My blog posts are a little wonky right now. This one wasn’t supposed to go live til today, so apologies if you’ve already read it.

2010 was a great year for books. I didn’t get to read as much as I would have liked, but I still found lots of good stuff out there. Let’s talk faves. Here are a few of mine.

Favorite Christian Fiction Book: I couldn’t possibly narrow it down. As sure as I picked one out, I’d offend a friend or forget a good book. But I liked Stars in the Night and The Mailbox, which were new releases. And I read some older ones I enjoyed like Reconstructing Natalie and Stretch Marks. Stretch Marks is by Kimberly Stuart, and if you haven’t read her, you are missing out on one funny, real lady. I don’t think there’s anyone out there funnier than her. I got to preview her Feb. 2011 release, Operation Bonnet, and laughed out loud so many times. I also enjoyed YA novels by Nicole O’Dell and Stephanie Morrell and am excited to see what these ladies have up their sleeves for us next. I know I’m forgetting someone…

Favorite YA Book: I think Hush Hush is probably the one that had me turning the pages and staying up way too late on a school night. It wasn’t my sort of book, as it’s about a girl who (maybe) falls for a fallen angel (I’m not really into paranormal), but I couldn’t put it down. It made me miss my old English teacher days, so I took off my speech teacher hat and just did a book talk in my classroom. It was checked out of my library within seconds. My students love it. Anna and the French Kiss is another one. It’s rated PG-13, so be warned. But I thought the PG-13 moments were so realistic to teens, especially teens staying at an American boarding school in Paris. Without their parents. Where anything can happen. What I loved about this book was that it wasn’t dark and depressing, which is all the rage right now in YA. It was happy and chick-litty and funny and real, and I’m so glad that a book like that is getting GREAT buzz. It’s about time we brought funny and light back. And no vampires! Nobody working on Lucifer’s payroll! No werewolves or other men with excessive body hair!

Favorite Christian Fiction Cover: Hand’s Down, Cara Putman’s Stars in the Night.

I’m also excited about her next book, releasing in early 2011, Ohio Brides. I think that’s a beautiful cover as well.

Favorite General Market Book: Probably Fixer Upper by Southern girl Mary Kay Andrews. There’s always a piece of Tybee Island or Savannah in her books, and I am always sad when I read the last page. I read this one on the beach in Tybee, a vacation I took with my mom and aunt, and aside from having to drive an SUV the size of a semi-truck, it’s definitely one of my favorite memories from 2010.

Favorite Nonfiction Book:
I usually have a fiction book going, something I read quickly, and then a nonfiction book, something I read s-l-o-w-l-y. I wish the whole world would order the Paleo Solution. This will bore you, but it’s some convicting info about why we should all (not just celiacs) avoid grains, beans, sugar, and dairy. I know I talk about trash food ALL THE TIME, but I’m actually more of a 80/20 eater. Eighty-percent of my diet is organic meat, fruit, veggies. The problem is that the twenty is total JUNK. And much more fun to discuss. I mean, what’s the thrill in saying, “Oh, my gosh, I just had the best free range chicken?” Zero.

I’d mentioned earlier in the year that I loved In A Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. GREAT book. (In an award’s ceremony held earlier, this book also received a trophy for longest title.) My friend Lizann directed me to this book, and I’m beyond glad. It’s about how we are to live big huge lives for God and attempt to do the impossible because that’s where our faith grows and where God wants us and uses us.

I think This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection by Carol Burnett is good. It’s told in little vignettes, and I don’t know that I made it through one without tearing up.

I also liked Clean by Alejandro Junger. It’s not about vacuuming and dusting, but it’s a hardcore approach to resetting your body’s ability to heal itself and just act normally. GREAT GREAT GREAT information in it, but so far, I can’t talk myself into doing the 3 week diet. It’s intense. Like drinking your veggies intense. I’m not into liquefied anything. Unless it’s ice cream transformed into a shake. Or chocolate from a fountain. But veggies? Can’t do it yet.

Books I Didn’t Get to Read In 2010,But Sure Will in 2011: Faithful by Kimberly Cash Tate, Sabotage by Kit Wilkinson, Dining with Joy by Rachel Hauck. I hear raves about them all.

All right. Your turn! Feel free to answer any of the above.

Did everyone have a merry Christmas? I  know lots of you had a white Christmas. I did as well. Sorta. We got an unexpected dusting. It was cold enough to support a blizzard though. And there is Wintery Mix Talk for New Year’s Eve. Snow days would be a great way to start our next semester.

I had a fabulous holiday. My brother/his family and I hung out at my mom’s on C’mas Eve. We ate ’til we felt sick because that’s the American Way and somewhere there are starving children who don’t get to do this, and we played the updated version of Clue. I think we might’ve made up a few rules. I haven’t read instructions in years. I discovered it’s a really effective approach. I might even try that tactic again. Christmas day was with the extended family. I had to step outside and watch the tiny snowflakes. Sunday was Christmas with my dad’s family at my house, thus the manic painting last week.

So  questions for the day:
1. What was your favorite gift to receive? Mine was a tie. My mom got me a DVD of a few episodes of the Carol Burnett Show. LOVED LOVED LOVED it. It included the famous Scarlett O’Hara episode which is just so clever. And I finally got with the times and got a Kindle. It’s an adjustment, but I like it! It’s gonna great for travel.
2. What was your favorite gift to give? I love giving presents. My mom requested Paula Deen’s bakeware, That got put to use immediately. Then I gave my brother Mark Twain’s 50 lb autobiography (volume 1), but I was jazzed to get him Keith Richard’s autobiography. It did not weigh 50 lbs, though the jury is still out if Keith’s book also came out 100 years after his death too.

Okay, what about you? I’d love to hear about your Christmas!

I’ve finally started decorating for Christmas. No tree, but I think I’ve put out enough Christmas decor to get the point across. To get that festive spirit a going. The photo above is my BEFORE.

Here’s my AFTER…

Wow. The difference is staggering. That silver candle is like a beacon straight to Santa, isn’t it? Nothing says, “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” like glitter.

I might throw out another ornament or two, but in the meantime, I wanted to wish you a very merry Christmas. Or as they say on The Holiday, “Happy Christmas!” It has a nice ring to it. I’m so grateful for my blog friends. You guys are such a gift to me and totally lift me up. I wish you a happy, restful, peaceful, calm, Christ-focused, who cares if there’s glitter on the floor and glitter up my nose Christmas. It is an honor to know you, to write books that some of you read (thanks, Mom), and to share a few moments a week together. It is an honor to be given this chance to do kingdom work and to make friends across the globe along the way.

You are the tinsel in my day and the ones I think of while writing every book. Or when embarrassing things happen on vacation and I  grab my trusty camera. : )
Merry Christmas and much love.

Hallelujah, we’ve been found.
A child is born to save us now. . .Jesus.
Hallelujah, light has come
A savior set us free…

A few years ago I was at the chiropractor, and Dr. L stops whatever it is he’s doing, looks at me and asks, “Do you have a hobby?”
There was a long pause as I tried to think of something. “I run. I walk.”
“And you do that because you love it?”
“I do that so I can eat Twinkies.”
“Get a hobby.”

I kinda forgot to. I think about it from time to time, but I haven’t really achieved a “hobby.”

Tonight, as I was peeling blue tape off my walls, I realized the closest thing I have to a hobby is painting. I do it a lot. Sometimes it’s good–like when I find a new uber modern color I want to incorporate into my house. Other times it’s stressful, like when I paint a color I can’t live with. (Or that hideous color mysteriously peels off my walls in one big John Deer Green sheet. Valspar, I’m talking to you.) I suppose updating my home is my partial hobby. I’m a total nerd for architectural salvage, for old prints, for making the old new again. My latest fix is a vintage advertisement for a local circus that used to come to town every year in Arkansas. I called dibs on it years ago when we sorted through the affairs of my deceased great aunt and uncle. They were pack rats of such random things. Total bliss for me. I kept the poster for years, loving it because of the colors and graphics and because my great uncle was a Shriner, who put on the yearly circus.

I love it. Though I want to apologize to every animal who attended the circus of ’73. Your sacrifice was not in vain. Because I framed it.

This week some writer friends and I were talking about what w’re doing before Christmas. I said painting walls and refinishing some furniture. Kim Cash Tate says, “…you’re a painter and a restorer.” That totally made me smile. Restorer is such a sweet word. I think I might’ve rolled my eyes and written one too many detention slips this year to accept that right now, but I love the implied purpose in the word. I’ve saved a lot of really ugly things. Of the inanimate variety.

My grandfather was a house builder. He had an eighth grade education and yet he was the man you wanted if you needed a home. I remember when I was in college working at a bank, the bank president came up to me and said, “I knew your grandpa. He built my house long ago. Nobody built a house like him. He was so precise.” I was so proud. I’m not precise. I just spent the last 20 minutes scraping paint off my oak cabinets with a Bounty towel, spit, and my fingernail. And I never, ever fail to get paint on the top of my head and my butt. It’s important to be one with your art.

I tend to have the same results when I cook.

My grandmother Edith worked alongside my grandpa. She was the painter. She had one color, and that was beige. You want your walls painted? Beige. You want your cabinets painted? Beige. Trim work? Beige. She did not use painter’s tape or any of my handy dandy edging tools. She, too, was precise.

I don’t remember my other grandfather much, but I do recall standing in my grandparent’s dining room when I was three or four asking to help them paint. Their color was a faint sea foam green and for whatever reason, my grandma handed me a paint brush. I have no idea why. She was meticulously, obsessively neat.
But she was not beige.

I get asked a lot why I paint the inside of my house so often. Probably because I don’t have the two story ladder to paint the exterior.
I love how for the price of a gallon and six hours, you get a whole new room. I like how I don’t have to think about troubled students, work dilemmas, meetings, plots, pages, or who’s going to fix my tail light. I love how it does not involve sitting, my least favorite thing to do. And I like how when I wake up the next morning, I feel muscles that remind me that I did more than work out my typing fingers and dust my office chair with my pockets.

It’s also a great excuse to listen to music all day long. My favorite thing is to turn on Pandora. I usually start with the Sam Cooke station. I think Sam would’ve understood my need to push a roller brush around the room. He and I get soul. Then I move to the Wailin’ Jenny’s. They need my harmony; they just don’t realize it yet. Then I switch to 80s hair bands or country. Today I listened to Bruno Mars’ cd, and it is so not beige. If I hadn’t have been elbow deep in caustic primer and gray paint, I never would’ve decided I needed dynamically different tunes. Never would’ve taken a chance on Bruno. And that would’ve been a tragedy.

Sometimes I do think of plot solutions or book ideas just because I’m not trying to. Or because I’ve spent 8 hours in a non-ventilated room with a gallon of Kilz. It’s an excuse to ignore the phone, avoid email, and let that doorbell go. It’s also an excuse to let hygiene go. My hair right now would scare the neighbor’s pit bull.

I once read an article by a doctor who said you should not have paint or chemicals in your garage on the same wall as your bedroom.

This is just one cabinet. I’m afraid there are more. On the other side of this wall is my bed. I’m living dangerously.

My semi-hobby also makes me sound sophisticated.
“What are you doing this weekend?”
“Painting.”
“Oh! Oils? Acrylics? Still life? Abstract?”
“Bathrooms.”

I have a favorite brush. A favorite roller handle. And a favorite color of the moment–Iced Cube Silver. I have a favorite sorta expensive paint–Benjamin Moore. Favorite Paint to Steal Colors to have Made into Cheaper Paint–Restoration Hardware. Favorite cheap paint–Behr. Least favorite paint–I will not say. But they used to be good and now they’re awful and you get it at a place that conveniently rhymes with Blows.

I adore painting because any idiot can do it. Isn’t it wonderful to occasionally be over-qualified?

Mostly I enjoy it because it’s something I know I can do. I don’t have to worry about the opinions of others. I can repair any damage. I can change my mind. I can take risks. I can be trendy. I understand the terms. I know how to start and how to end. I can bring about change. I . . .have the power to make something happen.

You know, I’ve probably painted at least 50 times in this small house in the last nine years.
This past fall, I painted my first room beige.

Just because I could.

Best. Song. Ever.
At least for now.

Happy Monday! It’s the first day of Christmas break for many of us, so everything in my world is right. Minus the house painting I have to do. And the Christmas shopping. And the grocery run. And the Hershey kisses in the cabinet I can’t eat. And the cookies I don’t have. But other than that, woo!

Author Natalie Lloyd is running a fun contest. Check it out HERE.

Super blogger and awesome YA librarian Green Bean Teen Queen needs some book suggestions. Help a girl out HERE. She also has some gift guides for the teens in your life and for those of us who love picture books. I put some of those on my Amazon Wish List.

Author Mae Nunn recently shared pics of her dog Cooper that made me laugh. Normally Mae subjects her husband and children to sit for the family Christmas card. This year she gave them a break and asked Cooper to be the star. I’m not sure if Coop is ready for his closeup.

“Mom, this is lame.”

I AM smiling.

No. I’m done. I need a break. Did I get paid for that sixty seconds? Show me the kibbles or I’m calling my union.

This dog has given up too.

Here’s another dog with a whole lot of patience.

This puppy got to be in the spotlight too.

Unfortunate name for a dog. Or a body part.

This one never gets old.

I wish my high schoolers were this easily entertained.

Finally, proof that world peace is possible.  Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Speaking of hairy novelties, did you see the Kardashians’ Christmas card? What ticks me off is that it looks just like my family’s holiday greeting. Minus the sacrificial toddler in the Hugo Boss.
Run, baby. Run.

Have a great week!