My Dream

A friend asked me the other day what I dreamed of before I became a pastor's wife. Hm, good question. As a kid, I wanted to be a scientist, then a doctor, then a cowgirl. Apparently I lowered my sights over the years!

At first I couldn't remember having any dreams as I got older, then I remembered that I really wanted to be a mom; since I have 4 kids, I guess I achieved that one! Once I became a mom and a pastor's wife, I started dreaming about becoming an author. My mom, bless her heart, must have had an inkling, because she kept every email I sent her over the years and later sent them all back to me since they told about our lives here in the middle of nowhere.

Then I started writing articles about my kids for a column in our paper called Village Voices. The paper wanted to add my picture to it, but something my dad always said came to mind--Fools' names and fools' faces often appear in public places! So I decided I better not! I had quite a following of little old ladies in town who told me I brought back memories of when their kids were little. This was all a few years back, and some of those ladies still come up to me and tell me they miss that column! Many of the articles were about my youngest, Joey; since he couldn't read yet there was no danger of him finding out what I wrote about him unless one of his siblings told on me! He was a wild little fellow, all boy, and always out to get himself killed. We were in the park one day, and he was doing something dangerous (as usual), and I yelled, "JOEY!" A lady came up to me and said, "Is that THE Joey?" I had to laugh because I didn't even know her.

Anyway, back to the author dream. I decided to start on a book using those old emails and columns; I even had a couple of titles: Living Life in the Middle of Nowhere, or maybe Diary of an Insane Pastor's Wife. Wait, that sounds like the pastor is insane... Anyway, then I started thinking about what Dad said...and then I figured if I wrote a book it would probably end up on a shelf in the Dollar Tree...and then I put it away. Someday I'll take that file with half a book in it, blow the dust off it, finish it up, print a few copies...and give them to those sweet little white-haired ladies who cheered me on, should they still be alive. I even have the perfect cover picture for it:

Some day!