The Season of Neglect... or not!

We have been traveling. 

Traveling around the Northwest for All Star baseball season. 

Along the way, we've have family (like Hottie Husband's cute mom) 

 and my adorable niece and her siblings and mama

 come to watch this boy do his thing behind the plate.

I'm really proud of him and so are they. 

For a third consecutive year, he and his team won the State Championship.

And in small town Montana style, they were given a parade to celebrate the 3-peat. 

Note that this photo was taken by me running down the street with a zoom lens from the Farmer's Market where I had just set up baked goods for a fundraiser for these boys. 

(winning State meant they were going to Regionals in Idaho)

The firetruck turned one street sooner than I thought it would and I missed it. 

But, my zoom lens didn't.

Thank you zoom lens, but I'd really have preferred to see it up close. 

In the midst of this, we did find time to slip and slide

and enjoy a fun-packed three day visit with my sister and her kids.

While they were here, they mountain biked with HH, wake boarded and surfed on the lake, visited Glacier Park, went fishing and jumped into the river from a really high bridge. 

I'm sure you can guess my favorite part of this photo. 

When we finally returned from Boise with a 2-2 record at Regionals, I looked around and realized everything I'd neglected over the past 6 weeks- my hair with terrible roots, my toenails with chipped paint, my garden with weeds galore, my dog who has gotten zero attention, my postless blog, my dusty house, my workoutless muscles. 

And I thought- that was a season of neglect.

But, then I started looking through photos of the last few weeks and discovered that I'd just made a trade.

 I traded my hair and toenails and house and garden and blog and toned muscles. 

And it was a good trade.

Because I'd traded them for glory moments and rare time with family and conversations with friends on walks and in hotel lobbies and on the grass of a baseball field.

I'd traded them for times I know are precious and that I'll never get back.

And now a few days home, the garden is perking up, the laundry is almost done, the house is still dusty and I'm off to get my hair done. 

 

Winning Sure Is Fun!

We are smack in the middle of ALL STAR Baseball Season. 

This means Friday through Sundays with up to 12 games to watch between Luke and Jack's teams.

And HH and I love it. 

It is probably one of our favorite times of the year. 

He is in his element coaching and I simply try to limit the amount of grey added to my head during those stressful close games. 

This weekend Luke's team won a tournament. 

This is just a little peek into how we celebrated Montana Style, farmer tans included. 

Whitefish 12U All Star Team

Grandma was a trooper and went to every single game. 

Rare photo of me taken by Grandma. Don't know what I am doing with my arm.

And Toots joining the team festivities.

When this team wins, they jump in the nearest river. 

Don't mention his farmer/baseball coach tan!

Love that these coaches jump with their boys.

Summer fun. Love these kids. 

A little something about the ... F bomb!

I am not a cusser. Not a girl who uses the sh-word or the a-word or the b-word or the f-word. I never have been. In fact, I was not even allowed to say "shut-up" as a kid and now my kids aren't either.

Hottie Husband (who at this moment is jump roping in the back yard, doing double unders, without a jump rope and making me giggle) is not a cusser either. We've been together since high school and even back then, we just didn't let that kind of lingo fly much. That isn't to say that we NEVER cuss. There are certain things that provoke it— snow skiing and almost eating it, bad drivers, near crashes, police lights flashing in the rear view mirror, dog poop on the floor, sudden pain.

One of my favorite stories is about one of my best friends who, holding her Bible in her hand, stepped into the pedicure water at a salon and then shouted F*** at the top of her lungs. The water was scalding hot and then so was her face. Sometimes it just can't be contained.

I just took my two youngest boys on a road trip to South Dakota for my cousin's wedding and on the first leg of the drive, my seven year old said, "Mom, does the F word rhyme with duck?"

Me- Yes, who told you that?
Him- Such and such at school.
Me- Well, just don't ever say it!
Him- Yeah, well I just asked Luke and Jack if the F word was F***!


This is one of those mommy moments where I nearly come out of my skin and then say really stupid stuff.


Me- I JUST TOLD YOU NEVER TO SAY IT. If you ever say it again, I will wash your mouth out. ( I realize on the road there is no soap or sink in the car I then get really ridiculous.) I will pull over to the side of the road and make you eat grass!


It is quiet now for a moment, then he says, "Mom, is grass soap?" I stifle a laugh, "No dear. Grass is not soap."

I say all this because in my novel, there is a girl, a character I love, who uses the b-word and the sh-word and the f-word and I recently had a reviewer write that she didn't appreciate the F-bombs in the book. Honestly, they were not easy to write. And it was really uncomfortable for me to think of my dad reading the words I'd written aloud to my step-mom.

But, I know this girl in my book and I know about seven like her in real life. Girls with hard lives. And guess what? Those girls don't filter and they let the f-word fly. So, for my character Clara, for this good-hearted broken girl who I "get", I let her use the f-word. I think I would have done her an injustice had I not.

Disclaimer- If you are my friend and you use the f-word, I don't really care so please don't feel the need to filter. If you are my child, not so much.

Cruisin...

I am a cruiser now.

I'm cruisalicious.

Really, I don't know why I just said that except that cruising around town on my new cruiser bike is just

So. Much. Fun.

Years ago, when we camped a lot, I had another cruiser bike (not quite as lovely as this one) but it met its demise on a little trip we took in our motor home one summer to the town of Whitefish, Montana. 

HH was trying to park that gigantic motor home downtown so we could try out the local restaurants and backed right into a pole and squished my former cruiser.

I pass that pole almost daily now. 

For a while, I inherited HH's old mountain bike though it was never used for actual mountain biking. 

So, when for Mother's Day, I was surprised 

(sort of. Luke was lobbying to get me a new bike so he could inherit dad's old mountain bike and Jack could have his bike since Jack's bike was broken. It's all very political really.)

with my new green cruiser, I was totally stoked.

After all, we are townies now and when the snow is gone, you can get anywhere in town on a bike -

school, grocery store, gym, Farmer's Market, Library, a night out in town, my best buddies houses. 

Yesterday, I cruised (pulling Little Bear in the trailer) to school with Toots. Then, I cruised over to the high school track to watch the 5th grade track meet. Then, I cruised over the the elementary school again to talk to a teacher. I cruised back home for a while and then back for pick up.

I'm saving gas and I'm seeing flowers bloom and one of my favorite parts of the morning is cruising under the branches of a lilac tree. 

I lift my face and breathe in. 

Now I just need a little bell and a basket. 

Not Built For Glory

People were not built for glory.

I'm certain of it. 

This is why we see elevated pastors of churches and powerful politicians brought low by scandal, 

and celebrities with fame and money still struggling with substance abuse and relationship problems. This is why, especially the young who gain glory early in life, often end up in despair. 

Humans were simply not built for glory.

That is not to say that moments of glory are not meant for us. 

 I love the moments of the glorious walk off grand slam, the hero who saves a life, 

the underdog who finishes first. 

Those are the stuff of life. 

But, if in those moments, people buy in to the glory, take it all in, begin to think they are in fact- glorious- that is when the moment turns sour and ugly. 

We have a friend who races on bikes, skis, (you name it) and he wins consistently. But, all his competitors say, "If you have to lose to someone, you want it to be him because he wins so graciously."

I am fairly certain they see this in him because he does not give the glory to himself.

Publishing my novel has been a lovely and glorious experience this month. 

I've had friends and family from every corner of the history of my life, buy it, read it and write notes of encouragement to me. 

They are using words like "brilliant, wonderful, amazing, incredible."

Those are glory words. 

And each time I receive them with an overwhelming gratefulness. 

I mean, seriously, sometimes I cry and my heart feels like it might burst with joy. 

Receiving those kinds of compliments about my writing is huge to me.

But, I'm careful because even in this tiny newborn moment of "success" so far, I know I'm not built for glory. That this life, in fact, is not about me or my accomplishments.

 It's about serving and loving others.

To stay there, in that mind frame, in that perspective, it doesn't take "me time", it takes "knee time."

We are just works in progress and it is in the valleys and on the mountaintops where our character is honed and refined. 

Often, it is harder on the mountaintops to find a place to drop to your knees.

In the valleys, any old place will do. 

And this is what I try to teach my boys (who LOVE glory)-

that growth beats glory every time.

Being an Indie.. Author that is!

I just found out that I have a new name, category, label. I am an Indie Author. Doesn't that sound sort of cool? It sounds cooler than self-published anyway! So, I'm going to claim it and picture myself in the midst of indie film makers who do it all their way and wear Fedoras and have a just enough facial hair (scratch that- I don't want the facial hair) to look artsy and hip.

In the past, there's been a stigma attached to self-publishing. It's fading with the popularity of ebook readers and the success of J.A. Konrath, Amanda Hocking, Karen McQuestion, and others. But, it's still there amongst the die-hards in the publishing industry. I had the honor of being featured on New York Times Bestselling Author Laura Munson's blog this week where I talk about why I chose to self-publish and put myself in the indie author category. You can read it here.

As an indie author, I am my marketing team and this week was phenomenal. I took advantage of KDP Selects Free Promotion Days yesterday and today. These are days when books are listed for free to give them more exposure. I was featured on Pixel of Ink, and my dear friend Amy's blog here (she's the one who read Her Nowhere on the cracked screen of her iPhone love her as I mention in Laura's interview) and today I'm Free Book of the Day on Indie Author News.

All of this free exposure coupled with the KDP Select Promotion had pretty amazing results. The promo started at midnight Thursday night. By yesterday afternoon at 2pm, I was excited about (note- I had the numbers in this post but heard Amazon does not want you to share numbers so now there are x's to give you an idea) x,xxx downloads. By around 1am, my book had been downloaded over xx,xxx times! I am totally floored by this.

This morning I woke up and I was #6 on the Free Kindle Store Bestseller List. That's out of all the books fiction and non-fiction offered free on Amazon. I was also #1 in Drama, #2 in Contemporary Fiction and #5 in Fiction. Yee Haw!!!

My takeaway from this experience so far is this...  I think I just might like being an indie author.

My "I Love Lucy" Moment

A few weeks ago, the sun made an evening debut and we headed out as a family for a walk. We decided to take Destructo Dog  with us. She's often the neglected child because she can be such a pain.

 It was a Friday night and so thought we'd breeze by a neighborhood where many of our friends live to see if anyone was out on the street playing. We found some friends gathered at one house and they invited us up.

The only problem is that we had Destructo Dog (not her real name, but it should be) with us and at this house, they had no fence. Another friend, who lives just a few houses down, has a dog (A giant, beautiful black Newfoundland) and she has a fence. So, I said - Can I  just take Destructo Dog down to your house and the dogs can play? 


My friend Amy- Yes. I'll go with you.
Me-  No, I'm fine. I got it. It won't be hard.
Amy (looking unsure)- You sure?
Me- Yes. How hard could it be?


So, off I went down the block, severely underestimating my dogs psychosis. I put her in the back yard through a side gate. She started barking and whining and scratching at the gate. I figured she'd be okay once she could play with the Newfie and so went to let him out the back door. I followed him out and and noticed that DD had broken out of the fence and the Newfie followed her out. What proceeded was my "I Love Lucy" moment. You know, those moments when she would get herself into trouble and try unsuccessfully to fix it herself and then make a big mess in the process.

This is me looking like a crazy dog wrestler-

"Fix" fence by securing the little hook.

Chase Destructo Dog in circles in the front yard until she is back in the yard. 

Destructo Dog scratches at the fence and BREAKS the gate wide open. 

Chase her again in the front yard and tie her to their front porch post with the leash. I am fully expecting her to pull the post down and destroy the porch.

She is barking like a crazy dog!!!

I now have to get the Newfie back in the house. He wants to play ball and is running back and forth. I run in the house and grab some crackers and throw them at him to see if he'll come. He laughs at my silly crackers and runs away. 

I chase the Newfie and finally grab his collar with both hands on each side of his neck. He pulls back and we begin to dance errr wrestle in my friend's front yard. Now, this is one of those moments when I don't look up, that I'd rather not know who is watching. 

I finally drag him back in the house.

I'm now covered in dog slobber and dog hair and DD is still barking incessantly!!

I make a mistake. I want to wash my hands. I go back into the house and wash my hands.

Then, as I try to go back out the front door, the giant Newfie somehow "sneaks" by me and is back in the front yard. Hottie Husband and my friends make fun of me later... how could that giant dog "sneak?" Well, he did!!

So, it's back to dog wrestling and crazy barking dog tied to the porch. 

I am now laughing really hard at myself. I'm crying I'm laughing so hard, thinking of how confidently I told my friend I could handle it. It's nearly impossible to catch the Newfie because I am laughing so hard. I grab the collar again. He backs up and shakes his head back and forth, back and forth. 

Picture him shaking me back and forth with him. This dog is HUGE.

I finally get him back in the house. DD is still barking non-stop. 

Then, I see them. Hottie husband and my friend's own Hottie Husband. Two total cuties walking toward me and I'm crying still from laughing so hard. 

DD still barking like crazy... apparently I was gone too long and they could hear her. 

They are both like-You okay? What happened?

I say- I feel like I love Lucy... that was crazy!

And I tell the story, apologize about the gate, I am such a dork.

HH runs Destructo Dog home and we enjoy a great evening with friends, dancing to Dance Party 3 on the Wii! 

You ever feel like I love Lucy?

P.S.- Thanks for all the support for my novel. These two awesome bloggers mentioned it in their posts. Please pay them a visit- 

Becky at Farmgirls Paints-  She's my best friend I haven't met yet. 

Kendra at All & Nothing- An amazing fellow Montana mama.

xo-