Island to Mountain

Sometimes it's nice to take a break from the usual. A couple of weeks ago we took a break from our little island. So we drove across a long bridge to the mainland and headed up a winding road to the mountains.

Goodbye Island!

And we enjoyed a few days in this cozy little house surrounded by beautiful flowers and an awesome view of mountains and trees.

We enjoyed games, reading, hiking, sleeping, and relaxing. 

Mountain Trails

And we even tried to get a family picture on Easter Morning, but it was a little sunny, can you tell?

Even though I love where we live, it was still nice to get away for a few days. Now we are back in the thick of life on the island, but I sure am thankful for the days we had as a family in mountains.

Dog Lovers

I wouldn't say I'm a dog lover. I like them. I like dog stories. I grew up with a little Japanese Spaniel. But we've lived in Muslim countries for many years and dogs just aren't really an option if we want Muslim friends in our homes. Dogs and pork. They have not been a part of our lives...

Until we moved to this island...

It is such a mix of cultures that there is not one particular prevailing thought here on the island. So...a perfect time to have a dog. A boy should have a dog at some point in his life I think. And since we have three boys then they really should have a dog.

So last summer we adopted a year old female Shih Tzu named Molly (sorry to my sister-in-law, I promise, we didn't name her, she came like that). Molly is a fun little dog to have around. She makes life in the house more lively (as if life with three boys is not lively enough).

Anyway, one of her ears was itchy so I took her to the vet. Because of the countries we've lived in for so many years, the idea of a vet...a real live animal doctor...is still strange to me. It kind of cracks me up. But it is also comforting because since I really don't know the first thing about taking care of a dog, I am glad to know I can pay a lot of money for someone else to tell me what to do.

So this week I took Molly back for her check up. Like most doctors of any kind here, it's first come first serve and I haven't figured out the system of the best time to go. What time will result in the least amount of waiting? It's like tossing the dice. This week I lost.

Molly and I sat in the waiting room for almost two hours. Molly was not impressed because she has a great memory and she remembered what happened two weeks ago. She remembered the freezing cold exam table and the thermometer that got stuck up an uncomfortable place and she remembered the shot and the tweezers crammed down her ear. She sat in my lap and avoided looking at me for two hours. She gave me the silent treatment. She was also unimpressed with the waiting room filled with dogs and their "parents".

One man had a dog that wore a pink ballerina dress. One had a dog wearing a human T-shirt. One had a dog that I swear looked like Gru's monster-pet Kyle in Despicable me, under-bite and all. A lady with a Shih Tzu and a King Spaniel came and sat next to me. She was a talker so I didn't have to worry about being entertained during my wait. She told me all about her six dogs and showed me pictures of them on her phone. While oohing and aaahing over her dog pictures I glanced up and noticed two other people showing each other videos of their dogs on their phones and the thought came to me:

This room is like a room filled with grandparents and their grandchildren. Seriously, that's how they treat their little pooches. It's so funny to me. They talk to them like they are people. They dress them in clothes. This place is a great place to be a dog.

Molly was super unimpressed when her name was called and she had to go to the torture...I mean exam room. This time they didn't attack her with the thermometer, but she still snapped at the doctor when he checked her ear. Then she grabbed on to me like she was a monkey. Good grief.

She got more medicine which I suspect is just a way to get more money out of me. But what do I know? After waiting for so long, I felt like I'd become pretty good friends with the "mommy" of the two pooches I sat by. I smiled and waved goodbye.

I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to how much dogs here are spoiled. But I have to say that it is refreshing to see people that care about God's creatures. Even if they do make them wear ballerina clothes.

Rain!

It's raining. The steady patter of the rain makes me feel cozy as the sky darkens with the approach of night. I made soup for dinner. That's always a great meal for a rainy night. But we live on a tropical island at sea-level, so it's not cold. I had to turn on the air-condition in the dining room so that we wouldn't sweat while eating the hot dinner. We don't usually turn on the air-conditioner downstairs unless we have guests. Electricity here is expensive, so we try to use the ACs and our clothes dryer sparingly.

I never get tired of rain. I think it's because of two things.

First I have great memories of rain as a child. I supposed the wet season was more irritating for my parents. There were always leaks in our roof and the day after a rain, Dad would have to get the ladder and go up on the roof to fix the leaks. Mom would gather all the buckets and pots we'd used the night before to catch the drops falling from the ceiling. I suppose she might have tired of having to wash the pots every time. The other problem was that the rain often knocked out the electricity. I remember spending evenings sitting on our front porch watching the rain in the dark. Sometimes we'd light candles all through the house. We'd joke that just about the time we got all the candles lit, the lights would come back on. The other thing we had to do as soon as the electricity cut off was run to the kitchen and unplug the fridge. When the lights came back on, the electricity would surge through the house at high power for a couple of seconds. We didn't want to lose our fridge in the spurt of power. Good times! Great memories!

The second reason I love rain is because we lived in the desert for so many years. Rain was infrequent to say the least. When it did come, it was not refreshing. It dredged up the muck and stinky-ness of the city and the lack of drainage left countless roads covered in chocolate milk colored water for days. Not pleasant. When we moved back to Asia and had our first rain I thought, "Ahhhh! This is why I love rain!" I love the rain in Asia because it is refreshing.

I know it's hard to get out and go places when it's raining. I know it is gross to have the bottom of your jeans damp all day. I know. But still, I like it.

"I know that the Lord is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods. The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses."
Psalm 135:5-7

#H54F: High Five For Friday

This Friday our family is super happy because...

#1 It's the beginning of SPRING BREAK! Yay! The boys are so excited to have a week free of homework, school work, and busy schedules.

#2 Kris left Sunday night on a trip and returned Wednesday night. That makes for a busy week for him. We are glad to be together as a family for the coming week.

#3 I actually received a copy of Side By Side! I am so happy to get to hold in my hands the product of a lot of work. A dream come true :)

#4 Parent/Teacher conferences this week. I'm happy to report that all the boys are on high honor roll. High Five for the Kelley Boys.

#5 My computer is well again...I think. That's a relief and definitely worth a high five.

What was your week like?

A Little or a Latte

Twenty years ago I wrote our first Kelley Khronicle! It was printed on paper. Copied in a photocopier. Stuffed in envelopes. Mailed (the kind that uses a post office and a real postman) to all recipients. Kris and I had been married less than two years and we were headed to a small four-year-old country in East Africa called Eritrea.

I wonder how many folks who received that very first Kelley Khronicle back in March 1995 are still getting our news today?

An awful lot has happened since then.

We've studied three languages (and two different scripts). We've lived in six different countries. We've had three children. We've been loved and prayed for by so many people. We've mostly-faithfully kept up with writing Kelley Khronicles during all this time.

And we still do send out the Khronicle in email form.

Which means that maybe now, maybe on this 20 year anniversary of The Kelley Khronicle...it's time to get a new name for the blog.

So in the coming days I'll be switching the blog name to "A Little or a Latte". That describes both me and this blog on a number of levels. Our family newsletter will stay the same. My author updates will stay the same. The author page JanaKelley.com will stay the same. And actually, the address for this blog will stay the same. You can still access it in whatever way you normally do. You'll just see a different title when you get here.

See you then!

A Cactus Kind of Day

It was a cactus sort of day. Or maybe I was the cactus. Admittedly, I was a little prickly. Kris was gone so I was running the house alone. It was a wreck. We were running late for school. I missed the turn to pick up someone who needed a ride. An unnamed individual bumped the gear shift and our car went into neutral while speeding down the road without me realizing what the problem was. You know, one of those kind of mornings.

And for whatever reason, I'd woken up with a foreboding feeling. I had Psalm 42:11 on my mind from the time I rolled out of bed. It's my standard "foreboding feeling" verse.

"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet raise him, my Savior and my God."

Really, what do I have to be downcast about? When my soul is disturbed, I know deep down that I really have everything. A Savior, the Lord of All. What else do I need?

But I still felt down. And then, after the craziness of getting everyone to school semi-on-time I felt rushed and down. I pulled into the carport and something to the side caught my eye.

It was my cactus.

I say "my cactus" but it was really a flower pot that was left from the previous tenant, about 1 1/2 years ago. I wanted the pot but not the plant. It was an ugly cactus. Bulbs of prickly. All crammed into a flower pot. I didn't want the cactus, but I just never got around to digging it out. I never got around to it because I do not have a green thumb. Which explains why the cactus has outlasted most of the other potted plants I own. It doesn't need that much care.

But what caught my eye was not the cactus itself. Didn't I mention that it was ugly? What caught my eye was two BIG white flowers protruding from the needly plant. How on earth did it produce such beautiful flowers? I got out of the car and walked across the cement to check it out.

Sure enough, two flowers shot out of one of the ugly bulbs. They were soft and lacy and smelled fresh, like baby powder. What on earth? It was like a beautiful gift, a reminder from the Lord to keep perspective on Cactus Days. Be the flower, not the cactus!

Why so downcast? Put your hope in God! I will praise Him, my Savior and my God.

It Arrived in the Mail!

Look what has arrived! It's a real-deal book y'all! Sadly, I have not seen it yet. The woes of living overseas. But my family has seen it and I'm pretty sure they are telling me the truth :) These are my advanced copies. I asked my mother-in-law to send me two copies and it cost a whopping $18 in postage so those books better get here because good grief. I can't afford to pay the postage for my own book!

Today I got on Amazon and noticed the book is no longer labeled as "pre-order", but the kindle version is. What? So, perhaps if you order it now they will actually send it to you now!! How cool would that be? Except, so much for a grand "Book Release Day" because apparently it has already released. Oh well.

So, in honor of all of us totally missing release day...whenever that was, you can apparently order it now. And I'd BE SO PUMPED if you would get on Amazon and put a review on there. That would be great!

Now, another exciting thing was that last night I met via Skype with someone from the publisher to record an interview for an upcoming podcast. Wow, that's a first for me. They wanted audio AND video. Yikes. That's unfortunate because I don't like my hair. But it's supposed to be about the book anyway so I decided to get over it and agree to the interview.

Besides the issue of my hair, there was the issue of where to set up my computer. Not in my "office" because it is more of a "crawl space" behind a giant wardrobe. And it's very messy. Not the living room because of three students doing homework and a dog that would want to sit in my lap and I don't want to be a crazy old dog-lady. Well, Kris is gone, so I took over his office.

Next problem. His office.

How to make a man's office look like a cozy living room...amazingly, I sort of did it! Look at this!

Can't you sort of think that I am sitting in a cozy living room or at least in a very cool looking office. I mean, awesome wall-hangings, a fresh ivy, family picture, cool looking lamp. "Welcome to my livingroom, all five people listening to this podcast!"

Look, I even brushed my hair and put lipstick on! I had to hunt for lipstick because seriously, who wears lipstick over here? I was once told (in a very Southern drawl) that "A Southern girl ALWAYS wears her lipstick for a picture..." (awkward pause) "you do have lipstick don't you?" To which I replied, "Does chapstick count?"

So I hunted down and actually found...well, it was more of a tinted chapstick, but pretty darn close to lipstick. I slathered it on my lips and immediately got grossed out and wiped off half of it with a kleenex. At any rate, this is what I looked like for the interview. Cozy, professional. Well, at least decent.

But to appreciate the efforts I went through, you need to see the full picture. This is what it actually looked like in there:

Yea, note the golf clubs shoved over to the left, papers barely out of camera shot. My soccer shorts go nicely with my fancy top, right? Don't you wear soccer shorts and flipflops when you are being interviewed? Hey, don't judge. If you had to do it at nine o'clock at night, you might have done that too. 

I also had to instruct my kids not to play their loud music or talk loud, puleeeeeeez, for half an hour. And I had to steal the dog's new squeeky toy that she carries in her mouth at all times and when she sleeps, she lays on top of it so no one will steal it. So she was distraught for half an hour last night. I shut the office door and could still hear her sniffing through the crack between the door and the tile floor.

Well, thankfully, the internet across 10,000 miles apparently makes the video a tad scratchy, so maybe the scene will look like a cozy living room and my hair will look awesome. I plan to post the link here whenever they put it up. They said it would be closer to the release day. 

Which brings me back to Amazon, who says they can now send it...and today it says only 2 left in stock, more on the way? What? 

Is this part of being a new author? Being in a perpetual state of confusion? At least I'm enjoying the ride!

I hope you'll get a chance to read Side By Side and will spread the word!

P.S. Oh, and I created a hashtag which is hilarious seeing as how I don't really know what to do with it. But those of you who do and want to help me spread the word, you can use #SideBySideNovel.