Sunday Sound Out

From Chicago, where it's apparently never going to stop snowing, it's your host, the woman who went inline skating for the first time in 17 years and lived to tell the tale, Dawn Damalas Meehan!

Nice job on the cakes! Is Rapunzel's tower made out of cake? Because how on earth did it not topple over?

Whenever I have to make structures like that, I either use Rice Krispie treats or styrofoam to avoid a cake landslide. Although you can do a lot with cake if you support it well.

How did you do the bricks?

I rolled out the fondant, pressed a brick mold into it, and put the fondant on the cake. Then I dipped my finger in red and brown color and lightly brushed it over the bricks. Voila!

When are we going to see pics of your bathroom redo?

What? You (gasp!) skim my blog??? No soup for you!

BTW, the friend's shoe is in between the mattress and boxspring of your youngest child's bed. I don't know why it's there either. Like you, I stopped asking.

Nope. Actually we found it outside on the driveway behind my car in the snow. I have no idea. None of us even went outside!

Manuscript? Are you writing another book? I just finished your new one and LOVED it. SO much.

Awww, thank you. I did some rewriting on Because I Said So and it's going to be re-released by Simon & Schuster later this year.

Did you know that you were mentioned in this New York Times article?

Yeah, Lisa Belkin mentioned me on The Motherload last week. Gee, I'm glad I didn't have a stupid post up about not knowing what to write when 10,000 potential new readers ventured over here. I'm sure all those people will come back to read again. I mean, it's not like I scared them away with a picture of a decapitated doll head in my fridge or anything.

After reading about your ex and your inlaws calling dcfs on you I have to ask you a question-maybe for the Sunday sound off? How did you know when you had had enough? How did you know when your marriage was not going to be able to work? As someone who has alcoholics in my life I am just wondering how you know that enough is enough. I know in previous posts you mentioned that things had been difficult for years and I am wondering why did you stay then and what finally made you leave. I know these are really personal questions so ignore this comment if you want and know that I will still be a reader of your blog.

I stayed for the kids. And then one day, he dragged the kids into his lies. And that was the last straw. I realized it was no longer in the kids' best interest. And since then, he's made one poor decision after another. Decisions that have hurt my kids and hurt himself. Decisions that he can never take back. Decisions that have assured me that I did the right thing by saying "enough".

(And how much is the [library] fine for one year -- that must be a lot!

Nooo, the movie wasn't out for a year. I'd returned it long ago. The $4 fine was just sitting there on my account for a year. It's not like I'd had The Tropic of Cancer out since 1971.

How did you develop a thick skin or did you always have one? My problem is I know judgmental and mean spirted comments would keep me up at night obsessing about it. I know you rarely comment on them and you don't let the negative people keep you from just being yourself. Everyone tells me to write a book, a blog, or something but I really think the fear of being criticized holds me back. I would love to just let it roll off my back and just stay true to myself. I have always admired the way you handle that. I wasn't sure if you learned this over time or you just had a thick skin to begin with.

I don't have thick skin at all! Far from it. I used to cry buckets when I'd get a negative comment. It didn't matter how many positive comments I got; they faded away in the face of one single negative one. At some point, however, I realized that I had to change the way I looked at things. The negative comments are almost always from an anonymous person; an anonymous person who knows very little about what they're saying; an anonymous person who takes the tiny bit I share and makes huge assumptions. My friend Kelli always reminds me that wounded people wound people. When I started looking at it like that, I felt sorry for the commenter instead of angry at them. I mean, how would you like to be so filled with negativity that you feel the need to lash out at a stranger for no particular reason? It would suck.

At a Christian writers' retreat this past fall, Jennifer Degler led a devotion about how we eat up the compliments like Oreos. But when we put so much stock in what others think, we then choke on the negative comments like a rotten ole banana peel. Her talk was great and really spoke to me. I'm not writing to get everyone's approval. That's impossible. Not even the best writers on earth will get everyone's approval. I only need the approval of One.

I still hate to get negative comments. But I no longer cry or lose sleep over them. In fact, I have my own special hate mail form for them HERE.

How many people visit your blog everyday? Everytime I see your map, it is loaded with red dots visiting your blog...!!!

At least 2 or 3.

Okay, go forth and have a wonderful week and remember to be excellent to each other! (I've gotta stop quoting TV shows and movies from the 80s.)