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.

I actually got a friend request from a woman whose name I didn’t recognize, but I figured she was a writer as a lot of my Facebook friends are writers. When I clicked on her page I saw her maiden name which is the same as mine and that she had, among her friends, a man with the same name as another of my cousins.

Before I had a chance to send her a message to ask if we were indeed related, I got a note from her saying she found me through the PKD group. It turns out she has a page on Facebook searching for a kidney donor as her PKD has worsened.

I thought this was such an exciting thing (Finding her and seeing that she’s taking a non-conventional route to finding a donor) that I sent a note to all my writing groups, sharing this information.

My email program must have a glitch because apparently, although I sent this about 15 days ago, people are just now responding and I’ve gotten some surprising comments.

In one group, the discussion quickly turned into a “rant” about how Facebook is terrible because of all the private information that is now available to anyone and how the world is all so “social” that real live, face to face, interactions are dying.

I started to write a response because I think some of that is wrong and some is true but not the fault of Facebook or even the Internet itself, but I decided that would serve no purpose. Instead, I decided to write a blog post instead.

Periodically, I find some of my friends on Facebook freaking out because “people can find your phone number” so easily. I’m not totally sure why this is so bad, but I guess these same people don’t remember that even though no one I know uses one anymore, phone books are still printed and they are specifically designed to allow people to find your phone number.

It used to be a thing. If you wanted to talk to someone to invite them out or give them information or just chat, you’d look up their name in the phone book and voila, there was their number! Plain as day, right in print!

How did we ever manage to avoid stalkers? And you know what, your address was right there, too!

Crazy.

Another criticism I’ve read of the Internet and Facebook in particular is that we’ve lost the ability to have face to face relationships because we’re living our lives virtually.

Well, I don’t have any scientific data on this, but personally, I don’t see how we can “live our lives virtually” for real. Most of us still have to leave our houses to go to work or to school, and we have to leave to do many things that are just part of life. I actually feel like I spend most of my time running errands when I’d rather be at home writing. The Internet/Facebook hasn’t changed the way I get groceries or pick up my prescriptions or go to the dentist. And I have to deal with people in all those arenas, face to face. Facebook hasn’t changed that.

However, something it has done is given me friends, true and real friends, in far away places. For instance, right now, I have a friend living in the Northeast who I met through a group of romance authors who were formerly in the military. She and I have shared our weight loss struggles and she sent me a message, through Facebook, that I inspired her to join Weight Watchers and we’ve been supporting and encouraging one another through messages back and forth.

I have another friend that I met in 2006 when I went to the RWA National Conference. She wishes she lived in France but she really lives in the Midwest. We’ve chatted about a lot of things and interests we share through Facebook and I don’t think we’d be this close if it weren’t for the Internet.

I’ve reconnected with family members spread far and wide, as well as high school and college friends. I’ve listened online to a radio station in Harrisburg, PA online because one of my dear college friends did the traffic in the mornings.

I don’t worry about stalkers, which seems to be a big concern with other people in regard to the amount of information and photos that go online. Facebook, for me, is a kind of backup for all my photos and scrapbook pages.

I understand there are weirdos out there who want to look at pictures of kids for sick reasons, but I don’t think it’s any riskier to put pictures of my kids out there for family and friends to see than it is to let them actually be outside. There have been sickos throughout time. Facebook didn’t create them. Any guy with a camera could take his own pictures of anyone’s kid if he really wanted to. I would rather that my friends could see how cute my kid is than worry.

Someone said that because of how easy and social the Internet is, people have forgotten how to write letters.

Nonsense.

I have moved five times since I got married and every time, I’d cry in my friends’ arms and they’d promise to write. I would get to my new home and be horribly lonely for my friends back home and write letters (this was back in the late 80s/early 90s – no easily accessible Internet) to the friends back home with my new address. I can count, 25 years later, the number of letters I received in reply on the fingers of one hand.

The Internet didn’t kill letter writing. Among most people, it was never quite as alive as those who are nostalgic believe. My mother was a great letter writer, and she would write me twice a week for years, until cell phones made it easier to call and postage kept going up and up. When I was young and in school, I wrote letters. Lots of letters, but rarely did I receive anything in reply, even from boys I was dating over summer vacation.

Some people just would never write letters, even without Facebook.

I realize that some people will never accept social networking, and that’s fine. For me, though, I always hoped the Internet would be a place to meet people and that’s what Facebook is.

Like everything, it can be abused and a few bad apples can spoil it. I just don’t think they are the majority and I don’t think any technology is inherently bad.

I welcome your thoughts.

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?

When my first book came out years ago, my mother was proud but also amazed. She said, “Where did you get your creativity? I’m not creative.”

This from the woman who made much of my clothing and that of my sister when we were growing up. Having a son of my own now, I’m not sure Mom sewed much for my brother. It’s hard to find patterns for boys.

Anyway, after I got married, Mom took up quilting and found her medium! She made quilts, jackets, tote bags, and placemats and table runners galore. She made quilts when there was no one to give them to. She made them because she loved it.

She died two years ago and I inherited all of her sewing stuff because my sister-in-law didn’t want it. In fact, she tried to get me to take HER sewing machine, too, but as much as I love to sew, a girl can only use so many machines.

I found a baby quilt top Mom had finished. It only needs batting, backing, quilting and binding to be done, so I’m doing that. There are several more tops and parts of tops I’ll be working on, too.

All of this got me to thinking about creativity. Mom didn’t think she was creative because she didn’t think of herself as an artist.

What is an artist? Is it merely someone who paints masterpieces that hang in galleries, or is it someone who sews her daughter a skating costume to wear to the roller skating rink every Saturday?

I know lots of writers and nearly all of them engage in some other form of “art work.” Many paint, but others do needlework or garden or create scrapbooks and other paper crafts.

Creativity, I propose, is a way of thinking. An outside the box way of thinking. A way of thinking that says, “Just because we’ve always done it this way might mean it’s time to do it another way.”

I think if you make your child a lunch for school and you decide not to put in a sandwich because you know he won’t eat it, even though that’s what a school lunch is supposed to be, that’s creative.

If you decide to take a vacation to a campground in Canada when everyone else is going to Disney, that’s creative.

Sometimes just taking a different route to work or school because it might be fun is a creative thing too.

Be creative today!

This is very unusual because the general practice is that the new priests are ordained in May and around the end of that month, hew assignments are announced. Priests, as I understand it, are asked by the bishop every year if they are willing to move. It has been my experience that older priests tend to stay where they are for a good length of time. For instance, when we lived in Illinois and we became Catholic, the priest of that church had been there nine years and was still there when we left five years later. On the other hand, probably half a dozen or so associate pastors came and went in that time.

Father Andrew had only been with us a year when he was asked to take another parish and it wasn’t during the normal assignment rotations.

What he announced set my imagination and that of my husband whirling in our heads.

Father Andrew said that he was being transferred so quickly was that in this small parish in a little town I never heard of one of the priests took a leave of absence and the other had a nervous breakdown.

Well, as a fantasy author, and the writer of a Catholic vampire short story that has yet to find a home, I have to wonder.

What’s going on in that parish and why are we sending beloved Father Andrew into it? What will happen to him??

I have a theory. It might be bunnies!

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I think God is really trying to get my attention, possibly because I haven’t been paying attention before!

Well, I feel like this is happening a lot lately and I’ve started looking around to see what He’s trying to get me to change. Because, ultimately, He wouldn’t be trying to hard to get me to listen if I were doing all the right things in the first place.

I keep hearing a song on the radio by Steven Curtis Chapman called Do Everything. I’d post the video here but experience has taught me that it wouldn’t work anyway, but go to YouTube and look for it if you don’t know the song.

The basic message is to “Do Everything You Do for the Glory of God.”

Years ago, I tried to figure out how that’s even possible. At the time I was the wife of a graduate student and the mom of a little girl about four or five years old. We were living in a trailer and seriously had no money. I was thinking about being a writer and people would suggest that I go to a book store and buy the kinds of books I wanted to write and study them. They just didn’t get that I literally didn’t have the money to buy books!

Doing my daily chores and life stuff for the glory of God just didn’t compute. How did defrosting a freezer or folding clothes glorify God? Didn’t I need to be praying endless Rosaries or going out and finding the homeless and bringing them back to my house to feed and clothe?

We actually did take care of a homeless guy for awhile but frankly, he wanted to drink and break windows more than he wanted new clothes or food.

Now it’s years later, and I’m older and I hope, more mature in my walk with Jesus. Last summer, when I went to RWA Nationals, I got a very strong feeling that God was reaffirming to me that He wants me to write. The speakers all seemed to be telling me that and even the missal at the church I went to Mass on Sunday morning had a picture on the cover labeled, “Jesus the Storyteller.” I felt like God was sitting next to me, saying, “Look, I gave you the talent and the desire to write. What are you going to do about it?”

A year has gone by and I’ve finished my book, sent it to an agent, and am still looking. I’m also working on the second book in the series along with a middle grade fantasy novel based on stories my son tells.

But if I’m getting this message that I need to do everything for the glory of God, what am I missing?

Well, of course I know. I’m not working hard enough on my writing. I waste a lot of time on computer games, Facebook, whatever.

And there’s more.

This was the year I said I was going to meet my weight loss goals, and that’s not looking so promising now. I hate tracking my food and I love ice cream.

But, I’m starting to get a new perspective. Today’s second reading this morning was Romans 12:1-2 and as I followed along in the missal I felt that 2×4 to my head (or my heart, maybe) again. Verse 2 especially:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Okay, so I’m now seeing things a little differently. When I want to do something, I’ve started asking myself, “Does this bring glory to God?”

If I’m folding clothes or cleaning the bathroom or emptying the dishwasher, I’ve started to realize that those things bless my family and I’ve been called to be a mom so if I do mom things then I bring glory to God.

If I sit down and write my word quota, then since I’m called to write, I bring glory to God.

If I spend an hour playing Word with Friends or Frontierville, I’m not bringing glory to God if my other tasks are being neglected. Games and pasttimes are not evil but they’re not my calling.

Sundays are a day of rest and I can play games then. I can also sew for my family and that’s renewing to my spirit, too, so I can bring glory to God by blessing my family with clothing or lovely things to look at or quilts to keep them warm. I can make gifts to bless others, too.

If I’m eating healthy food to nourish my temple of the Holy Spirit, I bring glory to God.

If I stuff my face with cake and cookies, to the exclusion of good food, I don’t.

I don’t know where this all will lead me but it’s a journey I’m looking forward to.

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.

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.

It took a little planning and logistics but yesterday we both flew to Atlanta and got on the same flight from there to Nashville. We rented a car and drove to our hotel in downtown Nashville. After we got settled and all we walked down one of the main streets (5th Avenue, I think) where there were small little restaurants/bars and some little shops, all geared to country or at least live music. This was mid-afternoon, around 3 or 4. Several of these places had their doors open and you could hear and sometimes see live performers performing.

I’ve never been much of a country music fan, although my dad and mom kinda were. I did grow up watching Hee Haw, so many country stars from the 70s and 80s are familiar to me, and I do know some of their songs.

We went into a little rib place and ate something. Then we walked around some more. We came back to our hotel and then, around seven we headed out to a nearby mall and ate at a Ruby Tuesday. Not super exciting, but fun.

Today was our first full day. We went to the Ryman Auditorium which is the former home of the Grand Ole Opry. It was built to be a church in the 1800s and it’s lovely inside. In fact, it is called the Mother Church of Country Music.

We had our picture taken on the stage holding guitars and saw lots of memorabilia from country music stars. I may just find myself buying some country CDs!

Then we at lunch at Panera Bread right next door. We don’t have Panera’s in Louisiana so I eat at one whenever I can.

Then we went to Fontanel, a magnificent log mansion built by Barbara Mandrell’s husband. It was their family home for years and it was amazing. We got there about an hour before the next tour so we went into a small family-style restaurant (Farmhouse) that is at the parking lot for the tour. On the ceiling were about a dozen or so old quilts and both Elizabeth and I remarked how it made us miss Mom, who would have loved this trip and had a blast with us.

After that we went to the the Parthenon. I had promised my son I’d go as we’d seen it in the Percy Jackson movie. Turns out that the movie must have used a set or something because what I saw didn’t jibe with the movie but was more impressive and beautiful. Elizabeth took a bunch of pictures and I got a mug and a T-shirt.

Speaking of mugs, I collect them and I got three(one in each place we visited) before I thought possibly putting them in my suitcase was going to be a problem if this continued. So, no more mugs. I loved the Parthenon so much I also got a t-shirt!

Then we went to the Hard Rock Cafe down the street from our hotel and I got a souvenir glass with my drink! My last drinking vessel this trip! I promise!

Our house has this HUGE rec room (30 x 24) and roughly half of is has been taken over by my craft stuff. This includes an old dining room table I “inherited” from my friend when she got a new one. It’s got a burn spot in the middle where she let a candle burn too long and the side leaves don’t stay level with the rest of the table, but it’s great for hard use like to cut out patterns or for craft stuff.

Anyway, over time, because it’s a horizontal surface, it’s become covered with all kinds of stuff – papers, magazines, boxes, whatever.

When my mother died, I inherited all her sewing stuff as I’m the only one in the family interested. My mom was a widow, lived alone and sewing/quilting was her passion. So, now I have a computerized sewing machine and TONS of stuff added to the ton of stuff I accumulated.

At the end of last week, I found myself sitting at the table which has now pretty much been cleared off so I can use it to take pictures for my Etsy shop and just to show my husband that there actually is a use for it other than as a landfill! I pulled out a length of fabric from on of the five cabinets he bought me to store my stuff. I decided to make something out of it, so the next day I went to Hancock Fabrics and got a blouse pattern for myself and a pajama pattern for Noah. I KNOW there’s a lot of stuff I bought to sew for him.

Yesterday, I spent the whole day playing with my fabric and rediscovering projects I’d forgotten about. I found a dress I cut out for myself years ago, which was all ready to go, and started working on it.

I realized that there was only half the instructions and started to panic. Then I calmed down and thought, “Hey, I’ve been sewing almost 40 years. I know how to do this. I don’t need the instructions. I wasn’t really reading them anyway; just looking at the pictures.”

I think I need to think this way more often in my life. I know what I’m doing and I shouldn’t let the lack of confidence paralyze me. In fact, I shouldn’t even have this lack of confidence. The worst thing that could happen is that I make a mistake and toss the dress, and where’s the loss then? I didn’t remember I had it; I don’t know how long those pieces have been waiting for me; no one would be hurt.

It’s the same with everything. Take a chance, trust yourself, and you might be surprised what you can do.