I swear I looked at her blog several times last week because I was nosing obsessively through her links on chalk paint (which has very delicious properties).  But the world just floats by these days, losing me in the mists, and more time must have passed than I thought.  Anyway, hearing her describe our adventures in Lucketts in her funny, bubbly voice made my week.  I love this woman.  She takes creativity to a hyper level, and she is an amazingly fun and sincere person.  So you can go ahead and read what she wrote and learn about her upcoming sale on May 5.

You can open those links in a separate tab, though, because I want to share what I’ve been busy doing all these months since the last entry.  I admit I haven’t been very connected… when you have a bad case of Lyme Disease, it kinda puts you out of everything except the basics, like food and sleep and kids.  And yeah, homeschooling.  Which is going great.

But my enforced hermitude has been brightened by bursts of creativity, resulting in the tree cutout that Marian shows in her blog, several other started-but-not-yet-finished cutouts, and this illustration.

It’s for the daughter of another dear friend, and it took me all five months to pull it from beginning sketch to pop-out finish.  If you look closely, you can see the birds and butterflies and some of the other elements pop out from the picture.  I like the way they give it depth.  On every level, this picture fought me tooth and nail to become what it is.  I had to fight back with fury and patience.  But I knew there was magic in it, I knew it.

What I’m incredibly happy about, mostly, is the idea of it being done.  Done is a powerful idea.  This piece, as it sits in my bedroom waiting to be hand delivered, gives me hope that my book might someday be done.  My book is maddening.  It fights me, stretches me, worries at me, dances enticing hints of possibility before me yet holds back excruciatingly, makes me tug and cajole and plead in order to place each story thread.

Okay.  More like bribe and swear.  Like at the brand new character who shoved his way into the first chapter a month ago.  [Excuse me, important aside: "Orion, why couldn't you have surfaced two freaking years ago?!?" (Shaking fist.)  "Fine, I'll let you stay there but only if you promise to be awesome, and won't bring anyone else with you."  (Which he's done.)]

BUT, the way that picture is done (love that word), my book will also become done.  If I can muster the courage and determination to not incinerate it in the firepit before then.  Seriously?  Art is a tad stressful.

This Friday I’m going to the first annual Branches barn sale, a venue where talented individuals are bringing their lovingly created works of artistry, from stained glass, beading and wood turning, to fiber weaving, sewing and recycled furniture.  I have saved my pennies for months to go to this sale, birthed and hosted by artist and wonderful friend, CMShaw (aka Marian).

Go here (to the official Gathering Branches blog) to learn about CMShaw, to read about the artists participating, and to see BEAUTIFUL photos of many creations available for sale.

Follow these directions on the final-barn-sale-invitation to see, handle, salivate over and purchase the items, whether you’re treating yourself or loved ones over the holidays.

Next year I hope to add in some of my own stuff, since Year of the Dreaded Lyme Disease (YDLD, which I am finally getting better from) kinda took this one over.  However, I was able to contribute a little by designing the aspen artwork on the flyer and tags.  Thanks, Marian :).

See you there!

This is a sculpture I made and turned cartoon with my graphics program, and the result is unsettling.  It reminds me of both a dragon and a gargoyle, and while I’m fiercely loyal to both species, I’ve never seen them combined quite this way.  It’s named… Blossom.  Maybe some things aren’t meant to breed.

In other news, NaNoWriMo 2011 is starting in just three days!  Signed myself and all three kids of writing age up, and we’ll be doing it together.  I’ve world-built all summer, and the time’s come to let the second half of my WIP out in a torrent.

Anybody want to be my writing buddy? :)  www.nanowrimo.org

(Our caique, Storm, fractured his collarbone when he flew into a dresser.  He was completely miserable until he chewed the bandage off next morning.  After that, we kept him on pain meds and his wing has healed up nicely despite not having the extra support.)

…Princess, Zard, Sunshine, and Squish and I have pushed forward, bravely accomplishing what no one has done before: the Christensen family homeschool… a.k.a. SpikeSchool.

This name is in honor of our beloved beardy, Spike, who stirs in us feelings of love, loyalty, and affection.  And awe, for his gusto in snapping up monstrous, wriggling superworms.  We can tackle anything if Spike can handle a belly full of nasties and not get indigestion.

On top of the basic language arts, math, and piano skills, we’re studying the ancients and biology (animals, plants… science the ancients might have known), so many of our activities this month have centered on discovery.

We had an archaeological dig to uncover an alien society (one that eats birdseed and happens to play Phineas and Ferb DS games)…

carved scarab beetles from soap…

harvested crops of peppers, caterpillars, pillbugs, preying mantises, and toads from the garden…

(and a giant thistle and millipede…)

ate delish shellfish…

(Did you know lobsters have a brain the size of a grasshopper??  My dh announced this fact as we were eating its lovely meat.  It was difficult to continue thinking of it as ‘lovely meat’ and not as ‘boiled grasshopper’ after that.  Let me tell you, the pan stank like it even after washing it three times.)

and learned some basic lessons on plumbing when the disposal broke.

Despite all the umph it takes to get lessons planned and life started every morning, I am so happy to spend this time every day with my kids.  It is completely worth it to see them laughing and learning, and to know that they have this time in their lives set apart from everything else to hang together.  I, at least, am treasuring every moment of it.

But this August was different.  Definite good things happened this August.  Here are the top ten, no order:

10.  Discovered Netflix has 73 episodes of Phineas & Ferb, most of which are double episodes, which we can watch 14 hours a day, 7 days a week.  (I had to set a limit on the hours somewhere.)

9.  Chesapeake Beach began school a week earlier than our town, so the beaches were nearly empty the day we collected all these awesome shark teeth.  The chunky bits are ray teeth.

8.  I saw my first SIX jelly fish not in an aquarium.  (And kept my distance.)

7.  There was an EARTHQUAKE on my birthday!!  Magnitude of 5.9, felt all along the East Coast, and apparently (according to the news), Virginia majorly suffered, even though nothing fell off my walls (guess I have good decoration-hanging skills).  We also had Hurricane Irene come through that weekend with minimal damage.  Our vanilla-scented LED candles and donuts helped us to suffer comfortably.

6.  My sister (forget -in-law, so much easier to say sister since she is) sent me a pair of Craghoppers trousers for my birthday, which if you don’t know what those are, Bear Grylls of Man vs. Wild wears them.  They are light, well-made, insect-repellant (the NosiLife ones are), and they even have a waterproof pouch in the thigh for keeping valuables dry when you jump off a thirty-foot waterfall.  I am so doing that the next time I find one.

5.  Mentioning the birthday a lot but since that always happens in August, it doesn’t count.  The family making it the BEST, though, definitely does.  Thanks for the love, you guys!

4.  The school books for the year came pouring in through the mail.  Seriously Christmas in August.  History, science, language… (sigh of major contentment).  YES we are learning Latin, and YES we are learning to be spies.

3.  Found the book that saved my life from the terrors of homeschooling!  It’s The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise.  It’s given me:

: A long-term perspective on the education I’m offering my kids, regardless of whether I homeschool them or not

: An understanding of how childrens’ minds develop through the years (different as they are), and what tools to give them so they can funnel their own love of learning

: Structures, schedules and multiple curricula for every subject from K -12th grade, and explanations of how to teach them if I choose, to all four of my children at once (ages 12, 10, 6 and 18 months)

Yeah, no more doing it from scratch.  No more questioning whether I’m giving them what they need or falling short.  I have incredible peace of mind knowing they’ll be bright, contributing adults to society in whatever forms they desire to give with.

And what’s even cooler is I get to do it at the same time as the kids, so we’re all in it together.  Love in the family, baby.  Somehow.

2.  Enjoyed a fabulous week with my artist little sister, Lisa, who has so much talent it radiates like the sun.  If anyone wants to hire someone to paint gorgeous murals, let me know and I’ll connect you to her.

1.  Dum da da dum… TOTAL words written this month: 12711 or so, of which 7K was worldbuilding and a couple of rough scenes for my book, another 1K was a picture book, and the rest was journaling.  I also printed out all my notes over the last couple months for my WIP (about an entire manuscript’s worth) so I can put them into order in my World Book, because seriously, how is a person supposed to keep track of all the ever-changing details??

So there is my most awesome month this year.  Life just keeps on getting better :).

One brain.  Measurement 5″ x 7″.

Please reply if yours ASAP.  Is turning brown after the rain.

If no claims, will be pickled for emergency use.

So if it’s useful to you writing buddies, here are my word counts for May, June and July, and each month I’ll start posting the last month’s progress.  Each day I try to claim an hour to write, whether it’s in the wee morning hours or during the babe’s afternoon nap.  Some days I get lucky and win more.  Each “word” comes from all of my writing–journaling, notes, worldbuilding… because as mom of four kids, at this stage it’s not just about completing a draft (which is only a portion of novel-writing anyways) but keeping my sanity.  I keep track of draft progress separately, which I’ll post, too.

July
TOTAL words: 18993
TOTAL WIP count: 31,000 on the dot

June
TOTAL words: 20174
TOTAL WIP count: 23614 words

May
TOTAL words: 17213
TOTAL WIP count: 7541 words

May and June I made quite a bit of progress on my WIP but it’s slowing down for July and August.  I’ve reached the middle and have lots of details to hammer out.  Lots of brainstorming, which is my favorite part because the characters can literally go anywhere, in spite of the outline I keep.

Someday I dream of being more prolific, but meanwhile, well, there are kids to love!

One of my most wonderful friends asked me the question,

“So, what made you decide to scrap your other manuscript? It sounds like your new idea is even better, but how did you get the courage to decide to start over?”

My first response was to laugh and say “Are you kidding?  What courage?”  But my husband and I had just discussed that the night before, so I held my breath instead.  And held it for over a month, during which time she waited for an answer or most likely forgot, because I just didn’t know how to answer.

So in the wee hours of the morning (try 3 am), my psyche finally gathered up the fragments that have taunted my thoughts and put them into semi-coherent images.  And the answer is…

…that I’m honestly, truly, on the edge of falling all the time.  My only claim is this inner tidge that is staring defiantly into the face of the lashing sandstorms–in my own head, mostly, but also in the form of four growing children and homeschooling and drowning daily tedium–that tell me there’s no possible way I’ll ever get anywhere.

Fresh from my middle-of-the-night journal entry:

You know that scares me to death–writing a whole series when I haven’t even finished a book.  It keeps me on edge of major funk/depression, and I’m slicing my soles on its blade.  But I’m ignoring the bloodiness and severed nerve endings, and trying to think about writing the darn books and not how much I ought to quit.

Do I really have the courage?  I struggle with that every minute.  The only thing I can do is slide forward, or slip in my blood and leave a stained trail in my memory, so I’ll always be hobbling forward–scarred however much time heals–and always looking back at its red, glowing sheen.

But the results of Art are always positive–my artist friend says “Art is never wasted.”  So even when it’s bad, it’s leading somewhere good.

Writing is so… confusing.  Non-linear.  Layered.  Slow.  My attempts never turn out the way I mean them to.  (They turn out better!)  But the force of the Vision of weaving the story… that image is why I force the effort to put words on paper–the effort, not the words.

Allowing the ebb and flow of life’s tides on a daily basis but keeping to my purpose in the weekly/monthly continuum, the Vision stays constant.  Some days the result is a journal entry; reading about writing; sudden worldbuilding; a sparking jot; even looking away to give the ideas their privacy to “get decent” before unveiling.  Many days I can show results.

And every day it’s about trusting my own psyche.  Since this is what I really want, my own consciousness (sub- or semi- or waking) will help me get there.

The paper trail?  After two NaNos, too many started-but-stopped novels, spirals full of junk and several short stories and picture books, I’m on my third re-write of this book.  This re-write involved throwing the entire story away in favor of an unknown yet more organic lovely that is thrilling me–and I hit the half-way point last week!!

Actually, it’s terrifying me how huge and open and awesome the world is or will be.  Which is how I know there’s a series, even when I didn’t plan for one when I set on this course.  I know three, possibly four books’ worth in Jer’s story, all of which are pertinent to his character development.  Since I don’t even know who I’m growing up to be yet (except absolute ‘wills’ and ‘won’ts’), it’s kind of exciting.

This morning during Sunshine’s and my art time together, my subconscious brought out the image of a giant slug on the paper.  I’m sure that’s not a coincidence, even if it’s a cute slug.  (Unless you’re a connoisseur of slug tails, stay tuned for more than just its back end.)  The last three months have been full of viruses, one after another, sometimes two a week–only for me.  Which is ridiculous–I almost never get sick.

I didn’t see the doctor because of all the excuses–the baby, four children, more children in church, excessive chocolate, no vitamins, the new bed…

Oh yeah, the new bed.  On a semi-related tangent, the queen we slept on didn’t fit us anymore.  Well, it didn’t fit me, specifically.  Or once in a while the baby.

The Situation

Which of these choice locations would you nestle in for the night?

So we bought a lovely, king-sized Tempurpedic mattress that allowed me to sleep on the bed AND eliminated my sore neck (the soreness, not the neck)…

…and induced another kind of pain in the form of insane allergies.  My dh bleached out the air system since mold is death and we thought it might be the air conditioning, but his sneezes continued at a rate of three per thirty seconds, and my lethargy and colds continued.  I remained in denial about our bed–my neck was singing!, so dh took it on himself to do research and as an experiment, slept in the basement for a week on our “new” guest bed.  The allergies left him; the morning after he returned to the Tempurpedic, he was a disaster again.

Abandoned

I went to the doctor’s to get a blood test and then we frantically shopped new beds all Saturday.  Thank heavens Tempurpedic honored their 90-day return policy.  We found a nice Sleep Number that will get delivered in a week (I’ll tell you about that once we experience it), and meanwhile we are having a sleepover in the basement.

The Real Prognosis

But it didn’t stop there.  My blood test results came back with a positive for Lyme Disease.  I’d totally convinced myself it was the bed, which I think added to the tiredness… but the oozy, achy muscles are still here.  Look at that baby.  Serious Ew.

At least there’s an end in sight to slug disease… I mean tick disease.

prismacolor pencils

Not that I’m looking forward to winter or anything, it’s barely summer.  But I’m learning to trust when the muse says “Now.  Create this now.”  The day this whispered darkly was a cheerful, 90 degree spring day.  Maybe it was heat stroke that brought out the bad mood but the tree just needed to be drawn.  And the lightning.  Kapoosh–die, innocent bush.

Today is actually a painting day with the kids–our angelic cleaning lady alleviated all guilt for the un-mopped floors this morning and the baby is sleeping, so I’m not feeling too overwhelmed… yet.