Ten Minutes that Almost Changed My Life

At 2 p.m. the phone rang.
"Hey, just wanted to let you know I'll be a little late tonight." said hubs.
"Okay, why?" I asked.
"I had an accident. Don't freak. I'm fine. I knocked over a telephone pole. The truck and trailer are going to need some work. The ambulance came even though I told them I didn't need them." said hubs.
My heart is in my throat. "I'm so glad you are okay. Was anyone else hurt?"
"No. I moved over so another car could pass and the wheel of the truck was to heavy for wet shoulder and it caved in as I started to drive off. The trailer hit the same spot and fishtailed across the road and knocked down the pole. Anyway I'm waiting for the sheriff so I'll be late."

I hang up glad he's at least going to be coming home.

2:05 the phone rings again.
My mom is on the phone crying. Now my mom doesn't cry. She's lost 3 sons and a son-in-law she's the strongest woman I know. If she's crying the world is about to end.
It takes her a moment to get it out. "I didn't want to call you." gasp "I had to though. You have to know."
Okay, forget the telephone accident I'm really upset now.
"What? What do I have to know?"
"Josh called me." Josh is my youngest son he's 22.
"Josh? Why?"
"He didn't want me to tell you. I told him I had to and he hung up on me."
This is not good. Josh would never do that to his grandmother.
"What did he say?"
"He said he's in jail and he needs 2500 to get out. He was arrested for drunk driving."
Now I'm really upset. Josh is working upstate. This can't be right. He wouldn't do this sort of thing, drinking driving and calling his grandmother for money something in the world must have happened to cause this insanity. Besides I had texted him and he replied less than two hours earlier.
"Mom, it's okay. I'll call him and see what's going on. You did the right thing."
"He's going to hate me for telling you but I could just take the money to this place and have them send it to him without telling you."

I call Josh, he doesn't answer his phone. I leave him a nice mom message. I love you, you need to tell dad and I what is going on so we can help.
That wasn't satisfactory for me so I texted him. "Where are you?"
Less than a second later one came back. "Working."
I texted him, "Call me now."
He called and said, "What grandparent died?" (you have to know our history, this is not a crazy question)
"None of them, but one of them called and said you called asking for bail money because you are in jail."
"What!!!!!" silence. "I'm at work. I didn't call. Hang up I'm calling Grandma right now."

Turns out there are some really evil people out there messing with older people. Make me very angry that they would put my mom through this. Josh is a good kid and if he were in trouble the last person he would call would be his grandmother. 

So those ten minutes were unpleasant but tonight as I write this I'm thankful the story ended with only truck and trailer damage and a traumatized mom.

Time for a breather!

NANO is over. I finished. I'm not happy with the end result but I did walk away with a better work ethic. AS in I will write everyday!

This weekend we met some friends downtown St. Louis. It was unseasonably warm, just the way I like the weather! We went to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner. They brought me the wrong kind of noodles, three months ago I would not have known the difference and I would have been sick. Now I  am wiser and asked them please to give me the gluten free pasta. This has been a hard learning process for me. I am not one to send things back to the kitchen but there wasn't a choice here.

Later we drove to Kiener Plaza. I wish this shot had turned out a bit better. I took it with my phone because I forgot the camera. This is the court house and in the background you can see the arch. 

Tomorrow is December 1, I am not quite ready okay, I am not ready for Christmas. After a solid month of hard writing my house is a disaster! So I must clean it before thinking about putting out the tree. I also have to figure out how to feed 30 people on Christmas. I wonder how they would feel about gluten free food?

Snowflakes in November!!!!

Sorry not the white fluffy, snowmen kind! This is really a post for my writer friends. Randy Ingermanson a.k.a. The Snowflake Guy has produced a program called Snowflake Pro and until Friday night you can get it for $20!!!!! That is amazing. I ordered it and worked with it yesterday. I love it.
Why?
I no longer have to dig in my files to find my snowflake information when I start a new book.
I can now open and SAVE** (very important) a file for a new idea.
It is super easy to use, so easy that he gives you not one but three ways to understand what the program wants from you. You can listen to an audio, view lecture notes, or view help notes.
IF you do all the things the program asks you then push the AUTOMATIC PROPOSAL CREATOR you will be almost ready to send it off to a publisher!  You still have to tweak it a bit fill in places (there are hints about what should go in there)  but  if you struggle with writing these you'll love this feature.

***SAVE  something I should have done right away but forgot and then when asked if I wanted to save I didn't. I blame it on NANOWRIMO brain. Today I start over I'm sure it will be much better than the first edition.
Remember this 80% off offer ends ends on Friday
night, November 20, 2009 at midnight sharp, California
time. Snowflake Pro

AND this is important Randy has not even asked me to review this program much less pay me. :) It's just that good I wanted to share.

15 movies in 15 minutes

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen movies you've seen that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.This was fun to do. I have so many favorites but these were the first to come to my mind. Very eclectic!
1. Mary Poppins
2. Gone with the Wind
3. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
4. The Jne Austin Book Club
5. Where the Red Fern Grows
6. Christmas Story
7. Sleepless in Seatle
8 Sweet Home Alabama
9. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
10. Carosel
11. Streetcar Named Desire
12. Dark Victory
13. Hush Hush Sweet Charolote
14. Under the Tuscon Sun
15. The Holiday

Warm at last!

Oh my but this is great! Typing as fast as I can think or 'not think' for NANO leaves my hands feeling as if I left them in the ice cube collector in the freezer. Today I hit the 15000 mark. I was so happy to find these wonderful fingerless gloves in my mailbox this morning. Thank you Terry Calvin for these. I will treasure them. I could not possibly knit these marvels on my own without a lot of lessons. The great thing is they WORK! Notice my fingers are not blue! I also have no fingernail polish on because who has time to do that during NANO?

Creative Space Thursday--a writer's paradise

It's still the first week of NANO (national November Writer's Month) and I'm still smiling. It's going well, but then it hasn't been an entire week yet. Today I went over the 8000 word mark. Feels good, very good. But tomorrow as Scarlet would say is another day.

So why am I smiling?I get to go here every Thursday in November and write. I'm not in my home of a coffee shop. I'm in a secret location, another writer's home and let me just say it's paradise. The colors are word tingling, yes word tingling. You walk in and the creative part starts speaking words then sentences. Did I mention this wonderful writer supplies me with gluten free cookies?

Still here's another reason to smile.

If it weren't for that bottle of diet Dr. Pepper on the table it would be easy for me to think I dreamed this nirvana. The entire wall of her dining/living room is filled with those spectacular bookcases. Need a name? She has a baby name book. Want to know what a castle in Germany looks like? She has a book for that. Need an example or two of excellent novel beginnings? She has that too. It's a jewel box colorful jackets that speak to you across the room. "Keep writing you'll be on this shelf someday!"

And the flowers? Her hubs sent them to her and her daughter a show of support during NANO. And I got to enjoy them too!

Fall arrives and so does Nano month

Hubs and I were taking a drive down a road close to town. It has been gray and rainy for several days. On this day it seemed we hadn't seen the sun in months.

We we're discussing how much like winter it already felt, unlimited gray skys, dreary cold, no color. Then we round a curb and saw this marvelous handiwork of God. The sun wasn't shining anywhere that we could see but the tree tops were lit this glorious orange red.

It reminded me that God is present even in the darkest moments of our lives.



NANOWRIMO started today at 12:00 a.m I have yet to write a word but I will. I have big plans I always do the first few days. Then it gets really hard. This year though I've been armed with some good tools.
1. Liquid Story Binder--now on sale half price, normally $45. It has some much organizational helps I can't tell you how much it will help keep track of all the little details that float into your mind. I used to think it was a hard program to learn then I found  Not Enough Words She has broken this program into 'make sense' tutorials. So I'm pretty well on my way to a well thought out novel or at least it looks like it.
2. A book called From the Inside out by Sunan May Warren and Rachel Hauck. It helped me flesh out my characters and the setting and the plot. I recommend this one as well worth the money.

3. My netbook. I can take it anywhere and write. I have a laptop but it's hooked with lots of cables to a monitor and printer on my desktop. It's harder to dismantle it. So the netbook being light is easy to toss in my bag and go. Go to the park, the back yard, a friends house, borders or the couch next to the wood stove when it gets cold this month.
4. Prayer...lots of it from those at ACFW and my critgroups as we challenge ourselves to write our books this month.  ACFW is  the American Christian Fiction Writers and if you are thinking you might like to be a writer I recommend this group. Everyone is kind, helpful and the site has a ton of information to help you with your career.

I'm out of here I'll post when I can this month but I'm hoping for understanding if my posts seem odd due to the vast amount of caffeine needed to keep the words filling my screen.

Review: Leaving Carolina by Tamara Leigh

I love this book! What a fun read and yet...it's not all light and fun. There are some serious family relationship issues to be resolved. Some of them are huge and you have to wonder how Leigh will be able to fix this maladjusted family. Does she? Not telling.

Piper Wick is a fun character. She's changed her name from Piper Pickwick --can you even imagine what she had to endure on the playground...oh wait, Piper isn't real she's the main character in this book. Leigh has brought her to life for readers though. If I were ever in Pickwick, North Carolina I'm sure I'd be looking for her.

There is a huge cast of family members in this book and they all have some kind of secret.

Then there is that yummo gardener, Axel Smith, to bad Piper is already taken.

The scenes with the pickled corn still has me wanting to taste some. I think I need to take a trip to the south and get some. 

You can get this delightful read here.

*This book provided to me for review by Multnomah.