Survived Halloween

I am pretty proud of myself. I made through Halloween night without even tasting one candy bar from our candy basket. We even had kinds I like. Usually I buy candy that isn't my favorite so it won't call me all day. This year, though, since I was under the weather after a medical procedure my husband got the candy. And of course, he bought chocolate.

I was hoping we'd give it all away, but the crowd was light this year. We never get a large crowd of trick or treaters because we live in a mostly older neighborhood. This year, though, it was lighter than usual. Which was odd since it on a Saturday night and beatiful wether for it. We had a few little ones coming to door, but mostly they were older kids. (I think when we are taller than person opening to door then you stop trick or treating, but that's just me. Since I'm short, in my case that might rule out everyone, so I better rethink that.)

I didn't think much about the lack of visitors Halloween night until my husband mentioned that people all over town said that they saw the same trend. It made me wonder if all coverage of missing kids lately made parents think twice about taking their kids door to door. Not that I blame them. I have to admit that this year I felt a little uneasy opening the door to people I didn't know.

How did you feel about Halloween this year? Did you see less trick or treaters? If you had little kids, did you think twice about taking the door to door?

I added my picture of Halloween parade when I was a kid. I'm the cat and my mom made all our costumes. This was actually taken at school. We use to come back after lunch in our costumes.

So what do you remember from Halloween past? Do do things differently now than you did as a kid? How do you feel about that?

New Contract!

Good news! Donna and I got a contract for Courting Scandal. This will be the second book in our Bliss Society series. Now, you will all get to find out what happened after Isabel runs in to the Ice Earl and dumps punch all him. Wink. Wink. I promise it will be worth the wait.

I'll let you know when we get a release date. I'll get a cover and excerpts up on my website as soon as I have them.

Have a great week!

Longview Literary Book Festival

I'm going to be a part of the Longview Literary book festival. There will be authors from all genres there. The event runs October 2 -3 at the Longview Community College at 500 S.W. Longview Road in Lee's Summit, Missouri from 10-6 each day.

Here's the press release with all the details:

More than 25 Authors, Groups at MCC-Longview Literary Festival (Longview)

Nearly 20 authors and seven literary groups are scheduled to attend the second annual MCC-Longview Literary Festival October 2 and 3. The Festival, which brings published and well-known authors to the community, will be held 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the Mel Aytes Education Center at MCC-Longview, 500 S.W. Longview Rd.

"This is a rare opportunity to personally talk to writers. We have so many great, renowned and published authors right here in our area," said Susan Satterfield, Festival chair and MCC-Longview humanities instructor.

Featured speaker and children's author Richard W. Jennings will speak at 3 p.m. Friday. Jennings co-founded popular book store, Rainy Day Books, and has written novels, short stories, essays, articles, and children's activity books.

The more than 25 guest authors, publishers, and groups also include comedian Bradley Meehan, columnist and Kansas City Star editorial board member Lewis Diuguid, award-winning journalist Charles Gusewelle, and KCTV5's chief meteorologist Katie Horner.

Guests can enjoy panel discussions, readings, presentations, open mic sessions, and an opportunity to meet authors and purchase books. Events and authors cross numerous genres including short story, comedy, fiction, non-fiction, children's literature, romance and news/editorial.

Discussions on topics including "How Not to Get Published," "What Writers Read," "Scriptwriting," and "The Poetic Life" are available especially for aspiring authors.

"This Festival is a celebration of the imagination. Books help us learn about ourselves and those around us. We're celebrating different authors and genres of literature," said Satterfield.

For more information on the 2009 MCC-Longview Literary Festival, please contact Susan Satterfield at Susan.Satterfield@mcckc.edu or call 816-456-3156.

Visit www.mcckc.edu for more about what this school has to offer.

Hope to see you there!

Need a day to recover from my days off

I went to Virginia this weekend with my husband to visit our son at college for the first time. I sure love that part of the country. It's great to see your kid happy and enjoying college life. The time, as always, went by way too fast.

Now, I need to day off to get back in the swing of things. I swear it takes a day to get caught up from being gone.

This weekend I'm headed up to Lee's Summit, MO for the Longview Literary Book Festival. There will be authors from all genres there. They have a large book fair. The festival runs Oct. 2 and 3rd at Longview Community College. I'll post a list of events and list of authors as soon I get one.

Defining Dressed UP

I was reading an article the other day by a young guy who was wondering if men wearing ties was becoming a thing of the past. Hummm... It made me think about how we look at being dressed up.

As a young girl, getting dressed up meant wearing a dress with hose and dress shoes. (I always loved the ones you could pretend you were tap dancing in.) There some places that was the mode of dress you were expected to wear period. No arguing.

I can remember my mom having fit when I wore -- gasp-- pants to church. LOL.

Those days are gone.

Over the years of going to my son's music concerts and other school programs I always found it interesting to see what kids considered as being "dressed up". I could almost pick out the kids whose parents probably had a say in the outfit they wore. Nothing seemed off limits.

So I circle back to guy with ties -- Will they go the way other fashion statements?

Have you ever been invited somewhere and wondered what to wear and then got there to find everyone dressed every which way? Do we dress up any more?

Maybe that depends more on your age than anything else. We went on a cruise and we bring didn't dress up clothes, so we didn't eat in the dinning room on formal nights. I noticed that others our age and younger also tended to do the same thing. With a few exceptions. The ones that got really dressed up for dinner where the older couples who where closer to my parent's age.

So has our society gotten so laid back that we've given up "dressing up"? What do you think?

Or maybe it's more parts of the country rather age?

Let's hear your thoughts...

Where did the week go?

I was thinking up a trivia question for this week when I realized that never answered last week's. Sigh. Where did the time go? Between Labor weekend adding an extra day off and my computer going down on me, I've struggling to get back on track. I think I'm slowly getting there though. You never realize how you use your computer until it isn't working. Or for that matter how much of you life is on. Scary, huh?

Anyway... The name of the ship Gordan Lightfoot wrote his sad ballad about was the Edmund Fitzgerald. The iron ore ship was lost at sea on Nov. 10, 1975 and with 29 brave sailors.

I first heard this song in my middle school music class. We were talking about how a song could a story and my teacher played it for an example. My throat tightened and I felt that sad feeling I still feel today when I heard that song.

I understand that many expedition were made to find what caused the ship to go down. Here is a link for more about Edmund Fitzgerald http://www.ssefo.com/info/expeditions.html and one for more about Gordon Lightfoot's song http://gordonlightfoot.com/WreckOfTheEdmundFitzgerald.shtml

Have a great weekend!

Do you remember this song?

I can't believe it's Labor Weekend already. It will be the first long weekend since I sent John off to college. It will be a little quiet at our house. My husband and I might -- gasp-- actually have to talk to each. LOL. Just kidding.

It does seem, though, when you have teenagers that you end up doing their activities. They add their own brand of busy to your lives that takes adjusting to when they are gone.

Sigh. To get your brains, along with mine, ticking here is a trivia question. Feel free to just shout out the answer in a comment.

Here goes -- This ship's last mysterious voyage was remembered in a song by Gordon Lightfoot. What was the name of the ship Gordon sung about?

Go ahead -- shout out your answers in a comment. Do you remember where you where when you first heard this song?