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Well let’s see. I was born during the Blizzard of 1978 in Lima, Ohio. I have lived in Ohio all my life. I like it here. We have corn fields instead of oceans, overpasses instead of mountains and fog instead of smog. Sure it's not the promise land, but sometimes one doesn't need postcard worthy beauty on the outside to have it elsewhere. I'm a writer for fun, a Paralegal for profession, and while one pays the bills, one feeds my imagination, or perhaps my imagination feeds my writing...either way, Writing is as much of who I am as the color of my eyes, or the way that I smile. Blogs are great communication tools, and I'm here to communicate with YOU...yeah, you who's reading this right now....*assuming anyone's out there* *crickets chirp* Alrightee then, IF anyone should find themselves here, be it by accident or on purpose, welcome, glad to have you aboard. Throw anchor, stay awhile! Sunshine & Smiles, ~Heather Lynn~

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Preparing for the big Lay-up

And I'm not talking about basketball....

So tomorrow I go and meet with the surgeon who's going to be removing my tumor they found in my large intestine earlier this month.  I'm hearing mixed reports as to what my recovery time will be, so in an effort to prepare to spend my time and "pain killers" wisely, I prepare to make good use of this down time, assuming I can stay conscious.

To my future boss in real estate (Krista)....yes I fully intend to study for my State Real Estate Exam....IF my pain killers will allow for any memory retention.  However, you don't need to REMEMBER what you're writing per se when you're a novelist...so why not allow the creative or even hallucinate-ive nature of my recovery aid me in finishing the novel I've been working on for oh so long now.



*ponders what Vicodin might have to offer Vivienne & Jude* 
hmmmm....i wonder....I wonder.

So after surgery, I won't be able to lift heavy things, and I'm going to need to be comfortable, so I stole a recliner from the living room and hauled it down the hallway into my office in an effort to make my office more homey, more "writer-worthy"....


Is this chair oh so totally "writer-ish" or what?!  It reminds me of the old leather bindings of antique books.  Maybe that's just me....I see books in everything.

Ok, so I got the chair....then I got the laptop fired up and put on some tunes.....


FYI - The "A Great Big World" custom I-heart radio station rocks my socks...I just love it.

Well, now there's lovely lyrics and music...the room is starting to feel more inviting....

Next, comes:     Lay out the tools of the trade. (one of my favorite parts of writing...gel pens and highlighters!  Regardless of how much writing I do on my laptop, I always am happier when I have a smooth gliding pen held lovingly between my fingers.  It's comforting...so a pile as pretty as this makes me smile, even before writing a thing, or even picking one up.


Alright, now I need some ambiance:

 Big Blue Chrystal Skull is lit up....

Ok, then I geeked it out with  my glasses....

lol


Sorry, I couldn't help myself, I like my skulls to look like they are about to tell me something really intelligent....and in my head, they always have a really kick ass British accent for some reason....


Candles lit, Lucille Ball watching lovingly from the wall....


There's a snoring dog at my ankles, apparently HE thinks it's perfectly warm and welcoming in here...

I sit down, and start dusting off my manuscript:



To start off the creative process, I first must read what I've written with fresh eyes, and new perspective.



So here is my pile of papers, aka, manuscript, paper-clipped into chapters, and ready to go with me where ever I go, so all those Dr. Office waiting rooms, I'll have reading material.

Under all this dust, there's just got to be some magic....and if not, it's never too late to make some, or write some, right?!


Thanks for joining me for this episode of
"From a writer's Office"
It's been great hanging with you,...
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the big comfy Leather Chair I hijacked.

with a blanket...
maybe a glass of wine....

which pretty much means I'll be sound asleep in about 10-15 minutes!

Please join us next time,
for another EXCITING episode of
"From a writer's office"!

*giggles, snorts*
Geeking out now,

~HeatherLynn~

Friday, December 26, 2014

A Fundamental difference...

So tonight while laying in my recliner, sicker than a dog....AGAIN...this time with some strange lung/snotty/cold type illness, I laid around watching yet another Parenthood Marathon because I simply don't have the physical or mental strength to actually get interested in a new story line right now....plus, something about the Braverman back yard makes me feel kinda dreamy and curious about California.  It's winter here in good ole Ohio, and California on the TV reminds me that it will be nice here again someday.  I've been pretty thankful for the mild weather we had over Christmas.  It was nice not to have to brave the weather AND be sick.

I don't know where this damn new illness came from.  I swear, I'm just falling apart.  I feel like my lungs are burning and I'm wheezing when I breath, and the coughing fits, oh, don't even get me going on those, feels like my heart is going to burst out of my chest and my eyeballs are going to pop out of my head.  I had a fever that made my face feel like it was burning, and the rest of my body freezing, and THEN, switched, my my face cool to the touch, and the rest of me sweaty...ah the joys of having a compromised immune system.  I blame the stress....you get sick, you stress, you get sicker, you stress...it's a terrible unproductive cycle.  And it really astounds me that Jerimy and I are so different in that department, I worry and stress and he "appears" to go through life without a care in the world.  Don't get me wrong, I know he does, but he never shows it, well at least not often.

Women and men are so very different in how they handle stress.  For instance, tonight while watching an episode of Parenthood, Adam punched a guy in the face for calling his Autistic son a "retard"....I looked at Jerimy and said, "would you of punched that guy out in that situation?"  and he was like, "hell yeah I would of, some guy calls my kid a retard, I'm punching him, no doubt"...and I was like....hmmm...as a woman, I would have probably assaulted that person with my words, and probably cursed a lot, while making them feel as little and ashamed as earthly possible.  I probably would have cried as soon as I left the supermarket and as soon as I got home, I would have confessed the whole terrible ordeal to Jerimy the second I walked in the door, both to bring him up to speed and also to have him "share" in the whole awful thing with me.  Which is strange to think that I want to "include" him in such a miserable event, but at the same time, women don't think about "sparing" him the details, it's ALL about the details with us.

Back on Parenthood, Adam walked in the door, Christina, his wife immediately picked up on the vibe he was putting off and asked him "what's wrong", he said nothing, he opened a beer, and then walked out of the room and away from his spouse, not telling her that he just totally punched a guy out at the supermarket.

Again, I looked at Jerimy and said, "I so wouldn't have done that, I would of told you all about it and would have been like Can you believe that guy, what an asshole!!"...and I would have felt so much better once I told the tale and got it off of my chest, but not guys, guys drink a beer and want to go be alone somewhere where you can't ask them "what's wrong".

It's really hard for me to relate to someone who is so fundamentally different than myself.  I try to wrap my head around it, and 9 times out of 10, i'm going to react like a "woman" every time.

Something else Jerimy and I are really different from each other is the fact that I like to take all the facts, all the possible outcomes and prepare for any and all of them.  He would tell you I pick the worst case scenario and play it out like it's GOING to happen.  In my defense, it's just how I cope, ya know, like I'd rather be relieved at getting good news, than devastated when given bad news.  The old "expect the best, prepare for the worst" kind of philosophy.  Jerimy gets soooooooo annoyed that I do this, He calls me "negative nancy"....like I'm so kind of doomsday prepp'er over here, but honestly, just between you and me, one of THE scariest things in the world, is what you never see coming.  If I had went into my colonoscopy thinking there is NO WAY I could have cancer, and then found out that it had been (hypothetically speaking), it would have wrecked me.  If I go into this surgery that I'm going to have in the next month or so thinking, "It's basically outpatient, I'll be fine, and then wake up with a colostomy bag that I have to have the rest of my life, I'm going to be beyond consolable.  Can you imagine what a colostomy bag would do to your sex life?  Can you imagine your feces and urine taped to a bag on your side for the rest of your life?

and it leads me to believe, it's not just women and men, or maybe it fundamentally is, but me, this woman, I like to have all the facts, imagine the worst, and then prepare myself mentally for what MAY lie ahead.  For me, mental preparation, it's the difference between being able to take a breath and face the worst, or shutting down, and being too devastated to face the facts as the are presented to me.  I wish I were more like Jerimy..  I admire his optimism and enthusiasm, and while I don't consider myself a negative person, I'm human, I'm flawed, I'm a pain in the ass, I sometimes talk to much, and there was that time I punched a guy in the arm at Walmart, thinking he was someone I knew, only to find out he was a total stranger....and yeah, I punched him again and said "Heeeey man well it was really good to see you" and I walked away leaving a total stranger to think HE was the crazy one who couldn't remember who I was! As opposed to being someone who should really wear her glasses before punching strangers at Walmart.  What can I say, I'm a complete wreck sometimes, and I surely feel like one now, hospitals, procedures, test results, blood draws, plastic arm bands, feeling weak, freezing, then sweaty, burning lungs, nothing tastes good, nothing smells good, and sometimes the only thing that doesn't hurt are my eyelashes....but just to prove Jerimy wrong, I'm not ALL negative, I couldn't be more thankful for the cushy recliner I get to lay in, or the soft snugly blankets I get to pull on and then kick off, only to repeat again.  I'm so thankful that I'm off work for the holiday, and maybe will get some serious rest and go back to work on Monday feeling more human and ready to face the meeting with the surgeon, Dr. Bowersock, on Wednesday morning.


Please tell me there's some others out there like me, that I'm not alone in this whole crazy worry cycle.  Worry, wash, worry, repeat.  I'm not right?  I just can't bring myself to lie to myself and tell myself everything is going to be fine, when "fine" is the last thing that I know I will be.

I don't want to lie to myself in the name of optimism.


Someone, anyone out there, tell me a story of worry, one that shows I'm not alone.

Anyone out there....

Luv,
In bed and sick,
~HeatherLynn~

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Happy Tuesday.



So Jerimy told me the other night that when waking up from my medically induced slumber at the GI specialist that I didn't say anything, I just kept flipping him off.

Which so totally cracks me up because like seriously, I'm not a big flipper-offer...well, unless I really love you and it's funny to do so.

Stephanie, my longtime best friend from the third grade told me that the reason I have a tumor is because I suppress negative energy and emotions, I don't let them out, I don't express myself and tell people what I really think, because I'm too nice, and that tumor is nothing but all the things I should of said, but didn't.

It's an interesting theory....

I still can't believe I kept flipping Jerimy off, that's so unlike me!  Apparently under anesthesia, I can "express myself" just fine! *laughs*

Did I tell you Steph took me to my first visit?  She's such a trooper, even in the midst of her own family's health issues, she took time out of her day to take me to my appointment.

She dutifully took the little pamphlets off the rack and we one by one went through the different illnesses, one symptom at at time, trying to see if we could pinpoint perhaps which one I had.

When Dr. Taja took me over to his computer and showed my my tumor, I saw Steph, one by one, return the little booklets to the rack, as a big sign of defeat.  I didn't have what was easily identifiable in a information packet.  I had something worse.  I had something scarier.

One thing I loved about Dr. Taja is that he was really straight forward with me, he didn't pull any punches, he told me the tumor was big, specifically said that by looking at the CT Scan, it was "alarming" and needed to be addressed right away.  Then, in his foreign accent he said "I am hoping that it's just an Artifact"  And I'm like...."Huh?  An Artifact?"

Immediately, my mind, being the wildly active thing that it is, imagined Dr. Taja with a Indiana Jones hat, bull whip and flashlight, going up my "temple of doom" to retrieve this "artifact" he suspected to be inside me.


I can't get it out of my head that after surgery, the surgeon's going to come out looking like this, and my tumor will look like the precious rock that was stolen from that village.


Back to reality in Dr. Taja's office, he no longer looking like Indiana Jones, he's looking at me now, strangely as I've obviously spaced out for a minute, then he says, "you know Artifact?"...."like artificial"...."like not real"....

I couldn't help but smile a little through my terror of being told I have a tumor....

Dr. Taja, as Indiana Jones, it was just too comical in my head.

I love my brain in times like that.  Take a horrible situation like that, and turn it into a little movie in my head that's much more pleasant to view than a sketchy CT scan with a Dr. telling you you have a tumor.  I'd much rather have an "artifact" in my bum, at least when they went in to retrieve it I could like sell it on Ebay or something and make a little cash from the damned thing.  Or maybe it's not the temple of doom stones at all, perhaps it's like a T-Rex bone or something cool like that!

So, I have an Apt. on the morning of New Years Eve to talk to the surgeon who'll be doing the surgery, and to schedule the procedure.  I'm guessing it won't be til the end of January that I'll get in for the actual removal, but I guess that gives me time to prepare.

I really hope you all have a very merry Christmas, and a HEALTHY and happy New Year!



Hug your loved ones, hold em' near and dear to your heart, what's under the tree doesn't matter nearly as much as the people who put the presents under there.  They are the real gift.



All my Luv,
~HeatherLynn~

And if you haven't read the interview that was just featured in "Shine" Newsletter, have a read, the Newsletter was a real enjoyable read for me, perhaps it will be for you as well!  I'm January's featured "Dream Achiever"


Saturday, December 20, 2014

An answer to my prayers and yours!



Have you ever felt THIS thankful, THIS blessed, THIS overwhelmed with Joy?!?!?!?

In this moment, I dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Test results are back, BENIGN!

BENIGN

BENIGN
BENIGN

BENIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't have cancer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you hear me????  

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!BENIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot be happier!

And incase you didn't grasp the entire jist of JUST how excited I am, I'm as excited as Buddy the Elf when he found out Santa was coming:



Dr. Taja....I know him
and I love him
for calling me on a Saturday to let me know my test results
and not making me wait in agony another moment longer!

woooooo
hooooooo
WOOOOOOOOO
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Thank you so so so so so so very much for praying for me and worrying WITH me, and loving me enough to keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

I still have to have sugery to remove the tumor, but this Christmas is so very much brighter without "Cancer" hanging over my head!

*Breathes HUGE sign of relief*


Friday, December 19, 2014

Well Poop.



Well, I called Dr. Taja's office

No results yet, and they close at 2:00 p.m.

they said they would call me if anything came in before two, otherwise, they said call Monday.

:( :( :(

I was really hoping to know today and not have to wait the weekend.

*sighs*

Well, fingers are still crossed I get the call today.

And to keep things positive, I saw this and thought that this is maybe what Jerimy went through getting me home last night when i was all drugged up...it made me smile, maybe it will make you smile too!


<3 xoxox <3
~HeatherLynn~

Post Procedure!

Well, I'm dressed and ready to go, Jerimy is in the shower, I've watched a ton of Parenthood, Crosby's a dad...Sarah's dating the kid's English teacher and Adam is having a nervous breakdown because everyone relies on him too much.  The dad's going to lose the house and that Amber is acting out....it's nice to watch their problems and forget about my own life for awhile.  Thanks Parenthood.

Whoa, crap, I totally fell asleep in the chair, Jerimy just woke me up and said we have to go....now!  So here goes nothing.

I'm wearing my favorite socks....it's the only clothes they let me keep on during the procedure...If I have to have this done, I'm going to keep a bit of my own style while they violate me. :)





Wish me luck.

------------

Home from the prodcedure.  My mom showed up, which made me really happy.  To wake up and find her and Jeirmy sitting there next to me was a good thing to wake up to.  I was so groggy.  One minute i'd be awake, the next I'd be totally out of it.  It was weird.

i don't remember the procedure at all, last thing I remember was my nurse giving me the drugs in my iv.  THANK GOD, because a colonoscopy IS NOT something you want to really remember.  At least I don't.

Dr. Taja said in his opinion, it looked to be a benign tumor, but obviously can't give me that as something to rely on until my biopsy report comes back and verifies that it is NOT cancer.  Oh please let it come back benign.  please let it come back benign, please, oh please let it come back benign.

Either way, cancer or not, i have to go have this thing surgically taken out of me.

Another surgery, another hospital, another scary thing to face.

I am so grateful though to all the people I've seen thus far, all the ER people, all the people at Dr. Taja's office...everyone has been so good to me....including all of the people who i love and have in my life, the outpouring has been so so so very comforting.

Dr. Taja said my results could be in as soon as tomorrow (Friday Afternoon), so keep your fingers crossed that they come in, and they are good news.  I can't stand the idea of having to wait the entire weekend to know the results.

*fingers crossed*
and
*STARVING*

I'm going to eat the Chicken Club Pizza that Jerimy has bought me!

mmmmmmm


foooooooooood!

Get in my COLON!

*winks*

H. - out!

xoxoox

Twas the Night before Colonoscopy



Before I begin my regimen of pre-colonoscopy liquids that will flush my insides down the toilet.  If you have a queasy stomach, you may want to discontinue reading now.

So what started out as a night sick laying on the floor of Mr. and Mrs. Wark's bathroom, turned into expelling blood out my rear and then a ER visit.



They did a CT scan of my abdomen and found a mass in my large intestine on the left side.  Said I had to be seen by a GI specialist within two days.  That was then, this is now.

I went to see Dr. Taja, my GI guy today and he reviewed my CT scan, showed it to me and said that it was what appeared to be a tumor, and a sizable one at that.



Then when I asked him when he would be able to schedule me for a colonoscopy, he said 'TOMORROW', we can't delay this.  I'm guessing by his tone and his urgency, it's not looking good for me right now.

I thought I would immediately break down into tears...but I didn't.

-------------------------------------

Ok, drinking this liquid disgusting torture is worse than I thought it would be.  Must get it down though.

Ok, first 16 oz. down the hatch, now I get to await it's exit from my body.

the stomach grumbling has begun.  if the insistent gurgling is any indication of the terrible time I'm up for...well, lets just say this is going to be a doozy.

OMG......HOLY hell the pain is enough to bring me to tears....and the process of cleaning out one's colon is even worse than I had imagined it would be.  This stuff  could be given to prisoners of war and used as a torture device.  I'd sell anyone body out to make this pain stop.

well, that was embarrassing, two rolls of toilet paper down the sewer pipe later, tears shed, moaning, wincing, gripping the walls for dear life, and I've survived round one of my "colon prep".

Now, I just have to wake up at 4:00 a.m. for round #2.  This is crappy I tell you!....LITERALLY!  *weak smile*...even "crappy" puns tend to make me smile.  Can't help it, it's the writer in me.

As I sit here wide awake at, midnight, then one, then two and three a.m. it's hard not to think and ponder about the worst case scenario.  What if I have cancer, what if I don't make it to my wedding day with Jerimy, what if poor George and Chubs lose their mommy...they'll never understand where i went and why i never came back for them.  This makes me so sad to think of all the things I never got to do, all the places I never got to go, all the things I would miss out on being around for....like seeing my niece and nephew grow up and reach all those milestones that kids do.  I won't be around to see Easton get married someday, graduate from high school and then college...i won't get to have grandkids that in really hope to get one day since i didn't have kids of my own.  Damnit I don't want to miss out on this stuff.

Everyone says "you'll be fine", and stay positive, but I don't think there's a person alive, who is faced with the possibility of "cancer" who doesn't think about death, and the life they will have cut short.

The good news though, is that I have had a wonderful life so far.  I have THE BEST friends and family and dogs a girl could ask for.  I've met the love of my life, and somehow swindled him into wanting to marry me.  I'm surrounded my nature, and trees, and noises from the forest outside my window, I have 21 chickens who love me (well, as much as chickens can really love anyone)....and I got some really great new outfits at the thrift store the other day...some real finds...I do so love a good thrift store find!  It makes me smile to think of myself on a fake red carpet and cameras flashing and people shouting my way "Heather....Heather...who are you wearing??!?!" and I say back ever so coolly "Community thrift store, $1.99!"....


As i sit here, i ponder turning the famous poem "twas the night before Christmas" into the "twas the night before a colonoscopy", but, I can't ruin a perfectly wonderful Christmas poem like that.  I assure you, it'd be clever and grotesque, but I refuse to turn a holiday classic into a "shitty" parody.  Besides, I'm no Weird Al Yankovich, like him or not, that guy is a total and utter genius.  Google him sometime and read about him, it will blow your mind how extremely talented that guy really is.  My dear friend DJ Ramsburg taught me that, and I've always been grateful that he did.  Beaus when someone is truly gifted, like Weird Al is, it's a damn shame for people to go on NOT knowing how gifted you are.




As I read through some of the texts people sent me today, and Facebook messages, I can't help but to get emotional at all the outpouring of love and support you all have given me.  All the messages of hope and prayer and love, i tell you, you sure know how to make a girl choked up with emotion!  you'd think i was on my period due to the overwhelming amount of times I've teared up and cried today!  If anyone asks, I'm going to just say I'm premenstrual though, cuz I'm an Osting, and I have a reputation to maintain.  I'm tough and all that you know.  No way I sit around crying while reading text messages and Facebook messages.  Ostings just don't do such things.  We spit in the face of Cancer, and "emotions"....

*sighs*...Oh how I wish that were true.

Four O'clock.....drinking round #2 and NOT looking forward to the aftermath.  Jerimy is sound a sleep with the dogs in our room.  the whole house is so quiet.  and outside is so still.  at four in the morning, a person feels really and truly alone.  It's so quiet, i can hear my own heart beat.

Ok, gotta run to toilet...be back when this has run it's course.

It's five thirty a.m.  Round two actually wasn't nearly as bad as the first.  Not as much cramping or pain, but I did cheat and dumped a little bit of the second dose down the drain.  Just a little, so I'm not going to feel bad about it.  I'm cleaned out, and that's the main thing.

Now I wait for 2:15 p.m. when I will check myself in and prep for my procedure.  This is going to be the longest clock watching time.  I wish I could sleep, but there's just no way, I'm a ball of nerves.

Thank God for Netflix, for now Parenthood, season 1, episode 1, will appease my mind and take me away from reality.


This is where I'll leave you....for now.

Friday, November 21, 2014

My First Movie!

Well, it's not a full length feature film, but I still had A BLAST creating it!

Welcome to my first movie! <3



Love,
~HeatherLynn~

ps - can you tell which shots are of me?  Yes, there are a couple!  Stephenie Meyer got to make a cameo in her movies, why can't I?  Besides, I know the "director"...we're pretty tight! *winks*

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Interesting:

So, I haven't written here in what seems like FOREVER, so I thought I'd take the opportunity now to write a little something.

It's freezing here in Ohio:  

It's not supposed to be this cold yet, We're not supposed to be blanketed in snow yet....Buffalo NY shouldn't be buried under 70" of snow!

This Global Warming stuff sure is cold this time of year.

Anywho....

In case I didn't tell you...I'm back in school, learning a new profession.  Being a student again after so many years off is always a daunting proposition, but I truly do love and yearn for knowledge.  It's even better when the classes you're taking interest you, and provoke thought and cause you to actually be enthusiastic in the idea of getting out of class, and starting to put that knowledge to good use.

I'm going to be a Real Estate Agent on the side.

For those of you who just took out a pad of paper to write me an angry fan-letter telling me that I'm not allowed to take on ANOTHER job, until I finish the third installment of the Vivienne Taylor Series, never fear, I'm not putting my writing on the back burner to become a real estate agent, I still love writing, and I will continue to do so, and in fact, I have a new book started that I think I may enjoy writing even more than my first published series.  I cannot wait to share the clever title with you!  I'm not at all tooting my own horn....but just the title just makes me giddy with delight.

I am however considering on publishing under a different name...
What are your thoughts on this?
Yay? or Nay?
I want to hear from you, so use the comments option at the end of this post to weigh in if you don't mind giving me your thoughts.

Now, back to my recent return to the classroom...
So in my real estate classes, there's a wide array of different types of people.  Retired Military, Active Military, an HVAC guy, pretty blonde with a great haircut, older people, younger people, a bartender, a cafeteria lunch lady, a grumpy guy, a funny ex-restaurant-owner guy, A brother and sister duo, a mother daughter duo...and a vegetarian girl, who really digs the Yellow Springs area.  She's very different from me, but I like her.  She always adds a different perspective to class discussion.

Anyway, so there we all are outside on a break, and begin talking politics.  A subject that is strictly taboo among mixed crowds.  I cringed as I thought about how this conversation could turn out, but I was really, REALLY intrigued about how through the complete and total spectrum of different kinds of people, who clearly came from all walks of life, we all "heard each other's" opinions, nobody got mad, nobody said something to offend anyone, everyone was very delicate as not to offend, but didn't skirt around how they felt either.  I was impressed that in a time when our country couldn't be more at odds with each other in politics, here was a handful of random strangers, who are CLEARLY different from one another, from different areas, different backgrounds, and yet, we all got along just fine.  The big issues that are usually so heated, ABORTION, RACISM, WELFARE, were discussed, some people were for, others were against, but a mutual respect was had by all and we all walked away from the conversation knowing each other a little better, understanding a little more, and it was pleasant.  It was insightful, it was a conversation about differences, that instead of tearing us apart and dividing us on issues, like political debates so often times do, it felt like it made us all a little closer.  More connected.

So, if a bunch of students at a random business college in Dayton Ohio can talk freely, about heated issues, and walk away feeling connected, with good will and warmth for our fellow classmates, us just being joe-shmoe Ohioans, how on earth do we have a government who hasn't evolved to this level of coexistence?

And lastly, I watched this video the other day on Facebook, someone had posted it and it caught my attention, it's a political video, and there's some foul language, but it's thought provoking.  And I'm not going to say that I 100% agree, 100% disagree with the message, but I really enjoy things that make you think...
You're under no obligation whatsoever to watch it, but if you'd like to, I'll include it here:



Noteworthy post...eh, probably not,
But hey, it's better to have written something
than to have never written anything at all! 
{{Smiles}}
Almost thanksgiving...
I hope you all will not only be using your fingers to count your blessings this year, but your toes as well!

Luv,
Yours Truly,
~Heather Lynn~

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Free Books, what could be better?....

{Nearly...}

Ok, so it's a very scary thing as a writer to give your book away for free.  I mean, it's almost as scary as selling it.  Amazon has this Kindle Select Program you can enroll in, where you can do Promotions, give books away, etc. and I thought, well, why not?!  Why not reach some new readers, give them a free read, and hope they like what they read.

I ran the promotion for five days, I thought 500 downloads was a pretty hefty goal to have met at the end of 5 days, I mean, 100 people a day, well that's more people than I normally reach, but I had decided to set my sights high, reach for the stars and all that jazz! *laughs*

One day one, I logged in a few hours after the promotion began, and there were already nearly 1,000 downloads.  My mouth fell open, my eyes squinted, surely this must be some mistake, how could I have THAT many downloads in just a few hours, I clicked around the page, refreshing, maybe that would give me the correct number, but instead, it shot up 200 more downloads!  "No freaking way!"  I whispered to myself...that's NOT possible.

By the end of the day it was up to 1,700.

By the end of day TWO....2,282 downloaded copies....

At the end of the Five day promotion, there were FIVE THOUSAND, SIX HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE Downloaded copies of 'Dead in a Ditch"...my first born and beloved novel.

I don't know about about you guys, but that seems like A LOT of people!  I mean, holy cow, that's a lot of people that I don't know, from all around the world, who are all holding my blood sweat and tears in their hands....that's a possible 5,699 BAD reviews I could potentially get, or 5,699 GOOD reviews...you just never know.

I was downloaded in India, Australia, France, the UK, Italy, Canada, Japan and Denmark, just to name a few!  Now, just so you know I'm not blowing smoke up your ass and I had my friends download 5,699 free copies just to make me feel good, I know exactly ONE person in Italy the lovely, the beautiful Alexandra, and I believe my friend Leeno is currently in the UK...somewhere...aside from that, I don't have a lot of overseas friends...however, perhaps I now have "overseas readers"...which is kind of the same as friends, because the relationship between a writer and a reader is an intimate one..to be sure!

So I guess this post is just to thank the many strangers who downloaded my novel, making my promotional period a whopping success.  I sincerely hope you enjoy my baby "Dead in a Ditch"...and if you don't, go easy on me in your review on Amazon should you decide to leave one, I don't want to be in the fetal position crying for three days on my couch!  I can take constructive criticism, I just don't take it all that well! *laughs*  And, well, I'll just say it, with the passing of my Grandmother, and the other "setbacks" of this past week, I've cried enough.  I think I met the quota for the rest of 2014 in fact.


So to my new OVERSEAS FRIENDS, and to my new American and Canadian FRIENDS...pleased to meet you!



With Love and Gratitude,

~Heather Lynn Osting~



Wednesday, October 15, 2014

My grandma always said....

My Grandma Always said that there are times in life when you find yourself, the world, or your loved ones in a mess that you cannot begin to clean up, sometimes things will be out of your hands, however, you can always clean up the mess around you."  This was her way of saying there would always be A mess to clean up right where you live.  Dirty Carpets, Dirty Dishes, Leaves needing raked, clothes needing put away, etc.  I loved that about her, she was the perfect example of that old saying about "idle hands doing the devil's work"...well my Grandmother never had an Idle hand her entire life I don't believe.  She was an absolute example of someone who made her way in life.  She drove like a maniac, she mowed grass like a fiend, she weed-whacked men ten time her size and 40 years younger than her right under the table.  She was so feisty, and determined, and surprisingly optimistic for someone who was always elbow deep in work!

So yesterday, after she died, and I held her hand, 
{this is actually my cousin Terrie's hand, but that's my tiny little grandma's hand}

I kissed her forehead and told her goodbye, I went home to clean up the mess that I COULD clean, I needed my hands to be like hers, UN-IDLE, So I cried all the way home and then walked in the door and pulled out my vacuum and vacuumed my floors while I cried some more.  I washed windows, I did laundry, I organized shoes, did the dishes....anything and everything I knew she would have liked to have seen me do.  She was an immaculate house cleaner.  I'll never forget her telling me when I lived with her, "Everything has it's home Heather!"  There is no sense in things just laying around.  They need to be in their home.  It's a motto I've really tried to adopt, and I have no doubt whatsoever that my beloved Grandma will be watching from heaven to see IF I ever master the art of.  I pray for her guidance and determination to someday make her proud of me.

If you didn't know my grandma, you wouldn't know that my grandpa died before I was born.  "Grandpa Red" as I know and call him, he died so young, only in his 50's, and left my grandma with six children, a home and a company he built from the ground up behind.  I could NEVER believe the kind of strength it took for her to not only step up to the challenge, but to actually kick ass doing it.  She never dated, she never had a man-friend.  She devoted her life, her heart to her family, and I was always amazed that she stayed as true to my grandpa after his death, as she had while he was alive.  She just wasn't that type.  She loved, she vowed, and that was it.  Grandpa was her one and only, and there just wasn't anything that was going to change that.



My Grandma and I didn't always see eye to eye, and I frankly didn't really understand the woman until I moved in with her when I was in my early 20's.  She had this HUGE basement that had more than enough room for two of me to live down there.  She had this thing about not liking to sleep in a house alone, and after my Uncle Ben and Aunt Kim moved out upon completion of their new house, She asked me if I would consider moving in with her.

It was tough to give up the complete freedom of my own apartment, but I knew it was the good Granddaughter thing to do.   Our family is quite dutiful, we all know what it is to sacrifice our own wants and desires to take care of those around us.  It's ingrained in our DNA I think.

Anyway, so I moved in with her and O-M-G....she was such a NEAT FREAK!  She told me that there was a right way and a wrong way to do EVERYTHING.  I once caught her rearranging the clothes I'd hung on the clothes line.  She drove me absolutely insane at first, it was like I couldn't do ANYTHING by her definition of "right"...Boy did we have our little spats with each other...what a painful transition it was to be a good roomie to my 80-some year old Grandmother.

But before long, things started to smooth out, she and I began to mesh, and every night you could find she and I sitting at her kitchen table, with the rolling wheeled chairs, playing cards, eating popcorn and drinking a beer together.  My grandma always had her Miller Genuine Draft every night with her popcorn.  It always cracked me up to see her swigging beer from the bottle.  It was just so odd for me to see.  But she was one HELL of a card player, that tiny woman kicked my ass up on side and down the other on the regular!  I once accused her of cheating, and she just laughed so hard!  She thought the idea of her "having" to cheat just ridiculously funny!  She didn't need to cheat by god, she was just that good at cards!

And then there was the time, I wanted to dye my hair, but didn't make it to the store in time to pick some up, and she said, I think I have a box of dye here, just use mine.  So I did, and she offered to do it for me.  Now, this might be a good time to mention that my grandma's hair was FIRE ENGINE red, and I had strawberry blonde hair....she assured me it would be fine.

When we were finished, my head was like NEON red!  My hairdresser the next day when I walked in for my haircut said "OMG, Heather, you could stop traffic with that hair...what did you do?  I just smiled and said, "Grandma Peg did my hair!"  She laughed and laughed and said "well, you do look quite a bit like her!"  I'll never forget wrapping her little scarves around my head until it toned down some and I didn't look like I was the front woman for some alternative rock band.

This is my grandma at my cousin Suzi's wedding....isn't she adorable?!

This is my family being "comical"

One of my favorite things to have inherited, a good sense of humor!

Grandma Peg, is/was/and will always be one of the most amazing women I have ever had the pleasure to know.  She worked so hard, at everything and all the time.  She worked at the very nursing home she died in, into her 80's!  Taking people who were younger than her!  She was a natural caregiver!  Always taking care of me, my cousins, my aunt's and uncles, anywhere she was needed, there you'd find her.

Once when I lived with her, I got really really sick, I mean, SICK.  I was so fevered and delirious that I actually went outside and laid in a snow drift.  My Grandma found me, and with her like 90 pound little tiny body, picked me up and carried me inside.  She was so concerned for me, and she took such good care of me, and I KNOW she loved me as if I were her very own.  And when you're sick, having someone take care of you is a very intimate thing.  They see you at your worst, and they love you with their best.  I will always think of that when I'm feeling unwell, the wonderful care she bestowed on me.

In closing, my grandma was a HUGE bird lover!  She knew like every single species, she watched them on her bird feeder every single morning, she loved nature, and creatures.  However she vehemently HATED Red Jimmy Squirrels and Blue Jays.  She would often times pull out her little .22 and shoot at them to get them away from her precious bird feeders.  Apparently Blue Jays are "bullies" and they raid other bird's nests or something...and I have no idea what the hell Red Jimmies ever did to her, I suppose they were nest raiders too, but watching my grandma shoot her .22 out the window while eating her breakfast cereal...well that's just something you never forget.  Especially the time she accidentally grabbed her 410, instead of her .22, and shot while standing on the toilet so she could see out the window, she blew herself right off the danged toilet and about rolled down the basement stairs!  God luv her!
I could tell you about her all damned day long, and probably all night as well....
I just could.

Yesterday when she died, the sky was cloudy and spitting rain.  It was grey and dreary and it matched my mood perfectly.  The rain being the tears that ran down my cheeks on and off all day.
However, before sun set, the clouds parted and a double rainbow appeared:





and i just knew that was my grandma, letting us know she had arrived, and found her daughter, my Aunt Mary, and my Aunt Barb, and she was hugging Grandpa.  





She found her brother Vernon, and she was no longer an "old lady", she had the able body she once had, capable of damn near everything.  See, my grandma didn't know that Mary died, or that Barb had died, so seeing them there, well, that would have been quite the surprise.  Her dementia made it hard to comprehend things that were happening around her the last few years.  But if I know my grandma, she's fussing over everyone, and mothering everyone, playing cards, keeping an eye open for a blue jay or two, and her other eye is watching on us, making sure we're doing our best, cleaning up the messes we can, and taking care of one another the way she taught us to do.

I only hope that I will use the rest of my life to make her proud of the woman she taught me to be, and that I could be.

I love you Grandma Peg, and I look forward to the day I see you again.



Your loving Granddaughter, now and forever,
~Heather Lynn~