Love, Loss, and Letters

Happy September, everyone! I'm so glad we've finally reached this day. Today's the day my younger kids went back to school. Woohoo! We had a great summer, but I'm definitely ready for them to get out of my hair and on schedule again.

I want to touch base on a few topics today to sort of jump start my new writing season.

First, as many of you know, my mother was battling lung cancer this time last year. For 9 months, I drove my mother to doctor appointments, chemo treatments, blood transfusions, radiation treatments, and test after test, after test. Unfortunately after all of this, on May 24th this year, Mom lost her battle with cancer.

Even though all of her treatments took me away from you, my readers, I will never regret spending that time with her in those last months. There were struggles, frustrations, and her demands weighed heavy on me, but some of those days we laughed, had long conversations, and smiled our way along the path we'd been put on. Even now, writing this, it brings tears to my eyes, but I'll never regret a moment of those 9 months.

After Mom's passing and her memorial, I took the summer to just be: Be with my kids, be with my husband, and be by myself. I needed that time to recuperate my sense of ME. The hubby and I took several weekend trips away and then we took the younger girls to St. Augustine, Florida for a week. We all had a great time and it was much needed. My middle daughter got her driver's license & a job. Tim & I both ended up with some new tattoos. Oh, and I found out my youngest will be in braces soon. Eek! Two in braces at once. Boo!

I'm going to round this off with the "Letters" portion of the title. WRITING! I'm jumping back into my writing immediately. I'm going to jump off with the book I was working on before all this began. It's the first book in a new series that I've been looking forward to finishing. After that I have several book ideas waiting in the wings. Of course there will be another Liz Baker book, but I also have two other unrelated books in the planning stages. Depending on how long the next two books take me to complete, we may have several releases to look forward to in the next year. Yay!

As part of the writing side of my life, I'm getting my newsletter revamped and ready to get back into rotation. As an incentive for my beloved subscribers, there will now be a giveaway at the bottom of every newsletter that goes out. Every time one goes out, someone will win an Amazon gift card. The only rule to winning is you have to be a subscriber. Winners will be picked at random & I'll keep track of who wins so everyone gets a chance. The dollar amount of the gift cards will vary from $5 to $25.

If you aren't already signed up, head on over and get busy:  Newsletter Sign Up

More later, but right now hop on over and hit up that newsletter link. A new one will be going out soon.  :)

Good News vs. Bad News

Me & my youngest on her 11th b-day.
Ignore the no make-up. I was doing
school pickup. :)

Happy New Year!

Yeah, I know, I'm a little late on the uptake here. This is the first week in a long time where I can actually sit at my laptop, take a deep breath, and write. My mind clears and the ideas run rampant. My fingers fly across the keyboard and before I know it there's a new chapter in front of me. I love it! Giddiness takes over after a good day of writing.

So let's get to a little Good News vs. Bad News here.  I'll just bullet point it all for you.


BAD NEWS:

• Some piece of trash hacked my bank account last week. They stole $380 from Charlotte, NC. I haven't been to Charlotte in nearly 10 years!! 
• My winter blues have kicked in and I feel extremely dreary all the freaking time (except when I've had a good writing day).
• My mom is still going through chemo. I'm in charge of her calendar & taking her to 98% of her appointments... some of which were sprung on me the day before.
• BOTH of my younger daughters are going into braces! The 15 yr old will get hers the end of February/beginning of March. And my 11 yr old will go into hers this time next year. 8 months of double braces payments. UGH!
• I will not be attending Book 'Em NC this year. With everything going on around here I just don't feel comfortable being that far away from home.
• I turned 39 on the 17th.  ACK!!!  Nooooo!!

GOOD NEWS:

• My bank reversed all the $380 that piece of trash stole from my bank account. Get a job, douchebag!
• Exercise, vitamins, & writing help me with the winter blues. And spring will be here soon!
• My mom's cancer has shown great results from the chemo!! We found out last week that all the small cancer spots are gone & the big stuff has shrunk dramatically. The doctor is hoping the next 4 rounds of chemo will get it all. And then maybe we can say the R-word!!
• Braces... Upside of braces... Hmmm...  Oh, I guess it's good I'll only have double payments for 8 months.  ???  Maybe?
• There's really no good news for not attending Book 'Em.  :(
• I turned 39, but I don't feel 39. Physically, I feel great!

Overall, that's about it right now. I'm anticipating more writing this year since my mom is moving into my rental house right down the hill from my house. I'll be able to keep an eye on her easier and still get my work done.  Hell, I drive by my rental, at the very least, 4 times a day just taking kids to and from school.  I'll be glad to have her close by AND be able to work, again. 

I hope 2016 turns out to be a great year for all of you.

Bad News on the Homefront

Last week my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer that has spread to her liver. It was a devastating blow to all of us. She has been a smoker for 40 years now, so it wasn't a surprise that we would be dealing with this sort of situation at some point in the future, but I certainly wasn't expecting it right now.

She went to her GP last Monday because we thought she'd picked up a bug or had a nasty sinus thing going on. He threw antibiotics at her and scheduled her for a CT scan on Wednesday. By Wednesday she was so sick, weak, and dehydrated I had to take her for the scan. Later that night, after my sister & I discussed it, my sister took her to the hospital. They admitted her right away and started pushing I.V. fluids. Thursday the doctors wanted to see Mom's CT scan results to verify what they thought they had seen on a chest x-ray.

There is a mass in her right lung about the size of a golf ball and a couple of spots on her liver.

Friday morning she had a biopsy of the lung mass and then she went home Friday evening. Even though the doctors said it is cancer, they are waiting on the biopsy results to verify it is cancer. That result should be back today. By the end of this week we *should* know what KIND of cancer it is, and thus, what kind of treatment plan will be initiated.

Tomorrow, Mom is scheduled for a PET scan. This scan will tell us if there are more cancer spots anywhere else on her body. The oncologist seems to have a plan in place for her, and she's feeling pretty optimistic, so hopefully together they can beat this.