You despise that person (you know the one), and all that they stand for. Their face is on everything and everywhere, and why they’re famous or even admired baffles you to nausea. If they would just die (and everyone else in their little groups) the world would be a better place.
But that’s not going to happen, nor is wishing someone to die a mature attitude that anyone over the age of nine should still possess. Our rhetoric about people and public figures has degenerated to level of grade school recess fights, and it’s time to reverse that. Not just to teach the rising generation how to handle those who they don’t like, but for us adults to have some peace of mind, and some peace in heart.
As I’ve tried to find ways to get along in my mind with those people whose very existence rankle my ire, I’ve devised this list:
Acknowledge that every person—EVERY person—has some good qualities. No one is ever wholly “evil” or “bad,” no matter what the memes say about them.
Find that good quality. Identify it, and not in a sarcastic manner. Recognize that even the “worst” politician, athlete, Hollywood type, or even next-door neighbor has some worthy ability. Maybe they’re very tenacious, or are devoted to their kids, or aren’t fazed by criticism, or have a unique way of looking at the world.
Next, grab hold of that quality, and admire Yes, you heard me right: admire that ability to do whatever, and isolate it in your mind as their redeeming factor.
Do NOT add a “Yes, but,” after that, the words which negate that admirable quality you just identified. There is no room for “Yes, buts.” At least, not at this step.
Now, whenever you see or read something about that person, and you feel your blood pressure rising with rancor, recall that quality, and say to yourself (and here’s where the “Yes, but” comes into play), “Yes, but she seems very skilled in applying eyeliner.” (See, it doesn’t have to be an exceptionally noble trait, but something you can admire.) “Yes, but he genuinely seems to like his current wife,” might be another. Or, if you’ve got nothing else, you could think, “Yes, but I’ve never heard of that person sending rabid gorillas to the international space station.” Repeat this line in your head about the person, over and over if necessary.
And move on. Do NOT continue to read or listen to or watch that person who you so despise. Change the channel, turn off the device, click past them, and find something more settling for your ulcer.
Finally, repeat to yourself: “I do NOT have to get angry about someone. I do not have to spout off in social media, or repost that snarky meme, or comment below the article about why that person should die. I can MOVE ON” (remember step 6?).
Repeat as necessary, and revel in your new-found peace.
You have very little time in life; don’t waste any of it being angry at a public figure who will never care what you think, and will never know.
Go pour some love on someone instead. Valentine’s Day is coming, after all.
Mahrree rarely thought about the twenty-three Administrators who now ruled, and likewise those Administrators thought nothing of her at the northern edge of the world.
I’ve always known that parenthood is how God teaches us to be like Him, but now that I’ve been at it for 25 years, I feel like I’m finally understanding some of those aspects. For example:
1) God WANTS to hear from us. Wherever, whenever. I know this, because currently our family is spread over the country. Five of my nine children are at home, one’s serving an LDS mission, and three are away at college. My husband also works out of state, so connecting with everyone doesn’t always happen. But on some Mondays (the day my missionary son can email home) I find that I’ve chatted, emailed, skyped, texted, or messaged everyone in my family. Those are successful days when I feel as if everyone’s still connected.
BUT, how I am not like God is that by the evening, I AM DONE! My kids will tell you that there comes a point when I loudly announce, “I do NOT want to TALK or even SEE any more children! I NEED QUIET TIME!”
Invariably this occurs after these children have already been read and prayed away to bed, and they sneak into my room while I’m trying to work on my computer to annoy me with something irrelevant. After my explosion, and they retreat to their rooms, sure enough, that’s when one of my away-children will pop up to chat online, or my husband will skype about something.
You should see the look I give my poor husband when he skypes at those moments. “Ah,” he’ll say, “one of those pecked-to-death-by-ducks days. I’ll make this brief—”
Sometimes (ok, often) I lose it.
But God never runs out of patience, or wants time to Himself, because He doesn’t deal with time. (That still boggles my mind.) He’s got all the non-existent time in the world, and there’s never a queue for those waiting on Him.
I know this, because I’ve prayed at all hours of the day and night, and have never heard celestial bellows of, “I Have Had It With These Children—Today, I Am Done!”
Nope, He’s never going to do that.
2) When you truly love God, you just want to be with Him. I know this, because when I have been patient and kind with my kids (something I pray for every single day—“PLEASE help me be patient and kind!”) they actually want to be with me.
This occurred to me on Sunday as my youngest children squished me on the pew at church. My preschooler is getting too heavy to be on my lap, but since he’s the last, I tolerate it even as my legs lose feeling. My nine-year-old tries to lean on me at the same time because she’s too big for my lap, and my thirteen-year-old will lean on the other side because I’m convenient for when he falls asleep five minutes into the service.
And so I sit, squashed and growing numb.
For a naturally claustrophobic person, this has taken a few years to get used to, but I discovered some time ago that if my kids didn’t like me—or even tolerate me—they’d be sitting much further away. On days like that I think, “I may be doing something right.”
Or I’m just convenient, but I’ll take that.
It’s the same with our Heavenly Father. When we truly know Him and understand His nature, we want to be closer to Him. We read the scriptures more, we pray more, we include Him more in our daily mental conversations. We do all we can to feel closer to Him, and He in turn draws closer to us.
We discover He’s an ally, a friend, a confidante, and while sometimes He needs to chasten us because He loves us, His arms are outstretched still, waiting for us to come back into them.
As a mother, I’m not always successful in this. There are times when my children have done something so heinous (i.e. ruined an appliance/electronic device/toilet) that I have to step away in fury, or my child might be permanently wounded; not physically, but emotionally.
To be fair, this child had permission to destroy the light fixture . . .
. . . only because she wouldn’t let go of the hammer, and I feared for the rest of the house.
There have been moments when I’ve wanted to throw a flood at an “evil” child and wash it far away, but then I remember that God had been warning and pleading with and trying to save His truly evil children before The Flood for 120 years while Noah labored on the ark.
But after 120 seconds, sometimes I’m ready to call down hail-fire and brimstone. (See why I’m always praying to be “patient and kind”?)
3) Heavenly Father wants to be our Father. Before I get into this, allow me backtrack—children need parents. I think this should be obvious, but almost daily I read philosophies that try to downplay the importance of parents, claiming they can be replaced by exceptional schools (I haven’t found any truly exceptional yet), well-structured day-care centers which can care for your child from before breakfast to after dinner, and a socialistic state which “serves” to alleviate the burdens of parenthood, so that adults can do what really matters—work for the betterment of the state.
Parenting, in some socialist theories, is a purely physical function, with those functions ending as soon as the child is delivered.
This isn’t how God sees parenthood. In fact, the title this all-powerful Creator of Heaven and Earth has chosen for himself is Heavenly Father. I’ve referred to Him here frequently as God which, while accurate, I think downplays His role in our lives. “God” is often seen as a distant figure, full of power and anger, ready to trick and punish His subjects in Zeus-like ways. The gods love to mess with us puny mortals.
The problem is, much of the world regards the Supreme Being of the cosmos this way. But that’s not a true image. Rather, it’s one Satan tries to promote in his effort to keeps us as far away from our Father as he can.
Our Father is an all-loving, ever-patient, ever-tender Father—to all of us. No matter our race, religion, political background, or any other potentially divisive measure, He wants to parent us, as a Perfect Parent would: solely concerned about our well-being.
Our Heavenly Father has no other agenda, no other pressing concerns, other than our eternal happiness. There’s nothing He wants more than to bring us home again with our souls intact from this life-long test we told Him we wanted to take.
Think about the best dad you know—maybe yours, maybe a friend’s. (Interestingly, a lot of people’s perceptions of God are based upon their relationships with their own fathers.) What made that dad so great? His every thought was for his kids, wasn’t it?
Just like our Heavenly Father.
But we puny mortals usually aren’t as wholly devoted to parenthood. Certainly not me, unfortunately. Sure, I’m concerned about my kids, put aside my own plans to help them with theirs, and often forsake sleep, food, and sanity to help them when they’re troubled.
But even as I type this morning, I’m interrupted by my daughter getting ready for school, my son splashing in his bath, my other son failing again to wake up . . . and here I sit typing. (Notice how I said they’re interrupting me—how I come first, instead of them?) I’m not 24-hours-a-day focused on my children.
“Helicopter parenting,” on the other hand, is not God-like parenting, either, because it’s not done out of concern for children, but out of anxiety of what society may think of us as parents.
While wholly attentive, Heavenly Father is not a helicopter parent. He allows us to make mistakes, to skin our knees, even to punch our siblings, because He knows this life is a test, and no one ever learns from a test if they’re not allowed to actually take it. He allows us to fail so that we can begin to improve.
However, I admit there are times I probably should be more attentive than I am, so that the above-mentioned ruined appliances/devices/toilets don’t get ruined.
Or so that this, for example, doesn’t happen.
That’s not a problem Heavenly Father faces. A nearly-ruined earth, maybe, but nothing that His Son cannot heal. No, Heavenly Father is far more focused and far more in the details of our lives than we’ll ever understand while in mortality.
Only when we get to the other side and review our existence will we see how often He nudged a situation for us, or diverted a disaster, or steadied us, much like we steady our own children as they learn to ride a bike. Rarely do they know, in their excitement that first time without training wheels, how closely we’re running behind them and straightening their bikes until they can do it themselves.
Likewise, we’ll be surprised to see how often our Heavenly Dad’s hand was touching our lives to make sure we stayed on course.
People occasionally ask me why I have so many kids, and I give my usual, flippant answer of “My husband and I really don’t know. What keeps causing this? Can you explain it to me? Draw diagrams?”
But once another answer came to my mind, when my Heavenly Father was gently nudging me to not be so trivial.
The answer was, So that I can learn to be more like my Heavenly Parents.
Because yes, there is a Heavenly Mother, too, but my theory is that She’s dealing with the children not yet born, or who have already died and gone back, so Heavenly Father is dealing with those of us on “away missions” while She focuses on those “back home.” Even Heavenly Parents have a division of labor.
I also have a lot of children because I’m a very slow learner (no, we figured out how they’re conceived a few years ago—glad we got that cleared up). Each child has taught me a different aspect of how my Heavenly Father wishes me to be, and I’m needing lots of years of practice to start getting close to His vision for me.
But, fortunately, I have Perfect Examples to follow.
Mahrree often felt as if she were looking into the eyes of the Creator Himself as Gleace listened earnestly to Peto’s description of kickball, offered advice to Deck on selecting cattle to start his herd, chuckled at Jaytsy’s explanation of her mother’s first attempt to garden, and laughed at hearing how Perrin became a cat owner. He paid full attention to each of them, as if no one else existed, and what they had to say was the most important thing ever.
Mahrree knew there were some people who envisioned the Creator as a great and terrible Being, full of impatient vengeance for the fallibility of His creations.
But Mahrree had always pictured someone else: a perfect Father who wanted to make sure His children knew they were loved and cared about. ~Book 5, Safety Assured Leaving East of Medicetti
I ran a booth, I dragged six of my nine kids with me, had two others meet us there, and three days of 12+ work days are still a blur in my head, but I remember a few things:
1. I am not in shape to run up three flights of stairs to see Mark Hamill in the distance. But once I got my breath back, hanging with Mark in the Vivint Center was totally doable.
Me and Mark. I’m sure he saw me waving to him.
2. My knowledge of geekdom isn’t as deep as I thought. I recognized maybe only a third of the costumes which paraded past my booth. But I did recognize TwoFlower—and the older man dressed as him was delighted that I also knew what his elaborate imp-in-a-box was. (Terry Pratchett’s version of a camera.)
(My four-year-old doesn’t yet understand the difference between pretend and real. He thought it was a real Tardis, just like he ran from the R2-D2 droid because it was too real.)
(My daughter, in the green shirt, didn’t fear R2 whatsoever.)
3. People will freak out when the curtain they’re sitting by suddenly parts and someone (me) walks through it. Probably my best entertainment was leaving my booth by the back curtain to dart over to the bathrooms, shocking lurkers that life exists beyond the panels. I also got to hear a lot of juicy gossip from people who didn’t realize I was sitting just a foot away eating my dinner, especially about someone named Cheryl.
Wherever you are, Cheryl, your associates don’t believe for one minute you didn’t have surgery, and Daniel’s on to you.
4. Listen—really listen—to people to discover marvelous things. One young woman came to my booth asking if I had a Doctor Who clock. I told her I was gathering suggestions for one, and did she know anything about the older Doctors? She pulled out her iphone, wrapped as a Tardis, and in seconds she had up wiki pages of Doctor Who to back up her suggestions which she proudly stated.
Next she pulled out her ipad and showed me the scripts she’d downloaded from audio plays, and she trembled slightly with joy to find someone willing to appreciate her fanatical fandom.
Maybe, the thought occurred to me, she’d been waiting for three days to find someone needing her expertise, and while it was Saturday night and the Con was closing, we chatted for ten minutes about her knowledge. I gave her my card and told her to email me if she had any other suggestions, because clearly she was the authority, and she blushed with pride.
That’s when I also noticed she was alone. Maybe she’d come with someone else and would find them later, but I doubted it. I hadn’t yet seen anyone alone at Comic Con, but she wasn’t looking or waiting for anyone. She was hoping, perhaps, that someone would find her. We did.
(My oldest daughter, due in three weeks, learned that working all day and evening won’t induce labor, unfortunately.)
5. A middle-aged woman not dressed in cosplay but wearing a badge (see photo above of my daughter’s all-powerful badge which got us passed all lines) looks like an authority. One afternoon I took a break and wandered over to where the celebrities were signing autographs. My purpose was to catch sight of Manu Bennett, who one of my old high school friends who I saw earlier says was worth gawking at, and who I’ve always thought would make a great Perrin Shin (one of the lead characters in my book series).
But I’d never be brave enough to meet him, because what would I say? Something creeper-stalker-like, such as, “I’ve written a book series, and I’ve imagined the main guy should be played by you”?
So I stood with my arms folded, about 70 feet away from the entrance where the celebrities came into the convention center, and I must have looked rather stern as I was lost in thought. Stern enough in my black t-shirt and beige pants that people gave me wide berth, except to ask me questions. “Where are the celebrities when they’re not here?” “Where’s the food court?” “Can I just go up to a celebrity and shake their hand?” I made up believable answers.
My daughter and Rory from Doctor Who, Arthur Davrill. Hanging out at Celebrity Row.
I didn’t realize until later that I was dressed like the security guys, and that people probably mistook me as a supervisor (since my build obviously doesn’t scream, “SECURITY!”).
That’s when I wished I’d tested my philosophy, that someone walking purposefully will not be stopped. I wanted to go behind the black screen where the celebrities hid out, and stride down the corridor as if I belonged there.
But then I realized how embarrassing it’d be for my kids to have to go to the security office and bail me out (or whatever happens if someone’s caught). And there I’d be, weeping and saying, “I just wanted to see if he could be Perrin!”
The fantasy of doing it is better than the reality, in many ways.
Manu Bennett finally did come out, grinning and sauntering.
Definitely could be Perrin.
6. Some costumes are astonishing. I want to redo my bedroom to look her.
(Not the Pickachu, but Queen Elizabeth.)
Best/tallest Hagrid I’ve seen.
7. Some costumes are ridiculous. As my friend David Jensen observed, bikini armor is quite useless.
(No, no bikini armor here–just my old friend and helpful beta reader David Jensen who noticed the bikini armor. I love writing that: bikini armor.)
8. Even if the costume is many sizes too small, some people will insist on squeezing most of their body parts into it. Mercifully, I didn’t take any photos of those. But I still feel nauseated at the thought of bulging flesh.
9. People respect a soldier’s uniform. My oldest son wore his army fatigues (and bought a matching outfit for his girlfriend), swapping out his army patch for a Zombie Fighter patch. He was surprised at the amount of people who came up to shake his hand. Even the Asian workers at the Mongolian BBQ food truck, where he bought us all lunch, wanted a picture with a “real American soldier.” And here he thought no one would want to take his photo.
The only shot I got of my family, as they were leaving Thursday night.
10. Some people will complain, no matter what.
“There’s too many people!” (You’re one of them.)
“I just know I’m going to get sick from something!” (When you’re with 100,000 people, yeah . . .)
“That costume is so awful.” (Have you looked at your own?)
11. Some people will find the bright side, no matter what. Those folks give me hope and inspiration.
12. Utahns with children really like Harry Potter. As evidenced by the amount of strollers parked outside the ballroom to hear Evanna Lynch (“Luna Lovegood”) speak.
13. Don’t give up in the middle. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but during the last week I lost five pounds because of a knotted belly and twisted bowels. I’ve never, ever, done something this stressful in my life. (Except moving cross country, driving a van 2,000+ miles only four weeks after I had my 8th baby–that maybe was worse.) Never before have I invested and created and worked so much, and halfway through Friday I realized that the sales weren’t going to be what I had fantasized.
In fact, we’d barely break even. No one around us was doing huge sales either, and I found out later that very few of the vendors had the success they were hoping for.
I was ready to quit and leave, even though I knew I wouldn’t do it. I privately castigated myself, however, for my arrogance, my naïve hope. Why did I think this was a good idea in the first place?
Because every morning, for the past two months, I’d waken up with the clear image of what I needed to accomplish that day to be ready for Comic Con. Every day I felt the gentle reassurance that this was what I should do, that it would all be well, and that I should continue.
And so I did, waiting for whatever was to come, and eventually learning to have fun. By that evening I was talking freely with people and actually enjoyed myself. That’s huge for an introvert like me.
14. Watching it all come down is depressing. Like seeing the clean-up after a funeral. It really is all over.
15. I saw marvelous things I’ll never see again. My favorite, which I didn’t have time to whip out my camera for, was the true Rastafarian, with massive dreadlocks, on the street outside the convention center on his skateboard, blaring reggae music. He was dressed like Spiderman as he whizzed by. Beautiful.
The balloon Star Wars folks were also good, if not a bit squeaky.
And this pirate ship, quietly gliding behind our booth at the end, like the Black Pearl in “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” when it’s carried by crabs across the salt flats (filmed here in Utah).
And I realized I really, really want a pirate coat someday.
This massive box was on the loading dock. Welcome to Comic Con.
16. Awkwardness reigns. It’s a well-known fact that many geeks, nerds, and cosplay folks feel out of place in the regular world. They come to these conventions to find other fringe folks, and to be part of the group for once. Even then, there are still those on the fringes of the fringe groups, but they’re the ones who get all of the attention—positive attention, usually.
I told my kids that whoever seemed truly bizarre, but was wearing a wristband, was probably still ok.
It was the folks who weren’t wearing wristbands or badges they needed to steer clear of.
17. Not everyone “gets” it. The nice women running the booth next to me were clearly not part of the geek/nerd/cosplay world. Their product was kids’ books, and they were used to community fairs. Their eyes would bulge in shock or fear at what walked by next.
Then a very shapely woodland sprite sauntered past, wearing only a g-string and a lot of body paint, and I heard one of women murmur, “And I thought the state fair had some weirdos.”
18. Playing “Who is he/she with?” is a new sport. During quiet selling times, my daughters and I would sit back and watch who’d come by our booth, then try to guess what their significant other would look like, as they often were a step or two behind. We were often quite surprised, and occasionally uttered, “How’d he/she get her/him?” Some folks I’d never pair together, then again people probably think the same thing when they see me with my cute husband.
19. Karma exists. In my religion we don’t talk about karma per se, but I’m convinced it’s out there. I over prepared for Comic Con, bringing a lot of stuff I didn’t need, but that others around me did. My booth neighbors on various sides borrowed my tablecloth, my phone charger, my blank paper, my markers, took a lot of my free mints, and even let me bounce a wailing newborn while they handled customers (the hardest duty, I assure you).
For one brief moment I did feel slightly put upon as the child of my booth neighbors took candy from my booth for about the seventh time, but then I thought, “If I’m not here to help others, then what good am I?”
Maybe it was that attitude that karma recognized (whoever or wherever she may be) so that she allowed Billy Boyd, aka “Pippin” to wander by our shop with his security (dressed in black shirts like mine) and nod in approval at our stuff Saturday afternoon. I had missed seeing his panel Thursday night (you can see part of it below) but my kids had all gone and hadn’t stopped talking about him for two days.
By the time my daughter, who was in front and noticed (while I was sitting behind snacking) recovered enough from her shock to tell me who had smiled at our stuff, he was gone. But still I grabbed a Lord of the Rings clock and took off running into the mass of tens of thousands of people. I just had to give a hobbit a clock!
But I didn’t see him, anywhere, even after 20 minutes of searching. I admit I even prayed silently, “Dear Lord, if there’s any way I could give him a clock, may I? Where do I go? I know this seems silly, but I really would love to give him a clock . . .”
My oldest daughter, whom I called to tell what happened, later texted me, “I bet he’s gone back to sign autographs. Give the clock to his handler.” That’s when I knew . . .
20. Sometimes, you’ve got to just be braver than you’ve ever dared, even if you think you’ll vomit. “I’m going over to see Billy Boyd,” I told my daughter. “I have to try.” So I took the clock to celebrity row, and also took a Harry Potter one for Luna Lovegood, in case she was there. I was intending to leave the clock with Billy Boyd’s “handler” (that’s what they call them, as if they’re displaying their beasts at the zoo), because I hadn’t signed up to meet Pippin, nor had I paid $50 for an autograph. I stood in line anxiously, watching as the dozen or so in front me went to gush and have something signed. When I got to the handler, I explained what I wanted her to give him.
“No,” she said, with a slight smile. “You’ll give it to him yourself.”
I was not expecting that response. “I’m so nervous,” I confessed, “that I might throw up.” She told me they had buckets, and go ahead.
By this time Billy Boyd, down the table, was looking at me quizzically, so I thought, Gotta do it.
I took the clock out of the box and told him that he walked by our shop and smiled at it, to which he responded, “Yes, I remember!” because he could see my label on the box which matched the sign. (So all my work in branding actually was effective!) I said that we made a LOTR clock, too, and he said, “I didn’t know that.” I also didn’t expect him to respond to my frantic monologue, so I’m sure I stumbled in my words as I said, “My daughter was too shocked to say anything as you walked by, but she stared at you.”
“I saw that, too!” he grinned. That’s when I began to realize he was just an ordinary man. Sort of.
Then I told him, “All of my nine kids are huge LOTR fans–”
“You have NINE KIDS!?” he exclaimed in his awesome Scottish accent.
Oh, how I wished I could have recorded that and made that as my ring tone. “You have NINE KIDS?! You have NINE KIDS?!”
“I do!” I exclaimed back. “And they’ve all helped design and make this clock. They would love for you to have it, if you’d accept it.”
He took the clock and smiled at it, saying. “It’s lovely! It’s beautiful. Thank you!”
Mission accomplished!
As he read what each number represented from Middle Earth, and I sighed in satisfaction that I’d done more than I anticipated. I started to leave when Mr. Boyd surprised me with, “Is that the clock you want me to sign?” He was gesturing to the one tucked under my arm, the Harry Potter intended for Luna Lovegood.
Stunned by that, I said, “Actually, this is for Evanna Lynch. I don’t have one with me for you to sign. I really just wanted to give you that one from my kids.”
“Well then,” he said, “run back to your shop, get another one, and bring it back. I’ve got only five minutes before I have to do photo ops, so when you come back, jump to the head of the line, and I’ll sign it.”
I really wasn’t expecting that, and, with some embarrassment, I said, “But I haven’t paid $50 for your autograph.”
He looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t care. Run and get it.”
Pippin always was my favorite hobbit, now more than ever.
“Really?” I said (or maybe shouted.) “All right! Thank you so much!” and I took off running.
I’m not a sprinter, by any means, but I went as fast as I could, occasionally elbowing people in my way. I was nearly dry-heaving in exhaustion when I grabbed another clock at our booth and gasped to my daughter, “He’s going to sign this!” Then I ran back to get to his table again, propelled by so much adrenaline that I didn’t come down from it for about six hours.
Billy (we’re on a first name basis by now) was talking to some other people, so I had a minute to catch my breath and try to regain some composure.
He saw me, smiled, and I told him as I approached, “You’ve made this middle-aged woman run faster than she ever has. My kids are going to freak.”
(My daughter, freaking.)
He wrote quickly, because he already knew what he was going to write—he’d been thinking about it! Under Towers for 2, he wrote “Second Breakfast.” Then he signed it, “With love, Billy Boyd, Pippin.”
“Thank you so much! You’re just wonderful to do this.” I told him, and he did a little “Ah, gee it was nothing” shrug. “It’s going up on my living wall tomorrow,” I told him, then I bounded off.
I probably could have gotten a hug from him, too, and I’d seen him do selfies with others, but I hadn’t gone with the intention of taking something from him, even though he freely offered it. I already had a signature on something we made—a one-of-a-kind item. Somehow asking for a photo would have changed the moment, and I wanted it to be just as it was. Evanna Lynch was already gone, but I didn’t care. I’d gotten more than I’d expected.
I thought then what would have happened if I had given up halfway through Comic Con, if I’d let my anxiety and worry win, if I’d left and never came back. That’s when I learned . . .
21. Success isn’t always measured in $$$. That’s what God was trying to teach me, I realized toward the end. We did, in fact, cover our booth costs, along with advertising, parking, and food, which meant we didn’t lose anything but gained a lot in exposure. But more importantly, I think we were successful in who we reached, like the timid Doctor Who expert and TwoFlower, who was sure no one would appreciate Discworld.
I met several old friends from high school, and made some new ones.
I discovered I can do really hard things, and my kids learned more about business than they ever will any other way (my excuse for letting them skip school).
One of three booth configurations we played with while there.
I also met people I never would have before. For example, I carried on a fun conversation with a transgendered couple, discussing Alice in Wonderland, clocks, and how difficult it is to walk around with branches in one’s hair (eye-poking hazards for those who follow.)
Had we met casually on the street, I doubt we ever would have chatted, sensing too many differences between us. But barriers come down in events like this, and we find ways to connect through common interests, and parted as friends who have shared compliments and a laugh.
And, I have to confess, I enjoyed the ego stroking. As a writer and Etsy shop owner, my world is pretty much what goes in and comes out of my laptop. Occasionally I get feedback from those who have read my books or purchased my goods, and those are magical days indeed when they tell me they liked my stuff. But rarely have I met the actual people behind the words. (And that’s fine; we introverts communicate best through writing.)
I admit that I teared up when, one afternoon, I realized there were five different people in front of my booth taking pictures of my signs and clocks. Many times the aisle in front of us was blocked by those stopping to read and chuckle. And when someone mentioned, “That’s clever,” or “No one is doing anything like this,” I felt validation. I’m embarrassed to admit that I needed and wanted that, but then I realize that’s all that everyone wants—assurance that they’re doing something good, something that brings others joy.
22. I wish I’d done more of that for others—given more compliments and reached out more to strangers—although my introverted self had stretched further into extrovert territory than I ever had before. There’s nothing better than to see someone light up when I tell them I admire the creativity they put into their costume, that I appreciated their work.
Even though we plan to move across the country next year, still my mind is reeling with ways to make it to the next Comic Con or FanX convention. Because now I know what to do, and how to make it even better for everyone with me.
Plus, it’s a great way to lose five stress pounds. Two months of this, I’d be down to my dream weight.
I took a picture of our last set-up for “next time,” even though I doubt there’ll be a next time. Still, I can’t stop thinking about it . . . And that pirate coat. I need a pirate coat.
Despite the world’s best efforts, it’s not impossible to be happy.
That was the premise I began with as I stared at another dismal news day. Instead of ranting here about what’s wrong in the world, as usual, I decided instead to spend a few days observing how people remain happy, especially when all around is misery. I’ve been surprised and intrigued by what I’ve noticed.
Here are the results of my very unscientific observations:
1) Happy people have not lived trouble-free lives.Contrary to what you may think, happy people frequently have waded through a great deal of grief. Illness, financial woes, death, homelessness, divorce: some of the happiest people have been handed some of the roughest ordeals. But they’ve learned to cope, to adapt, and to fiercely—insistently—find the joy in their trials. They choose to find joy. Probably because of this . . .
2) Happy people are generous. They will give their time, their love, their talents, even their money to ease the burdens of others. They’ve discovered that one of the many ways happiness comes is by giving it to someone else.
3) Happy people live for others. They’re not focused on themselves, which they’ve discovered is the surest way to become miserable. The happiest people are those who volunteer their time, who take care of those who can’t give anything back to them, and who rarely think of themselves.
4) Happy people are humble. They don’t boast about their accomplishments, or who they know, or what they own. In fact, you’d be surprised by just how much they’ve done with their lives, if ever you were to find out, because they don’t advertise it.
5) Happy people rarely talk about themselves. In conversations, they’ll focus all of their attention on you. When they ask about your day, they really want to know. When you leave their presence, you’ll feel like the most important person in the world, and only later will you realize you heard very little about them.
6) Happy people are respectful. They will not ridicule, mock, or deride you. They may gently tease, but are careful to never drag you down, like crabs in a bucket. They respect your decisions, even if you don’t respect theirs.
7) Happy people are content. They are satisfied with the choices they’ve made in their lives, so they have no issues with the choices you make in yours. They may make suggestions because they’re concerned about your happiness, but they’ll never force you to accept their way of doing things. They will let you live your life, your way.
8) Happy people smile. When you see happy people, you know it. By their eyes, which radiate joy, their smiles, which are genuine, and their body position, which is open and inviting. They have nothing to hide, nothing to guard, and everything to share.
9) Happy people are kind. To everyone and everything. They smile at children, give a weary parent a nod of approval, assist the elderly, and even pick up items that have fallen off of shelves at the store, because they want to make some employee’s day just that much easier. Happy people are those who gently shoo away bugs instead of squashing them, and who will politely ask the stray dog to not befoul their gardens.
10) Happy people are honest. About you, about themselves, about the world around them. They don’t deceive, and they don’t cover up the truth, especially about themselves. If they are at fault, or if they have caused harm, they will ask forgiveness and actively seek to make restitution. Happy people take full responsibility for their behavior and consequences, because they don’t want to cause unhappiness in others.
11) Happy people don’t take offense. Even if it’s intended. They just let the words roll off their backs, like water off a duck, and generously decide that the potential offender has merely had a bad day. Happy people think the best of people in all circumstances, not the worst. In fact, it may be hard to convince a happy person that someone is truly bad. They just don’t want to believe it.
12) Happy people are at peace. That doesn’t mean the world which they inhabit is peaceful. Indeed, some of the happiest people I’ve observed have been calm in the most chaotic of situations. But they are at peace with themselves, with their choices, with who they are becoming, and most importantly, they are at peace with God, whose peace surpasses all understanding.
I see happy people everywhere, when I bother to look for them. Each of the items I’ve listed above I’ve noticed a happy person doing. (It was my dad who would politely ask dogs to leave our yard; he was the most peaceful man I’ve ever known. And yes, the dogs would leave, every time. He’d thank them, too.)
So how do we all become such happy people? I’m still working on that. It’s the old chicken-and-the-egg question, I suppose. But one thing I’ve noticed in myself is when I do my best to have these happy traits–if I “feel” it or not–my happiness level automatically increases.
This is what I’ve discovered:
Watch for them, the happy people. Tell me what other traits you observe in them, in yourself.
Notice when you feel joy. It may be more frequently than you realize. Most importantly, share that joy with others. We all need more happy people in our world.
There’d always be pain, and always suffering, Perrin knew–
“And also always relief, and also always joy. That’s the trial of life, son, and it all works for our good. But it will always end in joy, Perrin.”
~Book 5,Safety Assured Leaving East of Medicetti
I need this tattooed to the inside of my eyelids, to remember. (Especially during this political season, which is drawn out to many very long, very ugly seasons . . .)
All I wanted was a Dr. Who Weeping Angel for my front yard for Halloween.
People are terrified of them. If you don’t know what they are, watch the episode “Blink.” (Try Netflix.) You don’t even have to know the first thing about Dr. Who in order to appreciate this episode. Weeping angels seem like innocent statues in parks and cemeteries, but when you blink, they move faster than lighting, touch you, and . . .
No, you don’t die.They send you back in time. For some reason, I love that idea and don’t find weeping angels scary at all. Unless they send me back to relieve 8th grade, then yeah.
But otherwise, they’re one of the most terrifying villains, and you can readily recognize a Whovian based on their response to weeping angels. One year my oldest daughter in college at BYU in Provo, Utah, spent a few weeks making a weeping angel costume, then a few hours getting ready to wear it on campus. When she was a gray statue bustling from one class to another, she’d stop, cover her eyes, and stand perfectly still.
That’s when she’d hear, “Holy cow! That’s a weeping angel! Oh my gosh, nobody touch her! Is she real? Yeah, she’s real! Whoa. That’s like the greatest costume ever–no, don’t get near me!!!”
She said it was the best Halloween ever. A few Dr. Who costumed students tried to subdue her with their sonic screwdrivers, but we all know that sonic has no power over ancient time zapping angels.
Four years ago I made my kids t-shirts that read “The angels have the blue box” (watch the episode “Blink”) and this family portrait, which will forever warm my heart, sits in prominence in my living room.
(Great photo, Charcie Rebalkin of Milestone Photography)
Over the years my kids have invited their friends over to see episodes of Dr. Who, and whenever the weeping angels were featured, those teenagers were quite nervous walking home at night. Being the nice mom that I am, I’d see their anxiety and tell them, “Then RUN home! And whatever you do, DON’T BLINK!” Then I’d slam the door and laugh as they hurried home, their eyes watering.
Maybe that’s why my kids don’t have friends over very often.
The cloak is also army surplus, and even though he couldn’t do a British accent, his “Are you my mummy?” was creepy enough.
Dr. Who is full of frightening references. Two years ago one of my sons wore his brother’s gas mask for Halloween (yes, we have an army surplus gas mask; doesn’t everyone?). After he was done trick-or-treating, he sat on our front porch with the bowl of candy quietly saying, “Are you my mummy?”
Again we played “Spot the Whovian,” and found one very quickly. As I watched from the front window, a little boy happily tromped up to our front porch, but his mother had a nervous breakdown at our driveway.
“OHHHH. Look at the little boy in the gas mask!” (Her voice became an octave higher.) “Oh, very scary. Grab your candy, honey. RIGHT NOW! No, don’t choose something, JUST GRAB IT AND DON’T TOUCH HIM! Ha-ha-ha! Very good costume. GET AWAY FROM HIM!”
I love Halloween.
Especially when it doesn’t scare me, but scares everyone else. Weeping angels aren’t scary, neither are Daleks, which look like soda cans with toilet plungers, and can be foiled by stairs.
Nor are cybermen frightening, because even I can out-jog them.
(The Borg from Star Trek, however, are truly terrifying man-machines.)
The Silence, on the other hand . . .let’s not talk about the Silence. Really.
BACK TO WEEPING ANGELS!
When I saw this foam head at my local Joann’s, I realized her potential. I knew I was on to something when I bought a couple yards of gray fleece, and the young woman cutting my fabric asked the usual, “What are you making with this?”
“Ever watch Dr. Who?” I asked her.
“I love Dr. Who!”
Slowly I raised the foam head to the cut counter and said, in a quiet monotone, “I . . . am making . . . a weeping angel.”
The girl shivered in her green apron. “Oh!” she exclaimed in a higher pitch. “That’ll be . . . amazing! Here’syourfabric. Haveagreatday. NEXT!”
It should have been simple enough. Make a simple gray dress, put it on a framework of pvc pipe, paint her head and stick it on top, paint long gloves for hands, and attach wings.
The head was easy enough. Using wood glue, straight pins, and rope, I glued on her hair, securing it with pins (foam doesn’t scream when you stab it).
Soon she had a lovely head of hair that looked like cut stone, especially when I coated it with a layer of exterior latex paint, tinted the same color as the fabric I purchased for her dress.
I added a braid of fabric for a headband, secured it with pins, then painted over the entire thing, and spritzed it with darker spray paint for a stone-like appearance.
(I thought she was rather pretty. My kids thought I was weird to keep referring to “her” as “my angel.” When I put her head in my bedroom for the night, my teenage daughter covered it with a cloth.)
Then I made the dress which, because I should have purchased three yards of fabric instead of two, kind of was a bit short.
(Excuse my son’s foot photo-bombing.) I cut a simple T, cinched in the waist, and put a braid of woven leftover fabric around the neck as a decorative touch, and also to try to camouflage the fact that I cut the hole for the head too big.
Then I realized the sleeves of the T were too wide (this ain’t no choir angel) so I cut those narrower. I’m not showing all the steps I took, because most of them were wrong. (That’s why I don’t have a “diy” blog. More like a “ddiy”–“Don’t Do it Yourself.”)
Well, I couldn’t screw up the arms and hands too badly, right? I purchased long gloves from Walmart, and painted them gray with the very good latex exterior paint.
Inexplicably, I thought it’d be a good idea to put the gloves on, then paint them.
Do you know what happens to thin gloves when they have a thick coating of very good paint on them, which then soaks through to your skin? I spent that night soaking my arm in the bathtub then scrubbed it with a washcloth for about half an hour.
Only later did I realize I should have put the wire skeletons I made inside the gloves, instead of my hand.
See? Aren’t these clever?
Of course, once the gloves dried, they stiffened to a nearly impossible form, so it was also nearly impossible to get my skeletons into them.
Theses are scary, all by themselves. Maybe I should just stick them in the ground, coming out of my forest.
That’s when I realized I should have put the wire in them FIRST, and then painted them. Sigh.
I twisted together 6 strands of wire for the arms to try to pose them, and it sort of worked.
Take off the arms at the shoulders. Give pipe sections to preschooler to use as guns.
Then my husband helped me make a pvc form out of 1″ pipe which toppled over by itself (we now have a green stake holding it up) and the arms were useless, so we pulled them off.
Now her body is only a T.
I ran the 6 strands of wire through the shoulder section of the pipe, and twisted the arms and their wires together. When the wind blows, she quite comes to life.
I put the dress form on the T and painted it with a coat of the exterior paint to make it stiffer, and followed up with spritzes of the darker gray spray paint.
It stiffened up the fabric rather well, and spraying darker gray into the crevices added depth.
As for the wings I purchased foam core boards, and cut out a wing shape. Later, I discovered a razor blade is far, far easier than using scissors. I sketched on the scallop of the wings, then using thin plastic, I cut out the feathers and glued them on to the wings, trying to create a layered affect.
From the foam core I also cut another ridge for the top of the wing, trying to give that also more dimension. Again, I painted it all with the exterior paint and highlighted (or lowlighted?) it with the darker gray spray paint.
As for attaching them? After much trial and error with wire, I just bought the strongest duct tape I could find and wire and taped them to her. When the wind starts to blow, I put her in the shed so she won’t fly to pieces.
After again many problems and issues, I finally got her together and placed in my forest. And, here she is:
All right, I admit she looks emaciated, ill-proportioned, and decrepit. Which, at Halloween, is actually a good thing.
My husband asked how expensive it would be next year to buy a mannequin and just paint it.
Or how good my skills were with acrylic and molds.
My teenage daughter patted me on the back and said, “Not . . . too bad, Mom.”
My teenage son, however, glancing it in the dusk of evening between the trees said, “Hey, that’s not bad!”
Guess who’s my favorite relative this week?
When the sun’s setting, and you’re driving past it, and you glimpse it out of the corner of your eye for a brief moment, she’s pretty convincing! As with most Halloween decorations, it’s much better from afar than up close.
I’ve ordered this screeching Weeping Angel mask for her to wear for Halloween. (And I’ll paint it the correct shade of gray.)
That’s when I’ll unpin her hands from her face (remember, foam doesn’t scream) and I’ll extend her arms to touch the parents of trick-or-treaters and send them back to the horrors of 1969.
This will probably be the very last free download I’ll host. After this I’ll be publishing in other venues, and Amazon’s policy is one of exclusivity in order to offer free downloads. I feel like I’ve gotten as much as I can out of this, but I wanted to offer the books for free one last time before moving on.
So enjoy!
Share!
My last free downloads garnered more than 15,000 downloads, and I’d love to top that!
Click on the books in the column (scroll down a few inches) to go directly to Amazon for your free downloads. =====>
Remember, you can download to your computer, phone, and tablet. Not just for Kindles anymore!
I still have a couple sets of magnets left, too, so let me know if you want some for FREE!
They’re here! And ALL THREE BOOKS will be available for free downloads. Click on the book title icons on the right on Monday and Tuesday to get you straight to Amazon.
Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Download this free app to turn your computer, tablet, or smartphone into a Kindle reader. (Then you can downloads hundreds more books to read!)
What could be a better gift than three free books from yours truly?
I can think of a lot worse gifts. For example, this: an electric leg shaver.
Why is this a bad gift? Well, likely not for most people, but trust me–do NOT give this to a pre-teen, because then everyone in her family will KNOW that she has legs hairy enough to star in Planet of the Apes, and it’ll take her about 30 years to finally live it down.
(Not that I’m still dealing with feelings of humiliation, but my therapist did say it’s good to get these things out in the open.)
I know I’ve been quiet, but I’ve been working. Now that one of my jobs is over, I’ve got time to be noisy again. (My apologies in advance.)
Really, America–we can do better than this for Christmas. Such as . . . free books!
I’m excited to announce that FREE KINDLE DOWNLOADS are coming back, just in time for Christmas shopping. So you can give a friend/loved one/sort-of-tolerated relative THREE books for FREE . . . and they’ll never, ever know the great deal you got.
(Unless they happen to come to my blog, read some past posts, put two and seven together and think, “Hey, wait a minute . . . !” Then they won’t feel so badly that their gift to you was a Duck Dynasty Chia Pet Head.)
I’ll post the dates for the free downloads here within the next couple of days.
As for more good news, Book 4: Falcon in the Barn, IS COMING! It should be ready early spring 2015. I’m back to editing, and once my beta readers give me the green light (green . . . green . . . my mind’s on green. Sorry, but I can’t seem to stop looking at Willie’s green beard. Think that’s what’d it look like after a week of no bathing?) Anyway, Book 4 will be out in a few months, and I’ll release it with another free book promotion.
Merry Christmas, and pass the ranch dressing, because Willie’s beard is giving me a craving for salad. GIVE FREE BOOKS INSTEAD!
Ahhh, thanks guys! This is cool. Look what they did to the cover of my first book–slapped a big, happy gold sticker on it! This means I’m a B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree.
(There’s a sticker there. Big. Gold. Shiny. Yeah, that one.)
Indie B.R.A.G. (which stands for Book Readers Appreciation Group) will also send me some real life, actual golden stickers, presumably for my books, but I have a better plan.
My kids never knew the joy of having a teacher (be it Kindergarten or Sunday School) lick a star sticker (always with too much lick) and press it too hard on their foreheads. For some reason that fell out of fashion after the 1970s. But I always appreciated those little acknowledgements that recognized that for a few hours I was a good girl that mostly sat still in her chair and didn’t stick too many things in the ears of the boys next to her.
So when my stickers come in the mail, I’m going put a few on my forehead and proudly walk around the house and maybe even around the neighborhood.
(I love this painting, 
Over the years my kids have invited their friends over to see episodes of Dr. Who, and whenever the weeping angels were featured, those teenagers were quite nervous walking home at night. Being the nice mom that I am, I’d see their anxiety and tell them, “Then RUN home! And whatever you do, DON’T BLINK!” Then I’d slam the door and laugh as they hurried home, their eyes watering.
Forestedgebooks.com 