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Ch – ch – changes

Posted on June 1, 2012June 1, 2012 by Gina Wilkins

It’s been an exciting time in the Wilkins household lately. Our daughter Kerry and her husband Justin visited last week from Massachusetts, and gave us permission to announce that they’re expecting our first grandchild early in December! Justin just received his Master of Library and Information Science degree (we’re so proud of him!) and is now working for ancestry. com. Kerry has two more years of her psychiatry residency to complete (she has almost finished adult psych and is preparing for two years of child and adolescent psych training, which is where her true interest lies), and then we hope they’ll head back south for her to set up practice (hint, hint, kids). We’re all looking forward to welcoming this new addition to our family and to the equally-eager family of our son-in-law. I have to confess that it’s odd to think of myself as a grandmother — or to accept that our middle child who was surely just yesterday playing with her Barbies and My Little Ponies will soon be a parent, herself!

During the coming week, our daughter who’s working in Seattle will be home for a visit. Courtney is still struggling diligently to recover from the debilitating brainstem stroke she suffered in October, 2010. She’s come a long way. She can now walk unassisted indoors and with forearm crutches outdoors for short distances, using a power wheelchair only for longer distances or when her energy flags, and while she has not regained use of her right hand, she has more control over the arm than she did at first. She has become quite adept with her left hand – writing, drawing, even using chopsticks! Post-stroke fatigue is her greatest enemy at this point. For a young woman whose nature is to always be on the go, running, hiking, climbing, traveling, it’s very hard for her to concede that she now needs a great deal more rest than before the stroke. A lifelong overachiever, she’s been known to over-do to the point of exhaustion now, so she’s looking forward to resting here with us for a couple of weeks. She continues to pursue her career in medical research despite her challenges. She has blogged about her stroke experiences, but hasn’t been able to update recently because her limited energy has been used up in work, therapy and daily living activities. But for those who’ve sent me notes asking about her, she wants everyone to know she’s doing well and will update soon. We are grateful for your concern.

Maybe you’ve noticed a new tab above. Every Monday, I’m featuring another re-release of one of my books, including an anecdote about the story behind the story! I hope you’ll visit me each week to check out the latest update.

Don’t forget to click the Books tab above for links to purchase all my books in e-format, a few Kindle exclusives, others also available at Barnes and Noble and for other ereaders. Want to have a book always available on your smartphone? Download the free Kindle reader from amazon.com!

I hope to see you again next Monday!

Uncategorized, writing

Pieces of April

Posted on April 23, 2012July 13, 2012 by Gina Wilkins

016 — The Old Mill, North Little Rock, Arkansas (featured in the opening of the 1939 film Gone With the Wind).

April has always been one of my favorite months. With the exception of the usual spring storms, April is a beautiful time in Arkansas. The leaves are new and green, flowers are blooming, the nice temperatures invite us to play outside in “the natural state” without the stifling heat we know will arrive later in the summer. Yes, pollen covers everything in a fine yellow film, and sneezes are as common as smiles, but it really is a wonderful time of year.

My mother’s birthday was in April. She’d have marked her 80th on the 18th of this month (75 was the last she was able to celebrate with us). Her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren remembered our beloved “Nana” on her birthday this year, sending our love to her in her new home. She and my father were married on April 28, 1953 — so happy 59th anniversary to my dad, who is still with us! Easter is usually in April, and I have many happy family memories centered around that holiday — egg hunts and big meals, family portraits and frilly dresses.

John and I welcomed both of our daughters into our family in April. Courtney’s birthday is the 1st (our April Fool child) and Kerry’s is today, the 23rd. Happy birthday to both of these amazing young women who have brought us so much joy.

This year, April marked the publication of my 100th Harlequin book – HUSBAND FOR A WEEKEND – another happy celebration for me! The book is still available in stores and on-line (story details on the home page). I hope you’ll check it out, if you haven’t already. And this month I’ve also released a somewhat different-for-me paranormal story for Kindle only (and free Kindle reading app for PC and smartphones, if you don’t have a Kindle). So it has been a busy and memorable month.

Today is absolutely gorgeous here in Arkansas, a little cool but sunny and clear. While I’m working on my next book, I’ll take breaks occasionally to wander outside and admire the blooming roses and smell the honeysuckle (and maybe sneeze a few times, but I’m used to that). Whatever your weather today (even snow in some parts of the country!), I hope you find a few moments to appreciate the small pleasures.

Uncategorized

Different lives

Posted on April 13, 2012April 13, 2012 by Gina Wilkins

I have lived my entire life in semi-rural Arkansas — unincorporated areas within a twenty-minute drive from Little Rock. So, country — but not too far from the city. I rode a yellow bus to the town of Bryant, Arkansas, where I attended all twelve years of school (there wasn’t a kindergarten program for me). I spent more than an hour a day on the bus, and I rather envied the “town kids,” who could walk to school or meet up at the local diner or even go home for lunch. We drove to the grocery story, to church, to work — there were no businesses within walking distance of our house. It was always my plan to live in a city someday — and then I married a deeply-Arkansas-rooted guy who wanted to live in the country. More than twenty years ago, we built a house on ten acres, seven miles from the nearest grocery store, church or other business, and our children rode yellow buses to their schools. I’m still within a twenty minute drive of Little Rock, though now I’m north of the capital city, some forty minutes from my childhood home. With plenty of room for the kids to play outside, almost no crime to worry about, lots of privacy, it’s been a good place to live and raise our now-grown family … but I have to admit, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live in a different setting.

I’ve had a chance to travel quite a bit within the U.S., visiting 33 states so far, and part of the fun of travel for me is to imagine what it would be like to live in each place I visit. What would life be like in Arizona — flat land, few trees, gorges and canyons and deserts rather than the wooded, grassy hills of central Arkansas? Or in New York, with its high-rise buildings and ever-flowing rivers of yellow cabs, its noise and bustle and urgency? Arkansas sees little snow in winter; how would I like shoveling walkways in Minnesota, bundling up against frostbite, skating on lakes frozen solid until spring? I’ve always wondered if my pleasant, but less-than-adventurous childhood helped fuel my writer’s imagination by making me envision those life differences rather than experience them.

In pursuit of their career training, our daughters have moved to urban areas far from home — one in central Massachusetts, the other in Seattle. They both plan to move closer to home eventually, but for now they are where they need to be. As much as I miss them, I’m pleased that they have the chance to explore different parts of the country, different ways of life.

Since our oldest daughter’s stroke in October, 2010, I’ve spent approximately six months staying with her in Seattle, helping in her recuperation so she could continue her post-doctoral training. I’ve just returned from another two-month stay. As much as I regret the reason for my visits — I would give anything if I could have prevented the difficulties she has faced for the past seventeen months — I’ve still found much to enjoy about my stays with her. It’s such a change of pace there. Living in a third (and top) floor apartment with an elevator and a tiny balcony from which one can catch occasional glimpses of Mt. Rainier. Hearing footsteps in the hallway outside the door. The constant rumble of traffic from nearby I-5. Spending 40 minutes on an articulated metro bus for a 4-mile commute. Walking rather than driving to a nearby grocery store, mall, doctor’s office, restaurants. Being surrounded by glacier-topped mountains and so much water — Puget Sound, Lake Washington, Lake Union. Boats, bicycles and buses as commonly used for transportation as cars and pick-up trucks back home. Not better, but different. I enjoy those differences. I love meeting the people who have grown up there, and finding out that other than geography, we aren’t really all that different, after all.

So, I’m back at home on a pretty day in central Arkansas, looking through a glass door at a coral bell azalea in full, glorious bloom, hearing birds outside rather than traffic, the muted drone of C-130s from the nearby air base rather than the noisy clatter of city buses. I’m sitting in my recliner, working on a book set in southeast Texas, imagining what it must be like to live on the banks of a big lake there. And it’s a nice place to be.

Wherever you are, whatever the view from your window, I hope you’re having a lovely day.

♥♥♥

HUSBAND FOR A WEEKEND, available in stores now from Harlequin Special Edition and Gina Wilkins!

WAKE ME, a Kindle exclusive paranormal romantic suspense, also available now — click on the Home Page for details.

And don’t forget to “like” my facebook page for more frequent updates and to join the conversation there!

Uncategorized, writing

Check it out!

Posted on March 28, 2012March 28, 2012 by Gina Wilkins

I’ll be in Seattle with my daughter for another few days, and while summer seems to have already settled in back home in Arkansas with highs in the 80s, spring is just coming to the Pacific Northwest. The highs here have been in the 40s and 50s, still a little cool, but warming. I’ve seen a lot of rain during the past few weeks, of course, but also some absolutely beautiful blue skies above the surrounding snow-capped Cascade and Olympic mountains. The cherry trees are starting to bloom, along with daffodils, early rhododendrons, other flowers, bushes and flowering trees I don’t even know names for. And everywhere I look, towering evergreens remind me why Seattle is called the Emerald City. Just beautiful.

While I’ve been with her, my daughter has helped me update my site here a bit. I have a new front page with covers from current books, links for FAQ and a sign-up for email updates of upcoming releases, and links to all my past books that are now available for Kindle and/or Nook. Within the next few days, my first fifteen published books will be re-released as Kindle exclusives (some are already available there — links are provided on the Books page). And my paranormal suspense novel, WAKE ME, will be released very soon. HUSBAND FOR A WEEKEND, my newest Harlequin Special Edition, is available in stores and for ereaders now. It’s a very exciting time for me, and it was definitely time for an update here! Thanks, Courtney.

Join me on my Facebook page (link provided at right) for more frequent updates and conversations. I love hearing from fellow book lovers!

Uncategorized

Miracles and Blessings

Posted on March 10, 2012March 10, 2012 by Gina Wilkins

I haven’t disappeared, though it might seem as though I have from my lack of posts lately. I’ve spent the past month in Seattle with my older daughter – the one who had a stroke in October, 2010. I came here because after her return from visiting home at Christmas, she began to have serious health struggles again – to the point that we were all getting very worried about her ability to continue working and living on her own. While my husband stayed home to take care of things there, I joined our daughter for a series of doctor visits to try to find out why she was struggling so hard against overwhelming fatigue and accompanying depression. Post-stroke fatigue is a serious issue, but hers had gotten suddenly debilitating.

Her amazing primary care physician, rehab physician and therapists worked together to adjust medications and daily activity plans. Not only is Courtney’s energy level now under much better control, she has made such amazing leaps in recovery during the past month that she has brought her therapists, friends – and even landlady! – to tears of joy. For the past 16 months, Courtney has been primarily confined to a wheelchair, her walking unsteady even with a walker or arm crutches (she has suffered from ataxia, or uncoordinated movements following her brainstem stroke). She was frustrated that she couldn’t seem to go beyond 150 feet, no matter how hard she worked – and she works Very hard. One evening soon after I arrived here, I was having trouble with a computer issue (quite common for me) and Courtney got up and walked across the room to help me, without even thinking about what she was doing. I nearly fell over in surprise. She had walked beautifully, without crutches, with little evidence of ataxia! Two days later, her stunned physical therapist — and all the other therapists who have been monitoring her for all this time — watched as Courtney walked for 15 minutes on a treadmill without even holding onto anything, the first time she’d been able to walk on the treadmill. She has been walking more every day since, including a several-block walk from her apartment to a fast food restaurant, a huge accomplishment! That was an exhausting exercise and by the time we got back to her apartment, she was worn out, struggling to pull one leg in front of the other, but determined to make it the entire way without resorting to her wheelchair. I’ve seen this determination in her from the beginning – through a previous life-threatening injury 10 years ago, through earning her doctorate degree and accepting a job 2400 miles from her home, and now after this major stroke. We are so proud of her!

I’ll stay here for a couple more weeks to help her with some more walking (her therapists still aren’t ready to clear her for walking outside on her own). After 16 months in a wheelchair, she continued to keep up her core exercises and strength training, but now she needs to rebuild endurance in walking. She still has little use of her right hand, no pain or temperature sensation on her left side, and bouts of vertigo, but there is little doubt that she’ll soon be able to park that wheelchair most of the time, which is more than many people expected at this point! We thank everyone for the many prayers that have been and continue to be offered on her behalf.

While my daughter works at her career in medical research, I’ve been writing, of course. My next Harlequin Special Edition, HUSBAND FOR A WEEKEND, will be available in April — this is my 100th project for Harlequin, and I couldn’t be more delighted to have been with them for so long! See the Books Available Now page for more details.

For more frequent updates from me, “like” my Facebook page (linked at the right of this post).