I Ran Out Of Gas Will You . . . ?

The other day I stopped to get gas. It was about 9:00 at night. And while I’m standing beside my van sort of spacing out and wondering if I want to drive a couple of miles for a cup of tea and a scone for my drive home, this guy walks up to me. He’s got long hair brushed back into a pony tail and dressed in a nice long sleeve, button up blue shirt and jeans.

I’m not sure what I thought he was going to ask me or tell me, but it wasn’t what actually happened. He holds up a CD and tells me he’s a musician, and that he’s run out of gas and if I buy his CD he’ll have money to get home.

I think I stared at him too long while I tried to process this. I’ve had many people use that “I ran out gas” line and honestly, I never believe it, but sometimes I’ll offer a dollar or some change. Never when I’m with my kids, because I’m always paranoid of the many scenarios that can happen, but when it’s just me and I feel safe, I’ll help them out.

But not only did I not believe this guy with the CD, but I wondered if he was a real musician. If he was, was he really trying to sell his music at a gas station with an “I ran out of gas” line? I wondered if as an author I would do that. Well, no I didn’t wonder – I knew I wouldn’t. But I have attended many book shows, conventions, seminars, Etc. where I sit behind my booth and talk to attendees about my books in hopes that they will buy a copy. My role at these booths is no longer that of an artist, but a sales person, which is unfortunate. Like all other booths that are selling hats or clothes or jewelry or a hot dog and a coke, I have a product to sell.

I’ve always understood that the book business IS a business, and I actually have fun attending these events, but I often think that it’s too bad that an artist, whether writer, painter, or musician, has to be involved in this part of the business. I don’t think most of us are very good at it.

I left the gas station. I did not buy his CD, though I thought about him a few times this week and wondered if there was really music on that CD, and sort of wished I had. I didn’t buy it, because it was sort of creepy for him to approach someone at a gas station at night. No matter how difficult it is to sell our art, I still think we need to treat it like art. We might be forced to become sales people at times, but I think we have to respect our work enough NOT to sell it anywhere.

Julia

I Actually Made The Right Choice!

Yesterday, I had the best time on a field trip with my kids!! One of the boys in my son's class lives in a rural area and invited the class to visit his home. Not only does he have the usual farm animals, but as soon as you walk out of his property you're basically out in the wild. So, we went on a gorgeous hike, through trails and across rocks and through creeks. The kids loved being in this outdoor school. The fantastic teacher, who was there on her day off, pointed out plants that were edible (because they read a book about a boy who survives in the wilderness eating what he finds) and tossed in lessons about nature here and there. And the parents, got a chance to chat and enjoy the day outside with the kids.

When my kids were school age, I struggled with the decision about what I would do regarding their schooling. I studied all the schooling options (and we're so lucky to have so many in America), and decided home schooling was the best option for my family.

But early in my home schooling, I found a charter school that I liked and teamed up with them, because they offered some cool things for the kids. I continued to teach my kids at home, but they went to a charter school learning center for fun workshops. This year the charter school offered a school option where they go to "school" three days a week and are schooled at home two days. I decided to try it out and on days like yesterday, I'm so glad I did! I LOVE the feel of community that exists between the parents and the teachers. I LOVE the long-term friendships my kids have made with other great kids who all have parents that are deeply involved in their kids' education. And I love the real life learning that goes on so much of the time.

It's great when you can feel you're making the right choice for your kids!

Now, if only I could go back out there today with my laptop. What an inspiring place to work! But, today, I'm stuck in my office. If you are too, I hope you can get out over the weekend and enjoy a bit of nature too.

Enjoy your weekend!

Julia

My Dreaded Gardening Project

This is my lovely back yard slope. With all the wonderful Calfornia rains, the weeds have enjoyed growing and completely taking over my slope.

The last few weekends, I've told myself I'm going to get out there and take care of it. Weed-wack them away. Pull them out. Get my vegetable garden finally in there (my husband has never let me plant pretty ground cover because he's going to use the slope for a veggie garden - yeah, right -- finally this year I decided I was going to put it in myself). But every weekend lately, it's been pouring rain.
Finally this weekend, it looks like we're going to have a nice sunny Saturday and Sunday, but I'll be cheering for my kids at a swim meet one day and entertaining family the next. The weeds will get to live another week.
At least the weeds are still green and not quite long enough to alert the weed-abatement people. And it doesn't look THAT bad. Well, okay, it does, but I'll get to it. If I can make it sound like fun, I might even convince my kids to get out there and help me. And once I start actually working on the vegetable garden, my husband will charge outside and tell me I'm doing all wrong and he'll take over.
I feel better about this job already!
Anyone else have a spring gardening project you're dragging your feet on?

Happy weekend!

Julia

Tell Me About Your Friends

“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.” Tennessee Williams (Playwrite)

Do you get to choose your parents? Of course not. Do you choose your husband? Well, let's just say it was probably your hormones that chose him, and years later you may be wondering, "What was I thinking!?" How about your children? Nope, sorry, God sends you what you deserve - it's called pay back time.

But friends! Here, we get to choose. So is it any wonder that these relationships can be some of the most rewarding of all?

With your friends, you can share things that you wouldn't dream of sharing with your parents, spouse, or children.

I think there is a reason "relationship" books and movies are so popular. We need them, they feed our soul. Sex in the City didn't make it as huge as is it did, because of the sex part of that title -- well, maybe a little. It was the relationship between the women that really made the show what it was. Through fights, boyfriends, babies -- they were there for each other. No topic was off limit as they sat in their favorite coffee shop every morning. And we loved to listen in to their wacky conversations.

Not long ago, I realized, something was missing from my life. Once I became a mother, I had little time for anything else in my life, and that sadly included time to spend with friends. My days were devoted to my kids. My nights to my novels. What ever time I had left went to my family and husband. Pretty close to perfect, I thought, so I couldn't understand why I felt I needed more. Couldn't even pinpoint what that more could be. Until I just happened to attend a woman's group one day as a way to meet Latina women and introduce them to my books. This group was so wonderfully alive and eclectic that I wanted to see them again and again. Then it hit me that I rarely made time to see my friends anymore, and it was them I was missing.

Today, I still cringe when someone suggests doing something on a weeknight, because it's when I work. But, occasionally, I'll put everything aside to spend time with friends, and I'm always glad I did. I also devote Friday nights to seeing friends, going to book clubs, and basically spending time with women who mean something special to me.

I don't know if it's like this for you, but every group of friends brings something different and important into your life. My writing friends understand why I'd want to spend hours alone creating characters that only exist in my mind. My friends who home school don't think I'm insane to give up my career, my money, and all my free time to educate my own kids. Friends from my childhood share a part of my past that we return to when we get together. And so on.

So, this blog is a huge thank you to all my friends. I wouldn't be who I am without you! I cherish what you all bring to my life and hope I somehow bring something to yours.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one” C.S. Lewis (novelist)

Enjoy your weekend AND your friends!

Julia

Natural Talent

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I'm facinated by true talent. Some of my favorite Oprah episodes are when she has young kids with special talents. When we visit Vegas, I'm happy to leave my husband and mother in a casino while I find an art gallery to stroll through, because it's so inspiring to me to be surrounded by so much talent.

So when my niece emailed me this YouTube video called Drawing Heaven, I LOVED it.



I was so amazed this kid could paint such gorgeous paintings. Wow! Where ever her talent comes from, it's an incredible gift.

Since I believe we all have our own special talents, I hope you all get to spend some time exploring yours this weekend!!

See you next week!

Julia

Pens and Paper Don't Crash

Technology. Who wants to live without it? Is there anything better than TiVo, GPS devices, cell phones, and computers? Really, sometimes it's hard to imagine life without these things.

But sometimes these things are more frustrating than they're worth. My GPS, which I LOVE occasionally decides to take me on these nice scenic drives for no reason that I can figure. Other times it tells me to make a turn or get off a freeway exit at the very last second forcing me to swerve into a lane. I can tell from the hand signals I get that other drivers don't appreciate my sudden moves either.

But my biggest love/hate relationship is with my computer. This week, I lost an entire novel. One second I'm working on a book, and the next my computer shuts off, because my new battery is apparently defective and when it says I have over 60% power, I actually have zero. This caused my writing program to decide to dump all my work and save nothing. Unless you're a writer, it's really impossible to explain the feeling of seeing your story disappear. But you suddenly feel like screaming, vomiting, crying, and dying at the same time.

I have to say, I did have a back up of this story from a month ago. Which is better than nothing, but since it's impossible to reproduce everything written since then, it's still devastating. However, being stubborn and refusing to believe the story was actually gone, I searched everywhere on my computer that might have a hidden copy. And amazingly, I found that my writing software made a timed back-up last Sunday.

I'm no longer Catholic, but still, I had to thank God and every saint, and angel I'd ever heard about in church.

Now, I remember actually typing on a typewriter when I was first contemplating being a writer back in my teens. I won't lie, it sort of sucked. You made a mistake, you had to use white-out or this paper strip that you typed over and it magically erased your mistake. But if you wanted to move a sentence around or add details to your work, forget it. You had to type the page over again. Maybe writers were better back then or more careful with their first drafts, but I can't imagine having to type and retype pages and pages of work. But the advantage with that system was that you NEVER lost your work. Once it was on paper, it was there on your desk forever.

Sometimes with all the digital stuff floating around, I feel like nothing is real. I don't really own music, it's somewhere out in iTunes cyberspace. Same with movies. And novels are next with the Kindle and other ebook readers. There's nothing real or tangible.

Still . . . I do love technology and wouldn't trade it for the way it was "before". But sometimes . . . I think it was less stressful then. No one texting you all the time and finding you even when you don't want to be found. No lost novels. And being able to blame the husband when you get lost, instead of listening to him cuss at the GPS lady. Ah, the good ole days : )

Now, off to continue with that novel -- the one I'm backing up four or five or maybe even six times!

Julia

Dead Fish and Rainbows

No matter where I go or what I'm doing, I try to learn something that will help me in my life. So, during my recent three weeks in Florida, I had three goals. The first was to meet with some readers and bookstores to promote EVENINGS AT THE ARGENTINE CLUB and I'm happy to say that I met this goal and had a great time doing it. Every book store I stopped at carried my book and Florida booksellers were enthusiastic about having books signed and happy to have book marks to distribute.

My second goal was to carve out writing time. This one is always tough when family members are in the same hotel room, but I got a little time to work in the early mornings or late evenings.

My third goal was part of my larger year-long commitment to relax, de-stress and try to enjoy today rather than letting my mind try to juggle 125 things that will be coming up in the next week or two. I did this by starting out my days with a quiet early morning walk on the beach.

On my first day, as I hurried along the shore trying to get the day's walk "in", I noticed all kinds of dead fish, clam shell-looking creatures, and sea trash littering the shore. Something must have happened to wash all this sea life onto the beach. I thought it was bizarre, but what did I know? Maybe it was a regular thing on this beach along the Gulf of Mexico. Later I brought my kids out to see what I'd found. They thought it was both gross and cool to try to figure out what kind of fish they were seeing while carving RIP beside the fish. Besides the kids, the sea gulls were loving life as they gorged themselves. The dead fish didn't seem so bad after seeing it through their eyes.

In the days the followed, I realized that fish washing up on shore was actually not a normal occurance. In fact, in the next two weeks, I never again saw this happen. Each day I'd see something knew. One day I saw hundreds of crabs in their shells washed up, and my kids and I spent my walking time tossing them back into the water. Another day I saw dolphins playing in the distance, another day all kinds of sea gulls and yellow beaked birds with black mohoks and pelicans seemed to have invaded the beach. I started to look forward to getting up to see what I'd see on the beach that day.

The last day I went out was cool and breezy. It had rained hard the night before, but I wanted to enjoy one last walk on the beach before I got on my plane home. As I strolled slowly trying to find my daughter a sand dollar, I looked up and saw the most amazing 180 degree rainbow. With no buildings or mountains like we have here in California to block it, the rainbow stretched out from the water to the beach hotels. I'd never seen such a long, beautiful, bright rainbow, and I was sorry I didn't have my camera to capture it.

As I made my way back to my hotel I thought it was interesting that the first day when I was uptight and stressed with a list of things I wanted to accomplish while in Florida I saw dead fish; and the last day when I was relaxed and happy and looking forward to returning home, I saw a rainbow.

Not that this was a deep lesson for me, but it served as good reminder that every day brings something different and I have to remember to be open to the good and bad that comes my way. Some days will be dead fish days and some days will be rainbow days - LOL. And really, what's wrong with dead fish days? It takes a little more time to appreciate them, but every day is here to teach us something new.

For me, since I'm totally anal and expect everything to turn out perfectly all the time, this was a good, very concrete and visual reminder that the rainbow is on it's way -- even if it comes at the very end of a vacation.

Julia