Sierra Foothill Charter School is making headway. We just hired a principal!!! This is so exciting. Here’s a link to the newsletter (which is my ongoing contribution to the cause).

But the big news around here involves FIRE…and community. Mariposa, CA, the little town we call home, suffered a huge loss on Friday night. An entire block–three buildings that were home to six businesses–burned to the ground. Gone. Completely, unbelievably gone.

Mariposa fire - 2 days later

Mariposa fire - 4 days later -- the spirit never dies!

Gone is the Pizza Factory, the Mariposa Arts Council, Grace Notes Wind Chimes, Pony Expresso, Windows On the World Book Store and the Yarn/Coin Shop.

When our children were young, nearly every kid’s birthday party/post game celebration/Mom’s-too-tired-to-cook-Friday-night involved pizza from Pizza Factory. Since I started working out at the local gym, the Pony Expresso has been a godsend on the mornings when Kelly has personal training clients. One of my favorite booksignings EVER took place at the Mariposa Arts Council gallery. It was magical being surrounded by beauty and creativity. The chimes I bought from Grace Notes are musically singing to me as I type.

I know the buildings will be re-built. I know the business owners will make it through the insurance/recovery nightmare. I know the people who worked for them and the people who frequented their stores will be okay. But there’s mourning to be done first. A 150-year old piece of history is gone and I’m sad.

But this morning my daughter and I were driving past the empty corner, our spirits low when suddenly we spotted balloons and people and a Pony Expresso sign that said, “Coming to a street corner near you.” Coffee on foot. How amazing and totally inventive is that!? The only thing missing were the scones, but I’m thinking those might appear one day soon. Don’t you love it?

I truly do admire the phoenix-like positive spirit that is Mariposa! It’s downright inspiring, which is why I’m signing off to get back to my writing.

Deb

PS: if you’re interested in helping the displaced employees and their families, here’s a link.

I hope you’re enjoying spring! I’m never far from my mower. LOL. I blink and the grass has grown a foot.

I’m caught up in a new story and I predict things will be hit and miss here in Debland in the coming weeks. Just ask my family. They’re feeling the neglect, too. But I’m thrilled to feel connected to the creative process again and will try to share my progress as I have something to report. Still too early to talk about at the moment. Jinx.

But I can share a link to my friend Brenda Novak’s month-long AUCTION to raise money for Juvenile Diabetes Research.

OMG! What wonderful, amazing prizes she’s got up to bid on. If you’re an aspiring romance author, check out what my Superromance pals are offering. You can’t go wrong with a critique from any of these talented and generous ladies. There’s even a Skype session for your book club. Such a cool idea!

What’s better than shopping for a great cause!?!

Now, back to my new project…write on!

Deb

Thanks to my daughter, Kelly, and her sometimes cruel and breathtaking (as in, I can’t breathe, daughter mine) workouts and my concerted effort to avoid “killer white” AKA sugar, I’ve lost 12 pounds and enough inches that I can actually see my waist. Well, I always could, but now it curves in, not muffin-tops out.

Fellow author Mary Sullivan shared the following video workout that I really like. It’s called the Joel Harper No-Crunch Abs Workout. ABS.

Last weekend, we visited the town of Murphy’s in Calaveras County, California. It’s a sweet little Gold Rush-era town with quaint shops and wine tasting to your heart’s content. Our timing was a little off because it was rainy and cold (this weekend is going to be 90-degrees). But we still had a great time and we got to see an amazing tulip show at Ironstone Winery.

And my personal fave–one I call “A Daisy in the Tulip Patch”:

My photographer friend, Jackie Maxwell, also visited a tulip festival in Portland, Oregon, last weekend and has some gorgeous shots up on her website: JaxImages. Enjoy!!!

So, any progress reports you’d care to share, my friends? How are those Resolutions holding up? Keep trying. I really like feeling a bit more fit. Crunch on…

Deb

Some of them tell me how wonderful my blog is but wouldn’t I like to make it better with their service or search engine or whatever? My answer to these cretins is: NO, I WOULDN’T. GO AWAY.

And, I just cleaned out my list of registered users because 80% had names like these:

boibboclactd

dlhadlelace

rgwerginluci

(These are the three most recent names that signed up for my blog and while I don’t like the idea of giving these people acknowledgement or promotion, I honestly couldn’t make up names like that if I tried.)

WHAT IS THE POINT OF THESE PEOPLE? What do they get out of signing up for my blogs? Other than taking time out of my day to remove their stupid posts from my blogs, what could they possible get from posting these inane replies anyway?

Anyway, I’m sorry for the public grousing, but I want the world to know: I HATE SPAMMERS.

To keep from making this blog a total downer, I thought I’d share some happy news, too. My son Jon-Paul graduated from his 200-hours of yoga training Sunday. He’s been practicing yoga and leading classes for years, but the Balanced Rock program helped him achieve the certification that means he can now teach anywhere. From the Balanced Rock website: “…200-hour Yoga-Alliance Certified training incorporates nature and ecology into yoga.” I’m so proud of him.

Jon-Paul Salonen

Have a great week, everyone. Don’t let the spammers get to you. Oh, wait, that’s what I’ve been telling myself. LOL

Deb

In my house, Easter meant the works–shoes, socks, undies, dress, gloves and, of course, a hat. My mother–and, I suppose my father, although I don’t remember him being consulted in any way, shape or matter about the selection process–was extremely indulgent when it came to Easter shopping. Which is not to say Mom actually shopped. Oh, no. In fact, I distinctly remember being dropped off at Cole’s Department Store and being told to ask someone to call me a taxi when I was done (my parents owned the taxi company). Mom had a charge account. The clerks knew me.

Wow. The power, right? But you have to understand that shopping was different in those days. Your choices were limited. Even the nicest department store probably stocked fewer than a dozen or two different styles of little girl dresses. Designer names were unheard of. All I cared about was whether or not the dress came with a hat. After all, everyone knew Easter wasn’t Easter without a bonnet.

I don’t think little girls care about hats these days, but one of my favorite Easter photos is of my eldest granddaughter when she was three. Her great-aunt bought Easter bonnets and gloves for all the little girls in the family. Doesn’t this make your heart smile?

Celebrate with style and have a very Happy Easter.

Deb

John Gustafson, a highschool classmate of mine, died on Sunday. I have only good memories of “Gus” in school. He was a fun, earnest kid; quick to smile, always friendly and easy to like. He was  a tough competitor on the wrestling mat and made it to the State-A’s in his weight class. Although we weren’t close friends, he was the kind of person you knew had your back even if he didn’t make a big deal about it.

While I left South Dakota straight out of college, John stayed in our old hometown of Brookings, became a Realtor and made a good life for himself. By all accounts, he was a successful businessman and was active in the community…until heart disease short-circuited his activities.

When I saw John at our last class reunion a year and a half ago, I was reminded that we’d nearly lost him a few years earlier when he suffered his first heart attack. The prognosis had been grim, but he’d pulled through, and we were all thrilled to see him.

John Gustafson, 1952-2012

We didn’t speak about his health problems at the time. We met his beautiful wife, Dawn, and heard about their three young children. We reminisced about our high school years–it was a reunion, after all.

But in December of last year, I learned that John was caught up in the fight of his life–in more ways than one.

He’d received a LVAD (left ventricular assist device), which allows blood to bypass the heart and was on the list for transplants, but he also needed to undergo dialysis five days a week.

According to the website WeCareABoutJohn.com, John was one of six LVAD patients in South Dakota. (Nationally, there are 180 total.) Unfortunately, the medical director for Prairie Lakes Health Care, which provides dialysis for patients in the Brookings area, decided the LVAD device was “experimental,” and declared that treatment would require monitoring by both a cardiologist and a nephrologist, something Prairie Lakes was unwilling to allow.

The local newspaper did a story on John last year in an effort to get the word out about his situation and what he was up against. http://bit.ly/HgXGbM

Although there was a dialysis facility just four blocks from John’s house, Prairie Lakes refused him treatment. So, John had to be driven 65 miles for the four-hour treatment then be driven back home. His treatment and the two-hour round trip commute amounted to a full time job. And because his entire day was devoted to staying alive, John couldn’t work, provide for his family, interact in normal activities with his wife and kids and friends. The commute was not conducive to building up the strength he needed to keep fighting.

It’s telling about the kind of person John was that a group of friends started the We Care About John website. These generous people, including my old friends Dick and Theanne Peterson, bucked the system. They fought for common sense and compassion. They were this close to getting John the treatment he needed locally. Unfortunately, time was not on John’s side.

John was just one man, but what happened to him could happen to any of us. We work hard to buy the best health insurance we can afford, but one petty bureaucrat with her eye on the bottom line can mean the difference between life and death. I can only hope that John’s bravery and determination pays off down the road for patients facing the same hurdles. And my heart and prayers are with John’s family…and my classmates.

Now, on a happier note, my father-in-law, Milt, made it home safe and sound–and he flew in First Class! He said he doesn’t think can fly with the “common people” again. Lol.

Deb

Our Wine, Women & Words Book Club selection for February

We had so much fun at Book Club on Sunday, but we forgot to take a photo. Alas.

Here’s what you missed:

The Menu

~pork loin with baked apples

~green salad with honey-roasted pecans and MacIntosh apples

~vegan greens

~apple pie and ice cream

Do you detect a theme? Hint, hint. Steve Jobs was a genius who changed the world. I couldn’t agree more. But, his extremely long biography was filled with a great deal of minutia that probably meant more to people who actually get into computers. Since I just purchased my first Mac two years ago, I’m a late-to-the-game convert. And, all agreed that genius or not we never could have been married to the man. LOL.

So, our big debate came over what to read next. Strange as it sounds, we picked Ray Bradbury’s  Fahrenheit 451. Why?

Well, believe it or not, this is National Read an E-Book Week! And since most of us read the Jobs book on an e-device of some kind, that got us talking about the possible demise of paper books…which got us thinking–can we live without our books in book form? I think not. But, as our hostess, Judy, demonstrated when she produced four electronic devices that can be used for reading (at least one belonged to her hubby): iPad, iPhone, Kindle and Kindle-Fire!–we also love, love, love the convenience of e-books.

My three self-published entries into the e-book world are on SALE this week. In fact, my short stories are both FREE and the biography I co-authored is HALF PRICE. That works, huh? Here’s the link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/111878

And, I just found out that my lone single title release for Harlequin, 2005’s BETTING ON GRACE, has been released as an e-book on eHarlequin, Amazon and Google Books. I have mixed feelings about this because the book was out-of-print and I’d hoped to e-publish it myself. But that didn’t happen–and that’s not the book’s fault. It was a lovely book that I poured a lot of my soul into and it got horribly shorted when Harlequin’s distribution machine hit a rough patch. So, if you missed it (a lot of my loyal readers did!!!), here’s the eHarlequin link: http://bit.ly/zdIcHZ

Another topic of conversation that came up at Book Club was the Paypal’s request/demand that Smashwords remove all titles containing bestiality, rape, or incest from sale, otherwise they threatened to deactivate Smashword’s PayPal account, which is the main vehicle for paying all authors.

Regardless your views on any of those topics, is it really PayPal’s place to decide what can or cannot be published? That’s one dangerous, slippery slope to start down. And, as a writer and a reader, I’m not happy about it.

As Smashwords’ founder Mark Coker wrote, “All writers and their readers should stand up and voice their opposition to financial services companies censoring books.  Authors should have the freedom to publish legal fiction, and readers should have the freedom to read what they want.”

If you’d like to let the money men of corporate America know how you feel about censorship of any kind, here are some links:

Visa: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=V+Profile

American Express: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=AXP+Profile

MasterCard: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=MA+Profile

Discover: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=MA+Profile

EBay (which owns PayPal): http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=ebay+Profile

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Read well and prosper, my friends.

Deb

So. There was no blog last Tuesday because on Monday night my dearly loved father-in-law, Milt, who is visiting us from South Dakota, fell. Anyone with elderly family members knows this is a four-letter, F-word with horrible repercussions. And we were definitely worried–despite Milt’s insistance that we NOT take him to the hospital. He can be a stubborn cuss.

Milt--the morning after

Fortunately, my sister-in-law, Karryn, is a nurse who doesn’t take “No” for an answer. She made some calls, lined up an appointment at Modesto Imaging and put the fear of “pneumonia” in Milt. We very carefully helped him into the car then spent the rest of the day hurrying up to wait. Finally, we heard the verdict: three cracked ribs, a fractured wrist and a hairline fracture of the cheekbone. But, as Karryn had predicted, the most worrisome part was the loss of lung function. He was admitted to the hospital.

When we returned the next day, he actually looked even worse–the result of gravity and pooled blood around his eye socket. Eeek! But after a few breathing treatments and antibiotics, he was out of the danger zone.

Looks worse, but feels better--yeah!

So…adhering to my rule, here’s the good news: Milt is a tough old bird. Did I mention he’s 87? After five days in the hospital, he was released in pretty good shape. His ribs hurt like heck, but there’s nothing you can do about that but wait for them to heal. His wrist is wrapped, but not in a cast. And his lung function has improved without surgery. We are ecstatic.

He’s also itching to get back to “work.” Prior to his fall, he was helping Paul on the ‘47 Woodie project. Now, he’ll move to a supervisor position. We can’t wait.

Father and son sharing the joy of a job well done!

I hope your day is all GOOD!

Deb

PS: Milt was outside when he fell. It was after dinner and very dark. For some reason, he decided to take a stroll off our back deck–without turning on the lights. He missed the last step and went down hard. Paul and I were inside doing the dishes. Luckily, our puppy, Jessie, heard Milt’s cry for help and started barking her head off. (Even luckier, she was on her leash or she would have smothered him with licks and sympathy and made things worse.) But her barks alerted us to the problem. Yeah, Jessie!!

Jessie to the rescue

But I did have a great time. And with apologies to my host and hostess for “outing” their treasured secret island getaway, Kauai was gorgeous. Even though we had to dodge some wind and rain a couple of days, we enjoyed every minute there. I promised not to bore you (or maybe I threatened to bore you) with a bunch of pictures, but here’s my personal fave.

Do these people look happy or what?

This shot was taken right before hubby and I went snorkeling in crystal clear water where we encountered more varieties of fish than in most aquariums. Just gorgeous. And when we got out, we were treated to a whale show. Amazing!

One fun adventure involved renting beach bikes. I  somehow managed to take a video of this. If it looks a little shaky, remember, I’m on a bike. LOL. http://youtu.be/hCdMd2EQv9I

Thanks, Mar, for a week full of great memories.

This fountain was in "The Descendents" (Deb, Paul and Mary were not.)

And because this is Valentine’s Day and I love my friends, here’s a decadent dessert Mary served us in Kauai. Oooh, yum, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Serve warm with vanilla icecream.

Lava Flow Cake

Preheat oven to 450.

Grease 6 ramekin cups.

Melt in microwave: 10 T butter, 6 – 1 oz. squares of semi-sweet chocolate (or 6 oz, semi-sweet choco chips), and 2 – 1 oz. squares of bittersweet chocolate.

Add to chocolate and stir well: 1 1/2 C confectioner sugar, 1/2 C flour

Stir in until smooth: 3 eggs and 3 egg yolks

Add: 1 tsp vanilla and 2 T orange liquor

Pour into ramekins and bake 14 minutes.

Enjoy!

Deb

Mary Larson, my high school friend who came from Denver for my birthday party in November, has a place in Kauai. (I couldn’t even spell this word a month ago.) Mary and hubby Steve have invited us a couple of times, but work schedules and deadlines didn’t jibe. This time, the cosmic elements clicked and I booked a week. I even bought an island-appropriate dress for lounging on the lanai drinking mai-tais. (I’ve never had a mai-tai, but I love the idea of them.)

Mary says the whale watching is phenomenal right now. Check out this photo that, reportedly, was taken near Kauai. The accompanying text of the story reads:

“The first took place on a January afternoon off the northwest coast of Kauai, when a group of eight bottlenose dolphins met up with a pair of humpback whales. Two of the dolphins – apparently adults – approached one of the whales, first appearing to surf the pressure wave created by the whale’s head as it swam, and later taking turns lying perpendicularly across the whale’s rostrum when it surfaced to breathe. Then, while one of the dolphins lay balanced over the end of its rostrum, the whale stopped and slowly lifted the dolphin high into the air. The dolphin maintained an arched position and made no effort to escape, allowing the whale to continue lifting until it was nearly vertical in the water, at which point the dolphin slid down the whale’s rostrum, dove into the water, and porpoised back to its fellow dolphins.”

Amazing, no?

Two other fun things in Debland to report:

The Sierra Foothill Charter School’s Inaugural Fundraiser was a rip-roaring success. We netted over $7,000 for the school. People have been asking why we are doing fundraising when we’re a public school. Doesn’t the State pay the bills?

The State pays the ADA once students begin attending school, but there’s a big gap in time and $$$ between now and when classes begin. We still have a lot of needs that must be met before school opens: books, computers, infrastructure stuff, hire teachers, confirm our charter with State Board of Education…etc.

Fortunately, our amazingly creative fundraising team headed by Ruth Smiley and Kori Smith is busy planning our next fun event.

Here’s a photo of our SFCS Board taken that evening at Savoury’s, which is THE place for fine dining in Mariposa, if you’re ever in the area.

Jill, Danesha, Carolin, Brett and John

And, speaking of photos, I simply have to share this gorgeous photo of my daughter, Kelly. She’s just as beautiful on the inside, too.

Okay. I must get busy and pack. I promise to bore you with travel photos the next time I blog.

Aloha!

Deb

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