It's Jesse Tree Time!

For all four of you who read my blog... I'm back. Smile. I just finished a writing marathon. 50,000 words of fiction in 30 days! It's the National Novel Writers Month Challenge. My good friend did it last year and she challenged me to do it this year. And I'm glad I did.  It got my juices flowing.   I already have another fiction novel brewing. 

Apparently one of the fringe benefits of doing this challenge is that I get five paperback copies of what I wrote.  I think that's cool.  I'm not sure five people would read it and if they did I'm not feeling like I'd really want them reading it.  I'm just a tad, I mean, I'm totally insecure about someone else reading it.  Maybe cause it's a little too close to home.  I really drew on my own life experiences to since I haven't done in research in any particular genre to write in.  Next novel I hope will come out of some more time invested in reading and research.

Now that I'm done with NaNoWriMo I can get back to reading Robinson Crusoe.  I want to read Les Miserable before I watch the musical coming out on Christmas so I may have to put Robinson Crusoe away again before the new year.  I'm enjoying Crusoe.  Even though the vernacular is a little foreign to me, I feel what Crusoe is feeling.  I felt really bad last night reading about how he'd killed a mother goat and then eventually had to kill her kid. 

Today after work I pulled out a pair of gloves and cleaned up some dead tree branches I gathered from the ground near our neighborhood park the other day. This is going to be our Jesse Tree this year! I'm excited about it.

This will be my fourth year now doing a Jesse Tree with the boys. I'm not even sure if we'll get a typical Christmas tree.  We'll see.  I like the smell of Christmas trees but I just can't A) Get in the mood of winter and evergreen trees when it's 80 degrees outside and 0% humidity and the tree is turning brown three days after I buy it.  B) See having a cut tree for the sole purpose of decorating for two weeks (or three days depending on how long it lasts) only to throw it out.

I'm sort of leaning towards have a nice "seasonal" tree somewhere in the house and decorating it every season.

But the Jesse Tree is a tradition all its own that I am very into and hope will create some great memories and learning for the kids... and the grown ups.   For me this is a very worshipful time. 

I read a daily reading from an app on my Kindle called the Common Book of Prayer. It's just straight scripture, taken from sections throughout the Bible.  This morning's reading was from Psalm 78:

We will not hide [them] from their children, Telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, And His strength and His wonderful works that He has done... That the generation to come might know [them], The children [who] would be born, [That] they may arise and declare [them] to their children, That they may set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments. - Psalm 78:4,6-7

It's what I intend to do each Christmas.

Quieted,

Sheila