My children and I are getting ready to take a road trip. We’re driving to Florida to visit my parents then on to Texas to visit friends, family members, and my former colleagues.

So the past few weeks I’ve not taken time out to blog. I’ve been trying to get things accomplished before our trip.

I’m working on another children’s book this one is about nuclear power. I announced my intentions a while ago on my website. It was my ‘Field of Dreams’ statement. You know if I say it I’ll have to do and if I do it they’ll want it and so on.

This past week I decided the kids and I would take an educational excursion and visit the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant which is located not far from my home in Apex, North Carolina.

My son Jordan, wasn’t too happy about taking time out of his summer for anything educational but after touring the Shearon Harris Visitor’s Center and meeting Kim Crawford, our host and Progress Energy’s Community Outreach Director he admits it was interesting and Kim was especially nice, it was nothing like he thought it would be.

He probably thought Kim would be mean like his mother and force him to read a children’s book manuscript about nuclear power plants.

Too many years ago, I worked at the South Texas Project Nuclear Power Plant’s Visitor’s Center located in Bay City, Texas.

I’ve had to re-educate myself while writing my Nuke book and Kim’s been a great help- this was the first time we’ve met in person.

If you live in North Carolina you can call Kim via Progress Energy to arrange a program or tour about Nuclear Power Plants. My kids are 14 and 16 years old and both enjoyed the films and exhibits.

I have to admit one of the best things about being an author/publisher is the people I meet along the way.

Like Beverly Vote the dynamic and busy editor of Breast Cancer Wellness Magazine: Empowering Mind-Body-Spirit. The magazine focuses on the difficult challenges that come from being diagnosed with cancer.

She’d posed the question- How does a terminally ill breast cancer patient prepare her family for a life without her?

How does anyone? It’s an uncomfortable question and in my opinion the best time to pose it- is long before it’s necessary.

You can read my article, Children Might Not Understand Death, But they Understand Love, in the summer edition of Breast Cancer Wellness Magazine, Pages 26-27, the magazine is available on-line at www.breastcancerwellness.org

This week it was also my pleasure to be a guest author on Mom Writer’s Talk Radio. It’s an online talk show which airs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week around the globe. Paula Schmitt, author of Living in a Locker Room and Alana Morales, author of Domestically Challenged host the show. My interview will begin airing July 21rst.

You can find out how to hear it by tuning into their website: www.MomWritersTalkRadio.com

For all close personal friends and relatives who might be reading this –and especially Andrew Toperzer, my former neighbor boy who lived next door to me in Minnesota, yes-they have other authors besides me you can listen to- but believe it or not some people find me fascinating!

As Andrew so callously pointed out when he was about 13 years old (13 year old boys know everything) and I had just returned from a speaking event- only the people who don’t know you.

Andrew’s who’s now 17 is coming for a visit when we return from our road trip; it appears I’m a lot more fascinating now that I live down South and not right next door.

As my daughter Tabitha would say- c’est la vie.