Moving memories

October 8, 2013October 10, 201321 Comments

1094527_10201786529601589_1779662465_o So, I didn’t get my post uploaded yesterday for the October Blog Challenge. I was a little bit busy yesterday, busier than I thought I would be, anyway. We closed on the purchase of the acreage we’re moving to, and it involved a lot of driving – to the boys’ daycare and back (an hour round trip), to the acreage for the final walk-through (forty minutes round trip), to the bank for the closing (an hour round trip), back to the acreage to drop off some things (another forty minutes round trip), then back to the boys’ daycare to pick them up much later than I had thought I would be (another hour round trip). In between all of that driving, the closing took about an hour, we had to eat, there were errands to run…By the time we ate supper, it was after 8:00 p.m. It was a very long day.

Seymour was planning to take another load out to the acreage today, in addition to buying some things to start working on the basement right away. Since we haven’t yet sold our house, we won’t be moving right away, which gives us time to do some remodeling and painting before we have all of our stuff in there (and it’s going to be a tight fit – we’re moving to a smaller house than what we currently have, and we have a lot of stuff). That’ll be nice. But I’ll be glad to be finished with remodeling.

So, how does this relate to memoirs and backstory, or even to relationships?

The Great Wall of Fiberglass

October 5, 2013October 5, 201319 Comments

I spent this morning watching Star Trek: Voyager and eating Goldfish crackers with Cricket and Thumper. They love watching “the ship.” And Cricket trying to say Hirogen was possibly the cutest thing ever.

But this afternoon? This afternoon I spent stacking insulation in my garage while Bubbles and Tadpole made trips down with it from our attic (Yes, they were appropriately attired for dealing with the stuff. I, on the other hand, was stupid, meaning not appropriately attired.). We’re moving shortly, and since the insulation isn’t in any way affixed to our house, we’re taking it with us. Unfortunately, my attempt to stack it neatly in our tiny little garage did not go well.

Greath the wall was, but stable and sturdy it was not.

A memory of books

October 3, 201327 Comments

Yesterday morning I was running errands with Cricket and Thumper, and they wanted a story. I was at Sam’s Club, and they happened to have a bunch of Dr. Seuss board books for sale. Just the sight of them triggered a fresh wave of childhood memories – my dad hated Dr. Seuss, but not me. My sister and I both loved his books, and we kept checking them out at the library and insisting he read them to us before bed. I remember reading a wide variety of books with my mom, particularly from The Great Illustrated Classics line, but I mostly remember reading Dr. Seuss with my dad.

I think it was because he hated him so that we made him read those books to us. Either that, or he hated Dr. Seuss because we made him read the books so often.

We happened to own a copy of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and we read it so frequently that the spine is now falling off the book. I saw a shiny new copy yesterday next to the board books and was sorely tempted to buy one, but in the end, it remained on the shelf. I remember bringing home How the Grinch Stole Christmas from the school library and insisting on hearing it before bed one Christmas. And who could forget Green Eggs and Ham? Or The Cat in the Hat? Or Fox in Socks? Or The Lorax?

When I graduated high school, my childhood Sunday School teacher gave me a copy of Oh! The Places You’ll Go! I breezed through it, then put it aside. The whimsy of the illustrations still captivated me, but the message of the book didn’t really soak in. Not until I had graduated college, married, had a child of my own, and divorced, did the book really make much sense for me. I recognized several of the stops mentioned in the book, and adjusted my life’s path accordingly.

Books were a huge part of my childhood, and I can’t imagine life without them. What are some of your favorite books, from childhood or otherwise?

It’s October!

October 1, 201312 Comments

And that means it’s time for a blog challenge. Once again, I’m taking part in the October Memoir and Back Story Blog Challenge, run by Jane Ann McLachlan. I had a lot of fun with it last year, so I thought I’d try it again. It’s a little bit different this time around, but I don’t mind.

IMG_20130722_191349 The theme for the first week of October is childhood memories. I always feel like I don’t remember very much about my childhood; I think I blocked out a lot of it in a misguided attempt at coping with my mom’s illness (which you can read about in posts from last year’s challenge here and here). There are times, though, where I think I remember more than I realize, and that thought has worked its way into at least one of my stories.

Today, though, is an absolutely beautiful fall day…

Lotsa news!

September 12, 2013September 12, 20132 Comments

First up, The Lokana Chronicles is up on Miss Snark’s First Victim as part of this month’s Secret Agent Contest. Click here to check it out! And if you follow me on Twitter, I apologize for the pitch spam, but the After the Madness Twitter Pitch Party is today and I’ve – belatedly – been pitching my book in hopes of snagging an agent’s interest. I missed out on Pitch Madness this time around, and I haven’t been too addicted to the #pitmad thread today, either, but both things are always a lot of fun and I wish all the contestants good luck (and all the winners congratulations). 🙂

Next, I was super excited to see this in my email yesterday:

I adore the Banned Underground books and have been anxiously awaiting the release of The SatNav of Doom ever since I finished the last book in the series. My screencap cut off some of the links, so here they are again: Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, even a blog!

And last, but certainly not least…

Change is falling all around me

September 3, 201317 Comments

Beautiful fall color (Photo credit: blmiers2)

Can you believe it’s September already? Overnight, it seems like fall has struck. The grass in the ditches is suddenly golden, the temperatures at night are nice and frosty, and football is now everywhere I look.

I love fall. The colors are breathtaking, the temperatures are perfect, and fresh apples abound (I’m a sucker for the smell of fresh apples – nothing beats it). Fall is a time of change, though, and I don’t always do well with change, so reconciling my love of fall with my strong dislike of change will be interesting this year.

Whether it was the beginning of a new school year or the start of a new job, fall for me means change.

¡Hace calor!

August 30, 20139 Comments

Well, it’s late and I’m exhausted after a long day. I hope you’ve all been enjoying the poetry! Most of them were written on our last camping trip. We spent two hours waiting for our boat to get fixed and, after my phone battery died, I whipped out my handy little purse notebook and started writing. (If I’d have had The Lokana Chronicles with me, I’d have started revising, but that didn’t work out.)

Anyway, I’ve got loads to tell when I’m less tired and more coherent, so for tonight, I’ll just leave you with this. It hit 105° today at work, and in Des Moines, apparently it hit 108°. I heard that was a record, but I don’t know for sure.

What I do know for sure is that when it’s this flippin’ hot out, there’s only one thought that runs through my mind, and it goes like this:

What’s in a name?

August 5, 20132 Comments

Names are stories, and in those stories are a person’s identity and culture. -Icess Fernandez Rojas

I love that! It’s so true, too, at least for my stories, anyway. Think of it: a whole story, a saga, if you will, all summed up in a single word. Now that’s mind-boggling.

Have a ‘tough’ name that Starbucks can’t handle? Welcome to my world | Icess Fernandez Rojas (theguardian.com)
Spoken Word Poetry: My name, my identity (theafricanstreetwriter.com)
From a name to individuals to legacies (seesano.com)

Time flies!

August 3, 2013Leave a comment

Another week has come and gone and with it, another month as well. This past week seemed to drag by – there was more than once that I could have sworn that time really was standing still. But at last it’s the weekend! So what does that mean?

It means that I’ll blink and it will be Monday.

There’s a NASCAR race in Newton today that Seymour is at with a friend, so there was much cleaning last night and this morning. Tomorrow is the annual family reunion, so tonight I’ll have much cooking to do. But right now? Right now, the boys are down for a nap and I have time to get some writing and/or editing done.

And what am I doing? I’m blogging because I’m too worn out for all the thinking that writing and editing involves. And I had something I wanted to post about, but now I can’t remember what it was. *sigh* Perhaps if I could get rid of this darn headache, I could remember more than just my name… 😀

***

Well, I haven’t gotten rid of the headache, but I did kill a couple hours reading stuff online and then a couple more hanging out with an old friend. Time to feed the kiddoes and have a little quiet time before the craziness of tomorrow! Have a great night, everybody! 🙂

Things I love

July 28, 2013July 28, 20132 Comments

Look at that sky! It just makes you feel good to be alive, doesn’t it? 🙂

The sound of laughter in the morning.
Long talks with old friends.
Cuddle time.
Sunshine streaming through my window.
Bright blue skies dotted with fluffy clouds.
Crisp fall air.
Lazy weekends.
The smiles elicited by a bedtime story.
Impending visits with distant friends. 😀

Speaking of impending visits, I am beyond excited for August 8! One of my oldest friends will be flying out from sunny Californ-I-A to visit dear old Mom and Dad and guess who’s couch she’ll be crashing on? That’s right, mine! 🙂

All sorts of fun things are in the works for that weekend. Of course, fun for me would be staying up all night with a boatload of pop and watching movies till dawn. But I’m sure other things will be involved, too. Some major catching up is in order.

But for now…to the writing cave! My boys (all of them) are down for naps and I’ve got a word count to hit. Enjoy your Sunday, my lovelies! How will you be spending it?