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September 3rd, 2010
This weekend my family and I will travel to the tiny town of Rule, Texas, for a family reunion. It’s just an hour away, population well under 1000, only a handful of streets and old houses, surrounded by lots of farm land. But I have so many memories of Rule, more memories than will really fit in such a small place. Both sets of my grandparents lived there. My parents and aunts and uncles went to high school there. And we went back to visit, so many weekends, and made good memories. So here is my Friday Five – memories of Rule.
1. Grandmommy and Granddaddy’s House. The white stucco with red trim, the acre in the back where they had a huge garden and orchard, the swingset in the yard, the big garage with all the mysterious unused furniture and the golf cart and semi-stray kittens. I particularly remember the green marbled carpet when it was bright and new, and how cool we all thought it was. There was a flowerbed full of impatiens, and hummingbird feeders, and a wonderful tree in the front yard that I always wanted to climb, even though it couldn’t be done. A front porch swing. Grandmommy encouraging us to go up the street and sell our school fundraiser items to her neighbors, who were always nice. The way she would let me have a half cup of coffee with lots of milk and sugar cubes, even though I was only in seventh grade. And of course the Christmases and Easters, and all the aunts and uncles coming, and the fun of watching that generation tease each other like kids.
2. Grandma and Grandpa’s House. My Dad’s parents were there too, and their house started out being in the country near Rule, where they had a farm and some cattle. We always had to watch out for rattlesnakes, and I remember my Mom shooting one that was right by the dog house. There was a wood stove in the winter, and I was always fascinated by the closet that had two doors: if you went in through the hallway, wiggled through clothes and quilts and boxes, you could eventually work your way to the other door, which opened in the bedroom. They had a box of toys in the living room, really simple stuff like metal tops where you had to pump the handle, or magnets. Eventually, my Grandma had the house moved into town; yes, the actual house was loaded onto a house mover and moved to an empty lot in the city limit. After she moved in, my cousin and I would hunt for horned toads and doodle bugs in the dirt driveway.
3. Rule Food. I don’t remember ever eating in a restaurant in Rule, or if there even were any. At the homes of my grandparents, we ate jello salad, and mashed potatoes, and pecan pie, and cucumbers in a white vinegar sauce. For breakfast, we had cinnamon toast or my Granddaddy’s Malt-O-Meal, and there were always watermelons and cantaloupes. I loved the melon-balling tool my Grandmommy had, and if I had to help, that’s what I liked doing. I also liked her silver sugar spoon, which was deep and had a curly design on the handle.
4. Getting There. Whether we lived in Lubbock, or Wichita Falls, or Iowa Park, or Abilene, Rule never seemed far away. So many Fridays we would leave after school, pack up the van, and head out of town. We would stop at Dairy Queen for chicken strip basket meals on the way, an ordeal which always confirmed that DQ is the slowest fast food in the world. I liked to get extra gravy. My sisters and I would get very silly in the van on the way, putting on puppet shows and playing games. Sometimes we listened to music. And when it got dark, my sisters would fall asleep and my Mom and Dad would let me sit on the floor in between the front seats of the van, and eventually there would be lights across the horizon, and my Dad would say, “Mandy, there’s Rochester. The next town is Rule. Not long now.”
5. Having Nothing To Do, Not Really. I would always get bored halfway through the second day. There was no shopping, no movies. Back then we didn’t have cell phones or internet or Dish Network. There were just people to hang out with, a cousin if I was lucky. We would walk around the garden and look for interesting bugs, or scour the driveway for neat rocks. My Granddaddy had some magazines that looked promising, almost like comic books, but they only had grown up articles in them. On Saturday mornings, we watched Bugs Bunny. We also watched Hee-Haw, and I sort of got the jokes. We visited the other grandparents and maybe an aunt and uncle. And that was about it.
Sometimes I find myself deep into the nostalgia of remembering the Rule of my childhood. A few years ago I bought a bottle of Fantastic!, the cleaning stuff, and called my Mom right after I used it to clean my countertops. She confirmed that my Grandmommy had always used Fantastic! – something I hadn’t realized but was pretty sure of when I started to think of her house every time I sprayed. I feel sad every time I visit Rule and drive by her house now, maybe once a year at most, because the big tree is gone and the faded white stucco has holes in it now. That special silver sugar spoon is now in my own kitchen drawer. But we still have the photos of all those years. Of three little girls in matching Easter or Christmas dresses that Mom made for us, posing on the front porch. Sometimes we still have Rule food, when the family gets together. Occasionally I make those cucumbers in vinegar sauce, and my Mom makes pecan pies.
The aunts and uncles who used to live close moved a bit farther away, and all the cousins got married and left. My Dad’s brother is the only one who still lives there, unless you count my Mom’s brother, who is in the next little town. My Mom’s siblings still get together every year, but not in Rule. They take turns choosing the location, so we go to Ruidoso, or Odessa, or El Paso, or Abilene. And it isn’t at Christmas or Easter, because they each have their own grandkids now, and those holidays are spent with them. We meet in July. My Dad’s family, though, meets in Rule once a year on Labor Day weekend, for a few hours of visiting on a Sunday afternoon, and some real Rule food. It’s been years since I’ve attended – too busy, too tired, not interested this time – but this weekend I’ll go, and I’ll drive by the old houses and the farm and the church and the school (and hear again about the Rule Bobcats from my Dad), and remember all of those times from so long ago.
September 1st, 2010
As a writer, I find it extremely important to focus on my goals. There are many things I would like to do, and many that I need to do, both writing-related and non-writing-related. I can’t keep it all in my head. For today, I just need to blog two things:
1. Lists and timers. If I keep a notepad next to me, then anything that pops into my head that must be remembered can be written down, so the paper will remember for me. If there is something on the list that I must remember to do in exactly three hours, I set my timer to ring. With a timer and a notepad, I can allow myself to be fully involved in what I’m writing, with nothing nagging at me and therefore taking away from the part of my mind I want focused on my story.
2. Seize the moment. Yesterday while waiting in my car for school to be out and my little son’s classroom door to open, I had a flash of brilliance. Something that must be added to the end chapters in my book that will make the conclusion much better. Naturally, I had no paper, but I furiously typed myself a note on my phone. It’s been on my mind ever since, and I’ve been working it over, looking at it from all angles, and I still think it will fit perfectly. So now, even though I’d like to blog more about focus, I’d much more like to get back to my manuscript. See, I’m seizing the moment!
August 31st, 2010
Yesterday I parked myself in my office chair (remember, my corner office with windows?) and tried hard to concentrate on my manuscript. Which was difficult, because every thirty seconds I couldn’t resist refreshing the Track Package page on Amazon, even though I knew the Out For Delivery status would be unchanged. I pined away for the UPS guy, who naturally delivered my Kindle during the one hour I had to run out. At 4pm, I pulled up and saw the little package, brown and beautiful, on my porch. I put it in my bag, unopened, and then had to run over to the doctor’s office with my son to have his stitches removed. Yes, I let the nurses chat with him and pretty much ignored the whole procedure, so enamored was I with the contents of the delivery box, which I opened with such care. Ah, the Kindle! Can I just say that I love it? (Not more than my kids, despite how it sounds.)
So, I’m sure you want to know all about it.
First, which Kindle I ordered and why:
I got the brand new Kindle, which was released last week (I pre-ordered in July); mine is the smaller of the two sizes, and it’s graphite. The display is 6″ and it’s super lightweight. The whole thing is a little bigger than a small paperback from the front, but it’s really thin. I chose this one for several reasons:
- Money. $139 seems a reasonable amount to pay for such a nifty tool that will hold so many books, and when I buy new books for Kindle instead of in actual print, they will be a bit cheaper (most $9.99). By contrast, the other versions of the new Kindle are $189 and $379, and an iPad is even more.
- Don’t need the 3G version. My new Kindle has wi-fi only, which is fine. I have wi-fi in my house, at my husband’s office, my parents’ house, the coffee shop I’m at every week, and a zillion other places. With 3G, I could download a book anytime, anywhere, but I think I’m much more likely to browse for a book and buy it at home, download it to the Kindle, and then be reading the book for awhile when I’m not in wi-fi range.
- Smaller is better. I’ve spent the past several years reading stuff on my iPhone, and it’s pretty small. Comparatively, even the small Kindle seems big. Plus, I want it to fit in my purse, no matter which purse I’m carrying. And the bigger Kindle is the one to have for ease of reading magazines and PDFs, and I’m much more interested in real books.
- Graphite. I like white a lot, and my iPhone is white. But really, white or black – whatever. Graphite, though, is another matter. I went with graphite because I love the word itself. Graphite is a good word.
What have I discovered that’s really cool about my Kindle? So glad you asked!
- When you put it in sleep mode, the screen changes to an image of something or someone literary. We kept turning it off just to see what would be next. Look, there’s Mark Twain! It’s Virginia Woolf! Jane Austen! Some cool-looking Celtic book! And so on.
- The screen is better than I expected. It really, really looks like a genuine book. Like something permanently inked on the page. Much easier on the eyes than the backlit iPhone (and I assume the iPad) and my laptop.
- Notes, highlights, bookmarks. I can’t wait to use this with my book club books: you’re reading along, and you can mark any page with a bookmark, or highlight something, or make notes. All of those are kept in a little folder that you can easily access without actually having to thumb through the book, and there is no worrying about post-it notes falling out.
- Dictionary. This will come in really handy when I’m reading the classics. Currently, I keep a notepad and write down words to look up later. Clicking on the word and having it pop up the definition is so easy! But I might keep a list of interesting words to remember, just because I’m that freakishly fascinated with stuff like that. Can’t help it.
- Bible. It didn’t occur to me until last night that I could download a Bible and take the Kindle to church with me. I’ve been looking up passages on my iPhone while at church, but it’s less than ideal. Still, I rarely remember to bring a literal Bible with me. But having it on Kindle will be awesome! And as I said before, I can bookmark, make notes, and highlight to my heart’s content. And not hurt my eyes in Bible class.
- I haven’t figured it out yet, but supposedly, you can highlight something and then use a keyboard shortcut to share it on Twitter (or other social networks).
- Keeping a bunch of books with me, but without the weight or bulk. Most of the books I buy are one-time reads. When I’m done, I’m done, and they go on a shelf to gather dust or in the next garage sale, or on half.com for 75 cents. But no more! I’ll have a whole library with me – in my purse! – when I’m picking up the kids from school, or on a plane, or lying in bed. I’m most excited about that aspect of being a Kindle owner.
What’s not so cool about the Kindle:
- The browser is ridiculous. You would only use this browser if you were absolutely desperate and had no other recourse. But I read this before I bought it, and I’m not concerned since my 3G iPhone is always in my pocket and has a great browser, not to mention my laptop internet access at home.
- The navigation around a page. There’s a 5-way button, kind of like an all-in-one set of arrow keys. It’s not difficult, just pre-mouse and of course there is no touch screen. After using a mouse on my laptop and a touch screen on my iPhone, it’s weird to go back to something that’s only navigable with arrow keys. But I knew this, too, and I figure it’s no big deal since most of what I’ll be doing on the Kindle is simply reading, not navigating.
- Free books aren’t that easy to find. I was thinking there would be a whole category for free books that I could click on and browse, but it’s not that simple. The thousands and thousands of free public domain masterpieces are hiding. However, there is jungle-search.com. You can do a Kindle search and specify a price range, and even choose to include or exclude public domain books. So, problem solved.
What have I downloaded so far?
- The Count of Monte Cristo (free!)
- Sons and Lovers (free!)
- Oliver Twist (free!)
- The Mayor of Casterbridge (free!)
- Lord Jim (free!)
- Gulliver’s Travels (free!)
- The Bible ($1)
I see value in having literal books on a shelf, beloved books that say something about who you are and what you love, but I’m moving away from that. When I first heard about the Kindle, I thought I’d rather keep my real books. But now, I’m just moving on over to the digital side, and I’m not sure why. Changing times, I guess. Maybe it’s becoming so prevalent that’s it’s familiar enough to accept. And when my own manuscript is all finished, one way or another it will be available to download on the Kindle. I love that I can make it available myself, even if it never gets picked up by an agent and published by a big company. That’s very, very cool.
August 30th, 2010
I am SO ready for book club this month! I’ve missed the last two (Girl With A Pearl Earring and A Lesson Before Dying, both of which I did read) and am looking forward to gathering with my girlfriends and talking this one over: A River Sutra, by Gita Mehta. I’m pretty much a sucker for any book set in India, but A River Sutra is definitely in the category of good reads. It reminded me a little of Interpreter of Maladies in that it was a series of short tales, but these tales were more like interwoven fables (and fascinating). The style is simple and lyrical, and none of the stories is boring or predictable.
In A River Sutra, the main character is an older man who has retired to the semi-solitude of a guest house bungalow on the Narmada River, where he is the manager. The stories are those of the people he encounters at the river – pilgrims, ascetics, people possessed and searching and learning and changing. They tell their stories to him, and he tries to understand the whys and hows, and each story changes him a little.
I enjoyed the tale, the interaction between Hindu, Muslim, and Jain, and especially the meanings of the river itself, one of the most sacred rivers in India. There is the ever present class distinction, and I found it meaningful that the sophisticated manager learned so much from those seen as being beneath him. My favorite quotes from the book are from a conversation between the manager and his clerk, Mr. Chagla:
“The tribals will beg the goddess to forgive Mr. Bose for denying the power of desire.”
“Power of desire?” I demanded as I came out, reassured by the brilliant afternoon sunlight and my starched clothes. “Chagla, have you been infected by this foolishness?”
Mr. Chagla looked at me with the anxiety of a parent watching a willful child.
“But, sir, without desire there is no life. Everything will stand still. Become emptiness. In fact sir, be dead.”
Mr. Chagla gets it. Stealing a quote from the back of the book: life is both clear and mysterious.
August 27th, 2010
Five Reasons This Friday is Fabulous:
1. “Your Amazon.com order has shipped!” Lying in bed at 6am, I checked my email, and there it was. Oh, how many times have I tracked the package since then? My new Kindle is now in Albuquerque, soon to be on my front porch, pristine and ready to be loaded with books. I’m tantalized!
2. Bigelow French Vanilla Tea. I forgot to order another case when my last box was getting low, and so spent several days frowning over various other teas that just aren’t the same. But my favorite is here at last! Amazing how much more you appreciate something when you have to do without it, even briefly.
3. Celebrex. Skipping all the negative stuff leading up to this, yesterday I took my first dose of the painkiller Celebrex. AND IT WORKS! I can’t truly describe how fabulous it is to have so little pain for the first time in months.
4. It’s not hot outside. Oh yes, it will reach 90 degrees today, but that sure beats the 103 degree oven we’ve been in lately. It’s back to the early morning cool, and the feel of late summer weather that makes me anticipate autumn – my favorite of the seasons.
5. A corner office with windows! After a year of writing, I’ve finally created a space of my own that doesn’t involve commandeering the dining room table when I lay out my notecards and character sheets. Sure, it’s in the living room, but it’s a great spot for writing. (Thanks Ray, for being such a good sport and moving furniture for me.)
*I’m still trying to figure out exactly what to do with my blog on Fridays. Maybe a list of five things will work – going to try it out this fall and see how it goes. Thanks for reading! And do you have a Friday Five?
August 26th, 2010
I love gateways and thresholds. Passages from one place to another, especially if they are mysterious, beautiful, or special. Every week I drive down one of the fanciest streets in my town, and every week I feel a pang at the beauty of one particular iron garden gate. It’s a weathered green, and right in the center, the iron bars open up and form a little place that holds a potted plant. Of course it should be an ivy, and it is, and the lighter green tendrils of the plant hang down the gate on either side. You can just tell by the lovely gate that the garden on the other side must be fantastic. I am also drawn to a certain white archway of wood, with high dark hedges on either side. There is a small round hole in the gate, and I always wish I could peek in. My favorite part of my own yard is also an arch. It’s just an inexpensive black metal thing that wouldn’t stay put until I wired it to the house on one side and the fence on the other, but it’s beautiful because of the three jumbled climbing plants that have finally covered it this year: California Climber, Carolina Jasmine, and something that I can’t seem to get rid of that makes little red berries in the fall. One one side of the gateway is my side vegetable garden (currently being pecked to death by some very precocious little bantam pullets); the other side is the grassy backyard, with playground, chicken coop, and my too-stickery lawn.
I also love books that have gateways, especially when gateways connect different worlds. Mysterious and unexplained, these gates take the characters (and the readers) into a new dimension, usually someplace magical and beautiful, but also dangerous. It’s where they become who they really are inside. The first gateway to Narnia is an old wardrobe with magical properties, and once the children go through, the real adventure begins. The Bridge to Terabinthia. Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. When Claire stumbles through the ring of standing stones and ends up in 1700s Scotland – well, what a story! The Count of Monte Cristo: not exactly another world, but it might as well be when Edmond Dantes enters the treasure cave and transforms himself. The Lovely Bones. The Hobbit (journeying out of the Shire). The Mummy movies. The Matrix. Harry Potter. Contact.
What is it about the appeal of a different, hidden world, that might be just below the surface of our own, or just beyond the closed garden gate? I wonder if it’s the excitement of possibility away from the normal and often boring routine, something more interesting that the usual wake/shower/eat/work/clean/sleep and daily repetition. Naturally, a big part of my own fiction creation is the gateway between worlds, so I’m trying to figure out the reasons why gateways are appealing (at least to me) and harness those qualities. So: do you like gateways as much as I do? And why or why not?
August 25th, 2010
It is a beautiful, beautiful feeling to read what you’ve written, worked on, changed, changed some more, stepped away from, and finally returned to after a break – and find that it’s good. Better than expected, even. It’s more than just a good feeling; it’s a major relief. I completed the first draft of my manuscript last fall, and then embarked upon the task of editing. I read books about how to improve my writing, what to add to my plot. Learned how to spot cliches and similes that didn’t belong. Paid attention to voice and point of view. Agonized over that little voice in my head saying, “What will your Mother say if you let your character use profanity!?” Every time I read the manuscript – and I never thought I would read something so many times, not even something of my own – it wasn’t exactly right. In May, I was about a third of the way through what I really hoped would be the final edit, but I was distracted by the coming summer vacation time, and started working on my gardening, planting vegetables, and raising chickens. I needed a break. Never intending to step completely away from the manuscript for the entire summer, days became weeks, and that’s just what happened. I didn’t even think about it over the summer, except to push down feelings of anxiety over how many more edits it would take, and the frustration of spending so much time on one novel – because odds are, it will never see the light of day. (cliche! see – I can spot them lightning fast! Ooh! Another cliche!)
 Earlier this month, in a neat little toy store in Santa Fe, my husband spotted a toy I had to have: a little plastic Thoth figure. In case you don’t know, Thoth is a character in my book – the ibis-headed Egyptian god of scribes. My toy Thoth now stands on my green table next to my writing chair, watching me create fiction. He is dressed very much like the Thoth in my story, and in his left hand, he is even holding a small writing palette with minuscule inkwells of red and blue. There’s a problem, though: he doesn’t stand up very well. If I bump the table at all, he topples over, and sometimes he falls randomly. He’s not balanced (despite very large flat feet). As I’ve been reading through the manuscript again, and I keep pausing to reach over and put the diminutive plastic deity to rights, I’ve compared the process to writing good fiction, especially that with an element of fantasy. Is my story good enough that the Thoth character will stand up all by himself? Will the reader suspend belief? Or will the reader see a toppled Thoth, without whom the entire tale will fall flat? My main characters struggle to believe in the existence of the god. As the characters – Paul and Maria and Jillian – become convinced, will my readers go along with it, too?
Scribe has come a very long way in the past year. I’ve been incredibly blessed with several true fans of the work, even when it was rather sloppy and melodramatic, plus plenty of time to devote to the story’s improvement. Last year at this time, I was still writing the first draft. I was elated on a daily basis to be writing, finally. It’s also a relief to find that the feeling of elation when I create fiction is still with me. I do think Thoth will stand up in the story. Now, back to the manuscript. I have more work to do.
August 24th, 2010
I meet with a small group of dear friends every Sunday afternoon when school is in session, and a couple of years ago we all brought summer photos to share with the group after our annual 3 month hiatus. It was lovely to see what everyone else had been doing while we were apart, and made me feel like we hadn’t really been so separated. So here are a few of my photos from the past summer:
1. Port Aransas, Texas – My daughter making the most of a warning sign at a bird sanctuary: 
2. Port Aransas, Texas – I wanted to walk to the end of the pier, but they wanted to play in the sand. When I returned, they had made a sand tribute to my book! You can see a pyramid, the Nile, and the title, Scribe. What a sweet family! 
3. Pecos National Monument, NM – Edward resting above a reconstructed kiva. In the background is a Spanish mission from the 1700s. 
4. Bandelier National Park, NM – Virginia and me on the trail of cliff dwellings and a prehistoric village. 
More later!
August 23rd, 2010
Hey, summer is over! Or at least the kids are both in school as of this morning. My daughter, who will turn into a real teenager later this week, has turned into someone who is witty good company but unenthusiastic about school. And every time I really take a good look at her, she’s taller. It wasn’t hard to send her off to 8th grade, because no one was taking pictures and she kept heaving those big anticipatory homework- and P.E.-related sighs. No excitement, no milestone; just drudgery. Taking the little guy to school was another matter entirely: I was quite shocked to find myself crying when I finally left my darling little Edward in his new kindergarten class. I’m not sure what it is about kindergarten. He went to 4-day Pre-K last year, and 3-day daycare the year before, and I don’t remember crying on those first days. He is most excited about playing on the playground and eating in the cafeteria, and so very proud of his Super Mario Galaxy backpack and matching lunchbox. His teacher helped him find his little red locker, put away his backpack and his towel for naptime, and then he was on to a canister of pink play-doh, oblivious to the fact that he was sailing past a big milestone at that exact moment. I don’t think any of the kids took much notice of the weepy parents with cameras, hovering around and reminding them to be good boys and girls. One moment I was scoffing at all the emotion, and the next I was walking to my car with tears on my cheeks. I have such high hopes for my sweet little boy. And here I am again, enjoying my silent house, laptop at the ready as I prepare to tackle a daily blog, flash fiction pieces, my still-unfinished novel manuscript, and who knows what else. It feels somewhat bittersweet today, no matter how much I longed for them to both be in school. I guess I really do have a heart, after all. Okay, I’m done. Time to start another season of writing!
Summer was woefully lacking in good books. I can name them, but I just can’t muster the motivation to actually review them:
Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain: This one is on my list of classics that I must read, and I have been avoiding it for several years. It was so funny. I’m sure I read it in school, but I had forgotten much and it was more entertaining than I remembered. Perhaps some of my enjoyment came from comparisons of Tom Sawyer and my own little boy. Edward is younger, but he certainly gets into scrapes. These days they’re mostly physical – he’s had stitches twice and knocked out a tooth already – but I can well imagine him concocting more mischief as he gets older.
The Sea, by John Banville: This was one I read for book club, and it was okay. He won the Man Booker Prize for the book, and the writing was pretty impressive, but the book on the whole isn’t really my style. Good, but not fabulous. I think I enjoy discussion with my friends much more than I enjoy the actual book, in most cases.
Still Life With Chickens: Starting Over In A House By The Sea, by Catherine Goldhammer: My dear friend Katie loaned me this one, mostly because of my own very recent foray into the world of raising chickens, and it was a hit. A short little book, mostly lighthearted and funny, but with some moments that made me misty-eyed – particularly regarding the relationship between the mother and daughter in the book. Loved it.
That’s it. I know – I can only think of three books from the whole summer! Somewhat embarrassed. I guess I’ve been in more of a movie and video game mode lately, not to mention the fact that my summer has been very busy. I certainly purchased many books this summer with the intention of getting right to them! Doesn’t that count for something?
The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis: I’ve been reading through the series with Edward for several months now, usually a chapter each night at bedtime. These are some of my favorite books ever, which I discovered in about 6th grade. I loved them then, and when I finished the series I found my reading niche for many years: fantasy. It was after the Narnia books that I became a bookworm; those books transported me not only into a story other than my own, but into an entirely other world. I’ve never been the same. I read them to my daughter a couple of times over the years, and discovered them all over again, but with deeper meaning and beauty. Now Edward and I have finished them (except for The Horse and His Boy, which I HOPE is lost somewhere in my daughter’s room). I’m not sure how well he followed the stories, but I sure enjoyed sharing them with him. (As of last night, we’ve moved on to Stuart Little, by E.B. White.)
Currently I’m trudging through two books: The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (on audiobook) and A Sundial In A Grave: 1610, by Mary Gentle. I know I’ll love the Hawthorne book, if I can just get back into it, but the Gentle book is not as great as I thought it would be. I have a hard time giving up on a book halfway through. So I must finish.
Big news: I bought a new Kindle! Well, I pre-ordered it back in July in anticipation of my birthday…in September. It should ship out later this week, and I can’t wait. You can be sure I’ll blog about it!
July 31st, 2010
Hello friends! I can’t possibly fit the first two months of summer into one blog post, but I don’t want to drag it out into a multiple post thing. I kept thinking I’d write about my summer exploits, but well…it was summer. I was too busy, or too lazy. Maybe I can give you the big picture.
My well-laid summer plans for Getting Things Done fell through in a big way. Have I done anything on that lengthy list of things to do during the three months my kids were out of school? I don’t really think so. I sure never got around to any blogging or writing. I didn’t even read blogs.
But my garden has been fabulous. I didn’t know I was capable of growing anything, really – and yet I have tons of squash and green beans, and now cucumbers, okra (ok, just one okra), tomatoes, four kinds of peppers, and darling little baby watermelons and pumpkins that I hope to harvest eventually. My chickens are growing up, and they’re still cool. I’m in the habit of going out to check on them in the mornings and evenings, and I love the chicken noises they make. We were sad that two turned out to be roosters and ended up back at the feed store, but happy to bring home two more fuzzy chicks, who are currently in my dining room in the brooder.
Recently I also brought home two zebra finches, and they’re the cutest birds ever. Raja (the male) sings to Rani (the female) all the time, and he brings little things to put in their nest. If she doesn’t like that particular piece of hay, she throws it out. Even cuter than their housekeeping habits are the three tiny eggs Rani is sitting on, and how they trade places every evening for awhile; Raja sits on the eggs while Rani eats and stretches her wings for awhile.
We traveled to Port Aransas in my parents’ RV, and stayed almost right on the beach. We got our beach fix – it had been several years since our last ocean visit – and relaxed a lot. The pelicans were amazing. The next trip was taking our daughter – who will be a teenager in less than a month! – to camp in New Mexico. When we pick her up, we’ll stay in Santa Fe for several days – our last summer fling before it’s back to school. I’ve also enjoyed the annual family reunion, plus a trip to Six Flags and the Dallas Aquarium.
I haven’t written anything, in case you want to know. But when school starts again – in 18 more days – I’ll be back at it. Can’t wait. I’ve read some books (reviews to come!) and Ladies Coffee Night has continued, steady and true, always a high point of my week, although different friends have been in and out with summer travel.
Summer mishaps have included crushing my finger (it still hurts!) in a folding chair that broke, getting stuck in the mud in New Mexico (tow truck winched us out), and getting drenched by rain at Six Flags. Plans have changed: I didn’t Get Things Done because I spent a lot of time hanging out with my brother Jay. His group home isn’t the best situation, and he doesn’t deserve to be parked in front of a television all day – so we did stuff together. You’d have to know Jay to understand that when you’re hanging with him, you can’t really get anything else done. All in all, I think being with him was a better choice that cleaning my house or working on a website anyway.
What next? I don’t know if I can blog again before school starts. If not, I’ll be back in late August. And after that, big things are on the horizon. First, finishing my book. Yes, I mean the manuscript I was going to finish back in May before I got distracted by building a chicken coop. I’ll be the mother of a teenager for the first time and also a mother who has no little kids at home for the first time in thirteen years. My husband will turn 40. Autumn will be lovely, and we’ll go to India again in the winter.
And then, who knows? Every day, life awaits. Happy summer, friends.
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