Merry Christmas!

We've had a wonderful Christmas week blessed with calls and visits from our loving family and friends. Thank you for your friendship and love. I wish a great new year for all of you!

Helping out in Arizona!

I've been out here in Arizona for a little over two weeks now. I have a new grandson and I came back here to Sierra Vista (a nice,smaller city not far from the US/Mexico border)to help out with the baby and his two-year old brother. It has been a nice visit, though a little hot when the A/C went down for a few days.

Tomorrow I fly back to my home in San Antonio, and back to more serious writing time, with plenty of work to get done. I've been able to seek in a few minutes here and there, however, of novel writing while holding the new baby and chasing around the two-year old. Wow, is he ever a ball of energy! It's been a real workout for me!

My new children's book, Bugs Before Bedtime, has been delayed for a while longer as the illustrator has had a problem with his computer and will need more time to redo his work. This has been some what disappointing, but things will work out in the end. Please check back with me and keep an eye out for it!

Sizzilin' Summer!

It's a "hot time in the old town tonight" as they say, but not for the reasons that saying usually means. This whole summer has been one big heat wave followed by another, and another, and another, and....! If you've been following the news, or perhaps live in an area as we do plagued with this drought, you have seen the devastating results of its affects.

I love to garden! I always have. I love the connection I feel to nature and Mother Earth as I dig in the soil, plant new seeds or seedlings, or fresh from the nursery flowers or bushes. It makes my heart sing to watch them grow and bloom out as I tend to them.

But this year it has been difficult and disappointing to say the least. It has been a real struggle to keep anything alive in this terrible heat. We are on tight water restrictions here in San Antonio. We can still water our lawns once a week, but that may change soon as the drought worsens. We may soon be at stage 3 on restrictions.

But my problems are a drop in the bucket compared to what others are experiencing. Here in Texas many have lost their crops, their cattle ranches, their businesses. We are all praying for the much needed rain to come our way. I find it interesting that other areas of the country are having too much rain and are praying for it to lighten up. Please, send some of it our way, will you?

Star Trek Movie Pretty Good!

Have you seen the new Star Trek movie? If you enjoyed the previous ones, you would most likely enjoy this one as well. My husband and I, just newly married at the time, enjoyed seeing the very first Star Trek movie when it hit the theaters. In fact, it was the first movie we saw together.

I accompanied my family and our son's friends to the local theater this past Friday evening. Being that the movie had only been out since the previous Friday, my husband bought our tickets online to prevent the disappointment of being sold out when we arrived.

With ticket printouts in hand, we hoped to get there early and get a good seat. But after a series of slowness, not on my part this time I can report, we arrived with only 15 minutes to spare. As we climbed the ramp and rounded the corner to the assigned theater, our lively conversation came to a standstill as we discovered that the only seats left for us to sit together were the first two rows down in front and the last row at the very top. Forgoing the top row where one practically needs binoculars and an oxygen mask, we opted instead to grab the second row from the front, hoping we wouldn't have to schedule a trip to the chiropractor the next day.

I enjoy watching movies like everyone else, but usually prefer to wait for them to come out on DVD so I can pop up my own, less costly, popcorn, or whatever else I wish to eat on my Weight Watchers list, (well, I must admit that some times the snack isn't always WW approved) and recline in my favorite chair. And, if one of us must leave the room for a short break, we can pause the movie and not miss a single moment of the action. Now what theater would allow you to do this? I can hear the crowd now, "Not again. Can't you hold it?"

After a time of trying to adjust my eyes to the closeness of the action and the turning of the head to see the small Enterprise ship in the far right corner of the huge screen as it stared down the mammoth evil ship, I found myself pulled into the action and enjoyed each of the familiar characters as they were introduced into the storyline. The actors did a good job of playing the roles of the Enterprise's "youthful" characters.

Over all, it turned out to be a fun adventure and well worth the journey.

I can't help but think that if that small group of boys, who stated rather loudly how bad the movie was as they walked out in the middle of it, would have changed their minds had they stayed to see the second half.

Check It Out!

I'm back and beginning to feel better. I can now exercise a bit and hope to continue on my quest to losing more weight as I had before the accident. Going to the type of chiropractor I mentioned in a previous entry, really helped me a lot. I would reccomend it to anyone with a spinal problem.

I hope you found and read my latest article in Back Home magazine. This came out in their March/April 2009 issue and is entitled "Move Over, Rubber Duckies." It is an article about how in searching for the best way for us to raise our new baby chickens, I can upon the idea of putting them in our master bedroom's bath tub. Now what husband would be nice enough to let their wife do that? Mine. He's a wonderful guy!

I have submitted more articles for possible publication to other magazines, and I'll keep you posted on where they land.

Thank you for your comments and e-mails.
Have a great week!
S. A. Slack

As They Say "One Day At A Time"

I am still having pain from the accident, thus slowing down my weight loss and writing, but this new method that my chiropractor does is really helping me. It is known as Advanced BioStructural Correction. Even though it can be painful at times during the adjustments, I can feel it working to bring my spine back to where it was before the accident. (The car accident caused my spine to be pushed forward and to one side, causing all kinds of problems.) It has taken the pressure off of my lungs and I can move around a bit better now. You can check this out by going to this website: http://www.abcmiracles.com/

As for Weight Watchers, I am still doing fairly well on this program. I still love it! However, I have had a lot of swelling and inflammation with my injuries, so it has been hard to lose more weight. But this won't stop me from keeping at it. I will win this battle yet!

I want to thank my husband and my 17-year old son, Erik, for all of the help they have been to me during this time. They are wonderful!

It Could Have Been Worse...

Yesterday, we woke up to a cold morning and a threat of rain in the skies. One of our sons works for Wendy's several days a week, and even though he is off Fridays, he was asked to come in for a few hours to fill in for another employee. Many days he walks to work, but I was concerned about the weather and offered to drive him.

On the way back home after dropping him off, I entered the main street to our neighborhood and proceeded along until I came to one of the many speed bumps in the area. This one is located just a short distance before the first cross street along the road on which I was traveling. I slowed down to about 10 miles an hour going over the bump, then started picking up speed as I entered the intersection. I noticed to my left, speeding down the adjoining cross street, came a light-colored car. To my horror I realized that the car was not going to stop at the stop sign. The only thing I could do was to step on the gas and try to get out of the intersection and the other cars way.

Being in a van, my father's bright blue one, it ended up that I needed more time than I had and the other car, a four-door model, ran through the stop sign, crossed the two lanes, and plowed into the back section of the van, right behind the driver's side rear tire. The impact spun the van around and I found myself sitting in the same lane I had been driving in, but now facing the opposite direction than I had been going. The woman driving the other car came to a stop on the opposite side of the intersection.

Needless to say, I was shook up and some what dizzy from the spinning ride. Fortunatly, the woman admitted that she was in a hurry and had run the stop sign, and that it was all her fault. I did find it odd, however, that she was moving the bumper of her car out of the street as another woman from a corner house swept the street of the glass and parts all BEFORE the police arrived. The woman from the corner house said that she had seen several accidents on that corner before.

I was blessed that I escaped with only a neck and back ache and some bruises along my left arm and leg. I limped my Dad's car back to our house (both of my parents now live with us), and my husband came home from work and took me to the local hospital to be checked out. That, in itself, is another story. What is it with hospitals and emergency rooms? They sure aren't very quick about anything!

My newest magazine article is out!

Hi,

Just wanted to let you all know that my newest article is out in the Jan/Feb issue of Back Home magazine. It is called "Bacon, With a Little Sausage" and tells of our adventures in raising pigs. You will find it in the magazine starting on page 48. They have the magazine on sale now in bookstores and where other magazines are sold.

Check it out and let me know what you think.
Susan