Today I’m thankful for…

November 22, 2016Leave a comment

It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is in just a couple of days. Surely it was only New Year’s last week?

At any rate, I’d like to take the rest of the week to write about things I am thankful for, and today, I’m thankful for friends, both old and new. I’m lucky enough to have a few old friends, people I’ve known since I was Thumper’s age (which is to say, five), people who’ve seen me through many a rough patch in life as well as many a happy day. Friends like them don’t come around often, and while it’s crazy – not to mention slightly scary – to think that we’ve been friends for almost thirty years, I’m beyond glad to know that some friendships can survive just about anything that life throws our way.

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I’m also thankful for Facebook and MySpace (the old version – may it rest in peace) for allowing me to reconnect with old friends I’ve lost track of over the years. If not for MySpace, I’m not sure I’d have reconnected with one old friend so soon and if not for Facebook, there are quite a few dear friends who would have likely remained confined to memories. I reconnected with one such friend over the weekend, and I am so excited to meet up with her Friday and catch up in person. Yay! 😀

I’m also thankful for blogging and social media in general for allowing me to make so many new friends, friends I would never have met without the internet. The Alliance of Worldbuilders, the Ink Slingers’ League, and the Cheer Peppers are just some of the friends I’m lucky to have made in the last several years, and there are many more out there.

What about you – what are you thankful for?

Tinkering: Life Edition

November 14, 20161 Comment

life If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers. But then, if wishes were horses, well, beggars could ride. And you know what?

I have no idea what any of that is supposed to mean.

I get the wishes and horses and beggars bit. But what have pots and pans to do with tinkering? I’m more likely to tinker with other things when I know I have pots and pans waiting for me in the kitchen.

Also, I have no idea why these two proverbs popped into my head when I opened up WordPress today. Of all the things to write about, why these?

Nerves

November 10, 2016November 10, 20161 Comment

Have you ever watched the days bleed?

They do, you know.

They bleed, one into another into another, week after week, month after month, year after year. Seconds bleed into minutes bleed into hours bleed into days. Each of them crushing in their weight.

This is my thirty-second year of watching days bleed into months, of watching seasons bleed into one another so that you can no longer tell where one ended and the other began. It’s my thirty-second year of watching leaves fall into snowflakes, of watching dead brown grass bleed back to life and then to death once more. It was supposed to be a magical year, full of all the good things I could possibly imagine.

It was supposed to be frightfully wondrous.

But instead…

Favorite moments

November 7, 20164 Comments

Yesterday was not a stellar day. I was grumpy. I don’t know why I was grumpy, but I was, and it seems to have carried over into today as well. Then again, today is Monday, and if that’s not reason enough to be a little grumpy, then I don’t know what is.

Anyway.

Yesterday afternoon, we stopped in at Staples while we were out running errands. I could spend a small fortune there, if I had one to spend, but I behaved myself yesterday and confined my purchases to two. One of them I’m already regretting – it’s a file folder, one with multiple pockets for storing lots of things. I bought it to keep Bubbles’ school things in, mementoes of each grade he’s completed. The problem is that I can’t fit everything in it. I can’t even fit all his preschool stuff in it, and it’s not that there’s a lot of it, it’s just big. Really big. His first grade folder alone is probably bigger than the file folder I bought to put it all in.

Maybe I should have invested in a box.

Anyway.

The other thing I bought was a journal. I really don’t need another – I have two or three that I haven’t filled yet at home, plus a whole shelf full of ones I have filled – but this one called to me. It’s called “Favorite Moment a Day” and that’s all there is to it. Each page is lined. There’s room at the top for the date, and then it says, “Today’s Favorite Moment:” with plenty of room to write.

Or at least, there might be plenty of room to write if I’d have printed instead of writing in cursive. People always remark about how small my writing is, but my printing is even smaller than my cursive.

Anyway.

I thought it would be a good purchase because it’s small enough to carry around in my purse, and I want to start looking for the good in each day. If I have a place to write down some of that good, maybe it will start to outweigh the bad I seem to focus on so easily. For instance, despite yesterday’s lack of stellar-ness, I did have a pretty awesome moment…

Writing

September 27, 2016119 Comments

I haven’t been writing, and I miss it.

I’ve watched TV. I’ve read blogs. I’ve come up with a thousand brilliant ideas that quickly vanished into the ether. I’ve played a lot of Pokémon Go (Go Team Mystic!).

But I haven’t been writing, and it’s left a void.

Getting back in the habit is…

Back when

September 17, 2016September 13, 2016Leave a comment

Identity is a tricky thing, always changing. Identity can shift at a moment’s notice, or over a span of years. I think back on all the things I am and all the things I’ve been. I wonder about all the things I’ll someday be, or if I’ll be able to reclaim the girl I was back when.

I’m a mother, I’m a lover,
A chef, a referee,
I’m a doctor and a chauffeur seven days a week.

Back when I knew it all, I was going to be a famous writer before I turned thirty. I’d be critically acclaimed and make a fortune and not need a day job. I’d work as a medical transcriptionist for a few years, until I hit it big, and then I’d quit the day job to write for a living.

It’s the hardest gig I’ve known,
I work my fingers to the bone.
Yeah, the dishes and the diapers never stop.
Lousy pay,
There ain’t no 401(k).
I know this may come as a shock,
But this here’s a full-time job.

Back when I knew it all, I was going to…

A letter to my son

August 23, 20163 Comments

Today, I send my darling baby boy out into the big, wide world. Next year his little brother, Thumper, will follow him, but I don’t want to think about that just yet. For now, I’m just trying to get through today…

Dearest Cricket,

I cannot believe you’re starting kindergarten today. It seems like only yesterday that we brought you home from the hospital, home to the proudest big brother and sister this family has ever seen. It seems like only yesterday that you started walking, started talking, started sleeping through the night.

It seems like only yesterday, but of course, it wasn’t.

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It was six years, one month, and twenty-six days ago. Hardly yesterday, and yet it doesn’t seem like it was so very long ago. How the time flies!

You looked so grown up this morning as you headed out the door in your new school clothes. Your rockin’ Ninja Turtle backpack looked almost as big as you as we walked down the driveway to meet the bus, and your hand in mine felt so very small.

But I know you’ll be fine. You’re in good hands. You have a fantastic teacher and a wonderful school, and I know you’ll have fun. I know you’ll talk my ear off when I pick you up tonight. I hope you’ll stay excited about school, because today is the first of many first days for you, my boy, and I hope they’ll all be as much fun as this day. I hope you’ll make lots of new friends, the kind that will stay with you for thick and thin through the rest of your life.

Most of all, I hope you’ll never forget that no matter how old you are, you will always be my little Cricket. I love you, buddy.

Love,

Mommy

How did you handle your kids leaving for school?

Nothing – or something?

May 24, 2016May 23, 201610 Comments

I’ve got nothing.

For the last few weeks, every time I sit down to write a post, my mind goes blank. As white as the screen at which I’m staring.

For the last few weeks, every time I sit down to work on revisions, my mind goes blank. As white as the pages I’d hoped to fill.

I’ve got nothing.

When my husband asks what I’m thinking, I say, “Nothing.”

And it’s true.

I’ve got nothing.

I sit and stare into space as seconds become minutes become hours become days. Not a thought flickers in my mind as I watch dust bunnies frolic in the sun streaming through my window. Everything I want to say, all the stories I want to tell, all the characters I want to bring to life – they yell and scream and clamor for attention, but all I hear is the dull insect drone of a thousand voices talking at once, and even that finally fades away into silence.

And I’ve got nothing.

I’ve got nothing but hopes and dreams and an ever-growing to-do list. I’ve got nothing but a sense of time wasted and a never-ending headache from all the things I’ve left undone. I’ve got nothing but apologies for my family and my readers and my friends.

I want to have it all.

But instead, I’ve got nothing.

Something tells me I will never have it all, despite what I see on TV every day. Something tells me it’s not possible to have it all, despite what I see on TV every day. Something tells me I’ll stop wanting to have it all, because of what I see on TV every day.

So instead, I’ll focus on having something instead of nothing. Because what I’ve got is plenty. And this zombie state will pass. Eventually.

Right?

Right.

But until it does, the posts here may be few and far between. Don’t worry, though – I’ll be back soon. I love blogging too much to let this place go quietly into the dark of night, especially when the light of day is so warm and inviting. 🙂

In the meantime, how have you been lately? Tell me about everything going on with you – I may not have much to say, but I’ve got plenty of time for listening!

Home

March 7, 2016March 7, 20166 Comments

That’s me on the bottom right. Thank goodness high-water pants haven’t made a comeback.

Home is where your story begins.

My story began in a modest red house on a quiet corner in a small town. But nothing stays the same for long, and when my little sister arrived a couple years later, that quiet corner became considerably less quiet.

And so it goes.

Many years (and even more plot twists) later, I left that modest red house with its white garage and its yard full of trees behind me as I ventured out into the world. Eventually, I decided that I wanted to go back to that little red house on the corner, but it was too late. I was too grown up.

Maybe you can’t go home again, but you can always take it with you.

You can’t go home again.

So I made my own home. Several times over, in fact. And while I think it’s true that you can’t go home again, that’s only because I believe that home is something we carry with us wherever we go. Home is in our memories. Home is in the way we look at the world. Home is the way we treat others.

Home is a state of mind, a way of being, a feeling that can’t be taken away.

When I think of home, I think of the warmth of my grandma’s kitchen. I think of the hustle and bustle that went into family get-togethers. I remember the after-dinner tea and cookies, and how all of those things came together the morning after my second wedding as we all congregated in the kitchen of my new home.

Home is family. Home is friends.