GRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

Well, before I go into a bit of a rant here, I hope everyone had a pleasant weekend. I did, for the most part. The weather has been beautiful, the company pleasant, and all the animals that live here, have been well behaved. Even Oreo, who tends to enjoy terrorizing Gracie and Maya, occasionally, has been a perfectly sweet kitty. But, there is a GRRRR, in this story.


Friday, Eileen and I drove to the Purple Castle. Well, actually, it's only a purple house that sort of resembles a castle, and it's about 15 miles from where I live.

Have you ever been charmed by a house? I don't mean impressed by it's grandeur, but charmed by it's uniqueness? That is what I have been by this extraordinary purple house, with the purple picket fence, and purple mailbox!

So we drove to look at it again. I had my camera with me. In the past, I have never seen anyone by the house. So this time, as we sat in the car, in front of it, I contemplated if I should get out and try and take pictures of it.

"What if the people don't like strangers taking pictures?" said Eileen.

"Well, we'll find out soon enough," said I, getting out of the car, while Eileen stayed put. Just as I was aiming my camera at one side of it, for it's a large house, an older woman came out. I introduced myself and asked her if it was okay for me to snap a few pictures of the house. She not only agreed, but after chatting, she invited me inside, to take pictures of the interior. Eileen insisted on staying put again, when I walked back to the car and tried talking her into coming along.

"No, you go, if you want to, and if you don't come out of there within a short time, I am going to call the law. You don't even know these people. They may be strange or something. After all, they live in a purple house!"

Now, if my daughter reads this, she will more than likely think that Eileen was right, and her Mom, me, a bit too daring, as usual.

The woman, Sandra was perfectly gracious. She told me she and her husband designed the house themselves, and have been working on it together for 14 years! And it's still not nearly finished, which was quite obvious, with lumber and even furniture, still stacked up on the numerous porches of the house. And Sandra, who is now in her sixties, is an artist. Much of her art is also stacked up in the various unfinished rooms. Oh, but the few rooms that are finished, are something else! Beautiful, stone fireplaces, a huge mural of a white tailed buck, on one of the walls, which Sandra had painted, stained glass windows, beautiful detail work on the walls, etc.

If I continue with the praises of the uniqueness of this house, this post will turn into a book. The photo's would tell some of the story....would, if I could only upload them onto my pc! But no such luck!

I have tried uploading them since Friday evening, but no success. The message keeps telling me to connect the device, which is connected! GRRRR! I have put freshly charged batteries into the camera, I have taken the little card in and out several times, at my daughters suggestion, I have done everything possible to make it happen, but it's not happenning. GRRRR! So I can't show you the Purple Castle, just yet. Or maybe never. It's stuck in my stupid camera! I am pretty aggravated over this! Can you tell? LOL.

So, I will have to take my laptop and camera in to our PC Guru, Patrick, sometime soon, and see if he can figure it out. But this week will be pretty busy, being that the 4th of July weekend is coming up, and I am determined to enjoy it all, even with a GRRRR, that will be in the back of my mind all week.

Thank you for reading my rant. Hope you have a great week!

I Blame It All On Spam!

Yesterday started out as a pretty good day. I did a little of this and that, exchanged emails with a writer friend, and with my daughter, spent some time outside, enjoying the light rain falling, came inside again and checked my email. After all, by then at least an hour had gone by since I had last checked it. A lot of emails can come in during the course of an hour. And guess what? There was a lot of email, most of it nasty spam, trying to sell me all kinds of wonder drugs, (that shall remain nameless,) to cure what ails me, and I'm not even a man! I HATE SPAM!

But wonder of wonders, there among all that spam was an email from Teri P. of Chicken Soup for the Soul, with an attachment. That meant there was a permission agreement to be signed and faxed back to them, for another Chicken Soup for the Soul Book. This one for Chicken Soup for the Soul, Celebrating People Who Make a Difference in the Lives of Others.

Now any writer who has gone through the submission process for a Chicken Soup book, knows the process. Stories are first read and rated by designated readers. Then the highest rated stories are passed on to more readers. Finally, a certain number of the highest rated stories are the finalists. At that point, Chicken Soup sends out an email informing the writer he/she is a finalist, and to please print, sign and fax back the agreement by the set date. Woo Hoo, I was a finalist again, and with a little more luck, this latest story would make it into the book.

However, I decided to dilly dally and get back to the email in the next day or so. I had nice Sunday plans, so Monday would be a good day to take care of the business of important emails from Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Meanwhile, more spam arrived that I kept deleting, and deleting, and when later I looked for the email from Chicken Soup, it was gone! Vanished into cyber space, no doubt with the spam I had so dilligently deleted! Oh my gosh, what would I do now? My evening was ruined, my Sunday would be spent worrying, my life as a writer was in jeopardy, (well, a little drama here!) and it was all because of the darn spam! I HATE SPAM!

I tried to find out if I could somehow un-delete a deleted email. But no such luck for this tech dummy. Finally, I searched my address book and found the email address for D'ette C. I worked with her on the last two Chicken Soup books. Maybe, just maybe she could help me. So, last night I emailed D'ette, apologizing profusely for bothering her, explaining my situation, and begging her to help me, if she was able to. And guess what? A little while ago, D'ette replied, telling me it was no bother, and they were always glad to help their contributors, in any way they could. And I now have Teri's email, and sent her an apologetic letter explaining to her what had happened, and asked her if she could re-send the information and contract/permission agreemnent. Hopefully, I will hear from Teri by tomorrow, and can finally complete the process as a finalist for the new Chicken Soup for the Soul, Celebrating People Who Make a Difference in the Lives of Others. Meanwhile, I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Whew, a long rant, but I'm glad I got it off my chest. Wish me luck! And did I tell you that I HATE SPAM?

Post Script: Monday morning, Sept. 10th--The email from Teri Paluso just came in. I'm back in business!