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career, creative life, Life, Memories, Parenting, self love, Special Needs, Uncategorized, Writing

Thoughtful Thursday …

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I was talking with a friend the other day and he got me thinking.

We were at a celebration for my parents’ 50th anniversary..

… and he was saying how he made a hard decision for himself as a teen.. and as a result?

… met some really great people.

One of those “people” being my little brother.

… and in a domino effect ?

There he was ((years later)) celebrating along side our family.

A blessing to all of us … because he made a hard decision to make HIS life better.

While I finished cleaning up after the party..

…a party to celebrate two people being married for 50 years.

50 years of marriage.. and decisions… and celebrating… and comforting each other… and compromise…

I could not help but think about how many of those decisions caused the domino effect that led to how we see our family now?

.. and how many times do we NOT make decisions because they are too hard?

How many times did someone not go out on a limb because it was a little too scary?

How would those decisions have changed what we see?

How many decisions did I fail to make…? … that changed how my life looks?

Parenting involves so many decisions.. but parenting kiddos with special needs (medical/educational/ social)??

Those decisions seem so much more …. Weighted.

Knowing that someone else’s life will be affected by the ripples of that decision?

I remember making decisions through tears…

… and I remember NOT making decisions.. with those same tears..

Decisions can be hard…

I remember when we finally decided that understanding history and science weren’t as important as feeling independent…

Making decisions FOR our family …

… and in the process?

We have met some really great people along the way.

But the hardest decisions for me to make are the ones for me…

It’s easy to scrimp and save to spend money on a loved one…

… but for me to ask someone to scrimp and save for me ?

((Gulp))

A few years ago… I started booking events to promote my books.

It was hard..

It costs money to book a spot at an art fair .. or author expo …

.. and it costs time away from family where you have to get someone to cover your responsibilities…

It costs … and it was really hard for me.

But I met a really great group of fellow authors… and fellow literary professionals… that have encouraged me to keep going…

Exactly where I needed to be … when I needed to be there…

What about you?

What are you thoughtful about today?

Are you weighing decisions and their effects?

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2021, Autism, covid diaries, creative life, Life, Memories, Parenting, photography, self love, Special Needs, Writing

Collecting leaves…

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This time of year has always been a reflective time for me.

With all the leaves falling and changing colors? I stop to think about the year so far.

Some of the leaves falling are bright colored and fascinating. Others fall already dark and dull.

Some of leaves fall right next to the roots of the tree .. and some travel quite a ways.

Sometimes those leaves can be pretty messy.. and not fun to clean up. But I cannot help but be thankful for the trees anyway.

The bright colored leaves are fun to collect. I’ve often thought about making a collection of them. But then I always toss them back into the wind.

In many way, the memories from this year are like those leaves. Some of them shine with bright colors and bring a smile to my face.

Some of them?

Some are darker moments.. and take a lot more time to process .. They are still part of my year but not the memories I want to dwell on.

But today?

Today, as I watched a brightly shining leaf fall on a dried up dull one…?

I wondered… would that leaf look so bright…?

… if it hadn’t just fallen after the darker one?

As I picked up the bright red leaf…

I remembered the moment I put my feet in the grass for the first time… after I had been too sick and too weak to do so for weeks.

That grass.. that ordinary grass… looked like the most amazing of God’s creations to me .. in that moment.

But would it have looked as amazing to me? If I hadn’t struggled to get down the stairs? If I hadn’t needed to carry an oxygen tank to get that far?

No. The grass would have looked ordinary to me.. without the dull colored leaf to compare it to.

This November, I am going to post my thankful posts. But they may look a little different. I’m going to be thankful 2021 style.

I am going to collect those brightest colored leaves before they blow away… and maybe a few dull colored ones while I am at it.

2021, covid, covid diaries, creative life, Global, Life, Memories, Parenting, photography, Writing

On my Father’s floor..

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When I was a little girl, if I wanted to talk to my dad alone.. I knew I could usually find him in his garage. His garage was well used, so it was a little dirty .. and a little oily… and usually had someone’s car parked in it.

I can still smell it. Like old motor oil combined with the damp… and the smell of the trees blowing in from the open door.

I would walk right in… and sit on the floor of my Dad’s garage.

And I was never more content.

Why was I on the floor?

Because my dad was usually under the car… fixing it… and it was easier to talk to him from down there on the floor.

And talk I did .. from what I remember. But I also remember sitting in silence while he worked.

While I sat there, my dad occasionally asked me to hand him a tool. Sometimes I guessed the tool correctly.. but occasionally he would hold the tool I handed him for a moment… and then ask me for the tool he needed again. That time he would describe it to me.

So patient.

And I’d try again.

Sometimes more than once.

For me.. that memory is what my prayer space feels like.

A garage? …you ask…

Why not the image of a church.. or a sunny meadow…? Or a flower garden?

For me?

While sitting on my dad’s floor… I felt loved, and safe… and heard.

The same way I feel when I pray.

This last year has been a difficult one for me.

So much anger in this world… so much injustice… so much sadness…

… and some of my favorite people getting sick…

I have always told people that I won’t sit and wait for a storm to pass… I’ll find a way to dance in the rain…

… but this last year…?

This year I have found myself sitting on the floor of my Father’s garage..

…talking to God while He works on the world.

I’ve found myself bringing my prayers to Him.. like a child. Bringing my disappointments and sadness …

… sometimes I just sit in silence… letting His love seep into me…

.. and occasionally God asks me to help Him..

.. sometimes I do a good job of guessing what is needed.. but sometimes I need to listen a second .. or even third time before I am success at using my gifts for what He intended.

Especially this year… it feels like it is so hard to use the gifts I have been given.

.. writing..

.. encouraging..

.. all of gifts… left in that tool box ..

But as I sit in the quiet.. on the floor with my Father?

Once again I feel loved and safe and heard..

And His peace fills me..

So that when I pick myself up off that floor…

I am ready to dance in the rain again..

covid diaries, Life, Memories

Losing that covid feeling..

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… that covid moment…

My dad used to tell me, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.. but you’ll be surprised what you can live through.”

I held onto that thought when I was lying in a hospital .. 5 weeks ago… concentrating on each controlled deep breath…

Controlled… because the instinct to panic and gasp for more air was strong.. but wouldn’t help …

Deep breaths … because keeping my lungs as open as possible would be the difference between a ventilator.. or keep the oxygen “nose leash”…

I will remember that moment for a long time…

… that moment …

… not scared… but respecting the gravity of the illness that I had…

… not panicking… but focusing on each breath in its entirety… like there was nothing else in the world…

… not wanting to leave my kids without a mom yet… but knowing that it was a possibility…

… and trusting… knowing that God had my situation in His hands… in His plans …

… so I thought about that saying my dad would say … I’d be surprised what I could live through… as I felt the ability to breath on my own get smaller and smaller…

And smiled…

That moment was my covid moment.. filled with that Covid feeling … Being so weak in body.. and fading.. but so filled with faith in God’s plan.. and filled with love from my Earthly family… that I took one more deep breath … and then another…

…. and I was able to keep breathing with JUST the help of that oxygen “nose leash”….

Now.. I know you all see me joke about the oxygen “nose leash” as my son affectionately named it.. that’s because laughter is the best medicine…

oxygen “nose leash” mess…

… I won’t lie.. sometimes that “nose leash” is the source of so much frustration.. The puppies get tangled up in it… it gets caught under something … and it pulls my face back.. or at the very least makes me stop in my tracks and fix the “trap”…

… not to mention that I’m limited to 50 feet from my machine… unless I hook up a tank that I have to pull or carry…

… but I’m still so thankful for the “nose leash” .. because the alternative? A ventilator… in the hospital wasn’t as appealing…

… or worse yet .. now that I’m home… if I didn’t have the oxygen.. I wouldn’t be able to walk to the kitchen to get my own coffee … or do any simple activity without getting short of breath.

This Covid thing isn’t limited to breathing though…

It was obvious things.. like coughing up red “junk”… the swollen neck… abdominal swelling .. leg swelling… the horrible headaches… the heart pounding… the massive bloody noses.. the face swelling….

… but I learned later.. there are the “not so obvious” Covid things too… the short term memory issues… the loss of being able to sign my name… learning to walk without a walker again… keeping my blood sugar above 70 … learning how to be less active … how to ask others to do things for me…

… you’d be surprised what you can live through…

Slowly, my family is losing that Covid feeling…

… the worry that mom will go back to the hospital… my son worried to let me out of his sight… my daughter exhausted from being “the mom” to us all… everyone too exhausted to do much beyond eating and surviving…

But I never want to lose all of the Covid feeling… I hope I keep the joy in the little things…

… the love I feel when I remember the things my parents taught me…

… baby steps

… the happiness I get from little notes tucked into much needed food delivered to the hospital…

… the way my cup overflows with the generosity of friends and their front porch drop offs…

… the joy of being able to go home… even with “oxygen nose leashes”…

… being content surrounded by my little family…

… the feel of grass beneath my feet

… the accomplishment of walking to the chicken coop with a portable oxygen leash

… wearing jeans for the first time in a month…

Being able to see the baby steps of healing as blessings during the storm… means the storm didn’t win…

… so for me?

I don’t want to lose all of that Covid feeling…

.. and I will no longer be surprised what I can live through.

Joy is fun Snapchats with my family…
covid diaries, Life, Writing

Covid diaries day 6

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All year I heard people say Covid is just a cold…

I’ve have Covid now for 6 days…


I’ve had 3 episodes of 105 temperature… where the shivering is so violent that I thought my bones would break.
I cough up so much solid red junk from my lungs that I can’t move afterwards.

On day 3, I went to the ER for X-rays and CT scans… where I was diagnosed with Covid pneumonia.. I was scheduled immediately for antibody infusions….

…and on day 4… when I couldn’t keep my oxygen above 88… my husband took me to the ER again and dropped me off at the door.

After countless labs and scans… The ER had to call 5 hospitals before they found a hospital an hour away that had ROOM to admit me…

I usually walk 2-4 miles a day in my life…


Today?

Today… I still can’t walk to the bathroom to pee withOUT shaking violently and having to have extra oxygen for the movement.
I almost hyperventilate when I change positions of any type. And then it takes me 20-30 mins to recover.

They found blood clotting factors in my blood work so I’m on blood thinners… and my glucose numbers are abnormally high. I don’t have problems with diabetes…

The headaches and fevers have subsided with the addition treatments… finally

…but my lungs will have a long road to recovery… and that depends on how tomorrow goes.. they say day 6 is pivotal for if you get better .. or worse.

But for me… I think about my kids at home… going through the same illness… doing breathing treatments and monitoring oxygen levels and heart rates… knowing that God has us all in His hands… in His plans…

I’m trusting in Him as I have always done.

But I am so glad that I spent the last year of my life protecting them and the people around me.. from this COVID… This “definitely NOT a cold” virus…

Stay safe out there. And God Bless

Life, Memories, Parenting, Writing

Empty chairs…

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This theatre season, my cast worked through enormous obstacles to perform Les Miserables.

And then .. on opening night?

Covid-19 starting shutting down all assembling of groups.

So 10 weeks of hard work.. and the kids were only allowed to perform for their families. The cast was heartbroken… but they wiped their tears… and performed an awe-inspiring opening night.

I could NOT have been more proud.

For me?

This experience is a little surreal…

Surreal in the sense that everything was so different from where we were 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago, I was reminding the kids to hang up their costumes and to clean up their own messes.. and to turn in tee shirt money.

And today… I am JUST praying that each of my cast members stays safe and healthy..

And alive…

But it is also surreal for me in the sense… that ALL of my life I have been studying Plagues and epidemics .. and pandemics. The Black Death.. the Spanish flu (that started in The US)… siege sicknesses, the viruses that wiped out the Natives, etc..

Not so much for the illnesses or the deaths… because death and suffering saddens me…

…but how those illnesses.. and the fear… and the chaos affected the people. And how those effects changed the course of history.

How poor people could suddenly own land…

…How our children still sing “Ring around the rosies”.. to ward off evil spirits…

And here we are… smack in the middle of what WILL BECOME history. Someday, kids will be studying about the Covid-19 pandemic of 2019.. and wonder how the “population coped with the terror” and the isolation..

I wonder if the history books will tell how we had a shortage of toilet paper… and no shortage of the conspiracy theories?

Or will the future history books say that the “population” learned from the history books of the past? Will the history books state how we all chose to obey isolation and quarantined ourselves at home?

Will the history books say how we banded together to give each other hope for a future?

Because we WILL have a future.

Even the worst plagues… the survivors dusted off their hats.. picked up the pieces of their lives.. and made a future for themselves.

And little by little?

We learned from them. From the survivors. We learned to wash our hands. We learned to quarantine ourselves if we have been exposed. We learned not to panic.. and not to take the virus to the next town in our panic.

We HAVE so much knowledge at our fingertips THANKS to the records and observations kept of those pandemics in history.

Because we have learned from our history? We find ourselves in quarantine BEFORE it gets too bad. We find ourselves bored and creating funny memes about isolation “cabin fever”.. while we wait for the virus to run it’s course.

But … we will ALSO find ourselves with a better future.

A future that MAY hold graduations later in the summer. A future with delayed vacations.. delayed celebrations ..

A future with strange new school routines.

A future that has changed us all in small ways…

For me? I’m praying that my future has our cast performing Les Miserables when the crisis is over.

And I’m praying that when we hear Marius sing about empty chairs and empty tables… that there are no empty chairs in our community..

I’m praying there are no empty chairs in our cast…

And I’m definitely praying that we did our part enough.. that I won’t have ANY empty chairs in my family.

But even if we never hear our cast sing a song rejoicing in “one day more”… ?

I’m happy that our nation and our schools gave them their best chance at being able to sing another day.

Stay safe everyone! And God be with you!

Autism, Life, Special Needs, Writing

Clouds..

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I am fascinated by sunrises and sunsets… as are a lot of people. I take pictures of them frequently.. trying to capture their beauty on my phone.

Trying…

I never quite succeed.

But over the years I have found that the most beautiful light displays.. are (usually) the ones with clouds.

I know .. I know..

Cloudy days usually represent .. rainy days.. and gloom.. and sadness…

..but…

Without clouds.. would we see our sunny days quite so clearly?

Without hard times and struggles.. would be see our Blessings as beautifully?

Or would be just learn to take them for granted..

Would sunrises with no clouds.. become so mundane … that we forget to wake early just to watch with wonder?

Hmmm..

A life without clouds.. without tears.. without strife or hard times sounds inviting…

But for me?

The morning after a 3 day migraine.. the morning after helping my son through a long ordeal… the morning after dealing with conflict…

I am filled with hope for the future.. conviction that I will make the most of every moment…

.. and the sunrise never looked so bright.

So I will take my sunrises with clouds.. or without…

… and I’ll keep trying to capture their beauty on my cell phone …

Life, Parenting, Special Needs, Writing

…selfish…

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When we go to camp with my family? Chances are some small animal will be captured within the first day..

That animal?

Whether it’s a frog or a toad.. a snake.. or once even a lizard… That poor animal will be handled from one kid to the next.. making each kid enormously happy.. and making the animal enormously stressed.

Fortunately most animals take the stress well and just learn to carry on.. and well? .. I’m sure they will hide better when they hear the pitter-patter of little feet.

In some ways I know how the toad in this photo feels…

I love to make people happy.. especially my family .. especially the little ones. So by taking the little Blessings in my life for fun rides.. walks.. to make sand castles… to hunt for small defenseless animals … and to make snacks.. ? Tell stories around the campfire…?

It feels good.. I love to see them happy. In fact?

In fact it seems selfish of me NOT to do little things to make them happy.. It seems so selfish not to use my time to make the lives of other people better and happier places. So I have always avoided being selfish..

And I am always happy with my choices..

But at times?

At times I think I know how that toad feels.. over handled.. tired.. desperately in need of a shower..

Just recently I have been learning that there is a difference between being selfish with your time..

…and taking time to care for yourself..

You see.. if I have to choose between doing something for my kids and doing something for myself..? I will pick my kids.. and squeeze reading for pleasure in between bedtime and 1 am.

But I often do too much .. for too many people.. and I just end up feeling tired.. and overhandled.. just like the toad..

Last weekend we went camping for the last time this summer. As everyone planned a kayak trip down river, my niece came to ask me if I wanted to go.

In the past? I would always Loan my kayak to someone else.. because after all..

it IS my kayak.. I could use it another time.

As I started to offer it to someone else, my niece scolded me. And said frankly.. ” You KNOW you want to go kayaking.”

You know what?

I really DID want to go kayaking.

So I loaded up my kayak.. and we went kayaking..

This was the laziest, slowest kayak trip I have ever been on.. I got to take 300 pictures (no exaggeration there).. my nieces and nephew decided on trying to kayak the “gondola” way.. we got stuck a few times..

We got a little sunburned as our 1 hour trip turned in to 2 hours.. or 3…

We laughed.. we sang songs (loudly and beautifully)… we counted how many times the gondolas tipped over… and we let the peace flow into our souls..

What about you? What have you done lately to take care of yourself?

**No animals were hurt in the making of this blog…

Writing

Answers…

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Recently.. I launched my book, Shadows, into the world. To make it a momentous occasion, some friends of mine helped me host a book signing. I made sure I had books available to purchase.. I made sure I had pens to personally sign each book… We made coffee and cookies… And I decided I would give a brief talk.. followed by a question and answer opportunity. To prepare myself, I asked my Facebook friends and family what questions they would ask me. Things that they were curious to know. I used these questions at the launching… and I was asked many more.

After the Book Launching day passed.. I received messages from people who wished they could have come hear me speak. I understand this feeling. Life is so busy that it is impossible to do everything we would like to do. But in this one instance? In this instance, I can share a few of the questions (and answers) I talked about…

Here are a few of the most frequently asked…

#1.  Is Shadows a continuation of your blog site?

Short answer… No!

Long answer… My blog site is made up of short stories from my life. Simply put.. it’s non-fiction.  My thoughts, my memories, my sorrows, my hardships.. from the real life of Jules Nelson.  Shadows is my first published work of fiction. It is about the thoughts, memories, sorrows and hardships of a fictional young lady named Emma Fern Wells. And while many people enjoy reading about the lives of both, they are NOT one and the same.

#2. What made you want to write a book?

Short answer … I am a writer. It is nice to put the works of my brain on paper.

Long answer… As long as I can remember, I have always wanted to write a book.  Ever since I was a little girl, I have made up characters and mapped out their stories. Where ever I was, my mind would slip into my writer’s world. Whether I was folding laundry.. or washing dishes.. or raking leaves.. or vacuuming.. or sweeping… my mind would be a million miles away.. Sometimes hundreds of years away. Wondering how a young lady would do the same task 100 years earlier. OR wondering if a young lady would have been allowed to do that task…  YES.. you can imagine that my mother was annoyed with me on more than one occasion… Everything I did was done to perfection.. but it took FOREVER.  When I was old enough to write things down.. I did.. I often filled notebooks full of stories.  My first stories just rambled.. weaving and wobbling along with no particular direction. By my teen years, I had gotten the hang of sticking to a plot.

#3.  If you have been writing since childhood.. why did it take you so long to complete a novel?

Short answer… Life.

Long answer… Life during high school and college is so busy.. and packed full of activities.. there was NO time to write. I kept my usual journal for awhile… but that too fell by the wayside after a few years. Then I met my wonderful husband.. and had my 2 amazing kids. These 3 people consumed my life for a time. When my son was diagnosed with Autism, all my research went into learning new therapies and new concepts. Even when life was at its busiest, I never stopped making up stories. I would develop characters and tell adventures with them to my daughter. Make up new endings to terrible movies. But until recently? Until my husband’s job brought our family home to Michigan, my life was not simple enough for me to write a book.

#4. What inspired you to write Shadows?

Short answer… Hmm.. there isn’t one.

Long answer… I love History. Not the type of history that you learn in the classroom.. not all the dates and facts.. But history ITSELF. The clothes they wore in a certain time period.. What those particular clothes said about a person… How you could often tell what class a person was in by the clothes they wore… How they cooked… What they ate…

Whenever I learn something new, I try to tie it back to something I already knew. For instance, wagon trains were going on before and after the civil war. These were NOT two separate time periods .. but one and the same.  So to head off to join the war? They traveled for WEEKS by wagon or horseback to meet up with the army.

There are photographs of the soldiers during the civil war. A strange mixture of primitive conditions. Pictures of living in tents and cooking over fires. Pictures of women washing the officer’s clothes. The more I thought about the photos… the more I thought about how SOME of these soldiers could have been on a wagon train. How none of the scenes in these pictures would have been unusual for them. They would have slept in tents.. and cooked over fires.. and washed clothes in any creek they could find. The more I thought about the soldiers.. the more I thought about the wives they left behind..

And then I decided that SOMEONE should write their story.. the story of the wives left behind to do the job of pioneer woman and man both.. left behind to do it all alone, in most cases. And I decided that I could do it.

#5. When did you know you would write Shadows?

Short answer.. As soon as I developed Emma’s character… and had a dream about her.

Long answer… Shadows is actually the prequel to the story I want to write about the civil war wives. The more I developed the character of Emma.. the young mother who will be left behind.. the more I longed to tell her story from the beginning. When I had a dream about the person she would have been? I woke up with the firm decision that I would start with Emma…. that I would write Shadows before I wrote Ashes… I would write where she came from.. who she was… write about how God shaped her character..

#6. Do you plan to write another book soon?

Short answer… Yes.

Long answer… I am already writing the next book. Shadows is the first of 3 books that follow Emma’s life. The next book.. the ONE that I am currently working on… will follow Emma’s first year of marriage (no spoilers here.. so I won’t tell you who she marries). I am hoping to have this second book, Road Home, finished by Spring 2015. The third book will follow Emma as the Civil War breaks out. When her young husband leaves her behind to take care of their growing family and the farm.

#7. Where do you find ideas for your books?

Short answer… Everywhere..

Long answer… Everywhere… Research… ballads… undeveloped characters in other novels… phrases in songs that leave you thinking.. photographs… pretty much anywhere…

#8. What is the most important aspects of writing?

Short answer… Details… and editing.

Long answer… Details!  Lots of details.. If I can explain my story the way I see it in my mind? If I can describe my characters so that you can “see” them as you read? If I can do that? Well, then you won’t want to put my pages down. That is when my story becomes a book.  AND THEN? And then I edit to make sure my words say EXACTLY what I want them to say. Nothing slows down a reader more than typing errors.. or words used in the wrong context.(I know this because I love to read.) So details and editing.

#9. How much (if any) does Shadows reflect your life experiences? 

Short answer… A little…

Long answer… Emma’s faith is similar to mine. Unwavering and simple. I trust the Lord to provide for my needs.. and so does Emma. Emma has brothers.. and so do I. Brothers who are protective, supportive and loving.. Other than that? Other than that, Shadows reflects my life long pursuit of knowledge and everything history.

#10. What was your most life changing experience about writing this book (Shadows)?

Short answer.. Peace.

Long answer… Writing this book was exciting and fun… and fulfilling. But the most life changing experience would be the peace I feel. Writing is what I was meant to do.. and it feels so good to be doing it.

I hope you all have read Shadows.. and I hope you really enjoyed it.

Keep the questions coming.. but for now…

I need to get back to writing…