Mysterious Monday: Cancelled Due To Award

REALITY Award:

So, last week, friend/former classmate/fellow blogger Mae Claire nominated me for this award. I was very, very flattered to say the least. Mae and I took a class on Indie publishing together, and she was my inspiration to start blogging. To say that Mae has taken to blogging and social media advertising of her work would be an extreme understatement. While I struggle to put up three blogs a week (but I think I’ve finally settled on the format), Mae blogs almost daily; she is the one who gave me the idea for Mysterious Monday with her Mythical Monday blogs. If you’re interested in paranormal romance with a twist of history, visit Mae’s blog to learn about her recently published book Weathering Rock.

Mae, I am flattered to be recognized. Thank you! Here are the rules: Visit the blog of the person who nominated you, thank them, and acknowledge them on your blog *waving to Sheri*

Answer the questions listed below and nominate up to 20 bloggers whom you feel deserve recognition. Visit their blog and let them know.

Cut and paste the award to your wall.

Now for the questions:

If you could change one thing, what would you change?

Last week, my answer would have been very different, but that was before my mother went into the hospital again, and was released a mere two or three days later. Again. She has been passing out and they don’t know why. She has Alzheimer’s. Every day is a struggle for her and particularly for my dad, who is her sole caretaker. They live 1200 miles away, so I can’t be there; I am also an only child. Every day, my dad goes to work driving a school bus and comes home to cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, and taking care of my mother and her cat. He is 76 years old. He should be enjoying life. She is only 74 years old. She should be enjoying life. Instead, their golden years have become rusty metal years as this disease eats at them, heart, soul, mind, body, and spirit. Everyone wants to help, but no one really can. The doctor insists that she’s not advanced enough for a home, but how does the doctor know? We still know so little about this disease and the doctor doesn’t see the Hell my father lives through on a daily basis. By sending my mother home, they gave him a reprieve, lifting him out of the fires just a bit, only to dump him back in. So if I could change anything, I would find a cure for this horrible disease that ravages the mind and leaves the body whole.

If you could repeat an age, what would it be?

Twenty-six. I was still footloose and fancy free, single with no kids. I was finished with college and the world stretched before me, still full of wonder. Old enough to no longer be a child, young enough to not yet be jaded. At that age, I had my own apartment, my Oscar-kitty, a job or two or three, and control over every aspect of my life. These days, I am at the whim of others nearly constantly—my children, my husband, my in-laws, my parents, my clients. I would love to have that control back in my life.

What is the one thing that really scares you?

Again, this is an answer that would have been far different last week—it would have been heights or bees/wasps/spiders/cockroaches/snakes. Today, it’s winding up like my mother. I am terrified of that loss of control that she has, her inability to remember the smallest things (like, did I eat lunch today?), and the violent, nasty person this disease turns them into. Mom has swung a chair at my dad and wished this horrible disease on my (then ten year-old) son, all without remembering it later and all of it “justified” in her eyes at the time.

There is only one thing that terrifies me more—the death or severe injury of one of my children, particularly since they both want to be in the military, thus increasing their chances of this happening to them. I would take death or injury on myself, but to see that happen to one of my children—if I thought of it every day, I wouldn’t be able to breath for terror.

If you could be someone else for the day, who would it be?

This is a hard one—do I want to answer as Mae did with a job title or do I want to choose an individual? I think I’ll stay with the job title, since you never truly know what someone’s life is like until you do step into their shoes for a day, and then it’s not always hunky-dorey. So, what sort of thing would I like to be for a day? The problem is, as a writer, I have an active imagination and unfulfilled dreams. 

Would I like to be a full-time writer? Well, of course! Would I like to be a horse trainer? If you saw my blog on horses, you already know the answer to that. Would I like to thrill to the adrenaline rush of being a rally car racer? Oh, you betcha. How about an astronaut, viewing our world from a vantage point that only a handful of people have ever seen? Gods, yes. What about a stormchaser, like Mae put for this answer? That could be cool, too; I’ve always loved the excitement of a good storm. But I think in the end, I would probably choose to be an artist or maybe a photographer. I’ve always loved the idea of putting a pencil to paper and creating a picture of whatever it is I see, either with my mind’s eye or with my physical eye. I would love to be an artist with licensing, like the heroine in Christy Oleson’s Her Scottish CEO wants to be, and for many of the same reasons.

I have a very small list of writers that I know, particularly those who blog regularly. Here are some of them who I hope will participate:

Jen Fitzgerald

Jane Wakely

Sahara Roberts

Natalie-Nicole Bates