The world has been shaken by a baby, not a bomb

I'm going to let that statement rest as it is.  Just let it sink in.

I am taking time off for Christmas, because I really need to.  Next time we meet here, I'll be a whole year older!

I had a hard time getting used to being 38.  It felt like somebody else's age for the next 6 months.  Now, I can't help but dwell on being 39, that mythical year before turning the big 4-0.  I feel like I've got a year, one year, to get it together and fix it all up.  That's crazy.  There is no deadline.

Except that I fully intend to have some kind of book in my hands with my name on the cover when I am 39 years old.  I'm not sure yet how I'll make that happen... BUT I WILL.

So on that happy note, I'm off to enjoy Christmas with the family.  Here is a list of what I'll be doing to make this a good one:

-go get some churchin'

-go out to the barn, and when necessary chores are done, brush my horses and talk to them and listen to all the comforting barn noises

-help my Mom cook

-watch A Christmas Story, likely reciting lines with it.  Everybody?  YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT!

-watch Elf, and How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and Charlie Brown Christmas (I'm guessing all this watching will be spread out over a few days, or else our critters will all die of neglect.)

-wrap gifts mere hours before seeing them torn open

-run the Pug through some wet snow

-let Lucy In The Sky With Dust Bunnies shred some paper

-egg nog

-my sister's baking

-my grandma's crocheted blankets over us

-beg Mom and Sweetie to please not play any more Christmas CDs

-hug Jethro while he snores on the couch because he's exhausted

-giggle at my younguns

-do some visiting

-read.  A lot.  Happily.

-sing a few Silent Nights and Joy To The Worlds even if the kids beg me not to





I'll see you in a week or so, at which point I'll try to put weird old 2009 into perspective.  One of those Best of Times, Worst of Times kind of things.  It felt like this year got divided neatly into halves.

But now I must get this show on the road.

I hope you all have a relaxed, fun, and wonderful Christmas.  Wherever you are, and whoever you are with.

Peace!

Winter Barn: the guided tour

I took my iGadget out to the barn with me last week.  Whaddaya know, the thing takes pictures...

I like this picture because it tells so much about how I'm running our place this winter.  If you look to the right of the horses, you can see the beginnings of a path to that plank-gate in the background.  I push the wheelbarrow over to the fence, lower the planks, and shove the barrow to the new manure pile, which is just out of the picture to the right.  Also, I think my horses are cute.

  

For years we piled the manure in the corral, about 10 ft away from the barn door.  It was convenient, especially when the snow is deep, but it made for a giant sucking wet mess of mud in that half of the corral.  This is close to where I tie my horses to tack up for a ride.  They'd sink up to the fetlocks. Nasty. This year I decided to pile it on the other side of the fence, on the old liquid manure tank.  It'll be easy to scoop it up and move it in the spring.  However, it's three times the journey to get the crap out of the barn now.  Oh well.  I'm young and strong, right?  Right?

Let's go into the barn.  Because it's all old cattle stable, then used as pig stabling, our barn isn't the most perfect horse set-up.  We use what we have.  There are two aisles; one at the back to let the horses into their stalls, one for us to go in.  This is the People Aisle!

Here are a few tools hanging on the wall, the cat's bowls, and the hay.  And the hole in the wall.  Don't ask.  At the very far end, there's a chute in the ceiling where I throw the hay down.  I have to first go up to the hay mow, waaaay up, throw the hay down the the main floor, then down this chute.  I put down 4 or 5 bales at once so I don't have to go up there too often.

Here's Phoenix's stall.  I took this picture from the back aisle.  Across from his stall you can see the tack room door, with photocopies of my certificates taped to it.  Classy eh?

I often consider getting rid of the back aisle to make the stalls bigger, moving the wall to make that aisle twice as wide, and just having one barn door.

The problem is that three of the four stalls have this rock-solid cement trough at the front, with metal bars on top. It would be a long expensive day with a rented jackhammer.  And I don't know how long I'll be here, so is it worth spending the money???  These will suit my dad's needs just fine, so he has no reason to change them.  I do my best to make it work.

Keeping an old barn clean is not easy.  There might be spiders older than me out there.  I make them homeless.  I don't feel bad about it.  I love this barn even though it's not sparkly and fancy.  I'm trying to enhance the rustic feel but worry that it just looks dusty.  In summer I'm outside, riding, but in winter I pick a new spot to clean up each day.

Again from the back aisle, this stall holds the feed and bedding, stall cleaning tools, and cat den!  

Across the other aisle I hung up the things I use often and want to have at hand easily.

It's a bucket scrubber, never-know-when-you-need-it dustpan, scissors for cutting baler twine if I'm not strong enough to yank the strings off the bales, indispensable broom, extra lead rope and chain and a pair of little chaps I found.

Oh look, they guys are all curled up in their cat den.  When it gets really cold, I'll drape a sheet over it to keep their body heat in.

Aren't Larry and Moe adorable?  They're good little barn cats.  Good hunters and wonderful cuddlers!

Here's another tool I can't work without: the wheelbarrow!

If we open that tack room door, we're in the open part of the barn.  I got these pegboards from the Little Valley.  (I miss that place, and the horses, and I really miss the people!!) 

Here's my big double saddle rack and plastic drawers full of leg wraps.

These temporary walls give a nice visual boundary without cutting off all the light from the east windows.  I can still get over to the other wall to get water.  (And yes, we got the pipe thawed!!)

Turn to the left; this is my big shelf with my grooming tools, first aid, and trunks full of bits and saddle blankets and other necessaries.

Beside that, another saddle rack and my cool new hooded plaid flannel jacket!  Right now I'm using an old sheet for a saddle cover.  I plan to sew up some nicer covers over the winter.

I've got five saddles but only two are used regularly.  In this pic you can see my daughter's english saddle under the yellow sheet.  The pony saddle is under the blue striped blanket.  Those trunks are full of helmets and gloves and boots.

Finally my Wall O Bridles.  I think I'm up to something ridiculous like three for each horse.  I've got a sidepull, a mechanical hackamore, two eggbutt snaffles, training jointed curbs, and I do use them all.  I switch them up to keep the horses on their toes, haha.  Each one has a different purpose.  

My old man said one day, "You've got a lot of gear.  You should hold an auction sale and make some money."

Yeah, no.  It's taken me decades of scrounging and bargain hunting to work up this collection.  Now that I've got a good assortment of tack, I'm looking out for lesson props.  Every barrel, pylon and pole is potentially useful, and luckily this place is good pickings for free equipment!

I don't ride as much in winter.  Our corral freezes into ice and I don't ride on ice.  Soon, when we've got a foot of snow packed over it, I'll saddle up again.  Winter is the time I like to catch up on barn tidying and fixing up.  Dad's got plans for this barn including a south facing open shed; I'll show pics when it's done.  

My evening chores would really only need to take about 15 minutes, but I usually have to lean on a stall front to listen to the hay chewing.  That's how I measure my horse craziness.  No matter how old I am or how many pieces of paper on my tack room door, I love horses so much, even watching them eat is pure joy.

Embarrassing self-portrait, Part 2. Not.

Yeah, um, no. Sorry, I can't show off that picture I drew of myself in 1987.  I just can't.  I gave it a good look and decided although it is not a bad job, it really doesn't look exactly like me.  The eyes are too close together, or the smile is too symmetrical.

What really clinched it is the way my daughter walked into the room, saw it propped up against the wall, made a face and, "What is goin' on with that picture???"

But the good news is, it's not as bad as I expected.  I didn't get a fright when I unwrapped it after its 17 year exile.

On top of that, I cut down three recycling boxes worth of cardboard that'd been hanging around the old summer kitchen for who-knows-how-long.  I feel pretty good about that!  Not only am I getting room to store a few things from my house, but my mom can reclaim the old kitchen as her plant potting workshop.

Don't worry about your lack of entertainment though, because I am sure I'll find more things to embarrass myself with.  Just give it time.  I do dumb things on a regular basis.

Here's an example, a picture taken with the handy-dandy iGadget last week.  This is the view from the bus stop at 7:30 am in December:

Look past the pretty view and the nasty wet snow, and notice the squiggly tire tracks.  That's how I backed Grandma's car into the bus stop driveway.  (Also Tribble got mad cuz the headlights were on and ruined the picture.)  So yeah, I've been driving for... let me count... twenty-two years?  And I still can't back a car straight.  I am going to say it's because this car is one of those newfangled front wheel drive jobbies.  Dang it.

So now I think I've mildly embarrassed myself and my girl-child.

Now I must get back to my regularly scheduled workload.  I might even start Christmas shopping sometime in the next 4 days.  Maybe.  If I can come up with my twenty bucks for the year.

A slightly embarrassing story about me, a self portrait, and a cardboard box.

As some of you know, a long time ago in a place a little farther away than here, I aspired to be an artist.

And having these arty goals, I developed a strange habit of doing a self-portrait every couple years.  Sometimes more often.  It was sometimes hard to get someone else to sit still for me.  If I had a mirror or two, I could draw myself, and I was a great model.  My face is quite asymmetrical, so I could look different at any angle.  I could have the up-smirk or the down-frown.  It was a great exercise in identity as well, which was a favourite subject of mine from age 12 until... well, I'll let you know when I figure it out.

In high school, my grade 12 art assignment was to create a pastel portrait of myself based on a photograph.  A few girls with some decency and brains chose a cute baby portrait and gave the finished piece to their mothers.  I know, so sweet.  But me, for unknown reasons, chose a school photo from Grade 11, with my awesome layered shaggy hair and my big toothy grin, you know the one, with more teeth showing on one side and the collar of the shirt hanging crooked.  I'm not kidding, my hair was awesome.  I didn't consider myself any great beauty, I didn't have a knockout figure, and I wasn't particularly brilliant at anything obvious, but holy smokes I had great hair.  I didn't colour it or perm it or curling iron it or anything.  It was just naturally awesome.  Maybe that's why I chose that picture.

When it was done, the pastel portrait looked pretty good.  Except for the eyeballs that looked straight at the viewer rather than at the photographer like in the photo, it was decently well done.  It even resembled me.  I handed it over to my boyfriend, who went into his dad's woodshop and made a nice frame for it.  He actually liked it and hung it on his wall.

As newlyweds, we lived in a big crappy apartment on the only bad street in a ritzy town, above a Scottish pub, a Portuguese hair shop, and a cockroach infested Chinese take-away.  The place smelled funny.  (Not funny-haha, funny-bad.)  A few of my high school masterpieces came with us, including my huge crazy abstract painting, which I still cherish and always hang in a prominent spot, and the pastel self-portrait.  A few more joined them as I worked my way through my one year of art college.  Then we moved.

The job offer was in Memphis Tennessee.  Since we were facing a possible 6 months to a year of paperwork to get through immigration, we packed up all our belongings, every single thing, including wedding gifts we hadn't even used yet.  We were young and penniless when we got married, which made us easy to buy for, I guess.  Most of the boxes got stored in a big and mostly unused room at his Mum's house, while a few boxes came with us to the farm.  We lived for six months there, with our cat, in the room I'd slept in when I was a teenager.  Cozy.

Then we stayed at his Mum's house in town a few more months before moving to a great apartment up the hill in the woods, where I ran into all kinds of life changing adventures which you might have to wait to read about.  (I have to go out to the barn and thaw a water pipe, I ain't got all day to write here!)

Years went by. Eventually we moved into the cute bungalow in the subdivision and I got busy chasing my toddlers and unpacking long-forgotten boxes.  And being me, filled that little house to overflowing over the course of 12 years.  Now I've spent this year getting rid of, giving away, and saying goodbye to all kinds of things while I pack up the things I want to keep.

For the second time in my adult life, I am moving in with my parents.  This time I'm bringing two children, a dog, a cat, soon a husband (same one!) and every last one of my pared-down possessions.

Squeezing two houses into one is not easy.  It takes a lot of tough decision making, especially for two women like my Mom and I, who both like our THINGS.  There's been a lot of purging.

In order to find storage room for some of my valued things, I need to clear out the old apartment/ summer kitchen on the back of the house.  The last tenant moved out years ago, and since then it's been used to hold the freezer, recycling boxes and lawn furniture over winter.  But you know what happens when you've got a big empty room, right?  It's gonna get filled up with stuff.  Now it's my job to clear out that stuff.

Yesterday I pulled a large box off the stack.  My own handwriting commanded that this box be stored at my mother's place.  It appeared to be full of brown packing paper.  On closer inspection something appeared to be wrapped in it... I pulled some of the paper away.

I saw the handmade wooden frame and the strands of awesome hair in the picture.

I set the box down.

I didn't have time to dig into this.  I had to pick up the kids from the bus stop.

I felt kind of disoriented though.  This box had been there since... when did we leave our crappy apartment?  1992?  1992?

It's been out there for seventeen years????

I was just thinking or dreaming about that picture.  I dream so much I often can't tell if a memory is real or dreamed.  Never once did I realize that I haven't seen that thing in ages.  I didn't wonder where I stashed it all these years.

It's been on my mind now since yesterday afternoon.  I feel like a total slob for leaving it there for longer than my kids have been alive.  I wonder what the heck else I've hidden away.  I wonder if I'll ever find that skull collection I hid in the barn when I was a kid.  (Relax, they were rodent skulls.  I was a weird kid but I wasn't dangerous or anything.)

Today I must tackle that old apartment/ summer kitchen, because there are a few more things to come to the farm, and time's running out.  I need room.  I'm going out there with a jackknife to cut up cardboard boxes.  I have no idea what I'll find.

I do know this: it is embarrassing to publicly admit that I packed up my precious valuable meaningful stuff and then forgot about it for almost twenty years.  What does this say about me?  That I'm forgetful and have a bit of a packrat problem.  I'd be ashamed but I've made it a point to abolish shame.  I will go face my face, haha.  Speaking of my face though...

The portrait is kind of haunting me now.  I mean, think about it.  I drew it when I was about eighteen.  I hid it away when I was twenty-one.  I think I've aged since then -- I can see it, but apparently nobody else does.  I've gotten used to being carded at the beer store.  I try to be flattered by it.  Just yesterday I got asked if my daughter and I were sisters, and I laughed it off.

But... but... what if I get out there today, take the paper off that framed picture and... find a hideous account of nearly 39 years of cold winters, working outside in the summer, bouts of depression, the stress of living with a workaholic man and not enough income to keep everything fed and paid for?  Every day I go over my face looking for whiskers to pluck -- what if they're all grown in thick and black in the picture?  What if I don't really take after my mother and her father, who didn't sprout grey hair until their 50s?  What if in real life I have straggly witchy hair but it only showed up in the picture?  What if my forehead is creased with visual evidence of all the worrying I do?  What if I have much more than just my cherished laugh lines?

What if there's a murdered heart beating under the wooden floorboards???

Oh wait- that's a whole other story.  Never mind.

Am I Dorian Gray????

(Apparently a movie came out/ is about to be released and I missed out on it.  That's what I get for living under a rock surrounded by cardboard boxes!)

So do feast your eyes on this lovely fella with his fresh new portrait.  I may not look so pretty by the time I turn 39, in like, a week or so.  Wish me luck.

LET'S GO FOR A RUUUUUUN!!!

It doesn't matter that it's full on winter; that the weatherman says it's -9C today but it feels much colder with the wind; that out here, it IS colder with the wind.

That little house-dog still needs to go outside.  And there'll be none of this opening of the screen door and chasing him out to play on his own.  He's a pet.  He wants to be with his people.  Specifically, ME.

He's got trees to pee on and snow to dig into with his flat face.  In his world, these things can only be done with ME as his supervisor.  He loves the snow, but if left on his own, he'll go take a wiz under the lilac bush then crouch at the door shivering and looking pathetic until I let him in.

So I have no choice.  I bundle up and follow him out into the wastelands...

Everything looked so pretty in the summer.  I spent much of September pulling forgotten junk out of the long grass, trying to make some room.  Not that I specifically needed the room.  I just needed to work.  I wanted to do the work so my ol' Man wouldn't have to.

Now the hunker-downs are parked for the winter, soon to be covered.  The intrepid Pug plows his way through the soft stuff.

It's not deep.  We had no snow in November, and what we do have gets blown away by the harsh wind. Maybe the wind is feeling like I am these days.  Restless.  Slightly helpless.  Needing to do something but not quite sure where to throw that energy.

The wind has more energy than I do.

So does the crazy little dog, once he's done snoozing and snoring on Grandma's couch.

Sometimes he still looks out over the wide expanse of field and looks like he's about to run for it.  What really knocks me out is the little guard dog routine.  He sees a car going down the town line - how he sees anything with his whacky eyes is beyond my imagining - and growls like he's just spotted an enemy and must now go chase it away!  Of course the car keeps going, so clearly, the Guard Pug has done his job.

Then he has to go inspect that gnarly old camper that didn't quite make it to the scrap yard this year.

Then it's time to run up the hill to the garage.  This will be way too much fun in a month or so when the snow is up to my knees.  Pug tunnel!

After that he's got some serious snoring to do.  He's a very busy dog.

A big day for my writer friends!

There was a time, years ago, when I'd get jealous when somebody who was not me got a book published.  

I do not feel that way anymore!

Now, I feel proud, excited, and hopeful.  

Today I get to brag about those writers who put in the work and reached their goal!

First of all, there's a party going on over at Some Mad Hope.  Heidi Willis, one of the best people I've "met" out here in blog world, is throwing a virtual party for the release of her new book, Some Kind Of Normal.

I've read this book.  I'm lucky that way because Heidi and I, along with five other brilliant women, are the Four Corners Writing Group.    

This book is worth reading.  Rather than taking my word for it, check this out:

How far would you go to save the life of someone you love? This is the question the Babcock family struggles with when 12-year-old Ashley is diagnosed with diabetes, which quickly turns deadly. A day or two in the hospital stretches into months as the doctors explore every medical alternative to find a way to cope with the mounting complications, but Ashley continues to deteriorate. If faith can cure Ashley, the folks at First Baptist Church are sure they have more than enough to keep her alive. But as Babs watches her daughter's life and death struggle and sees her family start to unravel, she turns to the Internet and science to find a solution the doctors say isn't there.

YEAH???  You'd read that and you'd be on the edge of your seat the whole time, I know it.  

We Four Corners girls have bonded pretty tightly.  We've held each other up and cheered each other on.  We've all learned that there is no easy way in this business. Heidi Willis has taken a journey full of hills and valleys to get her book published.  Even though she signed on with a small press, there was still a lot of work to do to get her manuscript into book form.  She's been completely involved in the process, and done all the right things to get it out there into the world.  I'm proud of her!

Meanwhile, I got a visit on the weekend from another of my writer friends.  If you hang here regularly, you might be familiar with Paul Tee.  He's from my big writer's group, my Monday night haunt, the group I throw ideas around with.  I miss those guys, now that I'm not in town to join every meeting.  

Paul has just gotten the copies of his self-published novel - and I've already got my copy!!! Signed and all, lucky me.  He decided to self publish because he wanted to have an actual book in his hands.  He's very realistic, having been through the submitting process many times, and knows that the selling of this book is totally up to him. From what I've heard, the selling of a book is an author's job now even with larger publishers, so I'm keeping my eye on this little project to see how it goes!

I haven't read Dreamcast yet, but I have read two of Paul's previous novels.  This guy is a natural storyteller, and even more impressive, tells those stories in a language he did not learn until he was a pre-teen.  (He was born in Hungary.)  Paul writes like most people only wish they could- with determination.  I think he's up to ten or eleven books now.  Not kidding.  And he's managed to match quantity with quality.  I've been moved to tears reading his epics!

He's got a very lyrical way with the English language.  Check out Writer At Large to read some of his prose!

Did I mention that I am part of THREE writer's groups?   I'll give a yell to Lynn Sinclair, who has just put up another of her cute posts on Christmas gifts for pets. Lynn and I and our friend Maissa are the Tiny Writers.  We're all rather small.  We all have teenage kids.  We all like tea and cookies.  I don't get to see them as much either anymore but that's what computers are for.  

I get something different and special from each of my groups.  I believe it's so important for writers to reach out to other writers.  Years ago I was quite alone as I pecked away at my sad little stories, but now I get my imagination and ambition fired up regularly.

And because of that camaraderie, I no longer feel a pang of jealousy when a writer friend reaches that goal of A REAL BOOK.  

I feel like I've helped raise that book!  Go writer friends!!!

It is not Beige. It is "Fawn Pug."

I have made my peace with the new colour on the walls of our house.  You know, that colour meant to "wow" "lure" and "entice" potential buyers of this house.  I was really disappointed about beige, but I'm getting over it.

Here's the reason:

He's such a good boy I can work without worrying that he'll create a trail of little beige footprints all over the house.

Plus he looks quite nice against the backdrop of the new "Natural Linen" walls.

We were so proud of him for not getting paint all over him.

Except for that little speck on his right ear.

And a little bit on a whisker.

Then Bucky noticed the fur on his shoulder was kinda crusty.

Yep.  Natural Linen.

It matches the Pug perfectly.

Now I feel much better about everything, even if it means putting so much work into a house that isn't really ours anymore.

The whole point of this little adventure is to get ourselves into the country, and this house will get us there.  It's easy to be bitter that someone else gets to enjoy the prettied up house, but I need to remember why we're doing this.

Room for the Pug to run!

We work well together.

In a perfect world, I am a riding instructor, author, and interior desecrator. Damn I'm good.

In the real world, my girl Tribble and I are in the process of painting over that warm smoky "Stone Harbour" grey with a colour elegantly named "Natural Linen" but we're not that easily fooled, people. It's Beige.  And we are not happy.  Also we ache all over because I sometimes have physical arguments with horses and she's a dancer, and painting a wall or a ceiling moulding is very ache-inducing.

Must we suffer for beauty???

In Imaginary World, I'm so good at this decorating thing that BEIGE does not even exist.  I can work all day with no aches.  And I know how to make a room look awesome.

Our lovely model, Mr Johnny Depp, is not standing in a beige room.  That room is more of a creamy white with pink undertones.  There's a big difference.  It's not beige.  Johnny does not live in a world of beige and neither do I.  Neither should you.

I know who makes a   how to make a room look good.  I make rooms look, how would you say this best... inviting.

See?  You could find a good book to read here and just sink right in.  Why find a library when even my stairwells are interesting and irresistible?

I make rooms you can feel wonderful in!  Wouldn't you love to get comfy here?  Of course I always cover the furniture when I paint, but sometimes I stumble upon happy accidents; I've discovered a new style here.  I just drape the furniture with white sheets.  I call it draping.  I know!  So deceptively simple!  That's my genius as an interior desecrator.

I took the curtains down to give them a trip through the washing machine.  I'm not going to iron them because I want them to be slightly wrinkled.  I want them to have that unmade bed look.  What - you don't think curtains can look like they just rolled outta bed?

Well that's why I'm a genius interior desecrator.  My imagination gets things happening.

Ahhhhh.... I must get off my butt and pick up a paintbrush again. Reality calls.  I really hope painting the cove moulding white perks up that, uh, "natural linen."  And I hope somebody in the near future falls in love with this house.  It's a house that deserves to be loved.

No matter how much you get done...

...there's always more to do.

Always.

I am going to choose to think positively here.  If there's always something to do, it means I will never get bored.

Aaaand back to work with me.

I'm thinking of doing up Jethro's hair in a ponyhawk.  See, I never ever get bored, ever.