August 21, 2010
 
My Dearest Emma,
 
I am so sorry that I was unable to be there to watch you grow up but I know that your mother did what she felt was best for you.  I would have done no less had it been me.
I don’t know what darkness follows this family and even I wonder if it is the right thing to draw you back in.  If you are reading this, then for some reason you have decided to come back and face whatever it is.  I want to tell you to leave now, put a torch to this house, and never look back.  However I don’t think that will resolve the matter.  I want you to be safe.  Unfortunately you finding the answers may be the only way to insure your future.
I have to wonder about the fact that you were born a girl.  There had only been one other female child born in this family who made it to adulthood.  Patricia Rose was born to Albert and Madeline on September 30, 1933.  Patricia Rose was born with a mental handicap resulting from a lack of oxygen that left her childlike.  When she got older she never developed internally like she should have.  I think you being a female you will understand but if you don’t well the simplest way to put it was that she never became a full grown woman.  She died August 27, 1960 just before her twenty seventh birthday.
Outside of Madeline no matter how many times the women expected a child only one would survive to adulthood.  The males who made it to adulthood never made it to their fortieth birthday.
As for as I know none of the women who married into this family knew about any of this until after they had been married for some time.  No one ever talked about it openly.  Madeline and I didn’t talk about it until after her daughter had died.  I started to take your father and leave with him but I didn’t.  Then you were born and I watched you carefully.  When I saw how you grew and you were such a healthy happy little girl I began to wonder if maybe we had been wrong about everything.  Then your father reached his fortieth birthday and I really started to think that things had turned around.  They hadn’t.
Emma my sweet beautiful granddaughter you are now in your early thirties and I grow more and more concerned of what might happen to you.  Find the answer Emma and find it as fast as you can.  Put whatever it is that has plagued this family to rest and please live a long and healthy life.  Have many babies and watch them grow up and have babies of their own.  Most importantly grow old my sweet and think of me every now and then and know you were and always will be loved.
 
All my love,
Your Grandmother

Book trailers on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMGlBS9vTGs&t=23s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-uYfdALsfk

Where you can find it:

Blood Lines The Curse
Smashwords/ebook   https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/487345
Barnes & Noble/paperback   http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/blood-lines-the-curse-mrs-cathy-pace-matthews/1122743603?ean=9781517571054
Barnes & Noble/ebooks   http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/blood-lines-the-curse-cathy-pace-matthews/1120651877?ean=2940046369250
Createspace/paperback   https://www.createspace.com/5768667
Amazon/paperback and ebook   http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Lines-Curse/dp/1517571057/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1446574044&sr=8-2&keywords=cathy+pace+matthews
Kobo/ebook   https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/blood-lines-the-curse
BooksaMillion/paperback   http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Blood-Lines-Curse/Mrs-Cathy-Pace-Matthews/9781517571054?id=6568745909235

A group of very special friends and I started playing with our cameras and phones.  This is resulting in a lot of really lovely normal pictures.
Now this isn't anything new and everyone is doing it but for a bunch of really creative types it's funny to watch us explore new things.  Now when I say really creative types I don't mean that everyone in the world isn't creative but this bunch of crazy characters are using their creativity in other ways and have chosen to try and make a living at it.  If you think for one moment that just because you write a book or finish a spectacular painting you are going to make loads of money, think again.  Most of us don't.  We are trying to but we haven't gotten there yet.
Now to see these amazing people branch out to something a lot of us have never really taken a second thought to, trying to make a mediocre image tun into something beautiful, unusual, or scary as crap, is a hoot.  Imagine taking a quite lovely image of a squirrel that is chomping on a nut and turning it into one of what looks like two squirrels zip lining with twirling tail propellers is funny.  Or creating an image that would make any impressionist painter envious is wonderful.  Then there are the ones when you get something that does come out looking like an image for a horror movie poster, well you get a bunch of happy campers, or at least you do when everyone in the group is a bunch of horror fanatics.  
What is truly great is that the pics we are using are the simple day to day type pics that everyone takes.  You know the squirrel with the nut or an old church or house,  maybe a tree with a high school in the background.  hey there is one of an old bridge for a drainage ditch on a major street in a large city that turned into something that would be a great image for the cover of a book.  It is fun.
What you have to watch out for are people like me.  We've established that I'm crazy remember.  I don't think I've shared the one that started out as a really masochistic need to take a pic of me while I was coloring my hair, come on people like you didn't know that wasn't natural, and turned it into a gore fest extraordinaire.  Hell that one creeped out my daughter and like me she doesn't creep out easily.  I can't take the most innocent image and turn it into something really ugly, in more ways than one, at any given time.  I'm not saying it will be a good image but the very screw ups I can come up with are horrifying in how awful they turned out.
So yes this is fun and I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

This image came from the one below.

Check it out and win a book
Check out my event page on facebook for a chance to win an autographed proof edition of Nightmare Express.  This is a onetime only event so take a chance.
It’s real simple.  Read Journey Into Nightmares and then pick three of the stories from the book, your choice, then write a short three sentence synopsis of those stories in the comment section of the event page.  The winner will be chosen by a panel of three judges, me not being one of them, and the winner will be announced on March 31.
Please do not give away the whole story and definitely don't give away the ending to the stories you choose to use.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1900876586825354/

I have been revamping my website over the past few day, as many of you now know, and it has been a job.  I suddenly find myself up to my eye balls in things regarding promoting my books and it is work.  I swear when I started writing if I had known then what I know now I might have taken a different path. 
First let me say I’m not a salesperson.  I couldn’t sell a fridge to an Artic dweller with their house melting down around them.  Think about it a moment and it’ll come to you.  Seriously I just don’t have what it takes to be a good sales person.  For one thing I’m totally honest.  Really.  Here’s an example.
I had someone comment on one of my stories on my website about how the story would make a great lead in for a book and I had to tell her that she might be surprised with what it ultimately lead to and she could find out in the third book of my series Blood Lines but to get the full impact from the character’s perspective she should read the whole series in order.  Now I could have just let it go with telling her to read Blood Lines Family Ties and had a fairly good chance of selling her on it, yes the story will stand on its own, but I couldn’t in good conscious do that and to me that just made me sound like an ass trying to sell my books and nothing else.  Like I said not a sales person.  See my problem here?
So how do I turn myself into a salesperson?  I’m open to suggestions.  It might help if I weren’t a crazy old lady who has a weird sense of humor that also leans toward the dry side.  I also am quite good at reading people and it does affect how I interact with them.
Here’s a big one however.  Now if you have read my blogs the one thing you wouldn’t expect from me is that in person I’m a bit reserved.  I can’t help it I just am.  I use the term ‘a bit’ liberally because the fact is I’m a lot reserved.  I don’t do crowds real well for darn sure.  I get in the middle of a bunch of people and I start looking for the nearest exit.  I start feeling trapped, the inner thermometer starts rising, and it gets hard to breath.  I have to have air.  I do better in groups outside than in.  Go figure.  I’m sure that all you psych people will have all kinds of terms for what ails me but I have one in the family and she has already decided there isn’t a pigeon hole I fit in.  I’m evidently so far off the scales that I can’t be classified but she’s says I’m not dangerous to myself or others so she can see no reason to have me committed.  Believe me she is looking for one.  Hey she’s my daughter.  Every daughter has at one time or the other thought about doing that to their mothers.  We drive you ladies crazy and we know it we just don’t give a rat’s ass.  Our mothers did to us and we have earned the right to do it to you.
Back to the promotional thing.  I’m open to suggestions if anyone out there has any good ones but please be original.  I’ve heard the tried and true so let’s think outside the box.  Remember I am older than dirt so no tight rope walking, extreme rock climbing and hell I have trouble getting up the stairs sometimes, and nothing that would require me to jump off or out of something.  I could have jumped out of or off of anything when I was young.  I have a fear of falling and you open a door and shove me out and that’s all she wrote.  That cord would never get pulled and the last thing you would see is me going splat on the ground below.  I pass out the minute a roller coaster or log ride tips over the top and starts to fall.  You do that a couple of times and the people managing the rides ask you not to come back.  So outside the box, but hey guys, keep it real.

Have you ever sat somewhere and watched the vehicles pass by?  Did you wonder about the people in those speeding machine and what their stories might be?  Some are on vacation, others trying to get to family members after a loved one has died, for some it might be business requiring a long drive to get to a meeting.  There would be those who had jumped and run to get to someone in trouble or maybe they were just taking a long drive to the next town to shop or see a doctor of one type or the other.  Some would make their way to their destination safely but a few wouldn’t.  Regardless they drove.  Even at night an interstate can be a busy place. 
The girl sat in the car in the far corner of the visitor’s center.  The nondescript black vehicle blending into the background.  She had parked under the cover of a thick stand of trees that on this moonless night enveloped the car in a swath of impenetrable darkness.
The girl watched the vehicles speed past one after the other, some going one way others going in the opposite direction.  She didn’t wonder about those people.  It wasn’t that she wasn’t a thinker but about most of the people on the road tonight, she simply didn’t care.  No she was interested in only one.  The order on this one had come down from the very top, well the top may not be the right way to put it but when the boss told you to get it done, you got it done.  Failing was tantamount to self-destruction and when you self-destructed in her business saying it wasn’t pretty didn’t begin to cover it.
Now most would ask how she could possibly pick out one vehicle from another with them going this fast and especially this late at night.  The girl was equipped with a nice little sensor that would alert her when the target got within a certain range.  She didn’t know what this one had done but he had made the wrong person take notice of him.  Whatever it was, it was enough to get him crossways with someone you didn’t even want to give cause to raise an eyebrow.  This thought actually made the girl smile a bit.
The little sensor delivered its first indication that the target had come into range.  The girl had no problem figuring out how long it would take this poor bastard to be in her sights so she took her time starting the car.  The moment the engine turned over the car seemed to slightly shimmer.  Slowly she turned the car toward the entrance ramp to the interstate.
The sensor was now indicating that the target was almost up even with her so the car started pulling forward.  Again the car seemed to shimmer a bit but unless someone was paying really close attention they wouldn’t have noticed.  When the target passed her as she entered the interstate her sensor was beeping so fast the girl felt like it might explode.  Immediately she accelerate.  Suddenly the car really began to glisten and sparkle as starting at the very front bumper the color started changing.  The shining deep red that replaced the flat black seemed to caress the car as it spread from front to back.  The color wasn’t the only thing to change.  Where before it had appeared almost boxy now as the red supplanted the black the car took on the appearance of a fine sleek racing machine that any race car driver would sell their souls for.  The top had seemed to peel back as quickly as the red moved along the body of the car.  By the time she was only a few car lengths behind the target the car bore no resemblance to what it had before.
As the top detached from the car the girl’s raven hair took flight.  Her long dark tresses whirled about her head and face like ebony snakes in a macabre dance trying to escape the confines of the girl’s scalp.  The wind played with the black strands erratically blowing them one moment in long streamers flying out behind her and the next whipping them around to first slap then cover her face in silk like ribbons.  The girl seemed to be unbothered by the gyrations that would have caused others to have taken action to keep at bay, what to them, would have been a distraction while they drove. The girl never removed her hand from the steering wheel to try and stop the attack to her face.  She was solely concentrating on her target.  The girl smiled for the second time that night.
After reaching one hundred and twenty miles an hour the girl maintained the exact distance between her and the target for several miles before he evidently noticed he was being followed.  He must have pushed harder on the gas pedal of his car because it seemed to jump slightly and began to pull away.  She never took her glowing eyes off the target.  She allowed her speed to match the man in front of her never allowing the distance to grow between them.
The smile on her face became more obvious.  If someone had been asked to give a description of her they might have described her as beautiful, ethereal, even magical maybe.  That of course would have been the first impression.  The glowing red eyes and the three inch black talons that adorned the ends of her long slender pale fingers would have made them have to reconsider their original imagery of her.
Her almost snow white skin would have been enough to make you look twice but paired with the long raven tresses and the ruby red of her lips against that skin was both captivating and spine-chilling.  When her eyes weren’t glowing red they took on a color so dark that it was hard to determine their actual color.  You certainly didn’t want to look too deeply into those eyes though it would seem you were almost compelled to do just that.  Many a person had died gazing into those dark, endless pools of night.
The smile on those ruby red lips widened as she watched the car in front of her shudder.  It had tried to generate another burst of speed but the effort was more than even the high performance car the target was driving could handle.  It had put out just about all it had.  The girl saw the overturned semi up ahead blocking the entire westbound portion of the interstate.  The target must have been concentrating on what was behind him instead of in front and he didn’t see it in time.  At the speed they were traveling he never had a chance to take any action to change his forward momentum or speed.  The girl did had time to notice the people standing on the side of the road taking in the mangled mess that lay dead ahead.  With this entire side of the interstate blocked and everyone stuck where they were the rubberneckers had gotten out of their cars to take in the show.  These people had no idea they were about to catch the second act up close and personal. 
The target hit the undercarriage of the semi with such force it caused a violent explosion.  The results of that blast sent blazing pieces of his car flying in every direction.  One flaming sharp fragment flew through the air hitting one of the bystanders in the neck removing his head from his shoulders cauterizing the severed veins and arteries as it went.  The carnage didn’t stop there.  The man’s head flew from his shoulders bashing his wife in the side of her head so hard that it split open spraying other bystanders next to her with her blood and brains.
When the girl saw the collateral damage of her handy work her only response was, “oops” as she continued to travel in the same direction as the target had.  She didn’t however hit the undercarriage of the semi, she didn’t burst into flames, and she didn’t even shatter into flaming piece.  She slipped through the obstruction like it were no more than warm butter.  Once on the other side of the wreckage, that she had helped add to, she brought her vehicle to a stop in the center of the west bound lanes of the interstate.  No one took notice of her or the miraculous feat she had just pulled off.  No, no one saw her at all.
The girl stepped from the car and stood in the center of the road as she watched a figure coming toward her from the opposite direction she had come.  Her only thought was this could be bad as she watched the ground smolder and burn with each step the dark cloaked figure took.  The noxious smoke and fumes that emanated from the figure would have choked and killed the people now running and screaming around the original wreckage.  When the figure was only a couple of feet away from the girl it stopped and remained silent for a moment.
“Well my dear I see you have created a scene of total chaos.”  The figure finally said in a deep sensual voice.
“Yes Ma’am I did.”  The girl didn’t bother to apologize, she knew better.
“Nice.”  The figure let out a deep chuckle.
The girl kept any response she might have made to herself.
“Well I have something I want to retrieve.  He really shouldn’t have pissed me off.”  The figure continued to hover over the girl.
“Yes Ma’am.”  The girl knew to keep her mouth shut as much as possible and to keep her mind clear.
“Good job Snow White.”
“Thank you Satan.”  Snow White watched as her boss walked toward the mangled smoldering mess in the middle of the highway to remove the last remnants of what was left of the target, his soul.  
 
 
 
 
 

I looked at the last few remaining remnants of the old store they were tearing down.  I glanced at my husband and saw the look on his face and I was unable to stop the tear that softly ran down my cheek.  I knew his heart was breaking as was mine.
I had spent years listening to the stories revolving around that old majestic building and felt a knot build up in my stomach.  The sweet wonderful man I was married to had tried to save the place but others had stood in his way at every turn.
I had been introduced to the store and the area around it over a quarter of a century ago.  I had been listening to the stories for as long as well.  No, not repeats of a few stories but hundreds of them.  Some were so sad they would break your heart and others had left me laughing so hard it hurt.  Each story had burned images in my brain that were like old movies that I often replayed in my head.  Sometimes I would see or experience that would set the mental projector running and off the images would go again.  I would see the array of characters who walked in and out of the doors to this social and economic center of the area at one time.  The little bits of life brought together in a kaleidoscope of color merging, blending, and then falling apart as new ones entered the doors of that store and others exited.  Of course those stories had ended when the store closed its doors for the last time in the early seventies.
The store hadn’t just suddenly closed its doors one day because of some epic issue.  No, it had died a slow and quiet death as more and more customers took their shopping to bigger and better places.  As the roads improved and bigger and cheaper places opened in larger towns the small little country stores lost their place in our society.  They couldn’t compete.  Now the building that had once been the center of the social network was coming down piece by piece over several weeks and not with a big bang.  It was like watching a loved one go slowly into that night.
“Let’s go.”  My husband couldn’t stand to watch anymore and headed to the truck.  I silently followed him and we turned toward home.
It was several months before we made our way back to the old store.  Actually I should say to where the old store had been.  Nothing, and I mean nothing remained.  Not only had the store come down but all the wonderful trees, most over fifty years old and some a lot older.  The tall straight persimmon trees that had been so prolific in the production of their fruit that had produced some of the sweetest nectar I had ever tasted were also gone.  Now there was nothing but open plowed up dirt ready for planting.  The grass and trees that had once graced that little corner of the small almost forgotten tiny town nothing more than a bittersweet memory.  We didn’t even stop.
 
For those of you who might read this and think what a sad little story, for me and my husband, a heart breaking fact.  I try to hold back the tears that come every time I think of what has been lost.

In 2014.

In 1928.

Let’s face it, we have all looked into those eyes.  Also we have also all been guilty of possessing them at one time or the other.  Today is Valentine’s Day and for those of you who have someone in your life this is a great day to give yourself and the person you love a gift that will keep on giving.  Mastering that problem.
Being jealous not only makes you miserable but it often makes your partner miserable.  Let me tell you something, the quickest way to lose a partner is with this monster.  No one wants to put up with it.  I mean really.  Your girlfriend said hi to another man and you threw a fit with her.  Oh girlfriend don’t thing you’re off the hook.  Some girl gives your guy the eye and you threw him out of the bedroom.  Come on people, think about this.
Now first you guys.  Sometimes I’m amazed how you handle things.  Some other man is a little too friendly with your lady and your first response is, I’m going to kick his ass.  I don’t think there is a man, or boy, who has a female in their lives that I know who hasn’t made that threat.  OK I know two that maybe haven’t.  One because he was so busy doing the running around that he really didn’t pay much attention to what the particular flavor of the month female in his life was doing.  No I never dated this guy but let’s just say he was special to me even if I did have to clean up some of his messes.  Yes I raked his ass over the coals more than once, not that it did any good, and tried to straighten him out.  The other one just seems to have enough faith in his lady that it doesn’t seem to ever be a problem with him and he knows she can take care of herself.  Yes his faith is well founded.  Now back to the rest of you numskulls.  If you expect that the person you are involved with to never say anything or come into contact with other people in this world, and this does include males, then someone needs to drop you on an isolated island and leave you there, alone.
You ladies need to think about a few things yourselves.   Is the person you’re with attractive, reasonably attractive or even passable?  Do they have a fabulous personality, a great scene of humor, or are they just such a super person that it shows in everything they do?  After you answer this think about this one.  No one ever wants to be with the ugliest or most non-descript person at a party.  I know that sounds offensive but let’s face it, it’s true.  If you answered yes to any of those then women are going to look at your partner sometimes, fairly regularly, or quite often.  Now the next is going to be focused on basically a male and female relationship but it can be applied to any couple regardless of their sexual orientation.  No one wants to be with someone who isn’t worth another person taking a look at for one reason or another.  If there is nothing there to draw the attention of another woman, be it their looks, personality, humor, or anything that sets them apart  then what the hell are you doing with him?
If you are with someone you have to trust them.  If they have honestly given you a reason to mistrust them the fact that you’re still with them doesn’t say a lot for you.  Love is something that is very, very special.  It should be treated as such as should the person your with.  Most importantly you deserve to have peace of mind.  Unfortunately your partner can’t give you that.  That can only come from yourself.
So please get your heads out of your asses, tell the person you love that you do love them and learn to trust them and mean it.  You do that and I can promise you that if you are still with the same person next year, and that is my hope for you if this is really that special one that only comes along once in a life time, you will probably have a wonderful Valentine’s Day.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.
 

Everyone knows by now that I have several videos on Youtube.  You didn't know?  Then what are you waiting for, go check them out.
I have posted several excerpts from my books in print in different places but I decided to go a little different, OK some may say crazy, and do some book trailer bases on just an excerpt from the books.  Why you might ask.  Let's face it, everything goes better with a little music.  It helps to build the tension or emotions in what you're reading and if you don't like what is put in the videos them maybe you'll like the music anyway.  If not, shoot me.
If you think I do this for fun, alright I do have a little fun sometimes, I don't.  I do it to help sell books.  Even the well known authors do this but the thing is theirs get shown on TV.  Mine do too but only if I pull them up on Youtube, unfortunately for my hubby, mine is internet connected so I can watch them on the tv but only because of that one reason.
I often wonder who picks up the tab on the book trailer you see on TV.  Is it the big brick and mortar publishing houses who handle the big names in writing or do the authors themselves have to shell out the cash.  Well I don't have a big brick and mortar publisher and I certainly don't have the cash to pay for a high priced commercial slot in prime time.  Hell I couldn't afford one in the lowest priced time slots on some tiny little backwoods local channel, or whatever you call the ones you turn to when there is absolutely nothing on the 300 channels you get on cable.  Those little channels may be getting more action that I think because nothing being on the other 300 channels you get is that's pretty often the case for me since I'm not a sports fan of any type.  I'll leave that one alone from there because you really don't want me getting on my soapbox for that one.
My idea with the whole video dedicated to an excerpt from my books is a synopsis is great but you can put anything in those to try and get someone to pick up your book and you do.  I'm honest with mine don't get me wrong but a lot of you don't know me and why should you pick up my book because I give you a short, watered down description of the plot because I'm limited to the number of words I can use.  Getting actors, even when I know a few, to get together when I can to do a little scene is problematic at best.  I've been working on trying to get a very special project off the ground for two years and keep running into obstacles at every turn.  Hell it has taken most of that time to try to get a certain person to get on board.  She's finally agreed but now we're having to wait until the weather is right.  Yes it has to be set at a certain time of the year and this ain't it.
That certain person is still a little nervous about this because she has to sing.  Don't get me wrong this young woman can sing.  Now yes I could get someone else who is good but the problem there is that whoever does this has to be able to sound convincing as two separate entities.  This young woman can pull it off.
The song is original written especially for this little endeavor.  Yippee.  I say yippee because this has been one hell of an undertaking.
Well other things are calling me so I will close this out and get on with being human, I can do that but it's hard, doing what a normal human does.  If you haven't figured this one out, there is nothing normal about me and I like it that way.  Now where did I put that small cauldron?

If you're interested here are the links for my videos.

1. Blood Lines Family Ties Except
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boD4YTfV_Co&t=1s
2. Blood Lines Buried Treasure Excerpt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnWWd50OVF4&t=1s
3. Blood Lines The Curse Excerpt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-uYfdALsfk&t=4s
4. Blood Lines The Curse trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMGlBS9vTGs&t=2s
5. The Farm a tour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlF4R8yyXNo&t=55s
6. Blood Lines Family Ties trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N7dGmWjhmo&t=1s
7. Blood Lines Buried Treasure trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebWxwy6GekI&t=1s
8. Nightmare Express
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mAUtqWwsK4&t=12s
9. Alone and Afraid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7fFuy6B1A8&t=4s
10. Journey into Nightmares
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBqYgsQCOg8&t=2s
11. Buddy and His Baby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N95XqPyoYnk

Of course the lady of which I speak is me.  Did you expect someone else?  Of course not.
Some of you know that I belong to a group on facebook called The Creative Evil Female Mind and Other Evil Geniuses.  Over the past couple of months, what with illnesses and holidays things got pretty quiet and lax.  I mean really quiet and lax.  I decided it was time to shake things up a bit, OK a hell of a lot, and make a few changes there.  We've added a new administer to our list, adding some new options, taking on a more active role in certain areas, and chopping off heads.  Alright that last bit might seem a bit drastic but come on people we're a horror group so what do you expect?
We're also implementing a new critiquing  standard within the group and want the members feedback, honest and even sometimes painful feedback.  Now from the ones who are generally active I'm getting a lot of positive response but our little never add anything to the group even a like don't seem to be taking the head chopping thing seriously.  Really?  I'm telling you heads are going to roll.
So here's the part where give me a break comes in.  I posted a new somewhat video, you'll have to watch it to understand, and asked for feedback fairly early this morning.  I've gotten two.  We have seventy one members, until this morning it was seventy three, and I've gotten two.  Now the two I got were absolutely glowing but I know that a lot more have looked at this, including one of the people I trust to always tell me the truth which is my daughter, and yet only two have had anything to say.  I know I've heard the old saying that if you don't have something good to say don't say anything and we do have several members who are southern but come on people.  Just because I said heads are going to roll, obviously I mean that because two already have, doesn't mean that I will kill the messenger.  I'm really not that bad.  No, I promise, I'm really not.  Now if you're going to rake me over the coals big time do it privately please but I don't hold grudges and unless you just get pissy about it I'm generally pretty forgiving and roll with the punches.
OK there are some things I can get nasty about but I don't think anyone is going to step over those lines in the group.  If you've read it remember the donuts?  Also my hair.  Yes I'm one day older than dirt and I wear my hair long.  If you don't like it keep it to yourself or you might end up with a badly shaved head yourself.  So as long as you don't step on those toes you're doing OK in my book.
Oh there is one other thing that can set me off big time.  Don't accuse me of something I didn't do.  My mother learned when I was a child the the madder I got when someone accused me of something the more innocent I was.  If you know me then you know I can't fake that kind of mad so she always had something to gauge me by.  Of course if I had done it, it was rare however that I wouldn't admit to it, if I shrugged something off you could bet my butt was going to be in deep shit and I'm not talking from the toilet.  Someone you didn't want to piss off was my mom.  Did I ever tell you the one about the piece of watering hose?  I know it sounds really bad but if you know the whole story you'll get it.  I still laugh about it.  Of course I wasn't the one who got sideswiped by it but then my brothers should have never thought it was funny to come in from school and walk up to our mom and pop her on the arm saying how's it going.  They didn't realize that they had gotten to the point where they were big enough to hurt her and she did warn them.  Damn that's still funny and it only took once for each, on the same day no less.  Don't get me wrong those boys would never have meaningfully hurt mom, they were in their early teens and thought they were being cute and still had the idea that Mom was superwoman.  She was, just in a different way than they thought.
Anyway I promise not to use a piece of hose on anyone and will always be a kind and gentle executioner.
If you think that was just a boy thing, it isn't.  My daughter decided to try it at about eight years old.  After me telling her several times to cut it out I had to also result to drastic measures.  No not a piece of hose.  I just returned the little love tap.  She got it.  I really didn't hurt her just surprised the crap out of her and she never did it again.  For all of you screaming child abuse stick it where the sun don't shine.  She grew into a loving, wonderful, extremely intelligent, talented, beautiful young woman that I'm am so very proud of.  Also she is still a momma's girl.  Big smile on my face right now.
There is one little thing that I've had to accept.  I'm not the first on her list anymore.  Neither is her feller, his little girl, or her dad.  No that spot is reserved for the Boston Red Soxs.  We've all learned to accept it.

I know I have been lax in posting anything on my web page for a while now.  There are several reasons for this and the polite thing for me to do would be to simply apologize for this and promise I will do my best to do better in the future.  That would be the polite thing to do.  Well forget it.  I never simply state something in a simple manor and move on.  I have to go into painstaking details that I'm sure often leaves you wondering if I'm going to just shut up.  No.
Starting just before Christmas my family has managed to catch one horrendous scourge after the other.  I have had to deal with the flu and the Norovirus in every member of my immediate family.  For those of you who do not know I have a husband, three daughters, two son-in-laws, one possible future son-in-law, and four grandchildren.  One of the grandchildren even managed to get the chickenpox because at eight months old she hadn't been vaccinated for that little bugger.  Now my lovely husband is broken out in a nasty red rash over most of his body and is miserable.  I managed to get both the flu and the Norovirus at the same time.  That's what you get when you play nurse to your family.  At times like these I want to tell all of you who have never hooked up with someone and had children, keep it that way. 
Now on top of this I had something else added to that that is so far off the rails that I won't go into it but I'm not supposed to be using my hands any more than I can help.  Are you kidding me?  Come on people get your head out of your asses and think about that a moment.  I'm a writer.  I managed to follow those instructions for a month and now I'm refusing to go along with it any longer.  I don't give into to things and will not give into this.
Yes I'm stubborn, hardheaded, and let's face it on occasion an out and out bitch.  I take pride in all of those things.  Why shouldn't I?  It has gotten me through life and I'm pretty happy with where I am.  I don't have any major enemies, OK there are one or two low lives out there that I won't cry over when they leave this earth nor would they me but since I don't interact with them anymore I don't see them as a problem.  Hey get over it, we all have them.  One at least led to one of my favorite short stories so I'm good.
Anyway all the illnesses that has run rampart in my family has made me decide that, if I get a choice, I'm coming back in my next life as a huge shark.  I will be born knowing how to swim, something I can't do, will be at the top of the pecking order in the undersea world, and I can spend my day enjoying a lot of new scenery every day.  I think I would make a damn fine shark.
In the meantime I will love my family dearly, even when they are sick, and enjoy my life no matter what.  I hope you all do the same.
Oh in case you didn't know, sharks have an amazing immune system.