Home 2024 March

Month: March 2024

Planting the Rain, Among Other Things

Recently I signed my declaration of independence. Well, okay–I just posted in the family server that i was tired of doing any housework that got done, and I wasn’t going to worry about it anymore. My declaration didn’t result in a war! Everyone was very supportive. Especially the cat, whose counter-cruising is a lot more productive now that I’m no longer emptying the sink every night. >_> So anyway. Now I have more time to do what I want to do. Like blog a day late. (sorry! brain just wasn’t willing yesterday.) Lately what I want to do is poke at turning my front yard and my mostly concrete backyard into a wildlife habitat slash productive bit of dirt. At some point I may put in some raised beds and try vegetable gardening again, but that’s not what I’m working on right now. I’ve moved a little on it–clearing some junk out of the shed, pulling a weed here and there, buying and planting two more citrus trees… Yes, me! I planted two trees! By myself! So far they are still alive. It’s been more than a week. While I’m pretty good with houseplants, I’ve had less luck with outside plants. Of course, it is generally something of the six-or-so legged variety that takes out my poor outside plants. But anyway. Not much luck. So we’ll see. I bought a book. This author lives not far from me, and what he’s been able to do is just fantastic. Of course…

Continue reading

Forty-eight

Age is just a number. You’re as old as you feel. I’m going to be forty-eight years old on March 27th. Two years shy of fifty; two years before I am a half a century old. In all honesty, I’m not really sure how I feel about that. I don’t really feel almost a half century, although I do have my share of health challenges. But I do notice a difference from when I was twenty and now. I was recently waiting to speak to one of my doctors, one who is still doing telehealth, in fact — and it’s a video call. So while in the “waiting room,” I could see a small video window of myself. And wow. Boy, did I see a difference. I did see many years on my face. It helped that I had a picture of myself at nineteen (one of those Glamour ShotsTM, if you remember them from the 90s) right in front of me on my husband’s dresser. The differences were remarkable. I don’t have a lot of wrinkles, thanks to my family’s slow aging. But I could see a bit of a difference in my face and eyes. I looked, well, older. Of course, I’ve put on a bit of weight, too, as most of us do. (Also? Around that time I was actually underweight due to illness, if you can believe that one!) so my face and body are a bit more filled out. My hair is a bit thinner,…

Continue reading

Et tu, Muse?

Hello friends. Have you ever gotten near to the end of a project, and all of a sudden every other project is super interesting? Or, in the case of my current brain, all of a sudden, there are new ideas everywhere. I’ve written more new things into my idea file in the last week than probably the last six months combined. Why do we do this? (Or maybe it’s just me?) While I’m close to the end of my revision (we’re firmly in Act 3 now) I still probably have at least a month more, maybe two. And that’s only going to get longer if I get distracted by every shiny thing my brain finds for me. And, holy cow, my brain is actively searching for shiny things. They’re everywhere. And you know that if I gave in and actually switched to one of these new projects, my brain would also give up on that one, or try to redirect me to something else, or decide now is an excellent time for a fanfiction hyperfixation. (oh no, I’m giving myself ideas.) Is this normal? I know other writing friends have this happen, but arguably no writer is normal, so this is a terrible litmus. If you too get distracted in the home stretch or find that you’re actively sabotaging yourself, what do you do to counteract it? My current technique is to tell myself that as soon as I finish my revision I’ll dedicate a month to chaos, where we…

Continue reading

Not So SAD

It’s March, friends! Not only that, the first Tuesday of the month (my blogging day) went sailing by when I wasn’t looking…whoops. Somehow, somewhen, we’re already into the third month of the year and almost up to the time change (except for those lucky folks who live in places like Arizona…ahem). I’m generally surprised by how fast Time is going these days. It doesn’t help that Toronto has been experiencing our warmest winter on record, which also bodes poorly for the planet. But…I kind of hate our “normal” winters, all grey and slush and cutting, damp winds. Without those last two, the grey is much easier to bear. I tend to struggle with SAD at this time of year, between January and March. This year…I’ve been waiting for it, and for the most part, it just hasn’t turned up. Why? Well, the weather could be a major contributing factor, of course. Or the Vitamin D that I’ve been mostly remembering to take for a change. It could be the ongoing culinary experiments — I’ve been making a point of trying new recipes and ingredients. Most recently, I’ve done ratatouille, stir-fry with broccolini, butternut squash & white bean chili, and tonight, Spanish lima bean stew (I’m on a bean kick). It could even be the (shhh) writing — I spent February doing writing prompts, a few hundred words a day, and rereading one of my favourite writing craft books, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. (Bird by Bird by Anne…

Continue reading