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We have this flock of birds living in our neighborhood. Flock feels like an insufficient word. It’s more like a horde. There are hundreds of them, and they descend upon our yard en mass, with great swoosh and fluttering. As soon as they sense movement, they’re off again, all of them whooshing up into the trees.

I’m not much of a bird watcher. Anyone know what these things are? My best guess is some kind of blackbird.

Shocked to be posting this. It’s about time I started doing this photo-post thing again, don’t you think?

I feel like I’m going through some rite of passage.

Last night, I discovered that our laundry room smelled like gas.  Our furnace is housed in there.  Not good, right?

So we called the gas company.  Yup.  Furnace is leaking.  Gas gets shut off.  Now we have no heat and no hot water.

Luckily, it didn’t freeze last night.  It’s still 60 degrees inside our house even 12 hours later.  I’m calling that a blessing.  (We left faucets dripping just in case.)

Called some heating contractors today.  (Yesterday I didn’t know that was a thing.)  They’ll be here in a few hours.  And we’ll spend money I intended to spend on other things on fixing our heater.  Yay.

It’s not exactly a financial hardship.  We’re doing just fine, as usual.  But I feel like the unexpected-broken-thing is a part of home ownership–one we had not yet encountered.

I just hope these things don’t really come in threes.

ETA: It’s fixed. Fairly painlessly. Turned out the part was even under warranty.

In December, I was between projects.  I had some revisions planned, but wasn’t quite ready to dive into them.  I had just finished a very intimidating rewrite, and felt only marginally good about the results.  Most of all, I was tired of taking myself so dang seriously.  I just wanted to write something fun.

So, on a day when I was not feeling particularly well and ready to excuse myself from writing, I had this itching to write the first chapter of a middle grade novel I’d had banging around in my brain for the last five years or so.  I’d been studiously not writing this novel, because how many different kinds of things do I think I can write, anyway?  I was being a good little girl and sticking to a couple steady brands.

But if I wasn’t going to write that day anyway, some writing was better than none, right?  What could it possibly hurt to just write the first chapter?

You see where I’m going with this.

I wrote that first chapter.  And then the second one.  And then the rest of the novel.  It’s not terribly long, but it’s a novel and it’s complete and I wrote it in under three weeks.

And what’s more, I had fun.  For once I did not have to care if what I was writing was good.  My main criterion for quality was whether or not it amused me.  I used Drew as a secondary audience.  I wrote character quirks and situations that cracked me up.  I told them to Drew, and he laughed, too.  It wasn’t all that dark, and it wasn’t all that serious.  (Though it does include lots of imminent death.)  And I liked the novel *as I wrote it.*  All the way through.  I still like it even now, in fact.  I don’t think that’s happened since I wrote my first novel, and that was over ten years ago.  (That novel is also impressively bad, though I hope there’s no correlation, there.)

And now I need to be a good little girl and get back to the things I’m supposed to be writing.  In fact, I already have.  I’ve started a new intimidating revision, and I’m not impressively thrilled with the results so far.  I’m not loving it.  It’s hard work and I am mildly miserable.  That three-week novel isn’t some revolution in my writing process.  I’m not going to feel that way about every book all the way through.  I don’t know if that book is marketable/good enough/going anywhere.  And the truth is, I don’t care.

It sure was a nice vacation.

I don’t make New Years resolutions.  This is not because I can’t keep them, but rather because I am an obsessive, goal-driven person who is always working toward too many goals at once.  I can’t just interrupt all that to make new goals just because the year happens to change on me.

But if I had a resolution for this year, it would be to put writing first.  Last year too many other things needed to come first.  These were real needs–Drew had some big things he was working toward, and I had to fill in all the gaps.  And then there was the moving and the buying the house, and the illness stuff.  I wrote, but I didn’t write like I want to be writing.  

It’s time to stop that.  Writing is my actual job now, not my pretend job, which is how it often felt when I was investing in my career for all those years.  It needs to get the priority an actual job would.  I’m still not going to write eight hours a day (because my brain just can’t handle that) but I need to be writing a decent chunk every day.  I’ve been working really hard, but not as steadily as I could be.  This year, that’s changing.  I’m anticipating some other big changes in our lives over the next few years, and if I don’t put writing front and center now, I’m setting myself up for some very big problems down the road.

Now, nothing is allowed to push my writing aside.  I am not allowed to schedule so many things in a day that I have no brain space to write.  If I have to do big things that will suck my brain out my ears, I have to write first, so it gets done.  

 In reality, this is only a small adjustment, as I already have decent writing habits.  I just want to move those to the right a little, until they reach excellent writing habits.  I started working on this goal a month or so ago, and it’s going very well.  I’ve got several projects to work on for the first part of the year, and then after that, who knows.

I am sad to see 2010 go.  In 2009, I could do no right.  Everything I worked for fell to pieces in my hands.  But in 2010 everything went right.  If the theme of 2009 was "no," then 2010 was "yes!"

The most important shift of this year for us was the transition between being people scrambling to invest in our careers for future payoff, to being people who are working in our careers and getting paid.  Drew made a livable wage this year.  His business supported us fully all year long without a problem.  I’m finally getting paid for a novel, which is a long time coming.  We’ve spent the last three years scrambling to hold on long enough for our businesses to really take hold (with another seven years of scrambling before that on my end) and I finally feel like we’ve arrived.  We’re there.  We’re doing it.

So this year was a year of transition.  We bought a house.  We moved.  We learned how to deal with a yard, and the various tasks that go with it. Drew went to a major convention and learned some invaluable things.  He completed five beautiful competition entries for that con–something we will not do again.  We turned out four more Schlock Mercenary minis, and Drew spent most of the year buried under a pile of commissions on top of it.  We built a new website.  I sold a novel.  I waited through epic contract negotiations.  We signed.  Most importantly, we spent the last four and a half months NOT transitioning, so that I’m starting to feel in control of my life again.  And I like it.

Next year has a lot of work in it–all of it work I’m looking forward to.  I’ve got my writing goals all lined up for the first segment of the year.  Drew’s already got commissions lined up for January.  I have the end-of-the-year accounting tasks all penciled in.  We took the week off between Christmas and New Years, and I’m starting to get itchy to get back to work.  

2010 was the year when things-hoped-for became reality.  Here are my hopes for 2011: a year of making this new reality a comfortable routine.  And settling into that reality in ways that are sustainable and in keeping with our long-term goals.

Happy New Year, everyone.  May your 2011 be everything you hope for, too.

 

 I have attitude about holidays.  When I was in school, I loved them.  I looked forward to them as a break from homework, from class, from the daily routine.  But once I left school, I decided that way of being was fundamentally broken.  What’s wrong with my life if I don’t enjoy the day to day stuff–if I’m only looking forward to the exception?

So instead I built myself a life I like day-to-day.  And if I find myself not enjoying the day-to-day stuff, I adjust my life until I do.  

Which makes holidays kind of unnecessary.

I know there are lots of good things about Christmas.  It’s a time when we’re supposed to think about giving.  But institutionalizing a holiday for that feels like a cop out to me.  We’re supposed to think about giving, rather than receiving, all year long, aren’t we?  Having a holiday for it just feels like an excuse for not being that way all the time.  For me, Christmas is a religious holiday as well.  But I’m supposed to think about and try to be like Christ every day, not just on Christmas.  So if I’m actually doing my part (which I’m not saying I’m particularly good at), then I shouldn’t need a holiday to remind me to do it.  

I like Christmas decorations well enough.  I like getting together with family.  To me, that’s really the point.  So some of my musings may be caused by the Christmas we’re having this year–we had a year of awesome, but we’re worn out, financially and emotionally.  So we’re staying home.  And we don’t have kids, so a lot of the traditional things don’t really work all that well.  

We have a tacky tree.  I made a Christmas tree skirt and stockings, which was lots of fun, particularly because I got to dig out my Christmas fabric stash and use almost all of it up.  I love to make things without having to go to the store.  (That’s been a theme lately.  There may be pictures later of the random crafts I’ve been dredging out of my bins of leftovers.)  This will be the first year I’ll be a co-stocking-filler, which is kind of neat.  

I didn’t get it together to bake anything this year, but the neighbors brought us treats.  (Note to self: you live in a real neighborhood now.  Do this next year.)  

But really all I want this year is quiet.  All I want is to not have to put on a production.  (Some of this is, I think, inspired by the fact that I just did a production of Thanksgiving dinner, which was awesome, but which I would be happy to only be in charge of every third year or so. Christmas dinner this year = I think we’ll go out.)  

And I don’t really have the social energy to gather with lots of other people, either.  We’ll do a few things.  Bingo with Drew’s extended family on Christmas Eve.  Shooting gingerbread houses with the aunt’s family on Christmas Day.  (If it’s as awesome as the exploding My Little Ponies on the 4th of July this will be the highlight of the holiday.)  But I don’t have the energy for the endless social things which we could attend.  I love all these people, I swear.  I’m not scrooge.  I’m just tired.

And so we come to today.  Drew took the week off.  Our house is empty.  We already went to see True Grit, which was the holiday thing we’ve been looking forward to all year.  (It didn’t disappoint.  The Coen brothers never do.)  So we have this whole empty day, and what are we doing?

I’m writing; Drew’s painting.

I guess that’s all the holiday we need.

 I promised to post that sourdough bread recipe, and here it finally is.  

Before this recipe, my breads were mostly failures.  I don’t like bread machine bread, but my hand-made bread always failed to rise, no matter what I did.  My yeast was alive; I was kneading as indicated.  Yet my breads failed. This was especially sad about the sourdough, because I’m from Northern California, land of plenty for sourdough bread. There is no good sourdough bread to be found in Utah. When I first moved here, I thought I might starve.  And then recently I found this recipe. It had been in one of my favorite old cookbooks all along. (I heavily modified it, though. All that failed bread had taught me some tricks.) I don’t know why, but this recipe works for me.  I hope it works for you.

Note on ingredients: This recipe requires you to have a starter.  If you’re local, ask me for some of mine.  If not, good luck.  I didn’t start my own starter from scratch, so I can’t advise you on that one.  I can say that starters are incredibly hardy once you get them going.  I would leave mine to sit for 6-9 months in the fridge at a time between bouts of non-rising bread, and it lived.  They’re easy to feed, and they don’t pee on the carpet.

Note on time: This recipe will take about 20 minutes of your time spread out over 6-8 hours.  You can leave it to rise for 12 hours or more if you’re busy and don’t get back to it on time.  I know because sometimes I get distracted.  

Ingredients:
1 c sourdough starter
1 T yeast
2 T sugar
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
warm water
6-8 cups flour

Prep: If your yeast is refrigerated, let it sit until it comes to room temperature. Also, if you haven’t used it recently, proof it. Starting this recipe with dead yeast with only end in tears.  If your starter is refrigerated, let it sit out for several hours, too.  Before you start, you want your starter to be all bubbly, like this:

It should also have a sour smell to it, like concentrated sour dough.  That means your little bacterial colony is alive and well.  Yay bacteria.

Now take 1 tablespoon of yeast and 2 tablespoons sugar and dissolve it in 2 cups warm water.  (I use hot tap water.  You don’t want it to be too hot, I’m told, or you’ll kill the yeast.  This is one of the many problems I ruled out when my bread would not rise.)  I like to let this sit for a minute or two until it starts smelling yeasty. That’s not necessary, but it comforts me that the yeast is, in fact, alive.

Add one cup starter, one teaspoon salt, and one teaspoon baking powder. As you stir, you should see some foaming action, like this:

Now add three cups of flour and stir. That’s less than half the flour you’ll eventually add, but you’re going to let the dough rise at half-flour strength before adding the rest.

Cover with a towel and let sit for three to four hours, or until it looks like this:

At this point, add another 3.5 to 4 cups flour, and knead the dough for about ten minutes. This dough should be soft and easy to knead. When you’re done kneading, it should have that smooth, cohesive, I-am-going-to-rise-gosh-dang-it bread dough texture.

Now, cover a cookie sheet with corn meal, like so:

Divide your dough into two balls, and place on cookie sheet, like so:

Cover with a towel, and let rise for another 2-3 hours. Do you hate waiting? I do. But this bread is worth it.

You are done waiting when the bread has doubled, like this:

Now preheat your oven to 400 degrees. (I’m terrible. I don’t always preheat. See my feelings on waiting above.) Brush the loaves with water. This is supposed to improve the crust. Then pop them in the oven for 45-50 minutes.

When you’re done, you should have these:

Many happy sourdoughs to you and yours.  Happy Holidays.

So, I disappeared for most of the month of November.  I’m mostly back now, and doing cleanup in these last few November days so that I can be more present and functional in December.  Plans may be thwarted, but I have hope.

We had an awesome Thanksgiving.  Drew’s parents and his sister’s family stayed with us, so we had nine people in our house.  It worked out better than I expected.  I cooked my very first Thanksgiving dinner, with turkey and stuffing and giblet gravy and the whole bit.  (Drew made the mashed potatoes.)  Also, three kinds of pie.  I didn’t let anyone help, either.  (Really, there wasn’t anything for more than one person to do at any given time.  Except the mashed potatoes.)  I’m dang proud of that dinner.  Turned out very well.  Mostly it was just nice to spend time with everyone without an agenda.  I even got up at 3 AM to go laugh at Black Friday with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.   Good times.

Sunday brought us six inches of snow, and a lot of wind that blew the snow around in drifts.  We have a drift resembling a wave on our front walk.  I’m reticent to shovel it, because it just looks so cool.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen snow actually drift before.  We usually don’t have enough snow/wind here to see that happen. 

It’s my ambition to not go anywhere until the snow melts.  That way I won’t have to clean off the car.

We decorated for Christmas.  We have an actual full-sized (hand-me-down) christmas tree this year.  It’s fake, but it’s pretty.  I downgraded our little tree and put just our Nightmare Before Christmas ornaments on it.  It’s the ugliest thing ever, just like it is every year.  I find all Christmas decorations tacky, so my goal is usually to make them as tacky as possible, to go with the theme.  The big tree is mostly failing, but the little tree is succeeding wildly.  Our housemate contributed an actual Charlie Brown christmas tree, which adds up to a tree for everyone in the house.

Book news: I have actually seen and read a contract.  All 31 pages of it.  So that’s progress, at least.

Garden Ninja news: We are swamped.  Swamped.  Having too much work is a good problem, though.  We’ll take that problem over the alternative.

Goals for December are to help Drew stay caught up with work, give priority to my church assignments, and finish that (sketchy) first draft.  I’m already aware of a couple of things that are probably going to fall in my lap and demand attention, so I’m trying to keep the month reasonably empty.  If my draft gets pre-empted by other, more important things (like revisions), so be it.