Refocus

Past

I twirl my hair between my fingers and giggle at your words. So clever and handsome.

I look at you and see life stretched before me with infinite wonder and possibility. You look back and my breath hitches when the side of your mouth lifts ever so slightly. Do you see the same when you look at me? Love is alive.

Away too long, love. Why haven’t you called? The babies are crying and so am I.

For My Little Beastie

My "Beastie" is actually the most beautiful Beauty in the world!!!!

This week has been hard for me. I had to take my daughter, whom I affectionately call Beastie 2 (my son is Beastie 1), to the orthopedist the other day. She was diagnosed with scoliosis nearly a year ago. She was only eight years old, now nine. If you are not familiar with scoliosis, it is a side to side curvature of the spine and it normally doesn’t show up until around ages ten to fourteen.

I know a lot about scoliosis because I have it, too. Mine was found when I was twelve, though, considerably older than Beastie 2. To stop the curve from progressing, I was put into a back brace. The other day, we found out Beastie 2 will be braced also. I was praying hers would not be progressive, of course. But I am thankful for two things: we caught it early, and the braces these days are nothing like what I had to wear! Mine was like a heavy plastic and metal cage. These days, they are a lightweight, plastic-foam thing, with no metal, that’s completely contoured. Think Suburban vs. SmartCar.

Anyway, the whole experience has had me feeling nostalgic, and more than a bit distracted, so trying to come up with a new post  for today just didn’t work. Instead, I’m sharing with you MY story that was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Just for Preteens.

Multiverses for Dummies…like me.

As I’m sitting here simultaneously wondering what I need to write about for my blog post and brainstorming what I need to write next on my research paper, it occurred to me that maybe I should just write something about what I’m writing about so I don’t have to spend time writing one thing when I should be writing the next, in actuality I’ll be writing on the same thing albeit not in the same place.

Confused? Well, I am a little. You see, my research paper is on the Multiverse Theory and God. And if you think that sounds simple enough, I also have to discuss within the topic such things as Big Bang Cosmology, Chaos Theory, String Theory, and Anthropic Fine Tuning. I won’t bore you with that stuff. Relieved, right?

But I thought I could share sort of a “for dummies” version of what Multiverse Theory is all about. It’s the stuff movies and good fiction is made of, but some physicists are calling it science. You’ve seen it at work in Doctor Who, Sliders, The Chronicles of Narnia, and even versions of it found its way into Back to the Future, V is for Vendetta, and The Butterfly Effect. There are countless others, I’m sure. Stick around till the end for something really cool on this point.

Making a Splash

Artwork by Eleon

I wear the watermarks of my publisher proudly. Maybe you have heard of them? Splashdown Books? It is a small indie press out of New Zealand run by the extraordinary Grace Bridges. She has gathered under her banner some of the best speculative writers in the business. Maybe you have heard of a few of them also? Shoot, three of them blog right here at The Cheesecake Thickens. Keven Newsome, author of the dark and dangerous Winter. Kat Heckenbach, author of the clever and imaginative Finding Angel. Or P.A. Baines, author of the heart wrenching story of a broken man and a computer that finds God.  I cannot go on without mentioning Fred Warren, Caprice Hokstad, Ryan Grabow, Adam and Andrea Graham (relation on the side of our heavenly Father), Rick Copple, Mike Lynch, Travis Perry, or Walt Staples. This doesn’t even include the wonderful artists and musicians we have.