Tag Archives: Books

His and Her To-Do Lists

Should I bother with a spring to-do list?

This past winter, I could have scraped old wallpaper in three rooms. Instead, I read books. Enriching my mind inspires me so much more. Hubby’s enriched his mind too, finishing a thousand-page book on American history.

We’ve enriched our minds so much we’ve lost them — when recalling winter to-do lists. But a little repression never hurt anyone.

Besides, it’s spring. Why waste time indoors when we can stay outdoors?

Between snowstorms and tornadoes, I mean.

The only problem: our enriched minds cannot agree on priorities.

Items on his spring to-do list:

Clean the camper versus clean the garage? On Hubby’s list, the camper wins every time.

Conducting intense research on camping gear.

Buying lots of it.

Arguing with umpires and Cubs podcasts while cleaning our camper.

Arguing with mice that established winter quarters in the camper.

Tilling and planting the garden he knows deer will eat.

Negotiating with dandelion and violet armies determined to conquer our yard.

Coaxing the mower into eating grass, despite its lack of appetite.

My list:

Conducting intense research on spring shoes.

Buying lots of them.

Arguing with The Weather Channel.

Arguing with ants demanding the deed to our house.

Buying enough plants to create a second Eden.

Planting maybe four I know the deer will eat.

Applying fertilizers only weeds like.

We should move spring walks on Taylor University’s campus to the top of our lists.

Do Hubby and I share any common items on our to-do lists? A few:

Taking hand-in-hand walks, spotting new blossoms on Taylor University’s campus.

Pretending we’re students again.

Glorying in growing old like two aging maples sporting rings of experience, yet plenty of new buds.

Maybe we should put these — and, of course, enriching our minds — at the top of our spring to-do lists.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s on your list?

Leap Year: Yay or Nay?

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Does Leap Year make sense to you?

“Leap Day” (February 29) sounds suspiciously like “spring forward” and “fall back,” two of my least favorite “holidays.” Why trust people who mess with calendars any more than people who mess with clocks?

It’s not enough that we spring and fall. Now we are expected to leap? The whole scenario sounds suspiciously like exercise. I don’t trust that, either.

Scientists, however, declare we humans don’t have to sweat. Our planet should jog around the sun in 365 days, but slowpoke Earth requires 365¼ days. People who lie awake at night worrying about that — and whether every apple sticker posts the correct bar code, and whether Number 1372 or Number 1373 inspected their jeans, or how many angels dance on the head of a pin — insist Leap Year is a necessary corrective measure.

Thinking positive, though, who hasn’t wished for an extra 24 hours?

To catch up on sleep missed the other three years.
To discover that aliens do indeed exist — growing in the refrigerator.
To read books piled on our nightstands.
To meet strangers across the street who have lived there only 12 years.

Springing forward and falling back aside, messing with the calendar might not prove so bad, after all. Maybe we should take some leaps this Leap Year?

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What leap would you take?

Classic Post: Of Blessed Barbarians and Baby Jesus

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This post first appeared on December 28, 2022.

Years ago, my husband and I prepared for a barbarian invasion.

We hid valuables. We said prayers. We kept watch, knowing they’d sweep away our well-ordered lives.

They came.

We charged outside … and retrieved the world’s most beloved barbarians, our two-year-old granddaughter and 10-month-old grandson, from car seats.

Baby allowed us to cuddle, but his mind was fixed on his search-and-destroy mission.

“Gwandma! Gwandpa!”

Baby immediately yanked our books from shelves. When we interrupted, he reacted with a type A personality’s outrage.

His sister flipped light switches. “On! Off!” The little blonde goddess obviously controlled the universe.

Time to civilize barbarians — a little. We played with blocks, love-worn stuffed animals and an ancient Fisher-Price parking garage our children enjoyed.

The grandchildren zoomed cars down the ramp, cheering wipeouts. The scene reminded me of Christmas parking lots. And (shiver!) future 16th birthdays.

This parking garage has entertained our three children and all seven grandchildren. Like Grandma and Grandpa, its parts creak and groan, but it still works.

I offered a Nativity set with soft finger puppets. Baby happily crawled around with Wise Men in his mouth. Retrieving bowls from my cabinets, his sister made imaginary applesauce for the Nativity crew.

Peace on earth reigned.

Too soon, they had to leave. Hubby and I helped their parents search for bag, bottles, coats.

Our little blonde goddess knew she ruled our universe.

We wanted to send the Nativity set home with them, an early Christmas present. Hopefully, gnawing the Wise Men would keep Baby quiet during the trip. Mary and Joseph bore evidence Little Girl had found real applesauce for their dinner party. We corralled animals, angels and shepherds.

Where was Baby Jesus?

Hubby sifted through the toy box again. I scanned refrigerator shelves, hoping Little Girl hadn’t decided Jesus needed air-conditioning.

“Is Jesus in the parking garage?” I yelled to Hubby.

Not a question I’d ever expected to ask during my lifetime.

Shaking my head as I raised the toilet lid, I hoped He wouldn’t be floating in a not-so-sanitary Sea of Galilee. No, but new anxiety seized me. Had someone flushed Him?

“I’ll find Jesus and mail Him,” I promised.

But I’d wanted our grandchildren to get to know Him during Christmas.

I dove under furniture again and discovered Baby Jesus behind the stereo.

“How did He end up there?” Our daughter dusted Him off.

I shrugged. “Who knows? Jesus sometimes turns up in the oddest places.”

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Where did Jesus show up during your Christmas season?

Weird Things for Which I Was Thankful — Even in 2020

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(In this edited version of my newspaper column, I recall a Thanksgiving when COVID ran rampant.)

Have your children or grandchildren watched “Sesame Street’s” Oscar the Grouch? I worried, lest my offspring adopt him as their patron saint.

Fast-forward to 2020. Thankfully, my children don’t live in trash cans. Nor is Oscar their role model.

I, on the other hand, sound more like Oscar every day. So, this Thanksgiving, I choose to be grateful, even for weird things.

Thank You, Heavenly Father, for the following:

I don’t have to mask when I talk with You.

If praying with a mask seemed difficult, singing in the church choir was harder!

Because of COVID-19, I rarely try on clothes in stores. No multiple mirrors!

Squirrels playing nut-soccer on our roof don’t weigh 400 pounds.

Delivery drivers bring life’s necessities — like apple cinnamon air freshener and SunChips^® — to our doors.

Potholders that aid in taking golden turkeys from the oven have not, unlike everything else, gone digital. I haven’t had to recharge one yet.

Not all gas pumps show videos.

I also thank You that my husband has never, ever refused to open a pickle jar.

We use clean water I didn’t haul a mile.

Though some idiots — er, futurists — drool over human interfacing with technology, my Internet still has an off button.

Leaves filling my yard are not poison ivy.

I rarely worry about charging hippopotamuses.

Thank You, too, God, for pie. Any kind but mince.

Also for the fact no one has written or performed “Medicare Supplements: the Musical.”

My niece’s pie looked much better than mine, so I used her pic.

For the color periwinkle.

For the rustle and fragrance of a real book that keeps me up late.

For phone calls from Little Brother. When I was a teen with a boyfriend, and he a brat with mirrors, I wished him 2,000 miles away. Eventually, my wish came true. Now, I cherish the bittersweet joy of hearing his voice.

So thankful that the COVID situation improved so I could travel and visit Little Brother out West.

Finally, Lord, I’m thankful for my two-year-old grandson who sings in the night.

You hear that, Oscar? Probably not, as you have clapped your trash can lid on tight.

Stay there, if you want. But if you change your mind, gratitude’s an excellent antidote for grouchiness.

Even for you, Oscar.

Even for me, this Thanksgiving of 2020.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: For which aspects of COVID’s wane are you thankful?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Beyond Blessed

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O Lord, sometimes, book signings can be a real bust. But OMG, what joy to share one with special writing friends and many dear hometown readers. Despite the first season’s snow, they dragged out of warm beds on a cold Saturday morning and blessed us with their presence!

Author Dan Fuller featured his coming-of-age western, *A Rifle by the Door*. I shared my new Christmas cozy mystery, *Deck the Hearse*.

Fellow writer Jody Stinson helped carry heavy boxes of books and kept things moving. What a friend!

From Clackety-Clack DING to Tappety-Tap-Swipe

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When my future husband graduated from high school, his parents gave him a manual typewriter.

If a fussy professor at our college demanded typed assignments, perhaps I’d ask to borrow his gift. I’d hunt and peck because I’d taken no typing classes. After all, I’d planned to major in music.

Unfortunately, I dropped out. My medical-school-student fiancé and I married when even fast-food jobs were scarce. No one paid singers, even if they knew 10 Italian songs and five German. Would the typing classes I’d taken at night help me find work?

Yes! We would eat.

However, I refused to sacrifice my lunch hour to type Hubby’s papers on my office’s Selectric. At home, the manual machine made me crazy.

He typed. In our one-room apartment. At night.

Clackety-clack … clack-clack-clackety-DING!

I buried my head in my pillow. Midnight came. One o’clock.

Clackety-clackety-clack …

DING!

My younger daughter, Christy, and me in 1982.

When I later worked at a medical center, my speed increased and I learned to spell words like “ecchymosis” and “telangiectasia.” Then I worked in a newspaper’s secretarial pool, where we typed obituaries and The Cow News (stockyard reports) on a word processor.

Weird.

No paper, carbons or correction fluid — yay! No “ding,” and clacks morphed into taps.

When our children were born, I quit typing. Little fingers would have turned my attempts into Sanskrit.

A decade later, though, as a church choir director, I wrote newsletter articles. Despite rusty skills, my fingers navigated a computer.

Amazingly, I found myself writing newspaper and magazine articles.

Now, having published more than 800 short pieces and 27 books, I type much faster than I write. This longtime marriage of mind and fingers works. Will I follow current dictating trends and break them up?

No way.

Hubby uses dictation, though, murmuring a pleasant background as I work elsewhere. His late-night sessions remind me he’s there. I like that.

What if we had to use manual typewriters? Clackety-clack-DING! 10,000 times a day? My predawn inspirations would prove fatal. He’d never live to teach.

If either partner wants to wreak post-spat revenge, the cobwebby manual still resides in our garage.

No. Let’s leave that antique in the garage, where it belongs.

Besides, even for this antique pair, making up is much more fun.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What was your first typing device?

Graduation Then and Now

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High school graduation celebrations have changed since my husband — then boyfriend — and I graduated in 1971. Boy, we painted the town red.

We went to the Dairy Queen.

Today a 50-cent sundae no longer cuts it. Graduation celebrations now resemble a Times Square New Year’s bash or a Walmart’s grand opening.

Parents suffer from open house syndrome, in which they attempt to recreate their worlds before anyone discovers they’ve been living in squalor. Forget painting the living room. Talented home renovators add new wings, while home improvement klutzes knock out one too many walls. To offset costs, creative parents charge admission to open houses, with extra fees for use of bathrooms and chairs. Some install magnets in sofas to collect loose change.

Mothers experience acute cleaning disorder. Even the gentlest women blow away dust bunnies. Advanced cases not only clean under their own appliances, they sneak next door to scrub under neighbors’ refrigerators. While most recover, chronic sufferers cannot cope with normalcy. When they run out of children to graduate, they recruit teens off the street.

Those with severe graduation syndrome also share all 50 poses of their children’s senior pictures with waiters, flagmen and ATMs.

Other aspects of graduation have changed. Cards nowadays are honest: “Congratulations! We never thought you’d make it!” and the ever-popular “Happy Graduation. Here’s money. Please leave our state.”

Although graduation gifts have evolved from pen sets in 1971 to Porsches in 2022, books remain a staple — a mystery to students, as they have waited 13 years to escape books. Still, they open Great-aunt Clarabelle’s rectangular gift, hoping it contains gold bars rather than devotionals like God Is Watching You at College.

Hubby and I would never hurt friends’ feelings, so we attend open houses and force ourselves to eat piles of meatballs and little hot dogs. To honor graduates, we sample each and every cake, finishing with a sentimental stop at the Dairy Queen.

With full stomachs, Hubby and I return to a house full of junk. We’re afraid to open closet doors. The yard resembles a pasture.

We jump back into the car and cruise downtown. There’s gotta be a kid there who needs an open house.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How are graduations celebrated in your area?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Lots to Celebrate!

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Oh, Lord, thank You for the energy and focus to finish book number 24. Couldn’t go out to celebrate, though. What to do? Instead, Steve and I watched the Cubs’ 2016 World Series victory and snarfed take-out sundaes from Ivanhoe’s. OMG, thank You that despite the current crisis, we have a gazillion reasons to celebrate!

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Writing Fat

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(Note: My website host will be updating its server tomorrow. Don’t want to start the week without prayer, so here’s my early “OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer.”)

O Lord, You know I love writing books. Thank You I’ve been asked to write several for another cozy mystery series. But the sleuths are also gourmet bakers who create cream-filled eclairs, apple caramel pies, and Death By Chocolate cakes. OMG, these people are killing my diet!

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Not a Clue

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O my God, thank You for Mrs. Holtz and Mrs. Daugherty, my second- and third-grade teachers, who taught me cursive writing and much more. Who would have known then that one day, I’d use that cursive to sign books I’d written? OMG, only You.

My local library has devoted a whole rack to my books!