Mr London Street

This is a quick post to wish a writer well in the new year, as I have meant to do since December, and to say goodbye to the hope of new material on his blog. It is a sad farewell, because I have truly enjoyed his essays over the last couple years.

Actually, he just published again. I am really hoping he is going to write twenty or so farewell posts, then realize that there is, in fact, no reason for him to stop.

I discovered Mr London Street very early on in my blogging endeavor and knew immediately that he was a writer I could admire...and envy when his posts were so often superior to my own. I didn't love the topic choice of his every post. I didn't agree with all the opinions expressed, but there were many brilliant pieces written by Mr London Street that made me believe he had done with his words precisely what he had intended. That was an amazing accomplishment, and sometimes he just bowled me over and made me feel all warm and fuzzy and romantic and bursting with sunshine and goodwill, though I'm pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate my saccharine description of how his writing influenced my mood. (Sorry, fans are never demure.) He had more than a few essays published on various sites and also got, as he justly deserved, a column in his local Reading newspaper. My jealousy increased, because no matter how old-fashioned they are, I would love to write a regular column for a newspaper, any newspaper...but I digress.

In my opinion one of the things MLS did most brilliantly was describe his fellow human beings. As a reader you were fully invested in your hope, love, pity, admiration or disdain for these people, real people who populate his life - if only in his memory or for five minutes in the checkout line each Sunday.

My favorite posts of MLS's were those that he wrote about his wife. I won't attempt to explain why. Simply go read the ones below, and you will understand, I think.

The brace position

Women, Mothers

Thermostat

I wish all the best for Mr London Street in 2013. I am sad to see him leave blogging behind (or is he?), but my hope for him this year is that he will find a worthy publisher for his essays.

As I peruse his posts that I missed, I will try to link to my favorites in the future.

******************************************

I wish all my readers a Happy New Year! May you chase your dreams and never grow weary or discouraged. More importantly, may you experience a renewal of love, gratitude and charity for your family, friends and neighbors.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle - Plato


P.S. I hope everyone will discontinue this torrid love affair with smartphones, tablets, video game systems or whatever-the-heck is zipping around the next corner, get back to the sound concept of moderation in everything and rediscover nature, prayer and actual conversation via eye contact with the people who share their meals, room, home and neighborhood. Ironic coming from a blogger (why do you think I want to write for something as archaic as a newspaper?), but there you have it.

10 Blogger Blessings on a Wednesday

I was going to write something middle-of-the-road sarcastic for my blog anniversary in July, with full awareness of my blessings thrown in between the lines. I deleted that draft, because it made me resentful of myself and of my slow progress in this writing endeavor.

So let's try something else, a tinge sweeter - that dry anniversary Champagne with a fair splash of orange juice perhaps. Here is a list of a few of my sure blessings as a blogger this year.

1) I'm grateful I'm writing at all. It's hard to find the time I want to commit to it, but I'm doing what I love. And no one's paying me for it...oh wait, that's not a good thing. Dang!

2) I'm glad I'm not on twitter. I'm quite a bear when I'm trying to write, work out some little tale, and my kids ask for the simplest things - like water. I don't need more distractions to rob them of my time. I still have my youngest two at home. They'll be in school before I know it. Just thinking about my toddler entering kindergarten made me cry one night, and he's just a wee little thing at two-and-a-half. When he goes to school, it's going to be real rough. But I'll have more time to write and try to succeed at it then, so no rushing and leaving life behind.

3) My traffic is higher this year. That is all I want to or can positively say about traffic.

4) Despite my hideous or bland or dysfunctional design - however you might describe it - people still read what I write. I have a few faithful readers and a few new readers. Thank God! I am seriously thinking about paying the neighborhood squirrel in cashews to design my blog. Since cashews are all I'm willing to pay, I thought he'd be the ideal candidate. Plus, I believe he could hit a few random buttons and do a better job. (As to why I do not learn HTML, see above twitter comment; I just want to write, dammit! It's all I have time for unless I swear off sleep and become a blogging zombie.)

5) I'm grateful Mr London Street and Resistant But Persistent keep me on their blog roll.

6) I am supremely, enormously thankful for the increase in comments. Increase might be the wrong word. I'm thankful for comments. Please don't hesitate to talk back to me. If I have to, I'll picket for my equal rights to conversation.

7) The Empress followed me, and I'm glad of it. Her latest post is hilarious.

8) My childhood was happy and interesting, and it provided me with my first tales to tell. My very first post explains how this blog got its name. To prove the interesting part, read this one.

9) Various family members support my writing efforts, and what's more, these related angels give me words of encouragement. In example, my bro-in-law Roberto supports my blog. I find this quite amazing, because he's my in-law and doesn't have to.

10) Above everything I could hope to mention or have forgotten to is this: I LOVE my family. My kids keep me entertained and active, and my handsome, smart husband constantly provides me with witty words that I promptly steal for my blog. My life is richer, more blessed, and bigger than the words with which I attempt to describe it, and I would do well to always bear that in mind. God has blessed me greatly.


To conclude, I'm going to share a great quote from my dad, author of the fantasy series Kelven's Riddle. He gave me some fortifying words on a day when I felt like a complete failure at what I so desperately want to do with my life (beside that more important thing - being the best mother I can possibly be).

Cheer up. We all fail and we all succeed. Success is continuing to do whatever it is that your heart desires through thin times and thick - and there are generally more of the former than the latter. Besides, true success only comes at the end of life when the Lord says, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Everything else is just strife...keep your chin up and keep moving on - Daniel Hylton

Thank you, kind Reader

As is the way, I forgot a few individuals in this post that I would really like to mention personally. So I'm going to add this amendment, and take the opportunity to thank Ms. Linda B-C, brother Dave, Uncle Kip, Grandpa and Grandma, sister Natalie, Aunt Marsha and my dear friends Camille, Ignacia, Kendra and Sarah for their support of my blog simply in reading it and letting me know that they read it.

Thank you, too, to lladybugg of A Little Bit Growed Up for her recent comments here.

Also, to Nate and Annie, thanks for all the adventures growing up.

Finally, to all who have loved Tetanus Shots (including you, Uncle Nick), well, God bless you for laughing.

Today I wish to express my gratitude to all of you who read No Pens, Pencils, Knives or Scissors. I am a writer, therefore I write and I write to be read. So to you, whether you are new and come only this once, or whether you are a friend of my creative endeavors and have been for a while, I say thank you.

It is my one year anniversary here on blogger (I'm small fry, I know, but I am determined to celebrate it, because I did not give up in despair and delete the whole shebang). Before I had this arena in which to write, I wrote (and later rewrote, revised and reworked countless times) a novella that I flogged around to publishers. Then followed some unsuccessful attempts to write fictional short stories.

Several years later, I began writing a newsletter for my tiny Mom's Group. I sent it out from my home and everything, and not by e-mail - with stamps. In each of those newsletters I included an original story based on events in my childhood. Fortunately, my friends were not annoyed by having my work thrust on them, and I gladly admit that writing those newsletters improved my writing technique, promoted brevity in words and allowed me to share for the first time with an audience some stories that I always wished to tell, such as Dad Steps on One, and Mom Beheads Another . (At first I was nervous about sharing that one, I'll confess, because it involved describing my Mom shooting a rifle into the garden. In the end, however, the chance to tell that story, like so many others, was irresistible to me.)

When one of my friends suggested I start a blog, there was not doubt in my mind what I would call it. The suggestion for the title of this blog came both directly and indirectly from my dad. Indirectly, because what you read at the top of this page is true, and more directly, because Dad suggested that I should write a little collection of stories and publish them under the title, No Pens, Pencils, Knives or Scissors - If This Is What It Means to Be an Adult, I Want My Childhood Back.

And that brings me around to the more specific thank yous I wish to express. Yes, I realize that today I am celebrating a little thing and few will note it, but to me...well, it is bigger than just slopping some words onto the "blogosphere". I am building up a collection of stories that I have always wanted to tell or have recently discovered in my life with my beautiful children and husband. I'm glad that my children can read these stories someday, a little legacy of which I'm proud.

So let's proceed with my expressions of gratitude, shall we?

For always supporting me in my writing, for talking to me for hours about it at times, for mentoring me in my creativity, and for commenting regularly on my early pieces here, a big thank you to my dad.


For being one of my first and, until recently, a regular commenter, thank you to my big sister Vinca.


For encouraging me often on Facebook by letting me know how much she likes my stories, especially those about my childhood, thank you to my Aunt Cheryl.


For being my second follower and a most unexpected and gratifying one, thank you to my cousin Jared.


For promoting this blog and reading it even though we are not blood relatives :-), thank you to my brother-in-law Roberto.


Thanks to Blogger for this public space in which to air my writing.


For advising me to start this blog in the first place, thanks to my friend Dana.


For designing the header of this blog, thank you to my friend Holly.


To Domesticated Bohemian , thank you for being the first big blogger to follow me. It really gave me a thrill, no matter how naive that was of me.


To Mr London Street , thank you for adding me to your blog roll, and for the few regular readers you've sent my way by doing so.


To all my 21 followers, thanks for having faith.


To Shopgirl  from A Blessing a Day , Jayne from Suburban Soliloquy , and Sharon from Resistant but Persistent, thanks for all your kind comments lately. Truly, they're appreciated.


And thanks again to my dad, Daniel Hylton, because he wrote three wonderfully entertaining guest posts for this blog and consequently brought in some fresh traffic.


To my kids for creating stories around me every day, for having conversations with me that fire up ideas and make me laugh, your mama humbly expresses her gratitude. Also, Mama is grateful that you listen to my interminable stories about growing up "in the country".


And most importantly, thanks to my handsome Man for putting up with all the blog drama. Sadly, I'm not sure I'll be able to pay for the kids' college with my writing. Keep up the good work at the day job, my love. And I want you to know that I'll never forget how, when we had yet even to meet, I sent you that novella of mine, very dear to me, and you said my writing ability impressed you. I'm sure you thought it'd get me somewhere by now, more than ten years later, and I regret that I have yet to make you proud in that way.



And so I raise a glass to all of you and to myself and conclude with the classic strains of,


Should auld blog posts be forgot, and never brought to mind

Should auld blog posts be forgot

in days of auld land syne....


Now sit back, relax, and enjoy this slideshow of my favorite images from No Pens, Pencils, Knives or Scissors whilst you wipe away those tears:

In Tennessee (I'm the chubby legged girl on the right)



The Red Rocks of Sedona



Headframe at the Little Daisy Mine in Jerome, Arizona



Tumbleweed Tree





Chaco Canyon ruins in New Mexico




Casa Grande ruins

 

Casa Grande ruins of the Hohokam people in Arizona

Jerome, Arizona

Tonto Cliff Dwellings in Arizona



Best picture of the Painted Desert (Arizona) ever!





Petrified wood and the American Flag



My Man driving through the Painted Desert

My beautiful mother on the Pont Neuf



Dad on the Pont Alexandre III



Family



Beautiful Behemoth