I Choose You

I Choose You is the new OakTara Anthology containing my SECOND published story....YAY!!!!!
I am soooooo excited about this one.... romance stories.
Will post more details when it becomes available to purchase from OakTara.
Also, just letting you know that Falling in Love with You is now available from all the really good online and brick and mortar bookstores and is available in ebook via Amazon Kindle :-)

Apologies for my continued absence from blogging. Homeschooling and mothering in general is keeping me very occupied, but I hope to have a increased blogging presence during 2013...now that I am actually PUBLISHED - Twice :-)

Wonderful Wednesday News!

Published!!!!

My first published story is now available to purchase and read....

OakTara's Love Story Anthology Falling in love with you is now available

Want to fall in love all over again— or for the first time?

41 real love stories guaranteed for a smile

Contributors -

▪ M.E. Born ▪ Kathy Brasby ▪ Patricia Charpentier ▪Peggy Clement ▪ Marie Wells Coutu ▪ Susan Schreer Davis ▪ Nicholas Dean ▪ Angelika DeFrancesco ▪ Frieda S. Dixon ▪ Phyllis Porter Dolislager ▪ Loretta J. Eidson ▪ Terri Elders ▪ Raymond Fenech ▪ Jane Fishback/Beatrice Fishback ▪ R.A. Giggie ▪ Lindsay Harrel ▪ Kathryn Hartman ▪Lori Hatcher ▪ Crystal Hayduk ▪ Mary Potter Kenyon ▪ Lill Kohler ▪ Laurie Kolp ▪ Jeanette Levellie ▪ Delores Christian Liesner ▪Kristen Long ▪ Barbara Boothe Loyd ▪ Miriam R. Lunz ▪ Denise Meagher ▪ Susan Miura ▪ Ava Pennington ▪ Sandy Kirby Quandt ▪ Sandra Redding ▪ Carol H. Riles ▪ Linda Rucker ▪ Janet R. Sady ▪ Susan Schuerr ▪ Patricia L. Stebelton ▪ Paul and Ruth Wallis ▪ Vera Williams ▪Marlene Worrall ▪ Brenda J. Young ▪

Compiled & edited by
Ramona Tucker / Jennifer Wessner
Don’t miss these best-of-the-best love stories collected from around the globe!

Publishing with OakTara

Great News!!!

My short story "Let's Call it Friends" is going to be published by OakTara in their soon-to-be-released anthology "Falling in Love with you."


It will be a wonderful read with contributions from forty up-coming authors, like myself.

If you order directly through their website you will receive a 15% discount. I will let you know more when it is available.

Thursday Thoughts

Reflect

Well it's been awhile....my excuse...ah life.

On Family -

It's been a great week. Last weekend we spent some time as a family down at the coast. It was cold and raining...but absolutely beautiful - it's great not having to worry about sunburn and just enjoy the ocean for as long as we want - well, as long as the littlest bundle will stand for it, that is. But we got some great rainbow views over waves and rocks and beach and we were even able to take advantage of the winter timing to be up to watch the sunrise over the water - now that's something I have never seen and it was worth it :-)

It's the last week of schooling before a couple of weeks off, so the kids have been finishing off the work I set for them as fast as they can so they can start the holidays early. I am going to spend the holidays correcting a mountain of workbooks and setting new, less monotonous schedules for Term 3.

Master DJ had a nasty earache a couple of weeks back and I even had to submit to taking him to the doctor for antibiotics (which of course I have big issues with, considering research suggests antibiotics (including amoxycillin which is what he was prescribed) are linked to the onset of ulcerative colitis. It certainly would make sense in my case - Before I knew better, I was on about every antibiotic there is for a recurring throat infection when I was 17 and then on an acne antibiotic for months when I was 19). Anyway, he is thankfully through the 5 day course now and we are dosing up on probiotics.

Little Miss Ginny is still a night owl, but we are getting there, she is so close to 1 year old now - it's carazy.

On Writing -

No progress to post as regards the novel, but I have been soooooo excited working on another short story for a local competition titled "The Doctor, the Dancer and the Doors of the Cathedral". It was quite a challenge as it was only allowed 3500 words....my chapters are usually more words than that. But I have to admit the editing and culling process was liberating in a way and now I feel inspired to keep my novel sharp and succinct. Depending on how I go in the competition, I may post the story here for you in a couple of months.
The coastal trip was research for one of the settings in my novel and oh my - guess what.....they have fenced off an area to the public that plays a critical role in my story...Mr. T says not to worry about it and just write for what and how it used to be, but it does concern me some.
And as to be expected with such scenery and history on show, I have some new ideas for another story that has been playing out in my mind for a good ten years...so that's got me excited also.

Rave

Coconut Yoghurt -

I don't have all the commercial details for my rave this week. However, on a recent trip to another close by city we discovered a wholefoods store selling organics as well as wheat and dairy alternatives....it was like a candy store to me, I tell you. I tried not to get too excited for my own good, but I did try a little luxury item - Coconut yoghurt.  Oh my....it was delicious....of course the kids weren't near so impressed and I've decided it should be mandatory for everyone to go on my restrictive diet every so often just so they don't forget the simple pleasures...the wonderful flavours that become blazay and even distateful in our over-sugared over-artifically-flavoured world.

Review

This is a children's story, but I believe it would do good for absolutely everybody to read it.
I bought it as a gift for my 6-year-old god-daughter a few weeks ago, but my own kids also loved it.
Using the story of little wooden people (Wemmicks) and their creator (Eli) Max Lucado writes a poignant story about self-love and how our feelings about ourselves should be based only on how our creator feels about us, rather than anything that other Wemmicks (humans) think/say about us.

What was most interesting/impressive about this story about star and grey dot stickers was that it wasn't just the grey dot stickers that we should not allow to stick, but the star stickers also. There is a prevailing attitude in our society that those who receive earthly praise will and should be happy, but the problem is that those who receive star stickers end up believing that their value lies only in the accumulation of these star stickers and the achievements for which they were given them....this view is just as dangerous as the poor self-esteem of those who received the grey dots due to their lack of "achievement".

A beautiful story with equally beautiful illustrations.

Religion

I was saddened to read this week of the death of young Italian mother Chiara Corbella after she lost her battle with cancer. I had been praying for her and am comforted to know that her husband has taken such a heroic attitude toward the death of his wife. The young family is inspirational and their cross is bitter -sweet.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/im-going-to-heaven-you-stay-here-with-dad-italian-mom-sacrifices-life-for-u

And another interesting quote I read this week -

 The United States was a nation founded to secure liberty, not comfort.

Interesting point.

Sunday Shorts

The Hole in the Ceiling

 

A Sunday Short By M.E. Born

The marks on my bedroom wall scared me.

Mum said they were just rusty water stains from a likely hole in the tin roof, or the mess from a cup of coffee accidentally thrown across the room, but I didn’t think so.

She said she was absolutely positive that nothing bad had happened in the house before we moved in - nothing strange, nothing scary - other than the elderly man who owned it before us dying in his bed, that is.

He was there for three days before they found him and that only happened because someone called the emergency line from his house. Someone had said nothing; only dialled the number and left the phone off the hook. When the ambulance came they found only the old man, already dead in his bed - nothing suspicious except the fact that someone had already covered him with a sheet.

I knew nothing about any of this until after Mum had already packed me out of our old house, 200 kilometres away, and moved us in here. She knew though. She knew the house was strange, that it had a history, a story. But she didn’t ask questions. If the questions were asked and the mysteries solved, the rent wouldn’t have been so cheap and she wouldn’t have been able to afford it.

It had been only Mum and me since the day, twelve years ago, when my dad took my brother fishing and they both drowned.

It’s a sad story, but I don’t remember them so it doesn’t make me cry. I only cry when I see my mum crying. She used to cry all the time, but only when she thought I was already asleep in bed.

I knew what nights she was sad and when she would cry over the photograph of my dad and brother. She would always rush me to bed, and sing my lullaby in a voice that was high-pitched and breathy and she wouldn’t look into my eyes when she kissed me goodnight. On those nights I would wait for a little while and then sneak out of bed and watch her from the hallway. She always took out the photograph and rubbed her fingers across it, kissed her lips to the glass and then clutched it to her chest as she sunk back into the chair and sobbed. I never went to her. She would have been mad if she knew I’d seen her. I would just sit on the floor in the hallway and cry too. Maybe I would miss them that much too if I remembered them.

But she didn’t cry these days, so neither did I. Mum was too busy to cry. After he’d died, Mum had got a big payout from Dad’s life insurance, but my uncle had encouraged her to invest it in some business scheme of his and he’d lost it, every cent. So Mum had to work hard now to keep us. She didn’t have time to miss Dad or my brother or be sad. She didn’t have time to sing lullabies and kiss me goodnight anymore either. But I didn’t need her to. I didn’t want her to, not now.

Because she was so busy it meant I was at home by myself a lot. At our old house she had worked two jobs, one during the day and one during the night, so I’d been by myself all day, apart from when I was at school - some days I didn’t go to school.

The whole reason we’d moved house was so she could take a better job and not have to work all day. But she still did. She did a lot of unpaid overtime, because she wanted to make sure that the new boss was happy with her.

So I was still at home by myself most of the time. I didn’t mind, I was used to it, it didn’t bother me at all until the kids at school told me about the house. The stains on my wall hadn’t bothered me until then, neither had the noises, sometimes loud thumping noises, but usually just quiet noises, like footsteps – the footsteps of somebody who is trying not to be heard.

I told Mum about the noises but she said it was just a possum in the roof and I nearly believed her until other things started happening.

Sometimes I found doors opened that I knew I’d closed, and windows open that I knew I never opened. So I knew it wasn’t a possum, and I also knew it wasn’t a ghost; which is what the kids at school always claimed. But a ghost wouldn’t need to open the doors or windows if it wanted to come in or go out and a ghost wouldn’t eat our food.

Mum was kind of worried when I told her I found doors open. It was the first time she hadn’t just completely dismissed my concerns. She frowned and mumbled and when I came home from school that day I met a locksmith waiting to change the door locks. But when I tried to tell Mum that someone had also been eating crackers from the pantry and drinking milk from the fridge she told me I had an overactive imagination.

Of course she didn’t notice, because whoever it was had self-control. They never finished a whole packet of biscuits or polished off left-over birthday cake entirely, they took it one cracker at a time - one tiny slither of cake, just a mouth full of milk. I wondered if they drank it straight from the carton and I guess they did because I never found a dirty milk glass. I did find a dirty sock though.

I’d come home earlier than usual from school that day. I normally had drama practise on Wednesday nights but it was cancelled due to the rain. I joined the theatre group in a lame attempt to make friends at the new school. It wasn’t working. Kids only talked to me when they wanted to remind me how haunted my house was.

The idea that practice had been cancelled due to rain sounded crazy to me at first. I thought it must have actually been an excuse because the drama teacher had a date with the new janitor that night, but it was something to do with a leaking roof in the play hall. It was the first time it had rained since we’d moved here – I guessed I’d be able to test Mum’s theory about our leaky roof too now.

I pictured the stains on my wall growing larger as I walked home - in the rain. When I got to the door I could hear something. Voices - mumbling. My heart was pounding like a drum as I unlocked the door and went in. It turned out it was just the TV. Of course the TV shouldn’t have been on, but I was just relieved to not find anything scarier that I hardly concerned myself about the TV playing away to itself even though I knew I’d shut it off before I left for school that morning.

It was playing some medieval history documentary, so, whoever they were, they were too intellectual for the day time soap operas. It was then that I noticed the sock. It was lying on the floor in the middle of the room, as if had been dropped by someone in a rush. It wasn’t my sock. I didn’t own any black socks. Initially I tried to convince myself that it was Mum’s sock, but I knew that wasn’t the case either. Mum didn’t have time to wear socks these days. She only ever wore pantyhose. I don’t think she even took them off when she went to bed. 

I looked at the sock for a long time from a distance. It was old and holey and I didn’t dare to go closer and undoubtedly find out that it smelled too. Eventually, I went outside into the backyard and fetched a long stick that I used to pick up the sock and toss it in the trash. I felt kind of bad for whoever it belonged to, but I figured if they really needed to they’d just help themselves to a new sock from my drawer.

The next day I was sick. Well, not literally. I was sick as in the “I was suppose to sit a maths test that day at school that I hadn’t studied for and my throat was slightly sore” kind of sick. Anyway, I told Mum I needed to stay home and she was too busy to insist upon anything different, so she went to work and I stayed in bed.

For a while I listened to music and slept, until I was woken by a much louder than usual thump. My heart started beating like a drum again and I noticed that the stains on my wall had definitely grown. I lay quietly in my bed to start with. I guessed I should probably call the police but I was always a little concerned they might lock my Mum up for my truancy if I got them involved.

I got out of the bed and peeked out into the hallway – nothing. I walked past Mum’s room and the bathroom – still nothing. I’d just decided it must have been that alleged possum when I reached the laundry and saw where it had really come from.

I’d never even noticed it was there before. I guess it’s one of those things that you don’t notice at all unless you need a tradesman to fix your wiring or until …. it’s missing. In the ceiling of the laundry there was a manhole. The cover of the manhole was gone. It was wide open, just a big black hole in the ceiling. Someone had come through the manhole. Someone was in the house.

© M.E. Born, 2012.

Thursday Thoughts

Thursday Thoughts

Reflect

It's been another really good week - thank You God!

On Family -

I actually took Master DJ back to Preschool this week and it went quite well. He was overtired by Wednesday though.
Little Miss Ginny slept better this week and got ever more clever - clapping, saying "Hello", standing unassisted and sitting up from lying. We met some new people this week who described her as a petite little doll with beautiful hair :-)

We went out for our first homeschooling get-together yesterday. The people were lovely, but I'm still making up my mind as to whether our family is a fit there. It was good for the kids to get to meet some others who are being homeschooled and Little Miss Winny quickly made a new friend, so that makes me HAPPY!

We had beautiful weather earlier this week and I thought maybe we might skip right over winter and go to spring, but it's cold and wet today so winter is definitely still on its way. Thankfully we can have an inside day, with no karate or dancing or guides to rush off to, so we're rugged up and doing book/computer work instead.

Not sure I can declare myself in remission yet as I've had pain and other symptoms this week, but overall I have been really well and I continue to thank God for His abounding blessings.

On Writing -

I've worked on networking this week, subscribing to groups and getting involved in some potential online pitch sessions. I'm still working on the re-write of Chapter 5 of my novel, but no great movements there this week. However, I've written what I think is a great 100 word pitch, which isn't easy to do when you're talking about a 90,000 word novel, so I'm happy with that and I will reveal it to you down the track a bit.

Rave

Active Manuka Honey.
I have been making use of manuka honey since 2009 when I first researched its anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory qualities and tried it as a potential remedy for IBD.
While I didn't see any miracle cures on that side of things, I do believe it has helped me to stave off infection and cleared a path for probiotic colonization. It has also proved helpful for speeding up recovery from tummy bugs, skin/acne care, wound healing, but, most importantly, it works wonders for colds and sore throats. Use it as soon as you know a cold is coming on or even if you know you've been exposed to a cold.

I use Summerglow Apiaries UMF 16+ Manuka Honey
Summerglow Manuka Honey

It comes with all the certification bells and whistles, but mostly because it tastes so yummy. The kids have no issue with taking it when they're unwell, even when they've had tummy upsets (except Master DJ, but I'm afraid he is fussy-personified).
I've tried numerous other brands and they just aren't as well accepted by the kids or by me :-)
It is expensive, so keep that in mind.

Review

This week I want to review Delirium by Lauren Oliver.

Now I'll start by saying that, yes, you're right, this doesn't seem like my kind of book. It fits in the genre of Young Adult Dystopian. And while I'm not really old and would like to consider myself still fitting in the "Young adult"category, I'm not into the majority of what's available in this genre and I would never have looked at this book either, had I not been drawn by a potential "bargain". It was in our bookstore bundled with its sequel (Pandemonium) two for the price of one :-) I picked it up and read the blurb.

There was a time when love was the most important thing in the world. People would go to the end of the earth to find it (for those who know my own love story...this is very true) They would tell lies for it. Even kill for it.
Then at last, they found the cure.
Now everything is different. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the government demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Haloway has always looked forward to the day when she'll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.
But then, with only ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable...

This is actually a really terrific read. I will plaster disclaimers all over this review, in that it's not really a Christian book. But it is not anti-Christian either. In fact, there are direct references to Christianity being a faith that was soaked in love and therefore eradicated along with the disease (Amor deliria nervosa).

But there are other tiny seeds of thought planted in the story that aren't Christian belief, and there is violence and some completely uncessary bad language and sensual content, which I have to say did detract some from the brilliance of the actual story so it's a pity it wasn't edited out before release.

Having said that though, the concept is amazing and it is beautifully written by Lauren Oliver. I have to say that she now rates as one of my favourite writers - in terms of style. Her prose is exquisite (except for the fact that she described the protagnoist's hair color as Autumn leaves - just changing...I guess she means yellow, but each time I read this I pictured a tree instead of a good looking guy :-)

I was a little put off when I started reading and realized it was written in real-time (ie. I say, instead of I said) but I got used to this and it didn't bother me at all after awhile.

I was concerned that her definition of love would be just the emotional side of falling-in-love and while there are parts of that, she goes further. People who have been "cured" not only don't fall in love anymore they are unable to feel/show/give love in terms any relationship (parents to children, best friend to best friend, humans for animals etc.)

By far, the best part of this book is the ending...it's a cliff-hanger and it is brilliant - literally left me breathless. There are references made to the ending in Romeo and Juliet, but this is much better than Romeo and Juliet. To me, Romeo and Juliet was depressing, fatalistic, even somewhat selfish, but the ending of Delirium is real love - self-sacrifice, giving until, and although, it hurts.

Read it.

Religion

Speaking of real love, self-sacrifice and giving until it hurts.

Mother beats tumor after refusing to sacrifice her baby's life for her own

Although illness in pregnancy is a horrible situation for any mother to face, thank God there are still those who understand that valour never lies in self-preservation, but in laying down your life for another.

See also St. Gianna Molla

Sunday Shorts - The Duty Manager

The Duty Manager.

(A Sunday Short by M.E. Born)

I checked in my pocket. Nothing. It must have slipped off when I put my coat on. It had to be out by the car. I shifted the milk bottle to hang from a different finger; my hand was going numb under the weight and cold of it.

I looked at the line ahead of me. The convey-a-belt must have been broken or something, the groceries hadn’t moved an inch. I looked down the row of checkouts – their lines were even longer, especially the express aisle. I needed to get out and look. It had to be there. It just had to be. But what if it wasn’t? Where would I even look? Curse my stupid, aimless browsing. I’d been in nearly every store in the whole shopping centre. And for what? To stand in a check-out for twenty minutes just to buy a bottle of milk.

I leaned forward to look at who was working my checkout. A guy. Typical. He was moving in slow motion. Didn’t he know people had better things to do then stand in his queue all day? I felt sick. Mum was right. I’d lost too much weight since it happened. That was understandable; I’d barely eaten since. I should have had it resized. But I couldn’t bear the thought of them chopping out a piece. It was all I had left; I couldn’t let them take any of it. But now it was gone. Gone. Entirely. I could have given a piece to save me losing it altogether. It would be there - it had to be. God wouldn’t let me lose it. He wouldn’t le me lose the only thing I still had left of him - the thing that symbolized everything I had and lost; the promise of our life together -destroyed. 

I leaned forward to take another look. He was chatting – chatting - with the old lady. Since when did chatting with the customers become part of the job? Every other time I’ve been in this store I’ve been given “elevator” stares and grunts. I was ok with that really – you pay more for cheery service. I tried to mentally picture the price that had been on the shelf under the milk. Had it been just a little more expensive today? Had they added a cheer tax already?

I puffed breath out my cheeks as I saw the “service” light go on under the check-out number. Number 4. No wonder. Four was some kind of terrible luck - according to the Chinese anyway. Of course I didn’t really believe that. The number 4 hadn’t had anything to do with the luck that night six months ago. In fact, I’m pretty sure everything had been eights that night.

A bean-stalk of a teenager approached the checkout for the price check. It seemed this old lady had picked up every item in the store that didn’t have a barcode sticker. Or maybe she’d peeled them off as she walked around the store hoping she could get the item for free if it had no barcode. Well she was having no such luck with this check-out operator. He knew the rules. He really looked too old to be working a check-out. He had to be mid-twenties at least. They never let anyone over 19 work the check-outs, the directors wouldn’t see their billion dollar profit at the end of the financial year if they had to pay regular wages. No, this guy had to be a duty manager or something. The bean-pole kid seemed scared of him.

All my fingers were pink and shrivelled now. If she would just finish unloading her trolley, I could get close enough to put the milk down.

What if someone saw it and picked it up? Would they take it to Centre Management? Maybe. Or maybe they’d just pocket-it. It would be worth something – quite a bit. I never knew how much he paid for it, but I know he worked hard to save the money for it.

The old lady finished unloading and pushed her trolley down to the end of the checkout to the fifty bags that sat filled and waiting there. She had a lot of groceries. Surely a woman of her age didn’t still have to feed a family? Mr Duty Manager finished packing the last of the bread loaves in and then sat the egg carton carefully on top. I plonked the milk bottle on to the grimy, black strip. The man directly in front of me only had a few things, but it was fresh produce – that meant looking up codes and weighing things.

I pressed my lips tightly and tried to calm myself, just like Rani showed me - slow deep breaths. It would be by the car, simple as that, I shouldn’t be wasting my time worrying.

There was some kind of problem with the elderly lady’s card. She produced another one from her worn, black purse. It was declined too. She shook her head and went searching through the compartments of her purse again. Maybe looking for cash, maybe looking for some magic credit card that would actually have funds available. She put her hand up to her face as tears began to slip out the corners of her eyes. I felt bad for her. I obviously hadn’t been too far off with the idea about the barcode stickers. Mr Duty Manager looked uncomfortable, declined funds obviously weren’t something he dealt with regularly. He looked over his shoulder and then pulled out his own wallet. He took out his own credit card and stuck it into the end of the machine. Before I realized what was happening, he’d put through the transaction and sent the old lady on her way. I felt myself gaping. Mum would say “shut your mouth before the flies get in”. But…did he seriously just pay for her groceries…out of his own money? The man in front had seen it happen too. He made some comment that I couldn’t hear, but it made Mr. Duty Manager turn red and shuffle on the spot a little.

Surprisingly, he knew all the fresh produce codes off by heart, he didn’t need to look up a single one and the health-freak was through the checkout in seconds.          

I pushed my bottle of milk up next to the scanner. There was no point making him press the button just for one milk bottle to take a ride.

“How’s your day been?” He asked as he picked the bottle up and flicked it across the infer-red hole of the scanner.

Normally I would have just said “Oh fine,” or something equally inane.

“I lost something.” I said. “Jewellery. I need to get back to my car.”

“Sure.” He took my cash that had found its own way out of my wallet, pulled the change out of the cash drawer and pushed it back in.

“That’s three dollars, and twenty-five”

“Thanks”

“I’m off work soon I could help you look for it.”

“Um…I…don’t think so.”

“Well, you should report it…to the service desk. If anyone finds it they’ll bring it there. Leave your contact details and we’ll be able to get it back to you.”

“Thanks.” I knew he was right but I was already running for the car. It had to be there.

 (Hour limit)

© M.E. Born, 2012.

What are your thoughts? Like it? Not like it? Theories about the story/ending?