Do You Need a Smile Today?

Did that make you smile? It does me. Smiles are what this post is about. Some of you may check out my Facebook page. If so, you know that I have some regular features on my page on different days. Sunday morning coming down. Tuesday mailbag. Shaker Wednesday. Throwback Thursday. And Friday is smiles day. All day. Some Fridays we have a brief interruption for some bit of special news, but I try to stick to smiles on Friday. 

So tonight, I wandered back through my Facebook Fridays and pulled out a few of my favorite smiles. If you follow my FB page, you may have already read them, but a good joke can make you smile even on the second or third telling. And it's good to smile and laugh. The Bible says so in Proverbs17:22a. "A merry heart does good, like medicine." (New King James Version)

So here we go. A few of my favorite smiles from Fridays past on Facebook.

 Story One:

A nursery school teacher was helping a boy get his shoes on at the end of the day. After quite a struggle with the boots, which were a little tight, she finally got them on. 

"They're on the wrong feet," the boy said. 

He was right, so with a sigh, she pulls them off and manages to get them back on the right feet. All is well until the boy looks up at her and says, "They're not my boots, Miss." The teacher does her best to stay calm as she kneels down again to pull the boots off again. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asks. The boy looks at the boots. "These aren't my boots. They're my brother's. Mom said for me to wear them." At this point the teacher can feel tears coming, but she pulls up her teacher fortitude and gets his feet shoved down into the tight boots one more time. Then she helps him into his coat and wraps his scarf round his neck before asking him where his gloves are. "Oh, Miss, I always put them in my boots so they won't get lost!"

Story Two:

   Little Jethro and his family were visiting the big city for the first time. In the lobby of the fancy hotel where they were staying, Jethro and his father stood marveling at the elevator with its blinking lights and shiny doors. After a couple of minutes, Jethro asked,       "Pa, what in tarnation is that thing?" 
   His pa replied, "I don't right know, son."
   Just then an old woman approached, pushed one of the buttons, and stepped carefully into the elevator. The doors slid shut and when they reopened a few moments later, out stepped a beautiful young blonde. "Boy," Pa said quietly. "Go and get your ma."

Story Three:

   A man finished reading the book Man of the House while riding the commuter train home from work. When he reached home, he stormed into the house where he pointed his finger in his wife's face and said, "From now on I want you to know that I am the man of this house, and my word is law! You are to prepare me a delicious meal tonight and when I'm finished eating my meal, I expect a sumptuous dessert afterward. Then you're going to draw my bath so I can relax. And when I'm finished with my bath, guess who's going to dress me and comb my hair?"    His wife thought a moment, then said, "The funeral director is my guess."

Story Four:

   A church was having a special program about marriage enrichment and an old farmer and his wife decided to go even though they'd been married for a long time. The old farmer was a little nervous about the whole thing, but he was determined to do his best. The guest speaker spoke directly to the husbands about how they should pay attention to their wives and thus know what they liked, such as their favorite flower. 

  The old farmer wanted to make sure he was right so he leaned over to whisper in his wife's ear. "It is Pillsbury, isn't it?"

So there are a few of my favorite stories over the years. Which of them made you smile?  Do you have a favorite funny story to share? Feel free to share the post with friends if the stories made you smile. 

 

Do you tweet on Twitter? You can click on the tweety bird to share the smiles.

Depressed? Is it Facebook?

Are you into Facebook? I heard on the radio the other day that sixty-one percent of Americans have a Facebook account. That is pretty amazing. We can't even get sixty-one percent of Americans to go to the polls and vote on Election Day. I can hear somebody out there saying we should have elections as easy to vote in as Facebook is to sign on. You need to find the Facebook page of your representative or senator and suggest that. Of course we might not want him or her facebooking since it can be addictive. We seem to have to get on there to check what everybody is doing.

But for writers like me, it's even more. It's a way to reach out to readers. Blogging is another way. Twitter another. Then there's Shout Out, My Space, and heaven only knows how many other social networks. Writers are encouraged to have an internet presence. Some writers have such a great internet presence that they become popular even before they write a book. Then of course when they do release that first book, they have all these followers out there ready to snap up whatever they've written. You might even be asked how many Facebook followers or friends you have when you submit a book proposal. So writers do facebook and collect reading friends.

But it's not only writers. And while it is true that Facebook has taken America by storm, it's not only America, but the world. Chinese leaders made the news by shutting down Facebook for a while. Other countries have done the same when they think revolutionary thinkers are gathering followers through Facebook posts. The amazing thing is that ten years ago, if you had said facebook, people would have wondered what you were talking about. Some kid - naturally enough - came up with the idea, figured out a way to get it going and now here we are checking our Facebook walls before we eat our toast in the morning. We want to see those new baby pictures. We want to tell our friends about the double chocolate fudge cupcakes we made last night. We want to celebrate with like minded fans when our team wins and cry on each other's shoulders when they lose.

We want to have fun, get our mind off our troubles and oh yeah, let our friends know about those new books that are like our babies. New and precious and needing somebody to hold them in her hands. Of course to do that we've got to be positive, beaming, fun and engaging.

It's sort of like those Christmas newsletters. I don't mind newsletters. I like them as long as they don't go over a page. But nobody tells the bad things that happened over the year. They brag about the good happenings. Writers are the same. We're not going to brag about the reviewer that gave us one star or claimed we didn't know one end of a pen from the other. We're going to brag about the reviewer who said we had a lyrical voice and a story that enchants and keeps the reader reading way past her bedtime. We might moan a little on Facebook about this writing chore or that such as editing. But some writers post their amazing number of words for the day. They get fifty plus comments for every posting. They can probably do handstands. One-handed handstands. For fifteen minutes. Holding their breath.

And so, it's only to be expected that someone has decided we can get Facebook depression. You see everybody else with the picture perfect life. The grandma with nine grandkids. And you, you can't even get your son off the couch to go apply for a job so he'll have the money to take out a potential mother for those beautiful grandkids you need. You see your writing friend who just announced to the Facebook world that she won an award, was on the bestseller list, was featured on Oprah, had a starred review in Booklist, or whatever amazing thing that has happened to her or her book. You want to be happy for her. And you are. You really are, but you can't keep from thinking about your book. Your story. Your nonexistent interviews or booksignings. And so we get down. Depressed by Facebook good news. Other people's good news.

So what do you think? Do you sometimes feel some Facebook envy or depression? Maybe you con't even play the Facebook game. Maybe you're too busy writing that book - the one you're going to be bragging out on Facebook soon. Because you'll have to jump on Facebook after that book comes out. :o) Thanks for reading. Someday I'll get a dozen or two comments. Good comments. Good reviews. I know I will. If I can keep from getting depressed first. :)

Have a great rest of the week.

Connecting with Friends

How do you connect with friends these days? Do you call them up on the phone, text message them on your cell phone, write an old-fashioned snail mail letter or a modern e-mail? Do you go out on the web searching for old friends on Facebook? Maybe you tweet for friends? Ten years ago if you'd said you tweet for friends, people might have thought you were losing it.

The electronic age is certainly changing the way we communicate. And that's not all it's changing. We have hundreds of stations on the t.v. to flip through before we decide there's nothing worth watching instead of the three or four that used to come across the air waves. We have remotes to turn on our ceiling fans and lights. We can start our cars by pushing a button before we get halfway across the parking lot. We download music off the internet on these tiny electronic gizmos and carry hundreds of i-tunes around with us without the bother of CDs. We take pictures with our phones no less and post them on the internet. We even download books onto these electronic book readers. Well, I don't, but a lot of people do. Personally I want the feel of that book in my hands. I want to turn pages. But even those people who agree with me about that say the Kindles are very travel friendly and easier than carrying around a pile of books.

So there's is no doubt the way we communicate and share our lives with friends and family is changing. I do a lot of historical research and when I read about the pioneers setting out on the Wilderness Trail to Kentucky I can easily imagine how hard it must have been to leave behind all that was familiar and loved. They couldn't call back home and check on Mom and Dad. When they left, they knew they probably would never see their family back in the east ever again. There must have been a lot of tears on those trails. And now we can't even seem to go to the grocery store without calling home on our cell phones.

Another way to connect these days is through Facebook. I've been facebooking (is Webster going to decide that's a word?) for a few weeks now. It's been fun connecting with family members I don't see very often and getting a glimpse into their lives. I've gotten reacquainted with old friends I'd lost contact with as well as made connections with new friends I only know through electronic means as we share reading and writing interests.

On a whim, my daughter jumped on the Facebook wagon after I did. She's touched base with a number of old friends from her highschool and college days even though she doesn't do the status bit. She says she likes the ease of contacting friends without having to remember everybody's e-mail addresses. And my daughter-in-law is enjoying finding friends and sharing photos of their kids.

One thing sure, we can reach out and touch somebody these days. And it's great to have so many ways to stay in contact, but I still think it's extra fun when I open the mailbox and see a letter in there. As long as it's not a bill and fact is a bunch of those are electronic these days, too. E-mails are good and I've been glad enough to get many of them, but a letter, a personal letter, that's still special.

You might be able to open your mailbox and find a couple of my autographed books in there if you send me an e-mail from my website www.annhgabhart.com or make a comment on my blog. I'm doing the drawing on my birthday in a couple of weeks. Gotta celebrate getting older. Don't plan to do much counting of the years, but I love celebrating birthdays and the gift of another year to live and learn and write. And make friends in old and new ways.

Hope you had a great Sunday reaching out and connecting with all your friends and loved ones.

Connecting with My Reading Friends

I know. It's not Wednesday or Sunday (that's my usual posting days), but I'm testing out some new links with Amazon.com's author pages. There are so many ways to connect with readers these days. Facebook. Twitter. Author pages. Blogs. Blog tours. I've tried to stick my finger into the internet pie on all of them but twitter. Still not twittering. Are any of you? The facebook has been a fun way to keep up with friends and family. And I'm hoping to have a Facebook Fan page soon. You can talk more about your books and do book giveaways, etc. on the Fan pages. Or at least that's what I've been told.

My only problem is wondering why anyone would even think about signing up to a fan page for me. I don't think about having fans. I think about having reading friends. But I have to admit I'd like to gather more reading friends, and didn't our mamas always tell us the way to have a friend is to be a friend? That's sometimes hard to do when you spend hours making up imaginary people. Coming up with new stories takes some solitary time. A lot of solitary time. That's why some writers talk so much when they get a chance to be away from their desks. And it's also why some don't. Sometimes we're still in that story. Still hearing conversations in our heads that no one else can hear, but that we hope everybody else will someday want to read. Just as soon as we write it down.

I'm hoping to get some stuff written down soon. Being between books is not my favorite place to be, but I had to catch up on all the mundane "the house will fall in if you don't take a shovel to it" chores.

Come back Sunday and we'll talk.

Something New

Hi, everybody. I jumped feet first into the electronic social pool this week and joined up with Facebook and Goodreads. I'd been talking about doing Facebook for months but had to meet that July 1 deadline first. Once the new book was off, I had to carry through on my resolve to put a presence out there on Facebook. I have a few Facebook friends already. Thanks to you who may have befriended me. I'm amazed at the speed of the network. And I'm still feeling my way and trying to decide the best way for me to do Facebook settings, etc. Appreciate any advice you old hands at Facebook want to offer a newbie.

Then a publicity person at my publisher, Baker Books, got in touch and asked me to join up with Goodreads. That's something similar to Facebook except on there the friends/members just talk about books. They list books they've read and rate them with stars as well as write reviews if they want. A lot of my books are listed on there already and have been rated over a hundred times. Some good ratings and some not as good ratings. One thing that's true about any author is that your book can't be everybody's favorite - even if you want it to be.

Anyway Baker wanted to post a giveaway on Goodreads for my new book, The Believer, and in order to give away a few early copies I had to be a Goodread member. So now I've signed up with them and I'm trying to remember the books I've read so I can add them to my list. There are people on there with hundreds of books listed. I may have read hundreds of books, but I probably - no I won't remember all the titles. Now my sister could do a better job of this. She's been keeping a list of the books she reads for years. I do that now too along with a short personal review about whether I liked the book and why or why not, but I wish I had started years ago the way she did. I'll have to tell her to join up with Goodreads so she can brag on the many books she's read.

I haven't really gone out fishing for friends at either site. I guess I'm hoping friends will just swim on over and jump into my net. And some already have. Isn't that amazing? But if you're a member of Goodreads, you can go to their book giveaway page and sign up to win an early copy of The Believer. A bunch of people already have. There are lots of other books on there to be given away too. Of course, you can still send me an e-mail and get in on my July drawings where the odds are sure to be lower than on Goodreads.

Thanks to all of you who have said you'd like to go to the "Brunch with Ann" at 10 a.m. on July 25 at Shaker Village in Mercer County, KY sponsored by Corinth Christian Bookstore. Of course some of you have said it might be a little too far to drive. I understand, but I do wish you could all be there. And you at least will get the highlights on here or in my newsletter after the event.

I'm looking forward to that traditional Shaker breakfast which is the reason you have to buy tickets. My talk will be on the house, but we'll have fun. I'll leave time for Q & A because that's my favorite part of any talk I do about writing. I never know where the questions might take us or whether I'll be able to come up with an answer. So far I always manage to answer something. I think the Lord has give me a gift for gab after making me so painfully shy when I was a child. In my next blog on Sunday, I plan to write about the different gifts the Lord blesses us with and how sometimes those gifts are surprising.

Again, as always, thanks for dropping by. Hope your week is the best you've ever had and that you are feeling loved and appreciated. And if you're on Facebook or Goodreads, come on over and we can be friends there too.