Writer at Random

Watching the Olympics and missing my dressage lessons!

I'm not a big sports fan, but I do enjoy watching certain Olympic events. Our daughters swam competitively from age 7 through early high school, so we've always been interested in the swimming events.

My other favorite Summer Olympics competitions are the equestrian events. I caught several of the Eventing dressage rides on Sunday, then was pretty much glued to the TV yesterday for cross-country and today for the jumping segment. I can hardly wait for the freestyle events!

 

My one and only dressage schooling show!

Such gorgeous horses, such poised and skilled riders! And I love it that some of the strongest competitors are in their late 50s. Equestrian events are one of the very few athletic competitions where the playing field is leveled. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman or how old you are. All that matters is your skill as a rider.

 

It's been nearly seven years since I've had a chance to ride (not counting a guided trail ride a couple of years ago on a follow-the-leader-type horse). I miss it. Unfortunately, I'm a city girl who's not getting any younger (or richer). 

 

Today is National Day of the Cowboy!

As the sister of a modern-day cowboy, I'm surprised I didn't know about this before, but there it is.

National Day of the Cowboy

I'm a city girl myself, but I grew up watching TV Westerns and pretending to be Little Joe Cartwright or The Deputy. I had cap pistols and a cowboy hat, and I'd gallop my little red stickhorse all across the "range." Yes, there's something about a cowboy that fires the imagination. I even wrote about a cowboy in my novel A Horseman's Heart.

They don't make TV Westerns like the used to, do they? What are your favorite TV shows, movies, or novels about cowboys?

Right now I'm reading Over the Edge, the third book in Mary Connealy's Kincaid Brides series. Mary definitely has a knack for bringing the Old West to life with romance, grit, and humor.

Take a trip down Memory Lane with these links:

The Rifleman

Death Valley Days

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

Have Gun--Will Travel

The High Chaparral

The Lone Ranger

Maverick

 

Just a hunch . . .

This morning our pastor's sermon illustration came from his son's copy of Wired. Apparently there's a new Web site out there called Hunch.com that collects all kinds of personal data that supposedly will point you to the products you're most likely to be interested in. You can create a profile, answer some questions, and voila!

According to this Wired blog post, the folks at Hunch have come up with seemingly random questions that . . . somehow . . . predict that, for example, people who cut their sandwiches diagonally are the most likely to buy Ray-Ban sunglasses. They use fancy words like "algorithm" (anyone else sorry to learn Numb3rs was canceled?)  and "statistical inferences." 

See, this subject so fascinated me that now I can't even remember what the rest of the sermon was about! Would you use a site like Hunch? I haven't quite worked up the nerve to give it a try. Let me know if you do!

A satirical solution to the BP oil spill

A couple of days ago our local newspaper carried this editorial. More than a few readers (me included) were taken in at first--although I have to admit, the idea of a junior-high student doing what BP's entire engineering department could not seemed just a wee bit over the top.

There is nothing funny at all about what's happening in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing funny about the devastation this oil spill is wreaking upon animal and plant life in the Gulf and along our shores. I hope they find a solution soon. Even more, I pray they can develop a fail-safe system to keep something like this from ever happening again.

Help the Haiti Earthquake Victims

Newscast footage can scarcely convey the devastation and shattered lives this disaster has caused. If you are as concerned as I am and are looking for a way to help, may I recommend ELCA Distaster Response.

The Evangelical Church in America has a long tradition of reaching out to help and minister to those in need. For more information, visit the ELCA Web site.

And pray.

Michael Jackson

Even though I wouldn't call myself a fan of Michael Jackson, I was still stunned when I turned on the TV this morning and heard he had died. So much craziness in his life clouding an amazing talent. It's a sad, sad shame.

My friend Mary Connealy wrote a moving blog post about Michael. Read it here. She beautifully sums up everything I've been thinking and feeling after hearing the news.

Postage rates climbing again!

Surprise, surprise. Soon we’ll be paying 2 cents more for a first-class stamp. On May 11, the rate jumps from 42 cents to 44 cents.

I suppose the PO has to pay their expenses somehow, considering how few things I send snail-mail anymore. Now that online banking has become so easy and secure, I no longer mail my bill payments. And more and more editors, agents, and contest directors are accepting submissions as attached Word documents, limiting the hassle of packaging and shipping a bulky manuscript.

These days, about all I ever use stamps for are special-occasion greeting cards, personal thank-you notes, Christmas letters--oh, and now (hip-hip hooray!) signed copies of my book contracts! I do make use of the Flat-Rate Priority Mail boxes when shipping gifts to family and friends.

At least the PO continues to offer the “Forever Stamp.” So today I ordered 100 of those at the 42-cent price, and may decide to order another batch before the price goes up. Click here if you’re so inclined.

For an updated list of the changes going into effect May 11, click here.

Pardon the Interruption . . .

But the Midwest is recovering from a horrendous ice storm. My neighborhood was without electricity from 2:30 a.m. Monday until 7 a.m. Wednesday. Many others across the state are still without power.

Snuggling to stay warm in front of our gas-log fireplace might sound romantic, but . . . um . . . I’ll take a sunny beach on Maui any day! And since I am not much of a camper (make that NOT A CAMPER AT ALL), it was not fun trying to heat water and soup over sterno or trying to roll over in bed under about 600 pounds of blankets!

Now that I’m back online, though, I’m excited to announce another guest blogger in my “Dating With the (Literary) Stars” series. Author Shirley Jump joins us tomorrow with her true story of meeting “Mr. Right.”

And don’t forget, my December contest is in full swing. Click here for details.

In the meantime, enjoy perusing a few scenes from the ice storm.

 









   

First the Golden Heart, Now Rita?

Rita and the Golden Heart in the same year??? Okay, so it wasn't exactly that Rita (the RWA award for published romance novels), but the irony is not lost on me. I'm just thankful our part of Texas didn't get hit as hard as those notoriously fallible weathermen were predicting. Unfortunately, Katrina did a number on everyone's psyche, and panicked residents hit the highways to make a run (or rather a crawl) for safer lodgings. The massive traffic jams on all freeways out of the Houston area only underscored the rightness of our decision to stay put.

So we've spent the past few days undoing all our hurricane prep work--unboarding boarded-up windows, moving patio furniture and potted plants out of the garage, putting away tools and emergency supplies--plus cleaning up the debris Rita left behind in the form of broken tree limbs, fallen pine needles, etc.  And all this in record-breaking September heat! At least we were spared a power outage, unlike other parts of the area that were hit harder.

John Fischer, in the Purpose-Driven Life devotion for September 21, tackles the big question of God's sovereignty in light of disasters like Katrina, and now Rita: "If God is in control of everything and He is a loving God, how can He let something like this happen?" Why was New Orleans nearly wiped out? Why, when the Houston area either evacuated or "hunkered down" anticipating a category 5 hurricane, did Rita slip farther east and make landfall as "only" a category 3? I doubt Houstonians prayed any harder than New Orleans residents did.

Fischer responds this way: "Our inability to accept these paradoxes is our problem, not God's. God is not hauled into court by our questions. God simply will not sit on the witness stand and have His activity scrutinized by us. . . . So we are left to make our way--to figure out, as both Job and Solomon did, how to accept difficult things from Him and still honor and worship Him."