Goodbye to 2014

Written in October 2014:
Sometime during the winter of 2014 a part of me died.  It's like I'm still trying to shovel my way out of the cold but that cold is within me.  I am only now beginning to reawaken.  An unfortunate time to re-emerge just as the first taste of autumn is touching the air.  It will not be long before the snow's begins piling at my door.  I will need to fight not to lose myself again.  In actuality it has been an interesting year.  We have traveled and done many things as a family:
Ohayo Con - January 2014

There was so much to see and do at Ohayo Con. Plenty of booths for goodies of all kinds.  However, I just loved watching all the people in full costume having a lovely time!

My favorite photo from the con - my family.

A New Great Niece was born - April 2014

My Daughter's Graduation - May 2014

So very proud of her!!

Holiday World - May 2014 and August 2014

My favorite photo from our trip to Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana.

My Son's Swimming Lessons Continued for Special Olympics - All 2014

Visit to the Indianapolis Museum during the summer

My Daughter's Departure for Japan - August 2014
There was a lovely going away party for my daughter at the Sunsphere in Knoxville, Tennessee.  She packed up all here things and drove with us up to Indiana.  She left for Japan from the Indianapolis airport.

And then she was gone to the other side of the world have adventures.

Starting Quilts for My Twin Great Nieces

The Theme is "The Universe is Yours to Explore".  And they deserve the best!

Halloween

Chicago at Christmas
This was the first time we had taken our son to Chicago.  He was shocked by the size of the city but loved all the Christmas decorations and the shopping!

Grand Lux Cafe

Grand Lux Cafe, Chandelier above our table.

Bundled for the cold!

Window Display

Willis (Sears)  Tower 103 floor at night - beautiful.

Shopping
Upon retrospection, I find that my husband and I did a bit of shopping for antiques (which we love to do - mostly just for looking) and for replacing items that are worn out, old, or outdated.  My husband is also sweet enough to take me shopping for clothes, jewelry, office supplies, and coveted books.  When he misses and anniversary or birthday due to travel for work, he brings me back the loveliest things - like lapis, agate, and silver jewelry, alpaca wool sweater, and llama pens (it's a pen with a 1 inch llama on top).  I love my husband, my mate for life, so very much. We try to keep each other balanced and entertained.

Books Read in 2014
The Lost Civilization Enigma - Phillip Coppens
The Sandman: The World's End - Neil Gaimen
The Sandman: The Kindly Ones - Neil Gaimen
The Ghost Next Door - Wylly Folk St. John
The Sandman: The Wake - Neil Gaimen
The Sandman: Endless Nights - Neil Gaimen
The Sandman: The Dream Hunters - Neil Gaimen
By the Silver Waters of Lake Champlain - Joe Hill
Maleficent - Elizabeth Rudnick/Linda Woolverton
Locked Out: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome - John Scalzi
Carrie - Stephen King (re-read)
Midnight Crossroads - Charlaine Harris
The Atlantis Gene - A.G. Riddle
Grave Sight - Charlaine Harris (re-read)
Grave Surprise - Charlaine Harris (re-read)
Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter - Josh Gates
The Snow Goose - Paul Gallico (1941)
Dad is Fat - Jim Gaffigan
An Ice Cold Grave - Charlaine Harris (re-read)
The Boy in the Smoke - Maureen Johnson
Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris (re-read)
Shakespeare's Landlord - Charlaine Harris
The Doll in the Garden - Mary Downing Hahn
Eighth Grade Bites - Heather Brewer
Shakespeare's Champion - Charlaine Harris
Shakespeare's Christmas - Charlaine Harris
Shakespeare's Trollop - Charlaine Harris
Shakespeare's Counselor - Charlaine Harris
Ninth Grade Slays - Heather Brewer
Tenth Grade Bleeds - Heather Brewer
Eleventh Grade Burns - Heather Brewer
Twelfth Grade Kills - Heather Brewer


All this activity and some upheaval, yet my writing and my creativity during this time has been at a minimum.  I seem to have a complete block.  Putting pen to paper is an almost painful chore.  I don't know how to correct it.  Yet the other night I dreamed I was orchestrating a complex story line.  I saw the characters playing out the stories I had created.  The dream finished with me at a rectangle table with quill in hand saying to myself, "I had forgotten how much fun this is!"  And I woke myself up laughing in my sleep.

Should I view this as a sign?  Is my creative self waking up and breaking through the ice?  I feel as though there is a knock on the door, and I should answer.

January 8, 2015
The snow is already heavy on the grounds before we can get all the Christmas decorations put away.  We are saving some things so that we can have Christmas with our daughter, Heather, when she returns from Japan in March 2015.  I have made out my New Year's resolutions and plans.  I am working to put together a collection of short stories that I hope to release this year.  I am trying desperately not to fall into the same trap as last year.  I know I need to stay active both mental and physically.  It's always a struggle one way or another.

TV Shows I've Fallen For this Autumn

I am currently watching a number of shows that I deeply enjoy and there are a few I am still waiting on their new season to begin.  This could also explain my productivity problem.  Here's the list:


Agents of Shield
American Horror Story: Freak Show
How to Get Away with Murder
Gotham
Castle
10 Things You Don't Know (with Henry Rollins)
The Black List
Forever
Criminal Minds
The Flash
Graham Norton Show
Rehab Addict
Ancient Aliens
In Search of Aliens


I am waiting for the new seasons of:


Longmire
Justified
Game of Thrones
True Detective

It's Been a Long Year

I cannot believe that there are less than two months until the end of this year.  I'm not sure where all the time has gone to.  I know that as a family we have been very busy. Indeed, we have gone places and done things (which I will post about here before the end of the year) but there's this sudden feeling of waking up and wondering, "How did I get here?"

The winter was brutal, it seemed to me.  Though I know that there are those who had it far worse.  It was like it sucked a bit of life out of me.  I was trapped inside much of the time and could have been reading or writing or quilting.  Yet most of the time was sucked away by watching full seasons of shows my husband or I had only just discovered.  It was so easy and passive.  Much like opening Pinterest on the computer and then somehow disappearing into it for hours, which I have also done this year more than I care to admit.

I hope to right myself on a better track in the coming year with habits I have noticed from successful authors that I follow on Twitter.  Although, sometimes I do wonder, with all they have going on, when they sleep.  Do successful authors sleep?

Enough procrastinating.  I need to wake up and get down to business.

In Response to #YESALLWOMEN on Twitter

After the recent shootings involving a man who was upset that women didn't find him attractive, etc, the hashtag #YesAllWomen popped up on Twitter.  I read several of them and retweeted a few.  In my lifetime I have had the misfortune to encounter a number of men who had the notion that my life and my body was not my own to command.  I have PTSD (most likely for the rest of my life) due to the most horrid of these encounters.  I wrote the following poem about one of these encounters more than 10 years after it occurred because I simply couldn't deal with it until then.  In light of the #YesAllWomen hashtag I felt compelled to share it here.

Bobby's Night Out

-copyright 1999

Bobby had the devil’s eyes
Bluer than any fair cloudless sky
He smiled and tried to pull us girls in
But his thoughts were clearly full of sin
I had flirted I must admit
But I never asked to be made to submit
Bobby disapproved of my friend Rick
This was because Bobby was a red neck
He told me as the tape unwound
That Rick wasn’t the type I should be around
Tape that bound my little hands
Bobby showed me how he was a man
And the things I should do to please
As I tried to beg for my release
“You don’t need that nigger,” he said with a grin
I pulled away. I wanted it to end.
His blue eyes clouded over
I wished that I could run for cover
Angry that I pulled away, he yelled
“See it wasn’t that bad!” No, it was hell.
But I was smart and I stayed quiet
Though I was scared and my mind a riot
The tape that held me was unwound
But the words he spoke kept me bound
“Stay with your own kind,” he said,
“the only good nigger is one that’s dead.”
So I walked away that night
With my life I made my flight
Away from Bobby and his tape
The memory of which my nerves still grate
But in my shame I left behind
Rick, my friend, who’d been so kind
I left them both for fear of worse
Of all that happened that night to curse
I regret that I fell to pressure and fear
I regret that I walked away from someone dear
The past I cannot change
My future though is yet to be arranged
I can walk away from him
With the devil’s eyes and sin
Away from the prejudice and the pain
His views are what will now be restrained
This senseless act of violence
Is not a hate crime that will leave me silenced
I will chose who is MY own kind –
I will walk in truth and no longer be blind.

Absence

The snows and temps this winter were extreme. I had 2 feet of snow on my lawn at one point!  To say that I'm not used to this kind of weather would be an understatement.  I know that I suffer from seasonal affective disorder. I get withdrawn and although I am inside and have the time to do stuff, nothing gets done. It's like my body actually does want to hibernate in some weird sort of way.  I didn't even read as much as I usually do which is saying a lot.  I did, however, watch whole seasons of tv shows with my husband.  This is a short list of those shows:

All of the seasons of Boardwalk Empire
All of the seasons of Deadwood
All of the seasons of Justified
The first 4 seasons of Dexter and some of the 5th
All of the series The White Queen
All of the seasons of Game of Thrones

I'm sure there are some things that I left out. Obvious there was a lot of tv watched. We sat in front of the fire just watching them together.  I'm not sure if it meant as much to my husband but it certainly did to me.  To just sit there relaxing, snacking, watching, and then discussing the shows.  It was nice quiet time in a way.

The weather is getting warmer, sunnier. The plants that survived the winter's harshness are beginning to come into bloom.  Yet, I'm still waiting for my muse to come back to me. In the meantime, I've started reading again, although in a spotty pattern. I can hope that everything will eventually come back on track.