News
The second in the Karen Maxwell mysteries series was released in a recent shipment of the HP Mysteries Bookclub.
The first book in the series, George Washington Stepped Here, is now available through Amazon and bookstores.
Karen Maxwell is becoming a good friend and I'm enjoying working with her! The book was featured on Spyglass Lane, the official blog of the HP Mysteries, about the time of its bookclub release last summer. Since I get plenty of space here to write about myself, I decided to let one of my characters tell his story on the blog. So you get the perspective of Evan Maxwell, Karen's nine-year-old son. To see what he has to say about having an investigator in the family, click here.
I'm now working on the third book, which is all about the world of competitive jump rope. And dead parrots.
To find out more about Heartsong Presents Mysteries, click here.
_________
Headers
by
Henry thor Straten
Photograph
by
Stephen Purcell
|
 
Several years ago, the Bible study group that I belonged to examined “The Proverbs 31 Woman.” For those who haven’t quite memorized all of the Biblical Book of Proverbs, let me explain that the 31st (and final) chapter of Proverbs describes “a wife of noble character” who is endowed with seemingly superhuman characteristics. If you look at the verses closely, she seems to spend an awful lot of time making cloth for her family, her bed, and general resale, etc. But she also plants a vineyard, imports food, feeds the poor, instructs the household, and literally never sleeps or even rests. I get tired just reading the verses. There is NO WAY any one woman could do all these things.
One of the members of my Bible study group, however, had a different way to look at it. Instead of seeing all the things in the verses that we cannot seem to be able to do, she looked at things she already did for her family and saw how they fit into the pattern of the “noble wife.” That is certainly a more encouraging approach. But still, there is a lot in those verses about “grasping the spindle” and “making linen garments” and other things American women just don’t do much anymore. So I thought I’d try to update the verses a little to see how they might apply to a suburban wife of the 21st century:
A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth more than a Nintendo system with Rock Band and Wii Fit all bundled together.
Her husband trusts her with all the credit cards
and the remote control.
She brings him excellent credit ratings all the days of her life.
She selects volunteer cutting assignments from the kindergarten teacher
and works with eager hands.
She is like merchant ships
bringing in food from the store with the best coupon deals that week.
She gets up before the clock radio kicks on;
and microwaves sausage patties for her family.
She considers a lottery ticket and buys it;
out of her Bunco winnings she enters a basket bingo and wins a birthday gift
for her mother-in-law.
She works out at the gym vigorously;
her arms are strong enough that she doesn’t have too much of that hanging flab
when she raises her forearms.
She sees that she’s getting a good return on her 401K rollover,
and her lamp always goes out at a reasonable time (but she can turn it back on if
the kids need something or the dog starts whining.)
In her hand she holds the steering wheel,
and grasps the box of Cheez-Its to hand out to the kids in the carpool.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for she has arranged to go in late for work on days when schools open on a two-hour delay.
She makes her bed most days even if no one’s coming over.
Her husband is respected at the city sports stadium,
where he takes his seat among the season ticketholders.
She makes allergen free brownies
and sells them at the bake sale;
and supplies the scout troop with sodas for the party.
She is clothed with strength and dignity, or at least sweats that are clean, with not too many paint spatters.
She can laugh at the ridiculously high heating bill.
She speaks with wisdom,
and can faithfully instruct her family on how to change the bag in the vacuum cleaner.
She watches over the affairs of her children text messaging each other in the same room
and does not eat anything from the Cheesecake Factory.
Her children arise and, though they call her really bad names, at least they’re up in time
to get ready for school.
Her husband praises her
(from his seat with the season ticket holders):
“Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who has read this far in my bad paraphrase deserves to be praised.
Give her the reward she has earned:
A rest.
(In other words, that’s the end).
Watch for a new "Life Beyond the Lunchboxes" each month. You can read previous columns by clicking here.
|
Alicia's Diary
September 19
Seventh grade officially sucks. The teachers treat us like kids. They might cancel drama club this year. And I think my brother is reading this so I'm afraid to really write anything.
September 24
Mom has a new job. Well, it's the same job she's always had, but she's doing different work. She gets to investigate a case instead of just doing paperwork all the time. I'm really happy for her. Things haven't been easy since Dad left, but she's doing a really good job.
September 28
She's the worst mom ever. She's making us go back to this really boring history house so we can learn more about boring history. (And Evan, I don't care if you read this and tell her because you said the same thing yourself.)
October 1
The boring history house wasn't too bad because there are lots of actors there and we get to dress up and act out parts in front of tourists. I think mom asked one of the other actors on a date. She said its not really a date, but I can tell (it was in the July issue of Teen Life Magazine "How to Tell if it's Really a Date")
Oct. 5
I'm really worried about Evan. I heard Mom talking on the phone about him and she was crying. I hope he doesn't have cancer or something.
Oct. 6
They're coming to take Evan away tomorrow. He has some kind of rare disease that's contagious and they have to isolate him from the rest of society. She doesn't want him to know how serious it is because she doesn't want to ruin his last day with the family. I can't even talk to anyone about it. It's so scary.
Oct. 7
Ha, ha! Told you I wouldn't get in trouble, you twerp. That'll teach you to read my diary.
Alicia is the daughter of Karen Maxwell of DS Investigations. New pages from her diary will appear here whenever she leaves it lying open.
|
