THOUGHTS FROM DIANNE...

                                                                                                 GETTING OLDER In a couple of weeks, I’ll be in a total depression because it will be my birthday.  The thing is, birthdays themselves aren’t so bad–presents, cake. I can get into that.  And the symbolism of the birthday–the passage of time, wisdom, experience–none of that’s so bad, either.  I can deal with it all, even embrace it.  But here’s the thing, and it’s the big ugly.  I don’t like th...

It’s not always about the writing. Sometimes it’s about all that zucchini and yellow squash growing in your back yard. Remember the optimism you had when you first planted those seedlings? Remember keeping your fingers crossed that you’d have a successful little harvest (the key word here being little )? Then, the squash explosion happens and, all of a sudden, you find yourself standing on the street corner, tossing zucchinis into the open windows of passing cars. Paying your vet bill in yellow squash rather than cash. Sneaking around the neighborhood in the middle of the night leaving zucchini and squash on doorsteps. The Craigslist ad: Willing to trade zucchini for ANYTHING!!!                                                                                         ...

Hello again! I’ve been chatting about music lately with the lovely medical romance author, Kate Hardy. We both share a great love of it.  She’s a classically-trained guitarist, I’m a classically-trained pianist, and these musical gifts we’ve both been given have greatly shaped our lives in ways we know and probably in ways we don’t know. For me, my music started before I was born, when my mother would play her favorites on the record player and know, in her soul, that her music was touching me.  My mother was a beautiful concert pianist and I remember being in awe, listening to her play.  For me, she never played enough.  I could have spent a lifetime listening to my mother’s music and it wouldn’t have been enough. Marguerite Holmes, my mother Mother put me on the piano bench when I was two, and taught me to play simple tunes.  By the time I was four I was playing Chopin.  Bach by the time I was eight.  Beethoven by the time I was eleven....

I haven’t had time to read a book lately.  In fact, it’s probably been a month or so since I last read anything other than what I write and, for me, that’s an awfully long time.  So lately, I’ve been thinking about the management of my time, as in, there’s not enough of it, and why does it fly by so quickly?   I’ve also been wondering if there’s some kind of New Year’s resolution I should have made a few months back that would have improved the way I spend my time.  So, I have this friend who reads Tarot cards.  I’m not saying that I believe in them.  They’re interesting, probably open to all kinds of interpretations.  But I like to claim that I’m open-minded, even if I really don’t know if what’s in my cards holds any merit or not.  The thing is, the very first card he turns up tells me I’m wasting time.  Me, wasting time?  Not a chance, I tell him.  I run a small family business that employs about a half-dozen people, ...