Your assistance requested

Please help me decide on the cover for the book, In Celebration of Elastic Waistbands! Post a comment and vote on the one that you like best!!

Here are your choices:

 

A. The Champagne Cork

B. Chocolate Eggs

C. Jellybeans

D. Chocolate Kisses

Thanks for being an Elastic Friend!!

Christee

The Joys of LIving in the South

In the South, we believe that you can say anything you want about anybody – no matter how awful it is – as long as you follow it with those all-important three little words.

No, those three words are not, “I love you.”

In the South, we use “Bless her heart!”

NaNoWriMo -- The Sequel

It's National Novel Writing Month in only 2 weeks. Why, oh why, would I want to do this to myself again? There must be something more productive I could do in November.

Perhaps checking my navel for lint ... if I could look that deep without spelunking tools...
Perhaps cleaning -- oops, just made myself laugh.
Perhaps actual money-making labor -- oh, now I'm just getting hysterical...

Nope. I hear the call of 50,000 words and I must answer...

And so, gentlemen... Start your engines... Wonder what I'll write this time?

NaNoWriMo.org

Christee

Important Note

If I ever use the words "hot wax", "at home", and "underarms" in the same sentence again, please kill me...

Join me at Agent Query Connect!

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Just discovered the most incredible site for writers.

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AgentQuery.com

Add me as your friend!

How to Tell That It's Time for the New Book

When you find an autographed copy of your earlier book on sale "Used"!

Happy Moments in History

Christee receives her AARP invitation

Madonna Complex

It took my husband to recognize this photo opportunity as we visited a book sale at a local church...

My second husband will not be this "witty"...

I love this passage from Elizabeth McCracken: The Giant's House

What Else???

A few weeks back I had the flu that’s been going around. I was so sick that I actually had to miss a meeting. For me, that’s one of the signs of the apocalypse. I remember driving the porcelain bus thinking, “What else could go wrong?”

I hadn’t completely recovered when a beloved member of my family passed away. Broken-hearted, we walked out of the door to go to the funeral home and the family dog got out. He ran toward the street, where a pitt bull came dashing toward him. “What else…” I tried to yell, but it came out sounding more like another four-letter word.

I ran gallantly toward the dogs to break up the inevitable fight. Unfortunately, in my haste I had gained enough momentum so that I couldn’t stop. I caught a heel on the side of the driveway, started spinning with all the grace of an NFL lineman performing the Nutcracker, and in slow motion found myself plummeting into a ditch. All the while a pair of amused dogs sat amiably side by side, watching.

With a cast on my broken hand I delivered the eulogy. Yes, you’d think this was a “what else” moment, but I already knew what else. I had a book due to my publisher in two days.

Thus, I sat, pecking at keys with my left hand and two fingers on the right poking out of my cast, reaching blazing speeds of up to ten words per minute. My voice recognition software refused to translate my southern English correctly, so I’d “what elsed” it right off my computer.

Then I realized I had a class to teach in the next week and it was on, of all things, “Attitude is Everything.” Very much like having Lizzie Borden teach an anger management course. I was ready to yell a great big obscene “what else” on that one, when the cat jumped on my computer and knocked half my equipment to the floor.

I sat on the floor near my wrecked equipment, ready to cry. Strangely enough I heard myself chuckle instead. Then, as my other cat came to inspect the damage and deposited a hairball for my inspection, I shook my head and laughed. And then, I heard the swoosh of letters dropping through the mail slot on my door. I looked and there was the bill for the x-rays of my hand.

I started laughing hysterically. My eyes leaked. My cats ran away. My mail carrier hurried off my porch. And I sat on the floor and guffawed until my ribs ached.

I grabbed my low-tech pen and paper and started to write my attitude class. Because now it all made sense.

Life is full of lumps. Some are small. Some are incredibly overwhelming. That will never change. The only thing that changes is my response to those lumps. I can sit and start linking them all together to create a depressing lumpy gravy that covers my life, or I can see them as they are – separate events that create a life truly lived. I can think that karma or the higher power is out to get me or I can realize that I am going through the same sorts of experiences that everyone has gone through since the beginning of time.

So my success in life is not wallowing in my “what elses”, but instead celebrating what else I can overcome to create a better me.

I’m ready for that attitude class now.

Favorite Quotes

I've been actually working lately and haven't had time to play on my blog. Yes, I'm actually writing business and training books lately. Be afraid. Be very afraid...

And sometimes when I get caught up in things, I need to take a moment and gather inspiration from people who have said things so much more eloquently than I ever could dream of doing.

And so, today, I'd like to share some of my favorite quotes with you...

• To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am. Bernard M. Baruch

• Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read. Groucho Marx

• Bumper Sticker: Si hoc adfixum in obice legere potes, et liberaliter educatus et nimis propinquus ades. (If you can read this bumper sticker, you are both very well educated and much too close.)

• If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning. Catherine Aird

• I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is ready for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter. Winston Churchill on his 75th birthday

• My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. Erma Bombeck

• It isn’t for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security. Anne Morrow Lindbergh

• Old age ain’t for sissies. Bette Davis

• You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again. Joan Rivers

• We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction. General Douglas MacArthur

• I worship the quicksand he walks in. Art Buchwald

• I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it. Groucho Marx

• I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters. Frank Lloyd Wright

• Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped. African proverb

• A reporter asked Brigadier General Wilma Vaught: What did you want to be when you grew up?” She answered “In charge.”

• She changed her mind, but it didn’t work any better than the old one. Henny Youngman

• If you can laugh at it, you can live with it. Erma Bombeck

• I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows. Janette Barber

I love the story of former President Lyndon Johnson walking through NASA. He came upon a janitor and asked the man what his job was. The man didn’t even hesitate. He answered, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” If only we all understood our place in the big picture that clearly…

Just some thoughts for today. Now I'll get back to work...

Christee & the rubber chicken, Elvis