Author: Kim Janine Ligon

All summer long I enjoy watching the bright green, ruby throated hummingbirds flit around our feeder. One swoops in and drinks greedily until another bird appears and chases it away so the newcomer can guzzle the sweet nectar.

They retreat to a nearby crape myrtle bush and perch on a branch blending in with the oval green leaves that are nearly their size. When another bird nears the feeder the camouflaged one zooms out of hiding with tail feathers fully fanned to warn the intruder against sampling any nectar. Frequently, the attacker doesn’t even take a drink–just returns to his secret spot to await the next unsuspecting interloper. It is like watching a mini Battle of Britain on my deck.

They are so busy keeping one another from eating that I wonder how they get enough fuel to provide all their energy. A large feeder will last a week or more at the height of the battles.

Then something happens to dramatically change their behavior. The Hummingbird’s Almanac says it is time for cooperation. They need to tank up to prepare for the long journey dodging hurricanes across the Gulf to their winter homes in Mexico and Central America. When that time comes, you know cooler weather can’t be far behind.

The birds begin sharing with one another. Often every “flower” at the feeder has a long beak inserted in it drinking the liquid sweetness as fast as possible. A large feeder lasts two days or less. You can actually see the little green bodies growing plumper day after day.

Cooperation is in full swing already this year. Toward the last days of their Alabama stay I’ve seen all four slots filled with birds and four birds hovering over them waiting for their turn. It looks like the holding pattern over Atlanta’s airport in miniature.

As blistering hot as our summer has been, I’m not ready for winter yet. This morning it was only in the high 60’s. But the Farmer’s Almanac agrees with my hummingbirds. It’s predicting a little earlier arrival for a winter that’s to be shivery, wet, slushy, and colder than normal. I don’t like the sound of that! Especially not the slushy–you can’t have slush without snow–right? Ugh!!

I’ll leave my feeder up until I don’t see any hummers for at least two weeks. Want to make sure any stragglers are well fed too. Wishing you a sweet ending to summer.

BONUS: Click on this link to see info on my friend, Christy Adams’ devotional for parents coming out Sept 21. It’s available for pre-ordering now.

https://www.spinningromance.com/devotions-for-parents/

Special thanks to all of you who purchased “Polly’s List ” and had such kind words for my first novel. Enjoy!

Earlier this spring another friend and I had lunch at Linda’s house so we could see the amazing transformation she’d completed in her master bath and kitchen. She embarked on a remodeling adventure mid-pandemic so along with the normal stresses of a major project she also dealt with supply chain hiccups and halts. The results are exquisite. Her master bath, in particular, looks like something straight out of a magazine or home make over TV show. As beautiful as the results are, I haven’t the patience required to embark on a project like that. (I’m sure if you listen closely you’ll hear my sweet husband heartily cheering in the background.)

My mother had a strong remodeling gene. She refinished all the hardwood floors in one of our houses and seemed to always find rooms that needed repainting. Probably because she’d worn the paint off by frequent washings. (I didn’t get her housekeeping gene either!)

We moved into an older brick home in town that needed lots of painting. We built on two more bedrooms over the first floor area that briefly served as Daddy’s office. There was only a small dining room so Mother added a eat at bar in the kitchen big enough for six stools. It had two parlors connected by French doors to each other and to the front hall and dining room.

Mother complained that the parlors were too small to be functional for our large family. Her vision was of a great room open to the foyer and stairwell and dining room. She designed a drop down bar that would come out of the hollow center pillar and rest on a wooden wall carving as its leg. It was a clever design. She kept pestering Daddy about getting someone in to build what she wanted. He had a gift for letting the nattering roll off him and out of mind.

After Mother completed all the other projects and Daddy still hadn’t agreed to hire someone for the great room construction, she took matters–or more precisely–took a sledge hammer in hand and began knocking out the wall between the two parlors and removed all the French doors from their hinges.

I can’t say Daddy was surprised when he got home. He didn’t have time for shock. Mother had partially removed a load bearing wall under the upstairs bathroom. It was fortunate she hadn’t finished the job.

After a couple of emergency calls and a late night visit from the professional remodeler, steel I-beams were ordered to keep the second floor in place and the rest of the renovation was planned. The final product included a beautiful stone fireplace and the secret bar in the column. Then Mother rested a while to enjoy the fruits of “her” labor.

Maybe it’s a July 28th gene, that desire to remake things and endure the aggravation of it. Happy birthday, Linda! Happy birthday, Mother–RIP.

Hope any remodeling you tackle turns out exactly as you want and no bathtubs threaten to land in your living room! Enjoy!

The post office’s stamp price increase this week made me think about electronic communications. When I was working, I was always early to work. I could check on the night shift and if I had extra to do I’d much rather do it in the morning than to stay late and miss out on evening time at home. And work in the morning had fewer interruptions than staying late. Some of the pleasant moments of those early mornings were when Daddy’s name would pop up in my inbox. He was an early bird too. Most times his message wasn’t of critical importance, probably a thinking of you message or just talking about life in general but they always started my day off on the right foot. I treasured each one.

Emails have been essential in rounding up my far flung siblings for surprise parties for our parents and for sibling vacation retreats. Now I use it to get the word out to over one hundred people for family reunions. Lately, it’s had pictures and announcements of new arrivals complete with vital statistics.

A lot of text messages are flying around too. I have a text enabled phone but it’s not smart so it take six clicks to type in my first name, if I don’t care about it being capitalized. I have received texted baby announcements too with postage stamp size pictures on my phone. Most recently when the niece who is only eleven months younger than my husband became a great grandmother. That makes my husband a great great great uncle, but he’s decided his handle for that generation will be UG3. He hasn’t signed a deal for a rap album yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.

The biggest impediment to timely electronic communication is that the devices have to be on. Mine generally are not. These days I only check email about twice a day unless I’m expecting a response to something specific and text messages once a week or less. So if you want to get in touch with this girl just pick up the phone and call my landline…yes I still, have one.

Other updates from my world:

This site is now https for your improved security.

We’re 32 days from P Day, publication of Polly’s List

Check out the new picture on my blog Meet The Author page compliments of my friend Beverly who shot oodles of pics for me to use for promotions. Thank you!

My Reading Recommendations page on the blog is growing almost daily with books I’ve read and reviewed for other Roses from the Wild Rose Press Garden. Lots of talent out there.

Hope your summer is filled with fun, family, and frolicking! Enjoy!

The subject line of the email said, “Worldwide Release Date Notice: Polly’s List “. I was so excited tears started running down my face. My husband no longer assumes it is bad news when I cry over emails. Since last August, he has come to expect that it might be good news related to my fledgling career as an author.

The first line said: “Hello Kim Janine Ligon. This is to inform you of your worldwide official release date of 2022-08-17”. That is only 98 days from today. Let the countdown begin!

So mark your calendars. On Wednesday, August 17th, The Wild Rose Press will publish my debut novel POLLY’S LIST. It will be available both in print and an ebook at your favorite book e-tailer, i.e. Barnes and Noble.com, Book Bub, Goodreads, Amazon, or even direct from my publisher The Wild Rose Press.

About thirty days before publication, it will be available for pre-ordering. I’ll send out a notice when I get confirmation that it is available. Until that happens I can’t set up all my author profiles with those sellers or activate some of my marketing plans. Those last thirty days are going to be busy ones.

I am networking with other Roses, other authors in the Wild Rose Press Garden. They are a very helpful and supportive group. I am reading two novels to review for fellow authors and will be guesting on some blogs around my publication date.

I am hoping all of you will spread the word too on your social media sites, book clubs, friends and family. Please encourage them to sign up to follow me; the more, the merrier!

I can’t wait for you to meet my characters:

Polly: the grandmother who begins everything with a fall…or was it a push?

Mikal: Polly’s widowed young neighbor who discovers the accident.

Will: Mikal’s five-year old son with a fascination for snow globes and dogs.

Rhett: Polly’s pet Basset hound with a knack for showing up almost in time to thwart evil. At least in time to slow it down.

CJ: Polly’s grandson who she raised but hasn’t seen in five years.

And, of course, a supporting cast of others…The action unfolds in a small town in Wisconsin in this rated G cozy, romantic mystery.

In upcoming posts, I will share the cover, back blurb, and an excerpt…stay tuned.

Thank you for traveling with me on this journey. You’ve made the adventure a lot more fun for me. Enjoy!

Recently, we enjoyed lunch with one of my former employees, his lovely wife, and four out of five of his children. They’re well behaved kids who are home schooled and very comfortable around adults. We hadn’t seen them in several years and, as usual, the kids were much taller and more grown up than when last we met.

I love that when you ask youngsters how old they are, the reply is usually almost eight or ten or twelve. I believe you could ask a child their age and even if they turned seven last Thursday, they would reply almost eight. They’re always looking ahead. Some might say they are wishing their lives away. I prefer to think they are having such a good time that they can’t wait to see what the next year holds.

At some point, maybe twenty-one, we stop looking forward to the next age milestone and instead we look for life markers like wedding anniversaries or retirement or Medicare or grandchildren and the like. We’re still looking at an almost, just not a birthday driven one. Maybe we should all slow down to savor the now instead of looking toward the alluring almost around the next corner or over that third hill on the horizon. But it’s hard to change the habit you acquired in childhood.

The dictionary definitions say almost means: not quite, not exactly, not entirely or very nearly. I prefer the optimistic last option. It sounds more hopeful, like it is really going to happen. The odds are lining up strongly on the in favor of side.

Yesterday, I submitted my approval of the final galleys for “Polly’s List”. Now it is with the pre-production team who will assign the publication date. All of that author-speak simply means I am ALMOST a published author and that is something I’m looking forward to. Enjoy!

March has been a crazy busy month which explains why this month’s post is coming in barely under the wire. I got the fun of a long delayed colonoscopy with a good outcome. This week, and for the next six, I’m playing nurse putting drops in my husband’s eyes after the first of two cataract procedures. My aim is getting pretty good. And I accomplished a feat that was twenty years in the making…

At least twenty years ago my mother-in-law gave me her stash of yarn. She was a notorious bargain shopper and had accumulated more yarn than she could ever use. (Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not judging. It happens to the best of us.) Her surplus was in three black garbage bags that had been sitting in the attic closet for a while. Much to my husband’s dismay, I hauled it home.

It was dusty smelling so I thought I’d fluff the dust out of the skeins in the dryer. Word to the wise, resist that urge! The old paper wrappers disintegrated. The skeins ran amok in the dryer and comingled into one giant ball that would barely fit through the dryer opening. Needless to say, I didn’t put them all through that ill-conceived process. I spent weeks unraveling the blob skein. Eventually, I sorted all the yarn by color into lidded plastic tubs and put them on new shelves in the basement.

Over the years I’ve raided that stash to make lapghans for shut ins, chemo caps for cancer patients and various scarves. In the past six months, I’ve made a concerted effort to use up that yarn (and some more I inherited from a grandmother’s stash via a friend). I just completed fifteen 5 x 5 foot afghans for a homeless event and with that I finally depleted most of the twenty year stash. There is about half a tub of assorted colors left from those two stashes.

I think my mother-in-law and the friend’s grandmother must be looking down and saying, “Isn’t it a good thing we bought all that yarn so she could keep so many people warm! I thought she’d never get around to it.”

For those of you who are worried about what I’ll do without that stash, fret no longer. While ten tubs of yarn have morphed into usable goods, I still have an equal number that I have no one to blame for but myself! Not to mention the tubs of fiber to spin and home spun yarn.

And in the midst of all of that fun, my sweet husband got three new buildings for his model railroad; a welding shop, a water tower, and the Jungers Jams factory. They were his birthday present.

Then last, but definitely not least, I submitted my preliminary galleys back to my editor. That means I’m one step closer to “Polly’s List ” being published. Now the book is with a proofreader for a final pass, then the final galleys and on to a publication date. Every step makes it seem a little more real!

No time to rest…I’ve got spinning and and weaving and baby things to make while I wait for the final galleys. Oh, and maybe some work on my next novel! Enjoy!

Today is the four year anniversary of this blog starting. I began it to have an online presence to support my then fledgling publication aspirations. If all goes as planned those dreams will become reality later this year.It has been a busy four years.

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Thank you for reading my thoughts and for encouraging and supporting my efforts. It is very gratifying to hear from you both through the comments on my blog and the private emails you send me in response to a post. It has been a wonderful way to connect with family and friends and to reconnect with people I’d lost track of.

I plan to continue sharing my observations on life and progress on my publication journey. I hope I’ve made you smile, brought a tear from time to time, maybe even made you laugh out loud on occasion. Mostly, I want to give you hope and help you believe that it is never too late to follow your dreams. So think about what you want to be someday, I won’t say when you grow up… who wants to do that?

I leave you with this promise of things to come.

Thanks for keeping me company on this journey. Enjoy!