As you read this, Mr. Ashbury and our daughter are lounging on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean. Ah, the sand, the surf, the sun.
The joy of having the house to myself, more or less, for an entire week!
Now, I don’t want you to think for one moment that I don’t miss the old dear. Of course, I do. However we have been married an awfully long time. Not as long as some, but much longer than others. And a little time apart is not a bad thing at all.
We’ve never lived in each other’s pockets. And as a matter of fact, our first experiment with the concept of “separate vacations” happened many years ago, when we were still butt-deep in the raising of our three kids.
Mind you, that first “mini” solo vacation was in the form of separate weekends enjoyed at a downtown Toronto hotel.
As I recall, mine was spent swimming in the pool, indulging in a solo restaurant meal or two, and sleeping. I did a lot of sleeping. The weekend was memorable for me, because it was an entire weekend of not taking care of others.
This is the second time my beloved has taken our daughter on a vacation to the tropics. As you can imagine, it’s not easy for a single mother to manage to afford something like a one week resort stay—although they’re not as expensive as they used to be. In this instance, however, our motivation was different than just giving her a break.
Since May, Jennifer has taken her daddy to work nearly every single morning. I no longer routinely have to awaken at 5 am to drive a 50 mile round trip.
I didn’t mind the driving, per se. It was the part that had me rolling out of bed so early that was beating me up. After taking my beloved to work, I’d then have to come home and go back to bed for at least an hour and a half. On mornings when I had the children to get up and get ready for school, that return to bed often didn’t happen until after 9 am.
This, of course, meant I wasn’t out of bed and at work until 11 or later. Then I’d have to leave the house again at 3:30 in the afternoon to pick him up from work—usually just as I was really getting into my story.
A lot of days, Jenny also makes that return trip in the afternoon to bring her daddy home. That’s 100 miles a day all told—and more than 2 hours of my time each day—that I’ve gotten back.
Jenny and her father really are two peas in a pod. She has just as much redneck in her as he does. They spend a lot of time together, and I’m very grateful their relationship is so strong. We’ve not been in communication since they left, but I know they’re having a very good time together, and I don’t have to worry as they will, very likely, keep each other out of trouble.
Or, conversely, they’ll share whatever trouble they tumble into.
I’m just as happy to stay home and get some writing done—interspersed with just enough housework to keep the place functioning. Yes, I know I sound boring to those of you who aren’t writers. You’re likely thinking, “but don’t you do that anyway?”
The answer of course is yes, I do. Vacation for me isn’t the same as vacation for the non-writer. Vacation for me is writing, as always, only in a different locale.
My favorite for this year of 2012 took place in February when we were in Freeport, in the Bahamas. I had a cabana all to myself, the ocean breezes cooling my brow, the view of the pool and the ocean before me, and my very favorite thing: the sensation of the keyboard at the end of my finger tips. The words flowed and I very happily kept up.
My beloved enjoys the ocean, and the sun, and the possibility, however remote, that he might encounter the hint of a hurricane—since it is still the season.
Two very different definitions of heaven—which is what vacation, by anyone’s measure, is supposed to be all about.
Love,
Morgan
#1 Bestseller LOVE UNDER TWO COWBOYS
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
October 10, 2012
The Ashbury’s have a mouse in the house.
All right, in the interests of full disclosure, I suppose I should say that the Ashbury’s have several mice in the house.
The problem is starting to drive me batty.
You will recall that in the past, we had two kitties who, more or less and for better or worse, liked to hunt. Every now and then, they would catch the odd mouse in the house, and take it outside. Once in a while, they would catch something outside, and bring it into the house.
That was life and it had a natural kind of rhythm to it. But alas, those two great hunter-kitties have gone to the hunting grounds in the sky, and we are left with our “Spooky kitty”.
This is the kitty that moved in last August while Mr. Ashbury and I were on vacation. She has adopted us and has graciously allowed us to remain here in this house.
She lets the mice stay, too, although that really is no fault of her own.
You see, Spooky kitty came to us with no front claws. Yes, someone had her declawed—and then tossed her out to make her way in the world, when she couldn’t really even defend herself. This is why God sent her to us. He knew we would take her.
But I digress.
We have mice in the house. Apparently, our Spooky kitty scores very low on the threat-o-meter, as far as the mice are concerned. Spooky has indeed caught a couple of mice. But these mice have either escaped her completely, unscathed, or they have crawled somewhere and died—a situation that we learn of only well after the fact, and is always followed by a frantic game of “where the hell is it?”
We thought we had the problem solved a few months ago. We bought these traps—black, intricate, and hard to operate. We got two of them, and they each caught two mice. And then—nothing. As far as I could see, we seemed to have no more mice.
But they came back, apparently with reinforcements, and they completely avoided the traps.
So we bought some of the old fashioned kind of mouse traps—you know the ones I mean, the wooden ones with the springs? Nope. Someone must have told our mice what they were, because again, they avoided them.
Last weekend I drove Mr. Ashbury to our local Canadian Tire Store. Despite the name, this is a store that carries all manner of things, not just tires. It has tools, and car parts, and household items, even small appliances and mops and such.
And it carries mouse traps.
You know how they say that someone is always trying to build a better mouse-trap? Well, I’m here to tell you that person has some of Mr. Ashbury’s money.
He bought three traps, special traps. Advertised as being “humane” they are clear plastic “boxes” with a one-way swing door at one end. Inside the box is a tiny tablet made of herbs and valerian root. Said table is (allegedly) irresistible to the little rodents. They nibble and then doze off, allowing you to take the box outside, and gently transfer the sleeping rodent to the garden.
I wanted to ask how humane they were if the sleeping, defenseless little critters were then afternoon snacks to the neighborhood’s semi-feral cats, and other predators. But I didn’t, because I now understand and agree completely that these traps are indeed humane.
As of today, not a single mouse has ventured into one.
Love,
Morgan
COME TO GINNY’S WEDDING OCTOBER 12!
http://www.bookstrand.com/love-under-two-cowboys
http://www.morganashbury.com
All right, in the interests of full disclosure, I suppose I should say that the Ashbury’s have several mice in the house.
The problem is starting to drive me batty.
You will recall that in the past, we had two kitties who, more or less and for better or worse, liked to hunt. Every now and then, they would catch the odd mouse in the house, and take it outside. Once in a while, they would catch something outside, and bring it into the house.
That was life and it had a natural kind of rhythm to it. But alas, those two great hunter-kitties have gone to the hunting grounds in the sky, and we are left with our “Spooky kitty”.
This is the kitty that moved in last August while Mr. Ashbury and I were on vacation. She has adopted us and has graciously allowed us to remain here in this house.
She lets the mice stay, too, although that really is no fault of her own.
You see, Spooky kitty came to us with no front claws. Yes, someone had her declawed—and then tossed her out to make her way in the world, when she couldn’t really even defend herself. This is why God sent her to us. He knew we would take her.
But I digress.
We have mice in the house. Apparently, our Spooky kitty scores very low on the threat-o-meter, as far as the mice are concerned. Spooky has indeed caught a couple of mice. But these mice have either escaped her completely, unscathed, or they have crawled somewhere and died—a situation that we learn of only well after the fact, and is always followed by a frantic game of “where the hell is it?”
We thought we had the problem solved a few months ago. We bought these traps—black, intricate, and hard to operate. We got two of them, and they each caught two mice. And then—nothing. As far as I could see, we seemed to have no more mice.
But they came back, apparently with reinforcements, and they completely avoided the traps.
So we bought some of the old fashioned kind of mouse traps—you know the ones I mean, the wooden ones with the springs? Nope. Someone must have told our mice what they were, because again, they avoided them.
Last weekend I drove Mr. Ashbury to our local Canadian Tire Store. Despite the name, this is a store that carries all manner of things, not just tires. It has tools, and car parts, and household items, even small appliances and mops and such.
And it carries mouse traps.
You know how they say that someone is always trying to build a better mouse-trap? Well, I’m here to tell you that person has some of Mr. Ashbury’s money.
He bought three traps, special traps. Advertised as being “humane” they are clear plastic “boxes” with a one-way swing door at one end. Inside the box is a tiny tablet made of herbs and valerian root. Said table is (allegedly) irresistible to the little rodents. They nibble and then doze off, allowing you to take the box outside, and gently transfer the sleeping rodent to the garden.
I wanted to ask how humane they were if the sleeping, defenseless little critters were then afternoon snacks to the neighborhood’s semi-feral cats, and other predators. But I didn’t, because I now understand and agree completely that these traps are indeed humane.
As of today, not a single mouse has ventured into one.
Love,
Morgan
COME TO GINNY’S WEDDING OCTOBER 12!
http://www.bookstrand.com/love-under-two-cowboys
http://www.morganashbury.com
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Autumn has a special scent in the air, a certain something that tells you, as a creature of this planet, that summer has waned and soon the winter winds will blow. The sky is a paler blue now, and the days have shortened. It’s a time for preparing for what’s to come, and finishing off projects begun in the spring.
It’s the time of the harvest.
The scent of autumn always calls to my nostalgic self. When I was a kid, autumn was the time of canning and homemade soup slowly simmering on the stove, of rosy cheeks from brisk walks.
I loved walking and did a lot of it. We lived in what, growing up, I considered an extremely rural community. There was a country store just a mile down the road, but the nearest town was about six miles away. As a teen, I routinely walked to town if I wanted to go to a movie, or go shopping. There was no public transportation, and my Mom’s taxi only went one way—my choice which way, but I figured I’d rather have the ride home at the end of my excursion.
Autumn was the time when school resumed—we always started our school year the day after Labor Day—and it was the time when, at least in my family, it was all hands on standby for that first frost warning.
My mother, you see, had a vegetable garden. Did you have one? Now, I need to tell you something about my mother’s garden—the one that became mine for a few years after she passed and we moved into that house.
This garden measured 25 feet wide by about 75 feet long. Each spring, one of the neighboring farmers came with his tractor to first plow and then disk this patch of earth for us.
By the way, we lived on top of the Niagara Escarpment, and the quarry (yes the one where my beloved still works) was just down the road, not even a quarter mile away. The significance of this fact is that every year, after the plowing and disking, the first chore of gardening was gathering all the new rocks that had come to the surface.
My mother grew tomatoes and peppers (mostly green peppers) green beans, yellow beans, and potatoes, cucumbers, squash, and corn. At my mother’s knee I learned not to plant the various varieties of squash too close together—especially the cucumbers and the watermelons—and to put the corn in the west end of the garden.
The most prolific of my mother’s crops were tomatoes, potatoes and cucumbers.
When the first frost warnings came—for the milder frosts—we had to go out and “cover” the plants still bearing fruit. This was an exercise that involved old bed sheets, opened paper bags, and those rocks we’d dug out in the spring. But then, the day would come, when mother would announce that it was time to harvest the garden.
She had a portable double-tub wash tub that we used inside for laundry but which also served as the washing station for the harvest. The tub would be hauled out; the hose would be employed; and the vessel filled with the coldest damn water you ever had your hands in.
I swear, that is my biggest memory, how cold my hands got scrubbing the potatoes and the cucumbers, especially. Yeah, there were such things as rubber gloves in those days, but there was no way in hell my mother would get those for me. And since I was the youngest—I would have been about 10 or 11 at the time—I couldn’t be expected to dig, or pick, or lift baskets and baskets full of produce. But I could wield a scrub brush like nobody’s business, and I did.
Potatoes were set to dry on a sheet spread out on the grass. They had to dry before you could store them. The cucumbers were set into baskets, having been sorted for size. Smaller ones became dills, medium ones, sweet pickles. The larger ones and I had a date later, because they needed to be sliced, the seeds culled out, and the left over veggie put through the grinder, as the first step of making green pickle relish.
Nothing went to waste; everything was used. What wasn’t canned or turned into a preserve, was frozen. Those scooped seeds were tossed into the compost pile out back. I never really understood when I was a child, but looking back from where I am now, I realize that garden fed us. As my mother at that point was a single mom, supporting three kids on a nurse’s salary that in the day was meager, that garden was a God-send.
If I ever get back to the country, you can be sure I will once more have a garden. Although it won’t be quite as ambitious a one as my mother owned.
And you can also be sure that when it comes time to harvest, I’ll corral my grandchildren. Some lessons are worth passing on.
Love,
Morgan
Now Available For Pre-Order! Love Under Two Cowboys
http://www.bookstrand.com/love-under-two-cowboys
http://www.morganashbury.com
It’s the time of the harvest.
The scent of autumn always calls to my nostalgic self. When I was a kid, autumn was the time of canning and homemade soup slowly simmering on the stove, of rosy cheeks from brisk walks.
I loved walking and did a lot of it. We lived in what, growing up, I considered an extremely rural community. There was a country store just a mile down the road, but the nearest town was about six miles away. As a teen, I routinely walked to town if I wanted to go to a movie, or go shopping. There was no public transportation, and my Mom’s taxi only went one way—my choice which way, but I figured I’d rather have the ride home at the end of my excursion.
Autumn was the time when school resumed—we always started our school year the day after Labor Day—and it was the time when, at least in my family, it was all hands on standby for that first frost warning.
My mother, you see, had a vegetable garden. Did you have one? Now, I need to tell you something about my mother’s garden—the one that became mine for a few years after she passed and we moved into that house.
This garden measured 25 feet wide by about 75 feet long. Each spring, one of the neighboring farmers came with his tractor to first plow and then disk this patch of earth for us.
By the way, we lived on top of the Niagara Escarpment, and the quarry (yes the one where my beloved still works) was just down the road, not even a quarter mile away. The significance of this fact is that every year, after the plowing and disking, the first chore of gardening was gathering all the new rocks that had come to the surface.
My mother grew tomatoes and peppers (mostly green peppers) green beans, yellow beans, and potatoes, cucumbers, squash, and corn. At my mother’s knee I learned not to plant the various varieties of squash too close together—especially the cucumbers and the watermelons—and to put the corn in the west end of the garden.
The most prolific of my mother’s crops were tomatoes, potatoes and cucumbers.
When the first frost warnings came—for the milder frosts—we had to go out and “cover” the plants still bearing fruit. This was an exercise that involved old bed sheets, opened paper bags, and those rocks we’d dug out in the spring. But then, the day would come, when mother would announce that it was time to harvest the garden.
She had a portable double-tub wash tub that we used inside for laundry but which also served as the washing station for the harvest. The tub would be hauled out; the hose would be employed; and the vessel filled with the coldest damn water you ever had your hands in.
I swear, that is my biggest memory, how cold my hands got scrubbing the potatoes and the cucumbers, especially. Yeah, there were such things as rubber gloves in those days, but there was no way in hell my mother would get those for me. And since I was the youngest—I would have been about 10 or 11 at the time—I couldn’t be expected to dig, or pick, or lift baskets and baskets full of produce. But I could wield a scrub brush like nobody’s business, and I did.
Potatoes were set to dry on a sheet spread out on the grass. They had to dry before you could store them. The cucumbers were set into baskets, having been sorted for size. Smaller ones became dills, medium ones, sweet pickles. The larger ones and I had a date later, because they needed to be sliced, the seeds culled out, and the left over veggie put through the grinder, as the first step of making green pickle relish.
Nothing went to waste; everything was used. What wasn’t canned or turned into a preserve, was frozen. Those scooped seeds were tossed into the compost pile out back. I never really understood when I was a child, but looking back from where I am now, I realize that garden fed us. As my mother at that point was a single mom, supporting three kids on a nurse’s salary that in the day was meager, that garden was a God-send.
If I ever get back to the country, you can be sure I will once more have a garden. Although it won’t be quite as ambitious a one as my mother owned.
And you can also be sure that when it comes time to harvest, I’ll corral my grandchildren. Some lessons are worth passing on.
Love,
Morgan
Now Available For Pre-Order! Love Under Two Cowboys
http://www.bookstrand.com/love-under-two-cowboys
http://www.morganashbury.com
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Do you notice the passage of time? Do you have little signposts along the way that you look to, that mark the progression of the days of the calendar?
I never understood how thoroughly and in what particular fashion I marked the passing of time and the changing seasons, nor how ingrained that little system of mine had become until just this past week.
I rarely have to rise early to drive my husband to work anymore, and only have to be the one to pick him up at the end of his day one day a week, if that often.
No longer having that regular, daily long commute before dawn and then later again in the afternoon has deprived me of keeping touch with my guideposts for the progression of the seasons. When you travel the same route every day, at about the same time, you tend to notice the changes. Or at least, I do.
You become aware of the sunrise, and how that is a few seconds earlier or later each morning—well, until the clock gets changed, anyway. For example, I would measure the advance of daylight in the spring by where, exactly, I no longer needed to use my car’s high beams on my drive home.
You measure the progression of the changing leaves by noticing certain trees along the journey, and the slowly increasing ratio of red, gold and brown to green.
You also notice the temperature in the morning when you step out of the house before dawn, and mark the day in the fall when you had to wear that jacket for the first time.
This year, I’ve done none of the above and it’s more than a little disconcerting. Because suddenly here we are, in autumn, and I don’t remember getting here.
I had to pick my beloved up just yesterday, and rather than either focusing on the music playing on the radio, or my own thoughts, I paid attention to my rolling environment. I had this strange sense that I’d missed something, for a lot of the leaves have already turned and I don’t know when that started.
I’d already felt as if I’d missed a great deal of the summer, because we’ve been away a lot. We came back from Texas, and I was just settling in to enjoy—or at least pay attention to—our summer, only to realize it had begun to wane.
I always pride myself on being one who stops to smell the roses, or the coffee, and the fact that I haven’t this year gives me pause.
Life happens, sometimes at an astounding pace. Days can come and go and weeks turn to months in the blink of an eye. This is a familiar concept and one I’d had my own little system of besting.
Now I realize, I need to find a new way to stay connected to the world around me, and to pay attention to the days, and the passage of time.
Using deadlines and upcoming conferences doesn’t have the same pleasant side effect of lifting my attention outside of myself. I need to do that, to focus on the world around me, on nature, because that gives me a kind of grounding I haven’t found anywhere else.
Inevitably, when I focus on the trees and the fields, the skies and the clouds, the streams I pass and the forests along the way, I experience a sense of wonder.
I need that sense of wonder. I need that reminder that life is more than my little domain, and in fact consists of things that are both awesome, and awe inspiring.
Without the wonder, without the awe, the magic of life is so much harder to find.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
I never understood how thoroughly and in what particular fashion I marked the passing of time and the changing seasons, nor how ingrained that little system of mine had become until just this past week.
I rarely have to rise early to drive my husband to work anymore, and only have to be the one to pick him up at the end of his day one day a week, if that often.
No longer having that regular, daily long commute before dawn and then later again in the afternoon has deprived me of keeping touch with my guideposts for the progression of the seasons. When you travel the same route every day, at about the same time, you tend to notice the changes. Or at least, I do.
You become aware of the sunrise, and how that is a few seconds earlier or later each morning—well, until the clock gets changed, anyway. For example, I would measure the advance of daylight in the spring by where, exactly, I no longer needed to use my car’s high beams on my drive home.
You measure the progression of the changing leaves by noticing certain trees along the journey, and the slowly increasing ratio of red, gold and brown to green.
You also notice the temperature in the morning when you step out of the house before dawn, and mark the day in the fall when you had to wear that jacket for the first time.
This year, I’ve done none of the above and it’s more than a little disconcerting. Because suddenly here we are, in autumn, and I don’t remember getting here.
I had to pick my beloved up just yesterday, and rather than either focusing on the music playing on the radio, or my own thoughts, I paid attention to my rolling environment. I had this strange sense that I’d missed something, for a lot of the leaves have already turned and I don’t know when that started.
I’d already felt as if I’d missed a great deal of the summer, because we’ve been away a lot. We came back from Texas, and I was just settling in to enjoy—or at least pay attention to—our summer, only to realize it had begun to wane.
I always pride myself on being one who stops to smell the roses, or the coffee, and the fact that I haven’t this year gives me pause.
Life happens, sometimes at an astounding pace. Days can come and go and weeks turn to months in the blink of an eye. This is a familiar concept and one I’d had my own little system of besting.
Now I realize, I need to find a new way to stay connected to the world around me, and to pay attention to the days, and the passage of time.
Using deadlines and upcoming conferences doesn’t have the same pleasant side effect of lifting my attention outside of myself. I need to do that, to focus on the world around me, on nature, because that gives me a kind of grounding I haven’t found anywhere else.
Inevitably, when I focus on the trees and the fields, the skies and the clouds, the streams I pass and the forests along the way, I experience a sense of wonder.
I need that sense of wonder. I need that reminder that life is more than my little domain, and in fact consists of things that are both awesome, and awe inspiring.
Without the wonder, without the awe, the magic of life is so much harder to find.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
I don’t believe that the basic rules of civilized society have really changed. In fact, I know they haven’t.
Having said that, I must acknowledge that there seems to be a growing number of people who act as if they have. Which particular basics, you may ask, am I referring to?
I’m talking about one of the most fundamental principles of “right”, as opposed to “wrong” behavior.
I realize that I am about to step in it again, and I offer an apology—not for what I am about to say, but for anyone who might be offended by the following words. Okay, here goes.
The line between right and wrong has not wavered. Honesty still matters. The truth is still the truth no matter what kind of spin you try to put on things. The Golden Rule is still an important guideline for how to behave outside of your own bathroom.
And doing the thing that is right is still the same right thing to do as ever it was.
There seems to be an attitude lately that I have to tell you baffles the hell out of me. That attitude, stated simply is, “everyone lies, so what does it matter if I lie, too?”
Really? Everyone lies? I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with that assertion.
This attitude I have heard expressed in those exact words by more people I’d never think would say such a thing than you could possibly imagine.
Or maybe you can imagine it because you’ve noticed the same thing, too.
It’s not just kids in defense of bad behavior spouting this maxim. It’s those you would consider to be pillars of the community. Those you used to be able to count on to be an example for others to follow.
And it’s not just that everyone lies, they will tell you. They will tell you that everyone lies all the time.
When someone says that to me, my response is automatic: I don’t. I don’t lie as a matter of course, and I don’t lie all the time. In fact, I don’t lie, period. And by lying, I’m not talking about being diplomatic to save the tender feelings of others. I’m talking about all-out, bald-faced lies. I’m talking about saying that which is not the truth—saying things as fact which actually are not facts at all.
Looking back on the way I was raised, this attitude is enough to make my parents roll over in their graves.
Lying is the one trend in our society that worries me more than any other. When we let go of the truth, it’s as if we cut the bindings that hold us together as a society. When we let go of the truth, we open ourselves up to that which is untrue, that which is said or espoused for a purpose that is unclear, in the shadows—dark.
“You’re being naïve again,” I’ve been told. “People lie to prove their points, to win friends, debates, and elections. People lie because otherwise, they wouldn’t win.”
Really? Imagine that! Guess what, cupcake? Not only can you not always win, sometimes you don’t deserve to.
The one thing about accomplished liars is that they`re not particularly wedded to any one specific lie; they can change their lies to suit the needs of the moment, and because they can and because they do, those needs are often and can be found to be complete reversals of previous lies.
I don’t know where this trend is going to take us, in the end. The greatest accomplishments of our history have been predicated on the truth, not on lies. Despite the fact that I am Canadian, the one line that comes to mind when I think of that is, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”
Wow! There are not only “truths” but there are “self-evident” truths.
Let me state that again, in case you missed it: The greatest accomplishments of our history have been predicated on the truth, not on lies. As long as we cling to the latter, we abandon the forward momentum humanity has enjoyed since it first came upon this earth.
And let me say just one more thing, if I may. When you tell a lie, you are not just “telling a lie”, or “fibbing”, or “bending the truth” or putting “spin” on something.
When you tell a lie, you are bearing false witness against your neighbor.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
Having said that, I must acknowledge that there seems to be a growing number of people who act as if they have. Which particular basics, you may ask, am I referring to?
I’m talking about one of the most fundamental principles of “right”, as opposed to “wrong” behavior.
I realize that I am about to step in it again, and I offer an apology—not for what I am about to say, but for anyone who might be offended by the following words. Okay, here goes.
The line between right and wrong has not wavered. Honesty still matters. The truth is still the truth no matter what kind of spin you try to put on things. The Golden Rule is still an important guideline for how to behave outside of your own bathroom.
And doing the thing that is right is still the same right thing to do as ever it was.
There seems to be an attitude lately that I have to tell you baffles the hell out of me. That attitude, stated simply is, “everyone lies, so what does it matter if I lie, too?”
Really? Everyone lies? I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with that assertion.
This attitude I have heard expressed in those exact words by more people I’d never think would say such a thing than you could possibly imagine.
Or maybe you can imagine it because you’ve noticed the same thing, too.
It’s not just kids in defense of bad behavior spouting this maxim. It’s those you would consider to be pillars of the community. Those you used to be able to count on to be an example for others to follow.
And it’s not just that everyone lies, they will tell you. They will tell you that everyone lies all the time.
When someone says that to me, my response is automatic: I don’t. I don’t lie as a matter of course, and I don’t lie all the time. In fact, I don’t lie, period. And by lying, I’m not talking about being diplomatic to save the tender feelings of others. I’m talking about all-out, bald-faced lies. I’m talking about saying that which is not the truth—saying things as fact which actually are not facts at all.
Looking back on the way I was raised, this attitude is enough to make my parents roll over in their graves.
Lying is the one trend in our society that worries me more than any other. When we let go of the truth, it’s as if we cut the bindings that hold us together as a society. When we let go of the truth, we open ourselves up to that which is untrue, that which is said or espoused for a purpose that is unclear, in the shadows—dark.
“You’re being naïve again,” I’ve been told. “People lie to prove their points, to win friends, debates, and elections. People lie because otherwise, they wouldn’t win.”
Really? Imagine that! Guess what, cupcake? Not only can you not always win, sometimes you don’t deserve to.
The one thing about accomplished liars is that they`re not particularly wedded to any one specific lie; they can change their lies to suit the needs of the moment, and because they can and because they do, those needs are often and can be found to be complete reversals of previous lies.
I don’t know where this trend is going to take us, in the end. The greatest accomplishments of our history have been predicated on the truth, not on lies. Despite the fact that I am Canadian, the one line that comes to mind when I think of that is, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”
Wow! There are not only “truths” but there are “self-evident” truths.
Let me state that again, in case you missed it: The greatest accomplishments of our history have been predicated on the truth, not on lies. As long as we cling to the latter, we abandon the forward momentum humanity has enjoyed since it first came upon this earth.
And let me say just one more thing, if I may. When you tell a lie, you are not just “telling a lie”, or “fibbing”, or “bending the truth” or putting “spin” on something.
When you tell a lie, you are bearing false witness against your neighbor.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
I would like to announce that hell has now completely frozen over. How do I know this to be true? Because this past week I took delivery of another new cell phone. This one is an iPhone, or, more specifically, the iPhone 4S.
The one good thing about this new phone, as opposed to the last new phone, the BlackBerry which it replaces, is that as far as I can see there are only 5 buttons: on/off, volume up, volume down, mute – and the little indentation button that you press to return to the menu on the “touch screen”.
The bad thing about this phone isn’t really about the phone, it’s about me. I have to learn a whole new “doo-hickey” that’s different from any other “doo-hickey” I’ve ever owned.
Did I ever happen to mention to y’all that I am kicking at the gate of 60 and that my first computer was an abacas?
Not to be too immodest, but I am proud of my accomplishments and my attitude, specifically that I am willing to at least try new things. My daughter likes to chide me that I don’t do well with change, but I think she’s wrong. As I said, I’m closing in on 60 years of age, and yet I earn my living on the Internet, do all my banking online, and have been taking on new pieces of technology as the need has arisen.
Yes, it takes me a bit longer than someone half my age to learn a new piece of equipment. But I do, eventually, learn it.
More or less.
Just before we left for our trip to Texas, I bought myself a new digital camera—something my son has told me, for a long time, that I’ve needed. This will likely be the last one I buy, not because I think I’m too old to ever get another new one. No, it’s because it appears that digital cameras are going to become passé. With all the things they can put into these new cell phones, most people already use them as cameras—and also as alarm clocks.
I have to tell you that I’ve used my last two cell phones as alarm clocks, and taking a time-limited nap has never been easier.
Mr. Ashbury was quite taken with my new camera. Or perhaps I should more properly say, the camera was quite taken by him. Once again, (as he had in Anaheim with the old one that is outdated), he absconded with my camera to the point that I didn’t get to use it for more than a moment or two—and I had to ask for it first.
In case you think I should solve this problem by getting him his own picture taking device, let me assure you I did! I gave him a new video camera for Christmas last year, a camera that takes videos or still pictures and that he loves.
Yes, Mr. Ashbury was walking around in Texas with a camera in each hand, and I do believe his biggest dilemma was which one to use at any given moment.
I can only be grateful that so far he has shown no desire to put his hands on my iPhone.
As with my previous new phone, I was able to install FaceBook and twitter all by myself. My daughter grabbed my iPhone first, of course, and made sure to install a game app on it, which she seems to feel ranks as a necessary installation. This was when she came over to “teach” me how to use the phone.
My second daughter came over the next day, also to show me how to use this new phone. One piece of vital information she gave me was concerning the black hole of data-suck. Rest assured, I know how to turn off the data, so that my various and varied “apps” only work when wifi is available.
If I need something otherwise, I can turn it on, use it, then turn it off.
Beyond that, I’ve had demonstrated for me many of the nifty functions this phone has to offer—said instructions being offered, of course, at the speed of light.
I’ve danced to this particular tune before. I smiled, and I nodded and I thanked the girls for helping me.
And I resolved that in a week or two, when I am familiar enough with this new piece of technology, and the girls are no longer paying attention, I’m going to do what any rational person would do.
I’m going to take myself to the nearest Apple Store and ask for help.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
The one good thing about this new phone, as opposed to the last new phone, the BlackBerry which it replaces, is that as far as I can see there are only 5 buttons: on/off, volume up, volume down, mute – and the little indentation button that you press to return to the menu on the “touch screen”.
The bad thing about this phone isn’t really about the phone, it’s about me. I have to learn a whole new “doo-hickey” that’s different from any other “doo-hickey” I’ve ever owned.
Did I ever happen to mention to y’all that I am kicking at the gate of 60 and that my first computer was an abacas?
Not to be too immodest, but I am proud of my accomplishments and my attitude, specifically that I am willing to at least try new things. My daughter likes to chide me that I don’t do well with change, but I think she’s wrong. As I said, I’m closing in on 60 years of age, and yet I earn my living on the Internet, do all my banking online, and have been taking on new pieces of technology as the need has arisen.
Yes, it takes me a bit longer than someone half my age to learn a new piece of equipment. But I do, eventually, learn it.
More or less.
Just before we left for our trip to Texas, I bought myself a new digital camera—something my son has told me, for a long time, that I’ve needed. This will likely be the last one I buy, not because I think I’m too old to ever get another new one. No, it’s because it appears that digital cameras are going to become passé. With all the things they can put into these new cell phones, most people already use them as cameras—and also as alarm clocks.
I have to tell you that I’ve used my last two cell phones as alarm clocks, and taking a time-limited nap has never been easier.
Mr. Ashbury was quite taken with my new camera. Or perhaps I should more properly say, the camera was quite taken by him. Once again, (as he had in Anaheim with the old one that is outdated), he absconded with my camera to the point that I didn’t get to use it for more than a moment or two—and I had to ask for it first.
In case you think I should solve this problem by getting him his own picture taking device, let me assure you I did! I gave him a new video camera for Christmas last year, a camera that takes videos or still pictures and that he loves.
Yes, Mr. Ashbury was walking around in Texas with a camera in each hand, and I do believe his biggest dilemma was which one to use at any given moment.
I can only be grateful that so far he has shown no desire to put his hands on my iPhone.
As with my previous new phone, I was able to install FaceBook and twitter all by myself. My daughter grabbed my iPhone first, of course, and made sure to install a game app on it, which she seems to feel ranks as a necessary installation. This was when she came over to “teach” me how to use the phone.
My second daughter came over the next day, also to show me how to use this new phone. One piece of vital information she gave me was concerning the black hole of data-suck. Rest assured, I know how to turn off the data, so that my various and varied “apps” only work when wifi is available.
If I need something otherwise, I can turn it on, use it, then turn it off.
Beyond that, I’ve had demonstrated for me many of the nifty functions this phone has to offer—said instructions being offered, of course, at the speed of light.
I’ve danced to this particular tune before. I smiled, and I nodded and I thanked the girls for helping me.
And I resolved that in a week or two, when I am familiar enough with this new piece of technology, and the girls are no longer paying attention, I’m going to do what any rational person would do.
I’m going to take myself to the nearest Apple Store and ask for help.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
This past week I’ve been a little frustrated in my goal to keep my butt in the chair, and my fingers on the keyboard, and write. Life keeps interfering with my attempts to return to normal and it’s starting to really stress me out.
Before the trips we undertook at the end of July and in mid August, I was on a roll, writing wise. I was able to stick to a pretty good daily routine, and produce words at a very satisfying rate.
When I say this to people who are not writers, they’d don’t quite get it. How can they? Now, it isn’t that I think that, as a writer, I’m any better than anyone else. I don’t, and I’m certainly not; however, I am different.
My non-writing family and friend will say, well, just sit down and do it! And they have a point, to a degree. But in reality it is a bit more complicated than that.
Facebook is resplendent with funny little cartoons and posts about writers and their peculiar proclivities. I can tell you that most of those “stereotypes” – the ones that say we writers are somewhat neurotic, annoyingly myopic (focus-wise) and daydreaming hermits – these all apply to me.
I’m happiest when I’m at home, at my keyboard, working on my current “work in progress”. That is never more true than when am able to I slip into the “zone” and become as one with my characters.
What that means is that as I write, my mind becomes filled with the characters and their journey, and if I’ve done my homework right, and if I’m lucky, in a sense I become my characters: so that, as I “live” the plot I’m creating, my words – the characters’ words – are theirs, and not mine.
And you thought authors were sane!
On my latest edit, my wonderful editor had a comment that I really want to have framed. To paraphrase, with each new installment of my series that I create, my characters’ interaction becomes richer, the banter becomes livelier, and the heart of the town I’ve imagined really shines through.
This is what I love about my job. Readers read to escape for a little while. It’s like grown-up recess, isn’t it? You pick up a book, and for a little bit of time you leave your own reality behind, and live in someone else’s world. While you’re reading your mind and heart and soul get a break from the stress, from the handling and the living. That part of you breathes.
It’s all of that and more, being an author.
You’ll hear us talking about things like character arcs and plot points, and you might think that writing is for the most part an exercise in logic and elements combined to tell a story and again, you’d be partly right.
Everyone’s process is different, and every one of us who writes approaches what we do with a completely different mind-set—although there are levels where we can connect to each other with near-perfect synchronicity.
When I’m working on a novel, I don’t get very far if I don’t know the heart of these character’s story. What past events in their lives do they need to overcome? What lessons do they have to learn now? How are they like you and me, but different, and what can we do together—my characters and I—that will somehow touch you, our readers?
Some of those things I really don’t know when I begin my first draft. They are the lampposts of discovery I make as I embark on the journey of writing each individual story.
And more often than not, where I end up when I’m finished is not where I’d thought I would be when I started out.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
Before the trips we undertook at the end of July and in mid August, I was on a roll, writing wise. I was able to stick to a pretty good daily routine, and produce words at a very satisfying rate.
When I say this to people who are not writers, they’d don’t quite get it. How can they? Now, it isn’t that I think that, as a writer, I’m any better than anyone else. I don’t, and I’m certainly not; however, I am different.
My non-writing family and friend will say, well, just sit down and do it! And they have a point, to a degree. But in reality it is a bit more complicated than that.
Facebook is resplendent with funny little cartoons and posts about writers and their peculiar proclivities. I can tell you that most of those “stereotypes” – the ones that say we writers are somewhat neurotic, annoyingly myopic (focus-wise) and daydreaming hermits – these all apply to me.
I’m happiest when I’m at home, at my keyboard, working on my current “work in progress”. That is never more true than when am able to I slip into the “zone” and become as one with my characters.
What that means is that as I write, my mind becomes filled with the characters and their journey, and if I’ve done my homework right, and if I’m lucky, in a sense I become my characters: so that, as I “live” the plot I’m creating, my words – the characters’ words – are theirs, and not mine.
And you thought authors were sane!
On my latest edit, my wonderful editor had a comment that I really want to have framed. To paraphrase, with each new installment of my series that I create, my characters’ interaction becomes richer, the banter becomes livelier, and the heart of the town I’ve imagined really shines through.
This is what I love about my job. Readers read to escape for a little while. It’s like grown-up recess, isn’t it? You pick up a book, and for a little bit of time you leave your own reality behind, and live in someone else’s world. While you’re reading your mind and heart and soul get a break from the stress, from the handling and the living. That part of you breathes.
It’s all of that and more, being an author.
You’ll hear us talking about things like character arcs and plot points, and you might think that writing is for the most part an exercise in logic and elements combined to tell a story and again, you’d be partly right.
Everyone’s process is different, and every one of us who writes approaches what we do with a completely different mind-set—although there are levels where we can connect to each other with near-perfect synchronicity.
When I’m working on a novel, I don’t get very far if I don’t know the heart of these character’s story. What past events in their lives do they need to overcome? What lessons do they have to learn now? How are they like you and me, but different, and what can we do together—my characters and I—that will somehow touch you, our readers?
Some of those things I really don’t know when I begin my first draft. They are the lampposts of discovery I make as I embark on the journey of writing each individual story.
And more often than not, where I end up when I’m finished is not where I’d thought I would be when I started out.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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