never the bride giveaway

As always, I love a good summer read.
My friend, Rene Gutteridge and Cheryl McKay, have co-aughtored a new fun
sassy book called Never The Bride

and I can't wait to plunk myself down on the couch and plow through it.
Of course, I never tell my writer friends that I plow right through their books
because I know it has taken them months maybe years to write and I don't want them
to know I finish it off in a few days.
But if it's a good book that can't be put down, it really is their fault anyway
so they should just write lousier if they want me to take longer to read it.
The last project Rene and Cheryl worked on together was The Ultimate Gift novelatizion which Cheryl wrote the screenplay for.

For any of you who say The Ultimate Gift in theaters you know it was a keeper.
Never The Bride tells the story of Jessie Stone, a women who has dreamed up hundreds of marriage proposals and fantasized about falling in love. This mostly amounts to a lot of doodling in her journal and not so much falling in love with actual persons. Until God shows up one day, in the flesh, and becomes a part of her every day life.
The back cover asks,
"What will it take to convince her that the Almighty has a better plan than one she's already cooked up in her journals? Can she turn over her pen and trust someone else to craft a love beyond her wildest dreams?"
And I'm hooked. It's the next book on the nightstand next to my bed.
If your hooked, too, and wish you had it on your nightstand put your name in the comments because Rene sent me an extra copy of Never The Bride to giveaway....because she is cool like that.
Giveaway ends July 15, 2009.

thoughts on a sunday night

So at a birthday party the other afternoon, I was talking to another mom, Donna,
who writes and we started talking book ideas.
I told her about some I'd been thinking about.
(When I say thinking about what I really mean is I have writer's block and am playing a lot of computer solitaire and biting my nails and pondering things like who will win "So You Think You Can Dance" and procrastinating doing my laundry and yelling at the children "Go outside - it's summer!")
And she told me about her memoir that she is working on which sounds very interesting and how about how she grew up Irish Catholic and about the guilt and such.
And I said,"Really? I'm not Catholic and I totally have guilt!"
We had a bonding moment which was a little sad that our spiritual bonding could be about guilt.
But I told her that our denomination is much more laid back than it used to be but back in the day you showed you were following God by not doing wrong things like wearing lipstick or dancing (which goes to show you why I have guilt since I am addicted to lip gloss and enjoy "So You Think You Can Dance" so much).
And she said,"Oh, I went to a legalistic church once.
It made me feel like I had to be perfect.
If you're Catholic it's okay if you sin because it's all our fault anyway."
And tsgs, after the laughter subsided, I had a playground epiphany.
Way down in my heart for lo, these many years,
I have been thinking all along that maybe someday I will wake up and be perfect and get everything right if I just try hard enough and don't do anything wrong.
Now I know this may surprise you but mostly I sin everyday and a lot of times it involves the inability to say no to chocolate.
This is very frustrating when you think you can only have a good day if you do everything right.
The problem with this line of thinking is that I keep forgetting that there is only one right person.
There is only one who is sinless and holy. That would be Jesus. Not me.
Every once in a while, I think he has to remind me of that while
I am standing out in the sun watching my kids play.
He lets me know that he knows my mess and he's currently working on my mess and he loves me regardless of my mess and maybe I should relax a little and trust him in spite of my mess.
I'm going to try to remember and do that when I wake up tomorrow.
It would be the beginning to great day.

so i think i can dance

Many of your know I have a strong affection for dancing.
I have an even greater affection for High School Musical
because it is cheesy and has good catchy songs and random choreography
breaks forth in the halls of learning of East High.
Sometimes I break out into random choreography in the halls of my own home
but the children just look at me in shame.
But my sister-in-law, Cheri, knows how to make dreams come true.
She knows that I am made for musicals. So she put me and Scott in one.
Thought you might want to peruse it as you are celebrating this 4th of July
weekend.
Try to ignore the fact that it appears that I don't have any teeth.
The children got a little scared. But my musicality is spot on
and try though he might, Scott can not outshine my raw talent.
Enjoy!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

the first and last swim class

This is the first year that I signed Addison up for swim lessons.
Since he is just three, the parks and rec guy said that the mom and toddler
class would be the one for him. I would need to be in the pool with him
So last Tuesday Addison and I showed up for our swim class.
Along with about 10 other moms with their children.
Let's just start off by saying that disrobing and climbing into a pool
with a bunch of other people that you don't know is a bit unnerving.
Layer that with the cold hard truth that everyone else had brought
their INFANTS along to swim and it is even a bit more awkward.
It was mom and baby class and then there is Sue and her giant man-child.
Addison is a bit tall for his three years and his low voice reminds
us of a trucker from the the Bronx.
I got a few stares.
I laughed out loud nervously...several times...as women were cooing and
nuzzling their babies and Addison was nearly treading water beside me
and talking in full sentences like,
"The pool is very warm this afternoon, isn't it, Mother?"
When the teachers told us to place our little ones on the side of the pool
like Humpty Dumpty and have them fall into our arms in the pool,
while other babies screeched in delight flinging themselves at their moms,
Addison performed a half gainer into the pool.
There was also a crew of daddy paparazzi present. Because these moms had brought
their husbands to snap pictures of their cuddly babies meeting water for the first time.
The sounds of photos being snapped while I was in my bathing suit really set my nerves on edge.
The class told a definite downward slide when we played the game of "The Baby in the Pool" sung to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus".
The teachers told us we would go around the circle and we would all be required to come up with our own verse with which to lead the class.
Right away I thought "The Baby in the pool goes splash, splash, splash!" Brilliant.
Wouldn't you know the girl/baby team next to me took my "splash, splash, splash" verse?
I was left scrambling and could only come up with a lame,
"The Baby in pool goes wave their hands."
Yep, you read correctly. Goes wave their hands. All of my syntax and knowledge
of the English language left me in my moment of song panic in the pool.
Then we had to play "London Bridges" and trail each other in a large loopy circle under the bridge of styrofoarm pool noodles held by the swim teachers.
All I could do was pray that I would not be the my fair lady that would be caught up in the noodle bridge during "take the keys and lock her up" part of the song.
I knew for sure that if we were locked up the teachers would get a close look at us
and know that somehow I had snuck my 11 year old into a mom and baby swim class.
The hour could not be over quick enough for me. Or for Addison, either.
At one point he looked at me and said, "I not a baby, Mom."
I believe we were in our car and driving away before the last mom and baby posed for the final paparrazi "climbing out of the pool" shoot.
The next morning found me back in the rec office transferring Addison to a swim class
all on his own.
And I will go back to being where I should be during swim class.
Sitting in the shade reading a book.
Praise the Lord and pass the suntan lotion...the world has righted itself.

the journey home

I met Teacher Virda five years ago when Jack was 3.
Jack was three years old and my friend Melissa called me and said,
"You need to go sign up Jack for this free preschool down the street."
"Free preschool?" "Yep. Free."
So I called the number she gave me and the next day I was sitting
at a small round table across from a vivacious no nonsense type of teacher
who had one mission...to teach children about Jesus.
Her red hair and quick smile belied her personality.
Fun and firm always getting things done.
Teacher Virda. For 30 years she had run a free preschool at her church
with the help of other church members and moms like myself.
Each year the school, sometimes upwards of 50 children,
would take field trips and play in the sand and
ride tricycles and do crafts with glitter and learn to play nice and sing songs about Jesus in a Christmas concert. Jack flung himself off the risers his first Christmas concert due to his overextension of arms during singing "My God is so Big."
Each year, we parents volunteered and subbed and helped on playground duty
and spread out graham crackers and juice on small round tables and prepped crafts.
I cut out a whole lot of sandpaper letters. And Teacher Virda oversaw it all.
With her group of friends from her church, she led us and loved our kids and
admonished us a little on parent help out night if we talked too much when we
were cutting out sandpaper letters.
When Will started preschool he had a nervous breakdown, sobbing.
She firmly told me, "Go, Mom, he'll be fine." And of course, he was.
She did home visits with the children in her class. First with Jack and then with Will.
You would have thought the president was coming to our house. Rooms were clean.
Brownies were made and the excitement was palpable as she was introduced to their stuffed animals and brought to see their dinosaur bed spreads.
My boys knew they were something because Teacher Virda came to their house.
And we parents knew we were loved, too. When I told Teacher Virda I would be taking Will to a different school because I had to go back to work and started crying, she hugged me and cried a little with me.
She and her husband, Bill, encouraged Scott and I in our ministry, knowing how hard it is to start something from scratch. Bill had lost his job and started his own company 30 years earlier. The preschool had been birthed out of those hard times.
They told us about how faithful Jesus had been to them.
This past September we heard that Teacher Virda had cancer.
Which seemed crazy because I would have figured that cancer would have been a little afraid to take on Teacher Virda. I had once seen her back down a train conductor who doubted whether or not an entire train of children had been paid for.
So these past months we have been praying for Virda and against stupid cancer because
of all people that we need to stick around, we need the ones who love our kids and cry with us and tell us how faithful Jesus is.
I e-mailed her and told her we were praying heavy as my mother-in-law would say.
We got care updates on line and cheered when the chemo was working and booed when
it seemed to be zapping her off all of her signature energy.
When my book came out I sent it to her along with a thank you for all of her encouragement for my writing over the years and she took time in the midst of her battle to write me back.
She said she was proud of me. And that I was special.
And to please squeeze my boys on her behalf.
And I sat in the midst of her words, like a small child, basking in the glow of her approval.
She ended her e-mail by saying, "May God bless us all on this journey Home."
Yesterday, Teacher Virda rounded the corner on her journey Home and met Jesus face to face.
All those years of loving little ones and telling them about Him and now she is with him.
And I for one, can not stop crying.
Because there is only one Teacher Virda and we will surely miss her. Yes, we will.
When Scott told Jack and Will the news, Will said,
"But Dad, she was my best teacher."
Quite a few of us, still on our journey, feel a little bit like we've been hit by a truck.
But of course, we will soldier on. Doing things the way Teacher Virda taught us to.
Playing nice and singing songs about Jesus. Being kind to each other and loving little people. She set a pretty good example to follow.
And I for one am thankful that I met Teacher Virda on this journey Home.

jam

My sister, Erica, makes the best jam.
Every summer she and her 4 kids put up strawberry freezer jam.
Enough for the whole year.
They work as a well oiled machine, mashing berries, boiling pectin, pouring into clear glass jelly jars.
She has told me that because of this good jam that her children will no longer eat store bought jam.
They turn their noses up at it with its gummy fruit and high fructose content.
They are jam elitists.
And really, I can't blame them. Every summer when Van and Erica drive through they stop to see us and they bring us a jar of that jam.
It is ruby red heaven in a jar. Erica gave me a jar to give to my other sister, Jenny, last year and I tried to hide it from Jenny. But she found it.
Good jam does things to you. And one jar is not enough. It is just a tease.
So a few weeks ago when my mom and dad came to stay, I asked my mom if she would help me make some jam. My mom also has the touch when it comes to jam.
I remember as a child being in the kitchen as she boiled and ladled ollalaberries into a deep purple jam.
She stopped to taste it. And them I think it was my brother, Chris, that she grabbed up into a jam dance,singing,
"Mommy makes good jam! Mommy makes good jam!"
We were shocked and excited. Seeing mom dance was something new.
We kids wanted to get in on both the dancing and the jam.
I decided I wanted to do strawberry freezer jam. So mom and I got the berries, the jars and pectin. And the 2 five lb. bags of sugar. Yes, you read that correctly.
Mom cut and I mashed. I boiled pectin and sugar and mom stirred and poured.
Not being profound at math, we thought we had enough strawberries for 12 jars.
We had to go buy more jars. It was a jamapolooza.
And I felt like Laura and Ma on Little House on the prairie putting up provisions for the winter. I felt industrious. And a little sticky.
And now I have some rows of jam pearly with frost in the freezer.
And every time I take a bite of toast with that valentine red jam slathered on top
I can't help wanting to break into a jam river dance and sing,
"Mommy makes good jam! Mommy makes good jam....with Grandma's help!"

NO - COOK STRAWBERRY FREEZER JAM

4 c. ripe strawberries
3 c. granulated sugar
1 box Sure-Jell powdered pectin
3/4 c. water

Wash and hull the berries; crush them completely, a few at a time. (Should end up with 2 cups.) In large bowl, mix together the berries and sugar. Let stand 10 minutes. Combine pectin and water in saucepan. Bring to boil; boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir hot pectin into the fruit bowl; continue stirring. Don't worry if sugar is not completely dissolved. Ladle jam into freezer containers. Put lids on immediately. Let stand at room temperature 24 hours or until set. Refrigerate for a few weeks or freeze for up to a year.

summer reads

As far as I am concerned, summer is made for reading.
The sun hangs long in the sky so you can read for hours.
Or there is reading by the pool which may have happened years ago for
me but now my time at the pool is focused on keeping children alive so
I don't feel that one as keenly.
Somehow escaping into a book, into someone else's words and pictures,
is a little bit like a summer vacation even though most of us are
doing that stay-cation thing this year.
I have two new favorite summer authors.
Wendell Berry and Richard Peck.
Their stories, their words, their art draws me and and I can't sit
the book down until I'm done.
I just finished Fairweather by Richard Peck about a family who goes
to the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. Loved it.
And I'm also looking forward to starting a new Wendell Berry Novel
Andy Catlett, a novel based on one of the characters in the town of
Port William. All of Berry's novels center around this town.
Some other summer favorites are
Austenland by Shannon Hale
Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon
Lucia Lucia by Adrianna Trigiani
The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters.
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
I'm hoping you will help me fill in the rest of my summer reading list.
Any favorites out there that I am missing.
Because summer is made for reading.