Friday 5, Back Again

1. I love library book sales. And by that, I mean I get excited weeks ahead and make sure I have some child-free time to go, because I love my little ones, but when I’m serious about buying books, I can’t have arms and legs pulling on me saying they need to go to the potty or really want something to eat. Here’s my haul from today.

A few notes: Y’all, Agatha Christie writes really enjoyable mysteries! Colleen Coble and Julie Cantrell are both published by my publisher and I’ve been wanting to read them for a while. Patti Callahan Henry was basically the person responsible for me finding my publisher, so she’s pretty important. Pat Conroy is Pat Conroy, and his latest, “The Death of Santini” is about the death of his father. I read Mark Childress’s Crazy in Alabama back in high school but I don’t remember it, so I’ll give it another shot. I read his “One Mississippi” last year and really liked it.

2. We’ve been in a month-long bout with a variety of illnesses in our house. (This is a lot of the reason why it’s been almost a month since posting a Friday 5.) Walking pneumonia–>chest colds–>fever virus–>stomach “thing” (which may have stemmed from a pizza and not a virus, but still)–>more colds. Hopefully we’re on the upswing, but let’s just say our last month has consisted of lots of antibiotics (all four of us, for different reasons), Motrin (for the kids) and Nyquil (for Matt. It makes him sleep like a log, but it makes me wide awake all night. Figured that one out the hard way.)

3. I met with a lovely friend who will be designing my website! She’s Sara Beth Cobb and she is such a talented designer. I am extremely un-techy and I don’t even have a desire to learn how to be more techy. I knew if I just tried to wing it and make my own website, it would be a disaster. She is going to make something beautiful, because everything she makes is beautiful! And I, and my books, will have a more permanent corner of the internet. It’s very exciting, but a little scary too–I’m making space for these books and this “career” that so far isn’t anything more than 306 pages in a Word doc! (Plus a little over 100 pages of something that will one day resemble another actual book. Right now, it’s called Hurricane Season.)

4. My mom will be ringing a bell tomorrow morning. This bell signifies that she has FINISHED CHEMOTHERAPY! It’s a huge thing for her and our family. I have lots of feelings about this, and I just wrote about it this week for my April column in the Homewood Star. I’ll post it here when it comes out. Bottom line is even when you get the one thing you really want, the thing that will make everything perfect, fear can snake its way in and try to steal your joy. It can take everything in you to fight back, but we have to fight it.

5. This is who I hang with on Friday mornings.

(Wednesday mornings too, but Natalie doesn’t make us pose for pics after class!) John makes us do things we didn’t think we could do, like “pop-up surfers” and “superman crunches.” All I know is it makes me really sore but it also kind of make me feel awesome.

Have a great weekend and enjoy this beautiful springy weather!