There it is!  The first 20 squares, in all their beauty.

The picture makes it look like I get regular fan mail.  I do not. I have gotten precisely three.  When you write for the adult market, the only people who feel compelled to comment in writing are the ones who are complaining.  There was the anonymous “fan” who send me racist comments about the fact that I as a White Canadian married a Black African and said that since I had done this “terrible thing,” I had no right to call myself Adventist.  That was my first fan mail ever.  It kind of shook me.

Then I got my second piece of fan mail: a letter from a gentleman who had not read my work, but had seen an ad for it.  Upon seeing the ad, he felt compelled to write to me and correct me for mistakes he imagined I must have made.  Like I said, frustrating.

However, I just got the sweetest little note from two girls who read my Hyacinth book.  They called me “Mrs. Ntihemuka” and said “we relly like it very much.”  I melted!  What a great surprise to receive a note in my mailbox from kids who liked my book!

For the record, I have heard from other people who enjoyed my books for grownups, just not with a postage stamp.  I love to hear from people who connected with my characters, because those characters are a large part of me.  And who doesn’t like a pat on the back now and again?  But more than that, I feel like I connected with my reader, and that’s a great feeling!

But THIS week, I’m tickled pink from a note from two little girls. :)  They liked me!  They “relly” liked me!

PS.  Kid spelling mistakes are just too endearing.

This morning, I was trying to get Jr out of the house for a possible Sabbath School outing.  If Sabbath School made one of us feel cranky, we would go to the library.  Regardless, there would have been a very nice outing if Jr had not waged the Battle of the Boots.

These tantrums are going to have to stop.  I realized this morning that we need to change tactics.  I have all sorts of outings planned for Jr every week, except that getting him to the outing is impossible!  If you manage to get his boots on, he’ll rebel against the stroller.  If you try to get him to walk, he’ll throw himself on the ground.  This is not productive, and it tends to grate on my very last nerve.

So today, after Jr waged a solid battle (that left me physically sore), his father and I decided that things are going to have to change.  Simply not giving in to him is no longer working now that he’s getting strong enough to land a few solid blows.   While we don’t believe in inflicting any blows in return, there is going to have to be some discipline that he understands as discipline!

So our next attempt is going to be the Time Out.  When he doesn’t obey, he’s going to be put in his toddler-proofed bedroom for a Time Out.  When he throws a fit, Time Out.  When he tries to maul the doggie and won’t listen to his mother tell him to stop, Time Out.

I’m hopeful that this might bring some peace back to our home.  I’ll keep you posted!  And any ideas you might have on the subject, are always welcome!

I’m getting all crafty…  It’s part of my creative process.  I don’t get crafty often.  I used to do it when I had exams during university.  Once I made a china doll (body, dress, hair, etc) all from scratch.   She was beautiful!  Another year I painted.  I can’t remember all my projects.  Well, I just finished the first draft of another Hyacinth installment, and I’m ready to switch gears.

So I am going to take a walk to the downtown of our little town, and check out the quilting shop.  I’m not sure what I’ll find… Will I be inspired?  Hard to tell!  But it’s always been a dream of mine to make a quilt.  So much heart goes into a quilt.  I think I might be ready to start on the process!

Crafting shops are wonderful.  You never know what you’ll find in a crafting shop!  Some people work out.  Some people shop.  Some people cook up a storm.  I don’t do it often, but when I need to expend some energy that my toddler hasn’t already sucked up and my brain refuses to convert it into a novel or editing…  well, I’m a person who crafts.

You know, when the stars align.

Abraham Heschel was a very influential Jewish thinker who wrote beautifully about the Sabbath.  I’ve always loved his description of the Sabbath as a palace in time.  The Sabbath comes every week, and it is up to us to make something beautiful of it.  We build the palace ourselves through our traditions.

Well, I am in a unique situation.  I believe in the Sabbath, but my needs as a young mom are changing.  It’s actually very nice, because I have the opportunity to look at things in a different way.  What do I want Sabbath to be?  What do I want my son to grow up with?

Ideally, when Jr gets older, I want us to volunteer in our community on Sabbath.  I want us to help people out, not just sit around eating.  However, he is still very little.  We are in the stage of tantrums and napping.  It’s a delicate balance, and taking him to a food bank or an old folks home isn’t really feasible.  Especially when going on foot.

So what will we do to make Sabbath special?  I really don’t know!  We had candles on Friday night, and I woke up this Saturday morning wondering how exactly to do this.  I want my son to learn that the Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity to fill the Sabbath.  I want him to see that it is a special day he can look forward to.  I want him to learn that a sincere act to help someone else is an act of worship.  That will look different at every stage, but there has to be something for right now!

So I am thinking.  Traditions are built one step at a time, and we’re still at the foundation, sitting cross-legged on the concrete.

I have just endured the most humbling experience of my parenting life.  Let me put this in context.  Before I had a child, I knew it all.  I knew exactly how I would raise my little angel so that he would never, ever throw fits.  No, my little one would be well behaved, polite, sweet and intelligent.  When I saw kids kicking up a fit in Walmart, screaming their lungs out with a parent standing beside them, struggling to stay in control of their own, adult emotions, I was very judgmental.  Obviously, that parent had not done their job at home if their child was acting this way in public!

Well, I just received my payback.

My son was tormenting the dog.  Both of them were bored, and I decided to run an errand to the post office which is not that far away.  I was leaving the dog at home so that the poor pooch could rest unmolested, and I was taking the toddler in his sled to the post office.  Jr normally loves sled rides!  This was a good plan.

I didn’t get far, when Jr decided he wanted to ride in his sled sideways.  I’d put him back in the sled straight, and he’d flop out again.  At first I was annoyed, but then I thought, who cares?  If he wants to flop out of his sled sideways, what does it matter?  It’s slightly harder to pull the sled, but that’s ok.  So I let it go.

Well, when that didn’t get my attention, Jr started whining and fussing. I stopped to see if he wanted to walk.  No, he not only didn’t want to walk, he downright refused to walk.  Ok, so I put him back in the sled.

We arrived at the post office, I picked up my package, and we started back home.  Jr now decided that he didn’t want to ride, he didn’t want to walk, and the only thing that would suffice was being carried in arms.  Keep in mind, this child is a solid 35 lbs.  He’s officially too heavy to be packed around.  I’m not physically strong enough! So Jr cried piteously in the sled behind me, throwing his legs out of the sled to act like an anchor.  I was now in the suburban equivalent of “the middle of nowhere” and couldn’t have stopped to give him his way if I’d wanted to.  I needed to get us home before I could do much of anything.  So I plunged on.  Anyone watching me must have thought I was heartless and terrible!

When we finally reached the road, I took Jr out of the sled so he could walk across the street.  He couldn’t ride across the street, because the street was clean and the sled wouldn’t slide.  He seemed willing enough to walk until we got into the middle of the street and decided to throw himself to the ground, which left me with a package and a sled in one hand and a shrieking toddler being dragged along in the other.  When I got to the other side of the street, I put him down where he laid face down on the sidewalk wailing.  I picked him up.

Well, we had to cross one more time.

“Jr, you have to walk,” I told him.

Obviously, he didn’t believe me.  He threw himself back down to the ground again, and I had to drag him across the street once more.  When I put him down on the other side, he lay there on his back, wailing out the injustice of it all.  I picked him up and decided to try and carry him the rest of the way.

Well, he was good and worked up, so he hollered in my arms, too, all the way to our door, up the stairs, and to the door of our apartment.  People must have thought I was abusing this poor child!  I opened the door, brought him inside and let him holler for a few more minutes while I took off all of our jackets and put them away.  He was already in full tantrum, and I didn’t want him to be confused that he might be getting his way with a fit.   So after I had put away our coats, I picked him to give him a hug and calm him down.

I suppose he tired himself out with all of his shrieking and flopping, because he promptly fell asleep on my chest.  I put him into bed and sat down, rather stunned.

I can see that our precious little angels have a way of making us look like BEASTS in public!  Anyone watching who didn’t know my son, would think that I must have dragged him for five miles and then refused to pity the tiny, tired little soul.  The reality of the situation was that he hadn’t actually walked for more than 20 steps the entire way!

Holy cow!  I humbly apologize to every parent I have ever silently judged!

This is the time of year for good intentions.  I never resolve to exercise more.  I won’t do it, so really it’s best not to set myself up for failure.  In fact, I very rarely make resolutions at all!  Most of my goals I will keep in motion anyhow, so a New Year’s Resolution seems silly.  I mean, of course I’ll keep trying to put money into savings.  That just makes sense.  I was doing it before January 1, and I will continue doing it after January 1.  I also like to reserve the right to change my mind on things.  I’m not going to resolve to do anything for an entire year!  Flexibility is key.  However, despite my general resolution making laziness, I do have one resolution this year.

I resolve to get a Harlequin book published!

To be truthful, I have been trying towards this before January 1, and I will keep trying for it, even if I don’t manage to achieve it by New Year 2011.  So I’m not sure if this is a cop out resolution or not. Regardless, I really, really want to break into the romance market.  I want it so badly that I can taste it.  I want it so badly that I’m willing to write book after book and get rejection after rejection just for that one golden letter of acceptance.  I have no flexibility when it comes to this goal.  I want it.  I want it badly.

Does this count as a New Year’s Resolution?  I’m not sure, because the New Year doesn’t spark it or represent a beginning of anything.  The New Year came along and I just happened to be already chasing this goal.  So whether or not it’s a legitimate resolution, it’s there.

There is one thing I like to do at New Years…  I like to imagine what next New Year will be like.  Well, I’ll have a boy who is almost three, so likely he’ll be talking.  That’s a cool thought!  I can’t wait to hear what’s running through his head.  I’ll have spent a year in our new home, and likely we’ll have added a few more personal touches about the place.   I’m sure I’ll have another book out, which always brings me pride.  I’ll have been married for another year, too, which means that my husband and I will have another year of memories together.  Yes, it’s going to be a good year!

So Happy New Year to all of you!  I wish you only happiness, and if there are bumps, I wish you pillows.

We are starting this year out with a bang.  We have a new member in our family–a four year old Lhasa Apso named Martin.  Heis just adorable.  My husband, who agreed to him by saying, “You’ll have to do all the work if you want him…” fell immediately in love and started volunteering to walk him!  Granted, he still wears a glove to pet the dog, but give us time…

Our son loves his new playmate.  I discovered that it is categorically impossible to wear out a toddler by playing with him yourself.  Adults run out of energy way faster than toddlers do.  A dog, however, certainly helps tucker him out!

It’s funny how a pet livens up a home.  So far over the holidays we have put in three new light fixtures… a chandelier in the dining room, a hanging pendant in the bedroom and a row of four lights over the bathroom vanity.  It looks great, and new lighting can make an incredible difference when making your new home your own.  However, the biggest contribution to making our new home homey was by far Martin.

We are now dog walking, poop scooping, ear scratching, cuddle giving  dog owners, and quite proud of ourselves!  Now, if we could only get the dog off our bed at night…

Don’t you just want to smack them?  Their whole Christmas dinner is probably served on a bed of lettuce and followed by yoga.  You can be guaranteed that whatever is in that glass is diet and that man is not considering unbuttoning his pants.  They are having a ridiculously healthful Christmas.

That is what I’m going to have, and I will try to make the best of it.  I’m Celiac and allergic to milk and soy.  My son is just like me.  That leaves us very little traditional holiday fare.  No stuffing.  No pie.  No chocolates.  No egg nog.  No Butterball turkey…. The list goes on. I’ve never had figgy pudding, but I’m pretty confident it would kill me.   So what will we have?  Glad you asked!

This year, we are going to have a typically Nithemuka Christmas dinner.  I bought a chicken (because we just don’t have enough people to eat up a big turkey. )  I am going to make roast potatoes, yams, and veggies.  Desert was the hardest part.  What on earth could I serve that everyone could eat?  (And by everyone, I mean myself.  )  So I settled on a big fruit salad.  There will be mango, raspberries, peaches and orange slices.  Delicious!  And at the end of all the eating, I will not be ill and deeply regretting whatever passed my lips.  That night, I won’t be up all night with a sick child.  Merry Christmas to us!

While my Christmas dinner will be ridiculously healthful, I promise not to serve it on a bed of lettuce.  I furthermore guarantee that someone will have to undo a button!

Today, my mom came for lunch.  I was so excited!  She’d come from Ontario, and I hadn’t seen her in a long time.  I was really looking forward to this visit, and I’d cooked and cleaned, eager to show off my new home.  Our first owned home!  Real milestone material here.

Well, last night I could barely sleep.  My husband came home late, so I was sleeping lightly waiting for him.  When he came home, the tot started to fuss, so I was up trying to keep him down.  Then when I tried to get some sleep of my own, I just laid there staring at the ceiling.  I normally don’t have trouble sleeping.  I don’t get enough sleep ever to make that a problem.  I’d also been skipping my afternoon beauty sleeps this last week.

What was so important during those two hours of Jr’s rest?  I was cleaning.  I had a new goal of keeping the house guest-ready.  It’s nice to have the bathroom always sparkling and the kitchen always neat and tidy.  It’s calming to have the toys picked up and the floor vacuumed.  Seriously, had a guest decided to pop in, they would have had a very pleasant visit in an orange-glo smelling home.  No guests popped by, of course, but I was ready.

Well, I was ready until our scheduled guests came.  By the time my mom came with my brother and niece, I was exhausted.  I was frazzled.  I was on my very last nerve when it came to my toddler grabbing things he knows he can’t have and throwing the gifts his Nana gave him.  So my mom, brother and baby niece hugged us goodbye and continued on their scheduled way, and I hadn’t had the energy to enjoy the visit at all.  Talk about frustrating!  I even forgot to ask what they thought of our new home.

I need rest, folks.  If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t noooooobody happy.    If Mama ain’t rested…. If Mama hasn’t had time to hear herself think lately…. If Mama hasn’t showered, eaten, taken the necessary time in front of the mirror to take care of those glaring things that make her think, “Holy cow, how long have I looked like this?”  If Mama has rings under her eyes, take warning!

This is going to sound old fashioned, so brace yourself.  Everyone needs a piece of Mama.  I used to be an avid feminist, but then I got married.  Now I’m a realistic feminist.  Men need us.  Men need us in ways that they don’t even know how to articulate.  They need us listen, to laugh at their jokes, to be rested enough to enjoy them after the baby is in bed.  They need those loving gestures.  They need us to be rested enough to let their little prickly moments slide.  When they don’t get nurtured, they get tossed off balance. Much like we do!

So Mama has a toddler who needs her constant attention.  She has her man who needs to not get lost in the shuffle.  She has books inside of her that need to be written.  She has a house that needs to be kept up, cooking that won’t do itself and basic grooming that can’t be ignored.  And after she’s taken care of everyone else, who takes care of Mama?

So I’m going to make an effort to take better care of myself.  I’m going to take that afternoon nap.  I’m going to take a few uninterrupted minutes to reconnect with the Divine every day.  I’m going to make sure I nurture myself, too.  Because once I’m drained, it’s not pretty!

I need rest.  I need a bath, not a hurried shower.  I need more than 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  I need afternoon naps.  I need more patience than I’ve got.  Probably not ever going to happen, I’ll settle for the naps.  They are realistically attainable.

When Mama ain’t happy…