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A Place for My Stuff

Monthly Archives: July 2014

Pridemore Visits the Southland

31 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, fiction, my life

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

a plot for pridemore, author, fiction, georgia literary festival, missouri, south, southern festival of books, Stephen Roth

PlotForPridemore (2)I have always considered A Plot for Pridemore to be a Southern novel, even though the fictional town of Pridemore is set in Missouri. A lot of Southerners do not recognize Missouri as a part of the American South, and I can understand their feelings about that. A couple of years ago, when the University of Missouri’s athletic program joined the Southeastern Conference, a lot of SEC diehards took offense. I think some of them still do.

Missouri is one of those states that has a bit of an identity problem. It’s not quite the South, and it’s not completely Midwestern. St. Louis has the style and feel of an East Coast town, while Kansas City looks more toward the West. Springfield, Mo., is like an extension of Arkansas. Branson is its own island of patriotism, homespun values and camp, a sort of Las Vegas for Baptists. In terms of the state’s most famous residents, Mark Twain seems like a Southerner to me, while Harry Truman is staunchly Midwestern. Tennessee Williams was from St. Louis and a frat boy at Mizzou, but I feel like he should have been from Louisiana. Brad Pitt is from Missouri and so is Sheryl Crow, but they both live somewhere else now.

The state can’t even decide if it’s Democrat or Republican. Missouri’s perpetual swing-state status garners a lot of attention come election time, when it gets more visits from presidential candidates than most states not named Ohio or Florida.

Despite Missouri’s vague geography, I see the characters of Pridemore as very Southern in their values, quirks and stubborn sentimentality. Maybe it’s because I’m from Georgia, and I wanted to write the book with a Southern point of view. I don’t know.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that I am thrilled and very honored to be invited to a couple of great book conferences in the South this fall. The first one is the Southern Festival of Books on Oct. 10-12 in Nashville, which features readings and panel sessions with about 200 authors. The next stop is the Georgia Literary Festival on Nov. 7-9 in Augusta, which will feature Georgia authors like Terry Kay, Raymond Atkins and Philip Lee Williams. I do not know what I am scheduled to do at these conferences yet. I will share more details about them soon.

In the meantime, I am also doing a reading from Pridemore at 7 p.m. Friday, August 15 in Kansas City. I will be sharing the stage at The Writers Place with another Kansas City author, Catherine Anderson, and poet Alarie Tennille. It should be a wonderful evening event!

That’s all the news I have about my book at the moment. If you’re interested in learning more, you can find information here, here and here.

10 Amazing Reasons why Facebook Sucks

29 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by ghosteye3 in my life, observations

≈ 129 Comments

Tags

advertising, Facebook, friends, observations, people, politics, social habits, social media

Once upon a time, Facebook was a happy place. Friends shared cute photos of their kids or their pets. People wrote witty little observations or mini-stories in 100 words or less. Occasionally, someone would ask for a restaurant recommendation. Maybe they would explain why they liked a certain movie or song. The response among friends would be instantaneous and usually thoughtful. Unlike Twitter, Facebook was truly interactive. Reactions and conversations fueled Facebook’s growing appeal.

That was a long time ago. Today, Facebook is like a once-thriving neighborhood now littered with payday loan stores, political campaign signs and ugly billboards. The sidewalks that were once filled with friendly pedestrians are mostly vacant. Neighbors don’t venture outside to talk to one another much anymore.

untitledI’ve come up with a top 10 list of things I dislike about Facebook mostly because lists seem to be the only way we can communicate and process information these days. Maybe you will agree with some of my observations. Some of them you will certainly find to be cranky and old man-ish. Anyway, here they are–10 Amazing Reasons Why Facebook Sucks:

#1. Personal Branding. Participating on Facebook has become less about sharing information and more about managing your own personal brand. I’m as guilty of this as anyone and probably more than most. The past several months, I have been using Facebook to promote my novel to an extent that even I am now tired of writing about it (it is delightful book, by the way). Even if I didn’t have a product to pitch, I would still probably spend way too much time thinking about my Facebook persona. A few weeks ago, Father’s Day rolled around and I felt this strange obligation to post something about the holiday. Why would I feel that was an important thing to do? It’s not like I’m paid to write about Father’s Day, or that anyone beyond a dozen people would care about my thoughts on the occasion. Ten years ago, I would not have considered sending out a blast email to all of my friends and contacts about Father’s Day. Why do I feel pressured to do so now, to compete against other peoples’ personal brands with my own Father’s Day post? It doesn’t seem healthy.

#2. Advertising. It is no big revelation that Facebook uses your personal data to sell you things. This was first revolutionized by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, when he used bookselling as a tool to learn peoples’ personal tastes and how to market to them. Facebook is just following suit. Still, it is irritating to scroll through my news feed and see one ad after another for the Dollar Shave Club. I don’t go to Facebook to buy stuff. I want to find out what my friends are doing.

#3. Politics. Hey, friend who used to write amusing posts about his family, sports and pop culture–I get it. You hate the Republicans. They’re destroying the country. I may agree with you on most points but that doesn’t mean I want to read every single article you share from The Huffington Post, Politico or MSNBC. I’ve got news for you, political friend. You are talking to the same circle of agreeable buddies while everyone else has tuned you out. You have not changed anyone’s mind about the important political issues of the day.

#4. Shares. It seems to me that most of us on Facebook have migrated from writing original posts to just sharing news articles, memes or surveys that we find amusing. Now, we can even share streaming videos that stream whether the viewer wants them to or not. The result is a visual cluster with no rhyme or reason. Just glancing at my feed right now, I see “29 Terrifying Panorama Fails That Will Haunt Your Nightmares,” a meme about getting up when life knocks you down, an ad about paying off my mortgage and “26 Struggles Anyone Raised Catholic Will Totally Understand.” Some days, finding a text post in your news feed that actually tells you what somebody is doing with their life is like discovering a rare, precious jewel.

#5. Misinformation. I was guilty of this the other day. I shared a piece about how much time people spend on their phones that was, upon closer examination, probably made up. I’ve also seen a quote about funding for the arts attributed to Winston Churchill that he never said. There is a lot of bogus stuff on the Internet, and we all get fooled every now and then. Lately, however, I’ve noticed “friends” trying to trick each other with misinformation. For example, an article about a celebrity death that you click on only to find the headline, “You been owned!” Shame on me for having a morbid curiosity about one of the stars of The Walking Dead, I guess.

#6. Narcissism. This one is nothing new. Facebook and other social media have made all of us more narcissistic. Still, I believe that the problem is evolving from “self-absorbed” to “totally lacking in self-awareness.” Yes, you may be a good friend, but that doesn’t mean I want to be updated four times a day about your latest adventures in Cancun. It just makes me jealous. Also, sometimes it’s a little irritating to be part of a mass layoff from a company you worked at for eight years, and then read posts from your former co-workers gushing about how cool it is to work for that company. That’s my bad, of course. I don’t have to read those posts and, in the future, I won’t be friending as many co-workers on Facebook.

#7. Unoriginal Narcissism. Back when everyone got digital cameras on their phones, some people truly believed that the quality of experimental photography would explode. What we’ve gotten, instead, is people taking the same damn types of pictures as everyone else, in addition to a gluttony of photo-bombs and selfies. I really don’t care to see your feet, even if they are landscaped against a beautiful Caribbean beach. That photo has been done a million times before. The only feet I really care about seeing belong to my wife and my child, and that’s it.

#8. Anger and Negativity. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to use social media to complain about your problems, take shots at a former spouse or cuss about that stupid thing Obama did. I just think it reflects poorly on a person’s character (just like writing a 1,300-word screed about Facebook probably reflects poorly on my character). It is also important to note that those comments never really go away. Even if you delete them, which Facebook now allows, those posts are floating out there somewhere. Someday, your angry vents on Facebook may work against you. Also, if negativity becomes an important part of your personal brand (see #1 above), even your friends will stop reading and caring.
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#9. Meddling. Based on what you share and with whom you interact, Facebook thinks it knows you better than you know yourself. That is why only certain friends, products and stories keep showing up in your news feed. Eventually this can become a form of mind control. If I haven’t interacted with my friend George for six months, his updates and shares will disappear from my feed. Since I never see anything from George, I assume he is no longer active on Facebook. Pretty soon, I stop thinking about George because, unless I look up his profile, I am not connected to his life. Ultimately it’s my fault for not picking up the phone and giving George a call, but Facebook still plays a subtle part in bringing us closer to some friends and distancing us from others. That power over what and who we care about is frightening.

So there you have it—-nine reasons why Facebook definitely sucks. Wait, did I say there were 10 reasons? Well, I can’t think of a 10th reason.

I guess Facebook really isn’t so bad after all.

Stephen Roth is author of the humorous novel, A Plot for Pridemore. Be sure to “like” his author fan page at https://www.facebook.com/StephenRothWriter

A Dog Named Keiko

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by ghosteye3 in humor, my life, observations

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

birthday, children, dogs, english shepherd, family, free willy, kansas city, keiko, marriage

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On July 31, 2005, my wife and I adopted a dog. It was not an easy decision. We had two cats at the time, and adding a dog to the mix was certain to cause some domestic unrest.

“I’ve had dogs before,” I told my wife. “They need a lot of attention and can be a lot of trouble.”

We were not planning on getting a dog in the summer of 2005. One evening after work, we got a phone call from my wife’s cousin. He told us about this dog he had rescued from a co-worker who could no longer care for it. The dog’s name was D.J., and it was some kind of a border collie mix.

“You should come look at her,” he suggested. “She’s really pretty.”

The cousin lived near our house, so we went over that night. It had been raining earlier in the day, and we found D.J. running around the backyard with our cousin’s Siberian Husky. Both dogs were covered in mud but were friendly and wanted to put their paws all over us. The dog we came to see looked to be a tri-color, but it was hard to tell because of the muck on her coat. Our cousin told us he thought that D.J. was about six months old, and had been chained to a tree most of her life.

“What do you think?” the cousin asked. “You want her?”

“We’re going to have to think about it,” I said.

The cousin stroked his Van Dyke beard and nodded. “You’ve got ‘til tomorrow. After that, she goes to the pound.”

Later that night, my wife and I talked about the dog. One thing we agreed on was that D.J. was a horrible name. We couldn’t agree on anything else, however. My wife wanted the dog. I said I didn’t think that this would be a good time to add another pet. “Dogs take a lot of work,” I said.

The next day around lunchtime, I got a call at work. It was my wife.1551625_688030671289809_1451067226906476272_n

“I had a dream last night about that dog,” she said. “I really don’t want her to go to the pound. I think we should take her.”

“Your cousin isn’t going to take her to the pound. That’s just a bluff,” I said. I have to admit now that I did not know my wife’s cousin as well as she did.

“Can we please get her?” she said. “I just can’t stop thinking about that dog.”

I agreed. How could I say no? That night after work, we took the dog, gave her a bath and bought all the necessary dog things–two bowls, a leash, dog food, squeaky toys, and a big rubber ball that we tied to a low-hanging branch in our backyard. As it turned out, the dog’s coat was a beautiful white, black and tan mix. She also had different-colored eyes–one brown and one very light blue.

“Isn’t that unusual? Is she blind in one eye?” we asked the veterinarian a few days later.

“I don’t really know,” he said.

“She’s really pretty, isn’t she? What kind of dog is she?” we asked.

“I’m not really sure,” the vet replied.

We soon learned that she was not blind in her blue eye, and we eventually discovered that she was an English Shepherd, which is a fancy name for a border collie/Australian Shepherd mix. After a few days of trying out names, we decided on “Keiko,” which means “blessed child” in Japanese and was also the name of the whale in the movie, Free Willy. My wife picked Keiko, however, because she liked how it sounded. The dog seemed to respond to the name as well. At the very least, she liked it better than being called “D.J.”

Nine years later, Keiko is still going strong. The photos above were taken earlier this month after a recent grooming appointment. Keiko has been everything we could have wanted in a dog: smart, happy, fun, energetic, sometimes mischievous, always hungry for a treat. We worried about having a high-energy dog around little kids, but Keiko turned out to be a wonderful companion for our children–always gentle and patient, and very often protective.

July 31 is not the date of Keiko’s birth, but we remember it as the day her life began with us. She has brought us so much joy and helped us to navigate life’s ups and downs. She has always been there for our family. For me, she has been a regular walking companion, a reliable playmate, and the only dog I could ever teach to catch a Frisbee.

So, happy 9th birthday, Keiko! We love you so very much.

Herbie Goes Bananas

14 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by ghosteye3 in fiction, growing up, humor, my life, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

1980, boys, childhood, golf, growing up, herbie goes bananas, parenting, Stephen Roth

A70-3309My best friend in third grade was a ginger-haired, freckley kid named Rob Fairchild.

Even at nine years old, Rob had a swagger of someone who expected success. He won at every sport he played, and was one of the best golfers for his age in the state. He was a straight-A student who finished his homework each afternoon before getting off the school bus, and whose diorama book report on Charlotte’s Web was something the teachers raved about for years after the fact.

He was a good-looking kid, a kind of a 1970s, bowl-cut version of Ronnie Howard, whom you could easily imagine yelling “Hey Kool-Aid!” in those ads than ran between our after-school cartoons.

The teachers loved Rob. The parents admired him. The girls wanted to do the Hokey Pokey with him at the Skate Inn every Saturday afternoon. The boys liked Rob as much as you could possibly like someone who towered over you in every measurable way.

“Sure,” they’d say, eyes twitching around the schoolyard to see where he might be lurking. “Rob’s pretty cool.”

We didn’t have a term for it back in third grade, but Rob was an Alpha Male. Years later, he applied all that charisma and confidence toward becoming a successful entrepreneur. He patented a bath towel with a Velcro strip that make it easier to wrap around your waist. He called the invention The Belly Hugger. Rob sold millions of Belly Huggers on late-night television and became a minor celebrity in the process. I understand he now has his own island now somewhere near the Caymans.

Rob and I had little in common in third grade. I was a “B” student whose mind wandered into a world of talking cars and space adventures at the first mention of multiplication tables. I played soccer, which in those days was the sport of choice for kids not coordinated enough to throw and catch. I also took piano lessons, which was not real high on the coolness meter back in elementary school.

We were best friends mostly because our dads had management jobs for the same company, and we were the only two kids our age in the still-developing neighborhood between the local golf course and the lake. Nevertheless, Rob and I shared a bond. We used leftover lumber from the home construction sites to build a network of little forts in the woods that surrounded our houses. We stockpiled pine cones to hurl at Rob’s sister on the rare occasions she tried to play with us. We fished, we swam, we rode our bikes and we built rock dams in the creek beds. We often played until sundown and then got yelled at by our moms for tracking red clay into the house. It was a Tom Sawyer-Huck Finn kind of life, and it didn’t seem to matter that Rob could already drive a golf ball 120 yards while I was lucky to get mine past the ladies’ tees.

Things were different between us at school. Rob was aloof and standoff-ish around me. During recess, he was more interested in playing sports than Kick The Can or tag with me and all the motor skill-challenged kids. Then he got mean, heckling me when it was my turn at the plate in kickball, teasing me when a teacher caught me not paying attention in class. Of course, he managed to do all this in a disarming, Opie Taylor sort of way that made the teachers want to do little more than squeeze his freckley little cheeks.

I didn’t get it. Rob and I were best friends back in the neighborhood. We were “blood brothers,” like Bo and Luke Duke. Why would he turn on me in front of the other kids? Many times I wrote the friendship off, certain that Rob Fairchild wanted nothing to do with me, and I with him.

Every afternoon after school, however, my phone would ring. Even before picking up, I knew it was Rob.

“Whatcha doing?” he would ask.

“Nothing,” I’d say, still miffed about the latest schoolyard indignity.

“Come up to the house,” he’d say. “I just found my dad’s Playboy.”

Or something to that effect. I usually went because there wasn’t much else to do but watch a re-run of “Happy Days” or play with my Star Wars figures. And each time I went to Rob’s house, it was good times again: exploring the woods, jumping our bikes off rickety ramps, snagging lumber from a construction site to build our latest fort. Rob and I, to borrow a phrase from America’s most beloved simpleton, were like peas and carrots again.

But the school days were bad, and I tired of my friend’s split personality. The sensible thing would be to ask him to stop being such a jerk. But you just didn’t do that in the Boy World. It was much better, I felt, to conspire against him and plan his eventual demise.

The summer of 1980 was a troubling time. There were hostages in Iran. The oil crisis was looming. Dudley Moore and Burt Reynolds were considered major box-office attractions.

It was also the summer I declared war on Rob Fairchild. It started with a phone call.

“Watcha doing?” Rob asked.

“Nothing.”

“Come up to the house. I got a new tetherball set.”

“No.”

A pause. “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘no.’”

“Why ‘no?’”

I took in a deep breath.

“Because,” I said. “I don’t want to.”

He let out a little gasp, as if this were the first time anyone dared defy him. Then he hung up.

Oh, it was on after that. Rob and I recruited foot soldiers from around the neighborhood for the inevitable showdown. I got Marcus McLaughlin, a soon-to-be-second-grader whose chief skill was screaming at an intolerably high pitch. Curt got Aoki, whose family just moved in from Japan and who spoke about three words of English.
Marcus and I struck first, trashing a fort in the woods behind Rob’s house. Then Rob and Aoki ambushed us with a brutal pine cone attack. Then we had a wrestling match near the creek bed, which ended with Rob hurling a large rock at me and Marcus as our moms called us home.

It was a high point in the campaign, to be sure. But to claim total victory, I wanted to beat my enemy at something he held dear. Rob played 18 holes of golf almost every day that summer, usually with boys much older than him. He was becoming something of a local legend, and he almost won his age group in a statewide tournament that year. If I was to bring Rob down, it would have to be on the links.

I was under no illusion that I could do that myself, of course. But I had a friend, a ringer, whom I knew Rob despised and couldn’t resist playing. I set up a four-hole tournament between Rob and Jason Payne, with the prize being a packet of orange Titleist balls. My ace-in-the-hole was a little rule that, for every cuss word one of the players uttered during the event, a shot would be added to their score. Rob’s cussing addiction was well-known by then, even by the adults. I was confident he couldn’t play four holes without swearing.

I was right, sort of. He said, “God-dangit,” after teeing off on the third hole, which cost him a stroke and the match. There was a hot argument at the final green over whether or not this qualified as a true cuss word before Rob pinned my friend to the ground, grabbed the tournament prize and ran home.

Furious, I marched over to the Fairchild residence to retrieve my golf balls.

“You know, Rob won the tournament fair and square,” Mrs. Fairchild said when she answered the door.

“Yes ma’am,” I replied.

“He’s upstairs crying right now. He’s very upset.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.”

“I’m giving you your balls back because I don’t want any more trouble between you boys. You used to be such good friends.”

“Yes ma’am. I know.”

I felt bad about the tournament. If I could have articulated it in my soon-to-be fourth grade mind, I would have said the whole thing made me feel petty and foolish. I had taken things too far, and I thought that maybe it was time to make peace with Rob Fairchild. Beside, another school year was looming around the corner, and I soon would be in the same room with him seven hours a day.

A week or so after the tournament, I bumped into Rob at the swimming pool, waiting his turn to go off the high dive. He sat on a concrete bench, making little white marks on the armrest with a spare golf tee.

“That’s pretty neat,” I remarked. “I didn’t know you could draw with a golf tee.”

“That’s because you’re stupid,” he said. Then he climbed the diving board and made the coolest back flip anybody had ever seen.

A few hours later, I was at home, watching an old episode of “F-Troop,” when the phone rang.

“Watcha doing?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Wanna go see a movie?”

I paused before answering. “What’s playing?”

“Herbie Goes Bananas.”

In those pre-cable, pre-Internet, pre-everything days, you didn’t turn down an invitation to a movie, even from your nemesis. It just wasn’t done. Besides, I had always liked ol’ Herbie and had seen multiple advertisements about the new movie on TV. For a night, anyway, Rob and I could be friends.

“Okay,” I said.

Sitting in the front row of a theater watching a movie about the Love Bug breaking up a counterfeiting ring in Mexico might not seem like quality entertainment to you, but to a nine-year-old boy in 1980 it was about the most exotic thing imaginable. Rob and I ate our Sweet Tarts and chewed our Lemonheads, and there was no mention of our three-month war as we took in the talents of Cloris Leachman and Harvey Korman. Afterward, Rob and I sneaked into The Blues Brothers and got to watch the scene where the National Guard and about 50,000 Chicago police chase down Jake and Elwood. The car crashes, we both agreed, were top-notch.

“Whatcha doing tomorrow?” Rob asked before his mom dropped me off at my house.

“I dunno,” I said. “Watching TV, I guess.”

“Come over to my place. I got a new Sea Monkeys set.”

I pause for a moment, suspecting that we were falling back into a familiar routine.

“Okay,” I finally said, “that sounds cool.”

Book Review: The Harrowing

08 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by ghosteye3 in book review, fiction

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

a plot for pridemore, book review, georgia, kenneth barber, kenneth w. barber, lagrange, suspense thriller, the harrowing

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The author of this book, Kenneth W. Barber, was a classmate of mine at LaGrange High School in Georgia. Back then, we knew him as Kenny. He was a funny, all-around good guy who worked with me on the high school newspaper, The Granger Blues. So even back then he was interested in writing. None of us had any idea of the dark, fantastical images that were lurking inside his head, however.

Now we know. The Harrowing is an apt title this suspense thriller that contains many vivid moments of gut-wrenching gore and nightmarish violence. This is Kenneth’s first book, but he already displays a knack for the genre as well as an uncommon talent for scene-setting and description. When private investigator Zoe Flynn notices a distant, darkly cloaked figure everywhere she goes, you can envision the cruel, demented grin hidden just beneath the figure’s black hat. Here’s how the writer describes it:

Across the rain-shrouded street a figure stood, watching. It was impossible to determine if it was a man or a woman. The clothing was all black and the brim of a large, black fedora obscured the face. A long, black trench coat wrapped the stranger in a veil of indistinctness. The rain had slacked to a misting wall of moisture that danced with wisps of fog and obscured the mysterious face to a wraith-like state.

At 265 pages, Harrowing is a fast-paced, entertaining journey. I had a hard time putting the book down as I tried to figure out what kinds of creatures were tormenting poor Zoe and her family, and why they were doing it. The battle being waged over the detective has many unexpected turns and takes a deeper look at human existence and spirituality than many horror novels. I found The Harrowing to be an engaging, thought-provoking first novel by a promising author. I’m looking forward to Mr. Barber’s next book.

A Website for Pridemore

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by ghosteye3 in A Plot for Pridemore, fiction, my life, satire, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

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a plot for pridemore, book, fiction, Stephen Roth, website, www.plotforpridemore.com

Roth_Pridemore_tbnl
After a few technical delays and frustrations, I am happy to share that the website for A Plot for Pridemore is now live. Many thanks to my good friend Shawn who spent several hours designing the pages and then patiently uploading them to the web hosting company. Check the site out for the latest reviews, events and other cool stuff related to A Plot for Pridemore! More to come in the near future!

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Five More Minutes.....

I am a mother of five active, sometimes aggravating children that drive me crazy, provide me with lots of entertainment and remind me constantly about the value of love and family. I am married to my best friend. He makes me laugh every day (usually at myself). I love to eat, run, write, read and then eat again, run again…you get it. I am a children's author, having published four books with MeeGenuis (The Halloween Costume, When Santa Was Small, The Baseball Game, and The Great Adventure Brothers). I have had several pieces of writing published on Adoptive Families, Adoption Today, Brain Child, Scary Mommy, and Ten To Twenty Parenting. I am also a child psychologist, however I honestly think that I may have learned more from my parents and my children than I ever did in any book I read in graduate school. This blog is a place where I can gather my thoughts and my stories and share them with others. My writing is usually about kids and trying to see the world through their eyes, a few about parenting, adoption (one of my children is adopted) and some other random thoughts thrown in… I hope you enjoy them! So grab a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine, depending on what time of day it is (or what kind of day it is) and take a few minutes to sit back, relax and read. Please add your comments or opinions, I know you must have something to say, and I would love to hear it. Thanks for stopping by. Anne Cavanaugh-Sawan

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