Complicated

The last couple of days, "it's complicated" has echoed through my thoughts.  I hate that saying which is so prevalent when it comes to television and the movies when people are talking about their love life.  I always get annoyed with that overused line.  Yet, here I think of how appropriate that saying is when it comes to my relationship with my mother.  Complicated!

Frankly, I don't even know where to start.  Later this year, probably in October, I will write a memoire that I may or may not publish.  Until then, I do have a few things I want to discuss.  I loved my mother growing up even when I wished I was adopted, even when I wished Dad would divorce her and let me live with him.  Life was hard in the shadow of mental illness.  After I left home, the love faded slowly on her bad days and blossomed on her good days, only to be dashed again.  Over time, the bad days became more common.  I lost the love when Dad became sick.  Her bad days became rampant.  I only held on out of respect for Dad, Grandpa, and motherhood.

The last year leaves me a bit speechless.  I felt so much hate and loathing.  I felt frustration and confusion.  My emotions were held hostage.  I was a prisoner.  I felt like a monster.  After Mom died, I felt such a sense of relief, freedom.  Yet, my sister and I had a huge mess to clean.  My mother was a hoarder.  The house was so full in half of the rooms we couldn't even move around in them.  No repairs had been done in years.  We had our emotions to deal with and are still dealing with them.  We both have the vision of our mother wasting away though perfectly healthy in body.  She choice to stop living by not eating and drinking.  We had to pick up the pieces.

When I wrote my memoire surrounding my dad's death, I was filled with such pain.  The first fifty thousand words helped me with my November project in 2016, but I never finished the project.  In fact, I haven't taken the time to read through it or continue.  My courage has faltered because I think I won't like the person I was then.  I hated my mom.  I wanted to show the world what a monster she was during that time.  In the last four years, my vision of her hasn't changed much, but I know there is more to my mom.  People loved her even if I didn't at the end.

As the craftier sister, I took over sorting through all the quilting items.  Everywhere I turned, I found unfinished projects of my mom's.  A quilting block here, a quilting block there, cut up fabric, entire quilts that only need a binding, partially completed wall hangings, in total there were nine to ten boxes I filled.  My anger fought with my empathy.  I could see her good and bad days in the projects she left behind, the legacy she left behind.  I called my husband and warned him.  The boxes were coming home.  I was going to attempt to finish them with the timeline of ten years.  I won't become a hoarder.  If I haven't done anything with them in five years, I will pitch boxes.  What isn't done in ten years, I will pitch.  (Really, I will find a good cause or person who wants to do the work.)

In fact, once the gardening season is over, my focus will be writing memoire and quilting.  I want to find healing and maybe a little love.  I want to show the devastation of mental illness, but with empathy, not loathing.  All will be done with the prayer of surrender and the ability to see my mother as God the Father sees her.  In small ways, I have already started.

The other day, I thought about how I used to enjoy calling my mom on one of her good days.  I loved to tell her what I was up to and hearing what her latest project happened to be that I could very well have to finish.  Oh, the irony.  I honestly had wondered if I would ever have a positive memory.  God graced me with one.  Yes, when asked about my mother, saying it's complicated is quite appropriate.

Oh, and here is one of the projects that needed finished.  Mom sewed the entire potholder except the back part of the binding.

A couple of nights ago, I googled YouTube videos to teach me how to hand sew the last part of the binding.  I did it!!!  I have finished one small project in the pile of unfinished items.  I would love to say that I am well on my way to accomplishing my task, but I won’t jinx it.

Surrender

For at least a year or more, I have been praying to surrender my thoughts, feelings, troubles, life in all things to God.  The prayer is a novena, nine days.  Over and over, I say the daily prayer that ends with repeating ten times, "O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything."  I usually have something in mind when I pray to surrender.

Today as I prayed, I was thinking about the virus, masks, and everything that goes with the situation of our world today.  People spewing their feeling on wearing the mask or not wearing the mask.  In my own circles, people have been so rude about their opinions.  I am no exception except I understand the other side of the argument.  I don't degrade their intelligence or moral character.  I only state my opinion in conversation.  I haven't been rude to strangers or workers.  I have been agitated.  I am trying to surrender this to God.  Today, a passage jumped out at me.

"Oh, how much I wish from you this surrender, to help you and how I suffer when I see   you so agitated!  Satan tries to do exactly this: to agitate you and to remove you from my     protection and to throw you into the jaws of human initiative."

Satan is winning the war folks.  The attitude of so many people in the area of the virus and all things politics is agitated, hateful, and criminal in some instances.  Daily, I feel myself grow upset about something I see and hear.  I think about getting off Facebook, but that is my only social time it seems.  Plus, I hate to be out of the loop.  I am not sure why I think the loop is reliable.  I read a post about how Ireland is upset that US citizens are making them sick.  Really?  I thought Europe still has a ban on the US traveling to their countries.  Everything I read seems unreliable making me more agitated.  I also wonder what we used to talk about because now the conversation is only about the world.  I am sick of the world.  The circle is complete and the point goes to Satan.

My world feels agitated from the cancelation of everything.  I miss going to the movies, Alive @ 5, barbecue competitions, the Fair, Festivals, big barbecues, and the rodeo.  Travel has been taken away with no trip to San Antonio for my thirtieth anniversary of military training.  The in person Vegas workshop is canceled.  No church retreats.  I miss giving hugs at church.  I miss human interaction.  I hate not seeing smiles from the people I pass.  My life feels stripped away.  I know some of you would say, "boohoo.  Get over yourself."  I say thanks for the understanding.  More points go to Satan.

What do I do?  What can one person do in all this ugliness?  I pray for my own sanity.  I pray for peace within myself, peace for the world.  I am praying for the strength to stay home, away from the craziness.  I go outside to enjoy the sun and hard work of gardening.  I keep trying to find good topics for my blog, though I feel I have failed at that.  I need a theme for the year that is positive and uplifting.  I want to make my facebook feed a small island of positivity.  Do I sound a bit like Pollyanna?  Maybe, but I think we could use a good dose of her right now.  

The Great Novel Challenge

Written and Published in 364 days.

I can’t believe that over a month ago, I turned in my last novel to win the Great Novel Challenge.  Many times, I thought I would fail.  In the end, I finished with two days to spare.  I am so relieved that I conquered.  I keep thinking about the lessons I learned along the way.  Here are a few of them.

My Norwegian stubbornness saved the day.  I am a very competitive person.  Fortunately, I am also very realistic.  I suck at many things, like softball.  When I play softball, I know I am not good so I only play for fun.  I don’t compete.  With writing, I feel I am pretty good.  Not great, yet, but good.  I have all the skills to finish six books in a year.  I stubbornly worked the hours to get me the win.  I am so thankful I am stubborn which took me through the tough times of a tight schedules, dead hip, surgery, and teaching again.

I learned 20,000 words a month is a doable number.  In fact, I am feeling guilty writing this because I haven’t done one word since April 28th.  Yikes.  Yes, I need to turn my sights to settling all of my mother’s affairs and resting.  Once the daughter takes flight, I will go back to this schedule.  For the time being, I will enjoy her last year at home.

I learned I can write historical romance.  My second or third book was set during the early 1940’s in Kalispell.  I enjoyed the process of the story.  I look forward to doing more of this type of book in the future.  I have always wanted to write a historical saga.  Now I know I have the chops for the task.

I learned I hate writing short fantasy novels.  My two Death Song books were too short.  They are good, but I want Kirzantra’s story to be told in the epic form.  She is a hero of legend and her story needs to be treated this way.  I was excited that my Valkyrie series turned out well with the shorter style.  This made the last three books so much fun.  Her story worked perfectly for the 40,000 word format.

I am not sure when I wrote the words above.  As some point, life imploded.  I believe the chaos struck with the cleaning of Mom's house, the yard sale, and traveling back and forth.  Today as I was organizing my new schedule, I opened up my laptop to see what my topics were for blog posts.  This stood at the top of the page.  But a lot has happened in the last half a month or so in my life.  Where am I now at writing?

I think I have talked about taking the summer off.  That still stands.  I am enjoying decluttering and gardening.  The garage looks great.  Next I will conquer each room in the house.  I am excited to have it feel less claustrophobic.  The yard will continue along.

Oh, and I love all the reading I am doing with the Fantasy Workshop I will be doing in September via Zoom or some platform.  I have read seven books since June 7th.  Of them, my favorites have bee Stephen King's, If It Bleeds and V.E. Schwab's, A Darker Shade of Magic.  I still have thirteen more to read.  Exciting!!!

Even though I am taking the summer off, I have ideas running rampant in my head.  I have a new fantasy story about two witches that is going to be fun to write.  I have a short story I have to write for the workshop.  I hope this story will fit.  Time will tell.  I am also playing around with the idea of two memoires to write and another one to edit.  I will write more on this later.

As I look towards a month and a half of no fiction, I am excited by the prospect of enjoying the sun and getting my hands dirty.  With the garage clean, I also am excited to do a little painting.  If you look at the pictures below and the six books that I wrote in a year, the world is full of possibilities in the area of creativity.

Hum, I think my next goal is a complete shelf!

All my published books so far.  I love it!!!

Black Lives Matter

All of my life, I have worked to keep an open mind about most topics.  A couple have found me very prejudice in the past.  And like all humans, I still have prejudices.  So, when I peruse social media, I try to be fair when I read different posts about some of the topics that trip me up.  Yesterday, I read some points about Black Lives Matter that made me stop and think.

When Black Lives Matter began, within months, I hated the organization, but I couldn't put my finger on the reason why.  They do matter.  If a person were to treat my niece or nephew (they are actually my dear military buddy's kids, but I see him as a brother and them as niece and nephew) wrong, I would be livid.  And actually, I was when this little monster in grade school told my nephew it was a white drinking fountain only.  So, if I believe black lives matter, why don't I like the movement?  I kept thinking it is because all lives matter.  But I knew that wasn't the reason.  I have been searching.

Yesterday, I read a post that slapped me in the face.  The rally cry "Boston Strong" didn't bother me even though we left out all the rest of the cities of the United States.  "Stand with Vegas" also didn't bother me.  Hum, what makes Black Lives Matter different?  This is basically the same thing. 

All day, I thought about my negativity towards Black Lives Matter with these new ideas rattling around in my head.  As I was falling asleep, the reason hit me.  The violence that follows the Black Lives Matter movement is why I don't like the organization.  Hate bubbles up around it.  This happens with the Pro Life, Pro Choice movement.  I don't like either of these either.  All three movements provoke the worst in people.  I can't support any of them.  So where does this leave me?  Am I racist?  Am I a baby killer because I don't do the Pro Life thing?  Am I infringing on women's rights if I don't support Pro Choice?  No.  I am not racist because I don't support Black Lives Matter.  Instead, I support those of diversity as they come across my path.  Do I kill babies?  No.  I support by donating to organizations that help mothers who choose to keep their babies.  Do I hurl judgments at those who get abortions?  No.  My heart breaks for the struggle they are in at that point, and I love them.

Where does this leave me now?  Pretty much the same.  I don't care for the Black Lives Matter movement.  I believe it provokes more division, but I understand and agree with the fact that we need to work against racism.  I don't have a better way of doing this except in my own little world of being kind to all people.  Thus, when my friend's daughter protested up in the Flathead Valley, I smiled.  I was glad and proud she could stand by her beliefs.  The United States was founded in our freedoms to have different viewpoints and ways of doing things.  As for the violence?  That is a post for another day.

Three Elephants

For the month of June, I didn't hit one personal goal on my worksheets.  Hum, I probably hit my reading goal because I did read four of the twenty books I have to have finished by September for a writing workshop.  However, I didn't keep track of the time, so I am not counting the win on my spreadsheet.  I am not going to kick myself too much.  We did have the funeral for Mom and cleaned out the entire house.  Also, the house has a buy/sale agreement.  June was productive on this level.  Now, I look at July and wonder what is next?

I am overwhelmed.  Everything is messy in my life: house, yard, and garage.  I have resolved myself to the fact that I won't be writing fiction this summer, but I still want to write.  Where do I start?  I am reminded of the question of how do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  Unfortunately, I feel like I have three elephants in my life.

In the summer, I hate cleaning house.  I tend to leave it until the last minute.  Okay, I always leave it to the last minute.  Little squirrels distract me from my chores: crocheting, writing, cross stitching (thanks a lot Madelle), photography, gardening, and the list goes on.  I am trying to change that bad habit.  One room at a time.  Today, I am working on my bathroom.  I know.  I can do more than that in a day, but I would rather be outside if the weather is good.

In the last two days, I have worked in the sidewalk garden.  I am not close to being done, but I will keep at it.  Once the grass dries out, I need to work on the mowing and trimming.  I can't think about the other gardens or I might give up.  My hand and wrist are a bit sore from trimming two of the bushes.  I might have to take it a bit slow today and do more housework.  Boring.

The garage is a huge project.  Between not cleaning it in years and all the moving of stuff into the huge space due to my father-in-law's passing a year and a half ago and now my mother's death, I have a disaster.  I am excited though because Clay is coming later this week to help me get stuff hauled to the dump and organized.  I will also take runs to Good Sam.  Finally, I want to sell two big ticket items at least.  I will have a clean garage at some point.

Writing is my last part of my life I need to get back to in some regards.  I don't really count this as an elephant.  Sure I have things that need done, but this is more for my peace of mind.  I am leaving the fiction writing alone for a bit.  I need to process life and get life in order before I add that distraction to my day.  I have sixteen more books to read.  That is my main goal, but I have to literally write my own words.  I am going to blog and do morning pages.  My voice is struggling, so I might be writing erratically, but I will be writing.

With three elephants to eat and a little writing, I am working at twenty minute segments.  First thing in the morning, I will write my morning pages.  This is mandatory for a good writing schedule to begin my fall.  Later in the morning, before it gets hot, I will work in the yard.  In the afternoon, I will work in the garage.  The evenings I will use for housecleaning.  In between all these activities I will rest, walk the dog, and run errands.  Taking all of these items in chunks, I am not so overwhelmed.  Now, I just pray nothing happens for the next three months to mess up my plan!

Fallow

For the past five years, areas of my property have lain fallow.  My heart breaks when I look at these areas.  Every time I have tried to get in the yard, I am detoured to some crisis or pain and have only succeeded in making a bigger mess.  Day after day I have looked out my writing window at three gardens in shambles.  I hate that with a passion!

In 2015, my life imploded with a lot of family illness.  The last thing I could think of was working outside.  We added a huge anniversary party for my parents this year as well.  Between the two I was left me exhausted for months.  Sounds stupid, but it was my truth. 

In 2016, my dad became sick.  I spent many days traveling back and forth to the north country to visit him and then take care of his funeral.  Not a good summer.  In 2017, I couldn't face the yard.  I still mourned my dad.  He was my gardening buddy.  I couldn't call him.  I had no desire to be in the garden though the tears might have helped the dirt. 

I can't remember the summer of 2018.  I could look back in my morning pages, but I might find I was just lazy that year.  I do know that I had no outside water for a couple of months.  How do you garden without water?  The same thing happened in 2019.  Thank goodness they finally fixed the pipes for good and I have had water this year.  Also added to 2019, I had no hip.  Moving hurt like hell.

With a new hip, I thought gardening would go super well this year.  Nope.  I am still healing.  Damn.  I really had hoped the doctor was being dramatic saying I needed four to six months to heal.  Six months puts me into September.  I was a bit depressed when I realized that.  I couldn't handle another year with no gardening and all the messes.  So what does a stubborn Norwegian Redneck do?  I learned digging is pretty much out for the time being, but trimming is something I can do.  I can also pull weeds.  I can lift small amounts of garden waste.  I can make dump runs.  I can rake.  I have also found that if I do 20 minutes of work and rest, all is well.  I am not going to get everything I want done this year, but I will have my yard looking better.  I have also hired a couple of people to help with projects that we have been putting off because we travel so much.  With all of our trips canceled that we planned, the money from them will go into some fun additions.

Years ago, Jerry and the boys built a wall that bordered the driveway and wrapped around the front sidewalk.  The next year, I wanted the wall to continue along the front and wrap around the side of the house.  Jerry learned he hated building walls.  The project was put on permanent hold.  Well, one of our dear friends offered to do the wall.  He started the project last night.  I am so excited.  This section is also my steampunk garden that I want to create.

Our next project we have only put off for two years.  The friend who does deck building was deployed for a year.  The next year we were busy with so many other things we just didn't coordinate to have him get to work.  A couple of weeks ago, Jerry and tore up sod with a machine and last week our contractor came by to take measurements.  I am excited for this one as well.  The deck will double in size with a section that will be shaded by our huge poplar.  I am dancing with joy for this to be finished.

This will be my views from the deck when it is finished.

Here is the progress of the vegetable garden area so far.  I want to get it tilled and covered so it is ready for next spring.  I might make the area smaller.  Plus, I want to add some of my dad's rhubarb.  I envision some trees, bushes, and maybe some flowers in the area to help it pop with texture.

Of course, I have all my old and new gardens to work on.  I had hoped to put in a partial vegetable garden this year.  Instead of planting over Memorial Day Weekend, I was in Libby with my mother.  I went the next weekend.  With her passing, I will be traveling up there often for the funeral and prepping the house to sale.  This will take me from the gardens, but life continues onward.  Here are some of the cleaning I have yet to do.  Hopefully throughout the summer, I will post the progress I make.  In October, I can take the pictures again to show the end of the season results.  So, stay tuned.

Crazy Busy

Obviously, 2020 will not be a stellar year for blog posts.  Since my trip to the north country the first weekend in May, I have been up there two more times.  I am exhausted.  I would love to say that I will only be up there once more, but I have a sneaking suspicion I will be going up a few more times.  My one year old pickup will be getting in a few miles.

I have been thinking of blogging since my last post on May 6th.  I have thought of topics like how my life has been affected by the Corona virus.  At the moment, the virus seems to be old news.  I need to write about the writing challenge.  I want to post a picture of all my books and talk about what I learned from the year.  Right now, writing fiction or about the process seems a million miles away.  Over the weekend, the country irrupted.  I have only heard bits and pieces of all of this news because I was too busy dealing with the death of my mother.  I have also been cleaning out her house.  She was a hoarder, not television worthy, but a hoarder just the same.

In the end, I have much I could talk about with my mom.  The human interest angle is huge.  However, my voice is a little lost at the moment.  I felt my muse was gone the entire month of May.  My dear husband said I hadn’t lost her.  That might be, but she has gone underground.  I have so much to say.  None of the words have processed with my emotions though so I worry about writing gibberish.  Of course, I am probably writing gibberish now.

Where will I go from here?  I am taking the summer off of writing fiction.  My sister and I have to bury our mother, clean out the house, fix the house to code, and try to sell the house.  This will take time and me being in Libby throughout the summer.  I will take my laptop, but I think I will write either blog posts or the start of a new memoir.  Yes, I already have one partially written.  I am not sure if I want to publish any of this writing, but I do need it to process my life at the moment.  

When I am in Helena, I want to be working on projects outside.  I have a yard that has a lot of issues that need fixed.  We get bricks in the next day or two that will become a retaining wall.  I have waited for this for years.  A new deck is going to be put on the back of the house.  The old one is in shambles.  I have weeding, planting, and painting to do.  I also have a few fun projects.  Of course, all of this will be centered around the hip.  I can’t work for very long and the recovery pain comes back.  I am not good at the healing process when I don’t follow doctor’s orders.  Opps.  I will do what I can and hope for the best.

Once a week, I want to return to my normally scheduled writing time at The Scenic Brew.  I am here now as I write this post.  I am happy to report the staff are not wearing masks.  Only one customer wore one in the last hour and fifteen minutes.  I don’t have any issues with people wearing them if they don't feel safe.  I just don’t want to wear one.  I hate seeing people have to wear them if they don’t want to, like employees.  For the last little while sitting here writing, I have felt like 2020 does have a little resemblance to my regularly scheduled life.

I hope this post finds all of you healthy and happy.  Blessings to you all.

Missouri Headwaters - I miss hiking and fishing.  I hope to start that up again in July.