Readers

When I started this blog, I thought it would be a resource for the parents of the kids I teach. With my partner Edith, we own a small early childhood school for kids ages 3-7. It's a remarkable little place with a full academic curriculum unlike any in our city or any I've even heard of.

We teach the kids just about everything I can think of. We even help parents with the idea of love - what it means to love one another outside the home when mommy and daddy aren't there. Loving one another is probably the most important thing we do, so when we are learning about something new, like on Friday when Mrs. St. Louis showed the kids Futurism, Cubism, and paintings by Braques, and Picasso and then had the children review the idea of repeated visuals in art to show movement on the canvas, they had no trouble running cars and trucks through the paint on the long paper and sharing that paper with friends.

It always amazes me that what you think is going to happen doesn't. Although this blog is intended for our parents, I am surprised every morning when I look at the visitors page and see that most of the visitors come from other places. The world map is scattered with visitors. I left for work on Friday with a letter from Ireland, a visit from someone in Kuala Lumpur, and an email from China in Chinese.

Creating a blog takes a lot of time. When my husband suggested it to me, I thought about it for a few days. I knew that what precious little free time I had would be seriously drained into the blog. I had just taken a job with WFIE to write a childcare column for them, and like anything I do, I want that column to be the best I can make it - link WFIE- new column appears every Monday afternoon - fresh insights on children.

If I was going to write a blog, what should I write? I decided I wanted the blog to be a resource for parents and the best it could be, and posting is sometimes a lot of work. Making it all interesting and slightly provocative is the key. A lot of people want my old style from the Courier. It's there and available at Older Column sites. People have gone to the trouble to archive years of work, and I've linked them rather than repost things I've already written.

I've taken a new job with Evansville Living to do a children's index of activities. Once the initial index is out, it won't be as long and arduous as it has been, but I think it's a worth while endeavor.

Every day I get at least a dozen emails from product people with ideas, products and issues about kids. They all have to be read and some made ready to post. Sites and pictures have to be found and meshed. It all takes time.

So what spare time am I trying to protect? I'm a Catholic fiction writer. I am finishing my fifth novel. It's part of a trilogy called Drogheda. I've written a Medieval historical novel called Anne, and a roller coaster slap stick comedy called Porkchops about Catholic parish life, and the three Drogheda books which have taken me four years. I was actually thrown out of my writer's group because of the novels. I've lost several friends as well. It's not that the books have a dirty or nasty content, it's that they suggest a life of the mind most Catholics have forgotten because it's just too hard; it demands too much. "Too close to home; I don't want to be reminded of that," said one friend.

Novel writing takes a different kind of writing. It takes an all still time when the mind can go other places. Those cat disturbances, and people calling and people moving around the house don't contribute to creative writing. So I get up at 4:00 am and work until my husband gets up - unless I have to post the blog. Best writing time? Snow days. Worst time? After a bad day.

Next book? Romancing Rachel, and yes Miss Rachel is the character. She will be set in a slightly post Victorian world. She'll have a mother like mine and her friends will be Miss Molly and Miss Stacey.

So bear with me. I'm learning how and what to post and trying to come up with links that I think might be interesting and fun. Notice that when I've posted something from another country, I've posted a link to that country under Geography links. I'm trying to post maps and pictures now. The world seems to be shrinking and we need to know about these places.

If there are sites and other blogs that I need to know about, please tell me. Some of you already have. I'm really new to this. As I said, when I don't have to, I'm out there in a fiction land ignoring a whole lot.

I really like doing this. I also like the old style and I have what I think is a good column going to WFIE in the next five minutes about building and its relation to language development.

Please guide me and let me know your thoughts. Some of you have. And happy birthday to my oldest friend of 51 years - Cathy Nielsen.