About two weeks ago, my dear friend and favorite obsessive/compulsive, Connie, came over and helped me purge and organize (P&O) my clothing. I have to tell you, she was ruthless with my belongings and at first I was hesitant. But I needed some ruthlessness because even though I purge twice a year, I still had way, way too many clothes. Now me having an overload of clothing is a weird phenomenon because basically, I wear yoga pants, tank tops, and hoodies. Seriously. I work at home. So why do I need 6 pairs of dressy slacks, 10 white blouses, and 20 different sweaters? Sometimes, I do wear jeans in the…

I’m baffled. My website guru has done all he can to prevent me from being spammed—you know when some robot trashes your blog with about a hundred comments, selling everything from luggage to t-shirts? It seems when I post more frequently than once a week, I end up coming in to clean out a ton of spam. The good news is all comments have to be approved here, so none of this crap is ever seen by my readers. But geesh, it’s demoralizing to get a note saying “you’ve got 36 new comments,” only to find out I have 5 new comments and 31 spam attempts. So how is it getting…

Dear Orthopedic Surgeon, Okay, I admit, it’s not your fault (even though you are the one who cut my foot open!). You never said this would be a piece o’ cake. I was the one who stupidly assumed I’d be healed and back on my treadmill in two weeks. You’ll be proud of me, though. I’m tolerating more weight on the foot, and my cane and I look quite jaunty when we go out together. Healingly yours, Nan *** Dear Muse, Welcome back! We’ve almost gotten Like Fine Wine finished, and The Music Is You is steaming ahead with revisions. We might just have a new book out by summer!…

This might be a lazy way to blog, but I’ve been thinking lately about places I love and I thought I’d share a few of them with you. These are all places I’ve been, so the pictures are mine. I’d love to hear about places you love, so share, okay? This one is too easy, but honestly, Paris is right at the top of my favorite places list—it was at the top before I ever got to go. Paris didn’t disappoint, it was wondrous! I’d go back in a heartbeat! This is a castle that we stopped at along the way to Killarney in Ireland. So amazing! There are abandoned…

I was extremely thankful yesterday, but I was being thankful at sister PJ’s house with family and wine, so here’s the Thanksgiving Day gratitude list a little late.   1. Family, both nearby and extended   2. Turkey because really, what’s better than turkey?   3. Wine (see #2) Skyping with Grandboy, Son, and DIL and sharing the Skype with everyone at sis’s house yesterday My nieces, Kate and Meg, who are beautiful, charming young women and always good fun! Today’s list looks like this: Prayers for Dee’s comfort through the holiday yesterday were answered Dropcam that lets us watch little Grandboy while he sleeps in his crib Playing on…

Why? I have a remarkably blessed life and yet today, I’m restless and anxious and grouchy and unable to focus. I have two major deadlines staring at me ,and I simply can’t seem to motivate myself to do anything useful at all. Oh, it’s not that I’m not getting any work done, I am, but I could be doing so much more. Plus, I have rolls and pies to make for Thursday at sister PJ’s Thanksgiving celebration, and my house needs to be cleaned. One would think that if I couldn’t focus on the paying gigs, I’d be doing something else useful. But nooooo… You know what I’m thinking about?…

…are on my mind because I had a checkup with the cardio guy today. I have AVNRT—AV Nodal Reentrant Tachycardia—basically, a short circuit in my heart that makes it speed up for no apparent reason. My cardiologist is a kind man and clearly very smart. I enjoy talking to him about all kinds of things. Today it was horses and Hoosier National Forest and wearing orange during deer hunting season if you’re going to be hiking (or riding) through the woods. I like him. He takes good care of me and this dumb little electrical issue in my heart. However, he’s young and eager and would really love to fix…

So, I made it through whatever wicked bug took up residence in my body and I’m feeling way better today. But I missed my grateful list last night, so here it is. I’ll post another one at the end of the day. It snowed–like maybe 12 flakes, but it was snow and I saw it falling. Winter’s on its way and I’m okay with that. Work. I have work and that’s always a good thing. Lani made it back from New Jersey safely. My ‘Droid—man, I love this phone! Reference this post and see how much my world has changed. Fresh flannel sheets—so warm and cozy!