by Roseanna White | Oct 27, 2017 | Fridays from the Archives
Given that it’s once again pumpkin-carving weekend upon us, I thought that today I’d re-post something from almost exactly six years ago . . . when I got a rather unpleasant surprise during my carving. Which, of course, led me to some thoughts on life and faith.
This year on Xoe’s birthday, we went down to the family farm’s pumpkin patch to select our pumpkins–we got orange ones in tall and then round, white ones with a ghosting of green and orange, and warty ones too. What kind of pumpkin is your favorite?
My kids love this time of year. We have Octoberfest at our family’s farm (not in the German tradition, mind you), the best family reunion ever, my daughter’s birthday, Halloween . . . as soon as pumpkins start appearing in the stores and on the stoops, the questions begin: “When are we getting a pumpkin? Can we carve it? What kind of face should I make this year?”
Now, belonging to a farm family, I do not buy a pumpkin, certainly not from a store. I instead pick out some from the selection my grandparents bring for the kids to the above-mentioned reunion [or venture down into the fields to choose my own]. So this year Rowyn chose a nice, round one, and Xoe one with a beautiful squiggly stem. We set them on the porch way back the week of Columbus Day.
And waited. My thought: if we carve them later, they may actually last through Halloween, and the kids are disappointed when they don’t.
So on Tuesday night, we deemed it a great day to carve pumpkins. The weather was warm, we had nowhere to go . . . perfect. So the kids went out with our dry-erase markers, I with my carving knife and a few plastic bags for glop. While Xoe drew a happy face on hers and Rowyn made a few scribbles and then decided that fallen tree branch in the yard was far more interesting, I got down to business on Rowyn’s pumpkin. I cut my circle in the top, pulled it up.
And went, “Ewwwwwwwwwwww!”
It was rotten inside. You know how there are supposed to be strings? Seeds? We had only mush. Orangish-brown, sloppy, stinky mush. It was seriously one of the grosses moments of my life. But my exclamation had brought the boy-o back over, and looking down into his dimpled face, those big eyes . . . yeah, I didn’t have the heart to say, “Sorry, kiddo, no pumpkin for you this year.”
I scooped out the foul-smelling goo. Poured it where I could. Held my breath and got rid of the rotten. I hosed it out. I bagged and double-bagged the glop and got rid of it. Then I went to work cutting away any yucky meat from inside.
At which point I noticed the soft spots. The weak spots. The spots I would have noticed from the outside had I looked for them. It hadn’t occurred to me to do so, I just assumed the pumpkin was fine–but had I bothered, I would have seen the signs. I could have gotten another pumpkin beforehand. I could have spared myself some disgust, lol.
Oh-so-often I do the same thing with life. I push forward, not even considering caution. Or I ignore that soft spot I detect. It’s the little things, the little warnings. Like yesterday when I handed Xoe a bowl of Spaghetti-Os and thought, “She’s going to spill that.” But handed it to her anyway. Thirty seconds later . . . . Or that time I looked at the bananas on the counter and thought, “I should move those so the dog doesn’t get them.” But the dog had never shown any interest in bananas, nor had he gotten anything off the counter. Yet when we got home that afternoon . . .
The Lord tries to show us those soft spots in life’s pumpkin. He gives us the Spirit to whisper the warnings in our ear. “You had better be careful here, beloved . . . better open you eyes . . . better listen, and spare yourself some discomfort.” After years and years of observing this, it’s still a task to listen to that voice. To take it seriously. To trust it.
I’m in a place right now where I can see how the Lord has led me lovingly to some of the big things happening in my life. But how awesome is it that He leads us in the little things too, if we pay attention?
Thank you, Lord for having a soft spot in Your heart for humanity, so that you can show us the soft spots in us.
For where it makes us weak, it makes You strong.
by Roseanna White | Oct 23, 2017 | Word of the Week
Saturday as the kids and I were driving Rowyn to a birthday party, they were observing that it was way too warm for fall, and all the trees were still green . . . and Xoë
then said, “I don’t like that we call it fall. It should be autumn. Why did we ever start doing that?”
I knew the basics, but they didn’t begin to satisfy my word-picky daughter (girl after my own heart! LOL), so since today is her birthday and this amazing girl is now 12 (should NOT be possible!), I figured I would do the word of her choice. =)
Not surprising, the primary meaning of fall–“a falling to the ground”–is as old as English itself, dating to Old English in the 1200s. The sense of “autumn” came along in the 1600s, a shortened version of the poetic “fall of the leaf,” a saying that originated round about 1540. In the 1600s, fall was used for the season in England quite often–I assume those English speakers who came to America used it, and it stayed in use here while it fell out of it in England, because these days only the US uses it.
Though let it be noted that autumn isn’t all that much older. Though a word in English from the late 1300s (from the French and the Latin, though its origins are a bit obscure), harvest was actually the word for the season until the 1500s, when autumn began to take over. So it appears that autumn only reigned for about a hundred years before fall entered the scene, and now both are used.
Interestingly, though words for the other seasons all seem to come from a common root across the Indo-European languages, autumn does not. There are a wide variety of words for it that have nothing in common–some that take their roots from “end, end of summer” ideas, and others from the colors that dominate the season, like red, still others with a meaning that hints at the beginning of winter.
Whatever you call the season, I hope you’re enjoying it as much as my autumn-born daughter does! Happy birthday, Xoë!
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| Xoë at her party yesterday, in Ancient Greek style–complete with a gold laurel crown. |
by Roseanna White | Oct 19, 2017 | Giveaways and Contests, Scavenger Hunt
First, I’d like to say that this is my 1500th blog post!
How cool that such a landmark falls on such a fun event!
And now, on with the show…
Welcome to
the Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt! If you’ve just discovered the hunt, be
sure to start at Stop #1, and collect the clues through all 25 stops, in order,
so you can enter to win one of our top 3 grand prizes!
- The hunt BEGINS with Stop #1 at LisaBergren’s site.
- Hunt through our loop using Chrome or
Firefox as your browser (not Explorer).
- There is NO RUSH to complete the
hunt—you have all weekend (until Sunday, 10/22 at midnight MST)! So take your
time, reading the unique posts along the way; our hope is that you discover new
authors/new books.
- Submit your entry for the grand prizes
by collecting the clue on each author’s scavenger hunt post and submitting your
answer in the Rafflecopter form at Stop #25. Many authors are offering
additional prizes along the way!
~*~
It’s my
pleasure to introduce you today to Cara Putman! Cara was one of the first
authors I met and spoke to when I joined the Christian writing scene—and she’s
always been gracious, sweet, and energetic. Here’s a bit about her new release, Beyond Justice.
Hayden McCarthy knows
firsthand the pain when justice is not served. It’s why she became an
attorney and why she’s so driven in her career. When she’s handed a
wrongful death case against the government, she isn’t sure if it’s the
lucky break she needs to secure a partnership—or an attempt to make sure
she never gets there. She keeps the case alive through sheer
determination and more than a little creativity, but then she’s fired by
a partner with a vendetta.
And now here’s Cara!
Why Relationships Matter in Our Novels
This summer I had the opportunity to serve on a panel at a
readers conference. Let’s just say the topic was way outside my comfort zone,
and as my fellow panelists talked about positions, I talked about
relationships. That experience reinforced to me the importance of having real
relationships in our novels. As an avid reader, I know it’s often the
characters that stay with me long after I close the book, not the intricate
plots we spend so much time crafting.
That’s one reason I’ve spent so much time in my new series
Hidden Justice, creating a web of characters that overlay each of the stories. Take
a group of young women who became close in law school. Put them each in a
different area of the law confronting different issues. Require them to lean on
each other for friendship, help, and faith. Mix in some heroes and you have the
ingredients for these books.
Typing the list, you’d think it didn’t take me long to
develop the idea. The reality is it took months of thinking. First I needed the
group of women. I wanted them each to be unique and different. Then I needed
jobs that weren’t cookie cutter. Fortunately, the law is a field that allows
you to take on many different roles, so that will keep me and readers from
getting bored. What I found interesting was how hard the heroes were to craft.
Yes, the heroes.
When I started writing Imperfect
Justice, the book that releases in December, I realized I’d poured my
effort in Beyond Justice into
developing the relationship between the women. Readers love that, but it left
Emilie woefully lacking of a potential hero. Shouldn’t be a problem to craft
the perfect guy for her, right?
Wrong.
Emilie demanded a hero who strong, but I didn’t want a law
enforcement hero, at least not yet. I’d asked my readers and they were looking
for what I wanted to write: a hero who looked a lot like their husbands: an
average guy living a big life. In many ways, I’d had years to develop Hayden’s
hero Andrew Wesley, because I’d fleshed them out for an earlier proposal. But
Emilie’s? Not a clue.
This conundrum reinforced the importance of having the right
people in place for relationships. So whether it’s a group of girlfriends or
it’s developing the perfect hero and heroine, I’ve learned the relationships
are the heart of the story.
~*~
Cara
Putman is the author of over 25 books in WWII and romantic suspense genres. She
lives in Indiana with her family, but spends most of her free time thinking
about her characters and dreaming up trouble for them. For more info, see CaraPutman.com.
Be sure to pop by Cara’s post where
she is giving away a set of the Hidden Justice series!
Here’s the Stop #3 Skinny:
Clue to Write Down: that
Before you go, I’m offering a giveaway! If you’ve already read about the library at Kensey Manor on Robin Lee Hatcher’s site, then you’ll know that libraries are a big theme in A Name Unknown. And they’re the theme in this giveaway too!
I’ll be offering one lucky winner with a US mailing address a signed copy of my novel PLUS a Library card tote bag!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
by Roseanna White | Oct 18, 2017 | Announcements, Scavenger Hunt
Just a quick announcement to let you know that tomorrow at noon mountain time, another Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt will be coming! The post will appear on everyone’s blogs tonight as we check for bugs, but it starts tomorrow. You’ll have all weekend to finish–and so much awesome content and amazing prizes! Mark your calendars!!!
by Roseanna White | Oct 16, 2017 | Word of the Week
The other day, my husband asked, “So what’s the difference between career–as in to career down a hill, the verb, and careen?”
To which I brilliantly said, “Uh . . . er . . . I don’t know.”
So naturally, I had to look it up. And it’s SO INTERESTING!
Let’s start with career. We all know it mainly today as the noun–our job path–right? But that’s a derivation of the original meaning dating from the 1530s, which was “a set course to run.” A horse would run down a career in a joust, for example. Or a runner might sprint through the career in a race. It’s from the French carriere, and before that the Latin cararia, and is the same root as words like “carriage” and “chariot.” (Who knew?!)
About 60 years after the noun entered English, the verb joined it–meaning “to charge at a tournament,” from that idea of the horse running the career. By the 1640s, it had taken on a broader meaning of “to move rapidly, run at full speed.”
So our notion of career-as-a-noun is actually directly from that original noun definition–it got broadened to mean “general course of action” by around 1600, and hence more specifically “course of one’s public or professional life” by 1803.
So what about careen? Dating from the 1590s it’s from the French cariner, which is in turn from Latin carina, which is literally the keel of a ship. So to careen was to turn the ship on its side and expose the keel–first in the sense of an inspection, but later came to be any time the ship tossed from side to side. By the 1880s it had taken a turn toward the general, and was applied to anything tossing from side to side, especially at high speeds. But apparently it wasn’t confused with career until the 1920s. Before that–perhaps because ships were still such a standard part of life (my musing, not the official one)–the two were never used interchangeably.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.