Halloween Decorations

I found lots of creepy "decorations" in the woods on my morning saunter.  I love fall.  At 55 F with leaves already on the forest floor, it certainly felt like the second day of autumn.  The photos aren't very good.  My iPhone doesn't do miniscule detail well, but I still wanted to record them here.

Moss covered dead man's hand.

Zombie ears.

Hitchhiking creepy crawly.

When I shook off my hitchhiker I realized how I had picked him up.  Dangling by a thread.

Beautiful, but I'm sure, deadly, flowers. 

The Girl That Won't Shut Up. The Book That Writes Itself.

I always feel better when a writer, a real published author, talks about characters that won't shut up, as I am familiar with dialogue between characters that can wake a person in the night.  These characters must be heard and don't stop talking until they are.  The fact that others experience this same phenomenon, the brain working hard on something while its owner sleeps, may mean I'm not just completely loopy.  I'm hoping that's what it means, anyway.

I don't know if I'm any good, if I could ever have one of my novels published.  I really don't care.  But when writing becomes almost otherworldly I sit with my jaw hanging and just do what I'm "supposed" to do and scribble down what's being "said", always on paper because I'm such a slow, clumsy typist. 

Well, Novel 1 has been bothersome.  It's been going for my entire adult life and I just can't finish it.  I think maybe that I don't really want to.  Maybe it's just mine.  Something I use for practice, or as a creative outlet when others bore me.  Something no one else ever needs to see.

Novel 2 is my favorite.  I am passionate about every detail of this historical book.  Though I've put a lot of effort into getting the story told seamlessly, it's really as if it has written itself.  I come up with an idea, set a scene, add a detail, and it all fits in perfectly with the historical events that bracket my chosen time period.  I have basically reverse researched it.  All I've had to do is double check to make sure the lives and actions of my characters are appropriate to the time.  They always are with this book.  I don't know how or why.  I just trust that the story will get told.

Then there's the character who just won't shut up in Novel 3.  I don't even know who she is yet, I just write what's in her head.  What she sees, what she does, what she thinks, where she goes.  I had an eerie "encounter" with this girl the other day right on the X that marks the spot on the planet where the opening scene of Novel 3 takes place.  I didn't actually run into her, of course, but I swear it felt as if she had just turned the corner and hurried out of sight.  Where I was standing, where she is standing and moving through chapter one, was as familiar to me as if I had stood there before.  But I hadn't ever physically been there.  I had only seen the location through her eyes and an old 19th Century map.  And when my feet led me down the alleyway to the open plaza in which my story unfolds, I stood in utter amazement.  Everything looked just as it had when I was writing about it because I remembered what she was seeing.

The funny thing is that I had intended that afternoon to do the five minutes of picture taking and research I needed to finish Novel 2, as both have scenes that take place in the same historical city.  The girl from Novel 3 had other ideas, I guess.  She simply refused to be ignored.  Okay.  I "hear" you, Miz Priority One.

3 Little Things...Okay...One's BIG..

Um...let's see if I'm too prudish to post all three.  Here goes...

1.  I went to a Depeche Mode concert the other night.  My second.  I'm sooooooo spoiled to have even had the opportunity to hear that voice live once, but twice?  Lucky, lucky girl.  So glad all my old faves are a: still touring  b: still living

 2.  I sat, for just a moment, in one of my favorite places in the world, enjoying one of my favorite meals.  We were informed Saturday evening that my aunt's viewing was going to be the next afternoon.  That gave us just enough time to get to the funeral home to be with my family and pay our respects.  So even though we were wiped out from getting up at 4:30 a.m. to sell at the farmer's market, we threw our clothes in the car and drove all night. We spent two hours with my mother's side of the family and an evening and a breakfast with my dad and his wife.  Then we did what we always try to do, but never really have the time to fully enjoy.  We stopped in St. Augustine on our way out of Florida and practically ran down St. George St. to Columbia Restaurant for 1905 Salad.  Heaven! 

We "run" because St. Augustine is a 7 1/2 hour drive from our door, and any time we stop my husband must be at work the next morning.

We have done NOTHING this summer.  Nothing.  Haven't donned a bathing suit or even put a toe in the water. We obligated ourselves to sell every week at our local farmer's market, which left no time or energy for anything else, on top of the commitment I had made earlier in the summer to two families, cooking for them several times a week.

I was happy.  I loved it.  But then my husband started a new job 2 hrs. away...And then there was the miscarriage.  No fun.  I kind of just want to erase this past summer off the calender, but it was life.  It is what it is and I am still grateful for every moment of it.  Especially when I know we have simply joined the masses of people who never get a vacation, who don't have relatives who live in FL and work at Disney who can put them up and get them free passes, how we usually vacation.  Depeche Mode, 1905 Salad...all the holiday we needed.  And all crammed into one week.  So grateful for the escape.

And here we go.  #3.  I'm still a little shy to say it, but...

3.  My husband and I are putting in a wholehearted effort this weekend (giggle) to get pregnant.  Mow, Weed Eat, trim shrubs and trees...make a baby...  We have never had to try to get pregnant before so feel confident that everything on our to do list will get done.  Wish us luck!!!  Those trees really need pruning.

"House Cleaning" on 9-11

I feel so bad because I feel so good.  It's been a lovely, care-free, upbeat day.  No shadows or clouds following me around as I bee bop through the house doing the things I need to do.  But then I remembered that it was 9-11.  12 yrs. since that horrible day.

I'm supposed to pause and think.  Do you have any idea how much pausing and thinking I've been doing over the last few weeks?  I'm so sorry for the memory of all those lost and for their family members.  I'm still furious and I hurt for our country.  But I'm not going to do it today.  I'm just not.  I haven't forgotten.  I remember.  But I refuse to dwell on anything dark today.  If I do I'll sink.  I've been "cleaning" my house and ridding it of anything that makes me feel stressed, worried, or sad, and I'm just going to keep on feeling the sun shine in brighter and brighter.  Right on through 9-11. I can't forget, but I'm not going to let it freak me out this time.

That's okay, isn't it?

My Hands. Her Hands. His Hands.

So I spent part of my birthday with my mother.  This is an amazing thing when you consider that this is the first time in over 3 yrs. that I've decided on my own, without being asked by her, to visit.  The simple fact is that for the first time in my life she has earned my trust.  I trust her with my heart, I trust her with my children.  I've even trusted her with my cooking blog, which I was sure she'd rip apart with "constructive criticism".  She's only shown support.  This I am NOT used to.  But I'm accepting it and trusting that I'm not going to get hit upside the face with negativity when I least expect it.  I think, hope, as I always have, that it just won't happen.  It's a pretty big thing.  I think she really knows now not to mess with my kids, and though there have been times when she's been critical, I give them the are you okay? look and get a satisfactory answering nod and we skip right over it and try to enjoy her in all of her craziness.  She's crazy.  Absolutely bonkers.  And that makes for lots and lots of laughing. 

The single most critical healing episode in our relationship occurred this last Christmas Eve at my mother's house.  My husband, sons, and nephews were sprawled all over the living room and game room, even under the pool table, if I recall, fast asleep.  My stepfather was still crashed in the upstairs bedroom while my sis and her boyfriend were still in the guest bedroom, wiped out from our all night Monopoly game.  I was up early and then Mom came downstairs.  She made us coffee and then we took all of the German pastries we had out the night before to the dining room table and sat down and...talked.  Talked. 

We had never talked before.  It has always been a sore spot with me that the only mother/daughter talk we'd ever had in my life was when I was eighteen.  She'd told me that if she had to do it all over again she would have chosen to not have children.  I think in her mind she was giving me a fabulous bit of advice that no other woman from her generation would dare voice.  I know now that she was wishing at age forty with a preschooler that she had made other choices, and wanted me to explore my options and live my life before falling into the whole marriage/children "trap".  I knew this, understood where she was coming from, but I also understood her view on motherhood from a very early age.  She never liked it.

But here we were, sitting at the table sipping coffee together and TALKING.  I have subjects that I've promised myself are off limits with her, things we will never agree on that only make me feel bad, so I just steered us around those and it was lovely. 

Then we started talking a little in my message box on Facebook and have never stopped.  When she said something that just floored me, I saw that she is like me. She can write or type things that she could never say out loud.  Kind of like my little blog here.  I can't voice what I can bring myself to write here.   She typed in her message to me, "I have always loved you to the bottom of my soul!"  From day one as a mother, I have made it a point to make sure that my sons felt loved.  That I didn't just say it, but that they felt it without me having to open my mouth.  With her words I felt it, and I felt as if I finally had a real mom, rather than envying everyone elses. 

I bit the bullet and decided that since my dad was driving over to see me the day before my birthday to take me out for a birthday dinner, that I wanted to see my mom for my birthday too.  I rarely get to see my parents together since the divorce, so I figured that seeing them both in two days was as good as it gets.  And that's what I wanted for my birthday.

No monopoly, no vodka, or the usual Jack Daniels.  It was poker and mojitos at Mom's.  Oh my, we laughed until we cried...through the night.  And the whole time I couldn't stop looking at my mother's hands.  They were her mother's hands, but lacking the gnarled knuckles and bulging veins that my Oma earned with rough work.  Then I realized, as I looked down, that they were my hands.  The boys tease me and say that I look 28 until you look at my hands.  They are really showing my age and my knuckles are always nicked up this time of year from outside projects.  And, for the first time ever, I noticed a resemblance between me and my mother, a physical resemblance to her and her mother.  It was weird.  I don't look like her.  She has enormous, sparkling blue eyes like her mother.  I have my daddy's reddish brown hair and chestnut eyes.  But now I look down at my own and see my mother's hands.

Friday, I took my family with my dad and his wife on a Father's Day picnic.  My dad has never had to earn my trust or build a relationship with me.  He has never damaged ours so has never had to work to repair it.  We have been buddies since day one.  That was it.  Buddies.  I adore my father.   

We were standing on the river bank fishing when my dad walked past my son and me to give us the fabulous spot he found, going to find another. My son said, after Dad had moved on through the brush in his khakis, "Grandpa looks like someone you would see in The Walking Dead." I laughed and said, "Yup, that's my daddy. I wouldn't want to be in a zombie apocalypse with anyone else. We always said Indiana Jones reminded us of Dad. That's my daddy." He nodded, understanding completely. I love that my sons see how awesome he is too.  But then, when I was standing with Dad while we were tying fishing lures onto our lines,  I looked down at his hands.  They were my hands.  They were his father's hands.  I saw my hands and Grandpa's in them.  There were the same splotchy patches near the thumbs where his skin lacks pigment.  The same as my "reverse freckles".  

 Pretty cool.

Sensitive Mom, Sensitive Child

It helps to remember when things get difficult around here with my sensitive child, what it was like to be a sensitive 12 year old.  It was the worst year of my life.  Nothing that's ever happened since could be as traumatizing or defining.  It helps to remember, and thank goodness I remember like it was yesterday, but it doesn't always make it easy. 

We didn't have terrible twos or threes or fours.  It was tricky, especially before I learned about our personality type, but was never anything I couldn't handle with understanding, sensitivity, the occasional crack-down on absolute unacceptable behavior and a hug.  But I dreaded twelve with my little guy and here we are.  I can't help thinking, however, that it would be worse with a girl, for sure, because she would have been just like me, and that we could have had terrible twos, threes, and fours, but we didn't.  I also remind myself that an occasional bump in our road is nothing to worry about.

I could never call this The Terrible Twelves.  It just isn't terrible.  There are unpleasant moments that are few and far between.  I can live with that.  It will be okay.  He will be upset, but he will survive.  We will survive.  If I don't bail on him and hold his hormonal, sensitive kid outbursts against him, but remember what it's all about, we will be just fine.  If I take offense or don't look at the bigger picture but only in the moment of a frustrated outburst, I am stretching our bond-- that invisible rubber band that was created between each of my boys and myself that I promised from day one that I would never stretch or break.  Sigh.

Okay.  He has had a moment to calm down so I'm sure is ready to "need" his mama.  And in the words of Scarlet O'Hara, "tomorrow is another day".




Aw!  Sure enough.  My poor, sweet, little guy!  I love being the mom to these two precious boys.   Thanking my lucky stars for the privilege!

Now, I'm not a prude, but...

Thanks to a new series of commercials that seem to be flooding all channels at all hours of the day, my boys think there is such a thing as a vibrating condom and love to freak me out by going around singing, "Trojan Man!!!" 

Now, fortunately, they are both of an appropriate age and have had the safe sex talks and all the embarrassing (for Mom and Dad) questions answered that go along with such talks, and aren't toddlers who will go around from grandparent to grandparent repeating what they've been hearing on t.v.  Still.  Enough is enough.  Really.  I'm sure everyone that needs a condom this New Year's Eve knows where to find one and I feel that these commercials could at least be aired later in the day, not repeatedly in the middle of it when kids of all ages are home on Christmas break.  Though, I guess since they hand them out at school, I am just an old prude for not wanting my family bombarded with scenes of an overanxious couple at the pharmacy counter seeking protection and pleasure aids.  But if I hear "Trojan Man!" one more time in the middle of a family movie, I may just write a letter.  Seriously, this time.  I know I always say that, but I've got a pen and I'm not afraid to use it.  Better yet, I may just blog on the subject.