I have several different thought lines running at the moment. Here’s an update to keep me clear.

In regards to the mysterious figure in the 9th Station at my church, Our Lady of Hope, in Potomac Falls, Virginia, I got in touch with the Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg. A researcher there kindly took my phone call, looked at the photos I provided, and said, “Hmmm.  Yes. I can see why you think this is Saint Elizabeth.” That was fun. She said she would get in touch with some of the order up in New York and see if they had any helpful commentary. She shared other fascinating tidbits about the family, including that Samuel Seton, who was related to Elizabeth somehow, was the Superintendent of Schools in the middle to late 1800’s. The only source of information about him is somewhere in New York where they are VERY fussy about sharing. Still, sooner or later I will try something there.

I also looked up Sacred Spaces, LLC in Arlington, VA. That should be the company that restored the original plaster stations, and then did fiberglas replicas for us. They are no longer in Virginia. Some portion of them may have moved to Charlotte, New Carolina but I ran out of time to keep chasing them down. However, I got a name. Mike Corrigan was running it twenty years ago. So that might help. And the name in Arlington now takes you to a Yoga studio. So you are warned.

I have ordered a proof copy for my new book. That means that I think there are no more mistakes, but I’m going to look at a physical copy and make sure. (There will be mistakes.) The book will go up on Amazon, both paperback and Kindle, probably right after Christmas. Before I got to this point, I changed the name back and forth (from Jessamyn to Jessamyn’s Yarn) and then forgot to make sure my Kindle files matched. I also woke up in a cold sweat one morning, having dreamed that I had used two different names for a character on the same page. Well, I had! Fixed that! And I forgot to include my URL or that of my cover artist. Fixed that!

I learned a good bit about the word processing program I am using, called Scrivener. Scrivener can turn out a reasonable ebook file on its own. Last time I moved everything over to Pages and made both paperback and ebook from there. So, a step forward.

I helped out with a play about Our Lady of Guadalupe, on her Feast Day, which was Tuesday of this week. In the space of nine days I made eight costumes, one of which had to be revised three times. Most of the time a costume should not have sleeves that are six feet long, and a torso that is two feet long. The reverse is better, especially if the ‘child’ is 6’4” tall. Our Lady had a turquoise satin cloak with gold stars, and a pink dress tied with black ribbon. Random others had random stuff to wear, along with two cloaks for Juan Diego, one with a picture and one without. Also, I threw away my seam ripper at the end of this marathon. It’s meant to slice through threads, not be an asset for breaking them by brute force. I found a sharper one to replace it. The play was darling, but the timing was not what I would have chosen relative to my writing. Oh, well. 

Speaking of writing, I’m trying to finish a short story and submit it to someone for publication. I expect to be turned down. Then I can concentrate on Christmas with a clear deck.

My daughter-in-law found a Christmas tree farm that is still open for cut-your-own and hopefully we will find a tree this Saturday… I hope other people are more prepared than I. 😉