While I was gone...

Let's see. (index to lips in great concentration)
Since the last time I tapped keys in this neighborhood Jim and I visited this place again...
Yep, Jim's folks on the Big Island were and are still doing fine in the Aloha State. I took this pic across the street from their condo the last night we were there. As always, there were no loss of beautiful memories to be had or gorgeous days to enjoy those 3 weeks. And it was a wonderful place for a Baby Moon (wiggles brows). But, FYI: Air flight while pregnant can be and truly was a bitch! I'm sure I will find a way to get that experience in here one of these days. All experiences have their use when one is a writer, right? Right? And it was just sooooo dang fun I'll have to share... :-P

And then this Spring Jim and I bought a house in preparation of our growing little family. Behold yet another room under construction (below). This is good but frustrating, but mostly really really good thing. Because with each wall of plastic, nail struck, floor refinished, each treasure found and personal touch placed in our new old house, makes it even more our home. And not the neglected red headed stepchild (and it was red when we bought it) of the neighborhood that it will soon not be. I knew my addiction to HGTV would save me some day...

And then exactly one week after moving in--I want you to think towers of unpacked boxes, dusty cobwebs yet un-mastered and barely a bedroom to sleep in--we had James. Nearly 9 pounds, 22 inches. James Alan Murray was born healthy and happy on May 24th.

And now...

My Man and my little man just the other day in front of the tube. Jim was teaching James the fine art of channel surfing at the time. Lord, in the short time that little monkey has been in my life I have learned so much more than I could have ever guessed about parenting--hell, about life. No talent for empathy prepared me for feeling what its really like to be a parent. I don't think I could love another human being more...and I love his Daddy a considerable amount.

I had said that my son would be my best WIP. The truth is, he is his own WIP and I am so much a WIP still.

As for WIP's, Ghost Mountain is still a go, although it had stalled for a bit, due to EVERYTHING!!!! I have started this again...

And not just writing, but sketching again, home repair and decorative project making again. I still have a pile of boxes in the third bedroom where Salvaged Beauty will begin again, so no jewelry at this time. But it will come.

And with my creative self finding its way back again, my socially active self has been making its way around. Slowly I make contact with old friends and soon I hope to attend a writing group session again. And while I dip a toe or two into the waters of my small social pond, my mind has already been taking dips into the much bigger pond--our nation and the world.

A anniversary solidified my need to voice some long held opinions. 9-11 and those days that followed to be exact. I remember that day, a decade ago like most. I was working a double at my old job as a mental health worker. We had a small TV in our office. The Today Show was on while I went over the log entries from the day before. And then I heard something that caught my attention--Matt Lauer reporting on some plane hitting one of the World Trade Towers. Something similar had happened many years ago. In 1945 a B-25 Bomber smacked into the Empire State building. A horrible accident. But this day.... As soon as I watched a second plane do the same to the second tower, I knew what I had seen was a act of terrorism. I had never felt so angry or hyper aware than I did that day in front of that small TV, side by side with staff and half the clients stable enough in the building to do so.

When the next day came I was still angry, still raw from what I had bore witness to on live TV. But I could sense something else in me as the day drug on with each new bit of horrifying footage from all 3 sites. This thing swelled in me. A protectiveness, a patriotism, a pride grew in me while I watched those who had come out of the dust or those brave enough to travel into it, band together in the rubble strewn streets of Manhattan, the defiled home of our military in DC and that scared field just outside a small town in PA. For the first time in my life I saw what I knew my America was capable of. What my grandparents always reminisced. A America that didn't hold into account your sex, religion, race, or economical place when the shit hit the fan. You were a human being in need of help and that was all that mattered. We were all in it together. We were Americans. I just wish it hadn't took 9-11 to remind people of that.

And now--oh how times have changed and not at all how I would have imagined or hoped. I remember who we were those hard horrible days, months, years. I see the good and feel the pride of being a American still, but something has changed. Something wrong floats in the air and I want to help air it out if it still can be. How will I do this, I am still figuring on. I know it may be wise to keep some sort of separation between my writing and jewelry biz self and my inner politico. Maybe I can find a way to do that on Blogger? But after all that has gone on these last few years, I need to get a few things off my chest and out into blogisphere.

So, I am back. There will be some changes here and there, but I am still me--a eccentric, hopeful WIP.