Day: January 10, 2011

New Year – New Attitude

Well I’m starting off the new year with a new attitude and focus. This is pretty much how I planned to end 2010, but somewhere along the way I found myself in a fog and many of my plans were derailed. This was not a negative however, it’s just that many of the things that I had hoped to complete in the last 30 days of the year did not happen.


I started #reverb10 with the hopes that this would force me to write everyday, but I didn’t quite finish – at least not the posting portion. Many of the prompts for the final couple of weeks were handwritten, or not completed at all. I may attempt to complete them, and possibly post them later this month.

My next task was participation in Picture the Holidays, which was an online photography workshop offered by Big Picture Classes and unfortunately I didn’t complete all of these daily prompts either. I’m disappointed that it appears I have a problem completing tasks, but I’m happy with the progress I did make. The candle above is the result of one of our daily inspirations.

I think the time I spent writing the reverb10 prompts helped me to get through the holiday season, my first without my mother, and helped me to make it a pretty good holiday. You see at the last minute I decided that I would continue our family tradition of gathering for Christmas Brunch, and I expanded the family base to those who do not share my blood yet have become so much like family to me.

Well with last minute planning comes a whirlwind of activity that kept me pretty busy the week of Christmas. Christmas Eve was very emotional, but I was able to keep it together for Brunch and enjoyed the love that was flowing throughout.

Finally in an effort to end the year on a positive note, I hosted a “Sister Girl Year End Gathering” as an opportunity to bring together some of my dearest friends and say “Thank you” for helping me

get through the most challenging year of my life. We had a blast! The flowers are from a very special young lady who couldn’t attend, I tell you the love I have received is as my niece would say “Awesome”!

About a month before she passed away my Mom said to me, “You’re going to be fine” and through tears I told replied, “I’m glad you think so, because I’m not sure.” Well as always – Mom’s always right! Not a day goes by that I don’t want to reach for the telephone and talk to her, not many go by without me crying, but all in all I have survived the greatest pain in my life and as I approach the one year anniversary I can say – It gets a little easier each day, but the hole in my heart will never close!

Sisters & Husbands – A Review

During the holidays my book club, The Literary Sistas, held our final meeting for the year with a Holiday Gathering hosted by yours truly. The title discussed was Connie Briscoe’s “Sisters & Husbands”, a work that I found very disappointing.

It has been a number of years since I read Briscoe’s “Sisters & Lovers”, but as I recall I enjoyed it and had high expectations for this latest work. “Sisters and Husbands” chronicles a month in the life of the Jordan sisters – Evelyn, Charmaine, and Beverly. A month that just happens to be the four weeks preceding Beverly’s wedding. The elder Jordan sisters are married, Evelyn for more than 20 years and Charmaine is a newlywed – but not new to marriage, this is her fourth husband.

The story could be a very good one, I believe, but all I came away with was total irritation – particularly with the main character Beverly. Although there is an ensemble cast of sorts, the main character would be Beverly – this is her story. She is insecure and while this is her first marriage, Beverly is no stranger to being engaged – this is her third engagement.

Briscoe does a good job of interweaving the three stories, and I won’t go into detail so as not to spoil it for anyone, but the stitches she uses are more like a whip stitch, when a surged stitch would add more depth. Each of the sisters is struggling with relationship issues, some more than others and for varying reasons. The problem for gun shy Beverly is that she begins to live vicariously through her sisters which leads to more drama in her own relationship.

The problems they each face are common to many couples, but I believe the novel would have served the reader better if more depth had been built into the characters. This would have produced a longer book, but I think a more fulfilling read.

At 273 pages, “Sisters and Husbands” was a quick read and would definitely be classified as “Chick Lit”. If you’re looking for a story to distract you from the mundane day-to-day, this would be a good fit, but if you’re looking for an in-depth look at the relationships between sisters and husbands, you’ll be left unsatisfied.