New Year's Eve Eve

I'm seeing a lot of retrospectives over the blogosphere this time of year. Stuff like, The Most Important Thing I Learned This Year, or The Best Books Of the Year, or A Look Back at My Year.

Or even My New Year's Resolutions...

I'm not doing one of those. There are things I learned this year, about myself and about society and about specifically some of the people I choose to interact with, but those things are private. And in a lot of ways they're still percolating around under the surface of my brain. I love that feeling, and I don't want to pour the pot prematurely.

Things have happened that I don't feel like sharing around with the rest of the world at large.

And there are things I'd like to do, changes I'd like to make in my life. But New Year's resolutions seem to serve little purpose but to engender feelings of "Not Good Enough" or guilt when they don't work out. I may make a private little list, but again... private. It's hard enough to admit to those parts of yourself that you're less than proud of, less than comfortable with; exposing them for all the world to see is a little outside my comfort levels. I'll show my boobs (although I don't really think anyone but the DH wants to see them) but I won't let you know what things make me feel bad about myself. Deal with it.

Life is pretty good for me right now. I'm lucky to have a husband and kids who are healthy (hubby's crutches notwithstanding). We have enough money to get by (though it'll be nice when we eventually get credit cards paid off & the like). Our immediate family is in pretty good shape, altogether. Hubby may be getting deployed again soon, which isn't so much fun, but I have faith we'll get through it. And if not, well...the world is unlikely to quit spinning. Plans will change, courses will alter.

I hope you can steer safely through whatever rocks loom on your horizons in the coming year. I hope we're still friends this time next year. If I don't know you yet, I look forward to getting to know you. May this year be better than the last, and not as good as years to come! Joy to the World!

I have been a bad, bad blogger-girl...

Therefore, a meme...

Saturday 9: I Will Survive

1. Who or what bores you enough to mentally drift away? Oh, lots of stuff. My DH's endless Military Channel documentaries (well, most of them; every once in a while one will interest me despite everything), listening to my kids fight, sports...

2. How many members of your family not living with you do you see on during the holidays? It varies by year; this year my parents and sister will be visiting us.

3. When spending time with family, how long after you arrive do you begin to feel "antsy" about being there too long? Oh, pretty much immediately; I have a low tolerance for Too Much Togetherness, but most especially when there are lots of people in a small space.

4. Does your family more generally get along at a holiday gathering or are there generally arguments? We do pretty well, but we're mostly a bunch of introverts, with only the occasional extrovert, so it can make actual interactions difficult.

5. Are you ever embarrassed by your family around friends? I'm sure I would be, if I had a more developed sense of personal modesty. As it is...well, I've been desensitized.

6. Of the celebrities that died in 2011, who will you miss the most? Ummm... I am almost embarrassed to admit that I can't think of any of the names just at the moment.

7. When you watch a movie in a movie theater, do you like the theater filled to capacity, halfway full, or nearly empty? Does your answer change depending on the type of movie you're seeing or do you feel the same way regardless of the movie or genre? Nearly empty, because I tend to make snarky comments to my companions, and that's much easier when there's nobody nearby but us. I pretty much feel the same, regardless of movies, but I'm less likely to snark at certain types of movie.

8. What’s one really cool/useful/nice thing you purchased for yourself this year? ummm...new jeans? I don't really buy a whole lot for myself. We did buy me a laptop, but it's crapped out TWICE and now needs a new hard drive.

9. Are you in the holiday spirit yet? I'm getting there. I've done most of my Christmas shopping, so I can mostly relax on that front. However, I really really need to clean and I haven't done a crumb of baking yet, so there's that. And wrapping, but I really enjoy that...

Coming....Out? sort of, anyway.

I love reading, and I truly admire authors who are successful enough to have published. I am awe-full, and horribly, horribly jealous. This is why; and why I hope maybe, one day, it might change.

I remember being a kid -- a really young kid, still in single digits. I remember playing -- with my Barbies, although they weren't my favorites, with My Little Ponies and baby dolls and my brother's GIJoes -- with, really, any apropriate, even *vaguely* anthropomorphised toys I could find. I even seem to recall perhaps anthropomorphising leaves and twigs and flowers when nothing else was available (like, we were at my Grandma's way out in the country & hadn't taken toys or they had been left inside when we kids were pushed out the door and told to go roam the field and forest but don't go further than the stream, you know which one!

I remember that, with these, I created elaborate, almost soap-opera-like storylines, some that would continue for days and some that were episodic shorts. Some, even, were complete in and of themselves. But they were definitely stories, each with a beginning, a middle and an end. If, for some reason, I couldn't complete a specific storyline in a given play session, I would stay awake after I was supposed to be asleep and plot it all out in my head.

Sadly, as I got older, I started listening to the outer voices. They weren't saying things like, "You can't do that." "You're no good." Instead, they were saying things like, "You should be thinking about your math and science." "Learn to cook and clean; those are skillls that will serve you as an adult." I learned to say and do what those voices -- the adults in my life -- told me. And as I got older, I lost track of the authentic, ME voices. I lost something essential to my emotional health. And it's only continued as I got older.

In high school (those of you who know me in Real Life will probably remember) I had a string of random, disastrous, long-lasting relationships. I stayed in them, as you may or may not know, out of guilt. I had this idea of what each of them needed from a relationship, and I strove to mold myself to that idea, whether it was true to me or not. And it almost always was not. I'm lucky enough to still be good friends with ONE of those guys.

I had one year of college where I was able to break free of the molds I had been struggling to feel all my life. I was able to live in the dorms and just be, without worrying about my whether I was meeting my mom's expectations, or anyone else's. I experimented with my sexuality (just a bit; I still managed to be a Good Girl) and with my voice. I took a creative writing class, but it focused mostly on poetry. I liked the poetry, but it wasn't what I wanted; I was looking forward to the prose portion, but the instructor left it for the last 3 weeks of a 12-week course, and just sort of...turned us loose with no real attempt to direct us (probably because she was a poet.) That was pretty much disastrous, and scared me away for a long time from trying my skills again.

Then came kids and family obligations and life.

Sometimes, I feel like I fail as a girl, and know I'd make an even worse guy. I am not confident in my persona as a wife or mother, and I *know* I'm not the greatest of housewives. But I'm an excellent reader, and I convince myself I'm a slightly-better-than-decent friend. I'm good at the technical aspects of writing -- I know research, and I can string together some pretty effective arguments when I need to. Essays, check. And I can, if pressed, paint one HELL of a word-picture. But the creative end of it? I don't know.

I read author interviews, and there's a sameness to them: "I am just a vessel for the Muse." "The characters tell me their stories and I write them down." "I get these plot bunnies and I have to chase after them..."

I don't hear those Voices any more. I loved those Voices, and I miss them.

I don't argue about stuff, and I don't often offer my opinion unless I feel very strongly. I have learned that there are people who don't hear you, and sometimes those are the people closest to you, the ones you most need to have hear. So it's hard for me. I worry sometimes I've killed off that part of me that dreams and travels and Speaks to me. I hope not, and I have occasional flashes that keep that hope alive.

So, this is me, coming out of my hiding place, letting the Voices know they can come back and see me. My head is open for business. Just be kind -- or go away; don't let me think you're listening if you're really not.

Dear Santa, All I Want for Christmas is...

Kitchen goodies!!

I need spatulas (silicone, please) for scraping bowls
wooden spoons
hand towels

I would like to have:

French Onion Soup bowls

kitchenaid mixer



More cast-iron!



I would love to have:

more vintage Pyrex Cinderella-style mixing bowls.

thanks for thinking of me!

Love,

tracykitn

Halloween

First, a picture of the boys, rear view. DinoBoy on the left, VelcroBoy as Grey Moth on the right.

Next, DH's Jack-o-Lanterns

*RAWR*

"I'm a MOTH."

Porcelain doll

reflections...

Life has got me thinking lately about mortality (not my own) and how we deal with it, and the aftermath and how we deal with THAT, and the guilt that comes, not from the things we've done that turned out to be stupid, but more the things we haven't done, for whatever reason, that we wish we had.

And, yeah. Most convoluted sentence EVAR, I know. But I was thinking, specifically, about two deaths in my family (names withheld to protect the innocent.)

The first death was actually my grandmother, and it's been...well, it feels fairly recent, actually, but the truth is, it was nearly two years ago now. Because it happened in January while my DH was still deployed in Iraq, and he's been home for a year now. So. The thing about her is that now, I only have one grandparent left, and that absolutely kills me. I was lucky enough to have a very wonderful, loving family, all of it -- my parents loved their in-laws, their in-laws loved them... Heck, my two sets of grandparents even invited each other for extended family reunions and get-togethers and they had never met before my parents got together. THAT is how open and loving and wonderful they all were. My father's father died, and my mother's parents were RightThere helping and supporting and cooking and being wonderful. And the reverse -- someone in my mother's family died (not even a close relative) and my father's aunts and uncles descended en masse on my mother's family to help them mourn and say goodbye, some of them travelling from Delaware to Tennessee to be there for a funeral of someone they'd never met.

Sometimes, my little internet communities feel like this -- someone suffers a loss or disappointment and people they don't even know are coming out of the woodwork to offer sympathy or support because they have a mutual friend somewhere along the line.

And I always thought that my family was so awesome and strong and amazing to be like that, but I've kind of learned differently this year. 

See, on my father's side, his grandparents had 8 kids. Of those 8, 6 married, and three reproduced. One wanted to, but was, for whatever reason, unable, so they adopted a son. This son grew up feeling just as loved, just as much a part of the family as the biological cousins of his generation. The entire family was there giving their support when he married and had children of his own, and he was just the guy, you know? The one who just always showed up when he was needed. The one who would sit with you while you were in the hospital so whoever else had been there could go home and change, or go to the cafeteria and eat. The guy who pulled a paralysingly shy teenage girl out of herself at Christmas one year, talking about E.A. Poe, who she'd been studying in a HS lit class that year, and when he found out how much she'd loved reading his work, had snuck home to giftwrap his own Complete Works for her for a Christmas present.

I didn't even realize he was adopted until -- actually, it may have been that same year.

And then this year, he died. It was tragic. He was only a few years older than my own husband, he left behind a wife, a son in college, and a just-barely-teenage daughter. To say nothing of his devastated parents, his cousins... But sadly, his death has caused a rift in the family. His father was the only son of those amazing great-grandparents of mine. And when my great-grandmother died intestate, he bought the family home and property at auction, planning to leave it to his wonderful, loving, beloved son. Now that son is dead, he wants to leave it to his grandchildren. Sadly, some of his sisters have now decided to be ugly about that -- despite the fact that none of them are in any shape to buy the property, or will themselves be dead by the time it changes hands, or have no heirs of their own, they don't want it to go to anyone who doesn't share their blood. Apparently, nearly 50 years of love don't make a family, after all. I really want that property left to those kids because to me, the only difference between their blood and mine is that if someday one of my kids needs a transplant, they may not be able to provide what is needed (although I have no doubt that they would be the first in line volunteering for a test.) DNA doesn't even come into it. And I have NO IDEA how hurt they must be right now, still grieving their father and knowing that these people they've loved for years and thought of as family, extra grandmas, don't feel exactly the same way about them.

So, much as I love my older relatives, I am wary of them. I am mentally trying to write it off as some sort of weird manifestation of senility (they are all well into their 70s and 80s by now) and telling myself that if they were younger, in possession of their right minds, this would not be happening. And part of my is just so glad that I don't live nearby anymore, and don't have to see them often or hear what's going on. And I'm so, so sad for the world's loss. 

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." --John Donne So anyway... the guilt part (this is what I was actually setting out to write, I just got distracted by back-story.) I am feeling very guilty because part of me feels that I haven't really mourned for my grandmother. It's been two years, and I've cried nary a tear for her. And yet... Every moment of every day, my heart aches for her, just as it does for my other grandmother, who died while I was pregnant with my oldest child, just as it does for other dearly loved members of my family who died even before I reached my teens.  And I've mourned her, I really have. The thing is...I mourned her death years before it happened. She started suffering small strokes when I was a freshman in college. Eventually they got big enough that she couldn't care for herself, and the family (my parents and my father's brother) made the heart-breaking decision to put her in a nursing home very close to the same time my daughter was born. My sons never knew her outside of the nursing home, and she spent nearly ten years there, dying by inches. It was more obvious to me, as by that time I had a home and a family of my own, and wasn't visiting weekly the way my parents and siblings were; I was lucky to see her twice a year. And so I've been mourning her death for the entire lives of both my boys. By the time her body stopped, I had cried my tears. My mom with her mother. My dad's mother with my older son, his first Christmas.

Voices in my head

It would be so much easier if they were plotbunnies or characters. I could write something and my messed-up-ness and whining would be *something*...

Instead, it's random to-do lists and freaky useless guilt about nothing in particular or about all the things I wanted to do but didn't because I burnt out on math or got pregnant at 20 or just can't seem to stay on top of the housework.

Hell, sometimes it's guilt caused by the fact that my body just doesn't work the way I want it to, as a result of hormones, or just plain biology, or because I've let myself get out of shape.

Life keeps kicking me down and I angst about it at 1:30 in the morning, and then I wake up early the next day and face it down again and kick freaking back!

And that, my lovelies, is the true meaning of courage.




And now: Linkity of YUM: Men In Kilts (enjoy, my dears!)

Happy Halloween!!

*blinkity blink*

ZOMG. I have actual followers. And some of them are even people I *don't* know IRL.


Srsly, I love you guys!!

Some pretty :D

Not particularly work-safe, so I'll try a break:

reading reading reading...

Have been searching out free ebooks in an effort to curtail my spending habits, and preordered earlier in the month all of Riptide Publishing's very first month of releases. So very very happy to have all of those and so excited to get started reading them! But of course, the Halloween weekend comes first. I have made the wings for my littlest guy's costume -- vaguely moth-like in shape, and safety-pinned to a shirt rather like a cape (but attached at neck  and wrists; he loves them. Also there are feathery antennae made from crafting feathers taped to a construction paper "crown." Lo-tech, perhaps, but he thinks it's just about the Most Awesome Thing EVER. Eventually I shall get around to posting pictures.

somehow this feels relevant

I'm Nobody! Who are you? (260)   by Emily Dickinson

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –  
To tell one's name – the livelong June –  
To an admiring Bog!

Extraordinary Things

There has been sad stuff going on for some of my online friends (I'm *extremely* periphery to it all, so I don't have all the details, and to be honest, I don't need to.) But it's led to...not exactly a discussion of, but an awareness off the need for Extraordinary Things. Which I think, for many of us, means, not so much acts of heroism as acts of accomplishment, whether it's finally knocking those unpleasant tasks off your to-do list or simply being available to a friend who needs an ear. (btw, I hope you know you have mine if you need it. Even if we're far apart, if you really know me, you know how to get in touch. Get in touch. Really.)

Also, today is my 11th wedding anniversary. Which is always a bit of a reflective thing for me, and I find it hard to get up enthusiasm for celebration -- although I'm very happy about it! It marks not just the day that my DH and I got married, but also some fairly traumatic and stressful events that were ocurring about that time. The biggest one, of course, was that our daughter, at the time not quite 4 months old, was in the hospital after undergoing two neurosurgeries to correct a subdural hematoma. (If you don't know, this is an incidence of bleeding in the brain cavity.) Luckily, this was a small bleed, and it corrected itself, but there WERE two surgeries involved, both of them to install temporary shunts to drain fluid off her brain. We were insanely lucky; she never needed to go into intensive care, and the neurosurgeon proclaimed her perfectly healthy (no more bleeding; no apparent damage) by Thanksgiving -- and she was released from the hospital the day after we were married. But because of the nature of her injury (subdural hematoma is most commonly ascribed to Shaken Baby Syndrome, a part of the pantheon of tell-tales) we were, of course, scrutinized carefully by law officers and Dpt of Families & Children.

Obviously, there's a lot more to the story than this little bit, but sadly, to me, this day is more of a reminder of the fact that we were surrounded by family and spending most of our free time (which meant all the time for me) at the hospital where our tiny girl had tubes in her head rather than a moment of sheer joy.

So for me, doing some Extraordinary today is reminding myself that today is a good thing. I still feel butterflies whenever I see my husband, and even when I'm mad at him (unless it's something I absolutely NEED to be mad about) I have a hard time staying that way. He can calm me when I'm upset, supports me when I need it, is always a ready shoulder when I need to cry or lean. He can bandage skinned knees, is amazing with kids and a football or a lightsaber or a fishing rod, and seems to know when everything is getting to be too much & I just need time and space away from the house. I'm going to try to honor that, strange as it may sound, by spending today pampering myself so that I can be relaxed and happy and well-rested for him tonight, so that I can maybe pamper HIM a little, too.

BOOKS!

I have them and I need to not have them anymore. But I also really want to give them to friends who think they would like them. Shortlist, right now, because I'm still in the process of going through stuff. These are all books that I have duplicates of rather than simply books I don't particularly care for.

Marion Zimmer Bradley:
 The Forbidden Tower
 The Heritage of Hastur
 Sharra's Exile

Adriana Trigiani:
 Big Stone Gap

L. Frank Baum: (my brother has first dibs at claimed these)
 The Tin Woodman of OZ
 The Land of OZ
 The Lost Princess of OZ
 Rinkitink in Oz

Roald Dahl:
 The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

Ruth Sawyer:
 Roller Skates

I will (hopefully) have more to add to this list at a later date. For now, just let me know!

People can be so thoughtless, sometimes. And judgmental.*

So there was this conversation posted on Circle of Moms today:

Q:	Encourage or discourage your children from playing with opposite-gender toys?

Whether your son is into Barbie or your daughter loves Tonka in the mud, some parents find it surprising when their children of one gender express an interest in toys or make believe that we typically associate with the other gender. Does this concern you, or do you encourage it? Or do you even think it matters?

And this is the answer I wrote:

Honestly, the bigger problem to me is the sexualization of toys for little girls. My boys play with dolls and ponies AND dinosaurs and cars. If they want pink, they can have pink. Different kinds of toys encourage different kinds of play, and "girl" toys seem to promote empathy and thoughtfulness and gentle behavior, in general, more than stereotypically "boy" toys. I want my boys to have the ability to be tender and thoughtful, and to empathise with others' feelings. I want my daughter to be strong and self-assured and stand up for herself. Pink and pastels never hurt any boys, and darker colors won't damage girls, any more than playing in the mud will hurt anyone. Some people who say it all much better than I ever could, check out this blog: http://blog.pigtailpals.com/

But I have lots more I'd like to say about it, right here.

My understanding is that most parents object to boys playing with "girl" toys and vice versa because they're Good Little Christians (something I fully admit I'm not. At best, I'm a Bad Christian, at worse, a Complete Heathen.) and Good Little Christians don't want to let their kids grow up to be Teh GAY. And I gotta ask, "Really? You really think that the toys your kid wants to play with are going to determine this?" And also "Is your love for your child so fragile a thing that it can be lost for such a reason?" At best, the toys my kids play with are perhaps an "early warning system" so I'll be prepared for what will, no doubt, be a whole lot of heartbreak and teenage angst if, perhaps, one or both of my boys is gay. And honestly, I'd like that because I'd like to start the dialogue early. I'd like my kids to grow up accepting that we're all different, that different isn't actually a bad thing.

And, parents, how exactly do you plan on keeping your kids from playing with the "wrong" toys? Are you going to cloister your daughters in a Barbie-land of pinks and improbably proportioned female dolls? Are your sons going to be raised by uber-Butch men, taught only by other men in a rarefied male-only private school with 20-foot privacy/security walls? 'Cause that's just gonna work so well, let me tell you! What's wrong with giving your sons the opportunity to learn to be kinder, gentler, more empathetic men, or your daughters the chance to change the world by being stronger, smarter, more self-reliant? I don't want a Barbie-doll for a little girl, and I don't want a robot for a son. There are more than a few straight female long-distance truckers out there, and, I'm sure, some straight male clothing designers -- for men AND women, although Fashion Design is a Whole Nother Blog Post from this gal!

Many of these misconceptions about being gay are rooted in the Christian belief that homosexuality is a sin (almost worse than murder!) and to debunk those, I'd like to point you in the direction of Mr. Mark Sandlin, a Presbyterian minister in North Carolina, and his post Clobbering "Biblical" Gay Bashing. In this article, he tackles all the Bible verses most commonly held up as directives against homosexuality and debunks them. Every last one. In a style that is thoughtful, entertaining, logical, nearly lyrical. AND he quotes Monty Python. I will recap it for you.

Mr. Sandlin claims that the only sins specifically listed for the doomed city-state of Sodom are those of non-hospitality, marginalization of certain groups (orphans, widows, the poverty-stricken), injustice, and bullying. [Hmmm...sounds a LOT like some of the issues gays are currently facing, don't it?] In the book of Leviticus, he states, we find "...a mandate to kill disobedient children, a dietary restriction to not eat shellfish (God Hates Shrimp!), a law that would prevent bowl-cuts (or “rounding off the side-growth of your heads” – and to think I liked the Beatles), direction to not touch or eat the flesh of a pig (no bacon and cheddar soup for you)..." yet many choose to overlook those in current society because we have progressed (and I use the word with reservations and extreme prejudice) societally to a point where they no longer make sense. Mr. Sandlin suggests that part of *that* issue was a misinterpretation of "purity" based on the science -- or lack thereof -- back in the day. Further, he argues that mis-translation coupled with misinterpretation of the Greek word <i>"physikos"</i> is a part of the current problem. That word, he states, is often translated as "natural," where its originators meant "produced by nature." We interpret "natural" to be equivalent to "normal" rather than to mean "the way it was created." Or, to put it another way, "born that way." He closes by maintaining that to use the Bible as a defense of homophobia is to a.) be guilty of judging others ("Judge not lest ye be judged.") and b.) be guilty of taking the Lord's name in vain (using the Word of God under false pretences.)

I'm telling you, I would so haul the whole Ravening Barbarian Horde to church on Sundays if I could hear this guy -- or someone like him -- preach. Even if I had to get up at 6 and bully everyone else into getting up and dressed and fed.

I know that, to most of the people who might read this blog (because hopefully, you are already my friend elsewhere) I am preaching to the choir. And to you, I promise, if one day one of my kids comes up to me and says, "Mom, I'm gay." I will respond with a hug. And I will say, "I love you. I hope that one day, you will find someone special who will recognize how amazing you are, and how frustrating, and will love you for it, but until then, and after, and even if it never happens at all, I love you." And I will do everything I can for my kids, whether they're straight or gay or whatever, to support them through whatever crazy shit life throws at them.

And if you're not already my friend, and you can agree with and sympathise with my views, Thanks. It's nice to meet you. Stay awhile; maybe we have more in common.

*Yes, even me. I freely admit, I'm totally judging other parents who respond, based on their responses. Especially the one who wants her kids to understand that "there's boy stuff and girl stuff and there's a reason why they're different." --Um. Well, girls have bras and boys have athletic cups, because they have different equipment that needs different kinds of support and protection, but that's about it as far as I can tell.

practicing my vocab words

I usually attempt to be well-spoken and thoughtful (ok, well, most of the time anyway) but today my brain is blown. Due, no doubt, to the effects of doing 5 (yup, count 'em, 5) loads of laundry today. All bedding ephemera: comforters, sheets, mattress pads, blankets and afghans and pillows and stuffed animals. Some of it is standard we-all-change-our-sheets-every-weekend stuff, but there's also a bunch of both-boys-apparently-had-accidents-overnight combined with a little of my-parents-came-to-visit-and-brought-hand-me-down-sheets. The only bedding-type thing that hasn't been washed but probably should be is the quilt from my bed. But by the time all the rest of it is done, I'm just not sure there's going to be room on the line for it (I already had to bring in one load to finish up in the dryer...)

And then I have a load and a half of pants & stuff, and almost a full load of t-shirts & underwear, and then there's the kitchen and table linens, and the bathroom linens, and the massive pile of rag and rugs and dog-bed and the like...And it's supposed to rain tomorrow and MAYBE the next day, so we're looking at up to 2 days of no laundry line...

Not to mention the fact that I paid bills today, and it's going to be kind of an extra half-week before payday (maybe not, but I need to plan for it, anyway) and all the dishes that always need doing and I've forgotten what I was going to cook for dinner and and and.... *Deep Breath*

I have some bananas I'd *really* like to make into banana bread. I have some pumpkin in the fridge I really need to use up and a recipe for Pumpkin Crescent rolls I'd love to try. And some biscotti recipes I've been wanting to make for a couple of weeks now... If I can manage ONE of those today, and slowly get to the rest over the course of the week, it will all be good.

And Friday's my 11th wedding anniversary.

Overwhelmed: I haz one.

*PANIC*

ohshitohshitohshit.

Backstory: Last weekend my grandpa was taken from nursing home to hospital with gallstones. Hospital determined he should have lost the gallbladder ages ago, so he had surgery to remove it (there was an infection which had thankfully not spread to bile duct/pancreas/liver/whatever other organs are in that general vicinity) -- this is not about him. He had surgery, is doing fine, back in nursing home. Since he *is* doing fine, my parents are coming to visit this weekend. By which I mean, they'll get here sometime tonight, and leave Sunday morning.

Over the summer, the Barbarian Horde and I spent a month with them, during which time I raided the attic for booksbooksbooks, went through papers (and found a bunch of stuff -- artwork, certificates, newpaper clippings & other random memorabilia), and dug through the storage closet for outgrown clothes of mine that will work for the Darling Daughter over the next year or two. I filled up two ginormous rubbermaid tubs (yes, the BIG ones. What are they, 50 gal? Maybe more? I don't know.) These tubs are the problem.

They are full of stuff. Srsly, when I say full, I mean I-was-only-JUST-barely-able-to-close-the-lid full. And there was...overflow. Like, two tomato boxes worth of overflow (tomato boxes hold fresh tomatoes from the canning factory -- they will sell them to home-canners, although I'm not sure I understand WHY. They hold about a bushel of tomatoes. Maybe half a bushel? I don't know; it's been a while since I helped w/ the tomatoes. One box holds about a dozen quart-size Mason jars.) And a lot of that stuff is books. Books are lovely, books are good, I firmly believe this:

My husband, sadly, disagrees. And to an extent I can see his point. I mean, the only way to find shelf space for any more books in my house would be to pack up or throw away his collection of penguins, some of my collection of cats, all the kids' DVDs, the adult TV show DVDs, and a lot of craft supplies.

So. Um. Yeah, I'm probably gonna be in trouble later. I shall be doing some reorganizing of the "Do I really REALLY need/want these books?" variety.

I may have to make a spreadsheet of the stuff I end up getting rid of, just so I can buy it again later in digital format (just so it takes up less space.)

Pray for me!

(And one day, I may blog the pumpkin bars. I have a couple or three pictures and everything! I just hate downloading pictures to the computer...)

Fall and cooking

I love fall. I love to cook in fall. I'm a fan of spending time cooking in my kitchen (cleaning is another matter, but that's another post entirely. :P )

So this is going to be all about WHY I love cooking in fall, and some new recipes I'm planning on trying here soon.

The why of it all: Partly, I suppose, it's because of the ingredients. I love starting with fresh produce, and it's more readily available in the fall -- pumpkins and squashes (granted I'm not a huge squash fan, but they make good soups, and they *look* pretty) and apples...oh, apples! *sigh* Plus, of course, the stuff I love to make -- soups and stews, casseroles, pot roast, chili -- they are all much better suited to eating and cooking in cooler weather, when the heat from them is more welcome. So, yeah, fall suits my cooking style right down to the ground.

Now, what I'm looking forward to making: biscotti. Lots and lots of biscotti. I'm a tea drinker, rather than a coffee drinker, but biscotti goes equally well with either drink. The crispness lends itself to dunking, and it's usually less sweet than other types of cookie. Plus, they mail well, if you're planning on a home-made treat for friends or family far away (how'd you like my alliteration?)

Pumpkin: I have a whole huge list of stuff I want to make using pumpkin -- biscotti, soup, bread, scones, pumpkin butter... Every year in the fall, I always get a couple of extra pumpkins besides the ones we're going to carve for Hallowe'en. At some point (usually around Thanksgiving) I cut 'em up and peel 'em, and cook them down and mash them up and freeze the pulp, in 2-cup portions. Then, throughout the year, whenever I want to make scones or pumpkin bread or pumpkin cheesecake or whatever, I can just pull a little out of the freezer and go for it.

A friend recently posted a recipe on Google+ for her homemade butternut squash-and-apple soup. It sounded good. I may try it.

I have seen several interesting apple-pie variations, lately; I'm seriously considering trying one or more of them, plus my perennial favorite, Tennessee Apple Upside Down Cake.

Then, of course, there's my dinners -- Basque Chicken Pie, Crock-Pot Pot Roast, Chicken Fricassee...

I'm not planning on doing any serious Food Blogging, but I may start taking pictures and posting them (along with recipes) here. As an occasional thing.

Sometimes I astound myself...

"I have danced under a darkling moon, and kissed my beloved in the pounding rain. I have danced at a wedding and cried at a funeral. I have experienced birth and death, love and fear, life and loss. Yet still, through all the disappointments, I have hope; under all the joys runs a thread of despair, that this, too, shall pass, and be riven from me."

This just burst out of my brain, fully formed, about 10 minutes ago.

Now I just need to figure out what it is. Or who, rather, and what else he, she, or it has to say to me.

Huh. Maybe somewhere in there is a muse, after all.

:D

stressful weekends just don't stop

I really feel like I need to read something with an eye to reviewing it, just because I need something to concentrate on that will make me happy. I have a couple of new things I need to load on my reader; maybe one of those will be The One; the next book to inspire me to write about it.

We've had a long and busy weekend, piling new stress up on top of the stress I'm already feeling. My fingers are so crossed that the DH's truck will sell soon that my hands are starting to cramp, but really? We really really need it to happen. The Middle Child had his 8th birthday on Saturday, and he started celebrating on Thursday. He apparently felt that the entire weekend should be All About HIM, and that he should be able to do whatever he wanted, and win everything. Needless to say, that's not the way it went, and there were many tears involved. And that meant many lectures. And when I'm the one giving the lectures, it stresses me, and when I'm just listening to the DH lecture, it stresses me out. On top of that, there was a lovely hate-y rant on FB, which I allowed myself to be drawn into, which culminated in a woman I thought was a friend who knew me fairly well deciding that I was expressing an opinion based on a superficial knowledge of the subject at hand. (I'm trying REALLY HARD not to get into the whole thing on here.)  Anyway, I have no real evidence that she has any more background on the matter than she thinks I have, but I *know* that I have more knowledge than she thinks I do. I don't offer up an opinion on things unless I'm sure of my position and feel VERY strongly on the subject, and to be so dismissed is hurtful. I may not have a degree, and I may stay home with my kids, but I *do* have a fairly thorough education. I do not have a paid job, but that doesn't mean I have no motivation to learn things. I may have primarily reviewed (or commented on, rather) romance and YA novels, but that's not all I read now, and it's certainly not all I've ever read.

Lesson? Don't ever presume to know, especially based on a single conversation on a given subject, that someone does not have the knowledge to support or uphold their opinion. Unless you have been with them for every moment of their life to date, you have no way of knowing what experiences or research are fueling their thoughts and feelings. In other words, Dear Ma'am, you can bite me!

I feel all need-to-blog-y, but I don't know about what, really. Maybe we'll try that whole stream-of-consciousness thing and see where it gets us. Right now, I'm sitting on the sofa on my DH's laptop. In the room with me are two cats: one white, sleeping on the sofa arm beside me, the other grey and sitting in the high-back car booster over by the front door. My cell just beeped, which probably means my DH just texted me from the neighbors' where he went to see what they got our Middle Child for his 8th birthday today. Better go check...

~~~~

Yup, it was him, but to tell me that their puppies are playing with his shoelaces. Those pups are SOOO cute, and I kind of want one, but just can't right now. They're part some sort of terrier (I think) and min-pin, so they're never going to be very big, and we have two large boxer-mixes right now. I just can't think it's a good idea to bring a third dog -- and a small one at that -- into that, especially as the larger of our two is not yet 18 mos old. Also, we just plain can't afford it. But we can't afford much of anything; I hate to admit it bu we're in dire financial straits.  We're hoping to sell the DH's gas-guzzler soon (ad on Craigslist) which would go a long way to making things a lot more comfortable around here, but until that happens, we're hanging on paycheck to paycheck. And just barely managing to keep no more than one month behind on bills and stay on top of the mortgage and all still EAT. And of course, only one vehicle means it's nearly impossible for me to get a job, because I'd be constrained to the maybe half-dozen or so businesses which are within walking distance, all of which would require me to find some sort of childcare for at least the boys -- and none of which would pay anything above the cost of  that childcare.

Life sucks sometimes.  Keep you fingers crossed that the truck sells.

I so need to go back to school eventually. I keep looking at Work-from-home job posting sites, hoping to find something that I can do, but sometimes it just seems hopeless. They want you to have a space with a door you can shut while your kids are home (which makes being home with the kids kind of pointless. They want you to have this degree or that experience, none of which I have. Or to buy special equipment, which I can't afford. There's always something, and for the others, they're scams. Or they might be genuine, but they totally come across as spammy when you click the links. And I'm not going to risk anything on "might be."

The sad thing is, about half the time, I know I have the skills, even if I don't have the piece of paper or the work history. I've spent the last 8 years or so not working at all, just being at home taking care of kids and house and pets. I can organize, I can make phone calls, I can be convincing. I can type, and more importantly, I can WRITE. Not fiction (or I'd be trying to get published instead of looking for a job), but I can write. I can even edit -- Maybe I'm not sure about fictional content editing, but nonfiction almost certainly, and especially looking for errors of spelling, grammar and punctuation. I'm not sure I could sell anything, but I've done customer service before and I was pretty damn good at it.

Here it is almost 5 pm an I've accomplished virtually nothing today. I've folded and put away a couple of loads of laundry, and washed a couple more (one's in the dryer, the other in the washer waiting its turn.) I really need to do dishes and clean the kitchen so that I can help the Darling Daughter with her first foray into birthday-cake-baking -- she wants to make her brother's birthday cake for tomorrow. It's a basic box cake, so not beyond her abilities, but she's never done a cake before, and this is a special silicone dinosaur-shaped pan, so it shall be interesting. I just hate doing dishes. It's not my least favorite thing ever, but it's starting to rank right up there. Less because I don't enjoy the ritual of it, the joy of taking something dirty and making it clean again, and more because I just do it all the time; hardly a day goes by when I'm not doing the freaking dishes. And my hands get all dried out and flaky and itchy and *horrible* and there's nothing that really helps.

*sigh*

Trying to get past this mood, and not sure how well it's working. Will move on from this to some other things; maybe turning on loud, dance-y music will help me get moving and get it all together.

Much love!

The Frustrations of Parenting, pt 1

My three kids, ages 11, 8, and 6, really keep me hopping. In general, this is probably a good thing, as I'm an introvert and would likely, left to my own devices, find myself living in a cave with no outside interaction (possibly not even the internet). However, there are a few -- ok, more than a few -- problems.

To begin with, I *am* an introvert. This means that long stretches of time spent in close contact with other people, all of whom are louder, more active and more aggressive than myself, are difficult at best. This is weekends. Long weekends are progressively harder and long breaks (especially summer vacations) can be downright excruciating, since I'm a stay-at-home Mom. I find myself staying up way too late trying to find some quiet time to recharge, and then having to get up early to make sure the kids don't harm themselves or each other, and by the time I catch up on all that lost sleep, it's time to do it all again with another long school break. We're trained as students and workers to celebrate Fridays and fear Mondays; for me it's the opposite. Perhaps if I were a different personality type I would be less stressed by all the family togetherness (and to be honest, there are plenty of times when I really do love the stuff we do all together) but I'm not, and I refuse to either fake it or apologize. I can't pretend with my family, I won't pretend to myself, and, frankly, if anyone's reading this, I don't care enough about *you,* Dear Reader, to pretend to you.


The Girl Child, 11, is particularly challenging for me. She's in that "tween" time; somewhere between child and young adult, and she's practicing her girly. I've had my moments of girliness, but never a truly concentrated thing. She's taking it to what seems, to me, to be extremes. I don't understand and I'm not entirely sure how to deal. Additionally, she seems to want to be an overachiever but doesn't quite have the innate abilities to do it. The self-confidence, yeah (or else that's a mask she's showing to us all), but not the easy recollection or quick wit (I'm sorry, I love her, but...some people just don't.) Sometimes I feel like part of that, at least, is my fault; I'm a quick reader myself, and she seems to want to be emulating that, but when I read quickly, I am also still able to retain the vast majority of what I read. She, on the other hand, can't. She "read" Christopher Paolini's <i>Eragon</i> last weekend (I use the word guardedly, as she kept the book in her room for roughly 24 hours, and then assured me she had completely read the whole thing). It took *me* several days to finish that book, and I was reading as an adult, without a full-time job (other than parenting, of course). I in no way believe that she finished and retained what she read. And, to be honest, what irks me most is not that she wants me to believe her, but that she won't just be honest about it. I don't care how fast she reads, as I've explained to her. It's more important that she understands and takes in what she's read.

In some ways, having kids has made me a better reader, though. You wouldn't know it to look, because I read a lot more than I remember to review, either here or on <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2300063-tracy?ref=header">my Goodreads page</a>, but I've been expanding my YA reads from the classics that I've loved since I was a kid, and reading more recent stuff, because I really feel I need to know what's out there. I have three budding readers (I hope; the First Grader is a bit resistant, but it's coming a little harder to him than to the others) and I want to be sure that I can direct them toward books that are not only the *quality* I wish them to read, but that are also books that they'll enjoy. I want smart characters, male and female, who are able to be strong and make hard choices. I'm actually somewhat OK with a certain amount of moral ambiguity, but certain themes are right out. Definitely no rape, for instance, and bullying is only OK if the character who is bullying learns better and reforms. Or, you know, is at least punished harshly. Hatred is not OK. I would actually like to see more LGBTQ characters, even for my younger readers, more diverse racial backgrounds, more strong secondary characters...I haven't exactly been impressed with a lot of what passes for teen romance these days. Overall, I'm actually find that I'm more and more falling back on my childhood favorites: A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Emily's Runaway Imagination, and Five Children and It (Puffin Classics) (to name just a few). However, there have been a few standouts that I've loved over the last decade or so: the aforementioned <i>Eragon</i> (although I should note I've only read <i>Eragon</i> and <i>Eldest</i> to date), Artemis Fowl (new cover), and Inkheart (Movie Cover), just for starters.

I remember my mom reading out loud to us as kids. She read all the way through almost all of C.S. Lewis's <i>Narnia</i> books. I remember particulary hearing her read when I was about 8 -- my little sister was still a baby, and in one of the books (I think it was <i>A Horse and His Boy,</i> although I could be wrong) there's a part where one character, a king, is talking to his nephew (stepson? I really must do a re-read) and there's an unfortunate paragraph break. At the end of one paragraph, it goes, "..and the king said," then the break before getting to the actual speech. Anyhoo, just as she reaches that part, the baby stinks up the diaper, and Mom looks over and reads "...and the king said, 'Shew, you stink!'" It just fit so well into the rhythm of the story, it was actually a few years later (when I first read the book for myself) that I finally realized that that was not, in fact, part of the narrative. We still laugh about it, some 25 years later. However, I've tried reading to my kids, and they can't seem to sit still for it, especially as some of the older ones, I know, tend to move more slowly than newer books do.

Another time, I'll get into the frustrations of my beloved but crazy-making sons. And one day, I may even count my blessings! (Don't get me wrong; I really do love my kids. I'm thrilled to be able to share some of the things I love with them -- books, movies, baking -- I just get overwhelmed because they all seem to have a different personality from my own, and it can feel pretty stressful after a while.) In the meantime, peace, love and plenty of good books!!! I think I'm maybe inspired to go poking around my kids' bookshelves for some good re-reads.

The Search for WondLa

Oh, where to begin? This is wonderful juvenile fiction--a post-apocalyptic fantasy with hints of L. Frank Baum's Oz books -- literally, as Eva Nine (our intrepid 11-year-old heroine) sets off on a quest guided only by her desire to find out about a scrap of heavy paper with a picture of "a girl, a robot, and an adult, looking happy" with the words Wond La printed on it. She is also looking for other humans, having been raised underground by a robot called Muthr. What she finds on the surface are strange "trees," some of which can move, which most closely resemble hugely overgrown microscopic organisms; strange, alien beings of various kinds; and animals that are completely unrecognizable to her, including Otto, a "water bear" who is rather an elephantine pill bug type of creature. She is hunted as a unique species, and eventually learns of a ruin in a desert where artifacts similar to her own belongings have been found, and attempts to travel there to see if she can find signs of humans. What she finds is the New York Public Library's Rare Printed Books and Archives Vault. There is a HUGE cliffhanger ending, and the last page says End of Book I. (According to Amazon, A Hero for WondLa (Book II) will be released in hardcover May 8, 2012). The hardback features gorgeous illustrations at the beginning of each chapter, and sprinkled throughout the book. I highly recommend this to...well, everyone, really! Also, check out the website (www.wondla.com)

I read this book as a library borrow while visiting my parents in June, 2011. 

life and randomness

So we're having a bit of financial iffery right now, due to unforseen circumstances (namely the AC dying in the middle of a freaking heatwave). Which means we're living pretty much hand-to-mouth trying to catch up on bills, with a birthday party on Saturday for our Middle Child. Plus, I got a tattoo on Monday. So my ankle hurts like a b*tch. Anyway, all this means I'm on a book-buying moratorium until we're caught up (which with any luck will be, oh, end of October.)

I'm kinda feeling weird about that whole thing, honestly. There's a little part of me that's all, "oh oh OH!!" at all the new releases that some of my autobuy authors are coming out with (even when the blurbs for the books are kinda leaving me "meh"). But at the same time, there's a part of me that's not really interested in reading Anything At All (although that's not really working, because I find myself re-reading a ton of stuff.) As well, I'm really excited about a new publishing venture I'm aware of, but not so much some of the authors involved (some of them are already on my auto-buy, so, yeah, wanna NOM them ASAP.)

All of this has combined to leave me a very mixed-up kitty indeed, and I've been compensating by trolling the web for free reads, none of which I've managed to download to my reader yet. I've been considering doing a massive reorganization of my digital library anyway (at least parts of it; some of my M/M stuff is improperly tagged in Calibre) but it's going to be, as I said, a massive task and I'm not sure I feel up to it. I do need to back up the newer downloads, though, just in case I ever have to completely reset the reader again. Weirdly (or not) a lot of the free reads I've downloaded are Kindle books which have to be read on the computer which gives me headaches. Swear to God, one of these days I'm going to get a cheap, older Kindle just so I can read those in freakin' e-ink. LOL  I'm not sure it's worth the cost of even a refurb'd Kindle, but even tho I know I wouldn't be pirating, I can't deal with the thought of trying to learn how to strip the DRM (yeah, I know, I'm not very technologically advanced. I have my moments, but overall....No.)

And the Oldest Child *just* told me she  has detention after school today for forgetting her ID 2x, and can I pick her up at 4? She's just lucky that I'm gonna have the van today; we're trying to only drive the one vehicle that gets semi-decent gas mileage.

Hello, Internet!

I am me, and I am proud!

I've been pondering and musing a lot lately (I have time for this, what with having to sit and supervise homework for an hour or more every day). And what I have been thinking about is myself. Sometimes it's hard for me to put into words all the things I think about me, but the one thing that keeps coming up is how much I *want* to love this elusive "ME" and how much I don't love her. And how far away she seems sometimes.

I'm not really sure who "ME" is, most of the time. I've never really been, to be completely honest. I've looked for her from time to time, with varying levels of success, but she's never really been...there. Just kind of hovers in the background, but won't let herself be caught (rather like a nervous, not-quite-feral cat. Maybe that's why I identify with felines so strongly.)

But the topic keeps coming up in my mind, and occasionally on blogs or Twitter or Facebook, and so I keep thinking about it (and always when I don't have the computer handy to write down my thoughts. So I keep forgetting key points. Or not forgetting, just...misplacing.)'

There are things I want to do with myself, for myself...and the only thing holding me back is me. If I were determined, I could work around the kids-and-husband issues (although the single-car, no-money part may be more difficult) and find a job or a school. I choose whether or not I exercise, how I (and the rest of the family) eat (they eat better than I do.) I choose what I read and watch on TV -- no apologies for any of that. When "smarter" stuff than romance appeals to me, that's what I read. If I feel the need for a preponderance of escapist material these days, who are you to judge?

I have let others control my life too much. I have let *circumstances* control my life too much. I let my guilt and external expectations curb my naturally sunny nature. I'm lucky, I suppose, in that I haven't exactly reached a point where complete strangers feel the need to comment on my life, the books I read, the things I say on here...I expect it will probably come eventually; I can't continue in this sterile state of limbo forever. I hope I'll be ready for it when it happens (but I equally hope I'll be able to deal if it *doesn't* -- there's always, I suppose, the possibility no one will ever discover me here in this little corner of the internet.) One day, I may even be brave enough to deliberately put myself out there in front of others.

You'll be the first to know.

Ranty McRantypants

There are some days you just can't seem to get off the ground. Today has been one of them, definitely. Bad weather, bad finances, backache and all kinds of stuff have combined to leave me grumpy and blue. And the DH spending All Day (seriously! All day!!) on the damn XBox with various members of the Barbarian Horde playing various versions of Halo was Not Helpful to my general mood.

So I holed up in bed and I read. The only thing I've eaten today is a handful of M&Ms, a pimiento-cheese sandwich (I have *got* to start making my own; that store-bought stuff is such CRAP!), 5 slices of canned peach, and a grilled cheese sandwich. I know, I know. I'm working on that starting tomorrow. Mostly because we're at the point of only eating what's on hand, and thankfully the fridge is stocked full of fruits and veggies, and I'm gonna have to bake bread for sandwiches (but I don't WANNAaaaaa....)

And the reading the last couple of days has engendered a mini-rant from me. The words "He said," "She replied," etc., have long gotten old; everyone knows you need more interesting tags than that. BUT. Can we please put a moratorium on the word "coo" and all its variants? Please, God? Please? I'm sure it's a perfectly good word, if you're a pigeon or dove. Or possibly if you're speaking to a baby. But a fully-grown male (or female) speaking to another fully-grown male (or female) Should Not COO. Damnit. I'm sure it's supposed to evoke a sweet, loving, low, sort of sing-songy tone, but it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Let them croon, please. It just sounds more adult -- brings to mind Tony Bennet, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin. NOT a mother trying to calm a screaming child, or a particularly obnoxious and stupid (though quietly lovely) bird. Kthnxbai

Then, today, I read over my blog roll and find some sort-of-serialized posts. They're stories that I'd really love to love, posted in increments regularly for free on blogs. But sadly, I'm not loving a lot of them. The characters are great, but the English? Atrocious. Grammar? Non-existant. Spelling? OMG Let's not *even* go there. Look, I get that these aren't intended to be the most polished thing ever, but seriously! Get thee a beta reader who knows a little about this stuff to at least clear up some of the most egregious errors before you post! And more importantly, when you post excerpts from actual, published (or slated-to-be-published-in-the-near-future) works, make sure they're competently copyedited. Because as a reader, I'm not inclined to want to pay for your work if it's that unprofessional-looking. My book-allowance is slim; since I can't exactly flip through digital books at random down my local Wal-Mart, I really rely on those excerpts and blurbs to help me decide where my money's going. And even a few major foul-ups will make me avoid you like the plague. I have a couple of authors who were at one point on my auto-buy list *despite* many errors who are no longer there, because I can no longer tolerate the missteps, the homophone abuse, the redundancy. At one point, excellent world-building and interesting characters would be sufficient for me to overlook such things, but no more.

Now. The Halo, and the DH fussing at the Girl Child for not being as good at the game as he is (not that, frankly, he's so very great) are NOT helping the headache situation at all, so I'm going to go make some hot, sweet, decaffeinated tea of some sort -- possibly mint, although maybe not -- and go back to bed. And book.

Her Two Dads

This was a sweet story; I really enjoyed it. I loved that Sri went through the "new parent panic" stage (we -- parents -- have all been there, but with a bit more preparation than he had) but that he had his friend Jaime by his side supporting his choices throughout. (*Note: Jaime is the son of Mexican immigrants to the US; I vaguely recall the correct pronunciation of his name from HS Spanish classes but couldn't get it to gel in my mind. Purely my own fault.)
Sri's friend Jill used Sri's sperm to get pregnant when she could feel her biological clock ticking with no husband on the cards. Sadly, she dies in childbirth, leaving her daughter alone in the world. Unexpectedly (they had agreed that his name would not be a part of the proceedings), she has named Sri as the father to the hospital. He originally plans to give her up for adoption, but is unable to do so once he's seen and held her. (I'm just glad there was no family waiting in the wings to adopt whose hearts were broken.) Sri is a gay man who shares his condo with two other men: Jaime, who has been living there for three years or so, and Nathaniel, who hasn't been there as long and is in med school. Jaime comes from a large, tightly-knit family and has admitted to having kind of a crush on Sri, although neither of them has acted on their feelings of attraction in deference to preserving a good homeowner-tenant relationship. With the addition of little Sophie, Nathaniel leaves, and they decide not to acquire a third roommate so as to free up a bedroom for the baby; but splitting child-care causes them to grow closer emotionally.
Eventually, they acknowledge their feelings for each other and set about developing a relationship deeper and more lasting than friends and roommates. This is derailed when Child Protective Services is called on an (unfounded) abuse charge -- based, apparently, on the fact that Sri and Jaime are gay. Sri panics, Jaime withdraws; they are forced to communicate to fix things (but ultimately do. C'mon, you knew there'd be a happily ever after.)
There's a wedding, a family dinner, a date or two...definitely a feel-good story, and Sophie's a little charmer (I just wish my kids had been more like her -- I love them, but...even-tempered they were NOT.)
Things I wasn't so crazy about:
 -- Several times, Sri mentions Jill as having been his best friend, and yet aside from mentioning her as Sophie's biological mother, he seems to have no contact with the end of her life (he doesn't go to the funeral, nothing.)
 -- Even though Sri had not planned to be a significant part of Sophie's life, Jill seemed to have nothing set in place to care for her daughter in the case of her (Jill's) death or injury. It would have seemed logical for her to name him as the guardian, but he would, presumably, have been informed of that at some point.
 -- Frankly, the guys had it really easy. I don't know anyone whose babies were as calm and stress-free and illness-free as Sophie. I get that they had a lot to deal with, between CPS, work, estrangement from family, and whatnot...but still.

Life sucks

And it's freaking *stressful* too! I hate, sometimes, that I'm a SAHM, because it can be very isolating, especially when you really don't have a lot of money for getting out and doing things. And it's even more so once the kids are in school, because they used to be the excuse for getting out. Wed morning? Storytime at the library! I'd like to get a job, but...let's be honest. With 8 years under my belt as a SAHM, I have no current references and no workplace skills (Heck, I can't even *remember* my last three places of employment, much less names of managers. Some of them aren't even in business any more.) And without a full formal education behind me, the only thing I'm really qualified for is minimum wage service industry employment. There's not a lot of that available around here, and what there is, is dependent upon having a very flexible schedule, which I don't because...well, I have three kids. I have to be home at 5:30 in the morning when the Hubby leaves for work (which means no overnight shifts) and at minimum wage, after-school care will eat up my paycheck. So, I shall have stress over money most months of the year, and juggle bills, and hope we can manage a half-way decent Christmas this year. *fingers crossed*

Life, Love and Lemon Cookies

This is a sequel to Love's Evolution (which, according to Amazon, was first published in print in Nov 2006; so it's been a few years...Matt and Chris have married and settled in to their relationship when a fire destroys The Falls, the Asheville, NC, restaurant where Chris has been head chef for 15 years. The owner chooses not to rebuild, leaving all the employees searching for work. The stress of being unemployed and overqualified in a poor economy makes Chris depressed, and strains his relationship with Matt. However, with a lot of love and understanding, they eventually make it through until finally Chris has a brainstorm that fixes everything.

I really enjoyed Love's Evolution, so I was happy to get this further peek into Chris and Matt's life. I love that they're still very much the same: Chris still worries a bit about Matt's health, even four years after a snowboarding accident landed him in the hospital with some pretty bad injuries. And Matt still understands that the kitchen and baking are Chris's safe place, the place he retreats to to think things through and lick his wounds. They can make space for each other, and still be supportive of each other, and even when they're fighting, the love shines through.

Ally does a great job of capturing the stresses that this kind of catastrophic loss of identity can cause (after all, Chris is left with essentially nothing to show for the past 15 years of his professional life) and the strain that can put on a relationship. Matt is loving and generous with himself in his attempts to help Chris get past this, but at the same time, he doesn't let Chris walk all over him in his anger at the way life is turning out. Granted, sometimes things come out that maybe shouldn't, or at the wrong time, but that's the way things go sometimes. And ultimately, it's an argument that brings everything to a head and leads to the solution to Chris's crisis of self-faith.

The thing I didn't like about this book? Something that bugs me about all of Samhain's pubs. The last 10 pages or so are blurbs and excerpts for two other books. The ePub file logged in, according to my eReader, at 60 pages, but the story was over before page 45. I don't mind the author bio and list of her other work, and I wouldn't mind a list of other stuff released in the same month, but the excerpts? It's a bit too much, especially for such a short story. Between all that and the cover/title/dedication, etc., fully a third of the file is non-story. Also, the excerpts are frustrating because if one catches my eye, but I can't immediately write it down or wishlist it, it can disappear into my library for ages, unless and until I either re-read the story or start just skipping straight to the end of Samhain books looking for a specific blurb. So I could live without that...

A few things I'm confident of (about myself)...

1. I can read -- quickly and comprehensively (although I'm struggling with how to teach the Oldest Child how to do the same. She reads quickly, she just doesn't absorb anything.)

2. I can proofread.

3. I can spell. It helps to do it on paper (or typing) but I can do it out loud, too.

4. I can bake bread from scratch.

5. I can cook real food, too. Nothing super-fancy, but Tasty, Simple and Filling.

6. I can write one HELL of a research paper. (Or, I used to be able to, at any rate. It's been a couple of years.)



...and a few things I'm less confident about.

1. I can't see pictures in my brain. Only words.

2. I'm bad with numbers and dates (surprisingly, however, there are certain areas of math where I seem to excel while having Not the Slightest CLUE what I'm doing.)

3. I would *love* to write fiction, but I'm scared it's not my forte, and I have a hard time getting myself started.

4. I have no willpower when it comes to exercise. I'm good at (mostly) watching my eating, but exercise requires external motivation. And a buddy.

5. Insomnia.

6. I'm not so fulfilled by the whole SAHM thing, but...I don't know that I'd really want to have an honest-to-goodness job, either. At least, not a traditional one. And I would still want to be home when the kids are.

It occurs to me that I have mentioned the kids (a.k.a. the Ravening Barbarian Horde -- doing great, btw, the boys are lounging around in their underwear all day until forced to get dressed, just like Daddy, and the girl is grounded for taking a foray into my seldom-used stash of make-up when she was supposed to be cleaning the bathroom she shares with her brothers) and the books (hoping to get around to a couple of reviews this week; I'm participating in a couple of group reads over on Goodreads, and of course have done some fairly copious reading besides that. I'm better at keeping up with reviews on Goodreads than I am here...) but the cats haven't made much of an appearance yet. Except Stella -- the grey thing up and to your right. Her story will come one day. But first, the gorgeous black mini-panther (which, yes, I know, is not an actual type of cat. Per Wikipedia, it's a melanistic type of another large cat -- here in North America, that would be either a jaguar or a cougar. And "melanistic" refers to the atypical all-over dark pigmentation. See, you learned something. "Any day in which you learn something isn't a complete loss." --Belgarath the Sorcerer, David Eddings.)  (Detour over. I promise.) *Aaaanyway.*

That black --mostly; you can't see them all in the picture but he had three patches of white on his throat, chest and belly -- kitty is Gumbo. When I was in high school, my mom found him in a ditch by the side of the road. She took him home, bathed him (several times, to get rid of all the dirt and blood and ick), and committed the ultimate indignity of taking him to the vet. He was pre-weaned, so we ended up feeding him baby formula with a medicine dropper for a few weeks. Luckily, Mom works at the local college in the science department, so she just took him to work and he rode around in various people's lab coat pockets until he was weaned. He also had a broken tail, and it was amputated almost completely. He went from a scrap of black fur in the palm of my hand to a hugely muscular nearly 20 pounds of cat, with 2 inches of tail. You know how cats' tails poof out when they're angry? Imagine a big cat with a bottle brush on the end of its spine. Too funny.

Gumbo was, to me, the best cat ever. We bonded over baby formula, and he decided I was his Human. He would attack anyone else (especially if they dared get out of bed after dark) but me, he snuggled. His favorite place to be was snuggled down the length of my side with my arm around him and his head on my shoulder, purring till I fell asleep. He also had a little trick: when I was sitting he'd climb on my lap and stretch upward till he could snuggle his head under my chin. I would put my fingers against his throat to feel the vibrations as he purred, and when I spoke to him, he would put his paw up agains my throat in the same gesture. Sadly, when he was about 2 years old, I went away to college for my freshman year. A week or two before I left, he disappeared. I was a little worried and upset, but not too much; he had been known to go off on his own before, usually when stuff was going on (family vacations made him angry!). Sadly, that was the last anyone saw of him until I had been gone about  6 weeks, when my dad found his poor body behind a trash can in some undergrowth. We're not entirely sure, but suspect he was hit by a car and suffered internal injuries, and hid himself away to lick his wounds. No one else was as close to him as I was, but we all still miss him. His fur always had this wonderful smell, like fall leaves.

Love you, kitty!

series rant

Usually, I really enjoy reading series of books. Ever since I was a kid, when I started with Raggedy Ann and Andy, through my early teens with very nearly the entire list of LM Montgomery's various series, and including forays into Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, the Sweet Valley girls and the Babysitters' Club.  And onward: I still love Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series (and all the other books set in that particular universe --well, almost all of them, anyway) and others in the fantasy/science fiction genres I've come into contact with over the years. I love series that concentrate on one or two main characters over the entire course, with strong supporting characters who you can see develop over time, and a simply-directed story arc. I love series that focus on a group of people, with a different person or couple or whatever as the primary focus of each book.

That said, a series is really tough to do over the long haul.

My first experience with this was with LM Montomery's Anne of Green Gables series. Like many many budding young ladies, I fell in love with Anne when I was about 10 or 11. I read all the Anne books, and loved them all, but I found the last couple of books of the series to be...difficult. Somehow, at some point, there was a shift of focus, from Anne onto her children. As an adult, I realize that the books were directed specifically at young girls, to give them a road map to growth, and at some point Anne had grown as much as she was ever going to within the confines of a young-woman-to-be's ability to grasp. But having Anne on the outskirts of what were supposed to be her own books was jarring to me as a pre-teen, and I had a difficult time connecting with her sons and daughters -- the books skipped from one child to another and it was jarring to find yourself inside yet another head.

Sadly, that's not where it ends. That's just where it begins, I've since learned. I am -- or I WAS -- a fan of JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood. Perhaps, I'm both. I still currently love the books I loved initially, but the more recent books, not so much. There's just too much going on. The last one I read was Lover Mine (I think? John Matthew and Xhex?) and I just...it didn't work for me. I tried, I really did, but I couldn't keep track of all the story threads. I ended up having to skim through the book with color-coded post-it flags, flagging each change of character POV, and then go back and read each storyline individually. There were, like, 8 storylines. It was exhausting, and I wasn't ever really able to just immerse myself in the story. It was the written equivalent of budding hoarder, and I freely admit that I'm just marking time on the series. I own, but have not yet brought myself to read, the latest installment. I'm not interested any more in any of the main characters. I'd like to see a bit more of some of the former couples, and I'm heavily invested in one minor storyline, which is the m/m relationship (Blaylock and Qhuinn), which is probably never going to be a major storyline. She's said it's most likely to end up being a focused novella probably published digitally so as not to offend the readers who are against m/m pairings. 'Cause, y'know, we should protect people from the realities of life.

And I'm sad to admit that there are several long-running series that friends I trust have recommended, but I can't even get into the first books. I've tried, I really have. And I have to admit, the series I've loved the most have been the ones that I discovered about 4 books in, on a whim or out of desperation, like Katie MacAlister's Dark Ones or Alexis Morgan's Paladins of Darkness.  Both of those ladies are at 8+ books for those series with no immediate hints of stopping, and both series continue to hold my attention in a way others don't.

The Darkness Beyond by Alexis Morgan

I really really love Alexis Morgan's Paladins. They're strong silent types (except that they're not so silent with each other -- they yell, throw things, have temper tantrums and brawls...) who protect our world from the crazed Kalithians who attempt to cross over a barrier between their dimension and our own that exists  deep in caves along the faultlines of the Earth. (Not that all the Kalithians are crazed, but the bulk of the ones who try to cross the barrier are.) Kalith is a dying planet. And apparently, the Paladins share some DNA with them. They're warriors, and they're always male. And just to make it *that* much better, they can, for an indefinite period of time, come back to life after being killed -- although each death and resuscitation (resurrection?) takes something out of them, and eventually they go crazy and have to be killed.
D.J. Clayborne is a Paladin and a computer genius/hacker who is *famous* in the cyberworld as the hacker Knightwalker. Regina (Reggie) Morrison works for a company that is hired by other companies to track hackers. She's been tracking Knightwalker anyway because she's curious and can't resist a challenge, but lately, her company was actually hired to find him. Part of her's reluctant to admit that she's found him, because she enjoys their little game of barb-and-prod, cat-and-mouse. But on a side trip while trying to confirm details, she accidentally stumbles into the system of the Regents, who manage and fund the Paladins, and finds, downloads and prints a history of the Paladins. Also, I should mention there's been some internal unrest in the management levels between the Regents and the Paladins (security, finance, medical...all that fun stuff).
I'm gonna stop there because I tend to get all involved in synopsis stuff and don't want to tell the bare bones of the story in under six paragraphs.
Ms. Morgan has managed to write a series that is just as interesting and compelling in the 8th book as it was in the first, or the fourth (which is actually where I first picked up the series and started glomming. Seriously glommable.) We get some time with past characters, and just enough of some new and interesting ones, and some of the bad guys too--but just enough that we know a little about where things are going rather than so much that we begin to wonder just who the series is about. But the primary focus of the book is D.J. and Reggie. They get moments of fear and joy, anger and love. And, of course, the bad guys get got. Spectacularly. AND we get a new Paladin out of the whole thing--Reggie's friend and coworker Cory, who grew up in the foster system and always amazed and freaked out his foster parents with his amazing healing abilities and crazy energy and metabolism.
I just can't wait to see who's next of the Paladins to get his HEA!!