Another August Anniversary

Congratulations to Kyle and Kelli! Yesterday my brother married the coolest girl in the world. It was a beautiful wedding in the scorching heat of Bakersfield, California. (We all thought a 10 AM wedding would avoid it, and while I'm sure it avoided the worst of it, it certainly wasn't what you'd call cool outside, although the wedding party got the best deal--we got to stand in the shade).

It's a weird thing to see your little brother wax eloquent about his new bride. He was such a grown-up! IS such a grown-up. I have a hard time believing that sometimes. When you've got years of stored up memories about the goofy kid who made a cottage industry out of trading ("I'll trade you that stereo for..." Actually, I don't know what he ever offered in his trades, he never had anything good--yet he always managed to make out like a bandit. And this was in, like, fourth grade!), who sported silk shirts and Cavaricci pants in junior high, who made mixed tapes with the best romantic songs ever and titled them things like, "Songs That Remind Me I Have No One," it's hard to envision him now as a man with a wife and a real life of his own.

I was a mess at the wedding. I suppose this shouldn't have come as a surprise to me, given the emotional basket case I've been lately. But the worst part is that the tears just would not stop! It started the minute I got to my spot in the shade, staring at the guests as everyone else came down the aisle, got worse when they exchanged their beautiful vows, hit critical when they took communion together and Kyle whispered a prayer into her ear, and, if I'd been smart, I would have found a secret place somewhere and just let it all out. But no, I had to try to be a strong woman and cork the tears and soldier on. WHATEVER. Into the reception and again I'm foiled: the toasts from Kelli's father and my brother, the speeches by various wedding party members (I'd planned on saying a few words--yeah right) and then the wedding party dance, which I got to dance with my husband. Yeah, a dance, that got me going again. Pathetic. Weep weep weep, sniff sniff sniff, blubber, blubber, blubber. Gag me.

But it was worth it. Now I have a sister! Always wanted one of those, but luckily we got each other without the messy adolescent years of hating each other and constantly competing for Mom and Dad's attention. :) I'm so blessed to have a sister-in-law that I not only get along with, but that I love. So, Kelli, welcome to the family. It takes a special person to blend in with our nutty clan, and you've got just the right combination of practicality, sense of humor, and quirkiness to make it. I can't wait to get to know you better, and I'm so thankful God brought you and Kyle together. We love you, Mrs. Strobel!

Happy Anniversary!

Wow. Today marks the end of Dan's and my second year of marriage. I can't believe it's already been two years. And on Saturday my brother, Kyle, will get married to the totally awesome Kelli, and on Friday Mom and Dad celebrate their 33rd year of holy matrimony. August is definitely the month for weddings in the Strobel household.

Dan and I are pretty much broke at the moment, so we promised each other no gifts. Dan, of course, cheated--he did this last year, too--and bought me a beautiful purple orchid and a gift bag filled with all sorts of silly goodies that are not romantic in and of themselves, but are romantic in that they show how attentive and observant he is of me and the things I like and need. I came down for a 2 AM bowl of cereal and saw them sitting on the counter and, being the emotional wreck I am these days (thanks, hormones), burst into tears and blubbered my way through my Corn Pops.

I think I was able to make up for not having gotten him something, though--check out My Pregnancy Blog to see the picture that was waiting for him on his desk when he got up this morning....

Halfway there!

Well, I officially surpassed the halfway mark for my minimum word requirement on my current manuscript! Unfortunately I think I'm more than halfway through, outline-wise, so I'm going to have to start stretching these last chapters. :) If I write 2000 words a day for the next three weeks, I'll reach my goal of finishing the book by the end of the month. (Well, clarification: if the story only last for 70,000 words, then I'll be done by the end of the month. If it takes longer, I'm screwed.) Hallelujah for flexible editors, though; Shannon said she'd work with me if I didn't quite make it by September 1. I think I can do it, though.

We leave the 16th for a week in Chicago--my little brother (heh, little--he's 27) gets married the 13th here in California, then we're all schlepping to Chicago for a second reception for everyone who can't make it out here the 13th. Dan and I are turning it into a little vacation, so we're going out early to be tourists and for him to meet all my friends out there that he still hasn't met after two years. (Our anniversary is the 9th of this month!!) I won't be able to write that week, but I'm going to do something I haven't done before with a manuscript, and that's print it out and read it like a book instead of just reading it off my computer. I figure I'm always editing the books I read without a problem, so maybe it'll be easier editing my own stuff if it's on paper and not on a screen. We'll see if it works. If nothing else, it'll give me something to do on the plane.

Fun new test!

Oh, my favorite...here's a great grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary test. Think you know the English language well? Test yourself. Here are my results:

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!

Now I have to go look at the answer key and figure out which one(s) I screwed up!

Feelin' hot hot hot

Dan and I drove out to Vegas again this past Wednesday to hang out with his brother and his family. The original plan was to drive to the Grand Canyon while we were there--his brother just bought a Honda Oddessy and it's got the cool DVD player and super comfy seating--but after a bit more research we decided to save it for a time when we could spend the night there at one of the lodges and really take the place in. So instead we just hung out at their place.

We like their place. It's homey and comfortable, the AC is always cranked, and there's endless fun now that Simon is two and a half. Man, is that kid's vocabulary growing! And it's so cute, he says everything twice: "Play legos play legos?" "Wanna eat wanna eat?" "Where go where go?" He's being potty-trained, so they've got his little potty set up in the living room where he does most of his playing, and when he's gone he'll jump up and throw his hands in the air and shout, "I did it!" like he just ran a triathalon or something. It's hilarious.

He also does this intense love-you thing where he just gets so incredibly excited that you're there and playing with him that his eyes get all big and his face looks almost violent, and he'll just squeeze your cheeks or arm or leg or whatever is closest. It's hilarious. Until he pinches hard--kid's strong for two years old!

So anyway, Vegas, being in the desert and all, was FREAKING HOT. Like, unbelievably, indescribably hot. At one point our car's thermometer said 120. Sometimes the a/c would be on full-blast and wouldn't feel at ALL cold. You could practically feel your body losing moisture. Every day was at least 105. It was a truly incredible experience. I don't know how people can live there, honestly. I mean, I suppose you get used to it when you've been there your whole life, or if you are there longer than 4 days at a time like us. But wow...there are some things I really just don't want to have to "get used to," and feeling as though the soles of my shoes are melting to the pavement is one of them.

So once again I am so happy to live where I live. Today it was in the low 80's, which didn't feel nearly as hot as it usually does given the heat we were in yesterday. But now the sun is slowly setting and the temperature is dipping; the windows and doors are open and we have a nice breeze floating through. Beautiful. California is so cool. :)

CBA

This weekend I was in Denver to meet with all sorts of various folks before the onslaught of the CBA convention madness. (CBA = Christian Bookseller's Association) The convention actually started at the same time I was boarding a SuperShuttle to go back to the airport and come home, so I missed out on touring the convention floor and snatching up all the wacky freebies at the exhibitor booths. But I did have some fantastic meetings and managed to get my name and book out there to some retailers, so hopefully that will help sales in some small way. I was given a super-tenative, super-ballpark figure for my current sales, and found that I need to sell about 11,000 more units before I break into royalties. Oi. Hopefully that was a lowballed figure!

The best part of the weekend, by far, was the total miracle God wrought in my stomach. Ever since I was 6 I've suffered from motion sickness when I fly. I've always just popped some Dramamine and been fine, but you can't take it when you're pregnant, so I was totally freaking out about the flight. And then it turned out I had layovers both on the way there and the way back, which meant a total of 4 takeoffs and 4 landings. Needless to say, I was convinced I'd be puking my way to the Mile High City and back. Before I left, Dan and I raided Wal*Mart for snacks, my theory being, if I gave my stomach something to chew on, I wouldn't get nauseated. So my carry on bag was filled to the brim with Goldfish crackers, Combos, peanut M&M's, Pringles, Finding Nemo fruit snacks, and those little mini boxes of cereal.

On the way to the airport, my mom told me to concentrate on deep breathing, so I didn't get myself all nervous and worked up. I figured, between the food, the pressure bracelet thingies I bought, and the breathing, I might just make it.

I completely forgot to wear the pressure bracelets, and I hardly ate anything on the flight, but it didn't even matter: I didn't get sick at all!! I put on my Walkman, cranked up Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits (almost always the first thing I listen to when I fly) and settled back into my deep breathing, and PRAYED LIKE MAD that I wouldn't get sick. AND I DIDN'T.

Now, you need to understand that, typically, I'll still feel a little queazy when I take the Dramamine. But this time there was nothing, except for a teensy bit on the way home when we hit some crazy turbulence. Usually that would have had my face in one of those throw-up bags, but not this time! I am convinved that God had mercy on my poor weak tummy and totally hooked me up. He's so freaking awesome!

'Course, now I have an entire bag of snacks. Anyone hungry?

God Bless the USA

I can hear two different fireworks shows in the general vicinity, and the neighbors in the house behind ours must be up on their balcony watching, because they keep cheering and shouting, "Higher!" Then, just a minute ago, they started singing the National Anthem. How cool. I love it when stuff like that happens.

Last night Dan and I went for a walk around the RSM Lake, and people had already laid out their picnic blankets and lawn chairs to stake their spot for the show tonight. I love that I live in a place where you can leave your stuff there overnight and not worry about it being gone in the morning. Today when we drove by it looked like a giant crazy quilt with big green gaps where people knew you couldn't see the show well and the grass was still clear. A couple years ago Dan and I claimed a spot around noon and spent the whole day there, playing Boggle and Scrabble and Yahtzee and cards and eating picnic meals, then watched with the rest of the city as the fireworks exploded over the lake. I'm such a sucker for fireworks, don't ask me why. For some reason they're romantic to me. Last year we listened to the explosions while playing badmitton in the backyard (lit with tiki torches at the corners of the court) as the neighbor kids above us gave a running commentary of what they could see from their balcony. This year we watched the Angels lose on TV and I paid bills. Geez, we sound like old geezers.

Next year we'll have a six-month-old and who knows what the heck we'll be doing. Probably not watching a fireworks show since the kid would freak out at the noise, I'm sure. But how weird is that? That at this time next year our baby will already be six months old. I was nearly walking at six months. I can't imagine chasing a baby around that early. Heck, I can't imagine having a baby!

But anyway, I digress, which seems to happen a lot these days. Chalk it up to a distracted one-track mind. The reason I was writing originally was to say: Happy Birthday USA. Thank you, President Bush. God bless you, men and women of the US military, who have to deal with crap not only in other countries but then here at home, too. I don't care what you think about the war: support the people doing their jobs in fighting it. They knew what they were getting into, they weren't drafted, they weren't coerced, and face it, Hussein was hardly a benevolent leader. Just because things aren't going as well as hoped doesn't mean we shouldn't have gone there in the first place. If our government went militant on us, I'd want someone to come rescue us, too.

Okay, so, I'm off the soapbox now and off to bed. Sleep well tonight knowing you're in a free country. God bless the USA....

New 'do

Well, I had this great haircut--the one in the photos on my website and in my profile here--but sadly it proved too complicated for someone as un-hair-savvy as myself. Plus thanks to the fact that my hair has been growing like crazy thanks to prenatal vitamins, I was having perpetual bad hair days. So yesterday I went under the scissors and chopped it off--the longest bit is now just at my chin, and pretty much all the layers are gone.

Changing my hair has always been one of my favorite ways to break up the relative monotony of my life. From haircuts to dyeing, I've never been shy when it comes to my hair. It's been past my shoulders and less than three inches long, stick straight and permed, burgandy and blond streaked and shoe polish black. And every once in a while it's the dull dark brown with a slight wave that I was born with.

But one of the many compromises of marriage has manifested itself in the way I fashion my hair. Now there's someone that I want to please and whose opinion I value. And frankly, he's got to look at me a lot more often than I do. So I can't just make a spur-of-the-moment appointment at the salon to have it all chopped off, can't swing by Target on the way home from wherever and pick up a bottle of Natural Instincts Spiced Tea temporary color. It's a small compromise, but a compromise nonetheless, and sometimes it chafes. But compared to the payoff of marriage, it's something I deal with.

And now, with Baby M on the way, I've been thinking about how weird it might be for my kid(s) to come home from school one day and see Mommy with red hair, or permed hair, or hardly any hair at all--all within one school year. And when my five-year-old emerges from her bedroom with scissors in her hand and a whole new 'do of her own, would I really be able to blame her? How about when my eight-year-old wants to dye his hair blue?

So the hair is short, and straight, and brown.

For now. :)

Earthquake!

Well, I am officially a Californian--I felt my first earthquake! It was a 5.3, located out in the desert, but felt all the way down in San Diego. There have been about 3 in the past week--there was one back on Sunday while we were rehearsing before the service, but we didn't feel it on the stage (the sound guy at the back of the auditorium did, though), and there was another one the other day that we didn't feel; it was up in northern California, but a 7.0, which is big. (Fun fact: the intensity of the earthquake increases TEN FOLD with every whole point on the richter scale. So a 6.0 quake is ten times stronger than a 5.0.) But this one--holy cow! I SAW the house move! The ceiling fan shook, the blinds in the windows moved--I was kneeling on the floor and it make me sway! It lasted about 5 seconds. And what's really disorienting is that there's this sound that comes with it that sounds like a big gust of wind, so I'm sitting here thinking, "Is it wind that's doing this?"

Dan's just rolling his eyes at me. We're sitting there watching TV and he says, completely nonchalant, "Oh, earthquake." I, on the other hand, have my eyes nearly falling out of my face and my jaw on the floor, going nuts. Dan points to me and says, "Hm. Chicago--" points to himself--"California." Okay, yes, being completely unfamiliar with these events, I will admit I probably overreacted a bit. But come on! It's so cool! I'm sure I wouldn't have thought it was cool if things had broken, but whatever. Anyway, I feel baptised into the culture. Dan's just annoyed that they've taken off the U.S. Open to broadcast the news, which really just consists of visuals of the seismograph and taking calls from residents all over the area and saying the same info over and over.

I love lists!

Apparently the UK likes them, too--this is the second list of this kind that I've seen. The year I lived in Glasgow (1996-97) one of their bookstore chains came out with the same type of list, in conjunction with the BBC. I used that list the year I was there to fill some of my dead time (which I had a lot of since I was only taking 3 classes), and now I get to do it again! Here's the brand new list of the UK's Best-Loved Books (I believe they're voted on by the general public). I've got 42 of them covered (in bold--thanks to all those English classes in high school and college!)--how many have you read already.

The U.K.'s Best-Loved Novels

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Circle of Life

This whole pregnancy thing has made me pretty noastlgic and contemplative lately. One of the things that has been on my mind a lot is my Grandmother Strobel, whom we called "Meama." (Kyle's pronounciation of "grandma" when he was little.) Meama died right before New Year's Eve, 2003 from liver cancer. She had other great-grandkids, so it's not like she didn't get a chance to see any of them, but she won't get the chance to see mine, and I'm finding that really sucks.

Dan got to see Meama twice before she died. Our whole family went out to Chicago that May to see her, which was the first time Dan met her, and then again that October, when we brought her photos of the wedding since she couldn't be there. But I'm mad now that they won't get the chance to enjoy their mutual obsession together: golf.

Until I married Dan, I thought Meama was nuts to tape golf tournaments when she wouldn't be home to watch them live. I couldn't imagine sitting there watching hour after hour of a little white ball hopping around the monotonous stretches of green. Now I watch with Dan all the time and I totally get it, but I can't appreciate it the way he does, because I can't play worth a darn. Meama, on the other hand, was club champion many times over, an avid golfer whose entire social life centered around her country club friends and foursomes. She would have been so happy to have a golf watching friend like Dan. She would have taken him out to the club and showed him off to her friends--she had no problem with bragging about her family to anyone who would listen--and together they would have discussed green speeds, yardage, swing styles, their favorite clubs. I would have been bored out of my mind, but they would have been in their element.

Death just sucks, you know? We say it's natural, part of the circle of life, but really it isn't. We weren't meant to die, remember? Death came from the fall, it wasn't part of the original blueprint, and I think there's still a thread in us that remembers this and knows that it is not natural, that this isn't the way it was originally supposed to be. It's just wrong.

So now I have to settle for memories, and my baby has to settle for second-hand stories. Not fair.

New blog!

Well, I promised myself I wasn't going to let my blog become a pregnancy blog, but it looks like I'm failing at that, so I decided to start a new blog for all my baby stuff. I've moved the baby-related blogs from this journal to that one, and promise to keep this one strictly writer related!

(Hm...can't get the link to work for some reason...it's gobabymorrow.blogspot.com.)

LOST: one brain

LOST: one brain, medium-sized, grayish-pink, wrinkled. Right hemisphere slightly more developed. Believed to have been lost back in April when I got pregnant. Contained important information, like where my favorite brown sweater is, how to spell words I normally could spell in my sleep, and most of my friends' birthdays and last names. If found, please return immediately.

Think, type, ponder, type, daydream, type, blog...

I've started my second novel over from scratch. Given I already had nearly 200 pages on the first draft, this is pretty scary. Well, scary in the sense that I now have six months to write and edit an entire book rather than just the second half, but on the other hand, I think it's going to go a lot faster than the other one was.

You just know when a manuscript is working and when it isn't. When it is, the ideas flow (for the most part), and things seem to fit together before you even try to engineer them that way. When it doesn't work, it's like trying to jam the proverbial square peg into a round hole. I've known for a long, long time that this manuscript was one giant square peg, but I kept hammering away, thinking I could chip the corners off and make it fit. Silly me. Even when you shear off the edges, you still essentally have a square--you've just mutilated it and tried to make it into something it's not, and that's hardly the way to treat a perfectly innocent story.

So today I opened a new document and started afresh. I think it's going well, but I keep getting caught up in the details of the original draft, and forget I don't have to make them all the same in this new version. So what if six years lapsed in the first one? That was an arbitrary number when I first wrote it, I don't have to keep it if I don't want to. Yet when I try to change it, it feels like I'm altering reality, like somehow the reader is going to know I fiddled with things, so instead of going with the flow of the new version, I keep stalling and procrastinating between paragraphs. I think I just need time after each new bout of writing to get used to the new story; hopefully it is slowly replacing the memory of the original.

We'll see what happens.....

Sometimes 100% still isn't enough

I think I may have mentioned this before: I often refer to myself as 80% Girl. I do not mean that the other 20% of me is not girl. I mean that I tend to only go 80% of the way on things. There are very few things in life for which I will go all-out, no-holds-barred. I lack the drive to complete things. It is a character flaw evident in the many half-completed art and craft projects that I've stumbled across lately--cross-stitch patterns with only one color done, sketches that are missing integral components, boxes of supplies purchased for projects that never even got started. I'm big on ideas and not so big on the follow-through.

Well, almost a year and a half ago I found something that I thought I'd go 100% into: a direct-sales jewelry company that some colleagues at school worked for. It did not appear at first glance to be a good fit for me: I wore the same four pairs of earrings over and over, donned a necklace only on special occasions, and always forgot to put my wedding and engagement rings on after taking them off. But I liked the idea of working for myself, of doing the shows, of running my own little business, and there had always been that bit of me that liked being all dressed up and pretty. It also didn't hurt to see up-close and first-hand the profits some of these women were making. I thought to myself, "I've gotten fairly decent returns in the past for my 80%--just think what I could do if I went all the way!"

So I did. I spent a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of effort to get my business off the ground. And when I did shows, I was great. I really was. I had so much fun, and people always told me that I was good at what I did. For once, I was pulling out all the stops, and I couldn't help but dream of how far I'd go with the company.

But I found out that sometimes giving 100% isn't enough, and there isn't anything you can do about it. There are always factors beyond our control, and it turned out that there were too many of them getting in my way. At first I felt really bad about myself--I'd always blamed my lack of success in certain areas to the fact that I held back that 20%, and while I'm sure I could have succeeded more than I did, there's no guarantee I'd have reached every goal I ever dreamed of setting for myself.

So this week I decided to stop being an active consultant. I'm not folding altogether--I'm just not pursuing shows and sales anymore. And really, it sucks. I'd been really excited at the potential the job offered, and like I said, I had a fantastic time. But eventually you realize that your output isn't balancing your returns, and there comes a time to cut your losses.

So yeah, it's bumming me out. But at the same time, I'm glad I figured this out, because someday my kid is going to come to me crying because he/she did absolutely everything possible and still didn't reach their goal, and I want to be able to say to them, "It's okay! You're not a failure!" And it's one thing to say that to someone, and another thing to have lived it and speak from experience.

Oh really?

When I spellchecked my "Mysteries of the Freeway" entry, blogger.com suggested I replace "serenading" with "cremating."

???

Mysteries of the Freeway

Roadtripped with my mom yesterday to California's heartland--Bakersfield! Over the infamous Grapevine we went, getting caught in some nasty rain and emerging in the other side into a weird hybrid of Midwestern farmland and California mountains. Had it not been for the rocky horizon, we could have been on the highway I used to take from my Chicago-suburb home to U of Illinois--nothing but cornfields and the occasional house. Beautiful land, though.

On the way back, the I-5 took us through the cement jungle of Los Angeles, and it was there that we began to contemplate the Mysteries of the Freeway. With Carole King and Peter Gabriel serenading us, we discussed the conundrums of the highway:

1. With a shoulder merely a few feet wide and the majority of California drivers being borderline homicidal, how does graffiti get onto the side walls? How does one get to the side of the road without getting hit, or at least witnessed by the hundreds of drivers careening down the freeway every minute, since the I-5 is NEVER empty in LA? And then how does one have the audacity to sit there in plain view of thousands and tag the wall with their nonsensical letters?

2. Loosely connected to #1: how does graffiti get onto the overpasses? For the writing to be right-side-up to those of us on the road, the taggers must be writing upside-down, and in some cases, hanging from something, given how far down they write. Again, how do they do this without being seen? I think I'd notice someone hanging over the bridge I was about to drive beneath.

3. Despite my best intentions and most tenderloving attention, I can't get plants to grow. My thumb is beyond black. And yet, against these walls along the freeway that are miraculously graffittied, there are the most beautiful flowers and bushes and vines. What are they spiking their Miracle-Gro with to combat the exhaust these poor plants are constantly battling? Heck, half the time there aren't even sprinklers!

4. This one can also be cross-posted to the "Mysteries of the Grocery Store" list: why does it NEVER FAIL that, the minute I move into the lane that has been passing me at the speed of lightning, the fast lane grinds to a total halt, and my previous lane moves into warp speed?

5. How is it that the most deadlocked traffic can untangle and loosen for absolutely no reason at all? For that matter, why does it get deadlocked for no reason in the first place? It is as though 20% of the cars disappear off the road and no one notices; they just realize, "Hey, things are finally moving!" Buy WHY? WHY are they finally moving? WHAT HAPPENED??

We have no answers. The more we contemplated, the more confused we became. But as the three-laned potholed and littered LA portion of the I-5 gave way to the six-laned clean and smooth Orange Country stretch (gotta love Disney money), we shook our heads and gave up our ponderings and rocked out instead to the live version of "In Your Eyes." I guess some things will never be understood. They are, as my husband would say, mysteries wrapped in enigmas wrapped in bacon. Yum.

I got used!

I spoke at my old school's 8th grade chapel this morning. I've known about this for months, yet I waited until this week to really polish up my talk, which I thought was going to be a beefed-up version of a talk I did for the elementary kids earlier in the year. But when I tried to fix it up, I couldn't seem to do it. All these other thoughts--about how they're about to go into the big bad world of high school, how so many of them have been in this small Christian school for their entire school lives, how some of them, even after all the Bible memorization and chapels, still aren't Christians--kept invading my head as I'd try to work on that talk, and it just seemed so inconsequential when they were facing such huge changes. So finally, last night, I wrote a new talk, styling it like a prayer. "God, you know how I'm supposed to do this 8th grade chapel Thursday morning? Well, it's Wednesday night, and I still don't know what to talk about..." Then I devoted a little time to hashing out all the fears and concerns and desires I had for these kids, some of whom I feel rather connected to as they were in my very first class, and laid it out as though I was asking God to tell me which topic to pursue for the presentation. It was way shorter than the talks I usually do, and even after I was finished with it I felt like it was a cop-out. But that's all I seemed to have, so what was I going to do?

Well, God did His thing and it turned out incredible. First of all, the worship set was longer than usual, 5 songs, and the teacher that led it, Doug Harrison, chose the most awesome songs and brought the kids from fun, upbeat worship into contemplative, soul-seeking worship. Then I got up and almost lost it. My emotions have been on ultra-high lately, and between that worship set, the knowledge that my little babies were going to high school, and my fragile emotional state, I had to fight not to burst into tears for the entire ten minutes of my talk. (Actually, there was a rather substantial pause between my opening, "Dear God," and the next line, because I couldn't get myself together.) But I really felt like God was super-charging my words, and that it was going really well, and all was great until the closing line, and then I lost it again.

But then something cool happened. I just started talking. All I could say at first, in a strangled whisper as my throat closed with tears, was "God loves you." And then words kept coming, mostly reiterations and restatements of things I'd said in my talk, but some new stuff, too, and while I don't know if it was my words or the fact that I was sitting there in front of them with tears streaming down my face, I know I definitely had their attention. Heck, I think some of the teachers even got a little teary-eyed.

I wrapped it up somehow; I don't even remember what I said, but when it was over the principal, a really stellar guy, told me it was the perfect thing for them to hear. Some of the teachers told me that, too. I don't know if it really sank in--these are 8th graders, you know--but I know God did something, and as embarrassing as it was to sit in front of them and weep, it's a small price to pay if it planted a seed in someone.

Random

I was clicking that little "next blog" button I talked about earlier this week, just killing time, and the first eight blogs it took me to were written in languages other than English. For a second I felt like such an outsider. It was weird. The ninth one was English, but, like, some bizarre dialect that I guess the hip kids are speaking these days with all sorts of unidentifiable slang sprinkled through it and words spelled all funky. I took it as a sign that the blog world didn't want me around and went and played computer mahjong instead.

Tomorrow Dad and I are doing a reading, Q & A, and book signing at the local Borders Bookstore. I went through the prologue and first chapter to figure out what to read; funny how little of what is in there is absolutely necessary to the telling of the story. Quite a lesson in editing. I have about 12 minutes of material, which will probably stretch closer to 15 if I read at a slower, easier-to-follow pace. ('Course, it'll most likely end up being more like 10 because I'll get nervous and read too fast.) One funny thing, though: Grace, the main female character, goes to Barnes & Noble. And I'm reading it at Borders. Not sure if I should just say "Borders" so I don't feel guilty for product-placing their competition, or just say Barnes & Noble and apologize...

Free Your Books!!

This is the absolute best idea I've seen in a long, long time. It's called "Bookcrossing." The basic concept: turn the world at large into one giant lending library. How does it work? Basically, you take a book that you want to "release into the wild," and register it at bookcrossing.com. They give you a unique tracking number for the book, which you write on the inside cover, along with the website's url. Then you leave the book somewhere--at your local coffee shop, at the grocery store, at church, at a bus stop, wherever you want--and when someone finds it, they go to the website, log in using the book's tracking number, and mark where they found the book. Then, when they're done reading it, they do the exact same thing. You can go to the website and look up the book you've released and see where in the world it's gone--you wouldn't believe all the countries where this is happening! From Afghanistan (currently listing 3 books in the wild) to Burkina Faso (I don't even know where that is, but they have 2 books) to Spain (1,389 books) to the good ole' US of A (16,002 books--but we have an unfair advantage since we started the program). You can click on a country and go all the way down to the city level to see how many books are currently listed as being there--here in RSM there are apparently 7 floating around. And guess what?! Two members have "Worlds Collide" listed as being in their possession!

There's a lot more to the site than just this; go take a look so you can see what all they do. For those of us who consider reading to be more important than, say, eating, this is a dream come true. I can't wait to release some of my books into the wild!