Let the Buying Begin

At Amazon

At Booklocker

The sheer goodness of life

There are times when I feel broken down and beat up, sore-hearted for this world filled with pain, a world where God's will is not done and so many suffer. There are times when I just cannot believe how rude someone is, or times when I want to strangle every driver on the road. There are even (gasp) times when I come home from work and don't want to say a word to anyone.

But.

My life is amazing. Ever since our pilgrimage last month, I've been reminded constantly at how awesome the life I'm living is. I am working my dream job. I have time to pursue a second career in writing. I have a husband who is compatible with me, who adores me, who makes me laugh, and who comforts me when I cry, and calls me out on my B.S. I have three cats, two of whom are fantastic and the other, well, she can be amusing at times. I have a house. We have no debt. I am healthy. I get to eat what I want to eat, when I want to eat it - I can choose to restrict my calories or binge. I have a relationship with God that sustains and fulfills me. I am literate and have basic human rights regardless of my gender. I have the right to vote. I have friends and family who love me and who I love. Life is good.

Happy Friday!

It's a good day, the start of what will hopefully be a good weekend. We've got 2 parties to attend, woohoo! This seems like work to poor Dale, but I'm looking forward to it. In addition, we have a photographer coming in to attempt a "family" photo - a picture of me, Dale, and the 3 cats. Yes, yes, I know it's all very unlikely to happen, but we can always hope for the best. And maybe slip a benadryl into the cat food Saturday morning...
I'm busily perfecting my first three novel chapters - an agent actually wants to read chapter 1! So I'm going to work on the first 3 chapters, so if she likes 1, I have some more polished material to send. I still need to wrestle with the entire work, all 200+ pages of it - get it all into the right timeline, the right verb tenses, and oh, a consistent narrative voice. Minor details.

Highlights of the monastic life

Dale and I spent last week at a monastery in Conyers, GA. It was very relaxing. Sure, we had to get up at 3:45 am for the first prayer of the day, but in between services we could sleep, read, do whatever. And no cooking! Just having one whole week off from the whole "what do you want for dinner tonight" discussion was worth every penny we paid. I highly recommend this, if you're looking for a week off and some spiritual contemplation. Not that we had to go to the services, but we did.
Some highlights:
The ducks at the lake are so aggressive that they nipped at my toes to see if they were food. They were disappointed.
I locked myself out of my room at 3:55 am, so I attended Vigils barefoot. No one noticed.
While the rooms were air conditioned, the abbey was not, so services were occasionally quite sweaty.
While sleeping in the meadow in front of the abbey, a bird pooped on my jacket.
Overheard: "I used to get poison ivy terribly, but then I ate some and ever since I haven't had it."
Discovering a wasp nest on Station 12 of the outdoor Stations of the Cross and getting away from the attacking wasp!
Being reminded that God's presence is constant; it's just a matter of paying attention.