Lots Going On

 What a day so far! First, Fiorella and Son L stopped at Walgreens to pick up Fio's meds, get their respective flu shots, and pick up a pair of dark glasses for for yours truly.

Then they stopped at Hobby Lobby and bought some brushes and some acrylics, which means that your girl will be entering the painting world just in time for Halloween--not that she doesn't have piles of paper bats, cats, and witches languishing in the garage already.😁

When they got back to the house, Fiorella received a phone call from the medical world that someone will be coming out to equip her with a self-service machine so your girl can check her cumadin level at home, which won't work for Fio--they tried one on her before and she just can't bring herself to take her own blood. 

Later, Fiorella received a message from the nice lady who bought her beloved ranchland telling your girl that a packet of her 2020 tax wrap-up had been delivered to her former doorstep. Your girl has asked her replacement to pass the packet on, but it may be difficult because of tax rules.

Now Fio has to change the address on her driver's license, get more pink pain pills for Sonia Dog, buy herself some white shoes (although she knows they're off season) and, once more--tackle Lolly. Frankly, your girl thinks it will be a better story because of the time that has passed since its perception.

 

 

Having Fun

 I haven't written a poem in a while,     A

 A newborn verse to make you smile,    A

And tuck your worries fast away           B

If not for tomorrow, at least for today    B

*

Watch out, I'm in a rhyming mood           A

Which can be bad or good--                      B

Maybe something that I should,                  A

Maybe something lewd                               B                         

*

I brushed my teeth                                        A

And combed my hair,                                    B

Then off to the kitchen                                    C

To see who was there                                       B

 

I awoke when the kitchen was night               A

Not a sunbeam to be had                                  B

Ate my cereal and gulped down my pills,         C

Grabbed a pen and paid my bills                        C

And went back to bed feeling sad                        B

Till dawn was shining bright                                 A

😁Is that what you                                                     

😁Would do?

                             

HAD ENOUGH?

Keeping Up with Fiorella!

 Your girl has been very busy today. Translation: In wicked traffic, Son L drove her around to a doctor who checked her blood, then to her bank, so she could order more checkbooks, and then, when they got back to the house, he helped her finish off her personal taxes. Still to go is the rest of of her tax clean-up and the checking out of her pacemaker at home--unfortunately, each time she tries to call and beg forgiveness for missing yesterday's pacemaker deadline, Sonia Dog joyfully intervenes. SIGH....       

Hmm...Now that Fio's first attempt at making a friend has been at least mildly successful, maybe she can sharpen her technique and attract a few more neighborhood ladies. But in the meantime, there is Lolly to consider, but which always seems to get the back of the bus.

Did Fiorella ever told you about Sonia and the turkey nuggets? Some enterprising dog food company sells a special food made out of turkey meat of some type, and Doggie loves the nuggets so much that all your girl has to do to get Sonia to obey her is to toss a marble-sized hunk of it in her direction. You can also throw a piece of it outdoors to lure your canine outside while you're still inside

Fio, as she told you, has put a bulletin board up beside her bed to she can keep track of her frenzied life. The only problem is that there are so many item tacked to the board that she can't find individuals.

It's a little early, but your girl is thinking about Christmas card designs. If you've been with her from the start, you know that, except for bad times, she's designed her own cards, often with a new poem on them. No promises for this year, but we'll see. 💗

 

UP TO DATE

      Insomnia, insomnia, insomnia, why did you rear your ugly face? GO BACK TO BED!  But, no, there's too much to do this morning, and Fio can sleep all afternoon--starting the cycle all over again.... 

      And exactly what sort of important things will you be doing this morning, Fiorella? Well, a visiting nurse will stop by for about an hour to be sure your girl is following doctor's orders, and, as soon as that is over, Fio will trot across the street with an offering of chocolates for Maria, a new arrival in the neighborhood whom she hopes to become friends with. It's probably because of the pandemic, but everyone in the area  seems to be buttoned down. No waving at each other when a car goes by, no walking along the sidewalk--except by Fiorella when she goes stir crazy and trots up the road to the neighborhood mailbox.

     Speaking of mailboxes, your girl, always on her toes 😕, had to walk up the street to it twice because she forgot to take the keys with her the first time.

     All in all, Fio ended up having a good day. She made a new friend, talked with Friend Suzy long distance, and got a nice message keeping her up to date with  Friend Ashley. Now, she'd like to hear from Friend Carol!

 

    

 

 

 

    

    

   

Mysteries

Morning: Fiorella, who took five years of Latin many years ago, dreamed that she was at yet another Latin convention last night, but instead of sticking with the crowd, she went off exploring on her own. She got lost in the woods a couple of times, of course, but always found her way back to the bus and Miss Osborn, her revered teacher, so all ended well. But how can Fio interpret the dream, especially her traipse through the woods? (She can assure you that none of the Latin conventions way back when she attended were held under trees.)

Back to reality: Fiorella's studio is a cheerful mess right now--cheerful because she is moving forward on Lolly's story, and a mess because she has chapters stacked on her desk, on the step-ladder and on her file drawers, all of which she hopes to organize today. (Hah, hah-hah-hah-hah!)

Afternoon: hi-ho, hi-ho--Fio cleared out the chest next to her bed and found loads of things she'd thought she lost. THANK GOODNESS!

Have any one you caught the Australian movie Unfinished Sky on TV? Your girl can hardly understand a word of it, but she likes the plot and has watched it twice over already.

 

 

Late, Late, Late

 Sorry to be so late, but we had a lot of dull, dull, dull stuff to do such as gathering tax stuff (yuck), entering your girl's future doctor visits on the calendar (which is harder than you might think because her calendar isn't constructed to contain more than a giant number), and cleaning up the floor after Fio went outside and unknowingly stepped in a few of Sonia's....uh....creations, then tracked them inside. Daughter-in-law was game enough to mop up the the dining area...and the kitchen...and the hall back to Fiorella's bedroom... and the home offices. The irony of it is that the reason your girl had gone out in the back yard in the first place was to dump two large bags of household debris.

Apparently, there's good news on Fio's tax front--not that she's getting a break, but that she and her kids have been able to locate most of the important papers...so far.

On the side, Fiorella picked up one of her books she never looked at again after it was published and skimmed through it. There are things she would change now, but the LIKED IT!

Not much big news now, except that Son L will be driving Fio to Walgreens this week for her flue shot. Yep, your girl is an inoculation junkie...and she hopes you are too. She had chicken-pox, mumps, scarlet fever, and a few more scary diseases as a child, and they were no fun. (She was also in one of the first batches of kids to get out the Sabin polio vaccine.)

If friend Suzy is out there someone, Fio hopes she and her family are well, and would love to hear from her.

September 23

 Again, your girl messed up the publishing date yesterday, but today is today and she'll try to do better this time around, which may be hard because she's sinking into the blues--dark ones. It seems like everything she tries to do backfires on her or falls flat. She can't even figure out how to feed staples to the new-fangled stapler. 

Fio needs a someone on hand to talk to, to laugh with, to sympathize with her sorrows--and to drive her around Any volunteers?

In the meantime--and after half-dozing in bed for a couple of hours--she decided to try to clean up her desk mess, then plow into Lolly's multiply-written story... again. But actually, what she ended up doing was spending most of her day being hauled around to doctors, one who gave her a shot in the knee, and one who pounded her into the ground regarding what she can can and can't remember.  Tomorrow, though, will be lighter--a traveling nurse will come to check your girl out, and Saturday--thank you, God--Fio's calendario is empty. 

Sorry to be so negative. Will try to be more joyful and witty tomorrow.

 

Movin' Along with Fiorella

 Pray for Fiorella--here she is, trying to save the world, and she can't even get her days right. Yes, she thought today was Wednesday and almost messed up her Thursday's doctors' appointments. At the meantime, she drove herself crazy by searching for clips, strings, and markers to separate and control her fly-way pages.

Lolly is the youngest heroine Fio has ever created, and some of you may remember her from Fio's first book. She's twenty now, and being blonde and beautiful, she's having a good time of it....until she walks into one of her college classes and realizes her teacher for the semester will be the guy whom she'd flirted with at a bar the previous evening to kn avail.

Speaking of stories, as your girl has mentioned previously, she has a vampire heroine in her filing cabinet too. Hoping that  girl will fly someday. (Get it? Vampire? Fly?)

Fiorella visited daughter this evening and Fio's heart brimmed over with happiness to see so much of her own, her mother's, and her grandmothers' furniture warming up the new house. 💗💗💗

Umm...did Fior hear someone asking how things are going on with Lolly's story? Well, even if no one asked, she'll tell you it's rockin' along--not as quickly as she would like, but no major snags as of yet.

 

A Lot To Say Today!

 How did we get to September twentieth so quickly? Did someone push the clock forward when Fio wasn't looking? Well, whatever, she's moving onward with her self-assigned projects--pulling Lolly together (literature), catching up on Spanish and any other language that spouts out of her mouth (language), and mulling over designs for this year's Christmas card (art). The music side of her will have to wait until the piano arrives.

The kennel that Sonia Dog was boarded in while Fio herself was being kenneled by her daughter-in-law's family in the aftermath of the storm (THANK YOU 💗) burned to the ground last night with 75 dogs in it. Not a one survived and your girl hurts for the dogs and for their owners.

Fiorella got a frightening notification from the medical scorekeepers that her major credit card wouldn't honor her charge, which drove her into a frenzy running all over the house to find her other card which, it turned out, was in her little red purse under the seat of Son L's car from when he and your girl had made a hamburger run last night. The sawbones will have to wait till tomorrow.

Dang, Fio is spending way too much time trying to tie together all of Lolly's chapters because she had mislabeled some of them and they'd been written and packaged at different times. GRRRRR!

Speaking of Christmas cards, Fiorella is going to say this so she won't forget it when Christmas comes around: she's going to try to find a copy of every kind of holiday card that she's made through the years and make a circle around the wall that she's put Husband's childhood and adult pictures on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Morning, Y A W N!

 This is getting ridiculous--Cap One has just sent Fiorella another billing by way of gmail! What's going on? Why isn't Fio getting her bills by mail? Has Louis deJoy located and marked her for financial destruction?

Your girl has gathered all her Lolly chapters together and labeled them so now she has to make sure they coordinate. Then she has to appeal to her writer friends to teach her how to deal with the new way of selling books, i.e., on line.

Whoopee! One of Fiorella's (former) Ohio relatives and his wife (both masked) visited today, and Son L and Fiorella sat out on the porch out back with them for a precious hour and shared our lives. Wish we lived closer. All of the family used to get together every year or so, but Covid sort of killed that off.

Fio showed off her studio to her relatives yesterday--which made her realize there's a lot more she has to do with it. She also realized that, inadvertently, she'd arranged all the photos and newspaper clippings that she'd  put up on the south inside wall by person and family. Wow!

Your girl needs to hire a handyman (1) to make her sea-shell-androck display trough, (2) to rearrange her closet and add lights to the dark corners, (3) to shave off enough of the woodwork along the bottom side of the room that she can slide her beautiful black chest into position. Any takers?

 

 

 

 

An Adventure with Fiorella

 If there is one thing you can count on Fiorella for (and I hope there are a lot more things), it's that she will always pays her bills on time, which is why she was shocked to get a gmail message that she was overdue. Someone must have been a mistake, she reasoned, or, maybe worse, someone had stolen her card. 

Nothing to do but do a quick check for untouched mail on her desk, then look through her purse and her cardcase, and then, quivering with fear, call the card company. Yes, Fio was overdue, and yes, the woman on the other end of the line would tell her what her purchases had been (and, thank goodness, Fio recognized all of them,), and all your girl had to do to set everything to rights was send in a check.

With trembling fingers, Fiorella wrote out the check, entered the amount in her accounts book, addressed an envelope, pasted on a stamp, and hurried off down he street to the community post box.

And all the way back to the house, she wondered how long it would take for the payment to get to the credit company with Louis deJoy still in charge.

Sixteenth by the Skin of My Teeth!

 How in the world did Fio almost fall behind again? Her days are moving along way too fast. Right now, she's lining up her multiple "Lolly" stories to start putting them together because she didn't get that done earlier in the day because a hospital lady came along to test her out about her recovery from bad times she's gone through. After a few questions, Fiorella asked the woman to leave--your girl needs to work on recovery, not remembrance.

To calm her down, Son L put your girl in the car and drove her around a while, then stopped at a store so  she could pick up pens and Dry Erase Markers, then bought her a hamburger, then headed home down Old San Antonio Road--with Fio humming a few words of the song every now and then. Aaaaah....

Fiorella should have added that while she and Son rode around, they talked about old times and people they used to know. Wondered where they are now. Hmm...wonder if they wonder about where we are now.

SHORT CUT ONE: Mommy has lost that cute little bottle that holds Sonia's pain meds. 

SHORT CUT TWO: Mommy is getting tired of all the British shows on TV. Aren't there any born in the USA? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beware--Your Girl Is Not Happy!

 According to British TV, every adult in England--except maybe Miss Marple--is having an affair, or at least a one-nighter. Hmm...Fiorella must get in contact with her British friend to check this out.

Fiorella was blessed by the visit of yet another nurse this morning, and there's going to be one tomorrow morning too--HURRAH! The more people your girl can practice talking with, the less anxiety/panic she has and the easier it is for her to speak. 

Fio is hoping, hoping, hoping that she can start painting again, but first she has to get hold of her old paints and brushes--or maybe buy some new ones. In the meantime, she will force herself to put Lolly together in one piece and work on a jigsaw puzzle she will never finish. Wish her well.

Surprise, surprise---Fiorella may not need the cumadin she's been gulping down for the last umpteen years. The local doctors are trying to figure out what they were prescribed for in the first place, and your girl can't help them. It was a l-o-n-g time ago and those little pink pills have just become a part of her breakfast ritual.

ANGER! A while back, Fio bought a box of staples, a must-be in her childhood home, and now she can't find them, which makes her VERY angry. She had decided to dig out the many versions of her fourteen chapters of Lolly and start piecing them together today, but without staples, she couldn't even get the pages laid out on the floor! WHYYYY? All she can do is stare at the wall with her teeth bared. GRRRRRRRR!

 

 

The Many Moods of FIORELLA

 Sorry that Fiorella got so morose yesterday, but that's life, and she's had her ups and downs. Let's hope today will be better. Your girl would love to have a golden carriage or two, but will settle for good health and continuing recovery. How wonderful if she could catch up on her espanol, her newest language, but at least be able to relearn the basic basics of the others.

No, Fio did not work on Lolly today. She's finally found all the parts, but now she has to tie them together without ripping the story line apart again, and again, and again.... EVERYTHING DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT THE FIRST TIME AROUND, FIORELLA.

What your girl doesn't like about getting older is that she keeps dragging all the dumb things she's ever said or done across her brain again and again.

Fiorella may give up on her jigsaw puzzle...or maybe she'll just limit her next one to 100 pieces.

Three hours later: Admit it, girl friend--you've been fooling around all afternoon so you don't have to work on Lolly because you're so accustomed to getting nowhere with her before, but this time PICK THOSE PAGES UP AND GET TO WRITING!

 

 

Bad Time Sonnet

 Fiorella found this sonnet as she was going through old papers.

Hope is a snake that curls within my breast

A sharp-tongued viper aimed against my heart

A blood-cold serpent, most unwelcome guest

That strikes from time to time when I'm off guard--

Hope is Scaramouche, a clever fool,

A honeyed braggart, slick, a worthless flirt,

A quack deceiver, lord of ridicule,

Who gulls my brain when I am not alert--

Hope is a misshaped branch, a crooked tree,

Which grows unbidden in my dismal yard,

The soft, sweet fruit of which will poison me

If I ignore its proven ill regard--

     But do not slay it--let the villain be--

     For murder hope, and murder all of me

Truth to Tell

 Today esta domingo. Yes, as she's told you, Fiorella wants to reclaim her languages pot again. Not that she's ever been really fluent in any of them besides English, but she does enjoy the odds and ends that are  creeping back into her tortured brain--not only Spanish, but Latin, Russian, German, French, Telugu, and a bit of Chinese.

Fio had one year  of Latin in junior high, three in high school, and one in college, then switched to Russian for three semesters and German for one semester until she realized she had to choose a major. The obvious one was linguistics--but what language? 

As it turned out, your girl didn't have very much of a choice. Because she was working full time and could only attend classes three days a week instead of the required five for a major, she was directed to a program whose teacher was low on students. Welcome, Telugu, a South Indian language she'd never heard of before.

Actually, the placement worked out well because because Fiorella not only racked in some scholarships, but met many lovely people, learned how to wrap a sari, and painted a set of four pictures of Indian women.

The French was just something your girl learned to pass a department requirement--then dropped. However, thanks a dear friend being French, your girl still comes out with a well-accented phrase every now and then.

Ah--the Chinese. Fio's dentist and his brother were teaching her some of their native language each time she went in, but that stopped when the pandemic started.

And about the Spanish, Fiorella was marching along in it until the snowstorm and its aftermath

ALMOST FORGOT: My childhood friend's father taught me a little Yiddish.

Listing all the languages she encountered made Fio happy and sad--happy she had the opportunities and sad that she didn't follow up on them better.

Bits and Pieces

 FOR THE SECOND TIME TODAY, Fiorella has accidentally knocked a half-finished letter to friend Suzy off her screen--GRRRRR! It's probably the straight-on angle your girl put her computer at so now she's going to try an angled angle into her belly. Got that?

Son L is going to get Fio some ink for the family printer she so can continue rolling out Lolly today. Not that your girl has finished the story, but so that she can see where she is in the story. 

Thanks to sister-in-law Patsy for providing jigsaw puzzles to Fiorella's immediate family. Your girl will try the winter snow scene, which will take a while, but then, Fio's not in a hurry.

Una problema: Sonia Dog doesn't like the anti-pain med that the vet gave us. In fact, no matter how Fiorella tries to disguise the soft yellow capsule, Doggie spits it out. Any suggestions? 

Staring at her overloaded shelves, Fio hopes the country will "normalize" so so she can sell off things like her late father-in-law's collections of J. Frank Dobie and Will Durant. (If those names make your mouth water, let Fiorella know and maybe we can strike a price.)

 

 

Sonia, Painting, Blood, Jigsaw Puzzles, Fingernails

 The new vet visited us today, checked out Sonia Dog, and supplied us with the the right pills to keep Doggie in good form. What a relief! The one and only first vet was not too happy with us, but your girl wasn't too happy with her either. That vet had been hard to reach and, as we found out, she'd been overcharging us too. Grrrr.....

Fiorella has a dilemma. She in is in possession of what she considers to be a shudderingly amateurish painting of grapes made by a friend of her late mother-in-law way back when, and, being a nice girl, she has conscientiously hauled said painting from house to house in honor of whomever this woman was. Apparently the picture meant something to someone sometime, but it doesn't to Fio, so, as this is probably Fio's last house, is she honor bound to keep the painting or can she finally toss it without having the weeping of multitudes puddle her pathway?

Your girl will have yet another blood let tomorrow. Hmm....she's getting suspicious....

Where, or where, can jigsaw puzzles be bought these days? Fio has a yen for them--nice ones, not Halloweenish ones. 

By the way, has Fiorella mentioned that she now has the best fingernails she's had in four years? (Is it related to the blood-letting?)

OOPS--THE ABOVE POST WAS SUPPOSED TO GO OUT ON THE TENTH!

 

 

UP TO DATE!

Whoo, whoo, whoopie! While Son L and his wife were away, Fiorella fooled around with scissors, Scotch tape, and paper and came up with the ultimate design for the rocks-and-sea-shells showcase in her studio! Now to get Son on board .

Your girl was thrilled to be able to take a fair number of her paintings out of storage, but some of them didn't make the trip well, which hurts her heart. Nothing to do but get hold of some acrylics and brushes and touch them up. It's a good thing that her studio is fairly well finished and she has the time to make repairs.

Speaking of her studio, Fiorella is mulling over inviting a next-door neighbor over to see what she's done with what used to be a bedroom. On the other hand, her neighbor may not appreciate the multiple book cases, paintings, newspaper clippings, etc., that are climbing up and down the walls. Hmm...maybe Fiorella should wait a while. 

Meanwhile, Fio, who likes to have everything in view, is thinking about hanging the art that came along with the last shipment to the decorations in her bedroom. If she can gut up, she'll send photos.

The vet will come and check out Doggie today. Wish us well--Sonia is not a puppy anymore.

 

 

Will Fio's Life Never Stop Moving Round and Round?

 Have you ever thought that somewhere in the seen and unseen universe, there could be another "you?" That maybe he/she lived the same life you did, but was making different decisions which determined your goppelganger future? And that there might be not one of you, but millions of you in different universes? That even now, in another universe, you might have died overnight, or maybe have been born again for thousandth time? (And that in all her manifestations, Fiorella has been pure Loony Toons?)

Did Fio ever tell you that she and Brother inherited tremor from their father, as if to compensate, they also inherited not only hair that stays it's own color and doesn't fall out, but the ability to drink cow milk forever?

What if your girl--uh--accidentally crashed the gates to the area she lives in so the Statesman can again deliver her newspaper to the door?

Fiorella thought this would be a good day, that she'd at last, get Lolly's story run out and be able to proofread it through, but a third down the run, the printer ran out of ink and and Son L, who'd been going back and forth between Fio and his four-year-old, called it quits for the day. Oh, well--there's always tomorrow.

Your girl is not happy about the way several of her paintings got knocked up in transport. Once she gets settled, she'll have to pull out her brushes and do some touch-up.

One Book After Another?

 Fio had WONDERFUL get-together with her traveling nurse, who not only made sure all was well with your girl, but straightened out all Fio's doctor appointments. So far, your girl is in good shape, but she's always willing to get moreso. Unfortunately, so as not to bother the nurse, Sonia Dog had to spend the afternoon out in the rain, but Mommy has her inside now, fed, dried, and with a big bowl of food in front of her.

 Daughter came over about the same time and, thank goodness, claimed some of the things that Fiorella had pulled out of the storage boxes earlier in the day. Your girl likes her own--and her mother's--pretties to be appreciated.

WOW! Son L is going to run out Lolly's story tomorrow, page by page, so Fio can read through the story without having to deal with the the computer's squirrely demands. So far, Fiorella's knocking on the door of her former pursuit has gone quite well. Hoping she'll have a romance best-seller on her hands in a couple of months.

And then, there's the vampire romance....

To tie up the day, Daughter-in-law baked CHOCOLATE cookies and let Fiorella eat TWO of them!

 

 

 

Up to Date...Almost

Hey, hey, waddaya say? Fio's feeling great today! The sun is shining, her languages are leaping in and out of her brain (which means she still has at least the remnants of one), and she's going to work on Lolly's story again today. Of course, there is the hurdle of the new system to jump over, but Fio will gird her loins and sally forth. 

Besides, your girl's visiting nurse (a real live person!) will come by today to make sure Fiorella is still alive, and Fio will greet her with the studio fairly well finished up. Her paints are still in storage, but they won't take up as much room as a library of books.  

 Hoping that Fio's trough of sea shells and weird rocks will get set up this week. It's getting dangerous.

 DANG! Fiorella won't be getting her newspaper delivered to the door anymore. It turns out that the only reason she received it for a while was that the gates to the addition were broken, and now that they're fixed, Fio will have to read her funnies online.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Times are Here Again!

 Yes, Fiorella totally panicked yesterday. She was working on Lolly's story, which as you know, has been in and out of the her closet for far too long, when she realized she didn't know how to save or underline things, etc., which scared her to death. Was this the end of her writing career? Son L kindly helped her out with the scene she was working on, but Fio can't take up all his time with her sleazy romances. Then, staring at her computer, she suddenly realized she was in a different program, one she'd semi-learned from Son K a while back, but understandably didn't remember. Anyone got a handbook Fio can borrow? If she  learned how to use the program a while back, she can learn it again.

Despite the problems, your girl is THRILLED to be writing again--and she's also looking forward to hooking up with her old friends--and new ones--who are still in the romance-writing business. All with masks on, of course.

There are other things going on in Fiorella's life too. She has a boat load of medical exams and treatments to deal with, and more plans for her studio and even some for her bedroom. How about putting up a banner that says MUSIC  ART  LANGUAGE  LITERATURE above her bed?

Having been reminded that her father's paternal family was of the Russian persuasian, Fiorella researched further and discovered that there is also a well-known author with her father's surname, Buida. Anyone else out there want to join the family?

Actually, Fio's and her family are from the Carpathian Rusyn branch, as per her cousin's genealogist wife, which Fiorella has probably reported in earlier blogs.

Triumph and Confession

 Watch out, world--Fiorella is in the game again. Not only are her numerals coming back--her latest being German (Deutsch)--but she's also gone through the entire skeleton of Lolly's story, and IT WORKS! Now to fill her in, smooth her out, and put it on the market (about two months, as cited previously), then start working on Sarah's romance--or maybe she could revive her long buried vampire story.

Another key/To recovery----is that your girl hasn't wound up in a cellar recently. Her mother never put her in one when she was chastised as a child, but her imagination did when she was being chastised as an adult. A memorable example was when a local theater producer, whose children's play Fio was helping with as well as appearing in, turned on her and knocked her out of the best part of the show.

What is this "cellar" like, you ask? It's a room within a room--dark, small, and down in a pit, with no way out, except, of course, for her attacker. Fio tries to keep her cool, but her heart is pounding like a hammer. 

AND......having ripped open her psyche to you this morning, Fiorella says good-bye till tomorrow and have a nice day 💗

 

This and That, but Always Chocolate

It's nice to get encouragement and applause from other writers, but we're that way because there's no competition--it's the readers who decide what sells and what doesn't. (Well, the readers and whatever hoop-la we can get going.)

Fiorella is quite proud of how far along her studio is and also how far along she's gotten with Lolly's story, which she started three years ago, then abandoned when the world fell in on top of her--and now she wants to tell you that it's going to be her best romance yet!

In the meantime, Fio also keeps figuring out ways to fix up her too-small bedroom, although eventually, she'll get it remodeled and the missing knobs on her antique furniture replaced.

 Back to romance writing, Fiorella confesses that she's always pretty much written the stories as she went along, but from now on, she's going to be professional and outline them first. Maybe.

The family food order (HEB) will be delivered this evening, and your girl will fight you for the chocolate!

 

 

 

 

 

Better and Better!

 Wow! Maybe your girl's languages are coming back. Fio was getting ready for bed last night and suddenly started reciting numbers: adin, dva, tri, chitiri, pyats, shest, syem, voisem, dvets, dyesets. It took her a minute to realize that the long lost Russian element in her brain had decided to speak up. Wonder if any more will join in.

More good news: Fiorella spent a couple of hours rereading Lolly yesterday, and she's happy to report that her plot is sound and ready for action.  What Fio has to work on now is the follow up, which should take about two months, maybe three. Oh, and by the way, your girl looked at her second published book this morning and, to her surprise, was really impressed by herself. Yeah, she's the type of writer who belittles herself more and more as time goes on.

 Has Fio told you that there are bushes with lovely horn-shaped yellow blooms on them outside her bedroom window and that every day, they wave at her in even the slightest breeze? 💗

OMG--Fiorella just started muttering "Donde esta mi computadora?" Is her linguistic training breaking through the wall? MORE, MORE, MORE!

 

Just Chatting...

 Yikes! The word is in--your girl has gained five-plus pounds, and it's probably all in chocolate. Maybe she needs to borrow Daughter-in-Law's treadmill, but the last time your girl went on a treadmill, she adjusted the speed wrong, went flying off the back, and ended up with bruises and a black eye.

Fiorella and Sonia are alone in the house today, and it feels weird. Why isn't she hearing Granddaughter singing up to high, high C, the kiddie TV advertising glamorous plastic dolls, Daughter-in-law working away in one corner of the home office, and Son L working away in the other? Ah, well--now your girl can concentrate on Lolly's story. Yeah, Fio knows she's been promising it for ages, but this time, she'll deliver. No more deaths, no more family infights, no more winter freezes, no more moving problems....she hopes. 

Taking a break from romance, she (Fio, not Doggie) went through some of the things in the front parlor that had been laid aside and forgotten about--like her Mom's Brownie activities and the Easter decorations the family always used. Of course, Fiorella cried--will anyone else ever cherish them like she does?

Lolly's first chapter is reading pretty good, but your girl needs to look at a couple of more recent romances to be sure she has the right "swing." 

This is the first time Fiorella and Doggie have been left along in the house all day--wondering if Son and his wife are taping us "just to be sure."