Virtual Book Tour Kicks Off

The Tuck Your Skirt 2011 Blog Tour starts TODAY!

Over the next few weeks. I'll be visiting blogs around the country, participating in Q&A, sharing excerpts from Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run, and giving folks a chance to listen to podcasts and watch videos about me and Tuck Your Skirt. Some bloggers will be hosting giveaways so you'll definitely want to stop by.

I hope to see you along the virtual book tour trail. Meet the blog tour hosts.

Come visit and leave comments today at the Quintessential Housewife. Got questions? Leave them as a comment and I'll respond. By the way, the Quintessential Housewife is a real Atlanta housewife.

I'd love to visit your blog, too. Email me if you're interested or check here for more details.

A Frog, a Toad and a Princess

Once upon a time, there was a pretty little girl who believed everything her mother told her, including that old line about someday her prince coming and bringing in-laws with him. Her mother read her the story about the princess who kisses the frog and turns it into a handsome man. "Love makes everything beautiful," said her mother and the child believed it.

Then one day, the little girl found a critter in the forest. She took it onto the palm of her hand and considered its features. She was not afraid, but she grew more and more skeptical as her mother urged her to kiss it. Her mother even offered to pay her a quarter if the young girl would simply place her lips upon the creature's slimy forehead.

For a moment, the sweet child considered her options:

A realist to the bone, the girl suddenly questioned everything she had ever been told about princesses and princes. After careful examination of the animal, she reasoned that she had captured a toad and not a frog. Since there are no documented cases of kissed toads turning into princes, she refused to place her lips upon it. Not knowing exactly what that toad would turn into when she pressed her mouth to its - perhaps a belly scratching, beer drinking buffoon - she deemed the endeavor too risky and set the little guy free.

Everyone assumes that it lived happily aver after, but no one really knows.

Algebraic Thinking

Can you solve my problem?

By virtue of being southern, I have a front porch. It just comes with the territory, the heritage and the genetics. It's a fringe benefit of saying y'all and fixin' to.

My front porch is expansive, hosting so many people and activities throughout the year that the paint has worn thin in some spots and worn off in others. Whenever my husband and I need marriage therapy, we retreat there, where we lose ourselves in the rhythm of the rockers and the hum of the crickets until we can stand to speak to each other again. Most, if not all, of the world's issues have been debated and resolved on my front porch.


The children play roller derby there and I serve Easter dinner. The aromas of jasmine in the spring and gardenias in the summer and tea olives in the early fall puddle in the atmosphere. It's a place where strangers become friends and friends become confidants.


If the rest of my house crumbled to the ground leaving only my front porch standing , what would be lost? Certainly not hope.
 
BUT, a few years back I got it in my head to paint all of the porch furniture green. Not a conservative green, mind you, but a bright apple green. I thought it would contrast nicely with the red brick exterior. After talking my husband into helping me do what he knew would be disastrous, he brought home a pressure washer and paint sprayer. I sent all of the kids to camp for a week and we knocked out the project with enough time left over to go out to dinner, alone.
 

Then I decided I hated the apple green and the way it contrasted with the red brick of the house. Too late, though, for anything but a quick, "I told you so," from my soul mate. Life hit full stride and hasn't stopped yet. I've had no time to right this egregious wrong.
 
Until now. I think. And therein lies my problem. I'm trying to figure out if I really do have enough time. If you would pass the following problem along to any child you might know who is currently taking algebra, have the child solve the problem and then send me the answer, I would be much obliged:
 
One woman has a 2 inch paint brush, 10 sheets of sandpaper, 1 stir stick, 1 metal thingy-ma-bob paint-can opener, and 1 gallon of black exterior paint. She wants to paint 3 benches, 3 wood rockers, 4 metal chairs, 1 glider, 1 wicker plant stand, and 3 side tables. Before anything can be painted it must be washed and sanded. She can work on the project on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4p.m.-5p.m. Five people living in her household critique her work but do not help. How long will it take her to finish? If the Aztecs are right and the world really does end in 2012, will the project be worth her time?
 
Please show your work.

Tucking My Skirt in My Panties

Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties Blog Tour 2011

I'm tucking my skirt in my panties and going on Blog Tour. The first 10 bloggers to successfully schedule a Tour Stop will receive a FREE copy of Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run.

Read the Blog Tour details here.

Diving Granny Does It Again

All of my friends wish my mama was their mama. In fact, they all want to be exactly like my mama when they're her age; an age no one truly knows or could guess. Their adoration blossomed one summer afternoon while watching my mother nimbly dive into the Country Club pool without care of the cluster of children she cut in front of or her coiffure. Coinage of the term "diving granny" accompanied covetous admiration for her c'est la vie.

Because my mother can squeeze a nickel so hard it turns to dust, even at her unspecified age she still pumps her own gas. Yesterday, while ruefully standing next to the tanks listening to the glunk, glunk, glunk of high-priced unleaded fuel pouring into her car, she said, to a man wearing a blue button-up shirt with a white oval reading BERT in red lettering, "My car needs to be washed."

Bert acknowledged her and her dusty car with a silent nod.

"How much is a car wash," Mama asked Bert in the blue shirt.

"I don't know," he shrugged, as if he couldn't care less. Then he remembered his manners and offered, "Maybe about four dollars."

The pump clicked and the glunking ceased and my mother returned the nozzle to the carriage. "Meet me over at the car wash," she told Bert, "but first go inside and check the price."

Bert stared at my mother. My mother stared at Bert. No one went anywhere. The bell on the gas station door jingled as a man exited.

"Ma'am," Bert said to Mama, noticeably irritated, "why don't you ask him how much the car wash is. He works here."

My friends all want to be my mama when they grow up, because it's better to be interesting than to be perfect.

I'm Going on Tour

That's right! I'm going on tour from the comfort of my own home. In October and November I'll be flitting around the blogosphere meeting new people and promoting Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run.

I do need YOUR help, however, to make my Blog Tour a success. Fellow bloggers can help me get the word out by posting an announcement on their blogs, or tweeting or facebooking it. More than that, they can host a tour stop. The blogger sets the tour date and I supply the content well in advance.

Read more details here:

http://lucybgoosey.blogspot.com/p/tuck-your-skirt-blog-tour-2011.html

Or contact me directly here: lucybgoosey@aol.com