Tag Archives: Granny Skewers A Scoundrel

Another Cozy Series In The Works!

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NEW COZYI have been dragging my feet writing the first book in my new cozy series that I am developing. I tried to figure out what my problem was. I anguished over the fact that I was stuck until I realized the problem was me.

I love Hermiony Vidalia Criony Fiddlestadt and her cast of characters in the Fuchsia Minnesota Series. I am familiar with their quirks, I hurt when they hurt, and I am scared when they are scared. I am deeply entwined with their lives and the community of Fuchsia Minnesota. This series will live on but  while I am writing book five in the Fuchsia Series I felt the need to start something new.

I decided my new series had to take place in one of the fictional towns that is mentioned in my Fuchsia Series. The first chapter came easily and then…..and then…..I halted. It is hard starting a new series with new characters and new problems. My new series could not follow the path of the other series. I wasn’t yet invested in the characters or the community.

I had a plan and I mapped the formula for my mystery in my mind. But these characters and the town of Brilliant, yes Brilliant, were foreign to me no matter how much I plotted and planned.

Usually I start writing without the basics drawn out and mapped on pen and paper and I let my writing and my imagination take me away without second thought. This time I found my mind always reverting back to Fuchsia and at one point I called my new character Jezabelle – Granny. I became frustrated with myself.

I decided to join this year’s NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month where you commit to writing a novel in a month. I forced myself to sit down on the first of the month with my new series on my computer and I  started writing

I am now up to chapter fourteen and I am loving my characters finally coming to life. I am falling in love with my new characters and chuckling at their antics. Creating the community of Brilliant also is bringing new life to me. When I dream of the Intelligent Icicle Factory, The Creamy Cow, The Brilliant Bistro and other businesses my characters are frequenting along with  the Catniption Barkley Clinic, I hope the characters are leading the way to a wacky mystery.

Oh, and my mystery does have a connection to Fuchsia. The name is up in the air. I am sure the Brilliant Series will have brilliant name as soon as my characters decide what it will be. Stay tuned.

 

Leaving a Legacy of Faith

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1https://www.flickr.com/photos/pictoquotes/I don’t usually blog about my faith. I don’t think I wear it on my sleeve and there are moments when I don’t feel I am a good example of my faith so I don’t broadcast it. But today I am going to write about faith, not mine, but the examples I have had in my life.

Recently I lost four people, one as recent as last night, who have been a shining examples in my life. They didn’t shout it to the rooftops but they quietly influenced others in the way we should live our lives.

I wrote my column earlier this week on three of them, but last night God needed another angel in heaven.  His name was Gerald.

I first met Gerald when I was Sunday School superintendent many years ago. He taught for almost as many years as I had been alive. That might be an exaggeration but not by much. He cared about the kids, took them on many trips to the Boundary Waters to experience God’s creation and interacted with everyone young and old in our congregation. His sense of humor made us all smile. He was a fixture, always there, not preaching but leading and being a friend to all.  I never heard him say an unkind word to anyone and I always remember him having a smile on his face. He inspired all of us in his quiet way to treat people kindly.

When I heard of my friend’s death last night I thought about these four people who influenced my life and I wondered; will our younger generation have examples of faith as I have had? In this world it seems we may have lost our way and the examples we have make up  the reality of our times. We seek examples in other places besides the quiet people we know that live their lives walking beside us as an example of how we should treat other people. Will our younger people look back at the age I am and see the quiet influence of those in our life who have walked the walk and talked the talk of faith?

I share my column to honor my other three friends too.

Here’s my column. from the Albert Lea Tribune the week of October 26.

There are people in our lives who influence us in a silent way when we are with them. They make us laugh. They make us think. They help us experience life in a different way through the way they live their lives. It is so silent we don’t realize the impact they have on us, but when we walk away from spending time with them or talking with them on the phone or messaging with them on Facebook we are better people for interacting with them.

This week my heart is sad, but yet it is filled with hope. In the past few weeks there have been three people in my life who have left this earth and left their legacy behind. One I have known since I was teenager; his name was Dave. Another I met in the past 20 years because her parents were good friends of ours, and she became a good friend, too. Her name was Shannon. The third was an author friend, a Facebook friend, and touched my life from afar even though I never met her but spent time messaging and chatting with her on Facebook. Her name was Joyce.

Dave touched my life when I was teenager. I remember at that time thinking that he and his wife had the love story we always hope for when we get married. It didn’t mean there would not be tough times but love would conquer all. I was reminded as I sat listening to his family at the funeral that Dave always had a smile for everyone, always made the person he was talking to feel special and always let his family and friends know what they meant to him in his life. He touched my life in ways I did not realize until he was gone. His faith inspires me even after he has left this earth. I will remember it always.

Shannon battled ovarian cancer for 12 1/2 years. All the while she was going through her journey with this disease she took care of her family, she ran her business and she did it with a smile, a sense of humor, hope in her heart and she saw beauty in every day and she shared that beauty with all of us. She was courageous and beautiful inside and out. She believed in the goodness of God’s love, and she shared that faith with her family and friends on a daily basis. She loved us, and she was deeply loved and she will continue to inspire us the rest of the days of our life.

Joyce LaVene and her husband, Jim, are the authors of over 60 books in the mystery genre. The books are whimsical, fun and mysterious. Joyce died suddenly, and the writing world mourns her death. I can’t tell you exactly when Joyce entered my life. The first time I became aware that she was in my life she had shared some of my posts and my tweets. Soon we messaged, and I found out she had lived in Minnesota at one time. We had something in common. She became a regular part of my online life and I looked forward each day to sharing tweets and was always surprised when she promoted my books because in my eyes she is famous. Joyce was generous and kind with all her author friends and her readers. She took time to know us, to help us, and she made us feel we were special part of her life. I will miss her sparkling personality and our connection.

As I contemplate the sadness I feel at losing these people I also feel blessed for their presence in my life. We take those in our life for granted. Each one of these people touched my life, inspire me to be a better person and left me a legacy of hope that I inspire others the same way these three people inspired me. They shaped part of my life silently by their example.

I realize I have written lately about death, but in death there is life. The way we live our lives influences those around us without us knowing it.

These people weren’t saints. These people had their flaws as we all do, but they were genuinely beautiful people inside and out. It doesn’t mean they didn’t get mad, didn’t hurt and didn’t vent their frustrations because they were human. What they left for us was how to handle those moments with grace, dignity and love. They knew how to make others feel special. They knew the importance of giving of themselves to help others. They didn’t set out trying to be an example, and I don’t think they thought of themselves as examples, but unknowingly they touched my life.

A recent conversation with a woman who was a child when I was a teenager reminded me actions are remembered. One day she wanted to tag along with me and my teenage friends. We weren’t so kind that day and I feel ashamed thinking of it. I remembered it and so did she 50 years later. I apologized. It took me 50 years to do it. The way I treated someone 50 years ago still lived in the memory of the person I was unkind to 50 years later.

I think of what I say to people on a daily basis. I think of how I interact with those I love. I am not always kind. I am not always patient. Would I be ashamed of what my last words would be to the person I am speaking to if something happened to me or to them? Another conversation I had a year or so ago with a friend reminds me of that.  The last words remembered by this friend coming from the person who now was deceased, were angry cutting words directed towards my friend.

I feel blessed to have known these three people who inspired me to try to live my life better in the future. May you rest in peace, Dave, Shannon and Joyce. Thank you for the memories.

Funeral Directors and Pastors Need Hugs Too.

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Something About Nothing by Julie Seedorf

Published in the Albert Lea Tribune and Courier Sentinel week of Oct. 19.

Living in a small community, everyone knows what you are doing, sometimes before you know what you are doing yourself. That is not necessarily a bad problem to have. It also means in times of crisis the people of the community bond together to support each other.

Recently our community has experienced many deaths in a short span of time. Some were expected and others have knocked us to our knees. We grieve, we share memories and we attend funerals to show respect for those who died and to support their families.

We turn to the same places for help during this difficult time: our pastors and our funeral directors. We forgot our loved ones are also their friends. The pastors and the funeral directors are burying their friends too.

Time after time when we walk into the funeral home we are greeted by the funeral directors kind faces as they reach out with a kind word or a hug to make us feel better. In my community we have been blessed to first have the Heitner’s, then the Brusses and now the Nasinecs taking care of us when we experience the death of a family member or a loved one.

We have had other funeral homes in my community, but the ones mentioned above are those I have had personal experience with.

Maynard Heitner helped my children understand what happens during a funeral and to a loved one when they die. My 4-year-old daughter made the comment after meeting with Maynard, “My grandpa’s going to have a new body when he’s up in heaven.” I asked her how she knew that and she said, “Because he’s with God.” She learned this from Maynard. During his years as funeral director, he lost his best friends, and he buried all of them. And yet as he grieved, he made others feel better.

The Brusses, Stan and Kathy, were no exception. They too handled everything for a family to make our time of mourning easier. They grieved right along with us as they carried out the service they provided while hiding what they might be feeling for the sake of the families,  adding touches that made the families’ experience easier.

These past weeks in my small community we have experienced many funerals. The Nasinec family handles funerals in the same caring tradition and service as the former owners. In a quiet moment I caught the funeral director trying to hide the tears. Yes, funeral directors grieve too, and in the midst of all the care for the families we forget that funeral directors need hugs and encouragement and care so they don’t burn out and fall into the abyss of sadness. All funeral directors need to be remembered for the heart they have and the dedication they have putting their feelings aside for all of us.

Pastors too, bury their friends. They listen to our problems, they help us find solutions and they keep their feelings under wrap to help us. But they, too, grieve right along with us but like funeral directors they put their feelings aside for us.

I dedicate this column to funeral directors and pastors who help us through a difficult time in our life. Consider this my hug and my thank you. You make our lives better, you make our lives easier and we are thankful for all of you  past and present in our lives.

Give your funeral director and pastor a hug today. You never can have too many hugs to keep you going.