No, I'm Not Dead

Oh, my poor, neglected blog. This year has been hard on a lot of things, and you have not escaped the fallout.

Whenever someone goes dark on their normal social channels, I always have the niggling wonder if they’ve passed away. This year, that concern has never seemed more legitimate.

However, as of today, I’m still on this side of the dirt. This year has been hard emotionally and the last couple months have had several stressful events in them which have eaten up any time or energy and most of the desire I had to blog. I mean, in theory, I have lots to talk about. But often when I start thinking about it, I feel I have very little to say.

I think the problem is in part due to the idea that I’ve built my brand on being inspiring, and I’ve been feeling anything but inspired lately. How can I inspire others when I’ve been feeling so uncertain about anything myself?

The biggest hindrance has been time, though, and by the end of this post, you’ll know what’s been filling it instead.

Books Update

The Sphinx’s Heart in Final Revisions, Coming November 16

This past Tuesday night, I sent the final section of the manuscript for The Sphinx’s Heart to my editor. The next day, she sent me the first half of the book back to start revising for the third pass. I haven’t started yet because of an editing project I needed to wrap up this week (just finished, thanks for asking), but I’ll be diving in to that on Monday.

I’d had the eBook on pre-order for October 12, but because this revision took longer than I’d hoped (as has everything else in the past 19 months), I had to bump it as far as Amazon would let me. The new release date for the eBook is November 16 (November 11 technically, but don’t tell anyone), and I hope the print book will be ready by the following week, but I’ll keep you posted on that.

It hasn’t quite sunk in that this project, which has been almost a full-time job on its own for the past two and half years, is now coming to completion. I’m excited and a little nervous. Life seems open and full of possibility again.

New Cover Editions for Finding Heaven Available October 1

One of the things I did accomplish last year was to recover every single one of my books. But even though I updated the eBook cover for Finding Heaven last October, it wasn’t until last month that I finally made the print wraps. I’ve also had the interior updated to make the print edition less bulky and heavy.

My proofs of the new print versions arrived yesterday, and they’re gorgeous. They will be available to order online as of October 1. However, the distributor has already warned of severe delays on printing and shipping books over the next few months because of deficits in the supply chain, so be warned the ship time could be long. I do have a few copies in hand that I could sign, personalize, and send to you, which would be much faster. (Perfect for gifts or a keepsake.) You can buy those through my Bookshop.

Personal Update

The two major events of the past several months were that we managed to bring Jude home from the west coast at the end of August and that my mom had major surgery for cancer on September 1.

This made for a very full few weeks. Because of the fires that have ravaged the interior of British Columbia all summer, we weren’t even sure we would drive to BC to get Jude. He strongly preferred us to drive rather than fly him home, and we wanted a chance to get out of the house and make some memories as a family, but the cost and anxiety surrounding the trip almost deterred us.

But, we went. As it turns out, the fires were not a problem. The escalating cases and restrictions around coronavirus were a concern, but still not the biggest challenge, which involved an adventure on the Coquihalla Highway near Kamloops when our serpentine belt frayed.

Long story short, we were five minutes out of the city when it happened. We were able to safely pull into a cross-meridian access on the Coquihalla, which has no shoulders and which has been called the Canadian Audubon. AMA towed our vehicle to a garage and the rental company sent a shuttle to pick us up, which arrived while the tow truck was still loading our vehicle.

Our biggest concern was whether or not we’d be able to get the car fixed before we came back through Kamloops four days later, but after calling about five garages that said they couldn’t even look at it for a week, we found one of the best garages I’ve ever dealt with (Franco’s, highly recommended). They promised to get the car done before the weekend (it was finished the next morning) and worked with us to arrange pickup on Sunday when the shop was closed.

All in all, despite the extra stress and expense, the situation was resolved about as painlessly as something like that can be. And now we have a story to tell. Plus a middle-of-the-Coquihalla family selfie (which Jude insisted we all looked way too happy in, considering our car had just broke down on one of the scariest highways in Canada).

How the Winters family does “we’re stranded in the middle of the highway” selfies.

We didn’t have time for many “extras” on the trip, but we did get to spend a day at Capernwray Bible Centre, the college Jude went to last year and stayed to volunteer at all summer. It’s a beautiful property and a big one, so the stay involved a lot of walking up and down hills. I was pretty sore by the time we left. But it was nice to finally see the place where my husband and so many of my friends (and now my kid) had gone to college. Noah and Jabin are both seriously considering going there for a year now too.

Our view at breakfast while sitting on the patio of the main hall of Capernwray. That’s Vancouver Island in the background. This would be easy to get used to. :-)

Jabin and Jason pass the time while waiting for breakfast.

We got home on August 31 and my mom’s surgery was the next day in Edmonton. I had originally planned to go down several days later and be her support person for about five days while her hubby had to come home, but I ended up only staying in Edmonton two nights. During that time, my husband’s truck left him stranded and he wasn’t able to borrow a vehicle, so I had to come home so everyone could get to school and work. By then, Mom was doing much better—not great, but feeling okay being left with just the ICU staff. And Mike was back the next day, anyway.

Then, only a few days after I got home, our province went into a state of medical emergency due to COVID-19. The government was looking for ICU beds wherever it could find them. They did not send Mom home early, for which I’m grateful, and I’m also grateful she got her surgery when she did. Most surgeries have been cancelled/postponed because of the crisis. And I’m not sure Mom’s could have been delayed much longer and had a positive outcome. As it is, she’s lost many of her internal organs and has a long recovery ahead of her.

And, while all this is going on in our family, there are families I care about that are in their own crisis. I have a friend in the ICU in Calgary with COVID-19. A dear little boy from a family from our church is fighting cancer and he and his mom are staying in Edmonton while he receives treatment. Other families I’m acquainted with have kids fighting cancer or other issues. People are dying from the vaccines or dying from COVID, and you take your chances either way. There’s a world divided by mistrust and misinformation (which are definitely related to each other), a world that I feel a heavy burden for.

Heavy. That’s a good word for how I’ve often felt this year. Like the burdens I carry have multiplied. No wonder I’ve only had the energy to focus on the essentials.

I’ve been holding on to the things that I have to be grateful for—my husband. My kids. My warm and beautiful home. My friends. My extended family, though I mostly only stay in regular contact with my mom and sister and sometimes my dad. The pandemic has been hard on connections, and harder on connections that were already difficult to maintain.

I’m thankful for my work and for the support networks I’ve been blessed with. I’m thankful for small mercies and large ones. Though I could wish for a few more large ones these days.

Today, I’m thankful for the sun shining in my window and the golden leaves of the poplar trees against the blue sky. And I’m thankful that, no matter how long I neglect you, dear blog, you never complain. Like Ol’ Faithful, you just patiently wait until the next time I can spare a few moments to poor out my woes to you.

Despite how many dark clouds are all around these days, there are still silver linings to be discovered.

Not only did the plague of grasshoppers not really damage my planters too badly, but I got some volunteer sunflowers from previous years. That has been such a lovely blessing, since I never managed to get any planted in here and they’re one of my favourite flowers.

And I turned 44 in August too. This was my birthday treat from my family, lol.