Oh, Happy Day!

Friday, August 4, 2023 will stand out as the day I made a "snall step" (for me) and a "giant leap" (for publishing). A load has been lifted from my shoulders. My computer tech guy admitted he could not move the chapters of my book around, but suggested a publihing compawny here in Tucson which is dedicated to helping Writers above and beyond what other printers try to do. The company is called Wheatmark Publishing and they have been in operation for 20 years. They had a survey for the Writer to answer what the book was all about and what you wanted to accomplish with it.The day after I emailed the survey, I received a phone call from one of the Consultants making an appointment for Friday. He arrived at 11 a.m. and didn't leave until 5 p.m. And we talked about printing the entire time! He discovered that my Microsoft Word had expired way back in 2015 and all my writing went into different lists instead of Word, so they were "trapped". He helped me order a new Word, and set evverything up. I had put all my indes cards in sections with heading of where each chapter should go, took my box of index cards home with him and is going to move each chapter under the SUBJECT it belongs to and then I get to revise them -- again. Mark (the consultant) says I have way too many pages and have to do major surgery. But I have already re-written the Back cver and will re-draw the front cover in cartoon style, Mark is going to bring me the re-organized list of chapters next Wednesday. and will help me all along the process. In June I had to have a Pacemaker implanted, but it's healing nicely and the numbers are now in the correct range. I'm still weak but am enthusiastic again and "rarin' to go". TTYS, Love, Janice

Did you think I had forgotten you?

No, I haven't. It's just that I'm a victim of the pandemic, the same as all of you. While I did not catch the Covid during its many reincarnations, some people did here at Valley Manor and we had to quarantine for quite a while, and since we couldn't gather, there wasn't much to report on. I have to confess that the political situation has me deeply depressed; I feel as if I don't know my own country any more and the hatred and violence leaves me saddened and bewildered. The queen's death has put more pressure on me to get the book finished asap; she was only 6 months older than I and was actively working only two days before she died. You never know; You never know. But I have made and am making progress lately with the help of my computer wizards. My computer was completly Offline for five days this past week and I could not get into the Inbox, Send mail, revise any chapters or communicate. Today my computer tech unplugged something, plugged something else, and poked a lot of buttons and suddenly everything was working again. I had earlier gathered all my chapters and anecdotes on Index Cards and assembled them in the order they happened or were remembered.Today, the Tech printed out 330 pages so I can now revise them and shuffle them around so they read well. Months of work ahead of me, but I am hopeful that I may some time see a printed book on my coffee table. I tell everyone who will listen that all these people writing How To books on Writing should emphasize the necessity of putting everything in ONE file instead of lots of different documents. Heavens, the WRITING is the FUN part and a piece of cake. It's the publishing that makes it fragile and frustrating. I've received permission from David Fitzsimmons, the famous columnist and cartoonist to use the cartoon he drew of me when he visited Valley Manor last year. and I've a rough draft of the cover showing me squushed inbetween my husband in the window seat and a grossly fat man in the aisle seat to explain the title of "Life as observed from the Middle Seat." So, I'm alive and well, and eager to make some progress heading to the Printers. I've decided to self-publish so I can keep control over the "voice" of each chapter. Talk to you soon, Janice

Successful craft show

Yesterday was the craft show for Valley Manor and in spite of some last-minute glitches (it wouldn't be Tucson without last-minute mind-changes!) it was a great success, much to my relief. During the previous two weeks I had been on the phone arranging for guest artisans here at Valley Manor to come and show their art, since I didn't wnt to hog the spotlight, and I felt we'd get a better turnout if the residents knew there would be more than just jewelry. My two former students, Linda and Connie came with their jewelry which is unusual, creative contemporary works in copper, including the difficult fold-forming. It was SO NICE to see them both again after such a long pandemic hiatus. We had people who made trivets, hand-painted greeting cards knitted lacy shawls, and I added hand-painted gift boxes on my table from water-color painting the Kelowna Waldorf School students had painted. I sold at least ten of my gossamer necklaces, seen so often on TV now. The turnout was great and the residents kept saying how much FUN it was, so that pleased me. All the guests sold enough to be happy with the results. It was a lot of work, though, and I couldn't have managed without the help of Mike, my new-found friend who has retired and is going to become a profesional jeweler. He helped lug tables around, helped people set up, made the Clubhouse look lovely, helped me put out all my jewelry and hung around jollying the customers till he folded up all the tables and we left the Clubhouse pristinely. What a help he was! It was so packed at 2 p.m. that I didn't have time to write out receipts and just threw the cash and checks in the shoebox. :-) But it was only for two hours, so not THAT MUCH cash and checks! With my arthritis acting up all last week, and guzzling Arthritis Tylenols and rubbing my right legt with Icy-Hot I got through it, but Boy, was I pooped! A HAPPY pooped, but if they had an escalator running between my aptartment and the dining-room I'd have been on it for Supper. Now, back to the book --- Love, Janice

Craft Show scheduled

The Engage Life director, Sally, assigned a day for me to have a craft show in the Clubhouse: Friday, October 1, 2021. From 1:30 p.m. to 3:30. My first thought was, "Oh, October; next month!" Then I realized that the First was only two weeks away, and that I was in charge of organizing it. I had decided that since there are so many men living in Valley Manor and they weren't keen on buying jewelry, I should try to offer several different crafts, in order to draw more people into the Clubhouse. So for the last few days I've been scrambling to talk other "crafters" to come and display and sell their specialties. It's been met with great enthusiasm and I now have two greeting card makers, a lady who makes suncatchers as well as earrings, a resident who makes colorful, woven hot pads or trivets, a new resident who has made a lot of lace shawls, and two of my students who make very differenc geometric copper jewelry, as well as two tables featuring my own one-of-a-kind jewelry. Since I haven't been able to hold a craft show for two years because of Covid restrictions, my inventory has grown enormously. I've reduced the prices considerably. It's been a job recruiting the other crafters, but I feel that the variety will intrigue more residents to come out for it. Since Sally had the bad accident on her vacation, her leg is in a cast and she gets around by wheelchair, so I will have to organize the various tables and the set-up in the Clubhouse. My arthritis has been acting up, so I'm hoping that by sitting down occasionally I'll be able to still stand up to describe the fossils, opals and pearls I'll be selling. I'll have books and magazines on my table describing the unique stones. I'm hoping it will be a Fun Day for everyone. Love, Janice

Recovering takes a lot out of you.

After I came home from the hospital after a dreadful 5 days, Marta started working wonders, while I stumbled from one director to another, trying to get a nurse to come see me and OK the medications the hospital had recommended. With many wrong directions and wrong connections, we finally found an outside Patient Care Place for a nurse to come the following week. All she did was take my vitals, and "register" me (EVERYTHING down here is pointedly done to avoid lassuits!!!!!) After more delays I finally got a nurse to come, and OK therapists. A PT came with leg exercises, and an OT came with arm exercises. I started doing all of them once a day along with walking outside with my walker. Felt weaker and weaker and only wanted to lie in bed trying to sleep. Now the last few days, arthritis is kicking in on my hands, feet, knees and hips. Have increased the exercises, and walking, realizing that I am not going to get an significant help from the professionals. If I'm going to get better, it will be my own doing.... I'm taking arthritis Tylenols which help with the pain, and increasing the exercises to twice an day, also the walking. Mike came by on Monday and bought $130 worth of equipment and jewelry; he put together the new shower chair I had ordered from Amazon. I'm hoping I can start making some jewelry; I have to start enjoying things again. I had to cancel my Sept. 3rd Craft Show where I was going to sell my jewelry because I was too weak to stand for several hours. Maybe October.... Hopefully, better news next month. Love Janice

Just when you think it can't get any worse....

It does. Last week I whined about the flooding of my apartment, and developing a hard cough, constant enough to keep me from getting any sleep. So, what else could possibly get worse than all that? Well, folks, that was just the half of it. On Wed., the 4th, the cough was bad enough to acknowledge that I needed to have a doctor see me. My Primary Care doctor was on vacation. Her PA was not available, so I ended up with a nice MA who didn't know me from Adam. To the Blood Lab and chest x-ray. Friday the results were back and on Sat. a.m. Marta called at nine to say she'd be there in an hour to take me to the hospital. I had pneumonia, the cough needed intravenus antibotics, the MA found a nodule on the kidney, more ultrasounds; every time I turned around, they found another problem. Then began a full day of pain, frustration and anxiety, trying to find a bed in a hospital overwhelmed with Covid patients. One became available in the Maternity end of the Women's ward. but my computer has just frozen three times while writing this so I will mercifully let you go. I had a very nice private room, I as there 5 days. The intravenus didn't go in the vein but in a muscle and I had the most agonizing pain I've ever had in my entire life. They had to have a special ultra sounding of the veins to insert the needle and tube. Ya no mas. Five horrible days, but I'm not going to talk about it. I spent all day yesterday sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for them to get my Release approved. Steve brought me home at 4:30. So, I had five days of ample proof that the American system is totally geared to preventing lawsuits, the people don't know their equipment, and the unholiest of words you can ever hear are, "I'll be right back." Three hours later you're still waiting. Bernie, you've got a big job but you have to convince government to adopt the Canadian system. ASAP. Trying to build up my strength. Will let you know. Love, Janice

You're beginning to trust me a little too much, God

I have a quotation magneted to my fridge, something that Mother Theresa once said, "I know God won't send me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much." The past couple of months have seemed like that, which is why this morning I suddenly realized I had not written on my blog for a long time. Nothing good or spectacular to report, don't make an entry, right? Well, you're supposed to write once a week, whether you have any interesting things or not, just to keep people reading your blog. So here goes all the exciting things that have been happening. In that order. First,my Editor dropped a bomb on me after she read the manuscript, saying, "Janice, you have 659 pages in the Hardback size so it would be over 800 in the Paperback size. You have two books here, so you'd better decide how to divide them up." She might just as well have told me to just start the entire thing all over again. I had just written up all the chapters so I could renumber them in the correct order and now I have to decide to split them up? It threw me for a loop, until I decided that the first book would be all my life with Fritz, all the travels, his past, how we met, everything. Then the second book would take up after he died and I got the courage to open my studio, and work on my own and the success I had, thus encouraging other older women to do the same. But that meant I had to read every chapter, every little anecdote or Bits and Pieces, to see where they fitted in. So I came to a halt, being overwhelmed at the amount of work that would entail. Just when the pandemic was slowing down and activities picking up. I started a knitting class on Saturday mornings, I resumed jewelry classes twice a month on Wednesday afternoons. I became an Ambassador and attended Engage Life meetings. I attended Town Hall meetings, I went to Culinary meetings, I gave private classes, I began inviting people over for lunch (that didn't last long!) Add to that all the eye doctor meetings and the worry about why my eyes were so blurry while watching TV. Several emergency meetings and tests confirmed there was nothing wrong with the retina, the glaucoma and pressure were good and the concensus was that I had a bad case of "dry eyes". Taking drops has helped some, but I have another appointment next Saturday to have my prescriptions checked. Then came God's test of me:On Monday night, July 19th, God decided he had had enough of all the complaints about what a dry monsoon season we were having again this year and decided to send Noah to take charge. Around midnight I started hearing thunder and rattling of my stove hood and got up to look. The stove was dry so I went back to finish my Hallmark movie. When that ended I decided to go to bed, and when I walked into the bathroom, my sandals were sloshing through two inches of water! Which was seeping into the hallway and from there into the bedroom. When I went to look out the front door, yes, of course, I was squishing through soaking carpets. The wind was so ferocious it was blowing the rain through the slot under the door. I decided it would be a good time to call the night security man. He answered he was right next door, because Mary was flooded too, and he'd be right there. Turned out that Mary's entire apartment was inundated, while mine had half of every room soaking wet. Soon the carpet cleaner people arrived with their big water vacuums and even larger fans, and worked sucking up the water until close to 3 a.m. They moved the couch, coffee table and part of the bookcase to the middle of the room to a dry spot. They moved Mary and all of her furniture to an empty apartment and the next day tore up all of her carpets. Mary and I were the ONLY apartments to suffer flooding. I was left with the mess of soaked boxes in closets, clothing on my bed, and a lot of my jewelry supplies were piled in the dining-room, the only room which wasn't flooded. The noisy fans were left running night and day to dry the carpets and I moved them from one place to another for four days. The maintenance and carpet people picked up the fans on the fourth day, declared all the carpets dry, but didn't offer to move any of the furniture back. I moved the couch, and Steve moved the coffee table, and after I complained to Maintenance a few days after that, they were already re-laying new carpet in Mary's apartment and so three of them came to mine and moved a few more things back in place and turned back a couple of carpet corners to show me there was no mold under it. The only concession that I got for all the hard work and trouble was their promise to come in "later" and have the carpets shampooed. I'm still trying to put things away. But God wasn't quite ready to let me get back to normal. Marta and Steve brought my great-grandsons to visit last Saturday and after they left I noticed my voice changing. By midnight I had a full-blown case of laryngitis, something I never had in my entire life. No idea how I got it nor what causes it. My dry cough has turned into a wet cough, so I'm picking up my lunch or dinner at the dining-room patio, wearing a mask again. OKAY, enough complaining. My lethargy and lack of motivation is keeping me from getting things done which adds to my burden of guilt. I ENJOY writing, wish I could get back to it,but the task of re-listing all the chapters and numbering them is overwhelming. Maybe when I get my voice back and can bitch out loud without squeaking, will give me the energy to start up again. I hear I'm not the only one!