Snowy Day

 

Snowy Day

 

It’s a beautiful snowy day here in Texas. A rare day of white beauty. To me this brings joy, coffee, a lit fireplace and reading. White snow, like having a clean slate. On this snowy day, I thought I would write to you on my clean piece of computer screen.

I was thinking the other day about writing and how it came to be my passion later in my life. I’ve always felt that people and certain events come into our lives in God’s time. People come in and out of our lives. Some people come into our lives for only a moment and some last a lifetime. Some come to enhance our lives and others come to teach us a lesson. With my thoughts pure and white right now, I’m wondering why I come into other’s lives. I hope it is to bring pure joy. Life is so short; I don’t enjoy being wound up and miserable. This is one of the most rewarding reasons I am enjoying being a writer at this point in my life. I’m able to write funny, precious stories for little ones. I love seeing their reaction while being read my book or hearing one of my stories.

It’s funny, when I began my teaching career at age 22, I was paid 18,000 dollars a year. That’s scary to think how low of an income that was. You have to remember this was 1984. (Go ahead and do the math, yes, I’m 58. Ha-ha) But my point is, I didn’t get into teaching for the money. The same has to be said for being an author. Unless your name is JK Rowling or Nicholas Sparks, you’re probably not making too much. I was talking to this guy on Instagram the other day who has almost 600K followers because of the keto meals he shares. He has a new book out through Amazon and he is barely making anything. Once again, I’m reminded why I didn’t go with Amazon. They truly bring the author down to making only about a dollar a book. It’s sad. I’m very happy with my decision to self publish. The book is mine from the thoughts in my head till it’s in a child’s hands.

Luckily, I’m not in this biz for the money. I’m here to bring joy to children, which in turn brings joy to me.

They sky is blue and the ground is white. The house is warm and my dogs are by my side. More snow is forecasted for the week here in Texas and we have plenty of supplies. I’m looking forward to writing more stories this week for rosy checked children who are currently playing out in the snow.

Funny snow story. Back a few years ago my family traveled to Nebraska to visit my sister and her family. There was a huge blizzard that was cutting its way through the middle of America, just the location we were driving. Hundreds of cars had spun off the roads and were in ditches all along Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. I really thought we were doing ok until we started seeing the snow drifts. We were about a quarter of a mile from my sister’s house when we had to stop the car because a drift taller than our car spread across the road.

My wonderful brother-in-law came to rescue us from the car and another neighbor came along with his tractor and plowed off the road so we could move our car. My brother-in-law gave us a ride to the house in the bucket of tractor. It was cold but fun.

The next day, we all decided to play out in the snow with the kids. Drifts 10-15 feet high made for incredible sledding fun for the kids. My brother-in-law offered rides to the kids in the bucket of the tractor, which they gladly accepted. The looks on their faces were priceless. 

Then he asked if my sister and I wanted a ride.

Cautiously we padded the bucket with blankets and climbed in with a stern warning that we did not want the bucket to go up and down like he had done with the kids. It was fabulous. My sister and I huddled together, giggling in the snow. Then suddenly, the bucket lifted about an inch and my sister and I flung out. Face down in the snow, we both scrambled out of the way as the tractor kept coming. The kids were screaming “They’re down! They’re down!” He screeched to a halt and everyone came running to rescue us from the snow. After we calmed down, he promised he wouldn’t lift the bucket.  Hahaha. We carefully got back in and enjoyed the rest of our ride. And, we didn’t have to do the dishes the rest of the week.

We have laughed and laughed and teased my brother-in-law for years over the famous tractor ride. I still have the tennis shoes with a tractor print on the side. (He doesn’t believe me.) I think I’ll pull them out on our next visit together. 

Peace and stay warm my friends,

Lisa