When is too much too much? (And a new project!)

When is enough enough?

Well, I think I might have hit that limit the other day when a 12 year old kid came up to me in WalMart, took one look at my shopping cart and said, "Whoa. Talk about unhealthy."

Chuh! If he only knew!

To give him credit, he did catch me on a particularly sugar-ified day. Here's a snapshot of some of the items in my cart:

3 boxes of sugar cereal
1 box ice cream sandwiches
1 quart vanilla ice cream
3 boxes of brownies
Reese's Pieces
Gummy Fruit Slices
2 pounds powdered sugar
1 big bag red licorice Nibs
1 package Oreos
1 package oatmeal cookies
1 big bag Smarties
1 box sugar cones
1 box regular ice cream cones
1 box waffle cones
1 box graham crackers
1 box M&Ms
1 package cream filled wafer cookies (the strawberry, chocolate, vanilla kind)
1 bag green apples (not candy)
1 bag green grapes (not candy)
I love the name of the source of this pic: Snack Overload. What else!?


Possibly some other things. I forgot the jelly beans, and WalMart didn't have any spearmint leaf gummy candies. I had to get them at Walgreen's later. And where are the licorice ropes these days?

Was that kid out of line? I keep going over it in my head. How should I have responded? I'm not sure.

Anyway, I wrote a children's book. Well, I rewrote one. I'd written it a few years ago and sent it to a publisher. I got a really nice rejection letter, saying they weren't publishing children's books. One rejection must have been all I could take at the time because I put it away until now.

But last week I dusted it off, gave it a new sheen and am ready to think about shopping it around again. I read it to my daughter's school class today, and they seemed to like it.

Maybe that's because I bribed them with White Chocolate Popcorn first.

I can't really think of a tie between the giant shopping cart full of candy and the new children's book thing. Maybe enough overthinking is enough.

Oh, I guess I'll justify myself here. I bought my daughter a book for her birthday:


It's a perfect food/craft/kid-fun blend. I HAD to get her the ingredients to make the fun, right? I can't wait.

The Sweetest Thing

I was at the bank a few days before Christmas and I saw this cute little boy in my daughter's elementary school class. He's six and missing several front teeth and darling. Love that little boy. He came up and hugged my leg. His granddad looked at me askance until I explained the connection. Then Cutie-boy said, "And you're the lady who wrote me the note!"

It's true. I'd written Cutie a thank you note back in October. He had helped our family by chance at a fair, spending a few hours passing out balloons to kids. It was fun work, but that kid really worked! Hours he and my daughter raced to catch every passing child and hand a balloon. They covered that fair in latex, bless their hearts.

So, a week or so later I was writing thank yous to various deserving folks, and I whipped up a quick note for Cutie and dropped it for him at the school then thought no more of it.

But he did. In fact, it made him beam. His grandma mentioned it to me a month ago, then his mom did a few weeks later, and now Cutie himself. It mattered to him.

Weird, and surprising.

A while back I read an article in my ANWA group's monthly newsletter. It was written by the highly talented and strikingly gorgeous Donna Hatch (get to know her if you like a good, juicy, clean romance!) Her suggestion was that all of us writers should pause and use our writing for good, to improve the world around us. Me, I'm not into writing stuff that really "matters" so I almost skipped the rest of the article, but it was Donna's so I read on.

In fact, she didn't suggest only writing "uplifting" or "heartwarming" stories. (Whew, not that I'm against what is uplifting, praiseworthy, or of good report, in general.) Instead, she suggested that we use our writing, which is our gift, our talent, to serve someone else at least once a day. Write a kind note, write a friendly email, send an encouraging comment even if only on facebook. Something along those lines, although those may not be her exact ideas.

That article rolled around in my mind for a few months, and now, with Cutie's reaction, I realized just how valuable the "gift" of writing can be. It can change a little one's happiness level! It can make a little boy run up and hug your leg in the bank because he knows you appreciate him.

Now isn't that a sweet thing?

Back to my old standby Robert Frost poem "Maple," but with a twist: "Send some dear ones some words and see what happens."

Now, for the candy portion of this post. Is it actually possible I ate too much candy over Christmas? Is it possible that sweet stuff doesn't even sound appealing? Pink cookies made from a strawberry cake mix and then rolled in coconut. That was a new favorite binge. Or the *entire pan* of homemade caramels might have tipped me over the edge. Or the *full pound* of Lindt dark chocolate truffles. It could have been caused by the 600 cookies I made and sampled for my brother in law's wedding. Or the slush from Eegee's. Now there's a heavenly treat. Eegee's. Worth a trip to Tucson, Arizona, alone!

Mmm. Sweet, frosty slush with real fruit chunks in it. Light, snowy, delicious. Hey, condolences to my snowbound friends in parts north-flung, places Robert Frost would write about with apple trees and fall leaves and wooden fences. But here in Arizona, this is the time of year we can at last venture out of doors without protective clothing. I shall always love December as the crowning time of year.

Drink a big styrofoam cup of lemon Eegee's to that!