I just wanted to take a moment to let my followers know that my book, The Graveside Detective, is available through the end of January in ebook format for just $.99! If you purchase it, please be sure to leave me a review!
You can find The Graveside Detective on Amazon and Smashwords. Feel free to reblog and share with your friends! 🙂
Filed under Uncategorized, Writing Excerpts
Filed under Uncategorized
Dedicated to anyone who doesn’t get to spend Christmas with their loved ones on December 25th, but finds another time to be together and make an ordinary day into a holiday.
Today is Christmas for you
but it certainly wasn’t for me
I try to think of what it was
and all that it could be
All the things that it is now
and what it once was, then
a who, a how, a which, a why
but certainly not a when
Filed under Family, Holidays, Uncategorized
It’s evenings like this that it’s really hard for me to stop writing and go to bed. My office is no more than a section carved out of the living room with my ginormous desk and uber comfy leather chair, but to be honest the laptop and I often park on the couch. The living room is distracting, though. The TV is there, and is usually on. The boyfriend is there, watching the TV. Before their reasonable bedtimes the kiddos are climbing all over me (but the laptop is afraid and stays on the desk). In short, it’s impossible to get anything done.
But tonight? The fireplace is crackling away and the TV is off. I’m the only one in here. Other than the cats, who are thoroughly exploring the Christmas tree that was just put up yesterday. I haven’t pulled out the rest of my décor yet, but even so it is nothing short of a Christmas card picture. One of the good ones, not those cheap ugly ones.
Nermal thoroughly getting into the Christmas spirit.
Filed under Family, Holidays, Uncategorized
It seems that each Christmas is known for something different. There was the year the presents completely filled the room at my grandma’s house, the year I made every single gift by hand, the year my sister accidentally beaned Mom with the tree pruners. I thought for a moment my kids might remember this holiday as The Year the Christmas Tree Almost Killed Mom.
I lived for a couple years with just my girls. There wasn’t a man around, and I did plenty of I’m-an-independent-woman-and-I-can-do-it-all-myself stuff. I got the Christmas tree in and out of the attic, ripped up and replaced the bathroom floor, and took care of the lawn. I moved furniture and fixed the sink. Some of the things I did were challenging and satisfying. Other things might have been a little stupid.
I guess there is a little bit of that independence still in me, even though I do have a man around the house to open jars and kill spiders. I decided this evening it was time to get the Christmas tree down, and since my boyfriend was asleep, it was a job for one. What you should know about our attic is that the entryway is above the basement stairs. This means that when you are climbing the ladder into the attic, you have nothing but a downward staircase underneath you should you fall. Considering how much I hate ladders, this is nothing short of terrifying.
Getting up into the attic was not so much the challenge as coming back out of it. With the gargantuan Christmas tree box poised above me, I slowly descended the ladder, while visions of injury and concussions danced in my head. I imagined that, as the weight of the tree box hit the ladder, the whole contraption would break. The box would snap my head back as it fell, and I would crumple to the Stairway of Doom below me. My children, hearing the crash, would rush in to find the bloody carcass of their mother on the concrete floor of the basement.
Isn’t that delightful? A beautiful holiday fantasy? Fortunately, the reality is that I got the tree down just fine. I’m sitting right across the room from it, all in one piece.
Now I just have to hope the cats leave the tree in one piece.
photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
Filed under Family, Holidays, Parenting, Uncategorized
Time is such a precious commodity these days. And it’s no wonder considering all that society expects us to do. We must work outside the home, raise a family, and take care of the house and car. Be sure to enroll your kids in lots of extracurricular activities so you feel like you are actually a good parent. Keep up with all social media, popular TV shows, and world events. Eat right and exercise!
Sure, we’d like to keep up with it all. But everything is so complicated these days. To give you an example, just think about everything involved in a box of cereal:
Step 1: Purchase the cereal. It doesn’t sound complicated, unless you have a coupon.
Step 2: Clip the Box Top.
Step 3: Clip the Bonus Box Tops.
Step 4: Notice that there is an offer for a free book, so go to the cereal manufacturer’s website.
Step 5: Set up an account on the cereal manufacturer’s website.
Step 6: Enter codes.
Step 7: Try to figure out why the codes aren’t accepted.
Step 8: Listen to your kids argue over which book to get.
Step 9: Start accumulating cereal boxes in the corner of your kitchen, because you would really like to order the free books again but just really can’t find the time.
Somewhere in the midst of all that, you’re supposed to eat the cereal, too. But who has time for that?
Filed under Family, Uncategorized
*This is an excerpt from the book I am currently working on. I don’t usually share early, but I thought I would anyway. Besides, it goes along with this prologue trend I have been on lately. 🙂
“Aubrey! It’s time to come down for lunch!”
The little girl sighed as she heard her mother’s voice drift up the stairs to her. She regretfully stepped down from the window seat, where she had been the damsel in distress for the past twenty minutes. Even though her Ken doll had not come to save her yet, she wasn’t really ready to stop. She picked her way to the door. The dress-up trunk had spewed dresses, scarves, tiaras, and costume jewelry onto the floor, amongst books and toys. “Coming, Mama,” she replied, but probably not loud enough for her mother to hear.
She slunk down the stairs and to the kitchen. She could smell her mother’s homemade soup and hoped there would be plenty of buttered bread to go with it. The honey butter would be even better.
“Honey, why are you still wearing your princess dress?” her mother asked as she entered the room. “You know we are going to leave right after lunch to go shopping.”
“I know,” Aubrey replied as she sat down at the table. “I just wasn’t ready to stop playing yet. The dragon hadn’t even had a chance to lock the castle door yet.” She looked down at her lap, admiring the pink satin as it draped itself around the chair.
“You will have plenty of time when we get back. And maybe you could use some of your birthday money to buy a new book? Or whatever else we might find. It’s been awhile since we’ve gone downtown, and it’s not like we are just going for a boring old grocery trip. You should be excited.” Her mother placed a bowl of soup in front of her, along with two fat buttered rolls. “Just be sure you hurry up and change after lunch, okay?”
“Oh, thank you, Mama! I sure will!” She dug hastily into the fresh rolls.
The sound of crunching gravel drifted in through the open kitchen window, and her mother turned from the stove to look out the door. “It’s your dad,” she said.
“Papa!” Aubrey was out of her seat and out the door before her mother could tell her to sit down and eat. She raced to her father as he climbed out of his sedan. “What are you doing home?”
Her father wrapped his arms around her, princess dress and all, and carried her towards the house. “Well, hello to you, too! I had things fairly well wrapped up at the office, and I thought I would take off so I could come shopping with you two!”
“Really, Jim?” Her mother asked from the open doorway. “That would be wonderful! I can’t remember the last time you were off work for anything fun.”
“Daddy, will you take us to the toystore?” Aubrey asked. Her father set her back down in front of her soup. “Katie says there’s a whole new display of nothing but magic tricks and I really want to see it!”
He smiled at her over the steaming bowl of soup Mama had just set down in front of him. “I’m sure we could do that. You think you could be the next great magician?”
“Just watch my lunch magically disappear!” she announced as she slurped her soup.
“You really do have to change clothes, Aubrey,” her mother announced when she had finished. The satisfied smile that the buttered rolls had brought to Aubrey’s face were quickly replaced with a small frown.
“Oh, just let her wear it,” her father said. “It’d be fun to go shopping with a princess.”
“The dragon is going to get you, Mama!” Aubrey cried from the backseat. She made the little plastic dragon in her hand stomp around the headrest of her mother’s seat.
“No, no! Not a dragon in my hair!” Mama waved her arms and shook her head. “I need a knight in shining armor!”
Her father plucked a silver pen out of the cup holder. “I’ll save you!” He poked at the dragon with the pen. “Feel the wrath of my sword, dragon!”
Aubrey giggled as her dragon flew back to his place next to her in the backseat. “He might not be so easy to defeat next time, Daddy! He might breathe fire! Or, or learn magic. Yeah! Dragon magic!”
“Did you hear that, honey?” her father asked. “That’s going to be one powerful little dragon.”
“Sounds like I might have to get myself a helmet,” her mother replied. “Oh, there’s the turn for the mall.”
Her father smoothly piloted the car off the highway and around the ramp. Aubrey watched intently out the window as the mall came into view. Not exactly a castle, but exciting nonetheless. “Can I bring my dragon in with me?”
“Does it fit in your purse?” Daddy asked.
She opened her sequined purse and pushed the dragon down inside next to her lip gloss and her mother’s old wallet that she had given Aubrey to use. The sides of the purse bulged a little bit, but it worked. “Yep! I’m ready to go!”
Even though the mall hadn’t changed much since their last trip, Aubrey was fascinated by everything there was to see. The crowd pressed around her as she studied the bright signs over each of the stores. The escalators stretched away from her like giant undulating snakes. Huge fountains spurted water into glittering arcs.
“I’m going to make a wish!” she exclaimed. Detaching herself from her mother’s hand, she dug in her purse for some pennies. The little plastic dragon stared up at her from the satin-lined depths. “Mama, I found a nickel. Do you think I would get five wishes if I used it?”
But as she looked up to her mother for the answer, Aubrey heard a sound so loud that it drowned out all other noises in the mall. Flame and bits of merchandise exploded into the air from a kiosk only a few yards away from them. Mama turned away from the fiasco and threw herself on top of Aubrey, just as the second explosion sounded.
Aubrey heard the whoosh of water around her as they crashed headlong into the fountain. Somehow she managed to free her arms from her mother’s strong grasp as they fell, and caught herself before her head hit the bottom of the shallow pool.
“Mama! Mama, what’s going on?” She shook her mother’s arm, but she didn’t answer. Blood trickled from the back of Mama’s head, down her cheek and into the water. Her eyes were open in a look of surprised terror, but she didn’t blink as Aubrey squirmed out from underneath her.
She had lost her purse, but the little plastic dragon floated just a few feet away and she scooped him up. Aubrey stood up in the fountain. The crowd was swiftly dispersing, clamoring to get away from the fiery kiosk. She searched desperately for her father, but she couldn’t see him. “Daddy?” She stood there, the bloody water up to her knees, watching the last few people stream toward the exit, clutching the little dragon to her chest. She stood there for what seemed like hours, as the water ran off her dress and into fountain, and the water turned pink around her and her mother’s body.
She was knocked out of her stupor when a security guard swooped her out of the fountain and carried her out of the mall.
Aubrey didn’t remember much of the rest of that day. People had asked her questions, looked her over, and asked more questions, but she wasn’t sure what she had said. She knew there was a hospital involved, and maybe a police station before she was delivered to the steps of a large dismal house downtown that said ‘Littlewood Foster Home for Girls’ over the door.
A heavyset woman with a lined but not unkind face, who said she was Ms. Clavens, led her up the stairs and down a dim hallway. The bedroom she left her in was clean but barren, with only a few beds and dressers.
“What about my dress-up trunk?” Aubrey asked, speaking voluntarily for the first time since the incident. “And my books?”
“You can’t have all of that here. Supper is in an hour.”
Aubrey set her dragon down on the bed that the woman had said was hers. She ran a finger disdainfully over the scratchy blanket, but pulled it away from the pillow and climbed in. She lay next to her dragon, in a foster home, in her ruined princess dress.
Time at the orphanage was indeterminate. The daily routine was the same whether it was Sunday or Wednesday. The girls rose promptly out of bed at 6:30 for breakfast, and were sent off for their chores as soon as they set their spoons down. This quickly brought them to lunch, then studies, then baths and bedtime. There were no bedtime stories, only a headcount before the lights went out.
And so it was that Aubrey had no idea how long she had been there when Ms. Clavens summoned her to the office. As she crept up to the cracked office door, she could hear Ms. Clavens talking to someone.
“Well I just can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you decided to come to me to find the newest member of your family. So many times the adoption agencies manage to overlook us, and we are positively full to the brim.” Ms. Clavens gave a little laugh almost like a giggle, which Aubrey had never heard come out of her before. “Now, then. I think I may have just the girl for you. You said you wanted just one child, correct?”
“Yes, ma’am,” came a scratchy voice.
“Alright then. You’ll forgive me for double-checking, it’s just that I do have a couple sets of sisters that I’d really rather not split up, and seeing as how you don’t have any children of your own I thought it might be a decent fit for you.”
“Our home is really only suited for us to have one child.”
“Yes, of course. Well, you’ll like our little Aubrey. She’s quite shy, but I think she’s still in a bit of shock after the death of her parents, poor thing. You remember those terrorists blowing up the mall last month? Her parents were two of the victims. They found the poor girl standing in a fountain next to her dead mother! Can you believe it? I’m glad to say she is the only orphan that we saw from that accident, thank goodness. Plenty of our girls go through quite a bit of tragedy before they end up on my doorstep.”
“And there weren’t any other family members to take her?” asked a woman’s voice.
“The only relative the police were able to find was an aunt in Oregon, but she had health issues and said she wouldn’t be able to keep her.”
Aubrey put up a shaking hand to knock on the door.
“Come in, dear!” called Ms. Clavens. “Aubrey this is Mr. and Mrs. Goodknight.”
Filed under Uncategorized
So you know a little bit about me. You know that I am a writer, but what else? I’m no David Letterman, but here’s my top ten:
10. I love Halloween, but scary movies give me nightmares.
9. One of my ancestors served under General John A Logan.
8. I’m allergic to peanuts. (No Reese’s cups for me.)
7. A horse may have saved my life once.
6. I love to watch the stars come out.
5. My favorite movie is The Phantom of the Opera. (This is one of the few Gerard Butler movies I actually enjoy.)
4. My phobias include water and people. (Oh, to have the life of an inland hermit!)
3. My favorite animal is a dragon. (Since Seth says I can’t have one, I have cats instead.)
2. My boyfriend is the sweetest, most awesomest guy ever. (Even though he won’t let me have a dragon.)
1. I caught a hummingbird out of midair and held it in my hand.
Filed under Uncategorized
About three months ago I cut my hair off and donated it for the second time. What seemed like a relatively small event in my life has now turned into several blog posts and a rather difficult conundrum. The first time I donated, my eldest daughter was only three years old. I’m sure she said something along the lines of, “Mommy, where did all your hair go?” But that was about it.
Now she is seven, so I explained to her that I was giving the hair to someone who was too sick to have their own hair. She had done the St. Jude’s Math-a-Thon recently, and had learned that her little sister had been born with a cancerous tumor. I guess all of that made it hit home for her, even though her sister didn’t lose her hair, because now she tells me she wants to donate her hair.
My first reaction was to be extremely proud. This is the same kid that couldn’t stand to give her old toys away because she would miss them too much. I think it is sweet and wonderful that she wants to do something like this.
But is this a decision that a seven-year-old is actually capable of making? She has beautiful light brown hair down to her waist, and chopping it off would be a significant change for her. I’m afraid she would regret her decision. She has told me several times that she would like to do this, but I am still very much on the fence about it.
Opinions?
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Ashley O'Melia, Author 