meggie moo's mocha cake

preheat oven to 350 degrees. grease cake pans or line cupcake cups.

2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa - i used gharardhelli
1 1/4 tsps baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup hot coffee
1/4 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup softened salted butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Cream together butter and sugar. When light and fluffy, add eggs and vanilla, beating to a light consistency. Alternate adding in dry ingredients with coffee and buttermilk. Beat 3 minutes at high speed. Pour into pans. Bake 9 x 13 45 minutes, layers 30-35 minutes, cupcakes 18 minutes, or until a pick inserted in center comes out clean. This is a dense, rich chocolate-mocha cake that is wonderful paired with buttermilk-cream cheese icing below:

2 boxes confectioners' sugar
1 brick softened cream cheese
2-4 tbsp (approximate) buttermilk

beat together above ingredients to desired consistency. make sure cake is cool before you frost, otherwise, this will make a yummy glaze, too :).

blessed lammas, meggie moo

i like to cook when it's cold. for my daughter, meg, born in the summer, her birthday has frequently fallen either when she was visiting her father for the summer when she was younger, or during a heat wave when the height of my culinary inventiveness peeks at making reservations at her favorite restaurant. consequently, meg sometimes complains she gets short-changed in the Birthday Cake department. however, even meg understands no one wants to heat up an oven to 350 degrees when it feels like that outside.

but this year, meg's birthday celebration not only coincided with the first real chill of the season, but also a trip to Costco. when i asked her what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday, she said she wanted blueberry pie AND blueberry pancakes instead. however, after i had already brought home two large tubs of blueberries,

she changed her mind and asked for a cake TOO.
this year her birthday celebration happens to coincide with lammas or lughnasa - which, as celebrated by neopagans like me, is a celebration in thanksgiving of the first fruits of the harvest. combined with the crisp, clear air, it seemed like a perfect excuse to indulge in an orgy of baking:



receipes to follow...

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

little boy big dog

next up... stud farm

as i've mentioned earlier, one of my goals for the rest of the year - the solar year, anyways - is to work through ALL of the ideas i've had kicking around in my brain and my computer for the last ten or twelve years - yes, it really has been that long - and send them off, one at a time, in as decent a form as i am capable of making them, to my agent.

so far, i've sent two already. next up is stud farm, a story about a planet where only women are allowed to make decisions that affect others and unattached men are relegated to places euphemistically referred to by the heroine as "stud farms."

for the last couple days, although ideas about the story are percolating merrily in my head, im having a hard time actually working on the manuscript. this frequently happens to me as the moon grows full. unlike other kinds of work, i find this is the time when i have to turn my attention away from writing, and pay attention to Other Things.

and in more than one way, that's a good thing, because for the next three days, i have a Writing Retreat to plan for... fifteen women are gathering here on sunday.

all her bags are packed

libby leaves today, courtesy of a friend's family who are taking her with them on their trip to a lake in new york state. i must be a nice kid, said libby when we were out yesterday, trolling for last minute supplies like Bug Stuff.

of course you're a nice kid, i answered. but what makes you say that?

im the go-to friend to take on vacations, said libby. and we laughed because it's true.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

cancer new moon collage

part of my online course includes making collages as a way of focusing one's energies and intentions. as one of my favorite mentors and teachers, Vicki Noble, says,
"The making of shamanic art is a way of ritually coming into contact with the spirits of the unseen world and enlisting their support in our lives." and as the mentor for this particular course, Kathy Crabbe, says, "Collaging can be remarkably helpful in many ways. It can help you strengthen and awaken the intuitive, playful side of yourself in concrete and visual ways."

the assignment is to create a collage for each moon cycle from new through waning. however, because this is the first moon cycle i've done this for, i decided to do a full size collage for each phase of the moon. this isn't too difficult - i have lots of images and as i culled through them the other day, i was surprised to see how easily many fit into the various phases.

for the past few days, as i've been ruminating on the newest version of Stud Farm - oh, i'm so happy with the new direction - i've been working on my new moon collage. each image speaks to me of some aspect of the new moon:

the bleeding yoni at the center and the empty, blood-colored sky and the empty chair overlooking the water reminds me of the time when women bled together, frequently under the dark of the moon. cancer is also a watery sign, and i wanted to include an image of water. the racoon to me is a creature of the night, and her sharp, beady little eyes see directly into the Dark. the two little boys on their potties remind me (as i so frequently need to be reminded especially when it comes to writing) that what comes out first is usually pretty stinky. the butterfly reminds me of the power of transformation. the young woman emerging from the cleft in the rock reminds me of the sacredness of the Divine Feminine, Her connection to the earth. the eggs and the baby and the archway, which could also be a fireplace mantel, seem to speak for themselves.

today i plan to write an intention on each of those eggs.

what about you, Gentle Reader?

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

what do the words "Divine Feminine" mean to YOU?

one of my first assignments as part of the online course im taking at the WiseWomanUniversity was to write an essay on what the words "Divine Feminine" mean to me. while i'm accustomed at putting such a concept into an image - Pele, the Blessed Mother, Kali-Ma or Kwan Yin are all images that spring readily to mind when asked to consider the Divine Feminine - to verbalize what those images to mean, to me and for my life, was quite an interesting challenge.

here's my answer. Gentle Reader, what's yours?

For me, the Divine Feminine is the Image of the God-Goddess-Source that I, in this present incarnation, most closely manifest. I have this understood about myself – and every other woman - for a long time, mostly because from the time I was very small, I had a Little Voice that “corrected” whatever spiritual teachings I was taught with a kind of running commentary if I dared to pay attention.

The Divine Feminine is a “whole” Feminine. It is the energy of being comfortable with who you are every moment of your life, magnified to an infinite degree. My connection to the Divine Feminine has at various times infused and informed my life with a grace and power I am not always humble enough to tap into. But it is Her energy that allowed me to stop coloring my hair when I turned 40, it was Her energy that allowed me to birth four babies without so much as a bullet to bite on, and it's Her energy that infuses my approach to sexuality.

There is also a “dark” side to the Divine Feminine which I feel is mostly either ignored and misunderstood by our culture and unfairly labeled as “negative.” Sometimes you have to draw boundaries. Sometimes you have to end things. Sometimes you have to let things go in order to have other things. I know it was that energy that I drew on when I left my abusive ex-husband, and it’s that energy that helped me raise my four children as a single mother. It’s that energy that enabled me to survive three lay-offs in five years, and to find other work far more satisfying to my soul. It's that energy that allowed me to sever the relationship i had with my former business associate when she became abusive.

The Divine Feminine as manifested by the Moon speaks to me of being comfortable with transitions and transformations, to ride the tides of all of life’s changes, and to finally, gracefully, sink into her last embrace. Even when I don’t consciously align my energy to the moon’s I am aware of her influence upon me – I never write very well under a Full Moon, for example, and the time of the New Moon is usually the easiest moon for me to write under.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

go me

i finished another proposal this morning - the working title of this one is now The House on Somers' Point. after a long drought, i now have three proposals for my agent to consider. im not exactly sure which Idea i will turn to next, but today and tomorrow my plan is to muck out my writing room.

i made a list of the four ideas left and contemplated them all at the gym. there are two in particular that seem to be vying for my attention - but one is just a paragraph and an idea, and the other is a trilogy (or more); neither of which i think i can put together in a month.

and then i think to myself, well, why can't i?

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

poor bristol

no, not palin. im talking about bristol, connecticut.

apparently, Money Magazine named bristol one of the top 100 places to live in connecticut and this has sent the town into a tailspin. the people who live there appear to be, from all reports, bewildered by the distinction. gee, they all seem to say when asked, who'd want to live in BRISTOL?

i think it really says something about the zeitgeist of a town when its singled out for an honor and all the residents either react in disbelief or demand to know why. i haven't seen anyone suggest that bribery might be involved, but i guess that's a possibility.

i've driven through bristol and while it seems a lot more congested than i prefer, it seems like a reasonable enough place to live to me. i knew a lady who lived in bristol and she was absolutely lovely and so was her neighborhood. (i got lost in it often enough to know.) and after all, connecticut only has something like 167 places to live. to get the top one hundred, you have to reach almost two thirds down the list.

so congratulations to the town of bristol, connecticut. you're better than you think you are.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

moon musings

today's new moon is in cancer ... a watery sign that always evokes images of the ocean and the shore, and the sand crabs my aunt katherine used to dig for me out of the beach.

today marks the start of new e-course im doing at the Wise Woman University. it's a course called Awaken Your Divine Feminine Soul and the facilitator is a person whose art and writing attracted me a few months ago. part of the course involves working closely with the energies and images of the moon.

my first assignment is to jot down intentions for the coming month in my Moon Musings Journal. so here they go...

1. send one 50-page proposal and synopsis to my agent
2. read through the new book on creating small business my friend carla the lifecoach recommended to me.
3. complete the assignments and participate in the class.

so far... so good.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

the elegance of the hedgehog

...is a novel about a woman who at first glance is quite ordinary - so ordinary most people would look right through her. but renee michel, the conceierge of an upscale apartment building in paris, has a secret that only the most perceptive sense. intelligent, witty and compassionate, renee is so much more than she appears to be, and the juxtaposition between who we really are, who people think we are, and who we pretend to be forms the nexis of this most moving story.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (europa, 2008) is an extrordinary novel about ordinary people who are extraordinary in unexpected ways. i laughed out loud - so loudly, in fact, i was glad i was alone while i was reading - and then wept buckets at the end. i enjoyed it so much, i devoured it in a day. however, i know its one of those increasingly rare books that i will reread again and again.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

the very angry tea party

i'm going to say a lot of things in this post that aren't considered politically correct, so if you are a Gentle Reader easily offended, i urge you to consider stop reading now.

one of the things i always find interesting about spending time with my brother david is that it gives me insight into how the Other Half thinks. im talking about the people who dont get to haul around an IQ like mine. (if you're the sort of person who wants to take issue with the fact i know im intelligent, stop reading NOW.)

david's thought processes aren't just slower than mine. david lacks an intrinsic ability to make connections. it's hard for him to understand something as concrete that if he oversleeps and the dog refuses to go out with me, the first thing he must do upon awakening is to walk the dog - not eat his own breakfast the way he always does. david's mind seems to function more or less like a one-way track. things happen in serial progression not because they must but because in david's world, they do. as a child, i remember that david didn't play with his toys unless there was someone else to play with him.

the reason i find david, as a high-functioning downs' syndrome person, so illuminating is that he is not that far off the mean. so when i was reading in the new york times this morning, about The Very Angry Tea Party, what occured to me is that the Tea Party isn't so much angry as afraid, and the reason they're afraid is that they're just Not That Smart.

the reason the tea part is so angry and afraid is that they lack imagination. like david, they can't play unless someone shows them how. they can't dream a better Dream unless someone dreams it for them. i know the thinking of a Typical Tea Partier because my mother (shudder) is one. (as someone very wise said, if it's a good idea to keep your friends close and your enemies closer, i guess it can't get any better than that.)

the basic thinking seems to be that they perceive themselves as being at risk for losing "everything"...that "everything" is in limited quantity and that "everything" should belong to the people who "work" for it. i use quotation marks because these are loose terms and must be understood in the way the Tea-Partiers themselves define it at any given moment in time. i think this is why some of us on the Other Side of the Bell Curve are sometimes confused and might think of Tea-Partiers as "liars."
they're not deliberately "lying" - i want to believe - they're just being loosey-goosey with their language and not cluing the rest of us in. (not only do they lack imaginations, many of them lack vocabularies. this is not my mother's issue, however.)

the Tea Partiers - like my mother, goddess bless her - aren't so much angry as afraid, and the reason they are afraid is that they lack imagination. like my brother, they just can't imagine doing anything differently from the way "it's always been done." or "the Way our Founding Fathers wanted us to do it...", whatever That Way is. the writer of the new york times article points out quite eloquently the illogic contained within the Tea Party's platform.

of course they are illogical. scared, angry people who aren't terribly smart to begin with can't be expected to be rational. they may well be the salt of the earth and the backbone of the nation (and their children are certainly our cannon fodder) but by what they say and what they want they show they aren't that smart.

clearly the answer is that what's needed is not denigration. i don't make my brother feel bad because he thinks he's supposed to have breakfast first. and until these people can stop being afraid, i don't think explanations will help much either. there's really only one answer and it's what works most effectively with my brother but how to apply is beyond my ability.

and furthermore, the war will end, despite the Tea Party's efforts to the contrary. blessed be.

he's my brother

my youngest brother, david, was born with down's syndrome. for those gentle readers who are not aware of what the condition is, it's caused by an extra chromosome in every one of david's cells.

david still lives at home, and probably always will. when my mother wants to go away with my stepfather, she has to find someone who doesn't mind being with david.

for the last few years, that someone is me. what always fascinates me about my time with david is not how much my little brother and i are different, but how much we are alike.

both of us love irish music. both of us love to write. both of us love to dance. both of us love dogs. both of us, on occasion, have loved too much.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

he aint heavy

i havent disappeared down another black hole... im spending a few days in new jersey taking care of my little brother david while my intrepid mother is off paddling dragon boats.

i'll be back late monday.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

just me and my girls (mostly)

me and libby on the penthouse balcony:


me and elissa having coffee in the penthouse:


at the wedding - ma barker and her gang:


just me and the girls:

i just adore a penthouse view

even she's not sure how it happened. my stepdaughter elissa, who's never shy about complaining if something is not to her preference, spoke right up to the management of the waldorf-astoria hotel in new york city, so much so that they moved her out of her (smelly) room and upgraded her - not her father who paid the bill, mind you - into a penthouse on the 38th floor:

the bedroom:



the office:




the view from the balcony:




makes me want to start singing... darling, i love you, but give me park avenue...

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

get me to the church

... be sure and get me to the church on time.

im not sure i'll have time to blog tomorrow morning, so i thought i would fill all my Gentle Readers in now that i have not disappeared into some black hole in the Blogiverse,...i've simply gone to new york for a wedding. Beloved's cousin's wedding, to be precise.

included in this junket is breakfast in brooklyn, swinging at bb king's with southside johnny, a stroll through central park zoo and aisle seats to Hair. (this is important because at the end you can run up on stage and dance with the cast if you are so inclined. as Gentle Readers can doubtless guess, Beloved is so inclined.)

we're staying the night at the waldorf. i'll be back on monday to share what shade of red we painted the Big Apple.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

physical chess

my fencing equipment arrived last night. today im taking the day off from the gym. not only do i have some errands to run this morning (in preparation for the wedding in new york we're attending tomorrow) but my body says it wants a rest. they don't call fencing physical chess for nothing. my left shoulder is still sore from the other night, and my inner thighs are aching.

fencing is so good for one's lower body i don't understand why more women don't do it. it's done in a sort of half-crouching position, knees always bent, thighs always flexed. there's no side to side movement that's so hard on women's knees as in other sports. but because the largest muscles in the body are constantly engaged, when they fatigue, everything fatigues, and the chess game, at least in my experience, ends very quickly.

my immediate goal, over the summer, is to build my endurance to the point that twenty minutes of footwork doesn't make me break out into a sweat.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

dangerous company

a few days ago, i spent a delightful morning at rose's talking about the magical energies of herbs. what i love about rose is that she makes it clear that Real Magic - even those involving plants - is not about a cookbook recipe. Real Magic is about energy, relationships and interactions. if you wish to make magic with a plant, it's always better if you get to know it first.

and how to know which plants to work with first? if you're not immediately drawn to one, go out in your gardens and your yards, advised rose, and see what calls you.

when i came home, i took a walk. i know a lot of the plants that grow here, of course, but there's always a new friend to make. this year i noticed a beautiful vine growing in a patch of shade beside the rock wall along the one side of the drive way. it has dark green leaves, and beautiful purple flowers with yellow centers.

oh yes, i thought, blissfully. this one. so i snipped a bit of it, brought it in, stuck it in water, and waited for Grisan the Garden Goddess (GGG)to come and tell me what it was.

"oh annie," GGG said, when i explained what i wanted to know and why. "im not sure how close you want to get to this plant. this is nightshade, and it's poison."

there was a time i might've recoiled and declined the invitation to the dance. but im braver now, and i understand the energy in the plant that makes it poisonous also makes it powerful medicine that should not be misused.

so very, very carefully, i embrace my new friend.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

oh, the places i've been....

how'd it get to be JUNE?

i can't believe that its been so long since i last blogged. what, you may wonder, have i been up to?

we moved Beloved's mother up to connecticut from brooklyn last month. goddess bless her, but it's like having my grandmother alive all over again. the good part of this, of course, is she's NOT my grandmother and so i don't have to take a thing she says personally. unlike poor Beloved, of course.

i've been taking care of baby jake one day a week, and working out for the rest - well, maybe not quite ALL the rest, but since i finally got over the horrendous cold i had in april, i've rediscovered how much i like to workout. i've also rediscovered how much i enjoy fencing.

yes, fencing - as in foils, not stolen merchandise. so far i've survived four classes, and all i can say is that if i hadn't started working out three months ago fairly seriously, i would never have lasted through the first class. as it was, i had to put the car in cruise control even in 35 mile an hour zones so i could bend both legs on the drive home that first night.

we've also continued to do work on our projects around the house. so far, we've finished the laundry room, the new workout- hobby room, and the entry hall. Beloved has embraced the principles of feng shui as enthusiastically as he embraces just about everything else.

i've been spending a lot of time working in the gardens this year with the help of a wonderfully talented gardener friend, and things are looking much spiffier this year than they have in the past. im also very excited because this afternoon when i got back from the gym, a Very Large Piece of Equipment was parked at the top of the drive - which can only mean that the Driveway Project (in which we plan to tear up our driveway which resembles the surface of the moon in spots and replace it with something more like a road) is about to begin.

so what about YOU, Gentle Readers (assuming i still have some).... what have you been up to this spring?

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.

killing babies

one of the most difficult aspects of writing, at least for me, in the parlance of somerset maugham, is the prospect of killing a baby - ie, deleting a cherished piece of writing, whether it be a chapter, a paragraph, a sentence, or maybe even a character.

just before i got sick, it had occured to me that the structure that i'd settled on for my current work in progress wasn't working. i saw what i had to do, but i didn't want to do it.

this morning i bit the bullet, created a new file, cut and copied and pasted the salvagable parts and started fresh. But interestingly enough, not before i was forced to do battle with an enormous brown recluse spider who seemed to have decided that the laundry basket in the new laundry room was a perfect place to make a nest.

as a dear friend pointed out, Spider Medicine is Writer Medicine.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

back from the dead

...or at least that's how it feels.

the germ was persistent, tenacious and nimble. it moved from my throat, to my chest to my nose, and required no less than four vats of chicken soup to chase it.

but it's gone now, or mostly, and i was feeling well enough to faciliate our intuitive arts circle which - oddly enough - happened to be about Dealing with the Dead.

Beloved has gone to bring his mother back to her new nursing home. meg's at a class, libby's gone to savannah for the week, and i am blessedly, happily, marvelously alone.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

things that piss me off

i didn't wake up cranky. at least i don't think i did. i've been sick - a gift from baby jake "petri-dish" percival. i've been busy - Beloved's mother is moving up from brooklyn this monday, we're deep into spring spruce-ups, which this year, includes putting in a new driveway.

and then i read the new york times and the hartford courant.

maybe i just need to get back to the gym.

the hartford courant included an article about a woman who lost her job as editor of Better Homes & Gardens, was forced to sell her 7-bedroom colonial (yes, that's right ... seven BEDrooms, not seven rooms) and decamp to her SECOND home, on the rhode island shore. she's written a book about her terrible experiences, and i'm so happy to be able to tell you that at least according to the article, she's fine.

well, why shouldn't she be fine? people who have seven bedroom houses to sell, and second homes to move into SHOULD be fine. i'd be so much more impressed by her accomplishment if she'd had a couple kids to raise, a deadbeat husband and had to move into a mobile home. any fool can make a house on the beach look wonderful - especially if you have the resources necessary to tear the place down the way she did and REBUILD it from scratch!!!

so here's a message for the book-publishing industry (not that anyone's paying attention.) you don't have to publish my books. but could you spare us all this kind of drivel? any one with these kinds of resources SHOULD be fine, and if they aren't, they should be sent to toil ala mother thersa in the nearest slums (which won't be far, even from rhode island) so they can get their heads out of their asses.

now at least i understand why Better Homes & Gardens always struck me as light-weight and substance-less. it reflected the depths of its editor.

the second article - this one in the new york times - was about how lack of estrogen causes alzheimer's disease in women. according to the "scientist" who came up with this bright idea, she "noticed" that there's lots of little old ladies with alzheimer's. (i made a list of all the institutions that awarded this person her degrees. i want to make sure i avoid them.)

somehow, she's made a connection between drop in estrogen and rise in alzheimer's. her solution? REPLACEMENT hormones!!! (better ones, of course.) hooray! we'll pop better pills and we'll all be fixed.

what i'd really like to know is which Big Pharma company is giving her the money to do this "research."

i don't doubt some women suffer. i don't doubt some women have menopausal symptoms far more debilitating than mine. what i would say to those women is that those symptoms aren't indicative of what's going off in your body - they're indicative of what's going on in your life. in my world, manufactured substances of any kind are the LAST thing i want to put in my body and should be seen as the absolute last resort.

what i really wondered when i finished the article in complete disgust was....when's someone going to tell women it's okay to get old?

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

they're creepy and they're spooky...

... and i loved every minute. from the familiar bars of the tv theme, to the final daa-da-da-daa, The Addams Family musical on broadway reminded me of the musicals i grew to love in high school - the pajama game, bye bye birdie and guys and dolls. yeah, they're corny and hokey but everyone always looks as if they're having a rollicking good time, even when they're acting as if they aren't. (unlike more recent musicals, where sometimes the actors appear to be in real pain.)

bebe neuwirth was the embodiment of morticia, nathan lane seemed to be channeling raul julia's interpretation of gomez rather than his own, and kevin chamberlain's fester was delightfully demented. even cousin it made a brief appearance. what i liked most about it was that it wasn't just singing - there was dialogue too... dialogue that tickled enough to make me laugh out loud a few times. the scenery and the staging was fun - just enough to suggest the mansion, not enough to get in the way, and very reminiscent of the scenery in the original Charles Addams' cartoons.

we stayed, appropriately, at the Night Hotel, which was just a couple blocks from teh theatre. the decor was a bit too stark for my taste (i don't find Goth particularly sexy) but it WAS right across the street from no less than THREE irish pubs, which is what i'd told Beloved i wanted for food. we settled on connelly's and liked it so much we went back after the show.

considering its the launching of my Birthday Week, i think we're off to a Great Start.

and futhermore, the war will end. blessed be.

blue is my world

i didn't know i liked the color blue so much.

my writing room is robin's egg blue.

the kitchen floor is slate blue.

the house is marine blue.

libby's room is periwinkle blue (by her choice.)

meg's room and bathroom are sky blue.

now the laundry room is REALLY blue.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

him with the stars in his eyes

'nuff said.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

signs:...sacred, profane, and otherwise in between...

the intuitive arts workshop that my friend jennifer and i are facilitating at the Yoga Center of Collinsville has been asking a lot of questions about Signs... how to recognize them, how to interpret them, and how to know them when one shows up.

some years ago, when i was learning how this all Worked, i put out a very specific request to Whoever Might Be Out There that if this stuff about signs is all real, i Requested that Beloved surprise me with roses within the next 24 hours.

at the time i felt i was cutting the Universe a huge piece of slack. Beloved is in the habit of bringing me flowers and roses are one of his favorites. i was hugely disappointed however, when he showed up that evening completely petal-less.

he went to the store the next morning... again, i was hoping, and expecting... all to no avail. i was really disappointed when the 24 hours was nearly up. i remember moping in the kitchen cooking dinner feeling very sorry for myself, wondering if it were all a bunch of crock when all of a sudden Beloved bolted up off the couch, catapaulted down the steps, and disappeared outside.

i heard a car door slam and went to the top of the steps wondering what had happened, when he burst through the screen door, clutching three baby rose bushes to his chest.

"i can't believe i almost forgot, annie," he said, as he started up. "i found them this morning at the foodstore and i completely forgot about them to until this very minute!"

i went back to cooking dinner feeling quite sheepish, knowing that the Angels laughed.

progress, slow and steady

the past few days - the weekend, especially - were far too pretty to sit inside and write. the sun felt wonderful - almost as good as it felt in hawaii in january. i still remember how the tropical sun felt when i stepped off the plane, how every cell in my body seemed to turn of its own volition toward the light.

today's a baby jake day, and its nowhere near as nice. i'm hoping to get a little bit of work done around the house before he gets here.

the laundry room is just about finished, but for the painting - i picked the color with meg's help yesterday. it's a faded blue-jeans blue that i think will both complement and delineate the bathroom space. when it's in a state to be photographed i'll post some pictures.

i also have my three big bookcases stained. they're going in my writing room - i've decided to try and consolidate the books as much as possible into three main areas: my writing room, don's music room and the new exercise room we're creating out of what used to be a kid-bedroom.

i weeded out a lot of books and i'm hoping to continue that process, maybe even with baby jake's help. yesterday, i sorted out at least a shelf and a half of books that are ready to find someone else to love them.

joe the builder will be here today to tile the floor in meg's closet and the entrance to her room. my goal is to get that side of the downstairs painted, cleaned and all put away by next week, so joe can start on the exercise space.

my seedlings are up, tiny little sprouts of green and i got a start on my spring gardening: i began with the bed in the center of the driveway since the whole back is going to be torn up quite soon.

i've been working on Stud Farm - im over 20,000 words and the first four chapters are in good enough shape to send off to my agent with a synopsis. my goal is to send off that proposal by my birthday next week.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

waiting on the libster

libby went to new york to see phantom of the opera with her french class today. it's a play that's particularly poignant to me, because it was my dear friend's favorite. she loved the music, and the story, and we saw it together in new york ourselves.

libby was supposed to be home hours ago, but the bus broke down, and a new one had to be sent for. at the last report (9 PM) the new bus hadn't yet arrived. it's nearly ten, and im almost afraid to call...

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

this little blogger went AWOL

it feels like its been weeks since i last sat down to blog. it's not that i haven't been writing - quite the opposite in fact. i've been writing a lot, which has felt really nice. i have an idea i've been kicking around for years and years and it's finally coming together. when i have fifty good pages - which i nearly do - im going to send it my agent with a synopsis to see what she thinks. my goal is to do this by my birthday.

i've been going faithfully to the gym nearly every day - with the only time i've taken off due to soreness and bad tummy troubles. in the last three weeks since i started this regimen, i've seen a .7% drop in my overall amount of body-fat - not a huge loss, but certainly one i can feel, and one that hasn't left me feeling ravenous and deprived.

i got my seeds started - this year im branching out into some of the flowers i feel like i can never get enough of - forget-me-nots, carnations, and purple coneflowers. im not giving up on lavendar or tarragon, but i've thrown in the towel on dill. (witches can't grow dill...or at least so say certain old wives' tales. i've never had any luck with it, and not for lack of trying... i love dill.)

the renovatons continue on the laundry room, and we're about to move into phase two of the work we began when meg left for ireland last fall. i've also started to stain some bookcases for my writing room - i'm moving around some furniture as the rooms downstairs get done.

today's a baby jake day, and im trying to decide if i want to go to the gym before i pick him up... or while he's napping.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

what rose made...

...out of some of my old jewelry is JUST beautiful!!! go check out her blog... What Rose Made Today... and see for yourself!!

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

birthday brunch

i can't say it was my best effort ever, but considering how sick i felt a mere 36 hours ago, i don't think it was bad. today i made my son a birthday brunch, because it worked out that he and his girlfriend happened to be spending the night at my oldest daughter's house after the Policemen's Ball in farmington last night.

this was the menu:

orange juice
honey buns & crescent rolls
bacon & canadian bacon
onion, potato and egg frittata
ice cream cake

everyone enjoyed the frittata. it's easy to make and it works well as a light supper dish, too. here's the recipe:

1/2 medium onion, minced
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 cup fresh rosemary, minced
3/4 bag shredded hash browns OR 4 potatos, peeled and shredded for hash browns
8 eggs

in a cast iron skillet, preferably, saute the onion in 2 tablespoons of the olive oil until all are transparent and some are turning brown. add the additional oil, then the potatoes, basil, and rosemary. saute the potatos until golden brown. whip the eggs until foamy, then pour into the pan. broil under low heat for approximately 7- 10 minutes until eggs are cooked through and a fork inserted in teh center comes out clean.

you can make many variations of this, of course, with the addition of cheeses, other vegetables such as mushrooms, peppers, spinach or broccoli, and/or herbs such as tarragon, thyme, chives or oregano.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

down for the count

a few days ago, Beloved was suddenly stricken by a Terrible Tummy Bug... at least, i knew it for a Terrible Tummy Bug. Beloved wanted to believe it was food poisoning (is it more manly to have food poisoning?) but, as i said to my son-in-law, you don't amass almost 100 years as a mother without knowing a Terrible Tummy Bug when you see one.

Beloved recuperated relatively quickly and has been dazzled by his literally overnight drop in weight, to the extent he's now exploring raw foods and a vegan lifestyle.

last night, the Terrible Tummy Bug struck me.

i spent a good portion of yesterday evening imagining how much weight i was losing.

i spent all of today either curled up in bed, or on the couch, nibbling saltines and sipping flat coke and peppermint tea. i feel a lot better - and a lot lighter - now.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

the hunt continues

spurred on by my hunt for Fifty Different Things - my latest decluttering challenge for myself - i tackled my jewelry box after the gym. Beloved gave me the box and almost everything in it, and over the last year, it's gotten sadly disorganized.

this is what i threw away/gave away:

6 necklaces
3 ankle bracelets
5 brooches
15 pairs of earrings
2 bracelets
1 watch

at this rate, i might reach fifty by the end of the week!

happy 25th birthday, jamie-jim

on the day my son came screaming and kicking into the world - perhaps as a result of getting his head stuck half way out - i was just a few months older than he is now. or maybe he knew my life wasn't about to get any easier.

i see a lot of myself in jamie. among traits we share is a tendency not to understand "no" as a reason to stop. jamie's toddlerhood was enlivened by periodic bursts of locking himself into rooms, climbing on top of the refrigerator via the countertops, then canisters; and literally swinging from the chandelier when i happened to leave the dining room table fully extended one day.

he also refused to believe it when i ran out of answers. i don't know the answer to that question, i'd plead, sometimes in desperation. and "oh, yes, you do," he'd bellow.

it was like he thought i was holding out on him. holding out, holding back... life with jamie was no holds barred much of the time.

no wonder i have a head of gray hair.

at any rate, jamie survived, i survived, and today he turns 25. happy birthday, jamie-jim, from the mommy who hopes you never hold back.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

more of fifty things

despite Beloved being sick as a dog from either a tummy bug or food poisoning, i found some time to continue on my clutter-busting. now that i've gotten the hang of it, it's not as difficult as i thought it would be.

it all comes down to one simple question - when i hold it, does it make me feel heavy, or light?

today, i collected:

1 abraham pamphlet
1 book
1 chewed xmas ornament (yes, it was my favorite for years and years, but its too chewed to put on the tree and whats the point of an xmas ornament you can't hang anywhere?)
1 dog toy - even more chewed
1 address book (for a giveaway)
2 fairy wands (another giveaway)
1 fairy doll (again, a giveaway)
1 himalayan salt lamp (also a giveaway)
1 box of business cards
1 dozen painted wooden flowers
1 living room lamp
1 bear pin
1 candle holder (not my style)
1 broken candle-holder lamp

at this rate, i'll have fifty things by friday. what clutter have YOU collected, Gentle Reader?

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

finding fifty things

ive set myself a new Spring Cleaning and DeCluttering Challenge, based on a new book i'm reading... to find fifty "things" to throw away, give away, or sell before the end of the month.

today i started in the far corner of my bedroom.

so far i've tossed:

1 2000 engagement calendar (i tore out the pictures to use for SoulCollage cards)
1 half-burnt heart shaped candle
1 pair of gloves
6 books (these i'll send to my mother)
1 hopelessly stained sweatshirt

not bad for twenty minutes worth of work. :)

it's march

march is my favorite month of the year. not only was i born on the very last day of it, in the last three hours and five minutes of it, but three of the most important people in my life were born in this month: my daddy (happy birthday, daddy, if you read this), my son and my ex-husband.

and it's the month that brings spring. i don't care how cold the air still is, i don't care how hard the winds blow. i don't care what the weather does... by march there's no doubt at all that the light is getting brighter and the sun is coming back.

the wind is howling in the trees this morning, but the birds are calling in the branches, a sound that's been getting steadily more frequent in the last couple weeks. the sun's gold behind the clouds, and there's a hint of green beneath the snow.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

vagina monologues

a bunch of my friends and i went to see The Vagina Monologues performed at uconn health center in farmington. if it seems like an odd place and a strange venue, at least, as i said to one friend - the hospital's full of people who are comfortable saying and hearing the word "vagina."

but to tell you the truth, although i had wanted to see the show in a vague sort of way for quite a while now, the reason i went to see this particular version was at the urging of a ghost.

one of the ladies - a member of one of my writing circles - lost her father last summer. although nearly a year has gone by, my sense is that for this young woman, her father was as much her daddy as mine is to me. at our last gathering, i happened to be sitting next to her, and i could feel his presence quite strongly.

tell her im here, he kept insisting, giving me energetic pokes that feel a little bit like tiny electric shocks delivered directly to the marrow of one's bones.

but i don't do that. not everyone is open to spirits, not everyone welcomes a stranger into their emotional and spiritual lives. plus, the meeting was about writing. it would've been rude to interrupt the group.

you have to get her to ask me, i said silently to sara's daddy.

then the subject of the play came up - in which sara was performing - and i could feel how much he wanted his daughter to know he'd be there, how desperately he himself wanted to be there. i could feel how proud he was of her acting ability, how proud he was of her accomplishments in general, and how much he wanted everyone to appreciate his beautiful, talented, intelligent daughter.

i felt another one of those little pokes and the next thing i knew i was blurting out: "let's all go see the show!"

so seven of us did.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

slow and steady

many years ago, back in bethlehem, when i was a full time mommy and mister ex was a Pillar of the Community, one of the young priests in our episcopal parish got married.

for one reason or another, i didn't run into tony for quite a few months after his wedding, but the first time i did, in the line after church, it was clear he'd put on quite a bit of weight. married life agrees with me, he said, grinning and patting his new paunch.

there's nothing like homecooking and regular sex to put weight on a man, i observed. tony laughed, but i think the knees of the matron behind me buckled almost to the floor.

the same, alas, is true for women. and now that i've lost the impetus to run from something, it's been hard to find a reason to run at all.

for the third day in a row, i've made it to the gym at roughly the same time. the first day i managed 25 minutes on the elliptical machine, and ten minutes on the treadmill. yesterday i did 50 minutes on the elliptical, and 15 minutes on the treadmill.

today i did 65 minutes on the elliptical, and 20 minutes on the treadmill. i also added arms today, because i tried a different kind of elliptical machine.

since coming back from hawaii, i've also been doing my yoga every morning either before or after libby goes to school. this morning, with first a delay and then school cancelled all together, i did a whole luxurious hour.

i really like the way im feeling.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

back to the gym

maybe it was hawaii. maybe it's the fact Beloved's been faithfully hauling his shrinking belly to the gym every day. maybe it's the fact i've been Hearing i need some exercise and the ice isn't melting in the driveway soon enough.

whatever it was, while i was in hawaii, i took a long hard look at why i wasn't exercising, and decided that i really have absolutely no excuse not to exercise. what i lacked was focus, discipline and a plan.

i looked at my calendar and my daily routine and decided there was no reason not to schedule workouts when i am feeling most energetic. i also decided there was no reason why i wasn't being more faithful to my yoga routine.

im not interested in how i look so much as i how i feel. i realized i could be feeling a lot stronger, lighter, and more flexible than i feel right now. all i had to do was decide to do something about it... and then follow through.

so i have. i looked back at what i liked when i was working out seriously, and what i didn't. i looked at what i've learned about myself - that much as i like to do my own thing, like my dogs and children, i do best when i put myself on a daily schedule.

i carved out two hours every day, and signed up with Beloved's gym. our preferred times of day to work out don't correspond, so i doubt we will spend much time exercising together. i met with a personal trainer yesterday, who's going to help me create a weekly program so i can show up at more or less the same time every day and do Something.

it won't take you long to get back into shape, the trainer said, when i offered i wasn't looking for a quick fix. your muscles will remember. you're already lifting more than some men can when they start.

after two days of working out, i can tell that my muscles do.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

stewing in stories

ideas come to me like money to misers. i always sort of snicker at the novice writer who doesn't want to share her or his Big Idea. what the young writer doesn't know is that ideas are the easy part... especially in my world. anything can spark one... a billboard, an article, a song, a house. before i know it, they rise, some shining like diamonds, some ephemeral as foam.

they toss and turn and tumble, churning in my head like amino acids in the primordial soup. every so often, they combine, gathering enough mass and energy to crate a cogent form.

your head, observed a friend of mine, must be a really busy place.

at this point, i've got seven Ideas in various stages of completion. it's beginning to drive even me a little batty. my intention for this spring, i've decided, in terms of my Writing, is to tame some of this jumble in my head... to, like a good gardener, sort and prune and trim, and ultimately, find just the right conditions for all my Babies to grow.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

tiger, tiger

a new nadir was reached yesterday in television "journalism" when stations around the country thought it necessary to interrupt scheduled shows to broadcast tiger woods' apology.

it was replayed ad nauseum (and i do mean ad nauseum) throughout the day and evening - so much so i was ready to vomit by the end of my admittedly delicious dinner at west hartford's grant's.

there he was, poor ole tiger, looking about as tigerish as a kitten, standing in front of rows of solemn-faced men and women, hands folded, knees pressed tight. i wondered why they weren't holding prayer books, because to me they looked just the way i imagine the puritans who censured hester prynne or the ones who condemned 19 men and women at salem.

why not just slap a big red A on tiger's chest?

golf doesn't even count as a sport in my opinion, though there's lots of money in it, and let's face it, THAT's why tiger was standing there, all mush-mouthed and sad. i don't believe it's because he wants his wife back.

i think its because he wants his endorsements back.

i've never thought too much of golf - even though my daddy plays it. i've never thought too much of anyone who wants to waste all his or her time "playing" it "professionally," but then large sums of money don't impress me, and being good at swinging a club at a little ball so you can put it into a little hole strikes me as a ridiculous waste of time.

so i never thought too much of tiger woods at his best, and watching him blubber his apology with those watery eyes and then fall into his mamma's arms, pretty much finished off any respect i might have had for him.

the problem tiger woods has is not that he cheated on his wife. the problem is he got married in the first place. whether he should or shouldn't have sex with all those women isn't anyone's business but tiger's and the women who said yes. to my way of thinking its that he made this promise he clearly had no ability to keep.

people who are really in love don't cheat on each other, in my experience, because the idea of anyone else is not only unnecessary but verges on anathema. one reason i know Beloved is beloved is because the very idea of anyone else - other than johnny depp and maureen dowd - touching me intimately skeeves me out.

clearly, tiger's feelings for his wife weren't quite that deep, and so he was able to cheat. but the only reason in my opinion he was wrong was because he made a promise, and if he hadn't made the promise in the first place, it wouldn't be an issue. it wouldn't even be a record, especially compared to the legends in the NBA.

a few weeks ago, libby had to write an editorial for an english project. the book the class had been reading was The Scarlet Letter and the topic was adultery. she came to me for my thoughts. this is what we came up with:

Outlaw adultery? Let’s eliminate marriage.
An Editorial by Libby Bush

Recent events have prompted many people to suggest that a law should be passed outlawing adultery. Adultery is bad for marriage, they say, and anything that’s bad for marriage must be bad for families. Anything that’s bad for families must be bad for society in general, therefore, it seems only sensible and logical, say these folks, that there should be a law prohibiting it.

However, although we agree that adultery is in fact bad for marriage, we disagree that there should be a law against it. We believe that since adultery can only occur when one or both parties to the act are married to other people, we think it’s clear that the true cause of adultery is marriage. Thus, if we eliminate marriage, there can be no more adultery.

Clearly, the decision with whom to have sex is a very personal decision that each individual must make for him or herself. Surely the law has other more pressing issues to legislate and enforce than to remain the overseer of everyone’s sex life. It’s simply not practical. For example, even if there were a law passed against adultery, who would truly be able to see that it was followed? Are police going to go from house to house, door to door, room to room, making sure people are sleeping with whom they’re supposed to be sleeping with? Would we even want to live in a place where this was a possibility?

Thus, we believe that the way to eliminate adultery is to eliminate marriage. This would not only eliminate adultery, this would also save millions of politicians, business people, and clergypersons not only potential embarrassment and career-ending scandals, but also save the lives of millions of trees, who would not have to be sacrificed to be turned into tabloids or court documents.

needless to say, if i'd been tiger woods, the only thing i'd have announced yesterday was that i was ending the "marriage" and returning to golf.

and furthermore the war will end. blessed be.

granny annie cooks...

seared purple cabbage

i'm always looking for ways to add more purple veggies to my daily rainbow, and i found this receipe in the new york times:

1 small head purple cabbage (the smaller the better, as i found out.)
2 tbsp olive oil
sea salt and fresh ground pepper

heat olive oil in cast iron skillet preferably. chop cabbage into 8 equal wedges. when oil is hot, add cabbage and sear on both sides of the wedge. serve immediately with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

that's it. Beloved was lukewarm at best; i found it addicting to the point where i was scouring the burnt bits out of the pan.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

sweetest sixteen

there's this boy, said libby a few weeks ago. there's this boy and i really like him.

how does he feel about you, i asked.

we're just good friends, said libby.

that's good, i said.

meg says i should come right out and ask him if he likes me or get a friend to do it, but i don't think i should, she said. we're such good friends. i don't want to ruin it. i'm just going to let things be, and i'll just keep being his friend.

that's smart, i said.

i've heard a lot about this boy. he sounds like a nice kid. i mentioned his name to a teacher-friend, and she confirmed... he's a nice kid.

on valentine's day, he bought a flower for every girl at the lunch table. on president's day, he asked libby to a movie and since she had already made plans to see a movie with a friend, he went with both girls and paid for both, too. (libby bought the candy, but she said he was going to pay for that, as well, until she insisted.)

last night libby came home from the winter semi-formal dance and said this boy is now officially her boyfriend... facebook official.

teasing her, watching her, listening to her giggle, it was almost like being 16 again myself.

this morning, as i prepare to haul my old body to the gym, i watch the icicles melt in the coppery light glowing through the thinning clouds. this year, before my eyes, the Maiden incarnates right on cue. if that's not Magic, i don't know what is.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

knowing when to run

late yesterday, i got an email from a friend of mine that disturbed me very much. this past weekend, she had to call the police on her spouse. i don't know the details, but i do know the person in question has experienced anger and control issues in the past, and i've been worried about my friend for a long time...especially since she has very little children.

fifteen years ago this month, i found a letter from a divorce lawyer on my ex-husband's dresser, accepting a retainer to represent him. i don't know if he intended for me to find that letter, but i remember the absolute terror that coursed through me. my ex liked to use the threat of divorce as a club. what he forgot was that clubs can be picked up and swung the other direction.

he wasn't expecting me to serve him with papers first. to me, it felt like the bravest thing i've ever done. it took me a long time to stop being afraid of him and he spent years and untold energy attempting to use the legal system to punish me for having the temerity to leave. he's a lawyer, and he used every ounce of influence and knowledge of the courts against me in every way he could.

but i knew i had to leave ... i had to leave for five reasons. one, he wanted me to stop writing and he was doing everything possible to stop me. the small successes i'd enjoyed were too much for him to handle. you wouldn't be the first woman to put her career on hold for her family, he told me, the day i knew that we were really done.

the other four reasons were our children. somewhere i'd come to the conclusion that the relationship i was modeling for them was a dysfunctional one, that if my children were to ever have an idea of what a healthy relationship looked like, it wasn't going to be the one between their father and me.

everything i know about domestic violence tells me that my friend is in a great deal of danger, that the cycle is escalating, and that there's a possibility that the next time - and there is always a next time - the police won't get there in time to stop something terrible from happening.

this evening, on the tide of the waning moon, i offered the last pineapple from hawaii outside on my altar rock to the five Directions and these four fierce and guardian goddesses: White Buffalo Woman, Brigid, Mama Pele and Hecate. i put my friend into Their keeping and offered a pineapple quarter to each of them in turn. i asked Their blessing on my friend and her children, to keep them all safe.as i finished my small ritual, the wind, which had gone very still, suddenly began to blow.

seeing snow

when i saw the headline "light snow headed for connecticut," i figured we were in for it. you watch, i said to Beloved. this is gonna the Big One.

Beloved laughed and said i was probably right.

this morning, the puppies and i stepped out into a slushy late-winter wonderland. the ground was covered by an inch or more of fluffy wet snow that's still falling now. the flakes looked like little stars on sam's black back. the bare spot beneath my window is covered up again.

but i know it won't last. the air lacks deep winter's bite. this morning, despite the falling snow, it felt plushy as gray flannel against my face.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

introduction to the intuitive arts

for those Gentle Readers in connecticut or close by, i hope you will consider joining me and my friend jennifer lilienthal for a six week workshop entitled INTRODUCTION TO THE INTUITIVE ARTS at the collinsville yoga center in collinsville, ct.

we will meet for six sundays in march and april... 2-4 PM. topics will include nurturing and strenghtening the sixth sense, oracles, connecting with the Other Side and more! space is limited... email me at anniekelleher@aol.com to learn more or to reserve your place!

seeing green

i happened to glance directly down when i looked out the window next to my desk and was pleasantly surprised to see, on the north side of the house, no less, a promising patch of ground that seemed to me as if it were trying in the worst way to turn green.

that was at eight o'clock this morning, and the patch has grown considerably bigger since then, and even, dare i say it, a touch greener.

Beloved began setting up for joe-the-builder to come back and finish the downstairs project. i spent the morning playing with my new rug cleaner. this afternoon, the clouds cleared away, and the sun was so warm and bright that since i decided a perfect day includes both time spent outdoors and exercise, buddy and i took a two mile walk up and down the hill.

tonight, we're planning on finishing off our valentine's and chinese new year weekend with a visit to a place we used to frequent quite regularly when i first moved to connecticut. we like to go there to celebrate the start of spring training, because spring can't be far away when the news starts mentioning baseball regularly.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

all in the morning, betimes

valentine's day started off with a bang, though a rousing renditon of sugar-pie-honey-bunch is closer to the truth.

yesterday, Beloved sent me a beautiful bouquet of red tulips and blue irises. we went to the maple tree in simsbury - the scene of my fiftieth birthday, and the sort of place where one of the bartenders shared her baklava recipe. the food is a consistent couple notch's above standard bar food, and the kitchen is genial about requests.

today, Beloved is going off to celebrate chinese new year with his chinese class, and i am meeting a friend to discuss a new workshop series at the collinsville yoga center (in collinsville, of course) on sunday afternoons in march and april. we're calling it "introduction to the intuitive arts."

i reached deep into my computer files and pulled out a bunch of Old Ideas - manuscripts whose middles have become hopelessly muddled. today i have an article to write for the monthly "Eating...the Angel Way" column i do with my friend karen rider for the inner tapestry journal.

this week, among other things, i've been sitting with the idea of what my Perfect Day would look like. i dont have it completely mapped out yet, but i know its a blend of work and play and yoga and exercise and lovemaking and eating well, with time slotted in for all the beings i care about. this valentine's when Beloved goes off to the gym, i going to write down all the things i'd like to do in a "perfect day."

what about you, Gentle Reader? what does your "perfect day" include?

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

in the works

you know you've been spending too much time at home depot when the nice people who work there recognize you when you ask them for help.

today, Beloved and i went to buy the rest of the materials needed to finish renovating the laundry side of meg's bathroom. due to time constraints, joe-the-builder was only able to complete half the room - her bathroom side of the room - before she came home last december.

the laundry room project had stalled for other reasons, too, mostly because we were having trouble finding a sink we liked that could hold the 40+ gallons our ancient oversize washing machine spewed out.

then the beast had the grace to die.

the new one, a monster of efficiency and environmental responsibility, uses about a third as much water as far as i can tell as the old one did, and thus, in one fell swoop, our sink issue resolved itself.

we got a white sink cabinet and the biggest white sink we could find. the countertop is marbled black and dark blue, but no one's going to see much of it because of the size of the sink. we decided to carry the white subway tiles around the room, with random blue tiles and white braid around the top. no glass, though, on this side. there's space to build shelves and put up some hooks for brooms and mops.

my one conundrum is what to do for a divider between the two areas. so far we've considered folding doors, vertical blinds, and floor to ceiling curtains or drapes of some kind. i've tried using shelves, but the space is too small. as i said to Beloved today, however, the room is still evolving. i saw some pretty ideas in a catalogue today. im hoping something will suggest itself.

i'll post some before pictures before we get started.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

it's coming

spring was in the air, literally, last evening, when the sky was streaked with clouds of carnation pink. melting snow gushed from downspouts, and from all the way in the back of the house, i could hear the rush of the waterfall in the front. even the wind lacked bite.

this morning, the sunlight lies in long gold streaks across the snow, and i can hear the bluejays calling, the sparrows cheeping and the crows screaming. wednesday's snow lies light as down over the lawns and the rocks. on the other side of the pond, the willows are turning yellow. in the wood beside the storage shed, the dark green heads of snowdrops pepper the spotless snow.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

time's winged chariots

for the last week and a half, i've been considering my priorities and the direction of things in general. this morning, Beloved and i sat down and put a plan in place to finish the laundry area and exercise room downstairs. my hope is to get this project finished while we are in the process of moving Beloved's mother - hereinafter Bubbie - up to connecticut.

once she's here, and the downstairs is finished, our next project will be to spruce up the living room and the writing room. there's floors to refinish, furniture to remove and replace, bookcases to stain, drapes and slipcovers to make. i plan to reupholster my great-grandmother's loveseat and wingchair.

in all likelihood, all of this won't be accomplished until next christmas, but i like knowing we have a strategy in place.

Beloved was thoughtful enough to break the shower head off the wall this morning, too, so it was a perfect day to call joe-the-builder.

libby's taking driver's ed this winter, and she'll be eligible to get her license on may 15th. in my mind, i'm calling it lib-eration day, because that's the day i get to hang up my full-time chauffer hat. there's a poignancy, im sure, but for right now, its far enough away i can only look to it with anticipation. so far, libby has shown herself to be a mostly level-headed and responsible driver, as attentive to detail in her driving as she is in everything else.

an expanse of time and latitude are opening up before me, in a way it never has before. for the first time in a long time - since katie was born nearly 30 years ago - my comings and goings will not need to revolve so carefully around anyone else. i will not need to make the early morning trek up the hill that has punctuated my prime writing hours for the past seven years. i will not need to shape my days around the form of school or activities. i know all too well this brings a measure of its own anxiety, but the degree of freedom i will have once libby has her drivers' license is almost dizzying for me to contemplate.

for me, time has always been the most precious resource i have. i hoard my time, doling it out as i have to, jealous as a miser. my attitude toward my own time has gotten me in trouble with more than one employer, who all have seemed to feel that their measly pittance could ever in anyway compensate me for the expense of what i have always felt to be my most finite resource. blood, sweat and tears i make more of, but every hour of my time that slips away is an hour of my life forever lost. i count time as part of the energy i expend, and therefore, i try more carefully than many, i think, to only put my energy into things that really matter.

and so, as the days literally begin to lengthen, im feeling a need to consider carefully how make the most of this new gift of what i think of as the most precious resource of them all.

i'm thinking that it's time for me to have a Reading.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

no-snow snow-day

we woke up to dire predictions and an onslaught of cancellations. i begged Beloved not to drive in the impending disaster.

at noon he called from farmington. it's 33 degrees, he said. and it's raining.

it was flurrying here, little pellets of snow that floated menacingly down and didn't stick. it's not sticking here, i answered.

it's almost four o'clock now, and the wind is blowing harder and the snow is starting to swirl. there also seems to be a lot more of it.

i wouldn't be surprised if there's another snow day - this time with snow - tomorrow.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

growing pains

many years ago now, my best friend in all the world and i decided to start a writers' group. we based it on everything we knew and liked (and didn't like) about other writers' organizations, such as RWA. we started as a group of five writers in lorraine's living room, and quickly outgrew her space.

that little writers' group is still going strong, but if you read anything about their history, there will be no mention of either lorraine or myself. (lorraine was expunged, expelled and expurgated by the membership, and i walked out in disgust over the way she was treated by a certain faction within the organization.)

but that's the way it is with groups, i've learned. groups are like people in that they're born, they grow, they change and sometimes, they die.

despite my lack of affiliation with that little writers' group, i'm still proud of what lorraine and i did. a dynamic group, in my opinion, will frequently outgrow and overtake its founders, just like children have a way of taking off in directions their parents never dream possible. a good founder, like a good parent, has to know when to let go. i still read their website every once in awhile, and i always feel a little tickle of pride when i do.

the writers' circles i belong to here are much smaller than the monster that one turned into, but they still suffer from growing pains from time to time. my little passiflora group is hiccuping along from month-to-month, and the wethersfield circle was feeling a few pangs as well.

today our wethersfield circle met, and discussed ways to address our concerns, and i think we've come up with some solutions that will work. it helped tremendously, of course, that i had all that experience from that other little writers' group back in allentown.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

catching up and filling in

the suitcases are empty, the laundry is clean, the puppies are calm. all the projects and then some that i put on the back-burner until i "got home" are starting to rear their heads metaphorically and literally. the last few days i've resisted putting things on my calendar, but that's going to stop today.

my energy felt remarkably aligned with the season's this year - i spent a very quiet imbolc meditating on where i would like to put my energies next both long and short term, thinking about what sort of garden i would like to grow, what harvests i would like to reap.

i started back to work on the Eating the Angel Way book, and started a new series on the blog on how to start the spring time feeling rested, renewed and restored - even if you haven't spent two weeks in hawaii.

today is my grandmother's 97 birthday. her energy feels easy and at peace. me, not so much. this morning, once the house clears out - which thankfully, it will - i plan to spend some time creating a mandala for myself, and a more perfect vision of the directions in which i want my energy to flow.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

there, and back again

it feels ... at once strange and familiar to be home. my feet, having quickly become accustomed to barefeet and flipflops, protested at being confined in my adorable black moccasin-boots the whole way home. my nose hairs freeze every time i go outside and my lips are already feeling a touch chapped.

but i slept well last night, and for the first morning in nearly three weeks, i woke up without a kink in my neck, feeling remarkably refreshed and invigorated.

the puppies, of course, are beside themselves. i felt the worst about leaving them - my kids are old enough to (sort of) understand but sam and buddy have no ability to comprehend where i want or why i went there. nor could they understand i was coming back.

today i plan to settle in, unpack and catch up on blogging and phone calls. i have a mountain of laundry but the house is clean, thanks to a kind friend's cleaning person. imbolc begins at sunset, and i have some visions to create.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.