Janet Leigh's Blog

Happy Birthday to my first book, The Shoes Come First. Shoes was my debut novel and my first nail-biting adventure into the writing world. It’s free for the remainder of February. You can find it at the links below.

The first edition of Shoes was released on February 15, 2015, and has had a few revisions along the way. Writing was not my primary profession. In high school, I struggled through English class and my grammar… well, let’s just say thank goodness for Schoolhouse Rock!

I have been a chiropractor and acupuncturist for many years—a profession I love and am dedicated to. I decided to write a book when my middle child got his driver’s license. 

Let me explain.

My grandmother was a fretter. She lived about a 2-hour drive from our house. She fretted if my mom, dad, sister, and I didn’t arrive at the agreed-upon time. I mean hand wringing, standing at the window, for sure we had been in a car accident, fretting. We had been mugged when we stopped for gas. We had a flat tire on one country road leading to her house. We hit a cow and ended up injured in a ditch, on and on and on. This was before cell phones, so calling her to say we were running late meant pulling over and paying 25 cents to make a call. 

After my first child got her license, my fretting began. I didn’t even realize I was burning the bulb waiting for her to get home. When my second child began driving, I found myself wringing my hands, standing at the window. Where was he? Baseball practice was over hours ago. Then one day, it dawned on me. I was fretting. Just. Like. Grandma.

I sat down and made a list of ways to channel my worry wort of a brain into something that would decrease my fretting. What could possibly turn those creative stories inspired by anxiety and apprehension into something else? Something that would stop my adrenals from pouring cortisol like cake batter into my bloodstream and sticking fat to my hips, butt, and stomach.

That’s when my dad, super storyteller supremo, and embellisher of tall tales, told me the story about Uncle Powderly Formerly. (Yea, that was his name). You see, Uncle Formerly sold mules to Pancho Villa. But before he took the mule train from Fort Worth to meet the infamous outlaw, he fed the mules sodium bicarbonate, a.k.a. Alka Selzer. This puffed up the mules’ bellies and made them look muscular, well-fed, strong.

My creative mind started forming a story about a girl who time-traveled and met Pancho Villa. Instead of standing at the window fretting, I started writing, and I guess that used up all my fretting energy. I was able to control my worrying, reduce my waistline, and let my children drive about town without thinking they were stranded in a ditch.

So that’s it. I thank my children for spiraling me off on this fantastic journey as a writer. And although I still work full time as a chiropractor and acupuncturist, and LOVE, love, love taking care of my patients, I plan to write more Jenifer Cloud books, dip my toe in Romantic Comedy and Women’s fiction. Also, I see at least one book dedicated to the lovely Aint Elma. Because everyone needs an origin story, right?

Thanks for reading!   

Share with the fretters in your life who may need a good laugh!

Check out my post on WordbyWord.net/blog

Check out my recent blog post on Word by Word. https://wordbyword.net/2022/09/16/smart-lady/

BEFORE AFTER

Our remodel is moving along. We painted the 80’s light brick a nice creamy white (Horseradish by Glidden) and trimmed it out with a pretty musket brown. We are still waiting on the metal awnings and stain on the front door, but so far the changes have been incredible. Stay tuned for more.

Moaning

It’s been a while since I’ve posted in the blog. Between remodeling the new house, selling the old one, COVID recovery, and writing book 6 in the Jennifer Cloud Series, I’ve been a busy girl. But it’s Moaning Monday and I have thrown my back out! How embarrassing, a chiropractor with a bad back. Not to worry. Ice, therapy, and my chiropractor husband will get me back and running in no time.

Here are a few pics of the remodel. I named this house The Cat House. I’ll let you use your imagination as to why. We’ve been going strong since August and hope to have it finished by January. A nice way to start off the new year. In these Pics we’ve gutted the inside and moved the staircase to open up the beautiful view.  

BEFORE

After

Lumber Delivery
Movie – Mulan

I enjoyed Disney’s action-drama film of the original animated movie more than I thought I would. For those of you who are not familiar, Mulan is a story about a woman who wants to be independent and strong, but still respectful of her family, her culture, and her country. I missed the comedic relief of Mushu the dragon played by Eddie Murphy in the animated film, but I feel he would have taken away from the important message that we can all stand to learn from this great character. Mulan learns that what she has within her is a gift she can share with the world, not hide away because she is female. I loved the part when she kicked the male lead’s bottom during training.  The music is beautiful, and I did shed a tear or two.

Have a Great Monday Y’all!
Forever Crazy,

Janet Leigh

My Scot: Let’s move. Me: Why? I like where we live. My Scot: I want to live on the lake. I want to wake up and see the water. Me: The only lake within driving distance to the office doesn’t have any new builds in our price range. My Scot: We can buy an old […]

The post Demo Day! appeared first on Janet Leigh.

My Scot: Let’s move.

Me: Why? I like where we live.

My Scot: I want to live on the lake. I want to wake up and see the water.

Me: The only lake within driving distance to the office doesn’t have any new builds in our price range.

My Scot: We can buy an old house and remodel it.

Me: Can I take an extra day off work to focus on my writing?

My Scot: Yes.

Me: Done

And that’s how my life got turned upside down!


















Chip Gaines eat your heart out!

Currently we’ve purchased an older home on the lake and plan to strip it down to the studs, add a room and move a staircase.  If our pocketbook allows, we’ll add a pool (for me) and a dock (for my Scot) Sorry honey, there will be no trips to Scotland to visit the fam. in our immediate future. This wee lass has her hands full.  I’ve posted a few pics of the start of the demo. My mom brought champagne because what’s a Demo Day without a little bubbly?

Cheers!

Stay tuned for more pics from our Fixer Upper Adventure. 

Forever Crazy,Janet Leigh

My moaning for this Monday is huge. I’m moving. Enough said, right? I’ve lived in my house for twenty-one years this May. It’s the only home my youngest daughter has ever known and the only home my son remembers-so it’s bittersweet. My Scot says we need to downsize. I’m ready. Maybe. He wants to live on a lake. I’m a cement pond sort of gal. He wants to fish. I’m scared of snakes, but I’m willing to leave my beloved house behind for a promise of sipping coffee with him on the back deck while watching the sunrise each morning.
Below is my favorite pic of our family home as we pack up the memories and say good-bye. I’ll post pictures of the new house once we begin the remodel. Yes, I said it remodel. Lord, help me. And just because I live in Texas doesn’t mean I can whip a house into shape like Chip and Joanna Gains. I know in my journey ahead there will be tears, there will be arguments, there will be stiff and sore backs, but the smell of coffee on an early summer morning with my guy will make it all worthwhile.

On to the movie. My choice this month was Little Women, the film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel written in 1868. Little Women was one of the first novels I read as a young girl, and I adored it. In fact, I wanted to be Jo when I grew up. My sister jokes I always planned on being the rich aunt who stopped by for rare visits to my sister and her five children. Funny how things turned out differently than planned, and I think they turned out different than Alcott herself planned for Jo March.

The movie follows the March sisters as they grow up in Civil War-era New England. The film doesn’t follow the linear style like in the Alcott novel but contains flashbacks to the girl’s younger days. I like the way filmmaker Greta Gerwig keeps the audience engaged while learning the story of the four girls.

The casting for this movie was spot on. Emma Watson plays the kind and patient, Meg. I loved her in Harry Potter, and I love her in this one as well. Saoirse Ronan is the perfect smart and fierce Jo, Florence Pugh gives the new take on the spoiled Amy an empathetic new life, and as Beth, Eliza Scanlen will grab your heart. Rounding out the cast is Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, and Meryl Streep as Aunt March. 

Streep (Also one of my fav’s) does a fantastic job channeling Downton Abby’s Violet Crawley in her deliciously wicked portrayal of the wealthy Aunt March.

I cringed at the scene where Jo lays her handwritten manuscript page by page across the floor in her room. I honestly don’t know if I could write without a computer, MS Word, thesaurus, and dictionary. Oh, how spoiled I am and how I admire those that have come before me.

We get to see Jo in New York trying to sell her manuscript, Amy in Paris learning to paint, and Meg struggling with her choice of love over money. The scenery is breathtaking, and I added skating on a frozen pond among snow-covered trees to my bucket list. 

Gerwig does a fantastic job bringing the feminist undertones of the novel to the forefront and allowing the audience to understand the challenges of domestic life. I highly recommend you see this movie with your mother, daughter, daughter-in-law. I did, and it was a truly heartwarming experience.

Have a wonderful week. Forever Crazy,Janet Leigh

By Original uploader was Hlj (Hal Jespersen) at en.wikipedia - Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Panoramic photographs: LC-USZ62-40269, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

Naturally, when I read the stories of the men and women who fought at Gettysburg, there were many heroic deeds and brave acts that took place. The one that made me smile was a retelling of the courier of General Hood, who took up arms in the battle at Devil’s Den.  I’ve seen his name spelled many ways, Wilson J. Barbee, William Barbie, Willie Barbie. I’m going with what the author wrote in the quote below. Please forgive if I got it wrong.

The battle of Devil’s Den took place on the second day of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg.  A young courier for General Hood, Willie Barbie, of the 1st Texas came upon his fellow Texans fighting an uphill battle against the Union army. The soldiers considered the battle a loss until Barbie did what any crazy Texan would do…

“The Texan’s advanced through thunderous shelling by Union artillery.  There was no wind that day, and the Devil’s Den looked like a volcano, the smoke belching from the guns of the Federal battery on top of the hill.  As the 1st Texas moved up the hill, fighting was intense.

William J. Barbie, one of Hood’s scouts, came riding to the front of the line.  Suddenly, his horse was shot.  Barbie leaped down, and without missing a step, scrambled up one of the boulders.  He looked at the Yanks on the top of the hill and commenced shouting.  His words were – well, unpleasant, such that I cannot repeat here.

Perhaps this did not create sufficient effect, so Barbie had the wounded Texans below start tossing up their rifles.  Calmly standing on top of the boulder, Barbie fired up the hill.  One Texan related that the scout fired 25 times.  The fellows below were reloading the guns, so this was going efficiently.

Nonetheless, Barbie was totally exposed to the fire of the Federals.  Finally, he took one in the leg, and toppled off the boulder.  He was a Texan, so he climbed back up, where he resumed firing.  (I imagine he shouted a few more choice comments, but history does not tell us whether he did or what he might have said.)

The hail of Union bullets continued, and another one clipped Barbie in the leg.  Down he went.  But Texans are hard to kill, so he clambered back up the rock.

Barbie renewed firing until another mini ball stuck him, this time in the chest.  He tumbled off the rock, but could not get back up on his own.  Out of the fight with the Yanks, Barbie cursed his fellow Texans for not helping him back onto the boulder.

This was definitely a man who would have shot craps with the devil himself. “

From Stories of Confederate Soldiers https://confederate.ultimateflags.com...

I loved this story, and if I could go back in time, this is one guy I’d like to meet.  Forever Crazy,Janet Leigh

When I took a poll from my readers about where they would like to see Jennifer Cloud time travel in the next book, the American Civil War was a strong front runner. Ok, I thought. I can do the Civil War. Visions of Margaret Mitchell’s Rhett Butler and Scarlet O’Hara swam in my head. How fun for Jen to be a Southern Belle?

As I began to research and write a few chapters, just to get my fingers wet, I found Jen in the midst of intense battles and under the leadership of great generals. Accepting my denial, I succumbed she was destined to go to war, not sit on the sidelines sipping punch and pining for the men lost. She’s just that kind of gal.

Now the challenge lies in how to weave my lighthearted writing into the horror of war. A challenge indeed, but like Jennifer Cloud, I’m up for it. It’s taking me a bit longer due to family illnesses, research, and finding my voice, but the editing process has begun. I’m hoping to release before the year ends.
Aside from the writing, I wanted to share stories from the Civil War with you. Some funny, some not. To begin, I wanted to note a few stats and ground you in the famous battles over states’ rights because that’s where it began. It didn’t start over slavery, but it ended there.

Many great leaders political and military served both sides of the war. President Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee, General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, and Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, to name a few.

The record books guesstimate about 620,000 Americans died in the conflict, with more than half of those dying off the battlefield from disease or festering wounds, but in December 2011, historian J David Hacker published a paper that used demographic methods and sophisticated statistical software to study newly digitized US census records from 1850 to 1880. Add this to the casualties, people lost through death, wounds, injury, sickness, internment, capture, or through being missing in action, and the number rises to an estimated 1.5 million. That’s the size of a small country lost in one war.

Since I like to write tongue in cheek humor, I’ll try to give you stories of bravery that also have a little bit of fun in them. Stay tuned for future posts and the release of book five in the Jennifer Cloud Series.

Where I found the information:

https://www.battlefields.org

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17604991

The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote

Forever Crazy,

Janet Leigh