February | 2012 | Blue Belle Books... a Blog by Author Sherrie Hansen

It’s been a busy weekend and I’m just now finding time to blog… I’m in Hudson tonight, at the parsonage, and we just returned from dinner at the home of some new friends from our church.

We started out the weekend having dinner with some old friends from Thompson, and seeing a movie – One for the Money – on a rare Friday evening off. In between, I worked a busy lunch hour at the Blue Belle Inn, then met up with my parents for a weekend trip to see our new home in Hudson. After dinner in Cedar Falls, they spent the night in the guest room at the parsonage and came to church with us this morning. I played the piano with the worship team. All in all, it’s been a great weekend – a nice balance of work and play, a good combination of old and new, and a pleasing mixture of entertaining and being entertained.

My husband and I have had an exciting start to our New Year… a new beginning in a new church in a new town. As I contemplate the release of my first inspirational romance, Love Notes, I feel a similar sense of anticipation. New characters in a new place in a new genre… a new beginning for me as an author, and a chance to engage new readers.

Like in my real life, in Love Notes, Hope is determined to preserve what has been, to keep her “old” life intact, to honor the legacy of her late husband, and Rainbow Lake Lodge. But unbeknownst to her, God has something even better waiting in the wings… something new… a surprise so delightful and unexpected, that it is almost unimaginable.

Sadly, we sometimes cling to the old, even when it is rusty and corroded and totally out-dated, or even bad for us, simply because it is familiar. Sometimes, if we want to experience the wonderful new things that God has designed with us in mind, we have to let go of the old.

It’s often said, there’s no reason to reinvent the wheel. But really, there is… what would our world be if we didn’t start over once in awhile, if we didn’t look to the future and move on?

My husband’s sermon this morning was about God’s covenant to Noah after the flood… a fresh start, a new beginning for the world, a promise of good and wonderful things to come… none of which would have happened if Noah hadn’t given up life as he knew it, built a humongous boat, gathered up a bunch of animals, and set sail on the biggest adventure of his life. What God was asking of him must have seemed crazy at the time. Thank God Noah was willing to take a leap of faith.

To new beginnings!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the “old days” this week. My bed and breakfast, the Blue Belle Inn B&B and Tea House, in St. Ansgar, Iowa, has been open for 20 years as of February 1st, which was also my 55th birthday. It’s definitely a time to think back, to remember what things were like those many years ago.

Memories are a funny thing. I learned in Childhood Psych that 90% of a child’s brain and 85% of their social skills and personality develop before they are 5 years old. Yet most of us have very few memories of anything that happened to us in this time period.

Some of my earliest childhood memories are sleeping out under the stars with my dad and my sister Becky, on the farm where we lived in Grand Meadow, Minnesota, when we were little. I can remember Marty Hedstrom, a teenager who worked for my Dad one summer, singing “Sherry Baby” to me and rescuing me from the bumblebees who were after me in the haymow of the barn where I used to play. I can remember standing next to my Great Grandma Matilda Paulson and my Grandma Victoria at First Baptist Church singing “Holy Holy Holy”. I can remember climbing on the school bus on the first day I went to school, the day my baby brother and sister were born, and the day my Grandpa Hansen died. Some of these experiences have already ended up in or certainly may one day find themselves into books I’ve written – in one form or another.

My 25 year old nephew and his pretty wife, Kayla, sang “Sherry Baby” to me this weekend at my birthday / anniversary party. What a flood of memories it brought back! Because I don’t have children of my own, my nieces and nephews are very special to me. I hope that I have made an impact on their lives as well, and that they will carry memories of me and the fun times we’ve shared at the Blue Belle Inn and our family gatherings with them long after I’m gone.

My 5, 7 and 10 year old nieces and nephews were at my party, too. The girls helped get people registered for the door prizes. The two youngest were waitress and waiter and helped clear plates and take them to the kitchen. They were very intense about collecting the dirty plates (Will you please hurry up and finish eating your food so I can take your plate?) and did their jobs well.

I will have to give them some tips next time I see them. (They had to leave early because it was past their bedtime.) Right before they left, the girls entertained us by singing our favorite song, “He Knows My Name,” while I played the piano.

My hope is that they will retain their memories of the very special night they shared with their old Aunt Sherrie at the Blue Belle Inn. Maybe one of them will blog about it one day when they’ve heard “Sherry Baby” played on the radio… er… computer.

Maybe it’s because I don’t have children, but it’s important to me that someone remembers that I’m not just Blue Belle Sherrie (the main hat I’ve worn for the past 20 years). I want someone to know and remember that I climbed Pike’s Peak when I was younger, that I learned to disco dance when I lived in Germany back in the late seventies at the height of the Saturday Night Fever era. I want someone to remember that I went to Wheaton College, and saw Michael Jackson’s Thriller concert at Mile High Stadium in Denver and spent a night at a Benedictine Monastery in Bavaria. And that I made the best Jaeger Schnitzel and Spaetzle noodles this side of the great pond.

I hope you have some sweet memories, too – perhaps something you’ve read in one of my books has evoked a recollection or brought tears to your eyes. I also wish for each of you someone who knows you and loves you enough to remember unique things about you.

Thanks for letting me be nostalgic on the occasion of my big birthday and anniversary. Andrew Lloyd Webber says it well…

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can dream of the old days
Life was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again.

And if you’re a child of the seventies like I am, I’m sure this song conjurers up the very thing it talks about…

Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind
Memories, sweetened through the ages just like wine

Quiet thoughts come floating down
And settle softly to the ground
Like golden autumn leaves around my feet
I touched them and they burst apart with sweet memories,
Sweet memories

Of holding hands and red bouquets
And twilights trimmed in purple haze
And laughing eyes and simple ways
And quiet nights and gentle days with you.

Some of my favorite memories – and ones that will almost certainly die with me, since all my friends from that era are my age or older – are of the 12 years I lived in Colorado Springs. During that time, I heard Amy Grant sing this song in concerts three or four times. From I Will Remember You…

Later on
When this fire is an ember
Later on
When the night’s not so tender
Given time
Though it’s hard to remember darlin’
I will be holding
I’ll still be holding to you
I will remember you

So many years come and gone
And yet the memory is strong
One word we never could learn
Goodbye
True love is frozen in time
I’ll be your champion and you will be mine
I will remember you

Being a writer, I’ve always thought that stories are the best way to share memories. I hope one day, you’ll read mine.