If I Were...

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If I were a month, I’d be September

If I were a day of the week, I’d be Sunday

If I were a time of day, I’d be early evening

If I were a sea animal, I’d be a dolphin

If I were a direction, I’d be central

If I were a piece of furniture, I'd be a desk

If I were a liquid, I'd be hot chocolate

If I were a gemstone, I'd be a diamond

If I were a tree, I’d be a pine

If I were a tool, I'd be a hammer

If I were a flower, I'd be a rose

If I were a kind of weather, I’d be a cool autumn day

If I were a musical instrument, I'd be a guitar

If I were a color, I'd be pink

If I were an emotion, I’d be all of them at once

If I were a fruit, I’d be a strawberry

If I were a sound, I’d be a song

If I were a car, I'd be a pickup truck

If I were a food, I’d be beef

If I were a place, I’d be home

If I were a fabric, I'd be cotton

If I were a taste, I’d be sweet

If I were a scent, I’d be tea rose

If I were an animal, I’d be a dog

If I were an object, I'd be a laptop

If I were a body part, I’d be hand

If I were a facial expression, I’d be a smile

If I were a pair of shoes, I’d be cowboy boots

 

What would you be?

Go ahead and try it on your blog—or in the comments. Be sure to let me know so I can check your answers out!

For Him,

Sarah Elisabeth

Remembering You-A Tricia Goyer Meme

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Author Tricia Goyer is hosting a Remembering You meme on her blog. Here are my answers to her Christmas questions. If you decide to join the meme (all participants are entered for a chance to win a four book prize pack!), be sure to let me know so I can enjoy your answers. 1. What's your favorite holiday song? I hate picking favorites, so here’s the first that came to mind: Silent Night.

2. What's your favorite holiday tradition? Enjoying the parade with friends on our small downtown square. A peaceful Christmas Eve dinner, then classic Christmas movies.

3. If you could travel one place with an elderly family member where would you go? Hmm, probably take my great-aunt to our Choctaw homeland in Mississippi.

4. What questions would you ask? All about her life growing up in Oklahoma, and more about our Choctaw ancestry.

5. What is a non-tangible gift you have received from an elderly relative? Stories about my papaw when he was young, and their father.

6. What is the best/worst/strangest gift you've received from an elderly relative? Once, my papaw bet me five dollars I wouldn’t write him a letter after a visit to his house. I started writing the letter in the car, and mailed it the next day. Not long after that, I received a five dollar bill in the mail with the corner of a piece of paper where he’d written: You win.

 

Visit Tricia’s blog for details on joining a Remembering You meme.

 

For Him,

Sarah Elisabeth

 

Stuffed Animal Kingdom: The Keys to Storyworlds

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  I took a heartbreaking journey recently. The painstaking, memory filled process of sorting three trash bags full of well loved stuffed animals.

Okay, that was a little dramatic. But I did cry once through my grin.

My mama laughs sensitively if the subject of my growing up years enter a conversation. I never wanted to let go of childhood. I remember asking her, “What can you do as an adult?” Stumped her there. But I soon learned. Still, when something triggers a memory from those glorious years I thought was life, warm fuzzies dunk into my heart and bring back a tear on the rebound. Such a beautiful girlhood.

As I sorted each stuffed animal by family, I found it hard to recall all their names or even who was married to whom once upon a time. “Is that your mama?” I asked them. I don’t think they cared. They were quite exhausted from the years of play my brother, Jon, and me put them through. I took group pictures and thought about the story worlds we created. In the afternoon long process, I realized how important those days were.

Aha! This is where my imagination began developing. No two of these critters were alike. No family was alike. They had their own voice, made their own decisions. I learned how to create compelling stories. After all, if it couldn’t keep the attention of an eight and ten year old, we moved on.

I learned what drives a story forward, how to create conflict and resolve. I guess you could say my first coauthor was my brother. He took on one set of characters, I took on the other. We constantly pitted them against impossible odds and extreme dangers. I usually let him take on the part of the antagonist. (He was a natural)

When our mama made an announcement for dinner, the answer was typically a question, “Can we finish this scene?” At a “stopping point” we’d leave them set up in a way we could pick up the story right where we left off. Sometimes the same one would last for days. How inconvenient when we set up our world on a bed. It was destroyed nightly and had to be rebuilt. Same with hallways. My dad might scoot plastic horses and their stuffed animal riders out of the walkway when he arrived home from work, only to have us screech, “No! They were all set up for the next scene!” Anyone who lives with a writer is probably cracking up with laughter at the parallels here.

The bags sorted, I sent my brother a text asking if there were any stuffed animals he wanted to save. It took three texts and a face-to-face conversation to get him to answer, “Oh, probably just Jimmy and Smoky.” He wouldn’t admit it, but I could bet my favorite teddy bear, Springer Sr., that deep down, he loves those memories as much as I do. And he’s a natural storyteller.

I wonder why.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Prov. 3:5-6

For Him,

Sarah Elisabeth

 

No, My Life Ain't Perfect

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  Someone recently commented about her Facebook friends and their sunshiny status updates. God is good, life is great. Couldn’t be happier. No troubles, no disasters. Just living everyday without getting a scratch on them. She asked, “Do people really have those kinds of lives? If so, I must be doing  something wrong!”

I chattered away about how “of course people don’t live like that.” They only put the good things in their life on display. Who wants to read about the bad? Who wants the world to know about their struggles and heartache and rejection they face on a daily basis?

Somewhere along those lines, I realized I’m one of those people. Really, how many depressing status updates of mine have you read? Do you get the impression my life is perfect? (Hold on until I can stop laughing…)

No, my life ain’t perfect. I cry on a regular basis. Hey, even the sight of a pot holder can bring up memories that send me sobbing. Pain and confusion run deep below the surface of my heart. Doubts about what in the world I’m supposed to be doing freeze me with fear at times.

I’m not happy with my weight (who is?), there’s my knee injury that gives me trouble at the oddest times, and there’s the adult acne battle going on for a number of years. My eyeglasses are twice as thick as your grandmother’s. I don’t have a car or much gas money. Most of my clothes are given to me by my “personal shoppers” as I like to call them. (I hate shopping anyway)

Then there are those disasters. I can joke that I live life in the breaks I get between crisis’s. I could recount the ones just since January of this year, but I don’t want to write that long of a post.

I love my family more than anything and would drop my heart’s desire in a breath to run to their aid. And that’s what I do. My writing journey has been put on hold so many times in the last two years, I’d have to take off my socks to count them. But that’s okay. I know it’s all in God’s timing and I’ve seen it work out perfectly again and again.

Oops. There’s that perfect word. But what does the scripture say? But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. James 1:4. (NKJV) Perfect in this case meaning mature. I like the sound of being mature and complete. That’s what God wants my life to be, and what I strive for everyday.

Still, my life ain’t perfect and I hope neither here on my blog nor on Facebook and Twitter, does my life seem that way to the outside observer. But now, at least, you can consider yourself an insider into the life and times of Sarah Elisabeth.

 

For Him,

Sarah Elisabeth