Brook & Me & Brooke

At 12:35 pm Saturday the plane landed at Cleveland-Hopkins, my neice Brook hopped off, and that was the start of our Beautiful Girlhood weekend. We went to the Coventry neighborhood of Cleveland to enjoy lunch at The Winking Lizard where my neice Mindy works, then on to Beachwood Place for shopping, and then we met Mindy and my daughter Brooke, for the movie "Blind Side." (loved it!) We topped the night off with pie at Baker's Square and then went to Brooke's new house to be the first ones to sleep there! Chris had a nice fire in the fireplace waiting for us and we recharged for the next day.
On Sunday we went to Eagleville Bible Church
which Brook really enjoyed. We had a delicious lunch and then hit the highway to get Brook to the Columbus airport (3+ hour drive) for her flight home!
But did Brook and I just drive and drive in endless monotony on Sunday afternoon?
No!
We had our own little writers conference!
She pulled out the book she's working on and read it to me. I can't give away the plot here--don't want her ideas stolen, but WOW is she a good writer! And no wonder--she showed me her report card full of A+'s. And I got to read her kindergarten memoir--"The Kindergarten Catastrophe" which displayed her people pleasing nature even when a booger-eating-plays-in- mud little boy asks her to pinch him.
Brook is also very confident and self-assured; she's a 'straight shooter.' I don't know if that's a trait of all Hastings women, but Brooke Christian (the 'other' Brooke of this weekend) and I truly appreciate that trait. Life is so much simpler when people honestly state their opinion when asked.
Case in point:
HIM: "Where would you like to go for dinner, darling?"
HER: "Oh, I don't care. Where do you want to go?"
HIM: "No, where do you want to go?"
HER: I said, "I DON'T CARE . . . Where do YOU want to go?"
HIM: I don't care.
HER: OK, let's stay home then, and eat leftovers.
HIM: Where would you like to go for dinner? . . .
HER: aaargh!
Got a little side-tracked by reality there.
Anyway, I enjoyed getting to know Brooklyn a little better. Although she's a great writer, she'd like to be an interior decorator when she gets out of college. I told her about my mom's cousin, Marcia Smart, who is an interior decorator.
Straight-shooter, loves interior decorating and good writing . . . Brook, Brooke and I are definately related!

WRITING UPDATE: Writing this week will be turkey-challenged but I've got to do it to stay on schedule. I want this manuscript done by the end of the year, so no slacking! Come January I want to move on to a blog for widows and knocking on doors for some speaking presentations.
Interesting aside: I saw dear Lenna Black at church on Sunday, and she, too is writing a book. (She's got some great topics and ideas and I'm excited about it for her! It's going to help A LOT of people!) We compared notes and I look forward to the mutual urging on!