It Starts with Two

It starts with two. A man and a woman meet and some spark ignites in their hearts. They maybe dance around one another for a little while until they decide to become lifetime partners. Then they get married and have children. That's the way it was for my mother and father-in-law. My mother-in-law didn't get married until she was 26. She said she had plenty of offers but she wasn't about to get married during the worst years of the Depression. Besides she had to wait for the right man to come along - a tall, handsome man named Truman who'd been batching for a while. He was 29. I don't know how they met. I should have asked. Maybe at a church. Maybe through mutual friends. But they did meet and married and didn't waste any time having a family. Five kids in ten years. Then those five kids grew up and each met somebody who made a spark ignite, got married and started their families. Those children carried on the family tradition until now after 60 some years the family has grown to 68 (I think, but there are 2 babies on the way) counting spouses who become part of the family when that spark gets serious. About half of those came to our house for a reunion Sunday and here we are minus the picture taker. You can't have a real reunion without making everybody line up for a picture, can you? Some of the men groan and the kids act up, but you need a picture to remember this moment in the life of the family.

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For fun and to honor Truman and Christine who wore hats to church, we all wore hats to church Sunday. I'm not a hat wearer, but my daughter-in-law went shopping and found me a hat. I wore it but maybe I should have looked in the mirror when I put it on. With the whole clan coming to my house I didn't have much time for mirrors. In the good old days, hats were a necessity for going to church. Every woman wore a hat, but then one day some person who must have been a lot like me said hats weren't necessary any more and a lot of hatmakers went out of business. But I've used hats in my books. When you're writing historical fiction, things like what a character wears to church or wherever can help set the time period. In my Hollyhill books, I have one of the characters wearing a red hat to church to show the change in her spirit. Of course with my Shaker books, all the Shaker women characters are wearing bonnets. (My last two main characters didn't like wearing the bonnets. Maybe I made them too much like me.) Not much variety of clothes in a Shaker village since they dressed in like clothing. They did wear various colors and were the first makers of those beautiful Dorothy cloaks.
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I'm off this morning to get my grandbaby twins for a little stay here while the rest of the family take a break that combines fun and business. I'll be taking them home Sunday before I have my hometown book launch at the local library on Sunday afternoon. That's always a fun time when I get to talk about my new book and give away some books and hear what my hometown reading friends have to say. If you're in the area, come on down. You can check out the details on my schedule on the website.
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And now to Sunday's winners of autographed books. This is the two winner week. I was so busy Sunday I forgot to draw for the winners until Monday. The winners are Juanita and Donna V. I'll be sending you an e-mail to get your addresses. One more drawing next Sunday. If you've sent me an e-mail, your name's still in the hat. There we go with hats again. Maybe next time I'll talk about the different hats a writer has to wear. Hope you're somewhere cool. It's hot here in Kentucky!! Might flirt with 100 degrees tomorrow.

And the Rain Came Down

--We had our family reunion yesterday. In the rain. At my house. We've been doing this reunion of my mom's side of the family for almost thirty years. In that time we've been rained on three times. A pretty good record. Except that two of those times were the last two times I hosted the party. I told them yesterday I was never having the reunion at my house again. I think they knew I was kidding. Uh, I think I was kidding. I mean I love having company. That's one of the reasons we decided to build on our gathering room, but we built decks too. I was hoping to use those decks and the yard, but the rain poured down all day. When I went out to look at the rain guage this morning, it was all the way full. Six inches. Now I'm not sure if I'd emptied it after the last rain, so it might have had an inch already in there, but then I'm not sure how much ran over after the guage was full to the top. I am sure we had a lot of rain. And my cornhole game boards looked very lonely out in the yard. I got Darrell to give me the game several years ago and I drag it out whenever we have company and either the weather doesn't cooperate like yesterday or we're too busy chasing babies to play. Maybe next time.

--We did have a good time visiting with all the family. Our number was down because of the rain and people wondering if they might have to sit on top of each other at my house. Some of them didn't know about my new gathering room. So those who came were relieved to see my multiple couches and chairs. Even so, we could have used more room, but I'm not ready to knock any more walls down right now. We did miss my son and his family, but it's a long drive from WV with a car full of kids. Maybe next year when it's at somebody else's house and it's not raining like you're thinking maybe you didn't notice somebody building an ark in their backyard.

--Everybody I've heard from says they had a great time at the American Fiction Writers Conference in Denver. My book, Summer of Joy, that was one of five finalists for Book of the Year in the long contemporary category didn't win. Oh well. It was fun being a finalist and since I wasn't going to get to go, I had practice writing an acceptance speech for my agent to read - just in case. Maybe someday I'll get to celebrate a win, but right now I'll keep celebrating having the chance to win. Even better than that I'll keep celebrating every time I see one of my stories in book form ready to move out into the world and get picked up by readers. It was a lot of fun meeting some of those readers at the National Quartet Convention and having reading friends come by the Patriots' booth to talk to me. I'm sorry I couldn't be there on Friday and Saturday, but my daughter and son-in-law don't get home very often. So it was a great weekend for visiting.

--The picture up top is all the family who came. That's one of the requirements at our reunions. If you eat the meal, you gotta take the picture. You can see the wet floor of the deck. What you can't see is my son holding my dog, Dub's leash to keep him for getting in the picture with his cone protective collar on. He was bumping into everybody with that thing. My other dog, Oscar, is front and center trying to lick anybody who will hold a hand down to him. Or toes. My little five-month-old grandbaby, Raegan, loves the dogs and thought it was funny getting her toes licked. I'm the one in the coral pink shirt squatted down by Mom who's sitting in the front. I'll post a few more of the reunion pictures on my Facebook page.

--Hope if any of you are having family gatherings you enjoy the fun of keeping up family connections. And that it doesn't rain on your picnics!!

Meeting People and Hearing Stories at the NQC

What a week! We were at the National Quartet Convention every night and didn't get home until the wee hours of the morning. I'm barely awake now, so hope what I'm writing is making sense. I didn't hear much singing since we stayed out in the Exhibition Hall all week at the Patriot Quartet's booth so we could meet and greet people. Thanks to all of you who came by to say hello and maybe take some music or reading material home with you. It was extra nice of those of you who bought my books to give to someone on your gift list. I love getting books for Christmas or for my birthday which just happens to be tomorrow. I'm getting older very soon. But one of the guys who came by the booth had some advice for me. He said a little old lady (no, I don't think he was talking about me!!) came up to him and looked way up at him since he's so tall. She poked him in the chest and told him age was mind over matter. That if you didn't mind, it didn't matter. So guess I'll try to be in that camp.

Actually ever since I lost my sister-in-law in a traffic accident twenty-seven years ago, I've welcomed with celebration every birthday I have. Because I know Joy would have liked to have had a lot more birthdays. She was the mother of three girls and nine months pregnant with a little boy when the back gate flew off a cattle trailer, hit a pickup truck and killed that man whose wife was also expecting a baby and then that truck hit the truck Joy was riding in head on. Joy's friend, who was driving her to the doctor, wasn't hurt, but Joy and her baby died. This happened on September 12, three days before my birthday. All this time later, it still colors my birthday with sadness. We never forget those we love. We carry them forever in our heart and our memories. And ever since I've buckled my seatbelt every time I get in a car.

I hadn't planned to write about Joy tonight, but as I said, I always remember her in a special way at this time of the year. She had so much fun. Loved to laugh and loved babies and was a heck of a softball player.

Back to the NQC, I'm going to be sharing some stories from the people who came by to talk to me last week. One guy had a remarkable story that I will probably tell you next Sunday or maybe on Wednesday. It will give you goosebumps and maybe make tears come to your eyes. But I need to think about it before I write it down so that I can tell it in the best way possible.

I really enjoy meeting people at the NQC because they come from all over to hear the singing. I talked to lots of people from Ohio and Illinois and quite a few Canadians. I talked to Gospel music fans from California, Tennesee, Georgia, Alabama, Missouri, Wisconsin, and even Maine. The Maine lady said she lived about as far to the northeast as you could get. A 17 hour drive. She was a minister and she and her husband were taking a trip to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. There were also people from North and South Carolina, Louisiana, a lot from Texas. They were worried about Ike flooding their homes. And of course, Kentucky. I've probably missed a few states. So if you talked to me and I left your state out, let me know. And some of you had already read or had bought my new book, The Outsider to read. That was really exciting for me. Then you were kind enough to come back and buy some more books. I hope all of you who did buy books enjoy the stories. And that the rest of you will think about getting my books later on to give them a try.

Last night when I got home at midnight, I had to do a little cooking for our family reunion today. How come everything always has to happen on the same weekend? We had a good turnout, but we missed my aunt Margaret who passed away last month. She always enjoyed being with us and sharing her memories at our reunions. She hosted it nearly every year when we first started having the reunion twenty some years ago. She always ordered up perfect weather when we were at her house. Every time I have it, it's either 95 degrees in the shade or raining. Today my sister was the hostess. It didn't rain, but Ike sent us such gusty winds, we had to hang onto our plates. That chicken from Kroger was trying to take wing again. But we had fun looking at old pictures and playing some corn hole games. I didn't win.

Hope you have a loving family and that you enjoy getting together with them on a regular basis. I am blessed with a beautiful family and with all of you friends out there.

Talk to you Wednesday.