Tag: Life changes

Moving memories

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1094527_10201786529601589_1779662465_oSo, 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?

A memory of books

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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?

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

Lotsa news!

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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:

bu-sod

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

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Autumn in New York

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.

What’s in a name?

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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.

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Tuesday already?

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Hi, everybody! Thank you all for stopping by. I know it’s been a bit quiet here lately and unfortunately, I think that trend may continue for a while longer. Between the upcoming holiday, my impending camping trips, the new job, recovering from Saturday’s successful garage sale, and something else that I’m not quite ready to discuss in detail (though I did vaguely mention it on Twitter yesterday), I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment and something’s gotta give. Sadly, I think my writing is it.

So, I’ll try to pop in here as often as I can. I’ll try to do the same for Facebook, even though I know my presence there lately probably isn’t what it ought to be. And Twitter? I’m still searching for a mobile app to replace my beloved Tweetdeck. If anyone has any suggestions for apps they love, I’m all ears (though for the record, I’ve tried HootSuite and I just don’t like it as well). Let me know in the comments! Maybe then I’ll at least be able to keep up there.

Until next time, folks, have a happy Fourth and stay safe.

(c) 2013. All rights reserved.

Yay Friday! :)

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Multitasking: I found the portal to Lokana while hiking at Pine Lake on a family vacation. Family time + research FTW! :)

Multitasking: I found the portal to Lokana while hiking at Pine Lake on a family vacation. Family time + research FTW! 🙂

So, it’s Friday.  Woohoo!  It’s been a week of big, exciting things around the country, and it’s been a week of big exciting things right here in my own backyard.  It’s going to be a super busy weekend, too.  So what am I doing to prepare?

I’M WRITING, Y’ALL!

I’ve been working on Remnants again the last couple of days, and it feels great, but I can’t get my inner editor to shut up, which is irritating.  I have a buttload of revisions left to do on The Lokana Chronicles, but I really need a week or so of peace, quiet, and no internet to get them done. 🙂

Still, it feels wonderful to be enjoying my passions again.  I’ve missed playing with my camera and visiting imaginary worlds and the people that populate them.  And since I’m starting a new job next week, it’s nice that at least a little bit of the change going on in my life is change that I enjoy (not that I’m not excited about the new job – I totally am).

So for now, it’s back to writing.  Big things are in the works and I need time to prepare.  Have a great weekend, everybody!

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

A super moon for the birthday boy!

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DSC_0531Yesterday was Cricket’s birthday.  Can you believe he’s three already?  I can’t.  How did this happen again?  And how do I make it stop?  If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know – I’m also open to options for keeping the older two small. 😀

It’s been quite the week at Casa Kauffman, which made for a grumpy birthday boy yesterday morning.  He was up pretty late (for an adult, never mind a two-year-old) Sunday night and didn’t nap on Monday, so you can imagine the fun I had that night.  By last night, he was in a better mood, but I still had to coax him into the car when I went to pick him up from daycare.   This is how the conversation went:

Keep reaching

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When we’re little, we … dream big.  We look up at the stars and we imagine that we only have to grow up in order to reach them.  Most of the time, we grow up and never look at the stars again.  –Cristian Mihai

Cassiopeia Star trails

Cassiopeia Star trails (Photo credit: weatherphotography.co.uk)

I read that quote earlier this evening.  If you don’t follow Cristian’s blog, you should.  He writes the most amazing posts.  Anyway, as I was reading the post I linked to above, it got me thinking about all the ways in which I used to look up at the stars as a kid.  I remember studying them in Girl Scouts and learning all the myths that went with the different constellations.  It was fascinating stuff, but eventually, I, too, stopped looking up at the stars.  My eyes had turned to the heavens of my own making instead.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to do great things.  I’ve always wanted to be a famous author; I can’t remember a time when that was not what I wanted to do with my life.  And I’m frustrated right now because as I’ve gotten older, other aspirations have crept in around the edges of my one burning desire, fighting for room to live and grown on their own, leaving less and less time for my passion.  It’s not that I’m not passionate about the rest of my life – I am – it’s just that, right or wrong, I feel my time growing small.  I feel I’ve not done what I was sent here to do.  And I feel like I’m suddenly ill-equipped to pursue my most cherished lifelong dream.

All that said, I’m not giving up.  They don’t make ’em much more stubborn than me (except for maybe my kids, but that’s another story :)).  Recently I’ve been looking up at those same stars I used to gaze upon as a little girl and I’ve found my zest for this writing life renewed; the drive I thought was flagging has suddenly dropped into a whole new gear I’d never before been aware of.  So here’s hoping that somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight, the right agent and publisher are ready and waiting to take The Lokana Chronicles and me under their wing.  Mentor me!  And help me whip my story into shape, no matter how much I might whine, please. 😀

Keep reaching for those stars, people, whatever your particular star might be.

(c) 2013.  All rights reserved.

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Water, water, everywhere…

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rcsign

Photo courtesy of the Marshalltown Times-Republican

If you follow me anywhere else online, you’ll have seen by now the various flood pictures I’ve been sharing (seriously, much like the water, they’re all over – both my personal and public Facebook accounts, Flickr, Instagram, and soon Pinterest as well).  Despite that, I’m going to post some more here anyway.  The extent of the damage won’t likely be truly realized for a long time yet, and the recovery will probably take years if this turns out to be anything like previous floods have been.

I know I’ve mentioned the Flood of ’93 several times already, but we had another major flood just five years ago that I had forgotten about until a friend mentioned it on Facebook.  I mean, I didn’t really forget, but I had forgotten that some of the severe flooding had been so close to us.  All you seemed to hear about was what happened in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, but there was plenty of severe flooding in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area, too, and I had forgotten that.  I think the reason that ’93 is stuck in my head has to do with my mom; seeing all the photos she took of the local damage really imprinted the severity of the disaster on my tender little psyche.  The flooding in 2008, while devastating, just didn’t have the same personal connection for me that the floods of ’93 and ’13 have.

Anyway, we drove through quite a bity of flooding again on Monday as we tried to get home.