by jphilo | Jan 15, 2010 | Daily Life
My mom always said some things are worth waiting for, and she was right – even when the wait lasts six years. Since I left teaching in June of 2003 to pursue writing and speaking, I prayed for a writers’ group in my area. I longed for a group of committed writers, people who wanted to share writing and provide honest feedback.
I even helped start a group. A few of us limped along, meeting when we could to encourage one another for a few years. But the timing wasn’t right for the other women who attended. Almost all were teachers with kids still in school, which translates as “very busy.” Though they all had a passion for writing, their days didn’t have enough hours, and one by one they faded away.
The first hints of a second chance glimmered in June of 2008. Author Laurie Sargent and I met at the Cedar Falls Christian Writers’ Conference. She was one of the speakers and had recently moved to a town near where I live. She also was interested in joining a writers’ group. For a year and a half, we were a group of two, meeting in our homes to brainstorm, encourage, and critique one another.
Then in May of 2009, I met fellow Iowan Melissa Tagg at the Colorado Christian Writers’ Conference. Wouldn’t you know it, she was interested in a critique group, too? And she lived less than an hour away from Laurie and me. Before summer ended the three of us met to discuss logistics. By then, writers were coming out of the woodwork, eager to join a writers’ group.
Since September, about eight of us have met monthly to share writing goals and to critique one another’s work. The accountability is a great motivator for achieving goals. The writing feedback sometimes feels like being told your beautiful baby isn’t as perfect and sparkling as you believed. But, every suggestion for improvement comes couched in encouragement and sprinkled with fresh ideas impossible to generate when writing alone..
Each month, I’m stretched in new, not-always-comfortable ways and leave a better writer. I receive more than I contribute and grow more than I thought possible. So thanks to Heidi, Sue, Laurie, Melissa, Elizabeth, Mary Beth, and Clare for being the long-awaited answer to my prayers.
May God grant me the grace to be the same to each of you.
by jphilo | Dec 14, 2009 | Daily Life
Recent technological events at the Philo house have exposed the dark underbelly of my personality, something I’ve been trying to hide for years. I am addicted to technology. Perhaps this revelation, coming on the heels of the admission of my sunshine addiction, will make some of you think less of me, but please hear me out.
The sordid affair began last Wednesday morning when the oven thermostat on our stove quit working. I went into immediate baked-goods-and roasted-anything-withdrawal. By Thursday morning, I was twitchy. By Friday morning my eyes were red-rimmed and wild. When I called to tell Hiram the manufacturer no longer made the replacement part needed, he knew better than to mess around. “Do what you have to do. Buy a new stove.”
The stove was delivered Saturday morning, and I don’t think the nice young men who hauled it through the snow noticed me drooling. By afternoon, I was huffing muffin fumes, high on the aroma of oatmeal, honey, and whole wheat. “This isn’t an addiction,” I reasoned. “It’s healthy living at it’s best.”
But Monday morning, my proclivities reared their ugly little heads again as I prepared to take my laptop computer to the technology doctor. Now, my rational self knew this short separation was necessary – the flashing screen thing is quite annoying and my non-renewable service agreement is about to run out. But my body exposed the truth, as sweats and shivers attacked at the thought of two days away from my Macbook.
There’s no denying it anymore. I am addicted to technology. Life has no meaning apart from my stove and my computer, my external hard drive, my iPod, my blow dryer, the microwave and refrigerator, the dishwasher and my cell phone, my Canon rebel and Flip HD. The list goes on and on.
I am a technology junkie, and I plan to stay that way. No technology detox for me. No sir.
You can take me the way I am or leave me to rot with my gizmos. But for your own good, don’t contact me until Wednesday or Thursday when the MacBook is back, and the two of us have re-bonded. Then I’ll be fit for human company again.
In the meantime, pray for Hiram. With a wild-eyed, drooling madwoman to care for, he’s gonna need it.
by jphilo | Dec 4, 2009 | Daily Life
For weeks I’ve been in denial about the arrival of winter. Above average November temps helped me ignore my sunshine cravings as the days got shorter and shorter. My enablers, who meant well but have left me in a terrible fix, were the brave little violas in the garage flower garden and the optimistic snapdragons and dianthus blooming near the foundation of our sun porch.
But when it snowed yesterday and the temperatures plummeted into the teens last night, I went into a major withdrawal. Spiders on the wall, pink elephants, tremors – you name it, I’ve got it – and believe me, it’s no way to live. Therefore, I’ve decided to join a twelve step program. It’s time to admit the truth or I won’t make it through the winter.
I’m a fair weather friend. I mainline sunshine and warm temperatures on a daily basis for nine months of the year, and I need to stop. I need help to make it through the winter, more than watching Elvis, Annette Funicello, Donavon and Gidget frolic at the beach. Vicarious sunshine on a grainy DVD doesn’t even touch my cravings anymore, and with two kids getting married soon there’s no money for week long sunshine fix in Cancun this year.
However, I can’t do this alone. I need the support of others struggling with sunshine and warmth addictions and the encouragement of former users. We need to band together and meet every week in a dingy church basement. We can all bring our seasonal affective disorder happy lamps and bask in a greenish glow while we eat lots of dark chocolate to boost our antioxidants.
If you’re ready to admit your sunshine addiction and find help, leave a comment or send me an email. Won’t it be wonderful to be free and able to live normal lives again? Together we can make it happen. I know we can.
Sunshine addicts, unite!
by jphilo | Nov 13, 2009 | Daily Life
The weather was gorgeous last Saturday when I drove home from northwest Iowa. The farmers, unable to harvest their crops during our wet October, were out in force. Mile after mile, combines devoured the straight, rustling rows. Augers poured golden streams of corn and soy beans into waiting grain carts.
Sunset came and went, but the work continued. The powerful headlights of the farm machinery illuminated the darkness on both sides of the road. Even though I was wary, scanning the highway for slow-moving vehicles hauling the grain to storage, a deep peace enveloped me as I sped towards home.
The feeling was the same one I experience on days like today, the quiet housework days that tag along behind a string of hectic weeks. For some reason, a to do list of ordinary tasks, the rhythm of the washing machine, and the aroma of crockpot stew mingling with the scent of whatever’s baking in the oven speaks peace and contentment to my harried soul.
So today I am busy with mundane tasks, and anticipating this weekend’s visit with my daughter and her boyfriend. I’m looking forward to supper with them and several of Anne’s college-aged cousins on Saturday night. I’ve already made and frozen applesauce for them to take back to their apartments and dorms. Later today I’ll whip up pumpkin bread to send along, too.
But I hope to send more than just applesauce and pumpkin bread when they go. I want to pass on this harvest of contentment found in everyday life. I want to shower these young adults with the abundance of common delights God has rained upon my generation. I want to send this crop of men and women, our family’s precious hope for the future, wrapped in the ordinary goodness of fellowship, simple food, and home.
That’s a tall order for a supper with relatives, pumpkin bread, and applesauce. But it’s all I have to give. Somehow, I think, it could be enough.
by jphilo | Nov 3, 2009 | Daily Life
I was on an organizational kick this weekend, thanks to my new SeaGate FreeAgent Desk 1 500GB External Hard Drive – that’s techie talk for “lots of memory.” Ever since I bought it a month ago, I’ve been anticipating the day when I could back up and organize all my digital photos in one place.
Well, the day finally arrived this weekend, and by late yesterday the bulk of the work was finished. The digi-photos, which had been eating up all my laptop’s memory, are now neatly labeled and swimming around in the SeaGate with plenty of room to spare. All that remains to be done is to store the back up CDs and the corresponding hardcopies of their thumbnail prints into my nifty little storage albums.
After I gave myself a well-deserved pat on the back, I jotted a note on today’s to-do list: Send the small church update today. Feeling very organized, I reached for the notes I took last night at small church.
But I couldn’t find them.
Hmm…I was sure I had moved them from one spot to a more organized spot earlier this morning, but couldn’t picture where that more organized spot was. So I retraced my steps.
I still couldn’t find them.
Now I’m taking a little break, hoping something will jiggle loose, either in my brain or my office and the notes will show up.
In the meantime, I’ve had it with organization…at least until SeaGate comes out with enough gigabytes to organize my entire life.
Harrumph.
by jphilo | Oct 28, 2009 | Daily Life
Though I’ve been back in Iowa for more than a week now, I’m still wrestling with culture shock. The rudest reminders that I’m no longer in sunny Califorian, but back in the Midwest, are the soy beetles.
These tiny critters first made their presence known around these parts in the fall of 2000. (I know this because they showed up the year Allen was a senior and our foreign exchange student, Adrian, lived with us.) The nasty little insects look like lady bugs, though they’re more orange than red and stinkier than all get out. They don’t do any harm, but they don’t do any good either.
Most of the year they stay outdoors, until the farmers harvest the soybeans and obliterate the soy beetles’ summer homes. The homeless, stinky bugs stay in the fields, shivering and immobile, as long as the weather stays cold. But give ‘em a sunny day to warm up their innards, and they become heat-seeking missiles, swarming the southern walls of every house on the outskirts of town, including ours.
But when the sun goes down and the temperature plummets, the bugs drop to the ground in small, orange drifts. The orange drift on the threshold of our kitchen door was my rude, culture shock reminder.
At the sight, I sprang into action, grabbing the broom and sweeping away the nasty proof of my return from paradise. Every sunny day, I sweep another drift away, humming while I work…I’m California dreaming on an autumn day.
Sigh.
