Musings in Covid delirium

I have so much to write about.  So much to process.  Obviously, it's the same old story.  Life got in the way of this blog.  I looked at the posts and I see there's one post in 2020, one in 2021 and if I post this, then it'll at least be one in 2022.

The thing is that I have been craving blogging for a while now.  But then I have this other "blog" that I started on my website that is perpetually under construction and not being able to transfer this blog there and to essentially split my blogs into 3 separate topics, namely books, travel and everything else, has not worked out well for me.  I think splitting it all up like that has just made my mind go crazy. So, instead of blogging here or there, I ended up blogging no where.  It's sad really because I do love to write my thoughts and blogging helps me process my world because God knows my mind is a perpetual mess.

So, let's talk about the split in blogs and topics.  The thing is that I read/heard that people come to your blog or your instagram etc because of a niche market.  If you don't stand for anything, then why should they follow you.  Because one minute you can talk about books and then travel and then dentistry and who cares at that point because people come for certain topics.  It's hard to break it all down and split it.  And I think, ultimately, I am a sum of everything and I can just call this a "lifestyles" blog and be done with it.  No splitting. I have to do what works for me.

Yes, I have my podcast that is taking a hit right now and I have an Instagram/Bookstagram account for that podcast.  Except what happens when I want to post something random on Instagram?  I haven't really opened a personal account or a theythrowrocks account and then I will have to keep switching accounts to post. When I started my twitter account with @drshahnazahmed I have ONE account.  I post what I want, when I want and I like it. Although, I see the benefit of having different topics on different accounts for people to follow, but again, if I claim to be everything and nothing and people want to follow, great.  If not, oh well.

Yes, I have Covid.  And I'm processing the direction of my life.  No, it's not because of Covid.  Let me back up.  I went to speech contest in Florida.  I got to the finals.  I didn't win. The judge later told me that I sounded "angsty" and his review said I came across as "shouty".  My cousin said that I sounded loud and too much passion.  Although, another friend of mine, who's very blunt usually, said I was spot on.  My husband loved it also.  So, the question became why I didn't win.  Was it that the judges didn't understand "theatre" and performance, but anyway.  I didn't win.  I'm still trying to get over it.  There are so many emotions from not coming home with a win, but what I came home with was Covid.  After the contest we went to the Smiles At Sea Cruise and I came home and had to pack immediately and go to Iowa for work - long story, we need to discuss my professional life at a later blog.  Anyway, I am there and Wednesday night I'm getting sick.  I thought I was just really tired and go go going. I got a text from someone on the cruise that she got Covid and she said that I should test, if I had the test.  Well, I thought, I was only sick, nothing to sing home about, so I took out the Covid test.  And I was surprised when it showed up positive.

So, here I am processing my fatigue and trying to process the events of the speaking contest (Dentistry's Got Talent) and the cruise. I had 3 people ask me if I had a speaking business. No, I do not.  I just stumbled upon this contest and blew their minds I suppose with my speech? The first speech, the one that got me to the finals, haha. I heard people tell me that I am headed upwards. What does that mean?  I met this woman and in our first meeting she said I was headed for greatest. How does someone see that in another person? Just by a conversation? Just by my authenticity? I don't know. But I do know this.  I'm in a search.  For myself and a new profession and a new realization.  Does it involve speaking?  Does it involve growth? Coaching? I don't know.  But I know that I have some hard conversations coming up with the mirror and some work to be done.

I've gone all over the place with this post.  I think I need to post more "all over the place" posts to catch up. But my hope is to blog more.  Maybe.  Just maybe. Maybe, if I keep it to this blog and not worry about my other site...and maybe if I were to do book reviews and travel and everything else here...then... I wouldn't have to worry about the other blog and then I can find some semblance of consistency? Maybe? Yes. Maybe. We shall see.

But for now, I'm off. Thank you all for reading and hanging in there with me.

TTR

What happens when you text an inspirational message to someone you care, everyday?

 Hello everyone,

I'm not even going to start with where I have been or what I've been doing or even come up with a long apology or promise for this blog.  I'll give you two words.  Life happens.

Let's start off with Covid.  I have been fortunate.  Myself and my husband did not get sick.  We also were one of the first few to get the vaccine.  So that was all good.  I'm an introvert and being told to be at home was wonderful, but not everything in my life was great.

My office took a hit.  A major hit.  Okay fine.  A bit more than a major hit.  A super mega major hit.

While I was grappling with that and also figuring out other things, hits if you want to call them that and things I cannot talk about, I came across this idea where someone said that they messaged their nieces everyday.  I thought, wow.  That's a great idea. A message a day to lift someone up.  So, I started messaging my own nieces.

I would think about random stuff I have heard.  Like "Let go and let God."  Or "I believe in you." I cannot recall all the messages.  I've been doing this, I think, since the beginning of this year. When you commit to something, I realized it's not easy to find inspirational messages, everyday.  I was dedicated to this so I started looking for quotes and messages and sometimes I'll screen shot memes I see on Facebook or instagram and send that.

There would be days I would feel down and depressed myself.  I would need someone to send me a message to pick me up, let alone send my nieces a message.  All I wanted was someone to send me some kindness.  Of course, I didn't have a person like that and I still didn't have a message for my nieces for that day.  That's when I would reflect on the books I've read and the advice from some of the books.  One of the advices when you are down or you think life is going in the wrong direction, is to talk to yourself like you would your best friend.  What would I tell my best friend going through "life"? I started giving myself advice and I would take the advice and make it into the inspirational text of the day.

So, texts may have sounded like, "If you feel like quitting.  Don't.  Your second wind is right around the corner." That was what I would say to myself.  That was my way of picking myself up.  And so a lot of the messages were really inspirational messages to myself.  I would text what I craved and what I wanted.  Except it would just sound like a regular inspirational message.

My nieces would usually hit a heart on the message.  And then there were times when my niece would text and say, "Wow aunty.  That message was spot on. How did you know?" That happened a few times and that's when it hit me.  It doesn't matter how old you are or how much experience you have or what you do in life.  Ultimately, we all are going through our own trials, whether it is high school or college or job or family or whatever it is.  We all are going through our own struggles and we all need a message to pick us up and that's when I realized that inspirational messages were universal.

So now, whenever I hear a message that I need to remember for myself, I write it down in my little notes with a date for when that message will go out to my nieces. And of course, I still scan Facebook and instagram for inspiration to keep the texts going.

What are we, if we cannot help elevate each other?

Thanks for reading guys.  Stay safe and healthy.

TTR

Revealing Darkness

Dear friends,

For the past couple of days, I have been angry.  Perhaps that is not the best statement for today.  Why for the past couple of days?  Did the past several years not matter?  Does history not matter?  My cousin asked me if I saw the George Floyd video.  I told her that I had not.  I told her that I know that I would not be able to handle it because just hearing about it breaks my heart like I cannot express.  I am trying to dig deep and find out why today I am crying.  Is the movement finally reaching my ears?  I don’t know.

I think it’s because of a blog post I read about a black college professor who was “detained” by the police because he apparently fit the description of some black suspect. When this professor was asked several times as to his location and where he came from, several times he calmly gave the same truth and yet he was not believed.  And no one came and stood up for him.  I think ultimately after being detained at the gas station for quite a while, the police let him go.  The man recounts how he came close to possibly being killed because he said that if they wanted him to get in the police vehicle that would amount to him being guilty and he would not have accepted it and they would have ended his life for that. Here is the link to that post because it’s more effective coming from him.

A man who always has a warm welcoming smile, an open heart, and an internal kindness...

He was black and that’s all the police will see of him.

I read the post and changed the image of the man to one of my favorite patients.  A father who brings his children to my office.  A man who always has a warm welcoming smile, an open heart, and an internal kindness.  I look forward to him and his children coming to my office every 6 months.  And when I read the story and thought about him and his face flashed before me, except he was the one detained by the police, I was shaking.  I felt helpless.  I wanted to help him.  I wanted to scream, “you have the wrong man!  Let him go!” but my story is part just a thought, but it could very much be true. Why couldn’t it?  He was black and that’s all the police will see of him.

How many hearts and dreams need to be trampled upon and destroyed and desecrated before humanity can accept the price of America’s original sin?  I read reports about how there are peaceable protests and yet they are being met with violence.  Why?  Because blacks do not have the right to an equal American life.  They cannot be afforded the luxury of a peaceable protest. And there will be groups within the government or otherwise that will stir the pot and make the protests violent. Have they not bled enough?  Will America only rest when every black man, woman and child is deleted?  Why? What is their crime?  Because from where I see it, the crime falls on this great nation.  Throughout history we have taken away their access and power and yet they rise and I sure to God hope they continue to rise.  May they rise and may their voices be heard until they are treated as full equals.

I want to talk a bit about myself and my culture because this color divide has to stop.  I was born in South India and my earliest memories as a child was based on my color.  I was called “blackie” and “shanie”.  “Shanie” is a tamil word for cow dung because of the dark color of cow excrement.  Yes, those are my memories and as a 47 year old woman, they are still quite vivid in my mind.  In that culture, being a dark woman represents that you will not have as many offers for marriage, for a job, or otherwise.  And it holds true today.  I have heard of desi women today telling their children to stay out of the sun, not because of skin cancer, but because they will get dark.  The worst fear of a mother is that her child will be dark.  I have heard of children who said, I can’t go out in the sun, not till I get married.  I will get dark and I no-one will marry me.  Today as a racial divide continues to crumble our core of existence, I would like to call out all desi women who have ever reinforced this message to their children and other ears nearby.

I had to step back to my own story and to darkness to try to understand what it is that people fear about blacks.  Or anyone who has a darker skin tone.  Why does skin tone have such a systemic response?  I don’t have the answer for that.

I’ve been yelling at my husband for the past few days about the injustice to the blacks.  He has just listened quietly and said, “You are preaching to the choir”, but I am so angry.  If I am so angry, how angry will a black person who has dealt with this their whole life, be?  How much will they have had to withhold before the pressure cooker finally exploded? Don’t think about the violence and the looting and the protests.  This is the price America pays for injustice.  And will America pay back this price by indicting the officers? Will America pay back this price by treating blacks as equals and not as an inferior race?  Martin Luther King had a dream.  Perhaps we as Americans should have the same dream.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  I have a dream… I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I am not the most eloquent writer but today I am compelled to write.  I am not able to heal until I get this on paper.  Perhaps expressing my thoughts will ease some of my burdens but what of the burdens that continue for our black Americans.

I’m not the most historically knowledgeable person.  I’m getting through reading White Rage by Carol Anderson and I’ll be honest.  It’s a tedious read.  It’s information heavy, but history is history.  I am understanding the other side and perhaps more people need to use empathy and stand with the other side.  What side of history will you stand on? Our country is at stake here.  We are at the brink of martial law and we are at the brink of losing our democracy.  

Board games, the next level.

My cousin in LA recently bought the game Ticket to Ride and then subsequently got introduced to Settlers of Catan.  When he bought Ticket to Ride, I asked him why he hadn’t checked with me.  I told him I could have guided him otherwise. He said that he was advised to buy Ticket to Ride and somewhere I started thinking about board games and the board game revolution and when to introduce who to what game.  What would I have told him to buy if he would have asked me? And then the answer slapped me in the face.  Whenever I host game nights at my place, and we have a new player, we almost always, invariably start with Ticket to Ride.  OK.  Maybe I would have told him the same thing.  I don’t know.
And then I think about my own game revolution.  When did I become so knowledgeable about board games?  And then time to dig deep and think about all the board games and why I enjoy playing them.  If you are a serious gamer, then this blog may not be for you.  Heck, at that point, I should be reading your blog.  But anyway, if you want to be a gamer or want to expand your horizons about board games, stay put.  If you want to know about the different types of games out there, hang tight.  We are going to take the next step from the Monopoly and Scrabble.  We are taking the next step from the games we grew up with.

When I discuss the board games in this blog, and no I will not discuss all the games I have played, and yes, there will be another blog about board games, but I want to break it down to a few categories.  Fun. Competition/cooperation.  Aggression.  Number of players.  Card building.  Strategy and luck.  If you are a type B personality, I’ll tell you right now – you won’t enjoy the games that I do.  The games I enjoy are not low key.  Actually, all the games I prefer to play are aggressive, involve strategy and the more convoluted the strategy, the better.  I love a good brain workout.  How to make this board work for me?  And how to make it not work for my opponents?  And when to do so?

I’m going to start off with a cooperative game.  These are games where players play against the board.  So, you all win together or you all lose together.  You talk to each other and strategize to figure out the best way to defeat the board while every turn the board tries to defeat you all. The game I’m talking about is Pandemic. It’s fun, but it’s not aggressive and competitive.  Heck, you are all friends playing together beating a board.  For me, that’s OK.  Kinda. I would rather play against each other to the death, but the good point of this game is the strategic element.  You all still have to flex your brain muscle to defeat the board.  It’s a 2-4 player game and I think a type B personality may enjoy it, especially one trying to transition into becoming an A type personality.  Haha.  Sorry. Couldn’t resist that comment.  I’m big on winning.  I know it’s better to have a win-win philosophy in life, blah, blah, blah.  Moving on.

Ticket to Ride is a standard. Why else would they have so many expansions of this game?  It’s a lot of fun.  The competition/aggression in this game is mild to moderate.  Basically you are building tracks to get from one city to another and if your tracks block someone else’s, then the real fun begins. It’s super easy to learn.  It’s super family friendly and it’s really the first game to introduce people into the genre of the strategic games.  There is some luck depending on the shuffle of the cards, but it’s not bad.  Also, upto 5 players can play it and that’s great because most games stop with the 2-4 player range.  The friends I have introduced this game to, went home and purchased their own copy.  I wish I had this blog up way back when so they could have used my Amazon Associates link but anyway.  Great game to start off with.

Next up.  Settlers of Catan.   When I first started this game it was a full blown fight at my home.  Anger.  Loud arguments.  Well, what can I say?  My family is hugely competitive.  The aggression in this game is because you can help someone but then they can end up double crossing you.  Basically the strategy in this game is to build roads, settlements and cities.
 Points are scored for longest roads, largest army and for the settlements and cities you own.  The strategy elements in this game are plentiful. Yes, there are dice so there is the luck of the draw, but I have won this game by buying strategic locations and having certain resources.  If you are past Ticket to Ride, this is the next best thing.  And the board is variable so every time is a different board and a different strategy so it will take a while to get tired of this game.  The game is for upto 4 players after which you’ll need an extension to make it 4-6 players.  The game is 25 years old and is still one of the gold standards of the modern gamer.  If you don’t own this game, then stop now and click on the link(s) above because this is the next best thing since sliced bread.  Please note, I will be posting my top strategies for Catan in a future blog.

The last game I want to mention for this blog, for now, is Dominion.  It’s a card building game.  It involves strategy and some luck (based on the shuffle of the cards).  Up to 4 players can play it.  Lately, my group has been playing it a lot.  The manufacturer has over 10 expansions of this game and the variability is extremely high.  Depending on the cards you play with, a game can last for 30 minutes or even an hour.  And repeating the same game?
 Hmmm. Well, there’s a randomizer app. It’s going to take a while.  So, just enjoy the variability that this game comes with.  To start, I would just buy Dominion and then if you enjoy it a lot, move on to Intrigue and after that, you should qualify to write this blog.

There are so many other games to mention.  But I will say this.  Yesterday I went to a board game meet up.  This is with gamers, so yes I lost, but I played a game called Hadara.  It was my first time playing it although it’s a variant of 7 Wonders.  Let’s save talking about these games for a later post.   As I said, I will be blogging more about games.  This is a way for me to process what I like and why.

Before I go, a few years back, I even went to Geekway to the West, the gaming convention in St. Louis.  OMG.  What a rush.  I loved it.  But I digress.  I was introduced to Viticulture and Scythe.  At that time, Scythe was not released to the market yet.  I was lucky to play it then.  It was so much fun, but back to yesterday’s board game meet up.  There were a couple of tables playing Tapestry.  That game looks involved.  I looked it up on Amazon.  Yes, it’s $99.  Holy Kamoli. Yes, it’s for the serious gamer. So, no, there won’t be a review of that game here for a while, but I just thought I would mention the two games that caught my eye yesterday.

While I plan more game posts, do you have any questions for me about games that you play, extensions, expansions.  I will try my best to steer you in the right direction.  For now, please use my links to purchase any of the games, if you are interested.  I may get a few pennies for it, so I thank you in advance.

Stay tuned for more.  

Real quick:  I am moving this blog over to shahnazahmed.com.  That site is a work in progress, but please save the link.  At some point, when I have a way for you all to subscribe to my blogs there, I will eventually move this blog over.  Of course, I will keep you all posted.  Thank you for hanging in there with me.

PS.  I’m posting this blog on shahnazahmed.com also!

Never give up!

I know people say this.  I've read a lot of memes about how persistence pays.  It's the plugging along and the plugging along and the plugging along and the one fine day, everything works concept.  It's easier said than done.  I don't want to hear, but I'm sure there are millions of stories of the trying and trying and trying and never making it to where they wanted.  I guess, we don't want to focus on that because then we'd most likely quit.  Heck.  I may not even start.
The thing with this concept is the continued focus even when things are going south.  When things are not staying in a consistent lull, but actually getting worse.  How does one not give up in those situations?  I don't have the answer, but I will talk about a couple of situations where I've heard this "never give up" philosophy work.
Situation 1.  I am following a podcast on Anchor and I haven't listened to a lot of their episodes, but there was one particular episode where the speaker talks about how he had only 7 listens to his podcast one day and he thought he was irrelevant.  He wanted to give up and then boom, it changed and a week later it just grew and it became 1000 people listening.  Wow.  I would like to know how that happens.  I would like a 100 people to listen for starters.  I'm digressing.  The point was that he stuck it through and if he would have quit when there was 7, he would have never known the potential.  It probably was really hard with just 7 listens especially when you are trying to make it big and when your livelihood depends on it.
The reason for this podcast is not situation 1.  It's situation 2 that really spoke to me.
Situation 2.  I'm in Antigua on the beach reading a book.  This a public beach and the vendors approach you to ask if you want to buy something or book a tour.  They are trying to do business and it's their livelihood.  There are guests who book and why not?  If you are not interested as a guest, you just say, "No thank you" and they move on.  Sometimes, they'll stop and ask how you are and what your plans are and if you want to book with them.  So, maybe the conversation takes a few more sentences than "Are you interested in a tour?" Reply with "No thank you".  I was on a beach chair reading a book and I didn't want to get interrupted but I didn't mind.  I understood the culture and it was fine.  A couple in the beach chair next to us, did not want to get interrupted and instead of "no thank you." They responded with "Do not talk to me.  I'm just trying to relax here and you come and talk to me."  And the vendor, I will not blame him said, "It's a public beach.  I can approach anyone I want." And this conversation went on and on with the guest getting more and more frustrated and security at the resort stepped in and finally the vendor moved on.  As he moved on, he said to himself and loudly, "Never Give up!  Never Give up!" and I wished I had a tour to book with him, but I didn't.  In face of contempt, the vendor, shook it off and held on to his mantra and went on.  I watched and thought about how often we shake away something bad and say to ourselves, "never give up."  For me, not too many times.  But maybe, I do need to do that more often.
So, before I go, Never Give Up dear friends.  Great things are coming your way.
TTR

Mid-life crisis and the mental block

As is the case when I've been gone for so long, I feel like I need to explain myself to you all.  I feel I need to fill you all in on my life and my podcast.  Yes, I do have a podcast now.  I have a new website now, with my name on it.  Yes.  My actual name.  As my husband asked me when I pondered the concept of eventually moving Theythrowrocks there, "But you won't be anonymous anymore!"  Hmmm.  Anonymity.  I thought it would give me the strength to be true.  To speak my mind.  To just say it as I see it, with judgement and all.  To bear myself.  To bear my true self.  While I "decided" that I was going to give it all up, then again, in true TTR fashion, I think about it.  Should I?  But don't most of my readers know who I am already?
OK, so that's something that I shuttle back and forth in my mind, but lately, my mind and even my life has felt like a mess.  Imagine a set of long tiny wires all tangled together and as you remove one knot, you create several others and after trying for as long as one does, you just give it all up.  You realize those wires will not ever be untangled and there's nothing you can do about it.  No amount of patience was going to help you.  Funny thing with mid-life crisis or just life crisis is that it jams your brain and like the tangles of wires, you try and try and nothing works.  Except with your brain you don't have a choice of trashing it and picking a new piece of neuronal networks.  I worked with the tangles and it became my new reality.  Simple questions became difficult to understand or respond to.  What are you doing with your life?  What do you want?  The answer was always, I have no flipping clue.  Seriously.  I wanted to give it all up and start over.  Then there's the finances to consider.  I couldn't think straight to try to salvage my reality and my job.  I looked for something new.  Maybe I want that.  No.  I want that.  In this mayhem, I cannot imagine how I started and kept consistent with a podcast.  Something that doesn't pay me at all.  It can't be a profession or a job.  I know you have to be famous to make it that way, but I'm a nobody right now.  I'm just TTR who's still struggling to understand the reasons for my own anonymity.
I just returned from a fabulous vacation to Sandals Grande Antigua.  Sandals, a chain that my husband and I have chosen, has been fun.  Has been a week of beach and sand and great food.  This time around, I decided it better be more.  I didn't know what I wanted from the beach but I looked up "beach meditation" online just in case.  So, first day out, we do our breakfast and I make it to the water.  I tell my husband that I am going to meditate and be one with the Universe and he laughs rolling his eyes because he knows his wife is crazy.  I don't care.  I feel the sand under my feet.  I look at the water, the small waves, the tiny ripples.  I look at the light greenish blue color of the water, as it turns bluer towards the horizon.  I look out at the shore line of white sand and the waves crashing.  I kept doing this.  Day 1.  Day 2.  Day 3.  And sometime around Day 2, some things started making sense in my life.  The twisted network that refused to work started sending signals.  I felt a change within me.  A clarity, if you will.  Suddenly I was able to see my work and what I wanted from it and also from my podcast and my blogs.  Yes, blogs.  I plan to have 3.  This one which is going to continue to be a lifestyles blog.  A wandering spirit blog about my travels and the third one, the script of my Living A Life Through Books podcast.
And I think about my office and what will make it work.  Everything that felt like a crushing feeling within me, was slowly releasing away and I could see clearer.  There was still a question I had in my mind that I was not finding the answer to.  I couldn't connect completely.  Day 4.  Better clarity.  I need to get a dot journal or whatever those things are called.  Or just a TTR style journal.  Day 5.  As I lay down to bed, the one question about my office hits me.  The why I do what I do.  It may seem crazy but you know how parents tell you not to touch a hot pot or just stuff like that and you learn it instinctively and it becomes a part of you.  What if someone asked you why you don't touch the pot anymore and you just didn't know why?  What if you didn't remember that pot was hot, but you just didn't touch it because of habit.  And when someone asks you, you say, that's just how it is, but you stumble with the why of something as simple as that.  Well, similarly with my job there was something I did and there was a reason.  Except, I did not remember what that reason was.  I think I starred at the blue ocean and felt the waves for a long time looking for that one last answer and it was the night of day 5 that it came to me.  More than just the answer.  A conviction about why I did what I did.  I spent Day 6 floating in the ocean and thanking the Universe for giving me answers that I couldn't find anywhere else.
Now, here I am, in a lounge at Miami International Airport, feeling a renewed sense of clarity.  OK.  I would be lying if I said I sorted every answer out.  As I sorted answers out, more questions came up and most of them have been sorted out.  The most important thing is the clog in my brain that has cleared up.  I can answer questions now.  My brain actually feels like it got a jump start.
Is is all mid-life crisis?  Is it all a mental block?  Who knows?  I know one thing for sure.  Everyone says they need the beach, that they need a vacation.  I feel my definition of a vacation has been to get away from it all for a while.  A panacea for a week and then back to the grind.  A bandaid that doesn't cure that which is your reality.  That used to be vacation for me.  This one was a first.  I can look at the beach with a renewed focus and a new set of eyes.  The eyes that allow me to return.  The eyes that want me to return and live the life I set out to live.
Before I go, I will say that I am not clueless to the stresses that are going to hit me as I get home.  I know the brain will unfortunately get clogged again.  I also know that, for me, a week of beach meditation and gratitude for being able to experience it has gone a long, long, long way.
I wish you all the best in this coming New Year.
TTR

How to cut a jackfruit

Dear friends,

Here's a crazy video I decided to post.  Hope you all enjoy it.  It's just one of those wild things that I thought about sharing and said, "why not?"

I could talk about the LONG Facebook live video that my husband posted of myself cutting a different jackfruit.  I would have loved to add the elements from that video, but my camera cut off while recording and I had to re-record some stuff so some stuff just didn't get recorded and the sequence got cady-wompused (is that a word?)

Before I go, on a totally different note, for those of you not following my Facebook page, a lot of changes are coming my way.  I have a podcast now called "living a life through books" and I'm going to do a TTR podcast also.  And I'm going to be having a new website and all that jazz.  I know I have been MIA, but please bear with me and it's going to be fun.

Hope you all are having a great day.  Catcha all later,

TTR