Website update

I've updated my website a bit and added some new book excerpts. If you have a few minutes, click on the title above to check it out, then let me know what you think.

It's a homemade website, so it's not too fancy. When I actually get a book contract, I'll hire someone to do a professional one for me.

Or do you think I should suck it up and shell out the dough now?

Congratulations to the Golden Heart and Rita Finalists!

The Wet Noodle Posse did very well in the Golden Heart and Rita contest again this year.

Trish Milburn is a double GH finalist in the YA category.
Mary Fechter finaled in the Single Title category.
Theresa Regan finaled in Paranormal Romance.
Moni Thompson finaled in the Inspirational Category.

Terry McLaughlin is a Rita finalist in the Long Contemporary category.
Stephanie Rowe is a Rita finalist in the Paranormal category.

Congratulations ladies!

Also, congratulations to my friends Bronwyn Parry and Katey Coffing for their Golden Heart finals as well.

The appalling state of education

Click the title above and you can read story after story involving teachers. Teachers having sex with their students. Teachers calling for the execution of anyone who's ever voted Republican. Teachers spreading the poison of communism and socialism to an impressionable generation.

This truth was brought home this weekend when our children were visiting on Spring break. After all the efforts to get them a good education so they could live successful lives, what we ended up with is at least two who have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the agnostic or atheistic teachings of their college professors. Though they claim to think for themselves, you can hear the dogma of socialism, the pat lines used by liberal teachers to sway young minds to their way of thinking.

If teachers spent their time teaching grammar and spelling, you wouldn't have a generation who can't spell even the most basic words. If they spent their time teaching math, you wouldn't have a generation who can't balance a checkbook or do basic calculations without benefit of a calculator. If they spent their time teaching science, this generation wouldn't be so far behind the rest of the world in scientific knowledge. If they'd teach real history instead of a sanitized version, kids might learn from the mistakes of the past and not repeat them.

But education in this country is not designed to enlighten. It's designed to indoctrinate. And they're doing a damned good job of that.

Writers bemoan the advent of the computer in that so many are jumping on the writing bandwagon, increasing the competition. But I say not to worry. Most of those would-be writers can't spell anyway.

Extreme Makeover-Home Edition-March 11 episode

Did you see tonight's episode of Extreme Makeover? In this month's edition of the Wet Noodle Posse e-zine, I did the Superheroine article on one of the teenagers involved in helping make a dream come true for a family who suffered a triple whammy of tragedy. First, they lost their home to a fire. Then they lost their son/brother in a head on collision while trying to rebuild their home. Then Faith Tipton-Smith lost her job and they were unable to finish rebuilding the home her son Ransom had designed before his death.

The community came together and applied to Extreme Makeover to have the house finished, and tonight we got to see it happen. Did you watch the show? I don't know about you, but I've never watched that show without bawling at least once. Tonight, I cried most of the way through it. Partly because I heard about the accident at the time it happened through the mother of Chelsea Korzenko. Chelsea was one of Ransom's many friends, and the loss was devastating for her, as it was for all the student's at Cherokee High.

It was very moving, watching those two girls see their new home for the first time, to see the very obvious love that family has for each other, and to see how moved the other teens were by the whole process. And seeing the girl who got Ransom's heart was very emotional, especially when she met Ransom's family for the first time. And she's amazingly talented.

Tonight's show reminded me once again not to take life for granted, not to sweat the small stuff with my kids, and to not forget to tell them how very much I love them.

Thank you ABC for all you do for families who've had their lives turned upside down.

To read the story and see the pictures, click on the title above.

Extreme Makeover-Home Edition

Be sure to visit the Wet Noodle Posse this month (click on the title above and it will take you there) and read the SuperHeroine article. Then don't miss Sunday's edition of Extreme Makeover, where you can view the rest of the story. Have tissues handy. You're gonna need them.

My own home needs an Extreme Makeover. It desperately needs painting (have you SEEN the price of exterior paint these days? Oy!) It needs airconditioning and all new appliances, a new hot water heater. And I need a real office. I've been using the back porch, which the dh closed in for me in a temporary fix, but it's hotter than Hades in the summer and damned cold in the winter. It's dusty (you should see the inside of my computer. Yikes!) and crowded with the 60 one-gallon water jugs we keep filled for drinking and misc stuff that has no where else to go. I feel cramped and crowded and disorganized, and it makes writing a chore.

But my life has been good, and Extreme Makeover is only for people who've had a real tragedy, so there's not much chance one's going to happen here. But I still dream of the day when I can afford a real place to write, a place where I feel comfortable and relaxed.

If I can find the link again, I'll post a pic of my dream office tonight.



Here it is...my dream office. Isn't it gorgeous?