Mom and Grandma

I just joined a new group - Twittermoms.

I found it, of course, on Twitter.

I joined because I'm a mom of teenagers. Sometimes I just have to talk to other moms, just like I have to talk to my fellow writers and other ladies my age. Speaking of age...in a few months I'll be eligible to join the Red Hat Society. But I'll save that for another time.

But I'm also a grandma. I wonder if there are others like me here?

My oldest child is 28. My youngest is 14. The three inbetween are 27, 25, and 18. Since the 18 year old graduates high school this month, I officially only have one "child" left in my house. However, all but my oldest child still lives at home. I wonder how many other moms here have adult children living at home? With this economy, I imagine I'm not alone in this.

It's not always easy to parent adult children. Or maybe I shouldn't be trying. Maybe I should just be a roommate or landlord to the 27 and 25 year old who are still under my roof.

Sometimes it's also difficult to be a good grandma and a good mom. Since I work full time, write parttime, and I'm a softball mom, it's also difficult to find time to visit my grandchildren as much as I'd like. It's a balancing act. I suppose we all have one in some way.

But I'm lucky. All my children live nearby. My grandchildren live in the same town. My dad lives several states away but I can't have everything, right?

I'm looking forward to making new friends there and connecting with other moms and other moms who are also grandmoms.

Ashley

You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Google Keyword Tool - What the hell???

I'm blog hopping tonight, one of my favorite past times. Shush, don't tell my editor as I should be writing. I'll write in a few minutes. Promise. Anyway, I surfed to Tiffany Dow's blog about Basic Good Old Traffic Advice and read an article about Ad words at Google:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

As I'm always interested in learning new things and in growing my blog, I checked it out. First, I entered the keyword "writer" and came up with at least 40 related keywords that sound reasonable. Second, I entered the keyword "mom", which I am, too. This time, I was in for a shock. Now, as an erotic romance writer, I didn't think I shocked that easily, but I wasn't prepared for the keywords that popped up. Here's fair warning about bad language, and some downright sick phrases, so if you don't want to read bad words, don't read on. Here are some that came up: "i fucked your mom" "mom gets fucked" "mom getting fucked" "moms fucking boys" "moms fucking teens" "moms teaching teens how to fuck" "hot moms fucking" "drunk mom" "mom fucks son" "mom fucks daughter" "granny fuck" "slutty mom" It goes on and on like this. I put in the keyword "mom", not "fuck" but you'd think it was the other way around. And NO, I did not select any of those weird or sick key words or phrases. Am I the only one that thinks this is weird? I'm still trying to make sense of what is a "lens", "hub", "knol", and how to link them to my domain. Obviously, I have some study and reading time to put in. That's if I want to use my time doing this or do I prefer to do it writing stories? I guess I'll save this blog study for days my muse won't come out to play. Can it ever hurt to self-educate? I tell you what - a lot of things I learned being a writer and promoting my work - has helped me in the day job. A lot of the things we do daily as writers - blogging, editing, writing, using Word, using spreadsheets to track sales/etc., research, designing and maintaining websites, and even surfing online and shopping online, come in handy. You'd be surprised how many people I know who don't know how to save a file as a different name. Worse, many don't know how to find a file, can't remember where they saved a file (I don't mean just every now and then, but all the time), delete a file, or email a file, much less know how to do more complicated things like add, sort, merge, format, or construct a formula or a form. Even if I never sold a single book, even if I didn't derive tons of pleasure writing, I'd still be way ahead because of my writing, both personally and professionally. Here's a joke to make you laugh. It's a groaner and on the raunchy side, but funny. Never Choke in a restaurant in the South Two hillbillies walk into a bar. While having a shot of whisky, they talk about their moonshine operation. Suddenly, a woman at a nearby table, who is eating a sandwich, begins to cough. And, after a minute or so, it becomes apparent that she is in real distress. One of the hillbillies looks at her and says, 'Kin ya swallar?' The woman shakes her head no. Then he asks, 'Kin ya breathe?' The woman begins to turn blue and shakes her head no. The hillbilly walks over to the woman, lifts up her dress, yanks down her drawers and quickly gives her right butt cheek a lick with his tongue. The woman is so shocked that she has a violent spasm and the obstruction flies out of her mouth. As she begins to breathe again, the Hillbilly walks slowly back to the bar. His partner says, 'Ya know, I'd heerd of that there 'Hind Lick Maneuver' but I ain't niver seed nobody do it!' You'll want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, and Sandra Cox are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Tribute to my mother

Twenty years ago yesterday, my mom died.

She was only 58. Much too young.

She had cancer. She suffered far too much.

I was her only child. I miss her like hell.

I mentioned several things I love and remember about my dad the other day. Now it's my mom's turn.

My mom loved to sew, crochet, knit, embroider, and do crafts. All her life, she worked in some type of sewing including alterations, bridal, and tailoring. She made a lot of my clothes. She tried to teach me to sew, but unfortunately, it wasn't my forte.

She loved John Wayne movies. She watched them all the time and this was before the days of videos and DVDs.

She also loved musicals with Howard Keel, Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, etc.

She got me hooked on General Hospital (yep, the soap). Back when Nurse Audrey was hiding her son from Doctor Steve and everybody. Before Robert Scorpio, Anna Devane, Frisco and Felicia, or even Luke and Laura.

She was a meat eater. She'd eat weird things like hearts, kidneys, and other strange cuts I won't go near.

She liked to bowl. One time, she joined a team and bowled with Cincinnati's Marge Schott (if you're from Cincinnati, you'll have heard of her).

She took me bowling a lot, and to the movies. She doted on me, her only child.

She was a beautiful blonde with gray-blue eyes. But she admired her older sister's beautiful red hair, like their dad's, and she'd wished I'd be a red-head. Instead, I looked like my mom. Then Mom wished that my children would inherit the family's red hair. None of them have. Sorry Mom. But I think her grandkids are perfect the way they are. :)

When I was in college, she helped me with my homework by finding news articles and sending them to me. Even from California when we lived in Mississippi.

At about age 50, she returned to college to learn hotel/restaurant management. She worked parttime at various hotel desks while taking college classes.

When my family moved, she moved to be near us. When we got married, she made my wedding dress with beautiful beadwork on the bodice. Then she flew out to California and put my wedding together. While there, she fell in love with California (Northern) and decided to stay. She bought property and made a home with my stepfather.

Then she was diagnosed with cancer. Not just any cancer, but bone cancer, one of the worst kinds. Perhaps the worst. She was given two years to live. She called us all the time. She sent notes to each of my three children every single week.

She won a pair of plane tickets from a radio station and she used them to visit us for a couple weeks. We were still stationed in Mississippi with the Air Force and I was still attending USM. It was a bittersweet two weeks.

She was planning on visiting again and perhaps staying a couple months. She seemed to be doing well under the circumstances. But when I got home from the boys' T-Ball game one fateful Monday afternoon in June, we had a phone message that she was very ill. I called straight away. But it was too late. She'd stopped breathing and had a no resuscitation order. I couldn't breathe. I was crushed.

We fought a lot, especially for the year she lived with us. DH says it's because we're too much alike (he also says I fight a lot with D#1 because we're also too much alike.) But I still miss her like crazy.

Every year on the anniversay of her death, it haunts me. I don't try to remember the day, but most years, when I glance at the date, it floods back anyway.


On another note, my publisher Total-e-Bound has updated their site and in honor of their first year anniversary, they've posted several FREE reads on their site. Yep, totally free. No catch. You don't have to order or do anything else to get them. Just go to the site and get them at: Total-e-Bound

I have four FREE short stories at Total-e-Bound: Sticky Wicket, The Naughty Secretary, A Sex God, and Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

There are several other free short stories, also, in addition to mine.

Go ahead. Enjoy!

Don't miss the Ultimate Blog Party

I just discovered this great new site: 5 Minutes for Mom Be sure to stop by and check out the information about the upcoming Ultimate Blog Party. It’s a great way to meet some new bloggy friends and to hopefully gain some new readers at your blog. It is being held the week of March 7-14, so you still have time to decide if you want to participate and what you want to do if you do participate. As you can see, I'm participating. I'm always up to meeting new friends, promoting, and visiting new blogs. As a mom who also runs my own business from home (writing romance books) and who needs to promote, I think this is brilliant. According to 5 Minutes for Mom "Mr. Linky will go live at Friday March 7th, 12:01 am Eastern Time and participating bloggers who have their party post up can add their link any time during the week of the party. (The Linky will stay permanently in the post, so you can come back later and catch up on any blogs you may have missed.)" Okay, now I have to figure out where to find Mr. Linky. "Mr. Linky" - that makes me chuckle. Now onto a mom-type post. (Even though I've done the control I-thing, the italics won't disappear, so please ignore them if you can) I have five children - three boys, two girls. The order is: boy, boy, girl, girl, boy. The oldest three are now bona fide adults although two still live at home, eat my groceries, and hike up my phone bill. The youngest two are 17 and 13. Today, I'm focusing on the 13 year old. My youngest constantly tells me he's too sick to go to school. He did this so much, the school began protesting his many absences. After consulting with my son's teachers', we decided he can only stay home if he has a bona fide fever. Well, I couldn't find the thermometer this morning and lo and behold, he said he was too ill to go to school. He didn't have that "I'm telling the truth tone" and he didn't feel hot so I told him to go to school anyway and if he got ill later in the day, to call me. So, he went to school. Right before my lunch hour, he called "I'm sick mom. Come get me." According to him, his initial stomach ache had gone away but now he had a headache. I still didn't really believe him plus it would have been very awkward for me to leave today as my boss wanted to speak to me about something very important concerning my customer service/day job career. Thus I told him to eat lunch and then see how he felt. He didn't call back and we're both at home and he seems fine. I bought a new digital thermometer tonight which I think I'll keep in my purse as my boys have a habit of breaking and losing "accidentally" important items like thermometers, and lawn mowers. (We've had to buy so many lawn mowers as "mysteriously", they break soon after we purchase them - believe me, I'm fuming!) In fact, if the child misses a day of school and I don't call him in sick - they're going to send the truant officer to get him - with my blessings. In fact, I've threatened to call the truant officer myself to scare him to start behaving and attend school. Has anybody else had a problem child who tries everything to get out of school? He used to do this with karate, too. He was sick almost every single afternoon right before time to go to karate. Also, his just-washed uniform came up mysteriously missing, if we didn't buy the sick thing. I thought my oldest was an extremely hard child to deal with. The youngest one makes the oldest seem like a total angel (of course, I've not begun to scratch the surface on the 13 year old's exploits). Or maybe it's just that I'm 15 years older and tireder than when the oldest was this age. Suggestions anyone?