Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

I am trying to organize my thoughts toward what I hope to achieve this year in my life. By that I do not mean
rewards from my work or ideas. I mean what can I achieve to make this world a better place. Little old me.

What can I do?
It is easy to gripe and complain about how things are going. I have never been one to do that without offering what I think might be a solution. My kids can tell you I offer LOTS more than they might want sometimes.

But they listen to what I say, whether they do it or not.
For several months I have been writing a book about my family from 1820 to 1860. This date span is for a particular reason, it is the length of adult life for my great great grandfather. I had started the book many years ago
but stopped for the reasons we often do not finish something, lack of time. My family was younger then and I just did not have much quiet time. I hope to finish the book this year. If I continue as I have set out to do in the past year, it should be finished about April or May.
My aunt went to a book signing at her local library and arranged a similar booksigning event for my book,
although it is yet unfinished. So I have dubbed her my agent. I have talked to a publisher and hope to be
able to be published without incurring the whole expense myself. I have not yet decided on a title of the book,
but have some definite ideas on that as well.
My friends ask me how I have time to write with a full time job and responsibilities at Church and in the community. But I often have time to write when my husband watches TV.  I do not have to be in a quiet room locked away to write. It comes to me any time. I wrote several pages on the plane on the way to California a week or so ago. I can write in a busy place as well as a quiet one.
For this year I also want to spend time with family that is constructive to them. With the little grandkids to show them things their parents do not have time to do, like the tea parties we enjoy together. When Jayleigh and Lane come to the store that is the first thing they want to do, have a tea party. So we do. Right in the store we sit and have our imaginary tea party. Likewise when they come to our home, that is the first thing they ask to do.
In the living room I have a childsized iron ice cream parlor type table and chairs  with a small tea set
on it. That is where the tea parties are held.
For my children I want to set aside time to do things together other than just holidays. My two sons

live out of state so it is not as easy to see them. But I have to make more effort. They are busy, I am busy and we let it go too often.
This year I want to have an inner peace that has evaded me in the past that comes from my faith in God.
I have grown up in a Christian home but there were years when I did not do all that I could to be closer
to God. In the past few years I have read my Bible more and attended Church more but I still want that peace you see in movies like the Passion of the Christ where He goes to His death with a smile in His eyes for the world He is suffering for. I hope I would have that peace if I died now as I have also seen on the faces of
my father and mother when they died. That is something I would strive to achieve.
So no matter the state of our country, our world, this is the peace that transcends that. This is the peace I would like to know I have.
This may sound too deep for some of you, but it is in my foremost thoughts as we approach 2010.
Thanks for listening, Lois

" I cannot tell what thou wilt bring to me,

Oh strange New Year,

But tho' thick darkness shrouds thy

days and months,

I will not fear.

Why should I fret myheart to know

before

what may befall?

With this one thought content-I ask no more--

God knows it all."

from Seven Hundred Album Verses

c 1884

Lois