Musing on the Letter "e"

Some days the writing comes easily. Some days you need help.

The jumping off point for this exercise came from a section in Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krause Rosenthal.

The letter "e" as it applies to me.

Evergreen - I love loblolly pines. I think I like the way it sounds as much as the tree. We had cedar trees for Christmas trees when I was little because we could cut one in the woods close by the house. On my first trip to Minnesota, I was shocked to see real Christmas trees, spruce and fir, growing along the highway. I love the way the dark shades of green flash brilliant against winter browns. A winter hike in a deciduous forest. Bare branches. Padded ground. Waxy green magnolia taking root on the forest floor.

Eggs for breakfast. Scrambled, with grits, and bacon crumbled on top.

Engine - So many times I watched my daddy set up his "come-along" on the swing set frame, wrap chains around the guts of a vehicle and pull the engine out of a car, a truck, a bus. Take it apart, put it back together, and drop it back into that hollow cavity.

Extrovert - I am not one.

Eleagnus - Don't plant this shrub unless you plan to spend a lot of time detangling stems, on a ladder.

Elegant - There may be some elegance in my long fingers or the way I move my hands when I talk, but mostly any elegance I exude is of the Fancy Nancy type. I refuse to wear heels. I hate big, bulky jewelry. No matter how many times my daughter matches up my outfits, I never seem to get it just right. But I'm comfortable in my own skin. Maybe there's a sort of elegance in that.

Eggplant - Baba Ghanoush. Mmmm.

Education - There is something to be said for going back to school when you're fifty. Lectures make more sense. You weigh opinions more carefully, your own and those of others. Creativity is fortified with a bit of experience. And it's way more fun than it was in your twenties.

Equator - I wrote a book about explorers. One day I would like to cross that imaginary line. In a ship, not a plane.

Energy - I wish I had more.

Expecting - Five times. Four healthy children. One full term stillbirth. I have experience with empty arms. I once heard an author say she was "pregnant with book." I remember thinking I would like to be pregnant with book. And though I've written quite a few for the educational market, it has not been with that essence of longing to give birth to something miraculous. I'm still expecting it.

Extrovert - Did I mention that I am not one.

Try it. Pick a letter and free write any associations that come to mind. Grab a dictionary if you need help.

Poetry Friday: Interview with Laura Purdie Salas

It is always a pleasure to host Poetry Friday, and today, I am hosting the delightful Laura Purdie Salas, as well.

Laura has two new poetry books, Bookspeak! and A Leaf Can Be...

As a sales rep for a book distributor, I have the great pleasure of getting lots of book samples. At our winter conference in San Antonio, Lerner Publishing, host distributor for Millbrook,  was one of the presenters who left samples for us to take home. As we gathered around the table to make our selections, I saw A Leaf Can Be... standing propped open at the back of the table. Just as I was about to reach for it, another buddy rep picked it up. "Aww, I wanted that one. I know her," I complained. (Okay, I know her as much as you can know somebody whose blog you haunt.) My buddy kindly handed the book over to me, and I love it.

The simple, lyrical text reminds me of the kennings so often used in Old English and Norse poetry. Just how many things can a leaf be?

   ...Shade spiller
                          .....Mouth filler              And so much more!

The delicate artwork by Violeta Dabija draws the reader right into these gentle descriptions.

Laura agreed to be my guest today and answer a few questions. Enjoy.


Dori: Tell us about the process of developing A Leaf Can Be...

Laura: I really wanted to try writing a rhyming nonfiction book. I’m a fan of the form, and there aren’t enough of them out there! I went through a bunch of ideas I had researched for other projects. I tried a couple of other science topics, but they were too complex. They came out sounding like little lessons in rhyme, which was NOT what I was going for. I wanted a book that was fun to read and that told about some amazing thing in the world.

After a couple of failed attempts, I was reading through some of my published works, just looking for a starting point. In Chatter, Sing, Roar, Buzz: Poems About the Rain Forest (Capstone, 2009), I read my poem about how Honduran tent bats use leaves for shelter. It is so cool how they do that! I knew from a recent conversation with my Clarion editor that animal poems/books are a hard sell, because they’ve been done so much. So I looked at it from the other point of view. Instead of focusing on the bat, I thought about the leaf. Who knew that one big leaf could be a tent home for a whole mini-colony of bats? I wondered what else leaves could do that I never really thought of. And A Leaf Can Be… was born.

Once I completed the manuscript, it was submitted to two editors, and Carol Hinz at Millbrook Press bought it. I was thrilled, to say the least:>) Not only because it was a book sale, but because it allowed me to diversify, both in publisher and in manuscript form.

Dori: How does working on an assigned topic change your creative process?

Laura: Great question. I do a lot of work-for-hire writing, and the process it totally different from what I did with A Leaf Can Be… I think working on assigned topics requires tons of creativity. For poetry and rhyming books, I’ve written for both the trade and educational markets. When I write for trade markets, I come up with the idea, write it just the way I want it, and then send it out and pray I’ll find an editor who loves it too. For the educational market, an editor offers me a contract to write a certain book on a particular topic that meets certain specific rules. Those rules might deal with word count, curriculum standards, phonic sounds, vocabulary levels, etc.

I write a lot of straight nonfiction work-for-hire, too, but I’m going to talk about this in terms of poetry and rhyme, since LEAF is rhyming nonfiction. I’ve written 10 assigned poetry collections for Capstone, several rhyming shared readers (both fiction and nonfiction), and numerous poems for standardized assessment materials. I’ve enjoyed working on them—they’re a lot like puzzle-solving. When I’m working on assignment, I start with the requirements. For instance, I’m working on a very brief rhyming story right now, 150 words, using short o sound words, and involving geography and travel. It’s kindergarten level. So I picked a geographic feature and did some research on it. I knew the story had to involve someone (kid or animal) traveling to or along that feature. As I read about the feature, I jotted down short o words that cropped up (like crop!). I picked a main character that’s an animal using a short o sound (no, not a dog—as prohibited by the publisher!). I plotted out a brief story over the 10 pages I have for my story, jotting down just the main plot point for each page. And only then did I start playing with words and thinking about the sound and the rhyme this project would use.

The pressure is higher on work-for-hire, especially with rhyming manuscripts. Once my plot outline was approved, as it was, I have no choice but to MAKE IT WORK. Unlike my trade projects, where I could discard an idea that just wasn’t working, I am locked in. The editor is expecting it, and I don’t want to disappoint her. I must come up with an entertaining and lightly informative rhyming story by March 7. So I will stick with it, and somehow it always works out.

Though I will say one difference in writing work-for-hire verse or poetry is that I am more devastated by editorial changes. When an editor makes changes that disrupt the meter, for instance, I am shattered. But in the work-for-hire projects, the publisher’s priorities aren’t necessarily the same as mine. OK, they aren’t ever the same as mine:>) That’s just the way it goes. So I have to be able to also just let it go. To say, this is good verse. I wish I could make it perfect verse, but this is the best it’s going to get given the parameters I’m working within.

(On my website, I sell a textbook for writers interested in writing nonfiction books for the educational market. It’s a book form of the online class I offered for several years: http://www.laurasalas.com/present/WCN_SG/desc.html)


Dori: You participated in Drum Corps last year. How do other artistic endeavors like this influence your poetry?

Laura: Oh, good question. I don’t see direct cause-effect influences. But doing things like that, totally stretching myself, teaches me that it’s OK to fail. It’s OK to make a fool of myself. It’s OK (more than OK, it’s essential) to try new things! And it reminds me that we can each accomplish amazing things if we really push ourselves (like, I performed in the color guard as Minnesota Brass won the world all-ages drum corps championship!). Other artistic attempts, like drawing and painting, have failed more spectacularly:>) But I think those attempts are more important than the failures.

Dori: Where did your idea for the 15 words or less come from?

Laura: Oh boy—it’s been a while. I decided to try doing a photo and poem every day for 2007. I just like to try new things to challenge myself, and it seemed like it would be fun. But I wanted it to be short and fast, because I’m also realistic! So I came up with 15 Words or Less. As I said when I blogged about it: “These aren't good poems, mind you. They're really just thoughts in some kind of poem form.” I shared some on the Wordy Girls blog I did at that time with Bonny Becker, Susan Taylor Brown, and Susan Heyboer-O’Keefe. And Bonny had the fabulous idea of making it into an interactive blog feature. Wow. I can’t believe it’s in its fifth year! I really love seeing what people come up with.

Dori: Have you published poetry ebooks yet? Do you think the market is going to move in that direction?

Laura: I haven’t, though I’ve been included in a couple of wonderful anthologies, Poetry Tag Time and Gift Tag, edited by Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong. I have considered doing some e-collections, though. Poetry doesn’t sell well, generally. The small market makes poetry a financial loss for publishers, so they publish very little of it. But e-publishing is cheaper. So even though an e-book might sell only a few hundred or a few thousand (if you’re amazing at marketing it) copies, it would still allow you to reach that many readers, that many kids, students, librarians.

I haven’t gone forward yet, because my collections are picture books, which are still really problematic in e-book form. But I’m definitely considering it. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying e-books by Janet Wong, David Harrison, Steven Withrow, and more.

Dori: Any new projects you'd like to share?

I have a new poetry collection out called BookSpeak! Poems About Books (Clarion, 2011). I’m honored that it’s a Minnesota Book Award Finalist, and I’m having fun sharing it with folks. Also, I’m happy to say that Millbrook is going to publish WATER CAN BE… in 2014, also illustrated by Violeta Dabija (yay!). Other than that, I’m hard at work balancing a bunch of work-for-hire projects that are due soon and several poetry and prose picture book manuscripts that I hope will be good enough for my agent to submit. And I’m doing school visits and consulting with children’s and ya writers through Mentors for Rent, an hourly mentoring service (MentorsForRent.com). I do seem to keep very busy!

Thank you, Laura, for taking the time to visit with me today. 

Stop over at Laura's  blog, writing the world for kids, to stretch your imagination with 15 Words or Less. And be sure to get your copy from Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Lerner Books. 

And now...

Linda at TeacherDance is celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday.

Books4Learning shares Oh, No! Where Are My Pants? and Other Disaster Poems.

Over at Over at The Poem Farm, Amy has a poem about writing ("The Pen") as well as some thoughts for students about structure. 

Charles Ghinga is March-ing in this week with a peek at some of the spreads from my new book I SEE SPRING.

More celebrations of Dr. Seuss at GottaBook with Gregory K's  Oddaptation of the Lorax

REPAIRED LINK FOR RENE
Rene La Tulippe shares a video of guest poet and children's book author Iza Trapani reading her kids' poem "Grins and Giggles." And it comes with a giveaway of one of her books! 

Tabatha is passing along a peaceful poem today. 

Mary Lee sends out a poem today  to all the bloggers who have started the Slice of Life challenge for March.




I have a busy day today, driving to a presentation at a school this morning, but leave your link and I'll be back about noon to post more of your comments.



Over at Maria Horvath's blog, today's theme is hope and optimism, part of the series of poems that can lead to quiet contemplation. 


At Author Amok, Laura has a RAADical Forecast. In honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday, the weather site Foot's Forecast is asking people to send in Seuss-style local weather reports.


Ruth shares an original poem today at her blog, There is No Such Thing as a God Forsaken Town. 

Tara is celebrating Women's History Month at A Teaching Life.

Laura Salas, our lovely guest today, is in with a poem from TAKE TWO! A CELEBRATION OF TWINS, by J. Patrick Lewis and Jane Yolen. And don't miss the opportunity to drop by and write a poem at 15 Words or Less Poems.

Carol is double dipping with her own "poem" for Poetry Friday and Slice of Life over at Carol's Corner.

Katya is celebrating a late-winter snow over at Write. Sketch. Repeat. 


Robyn Hood Black is living life on the wild side with Carl Sandburg at Read, Write, Howl.

Linda in today at Write Time with a Mary Oliver poem and thoughts about learning from poetry.

Diane Mayr at Random Noodling shares a poem called "Spitwads"! Her poem at Kids of the Homefront Army is based upon something she heard about Eleanor Roosevelt as a child. And Kurious Kitty shares "The Cardinal" by Henry Carlile. Kurious K's Kwotes' P.F. quote is by Lawrence Raab.

Jama continues her celebration of Kelly Fineman's new rhyming picture book,  At the Boardwalk over at Alphabet Soup.

Stop by Across the Page for a poem about moss.

Liz at Growing Wild has been thinking about the Japanese form tanka all week. She has posted four tanka about being a kid in a grown-up world, with an idea for a classroom activity using tanka.

Jeannine wrote about Winnie-the-Pooh's take on writing poetry at Views from a Window Seat. 

Janet's selection at All about the Book is Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art, edited by Jan Greenberg.


Julie Larios features a poem from Janet Wong's new book, The Declaration of Interdependence: Poems for an Election Year, over at The Drift Record.

Check out the two original haiku about snow at Check it Out.


Lori Ann at On Pointe features Flower Girls. 

readertotz is celebrating Step Out Gently by Helen Frost and Rick Lieder.


Did someone mention madness? Stop by Think Kid Think for info on this upcoming poetry event hosted by Ed DeCaria. 

I'm headed to the nursing home to read with my mom. We're both enjoying Andrew Clements' YA novel Things Not Seen about an invisible boy and a blind girl. I'll be back near suppertime to post any remaining links.  

Sherry's Poetry Friday selection is a sonnet by Keats at Semicolon.


Donna's post is a poem about her mother she was inspired to write after visiting my blog last week. I'm honored, Donna. 

David Elzey is in this week with an argument in favor of planetary status. 

At Booktalking, Anastasia Suen is sharing an update of an old classic: Down by the Station by Jennifer Riggs Vetter (Author) and Frank Remkiewicz (Illustrator).


At Wild Rose Reader, Elaine announced the winners of Janet Wong's new book Declaration of Interdependence: Poems for an Election Year. 


Paper Tigers offers a review of Kate Coombs and Meilo So's new book Water Sings Blue, and a reminder about World Read Aloud Day on 7th March


At Gathering Books, Iphigene writes about Robert Louis Stevenson's On Some Ghostly Companions at a Spa. 

Poetry Friday: Julia Kasdorf

I discovered Julia Kasdorf this week. My initial introduction came through the online class I'm taking. One of the assignments was to read Julia's poem, "What I Learned From My Mother." I liked the poem so much, I went in search of the poet, who teaches creative writing and women's studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Julia's parents grew up Mennonite, but left the community. Her first book of poetry, "Sleeping Preacher," explores the tension of living in two worlds. She was, in a sense "working out the implications of that departure in her writing."  (See her interview with Mennonot here.) The book won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. She has since won other awards, including a Pushcart Prize in 2004.

Read this interview with the poet, then listen to her read "Bat Boy, Break A Leg."



One of the things that appealed to me in her interview with Mennonot was this explanation of the relationship between pain and beauty.

Mennonot: What do you do with other people's stories of pain that they've experienced at the hands of the community, and your own stories? There's a sense in which I want the people who have caused that pain to be accountable for it, in the sense that I want them to know they either collectively or individually were part of causing that pain. But how do you do that in a way that's, I guess, loving? That's been a struggle for me. I don't want what I'm writing or doing to be about bitterness.

Kasdorf: I was really influenced in college and beyond by modernism. H.D. (the American poet Hilda Doolittle) especially. For a long time I just wanted to make beautiful objects, crystal clear. I believed you could find the right word. I sort of trivialize it now, but it was really good discipline to believe in all that. There's still a lot of that in me. I want to make beautiful things. So for me, the answer to your question is to take that pain and to make it beautiful. That's what transforms it into poetry.

So now, back to the class assignment.We were to read  "What I Learned From My Mother" and then free write, pen not leaving paper for twenty minutes using this as the jump off line: I learned from my mother how to...

This was a tough assignment for me. Many of you know that my relationship with my mother has not been an easy one. And in November she went into a nursing home for permanent care. The adjustment period has been difficult, to say the least. One of the things the online class has allowed me to do is use my writing to wrestle through the rising tension in my own struggle with this. 

Here is Julia's beautiful poem.

What I Learned From My Mother 

Julia Kasdorf 

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

And here is what came from my free write, my own attempt to make something beautiful from a painful relationship.

What My Mother Taught Me

She taught me gin rummy and badminton,

to make Chef Boyardee Pizza

with a crust ten-cent thin.

She taught me to make my bed before

I was out of it, to clean my room,

that homework came first.

She taught me to cook. I taught her to sew.

She taught me to practice

piano, to listen, and not get caught talking.

She taught me justice, but without

mercy that makes it redemptive.

She taught me to be truthful, but

she meant her version, and it was seldom spoken

in love. She taught me that getting

your own way hurts

the ones close to you. She taught me

silence is not golden when it shuts

people out. She taught me that touch

is tender and sweet, not tenuous. She taught me

family comes first. Mine. Not hers.

She taught me to give, but gifts without

grace make one feel bought.

She taught me that kindness is more

important than the appearance

of kindness. She taught me when bitterness

takes root, you can lose your best friend.

She taught me God’s love--

 without it I may not  have survived hers.

She taught me to be a mother. Sometimes knowing

what not to do is the best lesson.

Today I sat beside her bed and read.

I held her withered hand in mine and kissed

her wrinkled brow, because I know

what it means to need those things.

She taught me that.

© Doraine Bennett

Jone hosts the Roundup at Check It Out  where you'll find lots of beautiful poetry to enjoy. 

Poetry Friday: A Love Poem

Valentines Day is past, but I'm still enjoying the flowers my sweet man brought me. I hope you found lots of love to celebrate this week. 

What the Light Would Say
by
Dale Ritterbusch

 
In the language of the Dakota
um pa o wasta we
means beautiful daybreak woman.
I imagine a Dakota warrior
returning from the hunt
to a woman lying in the light
of early morning, and the warrior
slips in next to her, touches her face
and says the words
that tighten her arms around him.
When I touch your face
in the half-light of early morning
I have nothing to bring you—
no talisman or wild boar, no stories,
nothing but the fall of my hand
upon your shoulders brushing away
stray threads of raven hair
making way for a small kiss
in the breath of a light breeze.
And my breath speaks in a language
I no longer understand,
where any word I might say
in the most inarticulate resonance
of a touch breaks and burns
like a covey of birds rising to the sun,
rising until their feathers become light
and every wingbeat sings
as I reach my arms around you
O beautiful daybreak woman.

From Far From the Temple of Heaven (Black Moss Press, 2005)

Poetry Friday roundup is over at Gathering Books.

Never Ignore the Muse

I'm three weeks into my writing class that began the end of January--40 Days and 40 Nights: Deepening our Practice. It turns out that four assignments a week, in my week at least, has been a challenge. Last week, I had my piece figured out in my head, but I procrastinated getting it on paper, got wrapped up in email and dinner plans, and decided I needed sleep more than I needed to write. The next day my mental plan had vanished.

It's not a good thing to ignore the urge to write, that moment when the idea is clear, even if the words aren't. Never let something as urgent as sleep crowd it out. Never put it off until the dinner is cooked or the kids are in bed or the invoice is posted. At least jot down some fragments that can later be formed into rational thought.

Because if you don't, something else intrudes, the next task is imminent, the demands of the day are right there in your face, and they have to be done. The moment is lost. Sometimes you can't even remember the idea. It dissipates into the air like steam rising from a boiling pan of spaghetti. Then getting words on paper is impossible. The impetus is gone, the momentum lost, the spark that drives the pen flickers out.

You try again the next day, but you can't remember the feeling that came the moment you looked out the kitchen door and saw the blue heron standing on the rock. You can't remember the color of the sky or the strange combination of smells that assaulted your nose when the door opened.

And there's still the assignment that must be done, still a commitment requiring words on a page, the longing for a tone of voice that only thoughtful words will capture. The process demands time and discipline. Time to think, to re-see, to craft words and sentences and paragraphs that one day you hope someone other than your husband or your mother will read. Words that a reader somewhere will think about, identify with, perhaps even change for. Powerful words that speak to a desire, a longing, deeper than the paragraphs on the page.

But it starts with the urge to write, and the posterior in the chair, and pen to pad or fingers to keys.

Poetry Friday: Black History Month

I want to celebrate the first Poetry Friday in National Black History month with one of my favorite historical figures--George Washington Carver. On my list of "people I'd like to talk to when I get to heaven," this sweet man is in my top ten. In my county, students study Carver in the first grade and again in the fifth grade. Last year I wrote a first grade level biography of him for State Standards Publishing, but I loved him long before that. I think he must have captured my imagination when I was in elementary school. Maybe it was the flower in his lapel or the kindness in his eyes or the fact that I love boiled peanuts and parched peanuts and peanut butter. Or maybe it was simply the genius of the man.

I recently discovered Marilyn Nelson's book, Carver: A Life in Poems. It is a beautiful tribute to marvelous life. I know I came to this book late. It was a Newberry Honor book and a Coretta Scott King Honor book in 2002, but somehow I missed it back then. I was back in school that year and busy writing papers and being a good non-traditional student. Nelson's poems capture the essence of Carver's life.

Here are a few excerpts I especially liked:

from "Watkins Laundry and Apothecary"

He was the child the good Lord gave
and took away before I got more
than the twinkle of a glimpse at the man he was going to be.
It happened one Saturday afternoon.
George was holding a black-eyed Susan,
talking about how the see
this flower grew from
carried a message from a flower
that bloomed a million years ago,
and how this flower
would send the message on
to a flower that was going to bloom
in a million more years.
Praise Jesus, I'll never forget it.
He left to find a teacher that knew
more than he knew.

from "Chemistry 101"

A canvas apron over his street clothes,
Carver leads his chemistry class into
the college dump. The students follow, a claque
of ducklings hatched by hens.

from "Coincidence"

He looks down at the brown road map
printed in his yellow palms.
Your life may be the only Bible
some people will know.

from "Mineralogy"

He showed Ford his phosphate pebble,
found in an Iowa creek bed,
his microcline feldspar, found
in the Alabama woods, his smoky quartz,
kicked up by his boot toe
in a Kansas wheat field, his fluorite,
sent by a Kentucky spelunker, his
marcasite, sent by an English mineralogist
in exchange for a piece of information,
and here it was, his diamond, the gift
of his dear friend, Henry.

Pages before the book ended I was wondering how she would manage it, how she would close the door on  this remarkable life. In the final poem, entitled "Moton Field," Carver is still living. His "palseyed right hand/stutters answers to letters heaped beside his bed" while pilots of the Tuskeegee Airmen train--"a P-40 zooms in at five o'clock/ high as a Negro has ever been./.../and makes a sky-roaring victory roll." It was perfect. Absolutely perfect. I wanted to write her a letter and say thank you for her work, for the way she captured his heart, for showing how much his life counted.For ending with that victory.

The story of the Tuskegee Airmen has been told over and over. Made into movies over and over. It's been made into movies over and over. It's just such a great story, people will keep on telling it over and over. I went with my dad last wee to see "Red Tails." We both loved it.If you haven't seen the new George Lucas version yet, it's worth seeing.




I live about an hour and a half from Tuskegee on the Georgia side of the Chattahoochee River. It's been a few years since we drove over and went through the museum. My hubby was cleaning out some drawers in is office this weekend and brought me a pamphlet he had picked up while we were there. It's called "How to Grow the Tomato and 115 Ways to Prepare it for the Table." by George Washington Carver. Maybe if I followed his advice I could actually grow a tomato. See my post "No More Veggies" for my history with tomato growing.


Stop by The Iris Chronicles for more Poetry Friday.

Where January Went

It feels like it ought to be March. January seemed to last forever and the tulip trees are blooming already. It's a good thing I didn't make any New Years resolutions. They wouldn't have lasted. So, here I am trying to catch up again.

My hubby and I left for Oregon on New Year's Day. We spent a lovely week with my daughter and son-in-law in Eugene and Portland.

Hubby and Son-in-Law at the Oregon U track. Yes, we were there when the Ducks won the football game.

Sculpture on the architecture building when Son-in-Law is a student.

We had a lovely dinner at a winery in the Oregon countryside.

A lesson in architecture at the Oregon U art museum.

I left Oregon on Friday and flew to San Antonio for my Delaney sales conference and spent several days with my grands before moving to the hotel for three days of publisher presentations.

Now aren't those babies beautiful?

The kids came to the Riverwalk one night after the conference. We had ice cream and then hung out at the Rainforest Cafe.

And there's number five. Such a sweetie.

By the time I got home, around midnight on January 11, I was on the verge of one of the worst colds I've had in a very long time--head, chest, nose, the whole works. I spent about 5 days in bed or sitting in front of the TV wrapped in blankets and another week trying to function. In other words I did only the absolute minimum, then came home and slept again. I watched three full seasons of Burn Notice. I've always liked spy stories, never tried to write one though. I decided Burn Notice is a bit like Scarecrow and Mrs. King on steroids. Went through a full round of antibiotics, two boxes of Mucinex, and who knows how many gallons of chicken soup. Like I said, it was a long month. Finally this last week I'm feeling mostly human, although the cough is still not completely gone.

This last week I signed up for a class at writers.com, called 40 Days and 40 Nights. It's taught by Laurie Wagner. Here's the blurb that sold me:

     After 10 weeks and 40 assignments you will see a difference in your work.

     You will: feel more comfortable writing; find a looseness in your voice; take more chances, more risks;        develop a relationship with writing that is comfortable and familiar. You might even get to know the sound of your own voice.

 That's what I would like to find in these next weeks, and it's probably one of the reasons I didn't make any resolutions. I knew I'd lost touch with something in my writing life and I didn't want to just mask the need with new goals. Instead I want to recharge, rediscover my relationship with this thing we call a writing life. I'll keep you posted.