Pearls begin as grit that settles in the womb of an oyster. There its cradled and loved to maturity – sound familiar?

This precious opulent globe is eventually matched and strung together. Joined as one, they compliment all they grace – the wearer’s skin, the silk of the dress.

I was given Grandma’s pearl necklace, her earrings followed shortly after. Hers are unique – buttery cream more than creamy white. It was a “on the sly” kind of thing because my Uncle was going to be divorcing his wife and my mother’s mother wanted the pearls that he brought home from Okinawa to stay in the family – on the female side. I’m the oldest granddaughter, so they came to me. They are the only genuine jewelry I possess except my wedding rings, which belonged to my husband’s mother, who died before I ever met her.

I am honored to be the temporary guardian of these family treasures.

I wore them my wedding day. My sister-in-law wore them on her wedding day and now that my youngest sister had a girl, I can rest easy knowing I’ll be giving them to my adorably cute and smart niece, Miss Q. (Those wishing to guess what the “Q” stands for, you can leave a comment. Let’s see who gets it right.)

But we also possess other pearls. They don’t rest against the décolletage, or make a dress stand out. These are unstrung; a single pearl dropped into the virtual hand of the people we touch each day. A smile. A thought. A word.

These have the same qualities as the pearl that adorns – they shimmer and warm your skin, if not your heart.

Yeah, it may be Pollyanna of me, but this is what makes the world rotate, make the day bearable. So I’m charging all of you readers out there to pass out some pearls: adorn the world with shimmering and glowing words of encouragement or smiles. Warm those around with a touch and laughter.

Share the wealth.

via Daily Prompt: Simple

Can the millennial generation appreciate simplicity? Would they know the simple life if it smacked them in the face?

I’m thinking not so much. I submit: their inability to unplug.

The past summer, my son and his friend (we consider him our second son) were in Mongolia. The second son was there in the Peace Corps and my son was visiting. Internet was very sporadic and I think it was the first time my son was forced to go off grid and resort to reading a paperback in years. Oh, I’m sure he had his phone or tablet on hand as a security blanket, but in reality, I wonder how comfortable he felt for those three weeks without technology at hand.

Now I have to hold the mirror up to my face and admit I’d find it just as difficult to be without my smartphone. laptop and tablet – the holy trinity of technology. My life isn’t necessarily simpler, but I love it.

However, I can set my phone down and not lose sleep over a missed call. I crave for the day when I might have the house to myself for a weekend and could read from sun up till sundown.

That’s the simple life I would like.

It’s funny how your job description can fit you like a skin.

When I started this position a little more than two years ago, washing dishes every morning was part of my duties. And I was okay with that – still am. My previous job – not so much.

My previous job had a bunch of younger people who couldn’t clean up after themselves, wouldn’t offer to take out the garbage, but instead expected me to take out both full 55 gallon bags. I could go on, but my wineglass is empty and I’d have to open another bottle – and at this late hour, it’s probably not a good idea. One day, we can discuss past lives as doormats.

In this office, I’m not the youngest, but I’m not the oldest like I was in the other. Everyone here picks up after themselves. How refreshing!

From my first day on this job, these simple classic IKEA mugs (above) and I have had a love/hate relationship. As my predecessor was taking through the daily routine that day, I broke not one, but two of those mugs! I haven’t broken a glass or mug or even a plate at home in years! They say it was first day jitters. I say it was a kismet – something was yet to be revealed.

We keep half a dozen cups out by the single cup coffeemaker for the office’s convenience. A not so secret secret is the extra stash of mugs in the cabinet above the sink. And that’s where I fell in…cosmic connection with an inanimate object.

I can’t say that I loved the blemished mug when I saw it, but I connected with it. And it became my mine. Unofficially, of course. It had a black spot on its outside surface – in “Gunsmoke”, it would be Kitty’s beauty spot, a character all unto itself.

But it’s no beauty spot. Yet it drew me in.

I’m not obsessed enough to type my name on a Brother P-touch just to label my white mug with the black splotch. That mug stays in the cabinet, only to be removed when I want coffee. It sits at my desk with me. It never gets placed by the coffeemaker. It’s coveted.

We are kindred spirits, this mug and I. We work just fine with our imperfections and most don’t think anything of our black spots (mine you can’t see). But I know they are there.

I woke at 3:27 a.m. with an idea.

Really? Now?

Can’t it wait until after a more reasonable hour like 6 a.m. instead? And when I’ve had a cup of coffee? Or better yet, two?

So it’s a wonder I can sleep these days. I came very close to quoting that song – you know, Paul Simon singing about ‘life’s education hadn’t hurt him none’. But seriously, when do I get to sleep if my mind keeps running like someone wedged a pipe onto the gas pedal to the floorboard with a full tank of gas?

Between my normal duties at work, there is The Biography Project, a spring fundraiser I am on the planning committee that needs to get the sponsorship cards done yesterday, and this novel that’s screaming to be finished (okay, shouting, not screaming).

We have a writers conference coming up in March that I really looking forward. My two critiques groups and their meeting dates and this blog… and now this idea. Now I need to discuss this idea with the people it involves and see if it can take flight.

If you read my last post, you learned I am a recovering hockey mom. Alright, that’s not quite how I revealed it to you. This isn’t A.A., but close. The clack of hockey sticks being collected and the smell of the ice never really leaves you. And if you still have it running in you blood, then you know as certain as you are taking your next breath, that the same is absolute for your son or daughter.

Maybe a soccer or football mom can tell if the same is true for them?

So, I dug out my Confessions of a Hockey Mom, and I will begin posting it in small doses. I suggest you read with you favorite beverage in hand (at the appropriate time of the day, of course).

Now, it’s time for a nap before the alarm goes off…..

While researching the year 1927 for another project, I came across celebrities born that year. I was could barely contain myself when I saw a picture on my literary hero, Erma Bombeck.

Now, let’s clarify a couple of things: one, To Kill a Mockingbird is the book that stirred a passion for writing. Two, when I was a teenager, I was a freak when it came to reading books. I read “Valley of the Dolls”, “The Other Side of Midnight” and all sorts of books that I shouldn’t have and…. I read Erma Bombeck.

How could you not with titles like, “The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank” or “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing In the Pits?”

She took motherhood, housewifery (if that’s a word) and even life in general and gave it the unvarnished beauty with humor and grace that only she could. Many a night I would spend laughing my butt off at her escapades at the grocery store, flu epidemics and room mother duties – oh wait that was my mother’s life.

You see what I mean?

Through Erma’s eyes, I saw adulthood without the rose colored glasses, and saw the martini glass in my future instead.

A while back I wrote about my own adventures as a hockey mom. I’ll publish it here soon, I promise. But I mention this here, because I saw my life at that time through Erma’s eyes and I laughed at myself the whole time.

Thanks Erma, I needed that!  I miss you and can only hope you’re sitting on my shoulder with your own martini glass in hand while I write – urging me on…

Some days I don’t know where my story is going. I know where it starts, what happens and how it ends (usually), but getting there can be murky.

While fretting over the ending of one novel, a journalist friend who is a published author told me to sleep on it. Duh, I thought!

That’s how I get into this trouble in the first place! My dreams, or my mind rather. As I lay at night to settle my body and brain, my gray matter wanders into other realms and creates characters and situations and…viola`, a story is born.

So it only makes sense that I take a nap, or go to bed to see a path in the jumbled pile of words on the page and find my way onto the next scene and eventually to the finale.

That did happen a couple weeks ago. I had to write a scene, backstory really, and from that scene I created, came the clarity of the ending. A more dramatic ending than I had planned. The realization of this is still very profound for me because I did not expect that.

I had to write a scene because the ZBWG asked the question, “why does he hate the lake”? Well I didn’t know. I just was a convenient way of keeping a character away from a place. But after they asked that question, I knew I needed an answer. As soon as I was walking to the car an hour later, the back story was coming to me. After a brief nap, I was writing. It crystalized the animosity between two characters and firmed up someone’s family tree.

My brother is a published author of ebooks in the erotica genre and accuses me of wasting my time with critique groups. He reminds me that if I want to be published, I should see him. But I’m a traditionalist when it comes to publishing, and that’s how I’d like to try to make it.

But more importantly, groups like WIP and ZBWG keep my grounded and make me answer (and ask) the questions that propel the story.

ZBWG. These are not just some of the lesser-used keys on the keyboard or Scrabble tiles with high values, (yes I’m well aware that X, Q and V are missing from the mix), but these letters have meaning. It stands for Zion Benton Writers Guild.

Now, I’m not a newbie to writers groups, and to be truthful my first writers group are my sisters in heart and spirit. Since we are all women, that works out well for us. We are there for each other in the good times and bad.

Trying to make sure the good outweigh the bad, we have a weekend together at least once a year. Usually we to kick a husband or boyfriend out and crash on sofas, but we don’t mind! Wearing our writing t-shirts, which bear our logo: W.I.P. (Writers In Progress) – We Write with Wine, we find our comfy spots and begin to write. And drink wine.

When we can’t convince the male in the house to vamoose, we select a Wisconsin hamlet with a winery nearby (field trips are very important). We book hotel rooms with connecting doors, and pull out the brain food needed to write (sure, there are some veggies, but there’s also dip). It is one small pajama party. There used to be four, but there are only three of us now.

Ever in pursuit of learning the craft, I seek out workshops at local libraries, colleges and universities. It was a recent workshop that introduced me to a new writing family.

Writers Guild (as it appears in my phone’s calendar) has more members and in essence more characters, which is perfect for writers. There is also a broader variety of voices and genres. Again, it couldn’t be more idyllic for a writer.

I was sitting down in front of the laptop working with a manuscript and was thinking about how one of the other members in this group might tackle the scene. I also find myself critiquing my own work more removed than I did more than a year ago.

There’s a mother, father, wacky aunt, a couple of big sisters, and a long lost brother. They all come to the table, ready to share. To listen. To be heard. To learn.  We read things we normally wouldn’t, we feel things we didn’t expect and we grow.

So to me, ZBWG means another family bound by the love of words how we can create with them. To my WIP and ZBWG writers: you are creative families and I am thankful to have your input and support. I love that you’re just as vested in my characters as I am in yours. Our writing futures will only grow stronger together!

via Daily Prompt: Privacy

Privacy.

How much should we have? How much are we entitled to? How much is left after hackers stealthily violate us?

I wonder if when Visa had their “Priceless” campaign in full swing, they forgot to include our Privacy on the list. And yes, I purposely gave it a capital P here. Let’s give it the respect it deserves, even in the middle of a sentence. After all, its the reason we are deep in discussion.

In this medium, we can discuss and retain our Privacy. That’s a win-win. Yes, you know who I am, but we haven’t met and I didn’t have to leave the comfort of my home to say what I have to say.

But in these days of security concerns both off and online, Privacy, finding and maintaining it, is a fine and delicate balance that sits on ever shifting sands.