Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

I haven't blogged in weeks.  Maybe you noticed.  Maybe you didn't.  Maybe you never even knew I had a blog.  Maybe you never cared to know the random things that pass through my brain.  If you didn't care, then I guess you wouldn't be here reading this now, so nevermind that bit.

At any rate, I've not had a lot to say.  A lot happened in April, but the words kept to themselves, mostly.

I lost a sweet horse, Mariah, to a heart-breaking decision I didn't want to have to make.  Her weight was good through the winter, but her joints just seemed to give way.  We spent the afternoon before the vet's visit brushing her and stuffing her full of the treats she loved so much...  After I had to chase her back to my property when she turned tail and ran through the neighbor's hay field.  That burst of spunk caused me to second-guess myself up until the moment she walked away from the barn for good.  Really, there wasn't anything to second-guess.  Even with her halting gait, she nearly bowled me over to go through the gate for the last time, never to return.  My step-dad says I'm reading too much into it--she was just a horse, after all--but I think she knew her time had come.  She was ready to be whole again in some other place.

Two days after we said good-bye to Mariah I began what I assumed would be the long process of horse-hunting and test-rides.  That day we looked at two ponies and bought the second one, a grey draft pony named Ellie.  She reminds me a lot of the pony I had when I was a kid, another horse I loved and lost.  Thank goodness I can think of that pony and smile.  The wounds are still a bit too fresh from losing my Moe and Mariah nine months from each other.  Back to Ellie, though--she is talented and quick, so I've been working at slowing her down and getting her back in shape for the kids to ride.  I've been riding a lot, for me, at over two hours a day in the saddle.  I'm one tired muchacha, most days.

My step-dad decided the tack room in our barn was in need of a major overhaul, so they began that project around the time they purchased the grey pony.  Now instead of dust, cobwebs, and mouse droppings, we have wood paneling, fluorescent lighting, and linoleum.  There are cross-ties for three horses instead of only one.  It's super-fancy.  You know, I've been riding for the past 30+ years in squalor so I don't know how to behave in nice places.  I might have to let the mice and birds into the tack room to relieve themselves, for old time's sake.

Yesterday my sister also bought a horse, a bay Tennessee Walker gelding.  His name WAS Henry, but he has been renamed "Romeo".  Despite my mare's (Trinity) best attempts to scare the bejeebies out of him with her crazy front legs and ear-splitting squeal, he is not very concerned with the goings-on of our barn.

The reintroduction of my family to the barn has been difficult.  For decades it has been my safe haven, the place I go to escape everything.  One by one, the horses are being replaced.  Board by board, [beautiful] improvements erase the little bits that remain of my memories of horses past.  The air is laced with the conversations of others instead of the whisper of the breeze.  It is all changing.  The changes are not all unpleasant, but, to me, they are all related--directly or indirectly--to losing a loved one.  I'm still grieving.  Not with the intensity I did when I lost Moe, but it's still there.  I'm crying for all of them.  There's little emotional leeway for much else.

Things have been happening in my non-horsey life, too.  A while ago I entered a contest attempting to attract the interest of a literary agent.  My submission didn't make it past the slushpile readers whose job it was to wade through all of the entries for the agents.  At the conclusion of the contest we were given a second chance to submit a Twitter pitch so the agents could see what they'd missed.  My Twitter pitch received requests from one agent and a brand new publishing company.  The agent ended up passing once she read my query and first several pages, but the publishing company requested my full manuscript two weeks ago.  Last night as Mr. Ohboy and I walked back from feeding the horses, I checked my e-mail and found a message from the publisher saying they were interested in signing me.

This afternoon I talked with the woman who runs the company, firing off questions and concerns and sharing our mutual disdain for "50 Shades of Grey" for over an hour.  The premise of the company is promising:  Treating writers with respect, fostering community amongst the authors in this house, allowing authors as much control as possible, and a lot of other things that made me feel comfortable about possibly letting this company help me bring my stories to the world.  The biggest problem?  They are so new their first round of acquisitions isn't set to publish for another month or so.  They are a total unknown.  On one hand, it's flattering to be considered for this fledgling company, getting in on the ground floor, so to speak.  On the other hand, I worry that once things get moving they will discover that their nice ideals and flexibility aren't making them money and all of those "pros" will disappear.  What if they don't survive?  What if they take my reputation with them?  I'm not sure if any of that makes any sense, but I've been processing it all day long.

The next step is to lay my eyeballs on their contract and figure out if it makes any sense to me.  It won't.  It's completely written in legal-ese.  I barely speak redneck-tinged English.

And then I think of this publisher, someone who doesn't know me from anyone, who personally read my manuscript and saw something of value in it, and in me.  Enough that she'd be willing to take a chance by bringing me in to be part of the building effort for her company.  It's scary and humbling, all at the same time.

I've not signed anything or given a commitment of any kind because all I've had is a nice phone conversation with a stranger.  Maybe I will wake up tomorrow and this will all be a weird dream, but tonight I will smile remembering her compliments.  I don't get enough of those, do you?

Also on the writing front--In April, I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo.  My hopes had been to add 30k words to a project I've been working on, a Young Adult thriller tentatively named "In the Middle".  With everything else going on, I managed about 10k.  This big "miss" did give me time to think about the plot a little, so look for more happening with that story in the near future.

What else?  Oh, I have a new nephew!  He's adorable and I need to visit him.  Other than that, I haven't had time for much else.  What about you?  Anything big happening where you are?

Plan B

Hours ago I watched a baby slide into this bright world to the shelter of loving arms.  A family's joy and wonder was renewed with the cry of life.  For me, it was an evening of learning more about new friends, laughing together until baby was near and undeniable.  Walking from the hospital with a grin--a nice reminder of how rewarding and powerful it can be as a birth worker.

At the same time, I know my days as a doula are numbered....  Or, at least, my days as a semi-busy doula are.  The on-call lifestyle is difficult on families, bodies, and just about everything else.  This week it is more apparent to me after a night spent away from home and the subsequent day lounging around the house required to recharge my energy.  

I admitted it on the phone to one of my sisters this morning.  My sister, in all seriousness, replied, "You need to write."

Where has she been hiding for the past year-and-a-half?  Or, maybe, where have I been hiding for the past year-and-a-half?

In her defense, she does not waste much time on the Internet, so she has missed my million-and-one Facebook statuses/blog posts about my books.  I'm sure she believed she was shedding light on something I'd been passing over all this time.  At the very least, it made me laugh to myself several times throughout my morning.

Really?  You think I should write?  Eureka!

Make-up writing was my only weekend plan (besides make-up sleeping), but a simple text message looks like it may throw a wrench in those plans.  Books never text with emergencies, and books can be written accompanied by a nice meal....  But books, as wonderful as they are, don't hug you at the end of the day with appreciation for the minuscule role you play in their life.

Balance

My apologies for the silence.  There hasn't be a lot to say lately.  Or, more correctly, there just hasn't been a lot of energy with which to say the things I'd like to.  It throws me into a spin when I go days without any forward progress on my novel or even taking a few moments to write here.

Several weeks ago I was hired by a family to help with overnight care of newborn triplets.

Yep, it's as hard as it sounds.

And it's not because the babies are difficult.  They are great, really, other than a little reluctant to burp now and then.  But it's that whole quantity vs. quality thing....  The other morning (3 a.m., really) I was scrambling to finish the 2 a.m. feeding so I could go home and finally close my eyelids for the kind of sleep one cannot get when subconsciously remaining alert to the stirrings and chirps of three little ones.  Baby A finished eating but had yet to burp a second time despite ten minutes of patting and repositioning.  I know he needed to burp because he curled his legs up and squinched his face together, throwing in a whimper every so often.  Baby B had begun eating, and before I could finish with him, Baby C was squirming.  Between those three babies at one feeding, I ended up changing at least seven diapers.  Because the babies were small and spindly, they are in multiple layers of clothing to help keep their temperature regulated, meaning there typically is a couple minutes of snapping, zipping, and coercing limbs into layers of fabric.  Somewhere between trying to feed two at once, coordinating burping, and waste management, I traveled from freezing to dripping with sweat...  That was just one feeding, one of the hardest I've had so far.  Thankfully, they usually run a bit more smoothly as long as they're not  having a competition for who can poop the most in teeny increments.

All of that to say I've been more sleep-deprived this past week than I have in a while.  Even when a feeding goes smoothly, I often only have an hour, maybe a skoch more, to catch a nap before it's time to warm bottles and start it all over again.  So, I've been surviving on an hour of sleep here, an hour of sleep there....  You know, like the parent of a newborn (or three) would.  It has not been good for my creativity, really, because every time I find myself in a quiet spot with no babies to care for or alarms to answer to, I konk out.

In terms of my writing, I was supposed to have 50,000 words by the end of December and what I have is more like 31,000.  I'm getting a trickle here and a trickle there.  Times when I could write--my brain is mostly awake--the nagging thought in the back of my mind is that I should sleep because I'm going to be really sad about skipping that nap when I'm on the other side of 2 a.m.

I don't know whether to relax on my goal because it's not worth killing myself over while I'm doing this doula job, or what.  It seems like there will always be an obstacle in my way to either hurdle or hinder.  What is the right thing to do?

There is no question in my heart what I want to do with my life, and it's taken me a very long time to come to the conclusion that it's possible.  Finding the balance between my dream and my day (or overnight) job is the trick.

Balance sometimes seems like a mythical creature.

Higher

Yesterday, as I was on my way to dinner with my nephew and another of his cousins, we were catching up on life.  It's been a while since I've seen my nephew, and I very rarely see this other kid.  The one guy was telling me he was hoping to get into community college for forensic science.  When I asked him what campus, he named one I attended back in the day.

"Oh, yeah.  I went there."  I said.  "But that was back when I still wanted to be something.  So glad I got that out of my system!"

We laughed, but I've been thinking about it this morning.  The little ping of something when asked to indicate your highest level of education (especially when there is no option for "some college".  Oh, the humanity!).  The shame that accompanies being "just" a stay-at-home mom or a grocery bagger or what-have-you.  The expectation that higher learning somehow shapes you into more of a person.

My thought has always been that college degrees give you a few things us little people don't have:  A bigger vocabulary (bonus points if you know lots of words that deal with social injustice), and a debt to society.  Okay, so not really society.... But probably Sallie Mae.  That kind of burden means you've got to be really good at what you went to school for--or, at least, pretend--because it'll take your entire life to work that baby off.

What if you could be more of a person without a diploma being the end goal?  Because what happens when you get that diploma and there's nothing else to reach for?  Does life suddenly lose its meaning because you've "made it"?

The world needs people to love what they do--ditch diggers to rocket scientists.  People should pinpoint their passions and pursue them, absolutely!  But, also, we need to pursue living, even on the most hectic of days, to grasp at the threads of magic hidden in the drudgery of the day-to-day.  The day-to-day stuff is valuable, too.

Release

It was time.  

And, no, the photo above is not really from the Ohboy home.  Google "hoarders" and take your pick....  I guess people will put ANYTHING on the Interweb.  Gasp!  I know!  I was shocked, too, when I found out.

I couldn't honestly tell you the last time I'd reached all of the nooks and crannies of my kitchen counter.  We had run out of space to make lunches and prepare meals because there was a teensy little glitch in the feng shui of my Leaning Towers of Paper.

In the living room, I moved the Christmas tree (yes, the Christmas tree.  In my defense, it's small and white, but, obviously not a Halloween tree) and thought I'd spotted Bigfoot, there was so much pet hair under there.  The not-so-fine layer of dust coating everything made me feel all nostalgic like we were still passing through the deserts of Nevada and Arizona--if the deserts were wall-to-wall with bins of Legos and Angry Birds.  

Okay, so I'm being a skoch dramatic.  

Over the past couple of years, we've decided that Mr. Ohboy probably has some form of Asperger's.  He's a fixer of things, but not at all neat.  I think he used to be neat.  He also used to be a tree-hugging Democrat, but then he married me and I flip-turned all of that upside down.  Must've been my cheery disposition, huh?  Anyhow, he's messy.  And, lucky me, I have a few more boys up in this hizzy who are varying shades of the same incredibly sharp and yet very fragmented mind.  Whether I nag for something to be tidied or he takes the initiative himself (which only happens in the garage), the results are always puzzling....  Usually a twisty-turny path lined with piles of things, leading to an eventual bottleneck.  Straight lines and angles?  No way!  Navigation through even the most mundane room should be an adventure, and even a little bit dangerous!  Where is the excitement in placing things against walls or--gasp!--throwing it away?  Nowhere, that's where.

If you've ever seen one of those t.v. shows dedicated to hoarding, you'd understand that my family was just one major life event away from never washing another dish or throwing away a food wrapper.  Again, I'm being dramatic, but, at the same time, I'm sure that lots of those people on those shows probably didn't see it coming, then BAM!  They wake up six feet deep in used adult diapers and fossilized cats.

Last Saturday four of the six of us came down with some stomach thing, so we decided, come Sunday, to hang out at home close to facilities and far from other persons who probably didn't want what we had.  That's when we (I) began Operation Declutter.  Spurred on by some organization my mom had done in the boys rooms while we were on our trip, we began by dusting our room.  To dust our room, we had to fold roughly 15 loads of laundry that had been dumped in the corner, file papers, throw away boxes.... you get the idea.  From there we moved to bathrooms, crusty floors, my walk-in closet nightmare, the living room toy explosion, and, finally, the kitchen (a.k.a. filing cabinet with a stove).

Five days, I've been at this nearly from morning till night, taking the odd break to sit down, go to a prenatal appointment, or ride a horse.  I estimate I clothed a plus-sized army with all of the clothes I lugged (literally) from the house--a mini-van full.  In one load of garbage/recycling, the weight of all of those broken, boring toys lifted from my shoulders.  I love the way my house looks, and the ease at which it takes to clean things now that I don't have to shift so much junk to unearth the surface below.

I've not completed my mission.  I still have three toy boxes to sort through, and a few baskets of boy clothes to move into bins, which will be exiled forevermore in the plastic bin catacombs.  The catacombs are next; and, while my soul is itching to tackle (and annihilate) the Rubbermaid abyss, I know I am tired and anxious to make some forward progress on the novel.  The clutter was a snare to my creativity, the words finding themselves buried in unimportant things.  

Releasing means receiving peace.  I'll take all the peace I can get.

Rollercoaster Days

I rode my horse this afternoon while waiting for Ohboys 2 and 3 to be dropped off by the school bus.  The bus driver won't let them off the bus unless she sees someone from our family, so I've taken to riding while I wait.  What other kid gets picked up from the bus via horse?

My horse has been amazing lately.  Today, for the first time in years she decided that she was okay with riding close to the border between the yard and the road, a mass of dark overgrowth chock full of boogey monsters and unspeakable terror.  I've taken to putting pom-poms in her ears to block the noise, which seems to help her from jumping out of her skin but doesn't get us any closer to the bushes.  It's also really helpful if the older gentleman across the street (hidden behind these trees and bushes) isn't out weed-whipping or dragging things around his driveway.  I swear that man has spidey-senses and can tell as soon as I put my foot in the stirrup.  The street could have been completely quiet when I go to the barn, and as soon as I go out to ride, he pops up like a really loud mosquito you're not allowed to swat.  He's a nice man, but I know I've cussed him out in my brain more times than I can count.  Today I won some kind of "perfect conditions" lotto--all things were in my favor.  She did what I asked, even throwing in an automatic lead change as a bonus, until we both ran out of steam.

When I ride, littlest Ohboy sits in the yard with one of his beloved Angry Birds and the iPad, content to watch.  Or at least he's being patient enough to wait without complaining. That little guy is better to me than I deserve.  I always ask him if he wants to ride.  Usually he says no, today he said yes.  While we waited for the bus, I walked my mare around with little guy holding onto the front of my saddle.  He was happy; she was ready to be done with all of us and eat some grass.

As soon as the bus dropped off 2 and 3, they came squealing into the yard.  Ohboy 3 was mad because I would not drive him to the house (because I was still putting my horse stuff away), and he was not interested in walking to the house.  He was jumping and throwing fits, slamming his backpack into things.  I demanded (by counting to three) he ride the horse--poor horse--for four loops around the yard.  It settled him down enough so that by the time we finish he was no longer screaming, but humming to himself instead.  His feet touched the ground and he was okay for a few minutes until he realized that Ohboy 4 had the iPad and he wouldn't get a turn.  At the end of the yard, next to the path that runs up to our private road, I saw Ohboy 3 and 4 in a pathetic competition of who could throw themselves onto the ground and wail the hardest.  My horse was loose, but she was happy to eat the green grass, so I walked to them and tried to figure out what the problem was.  I stopped having workable solutions years ago.

I sent Ohboy 3 home with the iPad, and Ohboy 4 was reduced to random grunting in lieu of words.  The only thing that broke him out of his funk was asking if he'd like to give the horsey a treat.  He did!  Smiles abound!

When I reached the house, Ohboy 3 was famished.  I made them all popcorn for a treat, but it was not enough.  He wanted something else.  I was not fast enough and he laid down to sleep in his room.  I shouldn't have let him sleep, but I did for a little bit, anyway, because it was quiet.  He'd been this way all day, based on word from his first-grade teacher.

Teenage Ohboy (1) was playing video games in his room.  He was a couple days behind on his school work, and bolted from the house when I confronted him about it and confiscated his technology.  Fourteen is a miserable age, and I wonder if we will all survive it with even a sliver of sanity remaining.

Ohboy 2 had spelling homework.  He hates spelling (but loves writing, like his mama!), and he growled and kicked the cabinet the whole time.  They are only learning six words at a time, and except for transposing some of the letters, he's got this.  Spare me the drama.

The boys were all picking on each other, playing with toys they don't actually want to play with just to hear the other kid scream.  Mr. Ohboy had been gone for 11 hours today, with no sign of return.  The zen I had from riding was sucked from my soul, and I'm suddenly acutely missing Moe again, which is random.  I realize that, on some very basic level, he was the steady person in my life.  I could always count on him being the very same, all day every day, and always excited to see me and spend time with me.  He never hit me with a backpack or called me an idiot, not even once.

This will all pass.  Someday I'll be missing this.  Riiiiight?

Curses!

I've been so busy this past week that I haven't even had time for thoughts, no less blogging or working on the novel.  It makes me anxious to not be writing.  Like, reallyreallyreally anxious.

When I write, I neglect things.  Kids tend to stay in their pajamas all day.  Floors don't get swept.  Dinner doesn't get cooked.  So, yeah, I don't like to cook anyway--can't blame that just on writing.   When I sweep the floors and cook dinner and attempt to be domestic, I get to the part of the day where the house is quiet(er) and I'm just too darn sleepy to make the words.  Try as I might, every time I venture down into my newly-redesigned writing room and curl up in my papisan chair under my fuzzy blanket, I fall fast asleep.

In the non-winter months it's worse because my brain is constantly waging a battle between using my "free" time to ride the horses or holing myself away to write stuff.  So what's a rider/writer to do?  If you have the answer for that, please let me know.  Apparently I haven't figured it all out yet.

Last week was an exceptionally weird and hectic week. The oldest Ohboy was away at camp, and my parents were vacationing.  I'll be the first to admit that I'm very dependent on my parents, and in their absence I was forced to do a lot of things they often help with, in addition to taking care of their house and chores.  Without an emergency babysitter system, I had to take kids with me to do everything, like a real mom would.  One night I bought a pizza, spread a blanket on the grass outside the barn and rode my horse while the kids ate dinner.  My selfish attempt at multi-tasking didn't work that well, but I sure gave it my best shot.

The highlight of my exciting week was Tuesday night I went to the Florence + the Machine show at the Fox Theater, which was pretty darn amazing.  Florence is like an Art Deco goddess, and I've never said this before, but I'm pretty sure I have a girl crush.   Shhh!  Don't tell my husband, though I'm sure he already has his suspicions.  During the concert, she sang all of my favorite songs, including “Cosmic Love”, which I consider the theme song to the 1st draft of my novel.  To hear it performed live was completely surreal, and I'm not sure if I can describe it well enough to demonstrate the absolute rush of emotions I felt.  Here was the soundtrack of my love story--in the flesh.  The show was done well before I was ready for it to be, though it could have lasted an entire day and it wouldn't have been enough.  Now I'm looking forward to duplicating the experience with some of the other bands that I listened to while I was writing the 1st draft–including Bon Iver, Mumford and Sons, and Wye Oak.

Thursday night, I was supposed to go to dinner with some old high school  friends, but instead I ended up at a birth with one of the midwives I assist.   The birth wasn't going as smoothly as we assumed it would, and I ended up sleeping on the floor of the nursery all night, only to leave to go home the next morning still waiting for the baby.   Of course, Mr. Ohboy had to leave for work as soon as I walked in the door, leaving me with three boys full of energy.  All day my eyes were on fire, but I couldn't bring myself to take a much-needed nap out of fear of the plots for world domination that the boys might pull off while I was incoherent.  Worse yet, my house was vile and scuzzy, and I needed to create the illusion of cleanliness for the babysitter who was coming over later that evening.  When the husband finally rolled up the drive that evening, we gathered our few dolla bills and headed to the racetrack to have dinner with his sister, her family, and my mother-in-law.  My mother-in-law lives in Texas, but comes to visit about once a year for a couple of weeks, usually for the annual family reunion.  I would have been tempted to stay home to sleep if (a) I saw her more often, and (b) I didn't love watching the races as much as I do.

The family reunion took place all day Saturday.  Like I said, it's a yearly thing, the passion of my husband's grandmother.  To say that she is into genealogy would be a huge understatement, like telling someone that I like horses or coffee or Johnny Depp.  She's devoted years to traveling the world, piecing together her family's past, and takes endless pride in even the most mundane family detail unearthed.  My family had a family reunion, oh, 17 years ago.  My in-laws, it's every year without fail.  

So, Saturday I spent the greater portion of the day at the beach with the family, except for an hour break when I was picking up the oldest Ohboy, who had just returned from summer camp in a haze of sweat and funky, musty clothes.  I had to drag him there ("All I want to do is sleep, Mom!"), but as soon as we hit the beach, I didn't see him again until a thunderstorm rolled in and we were forced to pack everything up.  They frown on lightning and water, for some reason.  Go figure.

A text message startled me from my slumber Sunday morning at about 6:35.  One of the girls singing during morning worship at our church wasn't feeling well and asked me to fill in for her, which I did.  As soon as I returned home from church, I scarfed down a couple of pieces of pizza and ran out to ride my horse.  I always lose track of time when I'm riding, and before I know it, I've been riding for an hour even when it seems like it's only been minutes.  With 12 minutes to spare, sweaty and dirty, I took my second shower of the day and rocketed back into church for Praise Band practice.

After church, I went with one of my friends to a party that her friend was the event planner for.  I wasn't dressed for it, because I honestly just didn't have time to coordinate a cute party ensemble in the 12 minutes I had to shower and dress.  I also was pretty certain that I wasn't going, based on my energy level and because the husband had been home with the boys all day long.  But, alas, I did end up at said party in my sundress and no make-up.  And, if I'm being straight with you, I was okay with that.  When my friend got up to dance with her friend, I was okay holding down the chair I was sitting in.  I had become okay with being old.  Or maybe "old" isn't  the right way to describe it.  Maybe I'm less old than I think, and just prefer not shouting to talk to the person sitting right next to me.  Or maybe I was just exhausted and showing poor party form.

After said party, I had to grocery shop(!), so I didn't roll into bed until nearly 3:30 a.m.  In an unspoken answer to that challenge, Mr. Ohboy decided to vacate the premises for 14 hours yesterday.  Four boys for 14 hours on fumes of sleep.  No bueno! Seriously, not my best decision, but historically I've never been famous for making smart decisions.

And that, good friends, is why I'm making no progress on draft 2.