Time Flies no matter what

It's been a while. Sometimes I think it is better not to be so content if one wants to write. Given a choice, I am happy to read, hike, play with the dogs, work with my clients, or just sit and contemplate nature. However, I need to write. If I don't get my damn book to the publisher soon, it will loom over me like a giant Halloween monster dressed in grim Father Time clothing. So I am making an announcement: I will finish the book by Thanksgiving. Period.

France this past summer seemed like the perfect place to write. However the minute we arrive I go into such joyous delirium that I cozy on in to reading, hiking, eating, and just being. And then we bought another house which needs renovation. In my dotage. What were we thinking?

Well we were thinking that we have always loved the house right down the rue from us. We were thinking how nice it would be to have a slightly larger place. We were thinking how cool a twelfth century tower is, how interesting it would be to renovate it, how convenient to have a guest room, how nice to have the surrounding gardens and terraces for the dogs. We were also thinking it was a sane thing to do. We shall see. One thing for sure is that it didn't leave time for me to write anything.

I'm reforming. You'll see. I just returned from a week at Cal-A-Vie getting in top physical shape for the ordeal, which involves putting my butt on a chair and my fingers on the mouse. I lost seven pounds and eight total inches in a week while eating their incredible food, hiking in the hills north of San Diego and being indulged beyond compare. It didn't work. I got distracted.

I was drawn by unseen forces to reorganize my closets and my office, which was way beyond embarrassing, and tomorrow I am going to put the final touches on things. Then I can write.

But, wait, there's more. I have to leave for Albuquerque on Wed. to work for three days. I return on a Saturday, and I can't write on a Saturday or Sunday. Looks like I've targeted Monday, November 8th. Stay tuned. We'll see.

It's about Time

Yes, I procrastinate. Every day I say that I will get back to my blog, but...

Life is moving along, which it tends to do. In the last month, I've had equal moments of work and play, which is perfect. Got to spend a week in Provincetown getting the condo in shape to rent out for the season. The weather was breathtaking and, as always, Ptown was relaxing and easy.

Fortunately Milton Kelley came up from Beaufort and whipped the place into shape before I knew it. In the meantime, Andrew Sullivan was generous enough to let me stay at his place so I didn't have to inhale paint fumes and trip over carpentry, so I got to watch the full moon rising over the bay and listen to the tide coming in underneath me.

Then, on to the Mountain, where I organized? and removed tons of stuff to make room for a wonderful tenant, Jason. Breaks my heart to turn the cabin over to someone else, but since I have to, Jason is perfect. He is a wonderful, responsible, charming young man who will love it as much as I do. It is so much fun to talk to someone who recognizes the energy in that spot of the universe. I'm sending him the plans for a labyrinth and am hoping he'll have time to build it.

The Endless Mountains are gorgeous and fill me with such joy. I can't be unhappy in that place. I get so jazzed being there that it makes me feel slightly insane.

Now I'm trying to get Edgewater on track so it will be ready for the wonderful Milton who will be living here.

All that, and I still have my "other" job. I am not ambitious, don't want to run an empire, so I get to work with clients who find me, which means that they are pre-selected for compatibility. All I want is to do what I love with people I love and get paid for it. Not much to ask, but rare. I'm so lucky that it happens and continues to grow just enough to keep me busy. So, off to Atlanta and then Boston.

As for the blog: the reason I think I dropped it is because I bore myself with all this tittle-tattle, or whatever. I read my friend, Ellen Herrick's blog, and feel like a first-grader trying to figure out what to draw on the paper. In any case, it am what it am, and now you know.

Inch by Inch

Well, I am on my way! Ate well yesterday, worked out, and got tons of work done. Today, I am sitting in the sun in South Carolina, listening to the birds and thrilled to, once again, know that I can kick myself upside the head when necessary.

Life is life.

Yes, it has been a while.

Even though life is great in many aspects, and basically good, things still jump up and block the pretty view. Since shortly after my last post, I've been dealing with a family problem that appears to be bigger than any idea, instinct, desire, approach any of us can dream up. A dear and close relative has an alcohol problem, coupled with possibly other chemical inbalances, that has brought her to the edge of disaster and the lives of those around her into chaos.

For a while this was a 24/7 operation since she was staying with us. Yeah, yeah, I know I think I can solve any problem if I just try hard enough. Well, I failed and, after four weeks of chaos, drove myself into a depression with the effort.

The chaos made it so difficult to get even the simplest thing done, unless it involved commitments to other people. I did manage to have 27 people for Thanksgiving, teach four days, pull together a dinner for Christmas eve involving a roast goose, overpack for our trip South. However, that was when I was faced with daily chaos and had something to fight. I was energized with the desire to "handle" things. When my relative left, three weeks ago, the depression set in. Now, the simplest phone call or errand has just sits in my brain, saying "handle this today, handle this today."

All I have been able to think is that I have no business being depressed. I'm not about to be homeless, have tons of business scheduled for this year, have a husband who has been a saint about this, friends who have stepped up to this messy plate to offer wonderful support. So today, I am just stopping the depression crap.

My fabulous sister-in-law once told me that when one is depressed and is told the solution is sitting on a desk ten feet away, the ten feet is impossible to negotiate. So today, I just jumped over the ten feet. Ate a good breakfast, am about to start a quarter's worth of expense reports, and will get out to walk my friends, Eddie and Lulu, who have been spending a lot of unsupervised time in the yard.

I'm writing this so you will all hold be accountable.

One other point is that I am blown away by all the old friends, some life-long, of my relative, who have gone to great lengths to contact me with concern. My relative is a remarkable person to engender this kind of love after what turns out to be forty years of creating chaos in her own life and the lives of those who care about her. Each friend is from a different part of her life, and very clear about the problem, so it is especially impressive. Lesser friends would have given up years ago.