Fort Sport--Traveling Tale #2

Okay, back to something a little less intense. Travel stories continued...




While we were vacationing in New Mexico at Mike's family cabin, the boys decided that it was utterly necessary to build a fort. Necessary on the lines of osmosis and cell division.




Taking the challenge firmly in hand, my husband and his brother (Uncle Buddy), set about to devise a fort to please any little boy. Its creation was a two-fold event. The first day the boys created the overall structure; the second day was more of a tweaking and furnishing kind of day. (I heard talk of bringing up camp chairs but unfortunately for my bottom that never happened--apparently a fort requires more rustic furnishings. Think splinters in the bottom and spiders on your legs.)



I did little more than take pictures and oooooh and ahhhh at the strength and agility of my adorable husband and his equally adorable brother (who is, by the way, still single--girls, contact me for information). The big brothers carried the large logs while their miniature versions made a lot of manly, grunting noises while they dragged and manhandled sticks and other boy-sized contributions. I heard a lot of, "Mommy! Look at me! I'm sooooo strong!"



The finished product was, I will admit, pretty cool. They had a "sofa" and they had a roof. They had strategically placed viewpoints (holes between the logs) whereby they could stick out the end of a plastic gun and shoot the bad guys. Apparently the woods around the cabin, in the beautiful Santa Fe National Forest, were just riddled with bad guys. I was appalled at the number of bad guys in those woods. Appalled! Glad I had such brave men to protect me.


It was one of the highlights of the trip for the boys. I mean, come on! What little boy wouldn't love a fort like this? What little boy doesn't NEED memories like these?

Unforgiving Forgetfulness

My mom has always been kind of "ditzy." Even as a young girl I remember her telling the same story more than once in a fifteen minute conversation. Now, at the age of almost 61, she has an early onset form of dementia. Basically alzeimers.

She has moments of clear lucidity and in those moments I see my mom, the woman who I fought with non-stop as a teenager. The woman who plaited my hair into pretty blond braids when I was in elementary school. The woman who never failed to praise me for being so smart, so creative, such a great writer. She loved to read my short stories, my essays, my poems. Now she can no longer read. A second grade school teacher for close to 30 years can no longer read any of the children's books that completely overflow from my old girl-hood bedroom.

For the most part she walks around in a haze of confusion. She wants to be productive and so she spends literally hours each day on her hands and knees in the kitchen wiping up the smudges and miniscule bits of dirt on her pretty blue and white checkered tile. But a task such as doing laundry, which involves so many steps (sorting, washing, transferring to the dryer, drying, removing lint, folding and finally putting away clean clothes) is no longer one of the things she can accomplish. She tries. And so you find dirty towels, damp from the shower, in the dryer. Or you find dryer sheets and lint inside of the washing machine. Or you find a pile of damp clothes moldering on her bed. But she tries so hard.

It is heartbreaking, this evil disease. And I have to admit that I sometimes just get so angry. Angry at her, which makes no sense because it isn't her fault. But also I get paranoid. When I forget where I put my car keys, there is this niggling worm of doubt always there in the back of my mind. Will I be struck down with this unforgiving form of forgetfulness too? Will my brother?

She's a beautiful lady, my mom. And she loves her grandsons. And I know she loves the Lord. So I know the Lord is loving her, and somehow filling these holes of emptiness inside of her head. But still, I find this whole stinking thing, this forgetfullness, completely unforgivable.

Completely. Unforgivable.

Festive (funny) Americana: Traveling Tale #1

Okay, so my brother and I were driving through small towns in the eastern part of Oklahoma. We were taking my boys to see their great-grandma who lives in Poteau (sounds like po-toe). It just happened to be July 4th and I don't know why my brother and I didn't anticipate what was to occur about halfway into our 3+ hour drive.

We came to a standstill in Calvin, Oklahoma. Population: less than a thousand I'm sure. Not a place where a traffic jam would normally occur unless someone's cows knocked down a fence and were grazing in the middle of the town square. We were completely and totally stopped on a state highway that passed through the town. After a few minutes of looking at each other and looking at the line of semi-trucks parked on the road in front of us, we made the decision to try to bypass whatever was holding things up. Well, first of all, Calvin is so small that you can't really bypass anything. We quickly discovered this when we crept (guiltily) through a residential street and were stopped almost immediately by a chuckling sheriff's deputy who waved us to the side of the road. "Gotta git on over," he said to us with a shake of his head as though WE were the ones who were not quite right.

And then... it happened. Americana exploded right there on the streets of Calvin. An Independence Day parade to put all others to shame danced festively by us. My boys were excited and impressed. Young children were riding horses and ponies. "Look!" Zachary shouted (repeatedly). "I can't believe I see a TWELVE YEAR OLD BOY driving a TRACTOR on the STREET!!" Yep, it was big and green and had John Deere stamped on the side. Apparently, nothing runs like one of those.

A few minutes into the parade my brother and I pulled out our cameras and starting snapping photos, because, COME ON! We couldn't pass up the opportunity. We had candy thrown into the open window of our car. We were solicited for our vote for the local mayoral election. We saw...wait for this one... a lady being pulled in a home-made kind of chariot contraption by a goat. Yes, I said a goat.

It was the highlight of my day simply for its pure essance of small town Americana. We live in an amazing place, the good ol' U.S.A. Enjoy the pictures. Soak up that essence.

Far from home...Freakishly Fabulous but too good to be true?

Okay, so we've been traveling for the past few weeks. Zach, Alec and I were visiting my folks in Oklahoma for two weeks and then we joined hubby Mike in New Mexico for another week to spend time in the mountains at the family cabin with his parents and brother. Three weeks away from home! It was good and I'm very glad we went, but I can't express how thankful I was to sleep in my own bed when we finally arrived home a couple of days ago. I'm still trying to get things back in order and I've got piles of laundry to do, but at least my internal clock is returning to the correct time zone.

I'll post more about my travels later on, but right now I've got some extra interesting news. I've been writing a book for about a year (and no... I'm not finished). I submitted a few chapters to a publisher about two months ago and today I received word that they are interested in publishing it. Now before anyone gets too excited... there are a few hitches to my perfect dream coming true. Number one: I'm not finished writing. Ha! That is a pretty big hitch. The publishing contact, Janey, was about to send me a contract to sign before I mentioned that small detail. She suggested that we hold off on signing anything until the writing was completed. Pretty good idea, I guess.

Number two: The publishing company requires me to spend some of my own money. Basically I put up about $4000 and then they spend about $20,000 in the production of the book which includes editing, layout, book jacket design, marketing, and even putting the book into audio format. So I've done some research on this and it looks like this is pretty common. If the author sells 5,000 copies then the author's investment is paid back in full plus any other income the books generates. Also the book is always 100% mine. My copyright, not the publishing company's.

I'm not completely sure if this is a good plan for me. I have researched the company and I like what I see. It looks like a valid organization and they are a Christian company from my home state of Oklahoma. However, I don't have $4000 collecting dust on my coffee table and Mike and I are committed to NOT going back into debt so that is a pretty big hitch to the perfect dream. I don't have an agent and it looks like an author cannot get a book published with the larger companies without an agent and it looks like you can't get an agent without already having a book published. Vicious cycle. So, this might be a stepping stone to getting an agent? I don't know.

The publishing company is Tate, here's their website. www.tatepublishing.com
If anyone has insight into this issue, let me know. I would appreciate any helpful information. The first thing I have to do is finish the book! Prayers are always appreciated, and prayers specifically about me having the creative energy to finish and the wisdom to make a good decision on the publishing are absolutely coveted.

Thanks!