Am I complaining? … Do pigs have wings?

   No, I mean for REAL!

Of course not.

BUT … today I saw Spring.  Yes, I did!

Look:

Did you catch that?

Look again:

ROBINS!

YAY!  This to me is a sure sign of Spring. And not just one robin did I see, but a small flock of them – foraging on the ground and sitting in the trees.

Oh my gosh!  Can it be true?   

SPRING HAS SPRUNG!  In February!

Now, I realize two things about the above.  First: Winter is not officially over yet and we are sure to get more snow, but the robins are out in the open when usually we don’t see them until sometime in March. I have never seen them this early in the year. Second: It is not good writing form to use so many exclamation points, but … gosh dern it! I saw robins today! And that always makes me happy! 

How about you? Have you seen any signs of Spring yet?

(Photos not mine)

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!

I tell you that to tell you this: Almost four weeks later I read a post on This Kid Reviews Books, where Erik reviewed a book by Susanna Leonard Hill, and at the end he mentioned a couple other of her books. This one, Can’t Sleep Without Sheep, grabbed my attention for the above-mentioned reasons. Then when I watched the trailer for it I absolutely had to have this book! It is funny, adorable, exquisitely illustrated, and so fun to read.

Ava has a hard time going to sleep, her mind is just too busy, so she counts sheep. The problem is that it still takes Ava so long to get to sleep that the sheep complain they are getting too tired jumping the fence so she can count them. They quit! Not wanting to leave little Ava without something to count on, they try to find other animals to replace them, and what happens next is hilarious. Pigs, horses, penguins, and the list goes on. So very enjoyable.

The day my husband brought Can’t Sleep Without Sheep in from our mailbox, I couldn’t wait to read it. When I read this book through for the first time I also read it to my husband because I wanted to share it with him, and I laughed out loud at the antics, the surprises and the amazing and hilarious illustrations. It’s even better than the trailer reveals. I have to say, the author and illustrator are a great team for this story.

This is a completely gorgeous book. An added bonus is that if you go to Susanna’s website: http://www.susannahill.com/books.html you will find activities that go with the story and that you can print off for children to do.

When I ordered Can’t Sleep Without Sheep I had in mind that I would keep it for my grandson to read when he is visiting us, but as much as I hate to part with it (and may yet buy a second one for myself) I will be giving this copy to my little guy for Valentine’s Day. In my opinion, he just has to have this book! I hope he loves it as much as Grandma does.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 

Please .. no more bad, sad news. Enough.

It seems every time someone calls with news this year it is sad.

Actually it started in November of last year when a wonderful friend, Linda, passed away quietly in her sleep. She was in a nursing home for the care needed because of her illnesses. She was only 60.

On the very first day of January this year, Cynthia, an elderly friend, passed away. She had Alzheimer’s, was in hospital after suffering a broken hip, and did not recover. Added to her husband’s pain, near the end of that month, their son James contracted Meningitis. All efforts failed to save him and he passed away in hospital.

News of two other deaths came this week. The husband of an acquaintance was found, having died suddenly, the cause yet to be determined. Then on February 1, the best friend of the boyfriend of one of my daughters came home and found his young wife had passed away unexpectedly due to a medical problem. He is left to raise their two small children.

All of those are so heart-wrenching, but what has personally hit me the hardest is the news I received this morning. Ruby, a long-time friend and my husband’s cousin, passed away this morning. She was a cancer survivor but the treatments seven years ago seriously damaged her heart so when more cancer was discovered in December there was nothing that could safely be done for her this time. She chose to not try it. Hardly out of her fifties, her spirit departed this life and her loved ones a few hours ago.

My heart is heavy. I have cried many tears, grief sweeps over me in waves. But even though I sorrow it is not without hope. I am reminded of the Scripture verse 1 Thessalonians 4:13 that says in part, “that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” I know for a fact that three I mentioned above knew the Lord Jesus, the others I cannot say for sure. But families and friends can find their comfort in the Lord, and will carry on – even with heavy hearts.

If you are a Believer I know your prayers would be appreciated for the spouses, families, and friends of the ones I mentioned – for comfort and strength. It’s a rough beginning to this year and a long road ahead.

If you yourself are facing difficulties .. be encouraged. There is One who knows and is ever-present and waiting to walk through them with you.

Life changes, brings circumstances that sometimes we wish we never had to face, but life still goes on. It is our choice what to do with the short time we have.

On the flip side there are exciting surprises and situations that come into our life path, things that make us dance or sing or jump up and down. And, I have found, that even when death comes .. for the one who has hope there is reason to rejoice.

Do you have any experiences that you would like to tell us of God’s comfort?

If you know of any books for children on this topic of death, mourning, grief, please let me know by leaving a comment. Thank you.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!

I have to say, I sympathize with the owner of that cat. Talk about life’s embarrassing moments! It must have been stressful and so embarrassing, and frustrating when the animal would not come out. Also, think how it must have felt when dozens of people were delayed because of this situation. The airline ended up arranging new connections for inconvenienced passengers, some going on their vacations.

From the news clip I came up with this scenario and posted it as a poem (prose) in the Month Of Poetry challenge. And just an added note: I do not hate cats.

Here kitty, kitty
come back to your cage!
plane has to lift off now
everyone is waiting …
here kitty, kitty!

where did she go?
I’m so sorry, she’s afraid ..
here kitty, come back to me
(how embarrassing)
Time for take-off, Ma’am.

Under the cockpit boards?
oh dear, here kitty, come out!
please …. come out?
Get a maintenance crew in here!
departure now on delay

Up — the floor boards
Out — the terrified cat
Unhappy — full load of passengers
Missed — important connections
Take off — four hours late

Cat ..
– now travelling in baggage area
overheard passenger ..
– I hate cats!

Have you had an embarrassing moment anything like this?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!

It is always nice to receive positive recognition and appreciation, isn’t it?

It was seven weeks ago (yikes! has it really been that long?) I learned that I was the recipient of a blogging award, given to me by a fellow blogger. That’s how most of them work.

This is my second Versatile Blogger award, but my first one is no longer prominent, it was moved to My Awards and Badges page because of the theme I was using. This one I will stick right on the front page for awhile.

You can read about my first one HERE. Laura Best gave that one to me when I was in desperate need of the encouraging boost it provided me – and didn’t even know I needed it. This second one serves as encouragement to keep on, even when things in my life get complicated and time for writing is harder to find.

There are rules to be followed for such awards, this one has three, so here goes:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog.THANK YOU, Renee Johnson! I do appreciate it.  Check out Renee’s blog: http://writingfeemail.wordpress.com
2. Reveal 7 things about yourself.
   
   1. Thirty-five years of marriage and I love my beloved more now than ever. The trick is to never give up when the going gets rough.
   2. I have always made my home in  Nova Scotia, and love this beautiful province!
   3. I love being able to access the Internet because of all the contacts I have made/am making and all I have learned/am learning that are helping me in my writing pursuit. Some of my dearest friends I have never met in person yet.
   4. I love hilarious laughter and making people laugh.
   5. I love the ocean – my healing place – the sounds, the smells, the awesomeness, but even though I love the water, I do not swim.
   6. I’m discovering another good reason to never grow old is to be able to “think like a kid” when writing for children.

   7. I am discovering my love of writing but have yet to mine the depths of what I can do, who I really am as a writer. Perhaps this is something about me we are discovering together .. you and I .. as time goes on.

3. Nominate and link to 15 bloggers. Then be sure to let them know! Now, this took me lots of time to choose people who have not already received this award and are deserving of it. First, I wondered how I would find fifteen, but then it was so hard to narrow it down! I hope you will visit each one, because they all have something great to offer, being writers. And even if you are not a writer and this would not interest you .. please check them out. They have more to say than just about writing, they are smart, creative people.

1. This Kid Reviews Books – Erik is a ten-year-old you will want to meet

2. Sue Harrison – a successful author and wonderful person with a diverse blog, including the sharing of her writing experience

3. Catherine Johnson – a Canadian writer of children’s stories, who also loves to write in rhyme

4. Diane Tibert – a talented writer here in Nova Scotia

5. Jamie Dement – one smart cookie who writes great stuff

6. Darlene Foster – Canadian author of adventure series children’s books

7. Sheri Swift – finding joy in the journey as an author

8. Linda Cassidy Lewis – author of newly released book

9. Donna Martin – focused on encouraging and inspiring other writers

10. Denise Bruce – enthusiastic children’s writer

11. Julie Hedlund – writer, great helps on her blog, creator of writing challenge for 2012 ( 12×12 in 12)

12. Shelli Johannes– Market My Words – great blog with loads of writing information

13. Jennifer Kearbey – aspiring author who makes me laugh on her blog

14. Linda Leinen – writing from a lifetime of experience and experiences

15. Rob Sanders – provides a daily guide to picture book writing

                                                         P O O F !

The first half of the first month of this new year has been used up already! And what, I wonder, did I do with my portion of it? There is not much I feel I have accomplished thus far.

In my last post I mentioned signing up for two writing challenges – #MOP for the whole month of January, and 12×12 in 2012 which is for the whole year.

M.O.P.

Since 2008, Month of Poetry has been coordinated by Australian poet and children’s author, Kat Apel. You can visit her here: http://katswhiskers.wordpress.com/ and check out #MOP here: http://monthofpoetry.wordpress.com/about/

Last year I participated in #MOP and fully enjoyed it, so this year I signed on again. Each day participants are to write a poem, anything at all (as long as it is child appropriate because there are even a few very young ones taking part, too), and post it to the board if wanting to share. The posting is not a requirement but in doing so it is inspiring and fun and helps draw ‘poets’ together in the sharing. This is not a competition, nor is it set up with prizes or anything. It is to encourage those who love to write poetry, opening up the possibilities and getting the creative poetic juices flowing.  Kat gives suggestions for improvement where necessary, as do other fellow writers, and it is a great way to learn as you go.

I have been finding it harder this year to write anything, including poetry, but I am still working at it. For today I wrote a poem about words. This little verse is the much simpler short verse I extricated from it before posting the more involved part of the poem to the board. I thought I’d share the orphaned part here as it just didn’t belong with the rest.

If you are a writer then you know what a love-hate relationship we can have with words. Sometimes they are sweet in one’s mouth and mind, sometimes the most difficult of partners, sometimes they amaze, sometimes they dismay, sometimes they are right there .. readily accessible, sometimes they just will not surface when wanted. This is the way it has been for me the past several months. A mixture of challenges but more difficult than easy. Even so, I believe that it is important that I write, perhaps only for my own sanity, but perhaps for something yet unknown down the road.

12×12 in 2012

This challenge – found here: http://writeupmylife.com/2011/11/30/12-x-12-in-2012-picture-book-writing-challenge/ – is headed up by Julie Hedlund. Check out her blog here: http://writeupmylife.com/

In Julie’s words: “write one picture book per month for each of the twelve months of 2012. This means a first draft: beginning, middle, end. NOT a submission-ready piece.”

Her idea came out of PiBoIdMo – Picture Book Idea Month – when she realized she still needed to do something with all her ideas. You can check out my December 8, 2011 post: http://bit.ly/rDpv8F regarding my efforts in November 2011, and if you are interested you can read through my November 2010 posts for more. Although I had come up with 44 ideas in 2010, I had not pulled together one manuscript (naughty me!), and with almost that many more this year I knew I had to do something with those to honour the pledge I’d made in signing up. Then along came 12×12 in 2012! (Thanks, Julie!)

You may wonder how I’m doing with that so far. Ummm, wellll … to be honest I have barely looked at my pages and pages of ideas, other than skimming them and selecting the ones I think have possibility, but I am going to try to get one story seriously worked on this month. And since there are only two weeks left I have to get a move on!

What are you doing with your goals so far this year?

If you are a writer, is your Muse keeping you busy?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!

But I do have new plans, or maybe it is just an amped up version of the old plans. Reading and writing. Writing and reading. I have signed up for #MOP (Month of Poetry) which means I am to write a poem a day this month, and I also signed up for 12×12 in 2012 so that the story ideas I compiled in November the last two years through PiBoIdMo can be shaped into story books .. twelve of them! One a month. Hopefully, I can expound upon those two writing ventures in later posts, as time allows.

In case you didn’t notice, I updated my blog pages a bit, too. And I hope to find a better theme for my blog, one that will accommodate the extra badges I want and should put up. Not all of them will show right now so there must be a limit on this theme. Eventually, I will get ‘er done, and I hope you will not mind the in-between time until I get it right.

What are your goals for 2012? Notice I didn’t say resolutions, I seem to fail with those, but maybe you succeed? Do tell!

What are your dreams and plans for this new year? I’d love to hear about them. 

Maybe you are already on the road to something new and wonderful? I’m ready to enjoy your story.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 

My wish for you in 2012 is that you find wonderful blessings coming your way, that you discover the Meaning of life, that your path is strewn with good things, and that you prosper in health, good cheer, and enough to keep you comfortable.

For my writer friends .. in 2012 may your words flow and evolve into something worth sharing with the world, may your contacts prove beneficial, may all your hard work pay off so that your hopes and dreams come true.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! 

Thanks for reading my blog, special thanks to my regular followers,  and … Creative Musings!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. – Romans 15:13

Pondering those words … God with us …

Only HE knows how grateful I am for His love (for me), His sacrifice (for me), His willingness to do what no man could do for us (even for me), His abiding Presence (with me).  (It’s okay to personalize it, you know.) For many reasons, without Him my life would not be worth living. Yes, I have so many blessings and precious people in my life, but … if you have ever felt that inner despair of worthlessness, that sense of hopelessness and lack of purpose, then you know what I mean. With Him life makes sense.

My heart overflows with gratitude today as we remember Jesus’ birth, coming as a humble baby to become our great overcoming King.

May I wish you the blessing of His joy, His Peace, His Presence in your life as you celebrate this day. May you enjoy the sweet company of family and friends – even strangers who need a friend today. Perhaps you are like us and often invite someone to join you for a festive meal. Appreciate it.

My day is starting out very quietly, but by 1:00 pm this festively decorated house will be full of family, plus an invited guest, for a hearty meal. Four people cannot be with us then (one being our daughter in Alberta), but there will be twelve seated around Dad’s table. Exchanging of some gifts will follow the main course, and then the dessert table comes under attack. There will be lots of joyful noise and laughter, especially with an excited six-year-old among us. As the day progresses, this house will be made tidy again and gradually it will dwindle down to a few people here as my husband and I move on to our house with our own family. There we will enjoy a wonderful time with our daughters, their guys and our grandson. I am excited about today with my family.

The Lord has put LIFE into my life — much more than gifts and festivity.

My prayer for you is that you too may experience the true joy of this season – God with us.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!