March 20, 2025 • 52 mins
This Thursday I have a truly exciting guest--author Jane Sharpe--who's here to give all of us an exclusive preview of her brand new book, Winston the Cat with a Mech Suit! This heartwarming tale follows Winston, who's family builds him a high-tech mech suit to help them with chores around the house! If you love stories filled with creativity and a dash of futuristic fun, you won't want to miss this podcast! We'll also learn about Jane's other works and of course a little bit more about Jane herself! So grab a comfy seat and dive into the world of Winston, the Cat with a Mech Suit!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good evening everybody, and welcome to Calling All Creatures. I
am your host, Lori, and tonight, I think you guys
are going to enjoy this podcast. I am talking with
Jane Sharp and she is an author and she has
just put out a new This one's a children's book
called Winston the Cat with a Mechsuit, and we're going
(00:28):
to talk about that book. But Jane has quite a
variety of different books as well, so we're going to
kind of touch on all of them so you guys
can get the full view of everything that she's done
and see what she might like. So anyway, thank you
for being on tonight, Jane. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I'm so excited to be here and to be able
to talk about all these different topics that I'm interested in.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, I think it's going to be really cool. Like
I said, You've got quite a variety of books out
there and stuff, so I think it's going to be
really need to let everybody know everything that you have
kind of written about because it's such a vast variety.
It's like that's quite you know, it's really cool. Anyways,
why don't you just go ahead, let's start out and
have you just tell us a little bit about yourself.
(01:14):
I mean, when you were growing up, did you think
that you would end up being an author and writing
about these different things?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I I didn't have a plan for my career as
a child. But in fifth grade we had a program
where we could write a book and publish it, and
it was just for the kids that were interested. I
don't think everybody did it. And so in mid sixth
and seventh grade I published my first three books. And
(01:43):
the best part was that they were at the library
and you could go in and students could check them out,
and I could look at them on the shelf.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's really cool.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, so it's exciting to like do the big girl
version of that as an adult.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'll bet none of your books can be in Bigger life.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, yes, or the local bookstore. I mean, Amazon is
sort of like the local bookstore nowadays.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, exactly. I'm actually I mean, I'm glad that Barnes
and Noble is you know, that is still going, But
I'm surprised that they're still going with everything you can
do online now yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, Well, it's nothing takes the place of going in
and getting a cup of coffee.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And sitting there and walking around, you know, and looking
at the spines on the shelf.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So yeah, you know, I always kind of like the
smell of a bookstore. I mean, oh, yes, yeah, that's
just me.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
They see those earrings that are the chemical, the molecular
formation or whatever of the book smell well really actually yeah,
they identified it by molecules, and then they sell a
little like a necklace or earrings of the molecule shape,
and it can be super book nerdy in your dick core.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
That's pretty cool. I didn't even know they had those.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
So you did your first books when you're basically in
kind of grade school, So then did you continue from
there or did you kind of branch off do something
else in between then? And when you actually did start writing,
When did you.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Actually Oh gosh, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Got married young, I had my kids young. I was
in the Air Force for a little bit, and then
I started homeschooling my kids, so I was super busy
doing all sorts of other things. But I'm definitely a bibliophile.
I think I own over four thousand books personally, and
so books have always been a huge part of you know,
homeschooling and my personal hobbies and stuff. But I haven't
(03:35):
done I didn't do any writing really until.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
It was like the very it was.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
It was when it got cold in twenty nineteen, right
before the new year, is when I first sat down
and I got the idea of you know how a themed.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Alphabet goes through the alphabet.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
From A to Z and the letters all have to
rotate around a topic. And so in the fault it
was really the winter of twenty nineteen. I just I
don't know what happened. I got on this kick and
made all these themed lists for the topics that I
was interested in, and you know, had to I just
spent I think it was like a week just finding
(04:13):
every letter for because some of the letters are really
hard to find that good. You know, because you're trying
to stay on a theme, You're also trying to be
appealing to children.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
So somewhere that might.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Obviously fit in the theme would be just you know,
either boring or way over the head of a child,
not interesting.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
And so so I made this list. I had it.
I think I had six ABC.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Lists on different themes that I made, and then I
just started I just learned photoshop and I figured out
Amazon and publishing and formatting and all sorts of crazy
stuff and got started and that's where that's where it
all started, making these ABC lists.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Wow, Yeah, that would be I mean, like you said,
the some of those individual letters with some of the
words and keeping them to that theme. Yeah, that would
be quite the challenge.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
The theme is really where you're pinned.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Well, it's really just because you're trying to be appealing
to children and you've got to work in the theme, so.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Right, you know, really it's Q and X and yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Some of the letters are sort of challenging.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Right right. So let's go ahead and we'll talk about
your book, Winston here in just a few minutes. But
before we talk about Winston, i'd kind of like to
talk about the other books that I mentioned at the
beginning of the podcast. You have written gun safety books
for kids. What made you kind of decide to write
(05:40):
the gun safety books? And if you don't mind, what
ages are you kind of gearing those books towards?
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Sure, So all of my ABC books, the ABC book
itself is sort of geared to you know any I mean,
my sister in law is reading to her six month old,
so he's not fully grasping at that point, you know
what the words are, but he's seeing that pages turned
from left to right.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
He's he's cuddling with his mom.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
So so my books go from you know, whenever you
start reading to your child.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
And I think the ABC books would be appropriate up to.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Like maybe four or five because they're just one picture
with one letter, you know, like L or K or whatever,
and then one word that starts with that. So they're
very simple. There's no like story or plot or anything.
So those are for little kids to look over this vocabulary.
Then each of my ABC books has an activity book,
(06:34):
so that's for an older brother or sister who you know,
probably has the ABC book in their house and they
you know, my son, when I wrote it, he was
eight and he absolutely is my biggest.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Fan, and he loved it.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
But the activity book is meant for you know, anybody
from five to even twelve, uh, to do the activities
that build on all the topics that were introduced in
the ABC book.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Okay, so I think.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Between the two books you could go anywhere from two
to twelve.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
When they build on each other like that.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, that's awesome that you have them set up like that.
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, And in homeschooling, you know, everybody's doing the same
thing at different levels. So you're talking maybe to your
eighth grade or about whatever topic, and your younger kids
are sitting there absorbing what they can while they you know,
play with play or legos or whatever, while you're teaching
the older ones.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
And then everybody breaks off for their own instruction on
that topic.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
And the little kids do it, you know, on a
lighter level, and the older kids do it on the
more intense level.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So it just was sort of natural for me to
make them.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Accessible to the different age groups, because that's how you know,
our household has always worked.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah. I had my son. I homeschooled him for a while.
I got fed up with the local.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
School, so yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, he was homeschooled, but pretty much all of his
I think junior high, high school basically.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, that's a hard age group.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I'm always so proud of mom or dad that pulls
a kid out at that age, because, i mean, school
can be so hard and you know you're starting to think,
oh can I teach at that level? And so I'm
always so proud of parents that pulled them out. At
seventh eys and I'm invoved.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, yep. So the what what to get you interested
or made you want to write your gun safety books
that you have out there.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So my kids were getting older. I have five kids,
and I think at.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
The time in twenty nineteen, I've got to do fast math.
I think my daughter was seventeen or eighteen, and so
everybody else was all the way down to the five
year old. And I was like, we need to do
a unit study on gun safety because we've always been
my dad has hunted. I have always I had you know,
marksman badge and the Air Force.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Has been on a competitive shooting team when.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I was little and so and then we're a lot
of veterans in our family. So guns have been in
my kids' lives and they've learned the basic rules. But
I was like, you know what, we need to learn
a little more in depth. We need to go to
the range more often so you guys can have some
hands on training. So we were just sort of doing
a unit study where I was jeez, I was at
(09:12):
the range like once or twice a week for a
semester because I had to bring all five of them,
and I had to take them one at a time
for like, you know, the range rules and for safety
and giving them my full attention.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So I was taking them to the range.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
And so it was just on my mind and and
so I that was one of the lists I made
when I made that first set of ABC lists.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, I think it's really awesome that you made gun
safety books for kids, because, oh yeah, I think it's
something that really needs to be out there. Parents really
need to invest in these types of books and start
educating their kids so that they are more safe, because
that's the key to a lot of things, is education.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
And it it's a safe place to start if you're
a little nervous because I've been around guns my whole life.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
But it's really serious to teach.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Somebody else because you really have to have a grasp.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Of it when you have to teach somebody else. And
so I would.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Trying to refresh the specifics of some of the things so.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
That I could teach it well.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
And I think that having a book is a great
way to have a focus reactivity.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
And I don't know, I think that a lot of.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
People are buying guns and exercising that freedom, and then
they want to introduce it to their kids, but they're like,
Oh'm gonna wait till they're fourteen because they'll be mature.
But I think you got to learn this vocabulary and
these principles way before you actually handle a gun, right right, And.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Sorry about that. We're a little bit seconds ago, the
kind of I don't know, something happened and you kind
of squelched out there and for just a second or
two are you talking? But it came back in and
you were fine again. So we just missed it. We
just missed a tiny little bit of what you said.
And so I'm not sure what happened on what end,
(11:07):
but it's okay, we'll get through this.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Hopefully it wasn't a critical phrase.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, no, I don't think so. You were just starting
to talk about, you know, the books and stuff like that,
so I'm hoping that, yeah, it didn't. Like I said,
it wasn't too long. It was just like a couple
of seconds there you kind of squatched out and I
was gonna stop you, but then it came back well yeah,
and it came back in really good. And then you
(11:31):
were just continuing to talk and I was trying not
to interrupt you because.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, that's always awkward because you're like, is are we
both experiencing the same technical difficulties or is it just
my end?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Right, And like I tell people, you know, when you're
when you're dealing with cell phones and like wireless and
internet and stuff like that, you just never know. I mean,
it's beautiful where I'm at right now, and it's been
a gorgeous day, so at least I'm not hopefully I'm
not having any problems, so I mean, not Gonne would
because you never know what could happen with the internet
somewhere else. So anyway, but you know, so now you're
(12:05):
fine again, and we got pretty much everything you were
saying on that, so I think, yeah, all right, so
let's go ahead. And another one that was I thought
was really cool that you did was Jane Journals. Oh
my god, I looked at those and I thought, what
a great idea that is, so you Yeah, I mean,
(12:26):
I just I was, really I did. That's exactly what
I thought. That was, honest to God. But uh, let's
go ahead and have you talked tell my listeners a
little bit more about James Journals and who are there?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
For sure? Yeah, Jane Journals is for consumable.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
There's sort of like workbooks, but they're really record keeping books.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
So there's there's four of them in the series.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
One focuses on complex medical care, keeping track of just
unbelievablemounts of data points when you're caring for somebody with
complex medical needs. The other book is for keeping track
of kids's symptoms when they have complex behavioral needs, where
(13:14):
they're having you're sort of having to track their environment
and things that trigger them and their diet and things,
which is just too much data for a person to
keep track of for a long period of time. Then
I realized that some kids, the parents don't know what's happening,
and they're just having this huge range of symptoms and behaviors,
(13:35):
and they don't even they're having trouble finding a diagnosis,
and so they're not even in a place where they
know what the child is struggling with.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So there's one I.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Called Investigating the Cause, and it sort of blends the
complex medical care and the complex behavioral needs into one
book so that you can try to see patterns in
what your kid is exhibiting and like track layer ups
and reactions to help your doctor find a diagnosis. Because
(14:04):
I mean, it's just an unbelievable lot of data that
parents are tracking when their kids are struggling with different things.
And then I threw together a detox journal because I
realized a lot of parents are when you have so
many factors, they're trying to reduce the amount of sort
of options. So they'll do restrictive diets to detox from
(14:26):
different you know, gluten.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Or dairy or whatever, trying to find the root cause.
And so I put.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Together a detox tracker so that they could keep track
of that while they're tackling all these other things.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, I thought they were really cool because I mean,
I've had friends that have had kids with some severe
special needs and stuff like that, and I know, you know,
you see parents with kids like this and they're carrying
around these huge folders and binders and books full of
all this information.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, and how can you hold that to the doctor's office?
And so I got into it. I met this woman
she had just started to homeschool and she had pulled
her son, he had audism, out of the school district.
And I was standing with her at her kitchen counter
and she had this, you know, so many supplements on
the counter and I was like, oh my gosh, this
I thought I had a lot of supplements. You have
a whole counterful. How do you keep track? And she
(15:25):
pulled up this like sheaf of loose leaf grade school
ruled manila paper that she had been keeping notes on.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And I was like, how are you how do you
even that?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Seems so just not haphazard, but like risky, like a
loose pile of pages, you know. And then I accompanied
my friend to her daughter's doctor appointment a different front.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Her daughter.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
She felt like a little bullied, and I came with
her to the appointment to sort of be like moral
support and backup.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And and she.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Had the doctor asked her a question about her daughter's
flare up, and she had to go on her phone
and look for a photo of a ballet recital because
she knew that the flareup happened on the day of
the sister's ballet recital. And so she was scrolling, scrolling,
scrolling through her phone gallery trying to find the picture
from the recital so she could tell the doctor what
day her daughter had this symptom. And I was like,
oh my gosh, this is agonizingly slow totally, and I
(16:23):
had the other woman. In my mind, I was like,
how are these women keeping their children alive with all
this detail? Because my kids don't have like dietary restrictions
and all these things. And I was just in awe
of what kind of like data points that they.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Were trying to keep track of.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
And so that's when the idea came to me, And
so I interviewed these two women just repeatedly and came
up with each of the journals by talking to them
about how they cared for their child and what they tracked.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Well, yeah, these women are amazing.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
It's it's like my little offering towards these warriors that
are that are living this every day, just to try
to make it a little bit easier because I was
just in awe of what these women are are tackling
every day.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. You know, my cousin is
in MA and works in the doctor's offices something like that,
So I can just imagine some of the people she's
seen come in with. And I mean and even you know,
not even necessarily I guess kids, you know, for kids
with that, maybe even elderly people that have.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
To absolutely actually got a review that was like, don't
sell yourself. Sure these are any Anybody who is trying
to figure out what's going on with their symptoms can
use the medical record keeping book because.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
It's meant to do thirty days. So you just you write.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
May on the spine, put it on the shelf, and
then when you have a doctor's appointment in June you
can grab you know, April, May and June, bring them in.
You have, you know, ninety days, all clearly recorded.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Ready to go.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
So somebody did say that that it's not just for children,
but I guess because I was creating it through these
two moms, right, That's that's why I called it that.
But yeah, did you say it was your your cousin worked.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
There, Well, yeah, my cousin is an MA in a
doctor's office.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
So I made these postcards so that medical providers can
learn about them, or so that medical providers could leave
the postcards in their waiting room so if people or like,
if somebody loves it and they want to like evangelize
other moms in their mom's group, so I can mail
those postcards to anybody that wants to share them.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
They can just contact me through.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
The website, okay, and you know what, and I'll talk
to my cousin and if she wants some, I'll get
her address or have her contacts the two and have
you sent some, because I'm sure they would probably put some.
And so her doctor's office is actually situated on the
MSU campus, Okay, over there.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Yeah, because I just you know, it's and I met
those women or the one woman, and I interviewed my friend.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I was just it's a it's a big.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Task, and I think, you know, the more people that
know about these, the more people that it'll just make
everything a little bit easier.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Right, And I'm sorry, let me let me rephrase my
MSU campus. It's a large hospital network, Speral network. I'm sorry,
Speral Hospital. That's yeah, it's a pretty large hospital network.
So I'm sure that she would probably be billing. And
she is in mom groups and stuff, at least she
used to be. I'm not sure if she still is,
so she might be able put it in there and
(19:34):
stuff too and out.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, anybody can can email and get those sent out to.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Them mom's groups.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Sometimes when your kids get older, you end up getting
involved in the school or whatever, and so you sort
of fade out of the different mom groups sometimes.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, and you know, like me, her kids are grown
and having kids on their own.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So oh yeah, so then you're you're probably not in
mom's group. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I don't think she's in too many of them anymore,
but you never know. I mean she might be with friends. Yeah,
but either way, so yeah, that's cool. So yeah, I'll
talk to her and if she does, I'll shoot you
an email or something with her address and stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Okay, well that's awesome. So yeah, guys, if you guys
are interested, there you go. You just found out. And
at the end of the podcast, Jane will give her
website info and stuff like that so that you guys
will be able to go to that. And of course
I'll post it on my Facebook page. When I post
my thank you and everything for you being on, I'll
have the link to your website and everything and put
(20:30):
in there as well, so and remind people about the
James Journal things in the post place.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, no problem, I'd do that for everybody. So let's
talk a little bit too about your Crunchy mom at
ABC and kitchen Helber ABC books.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Just what.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
So I'm on the I guess you could call it
the crunchy spectrum.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
They invented a new word called scrunchy.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
So when you're not quite yeah, you're not quite crunchy,
but you're trying your best to do you know, a
low toxic lifestyle, and you do some of the things
but not all the things. So there's there's crunchy, you know,
over here, and then there's scrunchy, and then there's just
sort of like mainstream. So I realized that crunchy moms
are using this vocabulary that's totally normal to us. But
(21:17):
people on the outside of that, you know, subgroup of people.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Have no idea what these words are.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
But the kids and the parents and the crunchy families,
they're just these are just normal words for them.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
So I made I had so.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Many fabulous words for a crunchy alphabet that I made
two books, two ABC books and two activity books. One
is called Crunchy Mama ABC and one is called More
Crunchy Mama ABC because I just had so many amazing
words and so so there the two of them, just
the crunchy lifestyle all the way. And then crunchy moms
(21:53):
frequently just have ingredients in their home. They don't buy
tons of ready made like snack pack kind of things.
So having kids in the kitchen and cooking from scratch
is just like a part of life in a crunchy family.
So I wrote a book called Kitchen Help or ABC,
and it's all about, you know, kids being in the
(22:15):
kitchen and kitchen words and kitchen tools and just all
sorts of stuff for kids who can't get out of.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The kitchen and love helping in the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
So that's all part of the Crunchy Mama's Healthy Baby.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Collection because they all just build on each other.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
And like I told you, I got my granddaughter the
Kitchen Helper ones and from my understanding they were going
to be doing some activities and stuff and coloring and
learning some new words and stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
In its exciting.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah. Yeah, I think she really likes being in the kitchen.
When I saw those on your website, I was just like, Oh,
that'd be perfect for her.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
There's that's two for y'all. Yeah. I feel like there's
so many.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Different range of topics that there's probably.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Something that somebody would enjoy on my website.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh yeah, almost, definitely, yes. And so on top of
all these other awesome books that you've been putting out.
You also put out a guide in a workbook to
help homeschool families self publish their own books. So yes,
that is kind of cool.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
I got my feet wet with a real chapter book
with thousands of words instead of twenty six words. So
I realized I had put out at that point two four, six, eight,
twelve books and they just kept getting better and better
and more accessible, and I was learning so much, and
(23:43):
of course being in the homeschool community, everything's like a lesson,
right you just want to teach, you know, at any time,
you can't even go on a walk or a field
trip before you're pulling people aside and trying to teach
them something about whatever they're looking at. So self publishing
for homeschool family just came together from all the things
that I had learned that I and I put it
(24:04):
in a way that I could explain it to, you know,
kids that were interested. Like me when I was in
fifth grade, I wanted to write a book. I wasn't
really super into illustrating, but there's plenty of kids who
art is their thing and not words, so it just
takes you can use it you can hand it off to.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
A teenager to do themselves.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You can teach it as a unit study, or a
mom who, like me, had her students getting older and older,
could just you know, write the book that she's always
been wanting to write. So it's really just for anybody
in the home school family start to finish how to
self publish.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Cool. And my granddaughter really likes to draw and that
when you said that, it really hit me because she
likes to draw. I think, I don't know what my
daughter said. She's more into drawing, like maybe like fashion
and cloths and stuff like that. Maybe, But she when
she talks, she talks so quietly you can't hear a word. Yeah,
(25:03):
and it's like, oh my gosh, girl, you need to
speak up. We go to a restaurant, you try and
try to order food. They can't hear her. I can't her.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, and you're right next to her. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
It's interesting because a lot of times artists are very
you know, creative and like not explosive, but just so
passionate about whatever they're drawing.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
But it is hard to talk.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I mean I've had to learn even you know, coming
on a podcast, like I like words, I like reading,
I like writing, and these are all.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Very quiet personal things.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
So you know, when she gets I don't want to
be like passionate enough. But when she gets a little
older and she wants to start sharing what she's creating.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
It'll just she'll have to.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
She'll just practice, and she'll she'll succeed because the drive
for people to learn about her her fashion will become
more powerful than her desire to stay quiet in her chair.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah, yeah, I think. So I have to touch my
daughter and see if she's still because into drawing that
kind of stuff or if she's changed her she's still
drawing at all? Right now, I think she is. We
bought her for Christmas. It wasn't this last Christmas. With
the Christmas before we had gotten her a bunch of
art stuff and everything, so yeah, we could do some
different stuff. So yeah, anyway, hopefully she still is because
(26:14):
I think it's a nice talent to develop, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So yeah, and there's but there's so many ways to
be creative.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
My kids went through like a drawing phase and then
one of my girls went out and got into like
three D sculpture and that was totally new for our family.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
So you know, and then my other son, he.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Creates whole worlds for D and D and storytelling.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
So his creative and is channeled differently, you know, So.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
That's pretty cool. My daughter, I've played D and D
way back in the day, and then my daughter and
her husband actually played D and D. Now they have
some friends that they get together with and play.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
So yeah, no, it's a great I mean, the friendships
that they make there, they can just last so long
because that's such a niche interest.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
You know that the people in it absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Oh yeah, yeah. All right, Well we've touched on all
your different variety of books and let everybody know just
what all you have out there, because, like I said,
there's so many various books that cover so many different
topics that it's just amazing you know that you covered
all those. So but now let's talk about the book
(27:22):
we've actually got you on here to talk about more. Yes,
Winston the Cat with the mech Suit. So can you
tell us a little bit more about what the book
is about and how you came up with this idea
of having a cat using a mech suit.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Absolutely, yes, this book was very exciting and energizing because
it has a plot more than any of my you know,
alphabet books has.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
The art is a completely different style. It's like a
water color. The colors are just gorgeously saturated. So this
book was just so much fun to make.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
I worked with an artist from Ukraine and she did
a just a brilliant job.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
And we're just now starting the It's.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Not really a sequel, but I guess it's in the
series or the universe of Winston. Winston is based on
my grumpy ginger cat, whose name is actually Jasper, and
he's sort of a condescending cat. He he loves his family,
but he's sort of just like you know, y'all humans
(28:24):
are beneath me a little bit. He's very high and mighty,
but he does love his family, and he you know,
likes to pitch in which interest. I think that, of course,
I'm in love with Winston and the whole book. But
some people's criticism is that no cat would.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Ever want to help, you know, like, you know, cats
are aloof and cats are.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Yes, And I was like, no, he's in love with
his family and they cut him slack when he's napping,
and then he pays them back and they're like, no
cat would do.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
That, so I can see a dog doing Yes.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
That's that's what.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
The people that have questions they're like, but but no
cat would ever do that. I'm like, clearly it's science fiction, guys.
Like he's in a suit, he's running a suit.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Obviously it's fiction. Guys.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Maybe you could do a book of another one about
Winston down the road, and this time he could be
like Garfield and be like knocking things, you know, lasagna
pants or something off of things like that with the
mech suit, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yeah, Winston's highest priority is napping and so he doesn't
even get into trouble. He's just you know, unconscious. He
just he wants to sleep time to not be interrupted.
So so he'll like one of the pages, you know,
the daughter is supposed to make her bed right, and
she she says, I can't make my bed because the
(29:52):
cat is sleeping on the bed, you know, like you
can't disturb the cat. And so then later the girl
is doing art and the cat wakes up, and so
he gets in the next suit and he makes.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
The bed for her. So it's just reciprocal.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
So see, we didn't have cats in our family until.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
About ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
We had had We had gotten a dog when we
first got married, and then we had like a little
suburban farm, and we'd had chickens for a while for
somehow just oh, I remember, my husband was allergic to cats,
so it just wasn't even a question. We weren't going
to get a cat. But then he had sinus surgery
and was no longer allergic to cats. Oh wow, yeah,
(30:37):
and I guess that's like an occasional side effect of
sinus surgery. So he so we got a kitten and
then we were like, oh my gosh, how have we
not had this our whole life?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
And we were just completely enraptured. And we got a
pregnant cat and.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
We rehomed most of her kittens, and then you know,
another cat, and this and that, and now we have
five cats.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, yeah, that's quite.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So it is. It is quite a household. They all
have different personalities.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
But I guess that was a long intro to say
that in our family, it is a legit excuse if
you have a sleeping cat on you. Like if I
say to my kid, like, come empty the dishwasher, and
he says, but I have a cat, Well, then the
dishwasher just waits because you're not going to wake a
sleeping cat. No, And so my husband's like, you know,
(31:28):
asking me, you know, to do something or it's time
to go to bed. I'm like, well, I can't get
in bed because the cat is sleeping on top of
the blanket, and I can't move the blanket because the
cat is sleeping, and I can't disturb the cat.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So this is like a rule.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
So I thought it was just so absurd coming to
cats late in life, and the whole Winston the Cat
in the Mex Suit just erupted out of all these
ridiculous situations that we find ourselves in when we don't
want to bother our sleeping pets.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
That is funny. We didn't have cats when I was
a kid kid, but then when I was a teenager,
maybe my dad might not have liked cats. And then
my mom and dad divorced, and then when I was
a teenager, we ended up with some cats. And then
I had cats a couple different times. But then my
ex didn't really care for cats, but we ended up
(32:16):
with a cat. She was cool. She would lay like
you said, sleeping cat, but she would get up if
I was in my computer chair at my desk working
on the computer. She would lay on the like the
back of my neck around.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
So yeah, so then you know, all you're kind of
sitting there and you don't want to move because you
don't want to wake up the cat.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
You're a prisoner, Yes, absolutely, yes. When you called me
my cat, Darlene was sleeping on my legs and I
was like.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Oh, princess, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
You know, you have to evict them because like occasionally
you do.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Have to disturb them.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
But yeah, but just so.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Winston is just a.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Silly book about how people rearrange their whole lives so
the cat can sleep and then, silly Winston, occasionally we'll
get in the next suit and help out.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
That is so funny, And it's so funny that people
were just telling you, no, a cat wouldn't do that.
That's funny imagination, guys. Let's just imagine, like it's.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
A mech suit.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Nobody said, hey, there's no such thing as a mex
suit that could be run by a cat either.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
I didn't have anything to do with the cat running
the mechsuit. It was just the cat would not do it.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Even if they had cat it fails to compute, like
why why would a cat ever contribute?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, yeah, that is funny when you think about it,
that the one was questioning or saying anything about the
cat in the megsuit.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Like on the cover of the book, he's mowing the
lawn like guys.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So it's just scowl. Darn it.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
If my cat had a mex suit, I'm telling you
right now, the cat wouldn't get into mex suit and
help me.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
He would certainly get in the Mex suit and he
would just sleep on the chair, wouldn't push any buttons exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Oh my gosh, that's great the things people think about. Yeah,
so now you said, there's at this point you are
coming out with another book, but it's not about Winston's.
But it's still kind of in the realm for Winston.
Do tell us a little bit about it.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Absolutely, I'm so excited, Like I am madly, passionately in
love with Winston and the mech Suit story. But I
think the next one is going to be like at
least ten times better.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
It's called Ezra, the Cat who.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Babysat, and it is so the family in the Winston book.
The youngest character in that book is the mate is
one of the.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Characters in the Ezra book.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
So we're going to have an Easter egg Winston in
the background of Ezra.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
The Cat who Babysat.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
But and so it's with the same human family, but
it is it's there's really the people in the story
are not.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
So the story for Ezra the Cat.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Who Babysat is that the youngest boy in this family,
his little cousin comes over and the two moms are
hanging out and having coffee, and the boys go out
to play and the cat, you know, is watching them.
And so on each of the pages in the book,
like on the left side is you know reality, the
(35:14):
boys go out the back door, the cat's playing with
you know, a ladybug on the porch, and the boys,
you know, are just.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Watching the cat.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
On the right page is the children's imagination. So the
cat is you know, pouncing, and they're they're trekking through
the safari.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Like the the not the wilderness.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
What's the word for the jungle?
Speaker 3 (35:38):
No, the like the savannah. So it's like grassy and lion, yes,
And so it's just every page the boys are just
doing a normal activity with their pet cat and they're
having you know, a snack, or they're playing, you know,
on the play set, or they're going to get the
mail or.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
All these just normal little things.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
But on the right hand side, you can see what
they pretend they're doing in their imagination.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
So when they're on the swings, yeah, like they're on
the swings and the cat is not happy on the swing, but.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
The boys are having fun.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
And then on the right page, you know, they're on
like World War two bi planes, swooping and diving, you know,
and and having fun, the three of them. So it's
just a little adventure about you know, kids imaginations and
how realistic it is for children inside their minds.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Now, you know, there's not gonna be a cat that
would do that.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Well, what the best part is is that in the
in the reality pictures, the cat is frequently completely oblivious
to the boys.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Or he's annoyed with them because they're like impeding on
his freedom.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yeah, that's they're gonna so relate to that side of it.
They're gonna be like, yeah, that's what the cat would do.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, Like Jane Sharp finally got it right.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yes, yes, Oh my gosh, that is funny.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, it's it's and her her art is so cute
and the colors are so bright.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I just I just am really excited to work with
her again.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Oh good, good. So when is that one supposed to
be coming out? Around? What time?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I think?
Speaker 3 (37:07):
I think I'd like to have it out by Thanksgiving?
Or Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Is really the latest that I would like, But it's it's.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Dependent on so much one of my other books that's
coming out soon. The artist is in Bangladesh, and he
has been so faithful.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
To work with me.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
He got a real day job and stopped being a
full time artist, and then there was like unrest in
his country and he couldn't get online for a while,
and then his father passed away, and he's just been
so faithful to work through the whole project with me.
So you really you have goals as an author, but
when you're working with an artist, you just really have
to be sort of fluid and open handed about it.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Now. Was that the because I did see that you
were going to have two new books coming out? Was
that the other new book that you're going to be?
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yes, the this one is is almost completely finished. I'm
working with like the formatting of the pages and things
to get the files correct.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
It's it's a it's a.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
It's another ABC theme that I had written in twenty
nineteen about traveling with children, and so I think, yeah,
I'm I'm really excited about the art style is very
different than the others, and it's it's like expansive and
big and like piles.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Of clouds and things. So I'm really excited to get
this one done.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
It's I have to memorize the name because I had
a lot of trouble finding the right title.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
But I think it's called and Is for New.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Places, an ABC book for families that travel, I think.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Is what it's called.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
And so it's you know, it starts out airplane, back
back and grandma and Grandpa's and passports and oh cool,
you know, all sorts of anything that you might run
into when you're traveling, so right, and yeah, yeah, you
got to stay on theme, man.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah. Well yeah, when you're doing ABC books with the theme,
you have to.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah. So that that was one that I and I
only have.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Yeah, So those two books, the Ezra The Cat who
Babysat and Going to New Places and Is for New
Places are are pretty much.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Like in process.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
And then I have one alphabet left that probably won't
be till next year, and that'll go through it and
that'll help be how long it has taken me to
go through all my alphabet lists that.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
I made in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Wow, okay, yeah, that's a process. Well, we'll definitely have
to keep our eyes out for Ezra the cat who babysat,
because I think that one's going to be cute. It's
so cute and hopefully people will be okay with what
the cat does this time.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Oh my goodness. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And then the activity book for Winston is completely different
than all my other activity books because it.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Is pretty much the art.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
More than half of it is the art from Winston
the cat in the next suit.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
So the art on page one is the art on
page one.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
And so you can color. You can make the winds touit. Oh,
you can make Instant a different color cat. Instead of
being a ginger cat, he could look like your cat.
You could change the mechsuit to be you know, pink
and yellow or whatever.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
So customer almost like their own little book books that
they got exactly yep.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
And then there's a paper doll you can make with
a bunch of props and then some activity stuff at
the end.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
So that's kind of cool. I might have to go
in there and buy those ones from my granddaughter too.
She likes she's very crafty, arty, crafty. She likes doing
all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
So yeah, no, I I printed it on one sided
paper so you could cut it out and it wouldn't
have anything on the back. And I need to make
a little video about how to do it, because I
guess paper dolls aren't like this is the gen X
in me coming out that I even considered a paper doll.
But I think all that old stuff is coming new again,
and it's new and fun for a new generation.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
So yeah, I mean it definitely will keep them busy
for a few minutes, I think, playing with it and
figuring it out. And you know, I remember having paper
You know, I'm old, but I remember having paper dolls
when I was young, and yeah, have to fold the
little things over on the shoulders to keep the little absolutely.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Yeah, I'm gonna make a little I'm gonna have an artist,
not an artist, but like a digital person make me
a little video because you know, you got to cut
out a cereal box and glue your paper doll and
make it stiff, so then the page is the paper.
I mean, he doesn't have paper clothes because he's a cat,
but he has props that he that the mechsuit can
hold and manipulate. And then, you know, because it is
(41:26):
twenty twenty five, I actually got a three D printed
I mean file what do you call STL file created
so that people with three D printers can print out
their own Winston and their own mechsuit.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Oh wows, yeah, that would be cute to see.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I am so excited. I can't even tell you.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Yes, there's so many skilled people in the world, and
to like, it's one thing to see your book come
to life and hold it in your hand and have
somebody read it.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Like when I go to my niece and nephew's.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
Houses, I'll see my books like throw on the floor
and in a stack, and sometimes like my sister in
law or my brother will be like, oh, I'm so
sorry your book it's on the floor, and I'm like, no,
that is the biggest compliment I could have.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
That it's not like in a place of honor where
nobody touches it.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
But you know, I want the coloring book colored in
I want the book to be dog eared and carried
around and shoved in the diaper bag, like that's that's
the best life.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
For a book.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yep, yeah, exactly. Yeah, all right, well you've got quite,
like I said, a variety of work out there for
people to choose from. And Winston. I did enjoy reading
the book. It was it was a cute little book.
And like I said, I think my granddaughter will like ius.
I'll probably end up getting that for her too. And uh,
(42:48):
the new ones coming out sound like they're going to
be really good as well. I think, like I said,
I'm pretty sure Ezra is going to be a cute
little book that I'm not. If you get it out
my you know, no later than thy Thanksgiving, that'll probably
be a good Christmas present.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Yeah, that's my idea in my head.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
So we'll see how the art works out, because it's
a big project. Yeah, there's a little teaser on the
back of Winston where you can see what Ezra and
the cousin look like.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
So yeah, I think those would be pretty cool and
I'll keep my eye out for those to come out,
like I said, because that would be a good idea
for my granddaughter for Christmas as well.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
So yeah, yeah, they're a great set.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
I think I'm discussing with my husband about taking a
picture of you know, Winston's based on Jasper and he's
quite condescending and grumpy, and so he looks just like Jasper.
I was like, you know, what we should do is
take a picture of him looking regal and then make
him make footprints on it, and then we could send
(43:48):
autographed copies of Winston headshots to people there you go.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
I thought that would be.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
So much fun because we have a picture of him
yawning and he looks like he's roaring.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Well, but I.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Mean, I don't know if everybody wants to see all
my cat pictures.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
But I mean, you think that if he's become.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Winston, maybe he'll he'll deign to let his photo be taken.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
He may you just never know. But then again, you know,
he may not want to do that.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
He absolutely may not, and he may not want to
do the footprints, and so it's really just about so
pulling out the cat.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
So is the Winston teaser in the Ezra book?
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Is it really easy to find or is it going
to be kind of a little bit of a challenge.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
I think it's just gonna be I think he's so
when the boys are inside playing or something, he's.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Just going to be crop sleeping on something. So he'll
just be clearly portrayed in the He's not going to
be hidden. He's just not going to be part of
the story.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Okay, I see, I see to say, because if you
had him hidden or something somewhere, maybe you could do
a little contest for people to try to find Winston, right, Like, that's.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
What Richard's scary.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
He I always had Goldbug hidden in the pictures on
the other pages, and you had to find Goldbug on
every page.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yep, and then you could do your little If they
find them, then you could send them the autographed picture exactly.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Yeah, contest time.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yes, sounds great.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Hey, you know you just you just I think could
be fun.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
No, that is a kind of like like modern scavenger
hunt kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
I mean, they got that app out there you can
get for your phone to find trying to find the
cats and study you gotta find like one hundred cats
or something like that.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Really yeah, yeah, they have different ones, but one of
them is the cats. So that's funny. Yeah, I've seen
that advertised, but well, we're getting pretty close to the
end of the podcast. Jane, I gotta tell you, I
was really glad that you were able to come on
and talk about all your books and Winston and the
new upcoming ones. And if you would be kind enough
(45:57):
to give us your website information where listeners can and
where people can find your books. I'm sure it's not
just on your website. I'm sure we're Amazon and stuff,
But if you want to throw all that info out
there so listeners can go to your website and take
a look or maybe go purchase a book or two,
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah. Yeah, it's just my name dot com.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
So it's Jane Sharp, Sharp with an E dot com
And there's information on all the books. You can see
inside of the Jane's journals and see if the fields
that you want to fill out would be would be
applying to your situation. You can see inside the Gun
Safety Activity Book and what kinds of images and activities
(46:41):
are in there. There's a couple of interviews and a
couple of free PDFs you can download, so there's a
ton of great things.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Jane Sharp dot.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Com awesome and like I said, obviously, you can find
your books and stuff on Amazon through the website.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Yeah, they just when you click on them, they'll take
you to Amazons.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
All of them are there.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
I think, I think Amazon when you if you look
up my name on Amazon, it'll link you to everything.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yep that Amazon sells. So yeah, they all link together
back and forth.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So all right, well that's awesome. I'm
like I said, I'm excited to get the new Ezra
Babysitting Book. I think that will be really a cute
one as well. And like I said, I think I'm
definitely going to be getting the ones for my granddaughter
for Winston and the activity book, because I know she'd
(47:31):
really like the activity book.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
So yeah, it's got a lot of coloring. The other
ones have a lot of activities, but Winston has got
a lot of coloring.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yep, exactly.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
So well, I appreciate you getting a copy for your family,
and I appreciate being on here and talking not just
about Winston but with the other things too.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
It's been it's been great.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Oh yeah, I've enjoyed having you on and talking about
all these books because like I said, I mean, I
was really taken with the fact that she did a
gun safety book and then you did those change journals.
I just thought those were both just such great ideas.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
So yeah, I'm so proud of everything I've done. I'm
really pleased with with how they've all turned out.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
It's like instead of having five kids, I have all
these paper kids.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
Also, the little projects that I've worked on, it come
to life.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
There you go, there you go. It's always good when
things come together like that.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
So yes, it's great.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
All right, Well, I'm just gonna announce my next upcoming podcast,
So you're welcome to stan if you want.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
But I know it's.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Probably getting a little late for you, so if you'd
like to jump off, you're welcome to do that as well.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
And thank you for having me. I appreciate the time
you've given me.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
All right, well, thanks for being on again. I appreciate
you being able to join me tonight.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Alrighty, all right, I'm gonna head out.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Thanks, all right, Thanks Jane, and we'll talk to you later. Already,
bye bye, all right, everybody. So Jane just got off,
so let me just real quick tell you about my
next upcoming podcasts. So on April third, we are going
to be talking with Zachary Lou and we're going to
(49:01):
be talking about Ants. The podcast is actually called Ants
the Kings of Their Hills. So I'll be speaking with
Zachary and learning all sorts of really really cool stuff
about ants. You guys just will now believe some of
the really cool stuff I was seeing about Ants from
Zachary because he does a YouTube channel and stuff as well,
(49:22):
And we'll give all that information when he's on the
podcast in a couple of weeks. But anyway, yeah, so
Ants gonna be really cool and like I said, you
guys are never going to believe this. There's exploding ants,
there's or like emt ants, you name it. They have democracies.
It's really cool and I never knew so many things
(49:44):
about Ants. But we're going to learn about him on
April third, and then on April seventeenth, I am going
to have Scott find Back on the podcast with me.
Maybe you guys remember Scott from a while back, I
had him on. He is the founder of Joey's Legacy,
So we're going to be doing an update podcast on
(50:05):
Joey's Legacy. Joey's Legacy is an organization that is helping
people if they have a pet that goes to the
vet veterinarian and something happens with the veterinarian and say
the dog passes away or something like that, then the
(50:27):
they help you to try to find a lawyer stuff
like that, and you know, if you if you need
to go to court and those kinds of things, you know,
like malpractice suits, just like with a human. That's kind
of what Joey's legacy is helping out what They help
people to find attorneys and stuff like that. You send
them information about your case, They review it and make
(50:51):
sure that it's a case you know that should be addressed,
and then they help you find attorneys to help you
out and try to get this malpractice stuff taken care
of with the veterinarian. I know, it's interesting because we
think about that kind of stuff with humans, but not
many people really think about that stuff when it comes
(51:13):
to veterinarians. But you know, it happens. I mean, things
happen just like with humans. You have human doctor malpractice,
you have animal doctor malpractice. So anyway, those are the
next two podcasts. April third Ants The Kings of Their
Hills was Zachary lu and then April seventeenth, Joey's Legacy
update was Scott fine and hopefully you guys will be
(51:37):
able to come on back in a couple weeks and
listen to that next one with Zach and in the meantime,
I hope you all have a good weekend, Stay safe
out there, don't go get into any trouble. Hopefully you
guys all had a great Saint Patrick's Day as well,
and come on back in a couple weeks. Thanks everybody
for listening.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Bye,
Good evening everybody, and welcome to Calling All Creatures. I
am your host, Lori, and tonight, I think you guys
are going to enjoy this podcast. I am talking with
Jane Sharp and she is an author and she has
just put out a new This one's a children's book
called Winston the Cat with a Mechsuit, and we're going
(00:28):
to talk about that book. But Jane has quite a
variety of different books as well, so we're going to
kind of touch on all of them so you guys
can get the full view of everything that she's done
and see what she might like. So anyway, thank you
for being on tonight, Jane. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I'm so excited to be here and to be able
to talk about all these different topics that I'm interested in.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, I think it's going to be really cool. Like
I said, You've got quite a variety of books out
there and stuff, so I think it's going to be
really need to let everybody know everything that you have
kind of written about because it's such a vast variety.
It's like that's quite you know, it's really cool. Anyways,
why don't you just go ahead, let's start out and
have you just tell us a little bit about yourself.
(01:14):
I mean, when you were growing up, did you think
that you would end up being an author and writing
about these different things?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I I didn't have a plan for my career as
a child. But in fifth grade we had a program
where we could write a book and publish it, and
it was just for the kids that were interested. I
don't think everybody did it. And so in mid sixth
and seventh grade I published my first three books. And
(01:43):
the best part was that they were at the library
and you could go in and students could check them out,
and I could look at them on the shelf.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's really cool.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, so it's exciting to like do the big girl
version of that as an adult.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I'll bet none of your books can be in Bigger life.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, yes, or the local bookstore. I mean, Amazon is
sort of like the local bookstore nowadays.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, exactly. I'm actually I mean, I'm glad that Barnes
and Noble is you know, that is still going, But
I'm surprised that they're still going with everything you can
do online now yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, Well, it's nothing takes the place of going in
and getting a cup of coffee.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And sitting there and walking around, you know, and looking
at the spines on the shelf.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So yeah, you know, I always kind of like the
smell of a bookstore. I mean, oh, yes, yeah, that's
just me.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
They see those earrings that are the chemical, the molecular
formation or whatever of the book smell well really actually yeah,
they identified it by molecules, and then they sell a
little like a necklace or earrings of the molecule shape,
and it can be super book nerdy in your dick core.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
That's pretty cool. I didn't even know they had those.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
So you did your first books when you're basically in
kind of grade school, So then did you continue from
there or did you kind of branch off do something
else in between then? And when you actually did start writing,
When did you.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Actually Oh gosh, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Got married young, I had my kids young. I was
in the Air Force for a little bit, and then
I started homeschooling my kids, so I was super busy
doing all sorts of other things. But I'm definitely a bibliophile.
I think I own over four thousand books personally, and
so books have always been a huge part of you know,
homeschooling and my personal hobbies and stuff. But I haven't
(03:35):
done I didn't do any writing really until.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
It was like the very it was.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
It was when it got cold in twenty nineteen, right
before the new year, is when I first sat down
and I got the idea of you know how a themed.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Alphabet goes through the alphabet.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
From A to Z and the letters all have to
rotate around a topic. And so in the fault it
was really the winter of twenty nineteen. I just I
don't know what happened. I got on this kick and
made all these themed lists for the topics that I
was interested in, and you know, had to I just
spent I think it was like a week just finding
(04:13):
every letter for because some of the letters are really
hard to find that good. You know, because you're trying
to stay on a theme, You're also trying to be
appealing to children.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
So somewhere that might.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Obviously fit in the theme would be just you know,
either boring or way over the head of a child,
not interesting.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
And so so I made this list. I had it.
I think I had six ABC.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Lists on different themes that I made, and then I
just started I just learned photoshop and I figured out
Amazon and publishing and formatting and all sorts of crazy
stuff and got started and that's where that's where it
all started, making these ABC lists.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Wow, Yeah, that would be I mean, like you said,
the some of those individual letters with some of the
words and keeping them to that theme. Yeah, that would
be quite the challenge.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
The theme is really where you're pinned.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Well, it's really just because you're trying to be appealing
to children and you've got to work in the theme, so.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Right, you know, really it's Q and X and yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Some of the letters are sort of challenging.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Right right. So let's go ahead and we'll talk about
your book, Winston here in just a few minutes. But
before we talk about Winston, i'd kind of like to
talk about the other books that I mentioned at the
beginning of the podcast. You have written gun safety books
for kids. What made you kind of decide to write
(05:40):
the gun safety books? And if you don't mind, what
ages are you kind of gearing those books towards?
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Sure, So all of my ABC books, the ABC book
itself is sort of geared to you know any I mean,
my sister in law is reading to her six month old,
so he's not fully grasping at that point, you know
what the words are, but he's seeing that pages turned
from left to right.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
He's he's cuddling with his mom.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
So so my books go from you know, whenever you
start reading to your child.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
And I think the ABC books would be appropriate up to.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Like maybe four or five because they're just one picture
with one letter, you know, like L or K or whatever,
and then one word that starts with that. So they're
very simple. There's no like story or plot or anything.
So those are for little kids to look over this vocabulary.
Then each of my ABC books has an activity book,
(06:34):
so that's for an older brother or sister who you know,
probably has the ABC book in their house and they
you know, my son, when I wrote it, he was
eight and he absolutely is my biggest.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Fan, and he loved it.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
But the activity book is meant for you know, anybody
from five to even twelve, uh, to do the activities
that build on all the topics that were introduced in
the ABC book.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Okay, so I think.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Between the two books you could go anywhere from two
to twelve.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
When they build on each other like that.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, that's awesome that you have them set up like that.
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, And in homeschooling, you know, everybody's doing the same
thing at different levels. So you're talking maybe to your
eighth grade or about whatever topic, and your younger kids
are sitting there absorbing what they can while they you know,
play with play or legos or whatever, while you're teaching
the older ones.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
And then everybody breaks off for their own instruction on
that topic.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
And the little kids do it, you know, on a
lighter level, and the older kids do it on the
more intense level.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So it just was sort of natural for me to
make them.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Accessible to the different age groups, because that's how you know,
our household has always worked.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah. I had my son. I homeschooled him for a while.
I got fed up with the local.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
School, so yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, he was homeschooled, but pretty much all of his
I think junior high, high school basically.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, that's a hard age group.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I'm always so proud of mom or dad that pulls
a kid out at that age, because, i mean, school
can be so hard and you know you're starting to think,
oh can I teach at that level? And so I'm
always so proud of parents that pulled them out. At
seventh eys and I'm invoved.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, yep. So the what what to get you interested
or made you want to write your gun safety books
that you have out there.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
So my kids were getting older. I have five kids,
and I think at.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
The time in twenty nineteen, I've got to do fast math.
I think my daughter was seventeen or eighteen, and so
everybody else was all the way down to the five
year old. And I was like, we need to do
a unit study on gun safety because we've always been
my dad has hunted. I have always I had you know,
marksman badge and the Air Force.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Has been on a competitive shooting team when.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I was little and so and then we're a lot
of veterans in our family. So guns have been in
my kids' lives and they've learned the basic rules. But
I was like, you know what, we need to learn
a little more in depth. We need to go to
the range more often so you guys can have some
hands on training. So we were just sort of doing
a unit study where I was jeez, I was at
(09:12):
the range like once or twice a week for a
semester because I had to bring all five of them,
and I had to take them one at a time
for like, you know, the range rules and for safety
and giving them my full attention.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
So I was taking them to the range.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
And so it was just on my mind and and
so I that was one of the lists I made
when I made that first set of ABC lists.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, I think it's really awesome that you made gun
safety books for kids, because, oh yeah, I think it's
something that really needs to be out there. Parents really
need to invest in these types of books and start
educating their kids so that they are more safe, because
that's the key to a lot of things, is education.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
And it it's a safe place to start if you're
a little nervous because I've been around guns my whole life.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
But it's really serious to teach.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Somebody else because you really have to have a grasp.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Of it when you have to teach somebody else. And
so I would.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Trying to refresh the specifics of some of the things so.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
That I could teach it well.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
And I think that having a book is a great
way to have a focus reactivity.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
And I don't know, I think that a lot of.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
People are buying guns and exercising that freedom, and then
they want to introduce it to their kids, but they're like,
Oh'm gonna wait till they're fourteen because they'll be mature.
But I think you got to learn this vocabulary and
these principles way before you actually handle a gun, right right, And.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Sorry about that. We're a little bit seconds ago, the
kind of I don't know, something happened and you kind
of squelched out there and for just a second or
two are you talking? But it came back in and
you were fine again. So we just missed it. We
just missed a tiny little bit of what you said.
And so I'm not sure what happened on what end,
(11:07):
but it's okay, we'll get through this.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Hopefully it wasn't a critical phrase.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, no, I don't think so. You were just starting
to talk about, you know, the books and stuff like that,
so I'm hoping that, yeah, it didn't. Like I said,
it wasn't too long. It was just like a couple
of seconds there you kind of squatched out and I
was gonna stop you, but then it came back well yeah,
and it came back in really good. And then you
(11:31):
were just continuing to talk and I was trying not
to interrupt you because.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, that's always awkward because you're like, is are we
both experiencing the same technical difficulties or is it just
my end?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Right, And like I tell people, you know, when you're
when you're dealing with cell phones and like wireless and
internet and stuff like that, you just never know. I mean,
it's beautiful where I'm at right now, and it's been
a gorgeous day, so at least I'm not hopefully I'm
not having any problems, so I mean, not Gonne would
because you never know what could happen with the internet
somewhere else. So anyway, but you know, so now you're
(12:05):
fine again, and we got pretty much everything you were
saying on that, so I think, yeah, all right, so
let's go ahead. And another one that was I thought
was really cool that you did was Jane Journals. Oh
my god, I looked at those and I thought, what
a great idea that is, so you Yeah, I mean,
(12:26):
I just I was, really I did. That's exactly what
I thought. That was, honest to God. But uh, let's
go ahead and have you talked tell my listeners a
little bit more about James Journals and who are there?
Speaker 2 (12:40):
For sure? Yeah, Jane Journals is for consumable.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
There's sort of like workbooks, but they're really record keeping books.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
So there's there's four of them in the series.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
One focuses on complex medical care, keeping track of just
unbelievablemounts of data points when you're caring for somebody with
complex medical needs. The other book is for keeping track
of kids's symptoms when they have complex behavioral needs, where
(13:14):
they're having you're sort of having to track their environment
and things that trigger them and their diet and things,
which is just too much data for a person to
keep track of for a long period of time. Then
I realized that some kids, the parents don't know what's happening,
and they're just having this huge range of symptoms and behaviors,
(13:35):
and they don't even they're having trouble finding a diagnosis,
and so they're not even in a place where they
know what the child is struggling with.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So there's one I.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Called Investigating the Cause, and it sort of blends the
complex medical care and the complex behavioral needs into one
book so that you can try to see patterns in
what your kid is exhibiting and like track layer ups
and reactions to help your doctor find a diagnosis. Because
(14:04):
I mean, it's just an unbelievable lot of data that
parents are tracking when their kids are struggling with different things.
And then I threw together a detox journal because I
realized a lot of parents are when you have so
many factors, they're trying to reduce the amount of sort
of options. So they'll do restrictive diets to detox from
(14:26):
different you know, gluten.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Or dairy or whatever, trying to find the root cause.
And so I put.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Together a detox tracker so that they could keep track
of that while they're tackling all these other things.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, I thought they were really cool because I mean,
I've had friends that have had kids with some severe
special needs and stuff like that, and I know, you know,
you see parents with kids like this and they're carrying
around these huge folders and binders and books full of
all this information.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, and how can you hold that to the doctor's office?
And so I got into it. I met this woman
she had just started to homeschool and she had pulled
her son, he had audism, out of the school district.
And I was standing with her at her kitchen counter
and she had this, you know, so many supplements on
the counter and I was like, oh my gosh, this
I thought I had a lot of supplements. You have
a whole counterful. How do you keep track? And she
(15:25):
pulled up this like sheaf of loose leaf grade school
ruled manila paper that she had been keeping notes on.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And I was like, how are you how do you
even that?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Seems so just not haphazard, but like risky, like a
loose pile of pages, you know. And then I accompanied
my friend to her daughter's doctor appointment a different front.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Her daughter.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
She felt like a little bullied, and I came with
her to the appointment to sort of be like moral
support and backup.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
And and she.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Had the doctor asked her a question about her daughter's
flare up, and she had to go on her phone
and look for a photo of a ballet recital because
she knew that the flareup happened on the day of
the sister's ballet recital. And so she was scrolling, scrolling,
scrolling through her phone gallery trying to find the picture
from the recital so she could tell the doctor what
day her daughter had this symptom. And I was like,
oh my gosh, this is agonizingly slow totally, and I
(16:23):
had the other woman. In my mind, I was like,
how are these women keeping their children alive with all
this detail? Because my kids don't have like dietary restrictions
and all these things. And I was just in awe
of what kind of like data points that they.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Were trying to keep track of.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
And so that's when the idea came to me, And
so I interviewed these two women just repeatedly and came
up with each of the journals by talking to them
about how they cared for their child and what they tracked.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Well, yeah, these women are amazing.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
It's it's like my little offering towards these warriors that
are that are living this every day, just to try
to make it a little bit easier because I was
just in awe of what these women are are tackling
every day.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. You know, my cousin is
in MA and works in the doctor's offices something like that,
So I can just imagine some of the people she's
seen come in with. And I mean and even you know,
not even necessarily I guess kids, you know, for kids
with that, maybe even elderly people that have.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
To absolutely actually got a review that was like, don't
sell yourself. Sure these are any Anybody who is trying
to figure out what's going on with their symptoms can
use the medical record keeping book because.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
It's meant to do thirty days. So you just you write.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
May on the spine, put it on the shelf, and
then when you have a doctor's appointment in June you
can grab you know, April, May and June, bring them in.
You have, you know, ninety days, all clearly recorded.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Ready to go.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
So somebody did say that that it's not just for children,
but I guess because I was creating it through these
two moms, right, That's that's why I called it that.
But yeah, did you say it was your your cousin worked.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
There, Well, yeah, my cousin is an MA in a
doctor's office.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
So I made these postcards so that medical providers can
learn about them, or so that medical providers could leave
the postcards in their waiting room so if people or like,
if somebody loves it and they want to like evangelize
other moms in their mom's group, so I can mail
those postcards to anybody that wants to share them.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
They can just contact me through.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
The website, okay, and you know what, and I'll talk
to my cousin and if she wants some, I'll get
her address or have her contacts the two and have
you sent some, because I'm sure they would probably put some.
And so her doctor's office is actually situated on the
MSU campus, Okay, over there.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Yeah, because I just you know, it's and I met
those women or the one woman, and I interviewed my friend.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I was just it's a it's a big.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Task, and I think, you know, the more people that
know about these, the more people that it'll just make
everything a little bit easier.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Right, And I'm sorry, let me let me rephrase my
MSU campus. It's a large hospital network, Speral network. I'm sorry,
Speral Hospital. That's yeah, it's a pretty large hospital network.
So I'm sure that she would probably be billing. And
she is in mom groups and stuff, at least she
used to be. I'm not sure if she still is,
so she might be able put it in there and
(19:34):
stuff too and out.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, anybody can can email and get those sent out to.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Them mom's groups.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Sometimes when your kids get older, you end up getting
involved in the school or whatever, and so you sort
of fade out of the different mom groups sometimes.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, and you know, like me, her kids are grown
and having kids on their own.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So oh yeah, so then you're you're probably not in
mom's group. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I don't think she's in too many of them anymore,
but you never know. I mean she might be with friends. Yeah,
but either way, so yeah, that's cool. So yeah, I'll
talk to her and if she does, I'll shoot you
an email or something with her address and stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Okay, well that's awesome. So yeah, guys, if you guys
are interested, there you go. You just found out. And
at the end of the podcast, Jane will give her
website info and stuff like that so that you guys
will be able to go to that. And of course
I'll post it on my Facebook page. When I post
my thank you and everything for you being on, I'll
have the link to your website and everything and put
(20:30):
in there as well, so and remind people about the
James Journal things in the post place.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, no problem, I'd do that for everybody. So let's
talk a little bit too about your Crunchy mom at
ABC and kitchen Helber ABC books.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Just what.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
So I'm on the I guess you could call it
the crunchy spectrum.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
They invented a new word called scrunchy.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
So when you're not quite yeah, you're not quite crunchy,
but you're trying your best to do you know, a
low toxic lifestyle, and you do some of the things
but not all the things. So there's there's crunchy, you know,
over here, and then there's scrunchy, and then there's just
sort of like mainstream. So I realized that crunchy moms
are using this vocabulary that's totally normal to us. But
(21:17):
people on the outside of that, you know, subgroup of people.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Have no idea what these words are.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
But the kids and the parents and the crunchy families,
they're just these are just normal words for them.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
So I made I had so.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Many fabulous words for a crunchy alphabet that I made
two books, two ABC books and two activity books. One
is called Crunchy Mama ABC and one is called More
Crunchy Mama ABC because I just had so many amazing
words and so so there the two of them, just
the crunchy lifestyle all the way. And then crunchy moms
(21:53):
frequently just have ingredients in their home. They don't buy
tons of ready made like snack pack kind of things.
So having kids in the kitchen and cooking from scratch
is just like a part of life in a crunchy family.
So I wrote a book called Kitchen Help or ABC,
and it's all about, you know, kids being in the
(22:15):
kitchen and kitchen words and kitchen tools and just all
sorts of stuff for kids who can't get out of.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The kitchen and love helping in the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
So that's all part of the Crunchy Mama's Healthy Baby.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Collection because they all just build on each other.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
And like I told you, I got my granddaughter the
Kitchen Helper ones and from my understanding they were going
to be doing some activities and stuff and coloring and
learning some new words and stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
In its exciting.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah. Yeah, I think she really likes being in the kitchen.
When I saw those on your website, I was just like, Oh,
that'd be perfect for her.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
There's that's two for y'all. Yeah. I feel like there's
so many.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Different range of topics that there's probably.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Something that somebody would enjoy on my website.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh yeah, almost, definitely, yes. And so on top of
all these other awesome books that you've been putting out.
You also put out a guide in a workbook to
help homeschool families self publish their own books. So yes,
that is kind of cool.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
I got my feet wet with a real chapter book
with thousands of words instead of twenty six words. So
I realized I had put out at that point two four, six, eight,
twelve books and they just kept getting better and better
and more accessible, and I was learning so much, and
(23:43):
of course being in the homeschool community, everything's like a lesson,
right you just want to teach, you know, at any time,
you can't even go on a walk or a field
trip before you're pulling people aside and trying to teach
them something about whatever they're looking at. So self publishing
for homeschool family just came together from all the things
that I had learned that I and I put it
(24:04):
in a way that I could explain it to, you know,
kids that were interested. Like me when I was in
fifth grade, I wanted to write a book. I wasn't
really super into illustrating, but there's plenty of kids who
art is their thing and not words, so it just
takes you can use it you can hand it off to.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
A teenager to do themselves.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You can teach it as a unit study, or a
mom who, like me, had her students getting older and older,
could just you know, write the book that she's always
been wanting to write. So it's really just for anybody
in the home school family start to finish how to
self publish.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Cool. And my granddaughter really likes to draw and that
when you said that, it really hit me because she
likes to draw. I think, I don't know what my
daughter said. She's more into drawing, like maybe like fashion
and cloths and stuff like that. Maybe, But she when
she talks, she talks so quietly you can't hear a word. Yeah,
(25:03):
and it's like, oh my gosh, girl, you need to
speak up. We go to a restaurant, you try and
try to order food. They can't hear her. I can't her.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, and you're right next to her. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
It's interesting because a lot of times artists are very
you know, creative and like not explosive, but just so
passionate about whatever they're drawing.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
But it is hard to talk.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
I mean I've had to learn even you know, coming
on a podcast, like I like words, I like reading,
I like writing, and these are all.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Very quiet personal things.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
So you know, when she gets I don't want to
be like passionate enough. But when she gets a little
older and she wants to start sharing what she's creating.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
It'll just she'll have to.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
She'll just practice, and she'll she'll succeed because the drive
for people to learn about her her fashion will become
more powerful than her desire to stay quiet in her chair.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah, yeah, I think. So I have to touch my
daughter and see if she's still because into drawing that
kind of stuff or if she's changed her she's still
drawing at all? Right now, I think she is. We
bought her for Christmas. It wasn't this last Christmas. With
the Christmas before we had gotten her a bunch of
art stuff and everything, so yeah, we could do some
different stuff. So yeah, anyway, hopefully she still is because
(26:14):
I think it's a nice talent to develop, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So yeah, and there's but there's so many ways to
be creative.
Speaker 3 (26:20):
My kids went through like a drawing phase and then
one of my girls went out and got into like
three D sculpture and that was totally new for our family.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
So you know, and then my other son, he.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Creates whole worlds for D and D and storytelling.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
So his creative and is channeled differently, you know, So.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
That's pretty cool. My daughter, I've played D and D
way back in the day, and then my daughter and
her husband actually played D and D. Now they have
some friends that they get together with and play.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
So yeah, no, it's a great I mean, the friendships
that they make there, they can just last so long
because that's such a niche interest.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
You know that the people in it absolutely love it.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Oh yeah, yeah. All right, Well we've touched on all
your different variety of books and let everybody know just
what all you have out there, because, like I said,
there's so many various books that cover so many different
topics that it's just amazing you know that you covered
all those. So but now let's talk about the book
(27:22):
we've actually got you on here to talk about more. Yes,
Winston the Cat with the mech Suit. So can you
tell us a little bit more about what the book
is about and how you came up with this idea
of having a cat using a mech suit.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Absolutely, yes, this book was very exciting and energizing because
it has a plot more than any of my you know,
alphabet books has.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
The art is a completely different style. It's like a
water color. The colors are just gorgeously saturated. So this
book was just so much fun to make.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
I worked with an artist from Ukraine and she did
a just a brilliant job.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
And we're just now starting the It's.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Not really a sequel, but I guess it's in the
series or the universe of Winston. Winston is based on
my grumpy ginger cat, whose name is actually Jasper, and
he's sort of a condescending cat. He he loves his family,
but he's sort of just like you know, y'all humans
(28:24):
are beneath me a little bit. He's very high and mighty,
but he does love his family, and he you know,
likes to pitch in which interest. I think that, of course,
I'm in love with Winston and the whole book. But
some people's criticism is that no cat would.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Ever want to help, you know, like, you know, cats
are aloof and cats are.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
Yes, And I was like, no, he's in love with
his family and they cut him slack when he's napping,
and then he pays them back and they're like, no
cat would do.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
That, so I can see a dog doing Yes.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
That's that's what.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
The people that have questions they're like, but but no
cat would ever do that. I'm like, clearly it's science fiction, guys.
Like he's in a suit, he's running a suit.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Obviously it's fiction. Guys.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Maybe you could do a book of another one about
Winston down the road, and this time he could be
like Garfield and be like knocking things, you know, lasagna
pants or something off of things like that with the
mech suit, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yeah, Winston's highest priority is napping and so he doesn't
even get into trouble. He's just you know, unconscious. He
just he wants to sleep time to not be interrupted.
So so he'll like one of the pages, you know,
the daughter is supposed to make her bed right, and
she she says, I can't make my bed because the
(29:52):
cat is sleeping on the bed, you know, like you
can't disturb the cat. And so then later the girl
is doing art and the cat wakes up, and so
he gets in the next suit and he makes.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
The bed for her. So it's just reciprocal.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
So see, we didn't have cats in our family until.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
About ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
We had had We had gotten a dog when we
first got married, and then we had like a little
suburban farm, and we'd had chickens for a while for
somehow just oh, I remember, my husband was allergic to cats,
so it just wasn't even a question. We weren't going
to get a cat. But then he had sinus surgery
and was no longer allergic to cats. Oh wow, yeah,
(30:37):
and I guess that's like an occasional side effect of
sinus surgery. So he so we got a kitten and
then we were like, oh my gosh, how have we
not had this our whole life?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
And we were just completely enraptured. And we got a
pregnant cat and.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
We rehomed most of her kittens, and then you know,
another cat, and this and that, and now we have
five cats.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, yeah, that's quite.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So it is. It is quite a household. They all
have different personalities.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
But I guess that was a long intro to say
that in our family, it is a legit excuse if
you have a sleeping cat on you. Like if I
say to my kid, like, come empty the dishwasher, and
he says, but I have a cat, Well, then the
dishwasher just waits because you're not going to wake a
sleeping cat. No, And so my husband's like, you know,
(31:28):
asking me, you know, to do something or it's time
to go to bed. I'm like, well, I can't get
in bed because the cat is sleeping on top of
the blanket, and I can't move the blanket because the
cat is sleeping, and I can't disturb the cat.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So this is like a rule.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
So I thought it was just so absurd coming to
cats late in life, and the whole Winston the Cat
in the Mex Suit just erupted out of all these
ridiculous situations that we find ourselves in when we don't
want to bother our sleeping pets.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
That is funny. We didn't have cats when I was
a kid kid, but then when I was a teenager,
maybe my dad might not have liked cats. And then
my mom and dad divorced, and then when I was
a teenager, we ended up with some cats. And then
I had cats a couple different times. But then my
ex didn't really care for cats, but we ended up
(32:16):
with a cat. She was cool. She would lay like
you said, sleeping cat, but she would get up if
I was in my computer chair at my desk working
on the computer. She would lay on the like the
back of my neck around.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
So yeah, so then you know, all you're kind of
sitting there and you don't want to move because you
don't want to wake up the cat.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
You're a prisoner, Yes, absolutely, yes. When you called me
my cat, Darlene was sleeping on my legs and I
was like.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Oh, princess, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
You know, you have to evict them because like occasionally
you do.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Have to disturb them.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
But yeah, but just so.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Winston is just a.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Silly book about how people rearrange their whole lives so
the cat can sleep and then, silly Winston, occasionally we'll
get in the next suit and help out.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
That is so funny, And it's so funny that people
were just telling you, no, a cat wouldn't do that.
That's funny imagination, guys. Let's just imagine, like it's.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
A mech suit.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Nobody said, hey, there's no such thing as a mex
suit that could be run by a cat either.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
I didn't have anything to do with the cat running
the mechsuit. It was just the cat would not do it.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Even if they had cat it fails to compute, like
why why would a cat ever contribute?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, yeah, that is funny when you think about it,
that the one was questioning or saying anything about the
cat in the megsuit.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Like on the cover of the book, he's mowing the
lawn like guys.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So it's just scowl. Darn it.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
If my cat had a mex suit, I'm telling you
right now, the cat wouldn't get into mex suit and
help me.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
He would certainly get in the Mex suit and he
would just sleep on the chair, wouldn't push any buttons exactly.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Oh my gosh, that's great the things people think about. Yeah,
so now you said, there's at this point you are
coming out with another book, but it's not about Winston's.
But it's still kind of in the realm for Winston.
Do tell us a little bit about it.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Absolutely, I'm so excited, Like I am madly, passionately in
love with Winston and the mech Suit story. But I
think the next one is going to be like at
least ten times better.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
It's called Ezra, the Cat who.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Babysat, and it is so the family in the Winston book.
The youngest character in that book is the mate is
one of the.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Characters in the Ezra book.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
So we're going to have an Easter egg Winston in
the background of Ezra.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
The Cat who Babysat.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
But and so it's with the same human family, but
it is it's there's really the people in the story
are not.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
So the story for Ezra the Cat.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Who Babysat is that the youngest boy in this family,
his little cousin comes over and the two moms are
hanging out and having coffee, and the boys go out
to play and the cat, you know, is watching them.
And so on each of the pages in the book,
like on the left side is you know reality, the
(35:14):
boys go out the back door, the cat's playing with
you know, a ladybug on the porch, and the boys,
you know, are just.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Watching the cat.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
On the right page is the children's imagination. So the
cat is you know, pouncing, and they're they're trekking through
the safari.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Like the the not the wilderness.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
What's the word for the jungle?
Speaker 3 (35:38):
No, the like the savannah. So it's like grassy and lion, yes,
And so it's just every page the boys are just
doing a normal activity with their pet cat and they're
having you know, a snack, or they're playing, you know,
on the play set, or they're going to get the
mail or.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
All these just normal little things.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
But on the right hand side, you can see what
they pretend they're doing in their imagination.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
You know.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
So when they're on the swings, yeah, like they're on
the swings and the cat is not happy on the swing, but.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
The boys are having fun.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
And then on the right page, you know, they're on
like World War two bi planes, swooping and diving, you know,
and and having fun, the three of them. So it's
just a little adventure about you know, kids imaginations and
how realistic it is for children inside their minds.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Now, you know, there's not gonna be a cat that
would do that.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Well, what the best part is is that in the
in the reality pictures, the cat is frequently completely oblivious
to the boys.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Or he's annoyed with them because they're like impeding on
his freedom.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Yeah, that's they're gonna so relate to that side of it.
They're gonna be like, yeah, that's what the cat would do.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, Like Jane Sharp finally got it right.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yes, yes, Oh my gosh, that is funny.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, it's it's and her her art is so cute
and the colors are so bright.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I just I just am really excited to work with
her again.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Oh good, good. So when is that one supposed to
be coming out? Around? What time?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I think?
Speaker 3 (37:07):
I think I'd like to have it out by Thanksgiving?
Or Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Is really the latest that I would like, But it's it's.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Dependent on so much one of my other books that's
coming out soon. The artist is in Bangladesh, and he
has been so faithful.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
To work with me.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
He got a real day job and stopped being a
full time artist, and then there was like unrest in
his country and he couldn't get online for a while,
and then his father passed away, and he's just been
so faithful to work through the whole project with me.
So you really you have goals as an author, but
when you're working with an artist, you just really have
to be sort of fluid and open handed about it.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Now. Was that the because I did see that you
were going to have two new books coming out? Was
that the other new book that you're going to be?
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yes, the this one is is almost completely finished. I'm
working with like the formatting of the pages and things
to get the files correct.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
It's it's a it's a.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
It's another ABC theme that I had written in twenty
nineteen about traveling with children, and so I think, yeah,
I'm I'm really excited about the art style is very
different than the others, and it's it's like expansive and
big and like piles.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Of clouds and things. So I'm really excited to get
this one done.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
It's I have to memorize the name because I had
a lot of trouble finding the right title.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
But I think it's called and Is for New.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Places, an ABC book for families that travel, I think.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Is what it's called.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
And so it's you know, it starts out airplane, back
back and grandma and Grandpa's and passports and oh cool,
you know, all sorts of anything that you might run
into when you're traveling, so right, and yeah, yeah, you
got to stay on theme, man.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah. Well yeah, when you're doing ABC books with the theme,
you have to.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah. So that that was one that I and I
only have.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Yeah, So those two books, the Ezra The Cat who
Babysat and Going to New Places and Is for New
Places are are pretty much.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Like in process.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
And then I have one alphabet left that probably won't
be till next year, and that'll go through it and
that'll help be how long it has taken me to
go through all my alphabet lists that.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
I made in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Wow, okay, yeah, that's a process. Well, we'll definitely have
to keep our eyes out for Ezra the cat who babysat,
because I think that one's going to be cute. It's
so cute and hopefully people will be okay with what
the cat does this time.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Oh my goodness. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
And then the activity book for Winston is completely different
than all my other activity books because it.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Is pretty much the art.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
More than half of it is the art from Winston
the cat in the next suit.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
So the art on page one is the art on
page one.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
And so you can color. You can make the winds touit. Oh,
you can make Instant a different color cat. Instead of
being a ginger cat, he could look like your cat.
You could change the mechsuit to be you know, pink
and yellow or whatever.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
So customer almost like their own little book books that
they got exactly yep.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
And then there's a paper doll you can make with
a bunch of props and then some activity stuff at
the end.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
So that's kind of cool. I might have to go
in there and buy those ones from my granddaughter too.
She likes she's very crafty, arty, crafty. She likes doing
all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
So yeah, no, I I printed it on one sided
paper so you could cut it out and it wouldn't
have anything on the back. And I need to make
a little video about how to do it, because I
guess paper dolls aren't like this is the gen X
in me coming out that I even considered a paper doll.
But I think all that old stuff is coming new again,
and it's new and fun for a new generation.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
So yeah, I mean it definitely will keep them busy
for a few minutes, I think, playing with it and
figuring it out. And you know, I remember having paper
You know, I'm old, but I remember having paper dolls
when I was young, and yeah, have to fold the
little things over on the shoulders to keep the little absolutely.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Yeah, I'm gonna make a little I'm gonna have an artist,
not an artist, but like a digital person make me
a little video because you know, you got to cut
out a cereal box and glue your paper doll and
make it stiff, so then the page is the paper.
I mean, he doesn't have paper clothes because he's a cat,
but he has props that he that the mechsuit can
hold and manipulate. And then, you know, because it is
(41:26):
twenty twenty five, I actually got a three D printed
I mean file what do you call STL file created
so that people with three D printers can print out
their own Winston and their own mechsuit.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Oh wows, yeah, that would be cute to see.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I am so excited. I can't even tell you.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Yes, there's so many skilled people in the world, and
to like, it's one thing to see your book come
to life and hold it in your hand and have
somebody read it.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Like when I go to my niece and nephew's.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
Houses, I'll see my books like throw on the floor
and in a stack, and sometimes like my sister in
law or my brother will be like, oh, I'm so
sorry your book it's on the floor, and I'm like, no,
that is the biggest compliment I could have.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
That it's not like in a place of honor where
nobody touches it.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
But you know, I want the coloring book colored in
I want the book to be dog eared and carried
around and shoved in the diaper bag, like that's that's
the best life.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
For a book.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yep, yeah, exactly. Yeah, all right, well you've got quite,
like I said, a variety of work out there for
people to choose from. And Winston. I did enjoy reading
the book. It was it was a cute little book.
And like I said, I think my granddaughter will like ius.
I'll probably end up getting that for her too. And uh,
(42:48):
the new ones coming out sound like they're going to
be really good as well. I think, like I said,
I'm pretty sure Ezra is going to be a cute
little book that I'm not. If you get it out
my you know, no later than thy Thanksgiving, that'll probably
be a good Christmas present.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Yeah, that's my idea in my head.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
So we'll see how the art works out, because it's
a big project. Yeah, there's a little teaser on the
back of Winston where you can see what Ezra and
the cousin look like.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
So yeah, I think those would be pretty cool and
I'll keep my eye out for those to come out,
like I said, because that would be a good idea
for my granddaughter for Christmas as well.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
So yeah, yeah, they're a great set.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
I think I'm discussing with my husband about taking a
picture of you know, Winston's based on Jasper and he's
quite condescending and grumpy, and so he looks just like Jasper.
I was like, you know, what we should do is
take a picture of him looking regal and then make
him make footprints on it, and then we could send
(43:48):
autographed copies of Winston headshots to people there you go.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
I thought that would be.
Speaker 3 (43:55):
So much fun because we have a picture of him
yawning and he looks like he's roaring.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
Well, but I.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Mean, I don't know if everybody wants to see all
my cat pictures.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
But I mean, you think that if he's become.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Winston, maybe he'll he'll deign to let his photo be taken.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
He may you just never know. But then again, you know,
he may not want to do that.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
He absolutely may not, and he may not want to
do the footprints, and so it's really just about so
pulling out the cat.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
So is the Winston teaser in the Ezra book?
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Is it really easy to find or is it going
to be kind of a little bit of a challenge.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
I think it's just gonna be I think he's so
when the boys are inside playing or something, he's.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Just going to be crop sleeping on something. So he'll
just be clearly portrayed in the He's not going to
be hidden. He's just not going to be part of
the story.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Okay, I see, I see to say, because if you
had him hidden or something somewhere, maybe you could do
a little contest for people to try to find Winston, right, Like, that's.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
What Richard's scary.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
He I always had Goldbug hidden in the pictures on
the other pages, and you had to find Goldbug on
every page.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yep, and then you could do your little If they
find them, then you could send them the autographed picture exactly.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Yeah, contest time.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yes, sounds great.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Hey, you know you just you just I think could
be fun.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
No, that is a kind of like like modern scavenger
hunt kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
I mean, they got that app out there you can
get for your phone to find trying to find the
cats and study you gotta find like one hundred cats
or something like that.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Really yeah, yeah, they have different ones, but one of
them is the cats. So that's funny. Yeah, I've seen
that advertised, but well, we're getting pretty close to the
end of the podcast. Jane, I gotta tell you, I
was really glad that you were able to come on
and talk about all your books and Winston and the
new upcoming ones. And if you would be kind enough
(45:57):
to give us your website information where listeners can and
where people can find your books. I'm sure it's not
just on your website. I'm sure we're Amazon and stuff,
But if you want to throw all that info out
there so listeners can go to your website and take
a look or maybe go purchase a book or two,
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah. Yeah, it's just my name dot com.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
So it's Jane Sharp, Sharp with an E dot com
And there's information on all the books. You can see
inside of the Jane's journals and see if the fields
that you want to fill out would be would be
applying to your situation. You can see inside the Gun
Safety Activity Book and what kinds of images and activities
(46:41):
are in there. There's a couple of interviews and a
couple of free PDFs you can download, so there's a
ton of great things.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Jane Sharp dot.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Com awesome and like I said, obviously, you can find
your books and stuff on Amazon through the website.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Yeah, they just when you click on them, they'll take
you to Amazons.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
All of them are there.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
I think, I think Amazon when you if you look
up my name on Amazon, it'll link you to everything.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yep that Amazon sells. So yeah, they all link together
back and forth.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So all right, well that's awesome. I'm
like I said, I'm excited to get the new Ezra
Babysitting Book. I think that will be really a cute
one as well. And like I said, I think I'm
definitely going to be getting the ones for my granddaughter
for Winston and the activity book, because I know she'd
(47:31):
really like the activity book.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
So yeah, it's got a lot of coloring. The other
ones have a lot of activities, but Winston has got
a lot of coloring.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yep, exactly.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
So well, I appreciate you getting a copy for your family,
and I appreciate being on here and talking not just
about Winston but with the other things too.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
It's been it's been great.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Oh yeah, I've enjoyed having you on and talking about
all these books because like I said, I mean, I
was really taken with the fact that she did a
gun safety book and then you did those change journals.
I just thought those were both just such great ideas.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
So yeah, I'm so proud of everything I've done. I'm
really pleased with with how they've all turned out.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
It's like instead of having five kids, I have all
these paper kids.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
Also, the little projects that I've worked on, it come
to life.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
There you go, there you go. It's always good when
things come together like that.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
So yes, it's great.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
All right, Well, I'm just gonna announce my next upcoming podcast,
So you're welcome to stan if you want.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
But I know it's.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Probably getting a little late for you, so if you'd
like to jump off, you're welcome to do that as well.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
And thank you for having me. I appreciate the time
you've given me.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
All right, well, thanks for being on again. I appreciate
you being able to join me tonight.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Alrighty, all right, I'm gonna head out.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Thanks, all right, Thanks Jane, and we'll talk to you later. Already,
bye bye, all right, everybody. So Jane just got off,
so let me just real quick tell you about my
next upcoming podcasts. So on April third, we are going
to be talking with Zachary Lou and we're going to
(49:01):
be talking about Ants. The podcast is actually called Ants
the Kings of Their Hills. So I'll be speaking with
Zachary and learning all sorts of really really cool stuff
about ants. You guys just will now believe some of
the really cool stuff I was seeing about Ants from
Zachary because he does a YouTube channel and stuff as well,
(49:22):
And we'll give all that information when he's on the
podcast in a couple of weeks. But anyway, yeah, so
Ants gonna be really cool and like I said, you
guys are never going to believe this. There's exploding ants,
there's or like emt ants, you name it. They have democracies.
It's really cool and I never knew so many things
(49:44):
about Ants. But we're going to learn about him on
April third, and then on April seventeenth, I am going
to have Scott find Back on the podcast with me.
Maybe you guys remember Scott from a while back, I
had him on. He is the founder of Joey's Legacy,
So we're going to be doing an update podcast on
(50:05):
Joey's Legacy. Joey's Legacy is an organization that is helping
people if they have a pet that goes to the
vet veterinarian and something happens with the veterinarian and say
the dog passes away or something like that, then the
(50:27):
they help you to try to find a lawyer stuff
like that, and you know, if you if you need
to go to court and those kinds of things, you know,
like malpractice suits, just like with a human. That's kind
of what Joey's legacy is helping out what They help
people to find attorneys and stuff like that. You send
them information about your case, They review it and make
(50:51):
sure that it's a case you know that should be addressed,
and then they help you find attorneys to help you
out and try to get this malpractice stuff taken care
of with the veterinarian. I know, it's interesting because we
think about that kind of stuff with humans, but not
many people really think about that stuff when it comes
(51:13):
to veterinarians. But you know, it happens. I mean, things
happen just like with humans. You have human doctor malpractice,
you have animal doctor malpractice. So anyway, those are the
next two podcasts. April third Ants The Kings of Their
Hills was Zachary lu and then April seventeenth, Joey's Legacy
update was Scott fine and hopefully you guys will be
(51:37):
able to come on back in a couple weeks and
listen to that next one with Zach and in the meantime,
I hope you all have a good weekend, Stay safe
out there, don't go get into any trouble. Hopefully you
guys all had a great Saint Patrick's Day as well,
and come on back in a couple weeks. Thanks everybody
for listening.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Bye,
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