Author Archive

Bored? Try a new style of book where a game is hidden throughout the text.

  • On April 1, 2020 The ebook of “Humanizing the Jaguar” will be FREE to download on Amazon. This might help to pass some time since we’re all staying inside now. If there are several people in the house it could be a game to see who can find the most clues.
  • I’m trying to do a little something for anyone who feels bored and does want to try something different. Enjoy! https://amzn.to/2WRpncp
Humanizing the Jaguar

Thanks Monica. And stay well everyone

Check out my latest novel!!!

Hey everyone   my second novel is available.  After years of putting thoughts and ideas on paper it has become a real story. If your looking for a story that is inspired by true events mixed with a whole lot of imagination (which I’ve been told I have a lot of ) then this story is for you. Why not give it a try?   thanks

Young, smart, attractive Katie Thompson seemed to have it all: a promising future, great friends, likable and was at the top of her class, in spite of her parents’ divorce. She worked hard to keep her life on the right path.
But when her father remarries a much younger, beautiful woman Katie’s view of herself becomes distorted. The failure of Katie’s first love interest compounds her insecurity and she goes on a downward spiral dealing with her own demons in private. After Katie finds a new beau, the people in her life remain oblivious to her underlying problems and sweep everything under the rug. Until things have gone too far.
Katie has to learn the hard way to deal with life’s unexpected twists and turns. She’s quickly thrown into adulthood by making major life decisions once she finally realizes what she wants and believes is right. Unfortunately, there is someone that is not going to allow Katie to have what she wants – and will stop at nothing to make everything go their way.
How would you feel if you found out you had been terribly manipulated? How would you react when you found out who was responsible for pulling those strings?
Sometimes the past stays buried, but other times, rare but not impossible, it comes back to bite you in the ass!
Share in Katie’s journey as she grows and learns how to cope with the consequences of her choices.

If you do decide to read my story I hope you find it interesting and enjoyable.

Looking forward to hearing from you.  Thanks   Mon

Category: books, fiction  Tags:  Leave a Comment

Very Excited about new book!

Hey everyone   just want to say that I finally have my second novel finished and it will be out this month.  After years of putting thoughts and ideas on paper it has become a real story. If your looking for a story that is inspired by true events mixed with a whole lot of imagination (which I’ve been told I have a lot of ) then this story is for you.

Young, smart, attractive Katie Thompson seemed to have it all: a promising future, great friends, likable and was at the top of her class, in spite of her parents’ divorce. She worked hard to keep her life on the right path.
But when her father remarries a much younger, beautiful woman Katie’s view of herself becomes distorted. The failure of Katie’s first love interest compounds her insecurity and she goes on a downward spiral dealing with her own demons in private. After Katie finds a new beau, the people in her life remain oblivious to her underlying problems and sweep everything under the rug. Until things have gone too far.
Katie has to learn the hard way to deal with life’s unexpected twists and turns. She’s quickly thrown into adulthood by making major life decisions once she finally realizes what she wants and believes is right. Unfortunately, there is someone that is not going to allow Katie to have what she wants – and will stop at nothing to make everything go their way.
How would you feel if you found out you had been terribly manipulated? How would you react when you found out who was responsible for pulling those strings?
Sometimes the past stays buried, but other times, rare but not impossible, it comes back to bite you in the ass!
Share in Katie’s journey as she grows and learns how to cope with the consequences of her choices.

If you do decide to read my story I hope you find it interesting and enjoyable.

Looking forward to hearing from you.  Thanks   Monica

Pets and loss (2)

What can I say about Pets? Just that the hardest and worst part is losing them. This is my third loss in the last three years. BUT that should in no way keep us from having them for they give us so much joy and happiness. Recently I lost one of my beloved little ones her name was Lea and I had her for 14 ½ years ever since she was a puppy. She was a good dog; companion; and gave me some of my best laughs bossing the other dogs and cats hence one of her nicknames “Bully”. Since getting older her little legs were just to short for the back-door steps so she used wee wee pad and she also developed breathing problems over the last years which didn’t stop her from barking at the other pets. So her other name “Wheezy” was given to her while here in VA from a friend.

relaxing

I miss her, but at least I was with her when she passed doing what I could to try and comfort her. She was one of a kind for sure how she hopped around, barked, waged her tail and begged for food/treats. She will be missed by all of us here. My little Lea….. here are some of the good memories.

Lea & Bitsy

Lea, Bitsy & Frankie

 

Lea around a year old with Muffin

And I don’t want to forget my cat Manson who I also lost this year in January he was 16

Manson

MUSIC Buyers Beware!!!!!

That as of July 10, 2015 new music is being released on Friday instead of Tuesday. I don’t know IF this means we get more days for a sale price or less. When it was on Tuesday those of us who prefer the hard (physical) copy only had 5 days to get that sale price. So my advice is to know when your artist is releasing a new CD and look in the sale paper the Sunday of release week.

It seems that there is no way to know for certain if the sale price will carry over to the next week so IF you are even remotely thinking about buying the hard copy I urge you to do so. Remember that the hard copy generally comes with the lyrics, pictures, and liner notes etc. I’m not saying the download copy is bad just that the hard copy has perks.

BOTTOM LINE whatever format you like BUY the WHOLE CD (which is the way the artist intended for it to be listened to). There are always songs that never get airplay that are just as good or better than the hit & possibly could be your personal favorite. Why should WE (the music buyer/listener) be told by the record companies what songs are worth our time when music speaks to us so differently?

Please Support the artists with your purchase or new music will become a thing of the past.

Keep on rockin
Monica

PS I’m looking forward to much anticipated releases this month, August will be a GREAT month for new music with releases from DISTURBED, POP EVIL & BUCKCHERRY that I know of. More next post at Humaninzingthejaguar.com ……..

What the PUG?

For all you PUG lovers (& dog lovers too) isn’t this mug just so cute?

Don’t think any other breed would work

what’s in the cup?

now doesn’t he look like he’s up to something?

Let me know if you can think of any other breed this MUG would work for….. keep rocking Monica

Category: Hobbies, pets  Tags:  Leave a Comment

My most Unusual Music Hobby Part 4

As promised here is the final step to my most unusual music hobby.    For over 30 years I have kept a hand written journal next to my stereo where I write down everything I listen to each day.   That’s right Everything!!   But it has to be something in my personal collection.   In order to explain it better I have some photos of my journals.  I use small 5 subject notebooks (9.5 x 6) one lasts me for years.  Here is how I write the listing.  Also keep in mind this all gets typed into a database.  The fields I use are Day, Date, Position, Artist, Title, Info

 

Journals and binders

Page from Journal

Music stuff

If you look close enough you will see I also include the format it was on CD, LP, if listened to in the car, used headphones etc. All this extra information is what makes my hobby so unique.  I can tell you exactly what I listened to, when I listened to it and how many times.   Don’t you agree this qualifies for a Ripley’s Believe it or Not spot?  If you think so please tell Ripley’s.   I am telling all music fans about my hobby.  Music is so important and should not be taken for granted because one day (could be sooner then we think) there will be a shortage of new music since so many listeners don’t support the artists anymore.  I may be from the old school but I like to hold the physical copy in my hand.  I don’t want my music only available to me on a cloud in cyberspace.  It’s ok as a convenience but I still want the real thing.  And my hobby is best done by listening to the entire album or by sides.  Let’s remember Ozzy’s words “Rock and roll is my religion and law”  I truly follow that by giving each album in my collection its fair share of plays and wouldn’t dream of buying only the single.

Me with some of my music collection

My Most Unusal Music Hobby Part 3

Hi readers
Sorry for the long gap in segments but I’ve been busy with health & family problems. Hopefully things are on the mend and I can get back to posting.
Here is the third step in my most unusual music hobby. I have two more databases one titled Artist where the fields are: name/singer/guitar1/guitar2/drummer/base player etc. you can put whatever you want here I also include how many LP’s I have and former members.
The next one is a Video database which is out dated or old school. I used to record tons of music videos from MTV. This is a very basic database with a few fields : Artist / Title / type of music
Music videos bring back so many warm happy memories of my early working days. I lived at home and had the ideal job that was within walking distance. I’d come home at lunchtime for a quick bite, race to my room and anxiously wait to catch a Journey video which was common at that time. It made going back to work so much better after seeing Steve Perry. I bought my first VCR purposely to record music videos. I’m very impatient and didn’t like waiting for a video to be shown so I started recording all the time. It didn’t take long for a pile of tapes to stack up. Each tape only had a handful of videos I wanted to save. So I eventually went and bought a second machine to copy the videos onto their one tapes by type of music. It’s a shame that artists today don’t make videos much anymore.
I’ve gone off track here just remember these steps are up to whoever is doing this hobby with their own fields/information.
Hope you found this interesting— the next one WILL blow you away……..!!!!!
Keep on rocking, Monica

Most Unusual Music Hobby Part 2

Here’s Step TWO

After you purchased the CD and entered all the info in the LP Database you are now ready to Create a Songs database.   This one is very easy to label I use only four columns (fields) titled  Artist/ LP name/ Song position/  Song title  Example of how it would look:

Osbourne Ozzy   2010-Scream     1.4   Life won’t die

Osbourne Ozzy   2010-Scream     2.1   Crucify

You probably are wondering what in the world the reason for the position column? I assign a number to each song as if the CD were divided in sides like it was when music came on vinyl or cassettes. So Life won’t die is the fourth song on side one and Crucify is the first song on side two. This information is needed later on as you will see if you continue to follow me.

Keep on rocking and following my hobby

Monica

Most Unusual Music Hobby

WELCOME FELLOW READERS (AND MUSIC LOVERS)  I AM DOING A SEGMENT EXPLAINING MY MOST UNUSUAL MUSIC HOBBY!  I encourage all MUSIC fans to consider taking this up.  This hobby is very different and so much more than your average record keeping. Anyone can do it. All you need is a love for music and a desire to organize.  There are several steps so please have a little patience and you will be amazed.

In this installment I will explain the first step of my hobby.

Step one is to create a database for LP’s, CD’s or in today’s marketplace downloads of what you own. This works using the entire CD and not for single songs as you will see.

The database is laid out in rows that are titled

Name of artist/ Name of LP/ When bought/ Where bought/ Price/ Lyrics/ Format    or whatever you want to include

This is pretty self-explanatory. I started out typing these on index cards and filed them alphabetically by artist. But putting this into a computer is much easier and faster at sorting the information however it’s asked for.

Here’s a sample of my LP database

Keep on listening to the music & please follow me with more steps,    Monica