We look forward to seeing each other and missing each other is a delicious sort of foreplay that makes smiles brighter and kisses all the sweeter. We sing and dance again, flirt and play. We talk and relish the time we spend together rather than take it for granted or let it slip by unnoticed.

The second biggest change for me was having outside employment for the better part of the last year. I got the chance to learn a bit more about Terese and to grow a little. I still hated working for someone besides me, but managed to make the best of it and remain reasonably happy, if not fulfilled. The job ended last month under less than satisfactory circumstances beyond my control and although it put me back into no small amount of financial insecurity it was also an immense relief and a gift.

Cetandi & Bear

I have housemates here at the ranch for the first time in long and long and am finding it pleasant and helpful after my 8 months of solitude here. They actually live in a small trailer out back with “house privileges” so I still have enough private time and personal space to be content.

The sweat lodge is built and we’ve been using it since January. Being able to sweat and pray has been good for my soul.

And I’m both writing and crafting again. These things are incredibly good for my spirit, and I hope they will prove again to be good for my physical life as well. With Tammy’s support (and while I’m yet working part time outside of my home), I’ve decided to get back to the business of making my living with my art. I am 107K words into my novel and hoping that another 50K or so will bring my story to a close. I began writing a bit on it agin in late September to prep for the insane 50K word rush of November and am committed to finishing and submitting it for publication.

Assemblage Bird Shrine

I did some serious soul searching around whatever blockage keeps me from completing and submitting at least one of my 3 novels in process and learned a few things. The first may be broken. I’m not sure if I still need to tell that story, I’ve lost the tale, I’m afraid. The second, entitled “The Space Between” that I wrote in the immediate wake of the death of our Lil Pharaoh, has been too painful to revisit even to edit until recently, but will be my next task after completing the novel I began in 2008, (working title “The Coming”). This is the story I want to tell. It’s a good story. I think I’m a good and engaging writer. So why haven’t I finished and submitted? In October I came down to only two possibilities and they are both a little embarrassing, but what the hell, “tell the truth and shame the devil” as my Grama would say. What it boils down to is one of these two things, either:

What a bunch of happy horseshit. Whichever it is, I’m done with it. I’m going to finish this novel. I’m going to work on it until it’s done. Then I’m going to revise and edit it enough for submission. Then I’m going to send it off and brave rejection while praying for acceptance.

In the meantime, I’m going to craft and tattoo and find my way back to art from those things. Here I come, 2012.

The recent news of the teen suicides, although I’m sure many more have gone unnoticed by the media over the years, has broken my heart. We have lived too long in a world filled with cruelty and violence when parents and educators just accept the harassment, bullying and torture as normal kid behavior. It’s not normal kid behavior. It’s wild animal behavior. It’s the pack mentality that in nature culls the weak or sickly from the herd and has been somehow assimilated by humanity to cull the different and unique. The children who don’t fit the demographic. Who is teaching these children, these bullies, to hate? To prey on these gay kids? Their parents- society. It breaks my heart. So today in honor of the BlogBlast for Peace I ask you to:

TEACH PEACE

http://thornesworld.com/?p=3371 That’s right! Yay Shelly, it’s Share a Square 2010! I won’t (although I could) tell you at great length about The Share a Square project. I could tell you about it’s awesome inception by a crazy Texas RedHead with a heart as big as her home state, about the amazing bloggers and other folks from around the world who made squares and sent them to Shelly to be sewn together into colorful expressions of love and support for the kids with cancer, (about the huge mess in Shelly’s spare bedroom that overflowed into the rest of her house… hahaha); but I won’t. I’ll let you go check it out at This Eclectic Life if you want to know more about the history if this great project.
Instead I’ll direct you to the FaceBook group page that Shelly has set up for this year, and the FAQ that she put together with her experience of 2 years doing this great thing.
What I’m here to do today, is give ya’ll some visual images and ideas for making your tags. (I’ll be crocheting like a madwoman come Fall/Winter. In the first place it’s too darn hot in the Mojave Desert to crochet in Summer; in the second- I admit… I’m a last minute kinda gal).
Having learned the lesson of crumpled and torn tags in previous years, and knowing that part of the thrill for the kids is being able to see and keep the tags from 150 different people from all around the world, Shelly has come up with a basic format for tags this year, and has graciously added to her workload by offering to laminate, punch and tie them all on to our squares when we send them. She’d like them to be standard business card size, and plans to include a binder ring for the kids to use to keep their tags.
Idea Number 1:
What I did last year was to use my business card. This may seem impersonal to some of you and I suppose it depends on your business, but I kinda thought the kids might get a kick out of having a square crocheted by a tattoo artist (and my cards are pretty colorful, which I like.) If you choose this option, be sure to write a personal note on the back! It will mean so much to the kids.
Idea Number 2:
Print your own and cut them with a paper cutter. Easy to do. Most WP programs these days have business card templates that make it super easy. Just pick something colorful or fun and type your message and print n cut! Perfect! My printer is having fits right now, and jams the paper every time, so I think I’ll be mixing my tags up between Idea 1 above, and
Idea Number 3:
Buy a pack of blank (or already decorated) micro perf business cards and add your own personal flair. I’m using stickers and a hand written message, (but if I can dig out my stamping and embossing stuff I may do some of that, too. If I do, I’ll post pics.) Have fun and do good. What’s better than that?!
Peace!