Sunday, August 31, 2008

My Anniversary

I've now been married for thirteen years! It's been an interesting road, that's for sure, but a fun one.

Every time I hear the song "Still the One" by Shania Twain, it makes me think of my husband. I was going to post the YouTube video here, but it looked more like a Harlequin novel than I really wanted, so we'll just have to settle for lyrics.

Looks like we made it
Look how far we've come my baby
We mighta took the long way
We knew we'd get there someday

They said, "I bet they'll never make it"
But just look at us holding on
We're still together still going strong

(You're still the one)
You're still the one I run to
The one that I belong to
You're still the one I want for life
(You're still the one)
You're still the one that I love
The only one I dream of
You're still the one I kiss good night

Ain't nothin' better
We beat the odds together
I'm glad we didn't listen
Look at what we would be missin'

They said, "I bet they'll never make it"
But just look at us holding on
We're still together still going strong

(You're still the one)
You're still the one I run to
The one that I belong to
You're still the one I want for life
(You're still the one)
You're still the one that I love
The only one I dream of
You're still the one I kiss good night

(You're still the one)
You're still the one I run to
The one that I belong to
You're still the one I want for life
(You're still the one)
You're still the one that I love
The only one I dream of
You're still the one I kiss good night

I'm so glad we've made it
Look how far we've come, my baby.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

The Hardships of Motherhood

There are many hard things about being a mother, but the thing I personally find the most difficult is knowing when I'm doing what's best for my child.

I can embark on a course of action and feel perfectly confident about it, but then I find myself beseiged by doubt when the child in question protests and then I wonder if I've totally ruined them for life and if they'll ever be able to forgive me.

Such was the case yesterday.

My seven-year-old has bad eyesight, which has been getting worse quite rapidly over the last year. I took him in to an eye doctor last month and was counseled to get some vision-correction lenses which actually retrain the cornea to the right shape so the patient can see again, even with the contacts out, after a period of time. I talked it over with my son, and he was excited. I talked it over with my husband, who agreed. We prayed about it, felt good about it, and yesterday, we went and got them.

Now, in theory, I insert the lenses, he sleeps in them, and then during the day he doesn't wear them. In reality, I spent an hour and twenty minutes last night inserting one lens. My son was screaming, bordering on hysterics, and hyperventilating.

It was so hard, knowing that we could dramatically improve his eyesight and improve his quality of life, to see him freaking out like that. He'd let the doctor put them in earlier, but when it came to doing it again, he was out of control. I explained over and over and over again that this was for his best good, and he'd get calmed down, but as soon as he saw my finger, it was all over for him. Finally I called the eye doctor. Well, he said I could! So at eleven p.m. I'm on the phone with the doctor. He suggested letting my son fall asleep and then inserting the lens.

I tried. He didn't let me. Kid can fight like a wildcat even in his sleep. We left it at one lens.

This morning we went in to the doctor. I was completely ready to give up. My son was obviously not ready. We would have to discuss other options. I had dropped from exhaustion the night before. I had stayed awake thinking of what a rotten mother I was, questioning my existence. On three hours of sleep, I knew I was not in a condition to deal with this.

The eye doctor listened to my explanation, then checked my son's eyes. Well, eye. The one with the contact in it. Which was now seeing perfectly. He explained to my son that the contacts would help him see. He let my son play with the lens for a minute, and then he let the doctor put it in. Yeah, that's right. He put it in. The stinker.

Because these lens are oxygen-permeable, they're the kind you can wear for several days in a row. So we decided to have my son wear them for a while and then come back. Today has gone pretty well. We've put eye drops in a couple of times and he's getting used to them. Tomorrow promises to be better.

Now, if we can just get to the point where he'll let me put them in and take them out, then we'll have gotten somewhere.

Did I mention that I'm exhausted and frustrated and worn out? Yeah. I just really hope this continues to work. I want my son's eyes to be helped. And I hope it can be done in a way that doesn't end up sending the poor kid to a shrink to discuss his evil mother issues.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Say It Isn't So!

On a regular day, fixing my hair is a quick little routine that usually involves a hair clip and a brush. If I'm going somewhere, I'll put in a little more effort, but yesterday was a quiet day, a hair-in-the-clip sort of day. If only I had known what was to await me . . .

As usual, I brushed my hair. As usual, I gathered up the front and sides, twisted them and pinned them in place with a clip. And there it was. Right in front.

My first white hair.

I looked at it very carefully. No, it wasn't a blonde highlight -- it was much too light. I yanked it out and held it to the light. Then to my bedroom light. Then to the sunlight. No matter how I looked at it, the hair was white.

You might say, "Oh, it was just a matter of time." Hello? I'm 32! I wasn't expecting this for ten more years!

I saved the hair and tucked it into my glasses case. I showed it to my husband. He was no help -- he went gray at 17.

At least I have two consolations. First is that my hair was a pretty, snowy white, not a yellow-white or a mucky gray. Second, I live close to Wal-mart and hair coloring is very inexpensive these days . . .

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Classic Movie Moment -- Fred and Ginger


My mother is a classic movie buff and she got me hooked. One of the things I enjoyed most about reviewing movies for Families.com was the chance I had to share my thoughts and opinions about the films I saw. While Families.com is on hiatus for movie reviews, I'll share my thoughts over here. It's either that or start a new blog, and at last count I had eleven (down from thirteen) so I think we'll just post here.

I'm delighted to announce that I have now seen all ten movies that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made together. Fred was a genius, there's no doubt about that. Not only was he talented in his own right, but he always choreographed his numbers to best highlight the strengths of his partner. You'll notice as he dances opposite different women that his style changes a little bit -- that's because he tailored his steps to her. I think that shows real class.

Fred and Ginger only did ten movies together, although they probably could have made a few dozen and the audience would have loved all of them. But Fred didn't want to pigeon-hole himself or Ginger -- he wanted them both to have other opportunities as well, and they both did have successful careers without each other.

Their movies, in order of their completion, were:

Flying Down to Rio (1933)

The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Roberta (1935)

Top Hat (1935)

Follow the Fleet (1936)

Swing Time (1936)

Shall We Dance (1937)

Carefree (1938)

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939)

The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)


I'm now going to list them in the order of how much I liked them. Titles that have a link will take you the review I did on Families.com, but I didn't see some of these films until after Families.com went on hiatus, so I don't have a link for those.

1. My very favorite Fred and Ginger movie is "Top Hat." The comedy is great -- Fred and Ginger have their banter down to a T. You can tell they've danced together a bit by this point -- they're a lot more in sync with each other and they are flowing together well. I think I like it best for the humor, everything else notwithstanding.

Plot: Ginger meets Fred in a hotel, where he's immediately smitten and she's not impressed -- he woke her up in the middle of the night tap-dancing in his room, which was right above hers. She mistakes him for her friend's husband (Fred was staying in the real husband's room) and she ignores his advances until everything gets cleared up.

The only thing I didn't like was the fourteen-hour long exhibition dance number at the end, called "The Picolino."

Famous Songs from the Film: "Top Hat," "Cheek to Cheek"


2. My second favorite is "Swing Time."


Plot: Ginger is a teacher in a dance studio and Fred pretends he doesn't know how to dance in order to get her attention. It doesn't work for long, and soon they're dancing together in a club. But his gambling problem does cause a little bit of friction along the way.

Famous Songs from the Film: "The Way You Look Tonight," "A Fine Romance"


3. My third favorite is the last movie Fred and Ginger ever made together, "The Barkleys of Broadway." This one's unusual because it's in color and the other Fred and Gingers are black and white. It also incorporates some elements of drama, where their other films were more light comedy.

Plot: Fred and Ginger have been Broadway stars for years and he's directed her career from the get-go. He likes to believe that she'd be nothing without him, but when a fancy-talking playwright tries to steal her away, she decides to go out on her own.

Famous Songs from the Film: A reprise of "You Can't Take That Away From Me," first introduced in "Shall We Dance."


4. My fourth favorite is "Shall We Dance."

Plot: Fred didn't make it in show business as an American dancer, so he's been posing as a Russian ballet dancer named Petrov. Only his business manager knows he's not really Russian. When the tabloids link his name with Ginger's and say they are married, they do everything they can to shake the paparazzi off their tails, but they end up getting married after all. This movie has a great rollerskating sequence in it that I really enjoyed.

Famous Songs from the Film: "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "You Can't Take That Away From Me."

5. Next was "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle." This one shows the talent and genius of these two dancers as they put aside their own trademark moves and imitated the real dancers, Vernon and Irene Castle.

Plot: Vernon Castle was a performer and a pretty famous one in his own right when a pretty girl named Irene auditioned for him. She wasn't very good, but he fell in love with her, taught her how to perform, and married her. They became one of the most famous dance couples in our history and much of modern ballroom dance is traced back to them. Unfortunately, his career ended when he died in an airplane accident. This film was made with Irene Castle's supervision.

Famous Songs from the Film: "By the Light of the Silvery Moon." To be honest, I'm not sure if this song was introduced in this movie or was just used.

6. My sixth favorite was "Roberta." Even though it was only Fred and Ginger's third film together, they really got along well and seemed an excellent pair.

Plot: Fred takes his band to Paris in company with his good friend Randolph Scott. Who should Fred run into in Paris but his childhood sweetheart, Ginger. While Fred and Ginger are finding their way back into each other's hearts, Randolph has fallen head over heels for the manager of a dress salon, Irene Dunn.

Famous Songs from the Film: "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."

7. Number seven is "Carefree."

Plot: Fred is a therapist who believes that we only do things that our subconcious tells us to do, and if we can just get our conscious and our subconscious to agree, we'll be perfectly happy. When his good friend Ralph Bellamy tells him that he's having woman problems, Fred tells him to send the woman in question in for therapy. That woman is Ginger, and she immediately falls in love with Fred. In order to keep his attention, she pretends to be mentally ill so she can be close to him.

Famous Songs from the Film: There aren't any real stand-out numbers in this one, but I really liked a dance number they do toward the end when he has her in a hypnotic trance.

8. My eighth pick is "Follow the Fleet."

Plot: Fred is a sailor and so's his good friend Randolph Scott. Coming into port one night, Fred decides to look up his old song and dance partner, Ginger. She has a sister who's a little on the plain side (Harriet Hilliard) and Randolph's on the prowl for something prettier. When Ginger fixes Harriet up to look glamorous, Randolph spends some time wooing her, but she doesn't understand that to him, it's all fun and games. She falls in love and he goes merrily on his way. Meanwhile, Fred and Ginger reconnect, but he costs her the job she had and then ruins an audition she had for another one. How do we fix this mess? We'll put on a show, of course!

I didn't like Randolph's character at all and I wanted Harriet to stop being such an idiot and find someone better. But there was some great dancing in the film.

Famous Songs from the Film: "Let's Face the Music."

9. My ninth pick is "The Gay Divorcee." This was Fred and Ginger's second film together and it does show -- she's not very coordinated yet and they don't have that connection established.

Plot: She's trying to get a divorce and her husband doesn't let her. Her lawyer suggests that she pretend to be having an affair. Fred has been following her and she doesn't want anything to do with him, but then she mistakes him for the man she's supposedly having an affair with and ropes him into her little game. We must endure another fourteen-hour long musical number at the end, called "The Continental," which in so many ways mirrors "The Picolino" I mentioned above as to be silly. In fact, in both movies, Fred and Ginger are sitting at a table watching the dancers, Fred asks about the dance, and Ginger explains it in song. It's very ... not interesting.

Famous Songs from the Film: "Night and Day."

10. My tenth selection is "Flying Down to Rio," and it falls last simply for the reason that Fred and Ginger aren't the central characters in the story -- well, that and the fact that the film is shockingly bad. This was their first appearance together and they are performers in the background. We still see plenty of them, but not as much as we expect. They dance a number called "The Carioca," which isn't as long as "The Continental" or "The Picolino," but is along those lines.

And there you have it -- all ten Fred and Ginger films, a little something about each of them, and my order of preference. Hie thee to thy Netflix queue!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Houston, We Have Rough Draft

Given that this is my writing blog, I thought it only fitting that I post a writing-related blog from time to time. Seems to make sense.

I'm delighted to announce that yesterday I finished the rough draft for my eighth novel, "Ida Mae Rides Again."

I think that's totally deserving of a Snoopy Happy Dance, don't you?

Thursday, August 21, 2008

This Time, On Purpose

You may recall our sunflower adventure from last summer, when my husband spilled some seeds outside and we grew a little impromptu sunflower forest right in the middle of our yard. We really enjoyed the resulting brightness but not so much the highly random placement. This year, we decided to be more pro-active in our sowing and he placed the seeds neatly around the edges of the lawn. It looks a lot more orderly now, which appeals to my need for organization.

Here are some pictures:




In my opinion, these really are the ideal flowers for a yard. They require very little care, do quite well on whatever water they get, and they create a visual impact with just one or two blooms. Plus, they make me happy.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

New Book Reviews

I'd like to call your attention to some new book reviews.

First, "Copper Star" and "Copper Fire," two historical fiction novels I reviewed on Tristi's Takes.

Then, "Santa's Secret" and "What's Wrong with Mormons?" I reviewed over on Families.com.

Enjoy!

Friday, August 15, 2008

The Books that Choose Us

Anyone who writes will tell you that they've all had at least one project that chose them, rather than them choosing it. It's generally a project of some importance to the writer and may or may not get the attention and respect it deserves in the market, but the author feels forever changed for having completed it.

As I look back on the things I've chosen to write, or the things that have been chosen to be written by me, I can see how each project has not only been a reflection of who I was when I wrote it, but how each project shaped me. Each book taught me and made me grow, sometimes painfully but always for the better.

When I first started writing, my main area of interest was historical fiction. My first two books were historical and they each took a lot of research, which left me feeling drained and not quite whole. When my next book idea came, I was rather shocked to discover that it was a contemporary mystery. Wasn't I a historical fiction author? Would I be denying my true self if I veered off my path and wrote something so different? But it was a book I needed to write. My first book included the bombing of Pearl Harbor and then the victims of the atomic bomb. My second book involved the Nazi concentration camps. The books only reflect the smallest amount of the research I did, and the pictures I saw and the accounts I read drained me of my inner joy -- I had to write something light in order to restore my internal balance. So I wrote that contemporary mystery, called it "Faith Beyond Fear," and am currently awaiting word from a publisher on its status.

Right now I'm working on a new series of comedic mysteries about elderly ladies who fancy themselves amateur detectives. This series also chose me. I needed something that would make me laugh. I needed to rediscover the joy of writing, of using words for words' sake. This series has been a blessing in my life, giving me a good chuckle as I sit down at the computer every day to see what those crazy ladies are up to now.

Have I turned my back on my historical fiction roots? No -- I've still got some great ideas for historicals to write in the future. But for right now, just this minute, I'm writing what I most need to write, and I hope that my stories will touch my readers as much as they've touched me.

Saturday, August 09, 2008

My Precious . . .

For Gollum, it was a ring of power, a ring that could give him anything he wanted in the world. For some, it's money. For others, it's jewelry. For some, it's fame. Everyone has their passion. Everyone has that one thing that makes their hearts beat faster, their breathing come in ragged bursts, at the thought of possessing it.

This is my precious:
School supplies.

Yeah, you heard me, school supplies. Note the crayons. Behold the pens. Cast your eyes upon the glue sticks. Are they not the most lovely things you've ever seen?

Only one thing is missing from this picture. One thing and then my life will be complete -- spiral notebooks. Wal-Mart was all out tonight. But I did get some composition notebooks that will tide me over for now.

All my children are artists. They get that from their daddy. All my children are writers. They get that from me (and my husband too -- he wants to write as well). With four little budding Hemingways/Monets, I need all the art supplies I can get, and I love to buy them at this time of year, when they're all on sale. The crayons were twenty-seven cents a package. That was for Crayola, people -- the good stuff. Don't try to sell me any of that Rose Art garbage -- I don't care if it's seventeen cents a box. We need the real stuff. We're serious about our crayons over here.

Of course I'm delighted to get all this stuff for the sake of my children, but let's talk about me for a minute. You know it always comes back to me. Did you notice those beautiful pens in the foreground? Shall we all heave a happy sigh together? Those pens represent words. Beautiful, beautiful words. Books will be written with those pens. Love notes, cute pictures, and grocery lists will be created with those pens. They'll also get lost under couches and stolen by Pen Gremlins, but the possibilities are endless.

I could go on and on about my love of school supplies. Folders, glue. . . POST-IT NOTES!! Yes! POST-IT NOTES!! But I shall try to calm down. Really, I shall.

Just know that I am very, very happy right now.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Monday, August 04, 2008

Let the Memory Live Again . . .

I got this from Kimberly at The Bennett Family, and it sounded fun so let's give it a whirl.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! I guess good or bad, but be nice!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.
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