I recently repotted my little yellow miniature rosebush, and then proceeded to way over-water it. Now it has a bunch of dead or dying leaves, but the new soil does appear to be soaking up the leftover water, so I’m in hopes that it will soon bloom again. Because of being repotted, and also being moved from the bookcase, which is about 52” high, to the desk, which is 40” high, I’m sure it’s been badly shocked. And then, to add insult to injury, I over-watered it. Poor thing. My sister says I should talk to it when I water it, and I haven’t tried that yet, but it may help—who knows?

Have I discussed my collectibles before? I used to collect owls, and got up to 19 of them, all varied but mostly small porcelain or clay figures. When I had to move and downsize, I gave them to my son who doesn’t really care about them, but displays them in his living room. After I stopped collecting owls, I moved on to Erté plates from Franklin Mint. I have six, and two coffee table books about them. But it’s been a year or more since I looked at the books, and I had to put the plates away when I downsized four years ago.

Many years ago, mostly because of my interest in Erté fashion, I started collecting fashionable ladies, mostly in porcelain and mostly less than a foot tall. I now have three 18” tall ladies (one Lladro), two 8” tall Lladro bridesmaids, one 8” tall Royal Daulton lady and a lovely slender 8” tall lady my sister sent me from Paris. My sister also sent me a painting of a pink lady and another of a model wearing a lovely scarf. There is also a 2’ tall plaster white lady that I saw in a thrift shop and had to have.

A friend recently gave me three little snowmen (about 5” tall), and I had long ago found a 15-16” tall Irish Santa figure, that have become part of my collection. In addition, I have a pair of old-fashioned baseball kids, 6” tall, in plaster.

My final topic today is about my latest WIP, a collection of short stories, similar to my self-published book, “The Dawn People,” about life in the Grey Owl tribe of the Megalithic era. I’d drafted ten stories until I started to edit them and realized three of them really didn’t belong. So I had to come up with three more stories that would fit, and those are still in very rough draft form at this point.

I’m still working on two other YA books, one a fantasy about a witch and a gemstone, and the other Book One of a thriller trilogy, about an investigative reporter who takes a sabbatical to drive around the Pacific Coast mourning her beloved husband. I’ve finished a YA novella called “Magical Brownies,” and another, contemporary middle grade book, called “Snow” about a girl and her white horse, which I’ve discussed here before. But so far I haven’t had any luck getting the attention of an agent or a publisher for either book.