I’m editing.  Will get back to blog next week.  Bear with me please.

Mondays are the longest.  Or maybe Saturday.  When you have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and aren’t cooking for someone, you end up inventing things to do to fill the time.

I think that’s why people decide not to retire.  2020 and the pandemic taught everyone that working from home is lonesome and just that--work.  If I could go back to the classroom and teach math again, I would do it in a heart beat if I didn’t have to drive to get there.  But just two days a week.  Another thing we learned is that we need more time for doing nothing.  

The only problem for me with being retired and not cooking is: What am I going to eat today.  It usually ends up being shredded wheat or rice krispies.  Cheerios for a change.  

My Sunday class has turned into a discussion group in a number of ways.  It is interesting.  They have all been Christians for years, and nobody hogs the floor.  I just direct traffic.  

 Today is breakfast with Ann, then garage sale day.  I mostly just sit in the car and read the paper.  I’m getting rid of stuff, not buying more!!  Then the hairdresser. It is always time for lunch before we get back home.

And the rest of the day I will edit.  This publisher sent me final copy to read and it is full of mistakes.  I think they must have used A.I.   That’s what they do now.  Artificial Intelligence.  One place where I said to put a comma, they wrote out the word comma.  This will take the rest of the day to fix all of it.

My asparagus isn’t doing well.  I think I cut it too soon.  I should have waited another year--but that is hard to do.

 

The publisher wanted a picture of me for the web page.  She wandered through the house looking at a million pictures of me with children.  Four of my own, ten grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren.  All of them next to me in some way.  On my lap, with an arm around my shoulders, etc, etc.  There seem to be a zillion of them.

She wanted to present me in a certain way since the book is about children and families who are left at home when their fathers go to war.  She chose a picture of me and Ken Jack.  Named after his hero great grandfather.  I thought that was fitting.  But of course I had to call his mom and ask permission.  She, Jennifer, was thrilled to death.  But who knows if that will really happen.  At this point in the publishing journey I am reluctant to hope.

We’ll see. 

 The publisher has decided on the format for a web page for me.  I’ll let everyone know. She suggested I put my blog on the web page, but I’m not going to do that.  I write too many personal things.  Maybe it is the same, but???

I woke up at 3:00 this morning.  Too many bees in my brain, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the meeting yesterday with my publisher.  It was really good.  She wants books signed at a local book store for the Saturday  before Mother’s day.  I don’t know if they have an opening that day or not.  Then go to the book store in Pryor.  Then Barnes and Noble in Tulsa--my grand daughter runs that store.  This is all too much.  But I have to sleep or I will be worthless for anything.  I am too old for this kind of excitement. 

 Today, something is supposed to happen that is humongous.  My publisher is coming to the house for lunch with the first book.  The one she signed a contract on three years ago.  I am anxious.  Unsettled.  Is this really going to happen?

And what does it mean?  Are we going to print?  Are we just approving something?  Are we just having lunch?  She said she is bringing the layout for my web page.  What does that mean?

There are three ways to publish.  You do it yourself on Amazon.  You hire someone to do the editing and legwork to publish. (I don't need an editor--I have Carolyn Brown who is an expert.) Or third, by some miracle, a publisher reads what you wrote and says they want to publish it.  Which is what happened to me three years ago.  And from what I understand doesn't ever happen to first time writers unless you are already famous.

I have learned that in publishing, patience is critical and I don't have any patience. I am anxious right now.   

We were in the book of James yesterday in class.  If you read the Bible, it helps to pay attention to who wrote what you are reading.  These were real people who wrote what they had to say from their own perspective. It would be like you and me being there and each of us writing what we saw about Jesus or what He did.  God inspired, yes...but writing in their own style.

James was very Jewish.  He wrote this book to the Jews, to the 12 tribes.  Whereas--Luke never met Jesus and has a different vibe.  Luke wanted to know things that the women had to tell.   James was very big on rules and had a hard time accepting the Gentiles becoming Christians without adhering to all of the laws the Jews followed.  The new laws Jesus gave came down to loving God, and loving people.  James said you had to have the proper attitude.  The proper source--God's words.  He spells things out for you.  He writes in a totally different way than the other writers.  But what he says is true.  It's just more black and white than the other books.

Asparagus is up.  I had a raised asparagus bed in Pryor with probably 25 plants.  They have to grow three years before they are mature enough to produce.  Those were ten years old and healthy.

When I moved to Edmond, I tried to dig some of them up, but the roots were so deep and tanged, I couldn't do it.  So when I sold the house, I hoped someone else would enjoy my wonderful asparagus.

The people who bought the house took the raised bed down and plowed the asparagus under.  It mad me sad because I had put so much time and effort into it.  What a waste.

Funny thing is...i don't even like asparagus very much.  But I loved to pick it and give it away.  And my neighbors thought I was awesome--and never found out any different!!! 

The cleaning ladies come today.  I always dread it because of the noise...but am glad when they leave because the house is clean.  But it forces me to pick up everything that is out of place and put it where it goes so that they can dust.

Paper is everywhere.  And when I pick it up, I stack it, only to have to re-sort it later...which sometimes doesn't get done.  This new generation just takes a picture of it and keeps it on their phone.

Yesterday I called Carolyn (who is my right hand editing authority when I write) and told her to sit down because when I read her the text I just got she was going to faint.  The text was from my first publisher who said, "I'll be at your house Tuesday with your book."  Three years...and maybe this is going to happen.  She also said that she was bringing the draft for my web page for my approval.  I've been disappointed so many times I'm afraid to hope it will happen.

My dad was seven years old when his father was murdered.  The case was never solved.  There were no suspects.  Why someone would kill him was never discovered.  

But dad's brothers, who were much much older than he was, effectively ran the family show from then on until they married and left.  What they said to do was law.

Writing a book about him is mostly guesswork.  But my children have always said, "Give mom one fact and she will expand it to fill ten pages."  I think they are stretching the truth somewhat, but you do end up making a lot of conversation up.

Which has been hard because my dad never had much to say.  He was a quiet man.  Highly respected by everyone he came in contact with.  On the other side, when he was a boy, his job was to take food from the family cafe to Robber's caves outside of Wilburton to Pretty Boy Floyd, Belle Starr and their cohorts.  They all considered  my dad to be their one honest associate.

I went to the grocery store for the first time in months to get junk food.  Fruity junk food.  Dried apples, dates, peaches and nuts.  I nibble all day while I am working on another book.  About my dad.  He had an interesting life.  Seven boys in the family, and he was the youngest, but ended up caring for his mother her entire life after someone murdered his father.

Two older brothers formed an enterprise on the wrong side of the law.  Bootlegging.  When dad was just a little boy, they put him on a cushion to boost him high enough to see over the dashboard the of car, put him behind the wheel of their father's Studebaker and told him to be ready to drive if they needed to escape.  When he was a little older, he stood up for himself and told the brothers he wasn't driving for them anymore.  By then, he had learned the name and location of every lawbreaker in four states--and when he was grown and went to work for the IRS, he was  able to help the government with a number of tax evasion arrests of those who had made a lot of money selling illegal hooch.  Even criminals need to pay their taxes?

I got a notice last week that my third book has been sent to the review board for consideration.  Which is the second step in publishing.  First you have to get a publisher to acknowledge that you exist--and that they are interested in what you have written.  Then, if they like it, you get a contract.  This publisher is already in the process of printing one of my books and said they want to read what else I have written.  There is hope?

Another publisher has had the first book I wrote for three years with no sign of publishing.  It is frustrating beyond description.  I finally gave them notice to return it, or get it into bookstores by the end of April.  I don't have time for that kind of stalling.  I did learn something from it however.  You always want to get a print date written into the contract.  Which I did do with the publisher of the second book.  So now, there are three books out there, waiting on printing...and I am hoping that God sets a fire under someone.  The New York publisher gave me an October or November date in the contract.  We'll see.  All of you keep asking when.  I don't know, but you will be the first to know when it is published.

I was tying a bow yesterday on my pull up kakis yesterday.  It was perfect.  Two loops right and left lying flat and the ties lying down neatly.  And I remember the day that I learned how to do that.  

I was getting ready to go to church, married two or three weeks and my dress had a bow I was trying to tie--unsuccessfully.  Ken watched, then said, "You want me to show you how to do that."  I was surprised.  A man?  Tie a bow?

He went through the steps and when finished, I had a perfect bow.  Yesterday as I was tying a bow, I wondered where he learned that?  It must have been USMC regulation for tying the laces on their shoes?  What ever the reason, when I see some kid with their bow loops going up and down rather than side to side, I want to tell them to call the Marines.

I seem to be forgetful about posting anymore.  I get busy doing something else.  A lot of nothing else, as a matter of fact.

When they came for my birthday, Kim brought me Twining's Darjeeling tea which I can't buy in Edmond.  Kathy brought me two pans of homemade yeast rolls that she made.  Carolyn brought me the ken-ken puzzles she cut out of her daily paper for months and months.  About a zillion of them.

So I can drink tea, eat a roll and work a puzzle.  It doesn't get any better than that.

I took Pat to dinner at Texas road house the other night.  I've been trying to eat the leftovers ever since.  You would have to be a huge person to eat everything they put on your plate.  I always get the prime rib which is the only kind of cow I like to eat--besides a hamburger.  Seafood is my first choice for protein.  I'm going with Jeanette to Red Lobster tomorrow.

Every time I prepare a lesson from the Bible for my Sunday class, I learn something new.  The week before Easter was the crucifixion story, and Carolyn (who is teaching from the same book as I am) got me interested in the plant called  hyssop.  

It was used to spread sacrificial blood on the doorpost as the Israelites fled Egypt.  And in the Psalms, David said "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean...whiter than snow."  There is no way to say for sure because the written word doesn't tell us.  But when Jesus said "I thirst," they gave him vinegar on a sponge.  A sponge fixed in the branches of hyssop.

At that moment, he was carrying the sins of the world.  Could it be that (as David said) the symbolic brushing of the body of Christ with hyssop was God's final word on cleansing him of all the world's sin as he died.  That is a random thought in my head--from nowhere in the Bible.  It just is interesting that the last thing to touch Jesus was hyssop which was used in cleansing rituals of the Israelites..