June 6, 2018 Business, Personal, Writing 2
Oh hey there, friends.
I have no idea how I managed to let three months go by without so much as an “I’m still alive” post. It feels like I JUST posted something. I don’t know where the three months went. Suffice to say… I’m still alive.
This spring has been reasonably uneventful. In the general news category….
I bought a new planner.
You guys. It’s so pretty.
I texted my sister last night to make sure I remembered her kids’ birthdays right (yeah, I’m that kind of aunt), and she shared my joy over new planners. I live in a family of office supply addicts. My oldest daughter will work for sticky notes.
February 28, 2018 Personal, Uncategorized, Writing 4
I think I finally reached my breaking point.
I’ve had a love/hate relationship with social media since… well, since I started using social media. I’ve had my moments when I’ve shut it off for one reason or another–sometimes because I needed something different, sometimes because the shouting was just too much to bear–but I think I’ve finally hit the tipping point where I can see nothing useful that comes from having a social media presence.
Dear XL adidas Performance Women’s 24 Seven Deep V-neck t-shirts,
How are you? I hope all seven of you are well. I know we’ve been spending a lot less time together lately, but I think of you often… every time I open that one drawer to get out my exercise clothes, in fact…
To be candid, you’re looking a little ragged around the edges. A little thin. The pink one has a tiny hole from a cat claw. One of the black ones has that recently acquired bleach stain from the dishwashing liquid that erupted in a freak accident. And there are mystery stains from cooking and eating, because who am I kidding? I can barely manage a meal from prep to clean-up without spilling or splattering something.
One year ago today, I decided to make some big changes.
On January 22, 2017, I weighed 206 pounds. I’m embarrassed to admit that. I have never had an easy time maintaining a healthy weight, but 206 was the highest I’d ever been when I wasn’t pregnant.
I was miserable in January last year. I was coming off the worst year of my life. A brutally hard winter was keeping me largely housebound with three kids at home. I was trying to shepherd my oldest kid through his own major life changes (and not doing a terrific job, I have to admit). I was a size-16-pushing-size-18, and I knew I had a lot of outdoor events coming up during the year that would be very difficult for an out-of-shape 47-year-old if I didn’t make some changes. To top it all off, I was dealing constantly with pretty serious negative thinking–some hideous mental spirals, major parental guilt, self-talk that I would never say to my worst enemy, that sort of thing.
One year ago today, I was a terrible person to be around.
March 13, 2017 Personal, Uncategorized, Writing 4
Good afternoon, internet.
I’ve started and stopped this blog post about a dozen times since the beginning of the year. I feel like I should let you all know that I’m still alive, but I’m struggling with what to say, exactly. I guess the best thing to do is my usual approach–stumble into it and see if I can rediscover my voice along the way.
I’ve already shared that 2016 was the hardest year of my life. (more…)
Hello, friends.
Things are mostly unchanged around here. We’re still in a pretty thick patch of brambles. My family is fractured and broken, and my writing is still at a standstill with no hope of return.
And it’s to this season of joy that I bring grief, pain, anguish unresolved.
This has been the hardest year of my life. (more…)
October 20, 2016 Personal, Uncategorized, Writing 6
I’ve tried to think of a way to start this blog so many times, and I can’t think of the perfect thing, so let me just start with a confession: It’s been a rough year around here.
Okay, “rough” is an understatement.
I can’t really go into details (not that I’d even want to), so let’s just say that it seems like my family has been Satan’s punching bag since May. It’s not pretty. It hurts.
And it’s completely derailed my fiction writing.
September 9, 2016 Personal, Writing 0
September is my favorite month. The cynics among you who know me well will assume it’s only because the children are back in school, but that’s not the case. It’s because of autumn.
I’m not into pumpkin spice everything. (Does it occur to anyone that pumpkin isn’t a spice? And pumpkin spice is a spice blend? It’s not like one spice. Anyway.) It’s just the season itself–the crisp mornings, the changing colors, the rain, the last burst of summer we often get when it’s still comfortable to wear sandals and capris during the day, but we have to put on jackets in the evening. This is my favorite time of year–that time before the brutal East Wind starts driving icepicks through our chests here on the west end of the Columbia River Gorge, before the encroaching Christmas rush threatens to choke the joy out of the whole season, before the long stretch of darkness in January and February depletes all the vitamin D from the Pacific Northwest population. It’s after the heat, after the harried rush of summer, after the bickering siblings go back to school. It’s a lull–a rest–a retreat.
(more…)
