Do you truly listen when you ask someone how they’re doing? Many years ago I encountered a coworker in the hallway and, out of habit, asked how they were doing. You know, the nod and “Good morning! How are you?” Usually we hear or say, “Fine,” or “Alright,” and “How ’bout you?” Well the coworker threw me for a loop and answered with, “Not that great, actually.”

Had I continued in my greeting habit I would’ve just kept on walking because I would’ve assumed the typical positive response. Instead, thankfully, I heard what she said, stopped what I was doing, and asked her about it. Several days later she came back to me and thanked me for listening to her. She said she had answered the way she did because she assumed I’d just keep on walking—in reality, it turns out she felt better after shedding some of her burden and I was actually able to help her set some of it right. If she hadn’t answered honestly, not only would we not have made a personal connection, but she would’ve continued struggling with that particular problem.

Ever since then, when I ask someone how they’re doing, I’m prepared to listen for their answer, whether it’s good or bad. And, I’m sure to the surprise and consternation of some friends and coworkers, I also answer honestly when I’m asked. This goes beyond understanding that not everyone is having a good day every day. When I ask how you’re doing today, my goal is to show you that you’re important enough to warrant more than a passing nod. I’ll listen if you have need of someone to listen to you. I’ll let you go on your way, too, if you so choose. There’s no shame in you or me admitting to having a bad day or having problems. And there’s absolutely no shame in sharing those problems if someone opens that door.

I have also realized that asking “how are you doing” with the expectation of an honest and acknowledged answer is only half the value. If I don’t answer you honestly, I’m assuming you don’t truly care about how my day is going or how I’m feeling. And when it comes down to it, even for something as mundane as a greeting, I want to speak my own truth—if I don’t, who will?

So try it—speak honestly. Speak your truth, even when you might assume it doesn’t count.

A few weeks ago, my parents and sister moved to another state.  When I found out they were moving, I knew their departure would create a lot for me, too. I didn’t truly anticipate how big that change would be, how big the hole in my world would be. But I’ve discovered an unexpected connection to my mom: my grandmother’s china.

My first memory of grandmother’s china is from when I was maybe 12 years old. Mom and I were sorting a kitchen cabinet and I asked about the dishes. She told me about a grandmother I had never known and how the china was a special remembrance of her. Young, beautify Evelyn married my Pawpaw on January 14, 1947. Pawpaw brought the china to Evelyn from Britain during his WWII service. On November 25 of that year (1 day after Evelyn’s 22nd birthday) my father was born. 11 days after that, Evelyn died from complications from birth.

Imagine hearing, from your mother, that your Daddy never knew his real mother. It was stunning. It was humbling. I was just at the age where I could truly grasp how important my parents were to me, so the thought of not having my mom next to me was staggering. For one of the first times in my life, I felt like I was seeing a tragedy with a grown-up’s eyes, hearing it with my heart. But it was with a child’s sense of wonder and romance that I folded her into my heart forever, deciding on the spot that if I ever had a baby girl, I’d name her Evelyn. Of all our family’s mementos, this china has always felt the most a part of me. These twenty-plus years later, I still sometimes marvel at how our young hearts can forge such strong connections to ancestors we never knew. It’s the power of story. Of family.

As they were packing up their house a few weeks ago, Mom discovered that they needed to downsize, so I off-handedly offered to take the china off her hands. To my delight she agreed! Well, my clan has been gone for almost a month and the boxes have been sitting in my dining room this whole time. I can admit, now, that I’ve been in a bit of denial. Some part of me left the boxes untouched because my family’s absence would somehow be acknowledged in the unpacking.

This weekend I finally tackled the boxes. Still processing the absence! But the act of unpacking, dusting, and generally fawning over the china brought thoughts of my own mother close. Though the china will always be a remembrance of my dad’s mother, the connection was forged by my own mom’s sharing of Evelyn’s story with me. The story, the china, the connection with my grandmother and mother—all treasures that bring my distant relatives closer to my heart.

itteh bitteh pretteh citeh

After weeks of long hours and busy days, I finally arrived at my long-awaited vacation weekend in Germany. After the hustle of supporting two consecutive tradeshows, the peaceful pace of the Mosel Valley was the perfect getaway.

Stairs up to church

The photo above was taken from the ferry landing opposite Beilstein, at the outskirts of Ellenz. What you see in the photo is Beilstein in its entirety—a tiny hamlet positioned not just on the hillside but in it. Because the village is perched on the hillside, the buildings and streets are very vertical. I climbed more steps here in 3 days than I have in the last 3 years! All of the village “streets” are cobblestone and narrow, meandering around the buildings almost like a labyrinth.

Vines right up to the cliff

The vertical aspect of the town was unique, but even more surprising was how vertical the surrounding vineyards were. Just when I thought a hill was surely too steep for vines to grow (and be harvested!), the vines continued up the hillside. I was continually astonished by them!

The first evening during dinner, we noticed people loitering around a spot on the river bank. When we checked it out the next day, we discovered a swan nest, complete with nesting swan and 7 eggs! The swan wasn’t a bit bothered by the onlookers or the ferry that docked a mere ten feet away. She went about her business and calmly let passersby go about theirs.

Nesting swan at riverside

With the lovely Haus Lipmann for lodging and dinner, convenient location on the B49 highway, Beilstein made the perfect base camp for couple of days in the Mosel Valley.

View the slideshow below for a stroll through lovely, sleepy little Beilstein.

As I sit typing this, my feet are propped up, I’m gazing upon a peaceful river cradled by hills, and I’m drinking the fabulous “Refresher” cocktail served at Haus Lipmann in Beilstein, Germany. Yesterday I drove from Frankfurt to Beilstein, a sleep little village on the banks of the Mosel, with my friend K, whom I’ve discovered is a great travel companion. Everything is a little adventure and I’m lovin’ it!

After a lazy morning (we decided we deserved it after our hard work this week), we wandered the cobbled backstreets of Beilstein and ended up ascending the hill to Burg Metternich. Now, after climbing all those stairs and walking the town twice over, we’ve rewarded ourselves with a sit-down and a bottle of Reisling (local Mosel variety, of course!). The sun is setting, the rain clouds are moving in, the ducks and swans are swimming to and fro with an occasional quacky fracas, the whir of a passing car interrupts every now and then, and I can hear the soft scratch of K’s pencil as she sketches next to me. Life is good.

Compared to my last trip to Germany in December when everything was covered in snow and all I saw was the view from a train, it’s as if Germany has come out of hiding. We awoke to busily chirping birds and a soft breeze through our windows. Lilacs, viburnum, tulips, and geranium are in bloom, bursting out of beds and window boxes at every turn.

I can’t wait to spend the next days experiencing the countryside. For now, the drops are starting to fall, so I’ll retire the iPad and instead concentrate on my wine.

I’ve been researching my family history on and off for about 10 years now. I spent a lot of time focusing on my dad’s side of the family, mainly because all of those ancestors come from southern Texas and I’m in southern Texas. But there’s always been one branch of my mom’s family that’s been a mysterious dead-end. A couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to see if I could work past it. So I searched the Social Security Death Index (SSDI), determined to find my great-grandmother’s parents from her Social Security number application.

While this has solved part of the mystery, it’s raised a few more questions. First, when I requested her application, I used the number listed in the SSDI. It turns out that the number on the SSDI is actually my great-grandfather’s. Thankfully the kind Freedom of Information Officer who handled my request noticed this and investigated, rather than just returning my request and fee. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have found the surprises.

All of the family anecdotal and written notes I’ve found so far say my great-grandmother’s maiden name is Czernak. But her application shows something different: Sinkle. A name that has yet to come up from any other sources. I also hoped to use her application to verify her date of birth. According to the SSDI, her DOB is Sep 4 1889; however, the handwritten part of the application clearly lists 1888 as her birth year. To add to Grandma Rose’s ancestry mystery, the 1930 census lists Germany as her country of birth and German as the other language she spoke. However, her SSA application lists Poland as her country of birth.

Sadly, the application did not solve the initial mystery I was trying to clear up: who were Rose’s parents? As listed on her application, even Rose did not know, so I’m not sure where to go from here on her ancestry.

A Golden Web, by Barbara Quick, grabbed my imagination immediately and I couldn’t put it down. I have a soft spot for historical fiction—it was Lament for a Lost Lover by Philippa Carr that sparked my avid love of books in the 8th grade. Sure, I enjoyed reading before that, but Carr’s book showed me what it was like to get lost in a story, in another time and place. A Golden Web was just like that for me. Quick’s meticulous research pays off—her story comes alive in 14th century Italy, with intriguing imagery that makes you feel like you’re right there. And, since I’m a sucker for romance, the book is a total winner in my estimation.

Read my full review at Story Circle Book Reviews.

Just posted another book review, this time for Kimberly Derting‘s The Body Finder. I loved this book—it was a real page-turner! I’m totally impressed with The Body Finder as a debut novel. The writing was crisp, the dialogue was realistic, and each subplot was wonderfully woven into the whole. I highly recommend The Body Finder for young and not-so-young alike!

Read my official review at Story Circle Book Reviews.

My latest Story Circle Book Review is posted: Hellie Jondoe by Randall Platt. It’s a warm, fun story about a young orphan discovering that you don’t have to be alone and that, sometimes, a family is of our own making.

Read it here.

Today at the Stories from the Heart conference I co-presented a session called “Writing Promptly” with my dear SCN-sister Jude Whelley. We had a blast! Our session focus was a two-fold play on “prompt”: first, promptly and consistently getting down to the heart of your writing; second, using prompts to help you get un-stuck. It was the end of the day so we tried to keep it light and fun, and I think we succeeded. Of course, it helps when you have a room full of energetic and talented women who are fully present and raring to go!

One of the points we tried to make very clear is that you can still get a significant write done with only a few minutes—you don’t need hours of prep work and hours of slaving over your keyboard. If you’ve got a spare 10 or 15 minutes, take it! Make the most of it! My personal example of making the most of your time was showing my favorite writing tool in the world—my Livescribe Pulse pen. And wow, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many faces light up with envy and desire for a technical device!   Several of the ladies urged me to share more info with our community about the Livescribe pen.

Here are a few ways the Livescribe Pulse pen has transformed my daily writing:

1. Portability: On a typical day, I can’t grab hours on end to write. I write when and where the mood strikes and my schedule allows. So I carry my Livescribe and the lined journal with me everywhere I go. As long as you don’t have a tiny purse, you shouldn’t have a problem adding these items to your stash. Why is this any different than other pens and journals? See reason #2.
2. Conversion from handwriting to computer text: Every night I dock my Livescribe pen. So everything I wrote down that day with my Livescribe gets pulled into my computer. From there I can view the pages in the Livescribe Desktop, or even use a plug-in to export my writing as text for editing in my word processor. I have literally written entire blog posts long-hand with my Livescribe (because that’s all that was handy) then exported the text into my blog.
3. Audio recording: I recorded the keynote speech because the speaker referenced several quotes I really wanted to remember. Here’s how cool this is:
   • I take my standard written notes—my reactions to her quotes and statements, notes to expand on my own writing ideas, quotes or writers she mentions that I want more information on, etc.
   • In addition to that traditional note-taking, the Livescribe Desktop will now show my writing synced with the audio. So suddenly my own notes are shown in complete context of the associated audio.
   • Then, because a keynote is well over an hour, I can tap the bookmark button to break up the audio replay into intuitive chunks. For me, that means a new bookmark when the speaker said something I know I’ll want to come back to again. Now I don’t have to wait through an 87-minute audio file for the 2 minutes I want—I just use the skip buttons!
4. Versatility: One reason I love the Pulse pen is I really want that familiar, tactical response of handwriting my notes, but  the convenience of the digital capture. Livescribe provides several paper formats, including traditional 8.5×11 inch spiral notebooks, lined and unlined journals, small flip note pads, and more. I can also choose from black, blue, or red ink. The paper products aren’t terribly expensive, especially if you already have a fondness for artful journals. And the refills are totally affordable.

Learn more at the Livescribe web site.

Okay, so I know there are probably a few of my SCN sisters who are ready to buy. Please, if you’re going to purchase a Livescribe Pulse pen, use the links below. SCN is an Amazon affiliate and will get a portion of the sales using these affiliate links. So it’s for a good cause! These are some basic options. Amazon doesn’t always have the full line, so whatever you don’t find on Amazon you’ll find on the Livescribe web site.

• Livescribe 4 GB Pulse Smartpen
• Livescribe 2 GB Pulse Smartpen
• Livescribe Lined Black 1-2 Journal – 2 Pack
• Livescribe Paperblanks Black Moroccan Mini Wrap for Pulse Smartpen (Brown)
• Livescribe Flip Notepad for Pulse Smartpen (Black)
• Livescribe Pro Charging Cradle for Pulse Smartpen
• Livescribe Single Subject Spiral Notebook, 4-Pack, Nos. 1-4

Happy writing! And remember, we all have a story to tell.

On Sunday I participate on a blogging panel at Stories from the Heart V. Our primary goal is to help lifewriters get started with blogging as a tool for sharing your stories. In an interactive session, we’ll all share how we got started, what worked for us and what didn’t, and tips to avoid some of the pitfalls we discovered. Then we’ll open it up for Q&A—anything goes!

Here’s a listing of my lovely and talented co-panelists:

• Becky Lane at Seasonality
• Kara Flathouse at Eskimo Kisses and Air Hugs, Eskimo Kisses Home Grown Kids, Eskimo Kisses Home and Garden, and Eskimo Kisses Crafty Corner
• Judy M. Miller at The International Mom’s Blog
• Linda Hoye at My Own Velvet Room
• Nita Lou Bryant at Cafe Nita Lou, Electric Nita Lou, and Holiday Hints from Elf Nita Lou
• Rhonda Esakov at Rhonda’s A ‘Muse’ing Rambles