Category Archives: Love & Loss

Mama Mia

November 19, 2008 · 16 comments

People ask me all the time if Surfer Ty is going to move to Bellevue now that we’re expecting, and I say no.  We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, which is being together and then apart, but then together again.  We always find a way to get back to the other and sometimes we wait a month but later, when the baby is born, it won’t be a month, it’ll be less, but for now, it’s what it is, and it works. How?  I don’t know.  I do know that Flirting with Forty is magical because of him.  He isn’t the entire story, but just when I was so broken up about life, marriage, divorce he was something entirely new, and entirely wonderful and I … Continue reading Mama Mia →

Pink Ribbon Run in London

September 1, 2008 · 4 comments

For my Harlequin readers around the world, or those who are passionate supporters of breast cancer research as I am, I thought you might enjoy hearing that the Harlequin Mills & Boon editors and staff in London are participating in a 5k run supporting Breast Cancer.  The goal is to have one hundred staff members, friends and family join in the run on September 7th.  Why 100?  Because it’s Mills & Boons’ 100th birthday this year and just makes the event more special. A number of the Harlequin Romance and Presents authors have made donations to the event and I just made a donation, too.  As most of you know my amazing former mother-in-law, Jackie Gaskins, fought breast cancer successfully twice before … Continue reading Pink Ribbon Run in London →

Lucky & Happy

August 3, 2008 · 8 comments

I am so lucky, which makes me so happy.  I am so lucky to have the friends I do that it makes me cry.  I know it’s sappy and I’m being mushy, but when I was a little girl I wanted to grow up and be beautiful and happy one day.  It’s the thing I used to wish for on stars and on dark nights when I leaned on my windowsill and stared up at the moon.  Dear God, when I grow up, please let me be beautiful and happy. God made me work for my prayers but my prayers have been answered.  Never mind that it took nearly thirty years.  Patience is a virtue, yes? Only a funny thing … Continue reading Lucky & Happy →

A Word of Caution

May 14, 2008 · 16 comments

Don’t read this if you’re being fragile, overly sensitive, or full of despair.  Don’t read this if you need something soothing and comforting.  You won’t find soothing and comforting here.  You’re going to find facts, as well as some fire and brimstone. I know it’s Mercury in Retrograde, and I’m aware that the economy is down and people have health issues and emotional issues and relationship issues and career issues and all of the above at the same time. But I am also aware that most of us, even with our health and career and relationship issues, aren’t, well, in China. Or Mayanmar. Or Dafur. I don’t mean to make light of our personal struggles, but I do have a … Continue reading A Word of Caution →

Mother’s Day Tribute

May 11, 2008 · 2 comments

This is my first Mother’s Day without any of my grandmothers.   Both my grandmothers, Rosemary Porter and Elizabeth Lyles, lived until their mid 90’s.  I can’t complain about that.  But I do miss their wisdom and their love.  How lucky I am to have had such wonderful women in my life.  There have been other wonderful women who have been lost in the past several years–Jackie Gaskins, my former mother-in-law and Sally Winn, one my mother’s best friends and a woman who was like a second mom to me from the time I was five years old on.   There are other women who still look out for me, women who I adore:  my own mom, Marybeth Higuera, who is my … Continue reading Mother’s Day Tribute →

Monday Morning

March 31, 2008 · 32 comments

I tried to update my blog last night but couldn’t. I just sat at the computer and stared at the ceiling waiting for some little bit of inspiration to carry the blog but nothing came and I eventually just clicked off the internet and went to watch four hours of t.v. Grandmother (seated), with my mom, Marybeth, to the right. Fresno Fig Garden Books, October 2007 My grandmother died yesterday afternoon around 4:30. My uncle had just been with her and he’d told Grandma that yesterday was her 75th wedding anniversary and that Grandpa was waiting for her. He told her to go to him and he left the hospital. She died within an hour. I knew she was dying. … Continue reading Monday Morning →

For Elizabeth

March 22, 2008 · 19 comments

I flew down to Fresno yesterday morning and back again on the five thirty pm flight.  It was four hours sitting in airports, five hours sitting on planes, for four and a half hours at the hospital to sit next to my grandmother’s bed.  I love my grandmother.  She’s 96 and she had a stroke last week that’s taken away her ability to speak or swallow, and use the muscles on her right side.   Did I mention that I love this grandma?  Dearly, dearly, dearly? I called Surfer Ty once I’d landed in Fresno and was climbing into a rental car to tell him I’d arrived safely.  I told him I dreaded going to the hospital.  I don’t like hospitals.  … Continue reading For Elizabeth →

Prayers

March 7, 2008 · 12 comments

Two days after arriving in Hawaii, three days after learning the in-vitro didn’t work, I got whacked by something pretty brutal.  That something had the power to reach into my chest and rip my heart right out.  For days I felt like a vampire from a Feehan or Ward novel.   For ten days I struggled.  I hurt.  I woke up in the middle of the night and stared at the ceiling.  I tried to sleep but woke up before dawn and couldn’t sleep again.  I dragged myself through the day, trying to function, forcing myself to write even as my heart  swung this way, slammed by shock, and then pounded that way by fear, until all I was doing was swinging wildly in the wind.  … Continue reading Prayers →

The Longest Day

February 16, 2008 · 16 comments

I had said I wouldn’t write anything more about doctors and shots until I had something definite to say, and I’d meant that in a definitely positive sort of way, but hey, things change.  The long and short of it:  the in-vitro didn’t work.  I took the blood test this morning at 9:15 am and the nurses said the lab guy came in at 11 am and it would take an hour or so so they’d call me as soon as they knew. I was nervous and wanted to take my mind off the wait, especially as my boys flew out this morning to Hawaii without me so I went and got a pedicure to help pass the time.   I … Continue reading The Longest Day →

Lemonade

January 11, 2008 · 4 comments

I hate it when my kids leave me for their dad’s.  I’m not saying I don’t want them to see their dad, but I hate it when they go.  I hate the sudden stillness in the house, a stillness that will last five days until they return.  When they go everything changes.  When I’m on deadline its a good change but when I’m trying to focus on being a mom and then the boys are suddenly gone I feel at loss, as though I’m just half a person.  The woman remains but the mom goes dormant.  Last night I didn’t even get to hug or kiss them goodbye, either.  Joe picked them up from an appointment and it was raining hard … Continue reading Lemonade →