Another day

I took the day off from the blog yesterday so we could thoroughly celebrate Christopher Columbus Day in our traditional manner. We gathered as a family and made maps recreating the route Columbus most likely traveled on his way to discover the New World using all-natural materials we gathered on an early morning nature walk. And then we finished the evening with our individual interpretations of games that might have been played on the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria when they weren’t busy battling scurvy.

Or maybe we just went to the large outdoor mall and took advantage of the all the sales going on in honor of Columbus’s brave voyage across the ocean and then ate leftover taco soup for dinner.

I can’t really remember.

On a related note, I’d like to think there was a moment in their treacherous voyage when they felt all might be lost and Columbus stood on the deck of the Pinta (or maybe the Santa Maria) and said, “My fellow travelers, take heart. If we survive this adventure we will be immortalized forever by future generations of this new country who will take a moment on the second Monday each October to buy sheets and towels at up to 50% off. Now everyone head to the Lido Deck for some shuffleboard.”

Except he probably would have said all that in Spanish.

If I cared about authenticity or knew how to write anything in Spanish beyond “El burro es un animal de Mexico” I would write the real version.

Anyway, this weekend was a first for me. P took Caroline to the ranch with him for the whole entire weekend. Like they left on Friday around noon and didn’t get home until Sunday evening at 6:30 p.m. Honestly, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Caroline had me put flowers in her hair before she left for the ranch because she wanted to make sure she looked pretty in the pictures after she shot a hog. Boys are never going to be able to figure her out. And that’s fine with me.

I spent most of Friday afternoon shopping for a friend and then Gulley came over for what we like to call “wine time” on Friday night. We solved at least 62% of the world’s problems. Sadly we cannot help you with the remaining 38% although we are always willing to make something up.

On Saturday morning I slept until the crack of 9:30 after staying up way too late watching School of Rock the night before. I don’t know why it always sucks me in, but it does. I blame Jack Black.

I was debating what to do with my day of freedom when Gulley called to tell me she’d gotten the thumbs up to go shopping with me. And so we ventured out to the mall in search of fall clothes for Gulley. Which felt like the perfect way to celebrate the spirit of Columbus. The mall was packed and confirmed my belief that malls should really be avoided on the weekends, but we did find a few cute things.

And then I went over to Gulley’s to watch the Aggie game because I enjoy her company and also because she’d made pulled pork for dinner. There were a few moments when I worried that the pulled pork might be the best part of the evening, but I am relieved to say the Aggies pulled out it and we beat tech. Hallelujah and amen.

I made my way home around ten and was still wide awake. Which is how I ended up discovering the show Army Wives on Netflix. Y’all. I’m now a little obsessed with it. I’d nearly started watching it about six months ago but when I said something about it to Gulley she mentioned that Nena watched it and I didn’t really take that as a ringing endorsement.

But late Saturday night I watched the first episode. And then the second episode. And I am officially hooked.

Sunday morning I woke up to the sound of driving rain and rolled over in the knowledge that God loves me. There are few things in life I adore more than a rainy morning when I don’t have anywhere to be and, since we’ve been in the midst of a record-breaking drought, I can’t remember the last time that happened.

It was delightful.

I spent the rest of Sunday trying to get some writing done. Or maybe I spent it watching episodes of Army Wives. It’s all a vague memory now. But I am going to be so sad if something happens to Roxy’s husband. Please don’t tell me if you already know.

And then before I knew it, my people were pulling up in the driveway. They were sleepy, dirty, and smelled of gunpowder and hogs but I’ve never been more glad to see them. Especially after they both had a shower.

We all sat on the couch and spent the rest of the night catching up on all the weekend adventures. And I’ve never felt more grateful for Christopher Columbus. Because without him we might be living in Spain. Which would be really hard because I don’t speak Spanish.

Except for the thing about the burro and how often does that come up?

You know what I did yesterday?

Absolutely nothing interesting.

I walked Caroline to school and planned to stay for my weekly battle with the Xerox machine, but her teacher was out sick and therefore there were no copies to be made. Dang. Just as I’d almost mastered the one sided copy to two sided copy maneuver.

So instead I had to go for a run. Because, yes, I’m back on my Couch to 5k program. This has officially been the longest trip from the couch to a 5k in history. Frankly, I don’t even care about the 5K part of the equation anymore, but I’ve forgotten how to run without that annoying voice in my ear saying, “RUN NOW”.

After I got home I spent the rest of the day trying to catch up on email and thinking about how much my floors need to be mopped. Of course I didn’t do anything about it, but just thinking about it made me feel better.

And then I ran to Whole Earth to look for a pair of sensible shoes and realized sensible seems intrinsically linked to ugly. If I’m wrong, please tell me. My feet would be so grateful.

The good news is I ended up with a cute pair of socks so I have that going for me.

(This blog has just hit a level I always feared it would. I just told you I bought socks.)

(I am so sorry.)

But, wait, I have a topic for discussion today besides socks and sensible shoes.

Caroline came home from school on Thursday and announced that her teacher had put up a word cemetery in the classroom. And she put a few words in the cemetery that the class is no longer allowed to use when they write their papers.

Here’s the list so far:

Awesome
Cool
Good

And it’s made me think about words that I’d like to put in the word cemetery. More importantly, I want to know what words you’d like to see buried.

I say we start with “ointment”. And maybe throw in “relevant” for good measure because oh my word at the overuse.

How about you?

Y’all.

Seriously.

I woke up yesterday morning and checked the email. And then I checked the Twitter. Then I began to read your incredibly sweet comments and cried about forty-six different times. I don’t know when I’ve ever experienced such a complete outpouring of love and kindness and it made me want to write Al Gore a letter and thank him for inventing the internet.

By mid-morning the blog actually crashed. That’s unprecedented. At least for those reasons. It’s crashed because I’ve done something stupid in my WordPress dashboard, but it’s never crashed from sheer volume.

So, yes, I spent most of the morning reading comments and wiping my tears and thinking about Ephesians 3:20. And then I did what Ernest Hemingway most likely did after he announced his first book deal and scrubbed the toilets in both of our bathrooms and cleaned bird poop off our back door. Clearly it was day one of my glamorous new life.

Okay, so here are a few more quick details and then I’m going to quit talking about it. Basically I have discovered that writing a book is similar to giving birth to an elephant. Not that I’ve ever given birth to an elephant but I think I read somewhere that they gestate for like two years. I am very likely wrong about the specifics. But the bottom line is that elephants are pregnant for a very long time and by the time they deliver their bouncing baby elephant they can’t even remember how the whole thing happened in the first place except that it involved wine and romantic music.

Which doesn’t sound all that different from humans.

Anyway, I don’t know much right now except that my final manuscript (the official word for the whole book that I’m supposed to write) is due on April 1, 2012. And then I think it goes through a bunch of editing and typesetting and other -ings that I don’t know about yet. Finally, I will deliver a healthy baby book sometime in early 2013. I think.

I could be wrong about that. Just like I’m wrong about the elephant pregnancy.

Did I mention I scrubbed my toilets today and may be suffering ill effects from the fumes?

So what I’m saying is it won’t be available to give to your friends and loved ones for Christmas. But I promise I will keep you posted on all the critical dates and you’ll be the first to know when you can pre-order it and all that business.

I just hope real bookstores are still in business by the time it comes out because I’d really like to see it on actual shelves. Plus, Gulley has promised me she’ll go to every store in town and make sure it’s positioned front and center on the tables right inside the front door. After all, what are best friends for if not willing to get thrown out of Barnes and Nobles by security?

And I just have to say thank you again for yesterday. In between all the tears, I couldn’t quit smiling. It will go down as one of my favorite days.

Y’all are the best.

Okay, so I have some news.

And it’s news that I’ve been wanting to share for about the last six months but haven’t been able to for a variety of reasons, many of which involve my fear of putting myself out there and facing potential rejection.

But first I’m going to tell you the shortest version I can manage of the whole story. If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you know this would be a good time to get comfortable, maybe grab a pillow and some caffeine. Because, MY WORD, at the wordiness. Especially when I’m trying to find all the right words.

Three years ago (Do you see now why you might want a pillow? You’re probably thinking CUT TO THE CHASE, NANCY.) I went to a conference called She Speaks. The official reason I went was to teach a little course on blogging, which in and of itself is hilarious, but when Lysa Terkeurst invited me she mentioned it might be a great chance to put together a book proposal and meet with some literary agent/publisher type people. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole thing and had no idea how to translate my unique ability to write about nothing into some type of book format, but I decided I’d give it a whirl and came up with a proposal.

While I was there I met with an agent named Bill Jensen and liked him immediately. He promised to look over my proposal and said he’d try to get back to me in a few weeks. Then I met with a publisher who let me know she wasn’t interested. AT ALL.

Thank you. I will just go curl up in the fetal position and cry now.

And so I decided to let the whole book thing go. Until several months later when I received an email from Bill Jensen asking if I wanted to talk to him on the phone. So we talked. And then we talked some more. And then I kind of freaked out and felt overwhelmed by the whole thing and sent him what I hoped was a very nice email thanking him for his time but explaining that I was slightly neurotic and completely incapable of thinking about writing a book.

I’m a blogger. I blog. That’s what I do. And it allows me to talk about the kind of chips I bought at the grocery store and the cute shirt I found on sale at Anthropologie and I think we all know that Jane Austen never wrote a book about any of those things.

Of course Jane Austen also wrote fiction and I don’t do fiction because I prefer real life. She also wore petticoats. And probably wore her hair in a bun.

But over the last three years, the book thing (as I refer to it) has been the thing that God has not allowed me to let go of. I’ve gone through months where I’ve hardly thought about it at all, but then have had other days where the weight of it sat on me so heavy that it was like I’d forgotten to do something really important, like pick Caroline up from school or record Rachel Zoe on the DVR.

It’s just been there. Hanging out there. Like a big matzo ball.

Then I went to the Deeper Still Conference in Birmingham last December (You should feel thankful that I just fast-forwarded you through three years of tears and agony and conflict. It’s been like an episode of Dynasty in my head.) and that Saturday night went to a Compassion Bloggers’ reunion dinner. I had the opportunity to meet Ann Voskamp in person for the first time. Ann and I talked for a few minutes and she was every bit as wonderful as I knew she would be and then she asked, “Whatever happened to that book you were going to write?”

Dang. Ann Voskamp just softly dropped a hammer on me and she had no idea.

It took everything in me not to just put my head in her lap and cry, but instead I think I said something eloquent like “I don’t know”. And then she encouraged me to write in the way that only Ann Voskamp can encourage you. I will be forever grateful to her for that.

So I began to pray about the book thing and around mid-January I just knew I was supposed to email Bill Jensen and ask if he still had any interest in working with me. And I kind of told God that if I didn’t hear from Bill then I was going to drop the whole thing. Because, yes, I’m in charge.

Two months later I hadn’t heard a word back from Bill and I began to wonder if I’d said something in my email to offend him. I searched my sent items folder for the email and quickly discovered I’d sent it to the wrong email address because I’m an idiot who can’t be trusted with responsibility. So I re-sent the email and, I KID YOU NOT, five minutes later I had an email from Bill in my inbox asking when I’d like to talk on the phone.

And I think God was up in heaven kind of laughing at me.

Over the next few months, Bill helped me put a book proposal together and answered all 82,132 questions I had about the entire process. I spent weeks upon weeks at Starbucks typing my little heart out until the smell of coffee began to make me feel like I might have a seizure.

But here’s the moment in the whole thing that I will never forget as long as I live. About a week before we sent out the proposal, Bill and I were talking on the phone. It was mid-August and Caroline was sitting in the back seat, waiting on me to finish my conversation so we could go into Subway and order some truly mediocre sandwiches.

After I hung up the phone I said, “Babe, thanks for being so patient. That was an important call about the book.”

“Mama?”

“What, sweetie?”

“It has taken you a really long time to write a book.”

Since I’m never one to miss a teachable moment outside of Subway, I replied “Yes it has. But you know what? Sometimes in life the things we have to wait on the longest or work the hardest for turn out to be the sweetest things in the end.”

And then she said something that I know was God speaking through her right to my heart.

“Mama? Sometimes we have to walk to our future even when it feels like we want to run.”

Dang. My own daughter. Where did that wisdom come from? Whose kid is that? Is that one of Ann Voskamp’s kids in my back seat?

It was all I could do to not break down and cry right then. Because it has been a journey and the book has been a dream I’ve had somewhere deep down for as long as I can remember.

The proposal went out about a week later and I held my breath and told myself it didn’t matter one way or the other, that I had done what I felt like God had called me to do and the rest was up to Him. Honestly, I half-expected that maybe someone would offer to let me pay them $10 to get it bound at Kinko’s and sell it out of their garage.

But that’s not what happened.

When I got home from the airport on Sunday afternoon, I saw that this had come in the mail while I was gone.

That’s my official contract from Tyndale House Publishers. They’re going to publish my first (last? only?) book tentatively titled Sparkly Green Earrings. It’s going to be a memoir-ish type book about family and God and motherhood.

And now I have until April 1, 2012 to finish writing it. Which means if you need to find me I’ll be the one in the corner chair at Starbucks hyperventilating and typing furiously.

I’m excited. I’m overwhelmed. And I’m a little scared. But I am beyond grateful for those of you who show up here every day and encourage me so much. I am not kidding even a little bit when I say that none of this would have happened without you.

Thank you.

Caroline just walked into the living room a few minutes ago, long after she should have been asleep, and said, “Mama? I need some advice. I’m trying to go to sleep and I just can’t.”

“Have you closed your eyes?”

“No.”

“Then that’s my advice. Close your eyes.”

Because what I wanted to tell her was that someday she will be forty years old and her hormones will take over and she won’t be able to sleep for reasons she can’t understand but certainly have nothing to do with not being tired. And then she’ll have to go to Whole Foods to buy some kind of ALL NATURAL sleep supplement that she heard about from a friend. Then while she’s there she might buy a big tub of pimento cheese because another friend told her that Whole Foods has delicious pimento cheese.

And that friend was RIGHT. The pimento cheese at Whole Foods is delicious.

The verdict is still out on the ALL NATURAL sleep supplement. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

So I spent my day yesterday playing catch up from being out of town. I volunteered at Caroline’s school which is a nice way of saying that I wrestled with the Xerox machine until I might have kicked it. I struggle with turning two pieces of paper into one two-sided piece of paper. Apparently a college education can teach you how to live on a steady diet of powdered Donettes and Dr. Pepper, but is totally useless when it comes to learning the ways of the copy machine.

After I left the school I had to run to CVS to get a passport photo taken because my passport expires in January. The guy at CVS led me to the middle of an aisle, pulled down a white screen from out of nowhere and then told me to stand in front of it while he took the photo. I regret to tell you that he took the picture right as I was asking, “WHERE?” Of course it seems fitting that my new passport photo will be every bit as horrid as my old passport photo. I’m comforting myself with the theory that there’s no reason that the Customs Department in any country needs to think I’m even remotely intelligent.

Then I had to drop something off at Fed Ex. And the UPS store. Finally, I had to go the U.S. Post Office. I never visit the post office that I don’t think “Man, this place is really efficient! I’d like for these government folks to be in charge of my health care!”

Basically I spent my day mailing things and shipping things and going to Whole Foods for pimento cheese. And also some chicken salad. And some Texas caviar because it all looked so good.

I realize this is fascinating.

After I picked Caroline up from school we came home and relaxed for a while. Apparently it was some kind of official Family Night so she didn’t have any homework. Which meant I didn’t have to drink any wine.

We met Mimi and Bops for some truly average Chinese food. I really don’t like Chinese food under the best of circumstances and I assure you this was not the best of circumstances. As evidenced by the fact that we had to order at the counter from a big light up menu. But they wanted to try something new and the company was good even if the food made me renew my vows to stay away from all things Kung Pao.

After I got Caroline in bed, but before she came out to ask for advice, I attempted to read the book I bought in the Houston airport. It’s called Cleopatra. I bought it because I read the rave reviews on the back and thought I might enjoy a book about ancient Egypt, if for no other reason than to learn just enough trivial information to throw out at all the cocktail parties I never go to. What I failed to notice was the large print on the back that read “BIOGRAPHY”. Which explains why I read the first thirty-five pages thinking it was the driest novel I’ve ever read and who cares that much about the Nile River?

You know who cares? People who read biographies.

And now I’m going to take my own advice and go get in bed and close my eyes.

Right after I take my new ALL NATURAL sleep supplement.