Writing to Share

Over the past couple of years, I've written more and more, but shared less and less of it here, on my blog. I'm not sure why that is.

I write in my journal on my laptop when my fingers need to fly to keep up with my thoughts. I write in cursive with an inky pen, stream-of-consciousness style in my large black "morning pages" notebook. I write out slower, more meditative thoughts, prayers, and lists in my moleskine journal. I brainstorm, calendar, plan, and vision for my life in my big blue bullet journal. And, occasionally, some of it ends up here but the vast majority of my writing stays tucked away. I'm mostly satisfied with this.

My laptop, morning pages journal, moleskine journal, bullet journal, and the crowning glory, my "keep clam" bag filled with inky, colorful pens.

But, I do miss sharing my writing frequently here, more than once or twice a month. I find satisfaction in refining something I wrote, sharing it with you, and sometimes hearing how it caused you to laugh or to think or to try something new. Art of all types is meant to be shared.

So, during the month of April, I’m going to post about ten times. Most of it will be old writings I've dug up. Some of it might be new. Some of it might just be pictures or quotes. Who knows!

I will count this as post #1.

Things I Learned This "Cool" Season

I live in a tropical climate, so instead of summer, fall, winter, and spring, we have hot season, rainy season, and cool (aka not-quite-so-hot) season. Here are a few things I learned this cool season:

My daughters love to hear stories. When they get cranky or start fighting in the backseat of the car (which, these days, seems to be almost every time we drive) the moment they hear "Once upon a time..." they listen up and all fighting/whining stops. It's magical.

Poetry doesn't have to be fancy. One of my favorite singer/songwriters of all time published a book of poetry. So much of it is simple and lovely and understandable on the first read. He inspired me to write this.

There is a car called the S-Cargo and it looks like a snail. (get it? S-Cargo = escargot) It probably looks out of place everywhere, but it looked really out of place when I saw it driving the streets of Bangkok last month.

Source

If you order something off Lazada (the Amazon.com of Thailand) that costs $2.50 or more, you get free shipping. That's just 7% of Amazon's minimum order amount for free shipping. Someday when we live in the US again, I'm going to have a heart attack from sticker shock.

My two year old is way girlier than me. Most days, she will not leave the house without putting on, at minimum, a polka-dot hat. Many days, she puts on the whole sha-bang pictured below. I love it!

Ear infections hurt like the dickens. And they can make you temporarily deaf. Learned this one from personal experience.

I can enjoy a Thai drama without subtitles. I don't catch anywhere near every word, but I can follow the plot. Learning a foreign language is hard, and Thai is especially hard, so I celebrate every victory, including this one!

There is a resort a few hours drive from here that's designed to look like the Shire. And you get to stay in a hobbit hole. Sleeping in a hobbit hole in the Shire is now on my bucket list.

You can get strawberries in Thailand! And right now it's strawberry season! And they're delicious and cheap! I am obsessed with the tropical fruit found here, but it sure is nice to bite into a good old strawberry.

5 Best Reads of 2015

The New York Times and Goodreads have published their lists of the top books of the year. Now let me add my little list of personal favorites to the interwebs. Of the dozens of books I read in 2015, here are the five that I enjoyed the most.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
I not so secretly want to be a small farmer who uses poop for fertilizer, raises chickens, and cans all her own food, so every year or so, I read a big, crunchy book about raising your own food. Barbara Kingsolver, author of The Poisonwood Bible, writes about a year of living off the land with her family of four. From everything you ever wanted to know about asparagus at the beginning to turkey sex at the end, this NYTimes bestselling memoir is cover to cover interesting!

Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Auggie, a super smart 5th grader with severe facial abnormalities, has been homeschooled his whole life when his parents enroll him in a mainstream middle school for the first time -- an environment that is usually not kind to kids who are different. The author jumps around between different characters' points of view to tell this fictional story of Auggie's school year. It is a really quick, easy, fun read and the central message of kindness, although a little beat over the head, seems very relevant these days. And it's a #1 NYTimes Bestseller.

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
Putting this book on a list of "reads" is misleading. The Artist's Way is more than just a book. It is an international, bestselling 12-week course replete with exercises designed to help people discover, uncover, and unblock their creativity. It is a lot of work and a lot of fun, and it changed the way I view and approach art and got me creating like crazy.

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
This book makes my list because it's just so darn creative. The Crossover is a fictional story about family, illness, and basketball written from the perspective of a black, middle school kid. Every chapter is a poem or verse. (If you're thinking sonatas, you're way off. If you're thinking rap or spoken word you're onto the writing style). The Crossover won both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Award in 2015.

Soul Keeping by John Ortberg
In this book, John Ortberg delves into what the soul is and how to best care for this crucial yet fragile part of us through practices like gratitude, slowing, and silence. Much of the content is based off of a decades long mentor/mentee relationship between Dallas Willard and John Ortberg. Ortberg takes Willard's thoughts that are often as hard to digest as concrete and makes them super sticky and digestible.