It's been over a year since I worked on this site and there have been many changes in the meantime. First, I have to express some disappointment in Typepad, the host of this site. When I first signed up, I had a professional blog. I was able to customize the look of the site, but honestly, the free Typepad had so many design choices, that if I hadn't had delusions of quick grandeur and income, I would have gone the free route. After a year and a half, I'd made approximately $21 with my professional blog. I didn't want to renew the pro contract for obvious reasons. When I decided to start blogging again, I was sorely disappointed by the complete lack of design choice.
I quit blogging after I had to find a real job. I tried for about six months. I would come home, eat dinner and then write for a couple hours before going to bed. I was unhappy with what I produced, but I was also unhappy with how little I produced. I was writing a novel, The Woman Who Fell Off the Edge of the World, and it looked like I would never finish it. I was stretched too thin in all ways but the corporeal body. To my disappointment.
So I quit. I said good-bye and quit blogging. And I finished the novel, if one actually ever truly finishes such a project. I submitted it to a writers' service and it was accepted for their full-service service. It has been submitted to 52 literary agents, and one big shot agent (truly, he is) has asked for the whole manuscript. Which I sent. And so far, that's the end of that story. Many rejections. Many I'm still waiting to hear from and in the meantime, I try to not feel like a big loser.
That's difficult.
I've discovered 2 things recently. I feel like crap when I don't exercise and I feel like crap when I don't write. And writing ISPs (individual service plans-- in the DD community) just does't cut it.
I don't know if blogging is the answer, but it may be the answer to a different question.
So this is a column that currently says just about nothing.
Let's catch up on the family:
Mick and I no longer have the Wheelwatch, our only connection to Pelican, Alaska is our friendship with our old neighbor and that friendship has endured. As it became obvious the Pelican was not only on the brink of financial ruin, but in its death throes, we had a choice to make. Here (Oregon) or there. We chose the place closer to family and where our kids could get the education and services that they need. No regrets there. No, the only regrets are the amount of money we put into the bar, just so it can now literally rot as no one takes care of it. Of course, the other regret is that we waited too long to try to sell it. But that's done and over.
I now work as a house manager for a non-profit agency who serves the needs of the developmentally disabled community. It's an extremely challenging job that leaves me exhausted, frustrated, and sometimes doubled-up with laughter. But for the sake of confidentiality and the dignity of others (I don't worry about my own dignity), I will leave it at that.
Mick, too, worked in this field, different agency, different position, but a year and a half ago Mick suffered conjective heart failure and has joined the pace-maker-dependent community. He's now a stay-at-home dad/ househusband. If this change, unwelcome though it was, hadn't happened, it would have been very difficult to accept my new position.
Mick is now the one who gets Sam off to school, chauffeurs Miranda (now 16 who is probably going to have to be forced to get her driver's license), makes me breakfast, usually makes me dinner (oh, the bitter disappointment when it isn't waiting for me), takes care of our growing menagerie of pets (currently an English bulldog, French bulldog, 2 exotic shorthair cats, three regular cats, and a miniature pig named Buffy whom I feel sorry for and have been letting sleep in the house) and struggles to keep up with laundry. Since Mick doesn't like to fold laundry and sometimes forgets about it mi-way through, I still struggle with laundry, too. Not to mention mending. Sam's picking obsession continues, but has lessened.
Mick and Miranda are up in Snohomish, Washington, along with friend Jon, working on the little house I inherited this summer. That is a tale all its own to be told another time. So Sam (now 15) and I sit at home. She mercifully has a head cold and hasn't been asking to go everywhere. I have some sort of internal, abdominal mystery going on. I no longer have a gallbladder, but it feels like I do. Phantom pain, like with an amputation...?
Dallas, Oregon is socked in with fog. I've managed to keep our woodstove going. An now I grow bored. So for now, I will say so long and I''ll be back--perhaps once a week.
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