“No wonder your son is such a great writer.”

My husband and I have been volunteering at World Vision where our son works. People have been telling us how proud we must be of James and this was one of the comments. My reply? Yes, my writing did have something to do with James developing good writing skills, for several reasons. He was 12 in 1994 when I started my writing career. I checked his writing assignments for school. And I remember telling him, as I had told his sister that he should always write his best, whether the teacher is checking grammar or not. Never turn in poor writing.

But most importantly, and if you are an aspiring writer, this is where you can help your children and they can help you. James checked my writing! It had been over 20 years since I’d had any formal writing training and I didn’t know a preposition from an adverb. I instinctively knew how to put a sentence together but I needed help with proofreading. I took some classes and read books. I shared what I learned with James then insisted that he double-check my writing and I checked his.

James also developed some awesome computer skills and created a website for me and several other websites. He had people three times his age writing for his Silver Surfer website.

Flowers in a Vase

My husband Jim's cat Andy admires my flowers, "They look nice in a vase."

We’ll talk about writing here too. How did I become a writer? My first career was nursing. Well, not quite, I spent four hours as a bus girl the summer after high school. Then I got word I had been hired at the local nursing home as an aide. I never worked as hard as those four hours in the restaurant my mother worked in. I remember talking to my aunt on the phone, telling her how tired my feet were and thanking her for paying for nursing school.
In high school I had taken a writing class in my senior year and there my passion for writing was ignited. I wrote my first poem:

Lilacs,
Like some people,
Look nice on a bush,
But not in a vase.

I wasn’t the type to take too many risks, however, and a writing career was a risk. Nursing was safe and I did want to help people. I became a registered nurse and spent twenty years as a nurse. Then, at the age of 40, something happened to my brain, I was suddenly struck by the urge to check. I developed OCD. You can read more about my struggle with OCD at http://CherryPedrick.com

Melody Loves Icecream

We travel with our four cats. Melody has been diabetic for seven years, but now that she is elderly she seems to be in remission and can enjoy her favorite treat, icecream. In fact, she doesn't even need insulin anymore and we actually need to encourage her to eat. This one hot day, I bought her a kiddie cone at Dairy Queen. She purred as she ate it.

Snowball disappears

Less than a year later, Snowball disappeared. He had been very ill for a couple years and was 18-years-old. We looked all over the house then started to look outside. No Snowball. Then James applied some detective skills. He saw a hole in a grate in the garage and some white fur clinging to the loose wire. James remembered going into the garage earlier that day. Maybe Snowball had followed him into the garage and perhaps escaped through the grate. We reasoned that he was ready to die and went off to do so alone. Animals sometimes do that.
I remember thinking if that had been me, I would have felt so guilty, but James and my husband seemed to just understand that these things just happen. No one blamed him. I certainly didn’t. But I would have blamed myself if Snowball had followed me into the garage, for this was the year OCD struck me with a vengeance.
I had been preparing James for several years that when Snowball died we would get two kittens. Maybe calicos. As it happened, I found two calico kittens who needed a home a few months later. James named his cat Spunky because he wanted a spunky cat. She is not spunky.
I named my cat Melody after the editor of my first published article. The article was about OCD. Melody did turn out to be quite melodious and she turned out to have OCD! Sort of. She stares at pictures and spots on walls. She stares at herself in the mirror. She’s fearful of people, especially young male workers and often hid under the bed when they came to our home when she was a kitten. In her younger years she nervously scratched the furniture – and my arms – until we had her declawed. Melody loves certain people foods and eventually developed diabetes which she has survived for seven years. Before sugar was taken away from her one of her favorite things was licking and playing with jelly beans. She’d chase them until they were lost under the couch, then ask for another.
Melody has a reputation for being a “crazy” cat because she lashes out at people other than me. She’s really just giving a little warning because she’s fearful and she feels like she’s being teased. Because her reputation precedes her people tend to approach her with caution, and it does seem like she is being teased. She’s more anxious than the other cats and I could relate to that. Over the years, as she’s aged, she’s mellowed and doesn’t seem as anxious. She cuddles more and seems more relaxed. And so am I! It’s as if we’ve both recovered together.