House Shoes

House shoes! I have some great memories of them in my childhood. Mama wore them all the time. I can still hear the sound of them on the linoleum floor as she walked a bit of grit missed by the incessant broom.

About this time, the Fall, every year I remember the excitement as the big parcel carrying truck stopped outside our little house. (Our house was little...about 700 square feet) ANYWAY... the driver knocked on the door and had a big box from J C Penneys addressed to us.  To me it was like an early Christmas..

Sometimes the box had a new dress for me to wear to school, or new housecoats for both of us, but it always had two pair of house shoes! Mama always ordered pink house shoes for us. I didn't realize they came in any other color. No matter, pink was our favorite color.

Mama's looked a little like those in the picture only the back came up a bit more. The fur around the top was fuzzier. Mine looked like pink fur  baby booties. I loved them. They had a shiny pink satin ribbon on the top. Boy, those things kept us nice and toasty.  (We had a little forced air furnace that kept the house warm...if we kept all the bedroom doors closed. That was probably why we needed to wear the house shoes.)

They were a wonderful invention for us because Mama didn't like for us to wear our shoes in the house. The reasons were probably so they wouldn't wear out as fast and so we wouldn't track in dirt on the carpet.

Yes, I still wear house shoes. Yesterday I was sweeping the kitchen floor and heard that grit hit the vinyl of them and it brought back this memory. We had many happy little memories like this in that little house in our little town.

Neck Deep

I'm in the middle of week 2 of the National Novel Writing Challenge. The first week went by at a pretty good clip. This second week has been...well...let me say more of an uphill climb.

Yesterday I did reach the set daily goal, but I did basically two days in one. I slacked off on Monday because the Hubs was home and we worked on things like determining which Christmas lights to put on the big treehouse. (Very important stuff, right?)

To get caught up on the challenge required writing close to 3500 words. This isn't difficult in the beginning pages of a rough draft, but after you are in the weeds??? Let's say, it was sort of like dental work. (and you KNOW I am well acquainted with dental work this year.)

"Slogging through" isn't a pretty phrase, but it is as good as any, I suppose. Let's say I'm really glad this is a rough draft! Yesterday I reached 20,025 words. Today, the goal is 21,671. That is completely doable...that is...if I can get my brain in gear. Keep your fingers crossed!

NaNoWriMo 2019 here I come! This morning I am joining the National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing 50,000 words in the month of November. After a lot of thought and some planning and reading, I've decided on my characters, the setting, and a sketchy story line.

The main character is Levi Reeves. He was introduced in "The Restless Kansas Wind". He and his brother, Peter, met Lily and her unnamed baby when they stopped at her homestead for medical help for Peter. Towards the end of that book, he is a newspaper man in Tascosa, Texas. (Now, the location of Cal Farley's Boy's Ranch)

I think you will love this character and how the story unfolds. However, you are part of this process. Did you know that? Many of you readers pray for me and the writing I do. I need this more than ever. This morning I dashed off 60 words so that I could set of my page on the NaNo website and have something on my progress graph. I'm hoping to have around 1000 words by the end of the day more or less.

Jump in the 'car' with me and we will see where this goes. I don't have a real title for this book yet. Be thinking of one that you think you'd like. Watch for an announcement for a prize for a title from the entries.