Wait...Where Was I?

I have this “round table” with my good buddy Amelia Shea every Monday morning (check out her latest book, Flawlessly Flawed).  This is very important to my accountability thing.  She, after a beautiful disclaimer on how much she loves me, informed me that I have too much going on.  I might possibly suffer from shiny object syndrome. When you try to do everything it all ends up half assed.  The bottom line is I am doing too much. 

I wish I could say this was the first time I heard this.  Janice, of Beer-Thirty, has been saying this for years.  My husband has also said it in that quiet way where he's afraid to hurt my feelings.  Well, friends, message received.

"Beside the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone.” 

― lin yu tang

At the beginning of this ‘my thing’ journey, I decided to throw everything out there like fishing lines and see what caught.  I went hard on trying to promote my suns with the note cards and the notebooks, okay, here’s the truth, to this day I have sold 3 packs of note cards.  My sister ordered 4 but she’s pissed at me so I’m not sure if  I’ll get paid.  A lot of time and money spent on that line and I haven't caught much yet.  If history is any indication, I will always draw, paint, ink suns, because dammit, I just can't help myself.  I am moving that to “hobby” status.

The blog seems to be somewhat successful as I have a good amount of followers and recently acquired advertising on it.  My dad and my husband’s first response was, “Great!  How much are you going make?”  Honestly, I have no idea.  My expectations are somewhere around 2 dollars for the quarter.  I try to keep my financial expectations in the gutter. 

I’ve also decided that I need to get published.  I’m sending out articles, which you know, means query letters and bios…ugh.  Just shoot me, but I will do it.  I actually have to do it by Monday because I can’t look at Amelia with nothing sent in or at least give her something she needs to edit.  

Speaking of publishing, where the hell is T-Rexy you ask?  Right here on my f'ing desk.  Trying to self publish a picture book through Amazon is proving to be out of my skill set.  I’ve asked the husband, he’s got a week before I call an actual IT person.  *Word to anyone else trying to do this, make all your illustrations exactly the same size and use a scanner not iPhoto.   

I think I’m going to take everyones advice and focus on one thing…well, yikes, 2 things.  T-Rexy and the articles.  T-Rexy because I accidentally called my mom and she asked when in the world she was ever going to get this book.  Honestly I'm sick of looking at it.  I don't even like that little dinosaur anymore.  Oh shit, wait, three.  I'm going to focus on 3 things; the articles, T-Rexy and I want to keep the novel going...and the blog.  Oh hell...  May the gods and goddesses of publishing smile down upon me this week, or just a wink and a nod would be good.  

The Sound of My Confidence

It amazes me how we are wired as creative creatures.  Monday I'm on top of the world.  I'm going to get published, I have my goals written out and some even checked off.  I feel creative and bright and beautiful.  The sun I drew was the best one yet;  I add "contact tattoo parlors" to my list of goals.  I could not stop writing.  It came easy and flowed out of me like I was a creature possessed.

Two days later, I'm questioning why I even thought I could write.  Clearly, I don't completely understand all the grammar and punctuation rules.  I can't even look at the sun I drew.  My confidence is in the toilet.

I think as artists and writers we are vulnerable in that we put our selves out there for critique.  A piece of our soul, letting people in on how we actually think about something.  Then you get that one peg head that says, "Hmmm.  Just suns?" (For the record,  I painted a chicken yesterday)  Of the 988 people who loved your work, and gave you positive feedback; you only hear the one douchebag and the flushing sound of your confidence.

Today and everyday forward, we will ignore that one blockhead.  We will decide the other 987 people are right.  As it is easier said than done, I try to protect myself against the onslaught of negative internal dialogue that that one yahoo started; I came up with an armor guard of a sort.

Music.  Obviously, through my posts it is clear that music plays an important role in my life.  I play it, I play all genres and I play them loud.  I dance.  I dance the dance of the weird and unruly as I have had no formal training.   Unless you count the millions of  hours in front of MTV, VH1 and You Tube, oh, and my Michael Jackson Wii game.  (I'm a level 1 but, in my mind, I am really a level 5.  I think there is something wrong with my controller).  I lip sync.  This, this I am good at.  Despite the db I write and draw anyway.  I do yoga or hit the punching bag depending on my mood.  I rely on my friends and wine.  I have the most supportive friends on the planet.

At the end of it all, I may have lost the battle with the blinking cursor, the blank canvas, or the jerk off but -tomorrow is mine.  Tomorrow is a new day and I am a fighter.

I don't usually listen to main stream, unless forced by my children.  This seemed appropriate, though.


"Sometimes by losing the battle, you find a new way to win the war."
     -Donald Trump 

Grandma

We are on grandma watch.  This woman is 102 years old.  She is ready to go and we, I believe, are ready to let her.  It does not change the fact that this is gonna hurt.  This woman was so important to me and all my family.  She would smile as she would look at my grandpa, as they watched all 15 of us grandchildren and say, "Look what we did.  Look what we started."

Gertie

 Johnny

I am very proud to be her granddaughter.  At the end, I wanted to tell her about my chickens.  She had chickens, we could talk chickens.  I wanted to show her my garden and discuss how to make sure the tomatoes don't split.  I want to complain about quilt corners and my mother.  I wanted to have all those conversations one more time.  I hope she looks down sees where she is in my life; how she is a part of who I am.  I can only hope she is proud of me.

Her graduation picture.

****

I got the call on Saturday that she passed.  I immediately flew home, memories replaying though my mind.  Once, when my (best) cousin Sharon and I were little, maybe 5 years old, we were somehow left to our own devices and decided to make Christmas cookies in the bathroom.  The recipe for bathroom Christmas cookies, you ask?  Unroll a wad of toilet paper -at least 15 squares, drop it in the toilet, collect soaked tissue with your bare hands, set soaking wad on the bathtub rim and sit on it for 5-10 seconds.  When properly squashed, take flattened, wet cookie and stick it in a slapping style to the wall.  May require an additional toilet dipping.  We had quite a production going until my other cousin, Kim, came in and with shock and disbelief she cried, 'Tonya and Sharon!" putting an end to our operation.

Another great thing about grandma was nothing we did was ever wrong.  She laughed then and every time she retold the story.

Sharon with the Lay An Egg game (funny enough, we got in trouble with that game another time.) 

I'd call her bitching about my mom and she'd never take the bait.  Not once.  She listened and she got me past whatever the hell it was that I was pissed about, without one word against anyone.  One time I called complaining because I was pregnant and my husband was deployed (6 months, he says 5 and an half) the other 2 kids were, I don't know,  just being kids I guess, but in the "let's be destructive" kind of way.  I was tired and tired of doing it by myself.  She listened and when I was done she didn't say anything.  I, confused with the silence, wanted her to join my pity party.  So, I said, "And tomorrow I have to do it all over again."  More silence so, I added, "I have to do it alone for the next 3 months."  She said, "Well, what else are you going do?"  My turn to be silent.  Oh crap.  She was right.  What else could I do but buck up and handle my shit.  She also mentioned how his job was important so complaining to him would not be a good idea.  She was one tough cookie.

While there, I saw a lot of old pictures, look at my dad in the Navy.  What a hunk.

Here is a couple more.  I had to steal them from the video and since my I.T person is at a sleep over, I have to apologize.  My grandma... man, I can't even tell you, my words seem lame compared to the light she was.  An amazing woman has gone.

Tractor rides every visit

My brother feeding the hogs

She made cakes

My uncle Vernon.
He died in a car accident when he was 16.







The significance of the next picture is that every dog they had was named Spits.  If a dog "disappeared" they told us it ran off with a pack of wild dogs.  Look at these dogs...every one more different than the other, all named Spits.

Me and Spits.

My hair...

Kim, of busted cookie operation, is in the orange shirt

I left Nebraska, sad but, feeling at peace with the send off we gave Grandma, that she is with my grandpa and Vernon.  

I still managed to get into a cat fight with one sister.  

This song has been playing through my head all week.

  

I was inspired and not in a sun kind of way.  Here's a chicken sketch.  Stay tuned...

By the Grace of God

I remember when my husband first approached me about quitting my job to “…just stay home”.  I believe “approached” is the wrong word.  We were actually arguing over laundry and whose turn it was to do the whatever.  My response was, “Why don’t you quit your job?”  To which he replied, “Who makes more money?”  I hate it when he asks questions he knows the answer too.  He was a 1st Lieutenant in the Air Force, a pilot.  I was working my way up the Barnes & Noble ladder.  I LOVED my job and most of the people I worked with -except that one manager, he was tool.  I believe the “discussion” was tabled for a bit because honestly….quit my job?   Before I met my husband I was a strong, confident single mother.  I handled my shit, paid my bills, mowed my lawn, read books on how to be a mom; by the grace of God I was making it.  After we married, I was still a strong, confident and career driven woman.  There was no thought ever of not working.

Right up until, he knocked me up and told me we were moving to Arkansas for 4 months then moving to Alaska.  Arkansas?  Alaska?  It was like he was speaking in tongues.  Arkansas was a blur because my daughter was 3 months old when we moved and I was just trying to keep everyone alive in the ghetto for 4 months.  Nursing.  The ghetto.  In Arkansas.  I made countdown X’s on a calendar.  Do you know what happened?  Well, 'lo and behold, being a stay at home mom was pretty effing cool.  I even joined the PT effing A.

Next stop, Alaska.  Only having a few short years there, a job not being in the best interest of the family and loving my new job, we did EVERYTHING.  Prince William Sound, Chugach, Cook Inlet, Alyeska, you name it.  I had a friend whose husband was often gone at the same time mine was, plus we both had little kids.  We often took trips together, I mean we weren’t going to sit around waiting for them to return.  We had tracks to make, right?  One time, no shit, we drove to Seward to see a glacier, in my minivan with all the kids buckled up with their apple juice and a movie, in a blizzard.  A blizzard in Alaska.  We had to be crazy.  There were a few moments, as I white knuckled the steering wheel, that I hoped we were still on the road.  About half way there, we looked at each other and questioned if it was really a good idea.  Determining that we had just as far to go back as we had to get there and non-refundable reservations, we pressed on.  By the grace of God went we.   It was amazing.  (By that same grace, her husband was gone when she won the Denali lottery.  I thought we were going to die only twice that trip, because bears and trails disguised as roads.)  

Scrap booking was a big thing

Fast forward to Arkansas 3 years later…little culture shock there to be honest.  I missed Alaska and the good schools.  The Mystic Caverns in NW Arkansas were cool.  I worked at B&N there for bit trying get back on the ladder, bottom wrung though, as I needed to get off by 2 to pick up the kids and I needed random weeks off to be home when my husband deployed.  My 2 kids were in school and I needed something to do.  Daytime television sucks, I had DIY'd everything, but I still, dangit, I have great kids and wanted to be home.  I also, tried a baby quilt business while I was there, with that friend from Alaska.  Unfortunately the business didn’t quite pan out and the friendship never did recover.  Oh, and he knocked me up again, right before a 6 month deployment.  He returned 2 weeks before Jesse was born to tell me we were moving to either Nevada or South Carolina.

Here we are in South Carolina with my 3 kids.  I am still a stay at home mom and he is still flying planes.  I am still a strong woman, but honestly, my confidence waivers daily depending on how the kids are doing -they rock that boat.  My kids are old enough for no day care and I am looking at the shreds of a career.  The shreds.  I can’t really clock in at B&N because husband is still flying, I’m not sure I have the temperament for a boss anymore anyway.  I’m trying to write and you know, "art".  I am 15 years out of work, I can’t do minimum wage and managers that are tools. I’m too old for that crap.

I’ve written a picture book and almost done with another one -both inspired by my kids.  I blog regularly-ish, the art stuff and I’m working on a novel (isn't everyone?), but I have nothing for a resume.  Awesome mother, sacrifice maker, loving wife and good citizen make for a tough resume.  Might be time to ring the bell on that grace of God again.

Started this, this week