When my hairdresser moved my appointment from 10 to 11:30 this morning, I was happy. I thought I could fly through the day-off to-do list before settling into the chair. Surely I’d have time to straighten the house (I am officially the messy one in this household); tinker with my script for tomorrow night's program about this writing journey; to whip up a blog (which I’m doing as we speak) and to squeeze in a couple of other chores such as finding a recipe online for an Easter dish my daughter-in-law requests I make, rescheduling a dental visit and starting my week’s Bible Study Fellowship lesson. Clearly, I over-estimated what I could accomplish, and under-estimated the time it takes, as I tell Brian, “to be me.” I seem to work best mornings, then get a new burst of morning energy at night. Today I’ve got to get busy this afternoon too because this morning won’t cut the must-do list, let alone the more ambitious want-to-do one. I could scrap the blog post today, and who would care? As much as I enjoy having people tell me they read my blog or someone I would least expect will make a reference to a post, I suppose that the answer is, I would be the one who would care if I didn't post. This is my twice-a-week sharing of randomness about what’s going on around these parts. If you are a writer yourself, you’ve probably read articles or even books about what a writer or author should do to promote his or her work. The general name for this is “building a platform.” That means creating a place where your readers connect with your writing, get to know you, and hopefully, want more. Blogging is a huge expectation within a platform, and a big no-no is to leave readers hanging. We are to be consistent in posting. So if you read this out of curiosity, are just stopping by for the first time, or have been reading my columns in the New Castle Courier-Times for years, welcome and please visit again. If you want more information about the speaking programs I offer or where I’ll be on this promotional road (spring is by far my busiest season) check out the CONTACT tab above. Maybe we’ll connect along the way. Until then – or until my next post – I’d best get busy and try to get at least one more thing done before these roots get covered! By the way, if you are a blogger and read my posts, would you please take a moment and share your links and plug your own blogs and websites? I’d love sharing those with my readers and also check out your work for myself.
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Today’s post is a potpourri of topics. Let’s start with spring. It’s still March but the ornamental cherry tree in our back yard is rocking it out with blossoms. The white maple-tree leaves out front are red and healthy. Those can only mean that the wind and rain will knock the dickens out of them as they did last year! But then again, maybe not. Nature is rarely surprised by the calendar or weather. The back-porch wicker sofa is now sporting its newly covered cushions. I promised I’d show a photo of the end result. I stitched the covers by hand and they took an entire evening apiece. But they are done and I’m happy with them. The good news is I took the wise counsel of a quilter in line at the fabric store who told me to buy the whole bolt of fabric and I wouldn’t be sorry. She’s on point because I have enough to stitch up a couple chair pads and maybe even cover a couple toss pillows for nap time on the wicker sofa. Speaking of spring, last weekend I told Brian I’d like to throw out our old, worn grill. To my surprise, he agreed and it’s gone. It’s amazing how good it feels to eliminate something that needs to go. I’m going to hold off for quite a while on buying the porch ferns. Kroger in New Castle has some huge, lush babies but no, if I get them too soon they will not remain lush. The wind will beat them and the chills will damage them. So even if I have to bite my fingers, I’ll do it to keep from snagging a few of those before their time. One of Liberty's finest On Thursday, April 6, one of the few “famous” people who came from my hometown of Liberty, Indiana is speaking in New Castle and I volunteered to cover his talk. He’s Bob Jenkins, retired long-time voice of the Indy 500 and NASCAR. I’m looking forward to meeting him, as my brother knows him, and of course I've been proud of him for decades. Others famous from Liberty include Susan Wright, mother of the Wright brothers, Civil War Gen. Ambrose Burnside and James Whitcomb Riley’s “Little Orphant Annie.” I know it’s a short list but hey, it’s a list! Would love for you to join us at the museum, 606 S. 14th St., New Castle. To get your own seat on the pole, call the museum at 765-529-4028. Tickets are $15. A visit with Blaise Well, it was a treat.
And that's not counting the Elvis Brownies. Reporter Travis Weik and I paid a little visit to Glen Oaks Health Campus Tuesday afternoon for "tea time" with The Courier-Times' home-grown food columnist, Blaise Doubman, to my left, above, his mom Darla, Grandma Deloris, in pink, and their friend Margaret, to the right. You heard it here. One day Blaise will be a star on the national food scene. A brilliant recipe developer, cook, and baker, he is already author of a published cookbook and several social media connections. His column appears in The Courier-Times every first and third Sundays. Blaise created the Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie that appears in my second book. The crust is so easy and perfect that I've vowed to never again buy a pre-made version. Connect with him on his blog at Blaise the Baker (http://blaisethebaker.com). And if you want to sample his baked goodness, he's donating sweets to the 5-7 p.m. Saturday, April 1 Chili Cook-off fundraiser at Memorial Wesleyan Church in New Castle. Blaise brought Elvis Brownies for us to share back at the office. Suffice it to say there are none left. Thank you Blaise and family for the visit! We had a great time. Meanwhile, tonight, tonight ... It's been on the books for some time, and tonight is the night. A reported 27 writers are signed up for my workshop, "So You Want to Self-Publish a Book," at the Fishers Library, 6-8 p.m. We'll talk about aspects of self-publishing you may not have thought about such as taxes, marketing, and a variety of resources. If you're signed up, I look forward to our time together. If you aren't but would like to see a program such as this at YOUR library, let me know or let your local librarian know and maybe it can happen. You’d be hard-pressed to find the color orange in my house decor or wardrobe. In a world filled with gorgeous color, it’s my least favorite. My favorite hue is blue and to get right down to it, royal blue practically sings to me among the color’s various lovely shades. One day I noticed something interesting. With a color wheel before me, I went to my favorite, royal blue. Can you guess its exact opposite? Orange! I wonder if the same formula is true of other people’s color picks? That their favorite and least favorite colors oppose one another on the color wheel. Check it out for yourself and see. Next to royal blue, bright purple is my second favorite color, but there’s not a trace of it in my home. Then comes bright red, and I do have touches of that. My dad was an amateur artist, and his favorite color – the only person I know with this as a fave – was brown. I have to say that I do like brown, and gray too. There isn’t much gray in my house but there is a ton of it in my wardrobe and brown is everywhere in my house and wardrobe. I’m not much of a pink fan, and I have a complicated relationship with yellow. I love it in flowers and I have two rooms in my home painted yellow. I chose it in the southwest bedroom for the warmth might give on a cold winter’s day, and for how light-filled the room seems at dusk. There was a time when I thought I looked good in yellow. But I saw a photo of myself a year ago wearing it and thought it was about the worst color I could choose to wear. While I’m not fond of orange, I’ve curiously sought orange things out this past winter in a few ways. I joined Weight Watchers in January and their new program allows “free” fruits and vegetables (within reason). Tangerines have been my saving grace all winter and I’m still waiting to get burned out on them moving through spring. I hope I never do. And while for the longest time, Twinings Green Tea was my go-to evening beverage (I call it the Official Tea of Sweetland), for a couple of months now I have yearned for the crisp, smooth flavor of Bigelow’s Constant Comment. It’s the orange rind that makes it. And why was I so drawn to Kelly Finch’s orange-studded wreath that I got for Christmas decorating and it still adorns the window over the kitchen sink, only now with Easter chicks and bunnies beneath it on the ledge? And I can’t forget Reggie’s favorite toy, an orange rubber fellow. I’m grateful for the amazing bounty of all of God’s beautiful colors, including the bright, cheery orange in all of its forms. I realize that orange has its own perfect place in this colorful world, and that all colors do their parts and play their roles in His creation.
What’s your favorite color? Your least favorite? Going into last weekend I wondered how I would get everything done. Ever have a few-days period like that? Everything planned was good, but it was all a matter of timing to pull off. We couldn’t get together with our daughter-in-law Allison on her birthday, so we had a belated celebration. When Brian reminded me that his brother planned to spend Friday night with us as a stop en route to a convention, it seemed the perfect time to have the kids in and call it a dinner party! We all looked forward to it. I can’t remember the last time I baked a birthday cake. Usually we get one at the grocery store or maybe an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen, but there was something nice about digging out the round cake pans and turning on the oven, going old school. The party was fun, complete with a funny little game we made up (Brian and Steve helped me with the questions) called How Well Do You Know Allison? I learned that my DIL and I share our favorite color (blue) as well as our least favorite color (orange). After Sam and Allison went home at 11, I went to bed, Steve went to bed, but Brian and Ben stayed up and watched basketball until 2 a.m. Takes me back to the days when we visited Brian’s folks in Rockville and Brian and his dad stayed up late after the rest of us called it a night. Steve was up early Saturday to drink coffee with Brian before Steve left for his Kiwanis district meeting. I headed out soon after for the inaugural Alpha Tau Chapter of Tri Kappa’s Book & Author Luncheon. Here’s my little secret. Because I felt the need to tweak and practice my 10-minute speech, I left the house early enough to pull over at my little "speech staging area" in a remote country church parking lot. I’ve stopped there, at Soul Harbor, a few times to quietly sit in the car and read a presentation aloud without prying eyes or people looking funny at the crazy woman talking to herself. I find that having something on paper is quite different from speaking the words aloud, and so I try to run through speeches verbally several times before presenting them. The day was, at least by all the accounts I heard, a huge hit! About 140 gathered for the fundraiser luncheon and to hear brief talks from each of the six local authors featured. I know that I left there inspired by what each had to say. I was especially intrigued to hear local florist Teresa Southerland speak about how she has gotten gigs from The Smithsonian writing scientific copy for children’s booklets and pamphlets. It’s encouraging to hear that unexpected opportunities abound out there beyond our own communities. She does a great job. I did double duty, taking some photos at the event and then going back to the office to upload for the newspaper. Sunday I had to be at church before the first service as it was my rotation to work the information desk. Our small life group also was tapped to prepare and serve the welcome lunch and we were invited to stay for the meal. It all went together so smoothly! We were prepared to do clean up but told there was a crew for that so we got to leave and enjoy the afternoon before it was time to gather for our evening life group meeting. Brian and I even had time to get our weekly grocery shopping done, a surprise that I didn’t think we’d get done over the busy weekend. It was a fulfilling three days to have so much planned but also to see it all unfold in positive ways. Missions accomplished! TOP left: Chatting at the Alpha Tau Chapter of Tri Kappa luncheon.
TOP, right: Fruit-flavored water has appeal. CENTER, left: The meal is served. CENTER, right: Ruth Ann and Dick Willis look over some of Teresa Southerland's educational materials. She is a local florist and was commissioned by The Smithsonian. BOTTOM, left: Citrus and floral water. BOTTOM right: Our daughter-in-law Allison blowing out her birthday candles. It’s no secret that one of my favorite places is on our back porch. Several years ago, I had an idea to create an old-fashioned porch complete with space enough to comfortably seat 10, to outfit with a table and chairs, a couple of thrift-shop wicker rockers painted black and – the must-have – an all-weather wicker sofa for lounging, dreaming, writing and yes, (Shush!) napping. The porch would cover the “patio,” located out the back door of many suburban homes, including ours, and takes the form of a cement slab. Our slab was boring and completely non-welcoming. We spent zero time there. After Brian thought over my proposal, complete with his version of a Congressional inquiry, (“Do you think you or we would really use it?”) the porch was confirmed by our committee of two and sent on to our fabulous handyman, Monty Foust and his House to Home business. Monty created our back porch during one autumn, seeing to all the technical details such as roof pitch and labor while I dreamed of springtime hanging baskets and … finding the right all-weather sofa. The project exceeded my expectations and officially debuted at Ben’s graduation party. Since then, it has been the backdrop to many gatherings. I’ve noticed in the two times since its installation when we’ve hosted family reunions, even though we also rent a tent for the yard, people prefer to gather on the porch, even in numbers exceeding 10. But my favorite time on that porch, I have to admit, is when I’m there alone, the birds in peaceful harmony, the distant sound of kids playing in the neighborhood, and time to read, think or pound on the laptop. If you have a copy of my first novel, Sweetland of Liberty Bed & Breakfast, you’ll see that the porch on the cover of the fictional B & B features the black wicker and the striped fabric cushions. There they are crisp and new. But unlike in a painting, the cushions have faded and have mildew stains. It’s time for new slipcovers. Saturday Brian and I went to the fabric store in search of outdoor material for me to stitch into the slipcovers. We hit the jackpot because there were several bolts (Brian called them skeins) of beautiful, bright-colored fabric that would work well for the project and the big bonus: it was all 60-percent off. While figuring out how much I needed at the checkout, a quilter in line watching offered her two cents: “Take it all, the whole bolt. You’ll never regret getting too much fabric. You’ll always regret getting too little.” She’s right already. I have plenty to cover the six essential cushions, and enough left, it appears, to cover the seats of the two wicker chairs. It will all resemble a matching set. A friend with whom I email regularly wrote yesterday wondering why she hasn’t heard much from me lately. I’m sewing! And, I’m dreaming of hanging baskets, birdsong and summer on our porch. The other day I left the house bound for the grocery store. Less than two miles from home, I felt a wave of minor panic. Oh no! I forgot my cellphone!
What if I had a flat? What if someone at work needed me? What if I saw something funny and needed to text Brian? I thought of tapping the brakes and turning around. Then I thought of how life has changed, I'm being silly, and how I had spent most of my years without a phone in my purse and I've made it this far. . When I consider my personal history with cellphones, one image comes to mind. It’s not ancient history, either, but may seem that way, given how far our phones have come. The image is a scene at the Babe Ruth baseball diamond in Pendleton. That narrows down the time to about 16-17 years ago because that’s when Sam played Babe Ruth and that is the only reason we were seated on the bleachers in that setting. In the scene, a Babe Ruth dad walks by, cellphone plastered to his ear, a man so engrossed in a call that he isn’t watching the action on the diamond. Pitiful, we judged. Brian and I commented to each other with disdain. “Who is that busy that he has to take calls at the ball diamond? Leave it at the office! C’mom!” We were genuinely offended by the dad’s self-importance. Fast forward just a few years and we are the ones with the phones against our ears, as is everyone else around us. We were slow to get cellphones at our house. The first was a school-issue one for Brian, that went mostly unused. I think Ben, an eighth-grader, was the first to get a cellphone aside from Brian’s school cell. Ben’s was a birthday gift and it may be his favorite present, ever, because he said he didn’t dream we’d actually get him one. I never got the hang of texting when you had to hit number keys repeatedly to get letters. I am a lightning-fast typist, and I’ve been told I’m pretty quick with the pen and pad too, but texting? I was pitiful and I’m still not the best although my auto-corrects can be amusing. The early cellphone photos were poor and as recently as a couple of years ago, our editor had a policy against using them for newspaper photos. My, but they have come along and the DPI and general quality are quite good now. During my D.C. coverage last month, I relied on my cell camera and used my independent camera for back up. Brian uses his phone’s GPS daily in his part-time job and he’s as adept as anyone in looking up airline flights or checking to see if Milburn Stone (Doc Adams on Gunsmoke) could possibly still be alive. When I visited Israel in 2014, Brian and I spoke a few times and the connection was instant and as clear as if we were sitting next to each other on top of Masada. Growing up, the long-distance call to Connersville, about 10 miles away, sounded as though we were speaking half way around the world. The irony. I try not to be annoying with my cellphone but the other day I forgot to turn it off and it rang during a meeting. I got a dirty look and I deserved it. It’s a new world, for sure, and cellphones keep us connected in ways we wouldn’t have imagined just a couple handful of years ago. Basically, I feel naked without one. And no, Milburn Stone could not possibly still be alive. Seriously? You thought this was a political column?
Nope. I’m talking home and hearth and organization. Last night I couldn’t get to sleep until after midnight due to excitement. Some big thing planned for the weekend? A book signing or a trip out of town? Maybe a dinner out? No, no, and no. I was excited because for the first weekend in I don’t know how long, nothing is on the agenda, I’m not sick, Brian is (almost) not sick, and my soul needs some white noise. One of my all-time favorite tunes comes to mind, the John Denver classic, Hey It’s Good to be Back Home Again. It captures how I feel this weekend. Something you probably don’t know about me is that organization appeals to me. I can’t leave work until everything is, if not done, put away and my desk in order. I like my home to function the same way but sometimes I fall short due to extenuating circumstances. My friend, Debbie, has commented about how she is an orderly person and likes to have her ducks in a row. Well, me too. But sometimes other things press in and the order is put on hold. The ducks run wild! A shrink could have a field day with me, and my penchant for organization. I find it relaxing . So this morning after Weight Watchers, I stopped for a few things at the store and wandered down the organization aisle. An assortment of baskets for drawer organization (at least that’s how I interpreted them) appealed and on whim, I bought several. I came home and redid the kitchen-utensil junk drawer that’s been annoying me for a while. Bam! Instant satisfaction. Sometimes when the world feels as though it is spinning out of order, controlling a little piece of my own world is just what the doctor ordered. The weekend includes getting our tax papers in order, a trip to the library, some home-keeping chores, church, reading, completing Monday’s BSF lesson, looking at a couple of book commitments coming up that have been on the back burner, and maybe tackling a few more drawers. Brian is working out as I finish this post. I promised to make him homemade potato soup for supper. It’s on the stove. Hey, it’s good …both the potato soup, and being back home again with a weekend to relax, recharge, and organize. On Black Friday, while some of my dear ones are out there getting amazing bargains, making their way through traffic and crowds, I’m going nowhere. I’m perfectly content at home digging in the Christmas closet and festooning the house for the holidays. It's a kind of chaos, in its own way, only confined to our four walls.
Our nine-foot tree takes the longest to dress -- not my favorite to deck out. What I like best is putting up wreaths. Lots of them. Show me a door or even a doorknob on a cabinet, and I’ll show you a wreath to adorn it. I became interested in wreaths when grapevine became the material of choice in the late 1970s. Grapevine wreaths were ideal because not only did I love country decorating (now we have more sophisticated terms for it: farmhouse, cottage, or rural rustic), I also required cheap adornments. With an early-marriage budget and both of us working on college degrees, money was tight. Ah, but my parents had a farm with woods and fence rows. I could gather as many free grapevines as my heart desired. When we moved to a Fountain County farmhouse, I could find the vines along any number of fences on country roads. I made up a bunch of plain wreaths and on a whim, waltzed into the Veedersburg florist unannounced and asked if she wanted to buy some. She did! My entire stock, in fact. A dozen in all. Bolstered by entrepreneurial success, I got up the nerve to go big and ask The Apple House owner in Terre Haute if he was interested. He told me if I could make 100, he would buy them. He only bought in bulk. I thought it over and decided that while I could probably find materials for 10 or 15, (I'd alread moved a dozen!) 100 might be pushing it hard. So I didn’t take the job. But I’ve never stopped loving the humble, and not-so-humble, wreath – grapevine or otherwise. This holiday season, my first-ever square wreath, made of realistic-looking magnolia leaves, graces our front door. I added a red cloth bow. I wanted something different from the round evergreen wreaths with red bows I put on the outdoor windows every year. When the holidays are over, I may remove the bow and use the wreath as a substitute for art in our bedroom. Or leave it up all winter on the door. It was affordable, unlike some high-end versions I have seen, if you can even find them. Too cool to store away. Over the kitchen sink I have another new wreath this year. It was made by Kelly Finch of Liberty and contains small oranges with greenery and real rose-hips add a 3-D effect. Alongside the wreath are two red lanterns with the battery-powered “candles” inside. I found the lanterns in Kroger with the store’s holiday merchandise. On the kitchen table, a white-berry wreath I’ve had for years contains one of three glass-encased wire-brush Christmas trees and the other two flank it. I found those from Donna Finch at the Union County Extension Homemakers Bazaar. There’s a red berry wreath on the closet door, a deer wreath from Nancy Huntington, made by her friend, on the china closet door (I added the two feathers for even more of a rustic look), and there’s another Kelly wreath in service as a candle ring in the family room. If it holds still, I’ll put a ring on it. What is your favorite holiday decorating task? For the past couple of years, I’ve sworn off Pinterest. I’m back! At least for the holidays. Like many women, I enjoy browsing the incredibly popular and unique website and its boards. I can lose myself in the crafts, cooking, clothing, scenery, rural landscapes, home improvements, books, and decorating boards on that website. In fact, it’s because I enjoy them so much, I had to leave them behind for a while as I took the time to finish my second book, and then work on the programs for various presentations. It felt safer that way. It wasn’t only the leisurely looks at clever ideas or a solution to a decorating problem or a great new recipe. It was the fact that I can become easily distracted and if I happened on something that intrigued or inspired, I might scrap revising a chapter or recording a week’s worth of mileage in favor of booking it to the store and picking up spray paint or pinecone picks for an inspired project. Sunday was my catch-up day. The guys were at the Colts game and I had the house to myself where I moved through a week-long to-do list that didn’t get to-done, including messaging someone something I should have done a week ago, and I even cooked a homemade supper for when Brian got home. At the Union County Extension Bazaar, I bought a square wreath made of looks-like-real magnolia leaves. I had seen some like this in upscale magazines. I was delighted to find one for myself at a price I could manage. But how to doctor it up a bit? Pinterest! I have another project I’m hoping to complete this weekend. That is to fill my outdoor urns with winter greens and pinecones. Yes, I can hardly wait to get started with the annual Christmas decorating projects. I’ve got a lot of plans along those lines and will no doubt be sharing some scenes in the blogs ahead. Tomorrow, company is dropping by on the way to their family Thanksgiving and my friend is picking up several copies of my latest book for gifts. I’m so grateful for that show of support. I’m thankful for so many things. Faith. Church. Family. Friends. Work. Opportunities. And I’m thankful for YOU, my readers. Several of you mentioned over the past few days that you read this blog. I thank you. Now go get those Thanksgiving preps in order! There’s much to be done. Enjoy. If you would like information about getting signed copies of either of my books for your own gift-giving needs this holiday season, email me at newsgirl.1958@gmail.com. Oh, before I forget to mention it, I found the gourds this morning. Recently on Facebook I bemoaned an inability to locate the fake gourds that I get out every fall. A couple of people thought they might be with the Christmas decorations and that’s where they were – with a catch. They were tucked inside a basket on top of a shelf full of Christmas wreaths and table-top sized trees. I thought it was simply a random basket with nothing inside but pulled it down on a whim and there they were. I have no memory of putting them there. While the southeast is enduring a serious hurricane today, the contrast here is striking. It is a stunning day in the Hoosier state. I have had a non-stop week on the go including three special book programs in five days in Covington, Pendleton and New Castle. I will unpack those, but not today. Today feels like a treat, a stay-cation even, just to hang at home and do common things for a change. I have no programs this weekend for which to prepare, no vendor responsibilities. I need this break in the action and I actually crave it! Brian and I hit the grocery store earlier and I was inclined to pick up some extra ingredients. For one thing, I’m going to make Blaise Doubman’s Comedy of Errors Apple Pie for my church life group, the Midlife Moms, on Sunday night. There’s another recipe I may try if time allows for my work pals for Monday, but in case they are reading, best not promise. With this spectacular weather, I would like to touch up the porch’s black wicker with black paint before putting it away for the year. I always find that no matter how nice the weather seems during Indian Summer, by about Nov. 7, it’s time to pack up the outdoors stuff for the season as the party’s over. There's something completely satisfying about putting something seasonal away with its repairs completed so that when it's time to get it back out, it looks wonderful and is ready for action rather than paint and primping. I’ve got a hankering to pick up some pumpkins to decorate the front porch. In one of Brian’s two annual decorating escapades, (the other being putting Christmas lights out front on the shrubs) he enjoys carving Halloween pumpkins. I’m more a fan of them in their natural state. I have bills to pay, general clean-up and putting the house back together after a week of inattention, unpacking my car and taking inventory of books after the week’s programs. And I have to work on my Monday Bible Study lesson and -- is there a chance I will get to one? -- I was given two books to read this week that beckon: a freebie Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None, that Henry County folks are reading in the annual Big Read program, and a loan from Ruth Phelps, Billy Graham’s The Journey: How to Live By Faith in an Uncertain World. Oh, there’s also laundry and umpteen other jobs if I get to them. I won’t. But the longing is there for home, chilling out, and nothing of a deadline nature outside of the newspaper norm. Tomorrow, I’m meeting my Greenfield, Indiana, buddy Suzy to take in Riley Days. What are you up to this weekend? This fall? Whatever your plans, I hope you enjoy them. We’ll talk soon. BELOW: Basket of ... deplorables? Nah, gourds. BEL W RIGHT: a kitchen centerpiece with a my new favorite fall candle scent: Yankee's Salted Caramel. |
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