birthday season

Five Things - February 3, 2025

Welcome to my blog titled ‘Five Things’ where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. I’ll also share a quote I find meaningful as a point of focus for the week. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things, starting with the quote of the week…

  1. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - Mary Oliver

  2. As things around us feel like they’re on fire, I am reminded that art is resistance. The world needs its storytellers, singers, actors, dancers, sculptors, musicians, painters, (and anyone else I forgot to mention) to remind us of our humanity. Artists hold a mirror up to society. We question and dig. We bring injustice into sharp relief. We invite laughter. We provide entertainment, respite, relief. We provoke change. We ask our audience to look at the world from a different perspective. Art is resistance.

  3. In honor of Black History Month, I’m highlighting an author I heard speak several years ago at a writers conference in NYC. Jacqueline Woodson’s resume includes the National Book Award, the Newbery Honor, and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. She’s been on the NYT best-selling list, served as the Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress for 2018–19, and named a MacArthur Fellow. Her writing is hauntingly beautiful and heartbreakingly real. If you have an opportunity to read her stories, watch one of her TED talks, or introduce her books to the young people in your life, I highly recommend it.

  4. I’m heading to Colorado Springs this week for a writer’s conference. I am so excited because more than half my cohort from grad school will be there. We’ve been online with each other several times a week since September, but we haven’t been together in person since July. Events like this one help to fill my creative well. There’s nothing like spending a few days with fellow creative types to stay motivated, and with my aggressive writing schedule this year, I really need the motivational support! Next post, I’ll share my favorite highlights from the conference.

  5. Birthday season is underway, and last night we celebrated Noah’s 27th. This kid of ours is smart, creative, driven, and kind. Last summer, for one of my first school assignments, I had write about my ‘creative hero.’ This is an edited version of that post, which I think is a fitting tribute to the birthday boy!

    All the kids are creative types, but our second son is a writer. He wrote his first ‘novel’ as an eighth-grade project, before I had the whiff of a first draft for my first novel in mind. His mentor, a traditionally published author, sang his praises for both completing the daunting project and for his fresh take on the story. He had the ‘chops’ she’d said. When he finished the draft, he said something like, “I’m not attached to that manuscript anymore. I used the project to learn about process, and my next book will be better.” I was like, “Dude, you’re thirteen. How do you have such perspective?”

    He kept on writing. He went to film school, became a screenwriter and stand-up comedian. He writes more in a month than I do in a year, and he has an amazing attitude. Rarely is he discouraged. He loves to collaborate. He’s willing to pitch something, and then the next thing, and then the next. He has a wild imagination, he works hard, and he is now an extremely skilled writer. In fact, he’s top of my list of people to call when I’m stuck on a plot point, or I’ve written myself into a corner, or I can’t quite make a character land.

    This kid had the courage to do at thirteen something that took me four decades to try! Bravo, Noah, for recognizing that sharing art with the world makes us vulnerable and doing it anyway.

Five Things - June 17, 2024

Welcome to my blog titled “Five Things” where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can also follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things…

  1. First off, wishing a happy thirtieth birthday to our beautiful daughter-in-law, Leslie! We couldn’t have chosen a better partner for our son, or a kinder, lovelier person to join our family. Two days after her birthday, our third son, R.J. turns twenty-two. A while back I wrote a birthday post for him which you can read HERE, and all those sentiments still apply. He’s an amazing kid who is turning into an amazing adult, and we are so proud.

  2. A few reflections from Dallas Fan Expo… I’ve been signing books at these sorts of events for about seven years now, and I definitely feel all those seven years, mostly in my lower back! The weekend was exhausting, but it was also invigorating and inspiring to meet people who share a love of science fiction, fantasy, and pop culture. It was also fantastic to hang out with my bestie writer pals for an entire weekend. We filled the room for our panel, met dozens of aspiring writers and gamers, ate incredible bbq, and laughed until our faces hurt. All in all, it was another successful adventure, and we look forward to Chicago Fan Expo next year.

  3. Ray and I just spent a fun couple of weeks in Ohio. Yes, that’s correct, Ohio. Ray has cousins there we love to see, and we both used the convenient and easy John Glenn Columbus International Airport for travel. Even if this weren’t the case, this is one of those times when, because we are in our RV and we can’t always stay in the big, metropolitan areas, we have to find these cute little towns to drop anchor. Delaware, Ohio was just adorable, and the surrounding towns of Westerville and Dublin equally as charming. A good time was had by all!

  4. Yesterday, we visited Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. It was pretty cool to be standing in a place we all read about in our history books. With both feet in West Virginia, and while overlooking the exact spot where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac, you can throw a stone and hit Maryland on one side of the water and Virginia on the other. It’s a truly magical spot.

  5. Today we arrived in South Jersey, so we’re officially back on the East Coast! We’ll be darting up through New England later this week and then hanging out in little Rhody from mid-July until after Labor Day. We’re really looking forward to spending time with family and friends in the next few weeks! Happy almost summer everyone!

Five Things - February 12, 2024

Welcome to my blog titled “Five Things” where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. In addition, at the end of the blog, I’ll keep a running itinerary of our travel plans. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things…

  1. We’re in Palm Springs now, and wow this place is pretty! It’s mostly desert, but snow capped mountains ring the low, flat, sandy terrain, and the sky is just the brightest blue. Our National Park tour continued with a visit to Joshua Tree, and per usual, we were in awe. We’re only here for another week, and Ray is traveling for most of it, so we’re definitely planning a return trip!

  2. Did I mention my husband is traveling this week, so I will be all alone for Valentine’s Day? Please send pity and chocolate.

  3. It’s birthday season in our family, which is always fun, although I don’t think we’ll see any of the kids on their actual birthdays this year. Noah, kid #2 just turned 26, which is significant as this is the age when he gets kicked off our insurance policy. Adulting, as they are all learning, is sometimes not as much fun as it should be.

  4. However, one of the really fun things about having adult children is watching them pursue their passions and become these really cool, interesting people. Noah, the kid referenced above, is a stand-up comedian and writer. He was invited to perform at SXSW in Austin, Texas this March, and we’ve rerouted our trip to be there for the festival. So excited!

  5. I have another ‘sip and sprint’ virtual meet up tonight, and I’m really looking forward to it. As I explained on my last post, the idea behind a writing sprint is to block out any distractions and then write as much as you can in a short amount of time, which is how I’ve been structuring my writing time lately. I’m making good progress, but this kind of group enthusiasm, accountability, and encouragement is something I’ve missed since we’ve been on the road. These little get togethers with my future classmates also make grad school feel real. Just a few more months…

Our itinerary, subject to change:

February 2 - 16: Palm Springs, CA

February 16 - March 1: Las Vegas, NV

March 1 - March 4: Meteor Crater, AZ

March 4 - 8: Albuquerque, NM

March 10 - 17: Austin, TX

March 18 - April 5: Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX

April 5 - 12: Fredericksburg, TX

April 12 - 19: Hot Springs, AK

April 19 - 24: Ozarks, AK

April 24 - 28: Topeka, KS

April 24 - May 12: Kansas City, MO

May 8 - 23: Chicago, IL

May 23 -28: Wisconsin Dells, WI

“Not all those who wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien