Once again, a Writing 101 challenge. Today’s topic: My worst fear.
I’m sure I’ve written about this before, but my worst fear is that I’ll die before my kids are grown up. My memories of my mom are fragmented; sometimes I remember things that don’t seem possible, and other times I recall things with crystal clarity.
But mostly, I don’t remember. I don’t remember very much about my childhood before my mom died. I would really, really hate for my kids to say the same. I’ve always worried about it, which is why I stayed at home with Bubbles the first two years of his life.
We’ve been doing a lot of work on houses lately. Last weekend (not this past weekend, but the one before it, the weekend of Father’s Day) we painted our old house because our deal fell through and people who’d looked at it before thought it was too much work to fix (although what’s so hard about hiring someone to side it once you’ve bought it is beyond me).
What prompted this sudden outpouring of…um…incredulity? Well, a friend of mine shared a link to a Scary Mommy post on Facebook this morning. I read it, I laughed, and then I clicked on a related article on the same site called 
When I was twelve, I lived in a two-story red house on the corner of Pine Street and Main. The local Pioneer was across the street to the north, and we had a huge back yard. At least, I thought it was huge. Then again, I thought the house was huge, too. Trees filled the yard, and flower beds existed in various states of decay. They weren’t the only things in that state.
My mom hated that color – she wanted me to pick something a shade darker, but I loved it. It was better than the ugly shade of blue that matched my parents’ bedroom, and a heck of a lot better than 
So for the Writing 101 Day Ten post, I’m supposed to write about my favorite food, and do it in my own voice. But everything I write is in my own voice, so what does that even mean? I mean, I have different voices, obviously – there’s the voice I use with my kids, the voice I use with my kids when they’re in trouble, the voice I use when I’m talking to other adults, the voice I write novels in (and that changes depending on the story), the voice I write blog posts in, the voice I write my diary in…
Today’s challenge was to go somewhere public and write a detailed report of what we see without using any adverbs. I’m not sure I succeeded on eliminating all my adverbs, but the following is what I can see through the front door of my office. It’s a pretty sight, and I hope you enjoy it as well.
The day four assignment for Writing 101 was to write about a loss. I’ve had a lot of loss in my life, from my parents and grandparents to my first marriage and more. Loss is part of life, though not necessarily the most fun part. And sometimes, what we gain more than makes up for what we’ve lost.
I no longer have the luxury of privacy, because Cricket and Thumper believe me to be their servant, created solely to give them whatever they want five minutes ago. Apparently when I became a mother, I also became a clairvoyant genie. Who knew?
Suddenly they all died. The end. 