author article: dorothy howell

I prefer shoes to handbags, but I can still relate to the interest Haley has in Shoulder Bags and Handbags. From Dorothy Howell, here's some advice on getting a handbag for less.

Great Places to Score a Discount Designer Handbag

You don't have to dress less-than-glam during these hard economic times -- not when shopping centers and Internet sites are flush with places to snag a genuine designer handbag at a deeply discounted price.

Stores selling discounted handbags range from small, intimate vintage and consignment shops to large department stores, and even larger outlet malls. Internet sites offer a wide range of styles, colors, and designer names.

The Premium Outlets and the Tanger Outlets far and away have the largest concentration of discounted designer merchandise. Along with handbag stores such as Coach, Judith Leiber, Kate Spade and Dooney & Bourke, you'll find a fantastic array of designer stores. Michael Kors, Liz Clairborne, Prada, DKNY, Gucci, Calvin Klein, Burberry, along with many others, carry everything from clothing to shoes, and a sampling of their handbag lines.

The Premium Outlets have over 40 locations nationwide, along with malls in Puerto Rico, Japan, Korea, and Mexico. Tanger Outlet has over 30 locations in the U.S. Both offer AAA and AARP member discounts. Join their VIP Club and visit their Web sites for coupons and special offers. Check out their seasonal sales weekends and national promotions for extra savings in addition to everyday discounts.

First, and in some cases, second quality merchandise is available. You'll have to bring along a magnifying glass to find flaws, though. Most are detectable only to the factory-trained eye.
These outlet stores are great places to shop. There's no digging through clearance bins or blowing the dust off of merchandise that's been sitting around for months. The stores are immaculate, the shelves are orderly and well stocked. The staffs are knowledgeable and helpful, the same as you'll find in their retail stores. Many times, after making your selection, the clerk can bring you a "fresh" bag from the stock room. Care is taken to wrap your treasure in the store's signature tissue paper, and deposit it into their trademark shopping bag.

Discounts typically run 20% to 40% off the MSRP, with deeper cuts of up to 65% off of sale and clearance items. Many of these stores offer a full guarantee on their products, plus a money back return policy. But, as with any store, ask before you buy. Keep in mind that these outlet malls are huge, so wear comfortable shoes and plan for a full day of shopping.

Great bargains can be found in retail giants such as Macy's and Dillard's Department Stores. These discounts are usually offered seasonally so you'll have to watch for them. The selection of these bags will be limited, but you can expect to pay from 20% to 30% off their retail prices.
Leading discount department stores such as Ross Dress For Less, TJ Maxx, and Marshalls offer designer handbags. The selection varies. You might find a Diane von Furstenberg, Betsy Johnson or a Fossil bag mixed in with their non-designer bags. Merchandise varies from location to location. These are no-frills stores. If you don't mind digging for a good deal, you can expect to save 20% to 60% off of department store prices.

Some of the most sought-after designer brands are offered at Websites such as Rue LaLa and Gilt Group. These sites offer members-only pricing on luxury brands, usually for a limited time. Shop early. Expect to pay sales prices of up to 70% off retail.

The website e-bay, along with many other online sites, offers designer handbags at considerable savings. The selection is wide and varied. New as well as used purses are available. You'll have to pay shipping costs, in most cases, so take that into consideration when looking at their prices.
Consignment stores and vintage shops are also good places to find a handbag at a low price. Keep in mind these purses are gently used. Designer names and selection will vary widely. Inventory fluctuates so it's good to check back often. Savings can be considerable.

No matter where you choose to shop for your designer handbag, it's important that you can distinguish a genuine bag from a knock-off. Read product descriptions carefully. Do your homework. Know the tell-tale signs of a counterfeit bag. Don't be afraid to ask questions.
There's no need to deny yourself the joy of sporting a designer handbag when so many places offer great merchandise and outstanding discounts to the everyday fashionista. Get out and see what's available. Shopping for your new bag is half the fun!
© 2010 Dorothy Howell, author of Shoulder Bags and Shootings: A Haley Randolph Mystery

Dorothy Howell, author of Shoulder Bags and Shootings: A Haley Randolph Mystery, was inspired to write Handbags and Homicide by her crazed obsession with designer purses. She lives in Southern California, where there is, thankfully, no rehab program for handbag addiction, and is hard at work on her next Haley Randolph mystery. Visit her Website at www.DorothyHowellNovels.com.
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author article: michael cogdill

The High Calling of Hard Times: Leadership, Hope, and Radical Love -- Even on the TV News
By Michael Cogdill, Author of She-Rain: A Story of Hope

The complaints sail almost daily into my professional life. People tell me they find the news so depressing they can't watch anymore. I understand their longing for hope, even as I say the news contains a mother lode of the hope they crave. We journalists and viewers have a way of missing it, even as we look straight at it.

My answer grows from having covered terrible news on television for more than twenty-five years. Holding what I deem the sacredness of human grief on my very breath -- as a television reporter and anchor -- has revealed to me the power of the news to inform some of the best of humanity. It forms a lesson in leadership, especially in the worst of times.

Aristotle believed "happiness depends upon ourselves." In the coverage of stories such as 9-11, the earthquake in Haiti, or a suffering child in America, we discover the joy of our dependency upon one another. Those stories contain a radical love -- the kind we feel for a stranger in whose eyes we recognize something magnetically familiar. News of human suffering clarifies what Mother Theresa meant when she said charity isn't about pity. It's about love. Too often we who cover and consume the news -- or write about any human events -- fail to see through the hardship to find the leadership. We miss the seismic love.

A few years ago, a tiny piece of television brought me to a man whose life forms a clear window on the power of both. When we met, he was chronically underestimating the potency of a heroism he had lived. This is the soldiering story of George Campbell.

I met Mr. Campbell on a steaming day in June. We shot a TV public service announcement together for a terrific charity, Meals on Wheels, whose volunteers bring hot meals and priceless company to the elderly and infirm. Mr. Campbell lived a small life in a tiny house in Greenville, South Carolina. Apart from the tick of a clock in his living room, it seemed a life of nearly constant silence. Having finished our quick work, we chatted a moment. I had noticed a shadow box on his wall, holding some of the noblest honors the U.S. Military can award. When I asked about those medals, he stood silent for a time, then replied, "You know, son, it was almost 60 years ago to this day I set foot on that piece of France they called Omaha Beach."

That small retired pharmacist had served as an unarmed U.S. Army medic on D-Day. He had climbed out of a boat directly into the savagery General Eisenhower knew awaited the men of that terrible time.

Mr. Campbell, in his courtly, humble, and gentleman's way, told me of running through the Nazi hell that rained onto the men of that beach. He spoke of expecting, any moment, to join the swelling tide of death before him.

It took little time for his well-kept memory to reach the first fallen man he had found.

"I rolled him and saw it," he said. "A spurting wound of the chest. And there was a girl, right there with him. He had a girl's picture in his hand."

In the din of battle, that anonymous U.S. serviceman lay with blood flowing across the hands of Medic Campbell, and he begged him. "Help me get home, Doc. Help me outta here to see her again."

With me at his kitchen table, those sixty years later, Mr. Campbell withdrew into another moment's quiet. Then he spoke of a hopelessness he still felt. There was no saving that boy. He could only kneel there with him until death came. One terrified man had simply knelt with his hand on the blood-sodden chest of another, whom he did not know. That became George Campbell's full experience of D-Day. From one broken body to the next, he had made his way across that jagged beach, and he carried a despair of it across those sixty years to our time and place together -- there in his little house and near anonymous life in America.

"They died on me," he said, thrusting down tears. "All of them."

Every boy Medic Campbell had reached during his D-Day service had died. And palpable in his voice was the feeling of failure. He, in his private sadness of war, felt he had failed as a soldier and, on some levels, as a man.

What followed stands among the most valued and sacred moments of my career. For I had the opportunity, such as I am, to remind that gentle veteran of what he had done -- how he had led, and deeply loved, strangers through the worst time of their lives. It had clearly never dawned on him that, because of him, not one man he reached on that beach died alone. Because of his mettle, those men died witness to the terrified love and hope of a fellow man. As he knelt with them, he feared with them. I'm quite sure he wept with them. Yet he became their living courage, their leader to the mercies of death, a mortal usher who helped shoulder them to death's veil. Without being able to save a single life, he proved to them how courageous leadership truly feels -- not the absence of fear but the presence of care.

Up in his eyes, in that storm of doomed Nazi horror, dying men saw the very best of humanity. He led them to a ground of peace, forged their final relationships on earth. With him they experienced an intimacy with hope.

We men tend to rattle a bit when we venture a try at love talk. As I write this I can but hope I managed to convey to Mr. Campbell the stunning force of the love I felt from him. I can only trust I convinced him, in some small way, of the priceless difference his life had made in the withering moments of the lives of soldiers barely out of boyhood. He had become a quiet hero of Omaha Beach -- one of its many great leaders. If I could, I would call and remind him of this even now. I long for the opportunity -- even to thank him again for his service. Not long after our time together, shared there in his home and in his memories, Mr. Campbell died.

Yet he lives in this reporter's memory, and in the ways he makes me a better man. Because of my time with him, I am led to become a more caring writer -- of journalism and, yes, even fiction as it draws from our deepest reality.
Before his death, I was blessed to report a TV story on Mr. Campbell for the 60th anniversary of D-Day. As with so many, that story cast forth a human tragedy. To this day it is a story of war's unstoppable grief. Yet within it, viewed through the lens of the soul as well as the mind, that story gives off the hope of what great leaders do. They move toward the people they lead. They carry on lives of extravagant caring. With a broadness of the heart, they bear another's hurt with beautiful humility.

In the next story of what seems boundless grief on the news, may we each hear that whispered call to lead with such a radical, generous form of love. May we look within ourselves for the leader who quietly scatters hope where it seems only hurt will live. To paraphrase and nuance Gandhi just a bit, may we become the hope we long to see in the world.

And to that end: Veterans out there -- this reporter says, THANK YOU! This writer of journalism and fiction owes you a debt beyond words. And to you, Mr. Campbell, peace to your spirit, sir, with gratitude for trusting, and loving, me enough to share that great triumph of your days.
© 2010 Michael Cogdill, author of She-Rain: A Story of Hope

Michael Cogdill is blessed as one of the most honored television storytellers in America. His cache of awards includes 24 Emmys and the National Edward R. Murrow for a broad range of achievement, from live reporting to long-form storytelling. His television credits as a journalist include CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and The Today Show, and Michael's interview history crosses a wide horizon: The Reverend Billy Graham, Dr. Mehmet Oz of Oprah fame, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Abby Hoffman, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator John McCain, Howard K. Smith, James Brown, Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops and many other newsmakers. His coverage credits include Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States.

Michael spent ten years writing She-Rain, letting it evolve into a world of fiction drawn from his upbringing in Western North Carolina but reaching far beyond. His other writing credits are Cracker the Crab and the Sideways Afternoon -- a children's motivational book, and a self-help volume, Raise the Haze. Michael makes his home in South Carolina with his wife, Jill (a publishing entrepreneur), and their second-generation golden retriever, Maggie. He's currently working on his second novel.

For more information, please visit http://she-rain.blogspot.com.

author article: zippora karz

As someone who loves the ballet, I'm thrilled that I will soon be reviewing Zippora Karz's book The Sugarless Plum: A Ballerina's Triumph Over Diabetes. In anticipation of that review, here's an article Karz wrote about her diabetes diagnosis.

The Sugarless Plum

I left my home in Los Angeles at the age of 15 to study at the famed School of American Ballet, the official school of the New York City Ballet. By the age of 18, I became a full member of the NYC Ballet. By 20, I was starring as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, dancing roles created by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins.

The following year I was featured in a new ballet by Peter Martins (the company director following Balanchine's death). It was an incredibly exciting time, but also a very exhausting one. Dancing all day and performing every night, I ignored the strange symptoms I was feeling. I didn't think anything was wrong.

I thought I was feeling thirsty and hungry, spaced out, having to urinate frequently, and losing weight because of the intense schedule and my nerves for the big premiere. I would have continued to ignore my symptoms had it not been for the sores under my arms that had become infected. It was terribly painful to lift my arms, not to mention how unattractive it was. I was often dizzy and I found it hard to feel my extremities, particularly my toes, when I danced.

My diagnosis was informal and cold. I sat in that office and was handed pamphlet after pamphlet about diabetes and its terrifying complications, anything from heart disease and stroke, to blindness, kidney failure and loss of limbs. All I could think about was getting back to the theater. I left the doctor's office confused and annoyed. Back at the theatre, I convinced myself the blood work was off because of my exhaustion or a lab error. I was a 21-year-old aspiring ballerina with the New York City Ballet. A disease people give money to for charity had nothing to do with me.

I was clearly in denial, fueled by the fact that because of my age, doctors assumed I had type 2 diabetes (associated with lifestyle, being overweight and inactivity) and I was put on oral medication. Everything came crashing down when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Going on insulin felt like the ultimate failure. I hated my body for its inadequacies. I felt hopeless at the thought of how I would juggle shots of insulin with my performance schedule. I was inexperienced with how much insulin to take at any given time before dancing, and unaware of the immediate danger of taking too much.

I should have discussed my concerns and difficulties with my doctor, but at the time it was easier to find a new one rather than try to communicate with the old one. Once again I was told I had type 2 diabetes. This new doctor even took me off insulin, to even stop checking my sugar levels. He thought the lows on stage were far more dangerous than letting my sugars go up a bit. He thought I was being obsessive. Could he have been right?

How could I have convinced myself it was okay to let my blood sugars go high? I was still hoping the whole thing would go away or would reverse itself. I was still in denial, happy to put the meter away and stop my shots. It didn't take long for my original symptoms to return. I think dancing all day and night, and eating as perfectly as I could, is how I survived with no insulin for almost a year. But I looked and felt terrible. Even though the company still let me dance in the Corp de ballet every night, there were no leading roles coming my way. When I finally "woke up" and checked my blood sugar levels, the meter would not go that high. It was time to end my denial, take responsibility for my body, and accept my insulin-dependent diabetes.

I started a balanced insulin program and began looking and feeling better. Ironically, as I learned how to perform every night without experiencing extreme lows, I also psychologically started to question the reality of my situation.

Was this a suitable lifestyle for a person with type 1 diabetes? Maybe I was putting too much pressure on myself. I was exhausted from all the ups and downs with my physiology and from trying so hard to prove I was the same promising dancer I once was. I was not the same. Maybe it was time for me to admit I had accomplished a lot, but it was time to find a more suitable lifestyle for an insulin-dependent diabetic.

As much as I wanted to quit dancing, I just could not let myself do it. When I listened to the small voice in my heart, I admitted to myself that if I quit, I would be using diabetes as an excuse. The truth is I was more tired about wishing I could be the dancer I once was, alive and joyful, than I was tired of diabetes. I told myself I hadn't yet danced on the right insulin regime for long enough and didn't know what was possible. I did not want to look back with regret. I knew I would always wonder, so I had to stay and keep trying.

Nine years after I joined the company (six years after my diagnosis), I was promoted to Soloist Ballerina of the New York City Ballet. I performed with the company another 7 years, 16 years total with the company and 13 with diabetes. I loved every performance and am grateful for every moment I had on stage. Today I am a teacher and I stage George Balanchine ballets all over the world.

We all have a story. We all experience obstacles that affect our motivation and ability to take the best care possible. We can't always see the light at the end of the tunnel, even though it is there, brighter than we can imagine. If, in the end, it is just too much, know that you did the best you could. I believe our best is good enough!
©2009 Zippora Karz, author of The Sugarless Plum

Zippora Karz, author of The Sugarless Plum: A Ballerina's Triumph Over Diabetes, is a former soloist ballerina with the New York City Ballet where she performed for 16 years on stage and in televised performances. She was featured in a variety of roles choreographed by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins (The Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker being one of her favorites) as well as works choreographed for her by such choreographers as Peter Martins and Lynne Taylor Corbett. Miss Karz danced with the New York City Ballet from 1983 through 1999. She now serves as a teacher and repetiteur for the George Balanchine Trust, rehearsing and staging Balanchine's choreography for a host of national and international dance companies. She is also a diabetes spokesperson and educator who regularly addresses major diabetes conferences and organizations worldwide. She lives in Los Angeles, California.