Book Give Away!

Here's your chance to win a free copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Merry Christmas! Christmas will be here before you know it and this would make a nice gift for someone who not only likes to read, but likes Christmas too!

Just leave a comment - even if to just say hi and by November 13th (granddaughter Logan's 13th birthday) I'll announce the winner.

Here's a picture of my family that the story is about! We're older now. :-)

Rita, Norm, Me, Casey, Jessica

And if you don't win, but would like a copy, I can offer you a special deal. Email me at lober13(at)gmail(dot)com. Put FRIDAY13 in the subject line.

Thank you all who have been so supportive in my writing life! XO

And a shout out to Lavender Dreams for the nice shout out!

My Three Children

I have heard some folks read my blog to get updated on what’s going on… and here’s such a blog to let those who are interested know what’s happening with my children.

Casey, my son is 32 today. Happy Birthday Casey! He lives in Los Angeles (has for the past 11/12 years now) and is working on a video game—Hyper Light Drifter—for all you gamers out there. He and his buddies share space where they do their creative work (Glitch City) and every so often they have some kind of open house to share with the public where some of the members will give a little presentation… not necessarily on gaming, but whatever they feel like. Think of it as a mini-Ted talk.

Here’s Casey’s “Oneiros & The Self"

Soon Casey will be leaving L.A. to head to The Netherlands... and then eventually back to St. Louis, MO (his home town).

Jessica, my middle daughter, now 30 recently had a four hour surgery to remove benign fibroid tumors in and around her uterus. Okay, maybe recently is a bit of a stretch… back in July. Oh my. There were eight of them. The MRI showed the biggest one to be the size of a grapefruit and the surgeon thought she’d only be able to remove 5 of the 8, but as it turns out, the biggest one was the size of a volley ball! Then a cantaloupe and two grapefruit is all that could be removed. Four of the 8 were removed. No damage to the uterus. Here she is a bit doped up after the surgery.

Now she’s in an MFA program at SIUE for sculpture… getting her masters…  and here’s some of her work. The first one, she's still working on.

Rita, my baby, 28, recently purchased her own home. All on her own. She got to learn all about negotiating, the ins and outs of buying a home, how people cover up certain things, the cost involved, how painting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But she loves, loves, loves having her very own home. Because she’s so creative, her home reflects that. One evening while walking her dogs, she carried home a tree limb that she thought would be perfect as a curtain rod for her living room window—and by golly, it is. She’s already put in some flowers and has big plans for a vegetable garden in the future. And in her spare time, you can catch her spinning, dying, carting, and knitting her own yarn.

Quite honestly, I'm pretty blown away by the creativeness and talent of all three of my children. Maybe it's a mom thing, but I never had half the wits about me when I was their age.

LA Time

No, that’s not LA Times, it’s LA Time… funny how just one letter can make the difference, right? This is the time I was in LA this past September for my son’s 30th birthday.

We surprised him. He had no idea that his two sisters, Rita and Jessica and his momma were coming. Can you tell?

Casey at Glitch - "What?"

It took him a while for the realization to sink in that we were going to be bombarding him for a week. I kept a journal for him and gave it to him after I got back and pasted all the goodies in it. I’ll see if I can condense it. I wrote close to 80 pages. Egads, I can ramble.

The first morning we walked to Venice Grind—a coffee house Casey frequents to do his daily drawings and writing.

 I was trying to be artsy with my camera and I told Casey to get entangled in the vines.

He was such a good sport to humor me.

 

We took a trip downtown—took the train, went to Grand Park, walked downtown.

 Casey, Jessica and Rita - "Oh Mom do you have to take another picture.

 At Grand Park looking at City Hall.

 Rita, Jessica, Casey - They thought if they had their back to me, I wouldn't snap a picture.

 Casey, Rita and Jessica - Can you see the excitement of yet another picture?

We made cupcakes for Casey’s birthday that look like him.

 These cupcakes got devoured along with the gooey butter cake. We shared with Casey's students 

and with the folks at Glitch City.

 

On his birthday we went to Tescayloa Canyon and took a hike. Nearly killed me, but it was worth the struggle. It was beautiful. I didn't have my camera for the canyon. But here are a few shots of Casey on this 30th.

 Casey on his birthday

 Casey cracking up seeing the gift Rita gave him. Marshmellow guy from Ghostbusters. 

When Casey was little, he LOVED Ghostbusters.

We went to Venice one day. Hung out at Cow’s End until the sun was setting. We then walked the pier. We tried to reach the water’s edge before the sun went completely down, but I went down instead. Tripped, and in slow motion I fell flat in the sand. Casey hollered, “Mom down!” We missed getting to the edge, but I snapped a photo for the boy who helped his mother rather than leaving me behind.

 Jessica, Casey, Rita - finally they cooperated a bit with the camera.

 Mom down

Sunset at Venice

 Casey

One evening, we went to Glitch City. A community space that my son and several other young men share… where they work on their future games. On certain Wednesday’s it’s game night. Open to the public. Everyone comes to play board games or video games. This evening two young gentlemen were trying out a new game and they needed 10 participants. I was one. Two people were vampires and eight were humans. No one knew who was who but the idea was if you were a vampire you wanted to infect the humans. If you were human, you wanted to gain points. In both instances, you “touched” someone. Long story, but I was a vampire. I convinced my daughter Jessica that I was human and then she did the rest… started infecting others, convincing them that positively she was safe because her momma wouldn’t lie to her. Bah. Lying was kind of what the game was all about… so the winner was whatever human received the most points (for every touch) or if the vampires were able to infect everyone. Eight out of ten became infected (not bad—thanks Jessica!), but some little human won! However, it was fun. Although the rest of the evening Jessica snarled at me like a vampire.

On another night we went to Otis College of Art & Design, where my son attended college and where he now teaches. It was open figure drawing. I never did this before. I have very little experience drawing, so trust me when I say I was completely intimated with all these fantastic artists. I’d look around and be floored by the talent. I gave it my best shot and had a fabulous time.

There I am with my figure drawings at Glitch

 

One night at Glitch City was “show and tell.” These young men hold themselves accountable by giving a five-minute presentation on what they accomplished for the week. Casey’s family was invited to join in so I presented my figure drawings. Let me tell you that was bold on my account and everyone there was way kind. I was blown away by seeing all the things these young men created. OMG.

We hit a lot of different eating establishments, went to a farmers market, and hung out together. It was a good time and I hope Casey will have fond memories of his 30th. I know I did.

 Mom and Casey the day we left.

All of us the day we left.

Happy 30th Birthday Casey

--> Thirty years ago today I gave birth to my firstborn, my son Casey. I’m in California celebrating, with his two sisters, Rita and Jessica. Casey’s lived here for 10 years, and this is my third visit. Bad mommy.

I was due on September 1^st with Casey. That date came and went. After being three weeks past due, my doctor decided to induce labor, so on September 21^st I was scheduled. The nurses did their thing hooking me up to whatever it was that induces labor (hey, it’s been 30 years, I can’t remember what it was) and I was happy and on my way. The machine had a needle that indicated how strong the contraction was and when it was all they way at 10 (1 through 10 – and 10 being the strongest), I flapped my jaws wondering what all the fuss was about being in labor. This is a piece of cake. After an entire day, it became clear that inducing wasn’t working, so they took me off the machine. I guess that stuff jacked me up as they had to give me morphine to make me sleep as the baby was stressed or something. They assured me the drug would not harm the baby at all. I had serious doubts. I wanted to go el-naturale. It’s a bit of a blur, but at some point the real contractions took place. When the “one” felt like the previous “ten," I knew I was in trouble. I don’t know how many hours went by before I begged for any kind of drug. I’m pretty sure I told Casey’s dad to get a gun and put me out of my misery if the doctor didn’t give me something!

42 ½ hours later, out came Casey… on his dad’s birthday no less. That’s what I get when I joked to Casey’s dad, “Oh maybe I’ll have the baby on your birthday.” 

When I saw that beautiful baby with a full head of hair and my heart felt love like no other, I knew I’d do it all again, regardless of the pain.

Happy Birthday Casey!

Happy Birthday Casey!

Dear Mom,

Your grandson is 29 today. Can’t believe it’s been that long since I gave birth to my first born.

Carrying Casey was easy. I loved being pregnant. In one month I had gained nine pounds. Dr. Muschaney said, “Whoa, you can’t be gaining weight like that.” I felt depressed when I had to go on a diet while pregnant. I still ate a lot, but all good, healthy stuff. The next month I didn’t gain anything. Then I was back on track.

I was due September 1^st. Since it was my first pregnancy, Dr. Muschaney didn’t have real concerns when September 1st came and went. I realized the little stinker inside of me had inherited his father’s genes of being late. I joked to my husband, “Maybe I’ll have the baby on your birthday!”

One week went by, then another. By the start of the third week Dr. Muschaney said, “If you don’t have this baby by the 21^st, we’ll induce labor." And so it was, they induced. I thought labor was a breeze when I saw the little meter reaching full capacity. What was all the fuss about labor pain? But the inducing wasn’t working and when they took me off it, that little meter went down to 2 (on a scale of 1 to 10). That 2 was ten times as painful as the original 10. Now I knew what the fuss was about and I also knew that I wouldn’t be giving birth “el-natural” as originally intended. I wished for a gun so I could be shot and put out of my misery before I was allowed to have an epidural.

After 42 ½ hours of labor, I gave birth to Casey on his father’s birthday… I felt like I couldn’t have given him a better gift. All the pain, sweat and tears were worth it. Casey was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. Yeah, I guess all mothers say that, but I still think so.

 Casey's looking a little stressed in this picture--he didn't want to come out, remember? And Dr. Muschaney said there was no way I could birth a baby over 7 pounds. Casey was 8 lbs 4 oz, so the little stinker had a rough go of it.

Casey grew up to be an artist. He inherited that gene from his father too. Recently I decided to take a beginner drawing class to see if I was capable of drawing more than stick figures. Casey asked me to post my sketches on my blog… so for his birthday, here they are:

 First class, very first drawing (we were practicing seeing simple shapes)

 First class

First class, close up of hammer

 

First class, final (a bone)

 Practice at home

 Second class, warming up with simple shapes 

 Second class, blind contour (pad of paper under the table and we followed the outline of the shape - then we did the same thing looking at it - as you can see the one on the top I had my eyes open, but it almost looks just like when I had my eyes closed)

 

Second class, my (frustrated) drawings

Second class, final

 

When the artist, Adam Long sketches examples in class, he makes it look so easy… just like my son makes it look easy when I watch him draw.

I remember the first picture Casey drew when he was being evaluated to go into kindergarten. It was a person… a stick figure that five-year-old's draw, only the teacher pointed out all the detail that most kids that age do not include: fingers on the hands, toes on the feet, ears, hair (crazy hair). The drawing was so funny I wanted to bust out laughing, but I stifled it. I remembered sitting across from the teacher with a huge smile on my face. I never dreamed Casey would be an artist based on that drawing, but I do recall the teacher being impressed. It showed what I knew about art.

My memory is a bit foggy, but I’d bet money (and I’m not a gambler) that you’d always find Casey drawing something throughout the years. I couldn’t tell you whether he always knew, or whether he decided when he entered high school that art was his calling. I think he always knew.

I received a call from the high school principal one day that Casey was being evaluated… but not in a good way. He had drawn a picture with blood, guns, and head’s being blown off. Casey’s attention to detail made the drawing rather graphic. A random teacher saw it and had concerns that something was wrong with him—worried that he may be a troubled, psycho kid. They assured me I had nothing to worry about. They told me all of this after the fact. I could have saved them a lot of time had they talked to me first, but I’m sure they figured any mother would defend their child. The art teachers that encouraged Casey thought the whole ordeal was ridiculous. They knew Casey’s inner essence.

Casey went on to earn “Artist of the Year” in his graduating class. Naturally, I was proud and wondered what the teacher, who turned him in that day, thought about this psycho kid. I guess you couldn’t blame the teacher really. Better safe than sorry.

Psycho, Casey is not. A talented creative artist, he is and one who is using his abilities to follow his dream.

Happy Birthday Casey! I love you.

Family and Greers Ferry Lake, Arkansas

Dear Mom,

It's been a busy few weeks with two of my out-of-town children in for a visit. Not that I was with them 24/7, but having people in and out of the house somehow makes it feel busier.  Casey, my son in from LA, California and Jessica, my middle daughter, in from Boston, Massachusetts and I went to Rita's work (Rita's the baby) to do a little writing/drawing/reading. We all were trying to put on our serious face... that's usually not hard for me because I never have a natural smiley face, but that doesn't mean I'm not happy.

Last weekend we took a road trip to Arkansas to see Casey, Jessica, and Rita's older sister, Jennifer and her family. We stayed at their lake house.

Here's a view of part of the lake

Just to help clarify things--Jennifer, Casey, Jessica, Rita, Eric and Ethan all have the same father. Jennifer is from his first marriage. Casey, Jessica and Rita are from his second marriage (with me), and Erik and Ethan are from his third marriage. Erik is in Afghanistan. Here is Jennifer (driving the boat) and Ethan.

Jennifer started things off with a handstand off the pontoon boat.

Later, John (Jennifer's husband) took Alex (Jenn's daughter), Emmy, Abby (John's daughters - he also has another daughter, Livvy who wasn't able to make it due to a tournament), Casey, Jessica and Ethan out tubing. Rita was the smart one and stayed with Jennifer and me on the pontoon boat.

The boats were anchored near some cliffs. Throughout the day some of the braver ones climbed up and jumped off.  I'm not much of a water person, so needless to say I didn't do any jumping. But here are all the siblings jumping off the cliff.

Rita, Casey, Jessica and Jennifer

Ethan was a bit shy to jump, but eventually jumped from a lower cliff.

Here are a few other shots:

Alex and Abby, although it could be Emmy as Abby and Emmy are twins... and yes, they look exactly alike.

 Rita

 Casey

 Jessica

 Ethan

 Jennifer

 John, Rita and me

We had a great time and it will be one of those vacations planted in the memory garden that will only blossom.

 Another view from their lake house during sunset.

Thanks Jenn, John, Alex, Abby and Emmy.