Quick Update

I have not forgotten about you, my faithful readers!

No, indeed, I have not.

I’ve spent the last week packing and moving and cleaning (and we’re not done yet!) and dealing with flat tires. The time not spent on the moving (what there was) was spent on preparing for NaNoWriMo.

It was a great workout and my muscles are so sore, I can barely move.

I’ll be blogging about NaNoWriMo during the month of November and keeping an update of words/pages completed. I’ve never done this before so let’s see how it goes!

With all the moving expenses and the flat tire, I’m looking at adding ads to the blog. If you know of any good ones that aren’t Google AdSense, send me a link! If you can spare a couple of bucks, drop it into my fabric fund.

The Search Goes On

So, apparently, I have fans. Fans who check the blog everyday. Fans who call me when I haven’t updated.

Yesterday was incredibly productive but not in the ways I was hoping in would be.

I did hit my word count goal yesterday and I will hit it again today so progress continues but not the leaps I accomplished over the weekend.

We’re moving at the end of the month. Again.

I’m really tired of moving but I’m actually getting pretty good at it. Today’s mission is to hunt down and capture more boxes.

The Things We Leave

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Running errands over the past few days, I keep coming across signs for Estate Sales. These always make me think of helping clean out the homes of some of the people in my life who have passed away and what happens to the detritus of a life well lived. Some things get taken in by loved ones, some passed on to charity, some sold to the highest bidder.

I always get caught up in the pictures. Photos of my grandfather as a young man, where he looks like my brother’s doppleganger. School pictures of my dad in first grade where he’s wearing the exact same bow tie my son wore for his school pictures. My grandmother in a poodle skirt. My mom with a really awful haircut. Sepia toned pictures of Korea and Japan.

Korea courtesy of Team Frosick

The scrapbook my grandmother made of my grandfather’s tour of Korea is one of my favorite finds. Silver ink on black paper, black and white photos and letters back and forth give me a glimpse into the lives of people who I only knew for a very short time. What they chose to create, to write down, gives a glimpse of what was important to them day to day.

Packing and moving makes me realize that I’ve left very little of myself behind. My children will have stories with few pictures and very little hand-written from me. I plan to be a published author but I also feel the need to leave something personal behind. Maybe I should start hand-writing letters again.

Fairy Find

Good grief do I have a lot of books. Sadly, not nearly as many as I had 7 years ago. The story of the loss of most of my library is not one that I will relay here. It causes me a lot of grief and anger and I’m just not going to go into it.

As we’re moving, I’m going through closets and bookshelves to decide what gets to stay and what gets to go. I’ve got two boxes of books ready to be traded in for credit at the friendly local bookstore. I’ve also got a box of clothes ready for Goodwill.

While going through my closet I came upon this dress:

I wore it to an awards dinner 5 years ago and spilled some dessert down the front that the cleaners weren’t able to get out. I loved that dress.

As I was folding it up to put it in the goodwill box, I thought to myself, “Fabric like that is so hard to find. It would make great fairy wings.” At that thought, I ran to my sewing desk and started pulling out fabric.

Yes, just as I suspected. The colors match perfectly with a fairy costume I’m already making for a friend. I was never going to find another fabric that matched so perfectly. Out of the Goodwill box it came and into the sewing bins.

I love finding fabric in my closet!