Happy St. Patrick's Day - Ireland in Black and White

 

Suspense Novels for Dogs

 I took the recycling and the trash out.  You think I'd been gone for DAYS.

That  got me thinking about what if dogs wrote some of the most popular suspense novels:

And  Then There were None (cookies on the counter)

The Dog in the Window (bark bark bark bark bark)

Gone Girl (someone left eh gate open again)

The Cat Next Door

Murder on the Oriental Carpet (a stuffie mystery)

What You've Done (bad dog!) My apologies to my favorite suspense author and friend J.A.Schneider

Watching You

The Hunt for Red Elephant

The Wildlife Between Us (Squirrel!!!)

The Turn of the Key (Mom's home, Mom's home!)

The Count of Monty Cristo (You thought there was a fancy sandwich left, you miscounted)

The Silence of the Stuffies (Squeeker Removal)

The Silent Patient (no one can sulk like a dog at the Vet)

So - Maybe the Answer WAS Lassie?

I recently had a minor surgical procedure (nothing serious, just a follow-up diagnostic), and while getting prepped for the anesthesiologist, the nurse getting my IV line in kept looking at me.  Finally, she said, "You look SO familiar.  Are you an actress?"  I thought, "Hmm,  "Julianne Moore? Helen Mirren?  Big Bird?  Lassie?    I had to tell her I wasn't, but she said, "I could be" and also commented that I looked nowhere near my age.

Sunscreen helps, no alcohol, tobacco, and a 'heavy on plants' diet helps (with a daily Moringa Supplement from 

Maruyama Jones Farm

 in Hawaii and a couple of drops of their Moringa oil mixed in with my daily sunscreen (moringa has a natural spf, enhancing your sunscreen and also makes mine easier to apply as I use a mineral sunscreen balm from Badger that's great but is a bit thick.).  

But most importantly, I use natural skin care products without chemicals, preservatives, and harsh exfoliants.  There are several women-owned product lines for skin, hair, and body I use depending on the time of year and whether my eczema is flaring (usually stress-related), but one I've had in my "go-to bag consistently for the last 14 years is Frangipani products, created by Tracy Land from Indianapolis.  (Her little travel-sized kits are great for travel or for trying new things and can be easily refilled)

 Frangipani Body Products specializes in all-natural skincare and body products and has won the esteemed Annual Beauty with a Conscience Award.

When I first saw the products in a local magazine, I didn't know it was an Indy-based company. When I checked out all the positive feedback on Facebook from others with similar ages and skin types, I HAD to order some. The owner and creator of the products, Tracy Land, originally had been making them to heal her own skin, as she battled the skin condition rosacea (which I have as well), then sold it to a few friends while she worked in the Quality Assurance end of IT.

Tracy continued to develop the concept, and when her position was eliminated, instead of just picking up an unemployment check, she started refining the products, producing the products, and selling to the public, using word of mouth, farmer's markets, trade shows, etc.  I can only imagine how much telephoning, strategy, business planning, and leg work that was. The product was a hit and is now carried in a number of stores, including Whole Foods in addition to being online.

My skin has done so much better with natural products in the long term.  My skin is very fair and cantankerous on a good day, and the rosacea has made my cheeks irritated and red since grade school.  I love the Frangipani products! They may cost a bit more than what you can get at the drug store, but conventional products use a LOT of water and fillers to keep production costs down. But they are SERIOUSLY less expensive than some of the high-end "organic" lines out there.

Frangipani products contain only plant-based ingredients and almost NO water. Only a small amount is needed so the product is long-lasting, making it a value.  Compared to what I spent at the Lancome and Clinique and Estee Lauder counters over the years for things that only made my skin redder and more irritated. . . a bargain!

Sure, I could go out and get buffed, abraded and bo-toxed, quick, fake fixes. I prefer products that heal the skin long-term, helping it glow from the inside out.

I have no desire to be 20 again (which is like 2 in dog years). Aging gracefully is wonderful, whether you're a famous black lab or his redheaded "Mom."

65, no makeup, no filters.  Just good skincare and nutrition.

The Frangipani products:  So many - cleanser, creams, serums, Shea butter creams that would be perfect for gals OR guys to make work-worn hands feel like velvet, lip balm, a clay mask, deodorant, Tracy has it. The skin care selections range from oily teenage skin to OMG, I remember 8 track tapes! My favorites are the cleanser and the facial serum. I love gel cleansers but they dry my skin.  Cream cleansers remind me of Grandma's Ponds Cold Cream and make me break out if I use them daily. The Frangipani cleanser is smooth and very creamy, but it lathers just enough to clean and rinses completely without rubbing, leaving my face soft without irritating it with a washcloth. To exfoliate, there is an exfoliating product that's plant oil-based with little jojoba beads that gently get rid of dry skin, as they gently dissolve.

The facial cleanser also works well for guys for shaving.  The faint coconut and olive oil-based scent is very pleasant but NOT girly. Tracy does not use fragrance oils in her Frangipani line, but only essential oils, much gentler on the skin while still smelling wonderful and retaining their skin healing properties.  

I also love the body oil (you have to try that one). It's rice bran oil-based, so it soaks right in after bathing, avoiding that whole, "Honey, I just got out of the shower and moisturized and would love a hug," wherein he complies and you go shooting out of his arms like a watermelon seed and bounce off the walls, ruining the mood). And both the grapefruit and the lavender blends smell incredible but not overpowering

Check their website out (just click on the Frangipani name in purple at the start of the post). There is info on what stores carry the line (like some of the Whole Foods up here in Chicagoland have).  Everything is always shipped promptly, and the beautiful amber recyclable glass bottles are carefully packaged so there is no breakage (and trust me on the body oil thing.)

Now if I could just do something with my hair - maybe Lassie WAS the correct answer.

  - L.B.

Dog Days of Winter

The Weather Outside is Frightful

In 24 hours we had 50 mph wind gusts, heavy downpours, sleet, freezing rain, then snow. Lorelei has the right idea. Have a Swedish Waffle and go back to bed.  

Newest Review from True Stories About Love

A Review was just sent from well-known Midwest Author Larry F. Sommers (Price of Passage - a Tale of Immigration and Liberation) about my story in the new Anthology Storytellers True Stories About Love (Vol. 2) Chicago Story Press 2023.

An Amazon #1 New Release - like all of my writing the proceeds are going to animal rescue - this month to Pound Pals (who rescue senior pets).

“Letting Go” will interest those who have been disappointed in love; which is to say, it’s universal.

The story begins and ends with an old blue shirt, the crunch of tires on gravel, and the flight of birds. The reverie woven between is the stuff of a thousand heartaches. It is a simple story, and nothing about its simplicity makes it easier to bear.

In other hands it might be banal, but the author, L.B. Johnson, possesses a sure lyrical style that opens the reader frankly to emotions otherwise neglected. Johnson’s poetic words do not fly off all unattached but plaster themselves to the realities of grief and hope, leaving the reader to sit back and try to account for that which is unaccountable.

“This have I known always,” wrote Edna St. Vincent Millay: “Love is no more

Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,

Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,

Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales . . .”

Johnson’s story, in just over two thousand words, compasses the love and the wreckage, and sums up the hope that endures.

Readers with hearts of stone need not apply. For the rest of us, “Letting Go” is a small revelation."

• Storytellers' True Stories of Love Amazon Page

Thursday Smiles

Thought for the Day

Keep your face always toward the sunshine

 - and shadows will fall behind you. 

-Walt Whitman

Another report of a "neglected" dog :-)

Lorelei:  "It's shameful how I am mistreated.  Someone

call the authorities."  (I would but I'm in the sunny spot).

My New Book Has Just Launched - Amazon #1 New Release

The latest writing has been published - through a Chicago publishing house, my short story picked up last year and now part of this anthology.  It made it to #1 in Amazon new releases the day it was released and will be available in bookstores (paperback and hardcover). The authors include award-winning professional writers, producers, actors, and playwrights and I was honored to be selected to be part of it.  All royalties on my part will go to the animal rescue groups, as always. 

The book is a collection of stories that capture love in its many forms, not just that of romantic partners, but of children, parents, animals, friends, and passionate interests.  The theme spoke to me, as it did to the authors within this work, as we recall first loves, lost loves, pets, family members, and that crazy time we ignored all reason and did the impossible

Praise on my story "Letting Go", so far (from authors and professional book critics)

""L. B. Johnson’s prose is glorious. Her words put you right there—in the place and in the head of the narrator—as well as any author I’ve read."

"A beautiful, heartfelt, masterful story."

"What a rich, rich voice. Johnson’s writing is lush and lancing at the same time, a feast of metaphors and aches. It leaves you completed, but it doesn’t leave you."  

"Gorgeous. An absolute heartache."

I think it would make a great Valentine's Gift, (that's a clue by four, as my husband would say).

• Storytellers' True Stories of Love Amazon Page