ANNIE OAKLEY: A SHARPSHOOTER

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Oakley

Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moss on August 13, 1860, in Darke County, Ohio. Her father passed away when she was six years old, and her mother was left with six children to support. To lighten the load off her mother, Annie moved in with the family of Superintendent Edington. She stayed at the county infirmary, which housed a number of individuals unable to care for themselves, including children and elderly folks. In exchange for education and a place to stay, Annie would help take care of the orphaned children. This is where Annie’s lifelong compassion for children comes from. When she returned to her family at thirteen years old, Annie’s mother had remarried. However, their finances were still poor, so Annie started using the old rifle her father had left them to hunt game and help feed her family. Annie started to become extremely successful at shooting, more than she thought would be. What started out to just help feed her family and help pay the mortgage eventually turned into a sport. She became known for her notable shooting skills and was invited to shoot against well-known marksmen when she was just fifteen years old. She became a performer of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, making her an international star as she grew in fame to perform for important figures and royalty.

“Aim at a high mark and you’ll hit it. No, not the first time, nor the second time. Maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect.”

—Annie Oakley

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Girls by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH “wild lights in her eyes”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Wordsworth

Beloved poet William Wordsworth was one of his sister’s biggest admirers and she his “dearest friend” during his life. She was the only girl of the five children born to the Dorsetshire family. When their mother passed away in 1778, when Dorothy was seven, relatives raised her away from her four brothers.

But despite being raised apart, William and Dorothy were extremely close. William, two years older than his sister, inherited some money of his own when he turned twenty-six and bought an English country cottage just for the two of them. William’s destiny as a poet was already unfolding. Dorothy, to aid her brother and amuse him, began to keep a series of journals that not only reveal the lives of important literary figures but also have a purity and merit all their own. The portraits of their daily existence alone are priceless, but her machinations to inspire and “preserve” her brother as a poet are also remarkable. Today scholars pore over the journals for their wealth of information about the poet.

When William met and married Mary Hutchinson, at first Dorothy felt betrayed and abandoned. Eventually, her loyalty and love won out, and
she pitched in to care for his children, for whom she wrote her own poetry, including “Peaceful Is Our Valley.” The valley in which they lived, rhapsodized over by brother William, was peaceful indeed, an idyllic place visited often by friends William Hazlitt, Robert Southey, Charles Lamb, Thomas De Quincey, Samuel Coleridge, and Robinson. De Quincey penned reminiscences about his visits to the cottage, where he was shocked by what he perceived as Dorothy’ stepping outside a proper feminine role: “The exclusive character of her reading, and the utter want of pretension, and of all that looks like bluestockingisms.”

Later writers, including Virginia Woolf, puzzled over her life. Was she stifled by the towering talent of her brother and held back by her gender? A closer look at her diaries and the beautifully sculpted entries there reveal one thing certainly: she was a happy person and one with nature and her own nature. While her brother sometimes labored over his works, under pressure to produce for the eyes of the world, she was free to allow her impressions to flow freely. However, not all was to remain rosy forever; she spent the last twenty-five years of her life struggling with both physical and mental illness.

The Sea perfectly calm blue, streaked with deeper colour by the clouds, and tongues or points of sand, on our return a gloomy red. The sun goes down. The crescent moon, Jupiter and Venus.

Dorothy Wordsworth

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Women Writers by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

JUDI SHEPPARD MISSET: SHE MADE THE CONNECTION

PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHANIE GONOT

Not every shero’s interest in physical fitness and sports results in Olympic glory. For most of us, just taking care of our bodies and ourselves is a herculean challenge in the wildly paced workday world. One unsung shero who offers solutions for this issue is Iowa’s Judi Sheppard Misset, the founder and CEO of Jazzercise, Inc., who took her own passions for jazz music and dance and created a creative and healthy way for the not-necessarily-athletic to achieve health, fitness, and fun. A pioneer for this innovative program, Judi has devoted the last thirty years to developing a program that includes comprehensive nutrition and children’s fitness awareness as well as options for the elderly and for inner-city families who have no access to playgrounds, gyms, and sports outside the streets. Judi has offered the benefit of accessible, easy, and joy-filled exercise that builds community at the same time. Obviously, in addition to “inventing” Jazzercise, Judi has also founded a very profitable empire along the way. A shero to the bone, Judi gives millions of dollars to myriad philanthropic causes. Apparently the Misset clan is a matriarchy, as evidenced by her daughter Shanna Misset’s role as Vice President and latest spokesperson for Jazzercise. Brilliant and beautiful, Shanna is poised to lead her mother’s company into the new millennium!

Find Your Balance

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“You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.”

ANNA QUINDLEN

“I believe you are your work. Don’t trade the stuff of your life, time, for nothing more than dollars. That’s a rotten bargain.”

RITA MAE BROWN

“Take your work seriously, but never yourself.” MARGOT FONTEYN

“Any woman who has a career and a family automatically develops something in the way of two personalities, like two sides of a dollar bill, each different in design…. Her problem is to keep one from draining the life from the other.”

IVY BAKER PRIEST

“A human being must have occupation if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world.”

DOROTHY L. SAYERS

“Value work. But not any kind of work. Ask yourself, ‘Is the work vital, strengthening my own character, or inspiring others, or helping the world?’”

ANNA ROBERTSON BROWN

This excerpt is from You Are an Awesome Woman by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

Living Your Best Life Every Day

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Take stock of your day-to-day life. Are you giving to others in your community, or are things a little out of balance where your work and your immediate family get 99 percent of what you offer the world? You can change that in one day
by reconnecting to your dreams. What were your dreams when you were a child? We’re all striving to make the most of what we’ve got; we all want better lives. But sometimes this desire becomes twisted, and we start to think that if only we had more money, or different circumstances, or the grass was just a little greener, our lives would be perfect. Well, I am here to attest that perfect is boring―and life should be anything but boring. And while more and better stuff might be fun for a while, the real fun starts when we embrace the intangibles. The ingredients of a well-lived life are yours for the choosing: openness, strength, courage, dignity, responsibility, passion, positivity, energy, beauty, and whatever else you fancy.

It’s time to take control of your destiny. Time to merge your inner child’s enthusiasm with your adult experience. Believe you can live beyond your wildest dreams, voice your desires and act on them, and reap the benefits of a life lived to the hilt!

This excerpt is from You Are an Awesome Woman by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

Connection

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“Friendship is the golden ribbon that ties the world together.”

KRISTINA KENTIGLAN

“I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope I can ask you to share my future pluses.”

KATHERINE MANSFIELD

“Two may talk together under the same roof for many years, yet never really meet; and two others at first speech are old friends.”

MARY CATHERWOOD

“Though our communication wanes at times of absence, I’m aware of a strength that emanates in the background.”

CLAUDETTE RENNER

“In loneliness, in sickness, in confusion—the mere knowledge of friendship makes it possible to endure, even if the friend is powerless to help. It is enough that they exist.”

PAM BROWN

“Ah, how good it feels…the hand of an old friend.” MARY ENGELBREIT

“I don’t want to lose this happy space where I have found someone who is smart and easy and doesn’t bother to check her diary when we arrange to meet.”

JEANETTE WINTERSON

“There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.”

DIANA CORTES

“There is no distance too great between friends, for love gives wings to the heart.”

ELIZABETH E. KOEHLER

“Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.”

VIRGINIA WOOLF

This excerpt is from You Are an Awesome Woman by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

Learn and Share

Photo by Matheus Bertelli on pexels.com

“Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries.”

SISTER CORITA KENT

“Take up a new hobby you’ve always been interested in. Learning a new skill will make you feel productive, even if that skill is only for your enjoyment.”

LAURA BAKER

“Don’t forget the simple pleasures of your past. Recently I remembered a favorite present from my childhood, an origami kit. I bought myself a new kit and was delighted to find that making these tiny works of art can still focus and clear my mind.”

ABLE EVANS

“A change of scenery is often the easiest way to take time away from our everyday lives. Never underestimate the benefits of a simple day trip alone or with friends.”

REBECCA GLEESOB

“A potluck with friends may be a simple tradition, but it’s one of the most fun and even rewarding to uphold.”

FLORENCE ALLEN

“Museums are some of the best places to gain a bit of relaxation and perspective. You have to think about something besides your own problems when surrounded by the evidence of so much other reality.”

CANDICE LONG

“Listen to music you like, and cultivate that interest actively—go to concerts, listen to CDs you have never heard at the store, and share your taste with friends. Music communicates to us on many different levels, and your favorite music tends to transport your mind to its favorite place.”

KIMBERLY LYNN DAVIS

“Develop your green thumb—even if you only have a couple of pots on your deck or fire escape. Learn all about plants online or at the local nursery, and add seasonal plants for spring and fall. Not only will you be creating beauty, you will be more in tune with nature and the seasons.”

RUTH BAXTER

“Pets are great happiness boosters. The companionship, love, and entertainment a pet provides is for many people as significant as any human relationship. Medical researchers have even discovered that petting your pets reduces blood pressure!”

SHELLY STRONG

“Grab your wild friends and have a clothing swap. Set aside clothes or accessories you don’t wear, gather with friends who’ve done the same, and begin a fair trade. Spice up your wardrobe without spending money!”

DEE LOGAN

This excerpt is from You Are an Awesome Women by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.