Teeny Tiny Apple Surprise

Dear Mom,

Over the holidays I was given a surprise and surprised by the visit of the friend who brought the surprise. No expecting anyone, I was in my pajama bottoms and a tshirt, wearing a baseball cap, no make-up, goofy socks and shoes along with an apron because I was baking. Certainly didn't want to mess up that classy outfit.

Ding-dong went the front door bell.

I couldn't see who it was and figured it was some delivery person which is the only people that normally come up to the house unannounced. But as I got close to the door, I gasped. I know one is not supposed to compare, but here is my gorgeous friend and here I am looking like a slug. Wait--slugs might even look better than I did that day.

My friend brought me a gift--a pretty box filled with delicious treats. One item caught my eye because it was the teeniest, tiniest apple I've ever seen. Almost too cute to eat. The picture doesn't do it justice and the apple that I have next to it (to also compare) is a small apple.

Let me just state for the record, the gift was exceptional. But what really made it special was the fact my friend took the time to come and present the gift in person. I was truly touched. Anytime I eat an apple, thoughts of my friend and the special surprise will warm my heart.

An Award

Gotcha! It's a blogger award - The Versatile Blogger Award bestowed upon me by Marilyn from Things I Want to Tell My Mother. She writes letters to her (deceased) mother, just like I do. I was surprised to get the award since I've only recently met her/her blog and vice-a-versa. But I'm honored just the same.

As part of winning this award I'm to tell you seven things about myself that are not included in my blog. I've done this before, however, I'm taking Marilyn's lead and writing something similar that she did as I found her seven things to be very interesting since I didn't know much about her.

So here goes:

1) I grew up in Florissant, Missouri. I'm not sure if I'll have the facts correct, but back in the day this town was divided between the French and German. I asked one of my aunts why all the kids in the family went to Sacred Heart School (when she was telling me how they walked to school nearly every day) since St. Ferdinand School was closer. She said that St. Ferdinand was for French people and Sacred Heart was for German people. I was puzzled because they both were Catholic schools. I too went to Sacred Heart from 1st through 8th grade. I think by then the whole French and German thing didn't exist, however, when I was growing up there was a distinction between Catholic and "public" - if you didn't go to Catholic school, I didn't think you were Catholic. You were Public. DUR.

2) I stayed in the Florissant area until I married, then moved to Akron, Ohio and lived there for a year. We then moved to Corpus Christi, Texas and I was there for a year. When my marriage didn't work out, I came back to Missouri to live - not far from where I grew up. I'm now living in Manchester, Missouri (south of Florissant). Both Florissant and Manchester are suburbs of the big city, St. Louis. There are a lot of suburbs of St. Louis.

3) Like Marilyn, because of my blog, I have met a lot of wonderful people from all over the world. That is amazing.

4) I don't have as varied writing accomplishments as Marilyn, but I'll continue to work on the craft of writing. Most recently I've been accepted in two anthologies: Storm Country (and all proceeds go to the Joplin School District libraries due to the tornado that devastated Joplin - only $10 and you can still order them! My story is about my friend Geoffrey) and St. Louis Reflections (celebrating St. Louis Writers Guild's 100th Anniversary - my story is about Hendel's - a little market that used to be in Florissant - actually the original building is still there, but now it's a restaurant. You can purchase this book at StLBooks.com for $9.99. Okay didn't mean to turn this into a promo thingy.

5) I had to laugh at Marilyn's - "I have a short attention span..." Well, I too have a short attention span, but I always want to write in epistolary form. My goal for 2012 is to write a hand-written letter to someone once a week (or more). And did I mention that I put together three family newsletters (one for my mom's side of the family, one for my dad's side of the family and one for my husband's family). I do them quarterly but without information from the family, I've had to drop one to bi-annually and it's going to happen to another one soon!

6) I belong to the St. Louis Writers Guild and the Saturday Writers group, both of which are chapters of the Missouri Writers' Guild. (MWG is having their annual writing conference this April which I plan to attend.) I also belong to a wonderful critique group that one gal named the five of us: WWWP (Wild Women Wielding Pens).

7) Marilyn talked about her other "favorite" name. I have two other names that I'm called and I'm not so sure that either are my favorite! Ha. But my adult children - when they were younger - used to introduce me to their friends as Lynnard. They call me that now and then. My hubby calls me Lester. I have no idea where that came from, but it probably beats what I call him! He he he. Oh what do I call him? Willis. Really, that's his middle name. But Lester is not my middle name. Honest. It's Marie. And my nephew Josh named me LLL (Little Looney Lynn). Hmmm, wonder why that is? It might have something to do with the fact that I sang in the car for nearly eight hours when on a road trip. I made up words. I sang off key. Josh was in the back seat. Probably ruined him for life.

Okay, there it is. I'm now supposed to present this award to other great blogs. How can you do that? To me they're all great blogs, so I'll award four (like Marilyn did) and hopefully there's someone new out there reading this who will wonder who those WWWPs are... and since there are four besides me, here they are in alphabetical order by the name of their blog:

I Digress
Message in a Bloggle: The Art of Being Broken
Sioux's Page
Write from the Heart

Happy New Year!

Dear Mom,

A little late, but Happy New Year! So much for being more on top of things for 2012. But hey, I've been busy. I had to make sure I ate the rest of those chocolate Santa heads. Waste not want not. How can you concentrate on goals, like watching your weight, when Santa heads are staring at you? They're not staring at me any more.

I had to make sure I started cleaning out my closet. How can I work on things if I can't find them? Part of it is finished, but now I have the clothes to go through, but at least I can walk in there now.

Next I'll be heading to the writing room, but once I'm in there it might be a long time before you hear from me again. My husband says, "You're the most disorganized organized person I know." That pretty much explain my writing room... a disorganized organized mess. I'm shooting for removing the disorganized part. Wish me luck. I'll need every bit of it.

Little Stinkers

Dear Mom,

I know you were not much of a dog lover, but what's not to love looking at these two little stinkers? A friend of my daughter's found them--abandoned. She drove them in from Kentucky and the minute my other daughter saw them, she was hooked. The two pugs stick to each other like they're joined at the hip and they have the sweetest dispositions.

You can see how loved they'll be...

But you can also see how upset her other little baby is...

but no worries, he's equally loved.

O'Christmas Tree

Dear Mom,

I showed you a few of my children's handmade ornaments when they were little and here are a few hand-made by others.

My cousin Peggy painted this:

My friend Michele made this star and you can check out her website at wildstarcreations. She makes beautiful earrings, necklaces and suncatchers.

This sled was made out of popcicle sticks by my sister's father-in-law:

When I did research on my great aunt who spent 30 years in Farmington State Hospital (it's now called Southeast Missouri Mental Health Center) there was a gift room where items made by patients were sold. I had to pick up these:
This snowman is made from an acorn. You might not be able to tell from the photo how big that acorn is, but it's bigger than any I've ever seen. There are trees on the property that have these huge acorns.

This Santa was made from the bark of a tree:

The following are my kids' ornamnents made by parents of the PTO or teachers. I'm sure they hang on a lot of trees.

As the holidays approach, my adult children in from out of town, and no baking done yet and a project I have to finish before the big day, I'll see you all after Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all! And to all, thanks for following me.

Hanging Out O'Christmas Tree

Dear Mom,

A friend Tammy posted: Hangin' with my Uglies--about Christmas ornaments--the cherished ones. I love homemade ornaments from kids... from anyone actually. I'm stealing Tammy's idea and posting my own ornaments, but I think I'll call it, Hanging with my Beauties...

Here's the oldest ornament I have. I was 17 and worked at Ben-Franklin in downtown Ferguson. A co-worker made this for me. I feel terrible because I can't remember her name now. I can picture her face though.

Next are various handmade ornaments from my children. Casey's hand is the base for this Santa:

Jessica's thumbprint made this design:

Rita created this with an upside down heart. The pom-pom stuck on one of the eyes cracks me up:

I'm not sure which kid made this one and I'm surprised it hasn't turned moldy. I don't know what is inside all those cloves:

The next two are more of Jessica's:

Rita was a little crafter way back. She sewed this Santa by hand. You should check out her site on Etsy or her Egabrag Crafts blog.

HO HO HO, Merry Christmas!

Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Christmas Pageant, Birthday, Anniversary, St. Louis Reflections

Dear Mom,

The holidays are a busy time of the year anyway, but then I added a few extra things into the mix. Saturday I went to old St. Charles (Main Street Books) to support a few writer friends who have stories published in Chicken Soup for the Soul books... as part of their book signing event, if you brought a canned good, you received 20% off your entire book purchase. The canned goods went to the food pantry, so the event was more than just supporting my friends. I also had the pleasure of seeing a few other writer buddies, Sioux and Dianna.

Chicken Soup for the Soul
Here are the lovely women from left to right, Cathi, Tammy, Linda, and Theresa:

Later that same day, Norm and I had a Christmas party to go to. The next day, we had another Christmas party to attend and followed that with a party at our house to celebrate my grade school friend's movie that he wrote...

The Christmas Pageant
There it is, Mark's name on the screen: Written by Mark Valenti

First we all ate:

Then we were all being silly acting as if the movie put us to sleep:

We're all really proud of Mark and had a great time celebrating his success.

Monday I visited with another friend, and finally did some Christmas shopping. I seriously don't know how some people are finished AND have it all wrapped at this point.

Tuesday I decided to take it easy, after all--I'm another year older. One year older than you when you died. Seems odd as I remember you as being old. I guess since I was 12 and you were 53, it'd make sense that I'd think you were old. Just like the grandkids think I'm old. There are days when I feel old, but for the most part I feel like I did when I was in my 20s. Is that weird? Then I look into the mirror...

Not only did I celebrate my birthday, but it's Norm's birthday. We're exactly 10 years apart. Him being older. Some may think otherwise... speaking of old. And we got married on our birthdays. Nine years. Definitely a record. Technically this year Norm is tied with all of my other (three) marriages added together. The little stinker sent me a dozen roses.

And check out his creative wording on the card...

We celebrated by having dinner and then I had to drag him to another book launch/reading/signing for St. Louis Reflections. It was the launch party for another anthology by St. Louis Writers Guild members. The books weren't ready, but the party went on.

St. Louis Writers Guild President, Brad Cook started things off explaining the history of the guild. He's also the historian of the guild and has done an exceptional job at that!

Here I am reading my story "Hendel's Market".

I had a few props with me: a picture of Hendel's that hubby made for me, along with a jar of penny candy (not really a penny any more) but I talked about the candy in my story. Sugar Shack, where I purchased the candy for the book launch, was sweet enough to give me some wooden quarters to pass out at the event--good for 25 cents worth of candy in the store.

In my story I mentioned one thing my little sister and I would do is pretend to give one another communion with the flying saucer candies, and here's my daughter giving communion to my two sisters after she heard my story.

It really was a lovely event and I felt honored to be among special writers and part of the anthology. I'd like to thank everyone who ventured out, and for those who made the event possible.

Linda Austin wrote a nice article about event, A Gathering of Writers and Memories of St. Louis.

And if you're interested in ordering a copy of St. Louis Reflections, visit StLBooks.com and they're only $9.99!