Here is your mother, see how she loves you. See how you make her beautiful things and how she finds ways to make the strange and the beautiful sneak its way into the every day. See how you used to fear the night because of her wanderings and what poison she might ingest. Hear the creak in the floorboards by your room. See your large grey eyes wide and myopic, staring out the dotted swiss curtained window at the night; it ended eventually. Those nights still come back now and then, when you wander through the culmination of all the places you’ve lived or been in. Your dreams collage everything, and promise feelings of home and peace. Those feelings are finally starting to creep into your waking hours. Is that why you enjoyed being a maid? You saw hundreds of homes, all like dollhouses, all decorated just so. You saw what lotion women used and what cologne men squirted onto their very rich necks before they left the house? Some homes were calm, some were tumult, and some are now blips on your memory radar. When you’d pop into the posh market near the homes that you scrubbed and toiled in the cashiers couldn’t believe that you were a maid. Your hair a bit mussed but glossy, your makeup high end (thanks to your moonlights as a makeup artist), your legs tanned and toned (thanks to your walking habits, yoga, cleaning all day, and all the sex you partook in), and your intelligent inflection. Someone who’s been to college and waxed literary should not be a maid, someone who looks like you should not be a maid.

And why not? The Zen like movements of waxing an old floor to shine, the gentle whir of the vaccum, all my thoughts were mine, I didn’t have to speak much to anyone, and I worked with my hands to a definitive end-result. I was calm, I was poor, I had lots of stories to share.

To answer your (two) questions...(or Ain't Nothin' Gonna Break my Stride...)

...ain't nothin' gonna hold me down, OH NO! I got to keep on movin'...
I will admit folks in the past week or so I hit a wall of sorts in the writing department. It seems that while I am able to write thru my kids' illness, my own illness, and the illness of my cat, I can't seem to write thru the tragedy that is pretty weather. All I've been thinking of the past few days hasn't been children's literature. It's been "As soon as rain stops must get to park and lie on rock like a lizard..." Although since I have a 3 year old, I usually just run, like a bearded lizard...
So! To answer your questions!

From Natalie: If money was no object what are the top 5 things you would spend it on?

and... what are your top 5 favorite books on the newbery honor/winners list?

Natalie - - If money were no object? This is hard to separate from. I've been down and out, Missy...and the thought of money being no object is as foreign as being a Republican to me. But, to stretch the imagination (which is what this challenge was all about...)

1. Sell beloved house (for all its quirks, I do love this house) and buy a lovely smallish log cabin in the Smoky Mountains. Said cabin would include elaborate library/study just for me...

2. Go back to school and finish my bachelor's...major in whateverthehelliwantto and immediately proceed to get my MLS (Masters of Library Science)...

3. Spa visits every single day. Become jello.

4. Pay for husband to produce, direct more films. Pay to open his own high-end production house that creates good TV. Single-handedly eradicate American Idol.

5. Private violin lessons for Xander along with subsequent tuition to Julliard. Or UT. Or whatever his heart desires.

Part two!

Award winner favorites?

1. The Funny Little Woman (Mosel)-Caldecott
2. The Giver (Lowry)- Newberry
3. Jumanji (Van Allsburg) - Caldecott
4. Bridge to Terebithia (Peterson)- Newberry
5. Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle) - Newberry

Part three!
From Bossy:
Who took your "About Me" photo? It's the cutest ever.

First off...thanks! Second...my husband...this guy:



Took my 'About Me' picture...along with most of the pictures on the site. I've mentioned before that you know if Gary took it if it's good. If it's funky looking, but not in a good way, I took it. Gary is in all seriousness incredibly talented in the visual arts. And he plays guitar. He once played Slayer, Seasons of the Abyss on the stage of the Grand Old Opry. For that, and many other things, I'm immensely proud and totally head over heels for him. He's one of these people whose trade is his passion...and he's a really fantastic father, too. Yay, Gary!

This was fun...tonight I've been flooded with thoughts of when I used to clean houses. I was a Merry Maid for a long time...before I 'knew what I wanted to do with my life...' I knew I loved books but never dared try to get a job in a library....I used to dream of my life just like it is now, husband, kid, house, library, writing, while I scrubbed the toilets of the Daytonian Rich, Famous, and Disgusting. Am I grateful? Eternally.