All I Want…
It’s the day before Christmas and I hope you’re all ready and settled. Thanks for all your song comments from my song post. They were so much fun. I’m sharing my favorite Christmas song with you today. Have a wonderful Holiday. I hope it’s merry and bright and full of joy.
Much Love,
KwanaChristmas Commercials
Well, we’re getting into countdown mode for sure with Christmas. I’m about as done as I’m going to be with shopping. Now I’m in rest mode. How about you?
Today I thought I’d share what I thought were good commercials for this holiday season.This Target ad makes some people cringe but it also makes me laugh and grabs my attention. So that works.
I also loved this Hallmark ad from the start. What a heart tugger. I wonder how many grandparents ran to Hallmark after seeing it.
What ads are getting to you this season? Do you even pay attention? Maybe I’m watching to much TV. I’m sure that’s it. Ah well…
Best,
KwanaFor the Love- Thank You
What’s Jack up to? Well it looks like jack is starting to enjoy the snow. Maybe it’s due to his Old Navy jacket and Cool booties from Ina in Alaska that keep his paws warm. Quite sporty.Thank you all so much for the love and support yesterday. I’m sore (Freakin’ Ouch!!) from my surgery but trying to be positive. The biopsies went well but I won’t have any results until after Christmas so I’m going to focus on healing and trying to have a low stress and full of love holiday with the DH, DS, DD and the rest of the fam. That is the most important thing. That and being thankful to God for each day.
Speaking of thankful, I can’t thank my caregivers at the Women’s Imaging Center, Ann Marie and the gang and my fab surgeon (another mom on twins) and at the staff at the hospital yesterday enough. Even when they were doing the most awful things with needles in terrible place they were doing it with such gentle care and love that I’m so grateful. These are truly special people and should be applauded.Thanks to my friends who will not be denied with all their offers of help and support and my knitting circle who will not be stopped. The food is coming along with the love and laughs.
My advice to you all: Get your Mammograms (despite changing guidelines. I’m 40) and do self exams. Take good care of yourself and be your own best advocate.
Thanks again for the love. Sorry for rambling and repeats. Still on high powered pain killers over here.Much Love,
KwanaNo Soft Focus Here
Happy Monday folks. I hope the weekend was lovely and the weather, wherever you were, didn’t put too much of a damper on your holiday plans. We had a nice sized snowstorm that got Jack out in the snow (after a while he started to like it) and the family out shoveling and clearing the cars together. The Dear Twins were less than amused, but they were happy when I gave them their 2009 Christmas ornaments to hang on the tree. It’s the little things that bring the smiles back.
Now I pride myself on keeping things real here on KwanaWrites while not giving too much away and not being too much of a downer (if I can at all help it). It’s a fine balance because if I really let loose I’m sure I’d be inundated with comments wondering if I truly am crazy at times.I’ve been grappling with writing this post for quite a while and for quite a few reasons, one I didn’t want to get too personal and two I wanted to have my children feeling ok with what was happening.
But a lovely post from Mable’s House gave me some of the courage I needed to sharpen the focus and lift the veil (you can tell me in the comments if you get the poster reference).
This year has been a very trying one for me and my family in all sorts of ways that has put my patience, faith and maybe even sanity at times (I do have teens) to the test in oh so many ways.This photo was taken in the office of the third breast procedure that I’ve had in the past five months. I love the messages of optimism and hope of them.
Now the happy news is all my biopsies so far have come back benign and I’m thrilled about that, but today I’m having surgery to hopefully get a definitive answer.So I’m asking all of you, my lovely and cherished friends, for your prayers and positive energy. It’s been a long road with this weighing on my mind and heart but I hope to start 2010 in a better mindset with this problem off my shoulders and ready to be a strong and healthy, mom, wife, friend, writer. Me.
Thanks in advance.“The LORD is my light and my salvation- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life- of whom shall I be afraid?”Psalm 27:1“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear … “1 John 4:18
Much Love,
KwanaP.S.
And Wow! According to the counter this is my 700th post. 7 the number of completion. Now that is saying something isn’t it?Always Check Your Face
What’s Jack up to? Jack is now Jack the reluctant snow dog. This weekend we had our first big storm of the season and Jack being the dog that really enjoys his comfort now has to be bribed off the porch to go out for his walks. As if it’s fun for me. You would have thought it was the end of the world to hear it from the newscasters and to see the lines and carts at the grocery stores. Really people the roads would be clear in a day. But the worst was when I went into our local hardware store to buy some ice melt and walked smack dab into a TV interview on the storm. Quick- camera turns to me looking a hot mess and the reporter asking me what I thought about the upcoming storm. Gah!I answer the questions like a big old ding (not so good on the fly) then I return to the car and my waiting husband to yell and him for not going into the store instead of me. After my rant I ask, how do I look? I already know it’s not good. I have on no face makeup except mascara and hair is a mess under my Yankee cap. He gives me a long look and says fine… except for the lipstick on my teeth. Gah again!!Cut to 5:00 where I make my tri-state New York debut looking worse than Baby Jane.
Lesson here: Always check your face before leaving the car/house. You never know when a mean newsman will shove a camera in your face and not even tell you that you have gunk on your teeth. I mean a heads up would have been nice. Seriously.Best,
KwanaHappy Holidays from Us
Well, there is one week left till Christmas. I have most of my cards sent out but of course I run out of stamps just two shy. Oh well, it’s back to the post office for me.
Speaking of cards. Here is a ridonkulously sick holiday card from Me and Jack to all of you thanks to JibJab and Elf yourself. Sorry I couldn’t resist. I think I have officially gone over bend.
Much love through this holiday season.
KwanaFont It Out
I was over at The Rejectionist and came across this.
There is so much coolness going on here that I can’t begin to talk about it. Is it just me?
Nah. It’s way cool.Best,
KwanaOh Christmas Tree- 09
What’s Jack up to? Poor Jack has been a little tippy on his toes? He walks for a bit and then starts to hop. I’m afraid he has a cut on his paw. So we’re tending to that. Ouch. Any advice for me on that? How to help the pain also how to get him to stop biting and licking at it? And check him out. Boy does he need a haircut.
First off thanks to all the new people who stopped by yesterday for the PW talk. It was quite a day for me for blog hits and much appreciated.
As promised here are picture so of this year’s tree which is pretty much last year’s tree since it came out of the box from the basement. Thank you Martha.
As you can see I have lots of ornaments that I add to every year. I still have to pick up this years ornament for the kids. Must get on that. at the rat I’m going they’ll be hanging it on Christmas eve. Oh will it’ll still count.
Something corny that I do and I just can’t stop (superstition maybe?) is I always have an ornament for the hubby and me. Sometimes it’s a store bought one and when times are a bit leaner or time gets away from me I just wing it. As long as it says we’re still hanging together for another Christmas. You see we were engaged on Christmas eve. But that’s a blog post for another day. *wink*
What are some of your traditions?
Best,
KwanaYou Picking On Me?
So I’m sitting in my car and waiting for the DD to get out of dance and I’m wondering what to blog about for today. Should I go with pictures of my Christmas tree? Yeah, that would be nice. Besides, I have been doing a decent job with posting nice sweet posts lately. I’m proud of myself especially with so much to be annoyed about with Tiger and all his tigresses on the prowl and all.
Image from here.And then there was suddenly talk on the radio about Ashley Dupre getting her own advice column in the New York Post. You know Ashley? The hooker from the Governor Spitzer scandal. Now, I’m not normally one to knock anyone’s hustle, but please. There are folks laid off all over the place and I need a paying job bad (preferably one where I write, but reading would be good too) and she gets an advice column? Dang. Makes it hard to write about that Christmas tree.
Now so sorry for the bad transition but then I go decided to check twitter. Darn you tweets! There’s all this talk about this controversial PW cover. Hmm… At first I thought I hadn’t read the article. But guess what, I did. I just didn’t know it since they didn’t correlate. The article talked about the economy and the upcoming downward trends in publishing. Ok, sad, but tame.
The cover is a 1999 art piece by Lauren Kelly from the book Posing Beauty on the representation of African American beauty from 1890’s to the present. Which on its own looks like a pretty good book. But this for a PW cover on African American literature I think is a huge fail. You can read the senior news editor’s response over here at Galley Cat.
As I said in a blog comment, this just further widens the already segregated shelves. It’s a shame. As a Black writer writing multi-cultural romance and finding it so hard to break in and find a spot on the shelves this is upsetting. And I know some will say just lighten up, but no. Sorry.An earlier agent that I had and later broke up with didn’t get my writing. He wanted me to make it more of what he considered urban. Spice up the language to I don’t know what, but I do know it was something I wasn’t and couldn’t do. Now I’m not saying this is the only reason I’m not published yet but it may be part of it. This not fitting into a preconceived box. Why do we have to fit these boxes?
All I wanted and all I can do is write what I feel and write what I live, which is a multi-cultural life. I’m a Black woman from New York now living as a sort of suburban failed housewife in a not at all black town just outside of New York.
I write books where the Black Women have White and Black friends or Asian or Hispanic friends because that’s just who she is. That is also me. And I’m starting to feel like I may never find a publishing home.
One of the best compliments that I ever got was from a good friend of mine and chic knitting buddy. Me: Black woman from Harlem. Her: Jewish woman from the Bronx. I had her read sample pages from a detective story idea that I have working on. I pitched it Lethal Weapon meets Thelma and Louise. There are two main characters one is Black and the other is White. Well, I was so thrilled when my friend told me that, one it was funny and sexy, but what she liked the best was that I just write real women and it didn’t matter what color they were because I showed real situations that all women could relate to.
That’s the problem I have with this cover. It somehow makes African-American writers different. Very different. Foreign even and therefore not the norm. It reinforces a stereotype that we need to drop. As art it’s beautiful, but as a message to the industry I think it says give these books their own section in the bookstore, if you buy them at all and pray a select few will wander over. I say it sets up failure.
If you look at my post below from yesterday you’ll see that I put two pretty hot guys up for my romance obsession, Denzel and Richard Armitage. Hot is hot. It really doesn’t have a color to most Black or White women for that matter and not so hot is, well, not. That’s just how it is.
It’s time to work on bridging this divide. Mixing up the shelves and just focusing on good books.
Oh and Christmas tree pics to come soon:-)
Best,
KwanaJoy
Thanks to the lovely Chocolate Covered Daydreams I found a blog that is new to me called Barking Mad! And Audrey is having a wonderful Target gift card giveaway. All you have to do is write a post about what brings you joy. You can visit Audrey here. But act fast. The post is due today.
So what brings me joy? Hmm … you’d think this would be easy to write but not so much since my mind is currently filled with clutter of what I need to do and have to get or need to get me through the day/month and into next year. You see Joy is something I constantly strive for, not something I see myself as always having. But if I think about it, I know that I do have it. Deep down on the inside and I just need to keep tapping into it and not let all the clutter of my world hold it down.That said there is lots of Joy from the outside too. Things like: sincere smiles from friends and even strangers, looks of love from those you love, a good laugh that always brings joy, unexpected kindness from strangers. That always fills my heart.
Joy is when my family is all home safe and sound and snugged in their beds. Or maybe that is a bit of Peace of mind?
I have found much joy in the generosity and spirit of the blogging community.
And in the care of my writing friends and friends who have supported me as I continue my long quest to publication. Thanks PIC and Lovely Crit Partners, Jen and Jeanine!
There is also Joy in laughing with my knitting group. I love it when we all crack up over something and the needles have to stop.
Oh and I also find much joy in a good period movie or a great romance with an alpha hero and a strong heroine. That gives me lots of joy.
Best,Kwana
P.S. Even if you don’t have time to enter the giveaway. Please comment here on what bring you Joy and get some joy in thinking about it. Or write your own post and please let me know so I can stop on by. That would bring me Joy.
P.P.S. scroll down to see my Giveaway winner and to hear about my Bleak weekend.
