Wolf Cub: Finished

I completed my novel, Wolf Cub tonight. It ended up at 51,283 words. I've posted the last two chapters to my Wolf Cub blog. I will leave the entire book up for one more week, then I will delete the blog.

I intend to edit, rewrite, and seriously seek publication for this book. As such, I do not want to run a risk of it being stolen or used by another author.

I am on my way to paste it in for verification on the NaNo site.

My last duty as a 2008 Nano contestant.

Yeah me!

Surviving the Sad Holiday Season

Thanksgiving is upon me. I've felt more and more depressed as the holiday has approached. I wish I could just miss it this year. I have no real desire to see family or set around and visit all day. (To be honest, a thick book and a thicker blanket on a large bed sounds pretty damn good.)

As my sadness has grown over the last few days I've blaimed it in part on the end of NaNo and the end of the book I'm writing. As an author, there is a natural let down to completeing a book. A "good bye" of a sense, to characters that have become friends and companions. In my case, to characters that have distracted me from dealing completely with Becky's death.

It has been difficult to write yesterday and today and yet I only need 4,800 words to "win" NaNo. I figure my book will be finished in another 5,000-6,000 words. Yet, once again they are not flowing easily. Only this time it's not because I am without direction, but because I am not happy. It is hard to set and right frivolous words when you feel sad.

It dawned on me yesterday that a month has come and gone by since Becky's funeral. We buried her on the 23rd of last month. In one since, it seems she's been gone forever. In another, I feel like I can still call her and wish her a happy Thanksgiving. Or more realistically, that she will be calling me to with me a Happy Thankgsiving. Regardless of how busy I thought I was, and how often I would go months without calling, she would always make a point of calling me or sending me cards for every freaking holiday. I think she even made up a few along the way.

I knew soon after her death, that the holidays would be hard on me this year. And they are. I love Christmas and for the last 10 years you could find me and my girls putting up my Christmas tree and all the trimming the weekend following Thanksgiving. And you'll find Steve griping about it, too. :)

I don't think he has to worry too much this year. I can't even think of putting up the tree without crying. Oh, I know I will eventually. Thought to be honest, I'm thinking of just buying a little one for Will's room. It would require less effort.

I'm worried if I drag out my big tree and set it up I'll feel like crying every time I look at it. That next year, my memories of this year will override my enjoyment of my tree. I don't know. Definatlely not a desision to make today.

Besides being so close to the time of her death, one of the reasons I am having such a hard time is that Becky's birthday is the 20th of next month. By this time every year for the last 30 years of my life; I have been trying to figure out what to get her. Or make her. What she was into this year? What color was her house decorated in?

I always wanted to make sure I had them finished in time to mail off and get to her by the 20th. Two presents; one for her birthday and one for Christmas. They were never big or super special; just acknowledgements. To let her know someone thought of her on those days; thought she was special.

But life goes on. You walk, or get dragged, through the days -- be they holidays or otherwise. As my mother-in-law is fond of saying when my father-in-law is complaining about growing old . . . it beats the alternative.

Or, as Dory says, "Just keep swiming."

Hurtful things people say. Unknowlingly?

I just thought it would be fun to share a list of painful things people say that really hurt us; and they are usually clueless. Some of these things were said up to 30 years ago, but they still burn just as much today as they did then.

Please add to the list via your comments, or email me with your additions. Maybe we'll wake up a "clueless" outthere, and save someone else the pain.


Some women look good without makeup,
You're not one of them.

You really shouldn't smile when
your getting your photo taken.
Your lips disappear.

It's not like it was a real baby.
Espeically effective right after you have miscarried a very wanted child.


I'm not attracted to fat women.

She's just not man enough to . . .

Have you ever wondered about weird phrases. We say them all the time. We hear them all the time. I probably wouldn't even thing anything about it, but my girls are constantly, "Where the hell did that come from?"

I don't know. It just happened. So today, I was thinking to myself about my last boss (and that is what this post is really about) and how after almost 5 years I still am so hurt by how things ended. I should be totally over it by now.

I thought at first I was so hurt because I am just never fired or "let go". The only two jobs I've ever been forced to leave involved a boss I said no to and someone else didn't and a company that was bought out from under me and shut down --everyone got let go.

I have always been promoted, given progress work loads, and usually assigned new duties I wasn't even aware I could do. I just could not accept that I was laid off while others remained. At least that is what I've been telling myself.

But Steve and I were talking about it last week and I came back to my old boss, Leann. Steve knew her two, he did several jobs for her over the years before I got laid off. The thing that always bothered me the most as that she took a no-advance warning vacation the day before her boss came in and laid me off.

After 5 years of setting up and managing the new design, layout, and proofing departments of their starter company.

After average 80 hour weeks.

After bouncing my department from 3 or 4 employees to 20 employees, to back to 3 or 4. Several times.

After Leann told me just the week before not to worry about my job, I was safe.

After I was 4 months into a high-risk pregnancy.


Finally I had to admit I was hurt by Leanne's actions. Everyone swears, to this day, that she had no idea. Bullshit. Leanne was not a spur of the moment vacation person. They were planned and talked about months in advance. She left because "she wasn't man enough" to look me in the face and lay me off.

Oddly, once I accepted that, I begin to let go.

Forced to write

I hate to post about my NaNo experience to often, I figure it's like illness. No one really wants to hear about it but the sick person.

I hit 40,342 words tonight. That alone would make me happy, but the really good news is the easy flow of creation has returned! I may not have bitched about it online, but last week was a very difficult week for me. Every day was like pulling teeth to meet my daily goals. It took twice as long and sometimes I "knew" I was writing shit.

I just didn't have any option; I had to write and all that would come was shit. Therefore I wrote shit. I quess it makes a sick kind of sense, anyone who has to strain the way I did last week runs the chance of a suprise in their pants when all is said and done.

In fact, those of you torturning yourself with my first round writings will no doubt notice that the entire Chapter 16 is one long, convaluted sex scene. An entire chapter! Why? Because when all esle fails, I can write sex. Sex is easy to write. I needed words and after a week of fighting for every frigging one of them I just filled the blank space in my head with sweet, easy, sex.

Oddly, as soon as I finished that chapter I was off and running. Maybe I needed to write something easy to allow my brain a break. Or, maybe writing anything I didn't have to bop over the head and drag onto a page helped my creative flow. I don't know. But for now, I can't write fast enought to keep up with the new flow.

My real reason behind this post was to first apologize for the low quality of writing over the last week. I've never been forced to write when the muze wasn't working and it was a new and painful experience for me. But I made it.

I have 7 days and less than 10,000 words to go. As I've been averaging over 2000 a word each day I've written, I feel very confident about making it.

However, to all those bitches (and bitch"hims") who are posting in our online NaNo group in excitment for reaching their 50,000 ALREADY . . . enought! The rest of us are not encouraged by your sucess.

Ode to Thankfulness by a Stay-at-Home Mom

So here is a little somthing-something I've been working on for Thanksgiving. I know, those of you who follow my blog are going, "What the hell?"

In case you missed it, I put up a post about a week ago bemoaning having to do this . . . to write or read something thankful on Thanksgiving. But I am from Texas; as as they say here . . .


If you don't like Texas weather,
Wait 5 minutes and it'll change.


Please feel free to offer suggestions to improve it. I may, or maynot, take them. :)

Misty

Ode to Thankfulness by a Stay-at-Home Mom

I am thankful for bath time.
I use to think showers were a waist of time.
The faster in and out, the more I could accomplish.
Not so, anymore.
Taken only after my husband home,
Baths are my only child-free time all day.
I am thankful for bath time.

I am thankful for the night.
I don’t mean bed time;
As bed time in my house results in hours of fussing, needs, and whining.
I mean when they are finally a sleep.
When you can walk into their room
And actually see the peace and happiness, the youth, upon their faces.
When you can set back and read, drink a cup of decaf,
or set out side and stare at the stars and enjoy them in silence.
I am thankful for the night.

I am thankful to miss the occasional outing.
I love going places and doing things.
More so than I did before I became a stay-at-home mom.
But sometimes the best treat is to not go places when everyone else does.
An hour or so alone with just myself for company is wonderful.
I am thankful to miss the occasional outing

I am thankful for the knowledge school is just around the corner.
When raising my son begins to feel like a burden, I have the dream of school.
At first, just a few hours a day.
But eventually almost an entire day
When I know he’s protected and carried for and I am free to accomplish other goals.
To start new projects.
I am thankful for the knowledge school is just around the corner.


I am thankful for my husband
Not that he works to support us,
For he would work anyway.
I am thankful for the sacrifices he makes
He works harder now than ever in his life,
With less return.
I am thankful he makes time to play with our son
During his 2 hours of free time a day.
I am thankful for my husband

I am thankful I get to stay at home with my son.
That I have had an opportunity to learn his every expression.
To watch him develop and grow.
To see him change from a helpless baby to a child capable of heading off to school.
To experience the thousands of “firsts” he’s encountered.
For the privilege of relearning the world and seeing it through the eyes of a child.
I am thankful I get to stay at home with my son.

Come on Menopause

First, I would like to clarify that I am not trying to belittle menopause (the mental or physical aspects of it) by this post.

Every female older than me in my family; grandmother, mother, aunts (those I know of) all went through menopause early. As a family; we seem to start our "flow" early, be incredibly fertile, and have all sort of feminine issue eventually leading to hysterectomy or early menopause. I've always known this, always expected it.

But the story starts when I was expecting my second child, Tori. I was 21 when I was expecting her and we were living in the guest house at my in-laws. I was on WIC and we were getting unemployment and food stamps. All I could think about was ending up with 5 kids; like my mom or even my husbands mother. They were still getting food stamps and other government aids.

I was also consciouses of the type of life, I as a child, had lived due to the extra mouths in the family. (I have to say, that is one of hate few times being the oldest comes in handy. I was here first. )

So I made the decision to have my tubes died after Tori's birth, and I did. I did not regret my decision until some years later when after I divorced the girls dad, I met and married Steven. While I never had more than my two girls I truly felt that having children was a life-changing experience. I would never have become the person I am today if it had not been for that experience, for my girls. And I didn't want to take that opportunity away from Steve.

We discussed it for years and finally about 4 or 5 years into our marriage we arranged and paid for a tubal-reversal. Although we both had full-time jobs with benefits at the time; neither of them paid for the reversal and we were out $5,000 for the chance at having a child.

After the surgery, which was classified as major and left me in the hospital for 4 days, we went in for testing to see how everything seemed to be working. The tubal repair had been successful. However, the doctors noted that my extended length of time with tied tubes may have put me in, or near, early menopause. I was ovulating very rarely. With my issues and some of Steve's own, they offered us less than a 5% chance of conceiving without the aid of hormonal treatment.

So I started a hormonal program and all I can say is it is HELL. It is like the worse day of your period every multiplied by at least 4 for the entire week surrounding your ovulation cycle. Besides cramps, you have to deal with out of whack emotions that would send most sane people to the loony farm. With my escape clause, of not being sane to begin with, I managed to survive. Barely. During the year+ I took the hormone therapy we conceived and lost two children.

The second one we lost we had known about for over 6 weeks. We'd carefully monitored it. Named it -- we were going to call it George (after Steve's granddad and the comic "I'm going to love it, an squeeze it, and call it George"). I had already crocheted it little hats and booties. When we were far enough along for a sonogram it came up empty. Even though I had been in for blood work 2-3 times a week for 5 weeks; and all signs showed adequate increase in the pregnancy hormone, there was not a baby in the uterus. We were forced to abort.

I almost didn't survive this loss. I would lay for hours in the hammock in my back yard and just look at the sky with tears running out of eyes. No energy, not enough life, to even cry. We decided that was that. I got off the hormones and we moved into our future without the thought of children.

The combination of losing George and making the decision not to try made it nearly impossible or me to be around other children for over a year. It just hurt to much. About two years after we quit trying we found out we were expecting Will, our less than 5% chance baby, our miracle -- later spelled T R I A L.

By this point we were both looking 40 right in the face. While maturity does have much to offer in the way of raising children, it lacks a lot too. I have patience, a better understanding about not sweating the small stuff, a true enjoyment of every time thing he does, and the easy ability to insert life lessons in everything he does. I do not have any energy or design to sit in the dirt and play cars.

After Will was born, Steve and I reserved the right to readdress the possibility of another child after Will was a little older. We both pretty much decided before he was out of his first year that he should be an only child (not discounting Bonnet and Tori; but they are so much older than him and don't live at home). The older and more adventurous, athletic, energetic, curious he got the more we reinforced to each other -- only child.

I can't begin to explain to those of you who are younger, or who do not have children at our age, how very difficult just keeping up with them for the day is.

So every month that mother nature is a little late, that I don't start on exactly the date I thought I would, you can hear me chanting in a call for it to be so . . .


"Come on Menopause"