From How High?

 I'm done trying to force this one. 

Compose in haste, repent in long hours of frustration and regret, 'cause you don't just gesso over or hit delete when it comes to hand stitching.

Again, the problem of scale when it comes to cloth and thread. Out of a need to just make something, I got sucked into the square inch dilemma, seeing only what was locked into the hoop. 

Outcome? A big mess that is about to become a very serviceable pillow. 

I've been doing the same thing with the writing. The big picture is not resolving by sketching elaborate  scenarios for the players. There's no end to that shit! I've always had diarrhea of the imagination. I'm having trouble finding the very necessary middle ground between being a plotter and a pantser. 

It's day eight of the kind of cold that pretty much leaves you alone once you get up and have some coffee. Then, come late afternoon, it blooms in your head like a noxious fungus leaking out of your eyes and nose. 

Sorry about that.

Peaceable kingdom

 Another day of recuperation. The sun streams into the studio until noon. Thought I would listen to some music and see how stitching would feel. 

Mighty Madam Salem beat me to the stitching chair. She normally gets up and goes when I ask. Not today.

Things quickly got worse.

Until finally...with gratitude to C. for hoisting Sweetie into the catbird seat and capturing an unprecedented moment. Did I mention they merely tolerate one another? No stitching today.

Thanksgiving 1956

 I can't imagine who was attached to the hand in the left forefront. My baby sister Patty was tied to the kitchen step stool. That hand was probably assigned to keep her on the seat. Pat had been recently bumper from the Little Darling spot by my baby brother Rob, the baby in my dad's arms, my mother right across from them. 

My aunt Vera next to Mom (was that a smile? Not likely.) Across from her, the portly Clark Gable, my Uncle Bob. The man beside me, Grampa, and across from me, my sister Kitty. We couldn't quite kick each other under the table but I'll bet we tried.

I remember these meals as occasions where we would have to choose the least noxious vegetable to make our plate look like a balanced meal. As this was likely my grandparent's house, we were in for trouble. Turnips, pearl onions, lima beans, cooked carrots! {shudder}

Of course, it was my Grandma Nelly, nabbing history with her beloved Brownie box camera. Again.

the slog

I really wanted to sit with cloth and thread today - any day this week - but there's been no time, and due to a very graceful, slo-mo fall I took last week, my right shoulder is complaining about lifting and holding anything, even a threaded needled,  for more than a few seconds at a time. Typing is doable. 

These days, a big chunk of a writer's time has to be given over to things that used to be handled by a publisher, if you were lucky enough to land one. On the front end, among many other things, editing ( I feel, yah, Dee). And on the back end, marketing. (I wonder just how many of those commas were in the right place?)

Before I forget, today is the last day you can get all three e-books of Prophets Tango for free. 

The 'Zon lets us run a sale like this once every 90 days and for those of you who don't know, writers still earn money based on the number of pages read. No king's ransom, but I'll take it. So we take this gamble if we think we've written a page-turner. I can't imagine reading a book that wasn't. 

Yes, I've rented my soul to the devil (Amazon) for a second ninety-day hitch. A commitment that keeps me from selling books elsewhere, but it's about the only way a self-published author can make any waves these days and there are a lot of friggin' fish in the sea. 

So this whole week, which I really only picked out of the blue, has been a study in timing. Between tending Charlie (who gifted me this lovely cold), prepping, and cooking for Thanksgiving, I've been haunting the

web, dropping links, sending emails, yadda yadda yadda. And lest we forget, the night job at the whine mine, no days off for the holiday. 

I am so ready to crawl into a hole on a beach and just wait for high tide. 

Christmas decorations? Shopping? Fuggedaboutit for now.

How do you like my solution for not being able to lift the bird in order to make gravy? 

Thanksgiving

The furnace murmurs on under the house. All three cats are on the bed, their ongoing war silenced. The house smells like Bell Seasoning and dark, greasy gravy with the promise of cold turkey sandwiches. 

My people near and far enjoying the blessings of comfort, 'enough', and safety.

Today a headache and sore throat keep me in bed with the cats. A fever reminds me that my body knows what to do.  What I used to tell the babies. "Close eyes. Sleep now."