Category Archives: Blessings

Bonus Hearthcraft Book Update: Special Weekend Edition

I worked for another two hours last night, moving things around, cutting things out, and generally garnering more carrots.

I e-mailed my editor to ask for a three-day extension, and hated myself for it. She e-mailed me back this morning telling me that of course I could have an extension, that my books were always clean and she didn’t have to worry about them, which was appreciated on her end. I love my editor. With one sentence she wiped out all of my stress. Of course, she probably laughed like a loon at a request for a three-day extension, too. I suspect most requests are for weeks or months, not days.

We took Liam to the mall to see the Easter display of farm animals this morning and it was great fun to watch him scurry around, crouch down to peer through the fences, and laugh at the animals inside. His favourites were the fancy chickens and the goats. He had a good lunch and went down very easily for his nap, so now I have two hours to spend sorting through the MS, finishing sentences and making notes of places that need work.

While we were out I found the mp3 player I will buy after payday. It’s only fifteen dollars more than my first one cost (much less than I expected it to be), and this one is new so it will be fully guaranteed. I may even buy an extended warranty for it.

Oh, and the cinnamon toast made from the failed sweet buns? Big hit. “Mama? I like cimmamyum toast,” he informed me, cinnamon sugar and butter smeared all over his face. So do we, kid.

Five Things

1. My new corner desk, second-hand from Craigslist! It fits in beautifully. My other desk now serves for research and writing longhand, stretching out to my right. The room looks lovely and big. My monitor is now more than fourteen inches away from my eyes. I am very, very happy. I have stacks and stacks of books to relocate, because we took out the tower bookcase that was to the left of my desk, but half of its contents are already neatly ranged on shelves in my closet.

2. HRH, who not only went to get the desk but put it together and helped me rearrange things in the office. He even sat patiently with me as I thought about which wires to fish through where under the desks, and disconnected and reconnected the subwoofer three times for me.

3. The phone call that came about two hours ago, telling HRH that he had a full-time permanent job as the Creative Arts Tech at the college. (Yes, yes! We are over the moon!)

4. Going to the blood clinic all by myself this morning, not stressing for the hour I waited (read a third of eBear’s Dust, though, which certainly contributed to the all-round positive experience), and not passing out when they took six of the large vials of blood. In fact, I didn’t even feel dizzy afterwards. The technician was wonderful; I barely felt the needle slip into the vein.

5. The warm fog that has been around all day. I wore my polar fleece jacket out this morning, and drove home from the hospital with my window rolled down and Handel’s Water Music on at a decently high volume. We had windows open in the house today, too.

2007 In Review

Things I Did In 2007 That I Have Never Done Before:

– bleached my hair (slipped that one in under the wire, on Dec 31!)
– signed a contract for my fifth book (there is only one number five, after all)
– played a gig on a real stage in a real bar (I am such a rock star)
– worked as a writer/editor on not one but two video games
– made a counter-offer on a contract instead of just accepting what was offered
– introduced my son to his great-gran in person
– bought a fretless electric bass
– submitted unsolicited fiction to a publisher

Things I Did in 2007 That I Am Proud Of:

All of the above, plus:
– stood up for myself in two very uncomfortable and potentially self-damaging situations
– said goodbye to one bad situation (although this ostensibly happened in January, it dragged for me through till mid-November when I privately took the final step, admitting to myself that it was over. Now I need to stick to this, and it’s going to be hard because it involves other people.)
– accomplished a specific wish I made for 2007: spending more time with two specific individuals. Interestingly enough, this was accomplished through two separate writing jam commitments.
– reviewing my writing records, I’m surprised at and proud of the amount of novel and short story writing I did in 2007
– sitting second chair in the celli at orchestra
– finding even more ways to ecologically streamline our lives, and reducing our impact on the environment
– less posting, more living

Good Things About 2007:

– discovering Dorothy L. Sayers’ detective novels
– acquiring a Nintendo DS and beginning to play video games
– making it out to see the Once Upon a Time Disney exhibit at the Beaux-Arts museum
– an awesome and excellent Vernal Equinox ritual, led by t!
– fabulous spiritual retreat at the Autumn Equinox
– cooking an entire meal over an open fire outdoors
– indirectly working with t!, lunching with the gang
– meeting Fearsclave and Carolyn
– HRH’s new job
– the existence of the credit line (thank all the gods)
– resolution of financial challenges (now, to pay off that credit line!)

There’s more, of course; a lot of this year was good. But these are what surface in my memory.

Not-So-Good Things About 2007:

– Knick-Knack going to the Summerlands
– contract negotiations
– the financial challenges (and that debt we incurred on the credit line)
– the ongoing tension with the downstairs neighbour

(I am very happy that I had to actually look for bad things to list here.)

How Did I Do With My 2007 Wishes?

– Less self-inflicted head trauma for Liam.

Yes! Yay!

-To regain some sort of interest in food.

This hasn’t been wholly successful, but in general I have become more interested in food again.

– The re-initialising of enjoying being with people.

Not bad. At least I didn’t hate being around others this year, which is an improvement.

– Spending more time with certain people.

A complete success.

– For the emotional burnout to stop.

I handled this a lot better this year than I have in the past. Quite simply, I cut down on the time spent with people who drain me.

– Rediscover the joy in music in general, and classical music in particular.

Hmm… not as much of a success as I wanted it to be. I wanted to rediscover my CD collection, and I haven’t. My music-purchasing has dropped to almost nil as well. This is a wish to carry over to 2008.

– Rediscovering the joy in playing the cello.

The better I get, the more fun it is. But I’m still not at a place where I can just play for the enjoyment of it (although the Resident Fan Club may argue with me). I am still lazy and don’t practice enough (you could almost leave the latter word off and have it be true).

Look at that; no wishes about writing and/or career. Things are pretty okay there. Sure, I wish my fiction would take off the way my non-fic has, but there’s time aplenty for all that.

Submitting the unsolicited young adult novel to a publisher has certainly been a huge, huge step towards this not-a-wish.

Wishes for 2008:

– Rediscover my CD collection
– Make time for practising my spirituality in a more aware fashion
– Make a stronger commitment to practising the cello
– Let up on the second-guessing of the decisions I make, and the self-doubt I feel about my work
– Remember frequently that I am a wonderful, kind, talented person
– Focus my time so that I don’t waste as much of it
– Take up formal study of another spiritual path to complement the ones I already practise
– Take care of my body so that the chronic pain thing doesn’t negatively impact my life, as it’s beginning to once again (I’m hoping it’s the damp and the cold that’s made it increasingly bad over the past month)

If I had to assign a value to 2007, I’d say that overall it was a good year, even though there were moments where it was not good at all. And the end of the year has seen us in a better place than we began it. That’s one of the best things to work out in a year-review, and something for which I am very, very thankful.

May 2008 be even better!

And Then, Like Magic

The phone rang as I was slicing steak for tonight’s stroganoff and it was a jolly phone tech, telling me that as the phone had rung and I’d picked it up, our phone must again be operational. He even told me to make sure the DSL light on the modem was doing what it was supposed to be doing before he rang off.

The culprit? A broken wire, which has now been replaced.

As grumpy as we were for losing the service, I am thankful to live in a place where things can be restored within twenty-four hours. HRH is probably already joyfully crusading on WoW downstairs.

The domestic drama has resolved. Life proceeds apace.

ETA: Our landlord just called, greeting me with “So, you’ve had some phone trouble!” Turns out he knew this not because our line was dead, but because our phone number went to someone else for a while — then someone different. The complexity of the comedy of errors perpetuated by the original newbie tech just keeps increasing in surreality.

Family, Food, And Friends

I’m taking a quick moment to wish everyone a peaceful, prosperous, successful, and rewarding 2008.

I hurt all over, but there was a damn fine turkey yesterday, and joy and laughter had by all. The gifting was a blur thanks to the enthusiastic two and a half year old who opened everyone’s presents with them and then joyfully pushed the next ones on them. “Oh! What inside?” he kept saying, running with gift bags and wrapped boxes to their designated giftees. Last night after the boy was in bed, both sets of grandparents had left, and the kitchen was clean, I realized that I couldn’t remember more than one or two things I’d opened. Sitting down and sorting through it all again was like opening new presents. I discovered that it was mostly clothes and chocolate; this year was unusually short on books and music, which left me kind of drifting aimlessly today, when I usually settle down with one of a stack of new books to read and the new CDs playing. I got gift cards for both, though, so the enjoyment is only delayed. (I’ve already read Nigella Express, the only book I got yesterday, from cover to cover, and the copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe score that Blade gave me has been in the player since I opened it.)

Santa came through and brought Liam his wished-for trains and train-related equipment. Way to go, Santa.

For me, Christmas is a time dedicated to family, food, and friends, and we are blessed by having all those things in abundance. Yesterday was an excellent example of all of these, including a surprise visit from Karine and family. We’re thankful for the innumerable blessings we are fortunate to experience within our lives. I wish the same for all of you: lives that are touched by peace and love. Be well, be safe, and cherish one another.

Grateful

That outstanding cheque?

It arrived in this morning’s mail.

It is astonishing, and also somewhat sad, that I feel so much less stressed about life in general now. Even after making a day-by-day schedule with HRH last night that shoves everything we need to do before our Yule observation and Christmas into Friday. (Perhaps the lack of associated schedule-stress is related to the fact that Blade brought down a bottle of Talisker to share not long after we made the schedule and began watching The Nightmare Before Christmas last night. It was a good night indeed.)

Five Things

1. The scent of fresh pine in the house.

2. Making homemade bread.

3. Surprise money in the mail. (The gods provide.)

4. The MS currently printing out, in prep for submission. I love you, little YA novel. (Also: no printing foul-ups so far!)

5. Waking up at oh-gods o’clock last night to pull the notebook into bed and write the final scene of the Pandora book. (Now I just need to write the missing climax of the novel. Details, details…)