The Empathy Project - I'm not much of a visual artist, but when the school where I teach invited all of us to tell stories and create art which depict what empathy means, I couldn't resist getting out the kid's cray-pas set. Using cray-pas gives you the illusion that you are an artist even when you have no idea what you are doing because you can smear the colors together with your finger and it looks pretty good. Last night I attended the display of all the Empathy Project entries and was truly moved by the depth of understanding this word holds in our school community. Click on the link to see many of the entries including my feeble attempt at a pot of stew held by a pair of mittens. Thankfully my mother is a real artist~
Ahhh Advent - A new year, a fresh start. The long season of Pentecost is finished and our eyes are greeted by the royal purple. Every year, I hope to have it all together by the start of Advent which means house decorated, tree bought, Christmas lists in the making, cards ordered, but I'm growing up past this hope now. It isn't real and it isn't what it's all about. Advent is a time to prepare the way for the Lord so instead of trying to make it all pretty, we are going to try and make it mean something this year. At the library today I picked up a beautiful book, The Lady in the Box about two children who care for a homeless woman who lives in a cardboard box outside the deli store beneath their New York City flat. After reading it I decided this is something we are going to do as a family in the evening; have a time of devotion with a biblical reading and a new Christmas story each night. My mind immediately goes to beside the roaring fire, but nightly fires are just too hard to pull off, just the books are enough. If you have a book we must read this December please contact me and let me know. I'm hoping for all new titles, but it is hard to let go of those old favorites. We've already watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas and it isn't even December yet!
It's COMING - The event pictured below is our Back to the Manger nativity book signing during the Geneva
Christmas Walk, one of our favorite events which is Friday night December 2nd, 2011. To read an article about the
Neapolitan Nativity and our book please click
this link:
Once the home of the Neapolitan Nativity which is the subject of our story, The Little Traveler serves
as one of our most beautiful book signing locations. We will be signing our book at The Little Traveler on Saturday December 3rd, 2011 between 11:00 and 3:00. Come and find us in the Antique Room on Third Street in Geneva.
'Tis the season to be book signing!
One of the joys as an author/illustrator team is seeing the faces of children as they come to learn the story for the first time. The story coupled with the fact that this nativity scene actually exists and we can go and see it in the Geneva History Center truly makes history come alive.
A school principal reads our story at Barnes and Noble on November 17th.
Winter - Make an arrangement for the door by collecting things from your yard during the winter. This photo shows thistle (yes weeds) spray painted red, holly, some remaining fall Kale for the purple accent and a lantern. Guests love to come in by lantern light in the darkness of early evening. Use these months to have friends in for a cozy dinner by the fire. We have a tradition of getting together for dinner with the same two couples once a year during these months. A simple tradition like this makes winter a time to celebrate dear friends that you don't see often enough!
This arrangement is loaded with color symbolism. The evergreen of the holly is eternal, the prickly blood red thistle, the advent purple coupled with clean snow white, all illuminated in the darkness of night by the light of Christ. Also, beneath the snow is the remainder of last summer's Cosmos making a manger bed for this display of new life.
Back to School
Chalk dust and fresh faces, clean
notebooks and sharp Ticonderogas...the time to hit the Chalkboard store
has arrived. The newness of a new year in the classroom is
irresistible, filled with the hope of teaching something that could
make an eternal difference in someone's life. Teaching writing means
molding communicators who will hopefully be effective in sharing their
story. It is a humbling responsibility when you think about how much
story influences our lives. Teaching in a Christian environment all the
more so when I think about how much Jesus' great story has influenced
my life. An hour and fifteen minute class period is never enough time!
A friend just returned to teaching and as I surprisingly stumbled upon
her at "Meet Your Child's Teacher Night" she said, "Being back in the
classroom has awakened something in me. It feels great." Awakened. If
we aren't sharing what we've learned with others we risk falling into a
self-absorbed slumber, a numbness of introspection which can be shaken
by the opportunity to impart our gifts to others. The Redbud Writers
Guild which I have just joined is all about women who are sharing what
God is doing in their lives and the lives of others.
See our website to find out what we are up to at:
College -
Our first child has gone off to college. No doubt a milestone and one
that causes a keen, renewed awareness of how time does go by faster as
we get older. He is studying at Indiana University which we visited for
his orientation in July. I've been to the Amazon jungle and this was
impossibly hotter. We wandered through the two days dazed by the heat,
humidity and newness of every step. This poem is a result of that
experience:
Orientation - July 2011
A hot weekend in roasted granite
wandering the ivory tower of
southern Indiana red. Hoosier red.
Red faces with beads of sweat streaming down
alongside sideburns still coming in.
Red cheeks blazing with melting hot
passion inside, waiting to bust out.
Waiting to be defined by new voices,
mentors and textbooks. Did we define it enough?
Riding that red tricycle in Super-tot parades,
going places at your own pace with
red and white streamers curling in the air.
Today's tentative smile, braces still on with
three weeks and counting to go.
Go forward. Go strong. Go with God,
to that good land of fire engine red.
Monarch Returns! -
Mid-July brings out the monarchs. While pondering the annual futility
of Delphinium, watching it burn up in 100 degree weather, a familiar
flutterer lands nearby on the phlox. These friends tell me one thing
each year - Summer is half over. Time to take stock of writing projects
which were going to get abundant attention this summer, closets waiting
to be cleaned and annuals beginning to wilt. I chasten myself at the
thought of replacing fading, leggy petunias with mums! TOO EARLY to
think of abandoning weeding and focusing on a fresh fall look. Yet,
with JOY I received my 2011-2012 student class list this week. A few
beloved students from last year are returning and plenty of new faces.
The yearning for routine is creeping in....too quickly do I become a
traitor to my summer to-do list:)
Flowers Help the Homeless
Journeying out into the country this week for a walk with an old friend brought this Hawaiian Peony and Coral Bells into view. As I bumbled out of the car, tied up in the dog's leash, my friend greeted me with this gift. What a peony! The scent is one of many exotic fruits combined, kind of a visual smoothie. She made my day. While heading back home I saw a couple of homeless men with a brown cardboard sign,"Need money for food. Anything will help. God bless you." I drove by. As I thought about the Joy that this bouquet brought me I decided to pass it on. I drove back. Pulling together all the change in my car I gave them some Coral Bells because everyone needs a touch of beauty in their day. I'm not sure which they appreciated more, the flowers or the money. They told me their story, both casualties of our harsh economic downturn. Use your garden to bless someone unexpectedly today and you might be surprised who God puts in front of you. The little bouquet on the windowsill next to this is Anna's lavender which is described below. Contact me and tell me how your garden is blessing others!
Anna's Lavender - Every week I have the delight of tutoring a very young and excellent writer. She recently brought me a bouquet of freshly picked Munstead Lavender which was just beginning to emerge green from its silvery remainders of last season. The small bunch was tied in a bow by a single blade of grass. An elegant and unusual gift from someone so young. When I was Anna's age I picked as many dandelions as I could gather for my mom, always annoyed by their unwanted closing up once she received them. The artists group that I am a part of suggested I share the poem with all of you. May this inspire your own poetic heart to create some artistic expression of a lovely moment that comes into your day.
Out of
silvery grey chards
crisp as death
comes forth freshly
formed green shoots
thrust forward by a
white hand of innocence.
A hand held bouquet,
without flowers
who will gladly wait for June.
Five crude stems
lovingly tied together by a single
blade of new fescue.
"This is for you,"
Anna chimes.
All hope exchanged in a
single handing over of
Winter to Spring.
A story yet to be told.
April Crabapple Showers Bring May Flowers - A few years ago our home was on a local garden walk so we had our pastor and his wife come over and pray a blessing over our garden. Just last fall a good friend died and I was invited to go over to her home and pick out a few things to take as a remembrance of her. She loved being outside so this gardening angel statue would serve as a reminder of our times together and the inscription speaks a blessing today. While gardening, I noticed she was standing in a shower of petals so deep it was truly a spring snow with a sweet scent. If you don't have a blessing upon your garden find a little gnome or statuary to preside over your hard work and see what might happen.
Early April Forsythia is a wonder this year. An abundance of cool weather has allowed the Forsythia a prolonged bloom. This Forsythia on our patio is in its first year. Our old crochetly Lilac was overcome by the towering Gingko on the right in photo below. The elegant fountain needed an equally elegant backdrop so in a feverish hunger for digging, I found myself at Home Depot. What a wonderfully reasonable place to satisfy your early Spring cravings for color. This enormous bush was $17.99 and has been blooming for two weeks. She has already paid for her presence in our yard!
SPRING IS HERE! - Early March - Early Spring. Every year the Winter Aconite is the first one on our street to announce, "Spring is here!" These little bulbs bloom as early as Christmas in more southern regions, but here in the Midwest they are always two weeks before the Snowdrops and this year they are right on schedule. From this bloom on, Spring streams in. A frequent lament heard in Chicago is, "What happened to Spring? We jumped right into Summer." These people are not looking and seeing spring bloom until mid-May with the Magnolias. They are not gardeners. About this time gardeners are looking for flower catalogues in the mail. Their eyes are checking on bulbs coming up. They are watching the melting snow to see how the grass looks beneath.
Flowers in the foreground are Snowdrops and Aconite is the yellow flower behind. A favorite personal tradition is to keep track of when this is first spotted every year and it is almost the same day each time, depending upon the amount of sun. If you want to try this, you'll need a gardening journal which is essential for the nature watcher and serious gardener.
Texas and Oak Brook
Barnes and Noble in Oak Brook, IL and San Antonio, TX brought wonderful reconnection with old friends! Mom's life long friend Pat surprised her by showing up in Oak Brook and buying five books. Salt Creek Ballet dancers performed selections from The Nutcracker in the store so little pink tutus danced their way to our signing table.
Trinity University graciously allowed me to sign our book as part of Alumni Weekend. Pictured here are dear friends from Texas days. Once partners in the art of the Margarita, they have now joined me in juggling children's sports, folding laundry and seek-
ing sanity in a passion. For some it is serving children in their school library, one teaches ballet, a few pursue gourmet cooking, and another trains wild horses. Such a joy to see their healthy, smiling faces and hear them laugh again!
St. Louis, Missouri
November began with a very special stop on our book tour, Webster Groves Bookstore in St Louis, Missouri. Some bookstores appear to be cut from a cookie cutter, predictably comfy with the Starbucks right where you expect it. This bookstore smells of ink, fall leaves and pipe smoke. In the center towering over Madeline and The Bad Hat is a large, painted red twig tree with ornaments hanging on it, bookmark ornaments. Ann, pictured here at our signing, is a gracious host, providing sparkling cranberry punch and treats. Signing books by the light of a Tiffany lamp fits the setting. We are deeply thankful to friends like Ann and family who have encouraged us along our journey thus far!
Purchasing our book online is easy through our publisher's website, www.singingriverpublications.com If you live in the Midwest, you will be able to buy our book in local bookstores. Not only do we hope you buy our book, we want to hear from you. We have received our first great review of the book which you can read by clicking this link:
We learned as much if not more on our book tour as we had the opportunity to teach. Giving writing seminars, nativity art history power points and listening to mom explain how to paint those tiny oil paintings inspired others to pursue their own art and writing dreams.
Your Story
Our book was born out of a family tradition. Many friends along the way have shared their most precious family traditions with us which we will post throughout the year so others can benefit. If you have a tradition that is near and dear to your heart please go to the Contact Us page and tell us all about it!
