Lessons Learned from the Men I Have Loved & a Few I Loathe

There are good men and bad men out there. I have loved and learned from both. The most important lesson I learned is that a man should be judged by the way he makes you feel, not by the way he looks, the size of his bank account, his hands, or his feet.

After you’ve read Lessons Learned, perhaps you will understand why I tend to shy away from rich, powerful men who treat women like trophies on their arms, or the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks, neither of which I am content to be. Give me a blue-collar worker that treats me like the queen of his universe, please!

As for you, my dear readers, go forth and strive to make your mate, your partner, your lover, your spouse, or your child feel like the most remarkable person on the planet, and they will respond ten-fold. If you have not as yet found that absolute match, that perfect person, your soulmate (I know it seems cliché but believe me, soulmates do exist; I know, I found mine), perhaps my lessons will help you find him or her before your time on this amazing Earth runs out.

But most importantly, I hope you learn to be good to yourself.

Look on the bright side.

Love like there is no tomorrow.

Make your dream a reality.

Write that book.

Run that marathon.

Eat that cake. (Sorry, that was for me, there’s some in the fridge).

Let Me Tell You a Story

Storytelling has been an art and form of entertainment for many cultures for thousands of years. Every family has their special stories. In this way culture is created and passed down to future generations. The stories in this collection represent five generations of our family. Our family would sit around a dinner table or a campfire and tell and retell these stories from the past. Our family loved the sharing of humor through this special communication. In this way we also shared each other’s lives. My family has asked that I record these so that they will be passed on to future generations so that they might enjoy them as well. All of the stories elicit laughter because of the humor. The stories are organized around themes. The one thing that is constant about the stories is that they are all “true stories”.

Life of the Party Girl

Life of the Party Girl is a raw and inspiring debut memoir of a top wedding planner reflecting on the moments that define us as human beings, both the traumatic and fantastic.

The author and subject, Megan Estrada, isn’t your typical wedding planner. She is tattooed, assertive, stylish, and doesn’t take no for an answer. She is reflective and decisive, in bringing a fresh and unique perspective to the special events industry. Estrada is a trailblazer in the event industry and harnesses her past experiences to create momentous occasions.

Before Megan Estrada became a nationally recognized wedding and event planner, she spent forty-years navigating a life of unexpected circumstances, one that was dictated by a twisted series of trauma and celebration. From enduring a school shooting, an unsuccessful suicide attempt, and a difficult marriage, to landing a record deal, becoming a mother of two, and leading the special events industry through the Covid-19 pandemic, Life of the Party Girl follows Estrada’s journey to self-worth and self-discovery.

Like a Lotus

Veronica seemed to have what so many strive for: a good home, a wonderful fiancé, a well-paying job. But none of that gave her the purpose and joy she longed for. So in 2013, she began a journey of self discovery, adventure, and freedom.

Running a guesthouse in dusty and blissful Cambodia; climbing to mountain peaks in Indonesia and Nepal; even getting lost in the depths of Chinese countryside, she learned that the path you choose to follow doesn’t have to be the one laid out in front of you.

Lillian: A True Story of Multiple Personality Disorder

For most of us, the varied parts of our personalities are woven together and unified by our memories. But what happens when we have no memories? What happens when the components of memory (facts, feelings, and body states) are split apart and no longer relate to each other?

When this story began more than 40 years ago, doctors and psychiatrists were mystified by patients with more than one personality. The diagnosis at the time was Multiple Personality Disorder. Lillian was afflicted with this condition owing to severe abuse during her childhood. Her mind held each trauma separately. Each personality took over her body, developing a life and personality of its own.

Lillian’s aunt, Jean, became friends with 22 personalities. She played hide and seek with four-year-old Mary, taught five-year-old Amy to write, shopped for undergarments with Robin Jean, and communicated endlessly with each of the others. In the process, each personality revealed its beginnings. Over time, each personality revealed its own memories of their trauma and eventually became integrated.

This is an exquisite and beautifully written story of poverty, transgenerational abuse, mental illness, and the healing power of love, science, and spirituality.

As one reader puts it: “You will laugh, cry, turn away and come back again to its compelling truth.”

Lost and Found Me

Do you always feel something is "not right" about your relationship, while at the same time you are not sure what is really not right, and it's hard to describe to anyone else? Do you always feel that you are not being appreciated no matter how much you contribute to your relationship? Do you always feel that you just cannot get it right no matter what you try? Lost and Found Me will share with you real-life experiences from real people and will: * help you understand you are not alone, * help you recognize and acknowledge what is going on in your life experiences, * help you take back your personal power, * help you make a positive change in your life experience, * help you focus the right energy on the right person, * help you realize life is all about decision-making, * guide you on how to walk toward the light.

Love at the End of the World

After thirty-five years of quiet acceptance, Tonia Rotkopf Blair returned to Poland and confronted the Holocaust. Growing into an outspoken survivor, she began to write precise, poignant stories. Some concerned her childhood or traveling halfway around the world, or New York City, where she raised a family and attended the renown Columbia University. But all grappled with memories, dreams, and the Holocaust, many taking us into its depths, notably the three weeks she endured in Auschwitz.
What makes Rotkopf Blair’s perspective unique is that, while working as a nurse in the Lodz ghetto or enduring the concentration camps, she remained very much a romantic young woman. As history’s most murderous war raged around her, she practiced love and kindness, and was sustained by encounters with decent people—including some Germans. So fresh are her views on these fraught subjects, Love at the End of the World includes an essay by her son, which teases those issues out by examining Darwin’s theory of evolution, revising it from “survival of the fittest” to “survival of the ‘lovingest.’”

Lyco Art

In Paul Hartal’s Lyco Art, the act of creation inexorably interweaves the logic of passion with the passion of logic through the voyage of consciousness.

Paul Hartal, the originator of lyco art, or lyrical conceptualism, presents a stimulating and meaningful panorama of a new element on the periodic table of art. This book is a significant contribution to the development of contemporary art and the history of ideas.

Similar to his approach to poetry, Paul Hartal’s vision of paintings (views) identifies the heart of art as the art of the heart: Love is the most important journey of life and its final destination. We come to this world through love in order to love and to be loved.

Mamma and Me

Through the lives, history, and poetry of two extraordinary women, Mamma and Me: Our Poetry, Our Lives reveals African-American thought, culture, and progress from the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 to the 21st century.

Vesta Coleman was a teacher and a chaplain, poet laureate of Anniston, Alabama; Sunday School teacher and pianist; celebrated orator; oratorical contest trainer; mentor; and respected community leader.

Elizabeth Emily Coleman, her daughter, is an ordained Minister of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church, USA, has earned Master of Divinity and Master of Theology degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, and has traveled the world.

The lives and writings of these two women span over a century of history. Their writing is musical, revealing, and resonates just as closely with a modern audience as they did when they were written.

March Forth in Love

Do you believe…you don’t know what you don’t know? What if I told you the last harvest predicted by thousands of scientists was to be 2080, would you believe me? Would you believe today it is a scientific observational truth that the last harvest is 2080? Do you know what that means? It means that we will no longer be able to grow any crops because our soil will be dead. It also means that every single one of our future grandchildren’s lives will end in starvation by the time they are forty years young. The smartest men I have ever met in business have told me: “Terri…never underestimate how much money in marketing it takes to change human behavior.” In 2020, Mother Nature managed to change human behavior worldwide by creating the coronavirus. Mother Nature aka GOD will continue to change our behavior because our lives depend on it. Our future depends on humanity changing its selfish behavior. In order to survive the morass we have found ourselves in, we must ‘march forth in love.’

Meant for Each Other

In the ’30s and ’40s, and throughout the ’80s, our country depended on news sources with no political spin. Without social media, people spoke face-to-face or by telephone. These were kinder times when the values of honesty and integrity were expected. WWII was soon followed by the Korean and Vietnam wars and, with Selective Service, all eligible males were subject to serving. Running concurrently with these “hot” wars was the long Cold War, which affected millions of Americans and our loyal allies. The world seemed to be teetering on the brink of a devastating nuclear war. Former enemies became our trusted allies, and our Western allies remained close. Life became less localized, and people who never expected to travel beyond a few states were suddenly seeing the world. Times were rapidly changing, and the simple life was fast fading.

One thing did not change however—people still found ways to meet and fall in love.

In this entertaining story spanning eighty years, two people, in countries separated by 4,000 miles of land and ocean, could never have imagined God’s plan for the series of seemingly random events in their lives that would someday bring them together. They would meet, fall in love, and together overcome obstacles and share a life of growing faith and continuous adventure.

Memoirs of a Lost Child

While wetting the bed was normal for the other five-years-olds, my experience almost cost me my life. I was sleeping soundly at about 2:00 am when my foster sister began shouting, “Momma, she wet the bed!” In seconds, my foster mother stormed downstairs only to yank me out the bed. She was screaming at me to take off the sheets and put them in a tub of water to wash. I was exhausted and terrified. All I knew was I had to do what she said no matter how frightened I was. I pushed the sheets into the water, again and again, still half-asleep. I felt a firm grip on the back of my head, and in seconds she was thrashing my head in and out of the water like I did the sheets only moments ago. I had barely enough time to get a breath in. All I could hear was the splash of water and my foster mother yelling the words, “You will never pee in the bed again!” I truly thought I was going to die then, but like any other five-year-old, I was told to go back to bed afterward.