I can't begin to say just how many times I have been asked this question...Until recently, I have been a stay-at-home mom. Now, I'm a stay-at-home grandma...In the past, I have had some itty bitty jobs, here and there but nothing substantial. There was a spell when I was a substitute teacher for three years. That was so rewarding. I covered for the art teacher of a K-8 for just short a year. That was a very busy but fun job. I had over 950 students during that time.

There came a time when I got tired of trying to "explain" my stay-at-home status to people. They all looked at me like I was a dinasaur. I finally came up with an answer for those inquisitive people...."I'm a writer", I would tell them. It was true too...I wrote periodicals monthly (on my kitchen calender)...I wrote speeches(to be used on my kids when they broke the rules)...I wrote memorandums, agendas, to-do lists, school notes, shopping lists, thank you notes, apologies, many an occasional card, journals, recipes, and the list goes on...

My kids are older now and my need to write has dwindled. Now that I'm a Red Hatter, I find myself writing much more. I belong to Sharona's Sweethearts(a card exchange group), The Friendship Roses(a QMB Chapter), and many groups here on the QMB2...I jump onto the board a few moments at a time whenever I can. I enjoy chatting with my Hatter Sisters and reading all the posts and blogs. Some tell stories and some share their daily events. Whatever they write, I enjoy reading. It's the sharing of themselves that I enjoy the most. They expose themselves bits at a time and I applaud them for their efforts. Through these little bits, I have developed great friendships with some pretty amazing women. Through their writing, they engulf me in a special relationship that keeps me wanting to know more. Who are these women whose words show up on my screen? They are Red Hatters just like me. They are opening their arms in friendship to me and I find such joy in responding to them. If you think that friends are a dime a dozen, you're shopping in the wrong places...Become a writer, you'll see.....

   What do words cost in the course of a day? Some say, "A penny for your thoughts"...Are our thoughts that cheap? Others tell you that you may use, "50 cent" words...Are only the words not used by most people the most expensive? There's the expression, "Money talks!"...Does that mean we don't need words? We use words to express our love and others find those words "priceless". We use words to show just how sorry we are and some find those words "cheap". There are those of us who try to find the right words to save our child from their own distruction and those words end up being "worthless"...What good is having an enormous dictionary and thesaurus if you can't find the right words to stop the insanity that is constricting your family? I am finding out that there are only a few words which fit "that bill"..."GET OUT! WE'RE NOT GOING TO TOLERATE THIS BEHAVIOR ANYMORE!!!!!" What will these words cost in the end? Only time will tell.....Hopefully, they won't cost more than I can afford..........