Sandra Rose Hughes

I have been considering what to write in this post for a long time. It is my 100th post, after all. Unfortunately, with a yearbook deadline looming, the beginning of play rehearsals starting, and being smack in the middle of house-building insanity, I don't have much creativity left in me. So today I will leave you with two random things. 1. The first is a picture of my house at its current unfinished stage. This house is the reason why we live on 1/3rd of our income. It is the reason why we have been living in a 30 foot trailer for almost 4 years now. It is the reason why my husband and his father have been busy every weekend and every evening for the past 9 months. It is the reason why I have gained 10 pounds in the past 4 years and my husband has lost 10. It is 2400 square feet of glorious living space that we paid for with ready money. It is our ticket to a debt-free, mortgage-free, nobody-owns-us-not-even-our-jobs lifestyle. I am more than a little proud of this house. This ho...

Usually, I am the one facing rejection when it comes to my writing and other new things I try, but this week the shoe was on the other foot. We had auditions for our spring show this year, and I had to choose between my little darlings. Their bright little faces were so enthusiastic about auditioning for the show, and when I told them it was a funny murder mystery about an old family curse in a castle in Scotland, their little eyes got big and I could tell they wanted in the show SO BADLY. Alas, there were only 11 parts, and at least 20 kids showed up to try out. It is very hard to be the rejector. I posted the list this morning, and tried not to look out my window and see their little faces droop. When I was in high school, I had directors who would refuse to even come to school on the days where casting or honor choirs were announced. Thankfully, most of my kids are mature enough not to throw a fit or anything like that, but I think many of them went home with a heavy heart today. Ah...

2010: A writer’s year in review Last year around this time, I had high hopes for my writing in 2010. I was going to write a page every day. I was going to get my poetry published again, and I was going to finish writing my second children’s book and keep revising the first. As the song goes, “You don’t always get what you want…but sometimes, you get what you need!” I did not succeed in writing a full page a day. However, I did write a whole lot more than I had the year before. I did get two poems published in literary magazines and I was published in our local newspaper a few more times. I even won a local poetry competition! I started this blog, and had a wonderful time trying out new poems and ideas with a truly supportive blogging community. I made more friends than I ever expected to, and I have had a wonderful time reading other people's experiences with writing and publishing. I discovered that grief can both inspire writing and bring it to a grinding halt. I learned a lot a...