Down Days

It's been a long month. So much has happened and here we are, nearing the end of September. My friend, Tina, came to visit. We spent the week doing "girlie" things, and taking in the sights and sounds of Bookmarks 2010 in Winston-Salem. I think that was the highlight of the week for Tina, getting her picture taken with Diana Gabaldon, one of her favorite authors.

When Tina flew out of Charlotte, Michael and I headed to Atlanta. My sister's 50th surprise birthday party lasted the entire weekend for me. Fun in the Hotlanta sun. Kathy's not at all wanting to face that big 5-0 birthday but she was a good sport about it, after all. I met two ladies at the party, friends of my sister, who are quite the book enthusiasts! Both belong to large book groups and one is a member of The Margaret Mitchell House. It was fantastic, spending over an hour with these ladies, talking about books. I find more and more, women and men, who love the time they spend with a good book. A real book, not a piece of plastic with words on a monitor. Until my generation dies out, there will always be book buyers. Real books, not fake ones.

Oh sure, I'll eventually break down, buy one of those cold, plastic, book monitors. But you can be sure, if it's a book I love, the hard copy, the "real" book, will sit on my library shelf at home.

Tomorrow, I'm off to speak to a group of book lovers at our local library, and of course, about my work. I'm looking forward to it. But today, I'm up to my eyeballs in laundry and unpacking.

There's something about being away from home that makes one so grateful for a Down Day. A day to regroup, think about your next step in the road of life, and just how blessed you are to have so many friends and family who care. Down Days are good to not only relax a bit, but to develop your next strategy. Eventually, you find, you can't make everybody happy. Things happen that folks take entirely the wrong way, they develop ideas and thoughts about you that you have no control over. They may be wrong, but you also discover you can't do much to change it. Possibly you've made mistakes, but it's done. There's no going back and redoing anything.

In the end, you know yourself, your own integrity, your own flaws, your own hopes and dreams. So you plow forward, have a Down Day, regroup, and hope for the best. That's it and that's all.

If you've had a busy month, like me, do yourself a favor ... and have a Down Day. I may, in fact, treat myself to an entire Down Week.

Blessings to you and yours.