From the Mouths of Wee Ones - The Big Hair Edition

My husband and I teach the CTR4 class at church every Sunday. This is the 4-turning-5 age group. We've been only doing it for about a month now, but I've decided I might need to document some of the things they say.

Yesterday, we had finished the lesson and all the activities for the day, and we had about two minutes to spare before parents came to pick them up. Sometimes we draw silly pictures on the chalkboard and let the children verbally guide us.

I drew a big flower on the chalkboard. They began yelling ideas: "BIG eyes!"

So I drew big eyes.

The next kid wanted the flower to have HUGE arms. So, I gave that flower the biggest arms and hands the chalkboard could support.

Next, BIG feet off of the feet already there. They wanted as many feet as possible.

"BIG HAIR!" one yelled.

"Big hair?" I asked, making sure I understood correctly.

"Yes, BIG HAIR!" he responded excitedly.

That's when the cute little blonde child on the other side of the room yelled, "Yeah! BIG like yours!" And laughter erupted. And the one laughing the most was my dear husband.

Awesome.

My hubby then gave the kid a high-five and told him he did a good job.

I'm surprised they all didn't fist-bump in celebration.

I wonder if this is how those four year olds see me:

In Writing, You Must Kill All Your Darlings

Before anyone freaks out over the title, know that it's a quote from William Faulkner. And it's true, by the way. Killing your darlings doesn't necessarily mean killing off the characters you love the most. I think it means killing off sections, sentences, and words that you love but that don't fit right or that distract from the purpose of your writing. It's hard to do, but it's necessary. Enough with the mini-lesson.

In November, I wrote my first novel. Well, I wrote the first draft, which is nowhere near ready for the eyes of anyone else. I basically haven't touched my novel since I finished it. I've had other projects I was working on, and those projects took all of my free time. But now I have my free time back, and that's both exciting and a little intimidating because I know what I need to do in my free time. I need to take my novel back out and start step two, which is the hardest step, in my opinion--Revision.

I tried to revise my novel a week or two ago, but it was a little tedious to scroll through 168 pages on my computer to find what chapters need to go where, so I decided to print it out at Staples so I can manually arrange it. And let me tell you; it was one of the most beautiful things I've seen.

Seeing the thickness of that stack of papers made me feel all giddy. I know; I'm strange. But it's hard to visualize how much you've written until you see it all printed out.

And now my novel has taken residence on my floor, organized into chapters. Today starts the process of killing my darlings and making a better story in the end.

A Look Back at 2012

I can't believe another year has already passed by me. It went way too quickly and I feel as though I haven't been able to catch my breath since last year, 2011. Even though it went by in a whirl, I know some pretty amazing things happened to me in 2012, but there was also tragic things. And I've come to realize that both parts are necessary. It's true what they say--you can't appreciate the good times if you don't experience the bad times. No matter if what happened to me over the last year were good or bad, one thing's for sure: most of them were life-changing.

January - This was my first month actually teaching a course for Rio Salado. I had one class and maybe three students, but I loved it. And I've loved it since. I can't believe it's been a year since I first started teaching college courses. The thought still makes me giddy sometimes.

March - I was featured on the New York Times' blog under "This Week's Best" for one of my articles I wrote. It is and was a fantastic recognition, and it's such an honor! If you want to see for yourself, visit the blog here and scroll to the second to last paragraph. And there's my name. :)

April - I visited the doctor a lot and had many tests done. We found out that my remaining tube was completely blocked, and if they tried to fix it, it would likely cause more damage. This is when we found out we'd never have biological children. Our world shattered that day. And we're still trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces. I found the below picture recently, and I think this is a spot-on visual representation of how infertility and pregnancy loss feels, at least for me.

June - Jose and I hit our 2-year anniversary mark. Because of everything we've been through recently, it feels as though we've been married a lot longer than that. But at the same time, I know 2 years isn't a long time to be together.

September - We bought a brand new car! It's a Kia Sorento, and it's just lovely. We're very happy with the purchase.It looks just like this picture, but without the rails on top of the car.

October - My little sister, Missy, got married. All of my family--except my brother--was able to come here to Arizona to celebrate with her. It had been a year since I saw my family, and it was just what I needed.

This was also the month that I was asked to write a magazine writing course for Rio Salado. It's a huge opportunity. As overwhelming as it is, I know it will be good for me and it may open many more doors in the future.

November - This year I participated in National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write an entire novel, totaling at least 50,000 words, in thirty days. I've always been overwhelmed with the thought of writing a novel, as I usually stick to short stories and children's books, but it is something I've always wanted to do. It was a rough month and some days were much better than others, but I did it! I wrote my novel! Because of other projects I'm working, I haven't been able to get back to it so I can revise and edit it, but I should be able to in just a few months, once the course I'm writing for Rio Salado is complete.

December - I know it's not a big deal, but I wanted to share anyway. One of my articles I wrote is used as a reference on the Wikipedia page for Starbucks. The article was about Starbucks' new vending machines they were testing out, and someone used it as a citation and reference. Awesome! Go here and then scroll down to reference #81. I think this might classify me as famous. ;)

With the close of this year, I look forward to 2013. Who knows what it has in store for me.