K.M. Updike's Blog, page 5

Winter Souls | Personal Blog

The best thing about being an artist is that there are so many ways you can do what you love. Especially when your siblings ask you for favors.

In January my big 'lil bro asked me to take some pictures for him. We get around to it about this time every year, we're just a couple of winter lovers. Maybe it will make you smile, because when he smiles I can't help but smile, too. There needs to be more people like that.

Meet Joseph: 
Pun King
Civil Engineering Student
Doesn't do the "short thing". Ever.
Goes at life whole-hearted
6'5"
Manly Man
Writer/Poet
My Brother


Love,    Kayla

A Yarn For the Day

It's an old thing with me and Daddy. Killing flies. And fly swatters. You'd set me on your shoulders when I was two and we'd walk around the house in summer, killing flies on the ceiling. You taught me what to say after the sharp SLAP and a fly tumbling through the air to the floor.You still say it to me sometimes when you're on the hunt for them. And for old time's sake, I say it, too, after I've gotten one. "Got-im! Got-im!"

I can see this mini us walking all over a house, my hands on top of your head, through your hair, saying it. SLAP. "Got-im!" SLAP. "Got-im!" 
And when I was little, and we were moving, all kit and kaboodle from Cali, I was impossible for you and wouldn't go to sleep. You resorted to the only thing you could. In the hotel room at night, with mother worn out, you'd grab me and wrap both arms around me and hold me tight and wouldn't let me move till I fell asleep.

It became sort of a habit with us. I don't remember, but we've got pictures. Pictures that are old and 90s, and me with short brown curls, and you still had your hair. You'd call to me at bedtime, when we were traveling half way across America, and you'd wrap me tight in your arms, and I fell asleep like that. In nothing but your warmth and your arms, and all your showing me how much you loved me.
I love you that much, too. 

Love,
    Kayla

5 Inspiring Things For Your Weekend

Dear You,
How has your week been?In truth, we've been run a little into the ground. Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes it helps you get up a little bit slow, a little bit weary.Sometimes you just need/wish someone, something would pick you up.It's okay. Here's just a little love coming your way.
Love, Kayla
This beautiful Psalm sung in ancient Hebrew?I can't get over how real this feels.Kind of brings God's word into a whole different light?



This history making Riverdance still making history today.
Still giving shivers, still giving thunderous applause.



 Why does this make one so happy?



May is Holocaust Remembrance Month.
Andre Rieu plays a beautiful memorial.



What happened to the glorious days when the soaring, sweeping musical scores took you away?


http://chasingmyhat.tumblr.com/post/142281263963/jacindaelena-greenland-by-nicola-abraham 
Maybe we can just slip away and spend a few quiet moments here?
Even if it's across the globe.

Happy Mother's Day

And my favorite thing about you?
How you were there with us everyday.
How you taught me to read and didn't leave such an important little task up to a stranger who probably wouldn't really have understood the importance of it anyway.

How you started your own revolution, the first in your family, against the flow of the grain. And how you did it because you were obeying God. It was so simple a revolution, too, and powerful. And you never mistook it for something menial.

You stayed home. The most courageous kind of brave in a world that's been pulling us out of homes since forever and degrading us. You gave up dreams you'd nursed for years and the most precious thing given to man: time. Your time. Because what is more precious than time given away for the arrows who will one day be the world?

And you still give your time, though we're ungrateful and thank you too often without showing our thanks.

Yeah, I reckon it's my favorite thing about you. Also that you love to read. You don't often find a mom with her nose stuck in a book in literature and fiction, so I think you're pretty unique, how you read all the time. Fiction and non.

I don't always understand you. But we're alike, you know?
I like talking books with you and folding laundry. We should do that more.

Love, Kayla

Happy Mother's Day 

Irreplaceable Beauty | Mundane Monday

She doesn't really believe how a noisy house full of kids, a table piled with school books, and the smallest kitchen I've ever seen can be beautiful. How just a couple of tea cups steaming, shared by friends can make the chilliest days steeping with warmth.
    
It's hard to make her understand that dining room walls tacked with alphabet posters and president's faces mean love and care and time spent well. How homemade banana bread slathered in butter offered on a paper plate is hospitality of the dearest kind. How this life, the things we give away—it's all this irreplaceable, unholy beauty.     

Light on refrigerators, marked up calendars and kid-made magnets, there, unashamed and lovely—irreplaceable gift, unrepeatable beauty.

It's the things given away, even when things are few, that hold the most beauty.

Love, 
   Kayla

5 Inspiring Things For Your Weekend

Going here someday, and this shall be my soundtrack.

Because there's nothing more rich than sharing what you have.

This duo knows what it meant, reminds us what it all meant, and why it meant so much.

Kindred spirits.


The world's in such a hurry with action movies, careers, parties, life.
Maybe we can slow down and just listen to the silence?

Have a hopeful, blessed weekend.
Love,
    Kayla

Broken Beauty | Mundane Monday

The hard part's just living. Blown by winds 'til you feel the colors have been ripped clean out of life. You bend low, near to breaking, and how can this be beautiful? This life smelling of war and rage, and burning dreams—lost jobs and no money in the bank account, unpaid hospital bills and cars that won't start. Broken windows, crying, hungry children, and how is this supposed to be holy?

 I hear you. And the blackened sorrow of it all.

The beauty is in what you make of it. Because all beautiful things are a result of the ugly. The beauty is in what you make of the ugly. 

I can cry and I can wail and say, “Life's not fair.” But you cannot make something beautiful by returning ugly for ugly. It's all in what you make of it, how you look at it. For every good thing, there's a thousand ways to make it ugly. But for each ugly thing, there's a thousand ways to see the beauty.

Love,
     Kayla

5 Inspiring Things For You Weekend

Leon Trotsky, everyone.

http://chasingmyhat.tumblr.com/post/142915159873/mymodernmet-stunning-aerial-shots-of-icelands Iceland. Maybe we can put this on our bucket list?

Maybe the best way to fall asleep? With a smile on your face?

The best part about life is being there for someone to help stop the nightmares.


Orphans singing this? Children singing this? I'd never seen anything like this.MatsikoChoir.com

Because God is good,
Kayla

What I Learned From My Goodreads Giveaway (The Results of My Goodreads Giveaways)

Goodreads Giveaways.
I'd heard of them.
I'd even heard good things about them.
I'd even heard that every author should do some Goodreads Giveaways. I'd heard this often.
But when I thought about doing it - meh.
Until I actually did one.

Blew my mind, it did.
I set up the first giveaway and wasn't going to get my hopes up. I checked the numbers the morning after it started, fully expecting to find that no one had entered.
My mouth dropped open in shock. Over a hundred people had entered the giveaway.
And 59 people had added my book to their To-Read list.
Me, a first time independent author, MY book. People wanted to read MY book.
I coudn't believe it.
I had a very, very good week.

Giveaway #1 
Total entries: 827
Total books added: 233
Followers: 12

Giveaway #2 
Total entries: 862
Total books added: 427
Followers: 22

Giveaway #3 
Total entries: 949
Total books added: 610
Followers: 26

To all you lovely writers and authors out there, don't be afraid to try a Goodreads giveaway. It actually works!

Things to do before you start a giveaway:

1. Write the best book description you can
2. Get the best cover you can, this can truly make the difference
3. Put in the giveaway description that you're giving away a signed copy of your book, this is a great incentive

I think all of these things helped in some little way. I know there are much bigger giveaways with bigger results, but this one exceeded my expectations so I count it a success.

Love, Kayla
Available for $0.99 on Kindle

Dear Charlie | Mundane Monday

Dear Charlie, 

It's snowing today.

All the green tufts of grass are now tufts of white all over the backyard. But there are puddles still, and trails of water from all the rain.

Leaves are popping out all over the trees, and I've been watching the buds on the lilacs for more than a week now, searching for a blossom. But I suppose they knew better than I and are safe, tucked away in their buds until the weather gets warm again.

It's kind of a knock-back, this snow. I'd so been loving spring this year, the warmth, the sunlight. I couldn't believe this snow when I woke up this morning. But it wasn't like I hadn't been expecting it.










And already the snow is melting, and I've just got to believe that even the cold deadness of winter will somehow aid in the green life of spring.

It's like the goodness out there, I guess. We've just got to believe it will bloom, even from under a blanket of hurt and depression. And like Mama says, "The snow's just disappearing . . . right before your very eyes."

It's like this, if you look close enough, there's something always blossoming beneath that makes the winter worth weathering.

Love, Kayla