Do you read me? Do you read me?

            My children recently discovered, buried in a drawer, an old pair of walkie-talkies.  Tim picked them up from work years ago when he was working at an office supply store.  The walkie-talkies had been marked down so low that with his employee discount, they were free.  He brought them home, assuming they would someday come in handy, and tossed them in a drawer to wait for that day.  They sat there for about 8 years, until this past week when my children unearthed them….

            Since then, we have heard nothing but “Do you read me?  Do you read me?  Over.”  The kids are having so much fun with their new “toys”.  They talk to each other from different bedrooms in the house.  They talk to each other on bike rides around the block.  They talk to each other from one side of the street to the other, or from the backyard to the front.  From what I can gather, they are saying nothing of consequence.  They mostly ask, “Where are you now?”  and “Can you hear me?”  The fun is not in the conversation, obviously, but in having the connection with each other.  

            As I watch their joyful faces holding those walkie-talkies to their mouths and talking in earnest, I can’t help but wonder about the future.   For now, my children are all best friends.  They may not admit that very readily, but it is true.  They play together constantly.  They laugh together.  And talk together.  And make up games and stories together.  And share inside jokes that only they understand.  They really are each other’s closest companions and greatest playmates.  

I think that is why they are so thrilled with the connection the walkie-talkies have afforded them over the last few days.  They can be together while being in two different rooms, or while being yards and yards down the street from each other.  

            The walkie-talkies are great.   But, I know the real connection comes from being part of the same family.  It comes from shared genetics and from shared experiences.  It comes, mostly from God, who blessed each of them with a very special connection to four magnificent playmates and life-long friends-- in their siblings.  

I pray that even after the novelty of the new toys wears off, even after the batteries have died, even after they grow up and move away and live apart from each other, with separate lives and families of their own—they will still feel closely connected.  I pray they will always revel in the privilege of their connection to each other.  

For now, they are all just enjoying the simple privilege of running around the neighborhood asking over and over, “Do you read me?”

What does your car say about your values?

            For the last two months or so, my children and I have been conducting a sort of survey, a very informal survey, about the values of those around us.  

It all started at a red light.  We sat there waiting for the light to turn green and looking around and we noticed, on a car ahead of us, a “choose life” license plate.  Now, in Florida you have your choice of the “normal” state license plate featuring an orange branch or one of about 165 different designs, each supporting a different cause.  We chose the “choose life” plate, which promotes and supports pro-life values and organizations, for each of our cars.   So have many of our friends.  

So many of our friends have "choose life" license plates that whenever we happen to see a car with one, my children assume it is a friend of ours.  They inevitably start straining their little necks trying to get a good look at the car’s inhabitants.  

         So while my children tried to figure out which of our friends was headed in the same direction as us on that particular day, I noticed another car that happened to catch my eye.  That second car had a big bumper sticker proclaiming the superiority of the owner's dog.  I sat there looking at the two cars and thinking about the values of those around me in our community.  

I couldn’t help but remember that a year ago a local (city run) community center closed citing a lack of funds to keep it open.  At that exact same time, a few miles away, the city was working diligently with big back hoes and bull dozers to clear out space for and then to build a dog park.  I found it interesting that there was money for the dog park but not for the community center.  

So sitting there at that red light two months ago, I proposed an idea to my children.  I suggested we keep a little log of the cars we see.  For every pro-life license plate or bumper sticker we added a tally mark to one side of a piece of paper.  For every “spay/neuter” license plate or dog or cat bumper sticker we added a tally mark to the other side.  

            At first, the pro-life side was doing well, winning in fact.  My children were quick to point out that most of those tally marks came from cars found in the church parking lot, and had we not frequented so many Catholic churches, we might not have such luck but still, it gave me hope.   

Then, as we drove around town more keeping busy with our summer plans, the pet tallies seemed to grow faster and faster.   Soon, the pet tallies matched the pro-life tallies.  They were neck and neck, just one more “dog” car would put the pet side over….

Feeling disheartened about the whole thing, I figured I could pretty much officially declare-- there is a greater respect for and appreciation of dogs and cats than there is for the lives of unborn children.

This morning though—the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic home school conference came to Tampa.  As we pulled into the parking lot excited to go check out the amazing selection of Catholic home school books, we were surrounded by pro-life license plates and bumper stickers galore!  It seemed every other car in the parking lot proclaimed the sanctity of life.  25 more tally marks for the pro-life side, at least!

My hope is renewed.  The parking lot was a great sign.  Inside the hall, it was even better.  Mothers with babies, families perusing the tables together, dads picking out Catholic curricula, a holy priest up front speaking about the importance of family prayer— I knew I was in the presence of a hall full of like-minded, strong Catholics.  It was beautiful.
  

So, what is the result of our survey of values?

Unfortunately out in the world, pro-lifers are clearly in the minority. But, we are not alone.  There are others who value unborn life and when we get together- beautiful things happen!  And, of course, we have our Church, Our Blessed Mother, and Our Lord on our side too….. 

An announcement-- FINALLY!

Yes, I can 

finally, 

officially,  

excitedly,

announce......

That my novel is published and 
available for purchase!!!!!!!!

I thought about the idea for years.

I worked on it for months (and months).

I waited for the proof copy, the final copy, the word from Amazon that it was listed 
for weeks.

And now, I can say  

I am truly an author!

My novel, The Life I Dreamed, can be found here in paperback, and here in Kindle edition.

I do not want to give anything away, but I will say it is a pro-life novel about a young Catholic family who is trying to do what is right and follow God's plan for their life.

If you are interested, it is actually and officially possible for you to buy the book!!!!!!

:)

Turtle Walk

We had to get up really early on Saturday, like with the sun….

We headed down to the beach and were practically alone there on the sand…

Just us and the turtle walkers, volunteers who spend their mornings scouring the beaches for the telltale tracks of mama sea turtles coming up the beach to lay their eggs deep within the sand before going back to the water, never to see their little babies hatch…

My mom heard that if you got to the beach early enough in the morning, you could accompany the turtle walkers as they discovered, verified, and marked turtle nests, to help keep the hatchlings safe as they incubate in the warm sand.  She invited us to come to her house and check it out with her….

We witnessed the verification and marking of two loggerhead nests, each with about 100 eggs in it!   

We even got to help out a little.   

Our turtle ‘tour guide” brought along some things to help teach us about sea turtles and patiently answered all our questions.  

 The turtle eggs we saw, should hatch around August 24.  If we can, we would LOVE to go back and witness their hatching and their journey to the Gulf.  That usually happens in the middle of the night, so we will have to wait and see... but what a fun and educational morning we had! 

Signs of summer

When we were planning our summer vacation to Pennsylvania, one of the things I was most looking forward to was catching lightning bugs with my children.  We don’t have lightning bugs in Florida.  We have lovebugs, which look a lot like lightning bugs but where their light should be, there is another bug attached at the end.    Love bugs and lightning bugs are similar, except that love bugs are extremely annoying.   Lightning bugs, on the other hand, are  amazing, enchanting, and astonishing!

My children have never had the joy of watching those bright glowing insects flying around the yard and blinking their little lights on and off, on warm summer evenings.  My children have never had the fun of chasing fireflies around and catching them to put in jars and bring into their rooms at night for special live nightlights.  They have never held those magical little bugs on their hands feeling the tickle of their tiny legs.  They have never experienced the awe of summer nights while the stars flicker overhead and lightening bugs flicker all around them.  

My childhood summers always included lightning bugs.  They were a sign of freedom from school and long late nights playing outside and of cook-outs and fun with friends and the magic that was summer itself.  It makes me sad that my children have never even seen them, let alone played amongst them.  

I told my children all about lightning bugs and about how we would see them on our vacation and about how we would catch them and save them in jars for a while and watch their lights blink on and off before letting them go and watching them fly off blinking away into the night.  Then, our trip was cancelled and our chance to see lightning bugs was gone.  

But then, I got an e-mail from “School Express” about a unit study on fireflies!  It is not the same as really getting to play with them but the kids and I went through the unit study together and read all about fireflies (which are also known as lightning bugs and glow worms).  Then we printed off a few coloring sheets from the website and put our pictures into construction paper “jars” to hang them up and try to recreate a little of the summer fun we are missing out on.

Its obviously not the same as real lightning bugs but we are making the best of things!  

Hope your summer is magical and special 

and filled with wonder!

So much for our plans!

            We woke this morning to the sound of pouring rain hammering our roof and the wind whipping the trees in our backyard. Tropical storm Debby is churning up the Gulf waters and growing stronger and stronger near our central Florida home.   

As of today, my family is supposed to be on vacation.  For six months we were planning it.  It was to be an epic family road trip from Clearwater, FL to Cook Forest, PA.  About 20 hours of driving, with all seven of us crammed into the mini-van, along with a week’s worth of stuff packed into suitcases in the back.  

We were all anxiously anticipating it—road trip and all.  We had planned out where we would stop along the way and what fun things we would do when we arrived.  My aunt and uncle own a spacious cabin up there and they had invited us, and the rest of the extended family, to come and stay in their cabin for a family reunion and week-long vacation.   My aunt had written us and told us about the tubing and the fishing and the exploring we could do.   She had sent the kids postcards from the area showing them just what the gorgeous scenery looked like.  The kids have spent the last year exchanging letters with her and building a wonderful pen pal relationship and the trip was as much about meeting their beloved great aunt and pen pal as it was about the woods and the cabin.  

Then Tim lost his teaching contract.  He found his new job and our plans for two months of uninterrupted family time crumbled.  Our plans for our vacation fell apart as well.  It would not have been right to accept a new job and then ask for a week off, just two weeks after starting.  Besides that, the rest of the family had had their own problems.  It seemed no one could find the time or money to invest in a week in the forests of Pennsylvania.  So, we called the whole thing off just about three weeks ago.  

The kids took the news pretty well.  We decided to plan a much smaller road trip for later in the summer, just our family, for just a few days to St. Augustine.  It will not be the same but will still be fun, I’m sure. So this week finds us not on a fun filled family vacation but at home experiencing a rain filled tropical storm.  

            We have all heard the phrase “we plan, God laughs”.  That has been the theme of our life the last few weeks.  First, Tim’s job, then this.  I know God must be laughing up there in heaven right now.  You see, we had planned to visit and vacation with Aunt Debbie in Pennsylvania but we ended up being stuck at home in Florida with an unanticipated visit from Tropical Storm Debby instead!

Almost an announcement

This is not an official announcement exactly- but I thought I would share the news on my novel and the journey to get to this point (of not quite publishing…… yet).  

It has been an interesting process starting almost a year ago.  Last August, I stumbled upon a brief reference to novel writing and “NaNoWriMo” while reading a home school blog that I have never since visited and cannot even remember the name of.  Nevertheless, my interest was piqued.  I went straight to the website for NaNo and was intrigued by the idea of writing a novel in a month.  

It was summertime though, months away from November, national novel writing month, (which, if you have not figured out is what NaNoWriMo refers to). I thought about it, and prayed about it and mulled the idea over in my mind.  Could I write a novel?  Could I do it in four short weeks?  And more importantly could I write a novel in a month and still manage my home, care for my 5 children, home school them -- you know, maintain a relative amount of real life responsibility at the same time?  

The whole idea sounded completely crazy!  But, I decided, now that I knew about it, there was no way I could not at least try.  And, I actually did have a story idea.  An idea I felt God had sent me.  I prayed and promised God this would be His project, not mine, and I let Him know He would have to guide it all.  

So for months I thought about plot lines, character names, and how to fit in novel writing between cooking dinner and folding laundry.  Over and over, I reminded God I would need His help if this was to be and asked again and again for His guidance and reassurance.  

I did not write down one single word of my story before November lest I break a NaNo rule and render my novel illegitimate.  But very early on the 1^st of November, I finally sat down to write, competing with my two oldest children for computer time because they, too, chose to participate in NaNoWriMo and had stories to compose as well.

Three weeks into the month, I reached the goal of 50,000 words.  By month’s end, I finished the entire story- beginning, middle, and end.  

Then, the real work began….editing, editing, editing.  Rewriting, reworking, revising.  But, God answered my prayers and so many things fell into place.  Along the way, I have been blessed with the support and assistance of many wonderful professionals and friends.  Through the grace of God (and the help of a friend), I was put in touch with a professional copy editor who agreed to edit my story free of charge.  Later, a friend who is a brilliant graphic designer, generously designed my cover, also for free.  Perhaps the most valuable thing I received, though, was the support of my wonderful family who allowed me the time to work, believed in me even when I doubted myself, and enthusiastically cheered me on every step of the way.  

Today we ordered the “proof copy” of my completed work of fine literature.  Assuming the proof copy contains no major errors or problems, the book will then be ready for publishing.  Hopefully, by June 30^th it will be available through Amazon for purchase.  I will keep you all posted……