Well, that was fun
I am now sitting down to recover after giving my Golden Retriever, Lucy, a bath, or actually, a shower. Let's just say it didn't go very well. After she was clean enough, I was also dripping wet from head to toe because, of course, the shower is really not big enough for my gi-normous beheamoth dog. So, she hung out of the shower part way, getting the floor completely soaked. And then whenever I'd go to wash the part of her that actually fit in the shower, I would, of course, be leaning into the shower stream, so I'm a little damp too.

Normally, I let the groomer take care of our beloved pooch. But today it was an emergency. We had just gotten back from this lovely walk in the woods, and I was sitting to have a lovely cup of coffee while writing in my lovely journal.

Suddenly, I hear snuffling and snorting in the weeds behind the house. And there is Lucy, panting with that silly grin on her face saying, "look at the neat raccoon crap I just rubbed all over my head!"

So, 4 giant-sized towels later, our dog is mostly clean. At least smell-able.

The irony is that I had the shower stall in mind for bathing her instead of the bathtub because our son's allergist said we needed to wash the cats and dog frequently to cut down on the dander in the house. Okay, fine. So, he said, just walk your dog into the shower and spray her down. He made it sound oh-so easy.

We won't even talk about bathing the cats. That's not going to happen.

Scott and I were talking about the busy squirrels in the backyard last weekend, and how they rush and run around burying their acorns for the winter. Lucy gets really agitated whenever they enter her "domain." She walks in circles around the dining room table, whines, and generally makes sure one of us are looking at this terrible thing: a squirrel is trespassing. Scott said, Hey Lucy, leave the squirrel alone. At least he's working.

It really is true that she doesn't do too much work around the house, alhtough I thought of a couple of her various jobs, like eating the occasional bug so I don't have to flush it. And lately, she's become pretty adept at breaking up cat fights. I mean literal cat fights between our two cats. Other than that, she really is pretty lazy. Okay, she's also good at rubbing her head in raccoon crap (or whatever that nasty stuff was).

A Lutheran Question
This is something I've been wondering this week. Why did Martin Luther expand on the meaning of the Apostles' Creed instead of the Nicene Creed in the Small Catechism?

Poetry and Such
Cyberstones got me thinking more about poetry this morning. I say "more" about poetry because it's really always on my mind.

Lately, I've been working on a new children's book manuscript, and have been pondering all the things that rhyme with "-ing." Now you might say: Julie, there are a million words that rhyme with "-ing": following, saying, thinking, writing, flying, etc. And those are all gerunds; think of all the millions of others. And what about all the nouns? Anything, everything, nothing, etc.

But here's the problem, and this is why the poetry post over at Cyberstones got me thinking. The challenge of writing good verse (poetry that rhymes) is that the meter has to be perfect. So, say I want to rhyme the word "sting" with "anything." Well, if "sting" is an endrhyme, then it gets the emphasis, being a one-syllable word. But with almost any gerund, the stress is not on the "ing" but on the first syllable of the word, so then the meter gets thrown off.

The other consideration to keep in mind constantly is the number of syllables per line. For the piece I'm working on right now, I'm using a 4-line stanza with 7, 5, 7, 5 syllables per line. In order to make the rhyme work, make the meter work, and stay within the number of syllables per line, everything has to align perfectly.

That's why, as one who attempts to write poetry, I am always so in awe of Shakespeare or any of the great poets. The complexity of a sonnet, for example, is incredible. Complicated rhymes, very fussy meter, all sorts of crazy limits to syllables, etc. I mean it's like these poets like to see how many hoops they can force the English langugae through in order to get their thought out.

And that's what makes poetry great. And really, really hard to write well.

Birdies, Part Two
One problem with putting out birdseed in the yard is the fact that "extra" critters that are attracted to the seed other than birds, like rats (yuck), squirrels (cute), or raccoons.

After we moved here, I filled up our old bird feeder with seed and hung it out on a regular shepherd's hook in the backyard. The next morning, not only was every bit of bird seed gone, but the bird feeder was broken on the ground.

So I went to Wild Birds Unlimited to get some advice. They said my problem was definitely raccoons. We had lots of squirrels who liked our bird seed in Pittsburgh, but it always took them at least a few days to get through all the seed in the feeder, and in the meantime, birds got to snack too. But to have all the seed gone in one night? That wasn't going to work.

They recommended I get the pole system. Here's a link. I admit that it was a little pricey to get started. But what I got was a pole which I screwed into the ground. Then I added a raccoon baffle. This is a cylindrical type thing which goes around the pole which the raccoons (or squirrels for that matter) can't get around. Then, I got a new feeder to put at the top of the pole. It took awhile to attract the birds to the feeder, but now that they've learned I have some good cooking, we get all sorts.

It's funny to look at our pole now. There are all these muddy footprints under the raccoon baffle, but only birds can get past the baffle. So, it definitely works. The cool thing about the pole system, too, is that you can add extra hooks or "arms" to the pole, and have several feeders hanging from the one pole.

The photo above isn't incredibly great, but you can see my bird feeder on the top of the pole with the one arm and two other feeders. One is a suet feeder (which the woodpeckers like) and the other is the hummingbird feeder (which I should take down because the hummingbirds are all gone now). And of course, that's Lucy our dog on the porch. It looks like she's eating a stick or getting into some other kind of mischief.

Birdies, Birdies Everywhere!
I really like birds. Well, I should qualify that. I like birds when they're outdoors. Indoor birds freak me out. But outdoor birds I like. That's why I recently got a pole set-up thing from Wild Birds Unlimited. We now have a regular bird feeder, two hummingbird feeders, a suet feeder, and a finch feeder. Two of these were gifts from my dear friend Shirley Ubinger.

When we first moved, I set out the feeder with my sunflower seed and it took FOREVER for the birds to show up. Finally, about six weeks later, the first birds came to visit. I would almost hyperventilate with excitement when they came to my feeder.

We have so far identified these birds: the Tufted Titmouse, the Downy Woodpecker (he likes the suet), sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, Grackles, Mourning Dove, Black-capped Chickadee, and of course robins and crows. I REALLY almost hyperventilated when hummingbirds came to my kitchen window to drink from my hummingbird feeder. They are so fast and skittish that I couldn't move whenever they showed up. But I haven't seen any the last couple of weeks, so they're probably somewhere warmer by now.

Here's kind of a cool site on identifying birds.

I think partly I like birds a lot because they remind me of Jesus' comments about birds in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6. They truly do not store or set things by, but the heavenly Father cares for them. Every meal is provided. Here is a cool sermon by Pr. Petersen on that topic.

Yes, I still exist...
So, after moving four weeks ago, I am finally sitting down to update my blog (which is still in its messed up state on Internet Explorer--sorry about that--if anyone has any ideas of how to fix it, please let me know).

We are now living in the lovely (but rainy) state of Indiana where my dog adores the sliding glass door. She sits there all day watching the squirrels roam up and down the trees in the back yard. Also have some tiny hummingbirds coming to my window to my new birdfeeder which I love (thank you Shirley).

We are slowly getting settled in our new home, but still dealing with frustrations and challenges that come with moving a household to a new state.

Tomorrow our furniture is getting delivered. We finally bought new bedroom furniture after 16plus years of marriage. The other furniture now will occupy the guest room.

Then on Wednesday, I'm going to re-take the driver's test. Yes, I said retake, but I will say nothing more about that subject--except that I now know how many days a driver with a probationary license has to wait before he/she can have another passenger in the car who isn't an adult. Indiana has some goofy laws about drivers knowing dumb facts like that in their driver's manual. So...I am going to the BMV on Wednesday to PASS my written exam and get my driver's license.

More updates to come...

Journals, Poetry, and Pens
So today I put the last post in my journal, which I've used since last December. I normally fill up a journal in about three months, so either I didn't write as much in the first part of 06 or this journal is just bigger than other ones I get. It's always a mixed bag to finish a journal. In a way, it is gratifying because it reminds me that I am writing regularly, and adding to my journal ideas for stories, along with the thoughts of everyday life. It's also a little sad because once I set aside a journal, I sometimes forget some of the ideas and move on to other things--but the great thing is I can always go back and use the ideas some other day.

I encourage everyone to keep a journal--even if you don't consider yourself a writer. I always find that writing out things I'm thinking for my eyes only really helps me to think through decisions, solidify ideas, etc. My agent gave me this beautiful journal and bookmark from Italy, and that's the next one I'm going to start tonight.

While I'm at it, I might as well give a plug for the best journal-writing pen on the planet. It is a Pilot Precise V5, extra fine in black. The best! I read that Pres. Bush really likes Sharpie pens. I like those too, but not for journal writing.

Yesterday I found at our local library a new book called Writing Metrical Poetry by William Baer. It is awesome. He goes through the opening chapter discussing how language is the greatest tool of human beings, pointing us to the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel and reminding us that little in life can be achieved without language. My husband, who just returned from Russia, made the observation to me yesterday that he felt really out of place when he was sitting in a lunchroom with only Russian-speakers all around him. He noticed several deaf girls sitting together in the room also and reflected that they maybe felt as left out of the conversation as he was, since he spoke no Russian. Language binds people together in a way we sometimes take for granted.

Baer reflects further that literature is a wonderful use of language, giving expression to any and every human condition. Then he conclues:

"Thus, great literature can be described as the most sophisticated use of man's greatest tool to consider the most important human subjects with the purpose of moving the reader to serious thought while also affecting the emotions of the heart" (2).

Cool, eh?

A Room with a View
Last week, I had the chance to go to Fallingwater, one of the homes Frank Lloyd Wright designed here in Western Pennsylvania. It's a lovely place that fits organically into the landscape. I remember the first time I saw the countryside surrounding Fallingwater. I had seen many photos of the home in the past, but it was along the road leading to the house that I saw the large, rectangular boulders jutting out from the hillside and realized that they must have been Wright's inspiration for the design of the house.

We toured the house, which is actually situated over the creek and a small waterfall. Everywhere in the home, Wright designed the rooms to be close to nature, and the views are spectacular. He also created all these fabulous nooks and crannies and writing corners where I could definitely see myself writing lots of books!

And it got me to thinking about the creative process and the environment. Could I write a better book--or have more creative ideas for books--if I lived in a place like Fallingwater? Not very many people have that type of opportunity to be so close to nature, and have the absolute ideal, picturesque setting in which to create. But that's my latest question: does it matter where I write? Would it change the writing itself?

I'm due to read The Right to Write by Julia Cameron, which I re-read every summer. In that book, as in some of her other writings, she emphasizes writing in the midst of life. Many people hope to take that sabbatical to write their great American novel. But most people can't take a year off their lives. So, the key is to write in the midst of all the busy-ness, the activities, the long work days. So, my gut tells me that no, where I write doesn't matter.

But then I look at a place like Fallingwater, and I am just dying to get to my journal, and sit at one of those fabulous desks overlooking the creek. And it's maybe that response--that longing to write--which a closeness to nature helps.

Uh-Oh
Pittsburgh Steelers fans are beside themselves after Ben Roethlisberger's motorcycle accident yesterday. Many are downright selfish, disappointed that his performance as a football player could be jeopardized--and their own hopes for a second Steelers superbowl victory could be dashed.

I've heard many a pastor say that anything (even football) can become a god, and thus we break the1st commandment. Of course, we can enjoy a good game and not "worship" the sport, but I have witnessed many people here in Pittsburgh who love their Steelers so much that the performance of a team in a game actually affects their emotional outlook for days on end--for good or bad. That's when we are in danger of breaking the 1st Commandment. Now, I'm not saying that people who are concerned about Big Ben now are breaking the 1st Commandment. I'm simply saying that holding anything in our hearts as more important than God would be wrong.

I hope Ben recovers. Even with a full recovery, however, I can't imagine that getting beat up during football games would actually help him this fall.

I'm 37 years old, and really it wasn't until I became a mother 10 years ago that I started realizing that I have limitations--and that I'd better be responsible. That's not to say that I went around hang gliding and riding motorcycles without a helmet before then. But it was all the responsibilities of being a mom that made me change my attitude. It's the folly of youth to think that they are immortal, and yet that's what often gives young soldiers the courage to face death everyday. Anyway, here's the latest on Ben. Sounds like he may not even have had a motorcycle license.

Good Search
Recently, we discovered a new search engine, which you can use like Google, which helps raise money for charity. It's called Good Search. You can enter the name of our church, Concordia Lutheran Church, in Pittsburgh, PA, and for every search you do, the church gets a penny. It seems like it would take awhile to earn any significant amount of money, but it could add up if enough people do it. So, it would be awesome if a bunch of people make that their homepage and then do all their searches through that site.

A Note on Cheep! Cheep!
A few people in Pittsburgh have asked me where they can find my book. Well...you can always order it from Amazon or someplace like that (and for more info, you can go to my website: juliestiegemeyer.com). There are also a number of copies available at the Barnes & Noble at the Waterfront, FYI. Thanks for asking!!

Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen is one of my all-time favorite authors. We watched "Pride and Prejudice" about a week ago, and I just re-read the book over the weekend. The movie is a great adaptation of the book, although as is often the case with book-to-movie screenplays, scenes were compressed or multiple scenes lumped into one, etc. However, there were some places in the book that read just like the screenplay.

After finishing the book yesterday, I realized a couple of things. First, compared to the manners of Austen's day, most Americans are basically cave men or apes or something when it comes to how we treat one another. In Victorian England, the standards of decorum were very high. And Austen's writing captures that aspect of her society, while at the same time using words that are exactly right and ring true emotionally. That's at least in part why her books have endured.

I've also decided I'm going to have an all-Austen movie week (or two) this summer and watch "Sense and Sensibility," "Emma," and I may even look for "Mansfield Park." And I'll at least re-read one of those books--maybe all of them.

Kinda Cool
Yesterday I got a surprise at my doorstep (and no, it wasn't a stork). It was a box from Concordia Publishing House full of copies of my Thanksgiving book in a paperback version. That was cool! I didn't even realize it was going to be a paperback, so it was a nice surprise. This is the link to CPH for the hardback edition. I don't see the paperback version on the CPH Web site yet, but I'm sure it'll be there soon.

Cool!

Emeril and Me
Last night I was flipping channels for a few minutes after another freezing-cold baseball game (in which my son got 3 singles--way to go, Jacob!), and came across the food network's Emeril Live show. It was hot dog night on the show (whatever that means). When my remote landed on the channel, he had just diced a bunch of onions, put them in some olive oil to saute, and was getting some scattered oohs and aahs from the crowd. Then he diced some tomatoes, cutting them into large-ish hunks and added them to the pan with the onions.

And then, I couldn't believe what happened next.

The crowd started clapping and cheering, as if he had accomplished some great feat. They were hooting and hollaring because he had thrown some cut-up tomatoes in a stinking frying pan!!

And it occurred to me that I would be a much happier cook if only people would clap and cheer every time I, say, tear up some lettuce leaves and toss them in a salad bowl, or drain some spaghetti noodles, or perhaps--gasp--dump some applesauce into a bowl! Then I'd toss away my writing pen and be in the kitchen all day long, right?

So, I guess what my kitchen needs is a cheering, oohing and aahing studio audience. But, until I get that, I guess I'll just keep my sharpened pencils close by.

The Book of Lists and other miscellaneous thoughts
How much I post on my blog is in direct relation to the amount of time I have to write, so I have been cranky lately without much writing time. However, I thought I'd post something about a book I found at the library called, The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists. It's produced by Jossey-Bass Teacher and edited/compiled by Edward Fry and Jacqueline Kress. It's got some really interesting info, such as vocabulary builders, teaching ideas, plus lots of other tidbits. Here was a list I thought was kind of cool:

The Most Common Books in Libraries (I'm leaving off the names of the authors as a little quiz. Any you can't remember?)

1. Census
2. Bible
3. Mother Goose
4. The Divine Comedy
5. The Odyssey
6. The Iliad
7. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
8. Hamlet
9. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
10. The Lord of the Rings
11. Beowulf
12. Don Quixote
13. Koran
14. Aesop's Fables
15. The Night Before Christmas
16. Arabian Nights
17. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
18. Garfield by Jim Davis
19. Macbeth
20. Gulliver's Travels
etc.

Now, all of these (and the other five I didn't feel like typing in the top 25) seemed completely obvious, except for GARFIELD BY JIM DAVIS??? That's right up there with Beowulf and Hamlet and the Bible? I thought that was sort of amusing.

P.S. Those multiple question marks in my last paragraph are dedicated to Pastor Petersen. Enjoy!!!

The Land that Inspired Narnia
I read an article last week in our AAA newsletter with some interesting info on the land that possibly inspired some of the setting C.S. Lewis' beloved Narnia books.

This is a photo of Dunluce Castle in Ireland, near where Lewis spent his childhood in the rolling hills of the Antrim Coast. This castle is said to have inspired Lewis' Cair Paravel from the Narnia books. Travelers can also visit St. Mark's Church in Dundea where Lewis was baptized as well as his childhood school Campbell College.

Although he was born in Ireland and spent much of his childhood there, Lewis spent most of his adult life in southern England, in Oxford where he studied and later taught. Here's a quote from the article: "Lewis' former home, The Kilns, is also located in Oxfordshire. The wild ground, lake and wooded hills of the once isolated home provided inspiration for Lewis as he wrote." (sigh--does that not sound like a writer's paradise???)

Anyway, so that's another trip I'll take someday. We actually have seen the Eagle and Child in Oxford, the pub where the inklings (Lewis and his buddies) gathered frequently. That was cool. And then we went to that huge bookstore. Blackwells, is it? I just love England.

Google Earth & Stuff
I've been sort of on a hiatus from my blog because I'm having problems getting all my info to show up correctly for people who use Internet Explorer. From what I've learned, it's a problem with Blogger. If you view it from another browser, like Mozilla Firefox, all appears to be fine. Anyhoo...please ignore the weird look of the blog. I'll keep trying to figure it out.

Yesterday I went to Google earth and downloaded this free program so that I can zoom in on a satellite photo of ANYWHERE ON EARTH! Most of you have probably heard of this before, and I had too, but I'd never taken the time to download the program. I found our neighborhood, and we were looking at interesting places all over the earth. We figured out that some of the photos were probably quite old (at least a year or so in our neighborhood), but still, it's kinda cool.

Peeky Eggs Update
Today I:
- revised a picture book manuscript that will be published next year;
- finished up some game instructions for the Sunday school curriculum I'm working on;
- went to pick up my son's baseball uniform;
- made pancakes (it is Saturday after all);
- did other various and sundry things around the house.
Now that I'm finishing up these other writing projects, I'm feeling ready to move onto something new. Will be pondering that...

In the meantime, I decided to add some photos of the peeky eggs production from last week. Thanks again to Doodles and Noodles for her the recipe. Anyway, here's the first picture:

The first step in making the peeky eggs is to make the egg shells. The only ingredients are sugar and egg whites. I used a substitute for egg whites, called meringue powder (a Wilton product). Using an egg-shaped mold, I pressed the sugar mixture into the mold, and then turned it over onto a piece of waxed paper. After a couple of hours, the outer part of the shell is dried, so I scraped the "innards" out to make these hollow shells. These then dried overnight.


Next, I made the frosting, which serves as the "glue" inside the egg to stick the decorations to. It also used as the piping along the edges of each half and the front which holds the two halves together. This was the toughest step, mostly because a) I am completely inept at cake decorating (just ask my son--his cake from his 7th birthday is still a scary memory for me); and b) I don't have the proper tools. So, what you see here is the frosting mess.


Here I am almost finished with the project. This is not a terrific picture of the finished product, but you can see on the right my finished eggs, which--even in spite of my piping fiasco--still look pretty impressive. That's the cool thing about this project. You can pretty much mess it up entirely and the eggs still look awesome in the end.

Inside my peeky eggs I put little birds and eggs. I think I found a couple of small butterflies to put in a couple too.

Back Home from Gettysburg
After church on Easter Sunday, we left for a 3- day hiatus in Gettysburg. It was a good choice. The drive wasn't bad--only 3-4 hours and just enough to do to a) not be bored, and b) not be overwhelmed with sightseeing. A perfect post-Easter trip. The weather was fantastic--the trees are leafing out, the tulips were blooming, the grass was Ireland-green. We took an auto tour with a CD (thanks, Debbie!) and drove around the battlefields, trying with all our might to imagine how this beautiful and peaceful place could be the sight where a terribly bloody battle took place in 1863. Bulletholes in old buildings attested to the fact that yes, this really was the place where the Confederate and Union soldiers met in terrible conflict which raged over three days. We noted that at least two chaplains were killed. I'm sure many more than that died, but we saw markers for at least two.

We really enjoyed the Dobbin House (here's some cool history on the building) and Farnsworth House, both old homes that have been turned into charming restaurants that serve delicious food where it felt like we were transported back to colonial America. All in all, a great brief getaway.

Now...back to the laundry.

Good Friday - It's All About Jesus
...Uplifted for the world to see He hangs in strangest victory,
For in His body on the tree He carries all our ill.
(HS98 824)

His life, His all He gave When He was crucified;
Our burdened souls to save, What fearful death He died!
But each of us, though dead in sin,
Through Him eternal life may win.
(HS98 821)

Here are some wonderful thoughts about Good Friday.

And the lilies at church have arrived, so Easter is coming...

Peeky Eggs
Here's a link to my illustrator's blog, Doodles and Noodles. Carol is a terrific illustrator as well as my good friend, and she's going to be putting up her darling sketches on her blog. So, take a look. In this post, she shows an adorable chick looking into what she calls a "peeky egg." (Love that name!) She shared with me the recipe for how to make them (and I think the links on her post may have some of that info). So, right now my countertop is filled with sugary eggshells drying.