These Precious Days by Liz Flaherty

Welcome, September! We're heading into one of my favorite times of year right now, when the view out the west window changes every day, the air is fresh and crisp and smelling of harvested grain and apples and everything pumpkin. (If you don't like apples and/or everything pumpkin, that's fine, but we don't discuss that here.)

I took the title of this week's blog from "September Song." While the song itself doesn't fit, these are indeed precious days. All days are, something we discover when we realize how fast they go.

It's also the season of holidays. While big-box store displays would lead us to think Halloween is in June and Christmas is at the end of July, we know better. However, I admit to looking at holiday fabric and thinking of projects I'm not nearly skilled enough to complete. I print out recipes I'll never bake, although I'll look at the pictures a lot and sometimes I'll buy the ingredients. 

It's the best time of the year at the orchards! McClure's and Doud's are both open and perfect places to while away a few hours. 

It's a giving time, isn't it? Churches will be having soup suppers, harvest suppers, and bake-and-craft sales on their premises. There will be vendor sales  at every available venue, complete with food trucks. Anita's Boutique and Gallery 15  and other local stores will have so many pretty things and things that sparkle and things that you don't know how you can possibly go on without. I mean, things you know someone on your gift list wants or needs. 

It's time for Football Friday Nights, too. Be on guard for fundraisers. Be generous when they catch you. 

Have you noticed yet that I really don't have a subject this week? I do have a question for you. Readership on the Window is decreasing. This isn't a terrible thing; after all, it's been around in one incarnation or other since the 1980s, and I've talked a lot during those years. I'm not ready to stop writing the blog/column, but maybe it's time to write it less often. Or to change it. What do you think? Is it time? All ideas--including Just shut up, Liz; you're boring!--accepted. 

Speaking of the Window, the ebooks of Window Over the Sink and Window Over the Desk are 99 cents this week at all electronic retailers. I still have paper copies and so does Anita at the boutique. 

Then, just giving you a heads-up, Rose Cousins, Joe DeRozier, Debby Myers, and I are having a books signing at Gallery 15. Ryan Record will provide music and there will be light refreshments. The Gallery is always a treat to visit, and Sarah and Ron Luginbill are great hosts.

I hope to see you out and about and that you're having wonderful times on these beautiful, precious days we've been seeing lately. Have a good week. Be nice to somebody.

Real Life by Liz Flaherty

I will admit to being the poster child for too much Facebook. While I don't watch much TV and hardly any movies or play video games and I'm not--I don't think--addicted to my phone, I spend a lot of time in front of a computer screen. In my defense, much of the time is spent working. (As much as I love writing books and essays, yes, it is work.) However, when I need to break away from rewriting a scene for the third time because it didn't work the first two and the third isn't looking hopeful, either, Green Mountain Nantucket Blend and Facebook are my "drugs" of choice. 

So far, not a problem, right? No, the problem happens when Facebook or other social media become your reality. When unconscionable rudeness becomes the people who are doing it instead just ugly things on a screen. When people unfriend you because of your political stance or you do the same to them. When they repeat things because they're funny without thought to them not being true. When cruelty is the rule of the day and so many people, only some of them bots or trolls, claim some kind of invincibility because...well, I don't know why. 

Because when you meet them somewhere in person, they're almost always polite. They ask how you are, how the family is. They hold the door for you. They don't hoard toilet paper, harangue you about your faith or lack of it, or call you by anything but your name. (Yeah, I know, I know...I beat that horse to death and it still won't go down.)

I've written this to remind myself. Am I going to give up Facebook? Nope. It's how I keep up with people I never see, how I know everyone in the world but me is good at Wordle, how I promote books. It's where I read wonderful quotes I might have missed otherwise, look at adorable cat pictures, and talk to other writers. It's where I share pictures of my grandkids--who are all so amazing! Have I told you...

There's such fun to be had on social media, so many things to learn. But, at the end of the day, it's not real life--it's just a screenshot taken out of context. 

Real life for me lately has been reading to Head Start kids at Elmwood. It's unbelievable how much cuteness can be contained in a classroom, isn't it? 

Real life has been neighbors and friends doing snow removal from our driveway.

Real life has been patching blue jeans for a grandson and a nephew and thinking about them while I do it. These kids today are fabulous and funny people, you know it? You parents and teachers have done such a great job. That's the reality, not what you see on Facebook. 

Real life has been arguing with my husband one minute and laughing the next. When you see a 50-year anniversary meme of a beaming couple, know it hasn't all been beaming--it's been scowling and shouting sometimes, too, and that's how it's lasted. That's why they're strong. 

Photo by J. Koons Craft

Real life is people like Steve Hagan, who's retiring from Denver's grocery store today after working there, I swear, since infancy. The store doesn't belong to his family anymore, but it will always be Hagan's to me. Steve's been putting out fires--both literally and figuratively--for as long as I've known him. He is the embodiment of a generous spirit. 

Real life is people like Mary and Katie Day, Anita Lynn, Sarah and Ron Luginbill, Conny at the breadshop, Joe DeRozier and a slew of others who lend richness to their downtown. Where instead of saying, "there's nothing here," you can open your eyes and ears and find out there really is. 

Real life is doing the best you can with every single day, no matter what Facebook says. It's laughing at jokes that don't hurt anyone, singing even if you can't carry a tune, and crying not just over your own losses but over your neighbor's too. 

Scattered as usual, with apologies, I'll end this now. Have a great week, don't spend too much time on Facebook, and be nice to somebody. 

A Bit of A Party!

 We hope to see you there!

This Friday we're going to have a "Bit of a Party"

65 North Broadway

Peru, Indiana

Friday, October 15th

4-7 PM

We're going to have Wine from our Wineworks.

Art from our Gallery 15.

Coffee and Hot Chocolate from our Aroma Coffee

Some gifts from our Boho-Chic Hair Salon

Snippets of all the things at our Anita's

D O N U T S

Live music from Duane and Denny

And a book signing from Best Seller, Liz Flaherty, Debby Myers and her trilogy,

and your dusty donut guy and his two books.

4pm-7pm!

Stop in to say, Hi!

Everybody's welcome... by Liz Flaherty

Is it on your calendar? There's going to be a "Bit of a Party!" at 65 N. Broadway; Peru, IN 46970 at 6:00 PM on April 9. With thanks to Donut Joe DeRozier for hosting us, the lineup looks like this:

Signing and selling books will be:

Liz Flaherty - Window Over the Sink .

Debby Myers - Vex and Valor.

Sherry West - It’s Raining Cats! It’s Raining Dogs! It’s Raining Bats! And Pollywogs!

Caryn Suarez - Living Crazy Like Fly.

Joe DeRozier - Heck, I Don't Know...I Just Make Donuts.

***

Businesses represented will be:

The Wine Works - Jason McKeever Dreams to Reality/Aroma - Sandra Tossou Oasis Serenity Therapeutic Massage & Spa - Shannah Hight Boho-Chic Hair Boutique - Emily Hopper Anita's Boutique - Anita Day

Dirty Paws Pet Grooming and Pet Store - Michael Graves 6th Street Coffee - Kreig Adkins

Gallery 15 & Studios - Sarah Luginbill

It should be a lot of fun! We hope to see you there!

***