Picture Book Idea Month (aka PiBoIdMo) began today!

Today is a great day for picture book authors and illustrators.

Today is the first day of Picture Book Idea Month 2014, also known as PiBoIdMo. (Learn more HERE.) Thanks to Tara Lazar who is the creator of this inspiring challenge, November 1-30 is brainstorming month for those of us who appreciate the push, nudge, encouragement to capture our ideas. (Read my interview with Tara HERE.) This morning before I was out of bed I was thinking about this being Day One of PiBoIdMo and how I just didn’t want to get out of my bed yet … and an idea came to me for a picture book! Yay! I still haven’t written it down but that’s next on my to-do list. Maybe in the next couple of brainstorming days I can add to that story by coming up with my character’s name and a great title for the book. Or maybe I will settle on those today – now the imagination wheels have begun to turn again. Either way, I will try to keep track on my blog as I progress with this year’s PiBoIdMo challenge.

It is not too late if you are interested take part in Picture Book Idea Month; you have until midnight of November 7 to read about it and register HERE.

Each November since 2010 I have worked on a YA fiction novel, last year being the least I added to it. With a little regret, this year I decided to not participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This means I may not even finish my novel, but I surely want to! My problems are tiredness, trying to beat back depression, too much going on in my brain as it is – including all I feel I have to do or should be doing but not wanting to overextend myself further. I care about my own health, and if I get sick I am of little help to anyone else. My dad needs me, my sister needs my contributed half in caring for Dad, my husband and daughters even need me sometimes. And, of course, little Meyya needs me. Okay, there. Does that sound convincing enough?

Even though this month I’m not officially adding to my novel through NaNoWriMo, my fiction story stays on the back burner of my mind. I’m not sure how to bring it to its natural end yet, but the characters won’t go away. It seems they’re telling me this is a novel that needs to be completed, which I plan to do. In fact, I’m kind of excited to see how it turns out!

What it comes down to is I believe my biggest problem may be lack of adequate organization of my time. Well, that and I get distracted easily. And I’m tired. And I have so many ideas and things I want to do. hmm Yeah, I’ll go back to the first point – lack of adequate organization of my time. (Can anybody relate to this?)

Share with me your thoughts on this.

What do you find to be the main thing that prevents you from moving forward, and how do you conquer it? Any tips for me on how to better divide and manage my time?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Skipping rocks – a fun video

I was talking with a friend about how sometimes similar things happen close together in unusually high numbers. What we were discussing was deaths of people we know. In my circle of family and friends there have been several since my aunt’s passing (age 75) in February — one in June (in his 80’s), one in August (age 97), one in September (in his 80’s) the same day my dad had his heart attack, and three deaths this month – a cousin in his 80’s, a former neighbour age 66, and a cousin age 65. Dad has recovered well from the heart attack, by the way, and attended five of those funerals, the last being three in ten days!

I am glad for the wedding I mentioned in my last post; it was a lovely lift after so many losses. It was a sweet, touching, meaningful event, emotional for the bride and groom … and, of course, for sappy me, and a few others. The bonus was the weather. Friday we got a lot of rain, Sunday we got cool wind and some rain showers, but Saturday … Saturday was so warm and beautiful for an October outdoor wedding at an inn by the bay. It was a day much like my husband’s and my wedding day in late October many years ago, even a little warmer. Often by the end of the month it is cold, maybe even snow flurries, but there are the occasional Autumns that have remarkable weather. Since the wedding on Saturday the temperature has turned and rain is expected for much of this week, so that day was such a blessing – in many ways.

Now on to other things. Today in place of a book review I want to share something I found that is so cool and enjoyable. Have you ever skipped rocks on a lake or pond? Have you really listened? How about when the water was frozen? Check out this video; it’s remarkable and amusing.

I have tried to skip rocks, but I can’t say I’m very good at it, not like my husband. It takes several tries for me to get it right. How about you? Have you skipped rocks? What’s been your best rock skipping record?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Instead of a book review

Hello, everyone!

Today is supposed to be a book review day but, as you can see, this is not one. I’m sorry, I just haven’t managed to get one written yet. My apologies for not even getting a post up over the week-end.

It was an exhausting week for me with spending so much of it with Dad in hospital. He was admitted Monday evening when they determined he had suffered a heart attack. In the morning he was moved to ICU even though he didn’t really need to be there, but it was really God’s blessing because of his state of mind and the excellent attentive nursing care he needed and received. Most of the time he didn’t seem to understand for long where he was. He thought he was home or in another hospital which would have been where he was if he were still living where he grew up. The heart attack really served to add to his confusion, so it was difficult when he became agitated.

What we learned through all of this is that we are losing our dad more quickly now as certain things are not working well anymore. It is a waiting game, not within an expected amount of time as it was with our dear Mum, but time is shortened. As his daughters, my sister and I have much to be thankful for and much to deal with yet, but we have very good support in place and we have each other. Teamwork counts a great deal in this.

What I learned is that God’s provision comes in many ways, usually without our realizing it in the moment, and in such a loving fatherly way. Also, on another track, I learned through our recent experience more about how totally fascinating the brain is — and if I were younger I would want to make that my advanced study and learn more about dementia and how to treat it or even prevent it. How much I want to know! How much there is to know!

Now I wish to thank you for faithfully checking in to read my book reviews and other posts. You make blogging enjoyable for me, and it helps to keep me writing. Please remember to visit my BUY THE BOOK page when you are looking for a book to read as there are many good ones listed there that I’ve reviewed, and check out my Writers’ Helps page for helpful links and fun things to do, not only for writers.

I will get into my reading and writing again, and a new book review will be up soon. Thank you for your patience.

I have two questions for you today:

Have you learned something helpful during time of crisis?
If you could study something that would be of benefit to mankind what would it be?

PS: I just realized I failed to mention Dad was released from hospital Friday afternoon. He is doing well enough they said it would be okay but we keep the nitro spray handy and continue on as we were. He is more content in his own home and sleeping better at night. Not having to remain in bed or in one room works so much better for him.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

What is the reading level of your writing?

For anyone writing for a certain readership, something that has to be considered is the age group or reading level of the intended reader. I’ve given attention to how to write for children, how young to make my writing – suiting it for the age group I am writing for – but I hadn’t thought so much about the reading level of my ‘regular’ writing.

I recently read an interesting article, and, although it is not to be taken as a firm guideline, I thought you may enjoy reading it, too. It’s called ‘What’s the reading level of your writing?‘

Before you leave here to check out that article I want you to know that I added the following three tools to my Writers’ Helps page. While there, please take a few moments to look around in case you haven’t seen other helps I’ve added.

If you have a website or a blog you can test your readability of it by using the readability test tool. There are three different ways on there to test your writing, or you can even test the writing you read on someone else’s site.
You also can analyze a sample of your own writing by using the writing sample readability analyzer. This one was created by Sarah K Tyler and is even more fun to try.
Have you heard of Scrivener? It is a word processing program and as a management program it has become popular as a tool to improve one’s writing.

Before I sign off I just want to tell you my daughter’s ten-day visit – mentioned HERE – was fun and packed full of family things, including four barbecues – although one was more of a very informal “weinie roast” at the lake where we also created sticky s’mores by firelight, followed by thrilling fireworks that my husband set off when it got dark enough. Our final events were yesterday. After fourteen of us had a BBQ and corn boil at Dad’s, eight of us went from there for a fun visit to the local farm zoo, the largest zoo in Nova Scotia, arriving at feeding time for the lions. (Fortunately, we weren’t on the menu. 😉 ) Then this morning, my husband and I got up shortly after 4:00 and woke our daughter. We were all soon on the road to the airport, taking our daughter for her flight back to Alberta. It’s always difficult for me to turn and walk out of there, keeping back the tears and leaving for home without her.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend – and on September 1: for those of you in Canada have a safe and pleasant Labour Day; for those of you in the USA have a safe and pleasant Labor Day. 🙂

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Quiz: What magical creature are you?

Here it is Monday already! I missed blogging on the weekend, but I have a really, really good reason.

Friday at 3:00 PM my doorbell rang. When I went to the door who should be standing there but … my daughter who lives in Alberta!! She came home for a ten-day visit, a surprise to everyone except her oldest sister who helped in the planning. 🙂 That’s neat because on her last trip home (in April) it was that sister who was the only one NOT to know she was coming since it was a surprise for her special birthday event. What a lovely treat to have her home. 🙂

It was a busy weekend, including a family event at the cottage to welcome into the ‘clan’ my sister-in-law’s fiance’; their upcoming wedding is in October. It was after receiving the invitation to Sunday’s special occasion that my daughter started making plans to come home again. She had been blessed to get a promotion with pay increase at work which enabled her to make two trips home this year, the first time she’s been able to do that since moving to Alberta six years ago.

Sunday was a gorgeous day for family and feasting (including lobsters and muscles on the menu), and then my beloved and I went canoeing for a little while on the calm lake. I needed that.

So … all the above, including reading to review, and I missed blogging – but with good reason, don’t you agree? 🙂

Now, this post was originally going to be on the weekend and about this fun quiz I would like you to try. The question is: What magical creature are you? I don’t know if I should tell you what I am according to that. 😉 Funny.

Do try the quiz and leave a message to share what magical creature you are. 🙂

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Family fun and birthday surprises

Today was a day of activity … secretive activity.

My husband’s landmark birthday is on Wednesday, but a surprise birthday party was planned for today. He got busy doing yard work at my dad’s this afternoon, which put him out of sight of people going past our house to our daughter’s where the party was being prepared.

Another daughter arrived and took Dad “for a drive”, and my husband and I went on to do our normal things before going home for my week there. We even ordered Chinese take-out as we usually do on the Sunday ending my week at Dad’s. (I didn’t change our routine because I didn’t want to make him suspicious.) While he was in the restaurant collecting our order, I talked with our daughter on the phone, so when he came out we had our story worked out to get him out there.

As soon as he got back into our vehicle I told him I’d been talking to our daughter and she needs him NOW at her place. Apparently, there is a leaking pipe in her yard (true) that is much worse and not getting any better (false), and she needed his help right away (false). He said to me he would have to get a shovel and his boots, so we stopped at home and left our meal and my puppy, and got his supplies. Fifteen minutes later we were driving down her long driveway. As we drove up over a rise he saw the cars parked in her yard. “What the frig is going on here??!!”, he exclaimed, while stomping on the brake. He looked at me sitting beside him trying to act innocent — and not very well by that time — and started backing up the car! So funny! He was totally bamboozled! It was great!

Sixteen of us were in attendance and oh! the delicious food! We gave him cards, small gifts, and a large one we had gone in on together for him. He kept expressing his amazement over not catching on to it, but I had done nothing to tip him off. Such success! Such fun!

And he deserved it.

Do you have any tales of surprises you have managed to pull off for someone?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

The last one standing

It happened. The sad news we knew was going to come too soon was delivered. My aunt – Dad’s youngest sibling – passed away very early Tuesday morning.

Alzheimer’s disease.

This leaves Dad the last one standing. All his three brothers and his three sisters have passed from this life.

The memorial service was held Saturday morning. Uncharacteristically, Dad was very quiet during our hour-long drive to get there. He was a little jittery at the service but held his composure. It was a lovely service. The reverend who conducted the service shared Scripture in a way I had never heard it presented at such a service – or maybe ever before. He brought it alive and spoke it in a way that should make its meaning very clear to most there; it was wonderful. What was shared about my aunt was very fitting and even funny. Everyone loved my aunt who could brighten any gathering, the mischievous one who always made people laugh, the gentle one with the positive outlook and sweet spirit.

At the reception afterward I knew Dad didn’t immediately know most people who came over to talk with him, and most didn’t realize they should introduce themselves to him to give him a chance to remember. I tried to clue them in, but looking at Dad you wouldn’t know there is anything wrong – in his late 80’s he looks years younger and is very spry for his age – so unless you know about the dementia you just … wouldn’t know at first. And he covers it well, with grace, and with humour.

We all made it through that morning quite well, despite our loss. It is always wonderful seeing family members we don’t see much, but is your family anything like ours? It’s usually at funerals that we see each other again. Over forty years ago my parents, sister, and I moved to this county (notice I said county, not country), which means we live farther from most of our relatives on Dad’s side. We used to have a family gathering every Canada Day, but that hasn’t happened for many years. On Saturday my sister suggested to some of our cousins that we have a ‘cousins day’, which she wants to organize for down our way one day this summer. It seems to be a favourable idea, even though they would have the longer distance to travel for the get-together, but if they’re willing it could be fun.

Out of sorrow will come something positive. My aunt would like that.

Do you have family gatherings or reunions? How do you handle distance from family?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂