Coffee Break

 Latest quilt-in-progress

Hold onto your hats: I'm drinkin' coffee! Right now, as I write this. My first cup in months.

I might point out that what I'm really drinking is half and half with a little coffee thrown in, but it's a start.

I haven't decided what kind of coffee life I'll have from now on. It may be a ten in the morning kind of thing. It's not so bad waking up slowly, sipping peppermint tea. I like that I don't have to have a cup of coffee to start my day.

But I've missed coffee, and I want it back, if only in small doses every few days. With lots of half and half.

***

Jack didn't win the Student Government Treasurer election. He didn't seem too upset about it; in fact, sometimes I wonder if he runs for office to make a point, that it's all a popularity contest. And the truth is, the boy who won is one of the most popular kids in school. When Jack told me who he was running against I had to stop myself from saying, "And you expect to win?"

A side note: the boy who won has always struck me as a really nice kid, friendly, polite, has super-nice parents, etc. But for all I know, he's actually a rotten, horrible bully. It's just impossible to know these things from the outside. I'd be sad to learn that he's not the kid I think he is, but it's a possibility. I guess I could ask Jack, but Jack's not a great authority--he thinks anyone who doesn't do their homework is a juvenile delinquent.

***

Some of you have asked why I don't blow my own horn about my books on this blog. This may sound strange, but I want to have a place to write that's all my own. I love my family, but they have access to a lot of my writing, which is to say, a lot of my life. Imagine if your parents and in-laws and brothers and sisters could wander into your office and peer over your shoulder to see what you were doing any time they felt like it. Imagine them having access to your boss's evaluations of your job performance. Nervous-making, huh?

If I started writing about my books, a simple Google search would land all sorts of folks here. But I like it when it's just us, me, you, and the seventeen other people who read this blog. I like our neighborhood. I like being able to write about my life without getting phone calls from concerned relatives.

So, that's why. Simple as that.

***

The Man is over at Duke University Medical Center, for a gathering of bone marrow transplant patients and their caregivers. Our friend David, who I've written about here, received a bone marrow transplant a year ago in June, and after a really rough period, is doing great. While he was in the hospital, the Man went over every morning before work and took David on walks. He made David walk even when he didn't want to because he was feeling too tired or depressed to walk.

A few months ago, David told the Man that according to his doctors, without the walks, he probably would have died.

The big deal today: David is going to meet his anonymous bone marrow donor, who's been flown in from California for the occasion. Can you imagine? Oh, the tears are going to flow, I do believe, and I bet the Man sheds one or two himself.

***

It's a rainy Saturday morning. Jack is still sleeping. I'm composing a list of chores for him to do when he wakes up; otherwise, he'll waste the day away on the computer. I'm making a list for Will to do, too, mostly to encourage him to take up a project. If he's working on a project, I might not make him empty all the waste baskets. If he's just loafing about, I've got a long list of tasks. Attic, anyone?

I'm going to do some work in my study. I don't use my study much, for various reasons. During the day when I'm here all alone, I like to be downstairs, near the heart of the house. Our neighborhood is pretty safe, but every once in awhile there are a rash of break-ins. Tucked up in my study, I would never hear someone rattling the doorknob, or see a masked man coming up our driveway. I feel better being downstairs and having an idea of what's going on around me.

I should probably just convert my study into a guest room, but I like the idea of having a room in the house I can play with. Lately, I've been putting poems on the walls. There's a closet with lots of shelves, and I'm thinking of turning one of the shelves into an art exhibit. Don't quite know how that would play out, but it's fun to think about.

So I think I'll spend some time this afternoon up there, going through stuff, dreaming. Maybe reading poetry. I may turn my study into a poetry-reading room, stuffed with art and dreams. I'll take a picture if I do.

Have a great weekend!

My newly organized scrap baskets!

On Friday, I did a radio interview and a reading at a local bookstore for my new book. I'm not sure I've recovered yet. I'd planned to spend Saturday working on the attic--I really did! Honest!--but mostly I napped. Yesterday I worked on a quilt I'm making my sister-in-law for Christmas and made a pot roast. In other words, another quiet weekend. And an attic that's still a big, honkin' mess.

Various things to report ...

• Jack is running for Student Government treasurer. He would do a good job, but he probably won't win. I believe his campaign platform is "I'm obviously the superior person for the job, and you'd be an idiot not to vote for me." I'm happy that my child does not lack in the self confidence department, but I wish he'd figure out that he'd win more votes if he was actively nice to his peers. 

• I tried eating bacon recently. It was a bad idea. My gut is tolerating a wider variety of food these days, but pig is not one of them.

• The administrative assistant at Our Fine Middle School continues to be one of the scariest people on the planet. I needed something from her the other day and barely lived to tell the tale. I thought by having Jack bake her a pie at the end of the school year last year, I'd have it made in the shade. Mrs. T would love our whole family, and when ever I walked into the office, she'd smile and say, "How may I help you, Mrs. D?" Boy, was I wrong. Fortunately, I have learned from my Southern husband that in situations like this, the best defense is to be ridiculously polite. Because you might feel bad after being abused by a difficult secretary, but not as bad as you would if you were snotty about it.

• I can hear the UPS truck coming down the street. I haven't ordered anything, but I still hope it'll stop in front of my house. I always hope the UPS truck will stop in front of my house.

• I'm still feeling quiet. I'm writing my prayers down in a notebook, and it feels like writing a very long poem. I like writing prayers--I concentrate better, and am sometimes surprised by what it occurs to me to pray about. 

Sometimes I wonder if I'm feeling quiet right now because there's something inside me waiting to be born. I'll let you know.

New quilt: Front

My back to school edge seems to be wearing off. The first few weeks I'm always Miss Organized, Miss Got All the Forms Signed, Miss Get out of the Door at 7:35. Now I'm more like Miss Whatever.

That's not entirely true. I still make lunches the night before and I still comb my hair before pick-up if I'm going to walk into the building. But that's about it. I'm done in.

The boys seem to be fine. We've revised Jack's contract once already, amending it to require more family and downstairs time, plus exercise time on weekends. Plus a clause requiring him to be friendlier to his little brother. He's doing two afterschool enrichments, which is good. Most kids these days are overscheduled; mine are pretty much nonscheduled. But Jack could use a little scheduling here and there, a few more hours out of the house. He seems to like it.

This has been a quiet weekend. Yesterday I worked on a quilt and cleaned the house and then went out to a nice dinner with my friends Amy and Danielle. The Man worked on some projects in his study, and the boys took about eight hours to complete one chore apiece (Jack: laundry; Will: trash). I'm trying to get them to do more work around the house. They resist by saying, I'll do it in five minutes and then not doing it in five minutes. They think that eventually I'll get tired of nagging. Sometimes I do. Yesterday I held firm and the jobs finally got done.

It was a little frustrating, nonetheless.

Today: Church, naps, football on TV (not me; the Man and Will), youth group (Jack). All of the boys, Travis included, are on a walk/bike ride as I write. It's a beautiful day, and I should have gone, too, but what I really need to do is work in the garden, which has turned into a jungle. I will. In five minutes.

 New quilt: Back

This feels like a very quiet post, but I'm feeling very quiet right now. I'm working hard on a new book, which always makes me quiet and a little withdrawn. Not withdrawn in a bad way. Maybe I should say focused inward. That's what I am right now. Living all the way in my head.

Fall is on the way. Today was the first day you could tell. Driving home from church, I saw many of my neighbors in their gardens. We've all been waiting for a nice day in the upper 70s, light breeze, and here it is. I think I'll go enjoy it.

Potholders! Made 'em myself! Gonna make more!

I'm really too tired to write this, but I'm going to give it a try. It's Monday, an everyday, normal sort of Monday, which is to say a Monday that doesn't involve sleeping in or lounging about with a cup of tea reading a novel like a Monday in mid-July might. No, it's the normal sort of Monday where one gets up at 6:45 a.m. and makes breakfasts and drives boys to school and walks the dog and eats breakfast and sits down on the couch and goes to work making up stories.

Pretty rough, huh? So why am I so beat? Still getting used to the routine, I guess. By next week, I should be leaping around like a happy tree frog at 9:45 p.m.. Just you wait.

It's nice to be back on a regular writing schedule, that's for sure. I'm very deep into making up a fictional town (in Kentucky, where my parents live and my ancestors roamed the mountains a long, long time ago), which is quite satisfying. Have you ever made up a town? You should try it.

What to tell you? Last week I looked out of my bathroom window and saw a squirrel hanging upside down from a dogwood tree. I thought it was dead, and I spent many minutes wondering how it had died. It didn't look traumatized, like maybe the hummingbirds had finally taken revenge on it for sucking all the nectar out of their feeder. It didn't look like it had fallen and broken its neck. No, it looked sort of peaceful. I decided it had died in its sleep of old age.

And then I realized it was chomping away on the little dogwood berries and not dead at all. Stupid squirrel.

I had a glass of wine with my recently widowed neighbor on Saturday night. I was afraid going over there that I might cry, or say something stupid, or that it would just be so, so sad. And it was sad, and a couple of times I almost cried. But we also laughed a lot and talked about all sorts of things other than her husband's dying, but we talked about that, too, and what shape her grief is taking right now (exhaustion, mostly), and how everyday surprises her with some new realization about life without Adam.

This neighbor and I had only just started on the path toward a real friendship a few months before her husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and what surprised me most about Saturday night is that we're still on that path. I thought that given everything she's been through, she wouldn't be able to grow a friendship right now, that we'd have to wait a couple years and start over. But nope, there we were, talking and laughing and telling stories on ourselves. It was lovely. And sad. And good.

Will and the Man made an arrow with a real arrow head on Saturday. When I went on my walk on Sunday, Will asked me to look for a feather, and I found one. You don't find a feather every day. Why is that? Do they all get stuck in the trees? Like dead squirrels? Or maybe the squirrels eat them. Stupid squirrels.

Okay, time for bed.

And so the summer ends ...

Today was the first day of school. The boys got up at 7:00 and were ready to go by 7:25. We didn't need to leave until 7:40, so there was a lot of standing around and sighing, like Why does our mom make us do stupid stuff like wake up at 7:00? 

Tomorrow there's a chance that they'll be ready by 7:30; by Thursday I'll be yelling at them to hurry up, we're going to be late. It's the same every year.

To that end, we have contracted with Jack about his behavior. Actually, his behavior is quite good. It's his habits that are horrible. So last night I typed out an agreement that basically said, Here's all the fun stuff you get to do IF you keep up your end of the bargain by getting out of bed on time in the morning, doing a good job on your homework after school, and making A's and B's on your report card. Oh, yes, and by actually talking to your parents from time to time.

Jack agreed to the agreement, not a surprise as it a) gives him a lot of independence in exchange for his compliance; and b) not agreeing was not an option.

Yesterday was Open House, and you'll be happy to hear I only said one or two stupid things as I made small talk with the other parents of fourth and eighth graders. I'm learning to ask questions and shut my mouth and to not feel I have to be clever or funny or entertaining. This strategy works well, although I'm so busy trying not to say funny or clever things that I miss half of what's being said by the other person. Oh, well. Hopefully I give off the appearance of really listening.

Now it's 8:00, and we're all exhausted. After I dropped off the boys at school, I met with some fellow moms from Our Fine School for coffee (only I drank tea, as is now my way). Nobody's kids slept last night and everyone was ready to go at 7:25. That's the first day of school for you.

Summer Report

Summer's bounty: A basketful of Romas on their
 way to becoming paste. Photo: The Man.

It occurred to me the other day that summer is the only season I actively review. Has it been a good summer? Did I get done this summer all I had planned (ha!)? I never ask myself if I had a good fall, if I enjoyed the winter, if I accomplished all my springtime goals.

So has it been a good summer? Well, it's a been a good summer for tomatoes. Our freezer is loaded with tomato sauce, tomato soup, and tomato paste. With my stomach ailments, I haven't been able to eat tomatoes this summer, so I have been an admirer of tomatoes. They are such beautiful creatures.

(By the way, I just ate a sliver of cheddar cheese to see if it would give me a stomachache. I should know in the next ten minutes or so. I'm very tired of chicken, brown rice and steamed zucchini, as you might imagine. So I've become a risk-taker. Cheddar cheese! Tortellini! A grape! It's all an adventure.)

All this to say, culinarily-speaking, it hasn't been such a great summer. Writing-wise, not so hot either. Who knew that I needed to be caffeinated in order to create? I've started drinking Lady Gray tea, which has just a smidgen of caffeine, and I seem to be able to tolerate it, so maybe in a couple of weeks I'll move up to the hard stuff. That's right, Earl Gray. Just try to stop me.

Quilt-wise? It's all good. Right now I'm quilting a quilt for a friend. Here's how it looks:

I'm free-motion quilting, which is about as much fun as I can legally have.

I have not done a good job this summer of handing over all the household chores to the boys, as was my plan. I lacked resolve. My tummy hurt. I was too busy worrying about the terminal illness my bad gut surely portended. It's impossible to work up the enthusiasm for showing a boy how to scrub out a toilet when you're convinced you only have a month or two to live.

Many good walks this summer, a bit of weight loss, some nice get-togethers with friends. Too much time in the dentist's chair. The very sad loss of a neighbor who wasn't yet fifty and left behind a wife and two teenaged children.

I don't think I can sum this summer up. Well, there's two weeks left before school starts (and two months more, at least, of warm weather). Maybe I'll see the big picture as I wave goodbye to the boys on the first day. I suspect when I think back to this summer, what I'll remember most of all is sitting in the family room with the Man, knitting and watching the Olympics and "Foyle's War," very cozy indeed. Not so bad at all.

The Latest News

Here are some things to tell you: I finished another quilt (see above). It was a year in the making, because I had every intention of hand-quilting it, and I did hand-quilt a little over half. But one day earlier this month I realized I wasn't enjoying the hand-quilting and it was taking forever. So I whipped the quilt over to my sewing machine and finished quilting it in a couple of hours. The pattern is called "Hidden Stars."

Other news: My stomach is finally on the mend. It's still sensitive and my diet is still limited. It seems strange to me that I can't eat string cheese without my stomach hurting, but there you have it. I've lost six pounds, which puts me close to my New Year's Resolution of losing ten pounds. So there are silver linings here.

I'm in a finishing mood. I'm finishing up the Gryffindor sweater I started for Will last summer, and a brown cardigan for myself. Why a brown cardigan, you ask? Well, knitting is all about imagination, I think, and a year or so ago, I imagined myself in a brown cardigan and gardening clogs in the late fall out in the beds picking kale, and so a sweater was born. I'm on the second sleeve, and it's just a tee tiny bit boring, all this brown. But it will be worth it this autumn, when I'm living out my sweater dreams.

Will went to the pool with Gavin today, and Jack went to drama camp, and I had several blissful hours in the house all alone. I don't think that's happened once this summer. I worked on a quilt and watched the last of "The Forsyte Saga" on Netflix. Have you watched it? Loved it. Now I'm going to read the book.

Lots of tomato action. One of the nice things about feeling better is that I have lots more energy and a lot less aversion to kitchen tasks. Last week I processed loads of tomatoes and made lots and lots of tomato sauce. The week before that, the Man processed tomatoes and made tomato-basil sauce, which is delicious. The freezer is started to fill up.  A good feeling.

Speaking of the Man ... he wanted to do something nice for me since I haven't been feeling so hot, so he painted our bedroom this weekend. I'll share a before picture now, and when we get the room put back together I'll show you the after picture.

Here's before:

The Man had just started working when I took this picture. Can you see how the room was industrial park beige? It was that way when we moved in--how did it take us so long to paint it? I guess we were putting all our decorating energy into the downstairs ...

It's nice to have someone willing to paint a room for you when your stomach hurts, don't you think? And today is our anniversary--eighteen years. Hurray!