The Parking Lot

Are you one to get distracted easily? Chances are, if you are a writer, the answer is a resounding YES! That’s okay. Writers are ALWAYS writing even when they don’t have a pen in their hands or they are not at the keyboard. Their minds have a hard time shutting off. They are constantly thinking of a new story or how to enhance an existing project and then the grocery list gets mingled in there as well. Here is a sure little trick that I was taught. I have used it myself and it has saved my sanity more than once.  

When you are working, keep a notepad near you.   That notepad is going to be your “Parking Lot”.  When you are in the zone and on a roll with writing/typing, you do not want anything getting in your way. So when that thought enters your mind that your forgot to pick up a present for Aunt Sally’s birthday, you are going to stop and jot it down in your parking lot. That way you do not have a chance to forget it and you don’t have to dwell on it any longer.   Carry on with your writing until the next irrelevant (to your working project) idea tries to bully its way into your brain. Stop and put it in your parking lot.  

I even use this tactic at night when I am trying to go to sleep. This is when your mind is attempting to wind down and you not only have to fight the thoughts of forgotten tasks but now the characters and ideas in your writing projects decide that they all want your attention this very minute. They don’t talk to you all day and you struggle to find them and incorporate them into your writing, some days to no avail. Apparently their morning is your midnight.   That’s okay! Because now you have a parking lot and you can jot down the ideas and write about it in the morning.  Very simple fix that eliminates a ton of frustration!

Happy writing!

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If it has a plug in or a battery, keep it away!

I am always jokingly(?) telling my husband that when it comes to electronics I have a negative psychokinetic energy that breaks whatever device is in my presence or at the very least makes them act up. The copier will jam over and over again. I call for my husband's help and he is able to get it working with no problem whatsoever. He usually just looks at me and smiles, not expressing his frustration of me taking him away from his task.  Phones won't function, my kindle will act up, even one of my car keys refuses to work in my presence.

I made a fool out of myself today when my husband said he would keep one of the car keys on his key ring. I told him he couldn't because one key was to start the car and one was to unlock the doors. I had tried that other key several times every which way possible and could never get it to start the car. We get in the car and he uses the key he took off the ring and it started right up.   My 17 year old apparently has been touched by the same issue as me. He walked through the door after using the car today saying that he could not get the key to start the car and had to use the other one.  I felt validated.

I have never met anybody else with the same problems in regards to this issue to the extent that I suffer...until today.   Now I understand my husband's smile. It can be pretty comical. I went over to a client's house and we began our book coaching session. After finding the correct names and passwords for certain screens, we were finally where we needed to be. We began setting up an account. This took several tries as certain characters were left out of the password or username. Giggles were starting.  Because of this, we had to set up a new account EACH time. We reached a point that the computer was no longer responding to the commands we were giving it. The giggles spill out.

After realizing we now had four accounts floating out in cyberspace and still no confirmation through the email, we decided to call the company. My client picked up her cell phone and dialed the number and put it on speaker phone. "All circuits are busy, please try again later." Laughter fills the room.

"Are you kidding me?!" my client screams.

"Isn't that like a rotary phone issue? I have never had that happen on my cell phone!" I said. "Try it again." This time the call went through. She explained to the person what had happened and the screens we were seeing. As she is talking, she is walking through the steps again on the computer. This time it worked when she hit the "Continue" button. She slaps me on the arm and we both throw our heads back in silent laughter, trying not to let the company operator hear us. We hit the next button and it did just as it was supposed to, getting us to the next screen. She politely thanked the person and said everything was now working.

Things worked very slick after that, but it makes it very hard to write a step by step process for someone when the those steps don't give you the correct response each time. Good grief!

Guest Blogger Introduction - Kimbre Christopher

Meet Kimbre! She is 27 years old. She has three boys and is expecting her fourth in May of 2016. Kimbre and her husband spend a lot of time not only raising their children in Christ, but help to raise other children to know Him through their church's Awana Club. Kimbre is starting a new chapter of her life as a "stay-at-home" mom. She is eager to share what she has been learning in this new part of her life.  

No More Carbs!

GUEST  BLOGGER - Kimbre Christopher

Meet Kimbre! She is 27 years old. She has three boys and is expecting her fourth in May of 2016. Kimbre and her husband spend a lot of time not only raising their children in Christ, but help to raise other children to know Him through their church's Awana Club. Kimbre is starting a new chapter of her life as a "stay-at-home" mom. She is eager to share what she has been learning in this new part of her life.  

At my latest prenatal check-up, I had to do the glucose test, and as if drinking that stuff isn’t bad enough, they follow it up with an hour long wait in the waiting room and a blood draw. Of course, my nurse tells me about the blood draw while she’s taking my blood pressure. Ha! She looks at the numbers and comments on how high it is. Well, duh, did you expect anything else? She leaves the room and I wait for my doctor to come in.  

My doctor comes in and we listen to the baby’s heartbeat. He measures my stomach and then looks at my weight gain and my blood pressure. He was not pleased with either. Up until this point I had only gained 7 pounds total, until this this last month, when I gained 6 pounds alone. He looks at me and sadly tells me that if I do not want to deliver a 10 pound baby that I should probably give up carbs. “Give up carbs? I live on carbs; can’t I just drink more water and walk more?”

He smiles at me, “No. You can drink more water and walk more, but carbs go straight to the placenta and add pounds quickly to the baby.”

I sadly nod in understanding, “Okay.” I head out to the waiting room to wait to get my blood drawn. My husband arrives to sit with me and I tell him about the carbs and all he can do is laugh at me, knowing my diet that consists of nachos, quesadillas, pancakes, and enough pasta to end world hunger.

“Are you supposed to starve? The boys and I aren’t giving up carbs with you, sorry.” Thanks honey!  After the blood draw is done, we head for home to fix dinner…and what is on my menu for that night? Pasta!

Now as I look at my month long menu, I wonder how I am going to manage cutting carbs from my diet. So I think and think. I finally came to the conclusion that I cannot cut them out completely, so I try to cut them down to only one meal a day. If I know we are having some sort of carb for dinner, I try to steer clear of them throughout the rest of the day. So much easier said than done though, especially since my husband has decided that there needs to be a steady supply of cookies in the house! 

Oh I can’t wait for the baby to be born so I can eat carbs without worrying about having to birth a calf! 

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Bring it on!

It seems to be feast or famine in all aspects of life. Having teenagers, I am used to having busy days. I have adjusted. Now that one of them drives, it has taken a bit of pressure off of me and I have been able to semi-retire my Taxi Driver title.   However, I have filled that space with some of my own interests and, of course, my husband always has something going with his duties as a pastor.

Things can go smoothly with only a couple activities a day: school in the morning, Bible class for the kids in town at noon, practice at 3:00 and church function at 7:00. That has actually become the famine part of our schedule. It is pretty easy going, having time in between each scheduled stop. We try to fly under the radar, but then all of a sudden Life sees us and laughs.  She lies in wait for us to get comfortable with how things are going and then turns it up a notch.

We have had a couple of incidents recently that have made us shake our heads and say, "What...how...?" My husband had been invited to be the best man in a friend's wedding. He had not seen this man since high school. We were very excited to go and had resolved that it would just be the two of us going. Our youngest boy always seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes to planning our vacations around his sports schedule. He usually has to miss practices which means he can't play in games right away. That was our first dilemma. We didn't want to do that to him again. Where would our boys stay? With our older teen being close to 18, we decided they could stay home, the older could take the younger to his practices and games, they would be home to take care of the animals, we would have people from the church check in on them; it was a win/win. I talked my mama heart into being okay with that. I was looking forward to a road trip with my husband!

As I was taking my son to the doctor one day and running our trip through my mind, I exclaimed, "Oh no!" My son asked what was wrong. "My women's retreat is the same weekend as the wedding! Oh well, I will cancel the retreat." It was one that I had not attended before and was anxious to go, but decided I would bow out and not tell my husband as I didn't want him feeling badly about it.

That same afternoon, he said, "When is your retreat?"  I laughed and told him that I realized it was on the same day as the wedding but assured him it was no big deal and I could go next year.  Problem solved, trip still on.

Two days later, I was crawling into bed and looking over our calendar. A gasp escaped my lips. My husband asked what was wrong. "Chris (our 17 year old) will be on his Mexico mission trip that same week we are leaving." Now, I didn't want to sway my husband's decision, but my mama heart went into total panic mode! I could not possibly go to Wyoming while one of my son's was out of the country and another home in Idaho with someone who would have to alter their schedule to run him all over! I couldn't do it! So I prayed.  I did not want to show my husband how torn I was about this. I did not want to tell him I didn't want to go. I certainly didn't want him missing his friend's wedding. I know my God and I also know He can be the God of the last minute. I begged Him not to let me wait til the last minute to hear how He was going to fix this glitch.

The very next day, my husband says, "I think I'm going to have to call my buddy and let him know that we won't be coming to the wedding." Thank you, Jesus! We discussed how we could still get him there, but he does not like to travel without me and it was discussed with his friend and all was good.

Things were calm again and Life got busy meddling in the plans of others, but she must have just went around the block. I pulled out my calendar to mark down some schedules the boys had handed me. Why was it that everything was saying March 19th? That couldn't be right. "Oh, yes it could!" Life said. My husband leaves the 18th for his men's retreat and won't be home until the night of the 19th. I have a writing conference that I am helping to facilitate the 19th which has been scheduled for months.  Thank goodness my 17 year old can drive because our youngest has a baseball invitational in another town that day. Oh, but wait, of course that's not all. That is also the night of prom.

So you know what I did? I laughed in Life's face. "Ha! I've got this! This ain't my first rodeo!" I assured Chris that his dad and I would both be home early evening and that Eli's game was supposed to be over by four and that while his brother was at the game, he could run down the road and get his flowers for his prom date and since his dance didn't start until 9:00 p.m., he would still have time to come home and clean up and take his date to dinner at 7:00. Booyah!

Life knew she had been beat. She hung her head and slowly walked down the road, but with a renewed energy, straightened and looked over her shoulder and said with a smirk on her face (and NOT in a Arnold Schwarzenegger accent), "I'll be back."

I confidently responded with, "I know and I'll be here. Bring it on!"

Yes, life will throw those little scheduling glitches into the mix, just to keep you on your toes and keep things interesting. Don't lose heart, just get into your fighting stance!

B-L-E-S-S-E-D!

Do you know why I love my family? Because they are always so helpful when I am in a tough spot. My husband was thoughtful enough to ask how my blogging was coming tonight and I admitted it had been a few days since I wrote anything for it and was going to tonight but could not think of anything to write. He offered the suggestion of writing about how cool he was to which my 17 year old said, "You could write about how cool all three of us are." That was simple. I am always telling people to write, it doesn't matter what you write, just write. So I sat down and my fingers are a-flyin'.

I am blessed. I can never deny that.  My husband is super cool. He is the spiritual leader of our home, he is a good dad and a good husband. He is always looking for joining in on the interests of me and the kids, so needless to say he stays quite busy. But it doesn't stop there for him. He is a pastor which means he also has to zone in on the interests of others in the congregation, be perceptive to their needs physically and spiritually.  We also have a good sized group of kids at the church that he enjoys supporting their interests of sports and activities. Between all of that, he works side jobs. Many times he will take us with him.  He calls it bonding time. It may not be our first choice to spend the day in that form, but we know it helps him and he goes above and beyond for us and we actually do end up having a lot of laughs.

My husband is very much into "bonding time". Yard work becomes bonding time along with working on the car. He balances it out, though, and has gotten us all obsessed with jigsaw puzzles. Anything that gets us all in a group together qualifies as bonding. My husband has a special way of drawing information out of each of us and getting rich conversations started.  Some of our deepest conversations have occurred in our backyard around the fire pit which have become known as....you guessed it..."bond fires". Break out the wienies and the marshmellows and the philosophical discussions and we all go to bed richly blessed!

To honor my teen's suggestion, I want to say how blessed I am to be a mom of seven kids. We have the beauty of the blended family with his, hers and ours but we have left the labels outside.  With five boys and two girls in the mix, there was NEVER a dull moment. It has been quite the journey watching them grow up and become productive members of society, making grown-up decisions, setting grown-up boundaries and starting their own families. I have been blessed by the fact that all of the kids have always been extremely polite. I don't remember teaching them that so think some of it was knit into them. Also, our kids have always been very respectful to us as parents. They are helpful and no matter what meal I make for them, whether it is steak and potatoes or macaroni and cheese I ALWAYS hear, "Good dinner, Mom!"

We are down to two at home now and I am wanting to stretch it out as long as I possibly can. All of the kids have provided so many precious precious memories for me. I love seeing my kids smile and interact with each other now that they are older.  But the fun doesn't end there...because now I have the grandbabies and feel like I get to start all over again!!

So there, I can now let my family know that I wrote about how cool they all are!  B-L-E-S-S-E-D!

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