I’m knee deep – nay, NECK DEEP – in all of the writing these days. Every spare moment is divvied up into sizable, manageable chunks, and there is little wiggle room for anything else.
Related: My house is a disaster, and the laundry threatens to eat me in my sleep.
Wendy and I are down to two months before we have to turn in our manuscript to the publisher, which seems like a long time, but feels so terribly short given all that still needs to be done. Every once in awhile, though, I’m able to sit back and assess where we are, and it’s good. First drafts of every chapter are written. Now we polish and refine and rewrite.
We will survive.
My novel is in the publisher’s hands, we’re finalizing the title (I can’t WAIT to share it with you), and I should be receiving sample covers soon. This is crazy exciting stuff!
But this also means that the need to begin a big marketing push is looming, and I’m overwhelmed. With all of it.
And then there’s the blogging. I miss blogging. I miss telling stories. Like how my children are slowly and systematically destroying the house this summer, one curtain rod, broken window screen, and shattered dish (or salt shaker) at a time. If it wasn’t so frustrating, I’d be impressed with their clumsiness.
But alas, there is little time to blog. I wake early and work. I get the baby down for a nap and work. Afternoons are for being with my kids, making sure they know I still love them (JUST STOP BREAKING MY STUFF). Then I put them to bed and I work.
I have managed to still carve out a bit of time to read, though. I’m a fiction girl, so diving into story is a necessity for my survival. I sneak reading in at night before I fall asleep. It soothes me, and it releases all the tension in my brain from a long day of walking the line between motherhood and writing.
So without further ado, I give you What I’m Reading
Photo courtesy of Tammy Labuda Photography
The following are books I’m either reading right now, or I’ve recently finished. I tend to have three or four books going at a time. It’s a sickness.
Big Little Lies: I am really enjoying this book. It’s breezy, and doesn’t require too much effort to read. The story is clever, the plot engaging, and it’s just quirky and humorous enough to keep me grinning. This is one I’ll get through quickly.
A Long Walk to Water: This was a quick read. I read it because Sloan needed to read it for school, so I thought I’d go through it first. It’s a great story, albeit a sad one. It’s been fun to watch him get into the book. In general, reading isn’t his favorite, but he’s enjoyed this book.
Schindler’s List: I bought a copy of this book when I went to Dachau. It’s actually quite good, but it’s heavy, and so I’m making my way through it slowly. Today, with the rain pouring outside, the sky all weepy and grey, is the perfect day for curling up with this excellently written book.
A Mountain of Crumbs: Elena Gorokhova might be my new favorite author. I finished her book, Russian Tattoo, in no time and I loved every bit of it. The book was engaging, funny, poignant, smart, and fascinating. A Mountain of Crumbs is actually a precursor to Russian Tattoo. I read them out of order. It doesn’t matter, though. That’s how good a writer Gorokhova is.
Russka: When I signed on with Kregel publications for my novel, the publisher recommended I pick up this book. He thought it would be something I enjoyed, and he was right. This book is a fascinating merging of history and fiction, spanning 1,800 years of Russian history and culture. This is one I really want to dive into when time frees up.
Books that are sitting on my shelf, waiting patiently to be read:
The Grace Effect: I really can’t wait to read this story of love and redemption from historian and Christian apologist Larry Taunton. He shares the lessons he learned through the adoption of his Ukrainian daughter, Sasha, when she was ten, and the false promises of an atheistic society.
Wild in the Hollow: Don’t you just love that title? That alone is the reason I bought this book. Reason number two lies in the fact that I’ve always loved Amber Haines writing. I’m looking forward to this book.
Making it Home: Emily Wierenga is a poet, her writing all clear and smooth like water trickling off the top of a mountain. I can’t wait for the release of her new memoir. In fact, I’m so excited about it that I’ll be hosting Emily here in the near future to share personally with all of you!
So those are a few of my current reads. Tell me some of yours!
Summertime is ripe for creativity. When I think of summer, I think of adventure and exploration, of trying new things, lazy mornings, books by the pool, and popsicles at all hours of the day.
Summer is for creating. It’s for stepping away from the every day mundane that dictated your life, and stepping into something new and exciting – even if only for a time.
I try to offer my children a long creative rope in the summer. If I’m honest, there are times when I wish we lived at the edge of the Wisconsin woods, but those times are only in the summer months when the Florida sun is merciless, and the flat terrain leaves little to the imagination. But then we have evenings like the one we had Friday night, where we swim as a family in the great, big ocean, and I decide Florida’s not so bad after all.
But I do long to see my kids explore. I wish I could send them into the trees with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a roll of toilet paper, and firm instructions to stay outside and enjoy this beautiful day.
I may not be able to shoo them outside for an entire day, but I can offer them plenty of places to escape. Exploration isn’t limited to the forest. It can happen right here inside the walls of our home. Here are a few tips for widening your children’s creative scope this summer.
1.) Build Forts
Basically, when summertime rolls around, I take a deep breath and remind myself that it’s okay for the house to be messy. I like order. I really, REALLY like order.
But I have four children, so order is a laughable concept. Instead of sweating out the ever chaotic house, I choose to embrace it in the summer. And there is nothing more chaotic to me than a bedroom transformed into a fort – blankets strewn this way and that, kitchen chairs pulled into the room to hold up the “walls” of the fort.
It’s enough to give me an eye twitch.
But they love it. Reading books is boring…unless it’s done so lying back on a pile of pillows under the canopy of a bedroom fort.
If I’m willing to embrace the chaos, a bedroom fort is a heckuva way to celebrate summer.
2.) Keep Painting Materials Handy
Like fort building, watercolor painting makes my heart race, and not in a good way. The paint brushes that need to be cleaned. The drips of paint that find their way to my countertops and floor, the gigantic “masterpieces” that I must find a way to display – it’s all stressful to this orderly Mama.
But…
The other day, my concrete, typically unimaginative second born pulled out the paints and tore off a giant piece of art paper, and she began to create. With her tongue stuck between her lips in quiet concentration, she dove into her painting, and when she was finished she held up her paper proudly.
It was gorgeous.
There’s something very calming and magical about putting a brush against the page. When the kids are arguing, painting is one of the first activities I suggest because is requires a deep breath…and minimal talking.
Win-Win.
3.) Read Good Books
I don’t have readers. I wish that I did, but I simply do not. My children don’t like to read books. So I do what any good mother would do.
I bribe them.
Yes, I pay my children to read in the summer, but really I like to think I’m training them to enjoy the gift of words. There is nothing I love more than seeing my kids light up over a good story. And so we spend time in the library during the summer where they’re given the freedom to choose their own adventure.
This discipline of reading is two-fold, as I must also make myself slow down and read with them. I want to show them the beauty of getting lost in story, so I read as much as I can in the summer.
As much as I love reading, slowing down myself to do so is harder than it seems it should be, because usually when they’re still and quiet, my first response is to start cleaning up some of the messes.
LET THE MESSES GO!
That is my summertime mantra.
Summertime can be stressful with everyone home at once, all the live-long day. This is where our Summertime Agenda of Awesome comes in handy, as well as a willingness to let go of my need for order and control.
A little bit of chaos has the potential to produce some magical days. I’m looking for the magic this year.
We say goodbye to elementary school today. It’s bittersweet. As Sloan prepares to head to Middle School, and I plan to homeschool Tia and Landon, I find myself nostalgic a bit. I have loved their school. I leave with no hard feelings. In fact, loving the school is what made the decision to homeschool so difficult.
A lot has happened since the kids started this school year.
Where once there were only three of them:
Now there are four!
Where once Sloan had no braces:
Now he’s a metal mouth!
Tia’s has gone from this (those shorts don’t even come close to fitting her now!):
To this:
And Landon had teeth when he started school!
It’s been a heckuva a year. I’m looking forward to the next year. It will be challenging, yes. But I have a feeling it’s going to be full of so much fun.
I have this image of a younger version of myself – ten, maybe eleven – and she’s tramping through the field behind our Wisconsin home. Just beyond the line of tall grasses that liked to tickle my waist stood the forest, thick and green, and begging for adventure.
This little girl me loved to walk through those weeds, stepping high to avoid ant piles and other potentially hidden creatures. I loved to run my hands over the tops of the orange grasses, and step into the clearing of the woods where the cool air would nip at my skin.
There was a half built tree house there, a long ago abandoned project that was no more than a platform high in the trees with a few boards nailed into one of the trunks for a ladder. I’d scramble up to the platform and sit close to the edge, my feet dangling over the side, because I liked the feeling of emptiness beneath my swinging feet, and also because the boards in the middle of the platform were beginning to rot and I was never quite certain they would hold.
That girl had a lot of imagination. Great stories were acted out inside the canopy of those trees. And many days were spent up there with a notebook or journal and a pen, writing down all manner of thoughts and desires and dreams.
After watching The Secret Garden for the first time, I imagined that place in the woods to be my own secret garden. It wasn’t a well-kept secret given that it was the neighborhood hang out, but when I was there alone, I let my mind wander.
Sometimes I wonder what I would tell that girl if I could go back and visit her. Would I warn her of some of the bad decisions she would make and tell her to avoid them? Maybe, but probably not. Bad decisions are character building, after all.
Would I tell her to just enjoy every moment, because it all goes by so quick? Would I tell her not to take advantage of loved ones being near, because in a heartbeat life can change, and loved ones can leave your side? I might tell her these things, but it probably wouldn’t matter.
That girl was fanciful and imaginative. She was idealistic, and the innocence of youth followed her like a breeze. She would have heard me, but she wouldn’t have understood.
I don’t know what I’d want to tell that younger version of myself. Hold on to your dreams no matter how long it takes, because you never know what’s going to happen?
I think that quality was knit into the fiber of her being – of my being.
Today is my birthday. Another year has passed, and what a year it’s been. This time last year, Lee and I were frantically making plans to visit his parents in Conway, to be there when his dad went in for his first chemo treatment. We got seven months and one day with him after the diagnosis.
Yesterday, I was cleaning out a book shelf and I found a recordable book that we had his dad read last year. It wasn’t working well, I’m hoping it’s just in need of new batteries, but when I opened it up and his voice rang out strong and clear, my heart skipped.
Sometimes I miss those days in the Wisconsin woods when all that complicated life was the requirement that I make my bed daily. But really, despite all that life has brought our way, it’s only sometimes that I miss those days.
Because the girl sitting high in that unfinished tree house with the rotten boards had no idea what was waiting for her. She couldn’t even dream it up. She didn’t know the love that waited in the wings, or the laughter. She didn’t know that dreams would come true, and that one day she’d grow up to have so much more than a Secret Garden.
She didn’t know that with the sting of death came the reality of heaven, and the sweetness of living with both of those realities was something almost indescribable.
I think I’d leave her alone up there in the trees. I’d give her the dreams and the dancing visions of fame and fortune. I give her the peace that she so loved sitting on that platform in the sky.
The girl in the trees is still here, all wrapped up in my memory. She’s still a little fanciful at times, and imaginative, and perhaps even a bit idealistic. There’s no more innocence of youth, but there’s the wisdom that comes with age.
I like how the two versions of myself have merged.
Lee is out of town for four days. That’s important to know before reading further.
It started at midnight on Saturday night (Sunday morning?) when Tia came into my room complaining of a headache and stomach ache. I gave her some medicine, then nestled her in bed with me, and while she slept I stared up at the ceiling fan, mind spinning.
She’s been complaining of headaches off and on for a week, coupled with a bloody nose now and then for good effect. By 1:00 am, I’d convinced myself that she was suffering from all manner of diseases, and I’d also run through the episode of Little House on the Prairie where Albert dies after a sudden onset of bloody noses.
I scooted closer to her to listen for steady rhythmic breathing, and I finally drifted into a fitful sleep around 2:00.
Annika woke me up at 5:30 ready to go. She was in no mood for more sleeping, so I finally resigned myself to a long day and dragged out of bed. I was leading worship at church, so I needed to have everyone ready and out the door by 7:45 anyway.
I showered, but didn’t wash my hair because who has time for that, while they watched TV. Because it’s easier to let them watch TV than to ask them to be productive.
After a bit of shoo-ing, and insistent hand clapping, I managed to get everyone into the car, dressed and semi-put together. We were half way out of the neighborhood when Landon spoke.
“Mom, I’m hungry. I didn’t get breakfast.”
I cracked open a box of donuts at church and shoved one in his mouth…and my own because I didn’t get breakfast either. I let Annika take a bite of my donut because she stared at it so intensely I couldn’t say no. Did that donut contain peanuts?
No idea. Maybe? She survived, so we’re good.
I asked Tia if her head still hurt and she said no, so I’m glad I lost a night of sleep over my unfounded fears.
DARN YOU, LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE!
I put my nine and seven year olds in charge of watching their sister while I practiced for that morning’s service, and I left my eleven year old in the church kitchen alone to work with scalding hot liquid as he prepared the pots of coffee that would be waiting for everyone when they arrived.
Minutes before church started, Landon leaned over to show me one of his teeth twisted around and stuck in a stomach wrenching position.
“Can I go pull it?” he staged whispered. I nodded, and I sent Tia to the bathroom with him to help. Together they worked the tooth out in the church bathroom, and he returned to the sanctuary with it in a little baggie. Then he spent the next ten minutes dabbing the hole in his mouth with his finger and showing me the blood.
Jesus be near.
After church, we came home and as I set Annika on the floor I caught sight of a lizard scurrying across our floor. He’s been hiding in the house for days, but he’s an elusive little bugger. Also, he’s not so much a lizard as he is a small, black dragon. He somehow manages to disappear every time we go hunting for him.
I feel semi-certain that he is hiding inside one of our chairs, but I try not to think about it for very long, otherwise I start imagining him creeping up behind me while I watch TV and karate chopping my neck, knocking me unconscious, then taking over the house and inviting in all his Rambo lizard friends.
Clearly I need more sleep.
The kids spent the afternoon in the pool, and I forgot to put sunscreen on them, so they got sunburned.
Landon asked to play the game of LIFE with me while his brother and sister played at friends houses. I obliged, and despite actually trying to lose, I still managed to beat him by about $250,000. (If you know Landon, you’ll understand why sometimes it’s easier to just let him win rather than deal with the consequences of him losing). He cried, and I sighed.
And while we played, Annika managed to find a stray piece of paper on the floor, which she ate a portion of before I discovered her and dug it out of her mouth.
I fed them leftover meat and stale chips for dinner, and at 6:00 realized Annika hadn’t had any solid food all day. Sundays are hard, and schedules are off, so she’d only had bottles. No wonder she was watching us eat like a rabid Velociraptor.
I put them all to bed dirty, and just as I turned out their lights a thunderstorm rolled in, and everyone came tearing out, eyes wide, full of fear, because my first born has conditioned the other two to believe that any cloud that produces lightening is a funnel cloud.
I promised them that if any of the clouds started spinning, I would retrieve them from their beds and we’d take shelter in my closet. Then I sent them back to their bed despite their tears and protests. Meanwhile Annika screamed in her crib because she took such a long, late afternoon nap that she was absolutely not tired at 7:30. I put her to bed anyway, because I was tired at 7:30.
Finally, blissfully, they all fell asleep. By 10:00, it was silent in my house. I fell into bed, and let slumber wash over me. While I slept, I dreamt I was on a Merry-Go-Round that started spinning uncontrollably while a woman with a raspy voice barked instructions repeatedly over the loudspeaker in German.
I interpreted her yelling to mean I should hold on tight.
When I woke up I was clutching my pillow, clenching my jaw, and the room was spinning.
Ten hours and fifteen minutes after taking off from Munich, the plane finally began it’s approach into the Atlanta airport. I couldn’t even really feel excited over the sheer exhaustion of it all.
Ten hours is a long time.
I’d finished writing a chapter in my book, written the beginnings of a short story, read for quite a bit, and watched three movies, because somehow zoning out to the tiny television screen felt the least like trying to slog through quick sand.
Sandwiched between my husband and a very kind young German man, I’d shifted and squirmed through most of the flight, because I can find neither comfort nor sleep on an airplane. It’s a terrible curse to not be able to drift to sleep in any position but fully prone.
One of the movies I watched had a bit of suspense to it, and at one point, when a shark leapt out of the water and almost bit the main character’s head off, I yelped and accidentally grabbed the arm of the kind, young German man. Lee fell over into the aisle laughing while this poor fellow confirmed his suspicions that I was a crazy American. I tried apologizing, and he smiled politely, then shifted as far away from me as he possibly could.
Bless him.
As we made our way down, the runway in our sights, I offered Lee a small smile. “Almost there,” I said, and he nodded in return, equally numb.
We raced toward the ground, waiting for the wheels to touch down on American soil, and then WHAMO!
It was one of the roughest landings I’ve ever experienced in an airplane. I suspect the pilot had his own feelings of numbness to contend with, and perhaps he got tired of the slow descent and decided to just throw that sucker down and be done with it.
As the plane shuddered and bounced under the weight of a quick landing, I gripped the armrest. I almost grabbed my new German friend’s hand, but I noticed he had tucked his hands under his legs in self defense. Poor fellow.
A few minutes later, the plane rolled to a stop, and my grip loosened as I realized we’d made it safe and sound. The plane didn’t barrel roll into the gate like it seemed it would in those first few moments after slamming to the ground. We had arrived. We were home.
I didn’t realize our landing would be a metaphor for reentry into every day life.
It’s amazing how a getaway can revive a person. Last week away was fabulous from start to finish. I loved every minute of it, and if I’m going to be completely honest, I didn’t really miss the kids until the day it was time to go home. I simply relished in the freedom of kidless-ness. There were many moments when I wished that the kids were with me. Each time I explored a castle, I wished I could share the experience with them, because I knew they’d love it.
But I never once wished I was back home.
When we finally landed in Tampa, though, Lee and I were beyond ready to get home and see the children. This was our slow descent. It felt like it took forever for our wheels to hit the ground, but finally we were there, and the return hugs and snuggles we got were worth every minute away.
The first night was sweet and fun as we shared our trip with them, and they shared their week with us. My mom not only survived, but she did a slam bang job of holding the house together in the process. She deserves a few extra jewels in her heavenly crown for last week, for sure.
We went to bed that first night, and slept soundly, then woke up and WHAMO! No more slow descent. Arguments, homework, notes from teachers and homeroom moms listing out 8,462 things that needed to be done before the last day of school, soccer try outs, practices, and incidents that occurred while we were gone that needed to be addressed.
It’s like we fell out of the sky and slammed back into real life, and last night Lee caught my eye after we finally managed to get them all in bed. His wide eyes matched mine, and we sort of just stared at one another for a long minute before starting to laugh.
“I guess there’s no easing back into this, right?” I asked. Lee shook his head and raised his glass to me.
“To Germany!” he cried.
To Germany, indeed. I write this now after a restless night with a kid who had nightmares and ended up in our bed…on top of me for the the most part. The same kid woke up with a gushing bloody nose that I got to deal with before a sip of coffee crossed my lips.
Welcome home, and thanks for dropping in, I thought to myself when I got them all on the bus, but there’s a grin behind the thought, because I wouldn’t orchestrate life any other way than this – crazy, and busy, and brimming with love.
