I got to talk to Gorta, the puppy, at my volunteer this morning. She has grown in the two weeks since I saw her (I guess she was so chubby before … now it is evident that she is actually a she). I slipped her human mom a Ziplock bag of dog food, for which she was very grateful. The pup wagged her tail as she wandered from person to person, examining toes and shoes. She drank all the water from a large pit bull\’s bowl; I refilled it. I stroked her soft back and she spun around with joy,…
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My suckerfish, (allegedly) properly known as a plecostomus, was not impressed that I was cleaning the tank this morning. If a person wanted to be picky, that person could suggest that the suckerfish had not quite been doing his job because if he had, there would be no need for said person to scrape the sides of the tank.I dared not scrape too close to where he had sucked on but it mattered not. He stayed right there, stuck to the lower north side. Over the past month or so, he has developed a taste for fish flakes; he stays…
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It was 4 am and I was debating the virtues of putting the kettle on or brewing coffee instead.Coffee won, after multiple other activities: hair washing, laundry, starting up the essential oil diffusers, watering the plants, topping off the fish tank, arguing with the cat, and using the shop vac to tidy the garage.All before 5:30 am.And now the lawn is watering, I am prepared to grade a few last papers to close out one of my classes before day\’s end, and I have coffee. If you were to happen by my home at this very moment, you would find…
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First, the good part.My church worship team is very good. They have a six-song CD and I have it in slot one in my vehicle. I played it on the way to my appointment this afternoon and by I think it was the second or third song, I was in tears.I was afraid. I was stressed. But the songs on the disk, which are often sung during service, were uplifting and helped point my mind in the right direction — to the place from which my help comes.Now, the not so good part.I finally pulled up my big girl britches…
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Warning: if you are prone to getting your britches in a bind when you read stuff that challenges your personal sensibilities, this may not be the post for you.In other news, hey, Monday: how you doin?On my morning walk today, I had an epiphany. It\’s been a while, but this was certainly a great one: what if the Creator of the universe is the real Dr. Seuss?Now, don\’t be nutty. I don\’t mean that the dude who wrote all the kids books is God or anything, but that maybe he had a more spiritual eye that came from the Creator.Now…
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There are times when we are blessed to meet greatness.What had happened was … (yes, there’s a story here. Hang with me and then I’ll get into the book review)… I was honored to serve as part of the book review team for Urban Fantasy Magazine for a while and during that period had an opportunity to work with Stephanie Burgis. As the magazine leadership made changes to the format, the review process changed and I moved on. At the time, Stephanie was pulling back as she indicated she was working on a couple of manuscripts; I think she was finishing…
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No, not that Amazon — the one that sells everything.Yeah, that one.So a couple years ago, my book After was published. Fast forward to now and the publishing agreement is done, which means I was set free to publish it as I saw fit. However, since I have advertisements out there (shelf cards and all), I didn\’t want to wait. So I put it back out there myself. Take a visit to my \’The Quill Has Landed\’ page and click on the cover.Then I remembered: yeah, the shelf cards … that had a QR code and link.That needed to be…
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The one and only Charlene Perry!What did she win? Her very own copy of Life in the Floating City!Why? For this: She awoke to find herself perched in a precarious position near the top of a tree. She steadied herself and had a look around at her surroundings. It looked like she ended up in a jungle this time. It was an improvement over the frigid cold snow covered planet she’d found herself in last time. The polar bear that she’d seen there had been fascinating though she was still puzzled over why someone would have built an igloo on…
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In my opinion, I happen to attend a pretty fantastic church. It was founded on the premise that the purpose of Christendom is to love one another and help one another; the mission of the organization is to bring Christ\’s love to the inner cities of the world. There are two locations now — the original location is called the Mission and there is a feeding program for the community, a men\’s and women\’s home (with plans for a family home) to shelter those who need it and who need to get back on their feet, and a strong prison…
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I got up this morning with the expectation of having an 8am video conference call, but after checking my email at 5:30, I discovered that my student needed to reschedule. It was chilly and raining outside so I threw on this giant blue robe and wandered out to my workspace. I\’ll just check my other tasks and a coupla emails, I thought.Soon enough it was after 8. The monsters needed feeding and I\’d dug into some actual work. Just after the feeding frenzy, the phone rang. I was on nearly an hour call.There are various pros and cons to being a…