After Christmas Blues

So now it's all done in reverse, EXCEPT you have to dust and sweep BEFORE you put everything back in it's place. You have to find a place to store the "good" boxes that can be re-used. Along with all the other re-gifting items. You then have to be creative with all the OLD stuff that you had sitting around collecting dust and make them look better than they did before you replaced them with the snowmen and santas.  This process seems to become more and more tedious to me each and every year.  However, my children still find all of these decorations as part of tradition and you just don't mess with tradition!

You work for 6-8 weeks prior to this day in preparing for what might possibly be a three hour period of jolly good ole times.  Then when the house is quiet and trashed to the max, you wonder.... is it worth it?
It most certainly is when the kids are still loving it, but believe me... the second that I see they no longer need or desire all of the stuff around, it won't be around.  Now if you are planning several get togethers or parties and such, then yes I believe it would feel more worth it. But when you live out here in the boonies and no one stops by to see all the wonderful work you have done.  It feels pointless.

Wow... I am really sounding like a scrooge right now I know.  Sorry, it is just that my kids were gone at noon yesterday and my husband returned to his man cave and I was left with this disaster that I knew was only mine to clean up.  I can not bring myself to do it.  Not today, maybe not tomorrow.  I have other pressing issues on my mind.  Like trying to get my website up and running so that people know exactly where to come to buy my book !   It has been very difficult the past couple of months with explaining the process of print on demand books and how to obtain them.  So I am going to stock them myself and ship them to you personally with a signature on top!

I have struggled with the site for a month or so (in between all this other hoopla) and I have not been successful in getting the shopping cart to work properly.  So I decided this morning to bite the bullet and pay a professional. Ugh... there goes what tiny profits I had made thus far and they were suppose to be used to buy the books.  I feel a loan coming on soon from my ever brave and blind supporter, me spouse ;D

So stay tuned just a few days longer and you can visit www.jenjohere.com and purchase your books directly from me !!!!!  You can look at it now, but it is just contents of the book and about the Author yada yada yada... but soon, you can actually hit "add to cart" !!!!!

Thank you all and I am sorry that I am such a downer today.  Oh wait ??? Is that my son in the other room packing up ornaments??? I bet he wants to go to the girlfriends house again today, I know how he works.  Pretty smart kid ;D

Happy Packing to you and Happy NEW year to all !!!!!

Book Signing Number Two !!!

·        The Book Signing at The Coachman last evening was a huge success and I saw actual men there, that have already read my book and were coming up to me explaining that they have had difficulty in the past being able to communicate, and express their emotion when it came to comforting someone in pain.  They too, have opted to be silent in fear of saying the wrong thing.  It was wonderful to have them say that they were going to listen to my advice and to at least just lay a hand on the person and let them know that you are not dismissing their pain, but are at a loss for words.  Sometimes that is all it really takes and men are very afraid of women in general if they cry.  It puts them in an awkward state of trying to either fix it or them, or walking awkwardly away.  How refreshing to know that my book is allowing them to understand the magnitude of just one small gesture.  With, or without words... you can be there for someone. They WILL remember it ! 

I      I am delighted to hear that people want more, more honesty and more raw emotion to help them with their own situations. To be able to unlock the secret, to let it out, to find and answer the mystery of what runs our daily lives.  Wether our demons are being fed by food, or alcohol or shoplifting or lying or drugs or gambling or smoking or cheating or hiding, or shopping... Stopping to take the time to figure out what it is that drives us, and as the kind reviewer that I have shared with you below stated "bring it in to the light of day"  makes it all the less scarier and we can be accountable for our actions if we know why we are doing them. 

       Thank you again for your time and please feel free to add and use this blog to free some of your own venting needs. No need to sign your name if you don't want.  This is a safe zone.  Don't have time to write a book? But you do have a story because everyone does.  Share it here, it feels really amazing. 

       Thanks Again,

       Jo Lynn

o   Review by Kathy Howard, a FreeLance writer for the Grand Rapids Press !!!

If, while on a personal quest to discover why we are the way we are, a person could choose to whitewash their story or give an honest account of the things that shape them. Jo Lynn chose the later….brutally honest, admitting her own shortcomings and taking responsibility for her own actions, not laying blame on someone else. So many things were out of her control and others were the result of her own choices. What courage to flay your own soul to wash out the demons torturing and poisoning your body and mind.

I appreciated the more “journalistic” writing style…..this book was an extremely well “fleshed out” outline. Delivering all the vital information without flowery prose, which would have been an attempt to make it appear a more literary tome rather than the harsh recounting of a life filled with events difficult for most of us to believe could all happen to just one person. It read more like having an extremely personal conversation with a dear friend who needed to vent or explode if things were held in any more…knowing they just needed an ear, not advice or judgment, and a hug to show that after knowing the truth we aren’t going to emotionally or physically withdraw.

After reading the book, it gives the reader the option to feel honored for being entrusted with the knowledge of such intimate details or disgusted because they have no empathy for others problems. I feel honored to have shared Jo Lynn’s first 50 years and confident she has the tools at her disposal now to make the next 50 a more glorious time, she knows her demons and has slain them by putting them out into the light of day. I would also like to know how it has been getting to know her brothers….so maybe there will be a follow-up story, since I feel I know the family so well now it would be nice to be kept current.