we had snow and inbetween headaches I went out sledding with Cheese

The cat insisted on going out too but then regretted it

I really like Christmas lights



Much much better,
headache was off and on for a week, but is finally gone. I named it Pith. Pain in the head.
I spent this past week cleaning and getting ready for yesterday's Christmas get together at my house.
Tomorrow we go cookie making with my mom, and Cheese's cousins.
And I will drag him to the library near-ish her house, because I think that one will let me take out the History of Private Life books I think will help me with my research. I also intend to rent something from the library or video store, some lighthearted chic flic. Yes, I am a woman with many great ambitions and plans, make cookies, eat cookies, get books, get movies, sit on butt.
Sadly, so sadly, I shall also have to exercise at some point, or I will regain the weight I lost on my house cleaning "don't get to sit down for a second" diet. I actually have little black and blues on my knees and arms from floor and tile scrubbing.
Day after tomorrow I hope to go visiting and see what you all are up to.

by the bye
while I was waiting for blogger to download these pictures I went off to the cutest blog on the block site, and I have yet to decide on which background to use, so it may change frequently for a while.

headache. Had it since Saturday night, gets better gets worse. Sometimes in left eye, always at base of head-neck. It likes to pound in the top of my head when I bend foreward. Using computer makes it worse, so I wont be around much. I had planned on doing some visiting. Maybe tomorrow.
Theories of cause (because I like having them)- dehydration, lack of sleep, neck strain, radical weather changes.

Waiting for Tylenol to do something magical.

Time for me to get ready; going to a family reunion today. To see people I see at best, once a year. (There was a time when a lot more people would have been there, a time when we saw each other a lot more often, but the older generations, the ones who had the closest ties to each other, have passed on, and most of the younger generations have moved away.) I am always nervous in social situations, especially without a nice buffer to place me within a setting of people among them (like if my Brother and his family lived close enough to go to this get together; or if my Nana and Pop were still alive. Then I would feel snug and cloistered, feeling connected to the people that connect me to these other people) but still it is really good to them. To keep some connection with my Nana's people. We are all connected in one way or another...we are family.

And Cheese, who is always resistant to such gatherings ( and to any sort of leaving the house on Saturday and Sunday. "Today is my day OFF! I should not have to go anywhere.") seems okay about it, as he has categorized this get together in his mind under Chichen fingers with mustard sauce, chips, soda, and desserts. I know this because he keeps asking, "Now this place we are going on Saturday, this is the fried chicken fingers with mustard sauce place?" Me- "Yes" Cheese shakes his head and says, "Okay." God help us if they have changed the food they have ordered to serve this year. My son will look at me like he has been tricked, evilly misled...not by his own expectaions, but by me. And with an indignant tone that will keep asking me to conjur some up out of the air.

sometimes writing, is a knowing, sometimes it is throwing darts in the dark.
I've just been doing the latter.

I haven't been able to stop wedging chairs infront of the doors, even though it has been well over a month since I saw that guy walking through our yard at 10:30 PM. For the past few weeks I have been able to stop having the flood lights on at night.
I thought I had a problem I should be getting over by now....
BUT
One of my neighbors called me today and asked if I had heard about all the car break-ins in our neighborhood (about 10) (it is a cul-de-sac of about 30 homes). She told me she thinks one of the homes was broken into as well; and that a few neighborhoods over, some lady's house was broken into and she was abducted. (I'm hoping that last one isn't accurate.)
Horrible. I like to be paranoid without cause.
Oh well, those chairs aren't going anywhere,
and it's back on with the flood lights!


by the bye,
the black sandal (Bob's) is necessary to keep the basement door open for the cat. (location of cat loo)

Don't poke a rabid dog

I think I'm going to have to exercise, though it is getting late, and I don't feel like it. I must do something to control the thunder that shakes me, and the cold rain pelting my insides.

I don't know if this is an upside, but, my mood is now so intense and pervasive that it doesn't cling to writing, no not at all, I find I keep slipping into furry at those around me. Their moods are horrid too. Three feral beasts housed in a small space. We did better briefly while out running errands, and thought we would return more reasonable, but each beast has again unleashed on the others.
I for one feel no guilt whatsoever at the present for any time I spend writing. I do plenty of housework, feels like I am constantly cleaning up after everyone. Constanly. LORD am I cranky.
Okay well
:)
Hopefully we will all have tomorrow together and do much better.

Losing Faith

It's a sad horrible feeling. Decorating the house, stringing lights, weaving garlands, feeling bleak inside. Losing faith in myself, my abilites, my writing, my stories. Falling falling falling down; searching for some branch to cling to, wondering if I must hit bottom; and how long it will take. Trying to focus on the next one, in moving on; but asking why? Why do it at all if I can't make anything of value, anything worth sharing? Yes I know the answer, and Bob has echoed it already this morning, "for yourself, your are writing the stories for you." Yes, but how sad that makes me today, a circle of one. I will write, for it is how I am made, but I have nothing to give. And while I never cared if anyone else appreciated my painting, they seemed complete in themselves. If I hung it on a wall and liked looking at it, it had all the meaning and value that it and I desired. But an unread story, is not complete, it is unused, unknown, it longs to tell. It can't be hung on a wall, glimpsed and grasped by passersby. Someone has to sit with it, and turn it page by page. Sit still and listen, a long time, wanting to know. Wanting to know what is contained inside. Wanting to find themselves somehow reflected there, somehow contained within these pages written by another. (I guess my stories only contain me. That though I see them as full, they lack scope and space. ) Yes I will go on writing, the stories will tell me, and I will tell the stories, but we are a world alone.

Researching for the next story
off to a France of long ago
searching for the beginning
but also finding out that which comes before the beginning.
Perhaps finally,
I will learn some history.
In school, I never thought of such information as tinder for igniting my own stories, thus it all went on, blah blah blah, and went away, taking no hold within me. (you would think they would have held meaning for me in and of themselves, as they should,...sometimes.)
Now for me the information holds possibilites, different doors I can walk through, creating different stories, different realities for my characters. And suddenly I am interested in the past, the way a chef is interested in good, fresh, seasonal ingredients. Seeing what I have to work with, getting inspired. Rooting my present idea, into a past it grows out of.
And I'm having fun doing so
...how odd.

I think I really may be picking this up, this habit, this way of life; Writing. I thought perhaps being done (for now anyway) with Echo, I would wander off to other things. But not knowing how long I have till I am forced to get "a real job", I want to create as much as I can of these worlds. It feels weird now to not be working on it. Though I fear it would seem odd to others that this is how I spend my time. You know if neighbors or acquaitances were to ask what I did today, researched the history of France would seem a ridiculous answer. A fine valid answer for a published writer, but something seeming a silly dalliance for one such as myself; one who should rather be focused on homemaking or earning money. But my husand after years of not seeming supportive, somehow suddenly is. I could tell him how I spent my day, and he isn't "wow babe that is fantastic" but he isn't "why didn't you scrub the shower?" either. He wants me to try, he wants me to do this (at least for now.) And my mom is also supportive. I don't think they think of it as my work, as I do; but they know it is what I am doing and they don't tell me not to, they don' tell me I should be doing other things instead. They understand. And for that I am grateful. It makes it easier for me to keep walking down this road, to walk as far, as long, as I can.

What exciting thing am I doing?
Just cleaned up my desk top, saving all my notes (and everything else in it/on it) to disk.
Cleaned up Nissus and saved some downloaded books to disk.
Aaahhh the joys of open space.
Changed my screen saver to swans to motivate me on my next writing project, Fountain of Swans.
I got a movie from the library yesterday for research.
Currently procrastinating exercising (sports bra is killing my ribs), and deciding what part of the big clean I will do today. Fridge probably. Best put wash in for the boy now before I forget.