Where did the weekend go?

My life seems to be set on fast forward lately. It's just zooming by. What happened to the weekend? Good news is that one child is slowly and steadily getting better, though she is still limp and tired. The other child is showing no signs of getting sick! Yippee!

On Saturday, I left R in charge of the kids and went to a conference put on by the Vancouver chapter of Romance Writers of America (which is a fabulous organization and I’m so glad I joined a year ago!). The guest speaker was bestselling author Debbie Macomber, and she had a lot of information on a variety of topics, from plotting to marketing. What I found interesting was that she kept mentioning God. She’s a devout Catholic and a number of the stories she told hinged on her faith. I haven’t read all of Debbie’s books but the ones I have read aren’t Christian books – they’re just sweet women’s fiction/romance novels. So one wouldn’t necessarily expect this level of religion in a presentation by this author. But it was fine. She had a lot of information to share about her life, and she wasn’t saying that being devoutly Catholic is the way to publishing success – though she obviously believes it helped her. She was simply sharing her life.

Which got me thinking about a recent conversation on an local hs support list about the upcoming BC homeschool convention, and whether too many of the speakers were Christian, and what sessions can rightly be labelled G for General as opposed to R for Religious. I think some people would say that even a workshop on grammar, which is put on by say, a traditional Mennonite leader, should be labelled R. Well, maybe, and maybe not. There have been similar online arguments on the secular Well Trained Mind lists about which materials are truly secular and which are not. There is a lot of grey in these issues and I’m not one to discard a resource simply because it mentions god. Mind you, for three years in a row I have gone to the HS Convention and held Rod & Staff Grammar - because everyone says it’s so good - in my hands, each time thinking that maybe I could use it after all. And each year I have to put it back because it’s just not appropriate for us. I know I’m going to do it again this year.

Bought a couple books at the writers conference. Write Away by Elizabeth George. I really like her mysteries and this is an opportunity to get in her brain and see how she does what she does. I also picked up Dating can be Deadly by Wendy Roberts who is a member of the Vancouver RWA. This is Wendy's debut book & it looks fun. Yay Wendy!