Real Life is Better Than Fiction

Do you ever wonder if the police are on top of things? Have you ever been tempted to call 9-1-1 just to see what would happen? Well, I actually did it one time, although it was an accident. My sisters are my best friends and I like to talk to them as much as I can, especially since we live in different states. One day I tried to give one of them a call. I pressed in her area code, which should have been 9-1-9. Unfortunately, our phone was on its way out and the 1 button would almost always stick, as it did this day. I growled at the phone and hung up to start all over again, not giving the numbers I had dialed any more thought. My sister didn’t answer, so I just left a message and hung up the phone to get on with my day. I checked on my son, who was playing video games. Then the phone rang. I answered, thinking that maybe it was my sister and she just had not been able to reach the phone in time. “This is the 9-1-1 operator and we just received a hang up call from this number...

You can have the most amazing conversations with your kids. Sometimes those conversations make you proud because of their attitude or show you that they are thinking about something very deeply. They can make you laugh hysterically till you are about to pee your pants. They can laugh at you until you hope they pee their own pants. That is the way most of the conversations in the sit-com I call life, happen around our house. In the middle of a spelling test one day, my son randomly asked if I could do a full split. “No.” I answered and gave the next spelling word. “Did you used to be able to?” “Yes. Back in the day.” “What? When you were two?” “No. When I was a cheerleader.” This brought about a fit of laughter so bad that we could not continue with the spelling test. I just sat there and smiled, waiting for the moment to pass. “I’m sorry. I just can’t imagine you being a cheerleader!” Again, followed by hysterical fits of laughter, only this time with tears. Finally, ...

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you mumbled to yourself, “Me and my big mouth!” I know I have more often than I really care to admit. One time was when a couple of friends and I were printing our first book. It was a devotional and as it was coming together, we couldn’t help but hold it and flip the pages. It had been a lot of work and it was so cool to see it come to fruition. The other two ladies I worked with had done some speaking before and up until this point I had not. We had high hopes that we would be invited to speak at retreats and conferences and sell hundreds, if not thousands of books – at least that was what was going on in my mind. I told them, “When you guys are scheduled for your events, I’ll just sit at the book table and collect money. That way you can be free to talk to your fans.” This is the part where I later said, “Me and my big mouth!” I believe God heard me when I said that, and I’ve been told He has a sense of humor. One week after ...

Every summer the cuzzy-wuzzies come to visit. (That’s my nephew’s term for the cousins.) We always enjoy the week together and it has become tradition that we go camping for a couple of nights during that week. We always have some sort of excitement of these camping trips. One time my nephew got burned in the face by a lantern. One time my niece made a “fishing pole” with a string and a clothespin she found lying around and caught a copperhead! Another time my daughter and two of her friends came upon a rather large copperhead. They screamed loud enough to bring nearby fishermen to their rescue. Then there was last summer. It was our first night and we were all sleeping soundly. All of a sudden we were awakened to the scariest sound I have ever heard in my life. It was a tree falling! It sounded close by and there was a mad scramble in the adult tent to find eyewear. The younger kids were all in another tent and I didn’t know if they were okay or not. We all piled out of our tent...

I should probably put a disclaimer in here – I do write about real life. If you happen to find yourself in some of my blog posts (don’t worry, I won’t mention any names) that just means you’ve been a memorable (and probably humorous) part of my life. You should feel blessed. I’m borrowing a statement one lady once said to me, “If I become famous and anyone asks me if my house was clean, you tell them it was lived in.” That is probably a pretty fair assessment of my own house. It isn’t perfect, but it’s healthy. At least it appears healthy enough for people to feel comfortable enough to stop by, unannounced to use my bathroom. I know, you think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Apparently my bathroom is a hot spot in our town. Years ago, one person would stop to use my bathroom on regular basis. I didn’t think too much of it. Then a couple more people started to stop by my house to, yep, you guessed it, to use my bathroom. Apparently the word was getting out that I have some awesome bat...

Welcome to my blog! I’ve thought about starting one for a long time and now here it is. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a writer. One of the first things would-be writers are taught is to “write what you know.” And I do. Many of the stories and articles I write are based on my real-life, even if they are labeled as fiction. When I was in high school, I found a pen pal who promised to critique my writing. We wrote back and forth for quite a while and she almost always gave me good advice. However, there was one time when I wrote a story about an incredibly horrible day I’d had. This woman happened to be an English teacher. She made copies of my story and had her classroom critique my story as well. As I looked through the comments, one idea was repeated over and over again. “This is too far-fetched to be real!” Even the teacher had written some comment to the effect that fiction must be believable. There was only one problem with what she said. Everything in my ...