May is here!

I know I live in the South because I saw this t shirt in the thrift shop where I volunteer. It’s too funny, because we all know folks who need a “come to Jesus” moment because things are too crazy.

I love aprons. I have some for working in the kitchen and some denim ones I use when I’m cleaning. Someone had gone through a bag of items and were going to throw out the blue and white checkered one. It looks like something someone made for her home ec class in high school years ago. I grabbed it and washed it. I’ll be wearing it soon. My mom made the striped one.

Here is a rabat a senior retired clergyman gave me. I dry cleaned it and wore it to a Lenten clergy day retreat.

I finally finished the church history and theology book. It took almost five months, and it was a slow process in places, and even difficult, but it was worth it, for developing a sense of apologetics in support of my faith tradition.

I’ve continued working with my writing class this spring, my two critique groups, and my local writing group.

My mind has been blown by spending more than a day studying notes from a presentation one of my writer’s groups did on Save the Cat. Now I’ve been part of group discussions where we talked about the book, but nothing seemed to stick like this discussion we had recently.

It’s as though I’ve been doing my writing so wrong, notwithstanding all the writing guides I’ve read to date. This one seems so much more detailed and complicated enough to show me where my writing has fallen short, and to also make me see now, where my critique group partners had questions about my writing.

It occurred to me that I should use the book for plotting my next writing project, since my other two projects are on their way to publication. The third is going to start the revision stages soon, and I’ve already used the book’s advice on revising the first chapter!

I met with the members of my local writing chapter, and they were talking about podcasts on writing. Yet, no one else seems to be doing any writing.

I suggested we read the book over the course of several months and do exercises from it. This will be my time to work on the next project, to get input early in the plotting stage. I’ll start the conversation, reading the introduction and first chapter for next month.

I was reading church history, now I’m back to reading some theology. Lent has long since passed, and we are in Easter, but it’s close enough for me to feel the connection to all that led up to Lent.

Otherwise, it’s on with the plotting and revising. I re-read GMC, another classic.

Have a great month!

Happy Easter!

There’s a tradition at the church I visited today, flowering the cross. The children of the parish put flowers into a cross. The picture shows what it looked like.

April is here, and Lent is over. Easter was early, the last day of March.

The weather is getting warmer, so we’re seeing more of the neighborhood animals, a cat, and some wild deer.

Yes, folks, up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, wild deer gambol around the neighborhood. This one was sitting next to the picnic table DH brought from the garage and put onto the deck.

This is the Easter season; it persists through Pentecost. How did Lent go for me? It went well, I was more disciplined about my social media. I focused on things that felt uplifting and wholesome. I liked the results that followed, things seemed calmer and more focused. I want to continue.

I bought a skirt in clergy tartan. Here’s what the pattern looks like. It goes well with a black clerical shirt and blue slacks. A senior retired clergy member gave me a rabat that has a similar pattern. I wore it to clergy day just so that he could see it!

The writing? There’s a certain feeling when your critique group members suggest a story line that you can then work with, breaking the block that had been sitting with you for some time. It’s worth thinking about it. I’ve made a note into my file for keeping track of my ideas for this project.

Otherwise, I’m at the point that I’m ready to move on from working with my critique group on the current manuscript. Thus, I’ve been revising, aiming to pull the entire manuscript together into a whole rather than the chopped submissions I’d been working with for a long time.

My latest writing class has ended, and I’ll need to make revisions for the first submission the class looked at then submit to my critique groups. The merry-go-round continues!

I hope to finish reading this book soon. It seems like I’ve been reading it since the fall, that’s a long time!

Otherwise, I’ve been watching some movies.

I cried watching this one.

Have a great month!

March is here!

February ended with the 29th day of the month. 2020 was the last leap year, and I remember it well. A friend of my dad’s visited us, he’d been born on leap year day 1952. This gentleman was in his late 60s, but he’d only had 17 birthdays!

I tend to treat the leap year as any other day, except that I must remind myself to date everything February 29 rather than February 28.

February is gone and now March is upon us. I’m looking forward to the first day of spring. Outside of the cold days, there wasn’t much snow. I just want warmer temperatures.

My writing? I’ve been revising, and I’m at an interesting place, where my two different critique groups have totally different perspectives on a manuscript. It’s a challenge because one group is better than the other at certain types of critiques, but another group is better at understanding inspirational fiction.

I think I’ll go with the group that better understand inspirational fiction. I don’t necessarily want to go mainstream with my writing, but I want to meet the conventions of what readers and writers in the subgenre will understand.

Beyond that, I’ve been revising this for some time now, and I want to move on. I can continue to revise on my own then find a developmental editor. Otherwise, my writing class will be coming to an end soon, and I recently submitted my last excerpt. I suppose I’ll go forward with showing this to my critique groups.

With those two projects moving along, I haven’t done much with the third project. Perhaps I’ll get the momentum again once I feel like the first manuscript is complete.

My ministry is going well. It was a good month for it, visiting churches in my region, and learning more church history, for example, the Philadelphia 11 documentary, about women in my faith tradition. There’s an online viewing taking place soon: link.

I saw the film at a local college. I really like how our local district is grounded in the community and institutions here. What that means is I can always learn about what’s happening in the greater community, including ministries, interfaith dialogue, and opportunities for collaboration with secular groups that share our vision.

Check out this church history book about my faith tradition. It wasn’t published in the US but was put out by a Dutch company. It looks interesting, but they are charging $119 for both the paper copy and the e-book! I don’t think so.

I also had a fun opportunity, visiting a synagogue in our community. I’d never done that before but had learned a lot about Judaism. A member of my home church regularly studies Torah with them. I want to do that as a supplement to my regular readings as per my daily prayers, just so that I can read how they interpret the Old Testament.

I borrowed this book, and I’ll return it the next time I go back there.

Their rabbi is a woman, and I hear she’s part of a clergywomen’s group in our town, so I’d love to meet her.

How about this for homemade chocolates candies? I rolled pieces of marzipan into melted chocolate.

Have a great month!

February is here!

I got these flowers on the first Sunday in January assisting at a parish. They offered them to me, I was visiting, since I now have some new ministry duties. They were so red and pretty, I hoped they’d last until Valentine’s, but no such luck!

Speaking of Valentine’s, I heard it’s on the same day as Ash Wednesday. That’s an odd pairing.

Liturgical practice at home. How does it look?

Or this image someone posted and which I had to have for my study?

It makes me chuckle because it’s directly from the Anglican Articles of Religion.

I’m getting a clergy tartan skirt, a particular pattern that had been worn by clergy. It will look great with a clerical shirt. Maybe it’s an unusual thing, I don’t know, but I’ve always liked tartans. I once had a skirt in this pattern, then a dress and jacket in this one.

The writing? It’s been fine, although I haven’t been reading much lately except for my critique group submissions.

These are books I finished.

As for Belle’s, I’d liked the movie so much I wanted to read the book!

Books I’m supposed to be reading.

Have a great month!

Happy New Year!

Yes, it’s January 2024, the tree should come down soon, and I’ll put away the Christmas cookie cutter. Where on earth has 2023 gone to?

It really came home to me when the archdeacon notified all of us that it was time to draft our annual letters updating the diocese on our year in ministry, then I got an interesting Christmas present from the bishop’s office.

I’d been concerned for some time now that the minister in charge of the congregation where I attend services was reaching out to me more and more to serve as though I was an assistant minister at the congregation, when that’s way beyond what I should be doing as a member of the congregation who happens to be a clergywoman.

Out of nowhere, I got a call from the bishop’s executive assistant that they wanted me to move out of that parish and do ministry district-wide.

Once I’ve been on the road for several weeks and can catch a break, I might go back to my current parish, but not as a minister. I imagine my situation will be like a missionary who has been out in the field for weeks at a time. Returning to my home parish will be like much needed rest and recuperation.

I might make a batch of cookies, the last batch I might make for a while.

Here are some batches I’ve made recently:

How has the writing been? It’s been well, we’ve had long breaks in between critique meetings because of the holidays, and I’ve taken breaks as well.

I felt guilty, though. But I reminded myself that everyone is taking breaks, so there’s nothing to worry about.

I had a remarkable rabbit hole moment. I’d been wondering for the longest while what our old house looked like ever since we moved about fifteen months ago. We knew the buyers were developers who planned on tearing it down and merging the lot with two others next to it.

This is what it looks like, an empty space with a construction fence in front.

How do I feel? Fine, the house needed a lot of work, we couldn’t do it. If the buyers can put the place to good use putting in an apartment, so be it.

What else have I been up to?

Movies I’ve watched:

A Christian romance I’m reading, an author that’s new to me:

Another book I’ve read:

The library might not have any more of her books.

Books I hope to read:

Have a great month!

Welcome, December!

Advent is coming, which means Christmas isn’t far away.

How was your Thanksgiving holiday? It’s a great time for catching up with folks I don’t see or hear from often.

My volunteer work at the nonprofit thrift store is going along at a regular pace. Monday mornings, I make my way up the road from the house and get there within five minutes. Then I’m busy all morning, either getting items onto the racks or helping the staff check out the customers.

Although I prefer being in the back room working, sometimes it’s just impossible to get onto the floor, it’s so busy, so why not spend the time getting the customers out the door?

That works well. Each day at the store, I see what the needs are, and I think about what I can contribute. This means I’m donating more now, and I understand the process for tagging items and putting them onto the racks, so I just go ahead now. I donated a jacket and a coat, neither of which I even wear anymore.

How’s the writing life?

With respect to the project I first began in January, I finally finished the first draft of the manuscript.

The writing classes I took in the winter and spring gave me time to think about my writing. I wrote and rewrote the first chapter several times. By the time the second class ended in June, I had four chapters.

Between June and November, I wrote on average a chapter per week, for a total of 18 chapters.

I registered for the next class in January, this one is more advanced. My goal is to work on the revisions.

I like the idea of giving each chapter its own document. I spend so much time in critique groups, it seemed to me that this would be the easiest way of writing and revising.

But that also means I can’t do a real document search for whatever I want to look up. I need greater familiarity with each of the chapters so that I can make my searches specific to each chapter.

The goal is to put all the chapters into one document at the end for the second draft of the manuscript.

Next, I returned to the new project that I’m working on through my current writer’s class.

The latest assignment was to submit a page of dialogue. Later in the month, we were to submit a full scene or as much as a chapter.

I figured the best thing to do would be to write the full chapter. But here’s what’s interesting. Who was going to lead the point of view in the scene?

It isn’t always who you think it should be, especially when the instructor had us write the scene from each character’s point of view.

I thought at beginning with the hero was the answer, but it didn’t sound right. I shifted to the heroine, and that was when it worked better.

I sometimes have a showing v. telling challenge. If I’m telling, the words just flow onto the page. Showing, I must step inside the characters’ heads and go into deep pov–what’s going on, the feelings, the actions.

Here are some books I’m reading and a craft book I learned about:

Here are some items I baked for the church social hour and some items I bought for a children’s outreach the church is sponsoring: buying items on the holiday wish lists for needy children.

Have a great month!

November is here!

Thanksgiving is later this month. Where has the year gone to? I scarcely know.

I went grocery shopping this week because our church is doing a Thanksgiving outreach. We got paper bags with a list of items attached, we only had to buy what was on the list. It was easy to do, because most of the typical Thanksgiving items were in the seasonal goods aisle, along with the Christmas stuff, which is sacrilegious, in my view.

I’ve been persisting with my baking ministry. Here are some items I made: pumpkin shaped butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies.

How’s the writing coming along?

The focus feature on Microsoft is my latest friend. When I’m writing, it’s too easy for me to become distracted, but with focus, I force myself to stay on point for half an hour with no breaks, giving me solid blocks of writing time to get things done. I think it’s also called the pomodoro method.

A note on the revision process. I used to revise only after both critique groups have seen a submission, but that can mean lots of delays if the groups aren’t meeting at the same time. If I submitted the same submission more than once, that meant even more revisions.

What if I submit each submission only once and revise after the first group has seen it, then submit to the second group? This works, it seems more efficient. By the time I revised after the first round, I ironed out the problems that the first group saw, which makes it easier for the second group to read and assess.

Enjoying writing means I have lots of papers that I’ve tossed in the past and even more papers to get rid of now. I just have way too much stuff, so that’s been a recent project.

Look at this old technology. They are so old the computers don’t even come with readers anymore. I had to buy them just to open the files. Even then, I couldn’t access all of them, the technology was just so obsolete!

As for reading, here are the current two books on my e-reader.

My reading time is limited to when I wake up in the morning after I say my first round of morning prayers. I permit myself to read a section or a chapter of each.

Here’s a library book that just became available and a movie I saw:

I went to an ordination this past month, and it was like a family and high school reunion all in one, old friends, new friends, coming together to celebrate the new deacon. We’re imagining all kinds of collaborations since we all live in different regions in our state.

I’m knitting again. One of the ladies showed me a stole she sewed. I always wanted to sew one, but my skills aren’t that great. I’m better at knitting, but I didn’t have the time to make one prior to my ordination. I have all this yarn though.

It doesn’t look perfect, but I’ll figure it out!

All Saints is today, and I commemorate the folks who have died. It’s the first anniversary of my dad’s death only a few days before All Saints last year.

Has someone ever asked you about biblical errancy? Someone posted a question on social media. I used their answer to draft my response:

Question about the Bible: Do you believe in Biblical inerrancy/infallibility? If no, could you explain why?

My answer: The Bible is the divinely inspired inerrant Word of God interpreted by fallible humans.

It was a simple and straightforward answer.

Have a great month!

Happy October!

I love candy corn as a symbol of fall. I must buy at least one bag once the seasons change. I love the taste and the colors. It’s big of course, for Halloween at the end of this month.

As for the end of the month recognitions, I’d rather remember Reformation Day commemorating Martin Luther on October 31.

Smile.

This month marks one year since my dad died, and it’s funny, that I got a phone call a few weeks ago from his nursing home asking about what we wanted to do with some items that housekeeping had for him. I told them to feel free to discard them since we’d gotten everything that had been in his room.

Get this, a few days later, the same person called me back.

It was almost as though telling them to discard was the wrong answer. This time around, I urged them to pass on the items to whomever might need them, clothes, as an example. If housekeeping had the items, that was likely what they were. The housekeeping staff does the intake of clothes the residents have and labels them. They also wash the clothes the residents use.

After that, I got no more phone calls. I hope that whoever is wearing them, wears them well. He had a roommate when he first arrived there who only wore hospital gowns. Someone like that could use the items, I’m sure.

What else is going on? I was thinking about a favorite song, Guantanamera, many people know it: link. My favorite line: the mountains as more pleasing than the sea, that’s me, loving the mountains where we live, 1000 feet above sea level. There’s more flooding at sea level, even though there’s some in the valleys, but that’s why it’s important to check the maps for floodzones.

I’ve now switched the calendars around in my study, because I want the primary calendar I see to be the liturgical one, since I want to learn the calendar and do morning prayer better. It’s working, I think.

My writing adventures, what are they? I’m making progress on the current work in progress, I’m aiming to finish sometime this fall. I’m also doing well with the critique groups.

I must be crazy because I want to take another writing class just so that I can get in the mindset of plotting my next novel. All I have is that she’s a secondary character that shows up in the previous books. But who is she? I’m eager to find out.

What else? I’ve been baking more for church social hour on Sundays. I made cupcakes: caramel and caramel with carrots. Then, the cheese biscuits on the right. I made the labels on my computer and printed them.

I’m also doing more ministry in the community, volunteering at a nonprofit thrift store sponsored by the local churches in my area, an ecumenical group.

Here’s an omelet lunch, another example of what I like to prepare all the time.

Here are some books: theology, sweet and inspirational romances and Christian fiction.

Some I finished, others I’m still reading.

These are biblical fiction stories that I truly enjoyed.

Here are some historical Christian romances. One of them I finished, the other, I didn’t renew it in time before I finished so someone else borrowed it. I now have to wait for my turn!

Have a great month!

September is here!

Fall is arriving this month in the mountains, and I’m looking forward to seeing the trees change color. Everything is all bright green now, even though you can see the blue on the horizon explaining why they call this the Blue Ridge Mountains.

How has your month been?

The writing journey persists, I think I’m at a midway point in the current manuscript that I’m aiming to finish by later in the fall.

I began this project back in January with my writing classes that I took in the winter and spring sessions.

But otherwise, my critique groups are doing well. I’ve joined my local ACFW chapter, so I now have three groups whose meetings I’ll have each month.

This month marks a year since we moved away, and it was an interesting postscript that I got a phone call recently from my dad’s old nursing home.

They had some of his clothes in a box somewhere. They couldn’t tell me what was in it, but it was from Housekeeping.

It could have been clothes that had been left behind in his room after we took all that we needed, or things that needed to be washed, or even things that he might have been wearing when he died.

They couldn’t tell me what was in the box, and they didn’t seem willing to check.

Without knowing what was in the box, I urged them to discard the contents.

It’s unreal how our lives changed in the year, how different my life was back then.

But God blessed us, and we are in a different space in all kinds of ways.

I’ve found a new past time to keep me busy, which means I’m spending less time on social media.

I’d gotten my local library’s Libby software for my phone so that I could read books while I exercised, but it seemed so different from my e-reader, that I removed it.

But I forced myself try once again and use it once I realized I couldn’t download Libby to my e-reader.

So now I am reading all kinds of books, and on my computer too, because I can log in and read.

I read my theology book in the morning once I get up and say my morning prayers.

I then write in the morning.

In the afternoon and evening, I binge-watch movies and binge-read books, especially books that are more expensive than the Harlequin Love Inspired books I tend to buy.

Toni Shiloh and Belle Calhoune used to write for Harlequin’s Love Inspired Christian romance, but they now write for other publishers.

Next, I wondered about what black writers were in their Christian fiction collection, which was how I found Kim Cash Tate’s book.

I love biblical fiction, and so I’d been watching A.D. and the Chosen.

I’d heard some time ago about the Bunn-Oke trio of books. Once I found them in the library’s collection, it was time to read them!

Have a great month!

August is here!

It’s the height of summer and I’m enjoying homemade ice cream. Here’s a recipe I saw in a NYT cooking column: condensed milk, heavy whipping cream, vanilla extract, a pinch of salt and Nutella: homemade ice cream, as per a NYT recipe.

The one thing that made it look more like what I saw in their picture, located above, was using cornstarch to thicken the heavy cream and dulce de leche milk caramel.

My goal until the new writing class starts in the fall is to have a first draft written by then. The one way to do that is to finish the revisions for my critique group early, within a week after the second group meets. This will give me more time to write.

To revise or rewrite? That’s the question. What determines it? How much work I must do. Does the scene work as it is, but I need to rewrite some sections? That’s a revision. If the whole thing isn’t working, that’s a rewrite.

Some of the comments on the movies I’ve seen can lead me to a writing prompt, or the #FridayKiss prompts on Twitter and Facebook. I’m a pantser writer, meaning that when I start writing in the morning, I have a sense of what I want to do, but without a clear sense of the road map, the dialogue, and not always with a clear sense of the environment where my characters are.

On the reading front, if I really want to finish the romances and church books in my to-be-read pile, I have to alternate. Finish one book in one category, then move to the other. There’s no other way.

I attended a recent outreach committee meeting at church. It’s exciting to hear what they’ve done so far this year and what they hope to do, how well the committee is regarded in the community. I learned that a group I’d donated a whole bunch of clothes to in town is a nonprofit sponsored by a local ecumenical group of churches in the community. I’m so glad to hear that. This group is one I’d never heard of before, so they are on my list now, I’d be happy to help them in the future.

I was hoping to cook for the next outreach supper, but I have critique group that night, so I might have to pass! Instead, I baked a caramel cake for the coffee hour after the services. I had an extra can of the dulce de leche from the ice cream I made. The sample cake is in the smaller baking dish.

I also made some rolls. I’ve been adding an egg to the flour along with a cup of warm water to dissolve the yeast. The rolls rise better, I think.

I led morning prayer a few weeks ago because the priest goes away for the summer, and the church governing board didn’t have anyone lined up to do supply work. Then one Sunday, the supply priest fell sick and so I lead the opening prayers, the liturgy of the word. The former rector, a retired priest, led the Eucharist, the liturgy of the table, because deacons like me can’t preside at the full service.

Here are some observations from the house up in the mountains. Two orange cats, siblings came by one morning. I think we’ve seen them in the backyard, but this is the first time they walked up to the door. They must have slept on the porch, hiding from the rain. I’m not a cat person, but I was amused. I didn’t get to take a picture, but this is what they looked like.

They were scared. One ran away but the other one stood outside the door and watched us with this look of curiosity on its face. I think it did the same thing another time, except it sat on the backyard deck and looked up at the kitchen window.

I imagined the thoughts in its head: “Hi! Our humans have things inside our house, nice things. Do you have nice things? Can we come inside, and see?” I chuckled.

Beyond that, the neighborhood critters—the rabbits and squirrels–seem to like the shed one of the previous owners put onto the property. We don’t use it, but there’s a flap that makes for easy entry.

We smile, because it must be an Airbnb, but we don’t know who takes the reservations nor how they’re paying.

At 5pm, one evening, it was as though they were checking in, a few critters were hanging around the shade of the shed. The thought of it cracked us up.

Here are some interesting books and movies: