Thoughts from a writing mom

I was talking to a family member earlier about how badly I used to let other’s negative opinions of my family size get to me.   I told her that only recently have I woken up and realized what a waste of time it was to ever let it affect me at all…because the bottom line is that we’re happy.   We love our kids.   We know how blessed we are.   And the kids are happy too. I told her that one of the arguments I’ve heard against us having a large family is that “it’s too hard.”   This always baffles me how this can be an argument against something.   Aren’t the best things in life “hard”? Seriously.   If people gave up when something got hard, no one would finish school.   Run a marathon.   Start a business.   Get married.   This list could go on and on.   Personally, if I was afraid of “hard”, I would have never joined the Navy, and I would have missed out on so much.   As hard as it was to leave home at 19 to go to boot camp, it led to some of the absolute best times of my life.

Okay, so he didn’t come up to me personally and tell me to write a blog post tonight.   He did however speak this evening about John the Baptist telling people about Jesus being the Son of God, and how we as Christians are called to do the same.   Called to tell others of Jesus.   He even had us all read aloud the first line of the first reading today, “The Lord said to me: You are my servant, Israel, through whom I show my glory.”   Except we were to read it exchanging the word Israel with our own name.   Yep.   This had me thinking… am I doing my part? This particular priest is named Father Uche, and I almost didn’t hear this homily today.   I didn’t think I would make it to church.   Not because I couldn’t, but because I didn’t want to get four children and myself ready to get out the door.   It was just one of those afternoons in which I was tired, and irritated with the kids, and I just wanted to have an easy day and stay home.   My husband works weekends every other month

My first published book will be released in a little less than three months.   Not much is happening with it on my end at the moment.   I did finally send in acknowledgements for the book to my publisher.   They’re very short and simple.   And, while I wait for word for them on edits they would like for me to make, I read online about book marketing.   There is a lot of advice out there.   “Use social media!”   Yes.   I have set up a Twitter Account, a Facebook Page and have a profile on GoodReads.   “Blog!” Okay.   I have this little blog set up that I actually showed to absolutely no one – seriously, no one – until I had a contract coming in for my book to be published.   I started the blog originally so that there was some proof out there somewhere that I had a desire to finish a book and an even bigger desire to have it published. Now, I am finding that I do want to share more, but this isn’t always easy for me.   This whole writing thing can be so very personal and I’ve jus

On this third day into the New Year I am reflecting on 2013 and some of the moments that really defined the year for me personally.   So, here they are. 1.          My Son’s Birth February 22 nd I gave birth to my fourth child and first little boy.   We had chosen not to find out his gender.   After he was born, my husband started laughing.   I hadn’t seen if I had just had a boy or a girl yet so I was asking him “what is it, what is it?” completely expecting his laughter to mean we just had our fourth daughter.   He said “It’s a boy!”   And the tears just started streaming down my face.   I was so happy to meet the baby I had felt moving around in my belly, and to experience having a son for the first time.   It was really wonderful and that little boy continues to be a joy every single day.   2.          Enrollment in the Brown Scapular In September my husband and I were enrolled by our parish priest to the Brown Scapular.   A little background if this sounds foreig