Some Monday Thoughts

We have a bumper crop of apples this year, most of which are still very green but they still turned into wonderful apple pies for Sunday dinner yesterday.

Today my mother-in-law, Anne, told me that her mother-in-law, Paul's Grandma Lena, taught her to add salt to applesauce to cut the tartness from green apples.

So now I need to be sure to tell my daughter-in-law Phoebe.

The world is a better place when these lessons are passed along and no one breaks the chain.

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Many of us older authors and wanna-bes have been discouraged and dismayed by Christian publishers who won't take a peek at our stuff unless we have at least 30,000 followers on social media.

I was told yesterday that the recession of 2008 created a huge change in Christian fiction publishing because so many Christian bookstores closed. This meant that readers were no longer introduced to fiction books by browsing in the local bookstore.

I wonder if the latter led to the former, and publishers began to rely on the authors' online followers to drive exposure and sales.

I think this shows a serious laziness and lack of creativity in Christian publishing as well as a complete ignorance of how few people do well at both writing and social media marketing.

Thankfully, my informant said, publishers are finally realizing that followers aren't necessarily book buyers.

Let's hope the pendulum swings back to good writing getting the contracts.

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Emily's friend Sydney Wiese is back in Oregon as a coach after playing for the WNBA for seven years. Emily invited her for Sunday dinner so I of course stressed out a little too much because she sounded like what my mother would call Feiny Leit [fancy people].

As it turned out, the apple pies were delicious [see first note] and Sydney was what my mother would call "usht so neiss un common" [just so friendly and ordinary]. I realized why she seemed so familiar when she said her parents were both from a little town in Minnesota maybe 60 miles from where I grew up. Sydney doesn't have a Minnesota accent, having grown up in Phoenix, but she sure has the vibe, and she reminded me of my friend Beth Reckdahl from high school, may she rest in peace.

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We discovered recently that some of the underground pipes Paul's dad put in 45 years ago were leaking badly. This led to a good chunk of cash going to a plumber instead of our children's inheritance, but I'm so relieved to have it fixed.

Today the younger plumber was here to replace some decaying pipes around the water heater and also install a new faucet on the south side of the house.

I found out that he became a plumber kind of by accident. He was installing a floor for a friend and the friend's dad, a plumber, came by and offered him a job because he was impressed with his work ethic. And here he is.

I thought that story had life lessons in it.

The young plumber said that taking this job was the second best decision of his life. The first was getting married a year ago.

Awwwwwww!, I thought.

I said, "Good for you for committing."

Yeah, well, it wasn't that he was scared of commitment, but he dated for years and nothing clicked, and then he met his wife and that was it. He just knew.

Wow.

Paul is off hiking today but he had told the plumber to make sure I like the placement of the outside faucet. "Happy wife, happy life," said the plumber, adding, "I also say, happy house, happy spouse."

I told Emily about this exchange and she said, "That is such a Dorcas Smucker conversation."

I do have a gift for getting people to tell me their life story, and I would be more proud of that if it was something I tried to do.

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I was out in my writing cabin today when I saw a pickup truck drive in and a vaguely familiar figure walk up to the house.

I scampered over to see what was going on, and here it was Trent Ruckert, here with his wife and children to visit his parents and also looking up a few old haunts because their flight was canceled today.

It was fun to catch up, and lots of points to young men who look up their old friends' moms.

I decided not to remind him of the time he came over late to see Steven and didn't want to bother us so he climbed into a random window upstairs which happened to be Emily's bedroom.

Trent asked about Paul, and I said that he's learned to do almost everything he did before his accident, and today he is out hiking.

Trent said, "That is very Paul Smucker of him."

I laughed too hard because it is way too true.

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Have a good week.