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Showing posts from March, 2020

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland, Hallo USA!

Mostly, people asked me, "Why are you/ did you come to Germany?" But once someone asked, "Why did God call you to Germany?" I value honesty, so the first question was very hard to answer at first. I didn't really know why I was going, and after I'd come I really didn't know why I had gone. But I didn't allow the questions to simply annoy me and roll off my back. Every time I was asked, I searched deeper into my soul. Why had I come, and what did I want out of this trip? I knew it from the very start, and yet I didn't fully understand the answer until weeks before I left Germany. It was the last that bothered me the most, though. Because of my inability to answer the first, and because I knew God hadn't called me to Germany, but rather that I simply wanted to go, that last question forced me to wrestle with a more difficult question, "Is it wrong for me to do something out of my own desire if God hadn't asked something else of

Handgemacht in Deutschland (All The Things I've Made in Germany)

Wool yarn I bought from a little German store and took with me to the Black Forest.  When I came to Germany I planned on being so busy doing who-knows-what, but probably taking care of children, that I figured I would have little time for actually making things. Even so, I took a huge project with me that I've been meaning to do since I was fourteen or fifteen: a rayon scarf with a dragon embroidered on it. I also brought along my fifth and last quilt strip. Two huge projects that I hoped to have time to finish.  Turns out, I finished both of them easily along with many other things. WARNING: I tried to not use too many pictures ... but that was impossible.  Project number one was technically my embroidered scarf, but I made many things in between of working on that. Somehow, when I came to Germany I forgot to bring a stocking hat with me. So, naturally, I bought some yarn and knitted one on my way to the Black Forest with my first Au Pair family.  Actually ...

No Pressure: A Salty and Maybe Slightly Sassy Spiel

DISCLAIMER: Not my image You dare me to do it; I say nope. 🤨  You say that’s how it’s done; I show you how it’s REALLY done. 😅  No options? I can come up with twenty plans hundreds of times more ingenious. 🧐  I refuse to do or believe anything "just because".  Dead or alive, I like doing my thing. 🤩  Or maybe I’m just super anti-social and don’t care what the party wants? 🙁  Rebel or rude or right?  I like thinking before doing, and then doing, too 😉 Just not the same sort of doing as you would do 😆  Tradition or fashion; I don’t care. Why should I? There’s no growth in being the same. There’s no fun in never knowing why others are the same.  It’s not about why I don’t care; I’m asking why you don’t care about what I care about?  It’s a matter of opinion until it comes to this ... and in this, I say all that matters is my opinion.  My way or the highway ... I’ve chosen BOT H.  Life is more than sentiment; it’s living

Conversational Interview With Melissa Little

I'm not really sure how Melissa and I became friends. Beginnings are often abstract and fuzzy for me, and so that something that didn't exist before feels suddenly as if it always has. I do know it started mostly on her side, though. She beta read some of my books and fangirled over every line in such a flattering way that I couldn't help loving her. Then she became enthralled with some of my beliefs. After that, I would often see a message from her, "So what do you think about ..." and the question was of the nature that sometimes I'd have to think about it for a while before replying properly.  Because of her abundance of questions, she asked if she might interview me for her blog. Of course, I said yes. But then she saw that I also love to interview people. "Why not do a double interview?" she suggested.  I loved that idea.  Here you can find part one of our double interview  over at her blog . Some of it got quite deep and angsty, as

Why I Wrote Susan Of Narnia

The first draft of "Susan of Narnia" I was first introduced to the world of Narnia when I was about eleven years old, through the BBC movie, " Prince Caspian" . I hated that movie so much. In fact, I don't remember ever hating a movie in such an irrational way before or after the BBC " Prince Caspian". I didn't hate the movie because of the poor quality. Back then, I was the sort of child that liked a movie no matter how poorly made. And today I actually quite like all of BBC's Narnia movies. No, to be fair, my hatred had nothing to do with the movie at all.  I hated the movie because my routine had been broken.  You see, Mom was away visiting a friend and she was rarely away. Dad and my Uncle Caleb were home taking care of my siblings and me, and they were doing a poor job of it. The house was chaos, my brain hurt from watching too many movies, and the food wasn't all that good. To top it all, we ended a horrible day with