November 23, 2017
9:39 a.m.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

It is highly unusual for me to be blogging before noon on ANY day of the year, but it's Thanksgiving, and I have already been a busy bee this morning.

I did salads last night. Check. The turkey is in the oven. Check. Soon I will put rolls in the oven, and then I will make a green bean casserole. The very last thing I will do today is make gravy. I generally have very good luck with my gravy, but it causes me anxiety every time, because I want it to be GREAT.

In the midst of all preparation, I am taking a break to have a cup of coffee and reflect on the many reasons I am thankful this year.

My number one reason for thankfulness is the fact that my mother is still among us. We had a very scary ordeal with her this past summer--if you read my blog, you know the whole story. Recovery was not overnight, and because of my personal circumstances, I was able to be with her through all of it.

I will add now that my father is also still with us, and happily had no health scares this year.

Parents are such a blessing to us throughout our lives, and anyone who has lived as long as I have and still enjoys the blessing of living parents is indeed a lucky person. I am grateful every single day that my parents are here, living in their own home and enjoying life. They do pretty much whatever they want, travel when the care to, and are able to take care of business as usual. That is awesome.

Ah, 2017. There were a lot of good things going on this year.

I got to take three of my grandchildren to Denver ComicCon. We had a great time. I met James Marsters. The boys were amazed by gigantic Lego displays. My granddaughter met Napoleon Dynamite, and he liked her costume. Three days of good, crazy fun, and I only got lost once! (I knew where I was, but everyone else had taken a wrong turn. Haha!)

I traveled with my parents to southern Colorado and to Idaho for reunions on both sides of the family. It is always wonderful to sit with aunts and uncles and listen to them all tell stories of their childhoods and early adulthood, the days where I had yet to make my debut into the world. That history is priceless to me. I also enjoy spending time with my cousins and learning first hand what they have going on in their lives.

We had weddings to attend this year. My son married his love, and we enjoyed quite a lovely celebration. All my children were together for that, which was wonderful. I am always grateful to have them all in one place. My baby lives too far away.

My niece married her love, and that wedding and reception were also lovely. It took place in Wyoming, and two of my daughters and their families were able to come. They got to spend time with aunts and uncles they don't get to see often, and also spent some time with their younger half-siblings. I'm very grateful for that; there have been many sleepless nights when I have despaired of that ever happening. I have always wanted them to have that relationship.

I spent a great deal of time in Wyoming with my parents this year. Not everyone in the world is lucky enough to have that opportunity.

I took a couple of fun trips to the casino with my sisters and we didn't lose our shirts. In fact, we had pretty good luck.

I ran into friends here and there. What wonderful chance encounters!

I published my second book.

And now, I am home and making a turkey for Thanksgiving, and soon enough the house will be full of noisy people.

I have a lot to be thankful for!

I may rant about 2017 in the future, but for today I'm going to say that there were some great things thrown in there.

Happy Thanksgiving!! Eat, laugh. love. (That's how it goes, right?) Spend quality time with your families. Enjoy.

Hope you find some great Black Friday deals. Tomorrow. Today, eat and take a nap!

I'm grateful for you all.

November 20, 2017
3:52 p.m.

I have been a really bad girl of late.

I came back to Colorado on November 9th. My beautiful niece Kayla brought me, since she was already coming to attend a wedding.

Since coming home, I have been so busy chasing my granddaughter around that I haven't blogged, and I have done very little work on my new novel.

I signed up to do NaNoWriMo to get a good start, and I am not nearly to 50,000 words. Last year I reached my goal pretty easily, and I suppose I MIGHT make it this year, but only if I really step up my game.

BAD girl.
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In the meantime, how cute are these girls?

It's so fun when I get a chance to babysit. But, wow! I'm getting old. They really run me ragged! So much energy!

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For the moment, I am just checking in. Thanksgiving is coming and I need to make a shopping list. Yuck! Shopping!

Take it easy. I promise I will think of something soon.

November 5, 2017
8:55 p.m.

Okay, spoiler alert: This post is likely to piss some people off. If this means you, I'm going to nicely suggest you stuff a sock in it for now, because I, too, am entitled to my free speech rights, and I'm about to do some speaking.

We need gun control. We need reasonable regulations. We need to STOP offering thoughts and prayers in the wake of tragedy and DO something effective to make sure that these senseless killings don't continue.

Deer hunters--I don't want to hear it. This is not about you. I don't honestly think you are out there with assault weapons and handguns looking for a 30 point buck. I don't want anyone to take your .22 or your 30.06.

Of course, if you ARE out there hunting with a machine gun--Pu-Leeze! Why???

This has become personal for me.

Just a few days ago, I was having a basically ordinary day. I turned on my computer and was confronted with a breaking news story about a shooting with multiple people down at a Wal-Mart store in Thornton, Colorado.

My daughter works in that store.

It wasn't time for her shift, but people in my family shop there. I'm in Wyoming at the moment. I immediately called home. "Is everyone there?" I demanded when my son answered the phone.

"What?"

"Is everyone at the house? No one went shopping? Where is everyone?"

"Mom---WHAT is going on?"

Oh, son of mine. Ye of little patience and zero mind-reading capability. I had to explain things to him in order to get a straight answer. Yes, everyone was home or otherwise accounted for. No, my daughter had not gone to work yet.

But--oh! She had a message on her phone. Don't go to work. Please check in.

It absolutely was her place of employment. Three people were dead, shot by a man who just walked in the door and started firing.

There followed several hours of police presence, and an arrest the following morning. If you live in this country and you watch the news. you probably know the whole story by now.

What you don't know is that it took two days for people to get back to work. Wal-Mart will be following up with anyone who might need grief or PTSD counselling, and good for them.

My daughter was a wreck her first day back. Yes, the shooter had been arrested, but--things happened far too close to home, and it's hard not to be nervous walking back into a place where a mass-murder took place.

Last month over fifty people were murdered while attending an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. A concert, for crying out loud.

And now...this morning, a little church in a small Texas community was the scene of slaughter. Twenty-six confirmed dead, at least twenty injured. Some of these dead and injured are children.

In the wake of all this, government officials offer "thoughts and prayers". "Thoughts and prayers"!

That's effective. Right?

If thoughts and prayers actually did any good, these things would not be happening!

I'm over it.

Oh, get off your "I'm offended" bandwagons. I'm not challenging your faith. I'm not challenging the need for solace and comfort for the victims and survivors.

By all means, offer prayer to those injured, to those suffering loss. Certainly. It's comforting to know that people care, that they take the time to ask for peace and understanding and love for all concerned. So pray, spare a thought.

 But for God's sweet sake, offer up some practical solutions while you're at it. Call your representatives and demand some action.

Then pray some more. Why not? If nothing else, it will make you feel better.

This has got to stop.

I don't care how much money the NRA offers to donate to the politicians, enough is enough. There needs to be careful consideration given to regulating the sale and possession of firearms.

And it needs to be done now.

Let the hateful comments begin. I know a lot of you are thinking that you'll give up your guns when they are pried from your cold, dead fingers. That it's your God given right to bear firearms.

I'd like to remind you that the firearms the constitution gave Americans the right to bear were single shot rifles.

You are welcome to keep those forever.
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In other news, Daylight Savings time has ended. It will now be dark by 5:00 p.m. Sooner, as the season passes from Fall to Winter.

Once again, I protest time change. Once again, I will be ignored.

Have a nice night.

October 31, 2017
10:03 p.m.

One year ago tonight I sat down with a lot of handwritten notes, genealogy stories from my own family, an outline of sorts and a plan to write 50,000 words of manuscript in the next 30 days.

You may or may not have heard about something called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Somehow or other I caught wind of this group made up of both aspiring and seasoned successful writers who challenge themselves to complete 50,000 in the month of November each year. You accept the challenge and begin your journey with lots of other writers who are there not just to write, but to cheer you on as well.

I had tossed this idea around for awhile, hemmed and hawed, fidgeted and delayed...you get the picture. NaNoWriMo was a way to kick myself into gear. But I never quit. I re-wrote, and re-worked scenes and I researched like a mad woman.

I spent time thoroughly disgusted with religious bigotry, racial bigotry and warmongering. This was actually made much worse for me in light of the last year in the good old USA. It is appalling to me that we've come so far in so many ways but remain steadfastly ignorant in so many others even though three centuries have passed by. 

No, no, no. No politics tonight.

Anyway, I looked up tribal customs and Catholicism in the 1600s and LDS migration from Britain to Boston, and all sorts of good historical data, and by the time I was finished with the first draft and all that it entailed. several months had gone by.

Then it was time to edit. Anyone who has ever read my blog knows that I love editing other people's writing and hate doing my own. Thank goodness for first readers--they catch all the silly things I overlook after having read my work so many times.

It's done! It has been a year, and the book is live on Amazon tonight. And I can hardly believe it--a year, man! A whole year!

And tomorrow it's November again. Guess what? Emma, book 2. 50,000 by November 30th.

Yikes!

amazon.com/author/paulashablo

Here's a link to my author page and book listings. I sure hope you'll check it out!
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10:50 p.m.

Tonight I got to give out candy to trick-or-treaters. Haven't done that for years! I never get any kids coming to my house in Colorado. I guess I need to do Halloweens in Wyoming.

It's funny that I enjoy kids coming to my door all dressed up in costumes, because when I was a kid, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I would rather stay home and watch horror movies. I couldn't muster up much enthusiasm for it even knowing that there would be an abundance of candy at the end of the night! (And I LOVE candy!)

And nowadays? I dress up as Annie Wilkes and parade around Comic Con. Hmm.  What's up with that?

Anyway, it was fun to see all the little ones dressed up and excited, and it was even better that the weather was cooperative. I remember hauling my kids out in snowstorms. Yuck.

Happy Halloween, everyone.
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And to all a good night!

October 29, 2017
11:55 p.m.

I guess I could have waited until midnight and posted October 30th, huh?

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my good golly. I can't believe I haven't posted anything for over a week. Where does the time go, anyway? It's all zooming by entirely too fast.

I got a copy of the book into my hot little hands, the proof for final edits, and tonight, I finished those last edits. Now all I can do is pray that I didn't miss anything.

Work, work. How I love it.

Since I was a little girl, I have loved reading. I can't honestly remember not being able to read. I do remember asking lots of questions about words and meanings, and I clearly remember learning the difference between to, two and too. I remember being fascinated that there could be different meanings based on spelling variations. I found it rather magical. 

Once I got the hang of being told stories, and reading stories, I wanted desperately to tell stories of my own. And I have written lots of them over the years. But until these past couple of years, I didn't do much with them. 

Oh, many have been lost. Dozens were consumed in the flames of my house fire in 1993, including a full novel that I've never had the heart to re-write, even though I quite clearly remember the story. These days that story feels like it was something written by a stranger, and that's not entirely untrue. The Paula who wrote that book was repressed, depressed and disillusioned. I left her behind a couple of years before the fire, and I try not to think about her. The story was not a bad one, but it no longer feels like one I want to tell; hence, no re-write is forthcoming. 

Other stories that were lost I wish I could have the chance to read again and think about, but that's never going to happen, so I try not to worry about them. A lot of time has passed, and the Paula who wrote those stories, some from as long ago as Junior High School, is also long gone. Hopefully this present day Paula has learned from her and can move forward in her story-telling. 

That said, I find it funny that this book delves so much into the past. Mine, my family's, my hometown's. Not that the story is true, mind you. It is a work of fiction. But it would be a lie to claim that my past had nothing to do with the formation of the story. 

I took a writing class once, and the main thing I was told to do was to write what you know. I know the feelings I had when I was a little girl moving to a new town. I know what it's like to have to deal with a bully. I know about having babies. I know about having a wonderful, interesting and often amusing family. I know about loving and being loved. 

And, oddly enough, I know about ghostly encounters.

Unfortunately, my encounters never answer any questions or explain anything. No one tells me anything. They just leave my cupboard doors open and turn on the television. One of them has a delightful perfume, there and gone. I have no idea what it is. All I know is it doesn't ever make me sneeze or wheeze. 

One has on several occasions protected me from harm. I'll withhold the details in case I want to use them in a future story. Needless to say, I'm grateful for the interventions. 

This book may come off as autobiographical to some of the people who know me personally. It's not about me. It's a story. 

But some of me is in there, and I can't deny it. Hopefully, it's the best part of me. 

I want it to be.

The book is coming very soon. I hope you'll consider giving me a chance to tell you a story. 

By the way, I kind of dig the cover. I took the photograph this past summer while road-tripping with my parents. I like the tree, the branches. It symbolizes for me that family tree thing that the story embodies. It seemed like a good choice to me. 

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October 30, 2017

12:35 a.m.

Yep it's a brand new day. Am I working? Nope. I'm watching "Lost in Space" and headed for bed. 

We should probably talk about "Lost in Space" sometime soon. So many things about that show shaped the present-day Paula. In good ways, honestly. 

But we're going to have to do it later, because I'm ready to lie my old bones down even if I can't necessarily go to sleep. 

Good night! 

October 20, 2017
7:55 p.m.

Wow, this month has been passing fast.

Over the past year, I have been working on a new book, and it's about time for it to be released. It's kind of nerve wracking.

The first publication was fun. It was rather a case of "Why not?" with a gentle nudge from my son.

This one is more personal. There was a lot of me in this. Which is not to say that it's a true story; it is fiction. But it has elements of truth, and people who know me, the town I grew up in, and any of the family history will recognize some of those truths.

So it's scary, okay?

But it's coming. And I'm really hoping people will read and enjoy it. So, just to give you all a friendly nudge, here is a preview:

https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1233112

I hope you'll take a look and provide me with any feedback you think of. Thanks in advance!
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8:23 p.m.

Dad and I have colds, and we're both hoping Mom gets to skip it. Yesterday was rough on us, today we're feeling a bit better.

Cold season. Yippee.
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Having spent several weeks with my parents over the last year, I am getting a lot of exposure to westerns. My folks--especially my mother--love those old westerns. On weekdays, there's a lineup of shows that they watch almost every day on Starz Encore Westerns: Wagon Train, Cheyenne, Laramie, Tales of Wells Fargo, Wanted Dead or Alive and The Virginian. The Virginian replaced The Young Riders, and that made me kind of sad. I liked that one.

I don't always watch these, even though if they are home, I am home. I write, I do chores. Sometimes I watch stuff on Netflix or Hulu. But I've certainly viewed a lot of them, and I've made a few amusing observations.

For example: Did you ever notice how ridiculously well dressed and made up these western women are? Hairstyles so elaborate you can't imagine the time they must have taken; eyelashes OUT. TO. THERE. Dresses in colors that were likely unheard of in that era and in those locations. These gals are out on the dusty trails in Wagon Train and never seem to get dirty.

I'm sure if I had been 57 years old in 1967 and watching these shows, these things might never have occurred to me. But in 2017 it sure tickles my funny bone.

Did you ever notice that gut-shot cowboys in 1967 fare didn't bleed? They clutched their "wounds", made a pained face and fell to the ground, but...no blood! This actually is something I noticed even at age 7. Mom said the networks didn't want to unnecessarily alarm their audiences when I asked her about it.

Too bad that never crosses anyone's mind these days. 

Cheesy as some of those old shows are, there's something comforting about watching them. Who doesn't want to watch Steve McQueen get into trouble everyday as Josh in Wanted Dead or Alive? My dad gets such a kick out of this show.

Who doesn't want to see Edgar Buchanan guest star on practically every one of these shows with amazing regularity? I loved that guy. You remember him--Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction, Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres:

Did you know that he was a dentist? So was his wife, and he turned the business over to her when he went into acting full time. (I love trivia.)

Anyway, we watch a lot of westerns in this house, and it's a refreshing change of pace from the things I watch on my own.

This is not to say that everything I watch is new and up to date. Just now I am binge watching "Lost in Space". Nostalgia has me firmly in its grip.

Later on, though, I will probably watch something like "The Walking Dead". Because blood.

Hahaha!
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9:52 p.m.

Don't you just hate it when you're playing a game, you have a wild card and nothing--NOTHING!!--matches? Ugh!

Well, that has nothing to do with anything I am supposed to be doing. But I deserve a little break, right?
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Actually, I think I'll take a long break. You know, like overnight.

Until we meet again!

Ta!

October 18, 2017

7:56 p.m.

Ah, fall!

I love fall. It's my favorite season. I love the changing colors in nature. I love the cooler weather. I love getting to wear fall clothes, because, let's face it--I am not a summer clothes girl.

And let us not forget all things pumpkin.

Sadly, this is also my season for the year's worst allergies. I sneeze, I wheeze. I'm at least three times more likely to deal with asthma attacks.

The irony is not lost on me.

This is some BS, man!

Well, it's off to the store for me tomorrow. Gotta stock up on that Zyrtec.
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You know, I need to vent a little bit. It's the store thing. I grew up in this town a century or two ago, right? And I have been here since July for reasons. I like to come and visit, see my parents, family, friends.

Even though I love it here, there are reasons I could never come back. And one of those reasons is the fact that this town has allowed itself to be sold out to Kroger to the exclusion of any competitive markets.

There were stores here when I was a kid, and there was a lower population then, so you can't tell me that it's not possible to make a profit if there are competing markets. The prices are outrageous, and if you want to save a dime or two, you have to drive to the next town.

That can't be healthy for the profits of the "company store", the fact that locals would rather take their commerce to a whole other town rather than pay through the nose.

Back in the day I could take a ten minute walk from my parents' house and shop for groceries (City Market) or clothes (Pamida) or drugs (Hillcrest Drug). Those places are all gone. There is one grocery store. It's overpriced. People tell me living in Denver is too expensive, but let me tell you, I do not pay this much for groceries there, even with the sales tax. And if we want hamburger? Out of town we go.

Competition is a good thing. It keeps prices at a more reasonable level. I think someone needs to fix this situation and open another grocery store.

The other reason I could never come back is more complicated. I have good insurance in Colorado. It's not available here. Again, no competitive market. No options at all for me. Take this one or go without. Insurance shouldn't be so inaccessible. I feel sorry for people here, trying to get a reasonably priced policy. No wonder I see so many people complaining about costs--but the state has given you no choices!

I can't change to anything here that would give me the coverage I have, so I guess I will stay a Coloradan. I cannot be without coverage--I have issues that require frequent care. So....dang!

And it makes me sad, you know? I would like to be able to make a choice about where to live based on something else. I would really like to be here all the time for my parents. But I can't help anyone if I give up my health care options and get sick, so...

I guess I'll remain the yo-yo, and go back and forth.

Frustrating. As. Hell.

But don't ever think that I would be unwilling to come and stay for awhile, because I always will. Just holler!
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Okay, I'll quit griping now.

Let's talk about--

Nope!

I was going to say movies.

Oh, okay. Carry on.

Tuesday movie night was "The Mountain Between Us" starring Kate Winslet and Idris Elba. Edge of your seat entertainment, this one. I would like to think that I'd be that brave and persistent in similar circumstances, but realistically? I'd be DRT. (Dead Right There).

I cannot imagine the work that went into the making of this movie. Both actors are amazing. I would strongly recommend a trip to the theater for this one, folks!
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Okay, I have a LOVELY sinus headache due to allergies, so I am not MeThinking very straight at this point. So before I say something completely ridiculous, I'll just say goodnight.

Goodnight!