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Tag Archives: writing

Branching Out: From Fantasy to History

04 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by mimiswardrobe in Books, Family, Memoirs, War, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Family Stories, Grandkids, Love, writing

This post is a bit different in that it is completely unrelated to Narnia.  However, it is related to my children and grandchildren . . .

Susan&Dad3-77019

My future father-in-law and me in 1977. I already loved him dearly!

I loved my father-in-law dearly, and it was a terrible loss when he died at age 63 in 1979, just three years after he came into my life.  When my husband, Herb, and his older half-brother Mike went through Dad’s stuff, they found an Army trunk containing everything that belonged to Dad’s first wife, and Mike’s mother, Barbara.  In this trunk were ALL of the letters Dad and Barbara wrote to each other throughout the years of World War II when Dad was an officer in the U.S. Cavalry.  Sadly, the decision of what to do with Barbara’s letters was out of our hands, and they were all burned.  However, I won custody of a small stack of Dad’s letters to Barbara–and laid them in a box where they languished for over 30 years.

Page1MyArmyStory016At the same time, we found files full of legal pads covered in Dad’s atrocious handwriting, and these were given to my husband and me.  One folder was entitled “My Army Story.”  Having heard a few stories from Dad, I was curious about his Army story, but I was busy raising our four children at the time.  Like the letters, that story languished in the back of a file drawer for the next 30 years.

Capt. Ross Lea in uniform

Capt. Ross Lea in uniform

Finally, two years ago I began the Herculean task of transcribing Dad’s handwritten Army story.  Certain parts of it remained stubbornly indecipherable, and I put it away again.  But toward the end of last year, looking ahead to Herb’s 60th birthday this March, I felt an urgency to finish “translating” Dad’s story.  I turned to Google and spent hours figuring out some of Dad’s mystery phrases.  Finally, after hundreds of hours of work, I signed in to Shutterfly and created Dad’s book.

Here is the book, as I gave it to Herb on his 60th birthday.

A V-Mail from Dad to Barbara

A V-Mail from Dad to Barbara

Once that book was done, I remembered the 33 letters that Dad had written to Barbara.  By this time I was so “into Dad’s head” and so familiarized with the inscrutable ways of his handwriting that I was able to transcribe those letters.  Along with a few letters from other friends and relatives, they helped me discover the story of Dad and Barbara’s love, their sacrifice, and their loss.  Only one last piece was missing . . .

Barbara Hughes Lea's wedding photo, 1942

Barbara Hughes Lea’s wedding photo, 1942

Barbara was killed in a car accident when Mike was 18 months old–and that was all any living person knew.  I couldn’t find the date of her death, although I knew the year based on Mike’s age.  This time my genealogy subscription on Ancestry.com found me a date and a place.  The place was Leesville, Louisiana, near Fort Polk where Dad’s III Corps had come back to be decommissioned.  Was Barbara going to meet him?  What was she doing there?

Google led me to the local paper, The Leesville Leader, and they sent me to their microfilm archives in the Vernon Parish Library.  I emailed the library Director a request for someone to check the archives around the date of Barbara’s death on Sept. 11, 1945 to see if there might have been an article in the local paper.

A copy of the article on Barbara Lea's death, Sept. 11, 1945 from the Leesville Leader

A copy of the article on Barbara Lea’s death, Sept. 11, 1945 from the Leesville Leader

And thus began my correspondance with Mr. Howard L. Coy, Jr. and his kind staff at the Vernon Parish Library.  In no time at all they had found an article, copied it and mailed it to me.  It was the last piece of the puzzle!  Unlike Dad’s Army Story, which he stopped writing before the end, Dad and Barbara’s story had an end.  It was not a Hollywood ending by any means.  I don’t think any living author would have chosen to end their story that way!  And yet, 68 years later, we can read this heartbreaking story and see the goodness of God shining down through the years into the present.

Capt. Ross Lea in an undated photo, somewhere in Europe

Capt. Ross Lea in an undated photo, somewhere in Europe

With the last piece of the puzzle in place, I went to Blurb this time and created the second book about Dad’s life.  Mr. Coy expressed a desire to purchase the book for his library if it was for sale.  So I made the book public on Blurb and sent him a link.

Today I received a heart-warming email from Mr. Coy who said he could hardly put the book down and was reading it through his tears.  I won’t call myself an author because all I did was compile the story that was there in a stack of letters.  But what “compiler” could resist a letter like that?  I certainly couldn’t!  And what it made me realize was that “There’s Always Tomorrow to Hope For . . .” Letters to Barbara tells a timeless tale that tugs at the heartstrings of every reader who has ever known love or loss or sacrifice.  It tells a story that belongs to the American people, because the sacrifice that Dad and Barbara made during the War was made to keep America free and to keep her good and honorable and true, like Dad and Barbara and their love.

So here, with love for Dad and Barbara, is their story.

Ross Lea's law school graduation photo, 1938

Ross Lea’s law school graduation photo, 1938

Barbara Hughes' law school graduation photo, 1938

Barbara Hughes’ law school graduation photo, 1938

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Narnia Thanks You and I Thank You!

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by mimiswardrobe in Blogging

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

writing

versatile-blogger-awardI got home from a weekend trip to find some exciting news waiting for me.  Ionia Martin of ReadfulThingsBlog has nominated me for the Versatile Blogger award!  I’m so encouraged by her gracious nomination!  This is an “official” thank you to Ionia.  Go check out her blog and her book reviews.  She’s an avid reader who takes the time to share her reviews for the benefit of others.

The acceptance of this honor comes with a few obligations.  It reminds me of what was said to my daughter this weekend at her promotion to Captain in the Air Force JAG Corps:  “To whom much is given, much shall be required.”  🙂  This isn’t a lot, really, but here are the rules:

Versatile Blogger Rules (If you choose to accept the award)

  • Display the Award Certificate on your website
  • Announce your win with a post and link to whoever presented your award
  • Present 15  awards to deserving bloggers
  • Drop them a comment to tip them off after you’ve linked them in the post
  • Post 7  interesting things about yourself.

I’ve already displayed the Award Certificate, and this post will fulfill the second requirement.  Here are my 15 nominations for deserving bloggers (along with a word about their blogs).  These are some of my favorite blogs:

A Holy Experience  Ann Voskamp is the author of a life-changing book, One Thousand Gifts.  Her blog carries on her life’s theme of living in thankfulness to God.

Grasspunk  Brent writes a blog about raising grass-fed Salers cattle for beef on his farm in Southwest France.  I discovered his blog through my own farm blog, Adventures on Zephyr Hill Farm, and have learned a lot about rotational grazing from him.

Midlife Farmwife  Donna has been nominated before, but she deserves it again for her informative, humorous blog about raising pigs on South Pork Ranch.  She somehow finds time to make soap in her spare time.

See Jamie Blog  Jamie is a mom who blogs about home-schooling and adoption.  She and her family are currently pursuing a foster adoption of two children.

Sugar Mountain Farm  Walter and his family raise pastured pigs in the mountains of Vermont and are in the process of building their own, amazing USDA-approved butcher shop.  I’ve learned so much from him.

Throwback at Trapper Creek  Matron of Husbandry is one of the first bloggers I discovered from my Zephyr Hill Farm blog, and I’ve been learning from her for several years about dairy cattle, rotational grazing and gardening.

Milligan’s Gander Hill Farm  Gordon is a beginning farmer who has bought a farm and is eagerly counting down the days to retirement until he can begin full-time farming.  Meanwhile he is thinking and planning and learning about raising cattle.

iGame Mom blogs reviews of apps and games for iPhones and iPads.  She shares links to the apps and generously shares info about free apps.  Many of them are educational and great for parents and grandparents to know about.

Urban Wallart & Murals  A blogger who does amazing things with spray paint!

Canadian Hiking Photography  Enjoy amazing photographs from the Canadian mountains!

Interior Builder  This blog is truly versatile, including fascinating glimpses of life in Alaska along with helpful posts about home construction.

thekovies  Lexiesnana blogs about her family–the funny things her grandkids do now and fascinating stories from her family history that she wants to preserve for her family’s enjoyment.  I love her outlook on life!

Delights and Shadows  This insightful and vulnerable blog is written by a lovely young woman we met in France before she went to college.  Her sharing comes from her heart!

Mere Inkling is a blog about writing and Christianity, named for the group of writers who included two of my favorites, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein.  C. S. Lewis, of course, is the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, which inspired our attic construction project.

Hope Refuge Farm  Kim and her husband sold us our first Dexter cow, and she is the author of a blog about how to buy and care for a dairy cow.  Her blog has not been updated recently, but it remains an extremely helpful resource for aspiring or actual owners of dairy cows.

I’ve notified the above bloggers of their nominations, and I hope you’ll check out their very deserving blogs–and leave them a comment to let them know of your visit!  It takes a lot of time to write a blog, and comments encourage them in their efforts.

The final requirement for accepting the Versatile Blogger award is to post 7 (hopefully!) interesting things about myself.  So here goes:

  1. I went to 11 schools from kindergarten through high school graduation because my parents moved so often.  And no, we weren’t in the military!
  2. The longest place I’ve lived anywhere is the 11 years we lived in the South of France.
  3. We were missionaries for 2 1/2 years in the Central African Republic from 1985-87.
  4. I began blogging in October 2009 at the urging of one of my daughters when I started writing “Adventures on Zephyr Hill Farm.”)
  5. I hope to start milking our Dexter heifer, Siobhan, this spring after she drops her first calf.
  6. I love horses and have two Tennessee Walking Horses, Angel and her daughter Brandy.  We bought a pony named Julie for our grandkids.
  7. I love genealogy, and I’m trying to preserve the stories of our family history for my children and grandchildren.

Thanks again, Ionia, for your nomination!  I hope I’m able to encourage other bloggers by “paying it forward!”

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DIY Decor Project: Let Your Walls Speak with Wall Words from eBuySigns.com

05 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by mimiswardrobe in Books, Design, DIY, Faith, Home

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Tags

Aslan, Decor, DIY, Inspiration, Jesus, Narnia, writing

This project ranks right up there with Aslan and the Wardrobe as one of my very favorite design details in Narnia.  And even more clearly than either of them, it speaks to the reason at the heart of our project:  Why Narnia?

I discovered eBuySigns.com while searching online for vinyl wall words.  Reviews on their website say they are lots cheaper than all their competitors.  Their “wall lettering” page claims to provide “Wall lettering made easy” and “Free shipping over $25.”  Believe me, IT’S ALL TRUE!  Once I had designed my wall words in a few easy steps with the design tool, I went to half a dozen other sites and put in the same parameters.  EBuySigns’ price (under $40) was less than every other competitors’ price of $100 -$200.

The design tool lets you choose your own font, the number of lines you want, the height and width of your final product and your font color, as well as highlights and borders to tweak the appearance of your lettering.  You can see your final product on a background color similar to your own wall color.

One tip I would offer is this:  If you have a long quote (as I did), it works better if you copy and paste your quote in line by line.  I tried pasting my entire quote, and it appeared smushed and impossible to read.  When I called the helpline, a friendly tech told me to break the quote into lines, and it instantly appeared the way I wanted it.  Once that was done, I was able to play with arranging the lines in different ways, as well as making the sign higher or wider until I got it exactly right.

I ordered the sign, and a few days later it arrived, safely packaged in a sturdy cardboard tube.

DSC_5910 Jenny and Jean-Marc were already here for Christmas, so I pressed them into service as Official Photographer and Assistant Sign Applicator.  One question I had wondered about was whether the size indicated online would be the size of the sheet or the actual size of the letters.  If you’re working with a limited space, this question becomes very important.  The design tool seemed to indicate that there would be a border of paper around the letters, so I ordered accordingly.  As you can see from the photo above, this was indeed the case.

Applying the sign was just as easy as the tech and the website claimed, and the instruction sheet that came with the sign was simple and easy to follow.  This post will illustrate in detail the steps we went through, beginning with (1)  Position the sign on the wall, making sure it is level.  While Jean-Marc held the sign, I got on a ladder and measured so that Jean-Marc could level the sign as needed.

DSC_5911

(2)  Apply a piece of (masking) tape as a hinge across the top of the sign.  (At this stage, we double-checked our measurements.)  Once we were sure the sign was level, Jean-Marc removed the corner pieces of tape.

DSC_5915

(3)  Lift the sign, holding it in place by the tape-hinge, and begin to remove the backing paper.  I began loosening the backing paper at the top left corner.

DSC_5917

(4)  Steadily pull the backing paper loose while holding the sign away from the wall.

DSC_5918

(5)  Completely remove the backing paper, still holding the sign away from the wall.  That’s the easy part done!  The next part was easy, too, but a little scary–made less so by eBuySign’s guaranteed application!

DSC_5919

(6)  Lower the sign against the wall and begin to adhere it at the top center.  (The letters themselves are the only adhesive part of the sign.  They are held in place by the cover paper while the adhesive is protected by the backing paper.)

DSC_5929

(7)  Using a credit card (maybe the one you paid with!), begin to press the sign firmly against the wall, working outwards and downwards to smooth away any air pockets.

DSC_5940

(8)  At this point we added another step:  Using your fingers, apply firm pressure to any areas that appear more opaque (indicating a lack of adhesion to the wall). We found that fingers could exert more concentrated pressure than the edge of a credit card, while being gentle enough not to tear the paper.

You may note the crescent of blue wall that appears at the top of the sign (left of my hand).  I inadvertently left out the right-hand parenthesis and was dismayed to see only the left-hand parenthesis on my sign–despite careful proof-reading.  The solution was as simple as cutting out the offending parenthesis with a scissors before beginning installation of the sign!

DSC_5945

Now comes the fun part!

(9)  Begin removing the cover paper from the lettering by pulling away the tape along with the attached cover paper.  Our hints for this step are to GO SLOWLY and to WATCH CAREFULLY where you are pulling.  There were a few spots where the sticky lettering had not been adequately adhered to the wall, and I could see them actually pulling off on the cover paper.  It was very easy to stop pulling and apply extra pressure at those spots to make sure the lettering was stuck to the wall before proceeding.

DSC_5949

(10)  Continue removing the paper, working across the top of the sign from left to right.

DSC_5956

(11)  Once the top of the sign is free of the cover paper, continue pulling steadily downwards to remove the paper.

DSC_5960

(12)  Hold your breath in anticipation as your sign is nearly revealed in all its beauty!  (Just try to skip this step!)

DSC_5967

(13)  Turn and face the camera so your Official Photographer can catch the triumphant grins you have applied to your faces at the same time you applied your beautiful eBuySign to the wall!

DSC_5971

(14)  Be sure your Official Photographer zooms in for a close-up of your amazing sign …

DSC_5989

(15) … and don’t forget to have her zoom out to get the full effect of your quote.

That’s all there is to it!  I promise you, it took me twice as long to write this tutorial as it took to apply my sign, and it will take you longer to read the tutorial than it will take you to follow these steps to your own customized, unbeatably-priced, unique wall words.

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Dear Fellow WordPress Blogger

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by mimiswardrobe in Blogging, Home

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

writing

This post is a (slightly modified) email that I wrote in reply to a fellow WordPress blogger who wrote to ask a favor after I “liked” one of his posts.

Jan. 1, 2013

Dear [Fellow WordPress blogger],

I’ve done the favor you asked for in your email, and I hope you get your artwork featured in [the prestigious location].  I did it to help you, totally aside from any hope of winning anything.

Now may I ask a favor of you?  I have only been blogging on WordPress since August although I have written a Blogspot blog since Oct. 2009.  I am extremely discouraged with WordPress to the point that I literally hate it.  I only keep on because I’m blogging about a project that has a definite end.  Once it is done, I will gladly leave WordPress.

Why am I so discouraged?  Because since August I’ve been playing what I call “the WordPress game” in which people “Like” other peoples’ blogs, apparently only to get their name out there and to get “liked” back.  I follow everyone who follows my blogs and “like” everyone (except for a few that I can’t in good conscience!) that “likes” me.  In addition, I regularly make comments on blogs I have “liked.”  I’ve done this trying to make connections and find some WordPress “friends” like the Blogger “friends” I have made and because I know how much more a comment means than a mere “like.”

But guess what?  It doesn’t work on WordPress.  It seems that everyone is just out for comments and “likes” without any idea that there is a fellow blogger HUMAN on the other end of the comments and “likes.”  For the dozens and dozens of comments I have made in the past 5 months, NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON from WordPress has EVER made a comment on MY blog!  They just hit “like” and keep on going.  In fact, I question whether a single one of them has actually ever read an entire post of mine.

I’m glad you appreciated my comment.  I hope it truly encouraged you because I truly love that piece I commented about.

I noticed that your Dec. 1 post had over 1,000 “likes” to a mere 100 comments.  In the five months I’ve been on WordPress, I’ve had about 1100 total views, 97 “likes” and 11 comments.  So what am I complaining about since we’ve both gotten about 10% comments to “likes?”  Well, over half of my comments are my own replies to the FIVE (yes, 5) people who have commented on my blog!  And they are ALL personal acquaintances; not one of them is a fellow WordPress blogger!  Not ONE of the WordPress bloggers I’ve left comments for has felt motivated enough to comment on my blog!

THAT is why I’m discouraged, and that is why I replied to your email today.  I started by saying I had a favor to ask you.  You probably think the favor I want is for you to comment on one of my posts.  Well, it’s not.  I confess, that’s what I was going to say when I started writing this, but my favor has evolved as I’ve written.  Here is the favor I have to ask of you, [Fellow WordPress blogger]:

As you continue with your deservedly successful WordPress blog and your deservedly successful artwork, please don’t take your “likes” and your comments for granted.  Please be aware of the “little people,” the ordinary people, the human beings behind them.  And in your success, please be generous toward other, less successful fellow WordPress bloggers.  YOU could make all the difference to one of them!

Happy New Year and all the best to you in 2013!  I won’t make it to [prestigious location] in person, but I hope to see you there in blogland!

Your fellow WordPress blogger,

mimiswardrobe

P.S.  If you are a WordPress blogger and you “like” this post without leaving a comment, I will know that my suspicions are true and that you haven’t actually read a word I’ve written.

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