everyday life and other joyful fiascos
By purchasing your book directly through me, you get a signed copy and some extra goodies to celebrate the book release.
Continue reading “Opossum Opposites: Fosters Empathy & Environmental Awareness”
Welcome to the third installment of my journey to self-publishing my first children’s book, Opossum Opposites. I started this project a few months ago and I’ve learned so much already. But, as with many industries, the more I learn, the more I find out I need to learn.
On the menu today: illustrations!
Continue reading “Opossum Opposites Has an Illustrator!”Don’t even call me a SAHM.
I am a SAHW.
Yeah, I’ve got kids. I guess you could say I’m a mom. No, I’m not getting paid for any of my labor right now, except in love. Yes, I do spend as much time as I can at my house, but only because I’m not really all that into people & places. Still, I am uneasy with the term stay-at-home mom.
Continue reading “Stay-at-Home Writer”People often wonder how I manage to get any writing done with a six-year-old and a baby at home. I blush. I’m flattered, but trust me, it hasn’t always been this way. I’ve always enjoyed writing and I’ve dreamed of “going for it” for many years, but I kept finding reasons I couldn’t. They weren’t good reasons, but I let them stop me anyway.
I finished grad school when my son was about 15 months old, so I do have a track record of writing with a baby around, but it wasn’t the kind of writing I wanted to be doing. I just had to finish. Then I was teaching classes and I was tired and we were traveling and I wanted to watch my mystery shows…
See? Not very good reasons.
My neighborhood bookclub recently convened to discuss Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming. It’s so very affirming to sit with other women for a few hours gushing over someone like Michelle Obama.
Plenty of people have already reviewed the book a long long time ago, but some of us were on waiting lists at the library for months, so this is not a review. More like a meditation. I loved it. I love her. I love everything Obama. I have a terrible memory at the moment with two kids sucking my brain power right out of me, so I just want to put down a few thoughts about some of the disparate things I managed to jot down as I listened.
My six-year-old son has not had time to develop any of the insecurities about writing I’ve spent years perfecting. He just turned six and he’s only just learning to write, but I’m pretty sure he’s well ahead of me on the path to publication.
“Sweetie Bird” has been writing and illustrating his book, (not even his first book, but certainly his most serious effort to date,) for a week or so now and he’s definitely onto something. The story had been brewing in his young mind for a couple of years. As far as he knows, all it takes to be a writer is to write. Why didn’t I know that FFS?
I have a six-month-old. Well, six and a half, as of this writing. As her mother, I can tell you she is gorgeous and incredibly charming and we waited so long for her. I adore looking at her. It’s hard to tear my eyes away from her. It took three years to get her to stick and now that she’s here, she is growing so fast. Just so damn fast. I don’t remember my son growing so fast, although I’m sure he did. But I am older now, so perhaps my perceptions have changed.
When I look at my daughter, I think about my own mortality. I was once a baby like her – not nearly as mind-blowingly beautiful and sweet – all head and cheeks and eyes, everything round and bulging. That was so long ago, but in the blink of an eye, she could be having the same thoughts about her own child.
Continue reading “Till There Was You: Nostalgia & Mortality”It’s a new year – new-ish, anyway. There’s a new, female-er, progressive-er, more representative congress, thank gods! New Mueller indictments are coming down the pipe. It’s a six-foot sewer pipe. Lewis CK is digging himself a deeper darker hole to crawl into and rot than we ever thought possible, and millions of women in India are standing up to demand gender equality for themselves and their daughters. RBG is mercifully still kickin’ it on the bench (even if she did miss oral arguments for surgery today for the first time in 25 years,) and a big beautiful freshWOman cohort has just been sworn into congress. Some things are looking promisingly good in 2019, after two long years of increasingly horrid OMGWTF moments. Also – Cyntonia Brown got clemency today and is going to be free soon! Fuck yeah!
Continue reading “New Year – I’m Quitting Fear”
This blog is my workshop and my showroom. I love writing, making, and creating of all kinds and I can’t wait to share ideas with you. I have some inkling of what I’m going to do in these pages, but I’ll have to get started before I find out what this project will become. It’s very exciting and very daunting all at once.