Getting Through the Holidays!

Lately, I'm just trying to make it through the holidays. We had a beautiful Christmas with family - young and old! We laughed and talked, sang karaoke and danced like wild monkeys. Today, my husband, Bob, and I will relax alone and watch two movies. We'll have a glass of champagne to bring in the New Year and bid farewell to the old, the one just passed with happy times and sad alike. The house will normalize again as with every passing season and memory. Life goes on as it must even when we're not quite ready to.

So! My New Year's Resolution this year is to make NO resolutions a'tall! I'm just too freaking busy, folks. With "Bobby's Diner" coming out in just a matter of weeks, I'm doing all I can to carry on.

These are my plans thus far: To stop working for the day just before noon, New Year's Eve, and to pick up on Friday, January 2nd.

We, at the Wingate household, wish you beauty in the coming months and peace in your hearts.

Love & laughter, Susan

Talking about cats

I love cats and had many over the years. When my favorite Siamese passed away almost two years ago, I felt as if I had lost a child. But last year I decided that I couldn't live without a cat. So I adopted Jasmine from a shelter. She had been mauled by a dog as a kitten and had undergone major surgery. She was a survivor. And so cute...

This is our second holiday season together and I don't know how I could ever live without her.

As an author, my love of cats translates into my books. Each of my stories has a cat, whether a cute kitten, a fuzzy housepet, or a wild cat, like the mountain lion in A DESPERADO FOR CHRISTMAS, a black panther, or even an alien bearcat monster.

Cats do make our lives better. I even believe they can make us better people.
Wishing you all a Purrfect holiday season.

Vijaya Schartz
http://www.vijayaschartz.com
get yourself A DESPERADO FOR CHRISTMAS
http://www.sapphirebluepublishing.com

In Memory of Twinkle

Wow. It's been a long time since I posted and I'm truly sorry. This has been one of the most difficult holiday seasons for me in a long time because my special kitty, Twinkle, died on 12/5/08. I'm very sad about losing her.

Twinkle came to me ten years ago with her sister. They were born on my property and lived for a several weeks before I noticed them. It was after seeing them with two other kittens that I realized we had a litter of feral cats living out in the field under the cover of a bank of rose bramble. They were so small.

After a few days watching them from my kitchen window, the mother seemed to have disappeared. I watched for her for her for hours and realized that now there were only two of the babies left and they were left without a mother.

I took them food, water and milk twice a day for about three days just to get some nourishment in them. It was around the fourth day I attempted to get closer. Twinkle's sister, Pinky, was a little more exuberant that her sister. So, through Pinky it was that I got nearer Twinkle.

Finally, after tons of coaxing, Twinkle came out of the rose bramble and let me touch her head but only with much caution. Twinkle had the biggest most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen. She peeked out with her gorgeous eyes and that's when her name came to me. She had eyes like a star's! So, I called her Twinkle. Later, I added Bell and also Star. I called her Missy and Princess too because she was such a perfect little lady. She kept me warm at night, always under my arm in bed and purring so loudly that my husband would ask, "Can you turn her off?" I would laugh because anyone who knows cats, knows you can't turn a happy cat "off!"

I miss her so much that it hurts.

She was diagnosed with an incurable and inoperable cancer that situated its nasty self between her duodenum and among her bile ducts. We tried to keep her as comfortable as possible until she began to show signs of discomfort and that's when I put her beautiful soul to rest. I'm so sad that I can barely see the screen as I type this message.

Miss Twinkle was cremated by the rose bramble where we first met. Her ashes are with me in a safe and special spot. I'll miss her for the rest of my life. Animals are truly angels sent to earth. Goodbye my beautiful Twinkle. I love you.