A dear cyber-friend posted this on HK and gave me permisssion to share.  I was so tickled I had to put it up here for everyone to enjoy.  Thank you Becky!

I was enjoying my devotions tonight..which is another post..but I was writing..and for some reason... Everytime I write I think of you... So then I was being a bit goofy... and flipped this one out... so..here it is in all of its non-literary genius.. 

Dedicated to my writing mentor... Dear Miss Chatty 

Ready..I know you are on the edge of your seat, right??

Okay..already..Pure stroke of genius here..  Just for you...Btw, I am praying for your heart and health.

Not very bright
still
I like to write,
often
I interpret life
through
paper and pen; Rife
with personal thoughts and intuition
or maybe
forward thinking and premonition
Anyway,
This is a way
to
fill the end of my day
-writing-

Well, as promised, I read Patty at Home by Carolyn Wells.  http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10268

I can relate in so many ways to little Patty.  The desire to succeed, the joy in doing a job well, and the pleasure derived in making others comfortable are universally appealing to any station of life or situation.

The book begins with father and daughter seeking a house.  Others pull this way and that to encourage their own ideas of what the pair need to have perfect domestic tranquility but their ideas tend to fall short of the mark.  Eventually they settle on leasing a home near to the Elliot family and hire a cook and a house maid. 

Patty's father gives her the chance to be their housekeeper in spite of her lack of age and experience.  Eager to do him credit, Patty hosts a New Year's Day party for the Aunt and Uncle and cousins she last lived with.  Unfortunately her lessons in proportion are quickly forgotten in her desire to impress the family with her culinary skills.  She creates several elaborate desserts that were, expectedly so, inedible.

Optimistically she tries again for their Tea Club and the result is not only even more dismal, but holds further humiliation for her. Encouraged by her good start (after the infamous New Year's mess) her father arrived with guest in hand for dinner only to find the dining room a mess, dinner not ordered, and nothing in the house for the weekend's meals!

Patty does finally learn this lesson and we're encouraged that she will master this thing we call housekeeping.  At the end of the month, her first true trial awaits.  Upon arriving home from school she discovers a stack of bills.  Eager to prove herself diligent in the household accounts, Patty records each amount in her ledgers.  She slowly becomes disheartened as the amounts grow to double and treble the originally expected amounts.

After dinner she brings the books immediately to her father.  This is where I am just amazed.  Had it been me, I would have been tempted to bring the bills and books and everything half done and given up in despair.  If I'd overridden that impulse, I CERTAINLY would have been tempted to wait until ASKED about the accounts.  But, instead she shows her father the mess and already has plans for future economy in order to do her part to correct her mistakes.

Now her ideas are both impractical and slightly foolish, but they show a heart for taking responsibility for her actions that I find incredibly admirable.  Her father listens to her ideas and promptly dismisses them.  His idea is to write the month of as a lesson in experience and says, "we know experience is an expensive teacher."

I loved that.  No elaborate plans to make it up and no unnecessary scolding.  She knew her faults, he accepted blame where he should, and showed where the tradesmen may have padded the bills a bit due to her age and inexperience.

The rest of the book is a delightful account of the girl's life in Vernondale and shows how she truly enjoys each moment.  What I'd like to comment on is the end.  The book was written somewhere around 1909.  Her cousin and another young woman are discussing their ambitions.  One wants to be an author.  The other, a grand singer.  When asked about her ambitions she says she doesn't have one.  Her cousin remarks that it would be housekeeping.

Later as she discussed the conversation with her father, Patty says she felt awkward in the discussion because she didn't have grand plans or dreams.  Her father comments that she just wants to be a good housekeeper.  She agrees at first but then she says something to the effect of, "But that's only part of it.  My ambition is to be a real womanly woman like Aunt Alice.  I don't think she ever had any grand ambitions but she has a family she loves and delights to serve and I want to be like her."

Isn't it interesting, that even in 1909 or thereabout a girl felt a little inadequate because she 'just' wanted to be a 'housekeeper'.  Her housekeeping didn't mean doing all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, and things.  It was the management of the household that she was referring to throughout the book.  Yet even then it was already being looked down upon as something beneath her. 

Why are we so surprised when our lives today are undervalued?  For the last 100 years there have been subtle but deliberate messages instilled in our hearts that homemaking is simply what you do when you cannot do anything else.  How very sad.

I have a favorite pasttime.  I love to read old children's books.  Anything printed for children between 1750 and 1940 interests me.  I especially prefer books written between 1890-1935 including many published by Cupples and Leon. 

I know, I know.  I'm an adult.  I should 'put away childish things'.  Well, I don't think so.  I think that as a parent and a citizen concerned for the children of our day, it is good for me to be aware of good literature no matter whom the intended audience.

"So," you assume, "You're saying that we need to exhibit proportion in our reading choice."  Not really, but that's probably a true statement as well.  No, the book I was reading centered on the idea of proper proportions in our lives.

The book, Patty Fairfield by Carolyn Wells, is about a fourteen year old girl who is sent to spend the year equally divided between four aunts and their respective families.  Her father admonishes her to pay attention to proper proportion shown or not shown in the families in order to see what kind of home they want to make at the end of the year.  (They've always lived in boarding houses due to the death of Patty's mother at an early age.)

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8456

The first home is very grand and elegant.  The family is ostentatiously wealthy and concerned only with appearances and position.  Patty sees the effect of constant boasting about the cost of things and the dissatisfaction with always wanting the best.

She leaves that home and moves to the second family.  They are a very literary civic minded family who are extremely well regimented.  Every moment of every day is well planned and engaged in intellectual pursuits.  Committies of every kind and studies of every topic overrule any chance of interaction with family or personal interests that are not of a 'higher order'.

The third family she visits is a happy-go-lucky bunch full of fun and frolic.  They spend little time in any serious venture and their plans rarely come to fruition due to lack of ambition and diligence.  So, while much more fun to be around than her previous cousins, she does find herself without a bed the first night, dinner another night, and a party must be gathered at the last minute due to no one mailing the invitations! 

Finally she visits the last family and learns that there is a time and place for all of these things.  That one can be wealthy without announcing it at every turn, one can have fun without ignoring duty, and education is not an end in and of itself. 

She, of course, learns that the home she enjoyed the most was the one with 'proper proportion'.  I'd say, she enjoyed the home where they truly lived the injunction to have 'moderation in all things'.  In the end, she begs her father to settle in the town so that she may continue to learn how to be a proper housekeeper for him by the aunt who exhibited the qualities she wanted to emulate.

It was quite the eyeopener.  Our home is rarely proportionate.  We do exercise all things and in some we do have reasonable proportion but I do believe we swing like pendulums from heavy schooling to light, from many projects to few, from lots of entertainment to lots of work...  In my quest to keep our schedules from being burdensome, I need to remember this encouraging little book.

I think I'll  also reread the second book and share some thoughts I remember from it. 

I've been working on my first novel these past weeks.  I want to get it edited and to an agent.  It is time to step out and show my baby to someone who can help it grow into the book it was designed to be.  It's an exciting time for me.

However, there is something everyone should know about book editing.  It's tedious.  It takes hours.  Oh, and it takes hours.  And did I mention how many HOURS it takes?  Honestly, I had no idea it would be so time consuming.  I've barely edited chapter one.  It's 10,000 words now.  Do you know what that means?  Yes, I have to adjust chapter one into about 3-4 chapters... which means that I will end up adding several hundred words just to keep my current format.  And that's chapter one.  So much for a 90,000 word manuscript.  I'm over that already!

In editing you take a paragraph and you rewrite it to say exactly what you want it to say, awaken all the senses, and ensure your reader can see, touch, taste, smell, and LIVE what you've written.  You create technicolor with your words.  It's exhausting.  And when you're done, you realize that it doesn't flow properly with the previous paragraph so you have to edit both a bit to get the right rhythm.  It's great.  Until you realize that you've used the same descriptor twice in a thirty word span... then it's not so great.  (Note the use of the word great in the paragraph above and you'll get a visual of what I mean.)

Each sentence builds upon the previous sentence and transitions to the next.  The same goes for paragraphs, chapters, and even books if you happen to be working on a series.  Yes, I am.

Oh but then the fun begins in earnest.  You see, you can't just sit down and edit.  Well, I can't anyway.  I must work, change stories and write, then come back and work, until my eyes cross and I get my story lines mixed up.  If I stick to editing all day, I do a lousy job of editing.  If I work on new stuff all day, I don't get anythign edited and nothing I write will ever be published.

As I was retyping yet another paragraph, it occured to me that editing is sort of metaphoric of my life.  We start with writing a page of who we are and what we stand for in our attempt to mature.  Then, we continue to grow, change, refine, and define until the final paragraphs of our lives read as we desire them to read.  God erases our mistakes and writes new passages on our hearts.  We're molded by Him and His Word.  Daily we erase the mistakes of yesterday and strive to make today's paragraph closer to that goal we have.

We discover our paragraph on organization is incomplete.  It doesn't cover all the topics we want to organize.  We erase, we rewrite, we restructure.  Our excitement grows as we finally see improvement over the mistakes of past attempts.  We must keep editing.  Anyone who has tried to master the art of organization knows that you cannot set an organizational plan in motion and then leave it to run itself.  It doesn't work.  We have to prune, fine tune, and recreate when our lives change.

This is true of our entire lives.  We will never be 'finished' in the earthly sense until we're ressurected on the last day.  We'll continue to grow, refine and become the person that Christ wants us to be.

Isn't that amazing?  I'm in awe.

Fictional people are some of my favorites.  I love fiction.  It's ok to despise someone in fiction.  Not sinful at all.  They don't exist!  It's a beautiful way to get your frustrations out on someone who can't be hurt by it. 

Conversely, it is also wonderful to find a fictional character that inspires you.  Have you ever read a book and fallen in love with a character so much that you wanted to emulate them?  I have several characters that I identify with... I understand the way they think, act, and interact.  I understand them because there is a bit of me in there somewhere.  But it's the people that I want to emulate that really surprises me.

Lori Wick.  She's not really my favorite writer.  I like very few of her books.  Most of what she writes is too sappy for my taste.  I like Sophies Heart,  The Pretense, and To Know Her by Name.  Those books have good story lines that override any drippy romance that usually I roll my eyes and sigh over.  However one of her books, Promise Me Tomorrow, while incredibly sappy and overly romantic for my sensibilities, has a character that calls to me everytime I read it.  The young woman has a delight and love for children that I envy.  She is completely comfortable around children in general in a way I cannot comprehend.  She is self assured without being arrogant in her interactions with children, and with adults as she discusses children. 

It's her love and care and DELIGHT in children that makes me love her so much.  The fact that she has lovely red hair and is petite doesn't hurt her in my eyes either.  Exactly how I would have ordered my 'looks' had I been required to fill out an order form.  But really, I am not unhappy with how God made me... or am I?  Is there something wrong with me for wanting that delight and enjoyment in children that I simply don't have.  I love my children.  I am happy that they are here and around me.  And actually, I do delight in them... but it doesn't show.  I am not naturally demonstrative.  Natrually.  hmmmmmmm Seems to me that the last time I talked about 'natural' that I found it isn't always a good thing.

Will God override my natural reservedness with people and help me learn to just immerse myself into my children's lives in a way that I've never been able to do before?  I hope so.  I'd love to be like 'Rusty'.  She inspires me.  Encourages me.  She makes me feel like I'm lacking but not in a self-defeating way.  Rather she seems to prod me to try again.

Fiction.  You gotta love it.  Especially when it  encourages you to push past your comfort zone in ways that enhances other people's comfort zones.

You know those 'day in the life of' type articles or tv shows?  Have you ever dreamed of creating your own perfect 'day in the life of you' scenario?  A few blogs back, I had a dream about being put on Wife Swap so I had to fill in our 'household manual'.  As I said then, my day was completely 'do able'.  Then of course, the busyness of life and then illness got in the way of my eagerness to make my dream a reality.

Normally, this would mean that I simply didn't do it.  I'd just skip the idea and trudge through our average days doing average things and missing out on what could be extraordinary.  Typical.  Very typical.  But I'm tired of being typical.  I want to thoroughly enjoy this life!

On one of the eBay boards, a woman was talking about how she's separating from her husband and how it hurt her to do it but she wasn't going to live 'like this' anymore.  While she did get a few people who encouraged her to make sure she did everything in her power to make it work, to ask for counseling, to try to see if she could try a bit more... she got a lot of predictable advice.

"Life is too short to be miserable.  You're doing the right thing."

"You shouldn't have to live the only life you get unhappy and unsettled."

"You deserve a fresh start before your life runs away from you."

This isn't about whether divorce is right or wrong.  Those who know me know exactly what I would have said to this woman if she'd ASKED for advice about whether or not she should do this.  But those comments apply to ALL of us in a certain sense.  (and on the other hand, are so irrelevant.  Who cares about the few fleeting years here when we have eternity with a loving Father to look forward to!)

Life is too short for me to live with mediocrity.  I need to live with excellence!  I need to succeed in more ways than one.  I am a wife.  Am I a good one?  Does my husband's heart 'safely trust in me'?  I don't think he's worried that I'll send him to debtors prison or that we'll not eat next week because I gambled away his paycheck but have I made being married the best decision that he ever made?  Have I made him, by my actions, attitudes, and appreciation, love being married... to ME?

I am a mother.  What will my children remember about their mother?  That she liked to read?  That she liked to write?  That she liked to sew?  That she spent hours on the internet?  Probably.  In and of themselves, this won't be bad... but will they know how much I enjoyed having them around?  Will they remember me as the one who taught them to read, and who explained the wonders of creation to them?  Will they remember pig tails and pretty dresses on crisp fall mornings or watermelon and lemonade on lazy hot summer evenings?  Will they remember chores and bedtimes or will they remember games and silly songs, and last minute dashes to the store for root beer float fixings too?

I am a Christian.  Can people tell?  Does the fact that the Holy Spirit indwells me show in my thoughts, actions, and attitudes? Is my life infused with the Word so thoroughly that it drips from every pore?  I want that kind of immersion into the Word.  I need it.

I am a children's clothing designer and seamstress.  I LOVE what I do.  I enjoy it.  It gives me that feeling of accomplishment that I can't get as a wife/mother/homemaker/homeschooler.  Most of what I do in the home is undone quite quickly.  Dishes are used and then cleaned, only to be used again.  Hair is brushed, fixed, played in and then a mess again.  Toilets can be scrubbed but one more use means that it is no longer clean!  I can make a marvelous dinner but 20 minutes later, surprise surprise, we no longer have a dinner.  IT's gone.  And tomorrow, another one will be required.  I can make new little wardrobes for my little misses... and guess what?  They'll get stained, worn out, torn, and grown out of before my very eyes!  But when I make an ensemble for eBay, design a line for Cherry Tree, or even make a simple jumper for a beloved customer, I only see it in its perfect state.  It leaves my home clean, pressed, accented, and without the flaws that constantly pop up in our daily clothing. 

If I'm going to thoroughly enjoy this life... all of the past blogs are going to have to be more than scribblings of the thoughts that flit through my brain.  They're going to have to be put into action.  I'm going to have to LIVE them.  I'm going to have to put life into them by being a 'doer' rather than a 'writer only'.  (please forgive the 'twist' of scripture there!)  I can talk about it all day.  I can write about it for weeks on end.  Will I put shoes on my words and get them moving? 

Well, I learned from a book by Lawanna Blackwell once that trying to change my life in one day (my 'natural' response) is not possible OR wise.  But, I can change today.  TODAY I can make a difference.  Today I can live how I want every day to be lived.  Today I can be the person I want to be.  Today I can be the person I've always dreamed of being.  I can be ME... but still make the decisions and have the attitudes that will be the first step toward that dream life that I keep envisioning.

I don't have to make a 180 degree turn.  This isn't actual repentance.  I don't need to be the perfect wife, mother, Christian, and the next Coco Chanel TODAY... but baby steps.  I can do one thing to make my husband see how important he is to me.  I can do 9 little things for each of my children that can be deposited into their memory savings banks.  I can read a portion of the Word that I haven't read in a long time and I can get these samples finished to ship to the first trunk show.

Adios.