The Many hats I wear...

Photo by Patrisha McLean. I am a writer. I am also a wife and mother... and grandmother. Hey wait, if I type long enough here the tones may go off and I will be off to another fire call. I am a paid, call FF for the town of Camden Maine. I am on call 24/7 unless I decide to turn off my pager which is not very often. It usually only happens if some of us decide within the department to go out and relax for the night or I am having a special occasion at home. It is very hard to not respond though. It can be in the middle of the day while I am writing or in the middle of the night. No,I don't sleep at the station. I am home, snug in my bed . The tones go off and up I come off my bed. After getting back from Cambodia the 13th, things were quiet and I got back on my feet. This week it's been a lot busier for sure which is fine by me. It's like being a race horse at the starting gate, just waiting to be let go, waiting for the sound of the gun to leap forward. We wait sometimes and wait and then go about our business and when we least expect it the call comes. I have been getting my office organized to some degree since my return. But it's still too wicked cold out there to use. So I will use my bed, I spread all my papers and research books out and continue to work up here. I have a manuscript back from the editor and I need to get working on that. Plus I am organizing my 2nd book of the series of The Kings of Angkor. On a side note. This last Wednesday while waiting for my nine year old son to get out of school, I saw one of the teachers there at the school. I had given her for her birthday one of my books. She wanted to know when the next one was coming out because she loved the first one. She had also given the book to her friend to read. I love hearing this. Word of mouth, building a foundation of future readers who will buy books by me. That was a good shot in the arm! So until the tones go off I will write. Enjoy your day!

Researching and traveling back in time

This post will be a bit about what I learned or remembered on my recent trip to Cambodia. It will also be about how I was affected by my trip to Angkor Wat. It was true I basically got no research done really while there BUT I tried to absorb anything and everything I came in contact with. I tried to capture everything on film. I have hundreds of photos that my daughter Megan and I shot in tandem. Photos that now for the most part I have uploaded to my facebook account I will now start pouring over to find certain photos that depict life of the time of Angkor but also of my Royal Family that I have written about and will be in the future. Well now with my cup of tea, two cats and a Chihuahua as my company I can sit and write. As I write Echo, the Boxer paces just outside of my room, my temporary office. I have myself plugged into Imagine Dragons and "It's Time". Sometimes I have to plug myself in. With boys gaming and Daniel now watching "Wizard's of Waverly Place" I need to have music. This is also one of my rowing songs. Well back to my hunt for my queens, Queen Jayarajadevi and Indradevi , the two sister queens and their beloved husband King Jayavarman VII. It wasn't until about his 60th year that he became King. I'm not sure how old they were, they are always presented as very youthful. He was king for about 38 years. When I wrote about them I had Nurung who would later become Jayavarman at about 40. Also I had him husband of one wife because it's hard for me to think about any man dividing his love between two women much less all the women they had in their lives.I have one of the queens , his aunt. It's easier for me to think that way. When I traveled to Cambodia there are things that I learned or remembered really fast. Traffic is still wicked crazy and it still amazes me that there aren't more accidents. I was telling my safety officer at the Fire Department how certain things would have given him a fit to see. I had to hope each time I rode in a tuk-tuk that the speeding cars that were coming towards us as we crossed traffic would stop or swerve. I would not get back on the back of a motor cycle though... well I almost did, told my daughter Megan that I needed to get to the bank on my last morning and would have resorted to it but was able to get a ride... When it's hot you should drink,drink,drink BUT if you are up in Siem Reap and at the temples and drinking to keep cool well it's not like there are porta potties all over. Well there may have been BUT if you know me I am not going to use a public bathroom unless it's an emergency... The few we found , one had a western style toilet. Second day it was more of a traditional one. It was clean and I managed. Meg was a good sport. She eats Khmer food every day at home, it's a lot cheaper then eating western food. I know, I spent a bit just buying milk, jam, bread and cookies to keep the kids and I in snacks while I stayed with them BUT for meals we ate Khmer which made me very happy. So when we got up to Siem Reap, how did we eat? Meg told her friend "I've been eating Khmer at each meal..." Thank you Meg! You are a sweetie and a good sport.Some of the places we ate at were roadside places for tourist so even though they had simple food, they charged tourist prices... So Meg and I made sure we drank our own water or tea we had brought with us. If I did by a fruit smoothie chances are it was made with bad ice so I took charcoal to hopefully prevent any kind of problems later. I didn't have any problems. Where ever you go you are going to find obnoxious people or tourist. You see it here in our town of Camden Maine along with the good ones. The first night we were in Siem Reap ,Chinese tourist,a large group of young ones, not the best example of their countrymen were at this restaurant. They had a few drinks already under their belt by the time we were seated, that was obvious. The wait staff were young and very timid. The large group when we got there were already full of themselves and as the night wore on they became worse to the point I was about to get up and ducktape their mouths or something. A French couple next to Megan and I kept looking over, eyebrows raised at the way this group would yell with an attitude to the poor waitresses. It finally got to the point that when one yelled "Waiter, you come here, NOW!" I turned as I stood and said. "Stop it now, they are busy!" Meg and I found that certain groups of tourist at the temples were loud, really obnoxious and very rude. At one point when we arrived early in the morning at Preah Khan. It was quiet and then a small busload of them arrived and all you could hear was them. Meg said "RUN!!!" We managed to keep a few steps ahead of them at that temple and fortunately the tour guide we hired kept us way ahead of them. Once at Angkor, The Bayon, Preah Khan Meg and I took photo after photo. I have yet to digest everything. It's too immense. I will be going through all those photos later day after day with a fine tooth comb... kinda like when going through with my boarding pass to board the last flight from Taiwan to the US and I got pulled aside for a random baggage check... I guess certain swear words are the same the world over. When I said under my breath "You can't be fu***** serious..." after the agent was picking everything and I mean everything apart... Turning everything on and going into everything, every nook and freaking cranny. The agent in Taiwan knew just what I was saying. Just like when outside Angkor Wat on the last afternoon when myself and some Italian or Spanish tourist were taking photos of one of their own and I was making a video. Well all of a sudden I said "ant" in Khmer, shut off my ipad and start dropping the "F Bomb" with fluency as the little buggers bit my foot. That brought quite the smile to one of the gentlemen in their group. I had a two fold reason for going to Cambodia and now having been there I have a better idea how much it will cost so I can save for my next trip. Living there in the past and being a tourist are two different things. This trip was like an introduction. Yes, I had lived there but when I went to Angkor Wat and the other temples there was far too much to see and absorb. Like Kent Davis said to me, 'you will not be doing any research, it's going to be take photos, see and try to absorb BUT you will get a lot more done when you get home'. That is so true. Now I know that when I go back, there will be certain things to see and study and to photograph. I tried to capture certain things. Some I did, some didn't come out so good because of the lack of light. Somethings without knowing or not certain of what I was seeing I took shots of, maybe not the best BUT now seeing them I remember how I felt when I stood in front of them. I was in awe of standing in front of the King I wrote about in my simple and humble way. I fell in love with him and his queens. He is to this day still spoken of with reverence for who he was and what he did for his country and people. It's amazing that a country that has gone through what it has the people still remember him. That is a very good testament indeed. Thankfully my friend Monica Hall dug up an article all on her own for me and sent it to me so when I woke up on the morning of when I was going to Preah Khan it was there waiting for me. Here is the address to the photographer who wrote the article and a book on this subject. I had read the article back when it came out thanks to Kent Davis. www.phalikan.com So Now I am going to introduce you to some of the photos that are of the Queens Jayarajadevi and her younger sister Indradevi. Also bas reliefs of the royal triad, King Jayavarman VII and his two queens.

Inside The Mind Of Wenona: Mary Moriarty-Amazing Woman, Firefighter, and Auth...

Inside The Mind Of Wenona: Mary Moriarty-Amazing Woman, Firefighter, and Auth...: Hello, my name is Mary Moriarty, author of The Kings of Angkor: Army of a Thousand Elephants which was published this June. As you can...

My trip

Well since I have been back now a few days and finally I think I am over the jetlag... pretty much back to my regular schedule or sorts. Early to bed, early to rise... This morning though I was up at 3AM... not because I was still on Cambodia time but because my 16 year old son was up and gaming... "I can't sleep" says he. Me: "Well you woke me up so now I am disconnecting you..." You see he is my night owl and also is homeschooling again so his normal time for getting up is 10AM now that he is being homeschooled... We are adjusting that by an hour starting next week. Rome wasn't built in a day and getting me and my son back to a working schedule is taking a few days. Since returning I have been fighting to stay awake so to get back on Maine time what better way then stay on my feet and tear the house apart. So I have been doing a mid-winter clean. I have been moving all my books, whether they be for pleasure reading or research books down to the front room in the old barn. When I bought this house back in 2007 there were two rooms attached to the main house. The back room was finished, but no basement. Just like a camp, all open underneath. The front room was dirt floor and you could see gaps in the wall. It was a typical, shed/barn. Well my cousin Will and I turned it into another room with the help of a carpenter friend of his. It's still open under but we have a lot more insulation there and in the walls. It's still a 3 season rooms though. I am hoping to get a pellet stove for next winter season so then I can have it for four seasons. So the majority of my books are out there, now all I need is to build a desk/counter to fit me. and lots of shelves for books. I want the wall in front of me with some kind of cork material or something that I can pin things up that I have that help me with the story line as I write. Also with moving all my books helps me to organize all my books for writing the second book in The Kings of Angkor series. There is a ton of info that I have been finding with moving this mountain of books. It dawned on me that I am missing a book so today, hunt for that book. What brought it to mind was the photos that I was uploading to my facebook page. Just arriving at Angkor Wat you realize very quickly at the amazing size, the overwhelming size, scope of this truly beautiful temple. It is to this day the largest religious structure in the world. It's not because of Angkor Wat proper as I call it but because of all the temples in the temple complex and park. When shown from space from NASA cameras and you put NYC/ Manhattan in the middle, it even dwarfs that city. That might seem hard to imagine but it's true. National Geographic did a piece on it. I will have to find it again. Well anyway within minutes of arriving at Angkor Wat on the first afternoon I could have spent hours in just the protective wall that surrounds the temple. I apologized to my daughter Meg for taking so long BUT I was in awe of what I was seeing. Then get me to the main temple that Suryavarman II built and oh my word. I started to find Apsaras all over the place. Here is a link to the book of mine that is missing. This young French woman was able to draw and record these wonderful Apsaras in the various forms. Since being there you can see some are simular but you also find that many were like stoping for just a moment from their duties to pose. You see the playfulness in their faces and the way they pose with one another. Like others I firmly believe these women were real and were part of vibrant life that existed at Angkor Wat. http://www.devata.org/2009/02/review-costumes-and-ornaments-after-the-devata-of-angkor-wat-by-sappho-marchal/ So if you say as you look at my photos that are on my regular facebook page under Mary Carver, oh, no not another one of those Apsaras... you would have to been in my shoes(sandals) and to arrive there and to be able to finally see these girls that I have read, studied and dreamed about for the last few years. I was on a quest to record as many as I could find. There were specific things I was looking for and wanted to see while there. Angkor Wat, the Bayon which was built by Jayavarman VII and Preah Khan which is part of Angkor Thom. The Bayon is part of Angkor Thom also and Preah Khan was another temple that was part of that complex. It was built by Jayavarman VII as a temple dedicated to his father, a former King. I visited his stupa where his ashes were at one point. BUT the most important place at Preah Khan for me was to visit Jayavarman's queens, little shrines built in honor of the women who were sisters and married to Jayavarman VII. Who helped him rule the vast empire of ancient Cambodia.

A Guest blog with Wenona Hulsey

As a writer sometimes I find myself stopping and taking stock of my life. When I look back to those confusing and sometimes dark days of my teen years I'm proud of who I've became. I remember being a 14 year old girl who spent her day high up an Oak tree in my front yard with a book. I would stretch out on a swaying limb for hours reading and day dreaming about writing my own magical adventures. I imagined what it would be like to someday have someone be inspired to write after reading my words. To have the world say, "Wow! That came out of that shy little southern girl from a town with one red light?" But that seemed like it would only ever be a fantasy for me as my path in life pulled me farther and farther from my love of reading and writing. Life moved so fast for me. In a blink of an eye I was wearing the shimmering "Class of '96" tassel of a high school grad at almost the same time I donned the role of wife and mother. Then fast-forward fifteen years to a woman who was the divorced mother of two with a dead-end job and no more dreams for herself. I was stuck, living in a rut, and I felt like outside of being a mom to my beautiful children, I wasn't grabbing onto the point of life. I worked, I came home, I cleaned and spent time with my kids then I would do the same exact thing the next day. Life seemed perpetual and static for me. There was an empty hole in my life that had appeared years ago and I didn't know how to fill it. But, like all great dreams, that childhood fantasy of mine slowly crept back into my head and rolled around and around. Eventually I said, "Why the heck can't I write a book? Am I any less worthy than the next person with a dream?" And now, as I write this post, I have my fourth book open in a separate document just waiting for me to write the next chapter. Every day I march to work, I come home, I clean and spend time with my wonderful family, and then…I write. I write because it makes me happy—because creating my own magical worlds makes my soul happy and I write because I deserve to make my dreams a reality. If I could leave you all with one word of advice I would say "Don't let life pass you by. You deserve to have your heart's desire. Dreams are meant to be goals for your life so go out there and live your dream." I'd love to hear from you! Are you living your dream? What's holding you back? Leave your thoughts in a comment below or connect with me out in the social world. If you want more info on where to find my works all the buy links and the reading order to my Blood Burden Series can be found in one place on my website by using this link: http://www.wenonahulsey.com/2012/11/answers-to-all-your-blood-burden-series.html BIO Author Wenona Hulsey spends her time scaling roof tops, kicking bad guy tail and rescuing small kittens from tree tops. But during the time when she isn’t asleep, she’s a mother of two beautiful children and works a full time day job. She lives vicariously through great stories and writes epic fantasy/paranormal romance books in her spare time. She is also an avid social networker, who loves to meet new people. You can friend her on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/WenonaHulsey, like her on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/WenonaHulseyAuthor or follow along on her Blog http://www.wenonahulsey.com/. Wenona Hulsey Author, Contemporary Romance & Epic Fantasy http://www.wenonahulsey.com/ http://twitter.com/#!/wenonahulsey http://www.facebook.com/WenonaHulseyAuthor

http://www.wenonahulsey.com/ http://twitter.com/#!/wenonahulsey http://www.facebook.com/WenonaHulseyAuthor I want to thank Wenona for sharing about herself. Please check out her work and share.

Tuk-Tuk ride

My daughter got home we had a birthday party for her helper Day. Then we took the kids swimming in the pool down stairs. It was good, help work off some of that sugar that they consumed from the cake. Then I went with them when they left to go to school. Day goes to college and the kids go to Elementary and K1&K2. So I tell Day. "Have the Tuk-Tuk drop you all off first then I can go to the waterfront..." We cross the Japanese bridge and I double check with her by asking her again "first we go to drop you and the kids off?" "Yup." We go around the circle and head towards the waterfront... I tell Day, "No, we go drop you off fist cause I want to keep the Tuk-tuk driver for a while and that way he knows where to bring me and I don't have to dicker or argue over location and price... (All done in Khmer) So she tells the driver... we have to then go under the bridge and reverse our direction. We drop off first her and Rheaj and then we head to the little ones school. Drop them off. So then I am alone with my Tuk-tuk driver. I ask him to now to take me to the waterfront and does he know the FCC? "yes" Good :-) This is all done talking in Khmer. We took our time and I finally got there after a relaxing ride. He said he would wait and I went to the cafe to relax and take in the scenery. Not so much the physical scenery BUT people watch. I enjoy that as much as anything He brought me back after double checking to see if I wanted to go anywhere else, like the markets. So now I need to pack. I will have to see what should go where and bubble wrap the fragile items. I had visions of going back with my small suitcase inside the big one... won't be happening.

Last full day in Cambodia

Well I arrived here on the 28th of Dec. Started the New Year of 2013, went to Siem Reap and visited the temples of Angkor Wat. It was truly an amazing trip. Meg had been there two times before and she still hadn't see things that we saw when we went. For the temples that I wanted to see we got a lot done. I had wanted to get up to Preah Vihear BUT that will have to wait till next time. There was another one I wanted to see BUT the most important ones I saw and explored. I saw my queens, walked where they and Jayavarman VII walked. I talked with locals. It's amazing how even my simple Khmer, because I never spoke like my kids. I could and can understand most but was never rapid fire like the older kids. Well I started up a conversation with the old Nun who was at Preah Khan. She is in photos of some of my Cambodian friends. I took some photos of her too while I sat down and talked with her for a few minutes. She was burning incense at the stupa of Jayavarman's father a former King. Then I taked with two older men. One had been Megan's guide on her last visit. They had been impressed that I had come so far to see their country and try to find the little shrines of those queens who ruled with Jayavarman VII. The air is cool as I sit here. In the afternoon this side gets the sun and it's really hot. So I am enjoying the time of coolness. It's not exactly quiet though. Horns blow, I can see in the distance a small pickup truck overloaded with people. Work is being done on a building just down the small alley. Someone down the street is working with a sledge hammer and an air compressor for something is putt-putting. An Ambulance's siren is wailing as it travels down the road. New Year's eve as Megan, Mel and I came back from going out for drinks and dinner an ambulance passed us, siren wailing in the night with it's lights flashing. We had full view of the dramma unfolding as the attendant was performing CPR. I wonder if that person made it? Well I will close. I hope the few post I have put up here you have enjoyed. As I have said with the internet being what it was it should be easier to get photos uploaded once I am home...