TERI ANNE STANLEY

​Wanna read my first chapter? 
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Okay, yes. CBS Sunday Morning is my favorite source for Motivation Monday posts. On any given Sunday, If Mr. Stanley doesn't get up and try to arm wrestle me for the remote so he can watch George (Stephanopolis), I can cry for a solid hour about how wonderful people can be. 
On a recent Sunday (while poor Mr. Stanley was working and I didn't lose the remote), I saw this story about a kid in Texas named Gerald Hodges. If my Favorite Daughter wasn't already engaged to a great guy, I'd want her to marry this kid. Heck. My boys are both single. Maybe one of them will marry him. 
But anyway:
Here's my backstory: Our boys (The Sam Stanley Experience and Mr. Awesome), went to a dinky little accelerated prep school where every student skipped at least one or two grades. Covington Latin is a tiny school (Mr. Awesome's graduating class was the biggest ever, with 52 students) and the kids are all younger and smaller than grade-matched kids in other schools. 
Most people do NOT send their offspring to Latin if they expect them to get Division One athletic scholarships (although David Justice graduated from CLS).  But these kids still want to play sports, so they play sports, damn it. Some years the basketball team doesn't win a single game. But they try. And they have fun. They learn team work, losing with grace, and that "personal best" is what you most need to work for. 
But anyway: 
This story is about a boy (Gerald Hodges) who couldn't even swim when he joined the swim team. He could have been pretty good at any other sport, apparently, but he wanted to swim.  

How freaking brilliant is that?  I don't know about you, but I'm way more likely to try something I feel I can probably do. I'm pretty amazed that, not only was a TEENAGER (translation: quasi-human who rarely ventures into activity that might cause other people to laugh) willing to do this, but to understand why it's important that he did. 
Of course, he also got really good at swimming, and helped his relay team secure a slot at the state meet, so there's that. 

I'm having fun with puzzles this week...

Omigod, this is so freaking fun. I hope it works...Click on the link below to see my new book cover (warning, you might have to spend  a few seconds assembling it!)

Parkinson's disease sucks (okay, a lot of diseases suck, that's why they're called...wait for it...diseases). 
My Grandmother had it. I thinks she was in her seventies when she was diagnosed. Self-centered as I was (um, am), I don't remember much about what that was like for her, only that Mamaw was drifting away from us. She ultimately decided she needed to live in a facility with full time care, until she died in 1992. 
A few years later, actor Michael J. Fox announced that he was suffering from Parkinson's. He was twenty-nine when he was diagnosed, and that completely blew my mind. He was so young! He's still so young!  And he's taking this shitty situation and using his resources to help find better treatments and a cure. He's probably not going to be cured, but he's trying to help other people who might be in the future. 
He was on CBS This Morning talking about his life and his mission. Check it out. 
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