after this one, until our oldest graduates. Will he be away at college four years from now? Or home working and going to college? The circles of our kids' lives are growing wider and wider each year until finally they'll be far away. I can't help it. I think of things like this. When they were much younger, they drove me nuts sometimes...but it was a fun kind of crazy. Now I'm wondering where the years took off to. I wonder sometimes, too, why we didn't have a third, or even a fourth, Sowell child join the family. But God knows, and I have to trust I've done the best I can with the kids He blessed me with--not by my own womb, but through love and marriage. They were so little when we became a family. Now they can look me in the eye and pretty soon will look down on me. I want them to have it so much better than I--raised in the faith, I still had my problems and issues that even now I grapple with. No wonder youth is wasted on the young and when we're young, sometimes we're pretty hardheaded thinking the older wiser ones don't know what they're talking about.
The book is doing better. I'm trying to be patient and just write it, and let the process work, and trust that all the studying I've done will pay off when I have serious butt-to-chair time.
My next novella isn't due on the editor's desk until January 31st, so I'm okay where that stands. I finally feel like I have a workable writing plan. (And yes, of course, I think--"Wow!! This time next year I'll have THREE books out!")
We have a five gallon bucket in the kitchen. It brims with pecans. The bucket, not the kitchen. The ancient tree in the back yard has had a bumper crop this year, so yes, sir!--yes, ma'am!--we're having pecan pie for Thanksgiving. Oh, and yes, yours truly sits for a bit in the evenings and cracks the shells. I've filled about two-thirds of a gallon ziplock bag so far. Yum!! We might not have Texas black gold on our property, but we have almost the next best thing.
This year, as always, I am thankful for much.
Madame Blueberry has it right: "A thankful heart is a happy heart."
