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"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it." ~ Mark Twain



My mom is a giant among women.

To this day, I still look up to her. We have the same size feet, though.

For the record, I wasn't like Mark Twain. My mom says I was a very easy baby. ☺

We are pictured here standing in Grandma Yang's front yard. I spent much of my childhood there while my mom was at work. I imagine this photo was taken when she came to pick me up at the end of the day.

Some things she taught me:

• Be kind and generous.
• Always make your bed.
• A little sudsy ammonia in your laundry will make it smell fresh.
• You can wring the water out of tofu/chopped veggies (for dumpling filling) by putting them through the washer spin cycle.
• Clint Eastwood is a hottie.
• It's important to serve your country.
• Family comes first.
• Be confident. You are smarter than you think.
• Dessert is the best part of a meal.
• Keep good records, be organized.
• There's nothing like fresh bread.
• Exercise is important.
• I am just like my father.
• I am her favorite daughter. ☺

Wishing a happy Mother's Day to all. Here is an email I got from a very good friend of mine and it pretty much says it all:


Real Mothers sometimes ask 'Why me?' and get their answer when a little voice says, 'because I love you best.'

Real Mothers know that a child's growth is not measured by height or years or grade...
It is marked by the progression of Mommy to Mom to Mother...

4 YEARS OF AGE - My Mommy can do anything!
8 YEARS OF AGE - My Mom knows a lot! A whole lot!
12 YEARS OF AGE - My Mother knows some things, but...
16 YEARS OF AGE - Mom? She's hopelessly old fashioned & I want to have my own opinions. Not listen to hers all the time.
18 YEARS OF AGE - My Mom is kinda old and thinks she knows everything. I love her but don't need to listen to her.
25 YEARS OF AGE - Hummm, yeah Mom knows more than I have given her credit for, I guess?
35 YEARS OF AGE - Before we decide, let's get Mom's opinion.
45 YEARS OF AGE - Wonder what Mom would have thought
about it?
65 YEARS OF AGE - Wish I could talk it over with Mom.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would have not a single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything you gave me." --------- Erma Bombeck

To all of the women in our lives...
Mothers, Grandmothers, Godmothers,
Daughters, Wives, Sisters, Nieces,
Aunts, Cousins & Sister-friends...

I received my favorite Mother's Day present: Joe bringing me a cup of coffee in bed [served up with the NY Times Book Review] then making Eggs Benedict for me. Which is, like his Cosmos, the best on the planet:) I received some beautiful roses from my daughter and wonderful phone calls from them both. Sadly, I didn't get the Laker's win I was hoping for, but this was a most unexpected Mother's Day present:

It all started yesterday when Mother’s Day came early and I chose our movie last night. On our way to my favorite Independent Theatre [favorite because it has the best popcorn on the planet–real butter and loads of different toppers, my favorites are white cheddar and sour cream and onion and have to be alternately sprinkled and properly disbursed throughout the bag by banging it on the counter before I can even think of selecting a seat, but that’s another post] to see the movie The Visitor we drive by this!



I love living in LA [if only part-time now]. Where else on the planet can you drive to one movie and find the set of a castle for another movie sprouting out of a field of weeds on a remote country road?

I would recommend The Visitor, even if it had a bittersweet ending, as you know I am a fan of the happy one.

Then came this morning. Joe made me the best breakfast of the year, with a new twist. He always makes me Eggs Benedict. It’s amazing. Only this year I was served by a ‘rock star.’ It all happened yesterday. He was in LA on business and stopped by one of our favorite restaurants in Hollywood to pick up my favorite bread on the planet, sun-dried tomato bread. They didn’t have it but gave him another loaf [an awesome Hawaiian bread] on the house. When he asked the guy for change for the meter he gave him a bunch of quarters. There were a bunch of rock stars in the café having lunch. Joe said they were famous but wasn’t quite sure who they were. I guess that the guy at the counter thought Joe as famous too, but we weren’t quite sure who he thought Joe was. Joe does get mistaken for famous celebrities from time to time. But that’s another post too.

Isn’t it nice to be treated like ‘somebody’ every once in a while? It sure was nice having my breakfast served up by my famous hubby this year.

Happy Mother's Day MOM! And happy Mother's Day to all my writer moms out there. Now it's on the road. With a quick mother's day dinner stop in Paso on the way to Big Sur.

Mother’s day came early for me this year. Candy came down to Big Sur last Monday night. Tuesday, the first full day without ol’ molar number 19, we headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I’ve been dying to go ever since we started working in Big Sur, oh, around five months now. Here are my three favorite videos from the day:



Playful Otters



Jellies



More Jellies

What a wonderful day of inspiration. Got some great story ideas and had a lot of fun too.

Candy will be graduating from college in just a couple weeks and I find myself alternating from feelings of total euphoria to ones where I wonder where the all the time went.

Our trip to the aquarium got me to thinking about Mother’s Day. I have my four favorite Mother’s Day mementos in front of me as I type. One, is a clear plastic frame holding a picture of Candy sitting on a swing smiling in her green Girl Scout sweatshirt, monogrammed with her first name and her troop number. The plastic frame is decorated with lots of colorful hearts and gold stars and says “I [heart] you!!!!!! [Those exclamation marks have smiles under them]. There’s more decorations and at the bottom in yellow letters “Happy Mother’s Day.” Another is an old Mother’s Day card from Mx which I saved. I wish could find a date on it, but I can’t. On the front she says, “For The Best Mom In The World Happy Mother’s Day” and inside she says, “You’re a book waiting to be opened and heard. You’re heard by me, always and forever.” The card is illustrated as if you are opening a book. On the last page there is a beautiful heart illustration with the words “Love you always” written three times inside. I didn’t start writing until the girls were in high school and college. This card is so interesting to me. Don’t all writer’s want people to open, discover their stories and, more than anything, to be heard? Over the years both of these gifts have meant so much to me, I find those that as the years pass they mean even more.

I have a few hand print mother’s day presents: Mx’s metallic blue five-year-old handprint on a ceramic circle with a pink satin tie at the top, for hanging, Mx’s three-year-old pink handprint surrounded by green, yellow, orange and light blue finger print designs on fabric stretched over a wooden frame.

I like having these Mother's Day presents around me this weekend as I work. Keeping them close. I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea for mom’s to pull out all the old mother’s day gifts they can find when the kids become teenagers. Because it’s only natural that teenagers get busy with their own lives and time spent with their mothers are reduced to what I like to call touch-n-goes–holidays, summers, if you are lucky. Keeping these mementos close this weekend sweetens this moment and I like that.

And, of course I got tons of books at the aquarium. What did I get? A book about Jellies, how Great White Sharks are misunderstood, A Journey into Steinbeck's California, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea [the original text with added fun facts and illustrations], a book about great day hikes in Big Sur.

I mean seriously where else would you expect to find a fantasy-writing mom on Mother's Day? Visiting aquariums and strolling Cannery Row, right? And taking stock of her goal of becoming a YA author. Today met with some good news on that front. Hope it's a trend.

               
  MOTHER, YOU'RE THE BEST! (BUT SISTER, YOU'RE A PEST!),
      by Diane deGroat (HarperCollins, 2008), 32 pp., ages 4-8


Back in October, I interviewed children's author/illustrator Diane deGroat as part of Robert's Snow: Blogging for a Cure. We had a lot of fun talking about her taxidermy collection, and she showed us how she created one of the pictures for her newest book about Gilbert the possum, Mother, You're the Best! (But Sister, You're a Pest!).

Published by HarperCollins and released this past March, this 11th title in the wildly popular Gilbert and Friends series of picture books (appropriate for ages 4-8), finds Gilbert longing to please his mother with a special gift. After burning the toast, spilling the cereal, and drenching his Mother's Day card in orange juice, Gilbert takes breakfast upstairs to Mother, but his younger sister, Lola, is already there. He is jealous of Lola sitting on Mother's lap, so he offers to take Lola to the store.

As the day unfolds, Gilbert ends up giving Lola a bath, and then reading to her at naptime -- both attempts to keep Lola from absorbing all of Mother's attention. At the end of the day, he discovers to his surprise that he has given Mother the gift she wanted most of all -- some time to herself. And to sweeten the pot, he finally gets what he's longed for all day -- some time alone with her.

This story is endearing and heartfelt without being saccharine, and expresses well an older sibling's longing for one-on-one parental attention. Buoyant watercolor illustrations draw the reader into Gilbert's warm, cozy world of home, school, and neighborhood. A lovely addition to home or school libraries!

I asked Diane to share a favorite childhood recipe, and she sent me this:

PEACHES ON TOAST

Wonder bread
margarine
fresh peaches (very ripe)
sugar

1. Peel and cut peaches into large chunks, removing pits and any brown spots. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with sugar. Let sit until the sugar is dissolved and syrupy.

2. Spread margarine onto both sides of bread. Fry until browned and greasy.

3. Spoon some peaches over the hot bread, and eat it with a knife and fork.

**This recipe is also included in Writers in the Kitchen, compiled by Tricia Gardella (Boyds Mills Press, 1998). Diane offers this preface:

My mother regarded cooking as an unnecessary evil. Rheumatic fever in her childhood left her without a sense of smell or taste, which was helpful when changing diapers for five kids, but did nothing for the subtleties of food preparation. Her own personal diet consisted of Velveeta cheese with Ritz crackers and Pepsi spiked with Port wine; supper for the rest of us was usually hot dogs and burnt french fries, or meat loaf made from ground beef and oatmeal. Period. I know we had salt in the cabinet -- we used it to melt ice on the front steps, but if we had anything like garlic or basil, it never found its way into the meat loaf.

Sometimes she made something delicious, like peaches on toast. It appeared whenever the market had a run on overripe peaches, which were free. I've made it with whole grain bread and Pam instead of margarine, but the original is still better.

              

Visit Diane's website for a full list of all her wonderful books, and if you missed it, check out the in-depth interview.

 

Do you spend a lot of time on your computer? I do. Between typing in my manuscript (the writing, and then all the editing changes), working on my blog or website, writing book reviews, doing online research, surfing, and even playing the odd computer game, it’s a LOT of time. And it’s so easy for me to get caught up in the work that I’m doing, and ignore my body.

A few years ago, I started to get numbness and tingling pain in my arms. Yep–the symptoms of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). Not a good thing. That really scared me, since I need my hands to write, to type, to do art. So I decided to research the subject. I then bought a few tools which, after using them, completely took away the pain and numbness in my arms and wrists, so now I swear by them. I also decided to try to take regular breaks–something that’s very hard for me to do.

Here are the products that I use and I highly recommend to keep your body in good shape while working on the computer:

The Kinesis Advantage Keyboard. I really believe this ergonomic keyboard saved my arms and hands. I researched ergonomic keyboards thoroughly before I purchased this one; many keyboards that are advertised as ergonomic aren’t actually ergonomic. The Kinesis keyboard is. It’s more expensive than many others, but it works. It took away the pain and numbness in my arms, and allowed me to type easily, pain-free.

The one I use, Kinesis Advantage USB, may take some getting used to at first, as the keyboard is contoured, with a separate key well for each hand, which are there to reduce the strain and force you use, and position your arms in an ergonomic position, at shoulder width and with your wrists straight. Once you get used to the keyboard (I had no problems at all), it’s incredibly comfortable and easy-to-use. Any time I’m at a friend’s house and try their regular flat keyboard, I think how awkward and not-well-suited for hands it is, and wish for my Kinesis one.

The Kinesis’ keys are placed for the optimum ease of your fingers; some of the most often used keys (such as “Enter”, “Space”, “Backspace”, “Delete”) are placed in thumb keypads, allowing you to use your thumbs (which are stronger), instead of your overworked and weaker little fingers. There are a lot more ergonomic benefits to this keyboard; you can read about them here.

The Kinesis Advantage keyboard allows both the standard Qwerty layout, and the less-often used but more ergonomic Dvorak layout–AND the keyboard shows both sets of layouts. This is a nice feature; if you use Dvorak, you don’t have to just use it by memory. I decided to switch to theDvorak layout, since it’s better suited for hands. It rearranges the keys so that the ones used most frequently are located on the home row, minimizing finger movement and helping you type faster. It took me a few weeks to retrain myself to type using a Dvorak layout instead of Qwerty, but I’m happy I did.

I have been using my Kinesis keyboard for about three years, and nothing will make me turn back to a regular keyboard. Kinesis has great customer support.

The Kinesis keyboard may seem pricey at $299 US, or $329 US for the Kinesis Advantage keyboard with the Qwerty/Dvorak keyboard, but it’s well worth the money to protect and save your body. It helped me tremendously. I highly recommend it.

The Evoluent Mouse. This mouse took away the stiffness and pain in my arm, hand, and shoulder that I was getting from using the mouse so much. It positions your hand so that it’s in a neutral handshake position, and the relief is almost instant! The position prevents forearm twisting, which a regular mouse creates. The Evoluent mouse is incredibly comfortable and easy to use. I feel like my hand is actually resting when it’s on the mouse.

All five buttons are placed so that your fingers naturally rest on them, and you need only use a light pressure (but still firm enough that you won’t accidentally click on them). You can program the buttons to do what you want, or leave them at their factory settings. It also has a really easy-to-use wheel, which I use to scroll through pages.

The Evoluent mouse is USB, and has infrared tracking that responds quickly and well to your movements. You can adjust the tracking speed and mouse pointer to your own preference. It is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux. They also have a left-handed vertical mouse for lefties.

There are a number of vertical mice out there, but after a lot of online research, I chose this one because it seems to be truly ergonomic, the best in its class, and has great user reviews. I have been using mine for about three years now, and I am delighted with it. I never want to use a regular mouse again! You can read more about the Evoluent mouse’s ergonomic benefits here. Evoluent has fantastic customer support, and they make frequent updates to the driver.

The Evoluent vertical mouse may seem pricey to some users at $80.00 US, but it’s worth every penny. You’ll feel the difference immediately. It saved my mouse arm from strain, pain, and numbness. I highly recommend it.

A great free anti-RSI program is WorkRave. It reminds you to take both micro breaks and longer breaks, and during the longer (”coffee”) breaks it shows you visuals of some stretches that you can do, and then suggests that you get up and walk away from your computer for the remainder of the 10 minutes. It also allows you to skip the break if you really need to keep working, or to shorten it. Breaks, micro-breaks, and reminders are all customizable; you can choose when and how often you want to be reminded. And you get the bonus of having a cute little sheep sitting in your system tray–along with feeling better in your body, and not injuring yourself. WorkRave is available on GNU/Linux and Windows.

You don’t often find a free anti-RSI program that shows you stretches, and for me, this is an important part of the program. I’m not likely (okay–I won’t at all) to do stretches without that visual reminder. You can scroll through the exercises, or skip one if you don’t like it. The exercises focus especially on areas of the body that can get stiff or ache, including hands, arms, shoulders, neck, and your eyes. It’s a great program, and it doesn’t cost you anything to use. So why not try it out?

For Mac users, there is a free program called Anti-RSI found here. I don’t use Mac, so I can’t tell you if it’s good or not, but the person who posted about it really likes it.