In this era of lightning fast doom and gloom news and social media tirades, the beautiful side of humanity is often drowned out and shoved to the back. We forget to pause and remember the little things, the tiny gestures that restore our faith in humanity. Kindness matters. If I ever ran for president, this would be my platform. “Teacher, I have the wrong coins.” Let’s rewind this a bit…okay, a lot. Let’s go all the way back to grade school. I was 5 or 6 years old, and my family was extremely poor. I remember the powdered milk that came in boxes and getting hand-me-downs from some of the other children in Sunday school. We even qualified for discounted school lunches at 40 cents. Young me knew what three coins I had to bring: a big one, a small one, and a tiny one (a quarter, nickel, and dime). One morning, I only had the tiny and small one. I put them in my pocket and worried all morning about not having the big one. The teacher had us line up for lunch, aft...
I am happy to say that I’ve completed Sisters! *Sheds a tear* This story has been near and dear to my heart ever since I started writing it. And now comes the hard part… Revision. Let’s just say that I have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to editing pages and pages of writing. I’m pacing myself and doing it in increments, but the draw back to doing it in increments is time. If I let more than a week go by without cracking it open for an edit, I forget what’s going on (life has a funny way of shoving itself past your hobbies). Here’s to chugging through the first round of revisions! And because I can’t do a blog post without mentioning the Man in the High Castle…clever transition of topic because yeah! I’ve migrated everything downstairs to my Project Grasshopper shelf. ♥ I’ve hung the alternate reality NYC painting I did (finally!) above it and started a sister painting for the Pacific States! There are a few things I want to tweak and add to the shelf...
A military story Back when I was in Okinawa, I had gotten my line number for Staff Sergeant, and off to Airmen Leadership School (ALS) I went. ALS = the special leadership training you have to go through before you become an NCO. One day we had a special guest instructor. Our desks consisted of three long tables set in a U shape so that the instructor could walk around and interact with us as he taught. If there was one thing to be said about ALS, it was that they were fair with breaks so that we could use the facilities or grab a bite from the vending machines. They did not care if you ate a snack during class so long as you weren’t disruptive. My story begins when we came back from a break. I had grabbed myself a small bag of M&Ms because I needed something to hold me over until lunch. I sat in my spot as everyone filed back into the room. The instructor proceeded to go over a serious topic (unfortunately, I’ve forgotten the actual topic, but let’s pretend he was talk...