August 5, 2003

I am eager for the day that I get (again, as I know it has happened before) to write to you about what a calm and peaceful weekend it was.  Such was NOT the case this week.  Friday looked as though it was easing into a lovely weekend and I as ready to pace myself and get everything done that needed to happen for the public harvest ritual that was going on Sunday.  The ritual was written and beautiful.  The emphasis was on stepping up as an adult and claiming your place in the world and awaiting the blessings that are assured with the harvest time.  I was eager to enact it all and set the energy into motion.  I've been waiting a long time for this harvest and ritualizing it was going to solidify its arrival in my head.

Eric came home at 1pm on Friday, two hours earlier (construction hours start at 6am) than usual... sick.  He went straight to bed and stayed there until Sunday late morning, which means I had to do all of the work of getting ready for a huge ritual by myself as well as hold down the fort.  There is a LOT of work, believe me.  I grabbed my friend, Katie, at 1pm on Saturday to go buy the herbs and corn and such that we needed for the next day while Eric weakly watched the kids.  I finally ended up having everything ready to go around 2am  Sunday.  Went to bed and did some power sleeping until the kids got up at 7am.  Eric got up at 10am and I had to go set about the impossible task of locating a scythe, which I found for $70 at the antique shop (where it remained at that price).  Ended up making one at the last second.  Got David to babysit and Eric, Delena and I were off.  I forgot the cooler of ice, water bottles and soda, so we ended up in 100 degree direct sunlight for 4 1/2 hours.  About 3 hours in, Eric ran out for bad Diet Coke.  On so little sleep combined with lots of work and lots of heat, around the time the Diet Coke came in, I was in a chair almost unable to move.  We dragged home around at 5:30 and Eric took Dave back home.  The kids had been great for him, just as they were for me for the previous 2-3 weeks.  I went straight to bed.

Yesterday, I felt much better after a few gallons of water and some good rest.  I wrote my two commentary columns that I'd not been able to do the previous day, got the house whipped into shape (but not well enough, Eric eagerly informed me after he got home) and did some more lying around trying to gather my energy again.  My head was still fairly blank from the day before, plus Katie planted some seeds in my head about doing some other writing and I was mulling.  I wrote a novel about, Jeez, 1985, so 18 years ago (in my head, it was 10 years ago, so my how time flies) on maybe 5-6 different typewriters and then promptly shelved it.  There was something fundamentally wrong with it.. just... something wasn't working.  I was too sick of the story and the characters by that time to deal with it any more.  I found the huge pile of papers a few months ago and read through a bit, realizing it really was a very good story, just poorly written, needing a little more fleshing out and ... something not right about it.  Last week, I dreamed about the story and in my dream, my female protagonist was of a completely and totally different personality than I had written her.  It worked and I woke up knowing that I had my angle.  So I've been mulling that about as well before I dive in.  So much of my time is spent on my site work with Eye on Soaps that the idea of taking on a project that will involve even more computer time is a bit daunting, not to mention the idea of even more narrowed, stern looks from Eric.  (who is not the boss of me, I might add)

Today is much nicer.  Eric is still overall very angry that he's not enormously wealthy just yet.  He's 26 and fully expected it by now.  This means that his life sucks and he's a big ball of frustration and persecuted soul looking for a place to land.  That makes things tense a lot of the time and I have to do a good deal of deep breathing and grounding visualization to not get all bunged up about his big load of anger.  Today, he seems a bit better, but it's always hard to tell until he gets home and has flitted about to all of the anger outlets he can find (the house, the money, the kids, the car) to see if there's a place to light.   Then we can all either relax and have a nice evening or figure out what's going to get his fur going in the right direction again.  Such is life.  (Hey, all the time I never said he was all enlightened and stuff, but I'm working on him.  He usually does a pretty good job, but for some reason, lately he's got the antsies and just won't listen to my wise words.  He wants it NOW!  It's like I'm suddenly married to Veruca Salt or something).

Ah!  Funny Dylan story!  A couple of days ago, he was looking for his "Snuffy" dog, whatever the hell that was.  I didn't even know he had a Snuffy dog.  He said it was a little dog with pink pajamas.  (pink pajamas?)  He was getting very frustrated that I didn't know what he was talking about, so I asked him, "When was the last time you had your Snuffy dog?"  He stopped, looked very serious and said, "Look, Mom, I have a very small brain, OK?  I'm just a little child.  I don't know where I had my Snuffy dog last."  I had to eat off the inside of my face to keep from laughing out loud.  Finally, I figured out that he was talking about his SNOOPY dog that his great grandmother gave him 3 Valentine's Days ago.  It's about 5-6 inches sitting and has angel wings and gold band that held it to a small heart box of chocolates.  He used to put his arm through the gold bands to wear the Snoopy dog.  We found the Snoopy and he was a happy boy.

The weather has turned off to an extremely beautiful place since the sunblast of Sunday.  Yesterday and today felt about twenty degrees cooler and reminded me of how much I love Spring and Fall with their mellow weather.  I don't care for extremes either way (particularly cold) and detest snow, slush and ice as well as places where it never rains like the 12 years I spent in the desert.  I'm not eager to go back to that again.  Now it's just so pleasant it almost brings tears to my eyes.  More blessings.

I'm taking Delena out to get some school clothes tonight and we're both looking forward to it very much.  I feel like I'm vibrating with the good stuff that is coming and I feel so peaceful and happy.  I wish I could pass some of that around.  :)  Sure, the money is still really tight, but the car is running (one new radiator and $200 later) and Eric is safely ensconced in his old job, which he loves, the kids are being blessedly well behaved and a joy to be around and slowly, the bills are getting caught up again.  To me, it feels like life is really, really good. 

I'm very motivated to try out the new ideas that I harvested in, like writing the novel and a couple of other web page ideas I'm working on.  The wind chimes are tinkling outside and a nice breeze is blowing in the office window, carrying in the scent of the summer flowers outside.  Does it really need to get any better than this?

Clean house.

I'm on it.  No problem.  :)

Have a blessed week,
Katrina