Month: May 2022

EXCITING STUFF GOING ON

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Hello!

First of all, I’m sorry I have not been consistent about posting on here. I have a lot of stuff going on, and while I love giving you free stuff, I also need to figure out how to make money with my writing.

So, what is going on that is keeping me from you right now?

Well, the first thing coming is another children’s book! I’m hoping that it’s ready to come out in late June. It’s called “The Gingerbread Man in Your Hometown.” Everyone thinks the fox ate the Gingerbread Man at the end of the book, but he escaped. And now he’s here…

Follow the Gingerbread Man through your own hometown as he gets into more and more trouble. Will he get caught?

The fun part about this story is that YOU (or your child, rather. Maybe.) gets to illustrate the book! It’s the first of a new series called “You Draw.” This series is great for budding artists, artists who want to practice illustrating children’s book, or for children to give grandparents as gifts.

I am also working on an eBook that I’m hoping will also be ready in late June or early July. It is called “Enoch Walked with God, And You Can Too.” It looks at the life of Enoch – a Bible character of which very little is known. However, we do know that his life was so entwined with God, that this is what was said of him in Genesis 5:24 (NIV):

“Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more because God took him away.”

This book will look at what it means to go for a walk (physically) and look at the spiritual lessons we can learn from that so that we, too, can walk with God. I just got the completed cover for it this week and it’s fabulous! I’m so excited to share it with you!

Then I’m hoping to have another of the “You Draw” series done by late July/early August called “Santa’s Workshop in Summer.” Come see what Santa’s workshop is like when it’s not Christmastime except… Santa’s missing! Help the elves find Santa, and draw amazing pictures to go with it.

And lastly, I am working with a local bookstore to hopefully teach a workshop in late summer on how to self-publish, from start to finish. I’m very excited about this, because I have learned so much since I started my journey, mostly by making huge mistakes. If I can help others NOT make my (often costly) mistakes, I’d love it. More details on this as I learn more.

In regards to this blog, I also need to reevaluate my original blog process because it’s taking up a lot of available memory space on my website. I want to give you great stuff but also have space to give you more.

Maybe the most difficult hurdle for me is that I’m uninspired. (Maybe my creative brain is just too overwhelmed from all the other projects I have going on?) “The Mirror” was so fun to write – I wanted to do something like that again but I’m stumped on what to write. I was trying to plot a story that follows a city bus line and shows how the lives of the bus riders are interconnected but, well, there’s a reason that 4×6 index card is hidden at the moment. So I’m still pondering. Do you have any ideas? Feel free to let me know!

So that is what’s going on with me. I will still post free content on here for you, but things are a little crazy right now so it won’t be weekly like it had been. Thank you for understanding, and I’ll try to get momentum back on here soon!

I appreciate you reading this, and for all the comments and likes you’ve given me. I do what I do for you!

Grace and peace.

Chasing Playgrounds

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My son is almost two and has never seen the inside of a Walmart.  He has never been to church, to a library event, or almost anywhere else that isn’t a family’s home.

He has been to several zoos.  Zoos are mostly outside.  And he’s been to multiple parks.

My son was born at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and had a respiratory issue when he was first born.  I’m not sure how many times I held him while he gasped for air and I screamed for him to breathe.  It was terrifying. 

More than one doctor said that was “normal for C-section babies” and that’d “grow out of it by six months.”  He has gotten better the older he gets, but it was well past his sixth month that we even had a hope that he’d be able to breathe normally.  Just this week, we quit running the humidifier in his room anytime he slept to see how he’d do, and so far, he’s doing okay!

All this to say, the COVID-19 pandemic has made things more difficult for us.  Because of his respiratory issue early on in life, we believe he is high risk for COVID and have sheltered at home more than most people.  We’ve received a lot of flack from this on all sides, which has made it more difficult. 

To stay sane, we needed to find a way to get out of the house.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I love our house and I know it’s a huge blessing.  As humans, though, we were not created to be locked in a house all the time.  Of course we go outside to play, but even that wasn’t enough.

We began chasing playgrounds.

We can tell you where all the public playgrounds are in our town.  We can tell you which churches have playgrounds open to the public and which have locked fences around them.  We can tell you that none of the schools around us have playgrounds accessible to the public.  We can even tell you where the is a private playground that is accessible – it is so open to the public we didn’t know it was private the first few times we went!  (And since learning it was private, we haven’t been back.)

My children have loved chasing playgrounds.  Their faces light up and one of my son’s first words was “playground.”  They’ve hit new developmental skills with each new type of playground they encounter.  They see new sights, smell new smells, find new ways scare Mommy by almost falling.

Playgrounds can take a grey day and explode it into rays of sunshine.  Playgrounds can take tears and turn them into smiles.  Playgrounds can melt anger into laughter. 

Playgrounds have also been a gateway into other friendships.  Since playgrounds are outside, as the pandemic has dragged on, we have allowed our children to play with other children on playgrounds. 

This gives our older child a chance to play with kids her own age, which is vital to her emotional well-being.  She gets so excited when she sees other children playing on the playground.  She’ll clap her hands together and shout, “I get to make new friends!”  Sometimes she plays with them, sometimes she just watches.  At the end of the day, she always talks about her new friends.

My kids often leave the playground dusty and smelling of sunshine and sweat.  It’s a joy to me as a mama to be able to give my kids a time of laughter in the midst of swirling chaos.

Let’s go chase some playgrounds.

POEMS INSPIRED BY A FAMILY ADVENTURE

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Yesterday, my husband and I loaded the kids into the car and went to a park we had never been to before (we had heard there were tractors the kids could climb on, and both kids love tractors!)

We didn’t know exactly where the park was. We were pretty sure it was off a certain highway. So we drove. And drove. And drove until we were pretty sure we had either missed the park or were completely wrong in where it was.

But we had neither missed the park or been wrong. We finally find it, finally found the tractors, and even found a pedestrian bridge that crossed a finger of a pond. My son is really into bridges right now, so he was thrilled!

My family by the tractor (my son had fallen asleep in the car and had just woken up.)

While we were exploring, I took a few pictures. The weather was beautiful, but expected to rain at night. We planned to have a cook-out, then eat a picnic supper as we watched limousines drive by carrying prom-goers. On the way home, though, we watched the clouds build.

The weather hit us early, and we did not get to have a cook-out and we definitely did not eat outside!

The poems below are inspired by some of the pictures I took yesterday. (Yes, I was supposed to post this yesterday to wrap up National Poetry Month. The storm sort of threw everything off.)

Enjoy!

Next week I plan to start trying my hand at some short travel writing. At the moment I’m publishing some children’s stories, but my hope and dream is to publish Christian travel romance. By writing ‘real-life’ travel writing, that will help me practice. Feel free to leave me feedback!

Thank you for reading and for traveling through National Poetry Month with me!