On Top of the World

It's amazing how much less I feel like blogging when I'm staying with my fifteen-month-old twin granddaughters--and their wonderful parents, of course.  It's hard to get motivated to sit down and write when there are so many fun things going on, so many cute shenanigans to watch (and then a nice lie-down with a book seems like such a glorious option when the wee ones go down for their nap!).

Before I have my siesta, though, I thought I'd take a minute to post a picture I took this morning while we were hiking on a trail called "Siamese Twins" in a breathtakingly beautiful park out here in Colorado Springs called the "Garden of the Gods."  The rugged landscape in this park, which looked to me like something out of my cowboy-wannabe husband's favorite movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, is absolutely breathtaking.  When we finished our climb to the summit of our trail, we could see Pike's Peak in the distance.  The twins were real troopers on this outing, and they seemed to love looking at all the beautiful scenery from up high--Kewpie in a backpack carrier on her daddy's back, and Bonny on Grammy's.  As you can see from the picture, Kewpie was feeling on top of the world.

What a grand day this has been already!  I could go on and on about that wonderful hike.  But with a stunning photograph like this to tell the story, no words are really necessary!

Little Miss Peek-a-Boo

My twin granddaughters are, as you might guess, not only the cutest pair of fifteen-month-old little girls you've ever laid your eyes on, but also quite the little geniuses.  And they're very funny, too, each in her own inimitable way.

Bonny, for instance, is the queen of peek-a-boo, stopping in her tracks a hundred times a day to cover her face with her hands so that you'll say, "Where's Bonny?  Oh, Bonny, where are you?  Where's Bonny?  Where did she go?"  She's really good at hiding herself, too, so that you would hardly know she was there; and when she wants to be, she's very patient about waiting to reveal herself.  Here she is, hiding from Grammy this morning:

Ignore the little blue eyes peeking out at you between those pleasingly plump little fingers.  She is not there.  She is invisible until she removes her hands and gives you a smile that involves every inch of her precious face: squinted-up eyes, a scrunchy button nose, round rosy cheeks, and a mouthful of perfect baby teeth!  Then, and only then, can you see this little munchkin.  And then she'll toddle off to read her books for awhile, or to climb on one of the big, colorful, soft climbing blocks in her playroom...until the game starts up again.  It might be thirty seconds later, or it might be twenty minutes.  But you will be playing again soon, never fear.

But who can resist a game where the object is to finally see this cute little face smiling at you?

Don't answer that question.  It was rhetorical.

(I wish these photos were clearer; but I was trying to capture moments as my granddaughters toddled around the basement playroom.  They were moving targets, and I don't think my iPhone had time to focus before I snapped them!)

Surrounded by Mountains...of Cuteness

I arrived in Colorado last night, in one piece--despite all of my pre-flight jitters.

I am now surrounded by mountain views (really, you should see the magnificent view right out my son and his wife's back door!), but more importantly, by cuteness.  Cuteness squared.

There isn't going to be much time for blogging today.  The girls are napping, and my body is still on East Coast time--so I'm thinking Grammy might want to catch a nap, too.  But before I do, I wanted to at least post this adorable picture of the twins, taken this morning down in the truly awesome romper room in the basement of their new house.

That's Bonny up front on the left, with Kewpie right behind her.

I was so happy to get this shot because Bonny has been mugging for the camera for awhile now, but Kewpie used to put on a serious "what the heck are you doing, Grammy?" face every time I pointed my camera (or my iPhone) at her.  I love her great, big smile in this picture!

I tell you, folks, it was worth the trip to see these two cuties again!

Rocky Mountain High, Here I Come!

Well, today I take off for Colorado, the new home of my oldest son, his wife, and my adorable twin granddaughters.  They just made a cross-country move from Alabama (oh, the joys of military life!), and this will be the third home this young couple has shared since they got married in December of 2009.  Thank goodness they will be able to stay put out there in the Rockies for at least another two years, during which time, hopefully, Papa and I will be able to get out there for a ski vacation (or two...or three).

That cute little family just moved into their house last week, and the movers have dropped off their belongings.  They've gotten a lot of the boxes unpacked, but there's still work to do--and who better to help them do it than Grammy, the empty-nester who misses having children to take care of and can also fly on the airline for which her husband works, free of charge?  True, I fly on stand-by status and can only get on a flight when there are unclaimed seats; but if you're willing to endure being bumped (I am), and you don't mind hanging out in the airport waiting for the next open flight to come along (I don't--especially since that delays the terrifying part: the flying), then you can't beat the deal I've got.  Without this convenient little perk afforded by my husband's job, I would not have been able to see my darling little Bonny* (the older of the twins) and Cutie* (the younger one, by two minutes) nearly as often as I have in the almost fifteen months they've been on this earth.  Forget the fact that I like flying about as much as I like having a root canal...Actually, I fell asleep in the chair when I had a root canal, but I can almost never relax enough to sleep when I'm in an airplane seat, so never mind that analogy.  What I meant to say was that as tough as it is for me to subject myself to my debilitating fear of take-offs and landings, I'm going to keep on doing it, because the alternative--missing out on seeing those little beauties--is even more fear-inducing!

"Rocky Mountain high, Colorado..."  (Remember this guy?)

You know, this trip is going to be a big first for me.  In my whole life, I've never been west of Indiana or Wisconsin--whichever of those two Midwestern states is further west (geography has never been my strong suit).  And the idea of flying into the Rockies...yikes!  I'm not imagining myself sitting happily in my seat, 30,000 feet above the ground (!!), with that upbeat John Denver tune from yesteryear playing in my head.  I'm imagining plane crashes in snow-capped mountains, and packs of wolves hunting down the crash survivors.  (Oh, not really.  However, if you are a white-knuckle flyer like me, one movie you shouldn't see is a nail-biter called The Grey, starring Liam Neeson.)  But I've got to force myself to think beyond the flight to what's waiting for me at the other end: those two little munchkins who really DO make me feel like I'm on a high, every time I'm around them.

*If you are new to this blog, these are my granddaughters' aliases, used to keep their real names private. Cutie is also sometimes called Kewpie, because she has a Kewpie doll smile.

Man Cave Heaven

Well, it's official: my husband's man cave is completed and ready for its close-up.

This sports-themed room has been completely functional and super-comfortable for several years now; my guy has his cushy leather rocker-recliner in it, positioned for TV viewing (and there's a leather sectional for the rest of us), along with his pull-up/chin-up apparatus, his weights, a bar with three retro bar stools in front of it that have the "Pearl Beer" logo on them, and of course, a Hi-Def flat screen TV with surround sound and all the other requisite bells and whistles.

The only problem has been this: my husband has felt for a long time now that for a man cave as big as this one (after all, it used to be a two-car garage before he converted it into our "new room" about eight years ago), the TV set in it was just a tad on the smallish side. I mean, the TV we've had in there for the past couple of years was no slouch--it was a 42-inch flat screen; but the room is so enormous that it was really crying out for something just a bit bigger--say, maybe an 80-inch flat screen.  Unfortunately, some time ago when my husband measured the TV nook area of his man cave, he realized that there actually wasn't enough space for anything larger than a 70-inch.  So a plan was made: as soon as we paid off our house (which will be in a matter of months now), our first purchase would be a 70-inch flat screen TV for the new room/man cave.

For the past few years, that's been my man's mantra: when the house gets paid off, we get a 70-inch TV; when the house gets paid off, we get a 70-inch TV...  But we're just months away now...and football season is upon us...and it seems silly to go through a whole season of watching games on a puny little screen, when we were planning to purchase a bigger one pretty soon anyway...

So we did it: we bought our new TV several months ahead of schedule, and yesterday, our second oldest son (who was here with his girlfriend for dinner) helped his dad get it hung up on the wall.  And...[drum roll]...TA DA!  Here it is!  (Is this the most beautiful thing your eyes have ever seen, or what?)

My husband, gazing at the new love of his life.  (Reading glasses off, 3-D glasses on!
Football never looked so good!)

I know I'm going to enjoy the newer, way bigger TV, too.  But I'm mostly happy that we have it because I know how happy it makes my husband.  He's not a man who owns (or wants to own) a lot of expensive toys.  This is the one dream item he's been wishing for, and he's been waiting patiently until we could best afford it. And now that it's here, he's in heaven in his man cave!

My Book's Patron Saints

Right as I was finishing up the exhausting process of making sure that the final galley of my manuscript was as ready for publication as humanly possible, some very precious articles found their way into my hands.  If you do read my book Finding Grace, which is a novel aimed primarily at impressionable teens and young adults, you will see that Saint Therese of Lisieux ("The Little Flower," as she is called) and Saint Catherine Laboure (the humble nun who is responsible for having Miraculous Medals struck, at Our Lady's special request) both play a big part in the story.  My protagonist, a young girl named Grace Kelly, is inspired by an offhand remark from her father to become a saint, and so she begins to read about the lives of the saints for inspiration and guidance.  One of her favorites--mine, too--is Saint Therese, for this dear saint and Doctor of the Church speaks of the "Little Way of Spiritual Childhood"; she teaches us about the "Little Way" to holiness, which means that each of us, no matter how small we may seem, can hope to be a saint.  Grace also wears a Miraculous Medal constantly in the book  (in fact, there is a picture of this medal on the front cover), and therefore she has a special affinity for Saint Catherine Laboure.

So many things that happened during the course of writing this book and right afterwards seem like more than mere coincidences.  I finished writing the 32nd and final chapter of Finding Grace on December 1, 2011, after laboring on it for four and a half years.  The very next day, December 2, I was able to accompany my husband on one of his trips to Europe, for the first time in the 15 years he'd been flying internationally for his airline.  And where do you think this trip was headed?  To Nice, on the breathtaking French Riviera.  So on our second day of sightseeing, we took a train ride over to nearby Monaco to visit the old stomping grounds of who else but Grace Kelly, the Hollywood actress cum princess--and my main character's namesake!

Finding Grace also has a section that deals with the Holocaust.  In January of 2012, I was able to travel with my husband to Europe on a second trip, this time to Amsterdam...and while we were there, we took a tour of the Anne Frank House, which was a truly affecting experience.  I couldn't believe that the first two times I ever rode in the back of a plane that my husband was piloting overseas, these destinations with so much meaning for me, because of how they tied in with the book I'd just finished, were the ones I was lucky enough to visit.

Those two experiences got to me, but not nearly as much as something that took place in late July, just about the time the book was ready to go to print, at my family's 2nd Annual Camping Palooza.  During the weekend reunion with my mother's family, there were some special items set out on a table--some of my late maternal grandmother's paintings, some jewelry and other valuables, old letters and photos--that my mother and her only other living sibling wanted to pass on to the next generation in our family.  So my siblings and cousins and I were encouraged to look over all the stuff and see if there was anything we wanted to take. My eyes fell on a dingy-looking little off-white hinged jewelry box, and I absentmindedly opened it up.  I couldn't believe what I found inside.  Sitting there on faded turquoise velvet were two very small, round, ornately-decorated glass-topped cases (tarnished and obviously quite old) with tiny relics inside them. Inside one of the cases, a small strip of paper had this typed on it: "S. Teres. a Ies."  "That must be a relic of Saint Therese of Lisieux!!", I thought.  The other had a strip of paper that read, "Ste C. Laboure"--and not only that, it came with an official Church document (dated 1955, with a signature and a raised seal) identifying the tiny bone fragments in the case as "sacris Reliquiis Sanctae Catharinae Laboure" (in Latin: sacred relics of Saint Catherine Laboure) and further describing them as "ex ossibus" (from the bones).

The holy saints' relics, sitting atop a pre-publication galley of my manuscript.

A close-up of the relics.

Oh my gosh, was I thrilled...and filled with utter disbelief.  Imagine finding these priceless treasures so soon after finishing a book that was very much dedicated to these two very saints!  My mother said that I could have both tiny reliquaries, and I brought them home, filled with awe and excitement.  When I told my publisher about the precious relics of Saint Therese and Saint Catherine Laboure that had somehow come my way, out of the blue, she said that clearly they should be considered the patron saints of my book.  If they are, I have some powerful helpers in my corner!

I definitely need their assistance these days as I struggle with feelings of both elation and terror, now that a lifelong dream of mine has actually been realized and my book is out there, open to scrutiny and criticism. I find myself sending up this silent entreaty: "Saint Therese of Lisieux and Saint Catherine Laboure, PRAY FOR ME!"

Saint Catherine of Bologna, Patron of Artists

After spending the past five days showing you some terrific (and just a bit off-the-wall) artwork created by my #4 son when he was a teenager, I thought I would devote today's post to a Patron Saint of Artists, Catherine of Bologna.  She herself was quite a talented artist, as you can see from this lovely painting that is attributed to her, an icon of the Madonna and Child.

So many saints come from the ranks of rich and powerful families, but they turn their backs on material wealth and devote their lives to doing God's work.  Catherine of Bologna was just such an individual.  Born Catherine d'Vigri in 1413 in Bologna, Italy, she came from an aristocratic family.  She was raised at the court of the Marquis Nicholas IV, Duke of Ferrara, because her father was his ambassador.  Catherine could have lived a very privileged life, but instead became a cloistered nun and together with three other women of Ferrara founded a monastery of the Order of Poor Clares.  She later returned to her native Bologna and became the abbess of a monastery of the same Order, where she lived until her early death at 49.  Her body remains incorrupt; it is on display behind glass, seated upright and dressed in her religious habit, at the Chapel of the Poor Clares in Bologna.

I am always profoundly amazed, inspired, and impressed by people such as Saint Catherine of Bologna--people who could have chosen easy, pampered lives and instead chose to take a much more difficult path.  It is no wonder that such self-sacrifice is rewarded with a crown in Heaven!

If you are an artist, and you're struggling with a piece that just isn't turning out the way you want it to, you can always try praying to this holy Patron Saint of Artists.  Isn't it nice to know that you have an unseen helper who is only a prayer away?