I’m starting to get a little anxious. “Why,” you ask? Well, because I’ve been told by my publisher that they’re going to start announcing me soon. I don’t know when “soon” is, but they’ve got my bio, headshot, and a drafty blurb in hand. The publishing is drawing ever nigh, and it’s got my nerves in a bunch. I’ll be glad to have Book 1 in the bag though, because that means I can start back on Book 2 and not have to worry about any changes that might be made.
There’s going to be promotional stuff…interviews, articles, ads. It’s going to be work. I got this though….right?
On the SCA front, I get to wear my anniversary dresses to Coronation today, so I’m pretty excited about that. My hair’s a hot mess, but thankfully hubby also commissioned a Viking hat for me to wear that’ll cover the I-slept-on-a-couch-with-my-face-stuffed-in-a-pile-of-pillows look. I also get to hand the bag I embroidered over to its new owner, in exchange for the temple rings that will match the brooches that were made for me.
Oh, and the house? Yeah, we have a Certificate of Occupancy now, which means that even though the loan hasn’t been finalized yet we can start moving our crap in–we just can’t live there yet. Time to start packing once we get home from Coronation.
Lots of changes on the horizon. Here’s hoping I can keep up!
Category: Home
All in the family
Family drama: part two.
Well, my husband had a talk with my mom today about my sister, and apparently whatever got up her butt just happened to explode last week, because the stuff she’s been complaining about has been going on for five years. Yeah, pretty much since I started having to do laundry at Mom and Dad’s to save money over the apartment laundromat, I’ve been disturbing her life and turning things upside down.
The new story isn’t about how I’m treating Mom but how my visits make my sister feel. She feels uncomfortable in her own home (Mom and Dad’s home, but she lives there). She doesn’t like us coming over to do laundry whenever we please (never mind that I always ask Mom if it’s okay before I come over), I don’t hang out with my sister like I used to (except I try to ask her if she wants to do stuff and she never joins in), and I “don’t seem like I care” about her (despite the fact that she hides in her room the entire time we’re over there and I make an effort to go to her room and ask how things are going).
Keep in mind that these things have been the same for five years. Since my husband and I moved out of our friend’s house and entered apartment life. The timing is freakin’ weird though. I mean, we are roughly a month away from moving into our own home where we will have our own washer and dryer and no need to mooch off Mom and Dad (if that is indeed what she thinks is going on). A month. And she chooses now of all times to start bitching? This is going to be a nonissue soon. We’ll be able to visit without our motives being called into question. Or will we?
I’m so mentally exhausted over this. I can’t win. Just because things are going right for me for once I’m suddenly this evil bitch.
Now that I now the “real” cause of my sister’s disdain, I was hoping I’d gain some insight as to how to smooth things over. No such luck. I am still as clueless as ever. Do I even bother? Will this blow over once I’m not invading her space anymore? Should I try to go over there sometime and talk to her? For some reason I don’t think that’s too bright of an idea. She has her viewpoint on things, and skewed though it may seem to me she’s set in her mentality. This has been stewing for so long that she has warped reality to fit with this viewpoint. Five. Years.
Why didn’t she speak up sooner? Why let something like this fester, and why bring it to the surface when the offending behavior is about to subside?
This house can’t be finished soon enough. Now I have to find someplace else to do my laundry for the next month. Don’t want to make my sister feel uncomfortable in her own home. Or something.
So done.
Stranger in a familiar land
I’ll be the first to admit: I don’t go over to my parents’ house as often as I should. Once a week for laundry and watching Project Runway and maybe dinner if we can swing it. I mean, we’re moving in right next door, so we’ll theoretically be there more often soon, right?
Well, maybe not. Apparently, visiting Mom whenever I get the chance and trying to get her to go to the doctor when she’s been sick for over a week and not going along to the dog training classes for her new service puppy qualifies as being “disrespectful” according to my little sister’s out-of-the-blue texts this afternoon. No warning, no prior complaints of lack of respect from her, but now it appears I’ve been treating Mom so poorly that sis “can’t watch” much longer. What. The. Actual. Fuck.
Never mind that our brother is in a constant state of getting himself arrested, lying to Moms face, bringing unsavory individuals into Mom’s home…I could go on, but that’s a blog for another day. Suffice it to say, I’ve suddenly been blacklisted in my parents’ house and I have no idea where this is coming from.
My sister has made her…distaste, let’s say…for my husband known for quite some time. She doesn’t like him yelling at the dog who jumps up on him and chews on his arm, and rather than be rational about it, she blows up. He doesn’t hit the dog, doesn’t make sudden angry movements. He yelled. And when he was instructed not to yell anymore, he stopped. But I guess not praising the dog when he didn’t know that praising was part of the training is “disrespectful.” We’re supposed to know the rules even though we didn’t even know the new training was going on until last Friday. And the few rules we were taught on Friday, we followed. But no, we are apparently not treating Mom right by not knowing how to train the dog.
There’s gotta be something else going on, something underlying. The dog training thing can’t seriously be the straw that broke the camel’s back unless there was a fucking crapton of straw piled up. If our brother can be the Grand Poo-bah of Fuckups that he is without repercussions or consequences, there has to be something that I’m missing.
I’m just too pissed to ask what it is without making things worse right now. I can’t be trusted to use my words in a productive manner until I’ve had a chance to calm down.
I haven’t broken the law. I haven’t brought a criminal to have dinner with Mom and the family, lied about still associating with said criminal, then gotten Mom involved in the legal ramifications of hanging out with said criminal. But I’ve been “disrespectful.”
Why the double standard? Why does our brother get away with his bullshit when I am living a responsible life and not getting Mom caught up in drama that only serves to further stress her out?
Okay, I guess I’ll go over it in this blog today. Why not? I’m venting familial frustrations, might as well go all out.
So if I were to list his transgressions here, the Web would run out of memory for it. He has been the playing the victim in his self-destructive actions for years, and he’s been pulling Mom into his insanity–both figurative and literal–for years as well. Don’t get me wrong; I love my brother, but I can’t condone or enable his actions any longer. He. Doesn’t. Learn. He just doesn’t. I don’t think he really wants to. Why bother learning from your “mistakes” when they’re 100% forgiven and forgotten? Clean slate #72. Time to fuck up again.
Me? I try to learn from my errors. I take my meds for the most part. I take responsibility when I forget or run out and I get a little “off.” I don’t go playing the blame game, sidestepping any true accountability. I have never been in trouble with the law, never gotten arrested, and the few times I ended up in the wrong crowd, I’ve extracted myself from the situation without getting my family involved in my mistakes. But no, I’m the disrespectful one.
I’ve got a stable, successful career. My first book is in the process of being published. I’m in the process of getting my own house built so I can get out of apartment life and have even more stability. I try not to impose on my parents unless I absolutely have to. If I didn’t need to do laundry there, I wouldn’t even use their house for that. I’d come over to visit and watch Project Runway and have dinner and then go back to my home and do laundry in my own washer and dryer.
Is that her issue? Does my sister think my weekly visits are 100% about the laundry? If so, she is woefully mistaken. I could easily DVR the show on my own and watch it from the comfort of my own home. I don’t have to go shopping with Mom on occasion to have some “us” time. I do these things to keep from losing all connection with the family that is growing into strangers, especially my mom. How is that disrespectful?
Maybe if I ever get over being so angry I’ll calm down enough to respectfully ask why my sister is so angry with me. She doesn’t seem to have a problem with our brother, so I don’t understand why this dog training thing suddenly resulted in a bunch of texts detailing what a horrible person I am.
I don’t want to become alienated from my family, but it’s looking like that’s the way the cards are falling. I typed up a post a few days ago about my brother and the fact that he was hospitalized last month after getting the shit beat out of him and no one in the household told me. No one. My own brother. In the hospital. With a broken orbit among other things. Not a freakin’ word. Combine that with today’s drama, and it makes the jabs about “disrespect” sting all the more. Perhaps that’s why I sound so hung up on my brother’s screw-ups. He gets himself beat to shit (likely because of associating with the criminal element I mentioned earlier), and not only does no one “respect” me enough to tell me, but they take him in and coddle him while I’m being cast out.
A River runs through
Today, our little “family” (myself, my husband, and our cat Rory) became complete with the addition of this tiny little darling:
Meet River, Rory’s new little playmate. Yep, we’re those annoying Whovians. Get over it 😉
River’s been home now for almost two hours, and she and Rory have been cautiously ignoring each other for about an hour. There was a lot of hissing and growling on both sides when she first arrived, and they haven’t been very close to each other, but I’m optimistic that once they get used to each other they’ll get along swimmingly.
Rory has always enjoyed playing with the cats living at my parents’ house when he went over there to visit, but he’s never had a permanent “sibling” living with him. He’s been, essentially, an “only child,” which means he’s never had to share his territory. For an animal like a cat, that’s a huge adjustment to make. I think they’ll be okay though. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start getting along within a couple of days at most.
I’m happy that River feels safe enough here to doze a bit. She’s still wary enough to fight going fully into a deep sleep, but she’s doing really well. I look forward to when she and Rory start playing together and cuddling and all the things that kitties do when they’re friends.
House(party) plans
Time is inching ever closer to the house being done! While there are still some things that need to be done before done is done, we’ve gotten started on some post-house-completion plans…party plans, that is.
We don’t have too much planned yet–just a couple of parties, one for work/family and one for SCA friends–but I’m surprised at the sheer number of names that came up when we made the SCAdian party invite list. I didn’t even realize I knew that many people, let alone that many that I’d invite to my house. It’s kind of weird. Not that I’m complaining; I like that I have that many people that I’ve met and talked to in person among the numerous friends on Facebook (that’s where the invite list came from) whom I haven’t even met. Who I haven’t met? Whom? Eh. That’s what editors are for.
Still, there is much to be done both before and after done is done before we are ready to party. We’ve got to close on the house, move all our crap in, get some new crap so we have places for these people to sit and congregate, unpack crap, set up a rapier course (still planning on that; can’t wait for it, either!), etc. Y’know, the usual housewarming-party-preparation stuff.
For the work party it’s going to be much smaller and more controlled (with less swordfighting 😉 ), but there’s still stuff to do to get ready. I’ve got to get a flyer made to post up at the offices, gotta get moved in, get crap unpacked, etc.
It’s so weird finding myself to be social when I’ve been so socially awkward and inept for so long. Now? Now I have friends. People who are interested in at least pretending that they’ll maybe come to the event I made, people who are interested in inviting other people to the party…kinda nifty.
I guess I should get to flyer-ing or something. Be productive. Stop blogging nonsense. 😉
'Tis the season
Just a few more days until Christmas! Not that I’m Christian, but I like to celebrate the spirit of gift giving this time of year. I think that giving presents to friends and family to show your appreciation of them is something I can totally get on board with, regardless of the religious reason for said gift giving.
I’m a little disappointed that I’m not going to get done sewing one present in time to mail it out, and that I wasn’t able to get to the post office to mail out another one. Then there’s the one I ordered last-minute the wasn’t on the Prime program, so it won’t arrive before Christmas. And it took me forever to figure out what I was getting my husband–so that will be late, too. Boo. None of the recipients mind that their gifts will be late, but I still feel guilty that I didn’t get everything in on time.
Despite the fact that I create an Amazon wish list every year of stuff I’d like to get, I’m not really concerned with what I end up getting. Its the spirit of the season, those friends and family that I mentioned before, that really matter. Seeing how happy they are with their gift(s) (or pretend-happy, depending on how good a job I did of selecting/making said gift) is what makes me happy, not necessarily what kind of haul I end up getting. To be honest, I don’t know if I’d even be disappointed in the slightest if I got no presents–so long as I still was able to buy/make for those I care about.
As the year draws to a close, I think back on my one “resolution”/goal for the new year: to get the first draft of my WIP in finished. I blew past that goal and even finished the first draft of the sequel, plus got a publishing deal. I’m still amazed that I accomplished that much.
This isn’t where I usually post my goals for the next year, but since I mentioned it let’s just get that post out of the way, shall we? Here goes:
- I want to continue working out with my husband and my friends to gain strength and endurance (and hopefully lose a bit of weight)
- I don’t want to break my motherfucking foot again…or any other bones
- I want to continue to learn and grow in my rapier practice–maybe win a small tournament? We’ll see
- I want to get Book 2 finished enough to send it to my publisher for consideration
- Oh yeah, I want Book 1 to be published. I want to see it in print in a bookstore. Maybe some book signings? We’ll see on that one, too. Oh, and to get at least started on Book 3 🙂
- I want to make it through my current sewing project list and then some (that one might take up the entire year lol)
- I want to do my hardest to push back some of this social anxiety to the point where I can enjoy SCA events more and not get overwhelmed by the number of people I don’t know that are around me
- I want to learn a new art/craft. I’ve already started trying to embroider something, but that might be my “new” thing seeing as how I’ve only just barely started
- I want to stand up for myself more. On those occasions where my social anxiety is not under control or for events/meetings that I don’t want to go to, I want to be able to say “Hey, honey, I don’t want to do Thing X; can I stay home/in the tent for it or maybe do Thing Y instead?”
- I want to move into our own home and out of this freakin’ apartment
This probably isn’t a comprehensive list of goals for the coming year, but I think they’re all reasonable. Attainable.
I used to grab a 3×5 index card and jot all these goals down, sticking the card on the fridge for “motivation,” but I don’t think I’ll do that this year. I can keep a running tally in my head of things I’ve accomplished that I set out to do.
Speaking of things to do, I had better get cracking on the gift I’m currently working on. It’s taking a lot of hand sewing because I can’t figure out a good way to use the sewing machine on the weird angles without screwing it up.
Until next time!
Full Plate, Table 3
It’s going to be one of those weeks.
Yesterday started off with someone at work needing surgery, and, being the only other person there trained in her job, it was up to me to come to the rescue. I still had to do the position I was already scheduled for, of course, so that left me running back and forth across the office most of the day. Today I cover for my recovering coworker, and then as soon as I’m off work its up to Phoenix for my husband’s birthday weekend celebrations. On the way back Sunday we have an event, and there’s still laundry and whatnot to do at my parents’ house before I dive back into my temporary position next week.
Next week brings more work, and for some reason I am feeling like there’s something I’m forgetting when it comes to planned activities. I’ve been doing that a lot lately, and it’s getting out of hand. I forget what weekend has what plans, what weekdays have what going on, and even the things that are part of my “regularly-scheduled programming” slip my mind. It’s a lot to keep up with.
It’s almost starting to concern me. I used to keep track of dates and events without any issue; now I forget that I should be packing for a weekend trip that I mentioned two paragraphs ago. Things are muddy and sluggish, and I’m forgetting important stuff. Not 100% forgetting–I know that it’s my husband’s birthday Saturday–but more like the fact that the important event is impending slips my mind. I know that X activity is planned for Y day, but when Y day rolls around I forget that Y is the day when X occurs. This leaves me completely unprepared for X, both physically and mentally. I’ll come home from work exhausted, ready to just chill in bed (or maybe go hang out in the craft room), and my husband will remind me of the thing we’re doing that day.
I think that might be the most exhausting part of it all: not the sheer number of plans and events, but the “surprise” of learning that there’s yet another thing planned on a day when I’d thought I was otherwise free. I make my own little piddly plans for crafting or writing or lazing about and those plans get crushed by the plans that were already in place.
Will things cool down any time soon? With the holidays fast approaching, I doubt it. I have to start thinking about Christmas gifts. And some birthday gifts. All that in addition to the aforementioned plans and events. And the house prep. And…damn. I was sure there was something else…
Oh yeah. The novel. I have stuff to do for that still, too. Gotta finish the most current wave of revisions, plus write up an outline and some character bios. So that, too.
Oh, and did I mention that, during this crazy time, I decided to reopen my Etsy shop this week? Yeah. In the midst of all this madness, I thought it would be a good idea to start creating more things to sell. I plan on making fabric bento boxes (after I get my own made and perfected–I always end up tweaking the pattern), stuffed animals, more clay sculptures, clay ornaments, bags/purses, and more. Yeah. With all that imaginary free time I have lately. That should go over well.
I’ll get the hang of all this eventually. Maybe. I should bust out the calendar on my phone and set reminders for every day that something’s going on. That should be fun, with alerts and notifications going off every day.
*Sigh* Whatever happened to my quiet, unassuming life?
Staking claim
As they said in Mortal Kombat:
What, exactly? The house. Our house. The stakes marking the corners of the house are in place and spray-painted bright pink. It’s not the official “ground-breaking,” but ground was technically broken.
Our original layout for the house turned out to be an ill fit, but we changed the orientation of the house in re the road and it’s all gravy now. My husband thinks it looks pretty tiny from looking at those four bright pink stakes, but having seen how HUGE my parents’ house turned out to be after it was finished, I know it will be plenty for the two of us (and Rory). I’m super excited for construction to get started. Next week the septic guy will come out and do tests on the dirt for all that stuff. In around a month–maybe a little less–construction will begin.
By our fifth anniversary, our home will be finished and we will be in the process of moving in. I still can’t believe it. I’d never thought that I’d have a home of my own (unless you count jointly inheriting my parents’ house some time in the distant future), let alone a freshly-built one.
We’re even making plans for years and years down the line. Distant future. More than just until the current lease is up. Long-term plans. It blows my mind. I’m so beyond excited. I may be busy as shit lately, but in the background is that constant buzzing of “new house new house new house new house“…
It’s starting.
It has begun.