Things that make my days

1. After helping cute little 3rd grader find the book he was looking for (on fashion, no less, of which we only had a few and the only promising one was more on costume design than fashion), he came back up to me and said, "Miss? I really do not wish to make you a crazy person, but this book? It is not quite my favorite."   Oh dear L, you do not make me a crazy person. I hope to find a wonderful book on fashion design for you soon.

2. Finding sci-fi books for 10th grade sci-fi fan. Oh how I can think of so many new books we don’t have that I know he’d love. It makes me want to spend my own money to buy new books for the school. Which I can’t do right now.

3. Snack time. I love snack time. We have good snacks at our school. For free. Things like homemade cheesebread. Ham and cheese croissants. Yummy natural sandwiches with whole wheat bread and lettuce and tomatoes and fancy cheeses. The kids have two snacks and lunch a day. I just take the first snack and lunch. Yum. I am spoiled.

4. My 12th grade and 9th grade creative writing classes. This year is going to change their lives. And mine. 

Huh? What? Wait. My head is spinning with the dizziness.

Yes, I know it’s been too long since I posted. Just be glad this isn’t Smell-o-vision. I haven’t showered since exercise. But I’m really just popping in to say hi and to say I am loving my librarian/ creative writing teacher job. So many books still to log into the system but school is in full swing now. It will happen as it can. 

Writing? Do I have to answer that? Okay. I’m writing. Writing a little. But a little is more than none, right? It will all add up eventually. Right?

Sofa Rules

We have just recovered our sofas. Or rather, we’ve PAID someone to reupholster and reinforce sofas we bought seven years ago brand new. Seven years? Do your sofas wear out that often? We have three children, and during that time have had two different pets, so it’s entirely possible that we are quite hard on our sofas. We also live in a city of four million people with no central heat or air, so the windows are often open, which leads to pollution and dust, which leads to a layer of black dust on just about everything. We’d also been fairly lax in our enforcement of any kind of no-eating-the-vicinity rules. Oh, there were rules. We were just lax. 

So all that to say, now that the sofas are freshly reupholstered, NEW RULES. And my funny-bunny husband typed them up for us and has them ready for all of us to sign. Here, for your amusement:

Sofa Rules

To show our respect and honor to God for what He has given us and to value not His gifts but to value Him we will abide by the “sofa rules” and understand that there will be consequences and punishment for any choice to violate said rules.

Rules:

· No feet on the sofa (attached or un-attached; actually, especially un-attached)

· No jumping on the sofa of any form (jumping up and down, flying through the air to land on it, double-twist lay out triple helix back flips, etc.)

· No food or drinks on the sofa. (I’m referring to pre-digested food but now that I think about it I am declaring the sofa a “no-hurl” zone.)

· No fighting or wrestling on the sofa (with the possible exception of some low-impact thumb wrestling)

· No pens, pencils or crayons or paint on the sofa. (this rules out any planned paint-ball wars that might ever exist in the apartment)

· No un-humanoids on the sofa (this would primarily refer to any future pets that we might have but also could refer to future ET friends or lower life-form boyfriends)

· No sharp instruments on the sofa (primarily pencils, scissors, screwdrivers or knives but also would include swords, battle-axes, machetes, or spears)

“I understand these rules and will hereby agree to them, seek to abide by them and acknowledge that any failure to do so will result in punitive actions being taken that might be unpleasant and undesirable to my person.”

Signed:_______________________________________________________________________________

Signed:_______________________________________________________________________________

Signed:_______________________________________________________________________________

Signed:_______________________________________________________________________________

Signed:_______________________________________________________________________________

Oh, Gravy. Good Gravy!

Look at that! It’s been three weeks since I’ve posted. Oh the shame. Rather than allow you to believe I’ve just been sitting around eating bon-bons (ahem.) let me catch you up to speed on what’s gone down in Casa Dempsey over the past three.

1. We are actually back in our home in Brazil after being away for almost a year. We had a great number of bags to unpack and an entire house to organize. Bags unpacked, check. House organized? Moving on . . . 

2. I have written several thousand words on my WIP since our return. I have an August 1st deadline to show something to my agent, but um, I’m getting sort of shy about showing it to her. I’ll be finished by then, I’m positive, with the first draft. But it is a messy draft. There are gaps and threads that I just dropped. And it’s not the book she thought I was writing. (Or at least it doesn’t need to be once I start revising this draft.) So I’m wondering if I need to do a revision before she sees anything. You know, a book only gets one chance to make a first impression. 

3. EXCITING NEWS!!!!!! Did I get your attention? I am so excited to announce that I have accepted a job as the librarian at The American School of Belo Horizonte, an International Baccalaureate Pre-K through 12th grade school. You are hereby invited to visit! And be sure to point me toward books that I need to include in our collection. I have lots of planning, preparing, organizing and development work ahead of me. I will be surrounded by books! I will be surrounded by children and teenagers! I have a feeling I’m going to love it.

What I am up to

 Taking a cue from   Monday post, here’s my own WHAT I AM UP TO:

1. Packing to return to Brazil after spending a year in the US. We have 8 bags, 2 boxes, 5 carry-ons and six personal items (backpacks or purses) plus one extra bag for someone to bring to us later. 

2. Finishing a novel. Inching closer to the end. My goal is to be finished with this draft and a quick first run-through revision by August 1.

3. Preparing for the hopeful possibility that I will be working this fall as a librarian at an international school in our city in Brazil. (Keep your fingers crossed for me!)

4. Feeling overwhelmed with the returning and settling back into Brazilian culture but oh so ready to be back home there.

5. I am the guest of the day at Lindsey Leavitt’s Month-long blog-o-ramo of Impact Initiative posts. Stop by   to check out the post and while you’re there take a gander at the inspirational posts she’s had so far. They have each made me want to make a difference in my own little world with the hope that it would make a ripple in the bigger world. Don’t miss Lindsey’s new book, PRINCESS FOR HIRE, a perfect read for anyone who’s ever dreamed of escaping her own life for something better. Funny how it always ends up being not so much better, huh? But in the process, you just might figure out how to make that something better happen for yourself AND for others. A fun, FUNNY summer read.

Peeking through the cracks and fissures

I’ve gone mostly dark due to reading and writing and an untimely surgery, but I wanted to stop by to share this quote from Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks and a Writer’s Life by Kathleen Norris, because it has everything to do with the novel I’m working on, and also because I think there are many of you who would like to hear this today:

"…in a sense we are all seeking the same thing. We want to prepare a good soil in which grace can grow; we want to regard the cracks and fissures in ourselves with fresh eyes, so that they might be revealed not merely as the cause or the symptom of our misery but also as places where the light of promise shines through."

I’m moving toward that light of promise and hope you are too. 

NESCBWI 2010 #1

 I’ll have much more to share about the NESCBWI conference in days to come, but for now just let me say that thanks to  , I learned a new way to wrap a scarf around my neck this weekend. And since I’m feeling particularly puny at the moment, even here in the South I need a scarf wrapped warmly around my neck today. 

A bit later I’ll look for a tutorial but it involves short side, long side, wrap around and over and under, then pronto you look stylish and feel good. Got it?

National Poetry Month — An Original from Meg

It’s Poetry Month so of course the sixth graders are working on poetry. My oldest, Meg, worked on a few haiku tonight, and a few limericks, as well as a free verse. But my favorite by far was the limericks. Just have to share:

There once was a reddish wool sweater

which made everything feel much better. 

It fell in the sink

which caused it to shrink

and now I can’t wear my red sweater. 

                             –Meg Dempsey

And her other one was:

There once was a girl from Brazil

who sometimes became an ill pill.

She jumped all around

and fell to the ground

and her mother said, "What is your deal?!!"

               -Meg Dempsey

They made me giggle. 🙂

 

I just spoke on the phone with Carmen de Lavallade, dancer, actress and wife of Geoffrey Holder. Carmen is a cousin of Janet Collins, whose historic performance as prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera is the focus of my forthcoming book with Philomel.

I have to share with you what Carmen has to say about Art and Finding your Own Place in whatever you pursue. I think some of it is applicable to writing as well as to dance.