A new start in 2017

I've decided to start posting on this blog again. It was originally my family blog. Then I decided to combine my family and work blogs. Well, now I'm uncomfortable with mixing work and family life. So this blog will serve its purpose once again as a place to write about family life.

As we go into 2017, I'm slowly ramping back up into school again. My kids are ages 9, 7, 5, 3, and 1. My oldest needs more pushing academically. Until now we've done a lot of reading aloud, kinesthetic learning stuff. We need to start a little more structure--writing, spelling, more history, science, music, and art. Heck, I could do a whole month on just music, I think. Or just art.

My homeschooling mojo got wrecked in October when we had to move suddenly (the full sordid tale is here). Then we had the chaos of the holidays. Now it's January, and I feel like I'm finally catching my breath.

January is always a time to find your center--to figure out your resolutions for the year, your goals, and your word for the year. My word for this year is Renewal. Renewal in our school, renewal in my marriage, renewal in my heart. Over the last summer, I would pace around our apartment complex and feel so stagnant. I had just had our fifth, and I was deep in baby-care. When you have four other littles, and a baby, you tend to do the same things over and over. Get up, feed people, do school, feed people, manage computer time, feed people, bed.

Now here it is, a new year, a new apartment, a new city. It's certainly been glorious to step outside every day and see the mountains surrounding Tuscon. I love their crags, their moody colors, their hint of adventure waiting on the horizon.

It's interesting, being at this season of my life. I'm a lot more laid back than I was in my 20s (by necessity, I think--I have to pick my battles!). I value time with my husband like pure gold. He and I are rebuilding our marriage brick by brick--it had fallen into disrepair after so many pregnancies and babies. But I think it's better now than it ever has been, precisely because we value it so highly.

So there you have it--my random ramblings. I think this blog will be a good outlet for them.

Why we need strong women and damsels in distress

There's this debate that constantly goes on in the blogosphere--we need more Strong Women! There are tests to prove how Strong a female character is, whether she talks about something other than a guy, if she has her own plot and character development, and so on.

Because the last thing we need are Damsels in Distress, who exist only to be rescued. If a girl needs saving, she's no longer a Strong Woman! She should always save herself!

These people never talk about romance novels, which do damsels in distress hardcore. While romance heroines are sometimes spunky, usually they're sighing, lonely flowers, wishing for a big strong alpha male to come along.

In my newest book, Wraithblade, I ran into this problem and chewed on it for the whole book. It's an urban fantasy romantic thriller about a nascent assassin, Revi, who flees the other assassins rather than murder a child. She encounters Jacob Argent, consummate retrieval agent, who then becomes her protector as three different factions attempt to take them both down.

Now on Amazon

But does Revi need protecting? I waffled a lot. One the one hand, she's a trained assassin. On the other hand, she really needed somebody to watch her back. Doesn't everybody? She does handle herself pretty well, making daring escapes and rescuing Jake when he gets into trouble.

Jake needs Revi to watch his back, too, because he's in just as much hot water as she is. He winds up saving her a couple of times, too. He's also a caring, sensitive guy (which is a good thing).

So, Jake and Revi both exhibit elements of Strong Women/Men, and also Damsels In Distress, because they each technically need rescuing from time to time. But who came up with this "strong person" metric, anyway? Shouldn't it be more of a spectrum? In real life, nobody needs saving 100% of the time, but nor can everyone go it alone 100% of the time. We swing back and forth.

If our stories and characters are going to be realistic, we have to let our characters swing, too. I read an article where the author gnashed their teeth about Black Widow in the Avengers movie, how she was the "token female". Yet in the movie, Black Widow swings from being vulnerable to being tough. Back and forth--like a real person.

Nobody every complains about male characters. I see very few male characters who are alpha-male-beat-the-chest all the time. Men are vulnerable, too, and that's how the audience connects to them emotionally. It's why girls swoon over Loki. I don't ever hear anybody complain about Loki being strong or weak. He's vulnerable, and this connects to us emotionally.

Yet as soon as a female character is portrayed as vulnerable, that's not allowed. That's Damsel in Distress. Yet without that vulnerable humanity, she's one more cardboard cutout of a chick with a sword.

So, in a way, Revi is a Damsel in Distress. She needs saving from a lot of things. But so does Jake.

Maybe, at its heart, that's what this debate is about. "I can save myself! I don't need a Savior."

Lovely Sunday

Our heatwave of last week broke this weekend, and it's been in the 80s. This morning feels more like the 70s. It feels so wonderful on my skin as I'm doing my chores.

Everybody's moods are good, everybody's healthy. I really don't have much to complain about. I've been working on Power of a Praying Wife, and it's helped my mind so much. I hope it helps my hubby, too.

Thankful Tuesday

It's almost Wednesday, but darn it, I'm going to finish my Thankful Week if it kills me! Hopefully it won't kill me.

So, I'm thankful for ...

My husband's wacky sense of humor.

My short story that got accepted for publication, and the horrifying amount of edits it came back with. But this is a great educational opportunity to see the weak places in my writing. So I'm thankful for harsh editors, too.

Bathtime for babies.

Homemade fruit leather.

Spotify, where I can listen to all the music that died on cassette tape years ago.

My ipod with its ereader app.

Jules Verne, for entertaining and educating all at once.

And many, many more, but that's all for now. And it didn't kill me.

Thankful Monday

Happy Monday, everybody! I know Mondays aren't usually happy days, but I can be happy on them, right?

I got the apartment all cleaned and nice this morning, and now I'm wiped out. I've been trying not to run the air conditioning until after noon, at least. Yesterday conquered me (it was 106), and today I wimped out, too, even though it's only 100.

I tell you what, I am SO thankful for air conditioning. I was going down the list of how people used to cope with hot weather, and our houses just aren't designed like that anymore. Like houses with adobe walls, or houses with big screened-in porches where you could sleep outside. Outdoor kitchens. If the power grid ever failed (like if we had a solar flare), we'd flee our modern houses in droves.

I like the play the Apocalypse Game and wonder how we'd do things without power and running water. It's kind of like having a Zombie plan. Except I don't believe in zombies. I'm an athzombiest.

Other things I'm thankful for:

A refrigerator with a freezer.

A crock pot that I can stuff full of beans and forget about until the beans are cooked.

A husband who I can discuss Minecraft with in extremely serious ways and he takes me completely seriously. (If you play Minecraft, two words: nether strongholds. If you don't play Minecraft ... you should.)

My son, who is delighted with the random little comics I draw him with his vocabulary words, and will not get up from the table until he's colored every panel.

My daughter, who draws pictures and makes babies out of legos and runs around with a cat tail hanging out of her pants.

My other daughter, who is just learning to talk and who says the sweetest little almost-talking baby words.

Thankful on Sunday

Today has dawned hot and sunny. It's almost like it's mid-June or something. Oh wait. :-)

Without further adieu, I'm thankful for ...

Pancakes.

Kids who like pancakes.

A husband who likes pancakes.

Hot weather and the way it smells. (Hot grass? Hot concrete? What is that smell, exactly?)

Beans. Especially pinto beans, which actually cook in a couple of hours, instead of red beans, which take me exactly 3 1/2 days to get somewhat soft.

For the nice lady who talked to me last night at McDonalds. I'd taken the kids down for a snack and to run around in the play place. The lady was a nice Hispanic lady who was there with her grandsons. We sat and laughed about the kids running wild.

Everywhere I go, people look at my three munchkins, smile and say, "You've got your hands full!" I always smile back and think, "What will they say when I have four? Or more?"

That's when it'll become antagonistic, I'm sure.

Everywhere I go, I notice people with only one kid. Is that the "oops" kid? It's always young couples, so I'm betting yes. I almost never see larger families. Three kids is about the limit. Even Hispanic and black families don't have that many. California is weird.

Edit: Also, just had to be reminded that today's our sixth anniversary. Oy. I hadn't even thought about it. We're beat from this week, so we'd only planned to lay around the house all day. Happy anniversary to us and Father's Day to my hubby!

Thanks on Saturday

The munchkins broke my camera, so alas, no pictures. I'm trying hard to be thankful anyway.

I'm thankful for ...

A job interview my husband had today.

A nice morning playing legos with the munchkins.

That plums make such excellent fruit leather.

That naptime is so routine that nobody questions it.

More later!

Thanks on Friday

Just continuing my thanksgiving journal this week.

I'm thankful for:

My loving husband, who figured out how to string a clothesline through the living room for me.

And he doesn't complain about clothes hanging everywhere.

My munchkins who will eat even creepy green guacamole as long as there's chips.

For my sweet sensitive baby, who cries when her siblings get yelled at.

For silly building block games like Minecraft, that let me scratch that right-brain itch.

For all those lovely fruits and vegetables that are on sale right now.

More to come!

Thankful Thursday

Random shot of the kids running out of frame.

I'm supposed to keep a thankfulness journal for my Bible study. I thought, well, I have this blog. Why not journal over here?

So, in no particular order:

I'm thankful for my sweetheart of a husband.

And my babies.

And the vast bag of apricots and plums we picked yesterday. I cut up some and ate them on my oatmeal. Yum!

For the delights of being a creative family.

For God's grace to me in giving me what I don't deserve.

More later!

Destination: grape jelly

My neighbor gave me two vast freezer bags of little tiny grapes. I thought they were blueberries at first, until I tasted them. No idea what kind they are. Are Concord grapes little tiny and contain seeds? These suckers are extremely seedy.

Anyway, I'm pondering making grape jelly today. I have a few cherries left, and I'll just pit them and chuck them in the pot, too. I did an experiment with cherry pits the other day. I had a whole heap of them, and I felt bad about tossing so much fruit. So I cooked them with sugar to try to make syrup. Instead, I made quite a good jelly. There must be pectin in the pits.

So I saved a bunch more pits. I'm going to wrap them in cheesecloth and cook them with the grape jelly, and hopefully that'll be enough pectin to set up the jelly. It certainly works with lemon peels. My goodness, my marmalade is still set up like concrete. I can hardly dig it out of the jar.

So that's the plan. I had an idea for some deep theological blog post, but I don't have the energy to write it. Eh.

Although, just for giggles, I found the Apostle Paul gave advice for how to deal with jerks on the internet. From 1 Timothy 6:

But if anyone teaches otherwise and does not assent to the sound and wholesome messages of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) and the teaching which is in agreement with godliness (piety toward God),

⁴ He is puffed up with pride and stupefied with conceit, [although he is] woefully ignorant. He has a morbid fondness for controversy and disputes and strife about words, which result in (produce) envy and jealousy, quarrels and dissension, abuse and insults and slander, and base suspicions,

⁵ And protracted wrangling and wearing discussion and perpetual friction among men who are corrupted in mind and bereft of the truth, who imagine that godliness or righteousness is a source of profit [a moneymaking business, a means of livelihood]. From such withdraw.

Tuesday stuff

I downloaded the pictures from my camera, and found a record of the last couple of weeks in it. I've been taking pictures for my blog, but somehow I just never updated the blog half of the equation.

Anyway, first off, remember that eclipse we had?

 It was really hard to get a picture to turn out of the little sun crescent. I also tried to get a picture of the weird way the light looked, but the camera just can't capture it.

See? It just looks like late afternoon sunlight. You can't tell that it's dimmer than it's supposed to be.

Then I decided to hang out my clothes to dry instead of using the pay dryer. Trying to save a few bucks. Here's my makeshift rack:

And the rack in use:

How do we wear so many clothes in one week?

Then I picked sour cherries at Mom's and made them into a cobbler. A mouth-watering, sweet-and-sour cobbler with homemade vanilla ice cream to go with it and mitigate the sourness.

Man. I want more of this cobbler just looking at the picture.

So there's a slice of our life. I'm so busy living it, I just never update my blog. Isn't that always the way?

Farmhouse chats on Tuesday

I'm recovering from an awful bout of the flu, and it's made it hard to think of anything to blog about. I was sitting here, wracking my brain for something, and noticed Patrice had new questions up. Yippee!

Do you have any musical instruments in your house? If so, which ones do you have?
My hubby used to play violin, but he passed it on to my sister. Violins have to be played a lot or they start to break down, and we didn't want that to happen to his.

When you take a walk, what are you likely to pick or pick up from the ground?
Stray change, mostly. Once we found a folded up twenty on the ground in the middle of the road. There was nobody around and no telling where it came from, so we kept it. That doesn't happen very often, though. The munchkins are always on the lookout for pine cones and really big magnolia leaves.

They say to have breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. I guess that means you have fuel for your body to get through the day and don't have a full tummy when you go to bed. Are your meals like that?
We do big breakfast (eggs, toast, cereal, and combinations of the above), small lunch (sandwiches, burritos, nachos, whatever) and big dinner featuring meat (hamburgers, tacos, casseroles, etc.) The problem with a small lunch is that everybody is hungry by 3 PM, so I always keep some kind of snack on hand, like bananas or cookies.

Do you prefer iced coffee or iced tea?
I don't know, they're both fantastic. I rarely drink caffeine, so when I do drink it, it gives me the jitters like you wouldn't believe. I drink it as a treat once in a while, or when I know I'm going to be up late.


How do you handle doing things you'd rather not do?
I had the flu all weekend, and having to get up, change diapers and make meals was really hard. My poor hubby helped, but he was awfully sick, too. I'm afraid I don't handle hard things gracefully. I complain and whine. But I've been studying Peter's letters, and I've been trying to do the following.

2 Peter 1 5-7, Amplified:
For this very reason, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence),

⁶ And in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety),

⁷ And in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love.

I'm still on faith and virtue up there at the top.

Stuff we been doin'

Going swimming

Building forts

Almost walking

Making (and eating) homemade donuts

Growing hollyhocks

And that's what we've been up to over the last week. :-)

School table

A neighbor gave us this little kid-sized table and two chairs. Isn't it great?

Third birthday funtimes

It was H's third birthday today. Technically her birthday's tomorrow, but we did her party today. Who wants to do a birthday party on a Monday?

She got lots of ponies.

Played with her three-year-old cousin in the dollhouse.

C. thought it was great fun.

A. petted his new baby cousin.

My nephews have no sisters, so girl toys like dollhouses and My Little Ponies were completely new to them.

It makes her so self-conscious to be sang Happy Birthday to.

Almost candle time! And out they go.

And the babies kick back with their mama and grandma.

It was a very nice party.

Killer stir fry

Not my picture

I found a way to make the best stir fry ever. Stand aside, wok! You've just been outclassed by the Iron Skillet.

I had this theory that I could use my iron skillet to make stir fry, because it heats more evenly than my frying pan, and it stays hot longer.

So I cooked my meat in it, took that out, and tossed in my veggies. They actually achieved that elusive "crisp tender" stage that the recipes talk about. I'd never before achieved it.

Then I dumped out the veggies and made fried rice. Awww yeah.

I also used my skillet to make this oddball dish where you cut up your chicken, toss it in taco seasoning, then stir fry it in Italian dressing. Then you put that in a casserole dish, and cover it with layers of green onions, black beans, frozen corn, and salsa. You add cheese on top and bake it, then eat it over rice. It was extremely flavorful. I can't wait to make it again.

Tonight I made "milk and honey" cookies. So called because I used honey for half the sugar. It's just a chocolate chip cookie recipe with no chocolate chips. They came out with a delicate, honey flavor and taste excellent dipped in milk.

So that's what I've been doing lately. Eating food, and thinking of more ways to eat food. :-)

Precarious

I turned around and found the youngest munchkin perched in the back of this truck. I grabbed my camera and snapped a picture shortly before she fell out. But she sat there for a long time, perched all precariously and very proud of herself. I don't know how she got up there in the first place.

This is how I feel like my life has been. Hanging somewhere between sitting in the truck, and falling on my face. I've fallen several times already. I took the weekend off all of my artistic endeavors because I was so tired. It was nice to rest. I did get some strawberry jam made.

It's lovely and delicious, but it didn't set up very well because I didn't let it cook long enough. I also was using powdered pectin, and my results are always variable with powdered pectin. I contemplated using a couple of lemon peels instead. I might do that next time. Do you think strawberry would taste all right with a hint of lemon?

Life goes on, and God is good. I wish I trusted Him enough to not worry. I feel like worry is a constant illness I hold at bay by not thinking about it.

Fun in the sun

We've had beautiful weather lately. When it gets hot so fast, though, the kids are so hot and sweaty that I take pity on them. And pitch them outside with buckets of water and toy cups.

This picture was taken shortly before they gathered mud into the buckets and slathered themselves in it, like they do at a spa.

I have pictures of just two munchkins doing this. Check it out.

They were so tiny! Such cute little munchkins!

Wednesday chats

I thought I'd tackle Patrice's Farmhouse Porch Chats meme today. I've needed to update this blog and my brain has been absolutely dead.

Who do you go to when you really need someone to talk to about something important?

My hubby, usually, since anything important involves him. I also consult my mom about broader family issues.

How often do you grill food outdoors?

Not often. We have a teeny tiny charcoal grill that has the surface area of a sheet of paper. So, grilling anything more than a couple of hamburger patties becomes this tricky chain of sequences where you cook some things on and take other things off, rotate them, wrap them in foil halfway through, and finally attempt to eat the result and pray it's not raw in the middle.

Lately I just cook everything in an iron skillet on the stove. No outdoor flavor, but I can get my hamburgers, rain or shine.

What's the interior color of your car/truck/van?


Um ... just neutral gray, I think. No interesting leopard seat covers in our car.

What's the last great buy you got?

Probably when I found a $120 book for 3 bucks on ebay. I was over the moon.

What's new?

I've learned to cook beans. Also, I've determined that people who claim that beans and rice are a complete protein, never survived on beans and rice for a week, and then gorged on hamburger, and compared their overall life performance afterward. Real meat > beans. When we're stuck eating beans, all I want to do is lie around and sleep.

Why Christian spec fic writers shouldn't include Jesus

I have so many things bouncing around in my head tonight. Life and all its little stresses.

One thing I've been pondering on is this argument that goes on in Christian fiction writers circles: the question of How Much of the Gospel Do We Include?

Some people take Jesus's command to spread the gospel to its extreme, and say that every story has to have Jesus in it, or a Jesus figure who is a redeemer.

Other people go to the other extreme and recommend no religion at all, unless the story absolutely has to have it.

Seeing as this argument goes on between writers of fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal etc., it does raise interesting questions of how you have Jesus when you're writing about elves fighting aliens on another world. I've toyed with writing Christianity in fanfiction for years. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. (The only time it seems to work is when it's laid in with a feather touch. Anything heavier and it just goes into a sermon, or worse, Bible verses with the nouns changed to something more 'fantasy' sounding.)

I've been reading from the Amplified Bible every night. I'm enjoying it hugely. Anyway, I came across Luke 12:8:

And I tell you, Whoever declares openly [speaking out freely] and confesses that he is My worshiper and acknowledges Me before men, the Son of Man also will declare and confess and acknowledge him before the angels of God.

Notice that Jesus doesn't say "whoever declares me in all of his stories, or at least has an Aslan." He says "Whoever declares openly ... that he is My worshiper". Like, in person. To real people. Face to face.

Think about the life of an author for a minute. Once they write books and people start reading them, they start getting fanmail. People want to meet the person who delighted them with a good story. That's the place for the author to make a statement of faith. I know that I'm always appreciative when a person of a different faith says so on their website, but keeps it out of their book. I feel like that writer respects me as a reader.

So why do Christians think we can save people by sneaking "Jesus saves!" into our books? We can't save anybody. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. But we can tell darn good stories. We don't even have to have Jesus (or any religion at all) in them. I think it's more respectful for the author to drop the "get people saved" agenda and just tell the darn story.