Please come and join us on Readers Coffeehouse on facebook in 2017.
We chat about books, hold giveaways, host authors on our Q and A’s, have a monthly book club (list of authors below), and we send out a fun newsletter.
Our founding authors? Catherine Ryan Hyde Steena Holmes Jo-Ann Mapson Laura Drake Kimberly Belle Kimberly Brock Barbara Claypole White and me.
Cheers and happy readinng!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ReadersCoffeehouse/
I worry.
Specifically I worry about Rebel Dancing Daughter, Adventurous Singing Daughter, and Darling Laughing Son.
They laugh at me and my worries.
I glare and worry back at them. When they’re parents, they’ll get it, and I will cackle with glee.
I drive my own self crazy. It’s as if there are two of me in one body.
“Worrier Cathy” claws her way out and has all sorts of things, on a growing and alarming list, that I – Real Cathy – should worry about.
I envision Worrier Cathy hunched in a corner, biting her nails, her hair looking as if it’s been electrocuted, her knees to her chest. She whimpers to me, “What if THIS happens to the kids…what if THAT happens…could THIS happen, oh my God. It COULD…what would we do then?”
Real Cathy, me, tries to stay calm. I am a rational and practical person. I work a lot, I am the product of two parents who worked a lot and believed that idol hands could possibly be the devil’s play things. I love my friends and family, and I am fairly emotionally stable on my good days.
Worrier Cathy, however, gets Real Cathy all riled up and nervous.
What does Worrier Cathy make me worry about?
Cliffs that The Offspring might accidentally fall off of into the wild blue yonder. (That’s YOU Adventurous Singing Daughter, who hikes too high.)
Skiing through trees. (That’s YOU Darling Laughing Son. Don’t do this. And no back flips again on the slopes. You can break your neck. Did you HEAR me?)
Getting lost/sick/or attacked by terrorists abroad. (That’s YOU Rebel Dancing Daughter!)
Last fall I worried about rabid bats.
Couldn’t help myself.
Adventurous Singing Daughter was working in Yosemite for a term and getting bit by a rabid bat COULD happen so I warned her about it. But. There hasn’t been rabies in Yosemite for at least five years.
When a chipmunk nipped Adventurous Singing Daughter I talked to a doctor there about this who was polite when I drilled him with many, many questions about rabies, but still. Worrier Cathy had Real Cathy worried!
I am currently worried about lion bites as Rebel Dancing Daughter is in Africa. She left me for Africa for a few weeks so that Worrier Cathy could lose her head.
I picture Worrier Cathy wandering around with her head propped up in her hands with that electrocuted hair, her neck headless, muttering, “I’m so worried about Rebel Dancing Daughter in Africa! Diseases! Stampedes! Wars! Snakes! Bad water!”
This weekend I worried about the twins driving back to college. Darling Laughing Son drove his sister down to school. We had had an ice storm. The ice was gone on the freeways when I let them go, but still.
I had to pester my friend Keily about the freeway, which her kids had recently driven down. I think Keily thinks I’m a loon. I am okay with that because I can blame Worrier Cathy for all those texts.
When there is the slightest threat to my kids I can go from 0 to 90 miles per hour in my head in about ten seconds. You mothers out there might relate.
I don’t worry with the rest of my life.
I don’t worry about book sales, although as an author I probably should. But why would I do that? All I can do is write the best damn book I can. The results are out of my control.
I could worry about my health, but except for some slight hypochondria that lurks around now and then (Why does my left boob seem to hurt on Wednesdays? Do I have Shaking Leg Syndrome? My eyes feel fuzzy! Does this mean I’ll be blind by tomorrow morning?) I just don’t. It’s too boring and I feel too healthy.
So I have a goal for 2017: Worry less about The Offspring.
It is true that worrying has never changed one outcome in the history of this planet. Ever. Never.
I need to say a prayer for beloved Adventurous Singing Daughter, Darling Laughing Son, and Rebel Dancing Daughter, and let it go.
I need more peace, more calm, more zen.
I need Worrier Cathy to relax and find something else to do. Like fishing. Or golf.
And lion attacks are rare, aren’t they? Same with rabid bats?
Happy New Year!
Darling Laughing Son brought home this kitty from college.
This kitty LOOKS sweet, but he was a terror.
Chased and stalked our old cat, until KC was cowering upstairs.
Bit and scratched when playing.
Attacked the flowers in a vase on my table.
Pretended he didn’t know English or the word ‘no.’
Used my couch as a scratching post.
But at least he’s a reader, that’s all I can say!
(And now that he’s back at college, I kinda miss him.)
Innocent Husband and I had a Christmas Bake Off.
You can tell that I’m baking by the hammer in my right hand. The Christmas Bake Off challenge came about after I set the oven on fire, turkey inside, during Thanksgiving.
I had to prove that I could bake.
(No, I did not set the cake on fire. How could you think that?)
The one on the left is a chocolate cake. Peppermint / candy cane buttercream frosting.
The one on the right is a yule log. Raspberry filling, chocolate chip icing.
Which one is mine?
The pink one…
I have the same Christmas tradition as a zillion other frazzled mothers out there: Make graham cracker and candy houses with your children every year. Even if they’re on Santa’s Naughty List.
But my kids, 19, 19, and 23, have, shall we say, different ideas of what constitutes an “appropriate” Christmas house nowadays.
When my kids were young they would carefully build their graham cracker houses, usually using a small milk carton as a base. They would use hot tamales to make sweet, curving pathways up to the front door. The roofs would be covered with white icing and red hots. Jelly beans would line the edges of the houses.
No longer.
In my household, it now seems that the graham cracker Christmas house rule is, “The weirder the better.” Or, “I’m going to make a personal political statement this season.” Or, “Gummy bears rule. This is a gummy bear gang.”
Our kids’ Christmas houses sometimes, intentionally, resemble scary haunted houses. Or bunkers. Or arenas from Hunger Games. We have four story towers and coliseums for gladiators.
One year Darling Laughing Son made a gummy worm graveyard.
Adventurous Singing Daughter (Daughter Number 2) put cinnamon bears on top of her roof and had them jump off into a pool of gumdrops. Why? Because her bears were adventurers, like her. She later bungee jumped off a bridge. Maybe inspired by a cinnamon bear?
Rebel Dancing Daughter (Daughter Number 1) has feminist, woman – power tales attached to her graham cracker candy creations.
Yes, our Christmas graham cracker houses now have odd….flavors. But it’s the same, too. We all sit around our kitchen table with glue guns, icing, sprinkles, Hershey’s kisses, gumdrops, and mints and build and create.
It’s Lamb family tradition, even when rainbow gummy fish have staged a revolution and taken over Graham Cracker Village.
Wishing you laughs, good cheer, and fun with friends and family this holiday season.
….and that’s a wrap. My eleventh novel, No Place I’d Rather Be, is done and flying off to New York. My eyes are fuzzy, my brain is fried, and the house is a wreck, but I am done.
A short summary? Six generations of women, one cookbook. From Odessa to Munich to London to Montana.
Out August 30, 2017. Cheers.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/No-Place-Id-Rather-Be-ebook/dp/B01N2Q59G8/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482123492&sr=1-2&keywords=no+place+i%27d+rather+be
I wrote these Christmas stories, set in Montana, with laughter and love in mind. Both have happy endings, I promise. On sale $1.99 and $2.99.
Our First Christmas: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A4ANVTM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
A Very Merry Christmas: https://www.amazon.com/Very-Merry-Christmas-Cathy-Lamb-ebook/dp/B01DRXCGPS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1481912214&sr=1-1&keywords=a+very+merry+christmas
This is what happens when Darling Laughing Son brings home a kitty from college then takes off with his fun and funny friends and a, “See ya later, Momma.”
I’m trying to write a newsletter and Leroy’s trying to run across the keyboard. He is a naughty cat just like my children.
If you get the newsletter with a lot of eei78254o9jg0wr-24ei9rxe across it, you’ll know why.
Look! He’s looking at himself on the computer screen!
Mrs. Claus put our Christmas anthology on sale for a short and sweet amount of time for $1.99.
Easy reading, happy endings.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Our-First-Christmas-Lisa-Jackson-ebook/dp/B01A4ANVTM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1481574519&sr=1-1&keywords=our+first+christmas
My story is called Christmas in Montana. Laurel Kelly used to manage a rock band. Now she’s home helping her aunt and mother launch their sexy apron business, and she’s trying to get her family’s land back from a cowboy. Life sure changes quickly sometimes.
Cathy Lamb All rights reserved © 2011-2025 |
 |
