As my whimsy takes me

The Family Portrait

2012-03-08T19:58:00.000-05:00

The bored young thing with the drink in her hand drifted to a stop in front of the massive fireplace. She stared up at the painting above it. The young man who had been lounging on a sofa, equally bored despite the party going on about both of them, rose and joined her in looking at it.

“What do you think of it?” He leaned on the mantle of the useless monstrosity of a fireplace. It made no sense to have it in this house, in this climate. He’d spent his life there, looking at the picture, but he’d never actually seen a fire in it. The girl was pretty, though.

“It’s fascinating. A slice of life, so plebian... not the sort of thing you see done in oils.”

“True. But Grampa commissioned it to always remind the family where we’d come from. Where we could go back to if we weren’t wise in business.”

“I think it’s charming in a post-modern way. What is it called?”

“Tuck Lisenbee scratches off a lottery ticket inside the Save & Sak convenience store in Billy Goat Hill, Alabama.”

She turned and looked at him, her brilliant blue eyes sparkling. “Enough about the origins, what do you do?”

He smiled down at her. “Shall we go lounge by the pool and I’l tell you if you’ll tell me?”

She took his arm, laughing, and they left the portrait of the poor redneck trying his luck... and winning.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Lance challenged me with "Tuck Lisenbee scratches off a lottery ticket inside the Save & Sak convenience store in Billy Goat Hill, Alabama." and I challenged jahedgepath with "Write a horror piece with rainbow balloons and a monkey in it. "

Battle's Aftermath

2011-12-01T11:01:00.000-05:00

Bes opened his eyes and looked up. “Aduro.” he whispered unseeing, then closed his eyes again. Linn started to cry. He was terribly wounded, his gut open to the moonlight. She didn’t know what an immortal could take, and his power... she focussed. Instead of a flare she could barely stand to look at, he was flickering faintly with white.

Linn held her hands over the worst wound and bit her lips. Blackie lowered his nose to touch her crossed hands. A flare of pink mixed with blue erupted from them and arced into Bes’ body. Linn whimpered. Even with Blackie, that had hurt.

Bes opened his eyes again. This time he was focussing. He stared up at them for a minute. Linn realized it was too dark for him to see her face. She slid Lambent out of her sheath and into her lap. The glow reflected off her face and she leaned over him, trying to smile.

“Bes?”

His eyes widened. “What the hell...” He bit out. Linn flinched.

“It’s me.” She told him hesitantly. Blackie licked his cheek, which was uncharacteristically stubbly. “And Blackie.”

“How did you two get here?” Bes whispered.

Linn could see the pain on his face. She wondered if she could do the power transfer thing again. She wasn’t sure what it did, but it seemed to have been helpful.

“Blackie brought me. I think it was the high path.”

“You ran the high path.” he repeated, looking stunned. He tried to lift a hand. Linn took it in hers. He was cold. She bit her lips.

“Blackie...” She looked at her companion. “Can we do it again?”

“Do what again?” Bes asked. She ignored him for the moment. Blackie moved around to the other side and extended his head over Bes’ body. Linn leaned over from the other side. They touched foreheads.

This time the glow of their power lasted a full minute. Twisting strands of blue and pink extended down into Bes and Linn could see his skin move and the wound closing. Then she started to pass out. Throwing herself to the side so she wouldn’t fall onto Bes, her world dissolved into gray sparkling nothingness, and then to black.

She woke staring up at the moon, Blackie licking her face. She tried to sit up and fell back, too dizzy to manage. she turned her head and could see that she was inches from Bes. He was looking at her with a funny expression on his face. Still flat on his back, but the pain and tension had eased. She grayed out again. Bes was saying something, but she couldn’t make it out.

After a minute... or more, Linn couldn’t tell, she started to feel again. She hadn’t been completely out that time. It was more like she’d stepped away from her body for a minute. She took a deep breath, feeling her head spinning. She gagged. The smell on the battlefield was bad and getting worse.

“Linn! Linn...” Bes’ urgent whisper got through to her. She opened her eyes and saw him trying to sit up.

“No!” She pushed herself up. He slumped back.

“Look...” He tried to point, his hand shaking.

She looked across his body at Blackie, who was standing, his face contorted into a silent snarl, and his back hair standing on end. Linn staggered to her feet, Lambent in hand. Advancing toward them were three beings, black power boiling off them like a fog.

She faced them, Lambent in hand, feeling a snarl on her face as well. As they came closer she could see they walked on all fours, with a curious, limping gait. They stopped as they saw her, whining a little like dogs. One of them lifted his heavy head and sniffed the air.

He laughed, a long, high pitched chattering howl that set Linn’s teeth on edge.

“How... Delicious.” He said in that high voice. “Look, my dears, a halfling and a kitten stand to protect our greatest enemy.”

All three of the hyenas started to laugh as they walked toward Linn and Blackie. Bes was still helpless on the ground. Linn cried out in fear. The miasma that surrounded stank like long-dead flesh.

“Stop!” she screamed at them. “Go away from here!”

They stopped and whined, slinking low to the ground. “Hehe...the child wants us to be gone.” one said.

“Wants us to let her be...” Another hissed.

“But we are so hungry...” the leader whimpered. “We want their juicy flesh.”

“Come closer and I’ll kill you.” Linn stated grimly, her jaw set.

“Oh, oooh...” Moaned one, sinking to the ground and covering his face with his paws. Then he looked up, laughing. Linn could see the flash of his teeth in his open jaws.

“We are already dead...” He choked out. Next to her, Blackie snarled a warning. The other two were trying to flank them.

“Zombie hyenas. What next?” Linn muttered. “At least I can hurt you.” she lunged, slashing with Lambent like she was swinging an axe. The glowing sword bit into the back of the leader’s neck with a meaty thunk. He screamed a howl, hurling himself backward.

Linn, who had twisted the sword out as she struck, rocked back on the balls or her feet, seeing the other leap at her, but Blackie leapt and bit deep in his throat, rolling him across the bloody plain. She let them go and pivoted toward the third hyena. He was slinking toward her. She shrieked and ran at him, swinging Lambent high over her head and then down at his skull. He tried to roll out of the way, and she slashed his throat open and one of his forelegs off entirely.

His high scream was almost human, and then he turned tail and ran across the plain. Linn didn’t chase him, spinning instead to see the hyena Blackie had bitten break free and run away, too. The leader was nowhere in sight. Linn held lambent high, flaring bright with power, and walked around Bes’ prone body, making sure they were really gone. The sword, covered in blood and bone bits, crackled and hissed.

Satisfied, she knelt and wiped the blade as clean as she could with a tuft of dry grass. She didn’t want that nasty stuff on her sword. Breathing deeply and trying to let the rage that had been coursing through her flow out again, she went to Bes.

Bending over him, she touched his forehead. His eyes were closed again. They fluttered open at her touch. He was warmer. She pulled her trembling hand back.

He gave her a little smile. “You are magnificent.”

Linn raised an eyebrow. “You’re delusional.”

He chuffed out a breath that might have been a laugh. “They won’t come back. Much easier prey than us out there tonight.”

Linn felt her shoulders relax. She had been so tense it hurt. “All right.”

She pulled off her jacket, shivering a little in the wind. She hadn’t brought her pack. She made a mental not to never leave it again. Twice, now, she had been caught without it. Spreading the thin windbreaker over Bes’ torso, she patted her pockets.

Back in Hawaii... however far away that was, now... she’d put a mylar wrap in her cargo pocket, in case it got cold enough that night to need it against the damp conditions. She’d been hypothermic once and that was enough. She stretched it out, now, knowing the thin layer of plastic would help keep him from losing anymore body heat, at least.

She tucked it around him, ignoring his murmured protestations. Blackie reappeared and stretched out next to Bes, his tongue lolling out. She nodded at him.

“You ok?” she asked.

He nodded., then put his big head on Bes’ shoulder. Linn realized that he was as long as the short man, stretched out like this. She stood up and looked around again. The moon was high overhead now, thin clouds racing across the surface. She could see dark shapes huddled on the ground here and there.

There was no sign of the hyenas. She refocussed, drawing upon her Sight. She sucked in a quick breath. Off to one side, far enough away she couldn’t make out details, there was a flare of golden power. She drew Lambent again and stood over Bes, remembering not to lock her knees.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Just... a lot of power.”

Now there was another flare, near where the first one had been, but this one was a pale blue. Linn swore, tensing. Bes, below her, chuckled hoarsely.

“Better not let anyone else hear you say things like that.”

She glanced down at him, seeing the smile on his face. “Glad you’re feeling better.”

The flares happened again, closer. Linn could see people walking, now, and... she squinted. A horse-drawn wagon?

“Bes?” she asked quietly, not looking at him. She didn’t dare look away from the approaching group.

“Yes, Linn?” He had an odd note to his voice.

“Who is the enemy here, and how do I tell?”

“Ah...” he sighed. “There is a question I could spend years on.”

“A quick answer would be good.” She shot back drily.

“Try shouting Aduro when they draw near.” He sounded better, she noted absently. Whatever she and Blackie had done, it must have worked. Blackie...

Linn looked down. Blackie was asleep, his paws twitching in a dream. Fat lot of help he was. “Blackie!” she hissed urgently at him. He sat up, yawning. His ears twitched toward the approaching group of people. They stopped, and there was another flare of golden power.

Blackie jumped to his feet and took off.

“Dammit, Cat!” Linn shouted hoarsely after him. She looked back down at Bes, torn. Did she leave him, who still couldn’t move, or go after the idiot kitten?

She stayed where she was. The group bunched up when Blackie bounded into them, and then started to move toward her, fast. In the moonlight she still couldn’t make out details. There were, she thought, six of them coming toward her. The rest were staying with the wagon, which had stopped.

She had been holding Lambent loosely at her side, and now she swung her up, power flaring off the tip as she did so. Bracing herself over Bes, she screamed defiantly.

“Aduro!”

Bes shouted weakly beneath her. Linn bared her teeth and prepared to die. She had no illusions about her chances against immortals. They had started to run, now, and suddenly they shouted back to her.

“Aduro! Aduro!”

The power flared from all of them... Red, green, gold, blue, iridescent, and the pure yellow that was Sekhmet. Sobbing, Linn dropped Lambent and ran to meet them. She cried out as she recognized the golden woman.

“Mama! Mama...” She fell into Theta’s arms. Sobbing wildly, she couldn’t have stopped trying if she had wanted to. Burying her face in her mother’s embrace, Linn clung to her for a second.

Her face wet with tears, she looked up at her mother. “Bes... Bes is hurt.”

Her mother was crying too, Linn realized. She just nodded and let Linn go, hurrying toward Bes. Her Grandfather caught hold of her now, kissing her forehead.

“How the hell did you get here?!”

Linn gurgled a little laugh. “Bes asked me that, too.”

Sekhmet squeezed her shoulder. “You looked ready for trouble there. Anything we should know.”

Linn shook her head, suddenly very tired. “There were zombie hyenas. I think they are gone, now.”

Quetzalcoatl kissed her cheek tenderly and she felt a jump of power from him. “Brave little girl.” Was all he said.

Coyote strolled up to her. He hugged her and led her to meet the member of the party she hadn’t met. The blue lady was a tall, dark-haired woman with a prominent nose and a broad smile.

“I am Panacea.” She held out her hands and Linn took them, feeling warm, soft skin.

“The Greek goddess of healing.” Linn said softly, wondering why she was with Grandpa Heff.

Panacea nodded. “After battles, I roam the field helping the fallen ones recover.”

“Bes is hurt.” Linn told her, looking over to where he mother was kneeling at Bes’ side. She walked over and knelt on the other side of him. They had stopped talking when she came near. “What?” She asked.

“Bes was just telling me how you and Blackie were trying to heal him.” her mother had a little quiver in her voice.

Linn looked at her numbly. “Did I do it wrong? She asked, alarmed.

“No, no...” Theta bit her lip. Linn recognized that. She did it herself when worried.

“What is wrong?” her voice squeaked a little.

“Hey, there.” Bes spoke, lifting a hand to her. She took it automatically, squeezing it a little.

“It’s just that it was very dangerous for you to do.” her mother told her. “Healing is a huge power drain. I’m tapping into all the power I’ve drained from volcanoes over the course of months, Panacea has been charging herself for years...”

“Oh.” Linn looked down at Bes. He had that look on his face again. “I didn’t think about it, Mom. I just...” She fluttered her hands, trying to put into words the way she’d felt when she looked down and saw him lying there broken and split open.

Bes grunted and tried to push himself up. Both Linn and Theta grabbed him by the shoulders. Theta looked at Linn. “Do. Not. Try. To. Help.” She snapped. Then she flared.

Linn felt like she was wrapped in golden flames. Warmth slid through her skin, into her bones. She looked into Bes’ face, seeing his eyes closed and a tear sliding down his cheek. The world slowed to a crawl and the expression on his face was of agony and joy all at once. The flames snapped out and he sat up, wrapping his arms around her.

Linn was crying again, into Bes’ solid shoulder. She was sitting awry on the cold, hard ground, her arms wrapped around him. He was petting her hair. “Shhh. shhh... let it out now.”

She hiccuped and he chuckled. “Can we get up now?”

She scrambled to her feet, sniffing and looking for her handkerchief. That, at least, she hadn’t left behind. Her grandfather, smiling, extended a hand to Bes. They clasped forearms and the burly smith pulled the shorter immortal to his feet. Bes stretched and groaned.

“Thank you, Theta.” He hugged her briefly.

Coyote handed Lambent to Linn. She smiled at him. Her face felt stiff with fatigue and tears dried onto it. She was covered in blood and mud from the run throughout the field and her fight. But everything was all right. Blackie bumped her hand with his head.She cupped his skull in her fingers.

“Can we go home now?” She asked softly.

“Yes, you can. Where do you want to go?” her mother asked her very gently.

Linn blinked at her. She realized this was a choice... the apartment in Seattle, or the Sanctuary. Suddenly she knew that if she chose the apartment she wouldn’t remember all this. She could go back to the shallow girl she had been on the plane that summer, just killing time waiting for life to go back to normal. None of this would seem real, just a bad dream she’d awakened from.

Linn drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I left the Coblyns at the bunker in Hawaii. I need to get back there and help them get home.”

Theta blinked at her, then slowly smiled. She looked at Heff without speaking. He grinned broadly. Then he looked at Bes.

“Feel up to taking her?”

“Not baby-sitting this time.” The Egyptian growled.

“No, not any more.” Heff agreed with a chuckle.

Bes looked at Linn, his eyes clear and dark. No power shone there to conceal his soul. “Want me to come along?” He asked her.

“Of course.” she replied. “I have no idea how to get back there.”

He laughed, that full belly laugh she hadn’t heard in too long.

“Right then. Ready?”

“Just a minute.” She told him tranquilly. Then she hugged everyone, ending with her mother.

“Will you come to Sanctuary? Bring Grampa?” she whispered.

“Of course.” Her mother whispered back in her ear. “Couldn’t keep me away, love.”

Linn sniffed and stepped away. “Ok, now I’m ready.”

Bes took her hand and Blackie flanked her. They started to run and the moonlit land tunneled out and away. They were back on the high path. Bes didn’t move as fast as Blackie had done, before. Linn thought Blackie must have known Bes was in trouble, before. Maybe he’d been coming here every time he disappeared into the fog.

They landed much more smoothly, as Bes had talked her through how to do it as they jogged along on the tunnel. She’d told him where they were going, and he told her how to land with bended knees for more bounce.

The fog was still laying over the landscape like a wet blanket. Linn sucked in a lungful of warm, wet air, catching the exotic scents and sea air. She pulled her compass out and consulted it, looking at the ground. She figured if she found the cattle path she could get back to camp.

Bes swept her a little bow. “Lead on!”

She nodded wanly. All the activity was catching up with her. She really wanted a nap and food, not necessarily in that order. By the time she got them into camp she was shaking a little.

Bes sat her down and put her jacket over her. It seemed odd to Linn that nothing had changed here since she left. He pack was all put together and leaning against the pole of the lean-to. The little green fire was still flickering merrily. She held her hands out to it, and then snatched them back, not wanting Bes to see how they were trembling.

He pulled open the small pouch on her back pack and handed her a protein bar and then the spout of her camelbak. “Eat and drink. You put a lot of yourself into me...” his eyes softened. “Using that much power means you need to refuel. This will help.”

Linn just nodded, too tired to speak. She chewed slowly. It tasted delicious, which probably meant she was pretty bad off. He stood up.

“I’m going to go check in with the Coblyns. I will be right back, Ok?”

“I’ll be here.” Which was true, Linn reflected, because she didn’t have the energy to go with him. Once they had gotten safely back, it was like someone had opened a tap and emptied her out. She took another bite.

She was half asleep when he came back. She was aware that he was there, but too tired to speak to him. He talked to her anyway.

“They are almost done. It’s ready to launch when Heff sends word. Daffyd wants me to take you straight back to the Sanctuary.”

“How...?” she managed.

“They want to stay here until launch to make sure it goes well. I’m going to send Coyote to them.”

Linn closed her eyes. She didn’t want to go anywhere, she was too tired to move. Bes shook her shoulder. “Come on, Linn. Let’s go home.”

“There’s an offer I can’t refuse...” She muttered. She still didn’t move.

Bes scooped her up. Linn squeaked. “You can’t carry me!”

“I can and you aren’t moving...” He started to walk, and she knew without opening her eyes they were back on the high path. She relaxed and let herself drift into sleep. She felt safe again.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Michael challenged me with "An offer I can't refuse" and I challenged Lilu with "Babysitting kittens".

Emerald Forest

2011-11-16T23:23:00.000-05:00

Beryl knelt in the kitchen-garden of Seahold, humming to herself. All was well in her wold. At breakfast her mother had announced that Acer was showing certain signs.
“Get out your pipe and leather tools, old dwarf.” she had cheerfully and irreverently addressed the chief of his clan, Beryl’s father. “Time to start making a pair of baby boots.”
After breakfast Beryl, who was very fond of her sister-in-law, had set out to gather certain herbs. Some could be found here, in the safe kitchen garden, gathered in the sun with the company of drowsy bees. Others she would range farther afield for. The sound of a cleared throat caught her attention. She looked up to see a groomsman at the gate, holding her fat pony. Beryl rose to her feet, dusting off her hands.
“Thank you, Bas.”
“No worries, Berry. There’s lunch and what-not in your pannier.”
And her pack-basket lashed behind the saddle on Fat Boy’s haunches, Beryl saw with pleasure. “You are too good to me, Basalt.” she complimented her father’s life-long retainer.
“Tis a pleasure, child.” he smiled up at her. With her half-human blood she loomed a full head taller than he. She mounted and waved cheerfully as her pony ambled reluctantly away from home.
Fat Boy did pick up his pace once he was resigned to not going home until all her errands were done. Beryl slouched in her saddle and mentally ran through the plants she planned to harvest today. Her trips to the deep forest were infrequent for several reasons. One was that Beryl was a homebody who preferred to stay close to her Clan. Of more importance was that few plants grew in the deep shade of the enormous trees. And there were others... She kicked Fat Boy into a reluctant trot.
She found the plant she was seeking near the heart of the forest, where sunbeams were pale golden lances falling silently on the silver-pink blossoms of the wood sorrel. Ground-tying Fat Boy, who was as faithful as a dog in his own way, she set to work with trowel and clippers.
Lost in thought, she almost missed the slight rustling. She looked up and around, cocking her head to one side to better catch the elusive noises. The birds were still singing, undisturbed by her presence as she had been almost still for so long. This other presence, and she was certain someone was there, bothered them not at all. Beryl sighed. She knew what that meant.
In a low, calm voice she commanded, “Show yourself.”
For a moment she thought she’d heard a chuckle, but quickly changed her mind when her stalker stepped out from behind the tree. The tall, icy blond elf in front of her probably never smiled, much less allowed anything as crass as a laugh to cross his lips. Dressed in greens and browns that were never muddy, his long hair hung to his waist, bound back with a gold filet. In his hands he held a bow, drawn, but pointed at the ground in a manner she assumed he meant as non-threatening. Beryl rocked back on her heels and dusted her hands off.
“Merry Meet, kind sir.” she addressed him cordially, hoping he was as she termed him. Elves were not her favorite people. Culturally they tended toward an aloof hauteur that precluded anyone knowing them well, and Beryl herself liked to know the people around her, to see what they needed and provide it if it were in her power. Elves never needed anything.
He took a couple more steps toward her, releasing the bowstring and peering down at her. Beryl suddenly felt very grubby and small. She stood up, her head only reaching to his shoulder.
“What do ye in our wood, human woman?” he demanded abruptly.
Beryl tipped her chin up defiantly. “Simply gathering herbs for a tisane.”
“An whose permission gained you access here?”
“Merely mine own.” She shot back, her eyes flashing. She fell into his speech pattern without realizing she had done so until after she had spoken.
He frowned, his finely sculpted brows lowering over huge green eyes. “No one can enter Ellyndyl’s borders without a permission granted them.”
“Can they not, now?” Beryl decided this one was too stupid for words and bent to pick up her basket.
She concealed her tiny, sharp root knife in one hand as she did so. Aggravated at her indifference to him, the elf raised his bow again, pulling it taut. Beryl set her jaw and took a step toward him, so that the arrow was almost touching her chest.
The second elf appeared almost magically beside her. “Gently, now, cousin. She will unman you before you can let go that arrow.”
Startled, Beryl looked up at him. She knew that richly mocking voice with it’s undercurrent of laughter.
“And besides,” he went on. “‘T’would be very bad form indeed to harm the daughter of Seahold.”
The blond elf showed the first expression Beryl had seen on his face, a fleeting look of consternation, and hastily lowered and released the bow. He was forgotten as she turned and faced her rescuer. Without thinking, she reached up and stroked his cheek.
“Thou hast grown.” she blurted.
He captured her hand and grinned down at her. “As thou hast. Where art thy pigtails and freckles, my friend?”
“It has been ten summers. Thou at least wert old enough to have reached your full size, or at least so I thought.”
He laughed aloud. Beryl was delighted. Perhaps only one percent of all elves even had a sense of humor, but this was one of them, and her friend. He squeezed her hand and she felt a little flutter. More than friend, then. She admitted it to herself and read it in his sea-green eyes as he smiled down at her.

For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, Chaos Mandy challenged me with "1% of Elves" and I challenged Kat with "A chance encounter with the Egyptian god Bes".

Teaching Time

2011-11-07T09:45:00.000-05:00

In the morning, Linn milked the goats and fed the kittens, then her grandfather called her into the yard.

“Ever built a fire from scratch?” Heff asked. He stood there with his hands in his jeans pocket, looking relaxed and casual. Linn looked at him, puzzled. He was different today.

“I’ve made fires while out camping with Mom and Dad, they wanted to teach me how to take care of myself.”

“Show me.” He didn’t move.

She looked at him for a minute and then realized he wouldn’t help. She shrugged and trotted into the house. The things she wanted were easy to find. Back outside, she glanced around to pick a spot. Close by, there was really only one option. She knelt on the driveway and crumpled up paper, then grabbed some dead flower stalks from the border, and a few small pieces of kindling from the woodpile. She struck the match on the box she’d brought out, shielding it from the wind with her hand, and ignited the paper.

“Good. Do it again. House and woodpile off limits.”

Heff dumped a bucket of water over her kindling blaze, and Linn hopped back, spluttering indignantly. He took the matches from her.

“But, but!”

“Nope. You can do it.”

“I carry a match safe in the woods.”

“How many matches in it?”

“Um, about a dozen?”

“What happens if you’re out there,” He indicated the looming mountains with a sweep of his arm. “More than a week?”

She sighed. She knew in theory how to do this. Looking grumpily back at him, she set off for the woods. This collection took a little longer. She was vaguely aware that Grampa Heff was in the woods nearby, but he was very quiet, and she didn’t really want to talk to him, and wasn’t about to ask for help.

The first thing she looked for was a paper birch. The bark was highly flammable and could be lit even wet. She had a handful of it in her survival kit, but Grampa had set the parameters, and her pack was indoors. All she had was her belt pouch and knife. This turned a difficult task into a time-consuming one. With her knife she cut dry twigs down and tied them into a neat bundle with braided grass and hung this from one of her belt loops. The birch bark went into her pocket along with a handful of dry grass. She found some dry, fallen wood. She didn’t bother to break them, long pieces could be arranged radially and pushed in as they burned down.

When she walked out of the woods with her hands full, Heff was hunkered down by the long driveway. He nodded at her.

“Come t’ house.”

Linn followed him to the yard, where the fire ring he used for barbecuing had been cleaned out. He had a platter of food on the table. Linn laughed at that, and built the fire carefully. Bark first, shredded and cocooned with the dried grass. The twigs on that, then the tree limbs, arranged to give the kernel of the fire air. Pulling out her knife and flint striker, she rested the striker on the bark, pushing down firmly and creating a stream of sparks that jetted into the tinder. A couple of tries and she could see glowing spots that she blew on to feed the fire. Flames flicked up, and she rearranged the twigs to be in better contact with the tinder. Rocking back on her heels, she smiled up at her grandfather.

“Better?”

“Very good. I’ll cook lunch while you check on the kittens.”

Linn could feel her cheeks warm at his praise. Grampa Heff didn’t do it much, and she knew she’d passed his first test. She wondered what the next one would be. The kittens were waiting for her at the gate, ready for their bottles. She felt guilty for having left them most of the morning, but then thought of a mother cat. The kittens would be alone while she was out hunting. Linn cuddled them and washed them after their bottles, until they were ready to fall asleep again. They slept a lot.

Her own stomach grumbled, and she sniffed. Grampa's cooking smelled good. She sniffed again. Smelled like bacon. Linn scrambled down the ladder and Grampa Heff handed her a plate full of bacon and eggs. He’d pulled and washed a handful of sorrel and lightly wilted it in the bacon grease. It was delicious, and she had seconds.

Her stomach full, she sighed and smiled up at him.

“Did I pass?”

“Yep. Figured your Mom did ok with you. But I needed to be sure.”

“We used to go camping a lot.” Linn looked at the little fire dying into embers. Grampa had pulled it apart so it would go out. She felt happy. Her Dad would have liked what Grampa had done today. He’d taught her as much as her mother had. They had gone camping in all seasons, and she’d loved every trip.

“You miss him.”

“Yeah, but it’s ok. This... He would have liked this.”

Heff nodded. “He was a good man.”

“Did he know... about you, and Mom?”

Heff shook his head. “No, he didn’t. But then, most mortals never know. We’re safer that way, both mortal and immortal.”

She nodded. “I won’t tell.”

“I know you won’t. Now, I need to get some work done in the smithy today.”

“I’ll make dinner.”

Heff laughed. “I’ll take you up on that, as long as it’s one of your Dad’s recipes.”

Linn laughed along with him, feeling something in her heart ease a little. If she couldn’t have her father, she at least had the goodness that was her memories of him in her mind. Her mother really couldn’t cook. Everything was burned or raw, with her. Linn had been her father’s “little chef” since she could stand on a stool at his elbow, and she liked to cook. Tonight she’d have fun.

“Well, if you’re going to cook it, go out and get it.”

“What?”

“Kill it, clean it, and then cook it, girl. You won’t always have a supermarket and a refrigerator at your beck and call.”

“I don’t know how.”

“You shoot pretty good with your .22, your Mom tells me.”

“I didn’t bring it.”

“Well, here.” Heff reached behind the woodpile and handed her a .22 rifle. Plain and worn, she could see immediately it was old.

“I’ve had it for a long spell. Time you got to take care of her.”

He handed her a leather pouch which had six cartridges in it. “You can’t get game with that many, we go hungry. Time will come you’ll get two... one for each of us.”

Linn nodded. She wasn’t sure they wouldn’t go hungry tonight. Her parents hadn’t taught her how to hunt.

Heff smiled. “Don’t look so stricken. Go find a couple of rabbits, bring ‘em home and I’ll teach you how to clean them.”

Linn put the pouch on her belt and picked up her day pack. She knew she needed to learn this, but this was challenging. Then she grinned. “All right, Grampa. I’ll be home soon!”

Heff chuckled as she walked away. She was feisty. She had a chance in this messy world of theirs. He stretched a hand out over the fire, feeling the warmth of it, and then closed his fingers. The fire went out, and he could feel the energy he’d just absorbed racing through his body. Time to get to work.

For the Indie Ink Writing Challenge this week, Bewildered Bug challenged me with "She Was Feisty" and I challenged Head Ant with "Stop the world, I want to get off for a while".

Honor's Price

2011-10-05T21:48:00.000-04:00

Leona knelt at the watering hole to lap at the tepid, scummy water. She saw herself reflected in it, coat scruffy and eyes dull. This hadn’t been what she’d thought would happen, months ago, when she’d met a mouse and accepted his help in return for the relief of having the festering thorn drawn from her pad. She’d agreed at the time to spare his life, and those of his kind in return for the blessed relief from pain.

Now, half way through the dry season, with all the larger game fled to more prosperous ground, her pride was starving. She hadn’t thought, at the time, how much the tender little morsels of mouse, so fun to hunt and bounce on with both paws, were important to their diet. The cubs hunted a little already, mice mostly, and she felt guilty for allowing it, but she herself didn’t take part. And if the cubs didn’t hunt, they would have been dead already.

The last gazelle she’d felled had disappeared into the maw of her male, who lolled in the shade and gnawed a bone even now. If only she could hunt the mice, she would survive this season. But she couldn’t, and with her death the pride would dissolve. Her lion would chose another mate, and the first thing they would do together would be to snap the necks of the babies Leona had borne. Three roly poly balls of fluff.

She lifted her head from the waterhole and looked around. Nothing moving but dust on the wind. There seemed to be more dust and less vegetation than even last dry season. Every year it was worse. She was six now, a matronly lioness. This dry season would be her last. She sighed and panted in the heat.

She began her patrol, on sore pads. The thorn removed, her wound had healed, but now she was ranging so far for game that her pads were worn thin. She was a mile from the home acacia tree when a strange delegation barred her path. Five mice, all seemingly gray at the muzzle. She sniffed deeply. They smelled old, too. They flinched at her breath but didn’t run.

“What would you ask of me, now?” She growled.

“We want to ask you to hunt mice again.”

“What?” Leona sat abruptly, her rump hitting the ground with a thump. “I swore I would not eat another mouse.”

“We know.” the oldest was white to the eyes. “The mousling who assisted you was not a thoughtful being.”

“And? I gave my word, you know.”

“We will release you from that vow. Out population has swelled so that we are unable to find food for our children. Mouse families breed unchecked, and disease is on the rise. You will have noticed that there are less plants and more dust?”

“Yes, I thought that seemed to be so this season.”

“Our people are turning this veldt into desert. Without you hunting and keeping them in check, we all die. So, lioness, we ask you to begin hunting mice again. Will you do this?”

Leona looked down at them, so still and serious, waiting for her answer. Suddenly she understood why they were all grey-beards. She reached down and delicately seized one in her jaws. The others scattered, but didn’t get far. Her belly was full when she reached the spreading acacia tree in the warmth of dawn. She collapsed next to her sleeping cubs and fell deeply asleep, hope warming her as she digested many, many mice.

For the Indie Ink Writing Challenge this week, Tobie, http://misadventuresoftobie.blogspot.com/, thewritegirl challenged me with "Write about the mouse and the lion from the perspective of the lion." and I challenged Jurgen Nation (Anastacia), http://www.jurgennation.com, jurgen_nation with "Walking in the woods and surprising a mythical creature".

Ignorance is Bliss

2011-09-22T10:26:00.000-04:00

We were sitting in my room, he on the edge of the bed, me in the computer chair. It's not the biggest room to begin with, and it's a shared office/bed space. So we were knee-to-knee and he had to have known what was coming. It wasn't the first time he'd lied to me, nor was it the largest. But it was the last time he would.

I asked him a question that I already knew the answer to, and his lip started to quiver. He knew I knew, and he thought I'd forgive him and try again, as I had just a few short months earlier. After all, our wedding was only weeks away. He pleaded desperately that he had been bringing me and the children money. From his mother. I swallowed my rage and coolly asked him to leave. It wasn't about the money. It had never been about the money, or the home, or the job.

After he drove away finally, avowing his love, devotion, and desire to get it all back together and win me back, I returned to sit on the bed and stare into space. I felt numb. I'd told him at the end of the conversation I didn't have anything else to say. I did, but he wasn't worth losing my temper over. It was my own fault for not looking harder, for not seeing through his web of lies earlier. I wanted the happy times to be the truth, not the lies and laziness that he hid so well.

My weekly Indie Ink Challenge piece. I was challenged by Sadie with "I don't want to see the truth, I was happy with ignorance" and I challenged Hannah, and her response was brilliant!

Mirror, Mirror...

2011-09-15T21:46:00.000-04:00

“How do I choose what I will do with my life? How do I know what consequences those choices will have for me ten, twenty years down the road?”

The slender, brown-eyed girl frowned at the reflection in the mirror. She had received three acceptance letters from college in the mail that afternoon, and had opened them all and pored over the descriptions of each school and majors yet again. She still couldn’t decide. One had the advantage of being close to home - but it would be nice to get away from her family and try her wings out. Another was a prestigious school, but it would be expensive. The third hadn’t really been an option at first, but was where her boyfriend planned to attend.

She closed her eyes. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall...” she muttered. Magic would be nice, of course - a fairy god mother to wave a wand and tell her what to do to find her happily ever after. She opened her eyes and did a double take.

The girl spun around in shock at the plump, short-haired woman who stood behind her in the mirror reflection. She was alone in her bedroom. She looked back at the mirror. There was still a woman standing just behind her left shoulder. She was grinning at her.

“Wha - Who!” she stammered. The woman chuckled. “Are you my fairy godmother?”

Now the woman laughed. “No, I’m your older and wiser self. Hello young lady.”

The younger shook her head in bemusement. “How?”

“Oh, that will become clear later, but I won’t tempt paradox.”

“Why?”

“Getting quite journalistic in your questions, good girl. I am here to offer a tiny bit of guidance.”

“You’re going to tell me where to go to college.”

The older version looked quite shocked. “Not at all, that would bring a paradox right down on us. Merely a hint, is all. How many acceptances so far?”

“Five. The last three came in today.”

“Lay them out on your bed.”

The younger turned and collected the pile of letters and laid them out edge to edge along her pink comforter. She looked back at the mirror, where the older woman was leaning forward as if to see.

“The third one from the foot of the bed. Start there, and count off the ‘eeny, meeny, miny, moe ryhme.”

Obediently she bent over the letters, touching each one in turn, cycling back around as she counted. When she finally picked up the letter that was it, she turned to look back at the mirror. The apparition was gone. She looked down at the letter she held. The college was one she hadn’t considered in her top three. It specialized in maths and science. The young woman looked back at the still-empty mirror and realized that the counting rhyme had a set sequence. Her elder self had chosen the school for her as surely as if she had pointed to it and stated “That’s the one.”

Sweeping the other letters onto the floor, the young woman flopped onto her bed and wondered about the possibility of quantum time travel. She fell asleep dreaming of a laughing pair of eyes that were her own.

*End*

Writing for the Indie Ink writing challenge! I was challenged this week by Tara R with "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" and I challenged http://writinginthemarginsburstingattheseams.blogspot.com/ with "Part-Time Husband".

Fork in the Road

2011-09-07T17:34:00.000-04:00

Joe slouched in a hard chair, his phone dangling from one limp hand. He almost let go and let it all fall down, down to the floor. He wanted to just stop the world and get off now. Everything was gone, it was all laid to waste and his life might as well be over. The world was his oyster, not that long before. How had he let it come to this?

He picked up his hand and stared at the text on it.

“I know what you did. Don’t bother coming home. I changed the locks already.”

So she knew what he’d done to keep his family together, to keep his home and give his children someplace to sleep at night. When the last business he’d tried to start he had gone to his father-in-law. The ruddy, balding man, his white beard neatly trimmed, had looked down at him from over his wobbling chins.

“Not a penny.” He had said before his son-in-law had even opened his mouth. The man had felt his face flush. “I’ll get it from someone else, then.” The older man, Arthur, had sniffed contemptuously. “Not likely. But you won’t get another penny from me. My daughter is always welcome, of course, but not while she’s married to you.”

Joe had left, head held high, although his heart was sinking. His credit was shot, of course. Coming to Art had been a desperate last ploy. His carpet cleaning business was going down the tubes and the last loan he’d scraped up had all gone to pay his vendors. Now what was he going to do?

Joe drove into town, following the truck ahead of him without paying much attention to where he was going. The rain and dusk didn’t really exist for him, he blindly followed the taillights ahead, tears making them look like stars. He almost followed them right off the edge of the road.

Stomping on the brakes, he fishtailed to a stop. His heart in his throat, he ran to the edge of the blacktop and looked down into the ravine. The armored truck lay on its back in the ravine, one headlight still shining. The undercarriage was steaming in the cold rain.

Joe scrambled down to the truck, grabbing branches and slipping the last few feet. He could hear a man groaning from the wreck. He looked into the gaping hole where the passenger window had been. The guard was obviously dead, his head hanging at a strange angle. The driver was half conscious, covered in blood. Joe couldn’t see well enough to tell what was wrong with the man, and he couldn’t reach him from this side of the truck.

He backed out and started to go around the back of the truck. He didn’t want to go near the engine. The back door was buckled open, and Joe stopped and stared. Bags of money lay half inside the truck, one was torn open and twenties had spilled out into the mud. The driver moaned and Joe started. He looked up at the road. Only his headlights showed. He hesitated a minute. This road wasn’t busy, but it was likely someone would be along very soon.

He made his decision.

Now, four months later, he sat in a hotel room wondering bitterly why he had chosen as he had. Would she still care? Was this the end of everything he’d ever wanted? He lifted the phone and dialed a number from memory. Time to find out the answer.

This is my Indie Ink challenge piece for the week. I was challenged by Dirk, with "the world's his oyster", And I challenged SuperMaren.

http://supermaren.com/

2011-09-01T22:12:00.000-04:00

I'd written a lovely story about the USO in Vietnam, and my computer crashed and I hadn't saved it… bad Cedar! I just got home from Civil Air Patrol meeting with my daughter and found it gone. With only an hour to deadline, I'm not going to be able to finish writing it, now. I was thinking of the cadence challenge tonight, as I was watching my daughter drill with the other cadets. They were marching and calling cadence, and it made me think of all the young men and women who serve our country in uniform, not so much older than these children. They go out whole and hearty, and come back on those choppers, damaged sometimes beyond repair.

One of the biggest regrets in my life was giving up my opportunity to serve. All I can do now is support those who wear the uniform now, and raise up the next generation to be patriots. Perhaps one of my children will one day serve their country, and I shall send them off with tears and pride.

My challenge this week, which I failed miserably, was
"I hear the choppers coming
They’re hovering overhead
They’ve come to get the wounded
They’ve come to get the dead"

From: KSyrah

My challenge to Sarah Cass was "Hey Y'all, watch this!"

Trust

2011-08-25T21:36:00.000-04:00

My Indie Ink writing challege - "The betrayal that wasn't."

"It is done." she whispered, head bowed and silken hair falling down around her face to hide it.
He might have looked back, but she would never know, with her eyes tightly shut and hands over her face.
She had just sent her child off into the unknown in the arms of a stranger. Would he understand, in the years to come, that she had to do it if he was to grow up happy and normal? Or would he consider himself betrayed by his mother who had sent him off to a new world without her own presence?

She sighed and stood, stretching. The terminal chairs were hard and uncomfortable. She checked her watch. The time she had made in her tightly monitored schedule for this detour and hopefully rescue of her child was quickly coming to a close. She was due back at the compound in an hour. Traffic would no doubt turn the forty minute drive into at least that.

The short, well dressed woman reached into her purse and pressed a button. As she began to walk toward the doors, a child of about four with curly auburn hair like hers shimmered into being next to her. His steps mirrored her exactly as he was indeed, a projection of her. This would not last long, her deception, but it was the third stop of the day, each time she had taken her son into shops with her and commanded the driver to stay with the groundcar.

She climbed into the rear seat gracefully, the child following her every movement. Leaning back she closed her eyes, hoping the man in the front seat would leave her alone and take her grief for weariness. Very soon she knew she would suffer for what she had done, but the peace of knowing her boy was safe consoled her and she cradled the thought in her mind like a gleaming pearl.

She opened her eyes as they pulled up in front of the pillared house - just a little too small to be called a mansion - that was her personal prison. She murmured a thank you to the driver and stepped out, the image of the child in lock-step with her. They walked up the stairs, the mother and ghost of her son. Her mind whirled. How long a deception could she play out? Each passing moment brought safety for him.

In the nursery she dismissed the nanny for the day, telling her that she would take care of her son. Then the woman switched off the transmitter and her child vanished. She stood alone in the bright room and cried for her loss, finally.

I was challenged this week by Ixy and I challenged Indie Adams with "Know when to walk away."

Becoming Light

2011-08-17T21:31:00.001-04:00

While I'm reflecting on life changes and going though old files, I came across this one. I can remember feeling this way, but this last year, away from the crushing depression and failed marriage, I didn't feel this way in February. I still hate shoveling snow and battling slush, but I'm not feeling like this. In spite of everything that is going on in my life, with a major down following almost two years of up, I still am confident that I am strong enough to weather this storm. I've come out of my chrysalis and my wings are ready to take me up and away.

February can often seem to me like climbing up out of the abyss. The narrow crumbling steps seem to go on forever. Sometimes you fall. Sometimes you give up and sleep in a heap, your fingernails digging into the soft rock walls. Some days are wet, and treacherous, with a cold that seeps into your bones until you think it will never get warm again. A whirlpool of worries and thought sucks at your mind. There is sunshine up there, you are sure, but you no longer remember what it looks like. Just that it was warm, and good. For months you have been down here, the walls closing in on you, the tasks that seem so light to others an insurmountable effort for you. You never give up, for to do so would be to lie down to die. Just keep climbing, one step at a time. Baby-steps, painful and slow, over and over and over.... Spring is coming, you chant under your breath, and hold your temper, for to rage against the darkness in your mind is to rage out at those around you, who cannot see it. Spring is coming. The world will open out for you again, like a blossom in the sun, and sweetness will fill your nostrils and you will grow wings as you leap upwards and out of your despair...

Motherhood, and reflections.

2011-08-15T21:33:00.000-04:00

I wrote something a while back. A long while, given that my youngest child is now six, and he wasn't even born when I wrote this thought down. It still rings true, now, and it's a good reminder to me as my eldest will be a teenager in less than six months. I still need to keep these moments in my heart, as they grow up and away from me. Like the toad in this picture, my children deign to be held for a time, but for them to be truly happy I will have to let them go free. After touching their warts and saying "ewww!" of course.

There are many signs of motherhood. Today I wore, for a while, a badge on my shoulder and reflected about other badges like it that I have worn and will wear through my life. My youngest banged her head, and as I held her in my arms and murmured to her, she buried her face in my shoulder and sobbed. A few minutes later, after I had put her down and she was playing happily, I realized she had left a patch of tears and snot on my shoulder. One more in a succession of such spots. They started with the spit-up from my babies, and will progress to lower marks of banged knees and elbows, from cuddles at an age where they are usually past such comforts. Hopefully, when my daughters are teens I will be mother enough to shoulder their tears over every little heartbreak in a way my mother never did. And when our lives have come full circle it will be spit-up again, from their babies. All my life I will be proud of my badges of motherhood, but I prefer to wear them invisibly. Pardon me while I change my shirt.

I've lost a week…

2011-08-12T07:38:00.002-04:00

And I don't know where it went.

Saturday my fiance twisted his knee, and Sunday morning I took him to the ER. It develops that he may have torn his ACL, and on top of previous injuries he is laid up. I am suddenly doing the work of two people, and I have gone from little time, to no time. So I apologize to my II challenger… I had a story in my head, but it never made it out. I'll be back eventually, maybe after the kids go back to school.

*sigh*

I'm late, I'm late! *white rabbit vanishes*

WIP Snippet

2011-08-01T20:34:00.002-04:00

Duty was neither to be entered upon lightly, nor to be worn as a badge of honor. Yet even in her short life, Liatris had seen both. Had done the first, as a matter of fact. Which was arguably what had led her to this forgotten backwater. She liked backwaters. Had grown up in one, chosen another to spend most of her adult life in. But this one... this one gave her the shudders. She squared her shoulders yet again, heaven forbid a Voyageur of the HBC show ought less than a bold countenance. Lifting a clenched fist, she prepared to knock at the door, only to be surprised as it swung open.

Liatris put a hand on the holster at her hip, fingering the worn leather, but not yet pulling her weapon. "Hello?" she called, pitching her voice to carry without too great a volume.

"Anyone home?"

No answer came from within, and from the scents swirling about her on the air from the house, she though no-one had lived her for quite some time. Duty bound, she stepped into the tenement hall. The stillness in the air was almost complete, although Lia thought she saw and felt the ghostly movement of rodents feeling in each room as she wound her way through the rooms in a circle ending back at the door.

None within. Dusty furniture and littered floors spoke of residents at some lost date. Duty had not driven Lia to inspect the food chiller. She was unwilling to inflict that on her nose. She hesitated at the threshold weighing duty. Was her long journey balanced by this empty place where her quarry ought to have been? She sighed and pulled the door closed behind her. Overhead, rain drummed on the dome and green lightning tore through the mineral-laced atmosphere that had brought humans to this planet. A whole planet, and all the men on it packed into this squalid place. Her nose wrinkled as she looked around. Narrow streets dominated with towering tenements, each floor an apartment unto itself, accessed by grav elevators. Many of them, she had been told, could only be accessed by the previous owner's DNA, a design flaw that had left landlords gnashing their teeth when renters refused to leave or to pay rent.

Lia pulled her toque back onto her head, affixing that badge of her status and livelihood firmly. Even in this misbegotten place, the voyageur's cap would be recognized and respected. She set out for the nearest bar. She knew it wouldn't be far. Every settlement on every planet in the known galaxy had at least one bar, and her rule of thumb was that the more poor and miserable the place, the more bars there would be. Her only criteria was, where would the widow of a spaceman hang out?

Sanctuary

2011-08-01T16:06:00.002-04:00

When i was nine, I was as insouciant a saucy wench as you can imagine. I had no idea I was a child - I almost never thought of myself as any age at all. This was mostly due to the fact that I was home schooled and had little contact that year with any other child but my sister. Actually, I was in my twenties before I realized that I was young, so perhaps it had nothing to do with being home schooled. But I digress - and I will probably do so frequently, so please bear with me.

As I was saying, when I was nine we lived far out on a dirt driveway in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, where they raise grass seed for all you compulsive lawn-keeping types. Great, waving fields of grass, let go until they come to ripeness, then harvested for seed.

We lived on a leased acre of land bordered on two sides by great, rampant hedges of blackberry vines, too thick for anything but a mouse to squeeze through. There was a small gap in the hedge near our mobile home, where you could walk through into what had once been either a road or a railway bed, and if you took a left turn and went off down it at an angle away from the house, you would come to the railroad itself, and at 8:30 every night, and 11 in the morning, a freight train would rumble its way past our house.

On the other sides, the house was open to the great grass fields, stretching off to the highway on one side, to the distant tree-lined river on the other, and the woods bordering the wildlife sanctuary on the other. From the beginning it was the sanctuary that drew me. It had been, once upon a distant time, homesteads, and there were still thickly scattered the fruit trees and flowers that bore evidence to those intrepid people. More recently (although still forty years in the past) it had been a military training camp, so across the land were neatly laid a pattern of straight, paved roads, and a man-made lake. Also there were foundations for the long gone Quonset huts that I think must have been there, and one open basement to some grander building.

This was my playground. I was out there all the time in the spring, summer, and fall. The weather was mild enough, I had not yet heard of giardia, so I drank the clear stream water with impunity, and I ate whatever I could find, for already I knew what was good, and what was not, thanks to the tutelage of my Grandmother Kemnow and Euell Gibbons. There were cherries, in the spring, lovely yellow Queen Anne’s first, and later, dark almost black Bings. Also, in the spring, the whole place blossomed with daffodils and narcissi of every descriptions, naturalized for who knew how many years.

I loved the beauty of it, and the freedom to roam without fear of meeting people, companioned by my dog, and sometimes a baby goat. Later, when it was summer, my sister would come with me on occasion, but she was not as happy as I to be entirely away from people, and although we had many adventures together, the sanctuary was my domain.

Challenging Finality

2011-07-27T21:22:00.001-04:00

In life there are so many chances to say goodbye. Sometimes we don’t mean it, not really. English is a little imprecise that way. Goodbye might mean see you later, see you tomorrow. It might mean see you next week. Rarely, in our globe-trotting, fast moving world, does it actually mean “I will never see you again”.

Death is the exception. But death moves silently through the interstices of time, rarely waiting long enough for us to have a chance to say goodbye properly, while the soul still rests in the body and hears through the ears. Goodbyes for those of us left behind are a solace for our own selves, not for those passing through to the other side.

Why a goodbye for the passing spirit, when their soul is released from the frailty of human flesh? Even after the clay body lies breathless the spirit yet hears. The goodbyes of loved ones are perhaps better phrased as “see you later!” There are, then, no more goodbyes, for the immortal soul stretches onward to infinity. The attenuation of time brings us all to that separation point of body and soul, a shared moment common to all men.

This Week's Indie Ink challenge was made by the Womanist and I challenged Stefan. I was certainly very challenged by this week's "no more goodbyes"! I'm not entirely happy with it, but this is what tumbled out of my tired brain.

Sharon’s Song

2011-07-19T17:47:00.002-04:00

Here, at the end of all time and reason

In the limitless fog of life

I can stand at last and say

I loved this man. It is finished.

With mist lapping at my ankles

Like the swirling of a skirt

All the times we fought and loved

Raced onward to the end of everything.

All lies in ruins at my feet.

Below me - light dawns before me -

For all that is below me, beneath!

My outstretched arms to embrace

Life anew, as mists ebb away

And reveal a beginning,

A new day and reason to live anew.

6/14/06

It Was Never Enough

2011-07-18T13:48:00.001-04:00

There are moments I have wished I were stupid. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm a genius. I know I'm not, as a matter of fact. I have some pretty major flaws in my intelligence (we aren't talking about my character, here!). But I know I'm pretty smart. Smarter than average and smarter than most of the people around me. And no, I don't suffer fools well.

If I were stupid, I could have lived with my marriage. My first major relationship, it consisted of me trying to please my husband with everything I had. My body, my efforts, my intelligence. But it was never enough for him. He had to be smarter than I, stronger than I was. The physical abuse ended when I'd finally had enough and lashed back. The emotional abuse only got worse.

If I were stupid, I would have been able to subsume my self enough to give him what he wanted, complete and utter control. But I am not stupid, and I saw that it was never enough, that he would keep taking until I was utterly gone, and I could not give that much.

It was never enough, and that is good. I was able to walk away with enough of my self left to rebuild. I am able to give of myself to my children, now. I will teach them that giving with no return is never good enough. Breaking down another person's self is destructive to both of them. I will teach them to live with eyes open to the damage another can do to them with words alone. And I will teach them that when it is never enough, it is time to walk away.

Response to Indie Ink Writing Challenge from Ixy. My challengee this week was Dili with "Here, at the end of all time and reason…"

The Errand is Always the Same

2011-07-12T08:35:00.003-04:00

This is written in response to the below challenge at part of the Indie Ink Writing Challenge. You can check that out here: http://indieink.org/writing-challenges/. My challenger this week was Amy Labonte, and my challengee was Tobie.

“The Errand is always the same: each presses on toward the nothingness into which the divided are drawn.” Pablo Neruda

Every week, Tiffany ran the same errands. She tried to remember, today, while clenching the wheel of her old Suburban too tightly and avoiding insane traffic, just when this had started. It had to have been after Jamie was born, she didn’t remember this feeling of frustration and loneliness before that.

Her husband, David, traveled so much these days, leaving her with the kids and the house, and above all, the errands to deal with. The groceries, the mail, the pet food and the cleaning supplies. Her world had shrunk to the four wall of the house and the circuit of errands. She wondered how much more it would shrink. Would her world become so small it would be a black hole, the gravity of her responsibilities pulling her down until she was nothing at all?

She pulled into the parking lot at Shop-Mart and climbed wearily out, clutching her purse. The kids were with the sitter for two hours, leaving her with just enough time to do everything.

“Divided, we conquer.” she muttered as she walked into the store. The greeter looked at her funny while delivering the same upbeat speech she’d stopped listening to - how many years ago? Tiffany took the offered cart and sped through her routine, knowing exactly how to circumnavigate the store to get what she needed without wasting time or money.

At the checkout, Betty greeted her cheerfully. They saw each other practically every week. “You look peaked.” The older woman observed.

“I feel like I see more of you than I do David. And too much of the kids.”

“It will be better when they are all in school.” The grandmother assured her.

“You keep saying that.” Tiffany returned ruefully, but with a smile.

Energized by the exchange, Tiffany wheeled her purchases back to the big vehicle. Loaded in the capacious rear cargo area, she climbed into the drivers seat and started the engine. She blinked.

#######

Horns blared and she jerked the wheel to avoid the neon blue Prius bearing down on her. Heart pounding, she stared in horror at the road ahead. She was driving down the road toward Shop-Mart. Why had she turned around, when had she pulled out of the parking lot? She risked a glance over her shoulder at the stoplight, no groceries in the back. Hadn’t she just been here? On auto pilot in her shock, she pulled into Shop-Mart. Had she really lost a whole week in that blink of an eye?

She grabbed her purse and started into the store again. The same greeter pushed a cart at her and said something in a cheerful voice. Tiffany couldn’t understand it. The words were garbled. She tried to smile back, but it felt like a rictus. She pushed the cart deeper into the store.

She knew she was in trouble when she met herself in the dairy aisle. The other self didn’t look up from her PDA, checking her list. Reminded, Tiffany pulled out hers and looked at the list. Same as earlier... today? last week? Disoriented, she looked up and saw herself again. Just in front of her cart, bending to grab a case of yogurt. Tiffany blinked.

“What’s going on?”

The other her didn’t hear, moving off around the corner pushing her cart. Tiffany followed and found herself back at the beginning of the Dairy aisle. Suddenly she though she understood. Her life was collapsing onto itself, the weight of it all pulling her so far down that the orbiting errands of her life had become small enough to see her both coming and going.

She stood stock still in the aisle, afraid of what would happen with another step. Where was the event horizon? Had she already reached it, that plane where the black hole of her life had sucked her in too far to climb back out?

Tiffany stood there shaking. Would one more step take her into the nothingness of red-shift and oblivion?

#####

Local Police were called today when a woman started to scream uncontrollably while shopping at the Shop-Mart. Emergency services had to remove her in restraints after she refused to let go of the cart and her purse. Child Services has taken temporary custody of the woman’s three children while her husband is reached as he travels out of the country. Reporters who talked to store clerks learned that she was a frequent shopper, and one speculated that post-partum depression might be the cause of the woman’s breakdown.

The Magician's Assistant - Flash Fiction Fantasy

2011-07-08T08:59:00.000-04:00

I am on in the second act, but already I wait in the dark, eyes open although I know from long experience that I will see nothing yet. I am as relaxed as I can be in the cramped space, thankful for once for my scanty clothing, as it is too warm in this theatre. I can hear the babble of the crowd in the distance, and the occasional murmur of the soundman, who must be right next to where I am parked for the moment.

I listen for the cues, intent as always on what the show is doing so as not to lose my place, or sense of the crowd’s mood, although I cannot see them. The audience tonight sounds almost aggressively happy, roaring with laughter at the slightest of jokes. It makes me feel jittery, and I try to reassure myself that it would be worse if they were silent.

Abruptly, I feel motion, and brace myself. It is too early! Who is moving me, and why? Colored smoke seeps in through the cracks, and as I wonder why I can see it in the dark it fills my eyes with tears and my mouth with a strangely heavy, oily flavor. My world reels, and is upside-down, then spinning into oblivion. I do not know how long it has been when I open my eyes to a surreal garden.

The theatre is gone, the crowd sounds have been replaced by birdsong, and I am standing alone in a formal courtyard, atop a dais of sorts. The colors of the flowers dazzle my eyes, they are so bold and bright. They remind me of a child’s painting with the neon shades and blurred outlines. Now I hear voices, and stand stock still as they approach.

As water springs up around me I realize I am standing in the middle of a fountain, and through the mist it creates I watch strange creatures fill the courtyard. They aren’t human. I see what I am certain are satyrs, and what might be nymphs, but only if Manet had painted them. Many others are with them, all laughing and talking and drinking from goblets they hold, just like the many cocktail parties I have myself attended. Reeling with confusion, I start to fall and stretch out my hands to catch myself…

And strike a hard surface. My vision darkens, and I hear the music, and applause. The door open, and I rise up into a billowing cocoon of silk and raise my arms, metamorphosis begins.... The stage lights almost blind me, after the dark.

Repurposing

2011-07-07T20:00:00.000-04:00

I am repurposing my former Mommy blog as my writing blog. I'm stretching my writerly wings, and although the kids are still my life, I needed this room for other things. The kids are on FaceBook, and the farm will be at http://sanborntonfarm.com until further notice.

That is all! Stay tuned for more randomness in days to come, I am sure.

Working in the geenhouse

2011-01-02T12:15:00.000-05:00

Actually, Dad informs me that it's not a greenhouse, it's a high tunnel. I'll have to look up the difference, I suppose! The temps are high enough in there that he went ahead and planted peas (Dwarf Sugar Grey) and Lettuce (Quatro Santorio) in the cold frames. The soil temp was registering 42, so it's a little cool yet. The air temps are ranging from 48-55 during the midwinter thaw. They will drop again soon for a while.

We had rolled the big 250 gallon tank for the aquaponics system in yesterday, which was an adventure. it's about 4x5', covered in a galvanized cage, so we had handholds, at least. taking it out of the little greenhouse by the garage was the trickiest bit, since it wasn't much wider than the tank to begin with. And then we couldn't put it in the front of the tunnel, since there is a regular door there, so we had to roll it all the way to the back and take down that wall to get it in! He put it into place after I went back in the house, but tells me this morning that he has to move it again and dig down a few more inches. He has the trough for the plants dug, but not yet lined or braced.

We brought in some flats and jiffy pellets, he wants to start some things in the house. Ill have to record what it was later.

the big tank

The trough for plants

central pipe for in-bed heating

Catnip (and a little celandine weed) green and ready to go in the greenhouse.

The cold frames in the green house. Using these allows us to extend the season even more. Dad puts milk-jugs full of water for heat absorption and slow release through the night. Right now we are starting peas and lettuce, joining the overwintering leeks and garlic.

Long day, but good in the end.

2010-03-02T18:44:00.002-05:00

First and foremost, the daffodils are sending up little spears of green in the front flowerbed. Hope springs anew with them every year, but this year is a little different. A lot different. I made it all the way through February without the icy breath of depression blowing down the back of my neck. I think this is the first time on over ten years I have made it through the lowest month of the year happy and sane. Most of this new lease on life is being on my own, no longer living with the pain and fear that chained me down for so long. Two years ago in February I hit bottom. And thanks be to God, I bounced. He must have given me wings, because this year I am flying....

A big part of my happiness is my Michael. He's been my rock for the last four and a half months, since I met him. And by Valentine's Day, he'd become the man I can lean on when I am tired and sick... and not feel the fear. So this has been a happy month. In spite of winter, my spring has finally come. The children love him already, and have been perfectly happy to make him a part of what is becoming a big, happy family - if a little outsized and weird these days. It's strange to have them go off to visit their Papa, and yet be happy to come home to me, and to have Dad be here, but not here as he has his own apartment upstairs now... and to have Michael here some evenings part of life and bedtimes and play with the kids and me. But despite the strangeness, it's working. Weird and wonderful.

Today, the long day... LOL, well, I did get back to it, eventually. Started out early, with Michael coming to give me a ride to the Child Impact Class, which was in Laconia. Two hours of listening to two people tell the class to focus on your children and care for them. After that, headed home, again thank you Michael :) The afternoon passed fairly quietly.. bill paying, phone calls, e-mails. The exciting part was finally getting in touch with my NHEP counselor, and getting confirmation that car repairs would be reimbursed up to $500, and that I can go ahead and enroll is classes. Yippee!

Two phone calls later, I am more ambivalent about the results of that phone call. The mechanic diagnosed my car over the phone as having a broken transmission. Either replace it, or go without reverse until I can replace the car. So I'll be parking carefully for the foreseeable future! I've got a little set aside, and I'll keep working at it. The upside is that I'll probably (proposal for funding has been submitted!) be taking classes for two certificate programs, one in Quickbooks, and the other in MS Office. So I'm finally getting back to some schooling. So good to be here!

To finish off my day, dropped stuff off at the library, set up a schedule for more volunteer work there this week, and picked up the girls from homework club. Then off to the market, pick up Johann at daycare, and home again to start dinner. Once the kids were fed, I sat down here to write this... they are watching a movie, so I got a few minutes peace.

I have gotten so much support from so many people recently, and I am heart-happy with this unexpected support. I may not yet have a job, and the car is a bump in the road, but I know things will get better, and with the kids whole and healthy, and Michael taking care of me, I am blessed and joyful at these signs of spring.

Update

2010-02-18T15:03:00.002-05:00

If anyone is still reading the blog... since I chit-chat mostly on FaceBook these days.

The job I'd finally found two seeks ago is a no-starter, it was a product demonstrator , per diem position, and I wasn't scheduled for this week and just found out that the district manager, to whom I reported, has quit abruptly. I don't think this is going anywhere good...

I am making jewelry with Michael, who is also now my significant other... He's amazing, loves me, loves the kids, and after four months of knowing one another we already have a easy comfort in one another. I can't imagine life without him in my future. He's also a blacksmith, which would be why I'm now learning chainmail jewelry. You can see what it looks like athttp://www.etsy.com/shop/avalonjewelrynh.

Yes, I am driving! I have a little car - a Ford Escort, and I get around quite a bit these days, looking for work and doing volunteer work at the Sanbornton Library. I can fit all the kids in it, which is great, and maybe in the future I can even take them on family trips.

I applied for ten jobs today, I've been a busy bee! LOL, hopefully one of these will amount to something. It's a bit bruising to one's ego to go this long without finding anything.

I am thankful for... a flushing toilet.

2009-11-26T10:26:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! I know, you want to know why I am writing about toilets this morning, instead of the meal I am helping make, and the family who will be gathering here soon. My first time to hostess Thanksgiving, and the one toilet in the house is being repaired as I type...

It all started a week ago. The old toilet had a flapper-valve go, and then something else, so we were flushing with a bucket. Not fun. The plumber was due to show up for several projects, so we waited... Yesterday, I pleaded and got BoPop and Dad to install the new toilet. Yay! flushing potty is soooo good.

Last night, as the kids got home from church, and I got them ready for bed, I went to check on Johann and discovered the sounds of rushing water. "Dad! the toilet's leaking." Here come Dad, and Mica, who had come over for a cuppa and a chat... I think he qualifies as family now, since he helped repair the toilet! They get the water out of the tank... there's a hole in the bottom of the tank, about the diameter of a pencil. Dry it up a bit, and we have no epoxy where we know where it is, so let's try the silicone. It has to set for at least 12 hours. OK, now we are back to flushing with a bucket, but at least it will be ready for family tomorrow. Oh, wait, where did the hole come from? Well, it turns out Johann had taken the lid off the toilet tank to see what was inside, and when he tried to put it back on, the lid fell into the tank, and the corner of it impacted the porcelain and broke a conical hole in it. The adults in the living room didn't hear it, because of the water in the tank.

Cue this morning... I walk into the bathroom to find Johann with the bucket, and a glass of water, with the tank lid off, trying to refill the tank. Oh, boy. Send him to his room... "Dad!"

And here we go again. He'd knocked the silicone plug out. So Dad runs out to walmart for epoxy, and finds some that dries to touch in five minutes, and will finish set underwater. Whew. Heat gun into the tank for a while to dry it out nicely, and plug of epoxy, and Johann under strict orders not to go into the bathroom without a potty buddy.

So Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all... a good flush.

Something different, Now that I am renewed and lifted up on wings of eagles...

2009-11-11T11:17:00.002-05:00

Poor sad soul

Thou unfortunate fool,

Lost your way

In life's cold school.

Now there's no

Going home in sunshine

Only the gray to

Hide your soft whine.

Fog your mind

And chill what's left

Of your bloody,

Battered life weft.

May there come

A day you may see

Woven there

The whole you can be.

Until then

March on, head bowed.

Soul tatter'd

Bare, shamed, and cowed.

(written 9/28/08 - a year and a lifetime ago.)

Kitten on my lap is keeping me from moving! Halp!

2009-11-08T17:39:00.000-05:00

I’m tired, and more or less biding my time. I can feel a story being born in my brain, but it is too young to have any shape yet. I wrote one this morning, all 4500 words of it, from beginning to end. It’s the first time in two years I have finished a tale, and I’m pretty pleased about it. I’ll let it cool for a couple of days before I edit. In the meantime... I have a sleepy kitty on my lap, buzzing his heart out. The kids are quietly playing in the living room. Dad is trying to shovel out his room - I’ve helped where I can, including hoiking a 12 foot stainless-steel counter into the garage with him. For some reason it triggered my cough to lift that, so now I’m sitting waiting for the inhaler to kick in. I really hope i’m not developing asthma.

So I have broken an 18 month case of writer’s block. I’ve had company over for a meal... my friends Ed and Wendy are working on rebuilding a house after it burned down last winter, and Dad helped with hauling today. I had everyone over for lunch after, so Wen wouldn’t have to cook. Turkey and Rice soup from scratch - very warm and yummy. Jake (I can’t believe he’s almost 18! He was 4 yesterday!) came with them, and took a walk with the kids, then they showed off the Wii to him - he’s a good kid to play with my young’ns. I reconnected with some old friends on Facebook - some of my earliest writing mentors, hence the boost in my embryonic story. It has been a good day - and it’s not over yet!

Tomorrow may be harder - who knows? But for now I feel rested and relaxed. Music on the computer (Judy Pancoast, I mean you!) and the happy talk of kids in the other room - no fighting at the moment. Kitten is asleep now. It’s been a good day.

Looking for work online

2009-10-17T06:31:00.002-04:00

I'm finding this to be a very different process than I remember. I've been thinking through my jobs before Mr. Phil & Co., and coming to the conclusion that in a decade, our world has changed. My last job Before Children(BC) was Ames, a department store that no longer even exists, working at the customer service desk and troubleshooting all over the store, as I had learned so much about every department in the years I worked there that I could find any item in the store. Before that, I worked a series of temporary jobs in Nashua, anything from dispatching to Wedding photography assistant. And going back before my marriage, I worked as a cashier at a convenience store, and a Daycare worker. In highschool, I had started working at Ames, and before that, when I was too young even to be "paid" I worked with a landscaping company. My work career has been a little different, hasn't it?

But here, running the business, I have had to learn so many things to keep our business going. Organization, time management... vital just to make a home office work with four kids running through it. Marketing, sales, advertising; I had to learn them well, or we would starve. Funny how depending on this for the family's sole income adds incentive! I like learning - in fact, I really need to get cracking on my HTML. But I also like a little stability. Working for someone else will be nice in that regard.

I'm having trouble quantifying my skill sets. I can type, use the computer - if it's a Mac I can make it do anything! - have good phone skills, and e-mail, and face-to-face... I cook, I clean :P

I was asked a question this week... what is my long term career goal? and I couldn't immediately answer it. It isn't that I drew a blank, more that I suddenly had so many ideas I felt like a kid again. What do I want to do with my life? If I could further my education (and I think I will have that chance) where would I go with it? I don't know yet. But I know I am looking forward to figuring this out.

What a wild and wonderful day.

2009-10-15T18:54:00.002-04:00

After the girls left for school, Dad and Johann and I started our odyssey. First we loaded up the Queen size bed and took it into Laconia, to trade for a twin bed. The lady with the twin wasn't home, so we dropped the bed and went on to Too Good to be Threw - my new favorite consignment shop! if you are near Laconia you have to stop in and see what Melanie and Paige have! - to pick up the furniture Nana and BoPop bought for me yesterday. As I was waiting, I realized that Paige was one of the organizers of the Holy Trinity's Craft Fair - so I asked her if they would like a facepainter. Turns out she was one of Mr. Phil's helpers - er, victim - at the back-to-school party there in September. Long story short, I will be doing my very first pay-per-face gig at the craft fair!!!

Dad and I loaded on the Entertainment Center, went home, dropped it off, turned around and went back to Laconia to load the Jelly Cupboard. We also picked up the twin bed and met a sweet Akita named Mary Jane. Stopped for lunch on the way home, then dropped off the twin bed and cupboard. While I was quickly fielding voicemails and e-mails, Dad measured the cupboard for me. 79" high, and the beams are 81" from the floor in the room I want it in. Whew!

Hop back in the truck and head for Manchester to pick up the two twin beds I want for the kids. Fortunately the house we are going to is not far off the highway, so we load those on. Oh, and I call the school to have the girls go to afterschool, just in case we don't make it home in time. So back up the highway, stop in Tilton to go to the market. I haven't been to the market in over a week - I just need a few things! LOL.

Home again. Unload the groceries (more than a few!) and the beds. Deal with a cranky Johann. Send Dad to pick up the kids. Pant a bit. Put the groceries away, feed the kids dinner, and Dad says, "it's going to rain." All that stuff is out in the driveway! So out we go, into the wild blue yonder...

Finally, as we are cleaning up the last bits, I get a call from the people who are taking the king-size bed, they will be here in twenty minutes. So we get the bed cleared off of 18 months worth of garage clutter, and it is dark wen they pull in and we help load the bed.

Come into the house, sit down to catch up on voice-mails, e-mails (yes, Phil, a gig did come in today) and take a peek at job listings. This is something I have to do every day to qualify for the financial assistance. So I see a super opportunity and suddenly for the first time in 12 years I am applying for a job. Yikes. What do I do for references? I call a few people, and get permission, and write a draft. E-mail it to BoPop, the best man for English checking I can have. He sends back a little correction, I format it, and press the send button. For the first time in over a decade I have taken this step. My last job was Customer Service Specialist at Ames, which doesn't even exist anymore, and that I didn't have to interview for - they knew me from highschool when I worked there. The job before that... I can't even remember what it was. This is going to be an interesting experience, whatever happens.

I love you all, and will be here more tomorrow, as Nana and her friend Connie and BoPop and Michael are all coming to help me. This life of mine is sweet and wonderful, and very exciting times for now.

Good Night!

I have been on Facebook too much

2009-09-23T07:22:00.002-04:00

To keep up here, too, but I wanted to say more today, so I'm back to this. Funny how that works. I have a lot to say, but normally I don;t have the time to sit down and write it out. Heck, even today I don't really have time, I'm just in a chatty mood. The kids are having breakfast, cinnamon toast and malted milk, and Phil is still asleep. He's such a night owl sometimes, and I feel badly about going up to bed without him in the evening, but I can't stay up that late.

We've had a busy week. Last Saturday and Sunday both we had gigs, Saturday was Bradford Family Fun day, always a favorite of ours, and Jordan's Walk for Wishes, a Make-A-Wish event. Sunday was an oddity, a solo gig for me. I facepainted for three hours for a Kidney Foundation Walk-A-Thon at Fishercat Stadium. Lovely day, and I was set up overlooking the field, so it was a very nice setting.

We're in the middle of switching Mr. Phil to a new look. We plan to keep the weskit, but go to colored oxford-style shirts under it, and a hand-tied bow tie. Yesterday I found some lovely shirts for him - on sale, even, and we ordered his bow ties. I need to call the seamstress today and set up a new weskit or two to be sewn. I normally cut, and she puts them together. I just don't have time.

The kids are in full school mode. Glady is in the band this year, and has chosen the trumpet as her instrument, much to her father's delight. She is practicing upstairs, away from the rest of us, but it still sounds like a dying moose has taken up residence at our house. She has potential, though.

Dad is gone most of the time since Aunt Pam is in town and his brother will be arriving in a few days. They took the kids on Sunday, and went to visit the Miniature horse farm Pippa had gone to earlier this summer. It has been different, putting the kids with a real babysitter for a change. Also makes us appreciate how much money Dad saves us when he sits for us!

I feel like the house is actually clean for a change, and we got a new (well, to us, anyway) couch last week, so the living room looks nice. Amazing how having a clean house makes me feel so good. Now all I have to do is finish the upstairs!

The kids are about ready to go out for the school bus. I'm going to put pictures up on facebook, so look there for them!

Not that I'm not here, but...

2009-07-20T13:25:00.001-04:00

I'm more often on Facebook these days, as is Phil. We even set up a fan page for Mr. Phil!!

Summer has officially started

2009-06-29T09:53:00.004-04:00

Mr. Phil and His stagehands at Nashua Public Library for the kickoff of Summer Reading. The girls actually have minor parts in the show for the first time.Glady cuddles a sleeping Figaro. He still lives in the Bathroom part time. He's good about his box - but we prefer not to test his little body! So he's allowed out to play and snooze on us, but then he goes back in there for a while.
As you can see by Phil's finger in this picture, Figgy is a micro-cat! He's small even for a baby kitten.
After all this rain, we were rewarded with a double rainbow yesterday.
Figaro and Leroy the bunny say hello. Figgy kept pouncing on Leroy, but the rabbit ignored the kitten. Leroy is a 12-week old mini rex, who debuted in a birthday show yesterday and did beautifully. He is so placid.

Phil dressed up as the Big Hobo - as opposed to Chaplin, who was the Little Tramp! - and went off to ride the train today. It is pouring rain out there, so I don't know how busy he'll be, but they did build him a little theater at the end of the station to perform magic on, so that will be fresh and fun to try out!

We did the first Summer Reading Porgram show of the season on Wednesday, and a full weekend of performances. so the rush of summer is upon us. An eyeblink and it will be Labor Day! The kids are all a little stir crazy with the rain, but Glady pulled out her EZ Bake oven and has promised brownies to her sisters and brother.

The biggest thing of the week is Figaro, an 8-week old marmalade kitten who has come to our house. He is adorable and playful and loves to cuddle, especially on Phil.

2009-06-03T08:41:00.001-04:00

kitchen progress

2009-06-01T07:01:00.003-04:00

Lots of progress and a little setback. We got the drywall up, and it already looks so nice. However, after much muttering and cutting to fit the base over the plumbing, Phil popped out of the office to help with the counter, and asked, isn't the hole supposed to be over the base?

OOPS. So - the good news is, we don't have to cut the corner of the counter to fit around the beam, and I get a nice 6" shelf at the back of my counter, the bad news is, the plumbing is going to be... interesting. But that's today's story, and is not yet written!

Kitchen remodel

2009-05-31T13:00:00.003-04:00

we are redoing the kitchen with Nana and BoPop's help.

Memorial Day Weekend

2009-05-24T11:41:00.003-04:00

It seems that this weekend has come unmoored from it's usual date on the calendar, so instead of the last weekend in May we celebrate a week early. The kids are home for a long weekend. Phil is off to Chili Challenge in Waterville Valley to make magic and balloons happen. Dad has gone up to his parents to cut and trim some trees down to size. Glady finally found Bebe after losing him for 24 hours - tragedy! Johann, Juliet, and Pippa have all his playdough and toys spread out and are having a blast. I will start lunch soon - and that's all the news!

Oh, except that I cut the top 1/4 inch off my thumb, so I can't type well. Ow.

2009-05-13T14:55:00.003-04:00

mr and mrs Bluebird... Johann likes lilac smell. We took a walk this morning and here are a few of the pictures I took.

we finished up with planting the trunk. I put sedum, both native and Dragon's Blood, and Saponaria in there. I also put in my pot of hens and chicks and the dianthus Glady gave me for Mother's day.

Lego Warrior

2009-05-08T07:06:00.003-04:00

The entire lego group - Glady is in the center. Glady's team. I gather they won in that the battles were a draw, but their robot didn't fall over.
The lego robots own the gym!

Glady has been taking part in an after-school enrichment program for the last few weeks. She and her classmates built lego robots and then battled with them. I let her take in a camera the last day, and here are her pictures.

End of a long week

2009-05-01T14:14:00.003-04:00

The kids found a garter snake under the stoop - I cought it and they each got to hold it before we released it back into the garden.

The kids pose with Nana and BoPop's car as we were taking it to drop off at the bus terminal that afternoon.

Papa Pushes Broom. The kids picked trash up, and I raked out garden beds.

It has been an eventful one! Nana and BoPop are home from Wales, the kids had a good vacation week, we worked out in the garden almost every day, they watched My Fair Lady for the first time...

Pippa's Birthday!

2009-04-26T11:58:00.002-04:00

I can hardly believe our little girl is 7 already. We spent this morning before Phil had to leave for his show getting the food ready for tonight's party. Unlike Glady, who asked for steak for her tenth birthday dinner, Pippy requested Lunchables! Oy, our little goofball strikes again. And then she wanted pizza, so we decided to surprise her with both... we made our own lunchables up, and created a pair of pizza pies like no other. Phil had the idea to cut the ham and salami into shapes - ham bears and salami hearts! The pizzas are sugar cookie crusts with virulent pink frosting and gummy fruit toppings, and a scattering of "Cheese" made from white chocolate. Right up our creative little girl's alley.

We have a couple of gifts, but she will get to pick out her own ukelele later. Glady loved her visit to the Vintage Fret Shop so much we decided to repeat it with Pippa. So we will have three little strummers. Now we have to teach them more than "Row, row, row your boat"!

Morning Musings

2009-04-16T07:56:00.004-04:00

Juliet - who loves to have her face painted! She chose the fire butterfly and then posed for her shots.

The girls down at the brook - throwing sticks in the waterfall to see them go over

False Hellebore shoots - the leaves are perfectly accordion-pleated as they appear.
One of Dad's girls on an alder catkin. They collect pollen from them, and other wind-pollinated plants at this season when there aren't many flowers out.

I am taking a couple of minutes to update with more than just a few pictures. Life is busy here, as always. I don't know what we would do if there was nothing to do! LOL... that sounds funny. Johann is running through the kitchen calling for me to be his potty buddy so the crabs won't get him... He calls spiders crabs. While he was on the potty he chattered away, telling me that if I found a crab on my bed I should call him so he could kill it with his foot.

Phil is sleeping - he has a migraine. He had the tummy bug that has been going through the house yesterday, poor guy. Glady started the parade a week ago, and it has been working it's way through us all. So I'll let him get some rest - it's a quiet day, no shows, so he can take a little time to recover.

Dad's off training to become a census mapper. He went straight to Laconia from Concord, where he was drawing blood at the nursing home. He lost a full time job, but would up with 4 part-time ones! He actually likes it, though, because he has more time at home during the day to work on the garden and his bees and the like. He and the kids were able to tap our maples and make syrup this spring - the first time in the almost 20 years we've been here that we have bothered to do this! We ended up with a couple of gallons. The kids loved it, too.

The girls have gone off to school. Glady is excited because the Lego Robot enrichment program is afterschool today. She is in the gifted programs, so a few times a year she gets to be part of special programs like this one. Juliet is in occupational therapy. She has a form of kinestethia that means she doesn't balance well, or write easily (we were afraid it was dyslexia, but testing ruled that out.), and feels like she has to move all the time to keep track of her place in the world. That's why she is such a wiggle worm. Pippa started her very first chapter book last week - a Pony-crazed Princess book her Aunt Pam had given her. She told me she wasn't going to read chapter books until she was in third grade and I said no daughter of mine was going to wait that long - and once I showed her the book she realized that she could do it! Her teacher sent home a note a couple of days later saying that Pippa is now "an excited little reader".

I took them down to the brook on Tuesday looking for frog eggs. We didn't find any, so we'll try again next week. We did catch a bunch of tiny dragonfly larvae and caddis fly larvae and some snails to put in the little aquarium. I had moved all the fish to Dad's big aquarium, so we can keep pond critters in there without them all being eaten.

It's 8am and I need to finish up my morning routine. I've been really blessed recently by being able to download podcasts of Marla the FlyLady and Dave Ramsey to my iPod. It certainly helps the dishes become less of a chore when I have something to listen to! They have inspired me to try a little harder to keep my house and get even better than I had been. In almost twelve years of marriage and ten of kids you would think that I would be further along than I am. I have a shiny sink 6 nights out of 7 - and Phil helps a lot, there. My bed is made every day - but the laundry lives on the couch more than I would like (Phil calls it Mount Washing-done). I rarely can look around and not see something that needs to be done. Somedays it overwhelms me, and I think I just can't do it all. I hate that I get sick all the time, and have to take naps almost every day. I don't know if I really was stronger before, or if that's just what I remember, but I certainly feel like my body can't take what it used to. I get so tired.

Johann has decided to make a finger puppet by himself, so I am off to rescue the carpet from glue!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

2009-04-15T21:37:00.003-04:00

Dad asked for - and got! a homemade Red Velvet Cake.The Crocus have been blooming their little hearts out for a couple of weeks now.

The very first Daff is ready to pop! I've been waiting - I though it would happen by Easter.

We celebrated Dad's Birthday today - a couple of days late, but with his schedule we didn't have an evening with him home until tonight. We found out yesterday that little Carter was born on his birthday. Yay! Congratulations Paul and Nikki!

I think Spring is finally here - I sat on the stoop for a few minutes tonight listening to the Peepers sing their little hearts out.

Grampa Bob

2009-03-28T07:58:00.006-04:00

His name was Robert Earl Fales and I am guessing that this picture was taken when he was 18. I came across it while cleaning out the box of pictures I have been accumulating for years - and I am not sure why I ended up with it. You can see his wicked sense of humor in his eyes, can't you?

Different kind of morning

2009-03-19T08:41:00.003-04:00

Pippa and Glady are home today for the morning -they both have dentist appointments a little later. Johann is delighted to have sisters here to pal around with. He doesn't like being alone, and will often ask them in the mornings to please stay home today. I can hear them out at the kitchen table playing with legos. I gave them my regular size legos that I had bought myself in college a week or two back. They have a huge supply of duplos, the toddler size version of legos, but there is just something cooler about the regular ones! They think it is funny to be playing with toys Mama bought for herself when she was s grown-up. Phil and I got them little packs with men in them, pirates and cops, wince they didn't have many guys. Dad was pointing out that when he had legos as a boy, there weren't guys, or much of anything besides the blocks. Today there are a lot of cool gizmos for them to add to their collection.

Speaking of collections, Glady went with us to the Vintage Fret shop earlier this week to pick out her ukelele. She was overawed by all the different instruments. She fell in love with a folk harp that was almost as tall as she is, and with the Double Bass, an instrument almost taller than her Papa! She picked out a pink uke that looks like a mini version of Pinky, Phil's first uke, and named it Lollipop. Johann got a kazoo, and played it in the car all the way home.

Twenty Questions

2009-02-12T20:32:00.002-05:00

Mr. Phil is going to be profiled in a local newspaper, and they sent us some questions to answer beforehand. I though you might like to see them. So what would your answers be?
Here are the questions:

1. Full Name...
Philip Spitz
People know you as...
Mr. Phil

2. Date and place of birth:
March 25, 1964in Hollywood, CA

3. Occupation:
Family Entertainer, specializing in Magic, Balloonology, and Comedy.

4. How long have you lived in the area?
I moved to NH in 1996 to be near my future wife. Thirteen years here, twelve married to her!

5. Who was your most influential role model?
Bruce "Charlie" Johnson, a clown, writer, and circus historian based in Olympia, WA.

6. Where is your favorite place to go or your favorite trip or your favorite
hike?
Disneyland. I grew up near it, and I still feel that it is one of the few places of pure illusion. For that brief time you are there, you step out of your world and into theirs.

7. Favorite local business?
Laconia Public LIbrary - that's where it all started.

8. Favorite food?
Mexican! I grew up in San Diego surrounded by it, and I still love it.

9 Favorite book?
Barry Mitchell's "Creativity In Magic"

10: Favorite movie?
Do I have to pick just one? The Princess Bride - I can't think of anything to put above it on the list.

11. What do you spend too much money on?
Magic, of course. And books.

12. What is the dumbest thing you ever did?
Dressed up as the Easter Bunny. There used to be a picture, but not anymore! Muahh- Hah-Ha-Ha!

13. What is your fondest memory?
Holding my first-born daughter the night she was born - just minutes after she was born, actually. She was so tiny, and so amazing.

14. What item is no longer available that you would like to see return?
Jolt Cola with real sugar.

15. What do you think makes the Lakes Region a good place in which to live?
Its hometown feel. It isn't a city, it's a town.

16. If you could change one thing about the Lakes Region, what would it be?
The traffic on Rte 3!

17. If you could change one thing about the state, nation or world, what
would it be?
I'd bring back good manners and courtesy.

18. If you were to try a different profession for a day, what would it be?
A First-grade teacher.

19. If you won the lottery, what would you do?
I'd help my friends and family, of course, but I'd really like to find some people to help anonymously. Pay for a month's rent, a tank of oil... something like that. And would it be great if that caught on and spread so everyone did things like that?

20. What would you like to be remembered for?
That I made people laugh. That I took them away from their mundane lives for a while into a place of joy and laughter.

Friday Fun Night

2009-02-06T20:31:00.004-05:00

We started out with the kids all playing outside until they were ready to come in and have hot cocoa. Then for dinner...

Make your own pizza! Johann had the cutest, of course.

Papa supervises Glady's bacon application.
We had games, and drawing. We all love Gobblet because it is simple enough for Pippa on up to play, but challenging enough for Phil and I to play one another at a whole 'nother level.
Pippa's working on her valentines already. Johann said he was, too. "I'm makin' love."
And yes, Juliet did beat her father one game out of three. Yay Julie!

Snuggly Guys

2009-02-06T08:09:00.001-05:00

FaceArt

2009-01-27T16:59:00.006-05:00

I was painting the girls (and boy!) last night, and talking to Mom on the phone, and she wanted to see what I had done, so here are the pics! I did two rainbow faces because I am thinking about competing at a conference I am going to in a bout a week. Very nervous about all that, it will be my first such thing. But the kids are great, Glady is TEN today! I can hardly believe we've had her for a decade!

Early morning quiet

2008-12-28T07:18:00.002-05:00

I am enjoying a quiet morning moment. I have my warm, cuddly boy in my arms, wrapped in his favorite blanket. Pippa is sitting at the table with a dot-to-dot and enjoying some hot cocoa. I'm letting Phil sleep - we are enjoying the luxury of vacation.

Soon the house will be busy with life - kids clamoring for breakfast, Phil and Dad wanting their coffee. We will be getting ready to go out into the cold world, but for the moment the whole house is wrapped in quiet, like a big fuzzy blanket.

Christmas Revelries

2008-12-26T11:14:00.004-05:00

Pippa gets her favorite Christmas beverage. Johann and his very patient Best Friend, Thaddeus.
Juliet and Glady play their new Bakugan game. It's a cross between marbles and math and looks like fun! The hotwheels launcher is Johann's.
Juliet with her new ukelele! She was so excited.
The girls opening presents.
This was earlier - Stocking time!

So it's Boxing day... Where does that name come from, anyway? The kids keep asking us and we don't know either! Glady's dancing to her iPod tunes, Juliet is in the living room trying out her Ukelele (who she has named Fruity), and Johann and Pippa are chasing each other thru the house. Phil has run out on an errand or two and I think Dad is hibernating in his room - he got a copper bedwarmer from Nana and he came out this morning to fill it up and I haven't heard from him since.

Christmas Eve we had a Family get together at our house. Nana and BoPop came here for a change, and we had munchies and chatted and opened a present each. It was very nice to have them over, I think it may be the first time I have entertained them here. The kids certainly enjoyed having them to cuddle up to and talk to. After they went home we looked at the icy rain and scratched the trip to church we had planned. Glady in particular was very disappointed, but the weather has been atrocious and we weren't going to take any chances. We all got into our pj's and cuddled on the couch and Papa read the story of Jesus's birth aloud and answered all the questions the kids had. I think we answer the same questions every year, but they always ask.

Christmas morning Johann danced around singing "Sinta came! Sinta came!" when he saw the stockings. I must say the jolly old elf outdid himself this years - the girls each got watches and Barbies in theirs, and Johann got hotwheels and lots of playdough. The adults got Lindt chocolate. MMMMMM!

After breakfast (egg-nog french toast) We started to open the gifts under the tree. This year we carefully did one at a time, the girls taking turns playing elf to deliver the gifts. The girls got clothes, and books, and lots of other fun things. Their big gifts from us were an iPod shuffle for Glady, a Ukelele for Juliet, and a CD player for Pippa. It was a musical Christmas! This year we had given the three girls each a budget for one adult each and it was a riot to see waht they got us. Pippa gave me a Fondue pot. Juliet gave Grampa a watch, and a bee that buzzes Jingle Bells, and a hankie. Glady gave her Papa a Nerf N-Strike Tactical Unit - six guns that shoot nerf darts. Oh, boy, was our afternoon interesting!

Dad went up to his folks house in the afternoon, and we all played and napped back here at the house. I started cooking relatively early, as we had missed out on our Thanksgiving Feast and I wanted to make Christmas good. We had stuffed pork roast, yorkshire pudding, Colonial corn pudding, cranberry relish, mashed potatoes and gravy, squash with marshmallows on top... it was very yummy! Oh, and Wassail punch from a colonial recipe for "Weaker Wassail" that was suitable for the kids to drink.

What a morning!

2008-12-22T10:05:00.002-05:00

everyone was trying to get out the door at once, Phil to his delayed show, the girls to school (also on delay) and Dad to work. Oh, and before they left, we had to dig 18 inches of snow out of the driveway! So it was a little nuts. Yesterday was quite a snowy day, with lots of very cold wind - a couple of pipes froze on the east side of the house, but they are ok this morning since the wind changed. It's just Johann and I now - I have a ton of work to do so I can't stay on the computer long. I need to clean the house since I've invited Nana and BoPop over on Christmas Eve. We already wrapped most of the gifts, thank goodness. I have some baking to do - not a lot, since I'm not doing a lot this year. And Office stuff, as always - especially since we've lost five shows to the weather this year. I can reschedule most of them to January, so they aren't a total loss... Sigh.

more fun pictures

2008-12-18T09:29:00.003-05:00

Christmastime is here again

2008-12-17T10:09:00.003-05:00

we decorated the tree finally last night! The tree is a colorado spruce Grampa planted in the garden a while back and it had gotten too big - we had to cut it in half to get it in the house! We had planned on having it up last friday but with the ice storm it got frozen to the driveway and it took a couple of days to thaw it out and get it ready! LOL oh, well. The kids had a blast decorating it. We've had small trees for a couple of years now, because of the baby. But he is finally old enough to leave it alone (mostly) and even helped put ornaments on it. The girls love doing this, and we watched Charlie Brown's Christmas while we put them on, and drank egg-nog.

A Big Day!

2008-11-26T18:59:00.002-05:00

We finally put bunk beds in the kid's room today - and carpet! They are all so excited now that it is all done. We have been putting this day off and off because we are afraid Johann will climb up, fall off, and hurt himself. But all their beds fell apart over the last couple of months due to wear and tear, so we had to do it. It look nice, though, and they have lots of storage space now. Hopefully that will help them keep it tidy!

It was a First!

2008-11-26T08:22:00.004-05:00

Battle Cattle! the game where cows are armed and armoured and wage war with Milk bombs and methane gas. Mama and Pippa teamed up for Risk.
Pippa and Juliet like to blow on their dice before they roll.
Ahhh... Hot cocoa, Family, and world domination!

We had Family Game Night last night, since the girls are out of school today. The girls voted for Risk, so we spent a couple of hours happily playing the very first Family Risk game! It was a blast. We didn't play out the whole game because it got really late. Of course, we did have a little sportsmanship issue at the end when it became evident that one young lady was about to lose... Actually, that is part of why we play games together. Not jsut because it's fun, but to teach them how to lose - and to win. And how to play to win. The young lady in question had been trying to take care of her Papa and thought he wouldn't attack her countries in return. *Sigh* we can't and won't play to lose with them, it would be unfair to them. So after the game of Risk got packed away, we pulled out the Battle Cattle and played a quick round to reinforce the lessons... and all in all, we were up until almost 11pm! LOL - Pippa was up with me at 6:30 this morning, but everyone else slept in for another hour.

Glady's Days

2008-11-13T06:51:00.004-05:00

Tuesday I got my first uke lesson! I had the pink most, the brown least. And I was sick!

Wednesday we accompliced something with Nancy drew! Lots of stuff!

Fall

2008-09-30T06:22:00.004-04:00

Milkweed pods.

The last goldenrod and aster of the season.

British soldiers in their red caps growing on an old log.

Chokecherries made almost sweet by frosts.

A wet bee rescued from a bucket.

A Nashville Rambler watching us from a bush.

The ruddy leaves of maples.

A tiny caterpillar named Spike.

My daughters in the sunshine laughing.

The last raspberries of summer.

Thus is Fall and today, my favorite season.

How many songs in a day?

2008-09-28T08:01:00.002-04:00

Well, according to iTunes (our music library), 445. Wow. We had lost our old collection in the move from one computer to another, and we'd had more than a week on that, but we're re-loading CD's to get it back on the computer. Phil and I have been working on it off and on, and today I noticed as I lodaded up Trout Fishing in America's My Best Day, that we had exactly one day - with 445 songs on it!

So what's your favorite song or group?

Malapropisms

2008-09-26T08:36:00.002-04:00

Johann, who is curled up under a blanket on the couch watching Blues Clues, has been a riot this morning. He wanted me to microwave his grapes. "They're cold, Mama! I want to make them warm!"

Well, I'm not sure what would happen if you microwaved a grape but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be good. We compromised on hot chocolate now and grapes later. It isn't all that chilly this morning, only 53* outside, but he hasn't gotten dressed yet. Potty training and naked boy seem to go hand in hand. We try, but yesterday, he went through 5 sets of clothes for various reasons, mostly that he takes off his clothes to go potty, and then puts them in the laundry. Go figure.

We were in the bathroom earlier, and he was trying to pull a piece of molding off the corner by the tub. When I got upset and asked him why he would try to destroy the wall, he looked up at me and said "the crabs hide in there!" Now, he calls spiders crabs. We aren't quite sure why, but it is very funny. I told him they were hiding from him, like the dog does sometimes, and to leave them alone.

He and the dog really get on quite well, considering that Johann loves to hug him and love on him, and the highlight of his day is to be allowed to give Thaddeus his treat. He takes the treat and runs up and down the house with it, dog bouncing along after him, Johann shouting in glee and Thad barking excitedly. It gets a bit loud, sometimes!

His other malaprop that has been cracking Phil and I up is saying "How?" when he means why. So a conversation could go like this:

"Johann, time for bed."

"How?"

Chuckling, the parent will say "go climb in your bed and lie down."

"How!?" with great emphasis.

"You mean why, kiddo. Because it's that time."

"How?"

And so on. He is such a little wiggle bug - always in motion. And he misses his sisters when they are at school. He loves to walk them out to the bus, and to be waiting to play with them when they get home. Pippa spent a half day at home the other morning and he was so happy he had her to play with. He doesn't do as well on his own as the girls did at this age. He has decided, though, that he is going to college and becoming a fi'fiter.

The college thing has become a big deal around here. He talks about it all the time. He wants to take Thaddeus to college with him, and Nana and Bopop. It took us a while to realize that when he says college he means kindergarten. I think he got the word from Blues Clues, were Steve went off to college and his brother Joe moved in to take care of Blue. It will be two years before he goes to kindergarten, and I am thinking about getting him in preschool for a day or two a week. We could probably arrange a trade-out with a local school that has Mr. Phil in about 6 times a year.

Well, I need to get my morning going again. The little man is still on the couch, but getting wiggly again. He won't stay there much longer. The big man is sleeping, trying to recover from a nasty head cold. We're all suffering from that one in one way or another.

Juliet's Self-Portrait

2008-09-24T21:26:00.003-04:00

I found this today while looking for something else - I don't always look at every one of her pictures. WIth a digital camera she can - and does - take dozens of shots at a time. So I had missed this one.

Summer's last fling

2008-09-24T21:08:00.004-04:00

We all - the kids and I - went down to the brook this week. I haven't been down that far all summer, and it was fun to troop down with my happy gang. They didn't want to come back up to the house - their response to "it's time to go" was "No, Mama, we haven't made enough memories yet!"

Even though they are all in school and we had our first killing frost day before yesterday, the weather has been lovely. Today on the way down to Tilton, we saw the first real color along the way.

I don't know if the photos will come through - I seem to be having a problem with uploading today - this is my second attempt. I'm a little bummed about that - this is my photo album to share with you all, friends and family. I love taking pictures - and Juliet seems to have inherited that, and she has a good eye for an eight-year-old. She took a nice series of pictures of Glady learning to make sushi tonight. I found a self-portrait

Not a Real Job?

2008-08-15T10:13:00.002-04:00

Why is it that friends and family persist in treating small business owners like dirt? I know we aren't the only ones to feel this - we've talked to many other entrepeneurs like ourselves that get this reaction. This morning, Phil left early to run a quick errand before "work" and ran into a long-term acquaintance. We've known her for years, but never closely, and certainly not to the level where we would confide our family finances to!
She asks"So, where are you off too?"
Phil, who is half in costume, answers that he is going to be the Hobo Magician for the day.
"Oh, so you still don't have a real job. So Cedar must be working, then."
"No, she's at home still, raising the four kids and running the office."
With a tone of disbelief, she queries, "Neither of you have real jobs?"
Phil, feeling disgusted and put-down, tells her that we are doing just fine running our own business and makes his escape.

Now, why do people do this? We work hard at what we do, pull in a middle-class income, and have the time to parent our children, to boot. They aren't in daycare all day, and even if I'm in the office a lot they still ahve access to me if they need. Running our own business is a lot harder tahtn simply holding down a 'real job' as we are responsible for not only one aspect of a business, but all of it. Phil and I make a great team. We've heard many envious comments from peers who wish they had a supportive spouse. Phil and I know that if we fall down on the job we make a big difference in our family's livliehood. In a 'real job' we could call in sick, slack off, not have to be constantly studying and training to keep up with the demands of our business. Do these people expect us to go out and get a "real job" so it will be easier on us? Or just because we don't conform to their viewpoint of what life should be?

I'm so frustrated and sick of this today. Even those who should know better if they stopped to think insist on telling my children - my kids! who don't need to hear about this, have the guts to talk to Phil and I directly! - that their father is lazy. OOOH!

Well, off my soap box for the day. I have too much to do today to dwell on this for long, and Phil has not only a long day today, but no time off until Aug 26. So for his sake I keep this house as peaceful as possible, and reassure him that I am committed to making this business a sucess. We've made it 8 years, this year will be our best ever, and I'm not going to let the doomsayers win. We're Good at what we do. We bring joy to kids and adults everyday and that is a worthy mission.

Busy Summertime

2008-08-14T14:10:00.003-04:00

Juliet with the balailaika. Phil is learning to play it, my hands won't quite stretch to all the chords so I don't know if I will try. Juliet wants to learn to play Uke, like Phil and I. This was during the week and a half her sisters went to Pennsylvania with Nana and BoPop. Juliet got to be the princess while they were gone, and we celebrated her 8th birthday on 8/8/08!

I made pies with all the lovely berries the kids (and Dad and I) have been picking all summer long. Assembly-line production meant 4 pies for the freezer took no longer than one.

Johann is such a lovely little man! Fully potty-trained now, Wahoo! No more diapers. Here he gives Papa kisses.

Summertime!

2008-07-10T09:51:00.002-04:00

Wow, it has been a while since I posted! Sorry, everybody. Life has been crazy, as we launched the Summer Reading Show June 24, after more than a month of preparation and rehearsal. Then came last week, the busiest week of the year, with 4th of July festivities. We did take time out for Family, though, and got together up at Toad Hill to meet Nikki, Paul's lovely bride.

Phil is doing well, considering the punishing schedule this summer. He's tired but not burning out, and not sick of his job (yet! LOL - poor guy loves doing this, but every sumer there comes a point...). You can check out our calendar at the website, www.mrphilandco.com, and be sure to check there through the summer, as we have hired a new web-guy who will be helping us upgrade the site. Woo-Hoo! that has been on our minds for too long.

The girls are doing well... mostly. Today they are driving one another crazy. Johann was having trouble with the heat the last couple of days... poor little doo-dad. We had to postpone his Birthday celebration because he wasn't feeling well. He did turn 3 yesterday, though! Yay! He's so big now - I can hardly believe it has been that long. The girls got haircuts Tuesday. They look adorable. My camera is broken, but I sill gat a picture soon to put up here. Glady went for just a trim - she wants he hair long and as she has been taking care of it well enough I don't mind. Pippa and Juliet got bobs - Phil calls it the mushroom cut! - and Juliet had long enough hair to donate hers to Locks of Love.

I am good. The heat isn't getting me down as much this year, and other than being really busy I have been enjoying summer. I will hopefully post again soon!

Everything stops for Tea

2008-05-29T08:05:00.002-04:00

Glady brought an English custom home with her, Tea! The girls take turns being the tea hostess and serving out the sugar and milk. Today it was Juliet's turn, and Glady was showing her how to use the silver sugar cube tongs she brought home with her. I find it so charming to listen to them talking about the hostess serving herself last, and how they do that in other ways during the day, too. Of course, hearing them seriously ask "one lump, or two?" always makes me want to giggle - but I don't.

They aren't the old-fashioned girls of yesteryear, but I want them to grow up to be little ladies. We teach them manners constantly, which they never remember at home, but always seem to out in public. I started Glady on embroidery last year, and this spring Juliet and Pippa insisted on joining that parade. I don't know how useful a skill it really is, but they love doing it. Glady wants to learn how to sew, and now that my machine is in the shop (it broke down last fall and I have been missing it!), I will set aside some time this summer to teaching her.

More and more as time goes by I realize that I may never teach them at home full time, but that doesn't mean I'm not teaching in every day situations. This summer I may do some formal lessons - I'm leaning towards Latin - to feed their minds. They have a tendency to veg in front of the tv too much, so Phil and I shut off the tv last week - and may not turn it back on until football season! Hah! We've had so much fun playing games together, both inside and out. Juliet has been reading aloud to Pippa and Johann, and Glady is starting to read GA Henty (woo-hoo!).

I need to go and check on my little ones. They are far too quiet in there - I don't know what I am going to do with Johann next year when it is just him home! Yikes! At least right now he and Pippa play nicely together.

I can smell the lilacs and honeysuckle through the office window. MMMMMM... intoxicating. The side-yard is looking so much better this year. I still have to get it mowed, but one battle at a time.

Oh... anyone have any ideas on how to bait a trap for a woodchuck? We have big hungry one hanging around the garden I need to get rid of!

They grow up too quickly

2008-05-24T18:00:00.002-04:00

Phil and I had a rare opportunity today - to spend most of the day with Glady. Nana and BoPop took the two younger girls up to visit Uncle Austin and Aunt Bobbie, so it was just the four of us. Johann has been feeling a little under the weather, so he napped from noon until 4. Phil and I taught Glady how to play Risk - and for her first time she did an excellent job! How cool to finally have a child how can and does share our joys. She only whined once, and took great delight in teaming up with her Papa to "dominate Mama! ha'ha'!"

Then we watched a little bit more of Fiddler on the Roof. Around here we almost never watch a movie from start to finish - it's always in thirty minute or so chunks. We watched the sad parts - where Huddle leaves home and Havalah runs away. It amazes me how much this movie has changed for me since having children. I think the last time I watched the movie itself (we listen to the music from it all the time) was before we had any children. Phil and I now associate ourselves much more with Tevya and Golda than we used to. I know I used to be most empathetic to Tseitel... Now it is the scenes of the daughters growing up and away that had both of us weeping. Glady didn't get the anti-Jewish scenes, so that required a history lesson, too.

Glady made dinner for us - Phil left for his gig, so it's just three here and seeming awfully quiet! - she made Toad-in-the-Hole. It smells wonderful, so I will go and hang out with my eldest and youngest and enjoy this quiet time with them.

Grampa's Buzzys

2008-05-16T19:05:00.002-04:00

The early blueberry bush is in bloom. The bees will pollinate this bush full of flowers and turn it into berries for us. The seedling apple behind the house is blooming, too. This tree sprang up from a dropped apple many years ago, it wasn't cultivated at all, but it still has sweet fruit.
Dad checking on the bees.
The tan lump at the lower corner of the hive tool is a queen cell. This nucleus hive is small, but trying to grow their own qeen, as they do not have one now.
The bees were very calm this evening. Also, if you look at the comb in the foreground you will see the nectar they have spent all day gathering. It is hard to see - a little glint in the combs.

I caught Dad checking on his bees tonight. He's got a few hives this year, and bought some more nukes (nucleus hives). I think he plans to take them up to Toad Hall to pollinate the orchard soon. Johann met "Grampa's buzzys" a couple of weeks ago - he was stung on the arm so now he stays away!

Sometimes they make us laugh

2008-05-15T16:51:00.002-04:00

For all that the kids sometimes drive us crazy (like Juliet sitting on the arm of my chair right now reading over my shoulder!!!) they also have the ability to crack us up like nothing else...

A few days ago Pippa came running out of her room with a pair of tights on her head and announced that she was a new superhero! Ninja Bunny! and of course, Johann had to get into the act! Now our little Ninja bunnies appear at unlikely times to dance around and accomplish special tasks, like Pippa's chore of keeping the shoes in the entryway organized.

This morning Johann trotted out of his room to go outside with his sisters who were waiting for the bus. I was laughing too hard to take his picture, but Phil did... As you can see, he dressed himself!

Juliet loves to tickle me to make me laugh. She wasn't feeling well this afternoon (we've had a tummy bug going around) and she told me that she loves cuddling me. I felt a little like a mother hen with her chick under her wing as Juliet snuggled under my arm.

Glady likes to make jokes and pull pranks. She is the biggest Goober of them all, and we have a bunch of them in the family!

Dad jumped out behind Phil and I in the parking lot at the clinic and thumped on the car. It wasn't funny at the time, because we both jumped so high (from a sitting position, even more impressive!) but it was later.

Phil was debating naptime in the car with Johann this afternoon...
"Yes, nite-nite" (Phil)
"No nite nite"
"Yes nite-nite"
"no nite nite"
"No nite nite" (Phil)
"No! you say yes nite-nite, I say no nite nite!"

OK, reverse psychology doesn't work on this kid....

It's almost summer!

2008-05-13T16:45:00.003-04:00

My girls all ready for picture day! Bopop at Pippa's birthday celebration.
Nana and her dress-up dolls.
Nana and the lad.
The frog goes for a slide!

Such a lovely day today. Sun and flowers, bees and birds singing through them. The kids have been outside as much as possible, I've been out there a little, but also trying to get work done in here. I really should get out my ukelele next and start trying to catch up to Phil - who is well on his way to becoming proficient on his. I wanted to take a minute though, and post a few pictures so everyone can see Pippa, who is six now! and all the other big kids we have around here, too! LOL.

She's Home!

2008-03-20T09:14:00.002-04:00

Our Family is whole again. She and Dad got into Logan around 2 yesterday afternoon and Phil was there waiting for them. After they got home Glady buzzed around like and excited bee for about an hour and then collapsed into bed around 5, to sleep for twelve hours. She was up at 5 am and Phil brought her up to be our little Welsh cuddlecakes and talk our ear off in bed for a hour! LOL - she's been talking non-stop since she got up. I talked to Nana this morning and she says Glady was like that over there, too. Johann and Pippa (Juliet went to school already) have been clinging happily to her.

She will head back into school and normal routine tomorrow, but we thought we'd keep her home a day and let her acclimate again. Phil's off to a daycare show in Goffstown, so it's just the four of us at home right now. Not exactly peaceful, but good to have everyone where I know where they are.

Looking Back

2008-03-18T08:19:00.002-04:00

Two little girls who aren't so little anymore... This was taken in Winter 2001, not too long before Pippa was born. It's hard to believe Pip is going to be 6 in a month! One thing hasn't changed - they all still love to dance whenever I put music on. Even Johann, although his style consists mostly of hopping up and down rapidly and flapping his arms.

Got some pictures of Glady

2008-03-14T08:51:00.002-04:00

She was invited on a field trip with a welsh calssroom and here are a couple of pictures of her at the farm they visited!

We miss Glady!

2008-03-11T07:36:00.001-04:00

A week to go until she comes home. We've been busy around here, as usual!

A Snowy Saga pt 1

2008-03-03T11:09:00.003-05:00

It all started this last Saturday - well, really it started before that.... I was hired for a facepainting gig - a four hour stretch at Gunsotck ski area. I was to be apainting the young racers and their families at the Bill Koch Youth Ski Festival, which is an event of the NENSA (New England Nordic Ski Assoc.). He told me I would be in a tent attached to the big tent where people were hanging out and getting warm. Okay, I can manage that.

It dawned on me later that I would be standing on snow, so I dug out my Bunny Boots (military issue arctic gear, good to about 70 below zero - I know, I've tested them at almost that cold!) and relaced them with cool lime-green laces. Voila! clown boots. I figured the rest of my wordrobe would work just fine. I'm good to go...

Friday; Phil looks at the weather and sees a big storm headed in for that night and Saturday morning. He calls me on his way up to a gig out past Gunstock and tells me we should get a room at the Gunstock Inn if at all possible so we will be on site and not risk missing the gig. So I do - they have only one room left, but it will work. So when Phil got home from the Diner at 9pm, we got him changed, I had already packed, and we were ready to go. Oh, yeah. and I'd spent most of the day without water as the bathtub faucet sprang a leak... fortunately Dad fixed it easily when he showed up around 8pm.

We get checked in and gear unloaded at the hotel at almost 11pm. At this point Phil tells me he hasn't eaten since lunch - and he tends to get grumpy when he's hungry! There was no way we were going to get a delivery up there at that time of night, but there was a chinese place open in Alton... and if I'd had any idea how far that was going to be we would have just gone to sleep! By the time we drove into the snowy night, which started just as we left and was quite heavy by the time we got back, and returned with food it was midnight. Yikes!

They are on their way...

2008-03-02T19:47:00.003-05:00

She's ecited - he doesn't look too sure about this!Dad and Glady are traveling to the land of daffodils... quite a change from our snowbanks!

Dad and Glady left this afternoon to spend some time in Wales with Nana and BoPop and Aunt Pam. They will be home on the 19th, so I will be without my little girl for more than two weeks... She has been sooooo excited the last couple of days she could hardly sit still. Poor Phil has been worrying about this trip since we first started planning it with the grandparents. She has a camera and a journal and some homework along, so in addition to all the traveling they plan to do she will be too busy to be homesick. I believe they plan to take her to Strafford-On-Avon, where Shakespeare lived; and Stonehenge, amongst others!

So far her sisters and brother seem not to have noticed - besides a lot of hugging and kissing goodbye this morning. It felt strange to make dinner for only three little people to me, though.

Thursday thoughts

2008-02-29T09:53:00.004-05:00

Here is one of the lovely headshots our friend Christie did for Phil and I last month. We are wearing our Naswa costume - which we refer to as the "Island Phil" look. I still wear glasses - they just make a lot of glare in photos.
Pippa is singing in the kitchen... "Three little cuppies, all in a row, one fell down and now there's two... chocolate milky yummy in your tummy, and it's good for you too!" to the tune of Five Little Monkeys. She has definitely inherited Phil's knack for making up songs on the spur of the moment.

They finally got their room clean... it is vacation week so they have been in it a lot more, with brief forays out into the winter wonderland we live in. More snow predicted for tonight! And now I plan to reward the girls with a Barbie movie.

Our friend Mo the Clown (also known as Mo Fun) came over to play yesterday. We had a good Jam. We played with making faces out of a blossom - Phil made a great one that looked like a muppet. Mo taught us his motorcycle - it is an improvement on the one Phil knew already. Since Phil will be playing at the Naz Bar during Bike Week, he needed a good one. We are still working out costuming for that event. And a better name for the character than "Biker Phil". So much to do - so little time!

We did write and pull together a really great Easter Magic Show together. That was fun. He's off at a daycare this morning doing it - and Leap Magic, too.

Oh, and in my last post, I didn't identify the large snowy lump... That is our 8 passenger van in the driveway! Completely covered! It isn't running right now, so all it has done is collect snow all winter.

Will-I Nill-I

2008-02-27T19:31:00.005-05:00

Well, as I feared, the Nor-Easter brought with it a foot of snow to grace the mounds we already have on the ground here. It was perfect snow-ball snow - just moist enough to pack without being too wet. Good thing the kids are on vacation to enjoy it this week!

I'm not too upset about the amount of snow this winter - we've had a very lucrative season working with ski-areas. It is inconvenient nights like tonight, when Phil had to turn back from his gig at Steele Hill because he got to the worst part of the hill and started to spin - no show tonight! Fortunately, he didn't get stuck, either. He's safely on his way home. Oh - and this is because we get another inch or so tonite! HA-HA!

Snow More!

2008-02-25T16:48:00.003-05:00

Somebody loves his "Key-Key".My big helper girl... they all love helping with the goodie boxes, actually.
And washing dishes is a fun novelty (at least for now).
They all love to help with cooking. Alton Brown is a hero in our house!

No more snow! Oh, well, it's not like we have a choice... Looks like a Nor'Easter is on it's way for tomorrow, and it is already one of the snowiest winters in recent memory. The weather had been grand for the last couple of days, and the kids love it, of course, but we're getting more. The kids are on vacation this week, which means that at least school won't be canceled for them, but Phil has a busy schedule, which complicates life.

And yes, for those of you who talk to my chatty kids, I was in the hospital for a day and a half. I'm home for good - weak as a kitten, but but better. All I can say is - don't skip your flu shot and drink lots of liquids even if they won't stay down!

It's been too long...

2007-12-19T08:45:00.000-05:00

The last couple of months have simply flown by - October was a whirl of over 35 shows, November I spent sick, and December is slipping by quickly. I am not ready for Christmas, but at least the house is mostly clean. And we had a dinner party Saturday. That was so nice. I love to do things like that. Good times, good food, good friends.

This is the winteriest winter we have had in recent years. Lots of snow, and more predicted tonight and tomorrow. The kids love it - I don't mind, although I miss having the time to go out and play in it! I don't even own snowpants anymore.

Pippa and Johann are both on their tummies in their room, feet kicked up in the air, making a train layout with the wooden tracks. Johann is getting so big. He is our silliest kid yet, with a great sense of humor and a great big temper. He cracked Phil up the other night by interrupting a telling of SkippyJon Jones and when Phil looked at him he just shrugged with this look of "what?" Pippa loves Kindergarten. I'm not sure she really learns anything, but she is the social butterfly of her class, always checking on her classmates to see how they are and ready to help when she sees one struggling. Juliet's teacher commented on this smae trait in her class.

Juliet is having a rough year. She feels like she has no friends, but we talked to her teacher, and we all agreed it is in Julie's head. She is following in Glady's footprints, and that doesn't help. Glady has been officially labeled gifted, which was no surprise to us. Juliet is as smart, just not as passionate about perfection as our drama queen is. So Phil and I have been subtly trying to give her a little boost of confidence, which makes her blossom.

Glady is currently devouring the Harry Potter series, having just finished off the Narnia series... the last Potter book she read in threee days, leaving Phil to look at me and say "She's YOUR daughter!" She's just ended a Math Club afterschool program which she loved, getting to stay after and play games with 4th and 5th grades. She has been put into 5th grade spelling and vocabulary. So she is happy in school, and at home is struggling with having sisters - she'd rather be an only child right now, most of the time!

I must go and do some laundry - Johann has developed an art form we call Poo-casso (three guesses, and the first two don't count!). Hopefully I will get back to updating this blog every week - hey, It's almost a New Year's Resolution! Hah!

It's almost October..

2007-09-21T13:11:00.000-04:00

Busy little guy - that's his sister's Picture!Glady doing homework - she's reading Raold Dahl's autobiography.
Pippa and Johann... She's ready to head off to school!
Gosh, isn't she cute

It's beginning to feel like Fall

2007-09-16T10:09:00.000-04:00

The view from our Gig Saturday!Ribfest cooking going on!
I don't want to know what's going on out here!
Big boy britches!
And this was back on the first day of school!

We haven't yet had a good frost, but Dad slept out in his tent the other night and came up in the morning saying there had been a patchy frost. The asters are in full fling - I have a few in the garden I have been encouraging gently. They are wild, and I am never sure whether they will stay where I want them! The trees are beginning to show a little color in places.

We had Ribfest on Labor Day, as is our tradition, and it was a success. We split the time between hanging outside near the grill and ate indoors, away from the bugs. The ribs were perfect, the company was good, and we had a long and rich day. The perfect capper to a very busy summer.

Johann has started to go on the potty chair - he walked in last Saturday, took off his diaper and sat down and went! All very casual, like he had been doing it forever. We still have a few more months of diapers, I think, but then he will officially be a Big Boy.

Phil ad I were the entertainment yesterday at a wedding reception - it was a lovely day, on an island out on Lake Winnepesaukee. He did balloons, and I painted - I knew it was going to be a good gig when the father of the groom, who was ferrying us across to the island, told me he wanted me to paint him first! It was a day of firsts - for him, at 70, having his face painted for the first time, and for Phil and I, going to a gig on a boat!

Summer's end

2007-08-23T09:52:00.000-04:00

Glady as the Moon Princess
Glady Facepainting for the very first time.
Pippa eating a donut the hard way - we went with Papa to the Wilmot Old Home Day and played games while he performed.
Johann and Juliet swordfight with Papa - Johann shouts "Ching! Ching!" as they clash blades.

A busy week!

2007-08-17T10:53:00.000-04:00

Let's see - long and busy week, not too much to share because it's all been business or housecleaning! I have a picture of Glady to add - she made dessert for all one night. Fruit, chocolate fondue and koolaide cake - she was so proud. She loves to cook and gets very disappointed when she can't.

Phil, Johann, and I all went to one of Phil's shows in Manchester last night. Johann and I had a blast - He was dancing with the other kids before the show, and even Phil got in on the act.

Juliet's Seven now!

2007-08-10T11:33:00.000-04:00

My apologies for the upside down pictures - I scanned these in and didn't take the time to check orientation! I'll try to fix and replace them later - In the mean time...

Juliet, weighing in at 8lbs even on the fish scale! In Labor on the porch - I did make it indoors to have her.
A Very new Juliet with her wonderful midwife, Sherry.
Seven Years later... Juliet on her birthday with sister!

It's hard to believe it's been that long since that warm August day when I went into labor with her. She was born around 6pm if I recall correctly - Phil and I had been walking around the block in Hillsboro to get the labor moving again after it stalled out, and I went into transition on the deck before I got back inside. The midwife brought the birthing stool outside - everyone thought Juliet would be born out there! Years later we met the people who had been our neighbors and they remembered seeing me -they told us they thought I had had the baby out there! We did eventually get me inside, though. Juliet came out pink and cranky shortly after. She started to nurse before we even had a chance to cut the umbilical, and she stayed latched on for a year! Well, I exaggerate a little, but only a little. She's my big girl. She had to be weighted with a fish scale, because the digital scale the midwife brought along broke. Somewhere I have a cute picture of a little bundle in a receiving blanket hanging from a scale.

Storyland!

2007-08-06T13:38:00.000-04:00

The kids are ready for some Fried Dough! (and a little tired. This was taken about half-way through our time at the park)Cedar and Glady take a spin in the teacups. Glady loved it, but Johann, riding with sisters and Papa, was not happy. He was clinging to Phil saying, "No, Papa! No! Out!"
On the other hand, Johann loved the train. He did get to ride it - here he is just happily watching it go by.
Juliet got to drive! Glady's riding behind her. (pouting a little that she didn't get to drive)
And Pippa drove Grandpa! (If you are wondering - Phil, Johann ad I sat this ride out.)
Gee-Up, Burro! Muchos Nachos!
Mwaaa-Ha-Ha-Ha! I have them all in Jail, off to do something on my own!
Princess Pippa in her Pumpkin Coach.
Phil and Dad have a... contest... with the water cannons.
Three generations on the carousel. That's Pippa with the hair over her face - she was getting into riding her horsie!

The girls first visit to an amusement park - We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day - Dad went along - the last time I was there, I must have been almost 8. The only thing I remember from that trip is riding the teacups with Grandma! Glady and I rode in one, Phil and the rest of the kids in another, to make all new memories for the next generation!

Oh, and I took about a hundred pictures! I'm putting up a few, and there will be more in a week or so when I develop film. The long lens on my film camera was perfect for taking pictures of the girls on the roller coaster, for instance!

A New Car!

2007-08-06T10:45:00.000-04:00

We got a PT Cruiser last week! It's used, of course, but low mileage for being an '03. It will be so nice to have a much more fuel-efficient vehicle. It won't hold the whole family, of course, but it is mostly going to be for the business, and running errands. The day after Phil brought it home Pippa was at Nana's so we were able to all jump in the car and take it out for a spin. We decided to get breakfast out and ended up at Heritage Farm. Phil works up there every year at the Scarecrow festival, but we'd never been to the Pancake House. We had a yummy meal, more food than we could shake a stick at, and finished off with the kids going into the petting farm and playground. A very full and satisfying morning.

Yes, He's man enough for it to be Pink!

2007-07-31T10:53:00.000-04:00

I'm so excited! We got Ukeleles! Mine is a soprano and his is a tenor. It's pink because it was on clearance - and you know me, I'm cheap!

He's tuning it now and it sounds really good.

Playing Games

2007-07-31T08:10:00.000-04:00

Phil and Glady and I stayed up late last night playing a game. The idea was to play earlier, but Juliet and Pippa lost their chance, so we played after they had gone to bed, and Johann. But it was fun to play with Glady, who 'got' the concept of Spy Alley very quickly and kept up with us nicely. The game itself is a cross between Clue and Monopoly, only a lot quicker and more fun. We had to try and guess each other's secret identities, while buying disguises and codebooks and what-not to win the game. Glady had a fit of the giggles about half way through, and was all but falling off her chair laughing. That was contagious, too! All in all it, was loads of fun, and reminded Phil ad I why we like to play games, especially as the kids are getting old enough to join in and enjoy.

a new Pal

2007-07-29T12:03:00.000-04:00

Look what Dad brought home when he'd gone out to get some propane! He named her "Propane", go figure...

Johann calls her "kitty-kiy" to be different than Bear, whom he calls "kitty"

July Journeys

2007-07-13T10:30:00.000-04:00

Johann catches a quick snooze between trips.
The girls wait for someone to let us in where we need to set up a show.
Mr. Phil and Co.! she even has her own weskit.

Let's see... we went to see Jean, our family's doctor, yesterday. All the kids were due for their annual check-ups and Pippa had her school physical. It was a crowded, happy morning, as most of our doctor visits are. We had all the appointments lumped together, so for two hours the girls played with the nurses, and Johan was doted on by all, since he's been seeing them since before he was born. All are healthy, Pippa got the shots she has been looking forward to. She's known since this spring she would have to have shots before school, so they were a milestone for her.

After we went home for lunch and naps, the whole family went with Phil to his Summer Reading Show in Sunapee. Glady is his official stagehand this summer. Pippa ad Julie were great - sat quietly through the show all by themselves, since Johan was noisy and I went out to the van, and missed all but the very beginning and the end.

Home today - but tomorrow Phil and I are off to have an adventure!

Happy Birthday, Johann!

2007-07-09T10:53:00.000-04:00

He's two already! So hard to believe he's such a big boy already. He's having a good day, though. Playing quietly right now. We won't have a celebration today - Nana wants to have the kids up to see Uncle Austin and Aunt Bobbi today. And Phil and I are up to our elbows in projects once he comes home from the Hobo RR. So we'll celebrate on Wednesday.

Hard to believe Glady's that big, too... Phil picked her up to show her how much she's grown since she was a baby who just fit onto his forearm. Good thing I was there with the Camera!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame!

2007-06-29T10:20:00.000-04:00

What an exciting Family Day! We have three planned this summer, and the first one we spent taking the trip down to Manchester to see the FisherCats play. The girls did much better than I had hoped, sitting quietly and at least trying to watch the game. Juliet and Pippa had their little foam baseballs they were given on the way in the stadium autographed by a New Britain RockCats player (they are a Minnesota Twins feeder team). We were sitting just three rows of the field and right behind the bullpen for the away team. Everyone got a souvenier and lots of food, which I think meant more to them than the game itself :)

Phil was very tickled to be able to do this, he has fond childhood memories of going to ballgames with his Dad when he was a boy. The park was pretty, clean, and very friendly staff. Dad came down and joined us, too. He wasn't able to be there for the beginning of the game, but we stayed to the end of the first game together and then started for home about 8:30. It was a doubleheader, and even thought the girls really wanted to see the fireworks, it would have been at least midnight - no way we were going to stay that late!

This morning the girls were playing baseball in the driveway with their foam balls ad a stick, so I guess the game must have left some impression, anyway!

I must rush off - still working on the costume for Hobo Phil. I'm off to dissect a swallowtail tux jacket!

Phil lost a Pippa!

2007-06-26T09:06:00.000-04:00

We've been measuring how much weight Phil's losing against the weight of the children. His first goal was to lose a Johann, and he got there about a month ago, and this morning he called after his weigh-in to tell me he'd lost 16 pounds! He's lost a Pippa and almost a Juliet! Yay! His goal is to lose me, but I'm not telling how much weight that is :)

Well, back to the little details for today's show - tomorrow I'll catch my breath and get the house in order, but I just had to brag on my (skinnier) guy.

Rushing into summer

2007-06-24T10:09:00.000-04:00

The last few days before a Summer Reading Show launch are always busy. It doesn't help that I've got a sinus infection. The first one in 3 months, which is good, but still!

The kids are great - playing outside most of the time, as it has been lovely weather except for the nasty thunderstorm a couple of days ago. They have been picking lots and lots of strawberries, both wild and domestic. Dad put in a good patch of everbearing this year. Johann has been running about and learning lots of words. His latest is "book!" At the moment I have cookies in the oven for their snack.

Boot boy

2007-06-20T17:06:00.000-04:00

He loves his sister's boots - he has boots, too, but he likes the big ones. And, of course, with potty training comes a certain lack of being dressed....! But he's so gosh-darned cute.

Spring Haiku by Glady

2007-06-19T09:05:00.000-04:00

Birds making chicks warm.

Here is Dad, he has food. Yum!

Cozy little chicks.

(Mr Phil's note: That's a chick not an egg)

School's Out

2007-06-16T09:51:00.000-04:00

It must be summer! The pictures are from last weekend, when we visited the Hobo Railroad in Lincoln for Phil's orientation tour. The kids had a blast, and enjoyed meeting Choo-choo the clown. This weekend poor Phil is twisting at a gig in the Cambridge, MA area and got thoroughly lost! I just got off the phone helping him navigate his way in. Tomorrow is father's day, and we have a gig, but otherwise will have fun with the dad's in the house!

Man, what a difference hi-speed internet makes in getting pictures on the blog! Yay!

I don't know if you are interested...

2007-05-25T11:39:00.000-04:00

This is my version of a goal-setting exercise we are doing for a guy we may be hiring to coach us.

Hi, Eric,

We are still waiting on the info from the last time we talked to you, from the files we sent to you, but we do know you are busy. And we liked the talk so much we are considering the coaching, later this summer, though, as we are too busy to follow through for the next two months.

Phil says he doesn’t want to be David Copperfield, just to be the top children’s entertainer in our area (Northern New England) the one that every one thinks of when they want quality Family entertainment. As for me, I want to get the office organized and automated, enough that someone else could run it if need be, and free me up to get out and perform a little more.

1) What type of performing do you do now? Mr. Phil does comedy magic shows, anything from twenty-minute festival sets to one-hour reading or family magic shows for libraries and schools (PTO events, we aren’t ready for an educationally Significant show yet.) His magic is funny, interactive with his audience, and often incorporates puppetry and storytelling. He also does balloon twisting. We feel that we are intermediate twisters, but know that we are among the top twisters in New Hampshire. This is an area we will continue to improve, though. Phil is going to go to Balloon Manor this fall, and we both hope to go to Twist and Shout in the spring. Phil’s style as he twists for a crowd is very much as a street entertainer. He doesn’t just hand out balloons, but has several comedic and magical routines that he incorporates to keep everyone laughing and happy while they wait. I have seen him draw a crowd of adults who are just enjoying watching (and who tip based on this) even though they do not want a balloon. Twisting is about half our business right now. I also facepaint, but we don’t promote me, as our longsuffering babysitter (my Dad, who lives with us) doesn’t need to be sitting every weekend.

2) What type of performing do you want to do? Mr. Phil wants to add some illusions or illusionettes to his show and create a stage show (as opposed to what he feels are “parlor shows” that he currently does. I would like to see him add music to every show, and a backdrop to every indoor show. We have concluded that outdoor shows cannot be backdropped easily. We would like to improve our birthday show, both the materials they receive pre and post show, and the show itself needs updating. (there is a magician in our area that has literally been doing the same show for 25 years. We don’t want to become him). We want to create educationally significant school shows to offer. We would like to add fundraising shows for PTO’s next year - we purchased a marketing system for Ice Cream Socials and we own John Kaplan’s system for fundraisers and Phil would like to be touring with that inside five years. As for the balloon twisting, we are looking forward to the conferences/classes Phil and I will be taking over the next year. We are already, as I raise our prices again this month, the premium twisters in NH. Can’t do much more than that! Just have to stay fresh and on top of our skills.

3) What are your goals for the next year? I would like to see our income for ‘07 at 48K. That will be up almost 30% from last year and will enable us to upgrade our computer, car, and do the marketing we have been neglecting. Phil would like to have a fresh new birthday system, improve his (big shows) Family Fun Magic Shows, reading shows, and add value to all our offerings so even if the economy falters our clients will keep coming back to us.

4) What are your goals for the next five years? I would like our income to continue a steady and stable rise until not only do ends actually meet but we could save a bit. I would like to free myself from the office a bit to begin homeschooling in earnest (3 years out, when our eldest comes home for 6th grade) and perform a bit more (hire a babysitter). Phil would like to have a big stage show he could take on tour (short ones, a few weeks at most) and do mostly big shows for schools and what-not. More money, less shows. Phil says he doesn’t want to be David Copperfield, just to be the top children’s entertainer in our area (Northern New England) the one that every one thinks of when they want quality Family entertainment.

5) What do you feel you need the most help with? The website. Just kidding. I personally need to work on my organization skills a lot, so this office gets under control. Phil wants to refine his performing skills and go from raw talent to honed skills.

6) What are the things you want to achieve with this program? I often find that if I am focused on a task it gets done better and faster. If I lose focus I struggle to get back to the task and may lose track of it altogether. Phil is convinced he has adult ADD. I say these things to say this - we need a little help pointing us in the direction we need to go. We are floundering, knowing we need to work on stuff, but when we sit down and work on lists they quickly get overwhelming. A little direction, a little conviction that yes, we can do this, we are good enough - that is what we need, I think.

7) Why are you filling out this form? Well, Phil is off to a twisting gig and we talked on the cell phone and he asked me to get started on it. You know what I want, he said. So Here I am. Actually, I had meant to do this anyway - write down our goals. So this gave me a good excuse to leave the dishes and laundry and shut myself in the office for an hour with it. Even if we don’t do the coaching, the act of writing this down may help. As you may have guessed, Phil and I are a team. I run the office, he designs the shows and performs. It really isn’t that cut and dried, but close. I had never even seen a live entertainer before I met him, and he hates to write. So I rough out marketing materials, run the booking system, and he polishes the formatting of posters and flyers and what-not. He bounces routines, show order, and scripts off me, and I try to keep the construction and creativity simple. My Dad sits in on brainstorming sessions a lot, as he is our builder most of the time. And he gives a non-magician viewpoint (you must know how important that is.) The kids serve as little sounding boards for new routines and impromptu audiences. They also interrupt and distract a lot! As they get older, we would like to add them into the act - our oldest already helps in Balloon Workshops and may assist with clean-up for the Summer Library shows this year. I am filling out this form because this is how we make our living for us, and for our family. Part of taking care of those I love is constantly striving to get better. If we can’t have ‘normal’ jobs, then by golly, we’d better be the best at what we are doing!

Whew, It's Hot out there!

2007-05-25T10:08:00.000-04:00

Well, I suppose this means summer has come... It is 85 this morning and going up. Phil has just left to twist for a park dedication in Merrimack. He and I have a couple of gigs together over Memorial Weekend. We are going to be at the Mount Washington Hotel tomorrow - that ought to be fun, and the Black Fly Blitz in Wilmot on Monday. Sunday will be our quiet day - we have been trying to keep them open (church is good!), and we will do our Ribfest! that day. Phil is going to rub them today, so they'll be wonderfully flavorful by Sunday. MMMMMM!

In other thoughts... Why would anyone wish you a Happy Memorial Day? That isn't what it's all about.

Most of our little ones have, as they began potty training, called it a "tinky" which started with their BoPop, who call it "poo-tinky". (One of these days I'm going to make him a t-shirt that reads "Poo-tinky happens" but he probably wouldn't wear it) But Johann just points down at his diaper and says "Ewwww!" He is so ready for a potty chair - now all I have to do is go get him one. Sigh. So close to having the last one out of diapers! And yet so far...

Wow, it has been a while!

2007-05-18T17:54:00.000-04:00

We are still here, still busy, and still doing our thing. Mr. Phil & Co revenues are up 30% this May - wonderful! and lots of work. Pippa tried out for Kindergarten - we had discussed putting her straight into first grade but decided in the log run it would be rougher on both the teacher and her to go to a full day of school abruptly. Let's see, what else is new? Juliet and Glady are almost done with school for the year - it ends June 18, I think. Glady left this afternoon to go spend most of the weekend with Nana and BoPop, the other two have already had their turns. Phil is off at a gig, Dad went up to Toad Hall for dinner, so it is pretty quiet at home.