Of This and Other Worlds

It's hard sometimes to know what to write in a post like this. Add too much detail and it sounds like oversharing (or worse, whining); not enough and it may come off as maddeningly cryptic and frustrating to those who want answers about what I'm up to. So I'll try to find the middle ground.

Briefly, the situation here is tough and getting tougher. The muscle pain in my shoulder has been going on long enough to puzzle both my physiotherapist and the sports doctor that my GP sent me to last week, and though it changes and moves around it doesn't seem to be getting that much better. I've figured out a way to arrange several pillows around me so that I can sleep at least part of the night in bed, but I still end up migrating to the living room recliner most nights, and I still feel uneasy about going anywhere for more than a couple of hours without ready access to an ice pack.

So that's pretty distracting, as you might imagine, and makes sitting up and typing for a few hours every day not all that comfortable or fun. But even so, I could work around that if it weren't for everything else going on.

I've already mentioned (in a previous, f-locked post) that my father is 92 and increasingly frail, and that I'm having to arrange more in-home care for him. In the last couple of weeks I've managed to get most of his daily needs looked after, but my mom is also feeling the strain and her health is suffering in ways that need extra attention as well. So with trying to do my best by the two of them and also not short-change my own family in the process, I've been pretty busy.

A number of people I care about are also going through difficult times, not least of them the family of a good friend of mine who died last week at the age of 48. I was at her funeral last Friday and it was lovely, just what she would have wanted, but it's going to be a hard adjustment for her husband and four kids -- three of whom are friends with my sons -- and my heart goes out to them. That's just one of several tragic and complicated situations that are going on around me right now, all of which leave me wondering and praying about what more I can do.

Plus I've got a bunch of upcoming school visits and other appearances I signed up for weeks or months ago, before all of this other stuff came to a head. I don't feel I ought to cancel any of them and I don't even want to unless it's an emergency, but it does make it difficult to get back into a regular writing routine even if I had the energy to do so.

I'd hoped to end my planned sabbatical and start writing again in February, and have a viable first draft of a new book by no later than September. But so far everything I've started, no matter how eager or positive I felt to begin with, has fizzled out. Either it wasn't quite ready yet (as with my epic YA fantasy) or I was keen to write but kept getting derailed by circumstances (as with the third Ivy book, which is still very much on my heart, but I haven't touched it in weeks now).

Anyway, I've got enough to deal with at the moment without making more work for myself. So I've come to the conclusion that for the time being, however long it may be until life calms down, I'm not going to worry about writing. If on a good day I find myself with time and energy and desire to write, then I will. But I'm not going to angst over deadlines and word counts, or fret about the prospect of not having a new book in 2018 (or 2019, or even 2020).

Ultimately, what it comes down to for me is that people are more important than things. My parents and family and friends in need are people, and my writing is a thing. It would be different if my family was counting on my income to pay the bills, but we're not. So to me the choice is pretty clear and I feel at peace about it.

I'm still a writer. I always have been and I always will be, published or not. The stories and characters inside me aren't going anywhere, even if I can't put them into words right now. Before too long, I hope, I'll be able to get back to them again... but not at this time.

And that's okay.

speak_candidly commented on my post of yesterday:

I don't know how comfortable you are talking about your life on the internet, but I always wonder what your husband's background is. And, as the only Canadian blogger I follow, what you like about Canada. And what your opinions are on childhood education/schooling/etc.

This sort of falls under the heading of "Seriously?" for me, in that I would never have guessed anybody was interested. But hey, sure, why not?

My husband emigrated to Canada with his family from Germany when he was a child, and grew up on a farm as the youngest of six children. He took his degree in Biology, and now works as an agronomist specializing in soybeans. Although he doesn't read for pleasure he enjoys being read to, so in the early years of our marriage I read him the complete Narnia series, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, among many others. We have a standing joke that the quality of any book can be improved and all problems can be resolved by bringing in an army of dwarves -- so when I'm stuck on one of my own books or stories that's always his first suggestion.

When I was younger and still single I always imagined that I would marry some tweedy English professor-type, probably ten or more years older than myself -- I didn't see much to respect or admire in the boys my own age, or even find most of them attractive, and it seemed inconceivable to me that I could be happy with someone who wasn't as passionate about reading as I was. So it is a great joke to find myself so happily married to a German farmboy three and a half years younger than myself, who did long-haul trucking to put himself through university and would rather do almost anything than sit down and read a book... 

But he has always been intrigued by and supportive of my writing, even back when I was writing practically nothing but Doctor Who fan fiction (and he'd never seen the show). And I am equally admiring of his talents for carpentry and design, and his scientific knowledge -- things I certainly don't possess in any great measure myself! But we are definitely united in our Christian faith and our convictions about the Bible, as well as in a generally laid-back approach to pretty much all the things that can cause conflict in a marriage, and on the whole, I think our differences balance each other very nicely.

...and the stuff about Canada will have to wait until tomorrow, as it's getting late!

A few months ago we acquired a lovely five-month-old calico kitten from the local shelter. When they notified us that she was ready to come home, they warned us that she had a slight respiratory infection (which soon cleared up) and also that she would be tender for a few da

Image by rj-anderson via Flickr

ys after her spaying operation.

What they did NOT warn us about, however, was that at some point during her stay in the shelter, some crazed scientist operated on her and swapped out her Cat Brain for a Dog Brain.

Seriously, this is the only way I can account for some of her behavior. The way she follows us around the house and lies at our feet wherever we go, for instance. Or how she shows little interest in being stroked, but loves it if you scratch and tousle her ears (after which she shows her gratitude by licking your arm ardently until you push her away). And whenever we go out as a family, she sits in front of the door and waits for us until we come home, so that the first thing we see on returning is a little cat face peering hopefully through the sidelight.

Snickers possesses only the most rudimentary sense of balance: when she jumps up on some narrow surface like the top of a chair, she either misses the mark entirely and tumbles back to the floor in a highly ungraceful sprawl, or she wobbles around for a few seconds and then falls off again.

Image by rj-anderson via Flickr

She is convinced that the leg of our coffee table is her sworn enemy, and frequently wraps herself around it and kicks at it with all her might. And though she may seem to have some feline grace when you watch her prowling about the house, I have seen her stalk face-first into a doorframe on more than one occasion.

She is, in short, a complete dork.

Her favorite sleeping position is also something I have witnessed dogs do, but never before a cat: lying on her spine, with her front paws folded over her chest and her back legs splayed wide. I have frequently also found her curled up in the sink, or sprawled in the bottom of our bathtub—even when the porcelain was still wet from the last person who washed their hands or took a shower.

I would almost be worried about Snickers, except that she seems to be in perfectly good health, and capable of doing everything she wants to do. She's a beautiful, sweet-tempered creature, loyal and affectionate and amazingly patient with our children. But I can only conclude that she slept through all her classes in Cat School—so it's a good thing we plan to keep her indoors for the rest of her natural life, because I can't imagine she'd last two minutes in the ring with an Actual Cat...

My 3-year old son, whom I like to call Pollywog, is obsessed with bulls.

This is not some fleeting fancy, either. He's been completely bull-crazy for over a year now. Pictures of bulls, plastic bull toys, stories about bulls (and aside from the legendary The Story of Ferdinand, there really aren't too many), cartoons involving bulls (he must have watched "Bully for Bugs" and "Mickey's Rival" about a million times each on YouTube). He calls Cars "the movie with the bull combine". And although he seems to have mostly dropped the habit now, he used to crawl around butting people (gently) with his head and snorting whenever he got the chance.

This is not a hyper-aggressive kid we're talking about, either. For the most part he's gentle and sweet-tempered, amazingly empathetic for his age. But he's also the youngest of my three boys, the oldest of whom (at 8-going-on-12) is literally twice his size. Maybe, I think to myself, imagining himself as a big powerful bull makes him feel less small and vulnerable?

In any case, it's a charming little quirk of his and I don't mind indulging him in it, though I have drawn the line at taking him to Pamplona (I don't think he'd enjoy a real-life bull fight anyway, because the bull doesn't exactly win that battle).

So what I'm wondering is, aside from the aforementioned Ferdinand and Bugs Bunny cartoons, can any of you think of other child-friendly media involving bulls?
--
Bull photo is by Brian Forbes on Flickr and is used in accordance with his Creative Commons license.

A couple days ago I was tweeting about having to make a second batch of Snickerdoodles because my Evil Family had eaten the ENTIRE first batch -- some eight dozen cookies.

Fortunately making more wasn't a big deal: I like baking Snickerdoodles. Still, I was a bit amazed that my husband and three young boys could have been quite that greedy, especially in just a matter of two or three days.

Anyway, I made the second batch. I let it sit overnight for the flavor to develop. Then I took the nice big container of fresh Snickerdoodles and opened the deep freezer to hide them away so that my Evil Family could not NOM them a second time.

And lo, inside the freezer I found...

...you've guessed it, haven't you?

Yeah. Well.

The plus side is that we now have lots of Snickerdoodles?

shoebox2 tagged me for this meme, and cesario tagged me for a similar one a few days ago, so I guess it's time to pony up... but I'm going to do it with pictures.

Here's #5: the Bookshelves of Awesome.

Basically, I told my husband I would like another bookshelf because the ones we had were overflowing. He took this as a personal challenge to get rid of the old, mismatched bookshelves we'd accumulated since our marriage and make some new ones from scratch.

Next project: a new desk. Because he's just that crazy, yes.

Up next, #4.


ETA: Link to the large version so you can see the spiffy detail work.

This afternoon I was chatting with the debut2009 crowd when I thought I heard my husband calling me, so I got up and went to the kitchen to see what was up.

Husband: What? I was talking to Nicholas. [pretending to be affronted] It's not all about you!

Me: Heh. No, I just thought you were calling me. Never mind.

Him: [loftily] For nigh on ten years now, you have purported the fallacy that I dance around your big toe.

Me: O_o ... *sporfle*

I must say, my husband has a very special relationship with the English language.

* "Impenetrability! That's what I say!"

We usually end our family meals with a short Bible reading, after which my husband asks our two older sons, aged 7 and 5, a few simple questions about what they heard. We don't expect much from the 2-year-old except to sit in his chair and be quiet -- which is easier said than done, at this stage.

My Husband: "The LORD said to Moses: 'If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the LORD by deceiving his neighbor about something entrusted to him or left in his care or stolen, or if he cheats him, or if he finds lost property and lies about it, or if he swears falsely, or if he commits any such sin that people may do--'"

My Two-Year-Old: [sotto voce] "I like to move it, move it / I like to move it, move it..."

To his credit, my husband managed to keep a straight face while asking the toddler to be quiet -- which the boy did, in his own way, by whispering the words instead of singing them. We finished the reading, and then my husband began to explain to the older kids the Mosaic Law's concept of restitution.

Husband: What this passage is saying is, if one of the Israelites stole from another person, they had to make up for what they took, plus one fifth of the value.

Me: So say you stole ten dollars from someone, you'd have to pay them twelve dollars in return.

My Seven-Year-Old: [brightly] Tax and tip!

Never a dull moment with this lot.

I apologize if you all die of saccharine poisoning after two consecutive posts relating Cute Things My Kids Have Done/Said, but I need to write this one down so I don't forget it.

( Cut to spare the uninterested )

I have two older sons, but neither of them developed any sense of empathy or concern for others until they were considerably older. With this one, though... it just seems to come naturally, and it amazes me.

I was just changing my two-and-a-half year old son's diaper when he looked up at me with his big brown eyes and said:

"You're so lovely, Mommy. When you were a little girl, you were so cute."

I think someone has been hanging around with Grandma, but nevertheless... *melts*