4/28/2024 0 Comments Breaking FreeCertain stages in life are clearly defined. Birth. School graduations. Weddings. They occur at a specific date and time. Retirement has been harder for me to pin down. My husband is still active in his career, working remotely for a medical device company. When my day job went away, it was easy to piggyback on his routine because I already have a second career. I continued to get up early, and get to it on the computer. It wasn't like I was struggling to find a new path in life. I have one that I've been pursuing nearly since birth. After becoming published in 2012, I have treated fiction writing like a job. Maybe too much of a job. I had a great conversation with my critique partner Beth recently. When she retires in a few years, she's giving herself permission to do nothing for two weeks. I had a book deadline and my own workaholic nature to contend with, so I didn't take a break. That may have been a mistake. This is what a flower looks like when it breaks free from its seed. Specifically, a marigold flower. I started seeds indoors. When they sprout, they lift out of the dirt, raising the seed husk high, then casting it off and going about the business of being a flower. I thought I had cast off my day job husk five minutes after receiving The Call. It turns out I've been dragging that husk around for months. The shadow of being chained to a desk eight hours a day keeps me stuck in a routine that's not always conducive to creativity. This has been a year of casting off for me. Retiring from the day job has been more of an adjustment than I anticipated, besides the expected financial recalculations and medical insurance changes. The timing has been odd. If I had been pushed to retire a year or two earlier, I would have spent more time with my elderly parents. They are both gone now. My time is my own. Well, that not spent on family, and maintaining our aging home. There will always be responsibilities, and all of this isn't worth much without family. Let's say, a higher percentage of my time is my own. In ways, my transition has felt similar to that marigold struggling to cast off the confining seed casing. It often takes days for the primary leaves to push off the husk. Some sprouts are slower at completing the process. I had an interesting career. It was challenging and meaningful. But at the back of my mind was the desire to write fiction. To be a writer fulltime. And now I'm there. Cause for celebration. For joy, right? I'm getting there. One obstacle is thinking I need to achieve external milestones. Sales. Recognition. Accolades. But that's never been what writing was about to me. It's the process. The creating. Crafting meaning from the chaos of life. It's time to cast off the rest of that husk of workday expectations. Writing is art. Writing is joy.
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4/21/2024 0 Comments Seeds and SeedlingsIn my Rose Creek Mystery series, one secondary character is an avid gardener. Minka Kurek is Shanice's landlady and friend. The Polish immigrant in her mid-seventies grows an amazing backyard garden of flowers and vegetables. We meet her briefly in book two, but maybe I should increase her involvement in a future book. Gardeners share a hyper-awareness of the changing seasons. In Colorado right now, we are experiencing a typical Rocky Mountain spring, when it might be in the 70s one day and snowing the next. This is a time of anticipation. Every seed planted represents potential. Not all seeds will sprout, and of those, some will fail to thrive. I start most of my plants from seeds. From reliable to challenging, you can find most flowers and vegetables in seed form. I like to save a buck. A source of pride this spring is my success with blue columbines. Last year, I finally got three columbine plants to start (out of a package of about a million tiny seeds). I remembered to water them a few times during winter. Maybe I'll get flowers this season. My vegetables, herbs, and other flowers are coming along. I planted beets in the ground outdoors, because they can handle a mild freeze. Some greens like cold weather, and those will go out soon - spinach, kale, lettuce, chard. My tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants require special care. I must baby them on indoor plant shelves, putting them out for sun when the temperature is above 60, and the wind isn't blowing too hard. During this time of possibilities, gardeners take joy in the little victories. A seed sprouting from the soil is exciting. An everyday miracle. It makes me smile. 4/13/2024 1 Comment I'm back, and gardening!Lots has happened. Family stuff, catching a cold/flu in January, remodeling the house (on-going since December, which is activating my asthma on a regular basis), and working on book deadlines. I'm catching my breath - literally - now. I have struggled to keep up with two of my passions, exercise and gardening. I'll let my daughter keep you updated on our planned fall adventure, 24 Hours of Palmer Lake. Her posts are mostly light fun, with some difficult let's-get-real moments. Gardening in Colorado offers a challenge for growing things. We're either in drought or blizzard years, with unpredictable final hard freezes. Through all the personal difficulties this year, I managed to get my seeds started. Today, I'm transplanting the successful starts to larger pots, because I can't plant them outside for another month. Yes, mid-May is traditionally planting time for tender plants, and that's chancing it. My seedlings may look young to transplant to larger pots, but hard experience has taught me that if I leave them in their small starter containers, they get leggy, then die. Or get root rot and die. Or I set them outside for some sun, the wind snaps their spindly stems, and they die. So I'm moving the tomatoes, peppers, and a few other things, to larger pots today, to give them a fighting chance. I'll also start basil. I can grow basil, while others just can't get it going in this climate. The one plant I really struggle to grow is zucchini. I am one of the only people on the planet that doesn't suffer an overabundance of zucchini come harvest time. I have found container gardening works best for me. My husband engineered an ingenious watering system, so even if we go camping, the plants get their water needs met. In Colorado, one day can dry out even large plant containers. I've been a little down, waiting for spring. Now the trees are budding, grass is turning green, and I have plant babies to care for. Life is looking good. I will attempt to post once a week with updates on my garden. 3/7/2024 0 Comments Edge of the Cedars, UtahWhile on our brief ramble in Utah last month, we visited Edge of the Cedars State Park in Blanding, Utah. "View the largest collection of Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) pottery on display in the Four Corners Region and explore an authentic Puebloan village behind the museum." I love museums, so I am definitely biased. This smallish museum has an amazing collection of pottery, and enthusiastic staff ready to answer questions. We watched the introductory movie, then wandered through the exhibits. We had the facility to ourselves, this being off season for tourists. I enjoyed the descriptions of how artifacts were found. 2/26/2024 0 Comments Climbing Gear in MoabI've been working on a new Annie's project. The story involves ropes and carabiners. While my husband and friends visited outfitter store Gearheads, I interviewed the store proprietor about climbing equipment. We were supposed to be taking a few days away from work: my husband's job, my fiction writing, and our house renovations. But my mind is always on my writing. I was amazed at the variety of climbing ropes and carabiners. Pick a color! Although there are much more important characteristics to select than color. My character's life might depend on her equipment. 2/21/2024 0 Comments Small Town MuseumA good small town museum presents local history like an unfolding story (in my opinion). The Dan O'Laurie Museum, aka Moab Museum, does this well. Because we were there in the off-season, we nearly had the museum to ourselves. The docent on duty chatted with us about how the museum acquired artifacts. They have far more historical objects and photographs than they can display, so exhibits rotate. Local people clearing out attics or elderly relatives' homes donate huge volumes of items. Sorting through what's best for telling the Moab story must be challenging. This little museum does a fine job. 2/18/2024 0 Comments Newspaper Rock UtahWhile in Utah last weekend, we visited Newspaper Rock State Historical Monument. Due to snowy trail conditions, this pullout was ideal. The short walk to view the petroglyphs was snow-packed, but walkable. "Newspaper Rock features a 200 square foot area of extremely dense Native American petroglyphs on a 'desert varnished' cliff wall. The petroglyphs were created by several ancient cultures beginning some 1,500 years ago." One theory about the purpose of the petroglyphs is that the different symbols represent different clans. Their appearance indicates the clan passing by this area. 2/16/2024 0 Comments A Brief Change of Scenery2/6/2024 0 Comments New Rose Creek Cozy Cat1/28/2024 0 Comments 2023 Painted Rocks on the TrailOne of my hobbies is painting rocks. This is a kindness project. Artists create designs or encouraging messages, and leave them on trails or other public places to bring a smile to passersby. Here are some I painted and left last year, hoping to brighten a stranger's day. I'll be ramping up my rock painting in 2024, after we complete a home improvement project that seems to be taking more time and energy than I expected.
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