Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks for the Fat

Whoever little Annabeth is, I agree with her. I’m thankful for my house and my toothbrush, too.

I’m also thankful for my husband of eighteen years, the friendship his kids and I are developing, our grandkids, my mother, my friends–both physical and cyber.

I’m also thankful for this extra weight I tote around.

Don’t get me wrong. By next Thanksgiving, I’d love to be thankful that I lost it all and can get into my old clothes again. But the extra padding has special meaning to me.

First, it means I’m healthy. Contrary to the wisdom of health professionals everywhere, all this pudge means I’m better off than I was at the turn of this century, when I was fifteen pounds underweight, when both of my doctors punctured a lung trying to set a mainline into my carotid artery with little room to miss (they missed), when I was wondering if I’d ever feel good again.

I do now, and I’m thankful for that too.

Next, it means Mom is still with me. I spent most of last year and half of the year before at her house, wondering if she was going to make it, thankful when the doctors finally diagnosed her problem, worried when she wasn’t getting well. God bless Dr. DeVoke and her diagnostic skills, and all the doctors who God sent to make Mom well again.

But what does that have to do with my weight? Like I said before, Mom doesn’t cook. So we eat out. A lot. For an example of a visit with her, read “Trippin’ with Mom” from March of this year. I think I gained fifteen pounds just that one day.

Third, it means that I’m a pretty good cook–a wonderful asset since MSB lives up to that old addage, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Of course, I’d have his heart anyway, but it helps that I can cook.

Last, and most vital, it means that God has blessed us with plenty. What I don’t have here at the house, I have the means to get. There have been times when the threat of poverty was just a breath away and the grace of God saved us.  I’m most thankful for His love.

Although I have no experience with “dieting” because I’ve spent most of my life either slender or underweight, I’m going to diet next year and get rid of this extra bulk (there it is: My New Year’s Resolution for 2010). But for this year, I’m thankful to have it because of everything it signifies.

Not this year!

Every year, I get the holiday blues. I miss my dad and the traditions we had when he was alive. I’m swamped by all the things I have to do both for myself and for my mother. And I’m always torn between participating with my in-laws and trying to spend more time with Mom.  

For those who don’t know, Mom has never been the sweet grandma type who hosted the holidays at her house (she keeps sales catalogues in her oven and quick-fix microwaveable meals in her freezer), but at least she used to come to Thanksgiving and Christmas with us. Now she’s less willing to make the effort. She worries that she’s “too much trouble,” regardless of what I say to try to convince her otherwise. Every year, all the stress brought me down.

But not this year!

(Flickr photo by nucleotidingsofjoy)

This year, I’m starting earlier. I know it’ s not even Thanksgiving yet, but I’ve begun decorating for Christmas. And why not? The stores started prepping for Christmas even before Halloween! Of course, if I really want my house to look festive, I’d hire Jen to come in and work her magic. But at least I’ve started.

I have the bulk of our presents, and all the ones Mom’s giving, here and waiting to be wrapped. I have the Christmas cards ready and waiting to be addressed to both her friends and ours. I’ve even toyed with the idea of baking Christmas cookies–though that may be pushing it.

Tonight, I’m going to watch an Ann Rule movie on Lifetime and wrap some presents. I’m going to treat myself to some hot chocolate for the first time this winter–I’ll even slip in a few drops of Peppermint Mocha Cream to make it seem more Christmassy. 

I’m going to have everything done before we leave for two weeks, before my next week-long visit with Mom, before time slips away and I start to feel so pressured, I can’t enjoy the holidays. Starting earlier won’t help some of the reasons I get the holiday blues. I’ll still miss my dad and our traditions. There’s nothing I can do about that. I’ll still wish Mom would come with us for Thanksgiving and Christmas, even though I know she won’t. But at least when I get to visit her this time, I won’t be in a flustered flurry of activity, trying to do in one week things that take a month to accomplish. I can enjoy being with her.

Beware, though, all you Holly Hollidays who want to comment about how your house has been a Christmas wonderland for over a month now, how your tree is up and twinkling, how you’ve been making Christmas candy all week, how all your packages have been carefully and lovingly wrapped since you purchased them during the after-Christmas sales last year–I warn you: Don’t! Resist the urge to tell me how organized you are. Step away from the keyboard!

I want to bask just a little bit longer in this great plan I have . . .

The Joy of Teaching

I teach creative writing to a small group of women every Tuesday night. We’re a disparate crew, but we have one thing in common: We believe there’s a novel in us struggling to come out.

They get frustrated with me, because they work so hard only to have me point out where they could improve. I’m sure, just once, they’d love to hear me say: “That’s it! You got it!” And they will eventually. The lightbulb will come on and they’ll understand what I’ve been trying to teach them.

Then we’ll move on to something else they can improve upon.

It’s the nature of the beast. Everyone thinks writing is so easy, simply a matter of getting a great idea on paper. How I long for the days when I thought everything I wrote was perfect and worthy of everyone’s praise. Ignorance is truly bliss!

The truth of the matter is, there is very little about it that’s easy. Actually, the only part I can think of that is easy is coming up with an idea. Once you have a story idea in your head, you have nothing else to hope for but work and worry lines. Unless you hit a groove and everything flows like water from a faucet. Then, of course, you’ll go back and look at it, wrinkle your nose, and delete the entire thing because you are a writer and you expect better from yourself than the drivel you’ve just hammered into the computer–actions that happen only once you’ve realized that writing isn’t easy.

But the work, the worry lines, the frustration, are all worth it when you hold your completed project in your hands and realize you’ve written something that truly is good.

My first writing instructor, outside of college, was Fred, a retired English professor. I look back now and can picture him beating his head against the wall because it seemed I just didn’t get it. And I didn’t, for a long time–I simply couldn’t grasp what he was trying to explain. Instead of making the corrections he wanted me to make, I’d rewrite the entire passage into something different, but with the same mistakes–something I’ve seen others do in my years as a critique partner.

But I did, finally, get it. So will the ladies. My joy will come when I’m privileged to see them “get it.” There are few things more wonderful than that magic moment when everything suddenly clicks.

I do still have problem areas that need honing. So will the ladies. But by then, they will have the craving to write well chewing at their insides, just as I do, and will be hungry to get things right. They will be writers.

 

 

Ahhh, Monday–as seen from day’s end

I wrote earlier in the year about how much I love Mondays. Still do. They just seem to be less and less in love with me. I’ve also written about how disorganized I’ve become–still true. Sigh.

I’ve made up my mind I’m going to fly to Nebraska and hang out with Katie to see how she does it. Now there’s a gal who seems to have it all together. As I’ve watched the readership of this blog decline, hers has skyrocketed–and I know why: she takes the time to network with people, she has a distinct purpose for her blog (it’s about writing, period–not nearly as eclectic as mine is), she reads other people’s blogs–in other words, she makes time to stay connected. And she makes time to write. And read! What kills me is that she has a job outside of her home, too. I don’t. My job is here at home or in Bryan, taking care of Mom.

Let’s forget the part where Katie is roughly thirty years younger than me–age shouldn’t have anything to do with organizational skills, right? It’s all about self-discipline, and I don’t have any. Period. Just not in my DNA. Mom doesn’t have any either and Dad–well, yeah he did, but he hogged it all for himself. That gene just didn’t make it into my being.

One of the things that helps is having a massive block of uninterrupted time. I think that’s why I felt more productive when I got up at two a.m. There wasn’t a soul on the planet who was gonna mess with me then! Of course, the idea that my energy would konk out by 3:30 p.m. is irrelevant–I was hitting up Facebook, Twitter, and other people’s websites with the best of them. Never mind that no one was up at that time to tweet with me. I was there! Lately, though, I’ve been sleeping late. Five thirty finds me just rising and getting coffee made instead of blogging. When it gets cold and the prospect of leaving a warm bed is met with dread, it’ll get worse.

Still, another thing that helps me is making a list of things I need to do. A list with sublists; step-by-step instructions of how to get things done through the day and which ones to do when.  Doesn’t matter what time I wake up in the morning. My list is waiting for me. Sometimes I even get to scratch things off –or at least move them to the bottom to be tackled again next week (a woman’s work is never done for good, it’s just done for now).

I’m reading Mike Snyder’s Return Policy, and can really relate to one of the characters:

I remember the day I came up with my list. I was just young enough and dumb enough to think that the act of jotting down a few goals would somehow magically produce the internal fortitude necessary to accomplish them.

Oh, yeah. That sounds like me. Lotsa lists, no fortitude.

But what I like about my lists is that when I do have days of self-discipline and energy, I actually get things written on them done. You’d think that feeling of accomplishment would encourage me to do it again and again. Nope. I’m easily distracted, easily discouraged, and–let’s face it–easily fall for any reason to get out of work. I think I revealed that about myself once before, too: I’m inherently lazy.

Today was Monday, usually the one day I’m most likely to be productive. I got the ironing done, cleaned a bathroom and fixed a couple of meals. I reread parts of Corporate Ladder and submitted it to a forum for a test review (everyone hates my main character– oops!). I worked on an editing job I have. Sounds productive, until you compare it to what I should have finished today.

What am I going to do if I can’t make my Mondays productive? Traditionally, the week goes downhill from here, so if it starts out unproductive–Heaven help me!

Road Rage and Preparation H

My guardian angel has an adventurous spirit and an appetite for danger. He must. He’s pulled me through many o’ times when I should’ve been a wrecked heap on the highway. Trust me, I don’t let him sleep in the backseat.

I don’t know what it is about my Mercury Sable. It attracts idiots–and I don’t mean the lady behind the wheel. I mean the folks who wait to see the whites of my eyes before they pull out onto the highway where the speed limit is 70 mph and decide to drive a farmer’s 40. You know the folks I mean: never in a hurry,  just moseying up the road to get milk or the mail in some small spit-on-the-map you never realized held anything more than a rundown shack and a sleepy dog.

Yesterday, though, it was some woman in a mom mobile with out-of-state plates turning from a superstation without once peeking to see if maybe there might be a redhead in a white Mercury zooming toward her a few clicks over the speed limit. I was relieved to discover that my brakes still work. So does my horn. But I may need new tires after leaving half their rubber on the road.

I don’t know how it is in other states, but in Texas, the speed limit is seventy. Generally, we’re afforded a five mph leeway, so lots of folks drive between seventy and seventy-five. Even more drive eighty. My little Mercury can go from seventy to ninety with just a nudge when I’m passing someone–or keeping my guardian angel awake. So it’s bad enough when people just drive the speed limit on a two-lane highway. Can you imagine the friendly words of encouragement to get off the road those driving below the limit receive?

A friend from Georgia, Chandra, and I were discussing this recently. I admitted to name-calling the drivers in other cars. “Jerk” and “idiot” seem to be my favorites. Chandra told me that, compared to her, I was tame. But we both got an eye-opening surprise this past Sunday.

Chandra is Catholic and wanted to go to mass while she was in Bryan. The only Bryanite I know who’s Catholic is Mom’s eighty-three-year-old friend Lillian. Lillian picked us up in her Cadillac and took us, not only to mass, but out to lunch and to her ranch in Caldwell. On the way back later Sunday evening, we saw blue lights pulsing against the sky. Someone had been in a wreck and we were facing one open lane on our side of a four-lane highway–something the other drivers had picked up on earlier.  The line in the open lane was tighter than circus elephants marching nose to tail under the big top, and Lillian was running out of room. She flicked her blinker on and slowed to a crawl. Just as she was about to ease into a clear spot in the other lane, the approaching car sped up to block her entry.

That’s when she lost it, bless her sweet little elderly heart: She laid on the horn and shouted: “Why, you little hemorrhoid!”

Here again, gone again

My life is nuts right now. And it doesn’t promise to get better in the near future. Well, I mean, I’ll enjoy the interruptions coming my way, but what they mean is that I’ll have little or no time to do what I’d like–namely write. Make the changes to Give the Lady a Ride that the editor pointed out. Work on Ride’s  sequel. Finish Corporate Ladder. Write a few magazine articles. Do better than 3700 words for NaNoWriMo.

Is it true for every writer that when real life interrupts what we love, we sometimes resent it? It is hard enough writing when my time isn’t cut short by trips out of town and approaching holidays. Daily distractions prevent me from getting words on the page. The need to network sometimes overrides the need to create. Exhaustion to the point of inability to develop a cohesive thought prevents work. But if I ever get published, ever snag a contract for three or four books a year, I’m going to have to figure out how to write even when everything seems to be working against the process.

So, Tuesday, I’m here. Tomorrow, I leave town again. Thursday afternoon, I return. Friday, I deal with the dentist–again. Then comes the weekend when writing depends on MSB’s schedule. And finally, next week, I have the entire week to myself. Will I spend it writing, or preparing for MSB’s two-week vacation and Thanksgiving and our annual hunt and Christmas? Will I do what I always do and blow off the rest of the year because it’s steeped in distractions and interruptions, or will I finally figure out how to be productive in what little time I do have?

We’ll see . . .

Writing the Christian Mystery, Guest Post by Lizzy Armentrout

I have to be out of town (again), but my friend, Lizzy Armentrout, is filling in for me with a brief essay about writing the Christian mystery. Lizzy’s first book, A Vengeful Spirit, was recently published through Tate Publishing and can be purchased at Amazon.com. 

In a mystery, you need to have some basic elements: a puzzle (in my case, a murder), a victim, a culprit, and a detective. I’m going to be referring to murder mysteries since this is the genre in which I write.

 Before writing the story, I plan out who is going to be murdered, the motive for being murdered, the culprit, and how they’re murdered. Because my writing is classified Christian, I don’t go into long detail about the murder scene. I want everyone to feel comfortable reading what I’ve written. Now, once I’ve planned out the actual murder part, I begin building the story. I am not one to sit down and plan out every single chapter and character beforehand. I work in chapters and allow the story to develop as I write.

One of the hardest things about writing a good mystery is having lots of red herrings. This was probably the hardest part for me. I spent a lot of time brainstorming with my husband on different plot scenarios to give those red herrings to my readers.

I want my book to be realistic but at the same time one that honors Christ. I’m very careful to not use anything that would offend a conservative Christian. The biggest way I went about showing my readers that this is a Christian mystery is through my central characters. The main character, Shelly Gale, is a strong Christian lady and this is shown through her constant communication with the Lord as she deals with her daily struggles. I also used dialogue to give her opportunities to discuss the Bible and God with others around her; therefore, allowing the reader to be exposed to that account from the Scriptures. I wanted my readers to come away from the book looking at Shelly as an example of how to live their daily life.

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear from you. If you want to know more about my book, you can read the first three chapters on line at www.lizzyarmentrout.com.

God Bless!!

I left my money in San Antonio

For Thursday, our last fun day in the Hill Country, Billy and I went to San Antonio to visit with our son, Tony, and Nora, his wife. Neither one of us had been to San Antonio in years, so it was wonderful that Tony now lives there and knows the area well enough to drive us around. Of course, as is true with every Texan, the first place we wanted see was the Alamo. We drove past it, and what a huge disappointment it was! The city had built around it, doing little to preserve its sanctity. It looked so strangely out of place among the skyscrapers, almost like a cheap tourist attraction, that we decided not to stop.

 All our kids are Mexican Food addicts (and so am I), so we were in for another culinary treat in San Antonio. Tony and Nora took us to Mi Tierra Cafe y Panderia (My Land Cafe and Bakery). The restaurant is located in central downtown near El Mercado (the Market Place) and is one busy restaurant. After we turned our name in, we explored a bit. On either side of the entry were shrines set up for Dia de los Muertas–the day of the dead. While Americans celebrate a frightening halloween derived from its Celtic roots, the Mexicans use the day as a joyous way to celebrate the dead. Skeleton dolls are dressed up and displayed around pictures of loved ones who have passed away. A Mexican man was at one of the shrines and explained to us that families in Mexico packed elaborate lunches, guitars (and probably Tequila),  and headed for the cemeteries to celebrate the lives of those who were dead. It didn’t sound quite so morbid when he described it; he almost sounded wistful.  

Before long, our number was called and we entered a wonderful–and huge–restaurant that was already preparing for Christmas inside. Odd contrast to the shrines outside. Once again, I barely remember what I had for lunch because MSB ordered something terrific (in my defense, we try to order different things so we can taste each other’s. This time, he ordered before I did and got what I wanted)–Enchiladas de Pollo en Mole, Chicken enchiladas in a sauce made with bitter chocolate. Oh, my! That was wonderful! And bless Nora’s Latina heart–she’s going to teach me how to make it next time we get together!

 Of course, we couldn’t leave the place without going to the Panderia and trying los dulces (sweets). I was intrigued by one thing on display behind the glass counter: Dulce de Comote — candied sweet potato. It sounded so–soul food, so American South. And it was pure heaven! I’m not sure what they did or how, but the potato was wonderful and enough for Billy and I and anyone else who wanted a bite! 

After lunch, Tony took us to El Mercado, which wasn’t too crowded thanks to the time of year we chose to go. (Seriously, all you who dream of travel after the kids are grown and gone, take all your journeys in October–especially if you’re coming south. Temperatures are mild, the best places are still open–you can’t beat it!). I’m still not sure I have a full idea of what the Market Place looks like, whether there are several buildings involved or just one huge one, but where we went was like a mall. Each shop was tiny, even the stores along the perimeter. Stores on the inside were partitioned off by curtains or temporary walls, and all the shops were crammed with treasures (and the not so treasurable) from Mexico.

                    

So, there you have it all. Our annual trip to the Hill Country in four posts!

Hill Country Home

Just as I promised, here it is: our home away from home in the Texas Hill Country, the Terrapin River Loft, located on the Guadalupe River not far from New Braunfels. (I wrote about the owner, Chris Summers, last year and the post disappeared into cyberspace. On some wild chance someone remembers, she’s the one who makes wetsuits for skin/scuba divers–that’s her on the right, modeling one of her suits.)

The loft is in a residential area in Sattler, Texas, but from the balcony, the only thing noticeable is the peace, the trees and the river–especially since we go during a time most tourists are gone. Facing the balcony, Chris and her husband live on the right and a neighbor we’ve never seen lives on the left, so it’s really quiet.

The first thing we do after unloading our things is to run down to the river. The Guadalupe is beautiful and just as clear as it can get (when it hasn’t rained).  And, of course, it’s chock full of our little feathered friends.

Tony brought our grandson out too, and I can promise Joey had a good time with the ducks! He also had a good time in the aquarium in Cabella’s in Buda:

I doubt you can see the fish in the pic, but Cabella’s has some doozies! Bass, brim, carp, funny looking fish I’m unfamiliar with, all swim around a huge aquarium just to fascinate a little boy (not to mention his grandma!). Cabella’s also has a few wild animals stuffed in realistic poses, and Joey really loved seeing those. We had been eating buffalo burgers in Cabella’s restaurant–all, that is, except Joey. His surroundings were far too fascinating to waste time on his hotdog! His grampa wolfed down his burger and carried him around to see all the animals so his dad and I could eat without worrying about him squirming out of his highchair. Here are a few of the things they got to see:

 

 

Goodness, this post got long. I’ll just have to save San Antonio for next time . . .