughter to participate in a research study at Boston Children’s Hospital, so I got to hang out with them for an evening. My niece and nephew have both grown so much! My nephew (who is four) was very intrigued by my cat, and since his family has dogs, I got to explain to him the differences in interacting with a kitty versus a doggy. He eventually got the idea that cats scare easily and he had to approach her quietly. Then she let him pet her, which was adorable, because she hasn’t ever seen a miniature person since I adopted her (I don’t know about previously).
My brother also brought along a box of presents for me from my daddy, which included the most adorable father/daughter cookbook. (Plus tons of kitchen gear. I’m a bit obsessed with cooking). It also had presents for my kitty. She completely flipped out over them. I have yet to let her try the toy that blows catnip laced bubbles. I think that particular toy might call for some video, lol.
I also had two job interviews this week plus a doctor’s appointment (routine), which kept me running around the city like a chicken with my head cut off. It also meant a got a lot of kindle time though. At my doctor’s appointment, I finally got an updated blood pressure reading. Back in January, my blood pressure was extremely unhealthy, so much so that they wanted to put me on blood pressure medication. Heart disease runs in my family, and these stats freaked me out. So I made a lot of changes in my lifestyle–both eating and exercise level–in the hopes of fixing my blood pressure without meds. Well at the doctor’s this week my bp was 110 over 80, which is really excellent and healthy!! Yay!! 🙂
My weekend is mostly going to be consumed with prep for the party I’m throwing that I’m super-excited about. Also seeing Cowboys and Aliens, which, um, is kind of part of the party. Don’t worry though, I’ll definitely squeeze some reading and writing time in. Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (Classes, Surgery, Water)
Hello my lovely readers! What a busy week it’s been for me. This week was the last week of my semester. Finishing touches were placed on classes, and as of Tuesday night at around 8pm, I was finally on vacation! No more classes until July.
My brother, sister-in-law, and niece are in Boston for an indeterminate amount of time. My niece, who is about 4.5 months old, was born with a heart defect, so she is in Children’s Hospital getting it fixed. Monday night I went to the excellent parents’ hotel to see them before her surgery. Her surgery was Wednesday, and I took the day off to wait out the 6 hour surgery with my brother and sister-in-law. The surgery went better than the doctors were hoping for, so that was good news. They were just starting to wake her up slowly Thursday afternoon. I have yet to see her post-surgery, as only parents/guardians have been allowed in the recovery room so far. Her parents are holding up quite well, I think.
On top of all that, last Saturday a water line broke in Weston, which meant that all of Boston was under a drinking water ban, as the water could be contaminated. You had to boil the water for at least 2 minutes to make it safe for drinking or washing dishes. You also could wash dishes by adding some bleach to it. Well, I didn’t have bleach and wasn’t about to buy it for only a couple of days’ use. I had made a large dinner Friday night, and since I am not one of these “wash dishes instantly” women, I had planned on washing them Saturday. Ooops. Between everything else going on, I didn’t have a chance to wash them, along with all the other dishes dirtied during the incident, until Wednesday night. I got to spend many many hours doing dishes, let me tell you.
All in all a busy week, but not a bad one. Happy weekends, all!
Friday Fun! (Featuring My Niece and Swaptree)
My lovely loyal readers and friends, so sorry there’s been no book reviews this week! The book I’m currently reading is really long, and I’m not enjoying it that much so the pace of my reading is a bit below average. I definitely should ring in next week with a review though, as it’s almost done!
This week I played pub trivia for the first time and discovered that I am not good at trivia. This is funny and ironic cause I know lots of random facts, but apparently I don’t know trivia type facts. I mean, really, who’s a tall athletic actor who guest starred in 1970s tv shows? Jeez, I dunno. I also didn’t enjoy that the music to keep teams from overhearing each other meant that I had to yell all night. That’s only worth it for a concert. Ah well. Lesson learned. I guess I should stick to arcade games, pool tables, and dart boards when we go out.
Some of you are aware that I welcomed my first niece into the world on December 23rd. My brother and my sister-in-law made the choice to have her, even though she has Down Syndrome. I know they have plenty of love in their hearts for a special baby, and they are just wonderful with her. Unfortunately, one of the elements of Down Syndrome is that the babies almost all have heart problems. They usually operate on the babies at 6 months (I have no idea why at that particular point, but I’m sure there’s a reason). Anyway, due to the heart condition, my niece is not very strong. She struggled to learn how to eat. I guess that takes a lot of energy she didn’t have at first. Finally she gained enough weight and was eating well enough to come home. I was going to go meet her and visit my brother and father this weekend, but unfortunately she had to get readmitted to the hospital. She wasn’t gaining weight, which babies are supposed to do. This is of course difficult for my brother and sister-in-law who also have an almost 3 year old little boy to take care of and a small farm to run. Thankfully, most of my family lives near them so they have lots of help. I wish there was something I could do from a distance to help my brother, but there’s not much beyond being an ear to listen when he needs to talk.
In much happier news, allow me to tell you guys about Swaptree. Swaptree allows you to list books you have but don’t want and books you want, and then it sets up 1:1 trades for you (or you can browse and request trades yourself). This works extra well since they set up 3 way trades, which helps you find a lot more books. The matches they make are in no particular order on your want list, so it’s a bit of a surprise what you get, particularly if your want list is as long as mine. Since part of ringing in the new year was weeding my personal library, I excitedly decided to try this out. It’s so awesome! So far I’ve gotten rid of 8 books for books on my tbr list. For those wondering, my weeded books were mainly textbooks I will never ever read again, some romance novels that came to my library for free that my boss gave me, and books from a point in my deconversion when I was wondering if maybe I should be pagan. For the record, I’m not pagan. I guess I’m deist. Anywho, so the books I’ve received in exchange so far are:
- Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford
Do not mock me. I have a thing for memoirs. - Living the Simple Life by Elaine St. James
I’m a big fan of minimalism, and this was highly recommended on minimalist blogs. - The Accidental Demon Slayer by Angie Fox
Yes, another paranormal romance. However, it’s supposed to be a comical one which will change things up a bit. - Life, The Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams
I’ve already read this, but I love love LOVE the Hitchhiker series, and didn’t (still don’t actually) own them all, so I’m fleshing out the “trilogy.” - Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres
This memoir is by a woman whose fundamentalist Christian parents sent her to the same reform school in the Dominican Republic that my cousin’s parents sent her to, so I was intrigued. - Wild Swans by Jung Chang
I realized I haven’t read much non-western lit lately, and I enjoyed the nonwestern lit I read in college. This memoir is about three generations of Chinese women, and I think it looks really good! - Neuromancer by William Gibson
A classic scifi book that my nerdy friends have been berating me for not having read. 😉 - Feed by M. T. Anderson
A dystopian book about our heads being plugged into computers. Right up my alley.
All those books and my personal library size hasn’t increased at all! I encourage you guys to check Swaptree out. The only costs associated are shipping, and you can print labels directly from the website for extra ease. Each book costs around $2.46 to ship.
Have a nice long weekend, everyone! Rock on Martin Luther King Jr!
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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