Reading Is My Super Power

It's Friday--And Boy, Am I Seeing Flies in My Soup!

I'm having one of those days. I spent the morning throwing in loads of laundry while trying to do some writing. The towels are fluffy, but the writing is going to have to start all over again. Ick. A mess.

Then, I wanted to update my blog. Let's just say that my technological intelligence is not staggering any huge corporations. After many frustrations, I finally gave up. Took my dog for a walk in the brilliant sunshine and changing leaf colors--and nearly stepped on a snake! Have I ever told you about my snakes? We live in a woods and those snakes are everywhere, it seems. Sometimes they sun themselves on our front doorstep.

I don't care what kind of a snake they turn out to be--I do not want to be in the same vicinity. Talk about an enmity between my kind and its kind (See Genesis 3 for a refresher on that one.) One snake was a rat snake. Quite pretty. Alternating black and silvery white stripes. The other snake was a garter snake. Both are agressive and will strike. While not poisonous, I could get an infection and die a raging death from the bite--or just drop dead from the adrenaline pumped to my heart.

Anyway, my post today is the result of many frustrations, but I am determined to post. I hate it when I have a blog in mind, and then waffle in posting it. This is a peeve about myself--being someone who wants to do things now, but waiting, anyway. It's like walking into my diner here, and sending the waitress away because I can't decide between sausage gravy and biscuits or shredded wheat cereal and bananas. What if it's my last day? If it is my last day, I will eat the gravy and biscuits with a glazed donut. If I can prolong this agony, I'll go for the shredded wheat and banana. If I were in the movie, Groundhog Day, I would be in the phase between self-indulgence and near suicidal, I suppose. This is not what I wanted to discover about myself.

What if?? (And that is another peeve--people saying, "What if?" to me.) I was going to post a chapter from my novel, but I hesitated. Maybe tomorrow. What if my tomorrow doesn't come? Would anyone other than Colleen Coble and Mary Connealy ever read it?

Preferences are so individual. Everything included on blogs is a choice, and if you click on any blog in my list to the right, you will find they are different than mine, though most of them connect to me because of two things: writing and having Jesus Christ as our Savior.

I do like to read about what people prefer, what they think about, and where they have been. My preferences belong to me, and that alone is an awesome thought. After having my own kids, I realized fully that some of those preferences are there when you are born. (You can't believe how different each of my four boys are, even in preferences.)


It's one thing to read it in the Bible that we are so individual, and not from a cloning process : "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Psalm 139: 13-14.

It is another to see it in person on a daily basis. The application becomes alive and real, breathing right in front of you. (By the way the boys clustered on my lap above are now all taller and bigger than I am.)

Cara's list below has very few things similar to mine, and the rest are all different. While I admire her fast twitch personality and her lightening reflexes, I will never be that way. My trapshooting coach told me I had "fast hands" meaning I could shoot quickly and get to the target, but it was incredible how slow the moments ticked by when I would "lock on" to the target and hold off shooting it until it was nearly hitting the ground. Even my quick moments become slowed down.

Cara tagged me for this meme back on September 26th because . . . I need writing assignments like I need another child to send to college (to be oh, so cliché .) So here's some TMI (too much information) about me:

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Elementary teacher (pre-kindergarten,1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th )
2. Track, cheerleader & basketball coach (My girls were City Champions in Track)
3. P.E. teacher (Loved that job)
4. Book doctor

Four movies I could watch over and over:
1. True Grit
2. You've Got Mail
3. Indiana Jones
4. Groundhog Day
4. James Bond with either Pierce Brosnan or Sean Connery

Four places I have lived:
1. Noblesville, Indiana
2. Wayne County, Tennessee and Indiana
3. Indianapolis, Indiana
4. Fairmount, Indiana (Home of Where Cool Was Born—James Dean)

Four things I like to do:
1. Read
2. Watch Movies
3. Go out to dinner at new places
4. Spend time listening to live music or making music
4. Writing
4. Doing activities with my husband--like trapshooting, golf, hiking, eating out, traveling, motorcycle riding
4. Bible studies

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Pizza (Supreme with thin crust)
2. Sausage gravy and biscuits and grits
3. White beans and cornbread
4. Garden fresh tomatoes
4. Creme Brulee
4. Coca-Cola
(All things I rarely have to eat for one reason or another)

Four places I would like to be right now:
1. In a log cabin in the mountains in Tennessee, watching the gurgling stream from the swing on the back porch, drinking coffee
2. Visiting my Aunt Linda and Aunt Sue, getting ready to eat something
3 Finished with my novel, typing The End and a query letter and celebrating by eating out
4. Eating at Joseph Decuis

Four websites I visit daily (or often):
1. The Writing Life
2. Amazon.com
3. Little Nuances
4. Right Writing
4. Tricia Goyer It's Real Life

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Savannah, GA
2. New Orleans, LA
3. San Francisco, CA
4. Memphis, TN
(Ask me what I remember eating in each one...ha)

Four books I could read again:
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. On Writing by Stephen King
3. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
4. All of my 100 cookbooks
4. A Girl Called Zippy by Haven Kimmel
4. My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber

Four friends I think might respond to being tagged (but only if you want to:)
1. Delia Because she has the coolest name for her blog--Gator, Skunkz and Mudcats and I can finally post on her site and her best friend is another Crystal
2. Mary (Who needs a blog other than "Hey! I just figured out how to link!")
3. Michelle Book Reviewer who needs to think about her own writing today
4. Nancy who knows famous people and will soon be blogging about it

Would you like decaf or caf? my waitress asks.

Caf, thanks--no sugar or cream--at least I am sure about that one.