Read at your own risk.

Making the journey from evangelical/fundamentalist to Catholic was an amazing and intrinsically unique experience. Mostly I sit in my pew and wonder that I made it here at all. I wonder how I lived before this. Occasionally, it's nice to listen to the journey of others. This book is one of those books. David Currie is the real deal with all the important bona fides, just to hit the highlights, both of his parents taught at Moody Bible Institute. His journey isn't my journey, but for those who can't imagine how a well-trained evangelical can be led to the Catholic church, this might be a good start to understanding. Be warned though this isn't like Catholic and Christian. This is an evangelical speaking evangelical it has the potential to shake your beliefs.

Disney Princesses

Not exactly what I had in mind.

The Want Adds

Lilliputian cares
"So us"
To the Ground

C'est tres European, sort of.

Helping my kids succeed at their chores means making those chores as simple as possible. The more jobs that are no-brainers, the more we all live happily ever after. Making a twin bed can be a job for little bodies with short arms. Until now I've accepted any haphazard attempt at straightening, but I wished that the first chore on the list could be an easy winner. During our visit to Munich we stayed in a wonderful hotel and their bedding arrangements were so simple. You get pillows and each person has their own heavy duvet to arrange as they like. Making the bed was a simple matter of pulling the duvet's straight and fluffing the pillows. It was wonderful for sleeping and I imagine wonderful for the hotel staff.
I wanted to bring it home, but I got hung up on the duvet. The buttoned on cover would be terrific for tent building and other activities not related to sleep or good order. Never give children a giant bag that is, as far as they are concerned, a great place to stuff things. It wasn't until this Christmas that I finally figured out how to make it work for us--sleeping bags. Every kid has a fitted sheet, a pillow, and a sleeping bag. In the morning it's a simple matter of putting the pillow at the top and spreading out the sleeping bag. Everyone can do that and the bonus is that the sleeping bags are better suited to insulate the kids on cold Michigan nights.
We found the bags at Amazon for 25 dollars. The pillows were on special at Sam's and they worked out to 3 dollars a pillow and then I found a sheet set at Target for 12. That's 40 dollars a bed and well worth it.

Blinding

I'm still not sure why paintings and painters supply so much inspiration and ways of understanding the work I've set before myself. Without this crutch, I would struggle, perhaps to the point of giving up. Fellow writers, for the most part, cannot do more than overwhelm and confuse me. For Harriet I am somewhat on my own. Recently Harriet's pacing has been on my mind. I've known all along that I will be lucky to get a few good scenes and a solid understanding of my main characters out of this draft. On the one hand, there is just too much of the book, period, but a diet seems impossible. Faithful readers have said that my work is too minimalist and hard to follow. They are right, but I have struggled to think of a solution until I remembered Giorgione
I want my next draft to crackle like a lightening storm. I want to know my characters and plot so well that I can confidently convey the most important parts of the story in brief, strange leaps from one stroke of lightening to the next. Who knows if I can do it, but I'd rather be blinded by the light rather than feel along in the dark.