Monthly Archives: April 2010

Good morning, Blog Friends!

It’s my goal to be more intentional about the time we spend together. So, I’m putting some more organization around how I interact with you over here at kristenethridge.com.

I’m aiming for narrative blogs 2-3 times a week. These will be my observations on Hurricane Ike and personal rebuilding and recovery, writing, Christian living, parenthood, etc.  Look for these mostly Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday.

Thursdays and Fridays have worked out to be our family days. I find I spend much less time on the computer these days.

I will be devoting Saturdays to reviews: book reviews, reviews of products I love and think you might too. Most of these will not have any compensatory ties, but if there are any, I’ll let you know. For example, I participate in a program through Thomas Nelson publishers called “Book Sneeze” where they provide free books in exchange for a review on my blog and on a site like Amazon.  I’ll let you know if Thomas Nelson or another publisher provides me a book–but I promise that regardless of the origin, I’ll give you an honest review.

On Sundays, I’m going to share a verse for the upcoming week and a few thoughts on it to get us all ready for the week ahead.

I’m looking forward to spending quality time with you and our new blog friends who join along the way.

Let me know what you think of the new schedule!

I’ve been attending a new church the past few weeks. One of the things I’m attracted to about this group of believers is how they handle communion. I grew up in a Baptist megachurch. Our quarterly communion days came in the form of individual plastic cups, fluted like a flower. They were filled half-way with grape juice, and each had a little pocket where a perfectly symmetrical crunchy wafer got tucked in. There’s nothing wrong with serving communion this way. When your worship center seats 5,000 on a given Sunday, efficiency becomes the name of the game out of necessity.

But this new church has a different philosophy. Each worshiper comes forward, tears a piece of bread from a loaf, and dunks it in either wine or grape juice, then goes back to their seat or a special area at the perimeter of the room to contemplate the sacrifice of Christ. I found this to be one part of the service I was really looking forward to last week on my second visit. I’d had some things on my mind over the weekend, and I wanted to take advantage of the time to sit and listen to what God had to say to me about them.

I walked to the front and reached for a peak near the top of the bread loaf. A chunk about 3 inches in length tore off. I looked like I was there for dinner, not communion. I dunked it in the grape juice. The freakishly large piece of the body of Christ absorbed more liquid more quickly than I anticipated, and red liquid ran down my hand as I walked back to my seat. As soon as I sat and bowed my head to begin praying, the bread broke in half, and I caught it in my cupped hand.

Great. Frustration overtook me instead of the calm feeling I so longed for. “God? How can we talk if everything’s going wrong?” I took a deep breath and tried to refocus. I really needed to hear from God in this still moment, when The Toddler was playing in the nursery and I could listen without distraction.

Then the two people behind me began talking. “Hey…Do you come here often?” Really. He used the world’s worst bar pickup line. They kept talking, loudly. And once the worship band began to play, they altered their volume to be heard over it. I had one voice in each ear, and neither was the one I’d hoped to hear.

“God! What are You trying to tell me? I can’t hear You! Everything’s going wrong. I grabbed this huge chunk of bread which caused juice to leak all over me. Now I’m sticky, and the bread is broken in my hands and these two people won’t shut up. They’re distracting me.”

And then I knew. Everything was going right.

God wants us to grab the biggest chunk of Him we can get our hands on. He wants us to dive in.

All I could think about was washing my hands, being clean.  But Christ came to get messy. He took our sticky sins. If I want to be out there and be light to the world, I’m going to have to deal with a sticky world.

He asks us to come broken to Him. Only when we break our lives down can He rebuild in us.

And there are always going to be distractions. I’ve got to work on my focus so I know which voice to listen to.

I came to Christ’s table with my own expectations, and when they were not meant, I assumed the worst. But God had other plans. He took an awkward, sticky, broken, distracted mess and constructed a communion that brought me closer to His heart than any shared cup and bread ever had before.

What has God turned around in your life lately?

It’s tax day, so it’s probably a good day to talk about a great book I’ve recently read. William Bennett, member of the Reagan and Bush administrations, has written a book, A Century Turns: New Fears, New Hopes–America 1988 to 2008, which gives a great overview of the years since Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States until the election of Barack Obama to the same position.

Besides a chronology of the people and events which shaped these decades, Bennett’s access to the halls of power during this same time adds personal anecdotes throughout. The book is written almost conversationally, covering heavy topics, but never coming off heavy-handed. Reading A Century Turns is like taking a class from your favorite professor in college.

From the fall of the Berlin Wall, through Reaganomics, the administration of Bush 41, around Clinton’s policies and foibles, to September 11th and the years with George W. Bush, up to the recent election cycle, Bennett clearly illustrates why it is so important for Americans to know where we’ve come from so that we know where we are going. Few people would deny the American political landscape today is filled with people who are talking–loudly–about the issues which face us: healthcare, taxes, immigration, foreign policy.

Spending a few hours with Bill Bennett’s A Century Turns: New Fears, New Hopes–America 1988 to 2008 will get you ready to be informed and more involved in our political process, especially as the November election cycle gets ever closer.  This book is a must-read for those interested in what is happening in our country today.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Once again, I opened my e-mail to find a cordially-worded “thanks, but no thanks” e-mail about a submission to a publisher. I’ve gotten enough of these to know that my value as a writer is not determined by what one person may think about my work.  I’ve also been on the other end, as a managing editor of a magazine, and I know sending out a rejection is nothing personal.

The reality of pursuing a career as a writer means this will not be the last rejection I receive. Some editors or agents I query may choose the path of least resistance: a “sunset” response, which means if I haven’t heard back within a certain timeframe, the answer is no. Some may send out a form letter, like the one I received today, explaining that my work just wasn’t “quite right” for them, but they wish me all the best as I work toward publication. I’ve even received rejections from industry professionals which concluded by asking me to send them something else.

Because rejections are a part of every writer’s path, I posed the question on my Twitter (@kristenethridge) feed and personal Facebook page asking what other writers did with their rejection letters. One friend said she hid hers. Another said not to worry about it, unless the missive said “your writing stinks and so do your socks.” I have yet to have a rejection letter comment on the state of any footwear, so I think I’m safe.  I also received a tweet saying that back in the days of snail mail, she used to let her letters “age” for days before she’d open them.

On Facebook, a non-author friend told me to screen them onto fabric and make a quilt to cuddle up with.  I’d need an advance check to do that, I think.  My “older sister” said the best use she could think of was to bundle them up and use them to build a campfire for toasting s’mores over.

After careful consideration of all submissions, that’s the one that fits my market demographic best. This project will sell well to chocolate lovers and graham cracker enthusiasts. It will appeal to the green crowd-cooking with recycled materials instead of using electricity.

Plus, it’s tasty.

Join the conversation: what’s your favorite thing to do with rejections? Ignore them, file them, turn them into combustibles?  And, don’t reject this blog! Sign up over on the right to be notified of new posts, and come follow me on Twitter @kristenethridge!

I started writing my current fiction work-in-progress almost 3 years ago.  I had an agent who was interested in my writing and she asked me to plot out a category romance for her to look at. She liked it and asked to see more.  A normal author would have jumped through any hoop to get it on her desk.

I’m a funny paradox of a person sometimes.  On one hand, I really hate paying for things I feel I can do myself.  On the other hand, sometimes I just really hate doing things myself and would rather pay someone to do them.

Lawn mowing, for instance. After Ike decided to claim our cherry red Craftsman mower with mulching power as his own, I asked my husband if we could get a lightweight electric mower. I always had a hard time pulling the starter cord on the mower to get it running. At least that was my excuse. But I always figured that if I *could* have started that mower, darn it, I wouldn’t be paying someone to zip around the yard and give my grass a haircut. So, my husband obliged me. Our yard wasn’t big, so running an extension cord behind the mower wouldn’t be a problem…unless I forgot where the cord was and ran over it.

About six months after returning home from Ike, we bought a house in a beachside community and moved. The house sits on two lots totaling about 1/3 of an acre. I don’t have enough extension cords. So, I pay a very nice person to ride around on a tractor-style mower and I don’t grumble anymore.

But there’s always dog grooming.  I spend close to $100 every time I take my two poodles in for their own haircuts. Always have. It’s the going rate for poodle cuts anywhere in the state of Texas, it seems. But in the back of my mind, every time I write the check, I think “I could do this.” I have two college degrees. Fur should be manageable, right?

Last week in Wal-Mart, while on the dog treat aisle, six years of this internal groomer-wannabe dialogue came to a head. There, on the shelf in front of me, sat a complete do-it-yourself dog grooming kit. For less than I spent on grooming one dog.

And I just so happened to have not one, but two, dogs at home who were far overdue for a grooming.

So I plucked that little box off the shelf and put it in my basket. Of course, I saved the receipt, just in case this experiment wound up being for naught.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and decided that the day had arrived.  I picked up Claire, my larger and more docile poodle, and turned her into my guinea pig. She was remarkably well-natured about it. When Pierre’s turn rolled around, he surprisingly handled it even better…until I got to his legs and feet.

I now know what it must feel like to work on a sheep farm in shearing season. I collected an entire sinkful of poodle fur, curly and apricot. Little tufts like waves crested over onto the countertop. I wasn’t quitting my day job, by any stretch…wait, I don’t have one…but I wasn’t unhappy with how they turned out.

After a bit of re-work with some scissors this morning, they don’t even really look like rejects from the mange colony. This is good, because I figure home grooming is the dog equivalent of wearing hand-me-down clothes, and I want them to still have some shred of street cred with the other dogs on the street.

In the end, I think I’ve found a new hobby. I will keep my clientele exclusive, just like how you only hear of Ken Paves mentioned with Jessica Simpson, because that’s how my dogs roll. They have the rhinestone collars, too.

It’s good to have a plan B if this whole writing thing doesn’t work out. I may order new business cards just in case: Kristen Ethridge, Dog Stylist.

But I’m not going to Office Depot. I can print them myself.