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Happy New Year 2013
Sitting here with my family while they watch TV, laptop on my lap where it should be. Outside it’s really cold. So, what’s up this year? I’m secretary for Young Women. If you don’t know what that is, our church has a program for teenage women from 12 to 18 years old. It helps them…
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Starting a garden, and a garden journal
March 16, 2012 I’m starting a garden. It’s been a few years since I grew one, not counting the container tomatoes last year. All of my efforts have met with limited success. Lack of experience, lack of keeping up with daily tasks, and a lack of long term commitment. A few years ago I just…
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Mature for her age
A teacher has recently told this to me about my 13 year old daughter, in what he intended as a compliment. And I’m happy to take it that way. I remember an adult telling me I was mature for my age when I was about 14. Great, I thought. Doesn’t help me get any friends.…
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Spring break, not just for kids.
This morning, I didn’t have to drive anyone to school. Oh, I did wake up at 6, and wished my other girls a good day, but then I went back to bed. For a whole hour. It was such a relief, because getting kids to school is much more than driving them. It’s waking up a six…
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First impressions of a really new school
So after some inspiration from my sister, Tonya, I enrolled my eleven year old daughter into a charter school. Her friend situation at the other school wasn’t the best, and I felt lukewarm about both the teachers and the principal who seemed less supportive of the accelerated program my daughter was in. Since I’d come…
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Fairy dreams
As my 3 yr old son woke up this morning he said he wanted to be a fairy. We’d all (his mom and dad and sisters) been fairies in his dream. When I asked him what a fairy was, he said it was someone who had wings, like a dragonfly. And they fly all around…
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The nitty gritty work of it
I am sitting here wondering whether or not to move into another character’s point of view (a new chapter, all in that person’s POV) or not. There are just a whole lot of ways this would change the book, so my question to myself is will it make the book better or worse? I have…
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Japanese short stay students
We have a student visiting us from Japan right now. We’ve had several in the past. This one is the same age as my middle daughter. Cultural differences between our society and Japans are very real. In some ways, the Japanese way of raising kids makes hosting them easy for us. None of our students have been very used to…
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Expectations for kids
Had my writing group yesterday, after a long winter haitus. Very good stuff came out from there. Got the short story I recently finished thoroughly thrashed and I’m very excited at how improved it will be as a result. Also, during the course of the conversation we talked about how talented my middle daughter is…
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Snow, treacherous snow
A frozen, white ocean stretches across my front window. Roiling waves break against the cement, frothing up into dirty chunks of snow and ice. Wednesday, the storm hit during the commute. My oldest comes home from school on the city bus. She had called to ask me to come pick her up. I told her that it would…