Divided Attention

Actually, I wish I could blame this morning on a lack of caffeine, but I’d already downed a pot during my morning prayer and study time, so there’s no excuse.

Saturday is our big-breakfast day, so this morning, being of relatively sound mind and proper caffeination, I was in the kitchen. I had the sausage going on the stove and K-Love playing on Alexa. While I danced to the beat of the praise songs, I split and buttered two of the three leftover biscuits for the toaster oven and set the temp and timer.

A quick jig to the fridge for the eggs, which I intended both to fry for breakfast and to boil for the chicken salad for supper, and a twist to the cabinet for my egg pot. Five eggs covered in water for boiling.

Check the sausage.

Pull MSB’s biscuit out–it’s heated, but he doesn’t like them toasted–and leave mine in longer.

Check the sausage again, and decide to make tea for lunch.

I learned my method of tea-making from my aunt Hazel. She puts several bags in a 2-cup measuring cup full of water and zaps it, then pours it into a container of sweetened water. So, glass measuring cup full of teabags and water goes in the microwave.

The man comes in. He’s on one side of me, checking out what’s on the stove, and two of my felines are trying to curl around my no-longer-dancing feet. Shoo away the husband, feed the cats, flip the sausage over.

The timer dings on my biscuit. Still in praise mode, I jig my way to it. It’s burnt to a crisp. No worries, though. I have another one, which I prepare as the chime on the microwave signals the tea is ready. Slip my new biscuit in, set the timer, and do some jazz moves toward the stove, which also is chiming to let me know the eggs are boiled.

The sausage is getting too dark, so I pull them off the heat, and the eggs need to be drained so they won’t overcook. I drain and rinse them in cool water, then get ice for the quick cool. The pot is now full of ice and eggs–and the handle breaks. I’m holding it while staring at a floor covered with ice and eggs–one of which is broken enough to let me know they’re soft-boiled at best.

And the microwave dinger blasts away as if I didn’t have enough on my mind.

I poke a button to make it shut up, grab my broom, dustpan, and a towel to clean up the mess on the floor, and wonder what the noise is I’m hearing.

Just when I notice I’d hit the wrong button on the microwave–and am now cooking the teabags for seven minutes–the toaster oven dings again. I turn off the microwave, saving it from scorching my tea, and check on my biscuit, which is scorched almost as badly as the first one.

MercyMe is crooning “Best News Ever” over Alexa while I’m salvaging eggs and throwing my best pot away. And I’m still wanting to dance and sing along to the music.

Surprisingly, most of the eggs were saved by their shell–though cracked, their innards weren’t exposed–and the tea didn’t boil over in the microwave and the biscuit was salvageable. The sausage was good, and our fried eggs turned out perfectly, so breakfast wasn’t a complete bust.

But I got to wondering what that all meant. Was God trying to tell me not to share my praise time with morning chores? Or was he telling me to pay attention to what I was doing? Considering the only times I get to listen to music are when I’m in the kitchen and when I’m driving, he’s pretty accustomed to having me praise while I do other things.

What I do know is that starting the day with him kept me from getting cranky after all the silliness that went on in my kitchen. And that’s mostly what it was. Silliness. Me having my attention divided in too many directions. Breakfast wasn’t a disaster. The tea at lunch was great. The chicken salad was wonderful (if I do say so myself). So as frustrating as having to clean the floor because of a busted pan was, it wasn’t a mood-setter for the day. I like that.

Eventually, as I think this day through again, I might come up with something more profound, but for now, all I can say is that I like dancing to praise music in my kitchen.

Okay, Writers: Let’s Play

One day, long ago (I can’t believe it’s been 10 years!), Belle cat came in from outside, damp from the rain, and rubbed against my leg. I reached down to pet her and got a palmful of wet fur for my troubles. At the time, I thought “Petting Wet Cats” would make a good story title. It turned into The Cat Lady’s Secret and was published by Pelican Book Group not long after I finished writing the novel.

Ideas can come from anywhere at any time. That’s why it’s wise to keep pen and paper handy wherever you are. Many writing how-to books I’ve read suggest sitting in a restaurant and eavesdropping on the surrounding tables. Not a bad suggestion. My husband and I make up stories about people in restaurants or driving down the road or grocery shopping. Worthless all, but a lot of fun.

One of the benefits of having pen and paper handy wherever you go is the practice you can get. Just write. What does the place smell like? look like? feel like? You can write flowing prose on those questions alone, but to really challenge yourself, condense the experience into a few powerful words. Describe the people you see, then challenge yourself again. Is that sweet lady with the blue hair, road-map face, and fading green eyes really a kindly grandmother?  Or is she the reigning monarch from distant country with an iron fist and steel will? Is the tattooed biker with the gold tooth really a hoodlum? Or does he ride for the Bikers for Jesus and deliver groceries to the underprivledged? It’s fun to assign different scenarios to different people.

So, let’s play:

The clatter of forks on plates and spoons in coffee mugs, came to an abrupt halt when the biker darkened the diner’s plate glass door. He stood for a moment, mirrored shades sheltering his eyes from scrutiny, and crossed his arms over his massive chest. His black t-shirt stretched over broad shoulders, clung tight to his bulky midsection. Every inch of exposed skin bore a dark tattoo. A gold loop earring glinted at his left lobe. Within a moment, he turned his bandana’d head and nodded at the old woman in the corner.

The woman’s pale green eyes darted around the room from behind her tortoiseshell spectacles. Her entrance, too, had captured attention, bringing murmers of speculation from those enjoying their breakfast. She was a stranger to the regulars of the place. Her gray linen suit, the emerald at her throat — what was a woman like her doing in a place like this? But a bellowed call of “Order up!” from the kitchen had broken the spell, and she had melted into the corner, no longer the main attraction.

Tension snapped and sizzled like the bacon frying in the kitchen as the biker strode to her table. She held her coffee cup suspended inches from her mouth as she watched his approach. The cup didn’t tremble in her wrinkled hand, her aged eyes showed no fear; instead, she lifted her head slightly, a smile teasing at her thin lips.

A soft buzz filled the diner as the patrons whispered to each other. “Who is he?” “What will he do?” “Should we call the police?” But a hush fell from wall to wall as the biker took off his sunglasses and knelt like a knight before the woman.

“My Queen,” he said, his deep voice full of admiration and humility.

The woman extended a withered hand for him to kiss. “Hello, Joe. Still preaching at the corner church?”

What would you name this clip? Harley Queen? Or Hog Preacher? Which of the characters captured your imagination? And where do the two go from here?

By the way . . .

The Cat Lady’s Secret is available on Amazon Kindle Unlimited. You can read about it here. If you haven’t read the novel yet, please do. And if you do–or if you have–leave a review for me, okay? We authors live for reviews!

Starting off 2024 Right-ish

Hard to believe it’s been a solid year since I last wrote a blog post. I admit to floundering as far as writing is concerned after Mom died last January. I had no idea whether the Lord wanted me to continue. Still don’t know whether He wants me to write fiction. He’ll tell me in His time, but meanwhile, I’m feeling drawn to nonfiction–devotionals in particular. It’s the only clear nudging I’ve had. So yes, I’m supposed to be writing, just not what I thought.

I have a historical novella (1920s era) edited and ready to go. It was part of a collection that went bust a few years ago. Earlier last summer, I made up my mind to write all the parts of the novella collection and have them ready to query, but I kept getting stonewalled. Sometimes your writing clicks. Words, sentences, paragraphs flow fairly easily as you develop your plot–one that you’re excited about and can’t keep up with because the ideas are hitting faster than you can type. I’ve had times like that. Moreso back when I was a fulltime author. Not so much since my stint as a fulltime caretaker for husband and mother.

Once I returned to the keyboard and realized my well had gone dry, I thought my prayers for help and guidance had gone unheard. They definitely felt unanswered. Until I heard a line in The Chosen spouted by the character Nicodemus. I can’t quote it exactly, but as he was with his wife, reminiscing about his mother and his childhood home, he said that she’d had the words “God Sees Me” on the lintel of her door. That line struck me, and verses kept popping in my head, and devotional ideas began showing up in the strangest places (Facebook?! Who would’ve figured?).

But I hesitated. Devotionals touch so many people. I’ve been known to go through a wad of tissues over just one. How do people write such heartfelt notes of God’s love? My first few attempts landed in the “epic fail” pile. I thought God had made a mistake–or I had misheard. Surely I’m not qualified for this. Besides, I’d read that if I want to publish devos, it’s best to have an agent (which I don’t anymore) if I wanted to go traditional (which I do for a wide variety of reasons). The prospect scared me, so I stopped writing. And the verses and ideas stopped coming. And I started floundering again.

Actually, I was being disobedient. He hadn’t made a mistake–of course–and I hadn’t misheard. But I was getting ahead of Him in my thoughts of publication, which went much farther than just getting an agent. I dreamed of having my name out there again, being recognized again, so when I did start writing fiction, I’d have a platform. I got ahead of Him once before, back when my career first began, and frankly, it didn’t go so well. Sure, my books are award-winners, but they’d never taken off and created the career in writing I’d dreamed of. After a while, I realized I might as well kiss my dreams of a new Lexus goodbye and be thankful I earned enough for gas money.

Now I’m surrendering.

Among the things I learned the past few years is that the best response to God is faith and obedience. You’d think I’d already learned that lesson, but nothing drives it home like a few years of helplessness and fatigue. Without Him, I wouldn’t have survived. His presence was palpable, His guidance clear and immediate, His love all-enveloping. He’s easy to say yes to.

So I’ve said yes to stepping out of my comfort zone. I have no idea what His plans are for these devotionals that have finally started flowing from my fingertips, but that’s His business. Mine is to write.

2022’s Final Gasp

We’re finally coming to the end of one of the roughest years of my life. Billy’s battle with cancer coincided with Mom’s battle with living. So many times everything hit at once. Like the day we took a rare trip together to the farm and returned to Mom’s ministroke and all the horrors that followed, or the day we finally got Billy a hospital bed after a two-hour wait, and less than an hour later, Mom fell and had to go to the ER. Or the times I couldn’t get either of them to eat. Or praying through Billy’s fear of dying and Mom’s fear she won’t. Or the threat I’d have both of them on hospice at the same time. Days of taking the brunt of their frustrations expressed in hurtful comments and hurt-filled cries. I never want to go through this again.

Now that 2023 is in sight, things are a little better. Billy’s cancer treatment and surgery were successful, and he’s gaining his weight back. Mom has come to terms with the fact that the doctor was wrong in how long she has to live. She’s still anxious to go Home, but she’s handling it better that the Lord hasn’t called her yet. The worst thing that happened in the final quarter of 2022 is that our calico, Molly, got out a few hours before the freeze and never came home. The freeze hit Thursday afternoon, and today is Monday, and I can’t find her anywhere. My prayer is that someone has her; my fear is that no one does.

My prayer is that 2023 will be better. Yes, I expect to lose my mother, but that would be a gift to both of us. It is so hard to see her in pain, to watch her get confused, and see her memory lapse so badly. God be praised that her mind is still basically good. She doesn’t have any form of dementia other than what comes with just being 90. But the fear is always there. The fear that she’ll fall from this dance along the edge, and I’ll lose her while she’s still here. I’m not sure I could bear that. I’m better with the thought of her going on to Heaven.

We’ve had one thing after another hit us since Billy’s retirement in 2019, and honestly, we don’t have a clue what ordinary days during retirement are going to look like. But I’m hoping 2023 will finally settle enough for us to find out. We had plans and hopes, and believe me, the stuff that’s been going on wasn’t on the list.

Among the good things of 2022 were the times with family and friends. I have some amazing friends whom God uses to call me just when I need them. They’ve stood by me through this ridiculous year, and I’m so thankful for them.

Molly may be gone, but she left us with two of her kittens, Tuck and Susy. They’re still in training on how to behave as house cats, but they’re fun and loving and I’m so thankful to have them.

And I’m thankful to have my husband and my mom as we face a new adventure in a new year. I don’t know whether I’ll get to go back to writing, but I know I’ll be reading everything I can get my hands on. And I’ll still be an editor. I’m thankful for that. My prayer is for more time with family and friends. After all, they’re what life is all about.

So, as we slip into the new year, I have some high hopes and old, delayed dreams. It’s going to be a great year.

God bless you throughout 2023 with the love of family and friends and with His presence if things get rough. Believe me, His help is real and His presence is almost tangible during hard times. I know this from experience.

Cleanliness is Next to Writerliness

One of my favorite authors, Deborah Raney, told her Facebook followers how she does her best “thinking/plotting/brainstorming” while she does her household chores. She’ll stop in the middle of something to race to her computer and write that word she’d been trying to think of or add in a “great line of dialogue.”

I remember that. I remember being doubly productive when I was at my busiest. And I also remember riding a wave and ignoring the house entirely. I made sure we were properly fed and our clothes were clean. I’d remember to shower–most of the time. But the house? It could wait.

However, during those times when there were no waves to ride and the writing seas were calm, nothing could kick me into gear faster than cleaning the rungs on the dining room table. Probably because I hated cleaning the rungs on the dining room table and would do anything to get out of it. But it’s true. Menial tasks allow your mind to wander. Personally, mine wanders better if I don’t have even music as a distraction. When I hear music, I want to sing along, and my brain becomes flooded with lyrics instead of plot development. So I can promise you audiobooks are out. No point listening to someone else’s successful novel while I’m trying to write my own.

These days, for reasons already explained in this blog, I haven’t been writing much at all. I’ve been editing clients’ manuscripts, which has proven to be my solace during hard times, but I haven’t been able to write. And since I haven’t been writing, I haven’t been keeping the house as clean as I once did. Okay, admittedly, finding a clean house at my address was hit and miss at best, but at least there were times when the whole house was clean all at once.

You would think that now I’d have the cleanest house in the neighborhood. I really do have a lot of time on my hands, and housecleaning would be a better use of that time. Canning season is sporadic this year, and it’ll be a while before jelly fruits come ripe, so I ought to be doing something worthwhile, don’t you think? Something besides reading and gaining weight while I wait for one of my two patients to need me.

But now, I’ve rediscovered music and audiobooks, and I’m thoroughly enjoying myself, at least in that realm. I play with the idea of writing full time again. And it’ll happen. I think. God willing. And once it does, I’ll happily spend time cleaning the rungs on the dining room table while I try to think of that word that keeps eluding me or that plot twist I need to develop.

Or maybe I ought to start cleaning house first, then trying to write. If cleanliness really is next to writerliness, I wonder if it matters which order they come in. Hmmm . . .

The WTL Explanation of WIB

You might need a little help interpreting the title. It’s “The Way-Too-Late Explanation of Where I’ve Been.” Seeing as how it’s been five months since I last posted–and that last post was a Christmas ad for my books–I figured I ought to touch base.

I’m not really sure where to start. The last time I did any update was in January of 2021, when I announced that Mom’s cancer was back. Never did report about Billy’s heart. The short of it is that, after several months spanning back to 2019, they finally figured out what was wrong and performed an ablation on him to regulate his heart rhythm again. Today, as far as his heart goes, he’s fine.

But he has lymphoma.

So now, Mom’s with hospice and doing amazingly well, and Billy is undergoing chemo. Which means, I’ve been a little bit busy.

She wasn’t supposed to make it to 90! Praise God she did!

Mom is basically doing good, considering she wasn’t supposed to make it beyond six months of them telling her the cancer was back. That was well over a year ago now. Fortunately, according to the doctor, she won’t experience pain unless the cancer lands on a nerve. It hasn’t. She is short-winded, but otherwise, you can’t tell she has cancer. She celebrated her 90th birthday in March. She amazes me.

Billy is doing well enough, I guess. Treatments get to him, of course, and food doesn’t appeal to him. He and Mom both are making it hard to feed them. Mom’s picky, and nothing tastes right to Billy–and if it does, it upsets his stomach.

Billy’s cap-tan. Can you see it?

But when he feels well enough, he’s super productive. It may take him three days to mow the front yard, but he gets it done. He’s always expanding the garden, overseeing the crops, harvesting what he can. He amazes me too.

And yes, we’re harvesting. I know some of my friends are, even now, battling snow and growing their garden plants indoors. But here on my little plot of Texas, we’ve harvested carrots, green beans, English peas, potatoes, onions, and garlic so far. Yellow squash and purple-hull peas are in the works, along with another round of green beans. Yank out one crop, fill the bed with another, fertilize, and keep going. Makes for a busy time.

With Billy so vulnerable to every virus bug going around, we haven’t had much chance to be with the littles, but we did recruit a couple of them to help harvest onions. Chloe and Gabriel love pulling things out of the dirt. I rarely get to keep carrots because Chloe eats as many as she pulls. This time, that wasn’t a threat–neither are fond of raw onions.

They deserved cookies and milk after bringing in this haul!

Even though they look like a lot, we’ll use every one of those onions. Last year, a friend of ours had a bumper crop of onions and gave us a load of them. Our daughter used several of her gifted crop to make and freeze French onion soup. I tried that too but overcooked the onions. Made a wonderful broth to use as a base for other soup and stew recipes, but as soup goes, eh–not so great.

Instead, I use mine in a relish recipe I got from an aunt in Georgia. Out of all Daddy’s brothers and sisters and their spouses (and there were a lot of them), my Aunt Hazel was the one most famous among the family for her cooking. She kept telling me to try her onion relish, and I kept sticking my nose up in the air because it didn’t even sound good to me. Oh, but when I gave in and tasted it, let me tell you I begged for her recipe. Bless her little forgiving heart, she gave it to me. I changed it a tad to personalize it to our preferences, and I make it whenever we run out–even if I have to use store-bought onions. MSB finds it addictive, especially in chicken salad. I use it instead of pickles, and it’s wonderful. Also great on hamburgers and hotdogs or over cream cheese and served with Ritz crackers.

Linda’s Onion Relish

5 lbs onions, chopped

3 bell peppers, seeded and chopped

5 cups sugar

4 cups cider vinegar

1 cup water

1 Tablespoon each: salt, turmeric, cloves, coarse-ground black pepper.

Make the syrup in a pot, then add the vegetables to it. Bring to a boil, then cook over medium heat for an hour. Pour hot product into hot, sterile jars and top with sterile lids. Makes 10 pints.

Aunt Hazel said there was no need to process the recipe, and I never do. I turn each jar upside down for a few minutes, then set them upright and listen to the glorious popping lids. But if you’re not comfortable with that, then cook the veggies for ten minutes instead of an hour, jar them with the syrup, and place the pint jars in a water bath. Process for 10 minutes.

Anyway, this just touches the surface of what I’ve been doing and where I’ve been, but I think it’s enough. I haven’t written since I finished a novella in early 2021, then the collection I wrote it for went bust. When I find time to write, I try to expand the novella into a novel, and I have ideas to make it a series, but I have no idea whether God is going to bring me back into the business or not. Everything in His time and under His guidance. Right now, He’s guiding me to be a wife and daughter to those who need me, and a grammy to the great-grands when we get to see them. In other words, I have the privilege of just being a woman for a while.

I’ll try to post more often. I’ve been reading some amazing books that, if nothing else, I could report on. Meanwhile, God bless!

Christmas Sale!

The Circle Bar Ranch series is on sale for 99c at all your favorite ebook retailers, like Kindle, Nook, and Apple! The sale only lasts until January 2, 2022, so fill your ebook device now!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Time Out

Not long ago, I used this image to explain what all is going on in my life and career this year. Now I’m using it as a sticky-page image to let everyone know I won’t be blogging for a while. But be patient. I’ll be back!

Grab a Book

A Bit Much

Did you miss me last week? Seems I no sooner announced that I’m going to keep up with this blog that I turned around and missed three entire posts–a week’s worth. There is reason for that: overload.

Let’s skip all the overwhelming news and the internal battle I’m fighting to keep myself on even keel. Let’s skip the discussion about the Covid virus and the frustration of having to walk all the way back to the car because I forgot my face shield–or even the fact that I have to wear a shield instead of a mask (a story for another time). Let’s jump straight in to the two main reasons I can’t seem to keep my feet under me: my mom, and my inability to say no. This time at least, these are two separate issues.

Starting with the second first, my ongoing struggle with my inability to say no–a.k.a “What was I thinking?!”

It’s the beginning of the year, right? So at the beginning of the year, I have lots of reports coming in from the organization I volunteer for, American Christian Fiction Writers. I’m the Zone Coordinator, a position I enjoy most of the time, and a lot of things come my way before being presented to the national board of directors or filed away for future use. Year-end financial reports. New officers lists. New membership rosters. New members list. Purged members lists. For every email I answer and complete, five more are awaiting me. Whenever I clear the inbox one morning, it’s doubly stacked the next.

So why would I say yes to editing not one but two manuscripts during this time? I must be insane. In my defense, I accepted the manuscript from a new-to-me author presented by a managing editor I trust before I realized I’d be getting the manuscript of one of my favorite authors from another managing editor I trust. I couldn’t possibly turn down the second, so I have no other alternative but to do both. Also, in my defense, these are paying jobs while the ACFW position is voluntary. But on the flipside, and giving myself a good butt-kicking, having these jobs means I don’t have time to write. Not and still be a good wife/daughter/gramma. Somethin’s gotta give, and for now, it’s my writing, which includes blog posts. Sigh.

Lest you think I’m complaining, I’m not. Not really. I love being busy. This is more explaining than complaining. Explaining where I was last week while you, my readers, were expecting a blog post full of wit and wisdom from one of your favorite redheads.

And I’m still not complaining when I introduce the second reason I’ve been a bit overwhelmed: it appears Mom’s cancer is back. And I’m not complaining at all about taking care of her.

Four months ago, we got the wonderful news that the radiation worked on the troublesome spot everyone was worried about. The other spots hadn’t changed in almost a year, so the doctor seemed to doubt they were actually cancer. Not long after that, Mom had a miraculous healing from shortness of breath and her inability to walk from the bedroom to the den without huffing and puffing like she’d just finished a 10K run.

Then, two months ago–two months from the time she got her wonderful news–we got the report that her lungs are riddled with “nodules.” The doctor said he hesitated to call it cancer, but he couldn’t imagine what else it would be. Since he was the radiation oncologist, he had to recommend her to a medical oncologist to take over her treatment. The nodules are too many and too spread out in her lungs for concentrated beams of radiation. The treatment would damage her lungs far worse.

So, we returned to the doctor who treated Mom decades before. This is her third kind of cancer, and we’re not sure yet whether it really is lung cancer. According to the medical oncologist, this could be lung cancer or it could be that the breast cancer she had back in the early 2000s has returned or even the kidney cancer that showed up closer to 2010. Before, because of the location of the cancer in her lung, the doctors couldn’t do a biopsy of the mass that was ultimately obliterated with radiation because Mom–with her severe degenerative arthritis–couldn’t hold the required position long enough. So we had no clue at that time what kind of cancer she had.

But before Mom can undergo a biopsy this time, the doc wanted her to have a PET scan and a CT scan of her brain to see if the cancer has spread beyond the lungs. Considering it took only two months to go from “all clear” to “uh-oh,” anything’s possible. She had the scans last Friday. We find out the results sometime this week. If the cancer has spread, the method of treatment is basically to keep her comfortable. If it hasn’t, then she’ll have the biopsy and we can find out what method of treatment would be effective then. With one of the cancer types, the new immunotherapy might be effective. One of the other types can be treated with a pill. But the last type can be treated only with chemo, and she’s not capable of going through that–bringing us back to keeping her comfortable as she prepares to go home.

Mom amazes me. She seems to stay upbeat. She’s still interested in life and all the goings-on. She manages to get up every day, fix her own meals (although she’s limited to microwaving frozen dinners or leftovers from what I cook for her), dress herself, and despite limited mobility, just do for herself in general (sometimes with the help of an aid). She has adjusted to all her ailments and insists that as long as she is able, even to the extent she’s limited to now, she intends to continue doing for herself. What an amazing example she is.

But you can see why this blog has dropped considerably on my list of must-dos. The idea of keeping up with it–the New Year’s resolution of keeping up with it–is just as insane as any other resolution I come up with, but this one didn’t last as long. Second week of January, and I already failed.

Oh, well.