If it had been, I’d have posted this video:

Is he not the sweetest baby in the whole wide world?

My son is still a trickster.

If I ask him to do something for me, he’ll say “no” while he’s doing what I asked.

Oh, and my Grandmother’s voice is in the background. She says, “He loves Grandmama.” And he did.

And you find out in the first few pages of The Husband Tree by Mary Connealy.

The book blends romance with the wild wild west where love is found on a cattle drive. I read it in one day and said to my husband, Scott, who doesn’t read westerns, “I think you’ll like this book.”

He read the back and said, “I’ll read it.”

He did. In one day. And said, “You’ll have to buy this book. This is one we’ll want to keep.” (I borrowed it from the Durham Public Library)

I think he loved the feisty females–a mother (Belle) and her 4 girls(one of them an infant) who are determined to run their ranch without the help of a husband. In fact, the oldest girls made their mother promise never to bring another man into their home, because in their minds, all men are worthless.

Likewise, Silas has sworn off conniving females, but he needs a job and agrees to go on a cattle drive with these five females. Yes, he is a glutton for punishment.

Worth your time reading if you enjoy romance.

Interview them, shadow them to find out how they obtained success.

I want to become a published author, so following Dave Ramsey’s advice, I contacted a published author.

Alice J. Wisler is a Durham author published by Bethany House. I friended her on Facebook sometime ago and, knowing she lived in Durham, I asked if she would meet me sometime.

The Facebook App on my Android phone apparently wasn’t working properly. I sent other messages, but they weren’t going through. So, thinking she probably thought I was a kook anyway, I didn’t contact her anymore.

Then, recently, she posted on Facebook that she spent time at Bruegger’s within walking distance of my office building. I asked if she would meet me and, surprisingly, she agreed.

Her books are set in North Carolina giving an instant appeal for this NC girl.

Rain Song is set in the town of Mount Olive, NC

At my initial contact with her, I put the book in my car just in case she agreed to meet me. Unfortunately, that was during the hot months of the year. The glue holding the pages melted and fell out.

And being the crazy person that I am, I asked her to sign that copy. And she did!

From the book cover:

Nicole Michelin avoids airplanes, motorcycles, and most of all, Japan, where her parents once were missionaries. Something happened in Japan. Something that sent Nicole and her father back to America alone. Something of which Nicole knows only bits and pieces. But she is content with life in little Mount Olive, North Carolina, with her quirky relatives, tank of lively fish, and plenty of homemade pineapple chutney.

Through her online column for the Pretty Fishy Web site, she meets Harrison Michaels, who, much to her dismay, lives in Japan. She attempts to avoid him, but his e-mails tug at her heart.

Then Harrison reveals that he knew her as a child in Japan. In fact, he knows more about her childhood than she does! Will Nicole face her fears in order to discover her past and take a chance on love?

My thoughts:

I enjoyed the book and I’m not saying that just because the author agreed to meet me for lunch.

The questions we have throughout the novel, like why Nicole’s treasured doll has one sleeve shorter than the other, are all answered when she learns what happened the night her mother died–the one event that haunted her since age 2.

Being a romance reader, I longed to know what happened between Nicole and Harrison after they met. I’ll leave that to my imagination.

Enjoyable read.

In 2009 Psychologist Johan Karremans concluded that men experienced temporary stupidity after interacting with women(I think we all suspected as much).

But it seems they don’t know why this happens to men (women do NOT have the same temporary issue). It is clear to me why and it is all about blood flow to the brain.

When I’m dehydrated, blood doesn’t get to my brain and it makes it harder for me to remember things, so in periods where I need to be on top of my game mentally, I need to be well hydrated.

Unfortunately I don’t have a solution for this male-only issue.

The book I’m working on now is about a gentleman who always seems to become a bumbling idiot around a certain female. It is a fun story that  now has scientific validity.

Sleeping Baby Logan -- look at those cool bedroom slippers

Later, when he was in first grade, I watched him sleep for different reasons.

Seizures stole his restorative sleep making his body unable to fight off infection.

Baby Logan and His Big Boy Bed

The day before yesterday we got him a new bed. He had been sleeping on the old one that my husband and I “inherited” when we were married over 23 years ago.

AND it was time for a new one because at age seventeen and at over six feet tall his feet hung off the full mattress.

This morning I stood in his doorway watching him sleep on his new really big boy bed. There is still something soothing about doing that.

This is my baby today seen here with Felicia P(she’s 5’6″):

See how tall he is.

The joke in the family is that he got his height from me, his 5’3″ mother. He stole it from me, that’s why I’m not tall. But really, he did get the height gene from my side of the family. My dad is 6’2″.

Have you’ve been told that devastating news?

Pastor Barry discusses his experience in this video.

“The cancer was so large, about the size of a football, they had to take out a rib. I said to the Doctor, ‘What are you going to do, make me another woman? I’ve got a fine one already. I don’t need another one.”

Ephesians 5:4-20

Did you make a resolution to drink more water this year? Come to this water, you’ll never thirst again.

John 4:1-42

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

¹ Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— ² although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^[a])

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

²⁷Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

³¹ Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³ Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

³⁴ “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶ Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷ Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Many Samaritans Believe

³⁹ Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴² They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Isaiah 12

Songs of Praise

¹In that day you will say:

“I will praise you, LORD.
Although you were angry with me,
your anger has turned away
and you have comforted me.
² Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense^[a];
he has become my salvation.”
³ With joy you will draw water
   from the wells of salvation.

⁴ In that day you will say:

“Give praise to the LORD, proclaim his name;
make known among the nations what he has done,
and proclaim that his name is exalted.
⁵ Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things;
let this be known to all the world.
⁶ Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion,
for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.”

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock.

1 Corinthians 7: 29-31

Ephesians 5:15-20

Notes from the message–

Five Life Experiences that must be kept in Balance:

1. Marriage
2. Sorrow
3. Joy
4. Business
5. Pleasure

Peter Walks Upon the Water

Mark 6:45-51

Matt 14:22-33

It’s the processing of those “What-ifs” that has always stumped me.

I’ve checked out books from the library like Mastering Creative Anxiety and Write it Down, Make it Happen to find clues as to how to get past my writing blocks.

One idea I gleaned from Write it Down is “Being near water–one of the four elements of life–is conducive to creativity.”

Since I can’t make it to the beach every weekend (That would be wonderful), I remembered a small waterfall I’ve had for some time. It had been relegated to the basement with the other unused stuff. I cleaned it up, poured some water in it and set it by my side.

Now I hear the trickle of water throughout my writing session.

My husband reminded me that we already had that water sound in the form of a finicky toilet in the downstairs bathroom. Unless you jiggle the handle after flushing, it runs non-stop. I suppose I could have gone with that, but between a running toilet and a babbling brook, well I prefer the babbling brook.

Here’s a picture of my newest writing tool.

(Aren’t you glad I didn’t take a picture of my toilet?)