Loveliest Christmas ever! First time we didn't have to cook the big dinner so we were able to enjoy a cold and sunny Christmas Day after a morning of gift giving and receiving.

Stella knows what the stockings mean!

Catnip mouse for Archie's first Christmas.

The perfect stocking stuffer.

Loving the mess.

First time we've ever been able to go for a bike ride on Dec. 25.

The mistletoe gets lots of use!

Now we head down to Atlanta for our second Christmas plus New Year's with my family.
Best Christmas ever!

Every time I hear Archie, our four-month-old kitten running up the Christmas palm tree, I am soooo glad we didn't set up a real one. Can you imagine how hard it would be to get him out of those branches?
Every time I hear Archie clamber up the palm tree -- all those bulbs clatter -- Stella comes to wherever we are, bedroom, living room, and we know she's "tattling" (she also does this when Abby jumps up on the counter and eats sausages or cookies or shrimp).I think she's afraid he's going to knock the whole palm tree over and it land on her where she's lying on the couch. Preservation of self, not of tree.
I picked seven ornaments off the floor this morning (good thing I bought a box of cheap plastic ones. I wonder if I'm going to be able to leave the tree up until Tuesday. But doesn't he look cute up there? Our furry little angel.

Dwayne keeps telling Abby and Archie that Santa is only visiting Stella and Fern this year.

Guess what I'm doing right now?
(Okay, well, what I'm supposed to be doing right now.)
I'm doing a quick edit of my manuscript because an agent wants to see it and I need to have it to her before Christmas. (She doesn't have any children and I suspect she is Jewish because she told me over the phone - more on that in a minute - that everything shuts down at Christmas time and she's going to get a lot of reading done.)
When I arrived home for lunch on Monday, an hour-long lunch, the phone was ringing as I dumped pea soup into a pot and when I saw the name and number...The agent I'd queried a month ago who'd responded to the query on the same day then later requested the book proposal. Here is the gist of why she phoned: she wanted to suss out whether I was a raw talent that was willing to work and understood the realities of publishing or if I was a raw talent that was inflexible and ignorant and just too much bother.
Thankfully, I am the former.
"You gave all the right answers," she told me just before she said she really wanted to read the manuscript.
(This is always where I do my Holy Crap! dance.)

Sooooo...instead of making my usual holiday goodies this week -- chocolate bark and shortbread cookies and taco mix -- I am editing my manuscript. Actually, it just means I'll be cramming all that stuff into two days on the weekend. Worth it, worth it, worth it. My husband doesn't each cookies anyway (yes, I know, what's wrong with him??) so I end up eating them all.
Sooooo...it's a good thing we're going away until January 2 because I won't be home obsessively checking my email. I can put all that aside and concentrate on having fun with my family.
But, c'mon, an agent called my house to talk to me!
Holy crap!

Interesting...

I'd say we had mice but with two cats, there's no way. Good thing I'm not picky about chocolates and not too proud to eat ones that have been sampled.
Since someone bought 4 boxes of chocolates (!!), I know there are three more of these to find.

Walking with the dogs, walking in snow, walking in a cold, biting wind is balm for the spirit.

See how the light always returns, how it drives back the heavy, dark clouds? Even if the biting wind continues to freeze and force us back, the light stays, strengthens, gives hope. One step at a time.

It was with profound relief that I listened to the minister close last evening's community Christmas musical by acknowledging the unimaginable tragedy that had occurred earlier in the day. It was a multi-denomination concert but it happened to be held in the United Church so it was that minister who was closing the evening in prayer for everyone in attendance.
"Perfect words," I was able to tell her afterwards but that's all I could speak. The unimaginable was also unspeakable.
Fellowship afterwards was, for me, a lovely time. A balm for my shocked spirit. I am a stranger in church but not in the community although to many, I am a name but not a face. Thankfully, enough people recognized me and said the kindest words about my writing.  How much they enjoy it; one woman even told me her favourite columns.
The minister's prayer, the conversations over tea are all connected to the tragedy in Connecticut -- the giving and receiving of kind words, of encouragement. They keep the light burning in the darkness that had swept in around us, closer than ever before.
How to go on when 26 lives have stopped?  How to go on at Christmas time when 26 lives will never be home for Christmas again?
(Who shoots children? That's been my burning question, likely never to be answered. Who shoots children? And if your illness, your challenges are so great that an act like that is what you will driven to, how badly funded/staffed/managed is the mental health system that it would allow you to reach that point?)
So it's all in the kindness to each other and to oneself. Every time this happens (and my prayer now is that this, THIS unspeakable tragedy that killed 20 children, finally will make it clear that absolutely no one needs to possess assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols), every time this happens, we have to love each other more and be kinder to each other. That is our only human defense against the darkness. The light that shines from us is the only thing that makes sense in these black days.
A time of waiting, indeed.

The Service of Remembrance and Hope was lovely, for the six of us who attended, three of whom welcomed me when I arrived. (People are recognizing me now as the columnist in the newspaper.)
It was held at the United Church in Port Howe, a very pretty country church that suits being decorated for the season. (I wonder if more than six attend on any given Sundays.)
I think people avoid these "blue Christmas" services because they are afraid of touching on painful memories, some kind of suffering they keep pushing aside, because this is not the time to deal with it. Yet this is the time that can make those feelings worse. It's a service of comfort, of hope. We need those especially at this time of year.
My husband needed this service but he is in so much physical pain, by evening he hasn't the energy to do anything. For him to face his emotional pain would be too much; the service would have broken him and that would have been difficult for him in a public place, however safe a church always feels. (Near the end, a woman began weeping. She found what she needed.)
I went for him. I put carnation petals in a bowl of salt water for him. I prayed for healing for him. But I also went for myself because I need to acknowledge that Christmas is full of pain for many people; while I don't consider any of my past suffering to be very big, my adult Christmas memories are a mix of sadness and joy. To have remained unchanged by my experiences would have been impossible but it doesn't make it easy to pretend that Christmas is the perfect time of year when nothing bad touches anyone.
A friend is facing her first Christmas without her mother. (At least) Two people in our area, with children still at home, are undergoing aggressive treatment for cancer, are trying to hold on until after Christmas. I can't ignore that information. When a service is offered that addressed my ambivalence about the season, an ambivalence that is very unpopular, I need to hear the words, sing the hymns, ask for healing for someone I love.
This reading concluded the service:
"We have gathered this evening to acknowledge the grief and sadness and loss that is part of our lives, even in the midst of the world's insistence on merry-making and cheer. Acknowledging our feelings in honesty and safety, we hold fast to the hop that is in the Gospel of Christ: the good news that came to us in the unlikely form of a small baby, born to us so long ago. In that good news we find hope and a space to breathe deeply. In that good news, we find a space to consider a time in the future when grief will ease and laughter will come easily. In anticipation of that time, please receive this tulip bulb. Take it home with you; plant it; water it; and nurture it. Find a wonderful place to plant your bulb as a reminder that your coming joy will grow."

I've lost track of the days. Cold, popped disc, husband's shoulder. Everything runs together as we wait for a call, for a healing, for an easing of the suffering (his far worse than mine but the suffering of others far worse than ours). Appropriate for Advent, this time of waiting.
I feel schizophrenic, too many voices in my head.
But that's because I am too many people: I am one kind of writer when on Facebook, another kind of writer when I do the blog, and a third kind, the real me, when I am here.  But not even totally real, not the real of my journal, that no one reads.
I have a million thoughts in my head and I have none.
Wrote this in my notebook last night: "I find myself returning spiritually to Christmas this year." That's all I could write because it's not exactly what I want to say. Wrote more in a longer piece but which one of me gets to publish that? Too long for Facebook? Too personal for work blog? But too important to let languish here for just our secret club of approved (non-stalking) readers.
I'm going to a church service tonight, the kind that are sometimes called "Blue Christmas" services but what this country church is calling a service of light and hope. Which is what I wrote a lot about in my notebook last night.

If you haven't done your Christmas cards yet, here's a bit of advice:
Don't do them while sitting on the couch.
Between not stretching for two weeks because of feeling like crap, coughing too hard, and being hunched over cards while sitting cross-legged on the couch while watching TV, I've managed to pop a disc in my middle back.
New injury!
After getting an appointment for a CAT scan in January to take a look at my lower back which is developing new twinges and at my right shoulder which I injured way back while looking after Dad, I thought, "There are problems with the top of my back and the bottom of my back but at least everything in the middle is alright."
Why, oh, why did I think that??
So when you receive your card from me, know that it was worth the pain and suffering I'm now experiencing!

What's wrong with this picture?!?

Mum left this morning for Georgia. 71 years old and driving for three days. What a wonder. Car filled up with gifts (Since when did ketchup chips count as a gift? Since they don't have them in the States!). She'd parked her car in "my" garage for easier packing and when she started it up this morning at 6:45 am, it wouldn't turn over.
"Rrrrrr."
"Rrrrrr."
"Rrrrr."
Really, that's not what I wanted to hear when my mother is about to drive for three days on interstate highways in another country. Normally, I don't worry about her but now I'm expecting to head to New England tomorrow on a rescue mission. Well, that is, after we check out the Pugwash Christmas Farmers' Market and Craft Fair.
I wonder how long it will take the cats and the dogs to realize Nana is gone...for longer than a week. And we're going to have to hire someone to drive Stella to Tim Horton's every day for a timbit.

Has any other man looked more gobsmacked by his wife? I suppose some might say Dwayne must look like this a lot. The expression, that is, not the lights.
This happened in the two hours today that I felt good. Had to get the lights done this weekend, had to get some shopping done this afternoon because I spent the last two days in the house in pajamas, mostly sleeping. All this activity brought the cold is back with a vengeance so it's early to bed tonight. Brutal: lost my voice and was awake all Friday night with a sinus headache so bad, it made me sick to my stomach.
So consider this therapeutic.

I have one of those colds that comes out of nowhere, the kind that wakes you in the middle of the night with a nasty sore throat and you think, "Where the hell did this come from?"
I was ON FIRE on Monday, working really well, being very creative. I came home and ran on the treadmill before supper - I really did! I was so pleased to be working out and not feeling any pain in any joints.
then 3 am Tuesday morning, BAM. So I've been fighting this cold since then but I did too much yesterday so now it is settled into my left sinus (by this afternoon, it will have switched to my right sinus) and my larnyx.
Yes, folks, I have no voice.
"Whooopeeee!" my husband said this morning when he found out.
He thought that was hysterically funny.
"It hasn't affected my ears," I told him.
Thankfully, I was able to send my book proposal to an agent who responded ON THE SAME DAY I SENT THE QUERY LETTER - pause for a moment in respect of that unusual occurrence - and said of my letter and Chapter One, "It's very good." She requested the proposal and has now said I can expect to hear from her in a month. Well, it's almost December so likely January which is fine because this coming month is so busy.
The big obstacle to getting an agent and finding a publisher is proving that my book is unique enough to compete with the other memoirs about taking care of a parent with dementia that are on the market. And there are a lot. A new one just came out that links a mother's dementia with her recipes. That's how narrow the uniqueness margin is. So no worries, no pressure. Just a teeny tiny wedge of the market for my book to squeeze into. No problem.
Wish me luck.

Now, I am going back to bed because, well, I feel like crap and the wind is blowing hard and it's a cold, bitter wind even though it's sunny and I have to get feeling well enough to put up the outdoor Christmas lights this afternoon because we always have the house lit up by the time my in-laws drive back from the Christmas parade in Oxford, which is tonight.
Whoopee!

*******
Have nixed the plan to hang lights. The wind is too cold, even for me. I still feel like a barrel of crap (upgraded from bag) so I took a cold pill and will do up my notes for my next In Conversation With... piece and write my New Year's column. Yes, it's time for that already. We do up our weekly paper early and I'll be away and I already know what I want to say, short and sweet, so I might as well do it while under the influence of drugs.

Damn.
The acupuncture didn't work.
For a few years, we've been passing a sign on Robie Street in Halifax that declares "I Stop Pain" and after Dwayne's surgery was cancelled, I found the phone number and made an appointment for him. That was yesterday.
I was so hopeful it would help with the pain; maybe not take it away entirely but give him some relief, make it seem possible for the pain to go away.
No such luck. No fault of the acupuncturist; the injury is simply too serious.
I don't know how he is living with the pain. It's in his face, how hard it is. He's trying so hard to avoid popping heavy-duty painkillers other than at bedtime but how much longer he can cope like that is anyone's guess.
On Sunday night, he showed me bruising by his right collarbone. He doesn't know what caused it; he doesn't remember doing anything on Sunday that hurt. I hugged him and started to cry. I'm scared for him. The pain is one thing but I know he's worried that it's getting worse and there won't be a fix for it. I know he's worried about losing the use of his right arm.

Archie, friendly, snuggly, cute-enough-to-eat Archie, is slowly breaking Fern down. Closer, closer...

This is Fern's "I'm quite capable of licking my own foot, thank you very much," face.
I just hope she doesn't eat him.

One year ago to this date (it was a Friday last year), we brought Abby home.
November 2011: 

November 2012:

Abby has brought a lot of joy to our world. A lot of bounce, too. She's a regular in our bed (attachment parenting gone wrong) and when Archie grows up, he'll have a very devoted friend in Abby. 

Why do my day-off-for-all-things-writing involve things other than writing, like giving my just-back-from-the-hunting-camp husband a buzz cut?
No matter, I have already checked two things off my To Do list, one of which will result in me receiving money, so all is good. Now I can get back to watching the kitten do cute kitten things. I think this might prove to my mother that no, Archie is not afraid of the dogs.

Kind of unrelated, here are Dwayne and Abby heading out on the bike. Abby is wearing Stella's coat which is why it looks so big. It's a Chilly Dog coat, out of Ottawa -- awesome! -- and we haven't got around to ordering one in "raspberry" for Abs.

Bad news.
Dwayne's shoulder surgery has been cancelled.
If the first date for surgery had gone as planned, he'd be recovering from it right now (it was November 17). Then it was bumped back a month and he was just hanging on through the pain until December 15.
That is the date that was cancelled.
But worse: not rescheduled.
So he's gone away for two nights to a friend's hunting camp. Not to hunt (and not to shoot himself!) but I think he just needs a break.This news was a blow.

I threw food at my mother last night.
Whatever universe wrath is going to befall me because I threw food at my mother is worth it because not only did she deserve it, it was hysterically funny.
I laughed and cried so hard, I thought I was having a heart attack.
How I came to flick a forkful of cabbage salad at her is a little difficult to explain, in part because it involves understanding how important my rituals are to me.
"By the way, you need cranberries," my mother told me during supper last night.
"No, I don't. I need Thompson raisins."
"Well, you're almost out of both," she insisted.
I eyeballed her because I know what I need and I was twigging that while I'm talking about one thing, she's talking about another  - and I don't think I'm going to like what she's talking about.
"Where did the cranberries in this salad come from?" I asked her.
"From the container in the cupboard above the stove."
"There are raisins in that container."
She looked down at the salad on her plate. "Oh."
"There aren't supposed to be raisins in this salad. And the cranberries for cooking are in the cupboard with the lazy susan. With all the other cooking and baking supplies. You used my breakfast blend."
Well, that set her off. She laughed at my breakfast blend.
This from the diet-controlled diabetic who wouldn't give a starving child any of her food because "it's counted."
As she continued to laugh and mock my breakfast blend, I looked down at the clump of cabbage salad on my fork.
"Don't you dare," my husband warned.
"Sara --- " my mother said.
I wished for the nerve to do it. Instead, I ranted about the mess these two had made of my new pantry shelves, how something that was barely organized to begin with was now in utter chaos because Mum and Dwayne just chuck stuff into the pantry without following my objective for each shelf. It's on my To Do list to take everything off the four shelves and organize it again. This time with large labels.
"Get over it," my mother said.
That's when I looked closely at the clump of cabbage salad on my fork. That's when I saw a raisin sitting there. There are not supposed to be raisins in our cabbage salad and they are not supposed to come from my breakfast blend. I closed my eyes and turned away. Then I flicked the fork. I knew my aim was good when my mother shrieked.
I have no idea how much landed on my mother's face or in her hair or on her shirt because I was laughing too hard to look. She was laughing, too, and my poor husband was sitting there in shock. Perhaps wondering if he was next. But by god it was a great shot.
"I was going to take you out to a nice restaurant before I leave," Mum squeaked out as she brushed bits of cabbage out of her hair.
"Um, Lynda, there's a piece still on your forehead," Dwayne said.
"I just washed my hair this morning," Mum said.
I can make this promise: I will never throw another forkful of food again. I could never repeat such a perfect shot as the one I threw last night at supper.
Worth it. Even when no one eats supper with me again.

In the dog-eat-cat world that is our home -- this refuge from that really nasty world out there -- it's all about survival.
Mainly, will the fern that my friend Jane gave me for our anniversary survive body-surfing by the kitten?

He stands on the arm of the chair nearby and leaps into the middle of the fern. This photo was taken a few days ago and let me tell you, it's looking a lot worse now. There's a huge, kitten-sized hole in the middle of it.
Since he mainly plays in the fern while I'm doing yoga in the morning, I haven't had a chance to take another pic. It's like doing yoga in a jungle now.
"I live in a zoo," my husband says. Ha. He should try Down-Dogging while Archie Fern Surfing.
I was lying down in final relaxation on Wednesday when he jumped off the chair, using my unbraced belly as the trampoline to the floor. Then yesterday, while lying straight out on my stomach to rest my back, he dove -- DOVE -- between my legs, ramming his head into my crotch then proceeded to reach his arm out me as if he expected to crawl underneath me.
It's turning into Laughter Yoga.

But see here, he's just so darn cute. He likes hanging out in Nana's room. Apparently, he enjoys listening to her classical music. Seems violin music is his favourite. It's time to introduce that boy to some down-home country tunes.Or I'll have to change his name to Niles.

Well, I wanted a snuggly little cat who would keep me company while I wrote and I guess I have that. I also have Abby wanting to play with him but not understanding how little Archie is. This are the conditions under which I wrote this week's column for the newspaper:

No wonder my back hurts. To make room for a cat on my lap, I'm about two feet from my keyboard!

Dwayne didn't say No so that meant Yes and since there are five females in this house, I thought poor Dwayne needed a little male energy. Therefore, we have a new addition to our household:

Meet Archibald Stewart Pick-two. Big name for a tiny kitten. We call him "Archie" - he's named for Dwayne's maternal grandfather.
Abby has taken a very intense interest in him, so much so that she hardly slept last night. Stella is cool - "It's a cat. No big deal. Now where's my treat?" - but Abby actually quivers when she is made to simply sit and watch him. She's tried to eat Archie a couple of times so I'm not sure how this is going to end. Hopefully, as he gains for confidence and some size, it will end with his claws sunk into her nose...and that will teach her to leave him alone.

Back in the summer of 2002, the first summer I was back "home", spending the first of many summers at the house on Pugwash Point, I walked outside one evening and looked up at the sky. Then I took a really good look at the sky.
At the time, I was reading a book that was a collection of writings by Madeleine L'Engle and the most recent selection I'd read was about disaster (from a book published in 1983). The roots of disaster are 'dis-' meaning away from, and '-aster', meaning star. A "dis-aster" means being separated from our stars, separated from what guides us, separated from God.
As I'd stood there looking up at that vast night sky, I'd thought, "This sky makes me believe in infinite possibilities." I'd just left my marriage, my life on the West Coast, moved across the country with no idea what I'd do next only to learn my father had Alzheimer's. in that moment, standing there in the backyard looking up into a sky I hadn't seen in the five years I'd been living in a big city (Vancouver), I felt like I'd left the dis-aster of my life behind and I needed to believe that infinite possibilities lay ahead of me.
(This moment was so sigificant, I wrote about it in my column for The United Church Observer.)
Which all leads me to this point, ten years later:
I just took Abby outside for a short walk up the lane in the dark. She was wearing her collar light bulb and I am amazed at how bright it is. Makes it easy to keep track of her in this country darkness, where there are no streetlights, and tonight, no full moon. When she was done her business, she tore back to the house, leaving me up the lane alone.
Alone except for the one hundred billion stars above my head.
I don't go out after dark and look up at the sky as much as I should but when I do, I always think, "Infinite possibilities," and right now, I need to believe in this again. Only this time, there is no dis-aster to find my way back from, no wrong turns or lost paths. This time, I'm already on the path, taking a big leap forward, fearlessly, faithfully, on that path. I believe I believe I believe.
As the saying goes...If you shoot for the moon, and miss...you still land amongst the stars.

******
Sunday:
Hahahahhhahahahhaahahhahhahahaaa!
Although I am not a fan of Twitter, I am a fan of writer Anne Lamott and I read her tweets online. She tweeted this yesterday and I AM TAKING THIS AS A SIGN (of what, I don't know, but damn it, it has to be a sign, IT HAS TO BE.)
"I wrote on FB today about missing God and my plain old life. Then 3 great phone calls, 2 Tootsie pops, 1 walk, 1 night sky: secret formula."
Now I must go to her FB page and tell her about infinite possibilities. I know she will love it.

It's bloody dark in the country without street lights so in anticipation of the change in time and the earlier arrival of night, we picked collar lights up for the two dogs. Not as necessary for Stella because she doesn't go very far from the house at night, providing we can actually get her off the couch and outside in the dark and cold.
"I'll hold it till the sun comes up," she tells us.
But Abby, ah, dear, dark, bouncy Abby. She needs a beacon to light her way to and from home.
You'd be amazed at how much light these little suckers put out. You don't want to see them coming at you in the dark if you're drunk. The lights AND these two dogs, actually!

Soooooo...
Momentous day. Using my sister's milestone birthday as, what, good luck charm?
Just, JUST, sent off my first query for the new and improved, refocused, energized, inspirational, transformational (is that a word?) memoir of mine -- the same one you've been hearing about for two years -- the one that is now known as "Safe At Home: A Daughter's Journey into the Heart & Soul of Alzheimer's".
If, IF this agent is interested, I will hear back from her in 30 to 60 days.
Because of this and because of the approaching holiday season, I'm only querying this agent at this time. I did tell her that. She's kind of numero uno. For the next 30 to 60 days. Then I move onto numero uno number two.
You know, I'm great when I'm planning on querying, when I'm tweaking the letter and going over the first 5, 10, 20 pages. That's when I'm feeling confident and hopeful and determined to make this happen. I actually believe it will happen.
Now that I've actually emailed the query to an agent -- just this one -- I feel like puking.

Holy crap. My sister has reached a milestone birthday.
You know, I like being in my forties. I have found it very liberating even if the "happy fat" is multiplying. But being in my forties means, I don't care!
My sister turning 40 today, however, is a different matter. It makes me feel old!

(Min is rockin' the short hair now -- but not quite the 1974 look! -- but I don't have a photo of that.)

I'd forgotten about writing this down in my notebook so let's go back a bit to the first meal of partridge we enjoyed with Mum.

As we sat down to our meal of potatoes, acorn squash, carrots and parsnips, and very delicious, very dry partridge, I said, "We should have Dad here."

When Dwayne and Mum looked at me, I said, "There's a photo of Dad as a young man and he's holding a live patridge in his hands."

Mum laughed. "He brought it into the house! I said, 'What are you doing?' What if it had gotten loose..."

So a thought hit me:

If my father hadn't moved to the city to become a funeral director and if he hadn't lived above his funeral homes, if he had lived in the country, had lots of land, a pond, a barn, I think he would have collected animals. As pets. 

"Call Reg," I said. "He'll take it."

Mum laughed again. 

This is a nice thought to have, an alternate life for my father, a different way of envisioning his love of animals. 

Really, this is no less plausible then not knowing he played baseball until after he was stricken with Alzheimer's disease.

This is the face we see peering in the window for a week or so after buying the two dogs new knucklebones. Abby delights in burying them -- both of them, much to Stella's consternation -- then digging them up, trotting around with one in her mouth searching for a new hiding spot.
Bizarre but it keeps her busy. We call it her "project". 

My husband is enjoying an opportunity to hunt partridge for supper. He heads out in the morning on the four-wheeler and takes Abby with him. He told me the other day that he'd shot a partridge at a distance but hadn't killed it instantly. When he approached on the bike, it couldn't fly but it was trying to get away and he couldn't catch it.
"I told Abby to get down off the bike and go around," he said. "She did and stood right in front of that partridge so I could grab it."
He's very impressed with our new dog. Such a different personality than Stella, less independent and dominant, very much interested in doing what we're doing and being with us, on our terms. I'm glad he has the company of a dog when he heads out. It's hard for him to shake the thoughts about how his children have treated him, how his daughter is using Facebook to attack him with lies, about how the people he's known all his life are gossiping about him based on what they hear and read. He's a sensitive and deep-feeling man and family is so important to him; to be betrayed by his own two children because of the machinations of the woman he was married to for 25 years is a great torment to him. Going back into the woods on his bike with a gun and his dog to bring home a lovely meal for us is a balm to his battered soul.

These field-dressed bodies weigh 3/4 of a pound each. Dwayne puts them in the crockpot with potatoes and carrots and a can of mushroom soup and voila! A tasty dinner from our woods.
(Tastes like chicken, not strong or different at all.)

Random thoughts in the middle of writing a story pitch to Reader's Digest...

It's so bloody warm for November 1. Went for a walk with the dogs without a sweater. Picked more clover for Rosie. I've been telling her since Thanksgiving that this would be here last feed of clover.
Our other rabbit, Daisy, is dying. I'm fine with nature taking its own course but I told Dwayne he could do whatever he's comfortable with; I'm glad to be married to a man who can't bring himself to shoot a pet rabbit, even if it's dying.

Facebook is addicting. Damn. Thank goodness I didn't go the personal account with Friends. I'd be driving everyone crazy. I like my professional page (as I call it) and the challenge of writing posts that relate to my career. Seems funny to use that word but I suppose I should consider my writing a career after all these years.

It's slow-going to reach the 25 "Likes" I need to get a username but instead of frantically emailing people and begging them to like me (!), I'm going to let that unfold in due course. Since we're going to intentionally bid Dwayne's terrible year good-bye and intentionally welcome a fresh, new year in together in Atlanta, I think I'll wait to begin querying agents in that fresh, new year.
Or, if I reach 25 by next week, I might just sneak one out next Wednesday on my sister's 40th birthday -- seems auspicious.

You know, I'd like to be 25 again. I'd like to know everything I know now at the age of 42 but be 25 again with all that wisdom and experience.

We received some unwelcome news yesterday.
Dwayne's shoulder surgery has been postponed another month.
He hurt his shoulder at the end of plow season last March and has been going through the process with WCB of getting it fixed. After months of physio which I think made it worse, he finally saw the surgeon in mid-August and at the beginning of October, heard his surgery would be November 17.
All good. Couldn't come soon enough, in fact. I went and booked our New Year's trip to Atlanta.
Yesterday, the WCB booking nurse at the surgeon's office phoned and said they had to rebook a bunch of surgeries and now, ho, ho, ho, Dwayne's operation is December 15. In New Glasgow.
Prior to that, he has to go to their lab in Halifax for blood work and at another date, to be fitted with an entire-arm splint that he will wear for ten weeks.
And we leave for Atlanta on December 27! Ho, ho, ho!
Granted, it's better than waiting 2 years for surgery like non-WCB patients do but when I see that his right shoulder is three inches lower than his left and he tells me that his right hand keeps going numb, having the surgery postponed another month is hard.
My husband, however deflated he was by that bad news, did have the grace to admit after watching the day-after news reports about Sandy's devastation: "I suppose postponed shoulder surgery isn't quite as terrible, is it?"
I'm not going to tell him, either, that this could be my "Be careful what you wish for" vibe coming true: as the years go by, I kvetch more and more about Christmas and how commercial and overdone and expensive it is. Well, I guess I'm getting my very simple Christmas this year.
As long as he can kiss me on New Year's Eve and lift a glass of champagne with his left arm, I'm fine with a twig tree and a ceramic Santa from the hospital gift shop in my stocking.

For once, and only once, am I very grateful that the family we have in the States doesn't live north of Washington!
For as many times as I've begged my sister to move her family a few states north so they can be less than a three-days' drive away, I'm glad she never listens to me. Especially since my mother is visiting in Georgia right now!

What I'm also grateful for are the wonderful friends and relatives who bless me with their love and support. Put out a call for help and they respond. The acknowledgements in just expanded like, well, like Hurricane Sandy travelling over warm water.

So I've created a FB "fan" page - a public page to promote myself as a writer and show prospective agents that I'm creating a platform from which to launch my book.  Since I can link my work blog through the FB profile, I decided against a website.
I've managed to put up a few photos and posts but I'll be damned if I can figure out anything else beyond the profile!
There are two essential parts to this promote-myself project: 1) Content. That I have no problem providing, and 2) Likes. This page needs as many likes as it can get
To build an audience, I can import emails from my personal account but should I? Do you want to be contacted like that? Since I don't have an existing personal FB page, I can't use my existing FB contacts.
The weird thing is that I can't find a Search option. I feel like I'm stuck with my Admin page with no way of getting beyond it. Frustrates me to not be able to figure this out. I know what the login for a personal account looks like and how to search for friends that way but it doesn't seem possible from a fan page. I want to feature the FB pages of some of my fave writers but I don't know how to find them.
And I don't know how to tell you how to find me! If you can search for me, use my first and both my last names; since I write under both, I'm FBing as both.
I'm keen to use this FB page as a writer but at the moment, I seem limited to posting -- and no one reading.

The signs are piling up.
I've learned that even when I feel at my lowest, my clumsiest, my doubtiest, the trick is just to wait. It's like the weather in the Maritimes: Wait ten minutes and it will change. Rain then sun. Sun then rain. (A gross under-generalization. More like wait ten days whoch is more realistic about how life unfolds.)
So, the first sign this week: the arrival of the cardinal. Although it's not the male, it suggeststhat he is not far behind. Cardinals are a symbol of power and pride, both in a positive sense (confidence, not ego; belief in self, not arrogance). They are a symbol of hope and brilliance.
The second sign reminds me of the greater value of doong work that I maynot want to do but have to right now. While cleaning one of my houses on Thursday, the structure of the novel I'm thinking about writing, a novel inspired by the events of the past summer (as Mum keeps saying, "Don't they remember that you're a writer?"), burbled up from those murky depths of my creative mind and made itself known. It's a sign because that new idea - from a few notes I made in my notebook - means my memoir is done. It's ready.
(Yes, but am I? Brilliance! Confidence!)
Finally, the third sign: When I logged onto my blog this afternoon, the first thing I saw was a
post by an agent that I follow: "I love reading memoirs," she wrote. She started agenting for the Christian book market but has been representing mainstream writers for awhile. Perhaps this lover of memoir will be interested in one about the spirituality of Alzheimers.

I certainly know how to piss away an afternoon but I really have to be on deadline to make good use of Wednesday afternoon. After two and a half intense days at the paper -- it's non-stop work unlike at home where I take a two dozen tea breaks, a dozen bathroom breaks and walk the dogs six times a day -- so by Wednesday at noon, I need a break from sitting at a computer.
Since it was a sunny afternoon with a cold wind blowing, we went for a drive. Once in the car, once on the bike. The first two pictures are blueberry fields just outside of town; the light on them caught my eye on the way home from work so we went back to take some pictures.
The rest of the photos are from our bike ride through the woods to the duck pond and home again.

A doe and her fawn at the far left and right sides of the photo.

A Ducks Unlimited pond so close to home!

That sky looked like snow.

Here's some really big news: a female cardinal landed this afternoon on the bird feeding station that is Mum's balcony!
"I knew they'd come eventually," Dwayne said. "I knew it."
Traditionally, cardinals aren't found in Nova Scotia but in recent years, as the winters become milder, there have been spottings on the island and in the valley. Now in Riverview!
She's a little skittish so I had to sneak up to get these photos.
Mum promptly made a few phone calls to find out who sells safflower seeds around here -- the cardinals' preferred food -- and off she and Stella went to Truro. She is very dedicated to feeding the birds.
"I knew they'd come," Dwayne said again.

Just because they are easier to photograph, here are some of Mum's blue jays:

I like reading the obituaries. Some people's lives are very interesting. Most are long-lived, others are not.
A nine-year-old girl was in today's obits in the provincial paper. She died of a brain tumour. But that's not the only thing that defined her. She was in Grade 4 French Immersion and she was a Girl Guide. She liked to make sculptures out of clay and she liked to draw.
I like reading the obituaries because sometimes they remind me of how fortunate we are.

SEEKING INPUT and OPINION:

I have to create a greater online presence, I think, in order to build what agents and editors want an author to have: that is platform. Platform is the network, connections and contacts that a writer brings to a book deal. No matter how great your non-fiction book is, apparently your platform is more important.
I have connections and contacts across Canada but they don't amount to a great big bunch of "followers" (does anyone else flinch at the idea of being a "follower"???); I don't have a network and definitely not online. Writing columns for my weekly newspaper is fine but it isn't reaching many people. Leading classes, hosting workshops, and giving presentations is very limited to me because of where I live, because of saturation (small province with a lot of writers trying to grow their own platform), and because I'm busy writing and submitting articles. So I'm having to read and consider ideas for building my platform instead of sending out my query letter and book proposal.
I'm in serious need of a direction sign right now.


So my question is, if I were to develop an online location for myself as a writer, would it be better to do it through Facebook or through a website? Where would you rather go? Where would it be easier to find me these days? Please provide your insight and opinions through comments.

GREATLY APPRECIATED.

Sometimes I run out of the house in the morning shouting, "The sky is pink, the sky is pink."
Because it is. Because you want to catch the beauty before it fades or dulls to grey as the rain arrives.
And yes, we have two osprey poles now. 

 

It's a gorgeous day today, my half-day of work, so I should be taking advantage of the lovely weather to let the chickens roam the yard and to start cleaning up the gardens but instead, I'm being "kidnapped" (in quotes because I ain't a kid anymore) for a drive to Moncton.
Apparently, mention the phrase "Fisherman's Paradise" and Dwayne's in. So supper is settled.
Then Mum pipes up: "Chapters."
And I say: "Michaels."
"Chapters. Michaels. Fisherman's Paradise. Where else do we need to go?" Dwayne says and I can tell by the look on his face that it's not a rhetorical question. He looks too excited for a trip to Moncton with his wife and mother-in-law.
"You want to go to Better Buy Sports, don't you?"
The grin told me I was right.

This is all otherwise known as Procrastination. My query letter is written, the book proposal is done, I'm even thinking of a brilliant writing website I could start -- and since I don't think along those lines, it's freaking me out how excited I am by the idea -- and Mum has okayed my opening pages so the time has come to start querying agents.
Ick.
I can't bring myself to start because this feels like IT. Now or never. Do or die. Shit or get off the pot. If I can't get an agent's interest who will get me a publisher, I'm going to have to go to Plan B.
And I don't have a Plan B.
Well, perhaps I do. Plan B is going to Moncton.

This may be why it's not a good idea for us to live together. Too much togetherness, methinks. Thank goodness Dwayne is out in the garage refurbishing his 1955 tractor.
I'm in the bathtub when Mum hollers.
"You'll have to come in. The radio's on. But the curtain is closed."
So in she trots to the bedroom (which is on the main floor with our bathroom ensuite) with a phone message for me. We chat about that for awhile, me in the tub, Mum in my bedroom, then she hears a buzzing coming from under the lampshade in the bedroom.
"You have a fly," she says.
"You have two flies," she adds.
My mother is obsessed by flies. Particularly with killing them.
"I'll give you two toonies if you kill them," I say. That's the price of one way through the toll booth on the Cobequid Pass and I know she's going to Truro tomorrow.
But she doesn't need the incentive.
"Don't look behind the furniture," she says.
"Don't YOU look behind the furniture," I answer. "But I need to see the corpses for proof."
"Oh, I have two bodies," Mum says. "I've just killed another fly for free."

When this kind of stuff happens, I think, "Why not get another dog? We should have three dogs. Maybe even four!" Then they get off the couch with a big, long stretch and I hear their toenails scraping against the oak floor, which was laid last summer but now looks like we've had it ten years, and I know that two dogs, four ears, and eight legs are enough.

 

Fern doesn't count as a dog -- and don't let her hear me even think that she might -- but she certainly fits in when it's time for supper:

 

I found a photo of my sister and me in our Holly Hobby dresses!

Original post linked here. 

And now I remember the details: December 1976, Christmas party at Barnum House near Grafton. This photo was taken in the living room of the apartment above our funeral home in Cobourg. We were 4 and 6 years old. And totally rockin' the shawls. 

Tweeting is not writing. It does seem like a conversation, however; one-sided, of course, but conversational.
This from Anne Lamott's Twitter feed:

"Here is how I'll write: not beatifically, not with great self-esteem, not with any real sense of what I'm doing. But I'll do it because I get to."

I love writing. Writing is the only thing that takes my mind off all the other shit (like people obsessing about us instead of seeking psychiatric treatment for their own inability to be happy) and when I write, I feel free.
It's like swimming. I don't bump into walls and coffee tables and buildings when I swim. In the water, I am graceful and fluid and strong.I don't sink like a stone because I suck at small talk, I don't drown because I'm socially awkward. When I write, I am a fish in water. Where I belong.

Life continues to trot along quietly and uneventfully. It's raining today which always makes me more productive. Not making it easy to start cleaning up the garden before winter. If it stays wet, I won't get any bulbs planted. What would spring be without daffodils?
I'm working on my book - editing the proposal and trying to believe that those first five chapters are as good as they get and good enough to get an agent - but it's come to the time to start querying agents again. Nerves! For the first time I'm going to focus on Canadian agents initially and see if I get lucky.
Good quote about luck (but I don't remember who spoke it - it's in a notebook somewhere): Luck is where persistence meets opportunity. Well, I feel I have the persistence part covered.
Once I get the querying started, I hope to have time for pitching stories to magazines. That list of ideas is getting longer every week.
Remember, I wished for this: to be writing full-time. Now I'm just trying to make it more specifically about books!

Because Mum and I were in Toronto for my Uncle Harry and Aunt Pat's 50th wedding anniversary celebration (just a 24 hour trip but SO glad we went), Dwayne was in charge of preparing Thanksgiving dinner. We arrived home in time to do the dressing and the gravy.
Plus the most essential part: the centrepiece! This is my favourite part of Thanksgiving: sure, we serve our own carrots and a locally-raised turkey but I love that the centrepiece is homegrown and homemade, too.

The Wannamakers didn't come from Ontario this year, after showing up two years in a row, so we had a small crowd at the table with Dwayne's parents and brother and sister-in-law. As always, it was my job to the say grace but I hadn't had time to plan out what I wanted to say. I knew when I got onto "the bounty of the county" that I was in danger of losing control of the blessing! It was a bounty, though; even the cranberry sauce was made with fresh (never frozen), Cumberland county cranberries. The sauce was lighter in colour but sweeter, too.

Even the dogs get a Thanksgiving dinner! Abby's first.

We do our chickens and turkeys in an electric roaster now -- 3 hours to cook while freeing up the oven for dressing, and warm/hold -- so the dogs look forward to helping Papa clean up.

After all the hard work of cleaning the house and cooking the food and carving the turkey and eating a big meal and cleaning up, it's time for a well-deserved rest.

What? You were expecting a picture of Dwayne asleep in his recliner??