a bone

I'M AT THE DAMN LIBRARY.

pictures tomorrow, I promise, I swear.

In other news: I finally found a good eyebrow waxer. I'm reading the Dalai Lama's "Art of Happiness" like the good little yuppie I am-- and I like it. I'm trying to train the dogs to a-- stay off the couch/armchair and b--do the invisible fence thing. Which so far means that they're pretty much afraid to go outside. But we're only in day two, and according to my manual, this is normal. I'm working on a few short projects before revising the novel, and all is going well. I fried the motherboard on my laptop, though, which apparently costs nearly what I paid for the darn thing three years ago, so we're not getting it fixed. I'm waiting for K's battered laptop (cabin-building in VT took a toll) to die, and then I'm going to pressure him into getting us a desktop that we share for internet/word processing.

IN THE MEAN TIME, I love my new system. Two binders. One for random stuff, one for writing. Here's what I love about it: no commitment. I can write whatever wherever, and then ORGANIZE IT because the paper has HOLES. I LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT. And unlike the darn laptop, binders are truly portable. AndI get to feel productive typing it all up later. The catch about being self-employed is that so far, there's little built-in busy work, so I'm actually happy for the mindless addition to my routine.

I have a great story, but I want to save it for tomorrow so pics can accompany it. So check back tomorrow, peeps.

Happy New Year!

We've driven 1700 miles and moved to our new house. But, alas, the internet doesn't get turned on until Thursday.

Blogging will resume and pictures will follow.

Oh Tannenbaum

At 5.05 tonight, we're driving northeast for the holidays. I've got the presents packed, the pooches ready, the luggage together, and now, per my sweetie's request, I'm posting pictures of our very first Christmas tree (we didn't have one last year).

This tree was stolen from the side of the road in the dark. It's decorated with cranberries, handstrung by moi, silver-frosted pinecones, K-baked gingerbread cut-outs, and candycanes. We're very proud of it.

Merry Christmas everyone! Traveling mercies and much love to all.

vacay

I finished drafting my novel today.

Now, there's a heck of a lot of re-working and revising to do, but there's a manuscript to do it with.

Have a very merry Christmas.

here comes the sun

The funk hath lifted-- maybe because it just left, maybe because I got to turn down another job yesterday (apparently, I don't have to be a secretary), but probably because K. surprised me by coming home for lunch because he's the best husband ever. And we cleaned the house.

In other news, I'm wildly excited about the small Victorian we're moving to come New Years. It's not quite definite yet-- but I'd be surprised if it fell through. A proper yard (albeit not fenced), three porches, beautiful tall windows and ceilings, shiny wooden floors, funky old cabinets, and all in a quieter town 20 minutes from Oxford, two blocks from downtown, and on a peaceful side street. For a paltry amount of rent and a month-to-month lease, so we can move out the minute we find our farm.

The bad-- well, the yard ain't fenced. There's no garage for sweetie's workshop, the bathrooms are far from my ideal, and the guest room's gonna be quite small. Plus I don't think there's a washer/dryer.

But you know what? It's super-nice anyway. Everyone, visit come spring. I CAN'T WAIT. In this one, we're going to hang pictures and unpack our boxes. Myabe I'll even get a proper desk rather than boards on sawhorses with an old stool that's broken for a chair. Here's hoping.

I love y'all. Thanks for reading.

mental health days

K. and I had an illuminating conversation recently. While not strictly accurate, it went something like this:

Him: I'm really impressed you get up early every day. And that you're writing every day.

Me: I have to or I feel guilty.

Him: You write because of guilt?

Me: Yes. (Pause.) In fact, everything I do is because of guilt. Cleaning the house, walking the dogs, exercising. (Pause.) Without guilt I'd stay in bed all day reading trashy books and eating. (Pause.) Don't you feel guilty when you don't do things?

Him: No.

Heh. I don't think this is a difference between the sexes, but it's made me realize how many things I do to quiet the shrill anxious voice inside of me. And so on days like today, when it's raining, when we didn't go to church on Sunday, when the house is untidy, my purse is crammed full of papers, and the laundry's sitting in the dryer, when we haven't dealt with our Christmas cards and my writing for the day has not been finished, that voice is just plain alarming.

Good thing tonight's cleaning night. That ought to shut it up.

Hope

Lately, an unfamiliar feeling has been lapping gently at my feet when I listen to NPR during dinner preparations.

Hope.

Something has shifted since the November elections, where the balance of the House and the Senate shifted so drastically. Good news is seemingly falling from the sky.

An area the size of Alabama set aside for permanent conservation in Brazil (a country which I'm growing to admire, considering that 40% of their fuel consumption is from sugar ethanol).

GM motors giving up the carburetor ghost to the Japanese and increasing their exploration into electric cars.

A supermodel pioneering eco-fashion, where the fabrics are organic and non-sweatshop.

Justice Scalia deeming carbon as a pollutant in the case of Massachussetts versus the EPA, where Mass. is demanding the the EPA regulate carbon emissions.

And finally, Victoria's Secret, after years of attack by a certain non-profit group whom I can't remember, agreeing to incorporate ten percent of recycled paper into the catalogs, with aims to increase that number and to avoid using paper made from threatened areas of forest.

I don't want to jinx it, but man, it's nice to feel the tide finally turning.

hoves, ankles, and a merry christmas to all

heh. Who knew about cache clearing?

Yesterday was a mixed bag of chips, as my inner Anglophile says, ranging between a really pleasant walk with the dogs over at Thacker Mountain (as opposed to Friday, where I fell down a 90 degree slope trying to get to Shadow and wound up with hives on my face), then a fairly productive work day (novel and four dry-as-a-bone public health papers), topped off by a fascinating public hearing about a proposed historic district. Then the evening: a Christmas parade and K.'s weekly company basketball game.

He's still sleeping. That's not unusual; the swollen ankle propped on a pillow is. Thank heaven this other boy had had the same experience and swore up and down it's a sprain, not a break-- and he can move/walk on it a bit-- but woo, a nasty sprain tis.

In other news, I'm calling people up looking for a spring rental that won't make me want to pull my hair out, has a guest room, and a better yard for the dogs. Cross your fingers.

I've declared it to be a Christmas weekend this weekend. The Christmas cards will be assembled and addressed, our VERY FIRST TREE will get put up, and who knows, maybe we'll even go nuts and get a Christmas CD. We're too cheap to buy decorations for the tree though, so pine cones-- which we may or may not lightly frost with silver-- and strung cranberries twill be. Last year we tried to make strings of popcorn and cranberries for our fireplace, and the popcorn is just too wiley for me.

So that's what's going on. Not a bad way to be, although I'm hoping the 6'6'' boy over yonder will be able to get around with some degree of comfort. If not, well-- I've got strong shoulders.

perhaps this'll post

I feel as if there's a vacation that no one has told me about.

No one has posted since November 29th, including the two celebrity gossip columns I check daily, despite the fact that there's been gossip to post about.

And blogger is behaving oddly, allowing my last post to be seen on some cumputers and not on others. 3 comments are invisible.

It's a strange world.

And a strange weekend, come to think of it. We spent last night being nauseous with envy at A and A's tinroofed, bead-boarded farmhouse complete with three beauteous dogs and a pond. I even dreamed about it.

This morning, K. and I attended the Methodist church 5 miles outside of Oxford. He dropped all the cash we had in the collection plate (checking with me first), and after we watched our bills sail away, he whispered "Maybe God will find us a farmhouse now."

Bribing God. Luckily, she'll know that we don't really mean it.

apologies all around

aight people. Sorry for being moody. I'm madly at work on the novel, have to make minestrone and deliver for husband's lunch, and am filling out an application for a pretty sweet gig which I hope I get.

More later.

my dear readers

Fine, NO ONE COMMENT. I don't care at all. I ONLY work and SLAVE my fingers to the bone navigating my mentally ill computer and the new beta blogger to give Y'ALL REGULAR UPDATES and lots of SUPER pretty pictures.

if anyone has a farm for sale or some available cookies, you can call me. Otherwise, I'm sulking.

Saturday in Mississippi

While the lack of a farm seems to be killing us slowly, all other things proceed well. This weekend, we drove out to Pontotoc, Mississippi, where 14 Amish families, mostly young with a ton of kids, migrated from Ohio. Here are some pictures. I would have loved to catch a picture of the girls sitting on a bench, all in bonnets and blue dresses with smiles on their faces, but that felt a wee bit exploitive. I'm in love with the gourds hung for birdhouses. So stark and beautiful.

However, we now have Amish questions. Like, how come they don't have power but they do have generators to power machines? How on earth do you move from Ohio with buggies, children, and livestock these days? Did they get the tin for their roof delivered or do they pick it up in a wagon?

Any answers are appreciated.

the dern townhouse

So, for those of my family member who alternately wonder what we're living in or why they can't visit us until we find our farmhouse:

A townhouse, or as I call it, the dollhouse. Please make googly eyes at my new table and the be-utiful pink roses my husband brought home the day I was flying around making Italian food for dinner guests. Also note the uber-cool horse trailer in which we hauled our possessions down south.

In other news:

I've updated the links section. Check out bluepoppy and my best friend stinkie.

anyone know an agent?

Dear sweet Lord, I hope I get a book deal. Because I love love love not working.

Writing is work. Really. I can sit down and have words flowing out of my fingertips about unimportant things, but when it comes to writing a novel, writing is more like weaving in the damn dark. Lots of threads to keep track of and only the light of a solitary star to do it by.

BUT: I love having the time for my own projects. I love getting instant satisfaction and meeting people in the community with my freelancing for the newspaper (turning my 3rd piece in today) and I love having the time and the enrgy to pursue threads of things which intrigue me (historic preservation, anyone)? And I love working on my novel, because it is MINE and I'm doing it because I want to, unlike every single thing I ever did in a cubicle.

That being said, I can't continue to do this unless it becomes a viable career-- e.g. paid. The pittance I get from the newspaper and the relatively well-paid but mind-numbingly boring proofing jobs keep my self-respect hovering above groundlevel, but in the overall context of my life, I don't want to spend all day on something and not get paid for it. So book deal, I'm a'coming.

Just have to finish the novel first.

pictures

I was on the Square yesterday interviewing the manager of Madre's for a business profile I'm writing when the sun came out. The second picture, the uber-cute orangey building with an upstairs porch, is the world's greatest bookstore.

oh, and we live here.

Why you should get off of your east coast/west coast high horses and move to mississippi:

1. everything is cheaper.

2. you won't have to see people who don't love you because everyone's afraid to visit here.

3. there are opportunities to make a real difference in whatever cause you believe in.

4. shrimp and grits, barbecue, pecan pie, sweet potato casserole, fried catfish, sweet tea.

5. $40 a month membership to the swankiest gym in town, including all super-cool classes, free lockers, and free towels.

6. everyone goes to church. even the bourbon-swilling writers attend.

7. major history all over the place-- and yuppie coffeebars have arrived!

8. because at the sixteenth annual Guy Fawkes party of a British architect and his artist wife, you meet the owner of Big Truck Theater, where the cover's $5 for 4 hours of local music and the band performs on the bed of a fifties' flat-bed truck.

9. magnificent huge old live oaks and pecan trees. I LIVE IN A PLACE WITH PECAN TREES. HOW NEAT IS THAT.

10. because you smile to yourself whenever you count (one mississippi, two mississippi).

Christmas

Being the eldest child of an alcoholic and part of a huge clan of overly opinionated people as well as marrying a very definite personality has given me a rather distrubing ability to let other people make plans for me.

In the midst of a Christmas plans debate, I finally sat down and thought about what I wanted. And hence, an email. That's how my family now feuds. Through emails.

I think all families where people haven't thrown in the towel fight. Hopefully, it doesn't get too nasty. Hopefully, when it's just your opinion involved, you learn to keep your mouth shut. But there's something about people making decisions for me and assuming I'll go along that grates me, and hence I am standing up, beating my chest, and roaring out, no more!

Part of me yearns for the day when we won't have to drive or fly anywhere for Christmas-- for when the tables turn and our loved ones come to us. But the thought of a family-free Christmas day?

Despite everything, it stinks.

cry me a river

Everyone's been complaining about the last two posts because they were short.

Well, I got four words for you. "Cry me a river."

Mhmm (headwag).

Saying those magical four words reminds me of building the cabin. After few days of my nearly continuous complaints, my sweet husband developed a response. Think of a donkey, with that loud abrasive tone? Well, in that manner, he would say BOO HOO over my whining.

It always made me smile. Although the other day I told him that he had to stop telling me to shut my face in public, because while I understand that he says it in fun because he'd never actually want me to desist from talking, other people think he's abusive.

As I say to him, I'm akin to a shark. Talk or die.

Lexington

I love small towns. And Lexington, Virginia, right up in the Blue Ridge, is a real stunner. Go there sometime. There are old-fashioned inns from the 19th century right downtown, and if you don't go on Washington and Lee University's parents' weekend, you might even get a room.

A few pictures of Eliza, my mother, the president's house that Robert E. Lee built, and Lee Chapel, where R.E.L. is interred:

because we're southern, and oh so very gothic

i have left my newly beloved mississippi.

in nashville for the night, heading to lexington va to attend my sister's parents' weekend. pictures to follow... could include my entire nuclear family for the first time in years, since dad's out of jail and aparently attending.

it's good to be me.