Our friend Mike got baptized yesterday morning. It was one of many decisions he has made to change his life from drifting and unhappy, into focused and goal-oriented. Mike has taken control of his life and is choosing who he wants to be. The fact that he picked our church brings us joy, but even more joyful is seeing how he chooses every day to do hard things because they take him where he wants to go. Most adults are not willing to dare to change so much about who they are. It inspires me to look at my own life and see if there are things that I am afraid to change.
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Yesterday evening Howard was grouchy and decided to get out of the house. He wandered his way down to the Provo Festival of Books where several of our published author friends were presenting. Within an hour he called me because he’d arranged for a whole group to head out for dinner. I set Kiki and Link to babysitting the younger two and then drove myself down to join them. The world is a wonderful place when we can gather a group of friends for dinner and then later realize that 4 of them are New York Times bestselling authors and one was a Nebula award winner. All that authorial importance at the table and somehow the evening was completely lacking in ego. I love being at the table with high-energy creative people. They work really hard and that is why they have succeeded. Just as inspiring to me were the other people at the table, the ones who have not yet earned banner success, but who are also high-energy creative people. Dinners like that one are one of the rewards for the fretting and work we do much of the rest of the time.
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The snowball bush is finally in bloom. Usually the blooms arrive in mid-May, but they were delayed by the cool weather. This means it is time for the annual snowball bush flower fight. This is where the kids pick snowball-shaped clusters of white flowers and throw them at each other or fling them into the air like confetti. Also in full bloom are my irises. They’re swirling their petals like Spanish dancers and filling the air with a spicy floral scent. These things thrive despite my neglect of them in recent years. I hope that this summer I can spend more time with them.
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The thought arrived during the closing hymn. We were on the second verse of “Be Thou Humble” when I knew that though my currently-in-query-process book and all my future writings will bring me criticisms, the good accomplished by them will far outweigh the negative criticism. It was a calming thought. I have been much worried about how bad reviews and hateful comments would injure me. My book is based in my life and it will be very hard to remain objective. I have some of the same concerns in my blog. I often have an impulse to leave things unsaid and thus shield myself. But the good will outweigh the difficulty. I can hold on to that.
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The chore lists have been updated and placed on our bulletin board in the kitchen. Each child has a grid. Seven days of the week across and ten weeks down. Each day that they complete their list of chores they fill in a square. At the end of the week, each filled square represents allowance money. Each completely filled week adds to the bonus which they can earn at the end of the summer. It is a new iteration of an old system, and thus more easily understood by the kids than explained in words. They all contemplated their charts, running calculations in their heads about money they could earn and what they could buy. I look at the charts and hope that they will help tame the household chaos and teach my kids the value of daily effort. Howard and I also have daily household chore lists. We could learn the same daily effort lesson in regards to household maintenance. The system will probably fall apart. I just hope it is tight enough to last through 10 weeks of summer.
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I sat on a stool in my kitchen reading out loud from a manuscript page. Kiki was rolling out biscuits as she listened. Link and Patch just sat in chairs, listening with bright eyes and smiles. Mom reading aloud is fairly common, but this story was about them. One of the rules I set myself for my book was that the kids would get ultimate approval about what I say about them. This was their chance to hear my words and tell me what they thought. They loved hearing the stories, even when the stories were about their mis-behaviors and childishness. We still have more to read, but thus far only Link has requested a change. It is a minor wording change which will leave the heart of the story intact. It is a small thing to do to acknowledge to my kids that their opinions matter to me.