My little girl was about 7 or 8, I think, in this picture.

Today my darling little girl started her last semester in college. In about months, she will have her BA in English Lit, and God willing, will have a job working in publishing. I’m so proud of her.

Here she is at The Londoner celebrating her 22nd birthday.

I am in growth!

I have known about the Sidetracked Home Executives since about 1993 or 94, when my husband was in graduate school and my daughter was very young. I heard them on Focus on the Family and they spoke to me.

Anyway, I have been “in the box” off and on for years. I spent a lot of time doing Flylady which is kind of an offshoot of the SHE system. I met a lot of wonderful Flylady friends, some of whom I still keep in touch with, but I honestly feel the box system works better for me.

It’s easier to carry the 3×5 cards around from room to room to know what to do next rather than a big binder, and I think it’s easier to add or take something away from the box, too.

Anyway, I bought myself a big card file and set things up from the Happiness File, another book by the authors of the Sidetracked Home Executives which is like my get organized bible.

With Christmas come and gone, I decided that Dec. 26 would be my New Year and I would get back on track with Weight Watchers and my home.

I searched all over for my box and my organization books. Yes, I get the irony of not being able to find the box and books that help keep me organized. Finally, I found them on the floor next to my husband’s chair. He’d been watching me go through, literally, every drawer and shelf in the house trying to figure out where these things went. See, about a month or so ago, I had planned to get back in the box and i knew exactly where I had done that planning – on my side of the sofa/recliner he sits in. Everything got moved for Christmas and I knew the stuff had to be nearby. He must have moved them off his end table to the floor!

So, I spent a good chunk of yesterday figuring everything out again and planning my days/weeks/months. I knew that today would be a half cleaning day and I would do all my before bed stuff so we’d be ready for today.

THEN:

All the drains in the house backed up. It was pouring outside and we have a huge, lovely live oak tree outside our front door and we thought we’d handled the root problem, especially since we had a “weed” tree (I don’t know what it was the but arborist said no one actually plants those trees) taken out of the yard, too.

Guess not.

We quickly packed up all of the stuff we would need and headed to the in-laws’ house to spend the night since we couldn’t flush anything.

So, now Roto=Rooter guy’s been here and we’re back. But my card file system is already out of whack as today was supposed to be a cleaning day and Steve said we needed to run to the store to get cleaner as the toilets backed up into the tubs.

I didn’t get home until after 10 am which messed up my morning plans. However, the system is new-ish to us and this happens every time I try to get back in the box. Not the drains but something pops up to throw me off the system.

I figure I’ll do what I can card-wise today and just keep going. It’ll be better than it was, if not perfect. Flylady says that you’re never behind, you just jump in where you are. She also says even housework done imperfectly blesses your family.

I will keep going.

Here is my modern take on the annual Christmas letter. This will end up on Facebook where I “live” and most of my friends and family are there, or at least their kids are so it is my hope that everyone who needs to will see this.

What can I say about 2011? It was a pretty good year in a lot of ways, but as years go, it had its ups and downs.

Noah started the year preparing to take his First Communion and playing basketball with a team at the YMCA. Juliette was starting her second semester as a junior in college and beginning to stress about getting a summer internship.

Steve and I were continuing our same jobs, he working for CCT and worrying, at least at the beginning of the year, whether he would have a job by the end of the year, with budget cuts at the university. I was, and continue to be, still working as Mom and CEO of the Brandt family, as well as writing fantasy novels.

Noah moved from basketball to soccer, still at the Y, and we began to notice that he wasn’t as competitive as the other kids. He was content to have fun and play, but winning wasn’t as important to him. He joined another basketball team in the summer, and while we loved his coach who took great pains to explain the plays and the goals of the team, even going so far as to design a play that worked to Noah’s strengths, passing and blocking, after that “season” finished, we decided not to sign him up again for a team sport. His non-competitive, easily distractable nature seems to lend itself to less athletic pursuits.

In March, Steve and I attended a writes’ conference in Houma, LA, where we each pitched our latest books to an agent. She told me to try to cut 35,000 words from my book and contact her then.

I cut 29,000 and sent her an email in August. To my surprise and delight, she remembered me but said she was much busier than she expected. She suggested I try to find other representation and if that was unsuccessful, to contact her again in December. I did, it was and I will be sending her another email by the end of the year.

Steve decided not to contact her again because he feels his book needs more work that he has time for at the moment.

On a side note, our friend Jo Templeton also pitched to the same agent at the same conference and while she, too, was unsuccessful in getting representation, the agent’s words helped her plot the second and third books in her series and her first one was picked up by Crescent Moon Press, release date to be announced.

Speaking of Crescent Moon, I took a job with them as content editor. At the moment, I have three books I’m working on, but it looks like all three will be finished, or my part, anyway, soon, and I hope to see them released in 2012.

Noah took his First Communion on May 15.

Juliette started a book review blog, Paperbacks and Frosting, and while she didn’t get a summer internship, she is now finishing up one she got for the Fall Semester, with Paige Wheeler at Folio Lit.

Noah went to soccer camp this summer again, and took swimming lessons.

We did not go on a family vacation due to timing issues and conflicts in scheduling, and all of us have decided we can’t let that happen again. We need to take some time off!

Noah, Juliette and I did Vacation Bible School again this year, and as always, we loved it and it was exhausting! Next summer will be interesting as the school is undergoing major remodeling and it will probably interfere with VBS, as far as space and ease of movement throughout the school/church campus.

In August, my sister-in-law Elizabeth and I met up in Nashville for five days before school started. It was a lot of fun and we saw lots of touristy things and even went to a show at the Grand Ole Opry. We’re considering making this trip an annual event, although the venue will change.

Steve traveled a lot this year, more than usual as he has been given more and more responsibility as his seniority at CCT increases and because some people left due to the anticipated budget cuts which didn’t happen as expected. He went to Seattle twice and several other places this year.

At the beginning of October, my in-laws took us all to Shreveport to the Red River Revel, a big art fair. It was a lot of fun and we spent a little too much money, but we’re hoping to go back next year.

Thanksgiving was held our our house this year after two years of spending it in a condo in Orlando. I think just this week we finished all the turkey leftovers!

Our Christmas tree is up and all the presents have been bought!

I hope your 2011 was a good one and that 2012 will bring you all you desire, but most of all, I hope you receive all you need to become the person God created you to be. Some of those gift may be in the form of trials. We know that gold is refined in fire, and that the cross comes before the crown. May prayer for you all is that you receive joy and happiness and love but most of all perseverance and strength.

You are all my friends, but more than that, you are a soul God loves and Jesus died for. You are more precious than gold and were created in the image of our God.

For that fact alone, I love you. Not for what you may do or what you have done. Not for who you were or who you may become.

You. Just you. You are loved!

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year to all!

This morning, after breakfast, my husband told Noah to put his breakfast dishes in the dishwasher.

Noah, in typically dramatic fashion, said, “I’m just your slave.”

Steve said, “You’re my slave? Because you have to put your dishes in the dishwasher? You need to understand slavery and what it really was.”

Noah is a history geek. He doesn’t understand history, but he knows a lot of stuff – dates and things.

Noah: Oh, I know. Abraham Lincoln ended it.

Steve: Yes. There were more people than just him, but yes. Let’s talk about these dishes. Who ate breakfast off of them?

Noah: I did.

Steve: Slavery isn’t about taking care of dishes you ate off of. Who does the laundry in this house?

Noah: I help.

Steve: You help Mommy sometimes, but who does the laundry? Who makes dinner?

Noah: You guys.

Steve: So I guess we’re YOUR slaves.

Can you spot the imposter in the picture? Couldn't pass up a chance to include a guinea pig in my post!

My daughter recently got an internship with a big NYC literary agency. It is exactly the internship and the kind of job she wants and she is thrilled. Busy, stressed, but thrilled.

It’s all “virtual” in that she still lives in her apartment near the LSU campus and is taking classes, but she works two or three days for the agency, reading manuscripts they send her and stuff like that. All online.

Last week, she had a conference call for something they call “Intern Academy.” It’s apparently a chance for the interns to ask questions about the publishing industry and books and such.

She was totally freaked out by this because, as she said, “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I told her she’s an intern and by definition she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Plus, I said, “I don’t think anyone in any kind of creative, ‘thinking’ job thinks they know what they’re doing.”

I know several multi-published authors who finish a book and are convinced that’s the last one they will ever write. I worked as a Kelly girl for years and I often DIDN’T know what I was doing because it was my first day on the job or sometimes my only day in that office and the training was little to none. But there were other times when I worked some place for months and still often felt like I was just making it up as I went along.

I was in the Army for two years and always felt like I wasn’t REALLY in because I was in the Intelligence and Security Command and after basic training, it wasn’t really very military, and I was terrified someone would realize that I wasn’t really a soldier. To this day, I’m a little chagrined to stand up on Veterans’ Day with all the guys who served in war. I was in during “peace time,” if you can call the Cold War that, and don’t feel worthy to stand with people who literally risked their lives for the country, but that’s a different story.

The point is that EVERYONE, I think, who is doing “skilled” work, sometimes feels like an imposter.

Maybe if you are a dog walker or mow lawns or flip burgers for a living you might not feel that way about your job, but you might feel it about something else.

None of us, I maintain, ever REALLY feels like a grown-up, and therefore, we never really feel like we know what we’re doing.

I know I don’t.

What do you think?

A few days ago, we were all in the car coming home from church. This is a pretty rare thing. Not coming home from church. Or going to church, for that matter.

No, usually the whole family isn’t in the car together. Our daughter has her own car and her own apartment, so usually, she’s driven to church by herself or she leaves with her grandparents because we’re all going to end up there anyway and we just need to go home and change.

This day was unusual. We were having company at the time the rest of the family usually goes to church so we went early.

Anyway, as we were driving home, Noah said that some of the kids in his class at school asked him if he was Italian.

This seems to me, based on my admittedly limited experience, a standard Catholic school question. My daughter was asked if she was Irish or Italian. (Neither – she’s Scandinavian. We’re converts so we don’t fit the “cradle Catholic ethnic mold.”)

So, he asked us what to say when he’s asked that question.

Well, clearly he’s black, but it is an interesting question and not an easy one as he was adopted by us when he was 8 weeks old. He has no memory of his “other family” nor any memories of any “heritage” before ours.

Now, in a diverse environment like his school, which is mostly white but with a decent showing of other races, it should be clear that he’s not Italian or Irish or whatever, but he’s in third grade and how aware are kids at this age?

I said, “Sweetie, your mom is half Scandinavian. Your dad is half Scandinavian, and your sister is half Scandinavian. If you want to tell people you’re Scandinavian, I’m totally okay with that.”

What do you think?

Besides their good looks.

Steve is on a business trip so Noah’s been sleeping in our bed. This morning I woke him up for school.

Noah: I’m Mommy’s little skunk.

Me: Because you stink?

Noah: Oh. I’m Mommy’s little hedgehog because I snuggle with her at night.

Me. More like you kick me in the night.

Noah: Me, Daddy, and Bumpa are skunks because we stink.

Me: You stink?

Noah (looking at me knowingly): Because we have G A S.

There you have it.

My husband is on a business trip and will be out of town until Sunday. Life tends to loosen up a bit when he’s gone. I suspect some things slide when I go away, too, but he won’t admit to that. More ice cream and pizza in the freezer when I get home tell a different story, however.

Not the point.

Anyway, last night Noah was playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii. He’d been grounded from the game for some time because of grades and behavior but so far this school year he’s got an A in math, so I let him play.

It was bedtime and he was playing. I told him it was time to brush his teeth and stuff, but he did his normal, “I’m almost done, Mom.” I know because I get addicted to games, too, that this means, “Leave me alone for another hour or whatever.”

I sat and watched for a bit and he insisted that he just needed to get to ONE PLACE and he’d finish that section or the game or something.

I decided to let him go for a bit, but it became clear that he couldn’t figure out the last piece to the puzzle and it was getting very late.

I told him Daddy wouldn’t be happy and he’d have to figure out the rest the next day. He was frustrated anyway and as he huffed into the bathroom to brush his teeth, he asked me to find out who made that game and tell him that it was impossible to finish.

I put him to bed and went back to my desk to work for a bit. After a few minutes I heard a random noise or two coming from the living room area.

We have a guinea pig who sometimes chews on the bars of his cage or knocks his dish over so I thought maybe that’s what I heard.

The second time I heard something, I started out toward the living room. I could see a reflection in a window of Noah moving around. He turns the sound down and leaves all the lights off so as not to alert any parents that he’s out of bed.

WHen I confronted him, he said, “I figured it out!” Apparently as he lay in bed after prayers, he’d figured out what the last piece of the puzzle was.

He happily handed over the controller after I told him I’d let his score finish tallying and ran back to bed.

My son, the gamer!

Parents know there are some milestones your child will go through. You might not expect that sometimes they feel like walking through a door that slams shut behind you and you can never go back.

First words.

First steps.

Start of school.

Those are things we expect and sometimes look forward to. They’re signs that our child is growing up and moving from a baby dependent upon us for everything to a maturing child who begins to love us not because he or she needs us but because they CHOOSE to love us.

It’s pretty awe inspiring.

Then there are unexpected milestones that not only slam a door behind us but smack us in the face as we walk right into them, not even realizing they were coming.

I hit one of those yesterday.

It was the first day of school and as usual, the principal said it was perfectly okay for parents to walk their child or children to their classrooms. Noah said he didn’t need us to do that.

I said fine. If he wanted to be a big kid, then I would totally respect that. He did change his mind when we got to the school and no one else was just dropping their kids off.

However, that wasn’t the milestone. That came later.

He’s been going to this school for four years. I get how carpool works. I know when to leave the house to get my favorite spot (someone’s unsecured wifi reaches the street there and I can use my computer to surf or chat or research something for my book). I got this.

I even was so together this year that I had his supplies labeled as the teachers asked and all that. I figured I was going to be able to hold things together this year.

Pride goeth before a fall, baby.

I got to carpool yesterday and sat in my car, a little behind where I usually sit, but it was okay. When the line began to move, I noticed it was a little slower than last year, but I figured new moms and we had to get back into a routine.

I got to the pickup line and they called his name.

He wasn’t there.

The teacher or mom who was helping asked me if he was in third grade. I said yes and she told me he was in the OTHER carpool line now!

The big kids’ line! The one I don’t know how to work.

I drove around to find that the line was extended farther back than I had anticipated and I ended up “butting” in as I came from a side street into the line.

Now, I don’t know when to leave the house or any of that, but the bigger thing to me is, he’s in the big kid line!!!

This school goes from kindergarten to 8th grade, so I had anticipated another year or so before he’d move. I thought they stayed in the “Front” carpool line until 4th grade, at the very earliest.

Nope.

Today we drove to the front line with no problems, but I’ll have to see how it works this afternoon.

I think I hear a door slamming somewhere.

Our second day in Nashville started a little slow. We went to the Belle Mead Plantation which is a working farm and an antebellum southern plantation. It was okay, but I’ve done plantations before and I get confused over all the names and dates. I guess I’m not a history nerd.

The good thing about Belle Mead was that there is a winery there, and I love wine tastings, so we did that. It’s the only winery in Tennessee and I loved the wines so I bought two bottles to take home.

Yes, I realize that bottles of wine take up more room than mugs but I’m going to be okay with my suitcase!

Then we went to a mall that the tour book said was over a million square feet of shops, which might be true but it seemed like a good quarter or more of them were closed. We finally found an O’Charley’s and had lunch.

After lunch, we decided to go to the Grand Ole Opry and it was a great decision! We loved the backstage tour so much we decided (or rather Elizabeth decided, as she’s the one who paid) to stay and see a show!

We had about an hour and a half to two hours to kill so we went to the Gaylord Opryland Resort to look around.

Last year, before the big flood, RWA was holding its annual conference there so I was supposed to stay there and even had a reservation already. I wanted to see what it was like.

It is, of course, magnificent, but I wonder how long it would take to figure out how to get in and out and where to go if I had gone to a conference there.

We ate dinner, which was super expensive, but super yummy. Elizabeth paid again and I had gotten her some music jewelry as a thank you for this trip and all. She is a bell ringer so the music symbols were appreciated.

Then we went to the show. Fabulous. We had third row seats and had a wonderful time. I signed up for a Opry Visa (which I do not need) but I got a free t-shirt and a chance to go backstage during the show. Didn’t win, but I have some new and old stars I think I will be following.

Tonight, I’m tired, but we have one more full day here so I think we’re doing another mansion and then the Country Music Hall of Fame.