I’m Old Enough To Know …

California Sunset / Photo by Nate Sanchez

I don’t love getting older. But one good thing about having passed a certain number of decades is that you become much more confident about certain things. Here are a few things I’m finally old enough to know. …

  • Patience is truly a virtue – and one of the best ones to get you through life. Patience can make you a great parent and a great spouse.
  • Respect is the key to every relationship. Respect your spouse. Respect your kids. Respect your coworkers. Respect the guy who pours your water at the restaurant. If you project your respect with honesty and sincerity, it comes back to you tenfold.
  • The way you talk to your kids when they’re young (yelling or not, swearing or not, with patience or not, with respect or not) is exactly the way they’ll talk to you when they’re about 13. And then forever after.
  • You can’t be everything to everyone.
  • It’s okay to say no.
  • It’s important to learn what your boundaries are and then set them early in every relationship, from friendships to work.
  • Childhood friends are to be cherished. No one will ever know you better than your childhood friends. You were your purist, un-formed self with them.
  • Everyone has obstacles in life. Never assume you’ve had a harder day or a harder life than the person standing next to you.
  • You never regret a family getaway.
  • Getting out of your own neck of the woods – for even just a day or a night – reminds you of how big the world is, and how people live differently than you. Not better or worse, just different. It makes the world open up, and then your mind.

What about you? What’s your favorite thing you’re old enough to know?

More Surreality …

So here’s another exciting thing: I’m an official Goodreads author!

Here’s my official author page. (I almost put “official author” in quotes — I still can’t get used to this!) —

Come friend me over there if you’re a Goodreads person!

And my Goodreads page for “The Red Bikini” is here. (Look at my little book looking all grown up there with the other books! Aw. …)

So very, very weird. … (And cool!)

 

Groundhog Day

I feel a bit like the groundhog who pokes his head up on February 2 and takes a look around at the world.

I turned in Book 2 to my editor on February 1 and, like the groundhog, kind of poked my head out the next day and tried to take in everything that had happened while I was in Deadline Mode.

For one: darling daughter’s Winter Formal dance. For others: the house looked like a hurricane hit. And more: closets in chaos, laundry threatening to overtake the laundry area, doctors appointments needing to be made, opened Christmas gifts still lining the family room wall, etc. I also had to go through my desk and unbury All The Important Papers I’d Ignored. Oh, and I have a book coming out this year, so there was all the marketing for that that had been piling up.

So I got to work! For the last two weeks, I’ve just been dealing with things one at a time.

I have a lot of blog posts piled up, too, so I’ll start posting them this week. I’ve missed my blog! Here we gooooooooo ….

Cover Reveal!

 

I first saw my cover last November, when we were in New York in the fall. My editor sent it via email, and asked “What do you think??” I felt very writerly indeed as I was texting back and forth with my agent and editor throughout the day — as cabs were zooming by and I was throwing a scarf over my shoulder while walking the streets of NYC. … <big grin>. … Surreal moment, to be sure.

Anyway, tell me what you think! It’s not what I was imagining, but now that I’ve looked at it for awhile, I like it.

And how about that adorable tagline that a copywriter wrote? — “Love. Strings attached.” Love, love, love that!

What do you think?????

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