Laughter and Peace

I love animals and plants. I adore them actually...much more than humans. I like to grow things. Maybe it's the Midwest gal in me. I don't know. Although I live in town and not on a farm, every morning, I wake up 30 minutes early to feed and water my menagerie of 14 pets: 2 dogs (Slushy and Gizmo), 2 ferrets (Smokey and Bandit), 4 fish (Dr. Evil, Q, Mr. Bond & Plinko), 2 parakeets (Sunny & Paco), and 4 baby chickens (Ace, Sabor, Lucy & Luffy). The chicks are growing currently in a brooder near my computer desk in the sun room add-on to this brick ranch house. They cheep constantly. Constantly. I live in southeast Kansas. I live about 5 minutes from work where I do photography framing for Mpix.com, one of the largest digital professional photo labs in the world. My favorite type of photo frame style is espresso walnut size 16 x 20 with e-surface photo paper, no mat, clear glass, steel points, and paper back which I hang with one-hole wire hangers and #2 strength wire. Those are my absolute fav to grab off the work cart. I've been there about 5 or 6 years....sorta start to lose count after a while. I prefer it to previous work as an HR Manager for manufacturing.....ugh....conflict resolution, yuck...double yuck. Anyway, moving on.... I have 2 graduate degrees, a Master's in HR and a grad certificate (15 credit hours towards MBA). I love learning and education which I took often as a military spouse in my 20s during Army deployments and working for DoD but you wouldn't know these things about me if we met in person. I'm pretty shy and quiet, pretty ordinary, and run-of-the-mill sort...not to stand out much in a crowd. What else.....oh, I started writing recently and have 1 YA fantasy book titled Searching for Fire on Amazon sold through Archway Publishing. On my Amazon profile page, I also sell three self-published KDP books called Summertime Adventures(children's short stories), Moment of Magic (poetry), and A Covid Romance & Other Short Stories Written During Quarantine (short story collection). In my free time, I like BBQ parties which usually involve jokes, beer games, or singing off-key to outlaw classic country songs. I like gardening, spending time with family and pets, some reading, some writing, blogging occasionally, knitting, and sometimes, sometimes in a rare moment or two......baking cookies or pies or even a cake..maybe. Cooking's not on my list of loves.... though I have become much better through the years (due to much trial and error and Pinterest fails). However, I can make a dang good lasagna, cheeseburger, or shrimp scampi. Anyway, if you've read this far, thanks for visiting my blog and I hope you have a good day. Cheers! View all posts by J. Speer