Sayings & Stories

From the old days to today…

About Control…

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kdp-quotes_control3thingspp_w649_h649Much easier said than done.

Have you ever had someone accuse you of trying to “control” what they do?  I have.

But I’ve learned that often it’s not that you’re trying to control them; it’s that they feel trapped by their own choices, and the only solution is to push the blame outward.

To the one on the receiving end of that kind of accusation, it’s hurtful. Sometimes there is no moving past it. Sometimes calmer emotions prevail and the accuser can step back and realize what’s really happening.

Either way, all the other person can do is to remember the above comment. Each of us has control over only three things: What we think, what we say, and how we behave.

Notice none of them include “others”. Only ourselves.

You can’t control other people.

You can only control yourself.

Negativity

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Power-over-our-surroundingsI’m having a hard time with this one lately.

I haven’t quite figured out how to manage the space inside my head and heart when it comes to remembering this when certain toxic people – people I can’t completely separate from, since they’re connected to me through family – begin to spread negativity and try to draw me into the suffocating well of it.

I end up feeling panicky, and my heart-races as it usually does when I am faced with injustice or unfairness. The need to right the wrong and try to smooth things over rises up, because I am a peacemaker and a “fixer” by nature.

Except there is no accomplishing that with these two people. So, although I can ask (and have asked) them to stop contacting me, I haven’t resolved anything. The lingering negativity hangs over my head like a bloated, bilious cloud, affecting my every day activities and feelings.

Does anyone have a go-to poster, message, saying, or mantra that helps when times like this arise? Please post in the comments if you do…or any advice for handling negative people from whom you are unable to detach yourself completely! I’m sure I’ll shake it off soon, but some help in getting there would be most welcome. 🙂

The Juggling Act

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superwoman4This is how many of us feel on a regular basis (or maybe it’s just me, but I’m going to phrase it like that because it makes me feel better to pull you all into my circus, LOL).

173093__new-year-new-year-holiday-girl-smile-mood-gifts-juggling_pThrow in some of this (because the holiday preparations are in full swing, with decorating, shopping, baking, cooking, and most important of all, spending time with each other, which is the foundation of good memories):

????????And this (because my five weeks grades are due Tuesday)…

 

Final Front Moose Tracks on the Road to HeavenAnd this (because final issues for the book always crop up and require attention, from setting up accounts to creating TOC lists, to creating cover letters and mailing out review copies and trying to build some promotional efforts)…

And I have brewing a perfect storm of craziness that quickly escalates stress to red-line levels. Like on a daily basis. Tempers can flare and cause reactions that definitely don’t add to the serenity of life. 🙂

perfect-mumsAs a mom (even though my girls are teens they still have a gazillion activities, sports, and social issues to navigate), it’s easy to start to feel like this:

What to do?

live-in-the-momentI don’t have any silver bullet, I’m afraid. All I can offer is an idea that occasionally helps me to slow down so I can process what’s happening. It helps me to deflate some of the intensity of stress when it begins to overwhelm: Just live in the moment.

Attitude affects everything, whether its the day-to-day grind or the challenges of facing illness and pain (when my father was undergoing chemo and treatment during his final illness, he reiterated that to me many times, and one of the moments he was most proud was when his doctor’s office staff pooled to together and gave him a little pin that said “Great attitude award”, because he had one of the best they’d ever worked with).

While we can manage some things (like schedules or what we add to them by saying “yes” to too many things), there is much we can’t control. Much that just has to get done and needs that have to be met.

They will be. It will all work out. Just consider what this poster says. It helps. It really does. 🙂

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Anyone else have tips for getting through stressful times?

 

A Bittersweet Gift: The Dickens’ Village

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A photo of my mother-in-law and her late husband is perched right above the village she created

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The village all lit up

Last year I inherited my mother-in-law’s rather extensive “Dickens’ Village”. She built it over several decades, and some pieces need repair (like the gorgeous church, which isn’t pictured here because the steeple is broken). But it’s a beautiful collection, and my girls, when they were little, always used to love to go to grandma’s to look at it all lit up during the holidays.

It’s a little bittersweet now, to have it in our home. Her home was sold about a year ago because she suffers from Alzheimer’s. She lived with us for a summer and spent time with each of my husband’s siblings, but as she got worse, we had no choice for her own safety and well being but to move her to a constant care facility about 30 minutes from us. As of now, her disease has progressed to the point that although she usually recognizes that she knows us, when we visit, she doesn’t always know why or how, or who we are.

The village is one of the tangible reminders of what once was in our little family and can never be again.

So we will keep the village safe and put it out with love each year, in memory of all the happy times we spent together. Someday, I will pass it down to my girls, and they can keep the memories – and the remembered love – of their Grandma McCall alive and well.

Broken Toe

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I broke the big toe on my left foot yesterday.

It was really stupid…I was moving a deck umbrella into the garage, and neglected to check that the base was hooked tightly to the pole.

The base is a 25 lb. square of molded cement. It slipped off and landed smack dab in the middle of my big toe.

I’m afraid I didn’t follow what the poster above suggests. There was no keeping calm, and my language…well let’s just say that wasn’t calm either. I generally don’t cry in moments of great pain. But I release my emotions verbally, which I’m not too proud of, and I’m working on that, LOL.

I had a snow day yesterday, and I was supposed to be decorating my house for an upcoming neighborhood holiday party on Saturday where I am hosting 23 people for the main dish part of the festivities. Needless to say, not much got done, not to mention the seven loads of laundry still waiting, the 10 inch stack of papers to grade, the final issues that keep popping up with Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven and the need to drive my younger daughter to go buy dress pants and a certain kind of shirt for her school concert this week…the list goes on and on.

It’s amazing how much we take our toes for granted. I’m only glad it was my left toe and not my right one, or I wouldn’t be able to drive back and forth to work!

Tea Wisdom

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From my tea today – Good Earth’s “Sweet and Spicy”, which is one of my favorites at this time of year, for its lovely cinnamon-sweet warmth.

I love my dog, and, in the words of my sister-in-law, who helped me organize my pantry cupboards a few years ago, I “have more tea than all of China” because I enjoy it so much, it’s true.

But I also love my husband and wouldn’t have thought to make this kind of comparison.

What do you think?

The Gift is Nothing Without Work

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You must want it…more than television, more than shopping and socializing and even sometimes sleep. It’s the work that brings the vision to life. And yet a balance must be maintained as well. Thoughts?

Pre-order Deal!

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FINAL COVER MOOSE TRACKSMoose Tracks on the Road to Heaven is now available for pre order in eBook at amazon and Kobo at a special lower price! On publication day (Feb 3, 2015), the cost will go up,  so if you think you’ll want an e-version to read, now’s the time to lock-in the preorder price.

Here’s the link to amazon if you want it for your kindle, or to Kobo if you have that e-book reader.

Unfortunately, Barnes and Noble doesn’t have a pre-order function. When it’s available at iTunes and Google eBooks, I’ll post again so you can get the deal while it lasts, if your preferred e-reader uses those platforms.

The preview feature will be added soon at amazon and Google…but in case you’re eager to see some of the book now, you can go here and click on the cover for a look inside and a nice, long excerpt. 🙂

Vintage Christmas

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Vintage-Christmas-card-christmas-33061199-500-363It’s true that I enjoy vintage Halloween and Thanksgiving  pictures…but I adore vintage Christmas images. Here are a couple for you to enjoy  as a start (you know there will be more in coming days, LOL!)…

Vintage-Christmas-christmas-32887773-1200-881This one is a favorite for the atmosphere it evokes. It’s peaceful and warm, all at the same time. It reminds me of the Night Before Christmas book my father used to read to us…and it also kind of reminds me of this scene from Anne of Avonlea (another favorite film made from a book, this version featuring the irrepressible Megan Follows as Anne Shirley. You can see her performing now on the CW’s series REIGN, where she plays Queen Catherine de’ Medici, pictured here on the left, just behind Adelaide Kane, who plays Mary Queen of Scots, and Toby Regbo, who plays King Francis). 1212-final-580x385

I always loved this second entry into the “Anne” trilogy, because she became a teacher in this film and experienced the freedoms of life on her own for the first time. I had my own VHS copy of the trilogy, and when I was a first year teacher (newly-armed with my undergraduate degrees in English and Russian, and a mere 22 years old), living away from home and not in college for the first time in my life, I would watch this video again and again, snuggled into my little studio apartment above the diner in Hancock, NY, where I had my first teaching position. Cozy and wonderful – the perfect situation at a perfect time in my life.

There are many more reasons why Christmas-time – the whole month of December, really – holds such a special place in my heart, as it does for so many others. But those will be subjects of other posts. Here is another lovely image for now, and I’ll save some of the other stories and pictures (and another sneak peek from Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven) for later!Vintage-Christmas-christmas-32837432-1024-768

Everything in Life Is “Writable” About

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97bb327cf4cb4afe9ec1242699591388I love this quote by Sylvia Plath.

However, I have to acknowledge that the challenge of this – the self-doubt that can creep in by lifting the curtain and writing about experiences and people based in reality – was part of why Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven took so long for me to write. It’s loosely autobiographical, and the “bones” of the book are inspired by true experiences, feelings, and in some cases, people.

I learned that it definitely take some guts to fictionalize these real people, events, and experiences, and I faced a number of roadblocks (from myself and a few others), along the way. Sometimes it’s the worry of offending someone. Other times it’s the self-doubt about “getting it right” and capturing the feeling and moment the way I think it deserves.

It took me quite a long time to keep working the characters and situations in my head, to crystalize the important elements – the essence – of those events and people, but to also ensure that they remained fictional, as opposed to what they would be if I was writing a memoir as opposed to a novel.

Although it wasn’t easy, I also think it yielded a deeper sense of truth and emotion in the writing, for me at least. That this novel is based in reality gives it a foundation I know is authentic. I don’t need to question certain aspects of it as much as I would a book I was writing that contained entirely imagined characters and events.

Have any of you ever incorporated real life events into a work of fiction? Was the entire work based upon these things, or just a scene or two?

Have any of you read works that do this (that you know of)? Is there a difference for you in the reading experience, when you know that the author based it on real life experiences?