I just found out that a painting my son, Corwin, did earlier this year had been chosen to be displayed at a couple different places! The original will be temporarily hung in the corporate offices of the school he attends and a color copy will be on permanent display at a local university. Coincidentally, it’s the same university that I graduated from and the same one my mom teaches at. How cool is that. As soon as I can get my hands on it, I’ll post a copy. I do know that it’s a watercolor tiger. We’re all very excited. 🙂
…but ChaCha Tuloose and Cuddles Gaylord have a new podcast up over at the Aurel Sex blog. You can listen to it online or download it to your computer.
Their casts are funny, informative and did I mention funny? This week, they kindly read an excerpt from my book, Overlord’s Vessel, too.
So scoot on over and listen to Cuddles and ChaCha and have a giggle. I particularly enjoyed the Dueling Pickup Lines. 🙂
Over at Writer’s Evolution we’ve been blogging about ideas all week and it’s my turn today. Come on over and see where we get our story ideas from.
I love music – I pretty much sing all the time – in the car, in the shower, doing dishes and I usually sing what ever’s stuck in my head at the moment. Could be some indie alternachick stuff…could be showtunes. Often it’s folk music or occasionally it’s one of the three or four country songs I actually like and sometimes it’s 80s music.
Lately, Jess, my oldest daycare kid has become enamoured with all things 80s. In fact, she’s having an 80s themed slumber party tonight in which they’ll watch all my favorite 80s movies and listen to the mountain of music cds she insisted I make her.
Like I said, I like 80s music, but there are some songs I absolutely LOATHE. In Bronwyn’s Top Ten List of Worst Songs Ever is Journey’s, Don’t Stop Believing. Also topping the list is Steve Winwood’s, Valerie. *full body shudder*
Anyway…in making these cds, Jess and my son Killian have discovered my deep and abiding hatred of these songs and now they use that hatred against me. While I’m driving, Killian will sneak the earbud from his mp3 over by my ear and blast Valerie – it only takes about three bars of the intro before the entire damn song in stuck in my head. On repeat. He thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world.
Then there’s Jess. As soon as I pick her up in the morning, she starts singing Don’t Stop Believing and giggles maniacally. Then when she comes home from school, she plays it on the computer over and over. Loudly. As a result, I’ve had that damn song stuck in my head for weeks. It’s so bad, I find myself singing it. To add insult to injury, my alarm clock went off the other morning…wanna guess what it was playing?
Oh yeah…Don’t stop believing…hold on to that feeling…
ARGH!
So are there any songs that just send you right over the edge of insanity? C’mon, tell me what they are. I need to know I’m not alone in this musically induced hell.
Don’t forget – people commenting between now and Sunday are in the running for a free book in celebration of my spiffy new webite!
I took a road trip yesterday with my mom and one of her best friends. I’m incredibly lucky because my mom and I get along so well. But honestly, all of my sibs (there are five of us) get along with her like that. We’re all lucky.
My mom’s friend, Patty, came with us. She’s so much fun and she still calls me Dollbaby like she did when I little. Of course, in the same breath she threatens to get me good and drunk, but hey, that’s part of Patty’s charm.
We all drove up to the college my sister attends to see her show. Cait, and fourteen other women, did Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. Over the years, Ive read bits and pieces and I’ve seen snippets of it, but I’ve never seen it live, nor had I seen the majority of the monologues performed yesterday.
Let me just say, hats off to Alma College’s Without Permission Theatre Group – you’re freaking amazing. The monologues ranged from funny, to poignant to gutwrenchingly awful. There were several performances that made me want to vomit…while I was crying. There were monologues from the point of view of a lawyer turned sex worker, a woman who’d witnessed the birth of her grandchild, a woman from Afghanistan, the “comfort women” forced into service by the Japanese government during World War II, a woman who’d had a good sexual experience with a man, a woman brutalized in Kosovo during the war there, a joyful child and so many more.
There were times during the performance where I just wanted to hold my hands over my ears, or better yet, run from the room, but I’m glad I saw it. The women were all amazing, but I have to say, Cait and Lauren’s performances were just jaw dropping. In addition, all of the money they raised with ticket, cookies, buttons and T-shirt sales were donated to a local women’s shelter. Thank you Cait, Laurel, Lauren, Heather, Annie, Cat and the rest of the women of the Without Permission Theatre Group. You all rock.
After the show was over, we grabbed Cait and the four of us went out to supper and had a lovely time before heading back home. Unfortunately, I returned home to the Man Cold, unfinished homework and no food for lunches. Needless to say I didn’t get any writing done because I had to go grocery shopping at 9:30 at night. Grrrrrrr. Oh well, I’m planning to make up for it today.
I just got a lovely review from Joyfully Reviewed (Thanks Amelia!) She said:
Bronwyn Green puts an interesting and erotic spin on the Arthur tale with Ronan, a knight to die for. His chivalrous manner and love for Morgan made me swoon, and made me wish for my own magical knight. I loved watching him woe Morgan, who watched her father cheat on her mother, and vowed never to love. Add in a villain in the form of Mordred and you have a wonderful story.
Lovers of the Arthurian tales will not want to miss Ronan’s Grail. It is a book that will warm your heart, and make you believe in magic. Morgan Foster is the sister of Gray Foster, featured in Ms. Green’s book I Put A Spell On You.
Also, I’m blogging over at Writer’s Evolution about all the ways I avoid writing. I’d love it if you dropped by. In fact, we’ve been blogging all week about this topic and there’s plenty of insight as to why we avoid what we love to do and how we go about avoiding.
And last, but certainly not least, my friend Margaret just had a short story of hers published at Reflection’s Edge called Keeping House and it’s here if you’d like to read it. Yay Margaret!
Four years ago, my grandpa was in the process of dying and it sucked…a lot. However, there were some bright spots in the process. Because of the nature of my job and the ages of my kids, I was able to spend several days a week with him, making him tea, hanging out and talking, making sure he had whatever he needed and just generally looking after him.
I’d go over in the morning after I dropped my kids off at school and relieve whichever of my relatives had spent the night and someone else would trade places with me when it was time for me to pick up my kids in the afternoon.
There were days that were really hard – days that he was confused and wondering aloud to me why he wasn’t gone yet – he was more than ready. There were also days that were wonderful – days that he told me the story of meeting my Gram and stories about my mom and aunts and uncles when they were little. He told me how grateful he was for our family and how much he loved us all. Near the end, there were days that he just slept and there were days when he woke up from his naps telling me that “Ruby said she’s coming for me soon.”
I never questioned the fact that he saw my Grandmother. I have a couple friends and a family member that see the dead, so why not my Grandpa – it made sense to me since he was so close to death himself. Even though I knew it was coming, and even though I knew it was for the best, I had a hard time making peace with it – until the morning of February 1st.
I was running late and I didn’t have time to grab breakfast so I ran through the drive-thru at McDonald’s…yeah, not the healthiest choice, but it was quick. After I paid for my meal, I was putting my change away and I noticed something odd. Instead of a penny, I had a British pence in my hand along with the other coins. I’m assuming that perhaps the cashier thought it was a Canadian penny since we get a lot of those in Michigan, but the Canadian penny is the same size as the U.S. penny and as you can see from the picture, this one is quite a bit bigger.
In fact, it was the same denomination that my Gram put in my shoe for luck the day I got married. According to her, it was supposed to be a six-pence in my shoe for luck, but at the time we couldn’t find one, so we used a two-pence instead, because as she said, “something’s better than nothing.” I’m not sure if that’s a tradition in all of the U.K. or if it’s just a Welsh thing, but I walked around for an entire day with a coin in my shoe.
Anyway, as I sat there in the drive-thru staring at the coin, I realized it was my Gram’s birthday that day and I felt this overwhelming sense of peace. I honestly felt like it was her way of letting me know that it was okay to let go of my Grandpa and that everything was going to be okay. He died in the early morning hours of February 3rd, surrounded by family and I have no doubt Ruby was waiting for him.
It’s funny – life is full of little miracles…especially when we’re least expecting them.
A few weeks ago, I posted a picture of the interior of the church in Wales where my Grandparents got married on my facebook account. The lovely Kim Dare was sweet enough to track down the name of the church, location and a current picture! As you can see, not much has changed in the last 67 years.
My Grandparents met at a dance hall in Cardiff, Wales. My Gram was working as a domestic and my Grandpa was stationed in South Wales with the United States Army. They married in June of 1942 and in 1945, my Gram moved from her home in Pengam to a tiny little town in Michigan to be with my Grandpa.
I just think it’s wonderful that the church is still standing (and in fabulous condition) and I thought I’d share those pictures as well as some other period pictures of my Grandparents. (Many thanks to D. Wayne Hankins for the current photo of St. David’s)
St. David’s in Fleur-de-lys, Wales – 1942
St. David’s, Fleur-de-lys, Wales, present day.
Harold and Ruby’s wedding portrait. I almost wore that wedding dress when I got married. It fit perfectly, except for the unfortunate fact that I was a few inches taller than my Gram. When I tried it on, I remember being surprised that there was no train. She laughed and told me that everything was rationed – especially luxury items. Being in my early twenties and caught up with wedding drama, I told her that I could imagine that a train on a wedding gown was a luxury. But she said that most young women didn’t even get a wedding dress – if they were lucky, they got a nice suit. It definitely put some perspective on my wedding planning.
The wedding party. The couple to the left also got married that day. The young girl next to my Gram is her younger sister Dilys.
My Gram, Ruby Green.
My Grandpa, Harold Bartz.
Hey, I’m over at Writer’s Evolution today, where we’re talking about the writer’s life. Come visit and see the madness in action. It’s really fascinating seeing how everyone’s schedule/process differs.
So…I apparently have a retraction to make.
Despite what I announced this morning about Brits in Time winning Best Anthology of 2008 at Loves Romances Cafe, it seems we’ve been disqualified, as have all of TEB’s entries.
Evidently, the results of the polls were supposed to be kept secret. This plan might have worked better if the poll results hadn’t remained open to the public the entire time. They might have, in fact, remained a secret.
Our lovely publisher (who was never informed that the results were supposed to be kept secret) sent the winners an announcement and we, in our excitement, shared it with the world. Because of that, we’ve been completely disqualified.
However, I would like to thank all of the people who have supported us and who took the time to go to Loves Romances Cafe to vote for our book and all of the TEB authors and books. We truly appreciate it. Thank you. You guys rock!