Another Veterans Day

I hate to admit it but since we don't get Veterans Day off anymore, it tends to slip my mind. Don't get me wrong, I love my country and am very, VERY grateful to the men and women who sacrifice to give me my daily freedoms, now and past. When we first got Veteran's Day taken away as a holiday I was really ticked off. Hello - we are a state run institution and we are taking away Veteran's Day?!?! That just didn't make any sense to me. Instead they gave us an extra Personal Preference Leave day. At that time I swore I would use one of the two days on Veteran's Day but years later, alas my preference days have been used as sick time.

I honor the men in my life who have given all, who continue to sacrifice and those who wouldn't do anything else. My father, Vaughn Terry; my nephew in laws, John McKeown and Caleb Heder; my friends, Jason Blood, Rod Miller, Mark Howell, Mark Baxter, Jeff Anderson, Byron Peterson. I am sure I have forgotten someone and I don't mean to, you are all honorable men and I am proud to know each of you. I am grateful for wives and families who miss their dad or give their dad so that I can complain when I am cold but have the right to raise my flag this day.

Living within 5 miles of Hill Air Force Base, it has never bothered me when the jets have flown over. I hear it and smile...being the last born in a family of Army brats I never remember living on base. But my dad taught me to be proud of my heritage, my country, and what we stand for. So I love seeing a man in uniform, get a little upset when they shame that uniform - love hearing the jets and planes fly by and practice, for I know that one day they may need those manuevers to protect me.

It may sound corny but anyone that really knows me knows its true, I am definately proud to be an American, and all that stands for.

November

So this month I decided to join Jojo in trying to write a novel. It's the National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) and once I figured out how it worked =P, I started. They really should give clearer instructions to those of us slightly denser first time users...but I did figure it out after playing around some.

For those of you that were reading my first book, "Learning to Love Myself"...I haven't given up on that. Actually, this new book is kind of like an adaption. It's called "Strong Women...perchance to Love". The idea behind it is that as strong women, sometimes life seems more difficult. We may believe in ourselves but not have a self esteem, we may be loved unconditionally but not know the full measure of it. Sounding familiar? =D yus, cuz it is the concept of my first book. What I'm attempting to do is take the advice from all of you, the counselling, etc and put it into a fictional character's life. Something that she is going through and will learn from.

I've decided I hate writing dialog >[. It pains me, so I am grateful to a wonderful niece, Lisa, who will eventually, when I send it to her ;], take the time to help her dear old aunt, grammatically speaking. He he. My self esteem is in process...a bunch of things that came about from my therapy, if your interested, ask....so I would ask that you not squash whatever little bit is there by making any comments. Positive comments are always welcome =]; however, I know that I've made typo's and run on sentences, and I know that romance isn't everyone's cup of tea...so, please don't reiterate =D.I'm hard enough on myself, more than all of you combined actually =].

My enthusiasm isn't quite where it was a couple of weeks ago, but that's okay. I am still writing and taking it day by day. Thankfully the kids leave for school and I stay up at night, nice quiet times to write. I am still looking for inspiration from any of you out there. Please know that most of you "are" my inspiration for all the strong women that I write about. I count myself blessed to know you and love you. =] You can access the book from the upper right box on my blog. Remember that its in blog form so start at the very beginning in the blog archive.

Paix