Tag Archives: grandparenting

by | January 1, 2026 · 1:54 pm

It’s a New Year!

Welcome to 2026! I’m not asking for amazing things for the year; I’d just like it to be gentle with me.

2025 was difficult, although I did have some writing successes in journals, have been working with the small press, ELJ Editions, that will be publishing my flash memoir, and had my manuscript inspired by painter Remedios Varo accepted by Shanti Arts.

*Scrap: Salvaging a Family, a hybrid flash memoir, will be out March 20, 2026

*Hunting the Cosmos, flash fiction and poetry for Remedios Varo, will be out fall 2026

I should have a cover reveal soon for Scrap. Can’t wait to share it with you!!!

The problem with the new year, though, is it springs from the old and all the unresolved issues of 2025 will go on in 2026. My mother’s dementia is one of those things. Taking over her affairs is very stressful and time-consuming, but worse is the dilemmas of communication with my mother. I can still have good conversations with her if I ignore the little idiosyncracies (the “critters” that have taken up residence in her apartment, but can only be seen by her), hearing about her going to a service two hours early and waiting for others to show up, etc.

Both Perry and Meesker have serious health issues. As you may remember, Perry was diagnosed with issues two years ago, but I don’t like to talk about it. All I can say is I am constantly feeding sick cats who need food all day long and cleaning up diarrhea, pee outside the box, and dramatically hurled vomit. And Lily still hates Sloopy Anne. Last night she threw herself violently against the gate we have up to keep them apart, trying to get to Sloops.

2025 was productive for me for writing, up to a point. I haven’t written anything for weeks now. Between grandbaby duty, my mom’s stuff, and these cats (on top of regular work and business), I’ve been too busy and very tired.

I read some good mystery series this year, though, as that’s a good way for me to unwind. Actually, I read far more than I usually do, but then I did have hip replacement surgery in May, so mysteries helped out a lot when I was suffering before the surgery and then during the recovery. Here are the series: Yorkshire Murder Mysteries by J.R. Ellis; Dark Yorkshire, Misty Isle, and Hidden Norfolk by J.M. Dalgliesh; Rev. Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries by Julia Spencer-Fleming; Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James Mysteries by Deborah Crombie; China Thrillers, Lewis Trilogy, and Enzo Macleod by Peter May; DCI Craig Gillard Mysteries by Nick Louth. (To give you a clue, I am a fan of Louise Penny, Ann Cleeves, and Elly Griffiths, and the series I’ve listed here are more like the Griffiths and possibly the Cleeves than the Penny books. The Spencer-Fleming series is a lot like the Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway books, notably because of the hot love affair in the middle of the mysteries.

In addition, I read some wonderful stand-alone novels and poetry collections. I reviewed just a few of them for this blog. If I reviewed your book in 2025 and didn’t list it, please let me know!

POETRY

Review of Robert Okaji’s Our Loveliest Bruises

A Gorgeous Collection Combining Genres of Poetry, Genealogy, and History

Review of Merril D. Smith’s HELD INSIDE THE FOLDS OF TIME

FICTION

Book Tour Stop: Book Review of Deborah Brasket’s When Things Go Missing

Elizabeth Gauffreau’s Masterful New Novel, A Review

Christmas Magic

Just got a call from my son. He miscalculated the days this week and asked if I could watch Hudson again tomorrow. Sure! (Good thing I fell asleep on New Year’s Eve at 8PM). The other night the Gardener put together a tricycle for Hudson. He’s almost two, and his feet barely reach the pedals, but we can work on learning to pedal a bike again tomorrow. 🙂

Let’s work on making 2026 a tender, playful, happy year! If we all puts our heads and hearts together .  . . .

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Filed under #amreading, #AmWriting, Book Review, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Flash Nonfiction, Memoir, Poetry

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by | October 20, 2025 · 5:20 am

Those Elusive Smells

Now that the days are not as hot in Phoenix–more like 85 than 105–I started up my daily walks again. I had to stop when my hip got so bad, but now that I’ve had the replacement there is nothing stopping me. I love the smells outside, although the last two days there has been an unfamiliar funky odor (possibly bobcat pee) in the air, as well as the usual perfume of flowers, grass, leaves, and sun-kissed concrete.

 

The intensely blue sky during my walk

Not being able to “show” you the smells annoys me. I can take photos and write words and even post audio if I want to. But I can’t post scent. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy adding olfactory descriptions in my writing; however, sometimes I’d just like to share how something actually smells. Or smell something my nose can’t reach.

This brings me to what I was thinking when I woke up yesterday. I’ve always loved history and as a kid used to wonder what it would be like to have lived in a different time period. Or to visit, even invisibly. Choose a time period. How about 1515 CE? What would it have stank like? I think even if I arrived in my time shuttle inside a palace that I would be gasping for air. I’d be holding an entire bottle of Gris Dior up to my face. I’d have to keep a little puke bag handy. I’m sure I’d be begging to come back to the present time. And that’s with palace peeps, not inside the hut of a poor person.

Yes, this is the kind of thing I think when I wake up in the morning. Maybe because I’m not writing every day. If I do write daily, then I’m apt to think of a story or poem while I’m still in bed. But I have finished my Remedios Varo-inspired ekphrastic chapbook. Gosh, I hope I can find a publisher for it. It’s hybrid, being both fiction and poetry, so that makes it harder to find publishers to submit to.

And, in other news, my hybrid flash memoir, Scrap: Salvaging a Family, should be available from ELJ Editions in March! Watch for cover reveal and so on in the future. If you are a blogger and would like to participate in a blog tour this spring, send me an email at luanne[dot]castle[at]gmail[dot]com. You can post a review or I can write a companion post to my book for your blog. I can get you a pdf. Here’s a link to publisher’s page: ELJ Editions forthcoming.

On the cat front, it’s been all puke/pee/poo/puke/pee/poo. If you plan to have multiple cats, try to space out their ages a bit so you don’t end up with all seniors at the same time. (just kidding, sort of)

In less than a week my grandson will be 21 months old! I can hardly believe it. He’s such a delight. He went on vacation to the beach and loved every moment.

 

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Filed under #poetrycommunity, #writingcommunity, Blog Tour, Cats and Other Animals, Ekphrastic, Flash Nonfiction, Grandparenting, Memoir, Poetry

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by | September 16, 2024 · 5:20 am

Kitty Cat Update

Since I haven’t been able to blog much because of caring for grandbaby (missing you all!!!!) I know I haven’t blogged about my cats in a long time. So time for a cat update!

I still have five cats: Perry, Kana, Lily, Sloopy Anne, and Meesker.

Perry, of course, is the closest to the grandbaby, but he’s also the one that gets the most jealous. Therefore, I often have my arms full of baby and cat at the same time! Say hi, Perry!

Perry is still on his meds for GI and heart and getting lots of hugs. His ruff looks greasy because his medicine is oil-based. He’s the youngest, but even Perry is a senior. All my cats are old.

Kana is at least 17 and has failing health. She has kidney disease. She has a hard time walking. I have to lift her up on the couch when she wants to lie next to me at night–and lift her down again. She spends her days in a kitty playpen (not zipped in—it’s by choice) near the sunlight.

Lily is Lily. She’s the worst cat I’ve ever had. She’s also the most beautiful (long-haired orange and white), vain, and we love her a lot. Hah. She’s the reason we had to build a gate in the middle of our house, to protect Sloopy Anne and Meesker from her. And when she feels like it she pees on the living room drapes and kitchen rugs. She needs lots of attention, whether from us or anyone who stops over.

Sloopy Anne lives in the back of the house, an independent tortico (tortoiseshell and calico markings), and she is the cat who sleeps with us. In that way we make up to her for giving her the least attention during the day.

Meesker lives in the back of the house, but has his own room that he can be in when he needs to feel secure. It has a gate on the door (open most of the time during the day), which he could jump over if he realized it. We’ve never told him about that fact though, so he doesn’t even try. The gardener spends some time with him almost every afternoon and almost every evening. My physical therapist (don’t ask–another mobility issue) wants me to lie on my stomach for five minutes a couple times a day, so I started doing it in Meesker’s room. He lies next to me in the same position, just like a little copycat.

Lily and Sloopy Anne prefer the gardener. Kana and Perry much prefer me. Meesker is a happy bouncy guy and likes us both the same.

Here’s a pic of the baby who refused a nap all afternoon and then conked out the second he went into his jumper.

I’m closing comments because the little time I have for blogging today I would rather spend it reading some of your blogs.

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by | June 17, 2024 · 8:15 am

Grandma Shark

It’s been hard to juggle baby care with everything else that I’ve had going on. That’s why I’ve been an on-and-off blogger lately. I have a lot of catching up to do on blog reading.

But I am happy that the baby is doing well. He’s now 4.5 months old and started to teethe. He actually started Thursday afternoon. He was cranky, which is unusual for him as he’s a very chill little soul. Mid-morning he chewed in his sleep. He drooled. Awake he put his hand in his mouth. His bib in his mouth. The burp cloth. His toys. His books. My clothes. Then he wouldn’t sleep, but just fussed. Finally the thought of teething hit me. So I soaked a baby washcloth in very cold water and put a corner of it in his mouth. Within a minute or so he fell asleep! That’s when I was 99.9% sure he was teething. Before he went home I felt his gums and sure enough on his top gum I found a little sharp point . . . .

I’ve been watching him for over three months now! Hope I can keep this up as he gets heavier. He weighs 15 1/2 pounds now. You might think that I would get stronger with the gradual increase of weight, but NO HAHA.

On another note, why do babies need such massive amounts of equipment and supplies?! The gardener keeps saying, that’s enough now, but it’s never enough because he keeps growing and developing.

Unfortunately, I introduced Hudson to the original Baby Shark song, and now I can’t get it out of my mind. EAR WORM. If I ask him if he’s Baby Shark, he laughs. If I say, “I’m Grandma Shark,” he laughs even harder.

I did participate in something this weekend that was not very time-consuming. That is the Flash Flood 2024 Write-In. Have you ever heard of Flash Flood? https://www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/index.php/flash-flood/ If you write flash stories you can submit early in the year (check website for dates) and then a weekend they publish them one at a time. That weekend was this past one this year.

Then they also have the write-in where they post a writing prompt every hour for 24 hours. https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/ I decided to do that this year, although I couldn’t do all 24 as we had a big family party for the baby. I wrote ten stories and was pretty excited that they chose nine of ten to publish. Keep in mind, I spent about 15 minutes on each story, so they are really more like highly pressurized rough drafts. But I feel pretty good about how I did. Here they are:

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2024/06/why-wind-laughs-by-luanne-castle.html

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-princess-and-peanut-by-luann-castle.html

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2024/06/elemental-ghosting-by-luanne-castle.html

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2024/06/list-for-involved-grandparenting-by.html

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2024/06/grounding-by-luanne-castle.html

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-is-for-accolade-by-luanne-castle.html

 https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2024/06/in-manner-of-fairy-tales-by-luanne.html

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2024/06/i-am-whole-and-ubiquitous-by-luanne.html

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2024/06/marianne-examines-physics-of-prolonged.html

Doesn’t it sound fun to participate? You should try it next time!

Just as I go to hit PUBLISH on this post, I feel the symptoms coming on of a bug that the Gardener has been wrestling with since Saturday night. Oh no.

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by | April 29, 2024 · 5:15 am

Arizona Blue Sky

Yesterday when I started on my walk, before I even left my driveway, I encountered several critters. First, a very light green plump lizard with smooth skin ran into the bougainvillea. I can’t find him on Google, so I don’t know what kind he is. Then a male and a female quail ran across the drive down into the wash. At the end of the driveway, on the little pony wall, a mourning dove took off in flight.

It could be the mother who has a nest in the hanging pot outside my house. My son took this pic of one of the babies with the mother.

Here’s a pic on my walk of a cactus in bloom and the brilliant blue sky above. This is the color of our Arizona sky. I still can’t get over it, and I’ve been here seventeen years now!

It’s getting warm here, but if I walk early enough it’s not yet a problem. That may change in a month or two. But I have another issue. At least six months ago I started getting a painful leg. it was weird because last year my other leg was so bad that for two months I couldn’t walk at all. Now the symptoms are somewhat different, but getting worse. My entire lower left quadrant, so to speak, is very painful and sometimes can be a NINE in pain. Most of the time it fluctuates between 2 and 7. I saw a pain doctor, who diagnosed me with a pinched nerve, so I will get a back MRI. In the meantime she wants me to start PT and take Gabapentin on top of my Extra Strength Tylenol. I’ll hold off on the Gabapentin as long as I can because I can’t afford to add more dizziness (a side effect) to my Vestibular Migraines. (Gabapentin brings up sad memories of my dear Pear Blossom’s cancer before she passed away several years ago).

Because the worst of the pain is while lying down and walking, the pain doesn’t prevent me from taking care of my cutie pie grandson while his parents are at work. He turned three months on Friday and has been stacking up a big list of “firsts.” First time he rolled over onto his stomach himself. First time he reached for me to pick him up. First time he started trying to form sounds with his mouth. First time he held a stuffed toy and rubbed the fur on his skin. Yes, I’m obsessed.

Yesterday I did a little art because I hadn’t in months and wanted to do something creative with my hands. I feel bad because I have cute fabric for a book cover to make a junk journal for the baby’s parents, but taking care of him has made that impossible at this point.

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Filed under #writingcommunity, Arizona, Flora, Garden, and Landscape, Grandparenting, Health, Writing

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by | April 15, 2024 · 5:20 am

Spring Walk and Grandma-ing

I’m writing this blog post on Sunday, although I don’t intend to publish it until early Monday morning. I want to write about my walk this morning while it’s fresh, but I have stuff going on after I write it.

Now that it’s warmer in Phoenix, it’s more refreshing to walk in the morning, so I went out at ten, wearing a sundress and brimmed hat. It’s already getting too warm for long pants, and I don’t wear shorts. The temperature, slight breeze, and all-around perfection made me feel so grateful to be living in this climate at this time of year. Nothing more beautiful than April and October in Phoenix.

Green and purple hummingbirds were flying in and around the yellow-blooming sweet acacia trees. The palo verde trees’ blossoms are just wiggling out. A songbird slid into a little round hole in a giant saguaro to visit her nestlings. Everywhere I walked I heard various sections of the symphony of birds making music together. I recorded some of it on my phone so I can try to isolate what type of birds I was hearing. On my way back, a family of quail ran quickly across the street to safety, and on the wooden gate to my yard, a baby lizard sunned itself.

In my yard, the cacti are in flower. Each one is spectacular, but my favorite is the coral one. Of course, since coral is my favorite color!

I’ve been taking care of my baby grandson each week for four days of 9-10 hours each (with a wonderful baby sitter who gives me a short break in the middle of most days). It’s very confining and exhausting at my age, but I love knowing he’s safe and learning. Perry has grown to love him, and will nap with him on the baby’s activity gym (which is on the ground and where he also practices “tummy time,” a phenomenon that wasn’t around when my kids were little). Baby Hudson’s favorite activity is swinging in his little mechanical swing.

What really strikes me about the baby is that he only cries to communicate. Luckily, he doesn’t have any chronic issues that cause crying (like colic). If he cries, I need to figure out what’s wrong, remedy it, and the crying stops. So while I was a bit concerned ahead of time that he would cry so much it would annoy me or especially the cats, not so.

As it gets warmer out, I intend to go for my walk very early (right after I give the cats their breakfast) and take Hudson in his stroller.

I’m getting zero art done and not enough writing, but I wouldn’t miss this experience for anything.

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I have a flash of menstruation lit in the hilarious anthology Bloody Funny.” Thank you to Editor Sophia McGovern. Hope you like it!

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