Friday Show & Tell: the Forgive Me Edition

Hi, folks.

I'm on a major deadline for Monday, and my 4 year-old's preschool was let out early one day this week and cancelled for three days due to snow and ice. Less than two inches of it (it's the South). I'm basically a basket case, because the time I needed to spend working on those deadlines was spent teaching and at home corralling my precious little scamps.

Okay, so I went sledding with my 4 year-old. And my dog.

And we walked downtown for bakery items and to make snow angels with friends.

And I watched DVRed reruns of The Newsroom. Which is going off the air after it's 3rd season. Sigh. Nobody writes for television better than Aaron Sorkin. Come on!

So this is partly my fault. But still: three and a half days of no preschool does make a couple of writing deadlines tough to meet. You try to get anything done with a 4 year-old and an 8 month-old in the house. I dare you.

P.S.

I do actually have one thing to share, for those folks in Brevard, NC and nearby: Native Eyewear is hosting the Locals Only Project Award Party at The Lumberyard in Brevard on Saturday, Feb. 8th from 6 - 10 p.m. The new catalog, complete with shots from all around our fair town, will be handed out. I have heard that it's absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait to celebrate my adopted hometown!

Snow Day!

It finally snowed! All hail the snow!

And a good time was had by all.

Wherever you are, I hope you're safe, warm and happy. And if you can, get outside and play!

P.S. Lest you think we forgot her, Baby Willa was warm, safe, and asleep inside. We'll get her out today.

Feile Samhna - Happy Halloween!

In honor of that day of the year when the door between this world and the next creeeaaaks open, I’m sharing a post I wrote on this day way back in 2008. Forgive the references to snow. It used to snow in my mountains. Also, I used the word "freaking." I was in my 20s and didn't have kids.

Happy Hallowe’en and Feile Samhna to you all!

Without further ado, a repost from my past:

Snow in October, Hallowe’en in My Head

On Tuesday morning, it snowed in Brevard. And not just a few, miserly flakes: the stuff came down–so thick it hid the mountains from view, and made my drive to work feel like inching through a blizzard. But, because it is the South and only October, it melted by 9 a.m.
I am a fool for snow. If it had stuck around long enough, I would’ve tromped my students outside to stand in it, and somehow managed to make the weather relate to writing… just so I could get my time in before it melted. I come by this snowmadness honestly: When I was growing up in South Carolina, my parents–especially my Dad–made snow days more magical than Christmas. (And Christmas was pretty freaking magical in my house.)

The year of the Big Snow, something everyone who grew up in the ’80s in Greenville, S.C. still talks about, it snowed well over a foot, and school was out for nearly two weeks. My father took buckets of water and washed down our driveway and road, so it’d be perfectly slick for sledding. He and his friends tied our sleds with old ski ropes to the back of someone’s Waggoneer, and they tugged us around our neighborhood for hours, the moms in the way back with the hatch open, giggling and hanging on. We sledded for hours down the hill near a local Baptist church, a gang of StayPuff marshmellow kids in our snowskiing gear (bibs, jackets, gloves, boots, hats)–which the nearest house with the nearest mom would dump into her dryer, filling us with hot chocolate before sending us out again.

My neighbors, formerly of the coast, pulled out their surfboards and removed the fins, and we surfed down the hill in front of my house. My black lab, Magic, raced circles around the house in a blur of white. Each morning, my sister and I woke up, raced to our parents’ bedroom where they had the radio on by their bed, to wait anxiously to hear whether My 102.5 would announce that school was cancelled again in Greenville County. My God, it was magic.

It doesn’t snow much any more. And even though I’ve moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina, a much higher elevation than my hometown, I’ve only seen a few inches each year–mostly ice–that melts in a day, leaves me sad and a little slushy. I long for those preternatural sunrises, pressing my face to my cold bedroom window and praying that my world would still be white. I miss the igloo my Dad and his friends built us, the real fires in the fireplaces, the way my neighborhood became a festival of friends for two straight weeks, the fun never-ending.


But now, there’s Hallowe’en in my head. Feile Samhna to all!  Happiest of All Souls’ Days, All Hallow’s Eves, the night just before Samhain, the night when the door supposedly creaks open between this world and the next, and the spirits roam. No matter what anyone says, or how much we’ve ‘roided Hallowe’en up with commercialism, it is a preternatural night: a night our ancestors (just about all of them, no matter what your DNA looks like) recognized as different. If you stand outside in the chilly dark tonight, away from the squealing kids and orange lights and ringing doorbells, you might feel it brush your face, give you a little shiver. If you do, I say you’re lucky. Hallowe’en has many faces, many traditions, many legends associated with it… and not all are scary.
 

My husband and I have been debating for a week about what to do with ourselves tonight. Our neighborhood, which is not even a half mile from downtown, will become swamped with trick-or-treating children at about 6 p.m., and will not cease until after 10 p.m.  They are mini-vanned in from all corners of the county… and sometimes the street up from us is blocked off by police cars so the kids can wander freely. It’s not anything out of the ordinary for folks in our neighborhood to spend $400 on candy each year.

Suffice to say, we cannot afford this. And so, we flee after a time… and I think that’s what we’ll do tonight. But first, we’ll buy a couple of bags of candy from the dollar store–if they’ve any left–and pass it out to the first little ghouls, the cutest ones of the entire night, and then we’ll walk downtown to eat, maybe to a movie. We’ll leave Scout, our dog, to guard the dark house.

For the Scottish poet Rabbie Burns’s famous poem about Hallowe’en, click here.

For an interesting article on the Celtic origins of Hallwe’en, click here.

Show & Tell Friday: Fall Festivities & Quotes to Ponder On

I still look like I did last week. But I’m powering through.

Some good stuff to share on this cold October weekend:

1.) Halloweenfest & Osktoberfest in Transylvania County

I live in Transylvania County, North Carolina, and if you haven’t guessed from the name, we are serious about Halloween. This Saturday (Oct. 26th) is the annual Halloween festival. Downtown will be blocked off for food and craft vendors, stages filled with live, local music; there’ll be the annual Pumpkin Roll down the hill from the Courthouse, a hay ride, costume parade and more. After hours Oskar Blues Brewery will kick off Osktoberfest with food, music, and good beer. There truly is something for the whole family here!

The festival will also feature Mountain Mash, an old-time bluegrass competition, to be held at various times during the day.

For more info about Osktoberfest, and all the beers and bands, click here.

2.) Stingy Jack’s Pumpkin Patch

My family and I have been trying to get out to this quirky little blast of a Halloween event for

a couple of years now.  We plan to make it happen before Halloween! Located on a farm in Pisgah Forest, NC, Stingy Jack’s only opens on the weekends and in the evenings, and has a pumpkin carving contest, a spooky trail, enchanted hayride, and something called Stingy’s Ultimate Pumpkin Chunker, which is sure to appeal to the kids and the dads in the crowd, especially.
 

3.) Quotes on my bulletin board

Yes, this is random, and has nothing to do with Fall festivities. Humor me.

This is my bulletin board. It hangs on the wall to the left of my neat-as-a-pin writing desk. Why are you laughing? It’s not my story board–that’s different, and contains all kinds of notes on scrap paper, photographs, and anything inspiring me or having to do with my work-in-progress. The bulletin board holds my calendar, photos, the little reminder cards from the doctor’s office, etc. It also has stuck to it whatever quotes are speaking to me, my life, and my current (often crazy) state of mind.


Here are a few that I’ve lately found to be relevant. Basically, they shout to me from the bulletin board.

“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose, and then give your whole heart and soul to it.”
~ attributed to the Buddha

“Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”
~ Confucius

“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.”
~ John Le Carre

Show & Tell Friday: Summer Solstice Edition

Hey, all! I'm posting this here and at my author website a wee bit early. This is the fault of baby brain: if I waited until tomorrow, I'd never remember.

Today is the Summer Solstice: the longest day of the year, the official first day of summer  and, as it so happens, my husband’s birthday!

Oh, how I love the summer. Sunday was the first night I’d noticed the lightning bugs. I’m sure they’d been around already, but we’ve got an infant in the house, and so some things have lately gone unnoticed. We tried to get our 3 year-old to catch them with us, attempted to explain just how cool these little glowing creatures are, that they mean summer and freedom and magic–but she just wasn’t into it. Oh, my broken heart. But she’ll get it one day.

Some good stuff to share:

1.) Native Eyewear is sponsoring a contest called the “Locals Only Project,” where viewers can vote for the best outdoor town. Native Eyewear will travel to that town and make it the centerpiece of their next catalog. My town, Brevard, NC, is up this year! And we are truly lucky and blessed to live where we do: in the Blue Ridge Mountains, at the foot of Pisgah National Forest, with the best mountain biking track and hiking trails East of the Mississippi.

Check us out and vote here.

2.) Last night I pulled a movie from our DVD library that I haven’t watched in a long time. Called True Women, it was a CBS miniseries in the ’90s starring Angelina Jolie, Dana Delany, and Annabeth Gish, and based on the novel by Janice Woods Windle. I’d picked the DVD up in some pile of “for sale” stuff a while back. Set over five decades, starting in 1830s Georgia and Texas, against the backdrop of the Indian Removal (Trail of Tears), the Alamo and Texas independence, the wars with the Comanches, and eventually the Civil War and women’s suffrage, it’s full of capital-D Drama.

Parts of it are overly-sentimental–mostly the over-the-top Southern accents, which only Gish really gets right–but it’s a rousing adventure and a story of three very independent Southern women in a wild and dangerous time. The relationships between Delany’s and Gish’s character (they play sisters), and between Delany and her character’s husband (played by veteran Western actor Powers Boothe) is lovely and real.

Check it out: an escapist adventure for a few hot summer nights! (And I bet you could get it for free from your local library.)

3.) Speaking of libraries–very cool places to be in the summer–here’s the list of the latest books I’ve checked out. (All novels.) They’re sitting on my bedside table and the side table where I feed my baby. I’m optimistic I’ll make it through all of them in time to check out more for July, especially considering the wee hours and I have grown quite friendly:

Ashenden by Elizabeth Wilhide
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
The Casual Vacany by J.K. Rowling

I’ve got to admit: I’m a chronic re-reader. I just finished re-reading Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness, and Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff. And, I recently gulped down Susanna Kearsley’s newest, The Firebird, as soon as Amazon.com delivered it to my door earlier this week. More on that soon!

4.) In my CD player: (And, yes, I still have a CD player) I’m currently listening to new albums by two camp buddies of mine (read: friends I worked with for years at a camp in the NC mountains): Bradley Carter’s The Real Job (CD jacket designed by another camp buddy and talented artist, A.J. Power) and Shannon Whitworth’s High Tide.

Quite a bit of talent comes out of the NC mountains. Check them all out when you have a chance. And I’ll write more later about all these books and this great music, here and at my blog. No guarantees on when (she types as the infant cries from the bassinet), but it’ll come.

Happy Summer Solstice to everyone!

Show & Tell Friday (okay, Thursday) - The Local Edition

* I’m posting this today because I’ll be away from my desk all day tomorrow. Enjoy!

Oh, Spring has officially sprung! (Winter, cover your ears.)

This week it hit a high of 82 in my mountains–yes, I like to call them mine, sort of like Stephen, the mad Irishman in the movie Braveheart, who calls Ireland “my island.” Love that guy.


Anyway, the birds are singing, dogs barking in glee, flowers blooming, and the walkers, runners and bikers are out in full force. What a glorious time of year!
 



Some fabulous things to share today, mostly regional/local. Enjoy!

1.) I’m a graduate of Clemson University, and I earned a double degree in both English and

Speech & Communications Studies, which was a relatively new major when I was there. So I was thrilled to discover that Clemson University’s Debate Team won the National Educational Debate Association’s national tournament! For the last six years, this title has been won by Ball State, but my Tigers–a rookie team just started in 2012–took it this year. As a grad, I love it when my alma mater does well. Check them out here.
 

2.) Writers, check out debut author Shannon Huffman Polson’s post at SheWrites about the publishing process of her first book, which also coincided with a miscarriage. It’s a memoir called North of Hope, and Huffman’s story of the book coming to life–and of her personal journey as a mother–is well worth reading.

 





3.) The Assault on the Carolinas, Brevard NC’s big bad road race, is this weekend!

Everyone is gearing up, including local breweries and bands. Head to the mountains for a racing good time!
 




4.) The Cradle of Forestry in Pisgah National Forest will have its opening day this Saturday, April 13th. Step back in time to the days of the first forestry school in America. There’ll be Percheron draft horses plowing the fields, old-time fiddle music, arts and crafts, and so many other cool Blue Ridge traditions to discover along the Biltmore Campus Trail! For more information, click here.

On a side note, my entire family and I are big fans of Pisgah National Forest, and of the Cradle. It’s cool enough having a national forest as your unofficial back yard, but the Cradle hosts an innumerable amount of fun events over the course of the Spring, summer and Fall. If you’re from nearby, it’s a no brainer to head on up to cooler heights. And if not, believe me when I tell you, it’s worth the drive!

Don’t believe me? Here’s a shot of my daughter from the Forest Festival Day and International Woodsmen’s Meet back in October. The dimples only appear when she’s really happy.

 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Show & Tell Friday - The Ides of March Edition

The Death of Caesar by Vincenzo Camuccini

Ah, the infamous ides of March: the first month of the year in the original Roman calendar (the Romans celebrated the New Year from March 1st until today), the day in 44 B.C. when Julius Caesar was assassinated by members of the Senate (thank goodness our senators are a bit more well-behaved … though some would argue, not by much), and the feast day of the year’s particular goddess.

Mostly, though, we know of the “Ides” because of Shakespeare’s bloody and fascinating play Julius Caesar. (What, you’ve not read it since high school–or at all? Get thee to a library!) He gives us an up close and personal view of the B.C. formula for taking down a dictator.

And people think a study of history is worthless. Pshaw.

On to today’s edition of “Show & Tell Friday.” Last week, I gave you a new book, a poem, and some great music. Today I’ve got some good stuff to share, too:

1) The Girls of Atomic City: the Untold Story of the Girls Who Helped Win WWII by Denise Kiernan

My grandmother was one of those “girls,” so this book holds special meaning for me and my family–especially my mother and her three sisters. My Grandmama Jean moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, just out of college, recruited to work there in the war effort. As a family, we’ve returned many times to “the Secret City” where my mom and aunts were raised, and where my grandparents met–he a scientist on the Manhattan Project (the atomic bomb). My sister and I bought this book for my mom as an early Mother’s Day present. I hope she reads fast, so I can get it next.

2) Have you heard yet about the “Harlem Shake,” a YouTube dance craze sweeping pretty much the world lately? Sure, it’s becoming a bit passe, but still a whole lot of fun to watch. Check out the students at Clemson University doing their version:

www.aotc.org

3) Hundreds of road bikers will descend on our little mountain town of Brevard, N.C. April 12-13th for the 14th Annual Assault on the Carolinas. Races include 100k, 60k, and 40k routes, the 100k race stretching down the Blue Ridge Escarpment into S.C. and back up the notorious Caesar’s Head State Park. Several events occur during the weekend, including access to locally-brewed beers and live music. There’ll also be a lack of parking space and lots of fit men wandering around town in very tight pants.

Brevard has become a mecca for road and mountain bikers alike; many of my friends and neighbors have become honestly obsessed with the sport, going on long rides every weekend and even weekdays. They are most definitely, as my buddy and neighbor Adria says, “All eat up with biking.”

4) And finally, some quotes for your Friday. Because I can’t resist quotes. I papered the walls of my college dorm room with quotes. (Apologies to Lisa, my roommate who put up with them.)

In addition to holding the Ides of March, the month of March is also home to Women’s History Month and Albert Einstein’s birthday. So, in honor of both these lauded events, some sayings:

“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.” ~ Susan B. Anthony

“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” ~ Dolly Parton

“About age thirty, most women think about having children and most men think about dating them.” ~ Judy Carter

“Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When the fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”~ Amelia Earhart

“I’d much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they’re first to be rescued off sinking ships.” ~ Gilda Radner

And these from Albert Einstein …

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

Happy weekend, y’all!

Amazon's The Big Deal (and other news)

Ziegler Tree Farm, Pisgah National Forest

Hi, all! Happy December!

This weekend my family went to the woods (literally) to cut down our Christmas tree. Then we took part in The Twilight Festival, my favorite of Brevard, North Carolina’s many celebrations. There was an ice luge, local hot cider, sleigh rides through town, and the annual Christmas parade. A good time was most definitely had by all.

In book news…

Keowee Valley has been selected as part of Amazon’s “The Big Deal” program, which offers the Kindle version of select titles at a major discount.

From December 2 – 22, Keowee Valley will be available for only $1.99! I’m thrilled to be part of this program, and I hope you’ll help me by passing the word to your friends and family!

http://www.amazon.com/Keowee-Valley-ebook/dp/B0097HHHWG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1354544589&sr=1-1&keywords=keowee+valley

In Brevard, we’re kicking off the season right with a local party to celebrate the release of my first novel. If you’re local or visiting the area, do come by Highland Books on Thursday, December 6 from 4:00 – 5:30 p.m. There’ll be books and other fantastic items for sale–Highland Books has a wonderful selection of fiction and nonfiction books, magazines, and fair trade items like jewelry and crafts. Perfect for Christmas!

Reading Tonight at Brevard College

Happy Belated Thanksgiving, everyone! Hope you had a relaxing and delicious-food-filled few days with family and friends.

 

Some news: Three other Brevard College professors and I will be reading from our recently published works (me from Keowee Valley, of course) tonight at 7:30 p.m., in the lobby of the gorgeous Porter Center on campus.

The other professor-writers include essayist Jennifer McGaha, poet Kenneth Chamlee, and short story author Jubal Tiner. All teach in the English department at Brevard College.

If you’re in the area, please come by! All of us will be selling our books after the event. But also, Brevard has already begun readying itself for the Christmas season, and lights are up all over town! With our delicious restaurants and surrounding mountains, we make for a great visit.

Hope to see you there!

Snow in October, Hallowe'en in My Head

* Full disclosure:

 

This a re-post from Halloween 2008. I liked it, and thought I'd share it again. A few things have changed since then: I have a 3 year-old, and we'll definitely be joining all the little monsters in town Trick-or-Treating tonight.

 

Also interesting: though my town didn't see snow, it snowed several inches not too many miles away last night, and many towns in Western North Carolina have been under winter storm warnings due to the after-effects of Hurricane Sandy. (Stay safe, everyone!)

* *

 

On Tuesday morning, it snowed in Brevard. And not just a few, miserly flakes: the stuff came down--so thick it hid the mountains from view, and made my drive to work feel like inching through a blizzard. But, because it is the South and only October, it melted by 9 a.m.
I am a fool for snow. If it had stuck around long enough, I would've tromped my students outside to stand in it, and somehow managed to make the weather relate to writing... just so I could get my time in before it melted. I come by this snowmadness honestly: When I was growing up in South Carolina, my parents--especially my Dad--made snow days more magical than Christmas. (And Christmas was pretty freaking magical in my house.)

The year of the Big Snow, something everyone who grew up in the '80s in Greenville, S.C. still talks about, it snowed well over a foot, and school was out for nearly two weeks. My father took buckets of water and washed down our driveway and road, so it'd be perfectly slick for sledding. He and his friends tied our sleds with old ski ropes to the back of someone's Waggoneer, and they tugged us around our neighborhood for hours, the moms in the way back with the hatch open, giggling and hanging on. We sledded for hours down the hill near a local Baptist church, a gang of StayPuff marshmellow kids in our snowskiing gear (bibs, jackets, gloves, boots, hats)--which the nearest house with the nearest mom would dump into her dryer, filling us with hot chocolate before sending us out again.

My neighbors, formerly of the coast, pulled out their surfboards and removed the fins, and we surfed down the hill in front of my house. My black lab, Magic, raced circles around the house in a blur of white. Each morning, my sister and I woke up, raced to our parents' bedroom where they had the radio on by their bed, to wait anxiously to hear whether My 102.5 would announce that school was cancelled again in Greenville County. My God, it was magic.

It doesn't snow much any more. And even though I've moved to the mountains of Western North Carolina, a much higher elevation than my hometown, I've only seen a few inches each year--mostly ice--that melts in a day, leaves me sad and a little slushy. I long for those preternatural sunrises, pressing my face to my cold bedroom window and praying that my world would still be white. I miss the igloo my Dad and his friends built us, the real fires in the fireplaces, the way my neighborhood became a festival of friends for two straight weeks, the fun neverending.

But now, there's Hallowe'en in my head. Feile Samhna to all! Happiest of All Souls' Days, All Hallow's Eves, the night just before Samhain, the night when the door supposedly creaks open between this world and the next, and the spirits roam. No matter what anyone says, or how much we've 'roided Hallowe'en up with commercialism, it is a preternatural night: a night our ancestors (just about all of them, no matter what your DNA looks like) recognized as different. If you stand outside in the chilly dark tonight, away from the squealing kids and orange lights and ringing doorbells, you might feel it brush your face, give you a little shiver. If you do, I say you're lucky. Hallowe'en has many faces, many traditions, many legends associated with it... and not all are scary.

My husband and I have been debating for a week about what to do with ourselves tonight. Our neighborhood, which is not even a half mile from downtown, will become swamped with trick-or-treating children at about 6 p.m., and will not cease until after 10 p.m. They are mini-vanned in from all corners of the county... and sometimes the street up from us is blocked off by police cars so the kids can wander freely. It's not anything out of the ordinary for folks in our neighborhood to spend $400 on candy each year.

Suffice to say, we cannot afford this. And so, we flee after a time... and I think that's what we'll do tonight. But first, we'll buy a couple of bags of candy from the dollar store--if they've any left--and pass it out to the first little ghouls, the cutest ones of the entire night, and then we'll walk downtown to eat, maybe to a movie. We'll leave Scout, our dog, to guard the dark house.

For the Scottish poet Rabbie Burns's famous poem about Hallowe'en, check out: http://www.djmcadam.com/halloween.htm

For an interesting article on the Celtic origins of Hallwe'en, go to: http://www.newacropolisuk.org/ShowArticle.php?artid=6