A Little R&R

My crazy month of May came to a screeching halt on Saturday. When the school was swept clean from the graduation reception, my duties for the school year ended. So we skedaddled for the country, for twenty-four hours of R&R.

Our friends have a small house/barn on several acres of land southeast of Dallas. We went there and did NOTHING. And I do mean nothing. No TV. No phone calls. No computers (at least, none of ours). Yes, we got email on our cell phones, but we just checked for anything urgent—and nothing was. Nowhere nearby to drive to. No fancy meals to cook or clean up after. Just good friends and empty space. I didn’t even read a book!!!

We laughed, we talked, we slept, we just sat still, sometimes, watching and listening to our almost grown-up children, wondering where the years went. By the time we left there and returned to the real world, my body and spirit had the refreshment it needed to finish out this week of finals and head into summer—into finishing my book and organizing my house. Oh yeah, and chauffeuring my boys to football, friends’ houses, and various other activities while my driver-daughter works!

I’m so happy to have had a respite at the end of a long school year. It’s amazing what a little R&R will do.

The Center of a Tootsie Pop (Or the End of a Tube of Lipstick)

Remember the old Tootsie Roll Pop commercial with the owl in the tree and the boy asking how many licks it takes to get to the center? The owl takes three licks, loses patience, and bites in.

I think tubes of lipstick are the same.

Don’t see the connection? Here’s my question: how long does it take to get to the end of a tube of lipstick? No one ever knows because it so rarely happens. We get impatient and change color or brand, abandoning half-used tubes, never reaching the very bottom. At least I have done so. Until now.

Yes, I reached the end of a tube of lipstick. How long have I had it? Seven, eight years? I can’t remember. I only know I liked the color and it was expensive, so I didn’t want to throw it away. Now I’m not one to reapply my lipstick all day. Just one swipe in the morning if I’m going out of the house. Maybe once in the evening if it’s a social event. Even so, I’ve reached the end. Yes, I have other lipstick in other colors, but this seems like such a significant small event. The end of a tube of lipstick. Like reaching the center of a Tootsie Pop, I never thought I’d get there.

Cranford

I normally hate movie renditions of books that change the story, but I found myself captivated by Masterpiece Classics version of Cranford that concluded on Sunday evening. I confess, before watching the first part of Cranford, I had never heard of the book of the same name by Elizabeth Gaskell. But after watching part two of this Masterpiece production, I knew I had to read it.

So I did. Before part three debuted across the airwaves.

It’s a short book, written as a series of vignettes of small town life in 19th century England. It is a lovely work of characterization, where one knows the people one is reading about. They come to be friends. But there is no overarching “plot.”

The screenwriters of Cranford decided to add a plot framework around which to structure this movie about a year in the life of a small town. And they did it superbly. The new characters and story lines fit in as if they’d been there all the time. And even while adding new elements to the story, the writers maintained the charm of the original characters and included most, if not all, of the heartwarming elements of the book, even if in slightly different forms.

Of course part of the success of the film version, in my mind, was the absolutely superior ensemble of cast members, led by such names as Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Michael Gambon, Greg Wise, and so many more. While the names may not be familiar, I assure you that any fan of classic British literature will recognize faces from productions of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Miss Marple movies, and so many other BBC and Hollywood films.

In the end, Miss Matty Jenkyns has become one of my most favorite characters in literature; through she will remain eternally intertwined with Dame Judi Dench in my mind. I heartily recommend both book and movie—just don’t expect one to follow the other in exact measure. Enjoy them each for their own uniqueness.

The Power of Truth in Fiction

I always forget how much I enjoy the Chronicles of Narnia books until I read one again. In anticipation of the coming movie, I picked up Prince Caspian this week. It’s a quick read. And, frankly, not a super exciting one. Not like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or The Silver Chair. But as I came toward the climax of the story I remembered why I love these books: they convey Truth.

About 2/3 of the way through the book, Lucy meets with Aslan again. It’s been a year in our time, thousands of years in Narnia time.

“Aslan,” said Lucy. “You’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

Knowing that Aslan is a picture of Jesus, isn’t that so true? As we grow, as we see the work the Lord does in our lives, in the lives of those around us, in the world at large, don’t we grasp just a little more with each passing day of the bigness of God? I know I do. And in the context of the story this truth just leaps off the page and imbeds itself in my heart.

How about this one, a few pages later, after Susan has said ugly, sarcastic things of Lucy?

Lucy went first, biting her lip and trying not to say all the things she thought of saying to Susan. But she forgot them when she fixed her eyes on Aslan.

That’s the power of Truth in fiction.

An Encouraging Word

My friend Robin has joined the blogosphere. She swears she isn’t a writer, but after reading her few posts, I beg to differ. Anyway, yesterday she wrote a wonderful post encouraging and cautioning those of us who consistently put pen to paper (or our fingers to a keyboard) to be careful of our words, of how they will affect our readers. It was a blessing to me. I thought it would be for you, too.

Check it out here.

And you might want to check back with her regularly. She has incredible insight into many matters pertaining to life and godliness.

The Past Comes Back

It’s nice to know that after almost 30 years people can forget the awful things you’ve said to them. Especially if you were the student and the other person was the teacher/administrator.

I ran into such a person tonight. It was at a reception at my children’s school. She is the head of the accreditation team coming to evaluate the school. I was at the reception because my husband is president of our school’s Board of Trustee’s.

So there we were. I could have let it go, never mentioned the old connection. But I’ve spent my life desiring, for myself and others, that we not hide the hard or ugly things—past or present. Here, I realized, was a moment in which I could practice what I preached. I introduced myself. Told her my maiden name and waited for the look of horror on her face.

It didn’t happen. Instead she hugged me. She was so excited to see me. She either didn’t remember my angry junior high words or she was gracious enough not to mention them. Instead, we talked and laughed and left each other with a hug.

It’s nice to know that 30 years can change people. And it’s nice to know that others’ memories of us don’t last as long as our own.

Crazy May

I contend, as usual, that the final 6 weeks of school are busier than the same period of time from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day.

So that’s my excuse for not blogging lately. I have been (and will be) insanely busy with kid/school stuff and trying to get my book finished (I’m making significant progress). But all that leaves little time for blogging. Before I know it, a week has passed with no new post. However, my son’s last baseball game should be Thursday (unless they play as well as they played last night), and that will help. But it still leaves the SAT, an art competition, three AP tests, Fine Arts Night, Spring Sports Banquet, Academic Awards, Graduations and finals (plus normal, daily life) to get through before the end of May. Whew! I’m tired already!

My writing here may be spotty until June, but I haven’t abandoned it yet!

Character Sighting!

WARNING: All you non-writers out there will probably scratch your head and think I’ve lost my mind, but I assure you, it’s simply a side-effect of a being a novelist.

I went with my husband on a business-type engagement Saturday night. It wasn’t where I wanted to go, but I went. And with good grace, I might add. But I prayed earlier that day that the Lord would give me something in the course of the evening to make it worthwhile.

In my mind, that something was a conversation about spiritual things in which I could encourage or be encouraged or some insight into my own character or that of my husband or friends. Aren’t those the kinds of things God does when we pray such a prayer?

The evening turned out much more enjoyable than I imagined, but even beyond that, the Lord gave me an incredible gift. He let me see one of my characters!

I’ve had lots of strange “writer” experiences, but this is the first time I’ve run into a live person—a stranger—who IS my character personified. It isn’t a character in my current book. No, this one has flitted around my head for a couple of years now and I think, perhaps, may be the book I write next. Especially now.

I saw her twice in the course of the evening. I didn’t speak with her. In fact, I only saw her from behind. But I knew in an instant who she was. Not only did I write down some of her physical characteristics, but I knew that even where I’d seen her was part of who she is as a person (ok, as a character.)

It was quite exciting. It did, indeed, make the whole evening worthwhile. And it confirmed to me, yet again, that God is the author of my life and my desire to write is not dismissed as unimportant by Him. Nor should it be by me.

Driver's Ed

My son starts driver’s ed on Monday. Now that I’ve been through this once, I at least know what to expect over the next year, until he turns 16:

A year of “Can I drive?”
A year of gripping the door handle without appearing to.
A year of biting my tongue almost every time I want to shout “Look out!”
A year of it taking longer to get places when he drives.
A year of him critiquing my driving.

But the rewards are oh so great. By the time my daughter leaves for college, he will be on his own—with his brother in tow—and my days as chauffeur will be coming to an end.

A Wild Weekend

Whew! We survived quite a weekend—well, Friday through Monday. Here’s the scoop:

Friday I accompanied my youngest son to ACSI Math Olympics. He loves math. He loves the competition of Math Olympics. But it is very hard to place in the top 5 in each category. The competition consists of a series of timed tests, the first of which is the REAL test, the next six are tie-breaker tests. Way back in 3rd grade, he placed. Since then, nothing. Until now. Here is he, proud as punch, with his 4th place ribbon in 7th grade Computation.

















Saturday brought all the hullabaloo of Prom. Not only did we have the “normal” chaos of such a day, the juniors GIVE the prom, so we had to help with setup and tear down as well. She went with a group of her guy friends who didn’t ask specific dates, so she was quite the princess arriving, eating and dancing with three guys instead of one! And the cherry on top? She was head of the “food” committee and may have wrangled a job in the kitchen of the new hotel where the Prom was held. (The head chef gave her a kitchen tour and interviewed her as we were decorating!)



After a bit of a respite on Sunday (thank you, Lord!), but we were off Monday mid-morning on a two hour journey to the District Track Meet.
My 9th grade son competed in two events.
He took 2nd in the 3200 meters (2 miles) and
3rd in the 1600 meters (1 mile.) He qualified for the Regional Track Meet (Thursday) in both events. We didn’t get home until after 10 last night!



Whew! No wonder I’ve been such a bad blogger lately! But oh how much fun the past four days have been!

Shoe Shopping

I have a love/hate relationship with shoes. I love shoes. But I hate shoe manufacturers.

Here’s the problem: AAA

Yup. Super skinny feet. It’s bad enough with “regular” shoes, but sandals? Nearly impossible. (Unless, of course, you are willing to spend $100 on a pair of shoes, which I’m not!) For the past three summers I’ve been on the hunt. I do have a great pair of dressy off-white sandals. Other than that, it’s been flip-flops. Not any flip-flops, mind you, but the rare find of ones that my feet don’t slide out of before I even take a full step.

One pair lasted two years. I finally found another pair last year, which are great. But there are (many) times I want sandals, not flip-flops. So I went on the hunt yet again. I decided if I began in April instead of June, perhaps something that fit me would be left in the stores. I found myself out shopping unexpectedly today, so I decided to bring my rounds on sandals to an end. I looked at a big discount shoe store. I looked at an upscale department store.

Nothing.

On a last-ditch effort, I decided to check the new JCPenney in our town. I’ve never found shoes that fit me there before, but I wanted to be truthful when I claimed “no sandals anywhere around here fit me.” So in I went.

Imagine my surprise when I walked out of there with not one, but THREE pair of sandals! I was giddy! I found a pair of fun silver t-strap sandals, a pair of light brown leather flip-flop type sandals, and a dressier pair of white leather Clark sandals. All three for less than the price of a pair of AAA sandals from a high-end store or catalog!

If only my impromptu shopping trip hadn’t happened because my laptop power cord died. Sigh.

The Simple Rule of Addition

I’m not very good at math, but I do know that little things add up. It’s a lesson I am constantly learning; a truth I constantly preach to my children. It applies to money and time, food and exercise, discipline and idleness. It also applies to words on the page (or, rather, on the computer screen.)

I’ve been a bit downcast through February and March. I haven’t made the amount of progress I wanted to on my current novel. But I’ve also written other things—articles for my kids’ school and blog posts being the majority of “other.” But this woeful feeling is why I began keeping a spreadsheet of my daily writing activities a couple of years ago, charting words written and pages edited, books read and writers groups attended. And guess what? I looked back today and realized I haven’t done as badly as I’d imagined! No, I’m not where I want to be on my novel. But I have been writing. Tens of thousands of new words. Hundreds of edited pages for myself and my critique partners.

So little things really do add up. Sometimes I just need to see it in black and white to believe it.

Printers, Printers Everywhere--But Not a Drop of Ink on the Page!

Most days I can sing with Kip from Napoleon Dynamite: I love technology!

Today was not one of those days. Today I wanted to walk down the block and toss the lot into the lake!

Actually, it started last night. My son needed to print a paper for school. Now understand—we have two computers and two printers in the house. He tried to print from his computer to his printer. No go. Out of ink. So he emailed his paper to me.

No problem. My laser printer is never out of ink. And it still isn’t. But try as I might, the print job failed every time. Even though I’d printed an email just a couple of hours earlier without a hitch. Nothing had changed since then. Nothing. But even after disconnecting the printer from the wireless print server and attaching it directly to my laptop, the same, frustrating message popped up—and no page printed.

Finally, this afternoon, I determined to find the problem. An hour and a half later, it works. The problem? One number in the IP address had changed. How, I ask you? I didn’t do it. I didn’t change a thing from the last time I’d printed. Go figure.

So my printer is working again. I guess to be on the safe side I’d better go buy new ink cartridges for the other printer!

Seventeen

My firstborn is 17 today. Where have the years gone? I confess, I don’t want to relive many of them. She was quite a handful for her first, oh, 16 years! I never imagined she’d be such a delightful young lady (although we’re still working on the “lady” part) at 17.

Why does 17 seem so much older than 16? Is it because 18 and independence are only a year away? I don’t know. But as I thought about it this morning, I realized how many things happened the year I was 17.

At 17, I ended my junior year of high school, started my senior year, got accepted to college, had my first boyfriend and my first date to Homecoming. My first job outside of retail came the summer I was 17—answering phones for an insurance agent, although mostly I read book after book in between calls! I also had my first taste of death when a childhood friend (and my first elementary school crush) died in a car accident that same summer. I remember feeling so grown up that year, making plans for the future, feeling secure in my place at school and with my friends yet looking forward to new experiences and new friendships on the horizon.

My daughter’s going out for dinner tonight with five of her girl friends. It’s been hard on her daddy that she didn’t want us along. But I understand. I remember. And I pray that 17 will be a year full of wonderful things for her.

A Complete Turn Around

Over the past few years, I’ve used writing as a reward in order to get other things done—things I hate to do, like clean the house, wash the clothes, buy the groceries. You get the idea. But I wanted so badly to write that I would work hard to get through the “have to” list in order to be able to do my “want to” list.

Today I realized I’ve done a complete turn around. Here’s what happened:

When we moved nearly 2 years ago, we gave up a whole room dedicated as our library. It had been the formal living room, but we wrapped floor to ceiling bookshelves around two walls, added two comfy chairs with a small table between and a couple of bright lamps. We LOVED that room! My husband and I spent many evenings in there reading or talking.

In the new house, we lost that space. Our bookshelves were regulated to the small “office” room. It was a bit claustrophobic in there. Soon after we moved in I suggested nixing the formal dining room and redoing our library. My husband balked. I let the idea drop. Last month he came in with a “great idea”—turning the formal dining room (which we’ve used twice in two years) into the library. I immediately began making plans.

The room has been empty for a couple of weeks now, but I haven’t had time to move the books and shelves and create our much loved space. I’m hoping it will happen this weekend, but a big precursor is unloading the bookcases. However, I haven’t let myself touch them—until today.

Why today? Because I’ve met my word count on my book for two out of the past three days! All of a sudden, I’m using other things as a reward for persevering with my writing! It’s a very exciting thing. It isn’t that I now see writing as work, as a “have to”, but instead that I have finally given myself permission to declare my writing work has value and worth in and of itself. It’s a big day for me. And with my revamped library and office space, I hope I’ll be even more productive in the days and weeks to come.

My Tuesday

Articles drafted: 1
Novel pages revised: 12
New novel words written: 2118
Watching my son come to the mound, top of the 6th, bases loaded, two outs and striking out the batter in three pitches: priceless

Ski Trip Update

I haven’t had much time at my computer this week, which, on a family vacation, is a good thing. But for those of you (mostly family, I guess) looking for an update, here are some highlights of the trip so far (pictures to follow when we get home):

Saturday morning: My husband woke us all up after he woke up—a little after 4 am! We were on the road by 5. Needless to say, this significantly affected my planned “writing time” as we drove since it was dark for the first almost four hours and, having been forced awake at such an unnatural hour, it took me until lunch time to be fully awake! The positive: we were in Colorado Springs less than 12 hours later and had a relaxing evening.

Johnson & Wales University: the tour was very impressive. Denver seems to be a nice city. Now she just has to decide between the two schools. Each has a very different style and its own pros and cons.

Skiing: Great—not too cold, not too snowy, but not icy, either. I’m in better shape than when we went two years ago and had forgotten how enjoyable it is to swoosh down a wide, not too steep, not too mogully mountain trail. Yesterday, my youngest son’s binding come off his ski—a fluky thing which the ski shop said they’d never seen happen. The fun part was he got to ride down on the ski patrol snowmobile.

We’re going tubing this afternoon, then skiing again tomorrow. We’ve had wonderfully relaxing evenings of movies and games (and now basketball, since the NCAA tournaments starts today.) By Saturday morning, I think we’ll all be ready to head home, but I think we’ve all enjoyed this respite from our busy lives.

Spring Break

From mid-eighties today to below freezing tomorrow. Yes, we are leaving sunny Texas (have we lost our minds? Um—yes!) for snowy Colorado. First we visit Johnson and Wales University in Denver. Then we head off to the slopes for a few days. I don’t know what kind of internet accessibility I’ll have but I’ll try to post some pictures this week.

Most of all I’m hoping to get some good writing done on the drive up and back and some good reading done in the condo in front of the fire. Since my ideal ski day is hit the slopes at 10:00, eat lunch at 11:30, end the day at 2:00, I should have lots of time to lose myself in few books (assuming my kids ski from can til can’t.)

Hope your Spring Break is restful and full of memory-making.

We Love You, Miss Hannigan!

“Your daughter makes a great drunk.”

I heart that comment over and over again on Friday. No, my 16 year old hadn’t been hitting the bottle. She’d been playing Miss Hannigan, the mean and nasty mistress of the orphanage that tried to repress the optimism of red-headed Annie. She’s not the best singer in the world, but boy can she nail a character! I think she scared some of the little girls in the audience!

She’s gotten more comfortable with the singing part, too, adding dancing (which she’s never really done) for this particular role. She worked so hard and had so much fun. It’s been amazing to watch her confidence grow since her freshman year when she landed the role of Bloody Mary in South Pacific in spite of her hesitancy to sing. Now she takes the stage with the same energy and excitement we see in her on the basketball court.

She has no theatrical aspirations beyond high school, but what she has learned from her years in drama will be invaluable in whatever her future holds. And we’ve had so much fun watching her transformation!

Is It Already Morning?

I don't know about you, but it takes me at least a week to adjust to Daylight Savings Time. Why do the same seven hours of sleep seem like so much less?