Magpie's Nest

Donnie and I saw the new Star Trek last night. WOW! What a ride! It had everything: fast paced action, comedy, romance. The list goes on. I'm not usually a fan of action movies, but this one is the exception.

The characters managed to incorporate many of the mannerisms of the original crew while keeping it fresh and current. Leonard Nimoy was the only original character who made an appearance as a much older and somewhat more emotional Spock. Wondering how and why he made an appearance since the younger Spock was the main Spock character? Go see the movie.

Would I recommend it? Yep, you bet. Take a couple hours off this weekend, get a bucket of popcorn,strap in and enjoy the show.

Brantley out.

Nine years ago today I was bustling around getting ready for a wedding. Mine! Family arrived at intervals throughout the day, meals were shared and then there was the big event itself.

We intended a smallish wedding and sent out minimal written invitations. What happened though is, we verbally invited folks not really thinking they would come. Well, they did. They were literally standing along the walls when I walked in. It was great!

The happiest day of my life I was cocooned by family and friends. Donnie and I only got small bites of food at the reception, but were told it was pretty good.

We changed clothes and scurried off to Gatlinburg after stopping to eat since we didn't get much food at the reception. Two months later we went to Cancun for a week where Donnie picked up a nasty bug.

I remember Donnie and I saying how much we looked forward to getting past the wedding and getting on with "real" life. Nine years later, a lot of water has gone under that bridge, equal parts happy and sad, and I love him more than I ever thought possible.

Happy anniversary, baby. I love you!

I've only been fifty for a little over a week now and I've already started acting like my mom. I went to get allergy shots today. Before I left, I laced up my sneakers and, off I went. Spent forty-five min. at the allergist, shopped a bit and came home.

So, I'm relaxing on the couch, I hug my dog and my eyes happen to land on my sneakers. I have two different pairs of shoes on! Yes, I went into public with two different shoes on. I noticed several people trying to hide a smile, but thought nothing of it. Now I get it.

It was the shoes.

What happens next? Will I forget to put a shirt on? Probably.

So, today is my 50th birthday. I know,half-century, genuine antique person. I've heard 'em all. Though I've received some nice gifts, here's a list of things I got that I'm not especially happy about:
1. A set of jowls I hadn't noticed before (wont' tell you any more than that)
2. The beginnings of a turkey waddle under my chiny-chin-chin
3. More wrinkles and crinkles

And, then I saw my mother's hand coming out the end of my coat sleeve and realized it was mine. Sheez.

I have gained some wisdom over this half-century though.

I've learned that even though salt is a preservative, it doesn't necessarily work when old people eat it. It just makes us retain water and drives the old blood pressure up.

I've learned that even though alcohol is also a preservative, it doesn't necessarily work when old people drink it. The end result is that your liver and brain are pickled and that doesn't always translate into a good thing.

Okay, so I haven't picked up that much wisdom. At least I have some good memories...if I could just remember what they are.

We've had overnight temps in the teens and single digits lately, so you can image my surprise when I discovered the day lilies poking through the soil.

Just one more reason to remember that even in harsh conditions, life presses on.

We've been waiting for snow all year and it's finally here! I'm sitting on my couch,looking out the front door watching fat snow flakes as big as feathers plummet to the ground willy-nilly. They're beautiful! The snow is coming down so fast its hard to focus on any one flake. It literally looks like there's a feather pillow fight going on above us and thousands of feather pillows have burst open. Or, could it be that all the snowmen above us have exploded and this is what remains of them?

The temperature is dropping like a rock, but the humidity is fairly high which may be why the flakes are falling so fast.

I've tried to lock my eye on a single snow flake and follow it to the ground, but they're falling so fast it's hard to enjoy them. I've seen huge flakes like this that simply floated on the air and took their sweet time before hitting the ground. This ain't that kind of snow.

It's starting to lay on the ground now and looks beautiful. As a child, I made snow angels, built snowmen, snow women and snow families. I even built a snow Volks Wagon once. I threw snowballs and make snow forts. I spent ten minutes climbing a snow covered hill only to slide down it in 2.3 seconds. I opened my mouth and let the flakes melt on my tongue and eyelashes.

Now, as an adult, I feel the same rush of excitement watching the giant snowflakes fall as I did when I was a kid. This probably won't give us enough snow to build anything, but it won't stop me from sticking out my tongue or enjoying the feeling of melting snow on my skin.

If you're a rodent lover, don't read this post.

While I was raking leaves today ( yeah, it's four months late, but we're having a nice day) I found a pretty big sink hole in our back yard. I pulled the leaves away and found what I believe to be a hole where something has dug out a nice home for itself in this frigid weather.

My neighbor came over to see what I was looking at.  I showed her and said, "They have things for varmints like that." Her eyes got big and she said, "You're not going to kill it are you?"

Now, what I wanted to say was, Oh, no! We're going to buy it pajamas and build it a room onto the back of the house. What I said though, was: "Yep, that's what I'm gonna do."

She gave me a lecture about how we're all God's children, blah, blah, blah, so I told her that I would be happy to trap it and move it to her back yard if she thought she'd like to give it a nice home with her and her family. She didn't  have a good response to that idea and turned on her heels and stomped back across the green belt.

Poor Donnie. He'll be the one to have to give the varmint it's last meal. Don't get me wrong, I don't like to kill animals, but when they dig holes the size of a subdivision in my yard, it's me or them! In this case, it's them.

My apologies to all the rodent lovers out there. If you want to save this one's life, come and get it today!

When I was born it wasn't possible for whites and blacks to mingle. There was still very much of a divide that said blacks must use one door and whites the other.

Today, as I watched the inauguration, I remembered those who gave their lives on battlefields all over the world so this peaceful transfer of power was possible. I also remembered the lives of black men and women who lay down their lives on the black top and deserted country sides so a black man could take the oath of office in 2009.

It's been a long time coming, but America took a giant step today and for that I'm proud.
Whether you voted for President Obama or not, you have to agree that he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and he's in for a hell of a ride.

I think of myself as a very patriotic American and the National Anthem always gets to me. I spent a good deal of the morning swallowing tears for various reasons. In the afterglow of the day I still feel so fortunate to live in America. For all its faults, it's still the best place to live.

President Obama has been handed a tough job. We'll see what the future holds.

I'll be turning 50 next month. It seems impossible to me that I've lived this long. Looking back it feels like I just graduated high school last week, but when I started thinking about it today I realized A LOT has happened in my life time. Here's an incomplete list:

Assasination of JFK
Man walked on the moon
Color TV
Rock-n-Roll
Computers
Internet
Wireless phone
Cell phone
Berlin Wall fell
Fall of Communism in Russia
Turn of the century
Terrorist attack on home soil
First African-American President of the US

Whew! I HAVE lived a long time. Makes you wonder what the next 50 years holds. First female president?

Most of the USA is suffering from bone chilling weather this winter. It's not much different for us here in the South. Today we woke up to 6 degrees F and a wind chill of zero or below. That's extremely cold for us. My hat's off to the folks dealing with the misery that 20-40 below zero inflicts.

I couldn't help but think about the comparison in weather and writing. Yep, that's right, there's a comparison and here it is. Looking out of my window the sun is shining and it looks like it could be a nice day. Okay, so the wind chime is being blown sideways, but other than that, it could be a nice day. I step out on the porch and realize it's bitter, bitter cold. I step back inside, close the door, rub my arms and scold myself for being so stupid.

Now, sitting on my couch putting the final touch on a story before sending it out for consideration, I think: That's not bad, who wouldn't want to publish that AND give me money for it? I hit send and off it goes. Not long after that, the rejection comes or the list of winners is posted and my name is not there and I realize the wind chill has hit bone. I sit on the couch, dab a tear and, just for a minute think: How could you be so stupid to put yourself out there like that.

After a bit of consoling though, I'm right back on the computer putting the final touches on yet another story with my finger poised to hit the send button.

So here we are almost the middle of January, it's snowing everywhere but here, we're freezing our nobstenoodles off and still have NO SNOW!

I just heard from someone that their kids are putting spoons under their pillows and flushing ice cubes down the toilet in hopes they'll attract the snow fairies.

Tomorrow night our temperature is supposed to plunge to 10 degrees or so (don't forget to put the pets inside) and by the end of the week we'll be shivering good and proper. Looking into my crystal ball I still see no snow in our future. How is that?

I'm really not complaining since I grew up in Northern Ill. where the snow was a menace. Watching the news about the blizzards that have smothered other states lately, I'm okay with no snow, but I would like to have one last ride down a snow covered hill on a trash can lid before I develop brittle bones and loose the desire to go skimming across packed snow at break-neck speeds.

I remember going sledding with friends when I was in high school,trekking across the snow and suddenly hearing a strange popping and cracking noise. We were standing right in the middle of a mostly frozen pond. Uh-oh. We gingerly tip-toed to where we thought the edge was and made good our escape before anyone crashed through into the icy water.

As a child I used to ice skate on a huge frozen pond at Northern Ill. University called The Lagoon. We would skate until our toes were frozen solid and our cabooses were bruised, then go warm up with hot chocolate and go right back at it again.

Enough of reminiscing for me though, I have ice cubes to flush!

Here's an article that helps explain some of our problems here in East TN and the whole Appalachian area. Please read this and pass the link along to others. If you can post a blog about it, that would be even better since it's not getting the coverage we need to get tighter regulations on this practice.

http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/frontporch/blogposts/fly_ash_flood_disaster_at_tva_site_near_knoxville/

Thanks for any help you can give.

It's hard to believe, but TVA has done it again. A plant in Stevenson AL. (about 30 min. from Chattanooga) has had another spill today! Harriman, the site of the other spill is only about an hour north of us and Stevenson is south of us. We're hemmed in by coal ash spills.

TVA needs heavy regulations in my opinion. Obviously, the procedures they're using aren't working and causing TN. and surrounding areas a great many problems.

What will happen to us? More cancer? Higher infant mortality? Other catastrophic disease? Yep, I fear that's in our future.

Clean coal? Pardon my french, but that's bullshit.

As they try to do damage control, TVA assures us that the drinking water is safe even though fish are belly-up all over the place. Yeah, it's safe.

Now, we get to pay for the clean up. They make the mess and we clean it up. According to TVA, the cost will be astronomical.

Way to go TVA. Way to go!

In case you haven't seen what the spill looked like, take a look.

I never win anything, but I'll be dog-gone if I didn't win a T-shirt from The Debs at The Debutante Ball! I entered their contest and got a great T that I'll be showing off when it arrives. In the meantime, check these debut novelists and follow along with them as they go through their first year of getting their first book to the shelves of your local bookstore!

http://www.thedebutanteball.com/

Today I had a great time. I spent about four hours with a group of writers who know no bounds. We call ourselves the Thunder Rock Writers. During this time, we set our goals for the year and left totally excited!

I remember just starting out as a wanna-be writer and looking for others like me only to hit a wall. In the past 4 yrs. I've been blessed with some really helpful writer friends who've helped shepherd me into a cozy little place where I can grow and learn all the while being kicked in the butt when needed. It works for me.

Now, it's time to give back. Throughout this year, Thunder Rock Writers will be hosting some pretty cool opportunities for writers. I'm so very happy to be aligned with such talented writers who truly have a heart to help other writers achieve their goals.

If you haven't checked us out yet, go to http://thunderrockwriters.com

I hope you'll take the time to listen all the way through.

It's the day after Christmas and the sky has finally turned from Smith and Wesson gray to more like dolphin silver. Not quite sunny, but better than it was a few hours ago. The dogs are staring at me which means it's time to go for a walk. Donnie's about to jump on the bike and go for a soppy bike ride (for hours no doubt) and I'm determined to walk until I shave at least a pound off this post-Christmas carcass.

How are you feeling? Were you strong enough to say no to several extra helpings of the casseroles, butter slathered rolls, gravy and dessert? Not me. Nope, I ate it all...several times.
So, here I go with my tennis shoes on determined to walk until my blistered feet cry "Uncle." Wish me luck.

I hope you guys had a great Christmas. We did. After stuffing ourselves we traipsed off to the movies to see Marley and Me. I had never been to a movie on Christmas day and was surprised to see hordes of people there. It was like walking the gauntlet just to get to the theater and then try to find two empty seats together.

I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks at Marley growing up, then cried myself into a headache at the end. I won't say how it ends since it would be a spoiler.

Then, we came home to our own Marley moment. Walking up the stairs, there it was in the floor: the ham bone. It had to have been Buddy, our big black dog, since he's the only one big enough to retrieve it from the stove and since he's a retriever, well, that should tell you something.

He drank two full bowls of water, went outside and pooped, then dropped to the floor asleep. Yep, he's the one. He did it.

I'd bet that the little ones didn't even get a sniff.

Anyway, hope you guys had a wonderful day and no one got coal in their stocking. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

It's 15 degrees here in the Southeast. Folks, we don't do cold down here. The dogs insisted on a walk this a.m. so here we go bundled to the max. As my mom used to say: It's cold enough to freeze your nobstenoodle off out there! Now, I was never exactly sure what a nobstenoodle was, but just assumed that I had frozen mine off early in life since we lived in Northern Il. until I was 13.

At any rate, it's cold, so you guys stay bundled and safe. Oh, and keep an eye on your nobstenoodle to be sure it doesn't freeze!

Last night Donnie and I enjoyed an evening with two of the four Thunder Rock Writers www.thunderrockwriters.com and their hubbys at Logan's Roadhouse. Reggie and Rusty, we missed you guys.

As usual, there was much laughing and planning for group success, but most of all, lots of shared respect for each other.

Ladies, you guys ROCK! I hope your holidays are extra special this year.

Ho, Ho, Ho!