Welcome to my blog Upstate Girl, (a.k.a Follow Your Bliss Part II), I am an independently published author. This blog is all about writing and the stuff that inspires me to write, the joys and obstacles that come along with the writer's life, and my fascination with the psychology of people and what makes them tick...the human condition, as is...and my love for words, playing with them and making sense of them...and I throw in a few photos from my acre of the world just to make things pretty...sometimes there are things I have no words for, only pictures will do.

*Copyright notice* All photos, writing, and artwork are mine (
© Laura J. Wellner), unless otherwise noted, please be a peach, if you'd like to use my work for a project or you just love it and must have it, message me and we'll work out the details...it's simple...JUST ASK, please.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

I'm still here...

Me n' my shadow dog out for a walk on one of the few sunny days we've had lately...it is a bit disheartening to have the grayness already set in so soon...rain is tapping at my studio window tonight...Max is making his bored doggy noises, he'd like to go outside to sniff for stories and watch the world go by...
The best of good boys taking a snooze in the sun...

O little Woolly Bear, why do you have brown eyebrows this year? What are you trying to predict with that added accessory to your fuzzy wardrobe?

Old lace from last fall

Lingering leaves from last fall
 
Tiger Lilies
  I am just in love with black and white photos...and playing with duotones...

Blue and Gold

Finally, a sunflower bloomed!
A rainbow above the barn roof


I've collected lots of pictures, and have taken my sweet time processing them...falling behind. Not a heck of a lot going on, yet too much to want to talk about. My father is recovering from his broken hip, the surgery was a success and he's going to be going home in a couple of weeks, there's much to do to prepare for that event...I'm still catching myself having mini meltdowns in the middle of the day, it just suddenly hits me that my mother is gone and the unfairness makes me angry...it's all part of the process, I am being kind to myself by just going with it when it happens, no sense in fighting it...

Of course, FMS has been a factor, consistently in chronic pain...but I keep going in spite of it, at times a bit wobbly...and some days my skin hurts, I don't know if any other Fibromyalgia patients have that phenomenon...seriously, my skin freaks out over elastic waist bands on underwear, bras, tights, jeans...some days are purely hellish, and there's nothing finer than a hot bath and a glass of wine to soothe away the aches...and my bed...I love my bed.

I've been keeping busy, writing has been at a crawl, which is unfortunate, but I have made progress when I have settled down with a chapter, the editing of Drinking from the Fishbowl is coming along, so I shouldn't complain at all. Dusty Waters continues to sell and is being read, The Fractured Hues of White Light is hanging in there, behaving like the typical second book...

The latest version of normal is taking shape, I'm taking it one day at a time...

Just a slice of color...

Sunday, September 11, 2011

The things I found today...

My treasures from today
Railroad tracks...

The dots on the bridge wall

I can't read chicken scratch either...

I love rust...

Kitty Crossing...

Kitty with muddy paws got to the other side...
 
My Fred and I treated ourselves with two whole days of staying at home...it seems we've been on the run going here and there and being tugged about for this and that...well, it felt good to relax and if we felt like doing something, we did it...so we took a ride out to Lakeland, parked, and went for a walk along the old railroad tracks to take pictures...now the two of us are collectors of various odds n' ends, we both love rusty old bits of metal...and I also like the shiny stuff, glass, pottery, and rocks...and lots of pictures...

On the way home I bought a new canvas, so painting isn't too far from my mind...and I've been back to work on Drinking from the Fishbowl this weekend, that chapter 42 has been troublesome, but I think I have a handle on it now, I've printed a hard copy and might do the old-fashioned cut n' paste editing with scissors and tape tomorrow, I do that because I'm a visual person, sometimes just reading it over and over, backwards and forwards doesn't work anymore...so I hack it up and tape it together once the pieces fit right and then I go back to the laptop and fix it...lots of fun for me, watching grass grow for anyone else, I suppose...

Although time marches on as it always does...I'm not quite feeling back to "normal" just yet, I really miss my mother...whenever I get the urge to talk to her, especially during that time of day when I would call her up (such as when I found that old Pertussin bottle today) I just talk to her...whatever works, right? The afterlife has always been a fascination for me, and I wonder if she's here and there, leaving signs, watching, waiting...or possibly, moved on...

My father seems to be coming along, healing, still grieving, but getting closer to going home with every passing day...heading toward his new version of normal.