Life in Scribbletown Love Among the Sticky.

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I’m letting things slide. I don’t even know what that means, exactly – things sliding. Down a hill, maybe? If so, I reckon they are. Quietly and without a lot of dust. I’m here so rarely that the entire interface is different. That’s a little alarming.

I’m reading very few blogs lately but I’m reading other things. Things I’m not recording here. I’m not writing here but I’m writing other things. The Novel that Will Not Die. Which…is really not all that great of a story anymore. Or, rather, I think the story might have some merit in someone else’s hands. It’s depressing but I plug on. It’s a thing I can’t stop doing. Which is not the same thing as creating something worth READING. It’s just….well, some kind of obsessive need to DO. And there’s a much better one in the wings. Pinky swear.

What else? The garden’s going great guns despite a groundhog marauder. I’ve shored up the fence, built a blockade, and so far he’s not been able to penetrate it. I’ve been pulling up carrots and hoping the snow peas recover from being Mr. G’s dinner a week ago. He took out most of the lettuce which is regenerating (something I didn’t know it did! Learn something new every year, I do), and eat up most of the sunflowers. I hadn’t realized sunflowers were tasty. Now I know. I only really miss the big one with the thick stalk. That one hurt. I planted more seeds but it’s practically July almost so I don’t know if there’s still time for them to flower.

It’s been a cicada year – we were deluged with Brood II’s but now they’ve begun to die off and the evenings are quiet again. Sadly; I miss them already. I probably won’t live here 17 years from now to meet their offspring. Now I only hear the regular cicadas, which is still good but not the same.

And there are apples on the apple tree! If I get the ladder up in time, I might be able to pick some. Last year the crows took them all. I watched them, like a sporting event. They’d dive down and pick one, calling out to their friends about the free meal. More would come, dive, steal, fly off. You gotta give it to nature – it knows how to operate. I can only stand back and watch. Say “you’re welcome” and mourn the applesauce that never was.

Dusty’s busy in the kitchen making cheese straws all by herself. I cannot tell you how FULL of happiness I am that my daughter is cooking, without help or assistance, all on her own. Her idea. And she’s a good cook. And they smell delicious. Next week, we head for NYC! Adventures await. I am loving, loving, loving these children at these particular ages.

Speaking of which, J turns 9 on Sunday. After tomorrow, she’ll be a 4th grader. Remember when she was a teeny tiny thing? When I first starting blogging back when she was 8 weeks old? I do. It was yesterday and also a million years ago. One day, that girl’s gonna be famous. Mark my words.

I’ve been doing a lot of organizing and purging lately. Getting ready for the next chapter in my life. There’s a lot of stuff I’ve held onto, things I enjoyed revisiting before tossing them in the recycling bin (really, all those clipped articles from newspapers? I can find those again), and a tidy pile of things I must always keep. One of those piles contains photographs.

There was a time in my life – pre-motherhood – when I collected photographs of people I didn’t know. My favorites (and I’ve yet to find that group yet) are of small old timey children posing with their pets. There’s something wonderful about a vintage cat or goat, don’t you think?

Anyway. Here are five photos I found in a file. One of them is an actual family member. The rest are “strangers”. Can you pick out the relative? If you are related to me and read this, you cannot play this game.

One of these things is not like the others….

A new year, a writing shift….I haven’t completely abandoned this space yet but right now, it’s my fiction brain that’s working hard. Follow me on Tumblr: https://cbrookman.tumblr.com/

Well, I suppose I need to sum up 2012. I’ve lately felt here….a writer’s block of sorts, that feeling in the gut that I have to write an essay and I haven’t attended class yet. So, this will not be a stunning piece of poetry. Most of my insights will remain within. It was a good holiday, as those things go. Restful, illness-free (though Red’s under the weather today with an asthma-related something or other), with just the right amount of family togetherness and silence. I took not a single photograph of either Xmas Eve or Xmas Day. Chalk it up to having too much fun and distraction to grab the camera and force people to smile, I guess. I understand why I have so few Christmas photos from childhood apart from the staged torture of Christmas Card pictures.

I’ve been transferring numbers and notes and dates from the old calendar to the new, rather than attempt to go through a year’s worth of posts (Wanda? Who’s Wanda? And why did I have an appt to…OHH! Now I remember!), to find the highpoints. Here’s what I’ve got:

1. Pets. We’re down to one lizard but we gained two feisty and adorable guinea pigs. Santa brought them last year and though they’ve had to move into separate abodes, they’ve been enjoyable to have around. Pokey likes them too.

2. Travel. I did a bit of travelling this year. In April, I took Dusty and Red to DC during Spring Break. We had a blast. I could link to the post but I’m afraid if I make this too complicated and back-and-forthy, I’ll give up and just join my kids in the tv room to watch Despicable Me. So….if you need refresher, look up the posts in the beginning of April or search via the Washington DC tag. We met many historical celebrities at Madame Tussaud’s, ate pizza and discussed the merits of golf, walked our dogs off, and enjoyed in-room movies at the hotel.

After that, I went off to my writer’s retreat in the mountains and met a fabulous young British writer who was getting ready for the publication of her first novel (Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne) while furiously writing her next one.

I went off to Northern Virginia in June to speak at a professional conference and met up with a couple of friends. Went to the beach in July and then in October sped off to Austin for a fun whirlwind trip to visit Lass. All good.

3. Writing. Still working on this damn novel. I should really get a t-shirt with that on it. I’d wear it every day for the rest of my life until it fell off my body in rags. And it would never stop being true. It’s hard, this writing thing. And I’m trying to finish the current draft (number three, if you must know) before my next retreat in February. In May, I attended a yoga/writing workshop in the city and did another shorter workshop in Sept.

4. Personal. Well, a number of things aligned in my life this year that will help me move in a different direction in 2013. Much of which will be painful in the short-term but will hopefully lead to a happier, more content place. I began seeing a new counselor. I did The Artist’s Way book with a facebook group. I started Vein of Gold, Cameron’s next book, but ended up abandoning in half-way, right about when I was supposed to make a doll. Which….stymied me and then it was autumn and life was too busy to sit down and make one. And I say that with full understanding that I was purposely missing the point. I am hoping to begin that process again. Just not yet. TAW did help, got me thinking in different ways. I built a pen for the pigs one day in June. Nothing I did in this realm was for naught. A tarot card reading (self-administered) told me that. My gut, my instincts, the signs and portents all point in the same direction. My body began to change and my doctor is now officially calling my stage, “Early Menopause.” It’s good. I’m ready for it. I also found a new massage therapist who does reiki. His findings also jive with the other signs, which, considering he knew nothing about me going in, and to whom I’d said nothing of a personal nature, I find interesting. I’m going to start seeing him once a month. Even better: he knows someone who does past life regressions, something I’ve done in the past and which still fascinates me. So, that’s on the horizon for next year too.

The year brought sadness as well. I lost a good blogging friend, Turquoise (aka Violet White), who lost a battle with cancer. She was a patron of Dusty’s and I now have the cat Dusty made especially for her. I miss her but seeing the cat on my bookshelf….a little part of her is still here with me.

5. Dusty. My word. Dusty graduated from 5th grade and entered middle school with abandon, shedding much of her elementary interests, including Girl Scouts. Which meant that next year I will no longer be Cookie Mom, a role I had for four straight years. It was hectic and stressful but I liked it. It was a way to give back to the troop. Dusty’s now a Cadette, and earned her Bronze Award in 2012, but will slowly work on her Silver Award on her own as a Juliette, a troopless scout. She’s not sewing as much these days but still enjoys photography and making videos. She got her braces off just before Halloween and is now being constantly reminded to put her retainer on. She got a shiny red mountain bike for her twelfth birthday. I bought a rack for the car so next summer, the kids can ride their bikes around. She is glued to her iPod. And has a boyfriend. So….she’s slipping through my fingers. Or, rather, the girl she was has left the building but I’m seeing a happy, confident, though very private, young woman approaching. The change is exciting and frightening. She’s taken up the flute and will continue band next year. She’s no longer going to the Y’s after school program. Instead, she’ll just be taking the bus home to a sometimes-empty house. I trust her and I haven’t seen any reason to distrust her yet. Did I mention she has a boyfriend? God help me. Her big Xmas gift is a June 2013 trip to New York City.

6. Red. Red is consistently herself. She turned eight this year and is sassier than ever. Her interests have adjusted to match many of her sister’s – in terms of music, at least. She still believes in Santa, still enjoys her Barbies, but I’m detecting an end to that soon. This was the first Christmas I haven’t had to construct a Playmobil house. The first one with almost no toys at all. Her big gift was a new bed and a room re-do. That has turned out very well. She’s very pleased with her more grownup room in which there’s more space for her to move around.

These children are growing up very fast all of a sudden.

7. House stuff. I refinanced our mortgage and changed to a different (and cheaper) home insurance so 2013 should mean a bit more money in the bank. I finally had the living room redone (taking some of that savings). The work was done while we were at the beach and we came home to a lovely floor (bye nasty pink carpet!) and a newly painted room and fireplace. We left 1978 and came home to 2012. I also replaced two dreadful junk sofas with two “new” ones. Feels like home after 10 years in this house. Classed up the joint.

8. Driving Around. Sold the Passat (got 180k miles on the thing before I had to shoot it) and bought a shiny 2005 Subaru Outback (with, uh, 143k miles on it). I love it though it seems to be a deer magnet. I’ve never seen so many cross the road in the evening! I think the car’s got a cloak of invisibility around it or something. Lucikly, the thing I did hit was not a deer. I never saw any evidence of it later so it’ll remain a mystery. I think dog. My mechanic thinks coyote. I think he’s nuts.

9. Culture. Took the kids to see the Symphony’s Peter and the Wolf this fall. It was a lot of fun and not too long for Red, who always worries that any public event will be “long” and also “boring”. It was neither. So I bought tickets to see Sheherazade in February. Once again, my dad took them to see The Nutcracker just before Christmas.

As for next year, plans include speaking in March in Pittsburgh at a conference and possibly reprising it in Baltimore in August. Spring break trip will be to Natural Bridge, Foamhenge and all kitschy touristy things in the mountains. We’ll stay in a cabin in the woods. I hope to finish this novel so I can work to sell it and start working on something else. My only hope for the near future is that the imminent changes will bring only good, positive things. I hope my kids remain happy and healthy and confident, able to weather any storm that hits them. It’s still not easy being a woman in this world but I hope to heck their journey is slightly easier than mine has been and that I can continue to be the best mom possible to them. Really, there’s nothing else I need or want than that.