thanks

I thankful for my CAPS (Creative Action Planning & Support) group. This is a group my artist friend Lori and I decided to start because we wanted some help meeting goals (accountability and all that) and we wanted some camaraderie with like-minded creative individuals. We started last July and have met once a week, every week, since then. There are nine of us though not everyone makes it every week. Between us we have painters, collage artists, quilters, photographers, sculpters, cartoonist and yes, a writer or two. At first I wasn’t sure how useful it would be for me because they are all artists and I am all writer but the blending of spirits is wonderful. You can’t meet once a week with folks and not be changed by the experience.

I am still looking for an in-person writing group (though I love my one-on-one connections with other writers) but this group fills a very special need for me. It’s helpful for me to announce to the group what I plan to get done in the coming week and then, if it isn’t done, to hear myself explain why I missed the mark. While it’s easy to lie to myself with a lot of excuses, it’s much harder to do so to a group of supportive friends. As a result I am more focused and able to finish more work.

I am also thankful that I finally got everything (and boy, what a lot of everything that was) over to the fine folks at Winding Oak for my new website. I can’t wait to see what they come up with! It’s been quite an ordeal but through the process I have become reacquainted with my writer self and it was a very nice meeting.

So hey, CAPS girls, I can finally cross all that website stuff off my list!

Edited to add:
I just remembered one more thing I’m grateful for this week. For much of the week every time I got a negative thought or a thought that threatened to pull me into the past, I’ve been able to note it and then let it go.

There has been a recurring chorus from a few special friends in my life of late. They tell me things and I refuse to believe them and then they tell them to me again and I push them away and they keep telling me these things until I’m ready to cry because I don’t see the person they see and eventually I start to feel like maybe they might be telling me the truth which just blasts all my old preconceptions about myself right out of the water.

I am so grateful to have friends like these in my life.

Thank you.
 

I thought I would try a themed Thankful Thursday today….one around my office. (Been in here for over 3 hours so far today.)

I am thankful for this wonderful job I have, playing and working with words, a job that allows me to work from home in a beautiful office filled with books and paper and all the touchy feely things I love best.

I am thankful for the new roof we put on. A stone coated steel roof. My office has a high beam ceiling and the old shingles were just piled on top of that. No insulation. In the summer the room was an oven and in the winter you could feel the columns of cold air drifting down. But since they put the new roof on it is pleasant. The AC is running on the house but even then I used to sweat in the office. Not now.

I am thankful for all the fun pieces of old office furniture and accessories I have been able to gather here to give it warmth…the old oak teacher’s desk, the antique library table, the ancient file cabinet that matches the desk. The old botanical prints that are waiting for me to hang them on the wall. The old oak recipe box that holds my plotting index cards and all the little knick knack dust catchers that make me smile.

I am thankful for the ergonomic setup that helps me hurt less – (though today something is funky and my neck hurts) the chair that adjusts a gazillion different ways. The roller mouse keyboard that is no strain on my arm and should. The keyboard tray that lets me use a negative tile which reduces the strain on my wrists.

But I think today I am most thankful for the view outside my window. From the computer desk I can’t quite see the bird bath or the bubbling rock (which means there is another water feature in our future) but I can see the birds swooping down as they race the length of the yard and come in for a landing. I can see them up in the Japanese Maple tree flitting from branch to branch, looking for bugs. I see the mourning doves, three of them, who have decided under the young Ironwoods is a nice place to take a nap and a fourth one wandering the path like an old man in search of his lost glasses. There’s a cabbage white butterfly that’s hovering over the monkey flower just at the edge of my view and an orange skipper resting on the coffee berry. The carpenter bees are working the tall yarrow at the back fence and the hummingbird is darting from the fuchsias to the twinberry and back again.

Life is good.

Today I am thankful for Nicole Geiger, my editor for Hugging the Rock.

I recently shared some of  MTLB (MG verse novel) with her and then sat by the computer waiting impatiently for her response. 

When it came, I couldn’t have been more pleased. No, she didn’t offer a contract on the spot or even imply such a thing. What she did is what made working with her on Hugging the Rock so wonderful. She pointed to the holes in the story in such a way that I can now view them as a challenge rather than a failing on my part. She said good stuff too, like her heart was already breaking, but I am so grateful for an editor who can show me the weak spots and yet not make me feel weak in the process.

I hope every writer gets the chance to work with an editor like that at least once in their career.

1. Excedrin Migraine. It works on my sinus headaches enough to dull it painful but almost bearable.

2. I hit the deadline to get my critique in for our conference submission. Considering how long I have not been writing regularly this was huge.

3. I turned in several work-for-hire assignments and picked up two more.

4. Being laid off. I know I have said it before but I am really, really, really thankful to be home. It is going to take months still for my body to absorb all these changes but it is the right thing for me. I know it.

5. Friends who don’t give up on me even when I am a major flake about things.

6. A husband who does it all – cooks, shops, cleans – and lets me work toward creating the literary life I crave.

I’m a lucky woman.

Supportive husband who cooks and gives foot massages and spoils me rotten.
Puppy kisses.
A home of my own.
Words and the ability to use them.
Friends and family.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

This is a random edition of thankfulness.

I am thankful I had dental insurance in order to have the dental surgery earlier this week.
(I hate hate hate that I needed it but glad I was able to do so.)

I am thankful for my wonderful husband who is excellent at taking care of me when I am under the weather.
(I wish everyone had someone like him in their lives because he is so very nurturing.)

I am REALLY thankful that I only have 5 working days left in a cubicle.
(I can’t believe that they are dropping Microsoft Outlook and going backward to Lotus Notes for email.)

I am thankful to smokingtoaster because she is arranging a goodbye lunch for me at work. It’s one of those awkward things because of course my big fear is what if no one wants to come? But if not, smokingtoaster and DB and I will just have a nice lunch on our own.
(The ONLY thing I am going to miss about this job are a few really great people.)

I am thankful that we have had the money to put in our native garden. It’s not done and the plants are still small but seeing green stuff beginning to grow is so exciting.

I am thankful that I will be home and be able to tend the garden by hand, water by hand for a while, weed, and just bask in the wonderfulness that is nature.

I am thankful I only have 17 more working days left until I am out of this blasted cubicle.

Really, that’s all I can think about anymore.

Last night we went to go look at a second German Shepherd dog to possibly add to our family. His name is Cullen and he was pulled from the pound after being picked up running on the street. He had tags and the owner was contacted. The owner said no, I don’t want him anymore. Just put him to sleep. This guy was just a big old teddy bear who wanted nothing more than to snuggle up next to a human.

Today I am giving thanks to the great many dog rescue groups and their volunteers that go into the shelters and pull good dogs like Cullen from the shelter and try to find them a new home with loving owners. If you want to add a dog to your family, please consider going to a rescue group or check out petfinder.com You can go to the pound too but here’s the advantage of the rescue groups – most of them place the dogs in foster homes with experienced dog handlers. The foster parent can give you a lot of insight into the dog before you bring it home. Yes, rescue dogs are often older and a lot of people think that means they won’t bond with their new owners but that’s not the case. And while puppies are cute and cuddly they are a lot of work. There’s a lot to be said for adopting a slightly older dog from 9 – 18 months.

If you want a specific breed, as we did, you can go to a breed specific rescue group. The AKC maintains a list of breed rescue groups around the country. Sure, it might take a little while to find the perfect dog (or not) but it is worth it. 

So thank you dog lovers and rescue groups everywhere.

I am thankful that the cement demo crew is starting today, two days early, because I am at work and won’t have to listen to the bulk of the noise. But more than that, I am thankful that soon, very soon, all the cement around our place will be gone and we will have a little bit more dirt for planting. Our yard is teeny tiny so I rejoice in any dirt that will let me garden a bit more.

I am thankful that a crew of 4 will show up on Friday to take out as much of the Bermuda grass that they can from the back yard. 

I am thankful for our local water district that is offering a nice rebate for people who take out thirsty lawns and replace them with drought-tolerant alternatives. (Ours will be, of course, 100% California native plants and no, that does not mean cactus.)

I am thankful that tomorrow starts the first day of my vacation/shut-down. Our company is shutting down next week so I will have 10 days at home to write and work on the garden and sleep in past 5am.

But most of all today I am thankful for my husband. Last night I was watering a patch of Bermuda (to make it easier to extract) and I pulled the hose a bit closer and managed to snap the water pipe. He was just getting ready to start cooking dinner but instead had to spend an hour or so running to the store for parts and fixing the broken pipe. Never once did he get upset with me. After that he had to help me move the close to 100 pots on the courtyard plus all the other assorted pieces of junk that live there. And then we had to move all the stuff on the sideyard since that is being removed too. And through it all he kept on smiling that smile of his, the one that made my heart go flip-flop when I first met him. The one that all these years later, still makes my own heart skip a beat.

May you all have a day filled with gratefulness.