Real Life Books and Media
This picture evokes a sweet memory of a mild Florida, winter day last year. Our town, Titusville, Fl had finally completed a small waterfront park and I had been anxious to try out the swings. I met two friends for a picnic and sweet fellowship.
If you are into Space exploration, the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center is the small building above the letter “O” in Proverbs.
I enjoyed all the comments that came from the blog. ”Writing – What is Easy, What is Hard.”
Mary Harwell Sayler, doyenne of Christian Poets and Writers asked writers to tell her what they find easy about writing and what they find difficult.
My bottom line answer was that I found blogs easy, but isolated spots in my novels are as hard to write as good pie crust is to make.
I mentioned that I could hardly wait to get my new iPhone so that I’d always have a camera with me. It seems I often come home from somewhere and want to write a blog about it, but because I don’t make an effort to take my digital camera, I have to scrounge to get something together.
SCOTT’S COMMENT:
Great idea! I have a good smart phone, and occasionally use it as a camera.
JESS SAID
That new phone needs to come home today. Since your birthday was recent, I think a gift of that phone for you and your stories for us would be a great way to celebrate.
Our guru and his wife (our daughter) brought pizza and our new phones last week. We had a big phone party and enjoyed ourselves very much. I learned a lot, and know I have a whole lot more to know. I can take pictures with it, but still have a few difficulties to overcome such as getting the pictures anywhere except my phone so I can put them in my blogs.
I understand you can email them, but I turned on the email and the inbox got flooded with old messages I already had on my computer and it turned me off. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy emails, but since I spend most of my time at home, I don’t need a mailbox full of letters I’ve already answered, stored, deleted, or junked.
There’s something about a full box of emails that disturbs me like dirty dishes in the sink or a meowing cat that needs to be fed. I try to keep the emails washed, ironed, folded and put away so I don’t have laundry lying around. I won’t say dirty laundry, because it’s not that. I could work through it all in a doctor’s waiting room, but in order to keep up, I’d have to go to the doctor a lot more often.
That’s about all I have to say about the new phone, except this, I haven’t learned to take my fingers off the buttons so I got a whole filmstrip of the shadows on the trail – all alike as far as I could tell. It’s pretty cute if I do say so, but I don’t know how to show it to you – yet! My new phone has a stabilizer so the days of tremulous vibrations are over. Thank the Lord for that!
I loved the rest of what Scott said: I also find myself inspired by things I see when biking or walking, or even on the bus: people, nature, situations. If I could find a quiet spot and few minutes, I could quickly use my electronics to publish a fast blog post.
I got clear pictures and the flavor of his activities. I could imagine him on a rock next to a lake, or at a coffee shop writing away on a blog and having the pictures and everything he needed to send it all off right then. I’ve never thought of it like that before. He’s going to be one of my role models, and one of these days maybe I’ll be able to do something like that too. Until then, I may have to ask Rebekah Lyn to help with the pictures for this blog. Next weekend, we’re going to be sitting outside an Independent bookstore signing our novels as people purchase them. We might get a minute between signing books to work on getting the pictures from the cell phone onto this blog, at that time. Meanwhile, here’s one about the festival we’re attending.
A few minutes after I wrote that, Rebekah Lyn called and asked if she could come over. She helped 
with the email, but she got tired of deleting them too, so I’ll have to do it a bit at a time. It’s worth it to be able to use the pictures. So I didn’t have to wait until Saturday to get my selfie uploaded for you. Ain’t I cute? Ha. But seriously I am very impressed with the lack of blurring from shakiness! We paid extra for it on the 5s, but it comes with the 6 and Rebekah Lyn is pretty sure her IPad has it too. That’s one of the greatest advances in photography, but they’re all great, aren’t they?
I just added the word selfies to my dictionary.
When our children were young, Bill and I loved to go camping at the springs and when the kids became teens, we took one Sunday off each month to camp, because Renie and Billy, and Bill and I were all so busy we didn’t have time to be together, or to talk. Yes, we missed church once a month, but we usually had a sweet service of our own, and everything turned out fine in the end.
We invited the young married people in our Sunday School Class/Small Group to come along. We were all close because we prayed together, commiserated with one another, helped each other through “stuff” and studied the Bible together. That weekend, Onisha and her family went, Pam and hers went, and The Crouses and their three children went too. I don’t know who else. If you were there, let us know.
Decades later, Pam, one of the people from that group, and I drove over to Ponce de Leon Springs for breakfast and a look around. We went to the Old Mill where you cook your own pancakes on a griddle in the middle of your table. The waitress asked if we’d been there before and I said I had and I told her jokingly that Pam thought she had been there.
“If you only think you’ve been here, I’ll explain the menu,” said the waitress. “I’ll bring pancake batter in our signature pottery pitchers, the one with the red speckles holds our special blend whole grain batter, the blue speckled one, has white batter. Spray the grill with the oil and pour out enough for your pancakes. You can order nuts, bacon, sausage, and eggs, too, if you want. We’ll cook those for you.
Every time I’ve been to De Leon Springs in the past forty-five years, the same woman was waiting tables. Of course she was younger in the beginning and so was I. I’ll always remember how airy she looked in her tee-shirt and tiered cotton skirt. It could get very hot in there with the grills heated up, even though the fans were going. There was always a room full of people and no AC, just big open screens that showed the out-of-doors to perfect advantage.
I always think of that woman as the quick, friendly person who was working with her family who owned the place with her family and since my novel, Sacred Spring, was published, I’ve wanted to give her a copy, because in a way, I used her for a model for Elaine in the story. I was thrilled to see that as always, she was on the job. I told her we were old customers from long before the state bought the place. Her eyes lit up when I gave her the book and autographed it for her. She was so pleased, she gave me a big hug and because of her joy, I too, felt wonderful.
Pam and I then sat and talked for a long time. We like to talk about our grandchildren, books, our association with Rebekah Lyn Books (Pam is the public relations assistant). We talk about our churches and about movies. After a bit we decided to walk and talk. The Garden Spring Run and the pool itself take your breath away. We went into a tiny museum that has many beautiful historic photographs of Ponce de Leon Springs and the buildings. They have three ring binders full of newspaper clippings about archeological digs that have taken place there.
The museum was in a small room in this building.
When we finished the museum we thought we’d walk up the trail to see Methuselah, an ancient cypress tree, but it started to rain. Because we’d left Pam’s raincoat, my umbrella, our hats, and our “rubber” shoes in the car, we decided to retrace our steps, even though we got rained on before we arrived at the car.
We were happy. We’d found our way back to our first years as friends and to our children’s childhoods, and now we are finding our way back into a precious friendship that we both became too busy to nurture. It’s so comforting growing old with people you’ve known for a long time. Friendship surely is the dew of God for our lives on this earth.
To learn more about De Leon Springs, it’s history and activities visit their website.
http://www.planetdeland.com/sugarmill/
You can also purchase Sacred Spring on Amazon by Clicking HERE
By DiVoran LItes
I delight in the way God constantly renews us. Saturday, I was invited to a tea party at a lovely home in a beautiful subdivision north of town. It was a celebration for the launch of Jessie, Rebekah Lyn’s brand new book.
We were all invited to wear hats, if we wished, which set the tone for our dress. At the last minute, I grabbed my only skirt – white, cotton, tiered, and put it on with a favorite flowery tee shirt. It turned out to be the right thing to wear – after all, it’s summertime down south.
One friend did wear a hat and it was a vintage number – a work of art – satin apple blossom in pale turquoise on a light frame of ribboned stems and a tiny veil. The dress she wore was beautiful too; in fact, it was such a fine dress that one of her best friends confessed to having one like it in a different color. Fortunately, it was still at home and she was wearing a long linen skirt and a bright gauzy peasant blouse.
Everyone at the tea party was interesting. Rebekah Lyn had known many of them for most of her life. Her mother was there. She’s Onisha Rebekah Lyn’s publicist. Another friend came too. She had been in charge of setting up the party, making sure there were enough china teacups and antique teapots to serve from. She handled many other organizational details and received a public promotion to assistant marketer. About a dozen of us sat at a round table and chatted. It was deliberately old-fashioned and reminded me of my mother, her friends, and their parties.
Rebekah Lyn’s great aunt Joan attended. She volunteers at The Titusville Historical Society and was instrumental in helping Rebekah with research of the history of this area. Jessie starts out in a community that no longer exists. The property became part of the Space Center, so the families who lived there had to move to the mainland.
One of Rebekah’s favorite teachers was at the party. Rebekah calls on her for not only general historical references, but for tricky English questions as well. Everyone paid close attention as Rebekah talked about the writing and publishing of Jessie.
Rebekah Lyn will be at the Sea Turtle Festival in downtown Titusville on June 14 with her books. I’m going down to help her set up, I think Onisha will still be in town, too and her assistant will come by and help, then head up to Jacksonville to visit her sister. As for me, I may look for a ranger I know who is monitoring baby turtles as they hatch. He’s looking for volunteers too and I may know someone who’d like to do just that. Maybe our son and his wife will come. He’s an environmentalist who dearly loves turtles and all other wildlife unless they’re “exotic,” which means they’re taking habitat and food from the local critters. Really though, he’s got a soft heart and will take the time to have a conversation with any live thing, even the brown lizards, who are taking over from the jewel-like green anoles.
That’s what it’s all about – tea parties – talking to the animals, family communications, reading each other’s books. It’s all about people loving people and working together in love and harmony.
Psalms 104:30 “Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.” (KJV
Jessie, coming-of-age story set in the exciting years of the U.S. race for the moon and releases July 20, 2014. Pre-order are available now at a 60% discount. Kindle readers will need to purchase through Smashwords
