Birthdays and Other Blessings at NQC

Meet the Southern Gospel group, the Patriot Quartet. My husband, Darrell sings bass with them. That's not him up on the big screen. That's the lead singer, Joe White. Darrell's the one on the far right. The shot I took of him up on the screen was fuzzy, fuzzy. I never claimed to be a professional photographer. If I had been I'd have taken a lot more shots and then maybe had more good ones. The other guys are tenor, Eugene Hoffman and baritone, David Combs.

The guys are at the National Quartet Convention in Louisville this week. They sang in a showcase on Monday, but don't get to sing on the "big stage" as all the singers call it. They do have a booth in the exhibition hall where they meet and greet fans and try to schedule concerts at new churches or singing venues. They love to sing, but they also feel called to share the gospel in song. And they do a great job.

The guys let me set up my books on their product table and so I get to have a little book signing and talk books with people from all over the country. Texas won out on Monday. All those people were trying to get away from the heat and dry weather. Most of them said they'd been seeing smoke from the wild fires. Later in the week, the tour buses start pulling in from all over. I've been having my books at the Patriots' booth ever since The Scent of Lilacs came out in 2005. And so I've made some reading friends over the years. On Monday I got to share my new books with several of them. Readers like Fonda who hunts me up every year. I'm going to use her name in a book one of these days.

Darrell and I have been going to the Quartet Convention for years. I talked to a man from Texas (of course) on Monday who said he'd been to the first Quartet Convention held in Memphis 53 years ago and had been to almost all of them since except for a few years when their children were very small. So I tried to think how many years straight Darrell and I have been going. We started going when they held the Convention in Nashville. We didn't get to go for the whole week, but would go for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. They moved the Convention to Louisville 17 years ago and I know we've been every year they've had it there. So I'm guessing 21 or 22 years, maybe more, maybe less.

One thing I do remember is that I've had a terrible cold on at least half of those years. Probably more. NQC, tissues and cough drops - they go together. But at least I've never wanted to sing at the NQC.  Good thing because most years I've barely been able to talk. This year I'm okay. I can talk and shake hands with people without thinking I might be "Typhoid Mary." Thank goodness!

Another thing about the Quartet Convention is that it swallows up my birthday. Every year I spend my birthday at the NQC. No parties. No cakes. No presents. Well, last year I did go shopping and bought my own present - a gorgeous Gospel Singer outfit to wear to the fancy ACFW dinner I attended the week or so after the NQC. I said I was going to wear it one night this year, but if I do, everybody will think I'm one of the singers. And what if they ask me to prove it? I'd be in trouble then. Of course I did teach my little granddaughter the song "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" today, so I could sing that. She was very cute singing the song. Only she said the bear didn't see the other side of the mountain. She sang the bear saw "me." (A grandmother has to sneak in a grandkid story every once in a while.)

I do enjoy the NQC and I'm old enough now that the day I celebrate doesn't matter all that much. Sometimes I celebrate a new year for a couple of weeks. And why not? A new year is worth celebrating. I'm looking forward to the year ahead. I'll have another couple of books out there for readers. I'll be sure to get to talk books with a bunch of new reading friends and some old reading friends too. I'll get to tell some more grandma stories and share some of those special grandkid moments as they celebrate birthdays and other special events in their lives. I'll get to count blessings until I run out of numbers.

Each of you reading this is a blessing to me. Thank you so much for giving me a few moments of your time. And don't forget to enter my birthday giveaway if you haven't already. Details are on my News and Events page on my website, but you can throw your name in the hat by leaving a comment here. As long as you leave a way for me to get in touch with you in case you win. I'll be drawing for winners the last of September. One of the winners will get that beautiful grandmother's Bible and others will get books and more. 

I put this quote in my birthday newsletter, but I love it. So seeing as how it's almost my birthday, I'm going to use it again. Don't birthday people get to some extra privileges? And for sure I wouldn't be the age my birth certificate assures me I am.

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were? (Leroy Satchel Paige)

Off to the ACFW Conference

Hi, everybody. No time for blogging this week with the National Quartet Convention and now I'm off to the ACFW Conference. Next week I'll be back on schedule - I hope. I'll tell you all about what's been going on. Have a great week.

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!!