Trust

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

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.

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…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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...

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!

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

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.

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!