SAHMA--Stay at Home Mom/Author

  What do I do all day? The first thing I do each day is clean. Not because I like to clean (yeah, I hate it), but because in cleaning I find things that need my urgent attention. Unfinished tasks, projects, and moldy things the kids hide in the couch cushions. While I clean, I find new things to occupy my time--time that I should spend writing.
  When I tire of projects, I write. (Yeah, I know I should rearrange my priorities: write first, projects second.) While I write, my house gets dirty and disorganized again. The place perpetuates new projects all by itself. (The kids help some in that department.)
  Then there's those all-too-frequent moments--and by moments, I mean hours--when I check my email, Facebook, and Amazon. It's a bad habit, one that sucks up my time like the Dyson vacuum cleaner I can't afford. I could probably write a novel every six months if the internet was down. (There's an idea!)
  And when I'm really bored, I call my mother and listen to her whine while I paint my toenails or look at Amazon again.
  I used to have a condition called chronic volunteerism, but I was cured when I published my first book. I've yet to find volunteer work I enjoy that doesn't use up too much of my time--time that I should spend writing.
  Oh, and sometimes I take care of my four kids who still live at home. Three of them are adults so I consider my job done if I keep food in the kitchen, TP in the bathrooms, and laundry detergent next to the Maytag. The youngest still needs to be fed and chauffeured around, but sometimes the older ones will do that for me if I tell them--and by tell them, I mean beg, plead, and bribe--in the middle of writing a scene.
  I've trained them well, but I will always be mom first, author second.
  Time to get off my blog. I hear my laptop calling.

August Relief

 

  Most Southern kids hate the oppressive heat of late summer, but I'm always grateful for August. It's the only month of the year when Daddy will run the air conditioning. No matter if July is sweltering and September is miserable, we only get relief in August. I can sleep past 8:00 a.m. without waking up in a puddle. Thanks goodness we don't live in Florida. It's hot enough here in North Carolina.
  I love falling to sleep to the gentle strains of the AC's mechanical buzz. Our home is cool for 31 blissful days, even though the summer heat lingers from late April to early October here.
  I always have nightmares when it's hot at night, but Daddy hasn't quite made the connection. I wake up to the continuous chirping of the crickets, but to me it sounds like monsters outside my window, ready to feast on my flesh like zombies.
  Once I woke up screaming for Daddy. There was a thunderstorm and the rain was coming in my window. I though a burglar had shoved me into a bag and tossed me in the river. I know it was just a bad dream, one of many, but my home doesn't feel safe in the summer. Something about the open windows, the stifling air, and an imagination that can't get a good night's sleep while I'm tossing and turning on sweat-soaked sheets.
  I only sleep soundly in August when the windows are closed. In August I'm safe from the storms and the monsters. My nightmares take their annual vacation, at least until Daddy gets the electric bill and opens the windows again.
  I'm grateful Daddy runs the heat December through February, at least.

Prayers for Nathaniel

  My life was a blur when I had small boys. The oldest was six years old when number four was born. 'Crazy' was an apt description of my life. I was so busy meeting their basic needs for food, clean clothes and diapers, and transportation to preschool and soccer practice, that sometimes I neglected my own needs. Thank goodness for a camcorder or I would have forgotten all the sweet moments, the laugh-out-loud funny things they did and said.

  My third son made me laugh the most, but he also gave me heart attacks. Nathaniel was absolutely fearless, very unlike his cautious, easy-going older brothers. I had to relearn how to parent when Nathaniel came along. At 18 months, he walked to the edge of a two-story balcony with no railing. I couldn't reach him because the space was only wide enough for a toddler to squeeze through.

  I've never prayed so hard in my life. But God heard my prayers, and Nathaniel turned away from the ledge and came back to my waiting arms.

 Two weeks later, Nathaniel vanished from the yard when I turned my back for a moment. We lived on a cul-de-sac so there was no fear of him getting hit by a car, but I frantically searched for half an hour, recruiting the help of any neighbor I could find. I don't think I stopped praying the entire thirty minutes, until he reappeared from a backyard. He explained that he had gone to see a doggie, and was mystified why I was sobbing and hugging him so tightly.
 
At twelve, Nathaniel was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. He spent his thirteen birthday in the hospital. Eighth grade was a blur as he recovered from surgery and struggled to adjust to a synthetic thyroid replacement while going through puberty. It was a long road to recovery, complicated by years of 'self-medicating' and addiction. I've never spent so much time on my knees, praying for one individual. I consider Nathaniel my greatest challenge in life, and one of my greatest blessings.

 I've never stopped asking God to watch over Nathaniel, my heart attack child. On Sunday he moves out to attend college. He'll be living by himself in an apartment in an unfamiliar city. I think I'll be doing a lot more praying, but I'll trust in God to watch over him. My job as a mother is (mostly) done.

Wedgewood

  Julie tried to ignore her stinging eyes as she started on the dining room. She told herself it was just the dust as she blinked hard and began to take the beautiful china out of the hutch. Julie took time to wrap each plate in newspaper before placing it in the box, but she had no illusions that her brothers were taking the same care in the kitchen.
  A crash and tinkling of glass met her ears, but she refused to go investigate. Let the selfish jerks clean up their own messes.
  "Aw, man, that might have been worth something!" Ed bellowed from the living room
  Mike bellowed back, "Shut it!" and "Where's the broom?"
  Julie assembled another box and started opening the drawers of the hutch. A long, tarnished, silver cake knife drew her attention. She took it out and squinted at the engraving on the handle: Michael and Anna, June 23, 1956.
  Julie wiped at her uncooperative eyes as she placed the knife in the box for the auction. She turned back to the hutch and opened another drawer. She discovered a blue velvet box filled with tarnished gold spoons. They looked very old, as if they had never been used.
  Mike walked in to check on Julie's progress. He snatched the box of spoons from her hands and tossed it onto the dining room table. "Don't get sentimental, Jules. We sell it all. Everything."

The Fine Art of Bus Riding

  Something about riding the bus, I can't explain it. You just see things from the road that a comfortable train ride can't deliver. The real world. Life. I don't know--are you buying this?
  Speaking of buying--only a loser would buy a bus ticket from Sacramento to Peoria instead of flying like a normal, sane person. But I only had $200 and love the smell of sweaty strangers and bus toilets. Plus I love seeing hundreds of miles of corn fields up close and personal.
  Every stop is an adventure, a feast for the eyes. Speaking of feasts--the smell of Joe's Diner and the delightful heartburn that follows is enough to make the humblest soul pray for their insurance to cover a gastric bypass surgery.
  So I took the bus to Peoria for the reading of Aunt Isabel's will. What did she leave me from her vast fortune? Just a bus ticket to anywhere I want to go.

Fresh Air

  Nora wanted to go for a walk but Elias said no. It was spring, his worst season.
  "Okay if I walk by myself?" she asked, her patience wearing thin.
  "If you don't mind showering and washing your clothes when you get back." Elias said this between puffs on his Albuterol inhaler. "Pollen," he reminded her for the umpteenth time.
  Nora repressed a sigh with great effort and went outside. Spring was in full bloom and she could only watch it from the wrong side of a triple-paned window. She needed some fresh air.
  She took a long walk, knowing Elias would be fuming impatiently for her return. No doubt he would want the air filters changed again.
  Nora thought about her dog Lucky. She missed the black lab terribly, but Elias had made her choose: me or the dog. She wondered sometimes if she had made the right choice.
  A field of Queen Anne's lace seemed to beckon her. Nora felt a twinge of malicious delight as she walked through the waist high weeds, coating herself thoroughly with pollen. Elias probably wouldn't let her step foot in the house. He would want her to strip on the porch.
  Nora rubbed pollen in her hair and laughed. Maybe her sister would let her have Lucky back. She would rent a garden apartment or maybe a small farmhouse. Fresh air filled her lungs as she walked, enjoying the heady smells of spring and the thought of imminent freedom.
 

Cry "Wolf!"

  The alarm was so familiar that Laney knew what to do the instant she heard the metallic click five seconds before the howling began. It was as if the system was clearing its enormous throat in preparation for the hellish serenade that would follow.
  Her roommate Carla swore under her breath when the click sounded. She found her bathrobe and slippers, and was out the door before the fire alarm was full volume.
  Laney grabbed her master keys and followed Carla out to the breezeway. She didn't see many residents coming out of their suites, but she didn't expect to. The hypersensitive new system went off every night, sometimes two or three times a night, but as an RA Laney had to set the example and evacuate the building.
  Jeff, the RA on the other end of the eighth floor, nearly ran Laney down as she reached the stairs. "Key the rooms! Get everyone out!"
  Laney shook her head. "Let them sleep. It's another stupid false alarm."
  Jeff seized Laney's wrist and dragged her back to the breezeway. "Key all the doors! This time it's real! There's a bomb in the building!"

(True story from my adventures as an RA in Sullivan Residence Hall at North Carolina State University, 1985-1988. Go Wolfpack!)