PCWNC Book Club, PCWNC Board Meeting

Wednesday, June 8, 2011
As you can see, I'm way behind in communicating with you. By way of excuse, I really have been concentrating on my next book, "Cherokee Adventures" Book 2: Fort Gibson At Last. This is the second in a series of 3 books written for young people about Cherokee Indians, loosely based on the lives of my great-great grandparents. My goal is to publish this second in the series in August so I'm under the hammer to complete it. Historical fiction takes a lot of time to accomplish because of all the research that must be done to make the novel credible. I spend my time at my computer with a dictionary, a thesaurus and Google on call as I write. On Monday and Wednesday evenings I am taking one hour online classes learning the Cherokee language through the Cherokee Nation educational web site. This is helping me because I use a number of Cherokee expressions in this series of books and I want them to be correct.

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Thursday, May 12, 2011, the PCWNC Book Club met in the home of Mary Ellen Astidillo. It was a fantastic experience because the only way to describe her home is "doll house". She has combined antiques, various other furniture eras and items she found in her travels to make an absolutely beautifully decorated home. We reviewed the book, "Gay as a Grig" by Ellen Bowie Holland, who was an early settler in the Weatherford area. She had an interesting outlook on life and terrifically interesting descriptions of many things, people and situations. Mary Ellen suggested, when we chose the book, that we pay particular attention to Ms. Holland's descriptive phrases and this led to an even more interesting reading experience.

Mary Ellen Astudillo greeting Becky Tripp

Opal Dale and Carla Kerr

Polly McLean with Mary Ellen (Polly says we always catch her with her mouth open)

This closet is actually a life size doll house

When we arrived, she took us on a tour. She inherited many antiques from relatives, has traveled extensively, lived in other countries and has managed to mingle all the items she found along the way with the antiques to create a beautiful home. It was a grand experience for all of us.


She served ice cream sodas, cookies and various other goodies in her formal dining area. We had our choice of flavors and she created the ice cream sodas on the spot. Yum! Yum! What a treat! Afterward, we gathered in the living room to discuss the book. She took photos of relatives out of antique frames and placed photos of the characters in the book in them for us to view. This all added to the ambiance of the occasion.

Doug Kerr came by for a short time just to photograph all of us with Mary Ellen as well as her beautiful home. It was one of the best book club meetings we can remember having!

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May 19, 2011 the PCWNC Board Meeting was held in the home of Patti Lankford. Here are a couple of random shots in her beautifully landscaped backyard. Patti is a Master Gardener and it shows.

This is all I have to say for now.