Category: Personal Blog

When I was a teenager, the scariest movies to come out were “Jaws,” “It’s Alive,” and “Carrie.”  “Jaws” I saw on my first date ever.  “It’s Alive” I saw alone when I was eight months pregnant with my first child. “Carrie,” however, I did not see until many years after it was released. In fact, I heard about it from my friends and ended up reading the book before I saw the movie. Continue reading “Carrie On, My Wayward Son”

From my upcoming book, “Tarot For Real People”:

A common practice among those who make a serious study of the Tarot is to develop a story that takes The Fool, the first card of the Major Arcana, on a quest through the remainder of the Major Arcana until he ends up at The World card, having completed his quest and his cycle.

In our story, The Fool begins his journey carefree and open. He is a receptive vessel, ready to fill himself with all that the World has to offer. Continue reading “CHAPTER 9 – THE FOOL’S JOURNEY”

Or in other words, taking my own advice: Continue reading “Looking For Me”

I am running a special on Tarot Life Path consults for June 17, 18, and 19 only (the rest of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday).  During this time, you may purchase an email consult for $20 or a telephone consult for $40 for a twenty minute telephone consult or Skype consult. Email readings will be sent within twenty-four hour of purchase and telephone consults will be scheduled at a time convenient to both of us.

You can order either one below, but please read this link first:  Click here.

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Despite bad dentition, a disreputable past, a history of poor choices, a true rebirth, and significant emotional pain since childhood, Jack Sparrow – sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow – swaggers on. He wears a title he conveyed upon himself and he bravely stares life down as an unlikely hero. He talks to himself, as well as people others cannot see. He puts great value in a jar of dirt and his best friend is a Goddess named “Calypso.” He will fight to the death for someone in one moment, but let them go in the next if they ask for their freedom. He accepts the slings and arrows that come his way because he knows on some level, they are deserved. If he is persecuted for a crime he did not commit, he knows that there were plenty for which he did not get caught, so the teeth Karma brings to him have something hefty to bite. He casts a long shadow and hopes that no one ever finds out that his greatness is nothing more than illusion.  He spends his life trying to live up to a legend, while secretly knowing that not only is he is the most fallible and vulnerable person on the planet, but that even the legend itself isn’t really all that.

Yep, that’s me. Continue reading “But You *Have* Heard Of Me…”

SCAVENGER HUNT!! Continue reading “For Andrea”

I mean to tell you, I am just slap worn out. As many of you know, in March, I planted that I would grow strength and good health throughout the year and for me, that involves very healthy eating and lots of exercise, which is not my usual way of being in the world. The planting has been very successful.  My eating is mostly in a good place and is something I can live with long-term. I have been doing walking and interval jogging, which has greatly increased my stamina and my strength. I feel good about all of that. Continue reading “It’s Just a Flesh Wound!”

 

Update May 26, 2014:  Unfortunately, the author I chose to follow me in the blog hop was unable to complete her entry due to life getting in the way. I am sorry to say that the hop stops here.

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I am usually good at following directions, but I am not confident I am going to do this correctly, which, of course, never stopped me before at all.  This is something called and “blog hop” and my friend, Becca, has a ton of confused and disjointed emails from me in her inbox about it.  So here we go: Continue reading “Blog Hop!”

For those of you who are not Facebook folks – and believe me, Facebook is like my own daily Disneyland and I do love me some Disneyland – there is a “Like” button that you can click to endorse a particular post or to show your support. A frequent complaint is, “Why is there no LOVE button! Like is not enough!” Continue reading “The Power of Like”

 

Here we are on the brink of Beltane, arguably the most exciting and invigorating time of the year, and let me tell you, my buzz is just gone. I am trying hard to figure out what sucked it away, but my enthusiasm for just about anything is low or non-existent. Continue reading “The TAO of Katrina”

Now, it is difficult for me to imagine my life not as a writer. I know I published my first book on Amazon on July 12, 2013. That means tomorrow will be eight months since the first book went live. I self-published before then, and by self-publish, I mean WE did the printing and the binding and the CD pressing for electronic copies. It was grueling and quite a huge amount of work for very little return. I tentatively put An Insider’s Guide to the General Hospital Weekend up on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing to be available on Kindle and them thought, “Hmmm, I wonder if…” and not long afterward, the three other books I had already written, Leaving Kentucky in the Broad Daylight, Energy Magic, and CUSP went up. Those were the pre-existing books and as of today, I now have twenty-one books published in eight months and a couple of months later, expanded into print books as well. I am grateful that writing is now my full time job. As a journalist for ABC daytime drama from 1999 until 2012, I always wrote in high volume, but books have always been my calling.

I am excited to announce that three new books have been released within the past month. Continue reading “THE NEW BOOKS ARE HERE! THE NEW BOOKS ARE HERE!”

Someone recently asked me what pieces of advice I would give to a person who is considering becoming a writer.  My first thought was that you do not become a writer, you either are one or you aren’t and inside, you know the answer to that already.

I put together this list of considerations that I think would help a person who is just starting out:

1) Have at least one lie or one truth or one song inside you. If you have a lie, write fiction. If you have a truth, write non-fiction. If you have a song, write poetry.

2) Have a good word processing program and an internet connection. Continue reading “Writing Advice”

So when last we left our intrepid heroine, she had just learned that her family was about to re-grow by two and that her son and grandson were moving in.  Now, we also know she speaks about herself in third person, which is entirely unsettling. Josh and Aiden moved in last Saturday and all is going well for the most part. Aiden started school right on schedule and Josh has been applying for jobs and cleaning the hell out of my house. Nathan very graciously cleared out his own room for them to stay in without him being asked. What little he had (he is a minimalist) is now in the motor home and most nights, he sleeps inside because it has been down into the 30-40s at night. He crashes on the couch. Continue reading “Water Over Rocks, Baby”

I can finally talk about the life changes that I referenced to my Facebook readers. I apologize to those dear folks for my necessary vagueness about what is going on.  As they know, I am usually very forthright about my life, but in this case, there were details that had to play out before I could go public, such as telling my younger sons about changes happening in our family. I am still struggling with these changes myself, but I have faith that they are leading in a good direction.  As of last night, key people have been informed and the plan is more solid. Due to challenges my third son, Joshua, is facing, which are his own story to tell and not mine, Eric and I will be caring for our grandson, Aiden, for an undetermined amount of time. He is nine and in the fourth grade. We both love our grandson very  much.  He is clever, fun, loving, insightful, and above all, adaptable.  My challenges in this have very little to do with Aiden or how much I adore him.  They are purely selfish and that has been my struggle. Joshua has had custody of Aiden, his only biological child, for a little over two years now and they are very, very close. Continue reading “Finding the Beauty in the Darkness”

Also called “Thank the Goddess for Cameras!” Continue reading “Thirty-Seven Windows Into the Past”

 

I love my body, my body loves me, I am a Goddess, blah, blah, blah.  I usually feel quite good about myself and as a result, I usually feel quite good period.  Period is the issue, however.  I always had normal periods my entire life – freakishly so, in fact.  I could set my clock by the prediction that I would start at 10:00 AM every twenty-eight days.  Because I had six children and breastfed five, years would often go by when I did not menstruate, which was glorious.  When I was younger, I had hellish cramps, but as I worked out some of the unpleasantness in my life, the cramps went away, rarely to return. It has been around fifteen years now since I had any significant cramps. Continue reading “Mini-Pause; Then Resume… Agh…”

 

Dorothy:  Well, now which way do we go?
Scarecrow: Pardon me. That was is a very nice way.
Dorothy:  Who said that?……Don’t be silly, Toto. Scarecrows don’t talk.
Scarecrow:  It’s pleasant down that way, too.
Dorothy:  That’s funny. Wasn’t he pointing the other way?
Scarecrow:  Of course, people do go both ways!
Dorothy:  Why – you did say something. didn’t you? Are you doing that on purpose, or can’t you make up your mind?
Scarecrow:  That’s the trouble. I can’t make up my mind. I haven’t got a brain, only straw. Continue reading “You Could Go That Way…”

Our book CUSP is available on Amazon Kindle at no charge for three days!  Click here to get it!

Early yesterday evening, I was in my own version of Mecca (WalMart) and from around three aisles over, I could hear a kid just going for it.  There was all kinds of screaming and ranting and threatening and of course, it got louder the closer I got to it because it was not actually moving and I was.  As I rounded the corner – and you know how long it can take to get through three aisles of groceries in a store – I saw a mom who was probably in her mid-late twenties standing by a cart.  In the back of the cart sat a kid of around five or so and that child, whose gender I did not notice because the other one commanded so much attention – played quietly and looked unaffected.  The kid who was in the kid seat of the cart was probably three or so and was still in full Klaxon mode.   Continue reading “Let Go of the Rope”

Given the subject matter of this blog post, it would be more appropriate to show a snake shedding its skin, but snakes give me the heebie jeebies for no reasonable reason, so instead, I chose this beautiful photographic representation of the goddess Diana shooting an arrow into the wind.  How often are the changes we make like shooting an arrow into the wind, not knowing how external factors (the wind, the lay of the land, the movement of living bodies around it) might affect our efforts or how our efforts might affect others? Continue reading “Shedding Skin (and Wings)”