Kindness to all!

I have a bone to pick.  It's not with anyone in particular, but with the people who will attack a person on social media.  If you do not like the issue someone's talking about, that's fine-- deal with the issue, but when you cross the line and attack the character of the person that is wrong!  So many time I have been reading a post or twitter, and someone who disagrees lowers themselves to going after the person.  What if the tables were turned?  How would we like others to treat us-- even if they didn't like what we were saying?  Personally I'd like the debate-- if it stayed on topic.  The problem is when it does not.  A person is not let's say --their political persuasion-- they are theirself which incompasses much more than just politics.  Why say hurtful things about the person when the problem is their political view?  Perhaps if we debated the real issue the person would see the whole picture better.  Instead we attack the person and accomplish nothing except bad feelings.
People are God's creation, and as such deserve dignity just because they are people.  I believe that in all things we should be kind and gentle.  If we feel we must correct, then it should be done in love.  Maybe that is old school now a days, but that is still what I live by and what I taught my children just as my mother and grandmother taught it to me.  Society in general would be a much friendlier place if that was common practice, but I know it no longer is.  But since I have this forum, I thought I would bring it up.  My grandmother use to say it differently.  She'd say 'You attract more bees with honey instead of vinegar.'  Maybe some of us could be kind, then that would cause others to be kind, and perhaps (in my perfect dream world) that would revolutionize modern social practice.  You never know it could happen.

Closer, Closer, It's almost reality!

Hi everyone!  Still raining here, but it's giving me good time to figure how I am going to market The Key To Her Heart.  For that I've discovered this website: The Creative Penn.  On there I've found articles on publishing, editing, and even how to create an interesting blog.  (I'm still working to make this as interesting as possible.)  I've read articles from authors that are doing successfully what I am trying to do and it is so encouraging.  There are advertisements from editing services and websites that help with different parts of the publishing process.  If there are writers reading my blog I've put the web address in for you.  It is really a neat site.
The other thing that is exciting is that I finished my read of The Key To Her Heart.  Hope has finished most of her read, and Meg is almost done.  After this there is one more outloud read I will do, then correction.  After that I will be printing out copies for my beta readers to red line!  Who ever thought tearing my work apart would make me so happy!  But of course every time we do an edit it gets closer to being ready for publication.  Oh, this is just making me jazzed.  It's all so close to reality now that I can almost taste the future author in me!
  

Thank You to My Readers

Alright begin again!  I had half a post written, and I lost it.  So here we go, let me start anew.

Today Meg and I almost completed this session of editing.  I am so completely jazzed!  When we get this session done, then I can get copies to my beta readers!  Just to let you know (if you didn't already) a beta reader is someone who reads through the manuscript editing from the readers perspective.  Then I take their suggestions and do a final edit.  After that I may hire a professional editor to make sure I have the polish it needs before publishing.  So publishing is becoming more and more real for me each day!  Talk about being stoked!

Well now that you have the latest book publishing saga, I need to tell everyone who has been reading my blogs thank you.  It is quite flattering to check my blog each day and find more people have looked at it, and maybe even read a little.  That is just beyond anything I expected.  I mean I hoped I would have something to say that someone would want to hear, but it is soooooooo cool to get on here and share my goofy, weird, sometimes just plain mundane thoughts and find out someone has heard me.  There are readers in several parts of the world.  That is just beyond me, and I feel so blessed that all of you would even want to look at what I write.  So thank you again.  Please keep reading!  You give me great joy.

Shall we talk about the rain?

Hope's at work.  Meg's at work. Peter's with friends.  The womb warped twins are asleep, and Todd is taking a nap with them.  Man is it quiet!  Perfect time to write my next post.  So here I am, sitting at the keyboard, and for the first time I don't know what to say.  This doesn't happen folks!  You can ask anyone who knows me.  For me there is always something I have on my mind.  There's the topic of God.  Today I am at peace with God.  There's the topic of politics--  Well that one I could dive in deep, but I am kinda fed up with what's going on in this country and don't want to talk about it, or even think about it.  There's the topic of writing, and usually I have plenty to say.  Today I am just glad I got done rewriting that scene!  I think it came out pretty good.  At least I hope it did.

One thing I can say that I would never usually say-- This day is tooooo darn peaceful!  I think I do better with measured chaos!  Then I would have a lot to gab about.

Ah there is one thing to talk about!  The rain! My garden is loving life.  The people not so much.  This summer has been all about the rain.  Peter's baseball has been cancelled at least once a week since the beginning of May because of rain.  But hey, I've been enjoying lettuce, peas, strawberries, tart cherries, asparagus, and even some beans all from my garden.  Now if I'd get some blooms on the tomatoes!  That would really make my day!

Well, I'll write more later.  Hopefully I'll have more on my mind.

to explain from the previous post, why sleepless?

I had all of two hours sleep last night, six the night before, and I'm not sure I even had three the night before that.  I am exhausted!!!
Usually I get about eight hours, but I am editing The Key to Her Heart and getting it ready for publication.  Last night Megan and I sat down to read over one of the scenes (Mind you, the day had been overflowing with activity, and by the time we sat down, it was already past midnight.).  I knew it was a problem scene, but it was urgently important in the story.   It was suppose to be fast paced, yet it just was not right.  This session of editing needs to be done before July if  The Key To Her Heart is going to stay on schedule.
We started reading it over, and she and I both decide it needed to be ripped apart.  So we start talking about the problems.  It was like the heavens opened up and shined down super inspiration!  "Well what about this character, could you just introduce him here?"  My daughter says.  Simple enough statement, but it revolutionized the whole story!  It also opened a can of worms to squirm all over and cause a boatload of new problems.  Which, me being the single focused writer I am, made for a long night!  We figured out what to do, and my daughter, who decided to stay the night because we were working so late, zonckered out at about three when I actually started cutting, pasting, and rewriting.  Four hours later I made some notes for myself, then got a two hour nap before getting up and getting things done for Peter's birthday party.  The cool thing was I got about 3/4 of the changes done, and one of my smaller characters now has more depth, and intrigue than I had ever imagined for him!  Ho Ha!

Now after explaining why I am so tired, I'm finally going to bed.  I'll talk to you with the next post-- in the future.  (This is what my goofy wit is like when sleep deprived--- sorry.)

Peter's perfect parrty

My son's swimming party was today.  His friends showed up (that alone is a big deal in this family).  He was elated, and it was the easiest birthday party I have ever put on!
Moms listen!  I'm am telling you, this party was a no brainer for me.  That was a good thing too, because I have gotten one normal night's sleep all toll if you combine all the nights this week!
Alright I've got to tell you about this party from the Mom perspective.  My daughter, Hope,  made cupcakes.  We bought a few snacks and drinks.  My husband took over the buying of Peter's birthday presents  (And did it this morning none the less!!)   Then with a bag of paper goods, plastic utensils, plastic cups, our swimming stuff, and, the most important part to Peter, presents we headed to the pool.
This pool is the bomb! It's the pool that's like a mini water park without the almost twenty dollar a piece price tag.
We quickly ate some snacks, had cupcakes, opened presents, and after that everyone really, REALLY wanted to get into the water.  So there were no games to think up or prizes to buy and wrap, and once they were in the pool I think I saw my son and his friends all of three times in four hours!
 And! This is the best part!  They all had a blast!
It cost just over a hundred bucks including swimming pool admission and printed invitations (hint-- my Hopie daughter works at the copy shop, and so she tells me when they have a good deal going on. I went there while she was at work. She helped design the invitation and was the one to print them out for me!).
He had six friends there, his sisters, Tory, Ali, Todd, and me.  The womb warped twins played for the whole four hours too!  So it not only worked for a bunch of ten through twelve year olds, but two two year olds loved it.  And while the kids had so much fun, the adults got a much deserved and enjoyed swim break.  That was a perfect b-day party from this Mom's perspective.

A Question to be Asked...

There’s a special little girl in the smack center of my life.  She’s is so amazing to me.  Last February she turned two, and she lights up the life of everyone around her.  I am blessed to be the one who raises her and who receives so much of her attention, but by birth I am not her mother.

Her birth mother is my daughter Rebecca, and Todd (my husband) and I adopted her when she was almost one. (That is a hundred page book for another time!)She knows all her family and she understands her world.  Her grandpa/dad “Paw Paw” is the apple of her eye, and her smile makes one feel that everything is alright in the world!  Her nick name is Tory Joy, but most times it is just Tory, or “TOOOOORY!” if she’s poking fun or bossing her uncle/brother around (which is one of her favorite pastimes).  She knows how to tease, she knows just how to tickle anyone and make them squirm, she knows just what ridiculous things to laugh at, and which ones just get a little giggle or a big smile.  She absolutely treasures her ‘Aunt Hopie’ (my 16 year old daughter), and she has the softest golden haired waves I’ve ever seen!  She loves to be outside as much as anyone will possibly let her, and her favorite playmate is her cousin Alex who is nineteen days older than her. (They are affectionately known as the ‘womb warped’ twins.)

But she would not be alive if not for the sacrifices my daughter made at eighteen years old.

You see, she did not want to be pregnant, and she was not ready to be a mom.  She could not deal with her life, and she had more issues than her father or I knew how to handle.  Besides many things I will not mention here, she basically had dropped out of high school, and had no way to support herself or a child.  Her friends at the time were in the same place she was, and we still have no clue who Tory’s birth father is.

She did a few things right, though.  One big one was giving life to my Tory.  The second was choosing, through many nights and tears and awake moments, to ask her father and I to adopt her when she realized she was in no position to give to Tory what this little precious child deserves.

Now I don’t know of what persuasion you are on the issues of how a young pregnant girl decides between life and death, but personally, being like Tory, born to a very confused and unprepared teenager, I am glad for the gift of life.  Tory, like I was to my parents, was a gift to Todd and I, and we, like my Mom and Dad, are entrusted with her precious care.  It makes her all the more special, and has given a special thankfulness for my Rebecca that will never go away.  My mom once spoke to me about the same feelings for my birth mother, even though she had never met her at that time.

So when I hold my precious girl all these things go through my mind.  The whole pro life/pro choice debate goes on, but looking at my Tory I have a very different perspective.  My daughter could have chosen, as many girls do, to end Tory’s life before she was ever born and I wouldn’t have known, but I would have been robbed of knowing such a wonderful little girl.  My birth mother, if she had gotten pregnant just a few years later than she did, could have done the same thing to me.  The world would have never been ‘graced’ with my entire family.

I’ve been blessed and honored to be both Grandma and Mommy to this precious little girl.  Tory was given the gift of life by my daughter as well as the Creator.  Something to think about.

I am not here to change your opinion just a final question I want to ask you to ponder—even if you do not agree with my persuasion.  It is not the typical question of choice, or ‘It’s a child not a choice.’ It’s more of ‘What does the child deserve?’ or ‘What if I was that child?  What would I want?’ maybe even 'Who's life, if the child's life is ended, would be left empty or more unfulfilled?'

I’ll leave you to contemplate, as I do so much when I look at my precious, precious girl.     

Brand New!!!!!

This is something I have never done before!  Blogging is one thing, but all the techno stuff--  I learned about tweets, and websites, and my facebook got a face lift!  I don't quite know what to think yet.  This is ALOT, but the biggest thing is the idea that I'm working on my book to actually get it ready for publication, and that I can actually do it.  I am so excited!  I am so nervous! And I'm quite overjoyed.  For so long I've been the mom who is just with her kids.  I don't mind, so don't get me wrong.  Still, so much time I've spent being invisible as I watched other homeschool parents showing their talents, and some times I felt somewhat like a 'lesser' parent.  During these times I didn't talk about my writing.  I hid it without really ever meaning to.  I think the brand new thing about me is not the technology, but this new willingness-- even the need-- to be the person I am deep inside.  That is the person I let out when I first started writing back when I was just barely a teenager. Besides the dream of being a mom, my other dream was to be a writer and author.  Everyone in my family believed it was just a pipe dream.  This brand new change in me is me giving up my first family's beliefs, and taking steps to make my dreams come true.