A Year

It has been a busy year, thus the lack of postage. I have no idea if anyone even checks our blog anymore, but here is an update for any who do.

We are in our second and last year of school. The plan as it stands is to graduate in June. Jeff will find a job in a machine shop somewhere around Bellingham, or at least in the Northwest. I'll start up my own business, so it doesn't really matter where we are for my work.  I'll probably start up an etsy store to sell my art work, I may reopen my massage practice (after completing continuing education and getting my license back) and work freelance/contract writing jobs. If anyone needs a ghost writer, or technical writer, contact me in June!

In the small amount of time that we've lived in and explored Bellingham, we've come to really like it. Not only are the people wonderful, but we love the gorgeous mountains, farmland, parks, water, etc. Then there is all the art and music and theater, this place has a lot for a smaller city. Of course there is a part of me that loves change and desires a new landscape and town with new adventures, so perhaps we will move. But I don't know where to. :) I think no matter what we'll always come back to the Northwest wet and green climate that I love.

who am I fooling?

I have combined my writing blog with this blog, because--who am I fooling?--I wont keep up two blogs at the same time. I was trying to keep the very personal separate from the not so personal, but whatever. Yup, that is what I said in such a literary and concise matter: whatever.

Cheers.

some things I'm thankful for on my birthday

1. My husband. I have found the best partner to live life with as is possible. He is kind, generous, loving, and takes care of me in every way.
   
2. My mom. As much as she thinks I don't need her anymore now that I have Jeff, I still do and always will. She taught me how to think, to question everything to figure out what is right.
   
3. My daddy. Often we don't understand each other, get angry at each other, shake our heads at each other (that sounded primal), but I always know he loves me.
   
4. Friends. Although I have just two very close friends besides Jeff, I also have a plethora of people who love me from a distance and that makes them all my friends.
   
5. Intelligence. It doesn't make life any simpler but much more interesting.
6. Truth. That there is a right and wrong, and that it is discernible.
7. God. Although I don't understand completely what/who God is, I am very thankful that I have felt (and feel) something so much bigger than me.
   
8. Jesus. As Job said in hope of Jesus, "If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God's rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot."
9. Education. Ignorance can allow so many evils.
   
10. Books. For the ability they give me to escape pain.
11. Internet. It would be hard to keep in touch with people without email, blogs and facebook. Plus it cuts down on destroying trees as I don't need a book on every little piece of information I want to look up.
    
12. Skills. My ability to draw, work with clay, write, bake, create, sing, play piano, argue, play sports, be a good wife, knit.
13. Health, such as I have. The pain is most certainly wearisome, but I am able to do much still.
14. My dog. Perhaps a bit silly, but having a warm, soft puppy to cuddle with on occasion is some of the best medicine in the world.

Rules are meant to be broken

Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
~William Safire, "Great Rules of Writing"

On Control and Pain

by Teresa Halfacre

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

The relentless pain defines your life. You’re hedged in by all the things you can’t do. It prods you until you are teetering on the brink of insanity, grasping for anything to hold on to. You sort your life into pain and less pain. At times with great effort you can appear normal. Then you try to laugh, socialize, exercise; function beyond survival. On other days, pain overwhelms you and getting out of bed becomes impossible.

…

Pain is a motivator. It drives some people to drug abuse, or suicide. Others become irritable and lash out at whomever and whatever comes near. Still others trudge on, lives bent under the siege. Pain warps your body; it can no longer be trusted. Pain can change your young body into the stiff husk that only an old grandmother should know.

…

Ben and Jerry’s ice cream holds no appeal. It is strewn with cherries, peanut butter, and cookies, colors swirled together, strands of caramel and fudge. It is like wearing a silk shirt from the 1980’s in brilliant colors of bizarre proportions: not in style. You like things black and white, concrete. Vanilla. Chocolate. Dirt drives you to distraction, but the dog-eared pages of books falling apart from use, they are your friends. Old friends. Written in black ink on white pages, they are.

…

You have found one thing that counters pain’s sway over your sanity—control. Control over anything, anything at all, is vital. You search for things that aren’t left to chance, things that are simply reliable. You feel the need to reorganize your house periodically, clean it thoroughly, order it all. On days you feel especially out of control you pull all of the books off their shelves and alphabetize them. You clutch order to stave off the unpredictable.

…

Yet, one day you decide you are going to get out of bed, and make it too. You decide to do more than read the next escapist fantasy book or organize the closet. You find a part-time job and apply to school. Pain is pitiful, and you must do something to not be pitiful. You choose to live your life, because control is about choosing to live despite the circumstances.

thanksgiving on a boat

For Thanksgiving dinner, Dan, Dad, Jeff and I went on the Arogosy cruise of Elliot Bay in Seattle.

A pic I snapped on the walk to the pier.

The second course:

and we are still docked.

The best pic I could muster out of these men:

october weekends

At WWU

At BTC

In Fairhaven (Bellingham)

My pumpkin

An especially awesome bloom

and new rain boots!!