Rambling Thoughts on a Tuesday

 I am writing a new book because that is what authors do.  They write. This one is going rather slowly because life is busy; this week involves a number of doctor and orthodontic appointments. But the key is to keep on keeping on.

I have said before that I am a pantser. I get an idea for a story and I just start writing it and my brain comes up with the next bits as I write. It is really cool, and a gift from God, that I can do this. I am grateful. Our books continue to be very well received which is so sweet. I know I am not writing great literature. My books are fun and mostly mellow. Romance readers tend to read a lot and they like my books, which makes me happy. I will also say here that I am very careful to keep them clean and sweet; no steamy sex scenes in my books!

We have had a minor illness for more than a week now. Yesterday I was tilting my head and pulled something in my neck. Ouch. It isn't terrible but it is annoying.

I read part of an article a couple of days ago which keeps bothering me. A woman wrote an article for the Washington Post describing how she married young (21 or so) and had three kids in a few years and then one day decided she wasn't happy and insisted on divorcing her husband. Her husband was, apparently, a perfectly pleasant man, not abusive, faithful, hard working, etc. She wanted more. So she broke up her family and she had absolutely no shame about it. She "wasn't happy" and didn't give a rip about her small children (the eldest was 5) being thrown into a broken home.

I find it very upsetting because divorce causes long term scars in children. I am NOT saying that divorce is always wrong; there are times when divorce is the best of bad options. In cases of abuse and cheating and abandonment, it may be the right thing to do. But this woman just decided she wasn't happy, and she bailed.

She is still caring for her kids half of the time but still...it is hard on kids when their parents aren't together. There have been studies showing that kids don't just shake it off. It causes permanent effects.

And yet, her viewpoint is perfectly reasonable from the perspective of someone who doesn't believe in a God who reigns and rules. If this life is all there is, than "being happy" is the most important thing. I guess?

So it is sad but not surprising.

I have been thinking too about how parenting is a long haul, and especially when a couple has nine kids and their youngest in their mid 40's!

I am 54 and Rose is 9! 

Rose deserves a diligent mother and father, and Kevin and I often pray for wisdom and the ability to do what we should do with our time and energy.

I have a couple of homeschooling books written by a very intelligent woman who was the youngest of six children; she was strong willed, and her parents were tired, and she went off the rails in her 20's.

Now, kids can go off the rails regardless of parenting, that is for sure! However, she says her parents were too tired to discipline her properly and that was NOT good for her.

So yes, I am trying to be as diligent in guiding and loving Rose as I was with Naomi, in spite of being 15 years older now than when Naomi was 9!

Life is way easier in some ways, of course; no babies, no toddlers trying to damage themselves by climbing on the chandeliers.

Well, I should go wake up the children who are still sleeping. This illness makes people tired, but it is 10:30 a.m.

Early December

 

I hang banners for various exciting days throughout the year. We have a Birthday Banner, and a Christmas Banner, and  New Year's banner, and a Thanksgiving banner, and so on and so forth. Rose decided to get into the action this year by making a "Black Friday" banner, which is adorable.

Random picture of all our desserts for Thanksgiving.

Sarah painted this. Yes, my girls are amazing artists.

We have this cute little spot out the back door which is usually quite a bit warmer than elsewhere when it is sunny; the wind is blocked by walls, and the sunlight reflects and it is cozy. Also, the cats like Isaac.

Our sun room has writing all over it from our days with small people who wrote on walls. Joseph is heroically working on cleaning it.

Sarah got a diamond painting craft for her birthday. 

Sarah is tall.

In other news, we published another book. Yes, that is crazy but... I finished Elizabeth Bennet's Inheritance in early October and immediately settled down to write a Christmas story which, as I said in my last post, I finished last week. We published two days ago. It is shorter than my usual books but doing well so far.

In other interesting news, Joseph is now a monetized youtuber. Youtube pays people if they have more than 1000 subscribers and over 4000 (I think) watching hours of the channel. He does these incredibly complex mods (modifications) of a game called Terraria. He has taught himself how to code and change things like how the villains interact and so on. He has been doing this for several years, and last week a particular video went viral among the Terraria community. He quickly soared above the requisiste 1000 subscribers and is now over 2000 subscribers!

It is exciting and will provide a little bit of income for him. Not enough for him to quit his day job -- not that he has one now, as he is studying for IT certification, but still, very fun!

We have some minor illness moving through the house. I am very tired and have been having peculiar dreams. Other than that, mostly Ok thankfully.

December is frankly a little stressful for me; we have three birthdays to celebrate, and Christmas too. But times they are changing. The children can do a lot of the work (like putting up the Christmas tree) and Kevin has graciously taken care of the purchasing of the presents. So I can just enjoy myself, and I intend to!

Oh, one last thing! The biggest concern for both Kevin and me about him quitting his job was finding health insurance. Thanks to Obamacare, we are signed up for a Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance plan starting in January which will be very managable, and which includes dental and vision. We will have to change dental offices unfortunately, but it is still awesome to have that sorted out.

Thanksgiving

 Yesterday was Thanksgiving. It was "just" the 12 of us -- we Kendigs 11, and Kevin's mother.

A year ago Thanksgiving was humorous. I was frantically finishing a book at the time, and Kevin's mother, who usually brings multiple dishes, was in Texas visiting Kevin's sister.

Thanksgiving dinner rolled around and I lifted my head from my manuscript and realized we had turkey, mashed potatoes, and 3 pies. That was it. No one really cared, but it definitely was an odd Thanksgiving dinner.

This year, I was determined to do better. Kevin's mom is in Ohio, so that helped. Our middle girls made 3 pies. Kevin's mom came with 2 more pies and brownies. We had enough desserts.

And we had many other things: turkey and mashed potatoes and green beans and sweet potatoes and gravy, and cranberry salad and olives. Oh, and Kevin's mom brought cheese ball, to the delight of some of the children.

It was very yummy.

Lydia has been battling significant dietary issues and has lost a lot of weight. She is currently sitting at like 130 lbs which is Ok, but thinner than she likes. She is trying to gain weight but it is hard when you can't eat so many things.

However, we do live in a time and place where gluten free alternatives are an option. So she is figuring out things she can eat. She thought she had celiac, but now the doctors are saying no, it isn't that...

but it could definitely be a wheat intolerance.

She is figuring it out.

Now onto the other excitement of the Thanksgiving weekend; another book!

After Kevin retired from his Air Force job, he started studying marketing. He found a lady who is an expert at marketing and we have hired her to help us market our books better.

We launched Elizabeth Bennet's Inheritance at the beginning of this month. I had finished that book in October, but we had to wait to publish because Kevin was working with Harry, our narrator, to record an audio book for EBI.

So anyway, I was of course writing away at a new book, a Christmas story. Still Pride and Prejudice, of course.

I was sitting on the couch a few days ago, minding my own business, when Kevin said that our marketing lady said that we really needed to get this Christmas book out this coming week.

And I was like, WHAT??

What?

I was nearly done but still, the first draft is the first draft and I still had to do a full edit, and Kevin had to do a full edit, and our paid editor had to do a full edit.

The other option, according to our marketing guru, was to wait until January to publish and change the title and the tone away from Christmas and onto winter.

As Inigo says in the Princess Bride, I hate waiting.

So I finished the book, and I am almost done with my second edits.

Kevin is working on his edits. Our editor is working on her edits. Not the same things at the same time. There is a process.

But anyway, we will have it done by tomorrow probably.

Stephen King, whom I certainly admire as a writer (though I don't like horror so...) said in his book, "On Writing" that authors should finish a manuscript, set it aside for 6 months, and then come back to it with fresh eyes.

How adorable.

We don't do that.

Anyway, the new book launches next week. Wow.

The End of a Generation

 My great- aunt died yesterday. She was in her late 80's and was the last of her generation.

My parents are each 80 so given that Ingrid was a full generation older, it is surprising that she was not so much older than my parents.

But she was born in Germany, came to the United States after the war, and eventually married my youngest great-uncle, who was some years older than she was.

He died some years ago at a ripe old age. Ingrid had a pretty hard childhood -- she was a child during World War II in Germany! She was an incredibly sweet, kind, generous person. She was amazing. People loved her.

The last few months have been hard and she was ready to go to be with the Lord. It is sad for us, but happy for her.

My great-uncle, her husband, farmed an old "family farm" for much of his life. When Francis was in his early 90's, he would still go out on the tractor to work the fields.

Francis and Ingrid did not have children, and no one in the family was interested in being a farmer. By God's grace, a wonderful family moved into a rental house next door to my great-aunt and -uncle's house.

For many years, they acted as family. They were kind and caring to my relatives. They looked after them. As time went on, they did more and more of the farm work.

They were such a gift, and I am confident they loved my relatives as much as Ingrid and Francis loved them.

The farm will go to this family, or already has, or something. It makes me happy that someone still loves that land, someone still wants to farm it. 

Good-bye, dear great aunt Ingrid. I am thankful that you are walking heaven's bright streets today, and sad for those of us left behind.

Refinishing the Table

 

Kevin is fixing up our dining room table. We currently have the dining room set up with card tables. 

I am proud that our garage is available for doing jobs like this. We just remove cars and...voila!

November

 

Gorgeous colors still! It has been such a pleasant autumn with beautiful colors.

I assigned Settlers of Catan this week for school, just one game, and it is now the new craze. Even Rose is playing and enjoying it, which I am thankful for.

Nice sunset

This pic is from a couple of weeks ago when my parents were visiting. When lots of Kendigs are in the same room, we fill it up!

It is like we have a bunch of kids or something!

Sarah, Rose and I went to the library a couple of weeks ago. An older woman stopped us and gave this quilt to Rose; she said her daughter had made it, and wanted to give it to "a little girl with glasses." Rose adores it. Isn't it cute?

November!

 

Angela and Rose love each other

It snowed last night! Obviously got cold -- mid 20's! Kevin was out and about yesterday evening and saw a genuine snow squall! Crazy! It will warm up later this week.

Last night five Kendigs went to our church's Halloween alternative Trunk or Treat. It was inside and as I said, it was bitterly cold outside and windy. We had over 300 people visit!  Lydia helped with making hot cocoa and Angela ran a game and Sarah and Daniel and I sat behind two themed tables and Rose ran around. It was a good experience though a little tiring.  I was being very extroverted -- chatting with people and complimenting them on costumes. It was an honor to serve and I did not DISLIKE it, but I was worn out mentally by the time we got in the car to go home. I can be very outgoing but I am an introvert so need some recovery time after being surrounded by people.

Daniel wanted to be a plague doctor so Angela, being an awesome big sister, made a mask for him!

Angela was  a... I am not sure what she was. She made a mask. She looked really cute in a scary way.

My parents visited over the weekend. It was great seeing them. They live in Michigan. We hung out. We had turkey. My father and I took a walk around the back three acres together. It was not cheery weather so we didn't go and do anything exciting but that is fine with me. Lots of talking, lots of catching up. It was good.