liralen: Finch Painting (Default)
Sometimes I think he's at school... or at work... or off to band practice... or at a game.  And it feels all right that he's gone, and then I remember, and it still feels all right.

He's happy, he's safe, he's with a family he finds fantastic in a situation and culture he's learning about at a massive rate, and it was like he was just in the room with us, showing us around his new house and showing us the compact city just outside his window in a video call with us.  And then he's gone again when the call is done, but we know he's doing well and learning hand over fist and loving the situation he's landed in and it's all good.

And, just like when he's away at school, at work, or even when he went off to Europe, Chicago, or other places on his down, I get back to doing all the things that I want to do with my life.  There will be more of that.  He will be back in four months, but then he'll be off to college and the rest of his life, so I get on with mine.
Read more... )
liralen: Finch Painting (Default)
It's raining tonight.

The soft hiss of water on the pavement, the spatter on the windows, and the coolness through the house. The sky was a riot of fluffy clouds, shadows, and curtains of water being blown in from over the mountains.

Read more... )
liralen: Finch Painting (Default)
It's been odd, this last week.

Since about Monday, after I'd finished turning everything over to the team, I've been getting back to my life.

And it's been a mixed bag... )
liralen: Finch Painting (Hakkai)
It was raining, the slow, fine ever present rain that goes with a sky occluded by white. The overcast and drizzle were familiar to me, as comfortable and present as my own breath. I was carefully watching the shadow of the edge of a running blade, using the shadow's intersect with its caster as my way of knowing when I'd hit my mark.

Life, getting ready to run/fly/get out of here, and knitting... )
liralen: Finch Painting (teacups)
A lot of my life I still can't really write about in public, and that's okay.

[livejournal.com profile] rasetsunyo reminded me of just writing about being grateful on a regular basis, and that reminded me of my original incarnation of this journal, which was just a daily writing of what happened, and trying to think it through and be grateful for the good things each day.

The interesting thing was realizing that back then, with just Archie and Veronica, and much much slower and much worse search engines, I'd never worried about people at work ever discovering what I'd written there or here, for that matter. My moment of online omg was when a distant cousin of myJohn's out in Darvel, East Ayrshire, Scotland, happened to Google for his hometown and found one of my Scotland journal entries from 1995. I remember being on a ferry with my laptop on that trip, it was a machine that ran on two 3.5 inch floppies. *laughs and laughs* And a man on that ferry asked me if I were either very rich or doing work on my trip, and I said neither. I just liked having it for my journal...

Anyway... I feel like I need to get back into the habit, as while I have plenty of things to concern me right now, there are plenty of things that I can take joy in doing and experiencing.

Read more... )

Rough Hands

Jun. 7th, 2014 11:31 pm
liralen: Finch Painting (seedling)
Had a really straightforward day today. I mostly dug weeds out of the raised beds in the garden, shopped at the local farmer's market, planted my last four tomato plants, and went swimming with the boys. The spice of the day was making clay pot rice for lunch for Jet and I, it was simple enough now that I have an actual clay pot to cook it in and the rice on the bottom was good and crunchy. I have to say I loved that it was raining while we swam.
Of course the week previous wasn't quite so simple... )
liralen: Finch Painting (sheep)
My child is far more responsible than I am. I think.

This afternoon, when he was mowing the lawn, he told me, "Mom, you should really plant the tomato plants. You keep saying you should, so you might as well do it."

So I did.

Read more... )

In Memory

May. 26th, 2014 09:39 pm
liralen: Finch Painting (sparrow)
I hope everyone who got to celebrate it had a wonderful Memorial Day.

We had a pretty busy day... )
liralen: Finch Painting (superglue_flake)
I've earned a new habit this winter. Walking in the cold.

It started during the time before Christmas, when the days were short, the nights long, and the neighborhood had all the pretty lights out. The temperatures would get down into the single digits, and I'd be out there anyway, usually when there was no wind to add to the chill factor, and loved seeing the lights and walking out where no one was.

I had my thick wool cowl, my down jacket, my handspun mittens, and a wool hat that I'd bought on one of our innertube sledding trips out into the mountains. Thick wool with a brim to keep the sun out. Though I didn't have to worry about the sun today. It was overcast and cold.

And it was beautiful... )
liralen: Finch Painting (sunset)
I've been learning a lot about myself lately, and remembering a few things that are harder to remember than I like. One of which is that I do not have infinite resources and that I really do need to figure out how to recharge when I'm this low down on emotional and physical batteries of a sort.

Of knitting, gardening, walking, eating and recovering in the sunshine here in Colorado. )

liralen: Finch Painting (seedling)
Been slowly drowning in editing. *laughs* One last pass before our editor gets a go at it, and the book's going to be out in July. The beauty of this pass has been that we're catching things we probably hadn't been able to see a few months ago.

It's been nice getting another few thousand extra words out and putting in a few more to make some passages mean more what they should have meant.

I've also started my garden, and needed to make a gardening entry so that I can see it for next year.

Got lettuce, spinach, radishes, sugar snap peas, garlic seed and onions into the ground. The wild grasses are a REAL pain, as they're difficult to differentiate from the onions, and I'm half afraid to pull them out sometimes, as they look so much like the garlic until they're far enough gone to make it difficult to pull them up. I still have to prune back the wild roses and raspberries, but it's really time.

Also planted Pansies in a fit of Spring Fever. We're still likely to have lots of Frost and maybe, just maybe, one last hard freeze, but I'm hoping we don't. The beekeepers have been abuzz with activity already, and the pesticide discoveries have been flying about. More deaths of bees are being attributed to some pesticides that the EPA didn't look at nearly closely enough.

Also been teaching Jet's class about circuits. Did two whole experiments today, John did two last Friday, and I could probably have done two last Monday as the kids have already been introduced to them, and are taking to it like ducks to water. On the repeat they're getting more of the concepts, I think, and it's fun to watch them all just Get It and see why a light bulb lights or a motor whirs. I'm The Science Mom and I kind of like that. *laughs*
liralen: Finch Painting (seedling)
Been slowly drowning in editing. *laughs* One last pass before our editor gets a go at it, and the book's going to be out in July. The beauty of this pass has been that we're catching things we probably hadn't been able to see a few months ago.

It's been nice getting another few thousand extra words out and putting in a few more to make some passages mean more what they should have meant.

I've also started my garden, and needed to make a gardening entry so that I can see it for next year.

Got lettuce, spinach, radishes, sugar snap peas, garlic seed and onions into the ground. The wild grasses are a REAL pain, as they're difficult to differentiate from the onions, and I'm half afraid to pull them out sometimes, as they look so much like the garlic until they're far enough gone to make it difficult to pull them up. I still have to prune back the wild roses and raspberries, but it's really time.

Also planted Pansies in a fit of Spring Fever. We're still likely to have lots of Frost and maybe, just maybe, one last hard freeze, but I'm hoping we don't. The beekeepers have been abuzz with activity already, and the pesticide discoveries have been flying about. More deaths of bees are being attributed to some pesticides that the EPA didn't look at nearly closely enough.

Also been teaching Jet's class about circuits. Did two whole experiments today, John did two last Friday, and I could probably have done two last Monday as the kids have already been introduced to them, and are taking to it like ducks to water. On the repeat they're getting more of the concepts, I think, and it's fun to watch them all just Get It and see why a light bulb lights or a motor whirs. I'm The Science Mom and I kind of like that. *laughs*
liralen: Finch Painting (socks)
Been busy. Jet's doing running club and wearing through socks, his feet are now the same size mine are, so I'm making him socks with the idea in mind that when he outgrow them they're now *mine*.

Snow, garden, spinning and knitting, health check, a very simple Valentine's, and some very complex advances in pattern recognition. )
liralen: Finch Painting (socks)
Been busy. Jet's doing running club and wearing through socks, his feet are now the same size mine are, so I'm making him socks with the idea in mind that when he outgrow them they're now *mine*.

Snow, garden, spinning and knitting, health check, a very simple Valentine's, and some very complex advances in pattern recognition. )
liralen: Finch Painting (flying snow)
It's good too.

The gallery work was just to make the labels for all the works in the art exhibit, it's something that the owner says takes her two days. I managed to do it in about an hour and a half, so she was very happy and I was very happy as I was out of there for an appointment half an hour earlier than I thought I'd be. Next time, knowing how much time it takes, I won't have qualms about charging her for the work. She was fun and interesting and lots of people wander through that gallery all the time. That was interesting to see.

There's going to be a reception tomorrow (April 16th) from 6-9 for all the artists, and I'm probably going to go.

Allergy results, tomato plants, writing adventures, and one butcher block countertop. )
liralen: Finch Painting (flying snow)
It's good too.

The gallery work was just to make the labels for all the works in the art exhibit, it's something that the owner says takes her two days. I managed to do it in about an hour and a half, so she was very happy and I was very happy as I was out of there for an appointment half an hour earlier than I thought I'd be. Next time, knowing how much time it takes, I won't have qualms about charging her for the work. She was fun and interesting and lots of people wander through that gallery all the time. That was interesting to see.

There's going to be a reception tomorrow (April 16th) from 6-9 for all the artists, and I'm probably going to go.

Allergy results, tomato plants, writing adventures, and one butcher block countertop. )
liralen: Finch Painting (Toast)
So this week was the week of Jet's Spring Break and on the most part we were just home and putzing about and doing the usual things, and then on Monday Jet said at dinner time, "You know, if we're going on a trip during the vacation, we should probably plan it now."

He was right. )
liralen: Finch Painting (Toast)
So this week was the week of Jet's Spring Break and on the most part we were just home and putzing about and doing the usual things, and then on Monday Jet said at dinner time, "You know, if we're going on a trip during the vacation, we should probably plan it now."

He was right. )
liralen: Finch Painting (okami)
The weather is cooling and the vegetable garden is really starting to produce as the plants figure out that the days are growing shorter.

Garden produce, exercise update, food explorations. )

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