Tag: journal

About Me

2020

Autumn

A few years ago, a mormon bishop took it upon himself to inform me that my lifestyle was outdated, and that as a woman I needed to apply myself to a career instead of settling for being a simple stay-at-home-mom. He proclaimed this on a Sunday, while wearing a suit, with the authority of God and all that jazz.

And I thought to myself, “Wow, even the mormons don’t like me.”

If it was some sort of attempt at conversion, it had the exact opposite effect — and I’m still very much a stay-at-home mom. I guess the thing that people don’t understand is that I feel an enormous amount of passion about raising my children, and no criticism is going to change that. I’m not going to sell my soul for approval.

The one thing that I did take away from the exchange was that I am alone.

Totally, completely, alone.

I’ve met a lot of women who consider raising kids to be nothing more than a diversion from the ever-so-much-more-important career. Like paychecks are the only things that matter in life.

I’ve lived with the isolation ever since.

But here’s the funny thing about 2020: despite the lockdowns, social distancing, and rampant censorship, the one thing that I’ve learned is that I’m not alone.

There are a lot of people like me.

More than I would have expected, too.

We were just all too scared to say what we really thought before now.

Photo by Rakicevic Nenad on Pexels.com
About Me

Austrian cream cheese bars

Autumn

I jumped on the baking bandwagon.

I don’t actually know if that’s still a thing, or if people have burnt out on it by now.

But anyway, I’ve been baking WAY more than I used to. For the sweet tooth.

I made Austrian cream cheese bars, and thought that it would be fun to take a picture for the blog.

But before I got around to it, my two-year-old attacked them with a chopstick while I wasn’t looking.

So here you go. Yummy.

They’re supposed to have nuts on top, but I didn’t have any on hand.

About Me

Personal Note

Autumn

This is the time of year when I typically slack off from writing and put more energy into holiday activities, but there’s a good chance that this year is going to be completely different. For starters, I have no interest in taking the kids out Christmas shopping.

I might get more into holiday baking, since I’ve always wanted to make one of those chocolate yule log cakes, but have always been too intimidated to try. Might as well give it a shot.

It’s hard to say what the next two months are going to look like, honestly.

Writing is my selfish activity. I love children — my kindergarten dream was to be a mom — but they scream a lot and make big messes. Writing is how I maintain my internal balance so I can deal. With the way the kids have been acting of late, I’m going to be doing a lot of dealing this winter. I’m gonna need as much balance as I can get.

And cake.

I have no clue if I’m going to be slacking off or not.

About Me

Piano Therapy

Autumn

Through happenstance, we ended up with a free piano.

My husband and I have been jokingly referring to it as the ‘biggest mistake of our adult lives’, since the children have been excitedly pounding on the keys every chance they get. My husband taught our 8-year-old how to play ‘Mary had a little lamb,’ I taught her ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star’, and we’ve been listening to her adorable little recitals several times a day ever since.

I can still slowly plink my way through simple songs, even though it’s been close to 20 years since I took lessons. At least I still remember how to read sheet music.

I’m wondering how feasible it is to fit in practice sessions every day when I have five children, a bunch of other hobbies and responsibilities, and the holidays are quickly approaching. But, at the same time, it feels wonderfully good to have my fingers dancing with the music.

Piano therapy.

Because it’s 2020.

(Seriously, things are getting weird around here).

So, this year I’ll be learning how to play Christmas carols.

About Writing, Alice and the Warden

Writing a three pronged love story

Autumn

When I started writing Alice and the Warden, I decided that I wanted it to be a three pronged love story.

First, I wanted to depict Alice growing to love herself. The foundation is built on her learning that she has inherent worth as a person, and that she isn’t defined by her past mistakes. As she herself puts it, “I lived like I was disposable, so it was no wonder that I was used and thrown away”. She realizes that before she can move on and build a better life, she needed to accept that she has value.

Second is the story of maternal love. Alice’s main motivation is to be the sort of mother she thinks her daughter deserves, and all of the introspection and hard truths that she admits to herself stem from that desire. After her baby is born, she does her best to empathize and care for her newborn without complaint, even when she’s exhausted. As she says, “I’m her whole world. I’m the reason she exists, and I can never be replaced as her mother. When I think about myself from her perspective, it makes me want to be a totally different person – the sort of person who’s worthy of that love.”

Third is the marriage between Alice and Hackett. Their relationship is built on companionship and acceptance, as they skip past the stereotypical romance and dive right in to quiet evenings at home with the baby — but they’re still flirty and affectionate whenever they get the chance. They aren’t perfect, but they’re determined to love and support each other, especially when things get tough. Because they both come from painful backgrounds, they find refuge in each other.

Alice: “I feel like it’s okay to be damaged with you. My real dad abandoned me because my parents divorced, but now I can rely on you to look out for me instead, you know? And you’re so good with Alicia, that I never want you to leave me. I love you. Probably more than I would have if I wasn’t damaged.”

Hackett: “She wants to make sure that Alicia doesn’t grow up lonely and vulnerable the way she did, and she wants to make sure that our marriage never grows cold and distant. And you know what? It makes me feel safe. I can be myself without turning into a giant disappointment.”

In retrospect, my original plan of wrapping it all up in 15,000 words was pretty silly. The character development is more ambitious than that would have allowed for.

Anyway, I promise that I’m not being self-congratulatory or anything like that. This year has been stressful in more ways than one, which has made me more forgetful than usual, so I decided that it was a good idea to start compiling my thoughts and goals with this novel. Truth is, I’m not sure I’ve satisfactorily met my goals with this story yet, since it’s still very much a work in progress.

About Me

Personal Note

Autumn

I got a million things to do.

At the end of the day, I consider myself to be an author and not a blogger. So when something’s gotta take a hit, it’s going to be my blogging instead of my fiction writing. I like to fantasize that all of my visitors are here to enjoy the fruits of my imagination rather than my incoherent babbling, and would prefer that I maintain my fiction updates.

Side note: I didn’t sleep last night.

Anyway, the gist is that I’m tired and busy and I don’t feel like blogging — I’d much rather spend my free time working on Alice and the Warden. And napping. I’m also having anxiety about Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but we don’t need to get into that.

So, Alice and the Warden will continue to be updated every Monday.

But I’ll only check in when I feel like it.

Observations

9/8

Autumn

Dark and windy.

The crickets are giving a steady chirp, punctuated by wind chimes and rustling leaves. The roar of motorcycle engines pass by in the distance, and a dog begins to bark. A cat yowls.

The light from the neighbor’s porch is blaring in my eyes, and the haze of smoke is holding the city glow in the air. The street is empty, and no one is sitting out on their porches despite the pleasant coolness of the night.

The cat’s voice sounds almost human, and it’s easy to imagine why they were once thought of as witches’ companions.

The dust in the wind is triggering my allergies.

Occasionally the wind stops, leaving an eerie silence filled only with crickets, followed by an even stronger gust.

I need to find that cat.

About Me, Uncategorized

Natural Disaster

Autumn

This week, my family was blessed with the opportunity to participate in our local natural disaster! WOW!

Sarcasm!

The weather report issued a high wind warning, which we tend to take pretty seriously around here. Monday night I checked the warning to get an idea of what we were looking at, then we swept around the yard to get it ready before calling it a night.

After a few hours of fitful sleep and nightmares about the wind, I decided to get up at 5 AM (confession: strong winds terrify me). The windstorm had been as expected by that point, so I settled down on the couch to doze until the kids woke up.

At 6 AM, the wind suddenly picked up. A lot.

There were loud cracks and snaps as large branches broke. Out the window, I watched our picnic table flip onto its side and get pushed towards the fence. Then the power went out.

As I listened to the wind gusts, I got so scared that I woke the kids up and brought them down to the living room where it was safer, even though I knew the disruption would have them behaving like little monsters for the rest of the day.

At 7AM, it slowed down enough that we dared venture outside to look at the damage.

And we saw this:

The large pine tree in our front yard.

Thankfully, it fell straight along the fence line. Any other angle would have caused serious damage to either us or our neighbor. Eerily, it made hardly any sound when it fell.

Our power was out for two days.

I’d whine about it, but meh, we’re weirdos and it didn’t actually bother us that much. I liked the quiet, and it was nice to use the oil lamps and candles. We have a vintage gas oven, so I was even able to bake brownies while the power was out.

All told, it was considerably worse than the earthquake back in March.

More random destruction:

Alice and the Warden

AatW – Behind the Scenes

Autumn

I started writing Alice and the Warden back in February, when I was about halfway through my pregnancy with baby #5. Naturally, I was having *a lot* of dreams about pregnancy and babies at the time.

One in particular really stuck with me, about a young woman living alone in a tower, and I found myself thinking about it more and more. The pieces of a story started to come together in my mind, so I decided “what the hey” and went with it. Given the circumstances of my life at the time, I figured that it was going to be a “purely for fun” side project.

Aaaand seven months later, I’m 40,000 words in with a 3-month-old baby.

A little bit of trivia is that in the original dream, Alice had a brother who was friends with Damon. When Alice texted a picture of her baby to her brother, Damon saw it and put the pieces together that he was the father. However, once I started writing, I realized that the brother would function more as a prop than a character, so I cut him out.

Also, in the dream Alice and Damon broke up with a nasty fight after Damon replaced her with another girl. Again, a new girlfriend seemed more like a superfluous prop rather than a character, so I dropped that idea as well. Having her be flat out abandoned worked better with Alice’s neurosis, since she was still too “controlled” to suddenly blow up at Damon at that point in time.

Hackett was Hackett — basically no changes there. He fell in love with Alice the moment he caught her stealing his books with the intention of actually reading them.

There you have it, the origins of Alice and the Warden.