Thanksgiving Preliminary to Christmas

Tonight my husband John and I are going to J and J's....a fairly new restaurant here in Montrose located above the green. We are going to do our "tradition." I actually wrote an article about it entitled "Our Thanksgiving Christmas Tradition." When I mentioned the possibility of it to a "pro" at a writers conference, she discouraged me saying there would be no market. But I went ahead and wrote it and sold it to Catholic Digest and then reprints to Purpose and Standard. Sometimes the pros are wrong! To make tonight even sweeter, I'm using my $20 gift certificate. Periodically a local paper has a random weekly drawing for different local restaurants and it's nice to have won for an evening out. The Men's Prayer group meets at J and J's every Weds morning from our local church. John is a regular so has gotten to know the young, new owners quite well.

I should tell you "our tradition." We take all of last years Christmas letters and after we eat, we leisurely sit and reread (at least) most of them. Then when we send our Christmas card and letter, we are up-to-date (within a year) of what has happened to the people we are corresponding with! And it makes a fun date night. IF it seems to go too long, we return home and finish reading them.

I wrote my article for Oswego Alliance and hopefully will see it in print before long. That was fun to write!

Progress made...by others!

Although I haven't gotten a lot done re writing due to being at a quilt retreat, members of my family have accomplished a great deal. My husband and middle son are sort of in the same stage. John has finished his book except for small details and then proofing it and my middle son has finished his dissertation except for all the extras. Meaning graphs, pictures, footnotes ...all that kind of picky stuff. But I am really proud of them and inspired also.

A lot of that type of writing is just actual "sit in the chair" work that I struggle with. I'm always
jumping up and down to go do my supposedly more urgent work. But I think even this late in
life, I'm beginning to change and work more diligently.

But I do have to write an article for the Beacon. That is the church newsletter of Oswego Alliance Church. We attended that church from its inception (meaning when it was only a group
of believers meeting in a Bible study) and were still in Oswego for its 25th anniversary. It has since had its 30th anniversary and we now live in PA. But nine quilters came to Montrose for the quilt retreat. I've been asked to write an article for their newsletter telling about the quilt retreat and how it started and then updating them on our lives. The Lord uses many different types of writing for His Work and this is one that I will enjoy writing. I have to email it by Thursday so should get to work.

Little writing this weekend...

I feel very fortunate to live in Montrose, PA. It is a beautiful, small town and I love it. In fact,
not trying to be morbid, my husband and I plan to buy burial plots here. (It's nice that our small
group is led by a local funeral director!) But the land is so pretty around here. I even love the harshness of the winter months. It makes the beauty of the summer seem so much more vibrant.

We not only have a wonderful church here but we also have a Bible conference. This coming weekend is the quilt retreat. Interestingly enough, nine people from my old home town (over thirty years....Oswego, NY) will be attending the quilt retreat. That's an added treat besides getting to quilt. I'll get to visit and catch up. But it does mean not much writing will happen this
weekend.

The Bible Conference is quite busy. The quilt retreat will be in one building but in another the local homeschoolers will be meeting for their Thanksgiving feast. My husband will be doing some readings of his future book and is looking forward to it.

Rarely a dull moment in Montrose....

The waiting time.....

I find the time of waiting (in almost every aspect) to be the hardest! I know most people are like that. Even though we may know God has a reason for putting us in the waiting period, it still seems to drag on and we keep wondering why He can't just get us moving. I know that is true whether one is waiting on a job, a health diagnosis, or a response to a written article. The usual advice is to keep busy and keep writing so that one has more and more articles "out there." Hopefully answers will start rolling in one day!

But I wish that I could learn to wait with patience knowing that God has reasons for the waiting and is continuing to use the waiting for growth!

November 10 - Veterans Day - and time to revise

John and I are watching a war movie on tv that has to do with Veteran's Day! (Pearl Harbor)....
I've actually seen it before. It actually snowed today. We have been busy and before I know it, Thanksgiving will be here. Last Sat. my daughter-in-law, Linda, and grandson, Ezra, were in
Houghton, NY and we drove up there for a visit. In two days there is a quilt retreat at the Bible conference here. I am getting some writing done and John is getting a great deal of work done also.

I received two emails today telling me that two articles had been received. There is always hope for the future but I won't hear about them for a while. In the meantime, John basically has his book finished and it is in the hands of proofreaders. He stil had to do the back page and the illustrations have to be completed by Dominic Catalano. But John is getting excited about it. This Friday he is giving a reading for some of the local homeschoolers. I have a number of new articles to work on but I also have some old articles that I need to revise. Sometimes I just want to go on to new things instead of taking the time to revise. However one of the main lessons I have learned this year is that many articles could really be made publishable if I would take the time to rewrite and revise. That for me is the hard part of writing but I'm learning it is also the most satisfying as I get into the article.

November 1

This has been the week of power outages. We went away for the day to NY state on Tuesday and came home to a power outage. Our cable and internet were out until the next evening when they came back on right before the Phillies won the World Series! The cable company would have had even more unhappy customers if that did not happen. I forgot to mention that along with the power outage was a lot of wind and snow and broken limbs. Then, yesterday, just as I was about to take a shower the power went out again so it has not been a great week along those lines. Yesterday was not the weather as it was a gorgeous day and we finished up our fall tasks of putting outdoor things away....in part, just to be outside.

I thought I would comment on the subject of blogging ....a lot of writers seem to be struggling with the fact of whether to blog or not. Many want to and enjoy it but the other half of the equation seems to be that they spend a lot of "writing time" blogging or reading other writers blogs. That seems to be a struggle for me too. I have to admit I have certain blogs I read almost every day. IF a blog is done in the right way and the amount of time spent on it is manageable, I can see that it could certainly be an asset for publicity as well as being in touch with others and gaining feedback.