The Martini tree, a photo by jyllianm on Flickr. We are not a big Christmas family. We are, as you have probably noticed a big Halloween family. Our tree has skeletons, eyeballs, bats and Nightmare before Christmas ornaments. Also–Mary Poppins and Fairies and Princesses. Why? Because magic is everywhere if …
Everything in its Place I want a clean and orderly place to sit and think, or make a thing. I want an unstained and fur free couch to watch The Doctor or turn a page. I want an unmuddled and chaos free desk to sit and write or play …
Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing. -Toni Morrison, Beloved Emily’s Valkyrie Hey my girl, My moppet, my colt, my brilliant amazing daughter I need you …
 The Day after the Day After Tomorrow  I wish I could always be the fur soft blanket, the cool pillow, the warmest cup of chocolate for you dear one. Not the grimacing harpy, the nagging ogress the shaking finger of homework and underwear not in hamper.  But …
Mountains of Leaves Under the leaves Fired with red, breaking with yellow Dew makes the grass still green And as the trees lose more and more they Don’t all shatter underfoot, but slide Careful don’t fall. He’ll go out soon, collecting the sodden And the crisp, the dastardy sweet gum balls …
― John Connolly, The Book of Lost Things Tonight my sweet little girl (who is not having the easiest start to the school year but better than last year), my darling child said: “Mommy, this might be kind of random, but I need to ask you something,” I said, “sure …
I started off this morning reading some urban fantasy on my kindle and then moved to reading the debate going on between John Scalzi uber geek and less uber geek Joe Peacock (who designs Fark, that I used to like– well the politics and Caturday threads, but don’t go anymore …
So how do you teach your child to be unselfish? And how unselfish should s/he be? Honestly this isn’t an unselfish society. We are all looking for more status, more money more power—so how do you raise your kids to think of others. When really? That isn’t what life in …
 With the recent flap about just what a working mom is–Hillary Rosen and Ann Romney –or isn’t or what was actually said made me think about my own time working ‘in the home’ and ‘outside of the home.’ I’m not going to go over what did or didn’t happen …
Bean wrote a poem. She loves Nox Arcana (hmmm don’t ask me where she gets that) And this is the song that made her want to write Here’s the poem: Little ballerina dance your empty dance For you are a mere doll Your soul is captivated in a trance Words …
it’s funny the things we keep. The things we keep for ourselves, the things we keep for our children, or in our case child. The things we keep for each other. My mother kept my baby ring. What a funny thing to have. I understand a baby cup, I guess …
OH damn. Damn damn damn. This is the wish. I wish I felt like I did during college or grad school, or perhaps even my first job, when I just knew I was marking time until it got good. And it did, get good that is. I had some amazing …
I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. I don’t look forward to my days right now anyway, but tomorrow is going to be worse than usual. I have to tell my Bean, that though she practiced and practiced, that though she sounded great when I heard her (and that’s not just …
Well I’m showing up once more. I’ll do this experiment (and lather rinse repeat) of beginning to write and finding what comes out. To get back in the habit of writing. It’s been a rough day. I accomplished a few things, had some difficulties and battled either an allergy or …
Hopefully I’ll have a bit more to say tomorrow, but for tonight—we haunted the neighborhood after having a lovely day—1/2 spent enjoying our anniversary with my husband, the other half enjoying getting dressed up with our daughter. We were running slow because J is getting over a bad stomach virus. …
Oh I’m taking a break from the Halloween Countdown—and I’ve had to because it was yet another exhausting week at work. I hope THAT gets better soon. I can’t decide if I love it or not. I know I don’t like office politics. But I love the work, I love …
Well it is about birthday time. And about time for me to have the mopes. These are both reasonable and not. Why are they—well I had a  ….a childhood. So each year on my birthday I remember things you might see on a made for TV movie. And wonder just …
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