Sonia Rumzi's Blog, page 15

Moon Over Angel Island

Sausalito, Moon over Angel Island, Tiburon, California

OCD or Organized, Not So Sure Anymore

How Do You Arrange Your Books

My husband calls me anal retentive. I might be, I am not sure. Then my daughter called me OCD. So, I had to stop and find out what the hell they were talking about.

Apparently it is in the way I arrange my DVDs. I throw away the case and place them in packs with zippers. That in itself is not so much anal but I like to group them in genre and make sure that the disc is upright and not askew. Head up so to speak. My music cds are the same.

I noted to them that there ...

Publisher Rejections Never Cease To Amaze

FAMOUS SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKSRemembrance of things Past, by Marcel ProustUlysses, by James JoyceThe Adventures of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix PotterA Time to Kill, by John GrishamThe Wealthy Barber, by David ChiltonThe Bridges of Madison CountyWhat Color is Your ParachuteIn Search of Excellence by Tom PetersThe Celestine Prophecy by James RedfieldThe Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. (and his student E. B. White)The Joy of CookingWhen I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear PurpleLife's Little...

A Personal Trainer to Watch Over Me

For the privilege of watching some, fat ass, using the elliptical, the Personal Trainer, get paid oodles of money. Well deserved, I might add.

It must be boring as hell being there, watching some heifer, on the treadmill, sweating away. Just standing, there! Making sure, they are doing it. That, is the job of a personal trainer.

The person, who will make sure that we, the adults will do what we want to do, in the first place. Instead of just, we on our own, deciding as grown ups and...

Learning A Lesson the Hard Way

Several emotions have gone through me in the last week and I would like to share:

Hurt: I offered to help someone with editing their book. When I received the copy, I realized that I was re-writing not editing. I wrote a list of things to help them in their future writings, things like stop using adverbs, do not start your sentence with There was and so on. I also edited, re-wrote and sent the Preface and the first chapter, done, to them.

In the end, when I gave up on it, here is what they...

How to Leave a Bad Relationship

How to leave a bad marriage/relationship according to Salma Keir:

Get a lawyer. Get an apartment. Get a job around the children's needs to succeed. Never allow him/her to scream at you on the phone. You are not together anymore. He/she should not have been doing it in the first place. Insult you. See above! Intimidate you. See above! Do not care what he/she thinks of you. Damaging! When he/she sends you to alcohol and drug testing, never bad mouth them. Talk about yourself. Tell the truth.

Chicken Negressco a la Salma Keir in Caring For Eleanor

Chicken Negressco a la Salma Keir

This is a versatile dish that you can add vegetables to in the mix before baking. The most common vegetables to add are zucchini, peas or even broccoli.

Negressco is made of three different parts that come together in the oven.

Photo by Evan Swigart

-Chicken: Prepare chicken anyway you wish. For this recipe, I use a roasted chicken from the store. Strip all the meat from the bone. Cut to bite size and set aside.

Here is Salma's recipe for chicken:
- Wash...

Bounty Of Kindness And Giving

If there is not much at stake for ourselves, the outcomes do not affect us directly, we tend to do better. If the results are not a reflection on ourselves and the upshot is not a casting of a shadow on us, we do better at whatever comes our way.

When the main concern is forever our own indulgence and climbing, it wears the soul down, making us social pariahs. Nothing is as much of a turn off as someone in constant need of stroking and patting of the ego. It is tiring for the person and...

I Envied Her Shoes Till I Saw The Woman With Crooked Feet

I complained that it was too hot, complained it was too muggy. I found it hard to be outside that day and much of a burden to be around others. Nothing suited me, everything crashed around my comfort.

I whined that my plans were delayed beyond my decisions and my schemes held up beyond my endurance. I grumbled at fate and my lot for my tactics on the back burner, my layouts, my…..my…..my…..mine….mine.

I did all this at the poolside in comfort and in the middle of paradise.

And there within...

Fear is Not of God

The fear of doing the wrong thing is always in the back of the mind of a believer. If I do this, what are the consequences of that! It keeps us in knots thinking that we should remain in bad situations set by archaic ideas and beliefs.

What if it is the will of God that you live without fear and strife? And it is the will of God that we should live without daily angst and destruction to our very soul. If a bad situation arises at work, your boss gets cruel and unkind, you would leave. Yet...