Home at Last with a Severe Case of Baby Withdrawal

I'm back in Kentucky. There's still snow and ice here. In WV there was just snow. But that nice layer of ice we got first way back last week is frozen hard on the ground here in Kentucky. The roads aren't too bad unless you get off the main roads. You know, like on the road to my house, but our road is so much better than it was when I left last Friday that I felt like the thaw had come. Actually the thaw is supposed to come this weekend and next week. Tonight it's supposed to get down to five degrees and by Monday be in the sixties. That's Kentucky weather for you. But let me tell you, we're going to be glad to see the ice melt.

A lot of people still don't have electricity, but some are getting back on line in our county. The western part of the state is suffering the most because so many of the poles broke down and the trucks can't get to them due to bad conditions to try to replace them and restring the wires.

Bobbi who has some great blogs herself (Bobbi's Book Nook for one) and often comments on mine said she didn't think she wanted to go back to the time before electricity. Me either. Everything had to be harder then. Think about it. You had to heat every bit of water you needed to wash something. On a woodstove or over an open fire. No pumps to send your water to your tap. (The Shakers were way ahead of their times with running water to their houses back in the eighteen hundreds.) No lights to read great books by at night. No curling irons to keep your hair looking good. Sometimes it's those little things we miss the most.

What did you have to do without that you missed the most? I missed hot water for my cup of tea. Thank goodness Darrell found some wood and we fired up the woodstove in the basement and I had my teakettle singing in no time. Of course I guess what everybody missed the most was heat if they depended on electricity to generate it. Even gas furnaces usually have electrical fans.

I had a great time with the twin grandbabies. They took turns crying or being fussy so I pretty much had a baby in my arms five days straight throughout the daylight hours and quite a few of the night ones. But you know, when they grinned at me, I was ready to hold them a little longer. Actually I thought they were really sweet to take turns. Hope they keep that up as they get older. They will be six months old next Wednesday. I should have told their Mom and Dad that the spoiling was part of the deal and that I'm not taking calls for three days just in case they're finding out that the babies are crying every time somebody sets them down. ;-) For sure, I'm going to have a severe case of baby withdrawal. But I need to get back to work. And I'm ready to do that too. I'm supposed to get the galleys for The Believer the end of the week. The copy editor promises I won't have to work too hard on whatever she thinks needs improving. I'm hoping she's right.

Talk to all of you Sunday.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Hope you are having a wonderful Christmas Eve. I'm still baking and trying to get everything ready. No need getting done before time, now, is there? A person might get to sit down and not be able to get up. ;-) My daughter and her husband are on the way home, but their big German Shepherd is having some problems so they're making a run by the Emergency Vet. Watson is very dear to them, so I'm hoping the vet can make him feel better. He's having navigation problems where his legs aren't working right. Not a good thing.

As for the weather - last time I wrote the wind chill was minus some gosh awful number. Today it's pouring the rain with temps in the fifties. That's Kentucky weather for you. Plus they say it may change to snow before the night is over. Of course it will! Santa has to have snow for his sled.

Hope you are enjoying your Christmas Eve. This is my favorite holiday day of the year. A time for family and for kids' anticipation as they wait for Christmas morning. A time to remember old traditions and to start new ones. A time to read the Christmas story and to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. The scholars don't really think Jesus was born on December 25th, but that's okay. He won't mind us celebrating His birthday and the greatest gift on this day as long as we celebrate His love all year long.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Launching Summer of Joy and Beginning a New Book

We've been having some real Kentucky weather. Last week up to almost 70 degrees and then tornadoes and storms. This week windchills down to zero. It's chilly out there. When I walked yesterday, I had to pull out my big coat. The one that's so fluffy and thick that my arms stand out from my sides. I don't pull out that heavy armor very often. I'm more the President Kennedy style. You remember how he never wore a coat? Of course a Secret Service man might have been holding his coat out of sight of the cameras.

My book launch is this Friday night. Might not be too good of scheduling since Thursday is Valentine's Day, but maybe everybody will want a fun love story/family drama to give to his or her special someone. Summer of Joy is a fun story. I wanted it to vibrate with the joy of living. I guess you as readers will have to let me know if I was successful on that one.

I'm beginning on a new book. At last. I kept trying to get myself to do other stuff. Publicity type stuff. Store visits. Who knows what? But I have to be writing. I can surely clean out the closets another day. Surely. Of course I've been saying that for a few months now. One of these days I'm going to open the door to the closet and be buried under that pile of stuff I should have already carried off to Goodwill or the landfill. But I've got to write. I don't have the same impulse about cleaning.

Next week I'll be off to South Carolina to a book festival down there. I'm going to be on a couple of panels talking about Faith in Fiction and The Importance of Place across Genres. Both of those promise to be interesting and there will be some great writers on the panels with me. I'll no doubt learn a lot. If you live in the area, check out all the fun on the South Carolina Book Festival website and come out and enjoy. They've got some big name writers coming to share their expertise and sign books. My daughter will be attending with me. She loves to read so she should have fun at the festival.

My youngest son, Daniel, had a birthday last Friday. There is no way my baby can be that old. I usually feel as if I'm about that age. I just don't see how he caught up with me so quickly. ;) But he's a great person, a wonderful dad and husband and son, and I'm very proud of him. He wanted Snickerdoodles. Sort of an unusual birthday cake (cookies), but he and the kids enjoyed them, and we managed to stick on a few candles.

Hope all you guys have a loving Valentine's Day. Remember God loves you and so do a lot of your Christian brothers and sisters. And writers like me always love readers like you. Ann