Intermission

Why it takes so long to get anything cut out:

Lachlan throws himself in my lap.
Seraphyna tries to put a puppy to sleep in the fabric. 
Lachlan tickling any spot of bare skin nonstop.
Wrinkled fabric.
Lachlan climbs on my back.
Seraphyna needs a diaper.
"Hey Momma I memorized my lines! Wanna hear? Oh wait I forgot, just a minute" x5
"TICKLE TICKLE TICKLE"
Seraphyna wails from the other room.
Lachlan throws a Thomas book in my lap.
Organize the older kids on making lunch: bark directions while pinning and folding.
Text from Mark.
"TICKLE TICKLE TICKLE TICKLE TICKLE TICKLE"
Drop a pin from my mouth into my cleavage while telling Lachlan to STOP PLEASE
Unusual cutting diagram
"FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY I HAVE ONE PIECE LEFT TO CUT WILL YOU JUST STOP"
Seraphyna wails from the other room.
"TICKLE TICKLE TICKLE"


This is why when everyone finally goes to bed for the night, I stay up just a little bit longer, to revel in the QUIET.

Day Six: Sung to the Tune of "Carry On My Wayward Son"

First a Disclaimer:  These Days of Thankfulness are in no particular order, simply how they occur to me as I'm writing them at the time.  I don't want anyone to think I am more grateful to anything as inane as a television show than my husband, who I have not featured yet (but will!).

That being said, I have recently been granted access to a Netflix account (THANK YOU MY SISTER) and out of all the choices laid out before me like a buffet, I broke my netflix cherry on Supernatural.   I'm not sure why:  I have several things on my list that I'm interested in, like Doctor Who, or Sherlock Holmes, or even Firefly (here's my geek card, I'll have to hand it in now).  I don't even LIKE scary things anymore.  It triggers my anxiety like crazy and I stay up all night staring at my open doorway, expecting a silhouette to darken it and for me to lose my mind in terror.  But I have always been interested in science fiction, fantasy, and the supernatural.  Things that can't quite be explained, or makes you think about the world as a different, more fascinating place.  I remember having a ritual in high school of watching certain shows with my mom and sister, and the two I remember most are Star Trek: Voyager, and The X-Files. So maybe it was a bit of nostalgia breaking through when I started watching Supernatural.  And surprise surprise, I really liked it.

When I sit down and think about, I think the thing I like the most about the show is the incredible acting and the realism brought to the show by Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. You really, truly, believe these two are brothers.  There's nothing forced in there at all:  they annoy each other, they pick on each other, but they would hand over their lives for the other without thought.  You see although the show is named Supernatural and there is a laundry list of various strange creatures and urban legends, and later religious mythology and epic battles, the show is, plain and simple, about the relationship between these two brothers.  There's the younger, sometimes naive, brooding brother of Sam, who tries to get away from the Hunter lifestyle and maintain a "normal" life, and there's the never-serious, childhood-stolen-from-him, older brother Dean, who drags him back to help find their father.  The way these two interact is hilarious, poignant, and more than that, believable.  These two characters were made for these actors.

There are many other things I love about this show.  I am never disappointed by the music choices.  I like how they manage to mostly tie off loose threads at the end of a season (mostly, there's only so much you can do).  It is absolutely hysterical in some place and rips your heart out in others. There are times when you're crying from laughing so hard and in the next moment, you're crying again because it's so emotional.   There are some kick-ass female leads and they are not only the victims to monsters.  There are romantic relationships, but they are always brief, and everyone knows they are doomed from the start.  It never takes the focus away from the two brothers, the hunters, road-tripping through Hell and back, to save lives and find their own redemption.

I am right now nearing the end of Season 4, so I have quite a bit of catching up to do.  But I know it's going to be a fun ride, no matter how long it takes.

Days Four and Five: Community

Thankful Day Four:  Online Community

There are those among us, particularly of the older variety (I may or may not be in this category) that do not believe that a community that only exists online can provide a fulfilling relationship.  I tend to disagree.

It's true that the Internet is fraught with peril.  You are more likely to encounter a troll (someone who insults others purely to get a rise out of them) than a sympathetic ear. Between trolls, hackers, and people with their filters removed by anonymity, there hardly seems a point.  But the one advantage the Internet has is that it brings people together from all over the world.  Interested in a certain anime?  There's a forum for that.  Passionate about birth? There's a facebook group for that.  And every now and then, you find a group made of exceptional men and women that you connect with and lifts you up better than anyone IRL, because you only have to travel as far as your computer or iPhone to find them.  I in particular am grateful for the community of my two online mothers groups, one that has been together for almost 12 years, and one that has been together for almost 11 years;  and my splinter freebirthing group that broke off from a larger, dysfunctional one.  It is rare that you find such a safe haven of like-minded individuals that will willingly reach out across the ether and extend a hand to sister that is in need of advice, of comfort, or to share a joy.  To someone who has social anxiety and sometimes can't stand to be physically around other people, this is a unique blessing:  friendship without pressures.

Thankful Day Five:  IRL Community

It's been a long time since I had close friends that I could visit regularly in a physical form.  I don't reach out to people often, but I have had really good luck lately opening up to people and finding kinship with them.  For day five, I am grateful for my community that exists here around me, and my good friends.  

November Writing Madness AKA Do I Still Have This Blog???

Hello and welcome to the month of November Dear Readers! (all two of you.  don't get rowdy).  Although I'm already two days behind, I am still determined to get to my 30K word count goal that I usually set for this month.  I have lots and lots of Scepter chapters to go, and I'm starting a new saga of Maerciless and Shirelle.  It's going rather well, although it's no where near to the point of posting yet.  I have managed to keep the different tones of the pieces up instead of blending them together into a homogenized style, so I'm happy about that.  Maybe this time next year I will be able to focus on something that's not WoW related??  Time will tell.

I will be keeping a word count update on my blog, and going for my November Thankfulness as often as I remember (once a week?  once a day? who knows!).  I took the entire month of October off from writing, and although it was needed to be able to get my Halloween Crafting on, I'm a little out of practice from churning out as much writing as I would like to each week. I will still have Holiday Crafting to work on this month as well, as I'd like to get my sewn and crocheted gifts done before the first of December, I have found I am most happiest when I constantly have a lot of projects going on.  It keeps me busy and useful, and creating makes me happy.  Which makes me create more.

Now for my days of November Thankfulness.  Although I will be doing the usual and listing off family and basic ordinary blessings, I am going to try and dig deep to find subjects that really make you think, things that you might not always find happy.  It's a challenge really:  to find happy in the least likely of places.

Day One:   I am grateful for the love of reading.  My eldest daughter is sitting on the couch right now re-reading a book that I bought with my own money as a teenager, that somehow made it back to this house.  My kids have different reading speeds and levels, but all of them will happily sit down with a book and escape reality for a brief time. I have always learned my most important lessons from books, and I am glad to have passed that down to the minions.

Day Two:  I am grateful for Cosplay.  I have always been really into costuming, ever since I was little.  I liked to pick obscure characters and re-create them to the best of my ability constantly.  I dressed up every year for Halloween and was the spearhead for my group of friends to follow me around and trick or treat, up until we turned 18.  I never really understood my fanaticism for costuming, until a couple years ago I fell into the world of Cosplay on the internet.  I no longer feel ashamed of my intense love of creating costumes and characters, and instead go for it with all the enthusiasm that I've always wanted to.  Everyone has their little obsessions:  some are about sports teams, some about movies, or videogames:  one of mine is costuming and there is nothing wrong with that.  I have found community in costuming and feel that I am an encouragement to others who want to costume and craft as well.  The husband has entered into this world as well, through the making of props and his constant support.  It's a world I am happy to be a part of.

Day Three:  I am grateful for insomnia and the madness it creates to craft, write, and exercise my brain.  I am grateful for the extra time it makes for me to be myself and not solely exist as a wife, mother, and homeschooler.  Now if I could just not crash every few days, it would be a lot more convenient.

Bonus Picture:  A Lachlan in a Box

Inspiration

I started listening to this lovely song by Pink, that someone did a music video to (I am not sure of the original person).  I was admiring how their relationship was so innocent and unassuming and quickly blossomed into something more.  I was considering using this as an inspiration video to write about Elf and Zara when the end of the video BROKE MY HEART IN HALF.  I mean really.  If you stop it at 2:00 and forget the rest, okay, but otherwise, NOPE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glVVfddl9Uo

When Art Imitates Life

***

He pulled a corner of the blanket off his face and peered into the faintly lit room. The shadows indicated the light was from within. He rolled over and saw a candle burning on the small nightstand by Zarabethe's bed. The night elf was hunched over a pile of scrolls and two open books, scribbling furiously on a separate parchment. He sat up and glanced outside: it was still full dark, although the dawn would be upon them soon.

“Zara, have you been up all night?” he mumbled, his mouth still full of sleep. She didn't even glance his way.

“No.” She stopped writing long enough to run one finger along a line of words in one of the books, her lips moving silently as she read them to herself. “There's still night left.”

He groaned and flopped back down on the bed, pulling the blanket over him again.

“Go to bed, Zarabethe, you can do that in the morning,” he grumbled.

“I will shortly,” came her distracted answer. Giving up, Elforen stuck his head under the pillow and sought sleep.  

***

This scene has happened so often in our house I can't even count it anymore. 

Dream Sequence

I really don't have anything inspiring to put on here right now, so I'm going to share a dream sequence I'm messing with for an original story I'm working on. Maybe it will motivate me to pick one of these many projects swimming around in my documents folder and actually complete it o.O .

***

Solid grey walls assault my eyes. They are meant to be neutral, impartial, completely forgettable in a time of dire distress. They are my clearest memory of that day. Plain grey cement walls, grey with grey paint, no trim, nothing to break up their monopolization of the hallway except plain grey doors with silver handles. Light grey tiles on the floor slightly longer than my foot, arranged into squares like my grandmother's quilt. It is amazing the thoughts that flit into my mind in this impossible task. I am awash in the lack of colour, I am adrift in the surreality of the moment. The soft click of my boots against the floor is the loudest sound in existence. It almost drowns out the sound of weeping in one of the closed rooms. Is it to my left or right? Does it matter?

The detective in front of me is Hispanic, with a kind, intelligent face, today set only to grim. He walks at a normal pace, that I match easily, but the hallway seems to go on into infinity. In the ignorance that exists in living through a memory, I start to feel uneasy. The hallway is too long. The doors are too wide apart, in too large of number. I try to take bigger steps, but I feel resistance against my legs, and I don't gain any distance. I try to look down to see if my skirt is perhaps caught on my legs, but I can't move my head. I can only look forward, walk the same pace, follow these footsteps again. Again.

The uneasiness blooms into a flower of panic in my head. I've done this before. My breath seems to be the only thing I can directly influence, and I start to breathe too fast. I look ahead, and finally I see an end to the hallway, a door that I am intended to pass through. A door that I cannot pass through. The sound of my footsteps echoes so loud in my ears that I want to slap my hands over my ears. The muffled crying increases, seeps under the cracks of every room. The grey of the walls presses into me oppressively. I am sweating. The detective is oblivious to my discontent: he seems to be trapped in this repeating scenario without self-awareness. The door slowly grows closer, and inside my head, I start to scream. I yank, pull, wrench with all my might to force my body to stop walking, to end this torturous slow-motion parade. I might as well throw feathers at a steam roller. I continue to shriek in my head: nonsensical, mental manifestations of terror, a last resort after all efforts to free oneself have failed. I am hyperventilating, and tears start to gather in my eyes from the rebellion I am waging against my body. We have almost reached the door, and the detective turns towards me with concern on his face. He can see my wet cheeks, my too-fast breath. He gently pats my arm, but cannot do anything. We are both locked in this nightmare.

Stopwalkingstopwalkingstopwalkingstopwalkingstopwalkingstopwalkingstopwalking

 It all runs together as one word, a holy chant to ward off evil. Evil is indifferent.

 Don'topenthedoordon'topenthedoordon'topenthedoordon'topenthedoor DON'T. OPEN. THE. DOOR.

The detective swings open the door silently to a room filled with more grey. The wails of suffering, having reached a crescendo, are abruptly cut off as the door shuts behind us with a dull thud. There are different kinds of grey in this room: the dull metallic grey of steel. Dark grey plastic bags. Grey cotton scrubs, even grey sprinkling the heads of the technicians as they mill around a table set up in the center of the room. There appears to be some kind of arguing going on, but my attention has zeroed in on the zipper in the middle of the bag on the table. There is something wrong with the bag: it seems too loose and empty for the devastation it contains. Now that I am through the door, I am ignored, and I am as trapped in the sequence as the detective was before. I watch in gaping horror as I step behind the personnel having a terse discussion and put my hand on the zipper. I draw it back, and this time my scream rips apart the veil between all worlds and shatters the night.