Author: Gina Wilkins

I have to confess that I am a compulsive list maker. I’ve been accused of making lists of lists I need to make. There’s just something about seeing that long summary of things to do, then watching it all get checked off, one item at a time, that I find very satisfying.

Christmas lists? Oh, yes, I make them. Lists of people I need to buy for, lists of gift ideas, lists of purchases neatly cross-filed with the first list. Santa would be proud.

Lists of chores waiting to be done? Definitely. I’ll list the most mundane tasks, just to have the satisfaction of checking them off. It makes me feel as if I’ve accomplished something.

Any upcoming trip sends me into a frenzy of list-making. Things I need to do first. Things I need to take. Places I want to see. Itineraries and emergency contacts. I remind myself to pack jammies and meds and socks and safety pins. Extra camera batteries, phone chargers, umbrella and tip money.

I’ll be attending a writers’ conference later this week and I’m in full-out list making mode. Must remember to take pens and notebooks. Warm clothes, comfy shoes and a flashlight for the scheduled midnight ghost tour (cool!). Remind the hubs to feed the cat — buy cat food. I’m looking forward to the conference, but there’s so much to do first! My lists are dauntingly long. Will I manage to check off all the items? And does it really matter if I don’t?

Almost time for the drawing! There’s still time to enter if you want to win (click the Enter to Win! tab above for details). Can you believe it’s almost October already?

Wishing you all a great upcoming week.

And now I’m off to place a check mark beside an item on one of my lists: Update blog.

My grandfather used to tell me when life closes a door, God opens a window. It’s a saying I’ve repeated many times during my life, often to myself — and one I try to keep in mind whenever I meet with disappointment.

After receiving a couple of form letter rejections for the first two books I ever sent out for publication (and well deserved rejections, I might add!), I sulked for a bit, then picked myself up and tried again. I studied everything I could get my hands on about romance writing. The next book I wrote was much better than those earlier attempts had been. Because of those early rejections, I signed with my agent, who has enriched both my life and career during the past 20-plus years.

I had high hopes for my next book, and there was some initial interest in it, which made it all the more disappointing when the editor who’d finally asked to see it turned it down. So, I tried yet again — and sold to Harlequin. Had the previous book sold, I might have been locked in with a romance line that no longer even exists. Harlequin has been a wonderful publishing home for me for all these years, and I’m thrilled to still be writing for them.

I used my grandfather’s quote often when my children were growing up. Whenever they encountered a rejection or a disappointment, we made a habit of watching for the good that came out of it — and something always did. When my oldest daughter didn’t make drill team in high school, she joined the school choir, instead — and loved it, making friends there she maintains to this day. When my second daughter suffered a similar disappointment, she became active in a club in which she excelled, and which led to many opportunities for her. Not getting their first choice on a list of options was almost always a blessing in disguise, though it sometimes took a while for that to become clear. Even major detours in their adult lives have led to rewarding paths they might never have discovered otherwise.

There are days when it’s hard to keep faith in my granddaddy’s adage. Times when it doesn’t seem anything good can come from the obstacles life throws in our way. And yet, there’s always something we can point to and say, “That’s it. There’s the bright spot in the darkness. The purpose for what we’ve been through.”

I hope your silver linings shine brightly through the upcoming week.

The month is slipping away! Don’t forget to enter the contest. Click the Enter to Win! tab above for details.

Don’t forget to enter this month’s contest for the two-books-in-one-volume prize!

The first two books of the long-running Family Found series, FULL OF GRACE and HARDWORKING MAN (one of my own personal favorites) were originally published under the name Gina Ferris and are hard to find these days. They’re reprinted  in this paperback volume under the anthology title ONCE A FAMILY.

Remember, if your name was not drawn last month, you must enter again to be eligible for this month’s drawing on October 1. Click the Enter to Win! tab for details.

The late comedian George Carlin had a very clever routine about our desire to collect stuff — and then the lengths we go to to find a place for our stuff. I should have listened to that funny, but insightful monologue long before I finally paid full attention to the point he was trying to make with humor. I’d have wasted much less money during the years and caused myself much less stress in the long run.

The lesson really came home for me in September, 2005, when a tornado (a spin-off from Hurricane Rita) hit one end of our home. John and I were the only ones here at the time. He saw the funnel cloud approaching, ran inside (he had a hard time opening the door because the pressure was already building), and ducked with me into the central bathroom we always hide in during tornado warnings (a fairly common occurrence in Arkansas, particularly in the spring). We’d barely gotten into the room, hadn’t even had a chance to close the door, when the twister hit. It was noisy and scary and happened so fast I’d hardly  realized we’d been hit before it was gone, taking one end of our house and two outbuildings with it, as well as knocking over many of our trees and damaging other parts of our house.

We were so fortunate. We were not hurt. Our daughter, who was on her way for dinner in a little Saturn coupe and missed driving into the tornado by only minutes, was unharmed. We lost a lot of stuff, mostly lawn and garden equipment and the things we’d stashed in those outbuildings because there was no room for them in the house, but our most treasured possessions survived (most of which wouldn’t have been considered valuable to anyone but us). Our dealings with our insurance company were only slightly stressful, though the months we spent entangled with The Contractor From Hell, as we refer to him, were a nightmare we thought would never end (and required the assistance of our attorney to finally settle).

Fourteen months after the storm hit, our house was mostly back in one piece (there are still a few minor things we need to repair), and we’d replaced the stuff that needed replacing. But the mental picture of all those broken “things” scattered across our yard stayed with me. All junk now, even though I’d thought at one time that I just had to have them. I thought of Carlin’s description of a house — a pile of stuff with a cover on it. And I began to take stock of the few material things in life that I truly value.

I treasure the things that have sentimental meaning to me. Photos. A couple of trinkets that belonged to my grandparents and great-aunts. A little package-shaped music box my mother bought me in a Branson gift shop and on which she wrote a happy birthday message to me. My great-aunt’s charm bracelet (none of it real gold, but she loved it, and so do I). My grandmother’s glass juice bowl. My grandfather’s broken key chain with his initials on it (same as my married initials). My mother’s favorite china teacup. My husband has a few similar treasures from his late grandparents and father.

We have a large, fireproof safe that would be very disappointing to any thief who managed to break into it; it’s filled with childhood photos of my kids, legal paperwork and a couple of things passed down from my husband’s father and my mother. None of it is worth much in terms of money, but they mean a great deal to us. And yet, if we lost it all, and still had our family, we’d be okay. The memories would still be there, even without the things that trigger them.

My wood-artist husband has made many things for me — beautiful bowls and vessels and pens and Christmas ornaments — but one of my most treasured pieces is the one in the photo above. Using a modified stained glass pattern and wood he rescued from a discard bin, he cut all those little pieces on his scroll saw and assembled them to make an art deco-ish piece for me. It sits on a little brass easel on my mantel. I call her “my lady.” Looking at her makes me happy, which should be the point of all our possessions, no matter what their material value.

Thanks for stopping by. May you find pleasure in the little things in your life during the upcoming week.

September kicks off my absolute favorite season. Fall. We’ve had a rather mild summer in Arkansas, which was nice, but it’s still a joy for me to welcome the beginning of a new season. The evenings are growing slightly cooler, the days a bit shorter. My hummingbirds are draining the feeder, preparing for their long flight south. There’s something a little different about the way the shadows fall across the patio in the afternoons. It’s football season — and I am a huge football fan, especially SEC college ball (I was up until a ridiculous hour this morning watching the surprisingly exciting LSU/Washington game). I also watch NFL games when they’re on. My husband and I will head for the hills when the leaves start to turn, making day trips into the Ozarks and the charming Mountain View area. The “Bambi” I snapped above is probably not as enthusiastic about this season, but I do love watching wildlife on fall strolls on local hiking trails (I took this shot in Cade’s Cove near Gatlinburg, Tennessee).

One of my favorite television commercials shows a dad giddily riding a shopping cart through an office supplies store while “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” plays and his two children sulk through a back-to-school-shopping outing. As cute as it is, I can’t quite identify with those kids. I always liked going back to school, and I think my kids did too, despite the obligatory grumbling. I loved back-to-school shopping. New binders and folders and pencils and lunch boxes. I still remember a couple of back-to-school dresses my mother made for me when I was in elementary and junior high school.

We always did our back to school shopping at the Sterling Store. Mother worked in the Sterling Stores home office from the time she graduated high school in 1950, eventually serving as the president’s secretary, and was still employed by the family who owned those stores at the time of her death in 2007, 24 years after Sterling Stores went out of business. I loved going to the Sterling Store in Benton, Arkansas to pick out my school supplies while Mother visited with the long-time store manager, Mr. Hanvey.

Then it was time to shop for my own kids. And I found that I still loved helping them pick out new binders and folders and pencils and crayons and backpacks, carefully sorting and labeling everything the night before the first day of school. I discovered how expensive it could become, which made me appreciate even more the sacrifices my sometimes-struggling parents made so we could have the basic necessities. But even having to count pennies sometimes, I enjoyed the ritual. I still smile when I see the colorful displays of school supplies at WalMart, and I miss outfitting my kids for the new year. I asked my son several times during the last few weeks if he needed to go back-to-college shopping, but all he did was pick up one notebook and say, “That’s all I need.” “No markers or crayons or superhero folders?” I asked with a sigh. He merely patted my head — something he does a lot now that he’s 6’1″ (compared to my own almost 5’4″).

So, even though it’s still officially summer with quite a few hot days ahead, I look forward to those first nippy mornings, the first fire on the hearth, the first sign of color in the now-green leaves. And because it has to be said — Go, SEC! (With apologies to all my friends in other conferences).