Saturday Night Live

Saturday night was interesting, to say the least. First, the funeral. (Actually a memorial service, but for the organist, the gig is the same. Lots and lots of prelude and lots and lots of postlude.) When you're an organist, you play a lot of funerals for people you've never met. (I've never had to play a funeral for a person I was really close to and this is a very good thing. But it's pretty strange playing for someone you just don't know at all.) You can learn a lot about people from their funerals. Often, I leave the place feeling that I really did know this person after all. This man had such a large number of friends, mostly dressed in black. I got the distinct impression that they didn't change their normal everyday clothing for this funeral. Very nice folk who looked really sad. I take for granted how people in our church are generally happy.  I think several of these folks had had distinctly unhappy lives. It was nice to know that this man had evidently made their lives better.

After the funeral was over at 6:00, the Eagle Court of Honor came next. This was the first son of a large family of mostly boys. His dad, also an Eagle, presented the pin. It was a very touching experience and brought back floods of memories from my son's Eagle Scout Court of Honor.

Then Michael and I went out to dinner at a cute Italian restaurant. This valley is pretty odd. A huge majority of the restaurants are Italian. And you can't find a really good Mexican one to save you. In the front desk case there was a cookbook labeled "The Mafia Cookbook." That is something you just wouldn't do where Michael and I grew up. The place was packed and we had to talk pretty loud to hear each other, but that was a nice romantic event.

It was an emotion-filled Saturday night. The morning had not been all that good and I was glad that the day finished so beautifully. We've both been going through some tough times and that evening was a spiritual and emotional lift.

My car is a popsicle

So my car has been a popsicle since about Thanksgiving. That's it in front of the garage. Why isn't it in the garage? Long story.

Michael decided when we moved up here that we should never drive the Happy Car (my red Miata) on the salted roads. The first year we found a happy storage space for it and it was great. It lived in a storage facility for the winter months and Michael visited it from time to time. But for some reason the past two years, it has just had to tough it out in the open air. I guess we didn't get it stored before the first salt went down and then we were stuck. So I drive the Subaru if Michael doesn't need it. His Miata just can't do deep snow and we know it's not very safe in icy conditions. So lately, he's needed the Subaru a lot. The Subaru is officially known as "my car." It's the only one of the five that is actually in my name. (Yes, you heard right --five.) You'd think that my red Miata which was an anniversary present quite a few years ago would be in my name but that's another long story.

So, even though we have almost a half a dozen vehicles (rather a low number by our standards), there's often none of them available for me to drive. There you go. I actually don't mind being stranded. I like working at home. I like walking around in the neighborhood. I like not having to go teach somewhere.

The latest acquisition and vehicle number five is a Studebaker pickup which I have been promised will not live in our yard. We already have a yard sculpture in the form of a black Lexus. A third long story. (We have an infinite number of long stories at our house.)

I'm hoping spring will clear the air and get some of these vehicles on the road. I'd love to make some of these long stories short.

I heart Google

 I heart Google. I must admit it. I am wildly in love with my husband, Michael, but I need Google in my life almost as much.

As a nonfiction writer, I rely on Google for my research. As a fiction writer, Google tells me if there's anybody out there with the same name that I want for my character and prevents me from naming a fictitious town the actual name of a real town. For my ageing brain's sake, Google helps me remember the name of that movie star who was in that movie that had that other movie star who was married to you know who. I use Google maps to help me find me way. Google analytics tells me who visits my shops and when and what keywords they use.

As in any relationship, we have our odd, unhappy moments. I get really angry when Google can't find my shop items. Nothing is worse for a shop than being invisible to Google. It's like Google doesn't love me back. And I also get miffed when they miss out on golden opportunities for Google Doodles because they think they might be too controversial like the 100th anniversary of Boy Scouting. And Google Help can leave me pretty hopeless. But, all in all, I think we get along well.

So, Google, I love you. I hope you're always there for me.

We're grandparents! Again!

On Saturday, our newest grandchild, a darling little girl, was born in Utah. Lincoln's birthday. Maybe she'll be inspired and be a born leader. But for now, she's just beautiful.

Let me say that not all babies are beautiful. Them's the breaks. Some of the most beautiful children had a really rocky start. But this little girl is a knockout. My daughter said all the nurses said so!

We are thrilled that baby and mom are doing well. The only bummer is that Utah is so far away. Them's also the breaks.

Taking Stock

Firstly, the photos. All I had to do to get this shot was open an upstairs window. The view from any window in our house is pretty stunning. The second photo below is my little Valentine's gift to Michael. The snow was a good foot deep in places and iced over. You can see at the top of the heart where I fell down. Just adds to the charm of the message, I think!

The beginning of the year is a good time to take stock and I'm literally trying to sort out all the stock I bought in the summer and fall. This is estate sale heaven and I just accumulated a lot of things that I need to get rid of now. My Etsy pattern shop has about five hundred patterns listed but I have hundreds more waiting for their turn. And my vintage shop is up to about a hundred items as well. I figure if I haven't listed some of this stuff yet, I might as well give it away. Those "end of the day" $1.00 bags at the rummage sale are tempting but I've ended up with a lot of linens that aren't really good enough to sell. If I were clever, I could make something fabulous out of them. But my cleverness doesn't fall in that area.

The writing is going, but it's hard to pick a new project. Here's what I've got so far:
A middle grade novel about a boy who notices things and makes predictions
A middle grade novel about the Alphabet children, a family of six that pretty much are the terror of their little Texas town
A nonfiction picture book about the woman who invented paper sewing patterns.
A young adult novel about a most unlikely girl hero from a small town who ends up being the chosen one who has to save the world

Obviously, all the novels are meant to have a strong element of humor.

So there's where it stands. Choosing is hard. So is waiting. My Louisiana novel is out at Greenwillow as we speak.

Snowed in and snowed under

Um. It's been fun. Really. Snowed in....The snow here is stunning and Michael and I enjoyed four blissful days together here in Wilkes-Barre instead of in Manhattan to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. We weren't really that disappointed. We're postponing Manhattan for later in the season. We had a blast just doing what we wanted to do for days. We got up when we wanted, went where we wanted and ate where we wanted. I did a little business on my shop and he made a few phone calls, but basically we just took the time off to enjoy each other and to relax. Could have been a whole lot worse! We spent the actual day at church. It was ward conference. I had boiled shrimp the day before and on the actual day I made what Michael loves best--wedding cake. Not the new-fangled stuff with filling and weird ingredients like carrots, but the old-fangled white cake with white shortening icing. It came out fabulous.

Snowed under...I'm trying to get tax stuff together (yuck!), papers organized (bigger yuck!) and trying to get back into the writing routine (not yuck at all but very challenging.) So far this year I've submitted my Louisiana novel to a publisher, sent off an application to Simon and Schuster for contract work, submitted two story ideas to The Friend magazine and worked very hard for an idea for my next book. I have a couple we'll see how they work out.

All in all, it's been a pretty promising 2011 so far. I have tons of goals and I'll try hard to keep at them.