Let the good times roll

Watch for it in print on Amazon soon--I hope

 For a lot of people I know, 2015 has not been a good year. Everything from deaths in the family, job problems to health and financial worries. For me, it’s been a year of poor health, principally problems with my low back and left leg and, of course, my balance. I began to think it was the year in which I suddenly become an old lady. With physical problems and the associated pain—believe me I did hurt some of the time—came depression, and I felt like I was becoming an old lady with a sour disposition. I had no energy and no ambition to do laundry, household chores, things around the house. In addition, my publisher went out of business, and all my mysteries disappeared from Amazon and other sources. So on both a professional and personal level, I’m glad to put 2015 behind me.

2016 is going to be a much better year. My neighbor, who has just started a new job, and I agree on that. I felt my depression lifting about a month ago, and now feel I’m back to being cheerful which is my normal state. A dear friend from out of town visited in early December and said, “Well, you seem just fine.” Jay, the neighbor, said, “You should have been around here the last four months!” But to me it’s like a whole new world.

I don’t hurt, and I’m going back to physical therapy next week, to restore my self-confidence and balance. I’m working on getting my last book on Amazon in print—proofing is taking me an extraordinary amount of time but the holidays do bring distractions. Then I plan to put the rest of the mysteries up as e-books, one every month so I’ll have something to crow about in publicity. And I will publish my historical novel about the Gilded Age in Chicago in the spring. It’s a heavy work load, but I can do it. Watch for news about The Gilded Cage—it’s a departure for me and a book I’m really excited about.

This year will also bring major changes in housing—the merging of the Burtons household with mine. So Jordan and I will spend many afternoons downsizing my belongings, and then I’ll live through construction.

Busy hands make happy hearts, and I expect to be busy and happy in 2016. In fact, I think something wonderful will happen, and I will live in anticipation.

I hope 2016 brings each of you magical good things.

 

Floor plans, giggling boys, and meat loaf

Can you believe? Ten days until Christmas? Today it was a non-Christmas temperature n the high sixties and I had four boys playing football in the backyard—predictably one (that would be my grandson) stepped in dog poop. Fortunately, his mother was here and dealt with the crisis.

Tonight I took two boys and Phil, my sight-impaired friend with a seeing-eye dog, to the Grill for dinner. Phil and I had a nice visit, but the boys ate fries with ketchup, soft drinks, one had carrot cake and the other blackberry cobbler—which got all over his shirt. I told his mother the trick I’d learned from my mom—for fruit stains, pour boiling water through them until they disappear. Believe me, for that shirt, it would take a lot of hot water. I got them home, tried to give them a spelling test, and they were both out of control with the giggles. All that sugar. I had meatloaf, brought half of it home (great restraint on my part because I could have eaten it but kept thinking about a meatloaf sandwich for lunch tomorrow).

Now Jacob is in the shower, where he’ll stay all night if I don’t roust him out, and Hayes and his stained shirt have gone home.

Highlight of the day is that we got two versions of the architect’s drawings for the remodel of the garage apartment. I like features of each and think we can combine them. Lewis, the contractor, will come in the morning, and we can talk about them. I am alternately excited about the plans and appalled at all the work involved in downsizing. We are doing it in stages. I have a good friend who just did it in one fell swoop--not sure which is easier.

But I do know that 2016 will bring a lot of changes to my life. I also feel it will be a much better year than 2015. The past year has been marred by my mobility problems, leg and hip pain, and such. I’m pleased to say after two weeks in physical therapy I am remarkably better and more self-confident about my walking. Watch out, world! Here I come!