Soothing the soul

I just placed an order for 100 trees and shrubs. Keep in mind that I don't live out in the country, not even on a small acreage. I think 100 trees might be a bit much for my family's quarter-acre property, and we're not planning to surround our house with a forest.

by Amos Oliver Doyle

Why, then, would I order so many? To start with, because I have to. It's the minimum order I can place with our natural resource district. Also because I want a nice privacy screen between my house and the neighbor who lurks in his garage smoking cigars. It would seem that he's our self-appointed neighborhood watch. While that has its benefits, I don't like that my windows are in his direct line of sight. I work at home. And every time I look out the window, he's there.

But the main reason is because I want to create a place in our yard where my kids can play, where they can explore the natural world and all it entails. Where they can pretend they're in a forest or a fort or a cave. Where they can experience nature first-hand and reap the benefits.

I'm working to create a place that will keep them, my husband, me--even that neighbor--healthy.

Because when trees die, so do people.

This article in The Atlantic describes the most recent piece of research linking trees to human health. The researchers discovered that as ash trees in the Midwest began to die by the million (thanks to an introduced pest, the emerald ash borer), more people in the areas with dying trees died of cardiovascular and lower-respiratory-tract illnesses. Now I'm not suggesting that if a tree in your neighborhood dies, so will you or one of your neighbors. But the relationship is there.

We need nature, and we are just beginning to understand the extent of our dependence. Sadly, we are dangerously close to the tipping point--the point at which we will have pushed nature beyond its ability to spring back from the punches we keep delivering.

But it's not too late. We can take small steps to help heal the natural world. Small steps to heal ourselves, as well.

My husband and I are replacing large sections of our yard with regionally-native plants. No sprays, no fertilizers, but lots of habitat for wildlife (including our boys). If the rest of the yard turns out as well as the small strip of native plants we put in last year, it will thrive even in drought. To watch something thrive when everything around it struggles? That's good for the soul.

As for the eighty-some trees and shrubs we won't use? We'll share them with others. We will happily give them away to friends and neighbors who want to add a little nature to their yard. I can only hope to find each seedling a home.

Out of curiosity, do studies like the one above make you stop to think about your relationship to nature? Why or why not?

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Look who made the centerfold!

Guess who made the centerfold of Highlights for Children? Yes, me! (Get your mind out of the gutter, it's not that kind of centerfold; I write for children, people.)

Highlights for Children (Sept. 2012) used with permission.
Image copyright Michael Cameron, NOAA.

I can't show you the whole thing, but see that by-line? Off to the right there are staples (well, you can't see them, and since my son absconded with the magazine, I can't retake the image, but trust me, there are staples). Definitely staples... as in the staples that hold everything together and signify the center of the magazine. The staples that cause a magazine to fall open more often to the center spread than any other page (once the little subscription card thingies are torn out).

I am so, so thrilled to have my first Highlights article "drop" (I'm trying to pick up the lingo; still not sure I'm using it right). Doesn't that sound as though stacks upon stacks of the magazine, balanced precariously upon a hinged platform, suddenly find themselves in free-fall as the platform falls away? I imagine they plummet down long, windy Willy Wonka's factory-like chutes that divide and subdivide until each magazine plops into a kid's mailbox.

The kids race out to collect the mail, jump up and down when they see that lovely red Highlights banner, and speed inside to read it from cover to cover. Or maybe that's just my kids. And me. Not now (well, yes, now, but not ONLY now). I did it back when I was a kid, too. Highlights was my favorite magazine, and I never dreamed I would be published in it (well I did, but not way back then).

So that's my big news for the week. I'm still all smiley about it, and absolutely in love with the photos they chose, all taken by a friend of mine, Michael Cameron of the NOAA National Marine Mammals Laboratory Polar Ecosystems Program. The man's got some talent, no?

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Adventures in the Rich Coast

As promised, more about Costa Rica! You know how a perfectly delightful vacation gives you nothing to talk about? "Yeah, the weather was great, everything went as planned... uh, I got sand in my swimsuit." Not much there.

Well, most of our trip was perfectly delightful--we saw dozens of species of birds (including white-ruffed manakins displaying on their arena, a pair of mot-mots, and a toucan).

Either a Passerini's tanager or a Cherrie's
tanager (that's his bright red back;
he's looking away from the camera).

We had a two-toed sloth and a troop of capuchin monkeys hanging out right by our hotel.

Capuchin, right overhead. The whole troop
went within a few meters of us.

And we received some warning head-bobs from the resident ctenosaurs and basilisks. There were tons of animals, which was what we wanted to see. It was great!

Ctenosaur (not an iguana!).
These guys are big--up to a meter in length

We spent a day at the base of the Arenal Volcano, swam in the hot springs, and enjoyed our first tropical downpour. Then it was off to Monteverde via the van-boat-van.

Arenal as seen from our hotel. We were told
we'd feel rumbles from this active volcano,
but it was quiet while we were there.

The van-boat-van is touted as the quickest way from Arenal to Monteverde. By taking us across the lake, we could avoid the windy mountain roads and shave hours off our trip. Sounds great, doesn't it? The first van ride was a quick jaunt around the volcano to the lake shore. We lucked out with a rain-free trip across the lake.

The calm before the storm (-y drive).
Lovely, isn't it?

So far so good.

When we got to the other side, the driver told us he couldn't take us the normal route--the roads were too slippery. Too dangerous. So he'd have to take us the long way around.

Now, in my mind (and in my experience driving in the Rocky Mountains), the normal route involved a rutted, rocky, single-lane unpaved road. The rains made it wet and muddy, so we couldn't go that way. Surely that meant we would be taking paved, less-steep roads instead, right?

Not so much.

We spent nearly three hours jostling around the inside of the bus, racing down bumpy hills at breakneck speed only to skid to a halt as we careened around a bend into

a herd of cattle...

or an ox-cart...

or someone on a motorbike...

or a stray dog...

or a big patch of mud. 

At one point the wheels began spinning in the mud, and I had visions of us pushing the bus to get it unstuck. (Uphill, of course, and did I mention it was raining the entire time?) At the last second, the wheels found traction and we lurched ahead.

I grew up in the mountains, so I felt surprisingly at home during the whole excursion. Beloved Husband, on the other hands, had to periodically pry his hand from the seat in front of him, just to get some feeling back in his fingertips. But he was a champ.

We made it to Monteverde as the sun set and the rain cleared. I haven't seen that many stars in the night sky in a very, very long time.

It was worth every minute of the drive. (Beloved Husband might disagree.)

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Pura Vida

First an update: the bats fully recovered and are once again free to hang from tree branches, pretend to be leaves, and generally try to avoid the resident blue jays.

Exciting news! My latest article is currently one of the features on Science News for Kids. Wonder what it might be like to walk down the street of a future city? Come take a peek.

I was also interviewed by Diane Kress Hower as part of her Passion for Picture Books series. Thanks, Diane!

Lots going on, though I haven't been here to post about it. I've spent the past two weeks travelling in Costa Rica with Beloved Husband. What an amazing country!

We even saw a tree bat swinging wildly from the branch of a tree (made me think of our bats). It's the perfect camouflage: just another fluttery leaf up among branches full of fluttery leaves. Except for the whole lack of breeze issue, which, uh, pretty much draws your attention to the fact that something is swinging wildly from the branch of the tree, and it's definitely not a leaf. As far as we know, it was not picked off by a roaming scissor-tailed kite, although we saw quite a few as we zip-lined through the cloud forest canopy.

I'll have stories and photos, but I'm still in recovery mode, so... not today. Instead, I just have a few quick pictures. Can you find the flycatcher, hummingbird, and woodpecker?

Wishing everyone a wonderful Fourth of July, and hoping everyone affected by the storms along the east coast is staying cool.

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Changing, growing

If you've spent any time reading this blog, you'll know I like to garden. I waited ten years to have a garden of my own (container gardening, while nice, only gets you so far). So one of the first things I did when we moved into our house last fall was to tear out the grass along our fence line and put in native grasses and perennials.

Okay, it wasn't just me. Beloved Husband and both kids helped. It was a ton of work, but well worth it, because we now have this:

The neighbors, who thought we were crazy when we started, have all commented on how much they love it. And I love that it will change as the season progresses. By mid-summer, it will have lots of yellow and orange flowers blooming, and by fall, the grasses will be tall and all shades of yellow, gold, and red, some with feathery pink seed heads.

Yesterday, I was pulling weeds (yes, I pull them by hand, more on that in a moment) to the susurrus of baby cardinals begging for food in our lilac. As long as I kept my head down, the parents were content to come and go. I also discovered a bumblebee nest behind that pinkish plant in the foreground (Penstemon, for anyone who's curious).

Weed-pulling: a back-breaking, mindless waste of time, right? Lots of people think so, but I enjoy it. (Now you know why our neighbors think we're nuts.) I like it for many reasons.

• It's hard work, but at the end of the day, I can look at the planting bed and see the results. There's very little instant gratification in writing.
• It's back-breaking, but in a different way from writing. it stretches muscles that sit for too long when I write, so in a way it's soothing. Besides, there's something satisfying about going to bed a bit sore from a hard day's work. And I sleep better.
• It's mindless, which gives my brain a break from constant focus and thought. The inability to sustain focus on something for a prolonged period of time (or the increasing difficulty in doing so as time progresses) is called directional attention fatigue, and studies show that exposure to nature is the best way to allow the brain to recoup and revitalize (source).
• It's inspirational. A good many of my magazine article and picture book ideas (the non-fiction ones) are based on things I have seen while gardening or spending time outside. Gardening is also the perfect opportunity to figure out what, exactly, that random thing that just happened in my novel really means, and how it will play out later in the story (or if I should get rid of it).

And then there are encounters like these. How can you not love seeing something like this?

eastern swallowtail butterfly

Do you garden? What do you like about it? And if not, why not?

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Happy, thank you

The other day I had this wonderful, overwhelming sense that all was right with the world. It isn't, of course (I've actually got some rather frustrating things happening in my life right now), so it was particularly delightful to feel so very content with my life.

It made me think of the movie HappyThankYouMorePlease. I love the concept: acknowledge when you are happy, say thanks, and respectfully ask for more of the same. (Exactly who or what you thank depends on your belief system).

I think it's important to pause and be grateful for the good things in life when you've got them. When things go well, it's far too easy to take them for granted. And when they go wrong, it can be hard not to dwell on them. But in my experience, when I stop to acknowledge the good things--to be grateful for them--I tend to get more of the same.

So here are the things for which I am incredibly grateful, in no particular order:

• Spring is here and the sun is out.
• The plants I put in last fall survived the very dry winter. Some are already blooming.
• Trees are flowering everywhere, and the air is perfumed with their scent. It reminds me of springtime in Berlin, which I sorely miss.
• I am currently working on an article for a science magazine for kids (can't tell you which one, just yet)--it's a fantastic opportunity and lots of fun.
• An editor asked me to revise and resubmit one of my non-fiction PB manuscripts and gave me an estimated time frame to hear back from him on the revision.
• I have an amazing group of critique partners and beta readers who have helped me make my work shine; without them the previous item would not have happened. 
• My mom came to visit and helped me paint the library (a realtor would probably call it the formal dining room, but we keep books there instead of a table).
• Koda has figured out he's not alpha (he tried for a while, but he's finally realized he's on the bottom rung). Now that he knows his place, he's the sweetest dog we could have hoped for.
• And of course, my wonderful family, who put up with more than their fair share of craziness with me.

These are growing in my yard--love 'em! (source)

What are you grateful for?

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Library Fun

I love when I get to experience something unexpected. Most days go by, relatively the same, but every now and then something comes along to shake things up. Like this.

Look who came to our local library:

There's a great horned owl in the children's fiction section. How awesome is that?

The raptor rehabilitators brought others, too, including this screech owl, a European barn owl, and a peregrine falcon. Gorgeous birds that have all been injured in some way (most were hit by a car while hunting). They were rescued but unable to be re-released into the wild.

It was an incredible afternoon with rarely-seen hunters. I'd do it again in a heart-beat.

When was the last time you got close to an animal that wasn't a pet?

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Author website unveiled!

Well, I haven't gotten much done since we added a dog to the household, but I did put the finishing touches on my author web site, a place where you can find bats and blue jays and flower flies, oh my.

Are you ready? Drum roll please... my NEW AUTHOR WEB PAGE, designed by my wonderful writer friend (and awesome web designer) Astrid Paramita.  

source

Please go, then come back and tell me what you think! (If there are issues with readability, they're fixable, and I'd like to know about 'em.)

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

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New arrival

This week is one of change. We've been thinking about getting a dog for a while now, but the local Humane Society has very few and those that come in are usually gone the next day. So when my husband pulled up their web site and found this guy, we knew we had to act fast.

Meet Koda (who, incidentally, looks a bit like Yoda). He's adjusting to life in our family with terrific speed, and we're just so glad to have him. Somehow, it feels like a home, now that he's here.

Do you have pets? What's your favorite thing about them?

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Contests and prizes and wishes, oh my!

Hi and welcome to my new followers! Friday's blogfest was a lot of fun!

Due to nightmares and scary shadows (in my children's rooms, not mine), I didn't get much sleep last night, which is why I'm late posting today. In fact, I wasn't going to post at all, but then I came across these awesome contests. They're both so great, I had to share!

Dear Editor is giving away a Free first 20 pages critique. All you have to do is go here, check out her awesome book trailer, and enter!

And Shannon Whitney Messenger, who announced an incredible three-book deal last week is celebrating with the contest of all contests. She's going to grant wishes! So just in case you missed it, go check it out!

And enjoy the fun start to the week!

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Instant Gratification

Instant gratification doesn't happen very often. Not in science or writing. The best scientific experiments raise more questions than answers, and I don't think I've ever written anything that I didn't revise at least three times. And then there's the process of submitting: waiting... w a i t i n g . . .  w  a  i  t  i  n  g. 

I've been doing a lot of that lately. Waiting. By the end of last week, I was trying to make myself write something, anything, just to take my mind off of the seven different submissions I've got out there.

Over the weekend, October peeked its head around the corner and waved. Hmm. One week left in September. If I wanted all those plants I'd bought to survive the winter, I needed to get them in soon. Time to put my weeks of landscape planning into action.

So we did. Beloved Husband and I (with the help of the kids) dug up the grass between our fence line and the sidewalk. Then we hand-tilled the (extremely hard, clay) soil underneath. We removed the soil, put the grass back in upside-down and covered it up with the soil that had been under it. (Following all this? There will be a quiz later.) It took two three-hour sessions to prepare ⅔ of the fence line.* (If you're wondering why we put the grass in upside-down and buried it, it will decompose and become compost. It also saved us having to figure out what to do with it once it was out.)

Have I mentioned that we're the crazy new neighbors in our conservative, midwestern neighborhood? We're the weird people from Germany who mow with an electric lawn mower. (Two months ago, when Beloved Husband first used it, our normally polite neighbors actually stopped and stared). But last week, one of our neighbors bought an electric mower, which meant we'd gone from crazy to trend-setting. Until we started digging, that is.

The next day, I set out my plants and started putting them in the newly tilled strip. Among comments from passersby about how much work I had cut out for me, I planted several kinds of native grasses and perennials - plants that, once established, will be drought tolerant and need less care than the grass did. They will attract beneficial insects like bees, lacewings, ladybugs, and butterflies. The grasses (when fully grown) will provide cover for birds that eat the pesty insects. And there will be flowers blooming in all different colors throughout the spring, summer, and fall.

Unlike my daily activities, I got to experience the (almost) instant gratification of seeing a project reach completion. it was hard work, but well worth it. And it provided the added benefit of taking my mind off of all those things I'm waiting on.

Oh, and the neighbors love it. Several asked what the different kinds of plants were. I wonder how long it will be before we go from crazy to trend-setting yet again?

* To do the rest of this strip and convert several other bits of lawn to garden areas, we're going to do it the easy way. Power landscaping tool rental, here we come.


What gratifying events have you experienced lately?

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W is for Writers, Wine, and Weather

Last night, we had a writers' night out.

Four hours at La Cocotte, five courses of fabulous French food, each course with a paired wine, while a thunderstorm raged outside.

It was a delightful evening.

And it was the last time the four of us will be able to go out like this. We'll miss you, Amber!

I'm over at The Rapscallion today, go check it out!

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A word about prizes...

Wow! Thanks to everyone who participated in the Super-Snooper Blogfest! The entries were great, and it was a lot of fun to figure out the people behind the stuff.  And since we had 39 people participate, I have to come up with a second prize, so I have no prize announcements today. (Sorry.)

In fact, it might take a little while before I know exactly what the second prize will be. But I'm working on something. It'll be great, and I'll be sure to let the winners know as soon as I've got it all worked out.

If you didn't catch the entries for the blogfest, check them out here. They're lots of fun!

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Transitions

I'm back!  Thanks to everyone who left me with encouraging words when I went on hiatus. I hope you all enjoyed the holiday season despite the weather.

I love the promise of a brand new year: so many exciting things that can happen, no disappointments yet to disillusion my bright, shiny vision of the future.

As I mentioned before my hiatus, I am at (or just passed through) a crossroads. I spent the last 7.5 years teaching for a small college in the U.S. It allowed me to keep my foot in the academic world, despite living on another continent for most of that time. But it never felt right. I never loved my job.

A few months ago, the college—in response to economic pressures—increased the minimum class size and decreased the number of courses on offer. Full-time faculty were assigned the remaining courses and adjuncts didn't have their contracts renewed. I was downsized.

Was I mad? Yes. Furious, actually. For about two hours. And then I realized that this was an amazing opportunity.

Over the past 18 months, I have rediscovered my passion for writing and gotten some positive feedback from agents and editors on what I write. I love writing—even rewriting—in a way that I never loved teaching. This is my opportunity to make a real go of writing as a career. And for the first time in my life, I know I'm doing the right thing.

Am I crazy? Maybe. But I'm also doing something that I love. I am taking every opportunity that comes my way, even if it doesn't pay. The articles I'm working on now will result in published clips, the first rungs on the ladder to my writing career.

My resolution for this year is to transition into a career that I enjoy. And I have already discovered the benefits: I am happier, my kids are happier, and my husband is happier (or will be when a paycheck arrives; good thing he's supportive).

What do you want to accomplish this year?

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Piecing it all together

I'm single-parenting this week while Beloved Husband attends a conference.

First and foremost, I have to say that I have the utmost respect for single parents. Honestly, I don't know how they do it every day. I love spending time with my kids, but it's hard to give them the attention they want (and need) when I need to feed them, keep them in clean clothes, bathe them, and teach (my day job).

And then there's what I want... to spend quality time with my kids and quality time writing. Trifocal is nearing the end, and I want to get 'er done before I start traveling next month week. Gah!

So how is it possible to do anything writing-related? Well, Trifocal might be on hold for a bit, but... I started doing a bit of research for NaNoWriMo by collecting inspirational photos from magazines.

Jennifer Daiker at unedited does character collages, and Tera Lynn Childs did a vlog about character collages at WriteOnCon last month. And they got me thinking (yep, it happens sometimes)... not only can I do character collages to better understand who my characters are, I can also find great images of locations or events that I might incorporate into a story.

So this weekend, we pulled out the last two years' worth of National Geographics and went to town. I cut out anything that I thought might come in handy at some point in the future: scenery and people for my novels and cool animals that might make good subjects for a non-fiction PB. The kids got to tear out anything I didn't want that interested them (which, for the oldest, was just about everything... I listened to a constant stream of "Oh, wow, look at this!" for over an hour).

The result? I have a little box filled with inspirational bits and pieces to post on my magnetic board, so when I get back from my travels, I'll be ready to jump into NaNoWriMo. And I got to spend quality time with my kids. Win-win situations don't get much better than that.

If you have a family, how do you carve out time for family and writing?

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Stolen Moments

You know those moments when you get unexpected free time? When you thought you had one thing to do, and suddenly, you don't? The stolen moments that feel so much more valuable than scheduled free time? Yeah, those.

I have one right now.

I got home with the kids, and they immediately skipped next door to play. And here I am with what will probably turn out to be an hour and a half to myself. It feels different from my alone time during the day, when I've planned out what I will work on, and actually stick to the plan (for the most part).

Because right now, I can do anything.

I know what I should do: research magazines looking for nonfiction science/nature/environment articles, revise my MS, work up quiz questions for my students, write a query letter, work on a new PB idea.

But this is my stolen time. The afternoon sunlight filters through the leaves of the trees outside and my plants have long gone untended, due to the excessive rain we received these past few weeks. This afternoon is the perfect stolen moment, so I'm going to enjoy it outside.

What do you do with your stolen moments?

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In search of happiness

What is Happiness?
The recent economic woes have had an unexpected benefit for many people: working fewer hours meant more time with family, more time to spend with friends, and greater satisfaction in people's lives. What, exactly contributes to happiness? People work to make money to buy things that they feel will make them happy. But do they?

Research into these questions indicates that money and objects do not, in fact, make people happy. Having enough to live comfortably is important and does contribute to happiness, but do you really need to drive this year's model, or have the latest-and-greatest [insert product here]? Probably not. And if you buy the newest item, it will only serve to bring greater and greater dissatisfaction over time, as you realize that something even newer, even better is available. That leads to new purchases, the need to work more to pay for them, less time with family and friends.

Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert has spent years studying what makes us happy. In a New York Times interview, he said,

We know that the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends.

We know that it’s significantly more important than money and somewhat more important than health. That’s what the data shows. The interesting thing is that people will sacrifice social relationships to get other things that won’t make them as happy — money. That’s what I mean when I say people should do “wise shopping” for happiness.

Another thing we know from studies is that people tend to take more pleasure in experiences than in things. So if you have “x” amount of dollars to spend on a vacation or a good meal or movies, it will get you more happiness than a durable good or an object. One reason for this is that experiences tend to be shared with other people and objects usually aren’t.

See The Smiling Professor by Claudia Dreifus for the complete interview.

Many people live and work under the belief that they must make money, and what they do to earn that money is irrelevant. People distinguish between work and play for a reason. Very few people make money from their play, do what they truly enjoy to make a living. But does it need to be that way?  Several people argue that it does not.

The Art of Non-Conformity
At The Art of Non-Conformity, Chris Guillebeau has put together a terrific web site dedicated to teaching others to do what he has done: to make a career doing what he loves to do (for him, it's writing and travel--no wonder I love AONC!). Chris does not argue that people need to do what he does, rather he provides readers with the tools they need to break free from the daily grind and venture into a new world where their work is their play, and the act of playing provides the income they need to live that comfortable life.

Much of the information Chris provides is free, but not all. After all, he is using his AONC platform to achieve success and happiness in his life. He is very good at what he does, he offers terrific advice, and he is honest with his readers about the work it requires and the dedication they need to be successful. But that is exactly what is so refreshing about Chris' work. He is honest. He doesn't try to sell people on the quick-fix.

Soul Shelter
Tim Clark and Mark Cunningham at Soul Shelter provide another example of a web site dedicated to finding happiness through pursuit of what you love. They write about the process of balancing meaning and money. Does making money have to be a soulless activity? Does living a meaningful life require that people remain poor? Tim and Mark argue that these are merely two extremes (aren't humans good at setting up dichotomies?), but the reality can be somewhere in between.

See what Daniel, Chris, Tim, and Mark have to say. How can you lead a happier, more meaningful, life?