Diabetes and Me

So, my doctor has given up on treating me for my diabetes, because apparently I'm too complex a case for him. I keep coming up allergic to medications they try putting me on, Metformin, Glimepiride, Actos. I'm to the point where I have to take Benadryl with my medicine so I don't have a severe reaction. I still have one, but it's not as severe.
I've gone out and tried to pull the ingredient lists for the medicines, to see if I could figure out what I'm reacting to. I've found 3 ingredients in common between Metformin and Glimepiride, but I have no way of checking on my own to see which I'm allergic to so we can find me something that doesn't have whichever one I'm allergic to. I'm frustrated and angry that I'm essentially being told I'm too complicated a case to be treated, and therefore I should just go off somewhere and die because the doctors only want easy cases to treat.
Guess it's a good thing I've let my balls drop and am willing to be my own advocate.

This Crazy Life

Hello all! Sorry I haven't been keeping this up like I should but if you follow me on Facebook or MeWe, you know some of what has been happening in my life lately. To catch up:

I went to England and had a FABULOUS time with my signing event in Blackpool! I consider it a success, even if I DID manage to slip getting out of the hotel pool and fall and skin my knee and sprain my ankle. Kinda put a damper on the whole trip, but it was all good until I got to the ATL airport on the way home and Delta decided I was faking my injury and tried to make me walk on a sprained ankle. Yea, that didn't happen. Took me almost THREE HOURS after landing to just get TO customs. My ride circled the airport at least once waiting on me to get to passenger pickup. It was a nightmare. I will NEVER fly Delta again! I will go back to American Airlines. They may have canceled my connector flight but at least they didn't disrespect me or treat me like a LIAR.

So, moving on. I am now working on book 5 in the #southernfamilyties series. Book 4, Family Secrets (Jerome) launched in April and I think he's doing rather well. Book 5 is about Lynda and her second chance at love. So swoon worthy! In addition, I'm working on the sequel to Blindsided, titled Misty River. I have the cover for it (shocking I know, considering the saga it normally is for me to get a cover I like!), and just today it grew by over 2000 words in the space of two hours! When they start talking, it's speed talking! Had to take a break and come do this so I could recover for the next marathon session I can feel coming on. I'm looking to have it finished and hopefully have it launched in September, just in time for back to school!

That about catches us up, but here are a few pictures from my trip! Enjoy!

On Education and Abortion

Not so long ago, Alabama joined the race to see which state could pass the dumbest anti-abortion law in the country. Thus far, we are the winners of that dubious distinction. In so doing, another disturbing fact came to light. Alabama is ranked LAST in the US in education.

Stop and consider what that means for our future.

• Less tech jobs, because companies will not locate here because they don’t think we have the smarts to do it.
• Less opportunities for our children outside the state, because again, no one will believe we have the smarts it takes.
• Less revenues with which to improve the state of our education, which basically perpetuates our last place standing.
• Lower revenues means more people having to turn to an ever increasingly debt stricken state government for support.
• More people will leave the state for ‘greener pastures’ where a better education can be obtained, which leads to better jobs and a better life for them and their families.

At the same time, I have to wonder about the people in this country. People are screaming about abortion, saying it’s no wonder Alabama doesn’t care about unborn kids, look at their education. But how many of those screaming about the education level in Alabama and its direct correlation to abortion/anti-abortion are actually willing to help us do something about it?

How many people screaming about illegal aliens and our need to take care of them are guilty of not wanting to help take care of our own first? Or at all?

I took some heat a couple years ago for weighing in about immigrants and their need to learn English when they move here. (There exists over 200 years of precedent set that says when you move to the US, you learn English. It is, after all, the ONLY language taught in ALL schools in the US.) I was told rather rudely that I should never travel abroad because my poor education (I hold my MBA) would reflect badly on the US. All because I, as a 17-year-old high school graduate, only took ONE foreign language in high school. Oh, wait, my poor, rural high school had exactly ONE foreign language teacher, and she taught Spanish (which I took for 3 years).

I have to ask, how was I, someone who upon graduation was still too young to vote, supposed to convince the local school board to hire another teacher to teach another foreign language? Can someone tell me that, please? Furthermore, even if I had convinced them, how were we going to pay for it? Because you see, in addition to being dead last in education, Alabama is also last in wealth.

So, I ask this. Who amongst you, those bashing Alabama for its low education status, low income status, and stand on abortion, are willing to come off the funds needed to improve the education in this state? Or are we, as actual citizens of the US, less deserving of an education than the illegals that come across the border, breaking the law as they do so? There are bills going through Congress to grant these illegals, these ‘Dreamers’ financial assistance in going to college. Meanwhile you have an entire state that is failing to meet a high school level education that you are turning a blind, uncaring eye to.

Book Signings

Went to the Capital City Author event today and had a BLAST! Met so many people, both on the reader and production side of writing. Ended up with some new boyfriends, what with my skills at massage and all. Even got invited to a more personal session by one, who was a HUGE flirt. I didn't take him seriously though. It was great, but now I'm exhausted and headed to bed!

Story-book life? No thanks!

I admit I'm not perfect. My life thus far has had more than it's share of downs, I'm still working on the ups. But someone asked me if I wanted a story-book life. And honestly I stopped and thought about it for a bit. No, I don't.

Seriously, have you seen what some authors put their characters though in their 'perfect story-book lives'? It's nothing short of hell! The drama, the intrigue, the angst, the ups the downs, good grief! I don't want that! I want something that is unattainable. Not an amplified, over-dramatized life, but rather one that is devoid of the majority of drama, at least most bad drama anyway. There are some things that are drama worthy, but in a good way. Like finding the love of your life. Settling down and living with that certain someone you want to grow old with and wake up and see first thing in the morning, every possible morning, for the rest of your life. That to me is the idyllic life, and to some may be 'story-book' in its idealism. But I don't want the angst that the characters have to go through to get there! I just want to skip to the end, cut to the chase! And frankly, if you really know me, and know what I have been through in the last 9 or 10 years, you would probably agree that I have had more than my share of trials and tribulations, and it's time, past time, for me to reap the rewards of surviving what I have.

No, I don't want the fairy tale ending, I don't want the story-book life. I want peace and happiness and love I want to be able to support myself doing what I love, and have people in my life who are likeminded and will help me attain that goal, while I help them attain it as well.

Random Thoughts

You know, being a writer is a crazy world of mistaken expectations, cruel hard truths, lots of drama (and lets face it, most, of us make drama, it is literally what we do for a living), and trying to just express yourself without offending everyone in the known world.

I've found that my expectations, like many others, were wildly off  base. I knew the writing part was going to be the easy part. Promotion and marketing is the hard part. You see so many people claiming to be 'experts' on the subject and promising you they can sell thousands of copies of your book. You see people whose work makes you cringe becoming best sellers, and others whose work is infinitely of higher quality languishing in the shadows. The world of books is ghastly unfair, and it is to an extent a popularity contest. The popular ones get read, get noticed, get movie deals, and become rich. The unpopular ones, not so much. In many cases, the 'overnight success' stories are about people who knew the right people before they ever picked up a pen or opened a word document to write the first line of the first book. They knew the people with the right connections, the right resources to get their finished work in front of the right audience to make the most profit in the shortest period of time. The majority of us, don't know those people.

So what do you do? The only thing you can do, network. You keep plugging away, hoping that someday, the right someone will see your work and that magic will happen that will launch you into the stars. Or at least high orbit.

Personally, I'm learning to eat humble pie. I know there isn't much market for clean writing, aka no sex, but I just can't seem to write a sex scene to save my life. And for that I apologize. I know sex sells, but I just can't seem to do it without it being completely awkward and laughable. So I will continue to write the clean books I write, hoping that people who don't really want to read about other people having sex will find and enjoy my books. And I will market as best I can to reach those people so they know there ARE books out there where you don't need a score sheet to keep track of who is in bed with whom, and you don't have to ponder if you should take up yoga to be able to get into the unbelievable positions the characters you are reading about are getting their bodies contorted into. I hope some of you will follow me on this journey.

Family Secrets, now LIVE!!

~☆♡~Now Available~☆♡~
Family Secrets by Kathleen Eyke

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Victoria Anne Chester, better known as Torianne to her dearest friends, has no illusions about herself; she is too tall, too redheaded, and too stubborn to ever make a good wife. So when her father calls her home from college to marry, she is in shock. He knows she wants to be a teacher, so why would he change his mind about allowing it mere months from her completing her education?

Hurt and saddened by this turn of events, Torianne is further shocked when she discovers her father is not the good Christian man she always assumed him to be. Caught between what is right and what is legal, Torianne sets out to make right what he has done wrong, no matter the cost to herself or her family.

Jerome Hatchett has never had what one would call a real family. Thrown out by his mother’s family when he was only a boy, he grew up hard and fast on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia. Now a successful businessman in his own right, he is drawn into a tangled web by the alluring Torianne. Will he be able to protect her, while seeking the truth behind the mysterious disappearances at her father’s plantation?

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q8XKPT1

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07Q8XKPT1

Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07Q8XKPT1

Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07Q8XKPT1

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