author - journalist - mom - nana - Irish gal with attitude
As I walked to hotel hosting the festival, I noticed a bit of a commotion at a park along the way. An iron gate surrounding the fence appeared to be covered in cowboy hats and American flags. I found it curious, but thought perhaps it was some kind of local fair.
A few blocks further and I began encountering streams of people, walking towards me, many of them wearing western style clothing and cowboy hats.
Then the light dawned....today was the last Garth Brooks Concert in Ireland.
Read moreWhen I woke up this morning, I haflway thought about spening part of the day sightseeing. Then some client work popped up. My author’s conscience reminded me it had been a year since i’d spoken about Beauty & Grace, so I might want to brush up. And there was my concern about the unfinished draft of my presentation for Saturday at the International Dublin Writrers’ Festival.
The next thing I knew, it was 4 pm and I was still in my pj’s, writing away.
Read moreAt this point I should probably pause and mention that I love clothes and fashion, so much so that during this trip I had hoped to find time to wander through the epicenter of Dublin fashion—-Grafton Street.
Read moreAlready so many stories to tell. Where to start? How about with my home away from home for the next week.
Read moreToday is my wedding anniverary…52 years.
We only made it to year 25!
As I sit in the Toronto airport at the beginning of my Dublin Writers’ Festival adventure, I find myself ponderimg the coincidence of these two seminal life experiences beginning on the same date..
Read moreFrom my earliest memories I have loved to talk. The Irish call it, "The Gift of Gab."
Read moreI am a baseball fan.
I wasn't born this way I was converted at the tender age of 12 by my Virginia cousin, Dave.
Yep. That's the two of us in this photo, in all of our gawky teenage splendor, playing ball in the backyard at his family's home in Radford.
Read moreDear Harry,
It’s been a while since you and I connected. Forty eight years ago this July 18th, to be exact.
Read more
My mother was a twin born on Christmas Day 1926.
She lived for 72 years, 2 months, and 78 days which, for her generation, was a pretty good age.
These days however, people claim that 70 is the new 50. And by those standards mom left us too soon.
I’ve spent time meandering through these thoughts recently, as in three days I will celebrate my 70th birthday. Amid my ponderings one question has continually kept popping into my mind. "I wonder if I will outlive my mother?"
My wondering was not in a morbid sense. I’m not disturbed by hitting this new decade. I actually feel more positive about life now than I did at 50, and particularly at 60.
I’m in relatively good health, I’m blessed with Irish genetics of hair that's still the original color and skin that resists wrinkles. Sure, I’ve got some sags and bags and can’t remember stuff until I give up trying, but I do my best not to let advancing changes in my body and mind define me.
Instead, I chose joy.
Joy that I live in a home where I am safe and where I can create a space that comforts my being and inspires my creativity.
Joy: that despite starting at the late age of 45, I have been able to build a successful career founded on a variety of jobs as a restaurant manager, Op-Ed Newspaper columnist, legislative media consultant and chief of staff, marketing director for both a medical practice and a retirement community, move-in coordinator for that same retirement community, a weekly talk radio host and a morning drive time co-host, and finally, finally, starting my own events and PR/media business that fills my world with clients that I deeply value and to whom I can bring value.
Joy that I have had more courage than fear in taking risks. Some of those risks didn’t turn out quite the way I imagined---the most disappointing being my candidacy for the NYS Assembly, and my marriages.
Yet the times I risked and won resulted in a wealth of life experiences that still today inspire me to continue risking, no matter my age.
The short list includes my regular commentator/special reporter work at WBFO Radio, my 64 and More year-long interview project that took me nationwide and across the ocean, introducing me to people who changed the landscape of my heart and soul. And of course, there are the vast experiences I have enjoyed over my last twenty years as an author. Writing books have led to some of the greatest rewards of my life and have helped me to realize who I am and what I am meant to do with my story telling ability.
Joy: that I am blessed with a life filled with love---from people who support my work, friends who make my world a gentler, kinder place, and family who never fail to fill my life with laughter, loving care, and the best hugs in the world.
So this December, as I think about my mother and her Christmas Birthday, and ponder if my life will span beyond her 72 years, I will definitely feel a sense of sadness that she is gone. I will also be grateful for the many joys that have defined my life for the last six decades and look forward to all that is yet to come....for as many days that I am given.
When preparing to launch Money or Love, Internet Dating From the Far Side of 40, my check list included securing a location (Community Beer Works) and time (October14th 7pm,) planning a menu, and organizing an entertaining program.
When all was in place the only thing left was to promote the launch using my social media sites with more than 5,000 followers. That is until, in a plot twist along the lines of her Money or Love narrative, several of my social media pages were hacked, eliminating half of my audience.
Frustrating?
No doubt. But here’s the irony of the whole messy turn of events.
“The Money or Love storyline is of a man scamming women on internet dating sites by stealing other people’s identities and creating fake profiles. So in a way, If feels as if this hacking of my social media sites brings me full circle in the telling of this story.
However, unlike Money or Love, a Hallmark-style story of family, friendship, and love with a happy ending, the consequences of this hack is that I have lost two of my social media pages and years of content and images, not to mention my diminished ability to market my new book and promote the launch.
After more than a year of publishing delays due to COVID and other circumstances, all I can do now is enlist family, friends, and neighbors to help spread the word and hope to generate my own happy ending.
Money or Love, Internet Dating From the Far Side of 40, is a light-hearted story that unfolds between Halloween and Valentine’s Day and reflects the challenges of internet dating from the far side of 40, and the rewards of finding love at any age.
As part of the book launch event, I have planned a Money or Love Dating Game and am looking for three fun-loving and eligible WNY guys to play along.
Why, you ask?
Because the focus of Money or Love is that whether 19 or 90, we all want someone to share our life and our love, So, why not celebrate that reality with a Money or Love The Dating Game at the launch.?!
For anyone who might be interested, there is a sign-up form on my website where any over-21-and-single guy willing to play for a chance to share lunch with me, can submit his name. Then a committee of people who know me well will choose three contestants.
The night of the launch, I’ll be on one side of a screen and three guys will be on the other. Three questions and answers later, I’ll blindly choose my lunch date.
I’ll admit I was slightly nervous about it before losing my social media pages. Now I’m meditating every day to stay calm as I try to figure out how to reach out to the single men of WNY and hope that three guys step up!”
Tickets for the launch, which include a signed copy of Money or Love, finger foods, a first drink and dessert with coffee and tea, can be purchased at christinaabt.com. Tickets are also available for the launch only, as well as for a livestream of the event.
Anyone interested in participating in The Dating Game can sign up at christinaabt.com.
A portion of the proceeds from the launch and $1 from every book sold will benefit St Luke’s Mission of Mercy in Buffalo, which is featured in Money or Love.
Please help a girl and share, share, share!
Look forward to seeing you on the 14th.
ABOUT
I was born and raised in Buffalo, NY. Aside from a combined seven-year stint in northern New York State, New Jersey, Toronto and Vancouver, have lived her my entire life.
Truthfully, I wouldn’t live anywhere else, as I’m in love with my hometown. That’s why when I started writing “Money or Love,” I knew I had to make Buffalo the setting of the book.
Read moreIn the midst of the early stages of COVID I finished my fifth book, a novel titled, “Money or Love, Internet Dating From the Far Side of 40.” I planned on publishing in late 2020. Then, in October, a nationally reknown literary agent asked to shop my manuscript to a number of NYC publishing houses. Without hesitation I agreed and have since been riding a roller coaster of emotions, from “YIPPEE! I am going to be published,” to “Who are you kidding? Not a chance in hell!”
Read moreI detail my mother’s career to illustrate the level of professional success she achieved and, from my child’s perspective, what truly fulfilled her life. Definitely a long way from the farm fields of Wyoming County!
Read moreIt was the day after Christmas, 1964. I’d recently celebrated my 13th birthday and my parents gave me two presents: a prayer book and a book on famous NFL quarterbacks. Being Irish Catholic, the prayer book was a given. The football book however was all me.
I was an only child growing up in a world defined by school and home responsibilities. Both my parents worked, making me a latchkey kid long before the term was created. My home life was solitary and often lonely. Then my parents took me to my first Buffalo Bills Game.
Read moreIn 2016 I undertook a year-long interview series that I filmed, edited and produced into 52 weeks of Youtube videos. My subjects were people from across the United States, each one of whom possessed a most unique life wisdom.
The very first of these interviews featured a young lady by the name of Stella Usiak. At the time we met, Stella told me that she was 12 1/2 years old. I was intigued by the fact that she found it important to note that extra half year of her age.
As I was about to learn, Stella had been bravely battle the ravages of Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) for 5 of her 12 1/2 years and she clearly understood that every minute of everyday mattered.
Read moreAngelina Fitzpatrick was the daughter of Maria Teresa Romano and Terrence Michael Fitzpatrick. She was the eldest of the couple’s eight children, born on Christmas Day 1990. While her parents officially christened her, Angelina Maria Teresa., from the moment Terrance saw his firstborn child, he called her his, “Angel.”
Every year on Angelina’s birthday, her father would envelop her in a bear hug, twirl her around the room and whisper in her ear, “Happy Birthday my sweet Angel. Only the most special are born on Christmas.” It was her most cherished memory of her da.
Read moreRecently at a book signing/presentation, I sold a book to a blind man. Before you laugh at the absurdity of that statement, let me share a story.
Read moreUltimately we agreed to disagree and the interview never happened. However, the memory of that moment has stayed with me over the last 25 years, as I have continued to witness careers and jobs in our nation where young women have no role models. Where they don't see someone who looks like them or sounds like them doing work they find appealing, and so it seems unattainable because there has never been a women on that path before them.
Read moreOne year ago, the Washington Nationals won the World Series. Subsequently, National sports reporter, Erik Brady, wrote a column about his mother, Eileen, and her devotion to the newly crowned MLB World Champions. He published that column on Halloween, which is the anniversary of his mother’s death.
The column struck a chord with me for a number of reasons, particularly due to a Halloween tradition my kids and I enjoyed with Mrs. Brady. That led me to respond to Erik’s column with one of my own.
As Halloween is upon us, I’m inspired to once again share this column in tribute to a special lady with a joyous heart who loved to have fun and make people smile.