Hearth and Home

2014 promises to be an enormous year.  Good stuff, bad stuff, lots of stuff in between - busy busy busy!  Hopefully also amazing, but I'll take productive and be happy with it. :)

January and February are also notoriously difficult for me.  It took me years to figure out that I should wait to make major, life-altering decisions until March because before that, I'm a complete and total mess.  Antsy.  Edgy.  Depressive.  Prone to rash decisions that don't reflect life outside of January and February.  I find I do better coping with either a lot to keep me occupied or something new to be excited about.

So, for January and February (and hopefully longer), I'm setting up some new household rules.  Because they're radically different from where we are now, they're likely going to be difficult and take some serious getting used to.  I need them, though.  *We* need them, if we're going to keep our heads above water in the sea of change.  Plus, they're just better for us and I've been wanting to implement them for years!

New Hearth Rules:

1. As little tv as possible during the day, working up to no more than one hour a day for Berrykin and one day every week without ever turning it on.  

2. Make all of our food at home, as healthfully and cheaply as possible.

3. Play outside at least 3 times a week, weather permitting.

4. Take at least 1 (inexpensive) Berrykin outing every week; make a cash fund expressly for this purpose.

5. Take a me day once a week so I don't go crazy.

Planning Hiatus

I love planning things.  Plotting things.  Spinning out possible outcomes and imagining hurdles that might require finessing.  It makes me happy.  (I would call myself weird here, but I just heard of a study that said we should all plan vacations we never go on.  Apparently, we get a huge high off of the excitement of choosing what we're going to do, but that boost of positivity and happiness doesn't follow once we're actually on the trip.  Too much stress!)

But I'm declaring myself on planning hiatus.  Well, socially, anyway.

I like planning parties.  I like hosting them.  I wish we had a better space or more friends to invite, as those things pretty well limit what I can do.  But overall, if I had a big house and a big pool of people to cook for and plan for and find fun things to do for, I would throw parties whenever I could.  (Well, my kind of party, anyway.  They don't typically include alcohol, but that's largely because I can't handle people drinking it in small, enclosed spaces.  Both the energy and the smell overwhelm me.)

We hosted Thanksgiving this year.  Aside from a turkey that dried out a bit and Berrykin throwing up just as we sat down to eat, it was a lovely day.

We hosted Christmas, and nobody came.  Jeremelon had to work.  My sister spent it in Texas with her boyfriend's family.  My brother and cousin were sick.  My aunt wanted to catch up on sleep.  So it was just the Berrykin and me, hanging out with Christmas music on.  I made oatmeal and sausage for dinner instead of aebleskiver, sausage, and a giant fruit platter.  I thought I'd spend all day in the kitchen making cookies, but I got worn out too fast.  So I made a single, tasty batch that I forgot to put in a container, allowed them to dry out, and now nobody will eat them.

To say it was disappointing would be an understatement.  (Especially since we have to add in it being the anniversary of my grandmother's passing.)

I also planned and plotted and brainstormed and researched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the publication of my first novel.  It was exciting, thrilling, exhilarating!  But it was also exhausting (oh, how often all those ex- words go together).  I learned a lot, and now I'm learning to exercise my patience again.  Hee.

But after a good holiday, a disappointing holiday, and wearing out my planning brain, I'm done.  I was going to host a 12th Night board game party on the 5th, too, but I don't have the oomph.  Or the will.  I told my sister if she wants to plan it, I'll happily help.  But I have no friends to contribute, anyway, so it would mostly have been hers to begin with.

My brain needs a rest.

Not that it will get a whole rest, 'cause I still have a novel to revise and at least one novella to write... :D

November?

It appears I have stopped blogging.

Prepare for the coming apocalypse.  (I would suggest long underwear, mittens, and some kind of sustainable energy source that doesn't require sunlight.)

I tease.  Mostly myself. ;)

Hrm.  I didn't realize how often I use the 0 key until it broke.  Now I am very aware of how often I use parenthetical phrases and smilies.  :/

Anyway!  November blew by pretty quickly.  I published my first novella (Woohooooo!) on the 4th.  You can go check it out on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.  If you feel like reading it and don't own an ereader, you can download the kindle reading app on your mobile device.  If, like me, you don't have a fancy-schmancy mobile gadget, you can also download the Amazon cloud reader and partake on your computer.  It's $2.99 right now.  If that's still too rich for your holiday pockets, I'm going to run a 99c sale shortly after Christmas.  I only get a 30% royalty on those instead of the usual 70%, but that's okay.

So far, I've sold a whopping 10 copies.  All of them to relatives or friends of relatives.  I've given away 4 for a contest on Facebook, and 1 to the person to whom it was dedicated.  Of those 15, I know 3 people have read it all the way through (my dad, his friend, and a contest winner), and at least 1 (probably more, I just don't know about it) bought it with no intention of reading it, just to support me.  8 of the purchased copies went out in the first three days.

It's a good thing I didn't go into it expecting to make it big - or rich - quickly!  Hee.

That consumed the first half of November.  I also had a couple holistic health classes that month.  Originally, I signed up for them to be able to apply them to my work as a doula.  Except that (also in November) I finally resigned myself to letting go of that path.  As much as I love birthwork, my life isn't really structured well to be a doula.  It's supplemental...and I really need a primary source of income before I add a second supplemental income (the first being my writing).  Plus, becoming a doula was something I did intuitively, I think, to help me heal from my experience having the berrykin. As my post from August showed, it did that very well.  No regrets!  I still have the knowledge and skills, and at least for now doulas don't have to be certified so I can always go back to it if I feel like it's a good fit.

The classes were exciting and tremendously interesting, anyway!  I am now a Certified Level 1 Reiki Practitioner.  That doesn't mean a whole lot except that it's something I've been wanting to do since freshman year of college.  It also showed me just how weak my upper body is - I can't even stand with good posture for twenty minutes without lopping my right arm off.  This was a problem, given that I had made a career choice that kind of depended on upper body stamina.  I committed to improving my upper body strength, only to have that career choice pulled out from under me.  Ah well.  At least I can retain my commitment to healing myself!

We caught a cold as a household at the end of the month, just in time to not be contagious by Thanksgiving.  I hosted.  The turkey was too dry, but I made some amazing cranberry sauce, so it balanced out.  Except that Berrykin threw up right as we started to eat.  I thought he'd just stuffed too many carrots in his mouth and gagged, but over the next few days that was obviously not the case.  He threw up off and on for about that long, and then we dealt with explosive diarrhea for two weeks.  Let me just say that Pull-Ups are not made to handle that kind of capacity.  O_o  I caught the same bug (though thankfully not with the same effects), and threw up three times...which I mention only because that's about as much as I've thrown up in the last decade.  I'm thinking maybe my stomach had finally healed some after being on Prilosec for two months so it could do what it's designed to do.  I dunno.  Wasn't pleasant.  But when it was over, I crossed a weight threshold I hadn't seen in two years, so that was a nice reward for being so icky.

Now I have to prep for Christmas!  I'm making our traditional Danish aebleskiver...for me, the berrykin, the Jeremelon, and my aunt and cousin.  Because although two of my siblings have been living with us, neither of them will be here.  This makes me tremendously sad.  I miss my brothers and sister.  But they have lives and I accept that.  Jeremelon has to work for six hours that day, too, so it'll be...I dunno.  Weird.  Maybe we'll all take Berrykin to a movie while Jeremelon works.  That's how we spent Christmas a couple years ago, and it was one of his family traditions.  So I guess it works. :)

A couple of months ago, we took all of our excess stuff out of storage and brought it home.  It now fills up every closet and the entirety of our dining area.  It used to take up a good chunk of the living room, too, but I've wheedled it down and rearranged.  Enough so that I had space to put up all of our Christmas decorations!  Yay!  But it's still a lot of stuff, and most of it needs to be sorted into giveaway/sell, toss, and keep boxes.  And then the keep boxes need to be sorted into proper storage form and better containers.  I'm hoping once I'm done, it'll all fit into a small (and therefore cheap) storage space.

Berrykin is getting better at talking, little by little.  He now uses some words I can actually understand, and is willing to try more (unlike before, when he refused to even try).  Still no verbs, only nouns.  No complex two-word phrases except we've upgraded "Tahnk" to "Tahnk oo."  He understands, he just doesn't talk.  It's still really hard listening to moms with kids a year or more younger happily exclaim over their kids' best phrases.  It makes me worry about him every time, but at least now that he's trying more words I have faith he'll get better.  Before, I thought there might be something more wrong with him than his genetic predisposition toward stubbornness.  He's a typical three year old aside from that.  Throws his tantrums, shrieks constantly (which is probably worsened because he can't tell me what he wants), follows instructions when he feels like it, draws on everything, sings, dances, acts out his favorite shows while he's watching.  He loves Mickey Mouse, books about bunnies, play food picnics, and cars on tracks.  He's finally started playing in his room by himself again, at least a little.  Potty training stalled out, and then nobody had any energy with everything else we had going on to encourage him back on track.  It would have been VERY helpful during the tummy bug incident, but ah well.  Jeremelon is taking him to see the grandparents next month and I'm staying home to write without distraction.  So I'm not going to worry about it until they get back, as driving long distance is a LOT easier when Berrykin can just go when and where he needs to.

And there you have it!  My exciting life. :)  I'm going to try to update more commonly.  We'll see if that actually happens, though...

New Background

I just went to change my background to my typical fall pumpkin patch and saw this masquerade one.  Had to have it!  It's not a farm of any sort, let alone berries.  But that's okay.  'Cause it's PRETTY.  And I can justify using it.  Ready?

My first novella, One For All, will be released shortly.  The climax takes place at political masque.  Technically, the masks in the story are animals, not these pretty things.  But I don't care.  Do you?  Naw.  'Cause they're PRETTY.  Which makes my background Halloween AND book promotion.  Get it?

...I'll let you know when the book is available, then you can judge for yourself.  I'll be giving away free copies, too!

For now, enjoy my loverly background. :D

Heart of a Wanderer

I just did a quick tally of how many times we've moved all our junk.  Then I tallied it again.  And again.  And then once more, just to be sure.  We've moved the majority of our stuff 7 times in 7.5 years.  Without professional assistance.  (We've had 13 different addresses in the not-quite-9 years we've been married, too, but my back doesn't care so much about that.)  

We've moved:

Halfway across the country.

From one coast to the other. 

When I had pneumonia.

When Jeremelon had the stomach flu.

When the car got a flat and then the truck got two just shy of the desert.

When our relief driver got pulled over to allow the cops to go through our trunk under suspicion of drug running.

With no idea where we were going to live when we arrived.

With the power prematurely shut off, so that we had to complete our move-out by portable lamp light.

In the heat.

In the cold.

In the snow.

In the rain.

In every season.

For good reasons.

For difficult reasons.

For new beginnings.

For old debts.

Without loss of limb, though occasionally of pride.

Without breaking anything that wasn't already on its last legs...

...until today.

Growing up, I never had any intention of living anywhere but Colorado; why leave what you love?  Yet I've now lived in New Mexico, Florida, California, and Arizona.  Pretty much everyone I know makes jokes about how often we move.  So do we!  (My current favorite is that we must be moving to Texas next, 'cause it's the only state left on my "Never will I live there!" list.)  Yet there comes a time when nearly everyone also gives us the crazy eye.  The one that asks, "How and why the BLEEP do you do that??"  or scrutinizes us for some deep-seated insanity not otherwise apparent.  It seems to make a lot of people uncomfortable, and I suppose, if I try really hard to think back before we got married, I can understand.  It's a big change to move across a city, let alone a country.  You leave behind all you know, all the people you care about (or almost all of them), and just *go.*  It's scary.  It's threatening.  And when you're doing it to pursue a dream, it becomes even moreso.  That's when the jokes get kind of ugly.

In spite of all the difficulties, though - all the trials and unknowns (including who will still have room for us when we come back again) - all these moves have made us better people.  I learned patience, fortitude, and to have faith in myself and my circumstances.  I learned to trust new people in ways I never would have otherwise.  Sure, coming back to the cold shoulders of the West after experiencing the casual warmth of Southern familiarity imparted a hefty dose of cynicism.  And yeah, the things to do in ordinary cities can't compare to having DisneyWorld and all its surrounds in one's figurative backyard.  Yes, I miss the friends we left behind.  I regret the time we sacrificed with old friends as they grew and changed and lived while we were away.  But there is one thing that all this moving has given me that I would likely never have earned without it: Perspective.

I have been a minority in several different settings now.  I know, firsthand, what culture clash looks like on a subtle level.  I know what immigrants add to our Great American Melting Pot, and through them, have come to understand exactly how much cultural context influences our lives.  I've seen how privileged I was to grow up where and how I did, and will never stop being grateful for it.  My anthropological background would be sorely lacking without all these stressful, often difficult changes of scenery.  More than that, *I* would be sorely lacking as a human being.  Perspective is a beautiful thing.  It's tricky, too, in that one can't fit inside the same box after growing into a new perspective.  It means that spaces where the past and present intersect get weird, awkward, and more difficult than they would have been before.  

Sometimes, I get frustrated with our lack of roots.  In those moments, the mean-spirited jokes cut deeper than I should let them.  We both have victimized ourselves with shame at our lack of career advancement and empty bank account.  I've been guilty, more often than I care to admit, of anger and hurt over our lack of close, personal ties.  Because I forget.  I forget that moving is a costly business.  I forget that in isolation, I've forged greater self-reliance.  I forget the inner strength I've earned through 7 instances of picking up my whole world and changing it from the foundation up.  I forget that the world keeps turning, and that I've met some amazing people in my wandering.

Today, I remembered.  Today, I glared at the many boxes of junk my mom emptied from my childhood closet for me when she sold the house.  I gleefully stuck my standee of Commander Riker in various places to glare back at us, simultaneously reminding me of pranks my brother used to play and of Miller and his obsession with positioning standees for maximum awkwardness and personal amusement.  My excruciatingly heavy box of Archaeology and Romance Writers of America magazines reminded me of all the time, effort, and energy I poured into my dreams and craft when I committed to my path in Albuquerque.  The equally awful box of Jeremelon's film books and school papers made me think of the Paper Hat crew, dinners at O'Boys, and a contextually hysterical progression of Why America Rules...and then the moment I was graced with the ability to see it from a foreign perspective. Berrykin's exersaucer made me miss my baby, but his attempt to summit the giant tower of boxes made me all the more proud of my adventurous, fearless little boy.  In that tower are traces of the kids who lived across the street, of old friends I'll never see again, of my high school circle, of the Meadows gang.  It's full of family long gone, newly lost, and still nearby.  Looking at pictures of our overflowing apartment, I'm struck with the notion that this is not just my past crammed in wherever we could fit it.  It's also me.  All of it, even the ridiculous number of giant boxes of Star Wars collectibles that aren't mine.  It's all where I come from, the path I've walked.  It's the people I've loved, the experiences I've hated.  More than just memories, it's a physical representation of who I am.  If an historian or archaeologist were to sift through it, they would puzzle together a much more accurate portrait of my true self than most people who know me ever could.  And isn't that both a beautiful thing and a terrible shame?

As I sit here, my recently dislocated shoulder aches fiercely.  My ankles and left knee have swollen.  My arms feel so sore, they're like to fall off.  I am bone weary and not an inch of me is left without feeling all its work of the past day and a half.  I have no idea whatsoever what we're going to do with all this stuff, even though we're supposed to be hosting Thanksgiving in six weeks.  As Jeremelon reminded me, we're probably going to have to do it all over again in seven months, regardless.  I have every right to feel stressed and done in, but I don't.  All I feel is a happy glow, because for this moment after the day's work is done and tomorrow's challenge not yet begun, I feel replete.  I have all the threads of my past woven around my fingers, and all I have to do is tug to connect with the people, places, ideas, dreams, hopes, risks, failures, and successes that have made me who I am today. 

To all of you who have contributed to my pile of stuff, whether you know what you added or not, I offer my gratitude.  You have made my moves through life all the more interesting and worthwhile.  From the heart of a wanderer, thank you for adding to my tower; without you, my perspective wouldn't be nearly the same.  

But please, forgive me if I give away whatever physical object represents our association.  Some of these boxes are darn heavy, and my back isn't what it used to be. ;)

Potty Training

This whole potty training thing is gonna do me in.  Not because it's hard, but because it's exhausting.  On good days, when the berrykin wants to go, he goes...often.  Like three times to fully empty his bladder once.  Which means three to four trips to the bathroom in ten minutes.  Aside from being frustrating (and hard on my skin, with all that hand washing), I'm usually okay with it.  At least he's going!  Some days, he goes maybe twice all day.  We've all been slacking on helping him, so we've been having more of those days recently.

No, the hard part is at night, when his bladder wakes him up.  Night before last, he got up six times in an hour.  Most nights, he gets up three to four times.  They're almost always during my window of care, too, between bedtime and when Jeremelon gets home from work.  So I don't generally get to go to sleep until Jeremelon gets home, somewhere between 2am and 4am.  And then Berrykin gets up for the day at 7.  So Jeremelon takes a nap, gets up with him, and lets me sleep until 10:30 so I can get six or seven hours most days.  Then we switch.  Which generally means neither of us ever feels rested, and we have very little time in a day when we're all up and home.

This morning, I awoke at 8:30 to find Berrykin up to his elbows (literally) in the toilet.  From what I could piece together, he'd gone potty all by himself, then dumped it in the toilet like he so enjoys doing.  Then he'd emptied the roll of toilet paper into the toilet and flushed.  Except it didn't go anywhere.  So he fished it all out and put it in the trash can.  Because he's a big helper like that.  Jeremelon had fallen asleep on the couch, so he had no idea.  Thankfully, the bathroom we use for potty training is the master bath, so I frequently wake up to potty sounds and know the difference (in my sleep, no less!) between assisted pottying and unsupervised potty playing.

I just got a part-time retail job in time for the holidays (yay! No, really.  While I swore to myself never again, retail, we need the money, so it's a good thing), and I will be getting up at 5:15 several times a week.  This really screws up our "normal" schedule.  Thankfully, the Anderpiller moved in with us last month, so he's going to be our part-time nanny.  Still, I can't go to sleep at 3 and get up two hours later and expect not to go insane.  Which means we need to get Berrykin to sleep through the night.  Which means we have to quit the night milk (I was SO CLOSE this summer, but then everybody got sick and he needed the fluids).  Which means many sleepless, screaming nights.  Normally, I like to space out the trauma we cause him for his own good.  This time, though, we might have to go all out and combine the Supernanny's Cry It Out (which worked when he was littler) and night weaning.  

Ugh.  So not looking forward to that.  But I don't have orientation until Thursday, so I guess we have the time.

::whimper:: Sleep is possibly the single hardest part of regular parenting...

Professional Blog

Some time back, I promised that I would link to my new professional blog as soon as I had it up.  I think I forgot.  But no worries, 'cause I have only posted three times in as many months.  Hee.

EarthGirly is my official home online.  I've linked it on the right, currently titled "Between Worlds," for easy locating.  Eventually, it will be populated by all kinds of fun stuff related to writing, gaming, movies, archaeology, culture, birth, psychology - anything that catches my professional fancy.  For now, it's just a blog.  The blog will no doubt see all those things, too, but it's mainly going to be about my writing journey for now (and my attempts to write somewhat professional blog posts...).

Never fear, the Berry Patch is going nowhere!  This is still going to be my personal blog, full of all the stuff I don't want to share with a future professional audience.

I should also post again soon...there's not much going on here, really, so it's hard to find stuff to blog about!

Until then, enjoy the changeover into Fall!

Birth and Rebirth

I have a secret.  I've carried it with me for three years like a tattered teddy bear.  A soggy, dirty, tattered teddy bear with rotted stuffing.  Yet as foul as it is, I have clung to it just like a child finding safety in a well-loved toy.  For three years, this secret has framed my world.  Has defined the whole of my existence. Has defined me.  For three years, I have lived a life of shame, of regret, of pain and fear and guilt and rage and hate.

What is this festering, evil teddy bear secret?

Three years ago, I had a c-section, and it nearly killed me.

Please don't misinterpret me.  I'm not being melodramatic.  I really mean it - having a c-section nearly killed me.  It didn't come close to killing my body, though it certainly felt like it.   It brought me to the brink of complete self-destruction and left me there, alone, to cope or to leak enough of my soul and spirit that I bled out into nothing.

The doctors did their surgical job - they cut me open, delivered my baby, and sewed me back up again. But they left behind wounds that didn't heal, that nobody could see.  Wounds that didn't fall within the purview of their scope of practice.  Nobody talks about these side effects of our c-section epidemic.  We talk about infection rates, numbness at the site, the risk of future uterine rupture should we attempt to deliver without surgical intervention.  Clinical.  Distanced.  Scary enough on their own.  The closest mainstream inquiry gets to addressing the emotional byproducts is to acknowledge that women with unexpected cesarean sections are at greater risk of postpartum depression.

"Depression" didn't even come close describing to my experience.  After my cesarean, I felt destroyed.  Lost.  Broken beyond repair.  For me, being pregnant and having babies was the thing I dreamed about from the time I was twelve.  While most of my friends were fantasizing about dream weddings, travel adventures, and exotic careers, I dreamed about making a family.  Not because I'm so traditional that I wanted nothing more, but because I knew, deep down inside, that I'm a mommy soul.  Mothering - for better or worse - is what I do.  I've never been happier than I was while pregnant, and I was committed to having an empowering birth experience.  It was going to be, as far as my anthropologist brain was concerned, the moment of my ritual transition into the fullness of being me.  

I was induced at 37 weeks for gestational hypertension and threat of pre-eclampsia.  I'd wanted to give birth naturally, but who was I to argue with my doctor?  She told me they needed to do this in order to avoid scarier problems, like organ failure.  That part wasn't so thrilling, but I was elated to be going into labor - I was on track to being one of those obnoxious women who actually enjoys it - and I would be holding my baby all the sooner.  

But the next morning, everything started going wrong.  My body wasn't ready.  This little thing led to that slightly bigger thing, until my baby was literally thirty seconds away from suffering brain damage due to lack of oxygen.  As I watched his heart rate drop and stay there, the minutes ticking by while everyone else in the room chatted on amiably, I started to silently panic.  The nurse arrived, watched the monitor closely, and just as his heart rate began to rise, the doctor arrived, at a run, out of breath, prepared to do an emergency c-section to save him.  That was the moment I gave up.  The negative possibilities of what could happen outweighed the positive potentials.  I didn't want to lose my baby.  Whatever they wanted to do to me would be better.  And so I progressed through the "cascade of interventions" that often accompanies induction without argument, instead of progressing through labor.  At 27 hours, having made no progress beyond 5 cm for an hour, they suggested a c-section.  One more hour and I spiked a fever, and my doctor told me it was time.

I was devastated.  In that moment, everything I was as a person, as a woman, fell apart around me.  My body, the one thing I had always been able to trust, failed me.  It couldn't do what it was meant to do.  It was broken, and therefore I was broken.  My beautiful experience of empowerment, the ritual of giving birth, of transitioning from maiden to matron, died before it really began.  I spent the hour leading up to my surgery trying hard not to sob and failing often.  I made my husband promise to love and cherish and care for our baby without resentment if I died on the operating table.  Because I was sure that's what would happen.  I was dying on the inside, so surely death must follow on the outside.

I didn't die on the outside, but I was strapped down into a nightmare.  I had wanted a natural childbirth in part because drugs and I have strange reactions together.  The drug they gave me going into the OR put me into a weird state of consciousness and made me all too aware of my body while being incapable of communicating well.  My body had a low response to the pain medication, and I felt more than any of them expected.  The third time I was told I should only feel "a few more of these tugs," my coping skills failed me.  Soon thereafter, the anesthesiologist knocked me out.  I woke up to a nurse who wouldn't talk to me, who complained to another nurse that she had to sit with me instead of helping out on the other births happening in happier rooms.  I felt lost, confused, and totally, utterly alone.  

I lived in that moment for three months.

The place I inhabited for the first year of my son's life was dark, dangerous, full of fear and desperation.  I was grieving all I had lost - my sense of self, my womanhood, my strength, my self-belief, as well as my birth experience.  I went through all the stages of grief, but anger ruled them all.  Without a better outlet, I raged at my husband.  He was at a loss to help me, and really, didn't even know he needed to.  I hated him for months for not listening, not holding me, not protecting me.  There was no one else in my daily life to talk to, and I grew more and more isolated, more and more depressed.  Until one night, desperate for sleep, for quiet, for things I hadn't yet realized I was missing - a night when the baby wouldn't stop crying.  (We found out much later that his nervous system hadn't fully developed yet, so he likely spent his first months in a state of over-stimulation.)  An image flashed in my head of laying him in the tub and leaving the water on and the drain open.  Terror set in instantaneously.  My mother suffered through postpartum psychosis with my older brother and I feared I was there, too.  My husband didn't understand.  My family was occupied with their own difficult problems.  I was alone, and now I didn't trust myself to be alone with the baby.

There was no one to help me.  There was only me, my baby, an empty apartment and equally empty bank account.  I had no car to give me a change of scenery and no strength to get far beyond my front door.  The only resources I had were inside me.  Thankfully, I didn't have postpartum psychosis*; I had a mother's instinct trying to kick in, pushing desperately to fire up my protective, nurturing capacity to bond me to my baby.  Its final, frightening push worked.  I relearned how to rely on myself, to trust myself.  To do more than go through the motions of the day.  Unfortunately, in so doing, I separated myself from everything and everyone else.  I resented everyone I had contact with - even through Facebook - for not checking on me.  I was overwhelmingly angry at close friends and family for not reaching out when I was so obviously (to me) struggling to keep my nose above water.  I built myself an iron-barred fortress with a fiery moat and no drawbridge, and no one got to come inside.

My son just celebrated his third birthday, and I'm still not healed and whole enough to be the mommy I want to be for him.  I've completely dismantled my emotional core more than once.  I've blown apart relationships.  I've forgotten who I am and who I want to be.  I lost the ability to connect with others, to trust anybody to see me even when I'm right in front of them.  In many ways, I do feel like I died that day, and have spent the last three years in Purgatory.

Nobody talks about the dark side of birth.  Nobody talks about the aftermath.  Nobody talks about what happens inside a c-section- or complicated-birth-survivor's self as they struggle to regain footing.  When we try, we're shouldered aside because it's uncomfortable and scary.  At best, we're kept at arm's length and pointed to resources that might help.  At worst, we're told we shouldn't feel the way we do because we have a healthy baby and nobody died, and we should look at the bright side.  (Because "nobody died" is the sort of positive takeaway one wants from giving birth, right?)  What we really need is connection.  Understanding.  A hand to hold to help us remember that life is more than that moment when everything collapsed out from under us.  Even with those things, each of us has a long, hard road of recovery ahead.

Today, I'm giving my struggles and those of women like me a voice.  Today, I'm sharing because I've  finally reached a place that isn't shrouded in my own darkness.  Today, I can say the following without feeling like I'm a horribly false liar:

Three years ago, I gave birth.  

I haven't been able to say that before because I felt too disconnected and unimportant to the process.  My son had been taken out of me, delivered into the world by a stranger's hands because I failed, not born through me because I labored hard and triumphed.  Being able to say I gave birth to him is monumental progress.  It means I'm no longer the victim of my experience, that I have grown strong and vital, and fought my way back to the world of the living.  I'm becoming me again, with upgrades.

Today, even though my lower abdomen is still numb, my pelvis is still misaligned, and my lower back still pains me every day, I'm finally healed enough to speak up and share.  I can let go of my festering teddy bear of a secret.  I can say:  I am Mother, I am Woman; hear me roar!  

That makes today a good day.  It makes today my Rebirthing Day.

This is the message I want to send to my fellow survivors: It may take months, it may take years, but eventually the wounds will close, the fear will subside, and the anger will burn itself away.  You may feel, as I did, that you will be broken and living in darkness forever.  But one day, you will wake up to sunshine.  On that day, celebrate how far you've come, because it's been a long, hard road.  Until that day arrives, know that you're not alone.  Thousands of us have walked the same path.  Reach out to us, if you can.  Share your birth story in the comments, if you'd like.  If you can't reach out, as I couldn't, know that we are connected through shared experience, whether we know it or not.  You won't be broken forever, and you're a whole lot stronger right now than you think you are!

Help me celebrate my Rebirthing Day - Go outside and dance, in sunshine or in rain.  Laugh with your children.  Bake cookies and give them away.  Run barefoot through sprinklers.  Hug your special someone.  Have a picnic.  Invite friends out to dinner.  Laugh and love, in whatever way makes you happiest.  I will be!

Here are some quick tips to help women cope after a difficult birth experience:

If you're in the home with her:

- Make sure she's eating and drinking.  After a cesarean, even getting a sandwich or a glass of water can be exhausting and too painful to want to bother with.

- Watch the baby so she can sleep.  Bonus: Sit with her while she sleeps and the baby sleeps on your chest.  This is a great bonding experience for baby, and can provide the mother with a sense of safety.

- Pay attention to her moods; often, women suffering from postpartum disorders can't tell the difference but friends and family can.  Significant mood changes are not normal!

- Talk to her.  Show her you love her and care for her, and what she went through doesn't change how you think or feel about her.

- Help her get up and move around.  It speeds recovery time, and a shorter recovery makes for a stronger, happier mama.

If you're not in the home:  (These are true of all new moms, btw.)

- Drop off meals.

- Offer to babysit so she (and her partner) can sleep.

- Offer to help around the house.

- Call her.  Have a chat about whatever she feels like talking about.

- Send her funny, cute, pretty, or uplifting pictures.

- Invite her out, once she has the go-ahead.  Remind her there's more to life than feedings, diapers, and crying.  If she's too tired, let her know that's okay.  Then - this is the most important part - ask again another day.

* Postpartum psychosis is a dangerous, potentially life-threatening disorder.  I should have talked to my doctor (my PCP, given that I didn't trust my OB at all), but I was too ashamed and my husband didn't make me.  If you or someone you know has any thoughts of hurting anyone within the first months after giving birth, seek help immediately.  More information on postpartum psychosis here.

Sleep Deprivation

Humans need sleep.  Some humans need more than others.  The Jeremelon, for example, never needed much in order to function pretty well.  Until he passed 30.  Now, he gets irritated with himself quickly when he feels exhausted.

Me, I've always needed sleep.  Food, not so much (whereas Jeremelon needed food in order to be...err...pleasant).  But sleep for me was always extremely important.  My age was immaterial.  Four hours of sleep?  Expect me to be a cranky zombie.  Bleeeeeeegh.  And then around New Years' in 2006, I got sick.  This is when I think my thyroid first went wonky, too, but I had a bout of bronchitis that left me feeling like I was drowning every time I laid down.  Coupled with nebulized drugs that didn't agree with me, I got four hours of sleep across THREE DAYS.  I developed generalized anxiety disorder (or post-traumatic stress disorder, because it's only been recently that I don't dream about it often).  My fight-or-flight switch got stuck in the ON position for three months before I got help.  Ever since, I can't sleep except during very specific conditions.

When the Berrykin was born, I got maybe four hours of sleep on a good night, for three months.  Then we got to move up to six, but it was broken up into 1.5 - 2 hour chunks.  It wasn't until he started sleeping for four hour increments at nine months that I realized just how sleep deprived I was, and how much it affected how I functioned.  Without consistent sleep, I don't dream much.  Dreaming is a necessary process that allows the brain and body to heal, but also to process information.  Especially emotional information.  Without it, a human can feel like they never get a break.

This seems doubly true for me.  I don't tend to process emotional information very well while awake, so I rely heavily on the "Flush" button that occurs during sleep.  I can tell from my dreams more easily when I'm stressed or anxious and need a break than from how I feel while awake.  The same process occurs - most often in men - while doing things that don't require much attention on physical processes.  Driving, showering, playing video games.  Jeremelon needs his game playing in order for this process to do its work; I need sleep.

Berrykin has been doing a smashingly good job with potty training, but he wakes up frequently at night when he has the urge to go.  Because he insists on more milk to fall back to sleep, he has the urge to go every hour or two.  Which means we're back to having a newborn sleep schedule.  It's been killing me. I can't sleep.  I can't think.  My emotions are everywhere, at all once.  Any time I have to interface with people in an emotional way, either I have no emotions to give, or they're all that at the same time, overloading every system I've got.  Most of the time, I kind of feel like I'm going crazy.

And that is the big effect of sleep deprivation - the feeling that the world has grown so big and overwhelming, there's no stopping it.  That one is going to be crushed beneath the sheer weight of life, and it's all one can do to get through the day.

Jeremelon let me sleep in today.  He slept on the Berrykin's floor most of the night (because Berrykin is also dealing with shifting from cosleeping with me, which makes sleep even more difficult), got up with him, took him to the store.  I got up at noon.  NOON!  I remember three dreams from this glorious stretch of sleep, and all of them were processing dreams.  I feel so much better - and saner - because of it!

Lesson Learned: If life seems overwhelming, sleep on it.

Summer Time in the City

Living on this side of the city is strange.  Almost everyone we know lives on the south side, so when I have a random urge to see friends, I never know who to invite out.  One of us will have to drive through the heart of the city (which, granted, isn't so awful on the scale of cities, but still), and I have a feeling it will be me.  Then again, I swore to myself that I wouldn't hang out with anyone until after I publish my first book.  That way, I have incentive to get it done.

My deadline for said publishing endeavor is four days away.  I'm not going to meet it.  I'm trying not to beat myself up over it - life happened in extremely unexpected ways.  I couldn't have anticipated Jeremelon's new job or moving across states or my sister, Beeee, having happen what is happening.  It worked out very well - more than that, really, because it worked in the only way we could have managed to pull it off.  But it left my writing in a hole from early April through the middle of June.  That's a lot of lost time.  Plus, summer is my time for revving up the old body, gettin' it moving and trying to build new habits.  I seem to perpetually be choosing between exercise and writing.  One is imperative for my health, the other for my financial future.  It's always a hard choice.

Our new habits are nice.  We've finally settled into Colorado, and I no longer wander around wondering what to do with myself.  The apartment is mostly organized, though we still have to figure out what to do with all the things we have in storage, as we can't afford the rent much longer (why do we have SO MUCH STUFF?).  Jeremelon is doing well at his job, though some days he loves it and some days he can't stand that he's right where he was before.  He's chafing at the lack of forward motion, and I don't blame him.  But!  He lost 20 pounds in the last month, he's learning new skills and meeting new people.  His career may feel stagnant, but his personal life has taken some mighty leaps forward.

I've got myself on a smoothie breakfast routine.  Most mornings, I wake up and make myself a nice strawberry-spinach smoothie, adding whatever other fruit is on hand (blueberries are my current fave), along with some protein-rich yogurt and omega-3-full flax meal.  It does wonders for my GERD, and I think it may have kickstarted my metabolism.  Woohoo!  I've almost worked off the ten pounds I gained when my grandmother passed away, and I look a lot trimmer than I did before (or at least I think so).  I am really excited about working off the next set of pounds and inches - whether it was my thyroid or my glacial metabolism (or something else entirely), I worked my butt off last summer and stayed the same exact weight the whole time.  It was very frustrating, and I started hating my body for things I couldn't control.  Now, though, I really feel like strength training and the resultant muscle increase will help.  I may never be able to work off the fat easily, thanks to my thyroid condition, but I don't mind working hard so long as there's at least a small payoff at the end.  I have 21 pounds to go before I get back to pre-pregnancy weight, which is my first big goal.  But I only have 5 before I can say I've broken through my post-pregnancy set-point.  Score!

Berrykin is doing well.  He started learning his alphabet all on his own, and despite still not talking much at all, he will say B, C, D, E, V, and O.  He also will say 9 and 10, and is super excited about counting in general.  I'm trying to use that to help him potty train.  Potty training is essential to getting him into preschool so he can socialize and have fun and I can have time to work, all without shelling out the insane cost of daycare.  He'll be three next month, and that's when I decided it would be okay for me to get a job and put him in full-time daycare, assuming we can afford it.  Trying to find a job that will give me a grand in daycare costs plus enough over it to make a difference in our budget is tricky when one hasn't worked in a long time, especially when the economy is in the dumps.  I really need a job, but I don't really have transferable skills.  I keep thinking I'd like to go back to school to get a biology degree so I can get a job in a health-related profession, but I don't know.  Nothing really seems like a good fit.

Except writing, of course!  So that is what I'm doing - focusing on the writing, getting healthy, and giving the Berrykin a solid foundation from which to learn and grow and love.

Acclimating

I am having a problem I never thought was possible.  I have time and space to do with as I please.

Really.  It's a problem.  I can't get used to it.  I'm used to the environment in Phoenix, where neither my time nor my space actually belonged to me because it could be taken away without notice.  I avoided having to deal with a lot of bad vibes by hiding in our bedroom, writing.  I could do that, because Jeremelon took care of the Berrykin.  Now that Jeremelon has a job, we have our own apartment, and I have all this stuff that really and truly is MINE, I keep finding myself at a loss.

I just made second dinner.  Because I was bored.  Or rather, because I felt a might peckish and didn't know what else to do.  I feel guilty playing games or watching a movie or doing anything for myself because I should be spending more time with Berrykin.  But Berrykin has gotten very independent, and what he likes to do, right now, is watch Cars and scream whenever anyone in the movie screams.  And put Duplo blocks together.  Over and over and over again.  Which is great!  I love that he is engaged and happy and feels comfortable (safe and secure haven't happened yet because we're not done setting up the apartment and we're making him sleep in his own bed) and still adventurous.  On the other hand, when I finally settle on something to do, it's like I suddenly have a 40-pound cat.  "I am happy doing THIS, Mommy" becomes "OhmigoshMommyyouaredoingsomethingsoamazingImusttakepartRIGHTNOW!"  He comes very close to sitting on my laptop because when it's in my lap, that's suddenly where he needs to be.  When I use the desktop to forego that problem, suddenly my keys are the most enthralling things in the world and he must touch every single one of them repeatedly.

This, of course, is the nature of a loving, insatiably curious near-preschooler.  I love it.  But at the same time, it's exhausting.

I'm letting him play with our plastic winter cups that he naughtily pulled from a box he'd been told not to play in.  Because it's keeping him entertained so I can whine.  I'm in the bedroom, listening to him dump Duplos in and out of the cups, with one ear always open and legs ready to spring into action at a moment's notice.  All so I can type in peace...and maybe buy myself ten seconds when he realizes I'm missing.  He's very worried about me when I'm missing.  He always comes to find me, and then leads me back to wherever he was playing to sit with him.  Not because he wants me to play with him, but because he wants to sit in my lap while he plays by himself.  You know, so I can't get away.

I took him to the park today and let him play and run, where normally I'm the one doing the running (okay, walking with occasional 30-second jogging bursts).  He was worn out enough to take a nap...AT naptime...WITHOUT a fuss!  He even ran in and hopped on his mattress when I told him it was naptime. O_o  Then he even fell ASLEEP without too much patting and rubbing and singing and playing and and and...  So I had a nice chat with a pregnant friend on Facebook (she's giving me pots and soil!  I can finally start an Actual BerryPatch!), then did the two pieces of copywriting I had due for next week.  (TOGETHER.  WITHOUT INTERRUPTION!)  And I did all my laundry when he got up.  And I'm supposed to be resting for a 5k tomorrow.  I researched some ebook marketing and launching and fun stuff like that.  And...for the last hour, I've been watching the clock, counting down to bedtime.  He's got 45 minutes until bath time...which I can probably shave down by 15 and throw in an extra story, instead.  But what am I to do with 30 minutes?  Getting him to pick up his room will take 5.  The rest is, for him, Thomas time, to wind down watching his trains (part of bedtime ritual, yanno).  But what's a Hollyberry to do?

My docket was full of kitchen organization.  But I REALLY don't want to do that.  The next step is washing dishes, anyway, and my hands are already killing me from three days of washing by hand.  No more dishes for me!  Which leaves...what?  I have my daily relaxation exercises to get to, but have to be able to hear him.  I have writing (oh, so much writing!), but that takes more concentration than half a brain eternally waiting for Toddler Apocalypse.  I would be able to edit, except my editing right now is actually writing, because I have to scrap a scene and start from scratch.  Which leaves brainstorming, which I'm too braindead to do, continuing my search for a back-up artist, which is financially depressing, job hunting, which is just all-out depressing, and...sitting in front of the dryer waiting for the sheets to be dry enough to put them on the bed.  No, wait!  I have TWO sets of sheets now!  No, I have THREE!  I haven't had multiple sets of sheets in nine months, so I completely forgot that I don't have to clean one in order to make the bed.  Woohoo!

I'm off to make the bed.  Then, maybe, after Berrykin is asleep, I can get to my real work, and get this stupid scene rewritten.  Zooooom!

Change

Remember that change I mentioned in the last quick update?

We moved back to Colorado.  Hurray!

We're living on the north side of Denver, which is new for us.  My dad grew up about eight minutes from our apartment, and my grandparents always lived in this area.  So it's not unknown sort of new, entirely.  That actually makes it kind of hard.  Memories of my grandparents are around every corner, waiting to jump out at me when I least expect it.  The berrykin fell asleep in the car while we were out the other day, and we drove to let him nap and accidentally ended up passing my grandparents' house.  I miss them.  It's hard to believe my grandpa has been gone for 11 years.  Part of me still feels like they should be here, somewhere.  It was really hard during the moving phase, because we had issues finding a place to sleep or the money to...well, do anything, really.  My grandma would have insisted we stay with her and done whatever she could to help.  She would have gotten such an enormous kick out of the berrykin - she loved little kids, especially boys, so very much.  They always made her laugh a lot.

Anyway, before I start crying too hard...

We are back in Colorado.  Jeremelon got his old job back, but at a different theatre on this side of the city.  My sister, Beeee, is helping with rent in exchange for a bedroom so she doesn't have an hour-long commute each way every day.  With her help, we managed to get an apartment we can afford.  It's older than any of the ones I've lived in before, but it's not icky by any means.  Except that it's in a transition refurbish period, so not everything matches.  Like the doorknobs.  Half of them required actual keys to open, which I thought was the house key because it went in without a problem.  But when Berrykin locked himself in his room yesterday, I discovered that was not the case.  : /  I had to have maintenance come over to get him out, and they switched out all the knobs for me.  I failed to clarify what I wanted, so now NONE of the bedroom doors lock.  But that's a problem for another day.

My author career launches in FIVE WEEKS from today!  Holy moly oly!  Unfortunately, because we lost two months due to Jeremy's mom's hip problems and our own moving, I've gotten no closer to having publishable material.  I'm still on my first edit of the first story, and have a whole page written of the second story.  But I guess that's okay, 'cause there was a misunderstanding on the art side of things, so I'm only going to have the first cover.  Which means I need to figure out what kind of simple yet attractive cover I can Photoshop together on my own until such a time as my artist has more leeway or I have money with which to pay someone else (my artist is a friend who agreed to do it for free, because he's awesome like that).

Still, I can't express how terrifyingly exciting it is that July is ALMOST HERE!!  I was hoping to have a launch party sometime at the end of June, but that doesn't look feasible, now that we have to, you know, pay rent 'n stuff. :)  I also need to get my doula site up so I can start looking for clients.  Berrykin turns three in under two months, which is crazy.  I'm sure there are other, smallish things that I'm forgetting to mention.  There are a couple much bigger things, too, but I'm going to wait to talk about those until I can actually do so in a concrete, factual manner.

Hopefully, I will be able to post more berrykin-related stuff soon.  I need to find a working camera cord.  I also need to take time to blog, too, now that we have internet and a set routine.  But...yeah.  Not sure it will happen.  For now, I'm off to continue organizing the kitchen so that when my cousins come over tomorrow, it's not a total disaster...

In the Wind

That'd be change.  Change is in the wind.

Though it was also us, driving to Arizona yesterday.  Lots of flying dirt.  Oh, and pollen.

Big stuff goin' down.  Will fill you in soon when I'm not worried about jinxing...er...when it's official.

Colorado

It's snowing on us for the second time in our two-week visit to Colorado.  On May 1st.  Personally, I think that's AWESOME.  It snowed in June some years back - that was weirder.  I get annoyed with all the people on Facebook who say spring hasn't started yet, and they want winter to go away.  Because honestly, this IS spring in Colorado.  The majority of Colorado's snow falls in the spring months, and because it gets more snow than rain in a year, this is the bulk of its moisture.  I know I haven't had to drive in it endlessly this season, or suffered for a lack of "new" season - I got to have spring in Arizona, after all.  But still.  If ya don't like spring being made up of snow, don't live in Colorado.

Then again, I've always had a significant love affair with snow.  It only grew when it happened to snow the day I found out I was pregnant with the berrykin.  I have so many good memories of snow, they far outweigh the bad.  This snow, too, is all fluffy and wet.  My favorite!

Part of me wishes we were actually moving back.  We had a 2 or 3 week window before we came to visit when it was a significant possibility.  But the job we were 98% certain Jeremelon would get back didn't come through.  Without at least one full-time job, we can't come back.  I could take two doula clients a month, which would be the equivalent of a full-time job at about $10/hour.  Not nearly enough on its own, but possibly enough to move so we could find something better while living with my sister. Except that I'm nowhere near experienced enough to land two clients a month.  I won't get my first book check until August or September, so that can't even be additional income until after summer is over.  And summer is REALLY the time to get the heck out of Phoenix.

Jeremelon has one more "good" lead (in quotes because it all seems to be luck anymore) in Phoenix that will hopefully take him on - his dad works for the company, as does a previous supervisor.  And then...I have no idea what we're doing.  Well, I'm continuing to write.  THAT won't ever change. (Except months like April, where I'm too busy dealing with upheaval to get anything productive done, including passing my classes...grrrr.)

For today, I'm enjoying watching the snow fall.  Soon as Jeremelon finishes doing the dishes, I think I'll edit.  Then hopefully I can send my first novella off to beta readers before the end of the week.

Goods News and Bad News

Good news!  I haven't killed anybody yet!!

I found a quick and good-for-me solution: Exercise off the rage.  So far, it's working.  Plus, it gets me out of the confines of the apartment.  I keep trying to get the Jeremelon to take the berrykin out for a morning to the zoo or the aquarium - anywhere, really - but he ends up being too tired from getting up all the time to help his mom use the toilet (in the living room - yay...).  The result is that the berrykin has reverted to extra-hyper-monster-child.  He doesn't want to sleep.  He zooms around the apartment, shrieking his head off.  You know, because the space that he was free to play in has been more than halved.  I don't blame him.  But because he can't go out, he goes up.  We keep finding him sitting on the desk that holds the big flatscreen tv.  Or pulling all his clean diapers off the third shelf of the bookcase.  He also goes under - Jeremelon lost him today because he was hiding under a chair that was pushed in under a desk. (As opposed to last night, when Jeremelon lost him because he was being a good boy and sitting on the futon mattress on the floor...he was just behind a piece of furniture, so very tired Jeremelon didn't see him.)  This same thing happened when we first moved here, and I was keeping him trapped in the playroom to stay out of the in-laws' hair.  He gets mean and loud and crazy because he wants to explore and run around and be free.  I might have to start getting up with him and taking him to the zoo first thing in the morning (summer hours here start at 7, I think).  The juniper count should have fallen enough by now that I won't want to chop my head off an hour later...

More good news: We're going back to Colorado!  At least to visit.  I am REALLY hoping it's a more permanent thing.  We're waiting for news on the employment front to find out.  I'm not really sure when we'll get there.  I was thinking we would leave yesterday, but then came the news of impending blizzard in CO (which totally didn't happen), and the news that we have a week to wait until we hear about the job front.  Now, because we're not sure how long we'll REALLY have to wait, and because it's easier to drive two cars together than make the trip separately (do I wake up the baby to go to the bathroom, or wait an hour and hope my bladder doesn't explode?), I don't know when it will be exactly.  Right now, I'm thinking when I get at least halfway through my second novella, and after the first gets edited and sent off to beta readers.  Also, I want to wait until I get my copywriting money.  You know, so we have gas money. :P

The bad news: Because of everything in my last post, I had to make a choice in order to make life work right.  It was a crappy choice, but I felt SO MUCH better after making it.  There wasn't nearly enough time to get all my writing necessities done to hit my deadlines as well as all my homework and paid writing.  I couldn't give up my exercise time - which is only 30 - 45 minutes, anyway - because...well, I couldn't.  That was non-negotiable.  The only solution was to take an F in my java class so I could stop doing the homework.  It was eating up all my time, because not only was it a lot of work, but I spent all day every day worrying about getting it done.  So, big bummer.  But that's life, right?  We have to make choices, and sometimes all the options suck.  I refuse to screw over my writing project, and I still needed my sanity, so the only acceptable solution was to screw over my grades.

So that is life right now.  Happening, but...at least it's not as 100% awful as I was sure it was going to be!

Wherein I Whine...A Lot

We'll open this post with a note to self.
Dear Self,

In future, do not, under any circumstances, begin the hard slog through a highly ambitious writing project at the same time as you are taking classes that require a great deal of time and technical brain.  They will cancel themselves out, and you'll be stuck with a big zippo on both ends.  Not to mention the great big pile of loser you will feel like each and every day that ends in a zero.  Nobody wants that.

Sincerely,
Me

So, yeah.  Today, I'm feeling irritated with myself.  I have my logic book on one leg, my Kindle waiting for me to keep reading my own story so I can start editing it beside me, my java book letting off a terrifying, evil chortle next to it, and my revision notes looking all sad and pathetic across the bed.  On my other side is a basket of laundry that needs to be sorted, and straight ahead, a mirrored closet door that shows me how badly I need to exercise.  It's a *great* setup.

I was gaining traction, then momentum, finally, because we had some good news that might be making our near-future look brighter.  We were back to the waiting game, but I can live with that when I have so much I need to get done, anyway.

And then the mother-in-law broke her hip.  Or rather, the pins holding it together snapped in two.  So she has to have surgery on it.  Again.  This'll be the third time for this one fix.  She can't move without dissolving into a sobbing puddle of pain, so she needs help to get to the bathroom.  That help is the father-in-law, or, when he's at work, the Jeremelon.  The father-in-law started a new job a week and a half ago.  He works three or four days a week from 4pm to 4am.  Meaning he sleeps until 1 or 2 in the afternoon.  Meaning every morning and half of all evenings and overnight, her helper is the Jeremelon. It's not so bad when she lays in bed and reads or sleeps, which is really what she should be doing since she wore herself down so horribly at work.  But the days when she sits in the living room?  She does work.  Like, making important phone calls.  And she reads while watching HGTV.  And the second someone asks if they can change the channel, she flies into a nasty temper about how her options to do anything are limited, so she deserves to watch her program (and then immediately goes back to reading her book or doing her work).  And she gets angry when the berrykin shrieks, which, as a two-year old with a growing sense of humor and enjoyment of watching things fly, happens very often.  You know, because we should keep him from shrieking...because it's loud and disruptive.  In the living room.  Or even from the next room over.  And while you're here, she needs a tissue.  And a cup of coffee.  But not the coffee in the pot, that one over there.  And she should eat something, so would you mind making her a salad, from scratch?  But not with those ingredients that are already prepared, the ones you have to cut.  And while you're doing that, because you're not going fast enough, she supposes she would just have a protein bar.  And another cup of coffee.  And oh no!  The berrykin is climbing on that thing he climbs on all the time, and he MIGHT grab that paper she left out that's really, REALLY important, and you can't let him hurt it, because it's so important.  And so you control the rambunctious two year old, who throws a fit because he's two, and while you're busy explaining things to him so he will learn instead of just react, you ask him a question so he can feel like you're listening, and she responds for him.  At length.  Like you're asking because you're too dumb to understand and you're really asking him to find out his answer.  Never mind that you were the one who explained the concept to HER yesterday.  Never mind that you have discussed this topic several times with her.  So you get the toddler settled and go to the room to take a breath and get a hold on your temper, and suddenly SHE shrieks (because apparently, it's okay when she does it) like a knife is about to fall point-first into her lap because she's dropping her napkin.  And you here your husband ask his mother not to shriek because it only riles up the toddler more and it's hard on everybody else, which becomes an argument about how she has a right to do what she wants because it's how she copes, and then the husband leaves the room to throw stuffed animals at the wall of the playroom.  And then you swoop in to stop the berrykin from smacking himself in the face because he doesn't yet know how to handle his emotional response to other people getting upset, and he thinks he's the one in trouble, and your heart breaks.  So you steal him away for quiet time in the bedroom, which lasts about twenty minutes before he's shrieking and demanding to watch Shaun the Sheep again.  And when you get him settled in at that, you realize that single question about whether or not you and the husband could spend thirty minutes together playing a video game (because that's all you can afford to do, and there are no babysitters to watch both the toddler and the mother-in-law so you could even go for a quiet walk) became three hours of coping with chaos.

Her mom is coming to stay on Tuesday, for an unknown amount of time.  But she has hip problems, too, and isn't strong enough to lift the mother-in-law, so she can provide comfort and care, but we still won't be able to leave the house for longer than an hour.  Plus, that'll be six of us in one apartment.  And she'll be sleeping on the couch in the living room (apparently, she likes it).  So kiss goodbye all the sanity-retention hours after the mother-in-law goes to bed.  That leaves Jeremelon and I with the playroom after hours...but that's also where Jeremelon and his snoring sleep.  So if he goes to bed, I'm left with...uh...the bathroom?  Which means I'll be going to bed early, and getting up at the same time everyone else does, and never have time that doesn't first belong to Jeremelon's mother, because she has no respect for anyone else's schedule or needs or obligations, like school work.  (And writing?  Despite the fact that she reads pretty much nonstop if she's not eating or working, she has no respect for the actual writing process, and treats it like it's playing.)

Did I mention that I have three computer programs due each week for school, which require reading three chapters in very dense, often confusing textbooks?  And there's that writing project that I love, but haven't even managed to start writing the second novella for because there was so much going on BEFORE she broke her hip.  I have 80,000 words to write before June.  And then I have to edit all of them plus the 43,000 I already finished.  Three times over.  And I have to write critiques for other people's work in order to trade and get some beta reader opinions since apparently, very few of my acquaintances have any interest in reading (which wouldn't be a big deal, except, you know, strapped for time...).  That's not including all the marketing I have to do, and learn to do.  Or putting together a portfolio and finding and applying for day jobs because Jeremelon hasn't gotten any interest from the two jobs that invited him to an interview (not that there have been that many, because he's been busy being the stay-at-home parent while I write, and now all of the above).  And summer is coming!  And I really need to get healthier, which means time to exercise (also part of sanity-retention).

Today, I'm having a hard time keeping my snorkel above water.  I feel like I need a plan to make this situation manageable, but then I realize there isn't a fix for it.  The mother-in-law is needy and unbending.  I have sympathy for her pain and compassion for her situation, and I feel like a horrible person most of the time because despite that sympathy and that compassion, I have a hard time caring enough to help her.  If she was at all pleasant to any of us, it would be easier.  If she ever treated us like individual adults instead of a collective of servants, I wouldn't mind.  If she would ever express herself calmly or explain her problems - like, communicate at all - and listen to a word anybody else said, we could make things better.  But she won't.  Maybe she can't.  I don't know.  What I know is that any attempt to compromise is futile.  That's where Jeremelon gets his black-and-white thinking from, because she's been this way his whole life.  So even though I need to improve it, I can't.  Literally can't, because she would have to get on board with SOMETHING.

So for you readers in Colorado, I might be in town soon with the berrykin!  (And if you're read this far, I apologize for what is no doubt a sudden depression now layered over your day...but thanks for letting me vent!)

Website Launched!

My website is now live!  In the interest of keeping the Berry Patch anonymous, I'm not going to post the link here.  All of my regular readers have access to my Facebook page, where you will find a link. :)

I am still crazy excited!  Unfortunately, I've now passed the point of A) no return, and B) breezy days.  Everybody now knows what's coming, so there's pressure to produce.  That's...more than a little scary.  The scarier part, though, is that I know how much work I have to get done in three months.  It's a lot.  A lot a lot.  And I have a boatload of homework to do every week.  Not to mention all my berrykin-related time, and exercise needs, and nutritional necessities (as much as I would like to forego eating in favor of writing, alas, it can't be done).  I think if we had our own place and our own, independent schedules, it would be easier to get things finished.  Unfortunately, we don't.  So I must cope with what I've got.

Ready?  Here we go!

Summer is Coming

I'm being torn in two extremely different directions.

On the one hand, I REALLY want to move.  Like, right this second.  Across the country would be preferable.  The idea that summer is coming is about on par with the dread invoked with winter in Game of Thrones.  Seriously.  Summer is coming.  Be afraid.
But also, one should never spend a great span of time living with one's in-laws if there is any possible way to get out of said situation with survival intact.  Our original deadline to get out was the six-month mark.  That's in two weeks.  AUGH.  Jeremelon had a set of interviews for a job we were sure he was going to get, but they never called.  So I have no idea how we're going to PAY to move out, let alone sustain rent and such afterward.  All I know is...
Summer is coming.
It's time to go.

But, on the other hand, there's this one amazing, beautiful, spectacular reason to stay.  There's something here I've been looking for my whole adult life, and I've never found its like elsewhere.  It's a secret that I'm keeping just for me (well, my sister knows.  BTW, the new link in the Pals o' the Patch list is hers, if you want to go say hi!).  I've been afraid to go, for lots of reasons.  I didn't want to do something I wasn't ready for, but recent forays at home have proven I don't need to worry about that.  I don't want to feel like a huge whale when I walk in, but I think that will resolve on its own.  Mostly, though, I think I was afraid to go because the moment I go is the moment I can fall in love with it, and then I have something to actually lose by moving.

Still.  Summer is coming.

The opportunity is too awesome.  I finally made the choice yesterday to start tomorrow.  It's going to hurt - mostly because I have to get up at 8 or earlier (which isn't that early, in the scheme of things, but when one is used to waking up at 11, it's a bit of a stretch).  But tomorrow, I begin.

Unofficial Announcement

Guess what, my lucky Berry Patch friends?  You get to join me in my top-secret project before it's officially announced!

You're just that cool.

So here it is, unofficially, without titles or defining characteristics:

I am launching my own series.
No editors.  No agents.  No awful waiting times or control issues.  No paper-copy books, either.

This summer, I will officially be able to call myself an indie author.

I am SO INSANELY EXCITED!!!

The official announcement will go up at the beginning of next month, and will give you more specifics.  It will also link to my new professional writer website, where you will find even more details and goodies and I don't even know what else yet.  It'll be awesome, whatever it is!

13 colonies.  13 novellas.
1 world, far from Earth, where nature, politics, and individual choices rule all.

Coming to an e-book retailer near you, beginning Summer 2013!

Writerly Growing Pains

I am seriously HATING the story I'm working on.  It's taking forever.  It's making me angry.  It's messing with the general day-to-day of my life.  Seriously, seriously irksome.  I keep pushing at it, though, plugging away at the keys to get more of it out because I believe in it.  At least, I believe in it way down deep beneath the part of my brain that screams how much this sucks.  How much *I* suck.  Except I obviously don't really feel that way, because I keep going.

The problem is that I believe in myself and in my story concept.  I believe in what I'm trying to do.  So much, in fact, that I'm taking the biggest personal risk I possibly can as a writer.  And yet, I feel like I suck, like the story is the most awful thing I've ever written.

This morning, Janice Hardy, author of the middle grade novel, "The Shifter," (a novel I'm really wanting to read, and have been since it first came out several years ago,) posted on this exact problem.  She calls it a Growing Pains Novel.  A story that stretches the writer far enough that every word that flows onto the page is just HARD.

And that's what's wrong with this story.  It needs to be as good as I believe it can be.  As good as I know I am.  So I'm trying new things.  They don't always make it onto the page, but they're in there, and my subconscious is always aware of them.  Creating in-line, dynamic descriptions, for one.  Writing from the perspective of a curmudgeon who has a lot of the answers and therefore doesn't need to think about them (and in that way, share them with the audience), for another.  I'm a thinky, introspective person.  My POV characters have almost always been thinky sorts of people (and if they weren't, I didn't spend a whole book in their heads).  This character is definitely thinky, but it's in a totally different way.  He thinks more like I do - he skips steps because he has them down by rote.  If a recipe calls for "two eggs," most of us don't have to think about how to crack them open, be careful of the shells, check for problems (or fetal chicks, if you buy organic).  We just do it automatically.  To this character, a lot of his answers arrive in the same way.  Which leaves me with a lot of descriptive, character-revealing imagery, but not a lot of logical steps.  How does he know that random fact A and random fact B are connected?  Because they always are.  Because stepping from A to B (or more accurately, A to F) is automatic.  It makes bringing the reader along with him very tricky.

Oh, and did I mention it's short, and I don't do short?  Yeah.  So it's definitely a Growing Pains Story.  But that's good, too, because I know it will be as good as I can currently make it when it's All Done.

Spring!

I changed my blog background for March (obviously).  I'm really loving all these happy, springy shamrocks!  And the design is clean and organized, which makes me feel like I have just a little more order in my life.  Quite helpful, that is!

I've written in my dream journal (which today wasn't helpful, because after a night of insomnia, I was too tired to remember much).  I've done a little health-related research.  I spent all last night putting together an info sheet for my story.  I SHOULD be in a good headspace to work from.  I have copywriting that I wanted to get done today.

And yet...

Nothin'.

That's why I'm blogging.  To try to jumpstart my creative brain.  It's naptime, and both the malefolk are asleep.  I know where the in-laws are going to be for at least an hour.  Still, I got nothin'.

Irksome.

Maybe I'll go watch some tv...

(Oh, right.  Spring fever.  Gotcha.)

Even More Prompts!

A kid's adventure begins when a giant eagle tries to steal them out of their normal life.

Evil gypsy power.

Two friends, connected between worlds.

A girl talks to spirit animals to find out ways to help their people.

A person can see Death in the eyes of those close to dying.

A woman with short black hair, bright blue and red highlights, and crazy eye shadow as a source of wisdom.

This schematic of a crazy invention is the key to sustainable energy, and everybody wants it.  Some of them will stop at nothing to get it, not to use it, but to destroy it.


Oh, and my mom shared this picture on Facebook, which is a prompt all on its own.  Now I want to go write Tabitha's story!

More Prompts

Note: Some of these are from dreams, some are from daydreams, and some are random thoughts.

A hugely forgetful character ends up with the responsibility of remembering the "object of great importance;" what happens?

She suddenly discovers the ability to dream five minutes of the following morning before it happens.

A woman receives an email, out of the blue, from an ex-lover she never got over, asking her to save his life.

Snake dancers.

A soldier pulls a tour of duty on a distant planet - the crappy one where nothing happens.  Except something impossible is about to.

Forced genetic mutation in animals that quickly becomes intentional mutation in humans.

A man in a trench coat and a fedora, watches her in the rain.  Part of her knows him, knows she loves him, but she can't seem to remember who he is.

First Dream Prompt

I'm starting today's challenge changes late, since I only came up with the idea about an hour ago.  (Don't miss the post below this one where said challenge is discussed!)  But!  I'm still on it, that way I can officially start today. :)

Ordinarily, this summary section will go in my journal.  Because I have yet to dig it out of the box it's in, my summary will have to go here.  I don't know about you, but I always find a writer's process fascinating.  In fact, I find all people's processes fascinating, because there are so very many ways to look at things, and nobody's brain seems to work exactly like someone else's.

Dream:
The family was driving cross-country.  We stopped to get gas, but the gas station closed right as Jeremelon was paying to fill up my car.  He'd spent time filling up his already, and I got angry with him for not making the employee stay open an extra five minutes so I could fill my tank, too.  It was on empty and there was no other station around for miles, given that we were in the middle of nowhere.  So I decided to leave the car until the morning.  I grabbed Berrykin out of his seat and stalked off to a giant Disney-esque traveling carnival (theme park on wheels!) that had set up next door.  When I got there, the dream changed.  I was somebody new, with no Berrykin.  I had a little sister with magical gifts, and we were hanging out at the carnival for bit before going home.  She kept looking for our mother, who, for some reason involving her own magic and her role in the world, had left us alone in our small house in the middle of nowhere.  When we got home, we'd picked up a handsome warrior that my sister developed a crush on.  It then became a "find this unknown object" stress dream.  I went through every closet and drawer in the house trying to locate some mystical item I needed to calm my sister down.  She was upset over our mother, trying to impress the guy, scared I was going to leave her for him, and her magic was responding accordingly.  By the end, I found something similar to the object I was looking for, though not quite - it was a fluffy skirt, like a ballet skirt that's half-tutu and half-flowy chiffon.  I decided, for the good of my sister, that I had to leave her with the warrior and go out to exercise my own gifts, lest all the excess energy from being cooped up with a handsome warrior make me do bad things.  As I was leaving the house, our mother showed up.  That made me angry, because apparently that was the pattern - she'd arrive just after she was needed, always a little too late to save the day.  She (who was not my real-life mom) showed up with an entourage of real-life family members, most of whom proceeded to either ignore me or tease me, mostly about my skirt.  I ignored them all, took a magic Polaroid camera my mom offered me, and went back to the fair.  Warrior boy followed me, demanding I explain what was going on.  I ignored him as best I could, at one point eating a scrumptious chocolate eclair drizzled with buttercream frosting and sprinkled with mini chocolate chips.  YUM.

Prompts:

A traveling carnival is really a portal to another world, or a focal point for sparking latent magic abilities.

Bad timing strands the protagonist in the middle of a small town populated by ex-circus-performers with a dark secret.

Two sisters, hidden away in a dark forest to protect them from the world and the world from their magic, are forced to save themselves and the world when a mysterious stranger arrives.

Guardian souls exist in unlikely places, waiting to be tapped to bring virtue or safety back into the lives of those they guard.

A girl's transformation begins with a simple, white skirt.

What happens to a savior's children when the savior must be out, saving the world, instead of at home? What if the savior is also the only one who can teach them to use their gifts?

What if one generation's savior is the parent of the next generation's greatest source of evil?

Food as magic.

A woman chooses duty in order to protect her little sister and the man she loves, but in doing so will never be allowed to be loved ever again.

This camera really does steal souls.

Personal Challenge

All this writing has been giving me really vivid dreams.  I LOVE vivid dreams, even the freaky ones.  (As opposed to nightmares, which I do not like at all.)  They provide awesome story prompts.  They give me new characters, new motivations, new voices and moods and interpersonal angst.  They help me describe settings and clothing with greater detail.  They can remind me of atmospheres I don't often use.  And the emotion!  I recognize that not everyone has emotional dreams, and not all of mine are always full of emotion.  But when they get vivid?  Yeah.  They say dreams are one way our brains process emotions and events.  All I gotta say is that I must have a ton of unresolved emotion. ;)

The really beautiful thing is that dreaming so vividly and with such emotion puts me in a good mood (usually - dreams of loss or rage obviously don't count in the above).  I wake up already in creative mode!  Plus, many dreams make great stories or plot threads, so I am almost never at a loss for "new" ideas.  

The unfortunate part is that my current schedule requires I get up, immediately have lunch, then segue into Berrykin's nap time.  Vivid dreams also usually make me feel like I've been having an Indiana Jones adventure all night, so I'm not very energetic.  In fact, most mornings - partially to delay the schedule issue - I find I lay in bed for an hour reliving the dream, picking apart characters, and generally committing pieces to memory.  (Two spouses with no day job is hard on the finances, but it enables awesome parenting options.)  But then my day is still thrown off, because I get more lethargic, like I've slept too long.  Neither a rushed morning or a lazy one is optimal.

So, for the month of March, I've decided to take up agent Nephele Tempest's challenge (you can find her blog, "Writing and Rambling," to the right) to write every day.  This is the same basic challenge as she put forth in December, which I did actually complete (yay, me!).  Except this time, because March isn't as busy as December, she's added extras.  The key factors are to write for at least 15 minutes every day of the month, and to locate story prompts (do you see where this is going...?).

My challenge for myself is to get up an hour early and jot down my dreams.  Not full-length feature stories, just notes and, more importantly, prompts based on what occurred.  Then, once those are recorded (and hopefully out of my head), I will write a blog post.  My goal is to write two professional posts this week, and go up from there progressively.  The non-professional posts will probably be posted here.  The professional ones, though, will be going elsewhere (that I will link to when it's ready).  I may also find I need to take a few minutes in there to create to-do lists and organize my day to make my whirlwind-in-the-skull less all-consuming.

Do you have goals for March?

Frustration Days

Living with one's in-laws, one's days seem to be divided into three categories.  1. Catatonia, wherein one exists within a state of mental dissociation, lest problems occur or stress skyrocket simply by noticing how difficult one's living situation is.  2. Escapism, wherein one spends all day seeking reasons to get out of the house and/or plotting to run away from home.  3. Frustration Bordering On Homicidal, wherein absolutely nothing gets done because one exerts all of one's energy on surviving and coping emotionally so that nobody dies a violent, completely accidental death.

Today was a 3.  Strangely, it was easier on me than it was on Jeremelon.  I hid in our playroom all day, writing away.  But that didn't keep the anger from overflowing into my room.  Nope.  Because people shout.

Our fingers are crossed for this week and a short-term solution to our problem.  If it works out, and works out as well as we hope, we *might* be able to move out.  It will depend, as always, on financial viability.  Keep your fingers crossed, too.  Because accidents happen around here all the time...and what would be one more?

Just kidding.

My days are routinely frustrating because I can't control anything except what I spend my time on in the apartment.  So I have given up a lot of my mommy duties to let them become daddy duties, and switched gears to writer mode.  This makes me feel guilty.  I miss my baby.  I miss devoting my days to my baby.  It also puts an insane amount of pressure on my ability to churn out words.  Good words.  Words worthy of people paying to read them.  The longer it takes me to finish this first top-secret story, the later in the year it will be before I can start making money, in whatever manner that ends up being.  (Jeremelon has insisted I ignore the call to get a job, at least until my top-secret project is no longer a secret, so I can focus.  Except I can't focus, because there's all this guilt!  And pressure!  And frustration!  And augh!  The IMPATIENCE!)

I want our lives to get better.  I want to MAKE them better, but my options are pretty darn limited.  I can't even set a stupid routine, because our needs come waaaaaaaaay at the bottom of everything else going on in this household.

/End rant.

Catch-Up Fast!

I've been busy!  Here's a (hopefully) quick recap:

1. I'm taking a couple classes this semester to improve my likelihood of catching the job I dream of.  I've done a bad job keeping up with the first one because of other, more exciting stuff (see below).  Second class starts today!  I really need to make sure I keep up with this.  Yay, programming!

2. I've got a personal-professional hybrid website underway.  It's taken me a long time to figure out what I wanted it to be (I bought hosting as a Christmas present to myself).  I'm still not sure I've got it decided, but I have a better idea what I need it to do.  There's a *chance* the new site will override this blog.  I might keep it for a strictly personal, family update blog.  I'm kind of attached to it.  It WILL overthrow the Berry Patch House.  But I'll let you know details when I have them!

3. Writing!  Holy hollyberries, the writing!  I've written about 20,000 words this month.  It's not where I *want* to be, but it's so very much more than I've *been* producing.  This is the hardest time I've ever had on a story, and I keep going.  Some days, like yesterday, I get a whopping 300 words done and I want to throttle the entire thing until it dies a slow, agonizing death.  Other days, I get ten times that.  My self-chosen deadline was the 22nd, and it's still not done.  I've got the climax adventure, the falling action, and the denouement left, and thankfully for me, I'm good at those!  Except I have this one scene leading into the climax sequence that is going to kill me.  The project is a novella, which means I'm squashing my usual length and forcing it to fit a tighter structure without changing the structure enough to make it a short story.  DIFFICULT.  But I'm still tremendously EXCITED about the project.  If you want more consistent updates, make sure you check out my Facebook page and my Twitter feed @HL_Henrikson.

4. Berrykin!  He's doing SO much better, now that we're a month-plus out from our hospital fright.  He still won't use the hand he burned, but we're working on it.  A couple days ago, he decided to start up potty training again all on his own!  He uses the sign for "bath" to indicate he wants to go into the bathroom, regardless of why.  I need to find a sign to mean "potty."  He still doesn't use English to talk much, though we're hearing more words buried in his baby language.  He's very attached to Mickey Mouse and his friends, so we hear their names a lot.  More animal sounds, too.  I think the problem might be that he was like me - he's shy.  He doesn't want to talk if somebody's listening unless he's got the word down pat.  He LOVES reading, and will sit and read to himself (out loud) for half an hour without getting distracted.  Makes his bookish mommy happy!

5. Jobs.  Jeremelon still hasn't found anything.  We decided to try something new, since our expenses are limited.  Used to be, we'd find the job we could find, regardless of pay.  Now, we're trying the pickier, more professional way - to find jobs that fit our needs, plural, rather than hopping on the first job that offers some income.  Need #1: Located NOT in Arizona!  That makes it harder and a longer task, because we're not entirely sure where we want to go.  I think our top choices right now are Orlando and Seattle (with a top secret, undisclosed location in the #1 spot).  Completely opposite sides of the US. ^_^  I'm still writing copy for CaptainKYSO.com, and see #3, above!  #3 (fingers crossed!) is going to provide income by summer, so that will take some of the pressure off.

6. Allergies are up.  Like, WAY up.  We were going to the zoo for exercise, but as of last week that's not a viable option for me anymore.  Gotta find a new way to get the blood pumping!  My veins must be going more varicose, because sitting hurts.  A lot.  And my legs swell pretty fast.  Sometimes, genetics are stupid.  But it really means I need to get up and do...things...when not writing.  (Makes my allergies worse to sit, too, I think because all the goo in my deep sinuses can't drain well.  This time of year, it's not rhinitis that causes sneezing and itching and whatnot; this time of year, I feel like a cement truck filled my head with concrete.  And then backed over my neck and dragged me for several blocks.)  I feel like my thyroid either stopped being hypo or switched and went hyper.  I don't know which setting is my normal.  Regardless, those symptoms that make me feel hypo are gone, replaced by anxiety, restlessness, a fast heartbeat, and hot flashes.  If it means my metabolism will finally allow me to shed some pounds, I guess I'll cope!

Okay.  So, not so quick.  But quick for me!  This could be six different blog posts.  Hee.