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...

It's rainbow season...

On the evening of May 5th the conditions were just right, rain in the east, the sun setting in the west and a big rainbow shimmered above our old barn...

...and the maple tree to the north (it was a double for a bit)...

...and the other end to the south... it's a magical time of year on the hilltop...I love running out into the rain to catch these fleeting moments in the sky...

Pretty stuff from my digital sketchbook...the new leaves are lovely...

The red maple...

My old friend in a different season...

There's this old honey suckle bush that must be as old as our farmhouse with a gnarly trunk... I've been photographing it this week, lots of the photos look like my pencil drawings...


Like this one from my sketchbook, "May"...

No book cover yet for White Light, I've been under the weather for several days now, Fibromyalgia has been kicking my butt in a bad way... I can only describe it as feeling like I've been shoved into a trash compactor and there's someone who keeps turning it on and turning it off all day... it's better today, but still there in a hum set on low... I push through it and often accomplish more than I think I can... it's better than rolling up in a ball in bed (tho' sometimes that is necessary.) Maybe tonight we'll work on it, all the elements are there, it's just piecing things together so it becomes the recognizable image of the book, I'd like to get it done this weekend, get it off my plate and move on to the next project...

Dusty Waters received another positive review from a reader (to read it go to: http://thecajunbooklady.blogspot.com/) she won the book in the Library Thing Giveaway... I am always so grateful when a reader takes the time to write a review and posts it on Goodreads, Amazon, Library Thing, and their blog (if they have one)... I'm working with a shoestring budget and word of mouth is priceless!

This and that, and more...

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, I'm recovering from the preparation before and the day itself...lots of family, lots of food (I've been known to whip up a Thanksgiving dinner storm that is quite heavenly! But it's always amusing to me that after it's all done and on the table, I don't want any of it...hello, anyone ready to order some Chinese? Go figure.

While cleaning my house, I always wash off my collections of stones that I have around the house...the little kids are always fascinated by them...Great Aunt Laura is weird you know...she collects lots of strange old things and has then lying about in bowls and on tables...these were in a bowl on the dinner table...

The day before the day of our feast, we were visited by a rainbow...
Always a good omen...the day itself was above average good weather, lovely, mild...and then it snowed overnight...so yesterday morning, I tromped around in the winter wonderland and enjoyed the sights...and took lots of pictures...

The mist...

Peering up through the branches of my favorite gnarly maple tree...


A patient little peep in the tree...my feeder is visited daily by a variety of birds and furry critters, but the gold finch flock is quite sweet...

Snow and tree branches...I love black and white...

While I wait for my first proof of The Fractured Hues of White Light to come into being, I've started to read my next offering for Field Stone Press, Drinking from the Fishbowl...I read through the first eight pages yesterday, but I was still in too much of an exhausted state from the day before to really comprehend what I was reading...and I have to admit that my work on White Light really took a lot out of me after all those weeks working on it, and having Sammy, Sylvester, Guthrie, and Helena in my head clamoring about their concerns, it wasn't so easy to step into Georgia Sullivan's world...so today I back-tracked...yes, it's just as I remember it...I haven't seen it since October of 2008, so it's good to visit it again and to see that my hard work last year made it a strong piece...reading Georgia's poetic musings always makes me think about my poems that I have left aside for many years...maybe one day I will return to their simple pleasures...tho' I'm sure that they're not as wonderful as I had once thought (I cringe to think)...Georgia herself is a delight, a young woman with a mind full of beauty and hope...I love her naivete in spite of her book learning, she's the perfect innocent...so when Professor Mortensen Boyd asked her why she wanted to be a poet, she stumbled...she never thought about the why, but "this is what I want to do" and "this is what I've done" have been her focus...from there I take her beyond the dream to harsh reality, and then return her to the dream and the hope...it's quite the journey...I can't wait to get on with it...

With that said...I'll leave you with the other end of the rainbow...