Sarah Came down to Georgia.

This is not about politics, it’s about energy.

Once upon a time I was with A L Williams insurance for a while. Their big meetings held palpable energy, which I liked, but they was still about “You can be rich, too!” I never made it to rich.

Teachers meetings, even the convention ones, were about learning and about what the systems were doing . My school was old and small, and I often found the meeting places, new schools, made me feel our little school wasn’t getting our fair share of the money. Often I’d have preferred to be working on lesson plans and catching up with work.

The energy of being at RWA National always energizes me because I am around people who want the same things and love writing. Smaller conferences rock on a more intimate level. I’ll do plenty of blogs about them!

Yesterday I found energy like that of our high school pep rallies, but this was for grown ups. They let me in anyway.

Sarah Palin, THE SARAH PALIN, came down to Atlanta, Georgia to campaign for Karen Handel for Governor. Yes, I voted for Sarah and I voted for Karen when she became the first woman Secretary of State for Georgia. Now I’m waiting to see if she will be in the election for governor of Georgia and make history again.

Post Script. Karen missed being the Republican candidate for governor of Georgia by a hair, less than 1% of the votes cast. I’m thinking the good ole boys were shocked and won’t underestimate a good woman.

Who doesn't want healthy skin

When I’m not writing I sell skincare and cosmetic products, Custome Cosmetiques, and do makeovers, so I know a few tricks.

Dry lips? Many of us have dry lips.They can be caused by medications, allergies to lip products, constant licking, and/or our choice of toothpaste.If you feel lipstick is the culprit, consider how the lipstick smells and tastes. If the lipstick smells pretty, you should avoid using it for a few days. You can use a vitamin E stick or a lip balm under your lipstick. Using mat or long wearing lipsticks can cause your lips to dry out as can using your lip pencil over the entire lip. Look at the ingredients for drying chemicals.

If you have tried every brand of lipstick available, you might try switching your toothpaste. Products that whiten teeth likely contain soda and/or other drying chemicals. Strong mouthwashes dry lips and gums, too.

If you aren’t willing to change toothpaste, you need to keep as little toothpaste on your lips as possible. You could coat your lips with rich lotions, vitamin E or A products, or aloe before you brush and afterwards.

With winter upon us, many of us are experiencing dry patches on our skin. Several things contribute to this condition and some steps which you can take to combat this condition would include:

1. Drink more water. Most of us are not getting drinking enough water daily and that can cause dry and dull skin.

2. Exfoliate twice weekly. The skin which is exposed on us is already dead skin, just waiting to come off. As time goes on, more skin cells are added up underneath the top dead skin cells and the top layer is dry, and no longer oblong in shape, If that skin stays on, the top layers become flatter and thinner. This creates dull, lifeless looking skin. Exfoliation removes the dull, dry cells on top of our skin and lets the rosy, fresher newer cells come to the top to start the process all over again.

3. Use sunscreen daily. Most people do not realize that over 90% of the UV light emitted from our sun is UVA rays. For years we have all been told about the tanning rays and burning, SPF factors. UVA rays will initially give you a little red color and then disappear. You don’t tan or burn from UVA rays, yet they are the worst. UVA ages us, and it is just as strong in the winter as in the summer. UVA rays come through windows, so being indoors won’t stop the damage. UVA are the long distance rays that travel all the way down into the dermis, causing damage.

Do you remember when soap and water were beauty products? I grew up using Dial soap because my parents bought it. I had good skin, too. Ponds Cold Cream was a luxury for some ladies who still swear by it. I know one of my relatives used it because my aunt and I played with the jars in our arbor playhouse in the country in Mississippi in the 1940’s and ’50’s. I do know my mama and grandmama couldn’t afford that lovely product.

Some women my age are passionate about their Dove soap and Oil of Olay and have been forever, as have their mama’s before them. Again, these would have been luxuries for our family. And then there are ladies who swear by Preparation H and they aren’t using it on their bottoms.

Today there are so many skin care products that we can become confused, if we don’t already have our own favorites. Though some ladies use Vaseline or olive oil to moisturize, it’s not recommended by skincare experts.

A few suggestions.
Avoid products that contain alcohol because they are likely drying. If your skin is oily, you don’t help matters by taking the oil your skin loves.

Avoid glopping heavy creams on your skin if it’s dry. It will just become drier. Hydrate your skin with water. Splash it on your face and let it soak in, Then use a small amount of light moisturizer and let it soak into your skin. You may add thin coats, 2 0r 3, until your skin feels soft and smooth. If you put a dollop of lotion in the palms of your hands, it will warm and spread more evenly.

Washing your face in hot water or cold water will just bug your skin.

Read labels and watch for products your skin doesn’t like. You should recognize some of them by now. Fragrances can be the worst offenders.

Take your vitamins and don’t skimp on E and A and C. Drink lots of water.
Products with peptides are like magic.
What would you like to know about winterizing your skin?

Some of my favorite products. I also use a Miro-derm Creme Scrub and moisturizers. Some of my favorites below!

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Marvella who learned to read. Other children around her learned to read, but Marvella was different from most of the children.  Marvella loved to read so much she could never be seen without her nose in a book.
Well, Marvella read novels, lots of them. She read the classics. Some of the books she read weren’t classics then, but they are now.
Marvella loved to tell stories, too. She still tells stories. Now she writes them. She enjoyed writing them until she learned that there so many rules.
Here the fairy tale veers off and the real world intrudes.
Who makes the rules?
Publishers have rules and they are entitled to decide what they will buy. Some rules are stated in their guidelines and some are known only by the editors who  offer the contracts we all covet.
Are there other rules? I hear them all the time. They refer to things writers cannot do in their books. Some are made by other writers. They can knock a writer and the fairy tale princess from her tower. They would surely keep a prince from rescuing the princess if the prince doesn’t follow those rules.
If you have stories to tell, you can try to learn all the rules or you can tell your stories the way you need to tell them.
What if you are one of the writers whose stories and styles don’t fit the rules? Learn who made the rules. It the rules are publisher or genre rules, follow them or you won’t sell to those publishers or in that genre.
If the rules are made by other writers, you should do with them what you can. You might consider them suggestions. Some can be helpful and strengthen your writing while others will stifle you.
Keep in mind that not all readers like to read the same books or the same authors. I say this because I am a reader as well as a writer. Write what you like to read. If your goal is about selling, you need to spend more time learning the rules and how you can follow them. Just be sure the rules are made by people who can publish your books.
If you write because you have stories you must tell, write them. Keep looking for the publisher who sells the kind of stories you like to write. Trends come and go. The books you can’t sell today might fit a new trend in the future or even break ground for a new trend.

Keep in mind that we write stories for readers and for ourselves.

I am still a reader and I don’t read by rules.

As I drove from Suwanee to Macon on the way to my first class reunion in many years, I wondered I could really expect. Would anyone remember me? I was a bit of a nerd with we still called ourselves squares and basically loners. (HINT: I graduated in 1961, shortly after the Russians sent a dog in space in Sputnik and before the US sent men to the moon. There were kids who were athletes, cheerleaders, and other VIPs. I tended to be in none of those groups.

I need not have worried. I’m no longer shy but I was glad I had reconnected with a few of my older classmates on Classmates.com.

Some of us met Saturday for lunch.

And then we partied Saturday night!

And we visited and caught up.

I haven’t made it to many of my high school class reunions. For some I was out of the state and for others I was working with my “ex”, photographing weddings.

Last weekend I headed down to Macon, Georgia from Atlanta for my first high school reunion in probably ten years. It was time to reconnect with my old classmates from 1961. Friday evening we met at the old Capital Theatre in downtown Macon.

The hot sultry weather was no big surprise  usher in August.

FYI. Our public high schools in Macon weren’t co-ed until years after I graduated. Macon held out long after all other school systems in the South.

We laughed and had fun waiting in line, even in the sweltering heat. It had rained earlier, turning the heat muggy – good for skin, bad for some hair styles.

In a crush people I managed to find some of my old classmates, eating Fincher’s Barbeque and Nu-Way hot dogs, with slaw, chips, and all the fixin’s for both. As an aside, I’d packed Alka Seltzer and other antacids. I actually didn’t need them, though I ate my share of the spicy foods.

See, I wasn't kidding

Fincher’s Drive-in was a popular hangout for teens and college students.The place is an institution in Macon and has served the best barbecue and Brunswick stew in the world. Families enjoyed an occasional trip to there to eat in or for takeout.

For a trip down Memory Lane some of us loaded in a “bus” and revisited Fincher’s and our youth. Though I didn’t make bus trips to ballgames with the cheerleaders and the football players, I had memories of chorus trips and singing and laughing with the girls.

The girls in the back of the bus

Stay tuned for more.

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