Author: Janna Hill

Dabbling & Dibbles

/ Janna Hill / 9 Comments

Dabble: to fiddle, putter, experiment

Did you know that a significant number of the population does not consider writing a real job? You did? You knew that already? Well color me shocked and bubble busted when a sweet little old lady accused me of dabbling. Writing is real work by golly. True I have never broken a sweat over a keyboard but dabbling?

Admittedly it is easier than sorting sheets for a laundry company that services nursing homes. Yeah I did that for three whole days. That was a long time ago (a really, really long time ago) when the unemployment office would actually put you to work. I suppose in comparison it does look like I am dabbling.

Thinking back on those three days of sorting fecal stained linens I’ll take being called a dabbler. Heck. I will embrace it and laugh at it like a real country boy laughs at Earl Dibbles Jr.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern

/ Janna Hill / 25 Comments

Sara Rosso posted a beautiful example for this weeks photo challenge.

This weeks theme is Pattern. I have been doing a little sewing (a little is all I know how to do) but that is not the pattern Sara had in mind. Shucks! I had just relearned how to load the bobbin.

Oh well, look at this cool Polyphemus I found last week.

Polyphemus Mammoth Moth in Summer

And this is what he/she looked like in November. Not the same pattern but lovely still. Polyphemus caterpillar in Fall

Alas I ate a portion so you could see the pattern here. Yum Hmm, the sacrifices I make. 😉 Mothers Day Strawberry

The Last Man Standing

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We went for the annual camp-out this past weekend. I expected a small crowd and a somber mood considering it was our first gathering on the lake since my dear aunt left this world last June and this was her thing, she loved it.

Only thirty five or forty of us were in attendance so the crowd was small but the mood was far from somber. I should have known better than to think that.

We do not dwell on sorrow. No, we mustn’t… we cannot.  And we did not. Instead we laughed and reminisced about our rambunctious youth spent on the shores of Navarro Mills.  A time when our numbers were more, a time when strength and stamina ran hard through our veins, a time when we were too confident to recognize the gift.

Remembering makes us aware of our weakness but we remember anyway because it also brings us comfort. These are my memories:

I remember tents dotting the landscape, fried eggs on an open campfire, horse shoes clanking, blankets of bluebonnets, chasing birds along the banks and walking for miles in the sweltering heat. Swimming in the murky water, boat rides, the smell of roasted marshmallows and fishing along the shoreline. I remember crystal clear nights and counting stars until we fell asleep, long walks to the toilet, frigid dawns stealing slumber, and anxiously awaiting the next sunrise so we could do it all again.

With nostalgia I watch our children and grandchildren between sneaking stares at the last man standing (my father’s baby brother) and hope they understand what this gathering silently implies, these things you must remember.

Navarro Mills Lake at Day Break

Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above

/ Janna Hill / 17 Comments

I know I’m running the weekly photo challenges back to back. A little something in between would probably make for a better reading experience but I am in a hurry. Preparing for a weekend camping trip should not be this complicated and finding a sitter for a smart alack, socially inept chihuahua should not be so difficult.

We have become entirely too indulgent. I suggested to the mister we travel with nothing, relying on our natural abilities and make that damn chihuahua catch us a squirrel or something. Yeah, he’s still laughing.

So here are my recent shots for the Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture

/ Janna Hill / 11 Comments

The word culture can conjure so many images it boggles the mind. Defining it as beliefs, principles, arts, ethnicity and (may I add) bacteria that reside in yogurt and petri dishes. That doesn’t make choosing a photograph any easier for me.  I can’t zoom in close enough on the yogurt to get a shot of live cultures and petri dishes… well they are just plain nasty.

This week’s challenge is hosted by Aaron Joel Santos.

The End of National Poetry Month (For Now)

/ Janna Hill / 4 Comments

April 30th is the last day of National Poetry Month and a fitting time to share Sara Teasdale’s I love You wouldn’t you agree? Sara Teasdale is said to be the first to receive the Pulitzer Prize Award for Poetry. She is known for her simplicity and (like too many others) her self-inflicted demise.

Winner of Pulitzer Prize Award 1918
Sara Teasdale 1884-1933

I Love You

by Sara Teasdale

When April bends above me

And finds me fast asleep,

Dust need not keep the secret

A live heart died to keep.

~

When April tells the thrushes,

The meadow-larks will know,

And pipe the three words lightly

To all the winds that blow.

~

Above his roof the swallows,

In notes like far-blown rain,

Will tell the little sparrow

Beside his window-pane.

~

O sparrow, little sparrow,

When I am fast asleep,

Then tell my love the secret

That I have died to keep.

 

How’s That Rx Workin’ for Ya?

/ Janna Hill / 4 Comments
Promotion Turned Rant

Anyone that’s read my puny little bio knows that I spent my prime working in the medical field as a licensed nurse. One necessary evil in said profession is staying current on medications. I still tend to do that. Old habits die hard. Maybe they don’t die–they just get flaccid and crusty along with our aging bodies but anywho.

Has anyone had to fill a prescription for Doxycycline lately? Were you totally blown away by the price increase? I mean, my lord that drug was approved by the FDA before I started first grade. Seriously it was over 45 years ago. The last time I checked (February 2012) it was $10 for 30 capsules/tabs without insurance. That was 33¢ per dose. Today it is sixty eight bucks for twenty tablets at Wal Mart! Yes, $68. That’s what… $3.40 a dose?Doxycycline (1024x688)

It is a fabulous drug with a wide range of benefits but it is old. Remember once upon a time when the cost of a drug went down after the pharmaceutical company recouped their research costs. So why the heck has this one (and there are others) skyrocketed?

This was the very argument I had with the pharmacist at one of the drug stores I called searching for a better price. Just FYI I was trying to help an uninsured individual get the medication they needed.

The professional behind the counter explained there was apparently a shortage of said drug, maybe a matter of supply and demand. I don’t believe that. The next explanation was that they were possibly losing money, to that I feigned a BS cough.

“You are a writer, right?” he asked. Damn small towns everybody knows your business.

“Right. What does that have to do with price gouging or hoarding if that is the case?” I replied.

“After you have recouped what you think your time and effort is worth on a particular book do you systematically lower the price?”

“A person’s health is not affected one way or another by my practices”. I argued.

“I’m sure their budget is. Why don’t you apply that same philosophy to your business?”

“I have!”

“How’s that prescription workin’ for ya?” By the looks of his crooked little grin I don’t think he believed me.

“It is too early to tell but I will let you know.”

We exchanged the usual pleasantries and I hurried home and got busy just in case he checked my story. It wasn’t a lie really; I (like many Indies) have cut prices before and offered a free title from time to time but has fiction or poetry ever healed bronchitis? Has an antibiotic ever offered a leisurely break from the stresses of reality?

I believe his comparison is ludicrous but a stiff necked redneck with Irish ire tends to take everything as a challenge. Of course we also celebrate the smallest victories. Just this morning I found 75¢ in the dryer. Woo-hoo. I love me some shiny quarters- it’s gonna be a good day.

So anyway I cut prices, made a couple of titles free at Smashwords and I am off to track down the real reason behind the astronomical increase in this drug and then I shall rant elsewhere.

Aside: I have a (paranoid?) suspicion the government is stock piling Doxycycline in the event of germ warfare or an anthrax attack. Maybe the pharmacy should start loading up on e-readers and books. If you can’t afford the medication or cure what ails you by reading you may be up a thick smelly creek without a means of propelling yourself.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

/ Janna Hill / 10 Comments
What’s Up?

The cost of living, this week’s photo challenge, hot air balloons and floating babies…

A shot of the latter two would have been nice but all I got was a Corn-snake with a belly full of Mud Martins.

I might have been dreaming about hot air balloons surrounded by cherubs when someone apparently looked up and the commotion started. I rose from my place of leisure and watched as everyone headed toward the excitement. “Get the tongs and steady the ladder. There’s a snake up here along the rafter.”

I (of course) grabbed a camera and the rest is pictures.

The throng and tongs
Hold her steady.
An oral anatomy lesson.
Tongue lashing
Hmm…

Yoo-hoo It is Still National Poetry Month

/ Janna Hill / 8 Comments

Yoo-hoo. It is still National Poetry Month and today I am highlighting Shel Silverstein.

I rarely think of Mr. Silverstein without remembering Johnny Cash and that delightfully ridiculous song A Boy Named Sue.

He (Silverstein) wrote a lot of nonsensical poetry/lyrics but like all humans he was multifaceted. His writing ranged from silly to somber with something for everyone as evident in the introduction to Where the Sidewalk Ends as he seems to say “welcome all.”

 

If you are a dreamer, come in,

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…

If you are a pretender, come sit by my fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in!

Come in!

 

And we did. We opened the pages and entered the world he created and we returned again and again for the flax-golden tales that never grow old all the while wondering if he found that place Where the Sidewalk Ends…

There is a place where the sidewalk ends

And before the street begins,

And there the grass grows soft and white,

And there the sun burns crimson bright,

And there the moon-bird rests from his flight

To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black

And the dark street winds and bends.

Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow

We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And watch where the chalk-white arrows go

To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,

For the children, they mark, and the children, they know

The place where the sidewalk ends.