{"id":2466,"date":"2021-11-26T06:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-11-26T14:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=2466"},"modified":"2021-11-23T15:34:08","modified_gmt":"2021-11-23T23:34:08","slug":"pride-goeth-before-the-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2021\/11\/26\/pride-goeth-before-the-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Pride Goeth Before the Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the manuscript for Nothing to Lose<\/em> came back from my favorite copy editor, one passage was marked \u201cTrite but allowable under the \u2018What Mothers Say\u2019 Exemption.”\u00a0 ‘Pride goeth before the fall’<\/em>\u00a0was certainly one of my mother\u2019s all-time favorites. \u00a0In AA parlance, I could have entitled this blog \u2018Falling off the Wagon<\/em>,’ meaning I\u2019d just had a slip in my sobriety. \u00a0Or I could have just said, ‘The wheels came off the bu<\/em>s.’\u00a0 All three of those are trite but accurate.<\/p>\n

On Friday of last week, I bent over in search of an iPad connector on the floor. \u00a0In the process, I tweaked my back. \u00a0When I straightened up, I had a back spasm that literally ‘took my breath away<\/em>!’ \u00a0(Also trite, but in this case absolutely true.) I already had that day’s steps ‘in the bag<\/em>,’ as it were. \u00a0See what I mean? \u00a0That\u2019s the whole problem with those little catch phrases. \u00a0They work. \u00a0They \u2018get the job done<\/em>.\u2019 \u00a0I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m laughing now. \u00a0How many more of those little devils can I \u2018pull out of my pocket<\/em>\u2019 in the course of writing a single blog?<\/p>\n

What I learned is this: \u00a0In my natural state, I barely get 3000 steps a day. \u00a0Over the next two days combined, I didn\u2019t hit 10,000. \u00a0Yesterday, I got may ten barely, but I took it in slow, measured steps, a thousand steps at a time. \u00a0I\u2019m better today, but still a bit glitchy.<\/p>\n

Because I\u2019m calendar-challenged, I didn\u2019t realize until this morning that I should have written my Thanksgiving Day blog last week, in order for it to arrive in a timely manner. \u00a0‘My bad! \u2018 \u00a0<\/em>Yup, there\u2019s another one.<\/p>\n

And so\u00a0\u2018a day late and a dollar short\u2019<\/em>\u00a0 I\u2019m going to tell you a few things for which I\u2019m thankful. \u00a0(Thanks to Anne Medigovich, my high school English teacher, I put that preposition in the right place!) After all, ‘prepositions are NOT to end sentences with.’<\/em>\u00a0 There\u2019s another one.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll start with my husband. \u00a0Bill and I are coming up on our 37th anniversary, and I\u2019m thankful for him every day. \u00a0Our first date happened to be the grand opening signing for my first book, and he\u2019s been one hundred percent supportive of both my writing and me from that moment on.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thankful for my kids and grandkids\u2014the ones the ones that were here for Thanksgiving and the one\u2019s who weren\u2019t. \u00a0With most of the others living on the far side of the Cascades, not having them drive \u2018over the rivers and through the woods,’\u00a0<\/em>to say nothing of braving\u00a0the snow and ice on Snoqualmie Pass seems like \u2026 well \u2026 \u2018a no brainer.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m grateful for my dogs. \u00a0Mary and Jojo, my long-haired dachshunds, keep me grounded. \u00a0There\u2019s nothing like cleaning up a little doggie doo-doo to keep you from ‘getting a swelled head.’<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m thankful for my very loyal book readers who have followed me and my characters through sixty-three books and counting. \u00a0I\u2019m grateful for my many blog readers whose comments have kept me connected to the outside world during this time of enforced isolation. \u00a0And I\u2019m also thankful for the fans who write to me. \u00a0Some of the things people share with me are deeply touching.<\/p>\n

This week I heard from a man in Louisana who said that during the pandemic (I refuse to capitalize pandemic!) he was introduced to my books by his father who was a great fan of mine. \u00a0The son, Brent, became a fan, too. \u00a0Sadly, his father passed away from Covid in December of last year. \u00a0Brent is now such a die-hard fan that he tracked down a short story I wrote long ago, one of which I no longer had any record. \u00a0Second Fiddle<\/em>\u00a0was published in an anthology called First Cases, <\/em>edited by Robert Randisi. \u00a0My files on that story disappeared when I moved from\u00a0Microsoft Windows to Apple\u2019s Pages, but Brent\u00a0and his wife have now tracked down a copy and are sending it to me. \u00a0And I know that, from now on, whenever Brent reads one of my books, he will be reminded of his father.<\/p>\n

But my exchange with Brent brought up another long-ago story. \u00a0A woman named Erin came to an early signing asking for me to sign a book in memory of her mother. \u00a0It seems her mother, one of my devoted fans, was in the hospital. \u00a0Erin purchased a copy but decided to read it herself before taking it to her mother\u2019s hospital room. \u00a0When her mother passed away, Erin found the book with her mother\u2019s book mark only half way through. \u00a0\u201cI wish I\u2019d taken it to her first,\u201d she said. Sometimes book signings can be tough on mascara. \u00a0After hearing from Brent, however, I wrote to Erin as well and had a lovely reconnection with her.<\/p>\n

The combination of those two meaningful communications this week left me feeling\u00a0\u2018all warm and fuzzy.’ (<\/em>By my count, that makes eleven.)<\/p>\n

Over the next few days, if one of your kids ‘steps out of line’ <\/em>and you\u2019re forced to tell him or her, ‘If you think you can get away with that, you\u2019ve got another think coming,’\u00a0 <\/em>just remember it\u2019s allowed\u2014under the \u201cWhat Mothers Say Exemption.”<\/p>\n

And now, sit back and enjoy the rest of Thanksgiving weekend.<\/p>\n

It may be the day after Thanksgiving, but I\u2019m still thankful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the manuscript for Nothing to Lose came back from my favorite copy editor, one passage was marked \u201cTrite but allowable under the \u2018What Mothers Say\u2019 Exemption.”\u00a0 ‘Pride goeth before the fall’\u00a0was certainly one of my mother\u2019s all-time favorites. \u00a0In AA parlance, I could have entitled this blog \u2018Falling off the Wagon,’ meaning I\u2019d just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,150,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-holidays","category-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-DM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2466"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2468,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions\/2468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}