Words are powerful.....sharpen your pencils.

Words are so powerful that people get murdered over them. And it's not even the words, it is the ideas. These ideas can be communicated in song, in art, in cartoons, in dance......and ideas can make people so angry that they kill.

Sometimes they just get so angry that they start their own facebook group and talk a lot of crap about the idea.

Sometimes they take a gun and go kill the artists.

Sometimes they get the government involved and pass laws that bring SWAT teams to organic farms.

Anyone who writes, who arts, who tills the earth knows this. We know the risks. We know the kind of intricate and subtle terror that takes many forms. It would be so much easier to just stop. It would be so much easier to be silent.

More than once have I written something I thought was harmless that enraged someone to talking about revenge and threatening me and my family. 

The editor Stéphane Charbonnier at Charlie Hebdo said in 2012, "I am not afraid of reprisals, I have no children, no wife, no car, no debt. It might sound a bit pompous, but I'd prefer to die on my feet rather than living on my knees."

That's what happened this week. He and eleven other artists and writers were murdered by extremists trying to silence them.

Like you, I am afraid sometimes. When I get nasty comments in my inbox, when people threaten to harm me in graphic ways just because I let my kid play the trumpet at age five or because I dared ask questions about paediatric use of Miralax (it's not on the label to use for children at all), or because I question the ethics of conventional farming when the processes that are common pollute and poison our watersheds and river and the physical cruelty done to animals in factory farming.....ect.... I worry about the anger that swells up in people.

I worry more when it comes from people I know in real life. I worry when it comes from strangers and I can't gauge if they are harmless crazy or stabby crazy or they will hunt me down for real crazy. Or maybe they will just make false complaints against my farm and drown us in legal work.

Even though I worry, I still stick my shovel in the earth. Well, not really, no-till gardening really is better. I am still out there educating, sharing knowledge, asking the hard questions, trying new things, and living my life in the public realm. I aim to make the world a better place and that will not happen if I cower under threats and go home. It will not happen if I shut up and "be a good girl" or "a good wife" or "trust the folks in charge to make the right decisions".......I question. I always have.

Well, not always. Once I caved.

It was 6th grade and our school was infested with cockroaches. I wrote a letter to the local paper, but a school official caught me and took my notebook. I wrote another when I got home. I organised a protest, a sit down with posters and a chant. I loudly pointed out that the "exterminators" that the school brought in during school hours had vacuum cleaners and were clearly fakes. I was LOUD.

When the protest time came? My English teacher locked her door and stared me down. Told the class none of her students would be leaving the room.

I stayed in my seat. Panic.

Everyone who protested was suspended. Not me. No, I was safe in English class.

I regret that day so much. Nothing changed. The school continued  to be plagued with cockroaches in the lockers and lunchroom. Nothing physical changed.

Something lit inside me. My words made the people in charge nervous. Adults were upset by a child's words. And other students risked their time and got suspended to follow through. Ok, maybe they were just excited to get attention or get our of class or be a part of something, I don't know.

I do know that it was a beginning. Right there.

I also know, that no matter how many comments or emails I get making fun of my writing, or threatening my family, or just plain mean...... I know that I have stirred something up and made people think about what they think. Yes, it scares me at times, but I too would rather die on my feet than cower because someone brutish, sad person is upset by what I have to say.

Everything I do makes people mad. I homeschool (unschool), this infuriates some people who are incredibly offended that I don't send my kids to the public school. I cook my own food, sometimes, and sometimes it is meat. This makes super organic vegans mad AND folks who eat processed foods mad. I drink raw milk. Oh my is that a controversy. I refuse to sell it to anyone until it is legal. I stand up for difference. I support marriage equality and workplace equality and support the idea that people get to be who they are in safety. I let me kids play real instruments at their own desire but I also pay for lessons when they are old enough to want that. I could go on and on. And on. And on some more. The saying goes, everything I want to do is illegal- that's not exactly true. Most of what I do is perfectly legal, I can't think of anything that isn't, but write about things that are so different? And how much happiness is cultivated on our farm right along side the grass fed lamb and pastured pigs? THAT really upsets some people.

Cognitive Dissonance is what it is called. Or maybe jealousy. Or maybe that's how they roll, thriving on conflict and anger. Whatever it is, I cannot control it. That's right! I can't control how people react or feel! Amazing. What I can do is keep on. Keep on living, keep on writing, keep on sharing, keep on loving. That honours all who have fallen before us and hopefully brings about a better world.

Write on friends. Write on. Today I am sharpening my pencils as a tribute to all who have fallen for what they have dared say. I will place that pencil on my desk and remember what a powerful tool for change that slip of wood and lead is, that mighty sword will fall at the whisper of change.

Write on.

Focus: Word for 2015

I really struggled with choosing this word. FOCUS kept coming back to me though, and I would reject it as not being poetic enough, pretty enough, anthem-y enough. I wanted something as powerful as SABOTAGE and something that had a Beastie Boys type song to blast with it.

But that is not what I need this year. This year my artistic heart needs discipline. I need the reminder to get up early and get to work. I need the quiet reminder when facebook lures me into the trans-dimensional time suck. I took on more teaching this semester so I will need to also keep on a schedule for completing student grading and lesson planning, scheduling time for that works for me better than any other strategy I have tried to keep up with the work load.

I need to get more work out to be considered. I need to write, edit, and revise more work to be able to send it out. This goal also needs focus and time set aside. If I sit at the table and taunt the muse, maybe she'll join me sometimes, yeah? But if i keep standing her up for our coffee dates in favour of arguing with strangers online about pig genetics, even if it is amusing as hell when the fanatics get all Harry Potter Slytherin about PURE BLOOD lines, the muse will eventually get fed up and go hang out with more dedicated artists.

And what comes of courting the muse?

 Being published.

Experiencing amazing things and making art from the experiences. Having my camera with me as much as possible so that even a moment of inspiration in a bathroom at a concert can be met and played with.

Being published some more.

Going to Prague. Going to Prague to eat the food, experience the social and religious art, and then make some art of my own. I did that.

Essay, photography, poetry......4% of my submissions being accepted which is a pretty good rate of acceptance according to the tracking application that I use.

So. Focus is what I need. Discipline. Tracking. Time.

My goals this year are to see more, take photos of it, and write. I'm going to have a go at a fiction project too. 1000 words a day is a lot, so my goal will be simply 100 words every day. Just that much.  I can do that. If I fail? I will start the next day to meet the goal and not beat myself up for missing a beat, a word count, or a day. Life happens, yeah? Sometimes we take a breather, but the journey is long and even small steps get us there eventually.

On the docket for the year so far:
Ossabaw Island Writer's Retreat. Again. I have to. It's paid for. Ha.
Take a photography class. I'm on the waiting list at our local community college (I work there so I have to wait for students to fill it and then see if I get in.....).
Write more thank you cards and mail them.
Say I love you more.
Send out 25 poems. Twice.
Write.
Take 3000 more pictures of interesting things.
Take my camera off auto and learn how to use it.
Be there.
Have a professional photo shoot of myself done. Or try my hand at some self photography that is more creative and less hand held phone head shots.
Publish.
Attend a permaculture convergence.
Speak/present at a permaculture convergence on the storytelling and social media aspect of farming.
Learn to draw fairies and monsters.
Dance more.
Walk places.
Collaborate.

Learn about:
HDR photography
fermenting
mass tree planting
medicinal herbs
vintage make up and hair
jewelry making
mushroom growing
green houses
learn Yoga and make it a daily routine

What is your word for 2015? Your goal? Your dream? Have you drawn up your travel plan to get there yet?

Dragonish

There is a children's book, Travel Light, by Naomi Mitchison, that says, "Will she stay dragonish and hoard wealth and possessions, or will she travel light?"

I am about to set sail again, this time to go halfway round this big world to give a friend a hug: Ten days in Eastern Europe.

I travel light. Early on, when day tripping and camping with Lily when she was a toddler, I over packed. In the Rockie Mountains I realised that I seriously only needed one small bag and diapers for the both of us for the week. I had packed a stroller we never once used, extra clothes we never wore, we washed the ones we did half way through the trip, and never touched the toys or books we brought. What a waste of space and extra gas to haul stuff all over. Now we pack a small cooler, diapers, and a backpack for each kid and mom. That's all we need and it is enough.

I thought maybe I was being silly, under-prepared even. Still, this was put to the test when I travelled by bus to Georgia in the winter. It worked out just fine.

I don't need much, I wear my bulkiest clothes to travel and pack light. Usually just one backpack though I am being encouraged to take a carry on too, empty, so I can bring things back with me. Maybe. I have not decided yet. It sounds like a good idea, but I am most comfortable with just my backpack.

I wear jeans and a sweater to travel, and my red coat (which is currently missing and I am freaked out about). Boots. Hat. Earrings and necklace.

I pack, 2 skirts, 4 shirts, one nicer dress, underwear, a bar of shampoo soap, and a pair of ballet flats. Then a book to read, phone charger, notebook. Maybe a lip gloss (though that got me in trouble at TSA last time....), maybe an eyeliner and mascara.

All of that fits, usually with my computer, in just my backpack. I travelled to Georgia just like this.

This time, here's where I am struggling......this time I am considering taking my camera (not just my phone camera) and (cue drums of doom) leaving my laptop home.

OMG. WTF. SERIOUSLY?! FREAK OUT.

Really.

Even now, as I am sitting here, I have 4 hours to write and what did I do? I complained about the wi-fi connection, messed around on facebook, opened files, made a new station on Pandora, and now I only have 2 hours left.

This is a trip of a lifetime. I mean for it to be the first of many, but it may be the only trip I take. I am going to an ancient city with architecture and history that I have only read about in other languages, studied in graduate school. Perhaps I should be more in the moment than worrying about my laptop. Just a pen and paper and my camera.

Pen ink to paper. How this slows me down! It frustrates me to no end to think slowly, to make mistakes, to scribble. Yet, most of my good work begins as notes in ink scribbled in margins of things. Why not give homage to the ancient places I will breathe and drink by slowing down and stepping back in time, just for a moment.

Ten days. Not a lot of time. Not a lot of hours. Perhaps the break in technology could give me the recharge I yearn for. Even just thinking about leaving my computer behind gives me anxiety. I called my insurance agent to make sure it is covered if it is stolen while travelling (it is), but seriously? I am more concerned about this object than the violence happening nearby where I am going?

Yes. I need to take a break. More of a break than just logging of for a day or a weekend and perhaps putting a couple thousand miles or more between me and the machine will help break the dependency.

This is complicated by the fact that I work from the virtual world, but I am hopeful that my phone will stand in as enough and I can grade from an Internet cafe once or twice.

Thoughts? What would you do? Any tips for international travel?

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears. -Cesare Pavese

The Calm Between Adventures

This summer has been unusually cool and the wind has been calm as well. There are very few ticks or mosquitoes, and the humidity is just about perfect.

We have not yet needed our AC turned on, a good thing since it is broken. *Note to self, remember to get a call in about that or bug Chad before winter gets here. **I'll forget anyway. Ha.

Isaac loves it. He loves sitting outside eating apples and cuddling chickens and chasing his sisters and counting clouds....one, two, three, four, five.....

Holly has been taking crayons outside and today I found her masterpiece, in crayon wax, on the front porch floor. It is pretty amazing actually.

Lily, ever the farm girl, has been taking care of her chores and heading out to the woods for explores. They stay out late, until bedtime, negotiating meals (ONLY COMING IN IF SOUP IS FOR DINNER!) Soup. Huh. I can do soup.

Chad and I have been taking walks in the late afternoon and evenings and dreaming pretty big about things. Lots of things. Finding thornless honey locust on our farm is pretty cool. Snacking on mulberries is lovely too. We talked about what time I need to do my job that is with the college and what I need to keep going with my freelance work. I have a list of places to submit work about farm life that I am researching. I have ideas for travel pieces.

The air feels too cool for July though. Winter teasing us. We bought this winter's hay and had it delivered today. Next up, chop and stack firewood. Try for enough for winter. Find a better place to stack and store it.

I have been furiously scribbling in my notebooks, learning formal verse form, then trashing it and wrecking all the rules. That's kind of my signature style, rule breaking. My intentions are to study the form and then dance around the edges, tearing at the border with my heals and tempo. Wild with pulpiness and red lines and life.

When I am done, good and worn out, I sway on the porch swing, sweet tea nearby, one ear out for duckings and another on the humming of children plotting their own way, book of verse in hand, reading poems about house fires in Tennessee, marsh whores in Florida, and urban schoolteachers falling in love.

This is my summer. This is my view. This is the calm between adventures.

Writer's Reflection

This week I received three acceptance letters from publishers for my writing submissions. The first one was an essay I wrote about my experience as a new farmer dealing with pasture predation. I sent this one out to the world because this experience meant a lot to me as a person and I worked on it for months. Normally, tales like this one would end up here on the blog but this experience was so soul changing and devastating and even humiliating that I just could not bring myself to share it.

It was not poetry. At that point my record was two photography acceptances and one essay- zero on the poetry. Yet, poetry is what keeps me coming back to these endeavour, is my true literary love.

Then, one evening, late, my email beeped. An acceptance and commentary of a POEM. The email sender was not a name I recognised, scrolling through quick....there was the name of the journal!! I was so excited. This one, (I'm being a stinker and not telling until it is published and released) is a journal that I have long read and admired. For those of you who have read my drafts, the poem is Poppy's Daughters.

The next morning a second one came in. My poem about Daphne in our own Iowa woods,  Daughter of the Osmanthus River, was accepted.

Those of you who have followed my struggles here know that my 15 year hiatus has left me doubting my own worth and skills, left me wondering and regretting. The thing is? Both poems and the essays are all new work- not the old work from the draft drawer of doom! New words, new lyrical twists, new stories. The work from long ago keeps coming back to me rejected. This sits with me like pregnancy heartburn, painful but productive. Realising this was really good for me too: again, I remind myself that I need the decade of silence to live life, to really birth my own new voice. The child that wrote poetry with only blue pens and gave up on performance when Slam took over the stage is not the poet I am now. I have even written a slam piece and planned a performance. Totally and completely out of my comfort zone.

Tally from 2014 thus far:

Portland Review: Photography
Flyway Journal: Photography
Yet to be announced: Essay fall of 2014
Yet to be announced: Poem August 2014
Yet to be announced: Poem  March 2015

AND.....November 2014 I will be reading at the Art on the Prairie even in Perry, Iowa.

Not a bad tally, actually. Tonight I am regrouping and looking at the work that just came back to me to figure out what goes where now. I am struggling to match journal to poems, I have exhausted almost all of the journals I read on my own and that is what I know to go to. 

This is where knowing and talking to other poets would really come in handy.

Where do you find poems that you love? What journals do you read?

In The Silent Gap

I have a lot of work out for consideration, so much in fact that I have nothing right now to submit. I have 4 poems in progress, 4 in revision, about 20 I have deemed the rantings of an unreasonable teenager and shall be left behind (retired) unless I get bored and want to transform them.

So while waiting for rejections or lovely notes of revisions suggestions, there is a silence. Many literary journals are Sept- May term considerations too, so the summer is also a down time.

I plan on filling the gap of radio silence with:

• Reading books, all the ones on my bedside table. 
• Taking a kayaking class. Seriously. Fear of boats will be kicked in the rear. Maybe.
• Take a short nature photography class.
• Travel to Wisconsin to see the driftless valley.
• Watch all the new Orange in the New Black, Sherlock, and Luther. Because.
• Camp outside.
• Taking photos.
• Paint something.
• Write letters on paper with pen and send them USPS. 
• Cook some new things and remember to blog about them.
• Oh yeah, I have a blog. Get back to daily posts. 

So, what do you do when patiently waiting?

This Otherness is My Superpower

Most people don't know.  I am a mermaid.

No not really.

I have gone my whole life feeling like I was not in this world, that I was alien, something too different to belong here.

Longing to be back in the water, wondering if I'd feel more at home there. Wondering if I was meant to be on dry land or if it was all a mistake. (Hey, no freaking out, just a metaphor...)

I get sensory overload. I get panic attacks when things change in a visual way and I am not expecting it. I cannot deal with large noisy crowds.

Sometimes I zone out. Sometimes I lose a chunk of time to daydreaming or just lose it to nothingness.

I hear all the background noise that others zone out and can't hear. All of it. Every appliance buzz, every light fixture. Every beetle click. Living in the city was so very hard.

Sometimes I can't sleep. I stay up playing over and over in my head things I wish I would have said or done. Undo social mistakes. Sometimes I wish I knew how to be a friend or how not to say just the wrong harsh thing at the wrong time. I wish my apologies would be accepted.

I get overwhelmed.

I sensory seek to cancel out. I run my hands under water to calm down.

I crank up music. I dance. I write. Then I hide it all.

When I burst into tears in the cheese aisle because Hy-vee has just remodelled and moved everything and the lighting is super bright and the new freezer cases are LOUD....I just feel like a failure. What is worse is someone seeing it. What is her problem, she can't find cheese?

I hold it together, moderate drama, softly soothe broken hearts, and generally know a lot about a lot of things....but I am not always put together and solid. I hate that about myself. I hate that I have this overwhelmingness that happens.

So when the man of steel locks himself in a closet in grade school? I get that. I used to hide in my own closet or under my own bed to try and make the world smaller. I try to practise and plan and make the world the kind of world I can be in.  I notice details though that others don't and sometimes that is just too overwhelming.

Somewhere along the line I realised that I can actually be different, this otherness is my own superpower. So, my apologies to the kind folks in the cheese aisle last year, I will get the hang of the new layout. I go in the mornings, and I almost have a comfort zone about it now.

Just know. Just know. Being different isn't something to be ashamed of, to medicate away, to pretend isn't part of my life.

My life is beautiful and overwhelming and wonderful and just big enough for now. I will continue to try and make it a world I can live in.

I began to understand this more as I have raised three children who are also experiencing this great big world and all of its beauty and noise and structures.

So, friends, be patient with each other, be gentle, be kind. Apologise when you can. Make this world better and not bigger.

Writing About Writing

I am writing about writing when I should be writing about farming or food or science fiction tropes. Still, this is important.

Why?

I am not alone in my struggles as a writer. It has taken me a decade and then some to even call myself a writer, though as a child it was easy. I still get surprised when I find out that people read what I am writing and it matters to them, that my stories are inspiring or encouraging, or just interesting and entertaining. I shrink back and think they must have mistaken me for someone else.

I write to entertain myself mostly. I learn about things for the same reason. The world around me is fascinating and complex and interesting. I write to process that. I write love letters to my children so they know how much they are adored and valued, if ever they forget or I am not there to remind them.

When I spend time around other writers I get paralysed and act all fan girl and breathless and squee a lot. Especially food writers. I get panicked that I managed to get myself in a place where I am in face to face conversation and there I am making an ass of myself. I am really trying so hard to not do that, practising composure, but it really is a mindset of unworthiness. Do I not value what I have to say? Do I not value the time and effort and skill I am working on to be a writer? Why the anxiety?

I have been setting aside 30 minutes a day and a 4 hour chunk every week just to write and blog. Sometimes the stress of work creeps in and menaces me while I write, but that time is MINE. This has often meant late nights typing in the dark with an almost three year old sleep thrashing across my lap while I use a back lit keyboard to find my words. It often means I hit draft instead of publish because it is so late I doubt my grammar skills or cannot find just the right photograph. I still do it though, I still write.

When the question is posed- write or nap, I chose write. When the choice is between laundry, dishes, or write.....I choose write. I only don't chose write when my kids need to be fed or need a dance partner or someone to mix paints and recite poetry in a silly voice. It is a tricky balance to write and to also live a life worth writing about.

That is old advice from my Professor at Drake Carol Spaulding; she said, "Don't do into a career that you spend your days writing for other people. Be a bricklayer by day and use the time to live a life worth writing about."

I get that.

I actually studied bricklaying and historic preservation once I graduated and thought about her wisdom as I battled squirrels in the kitchen while restoring our 1887 Victorian. I think about those words as I walk in our pastures and check on the sheep, as I catch fireflies on a summer day with my children, as I navigate the narrow and sterile and freaking terrifying world of being a parent to a special needs baby and now toddler. Am I living a life worth writing about? Am I living a life that feeds me as a writing, nourishing my mind and my words?

Honestly I am out of practise and daily writing is helping sharpen my pen work, get the ink flowing, and bring back my writer's wild mind. The balance of life and writing is not easy, but so so worth it.

I recently read this comic panel: Zen Pencils

Yes. Exactly.

So fellow writers- go write. When the choice is there between watching a marathon of Orange is the New Black and writing- choose wisely. When the choice is between making your bed or crawling back in with your laptop and pounding out another recipe post or short story involving an antagonist who is actually infected with a tongue eating mouth parasite, write that and maybe illustrate that too.

Friday Freewrite: Make a wish!

"Today’s a day for wishes. Write about a wish you dearly hope will come true in your life."

This was a tough exercise. It was easy to talk about history or thunderstorms and the like, but wishes are something else entirely. I grew up making wishes. Nothing happened. Then I learned something else: plans based on wishes fail. So I make goals and plan for the goal. Sometimes my goals seem unrealistic, but that just means I have to work harder to attain them.

Learning is like this. I wanted to learn about architecture, reading online and in books was not getting me the education I felt I needed so I went to Graduate school and worked with professors, professionals, and others to learn the technologies of the trade. It's an industry that changes quickly so I have to keep up with my reading to stay current in the field. Right now, I am a stay-at-home-mom (or work at home, with online classes) and I don't really get to use my education in architecture. I'm not even really sure I will re-enter the field professionally. That doesn't matter to me. I love learning about it and helping others, discussing technologies, and educating those who are steadfast and old fashioned about the trade about new things they may not have considered. I can talk for days on end about old houses.

Now wait, this does relate to the freewrite! My wish is that my daughter will someday get to be as passionate about something as I am about old houses. That she will find joy in a subject and find work in the field that makes her happy to get up in the morning and go to work, that she has so much fun that it won't be work for her and that she will never be bored. I can read for hours about the history of indoor plumbing (ie African aqueducts that pre-date the Roman ones) and retain the information because I genuinely find it interesting. I wish that she finds that too.

I can't really make that a goal that I can plan for, but I can facilitate her learning in a way that doesn't make her hate education. I can watch for things that interest her and put opportunities in front of her for her to choose. Right now she is watching a DVD on zoo management. She picked it out at the library and she was thrilled when we got home that I said she could watch it right away. I hate seeing her glued to the TV, but she is enthralled. We visted a vet's office today and she asked them when she would be old enough to help with giving animals shots. They told her at "seven years old" she can help hold and comfort the animals. They told her she has to weigh as much as the animal to be able to help. She told me she wants to be an animal doctor when she is seven. Cute. She's been looking through out Hobby Farm magazines too. Who knows? Maybe next year she'll want to be a firetruck, but right now she wants to know about animals so that's what we are using to teach her. A is for alligator.

Thunderstorms

Bravewriter's freewrite friday: How do I feel during a thunderstorm......?

I delayed writing this one on Friday. I had a hunch that it was not a fiction exercise and it had been so long since I had been awake during a thunderstorm that I wanted to save the freewrite for a chance to write it out of the present. It worked like a charm. We finally got the rain we needed.

In "A Farewell to Arms" by Earnest Hemmingway there is a scene, a love scene, that involves the rain. I read that and it was the beginning of my love affair with thunderstorms and the written emotion of narrative. I would take virus luring walks in the cold rains that fell in Eastern Illinois where we lived, walk down to the river and watch the horizon of storms in the sky and water. Yes, I was dramatic. Across the river was an old insane assylum where the movie Child's Play was filmed (it was used as the set of the apartment building, Go Chucky!). It was a tall spired gothic structure, very church like.

Whenever I was feeling broken hearted teen angst I would walk out there in the rain. Thunderstorms made me feel that way, reminded me of turmoil. Then I grew up.

As an young newly wed/college student, I studied weather patterns. I was not a storm chaser, but I loved to track the radar online and then sit out on the open porch and drink hot tea when the storms would roll in. I still felt artistic inside when they would fill the sky. Then what is called a microburst dropped a steel door out of the sky onto my first new to me used car and bent the only tree on our small property in half. Dropped an old oak tree down the middle of a neighbors house and then blew back up into the sky. So, you see, a smashed car and mangled ten year old pin oak were nothing compared to our neighbor's loss, but still.

Last night my daughter slept though the night for the first time in her life. No requests for water, no midnight pee runs, no nightmares. She's almost three. How did I know she didn't wake up? I was right there watching her, worrying why? Seriously, this kid wakes up every 3 hours and has since before she was born. WHY IS SHE STILL ALSLEEP? Poke poke poke. Nothing. (She tossed and turned a bit, but did not wake up until 7:30 AM.)

Around 3:30 AM the storms rolled in. Lil'Bug's room has the south wall, nothing but windows, five of them, one is a big picture window. The storms were frightful and terrible and beautiful. Loud and bright. I just lay awake and tried to relax. I finally fell asleep around 4:40 AM. I fell asleep thinking about how my little girl's lavender purple room with the five windows is a perfect princess room, the kind of room I always wanted her to have and I am a little sad we are moving.

So, maybe I have not outgrown the angst after all.

Positive thoughts

It is possible that I am just trying to avoid thinking about the many negative things that I could gripe about (and have to my poor friends who are good sport about my whining), but here's a thought from Brave Writer:

Who in history would you be?

I would be me in a different era. I like me. I am not in love with 2007. I want to live on a farm, in a place that does barn raising and makes cheese from fresh milk and sweaters from sheep wool. Ok, maybe I want to be Amish with or without the whole go to church a lot thing. But really, the root of it is, in a community people don't use their neighbor's trucks for roman candle launchers.....because children and adults are taught to respect each other and each other's property, recognizing the hard work of others and not stomping on it. Fire blight, crop faliure, I can handle, but stupid people....not so much.

So, back to the history question. I would have liked to meet Amelia Earhart before she disappeared, asked those French royal dudes what kind of cake was their favorite before joining all the other angry housewives with bread knives, and then seen the Midwest's prairies before people planted corn everywhere. Maybe that's why I like Neal Smith Prairie Refuge so much. Then again, I do like the artistic visuals of planted corn and bean landscapes.