This post should be locked into the top of my journal. Thanks, author_by_night!

( Ahavah's Emergency Contacts )

Josh was on his way home, on my bike, and some asshole came flying down the road in his lane. Josh had to take the bike off the road or be run over, and he hit a bank and ended up taking her down in the middle of the road. In the middle of two curves at the crossroads of Gorman Bridge & Old Leicester Hwy, on freshly paved roads. He thinks one or both of his big toes might be broken, and Cherry's windshield is busted (I did need a new one anyway), but he thinks she's otherwise okay. He got her up again just as more cars started coming. The other guy didn't stop.

To celebrate 11/11, and also to procrastinate on NaNoWriMo, I have decided to share some more random things about me and my family.

1. I couldn't care less when the clock hits 11:11. No wishes for me; I'll take the stars!

2. Stars and space stuff stays on my desktop, screensaver, & slideshow when I'm working on the WonderSaga. (So that's like two continuous years now. It's grown on me considerably.)

3. I really want to take an astronomy class. And a guitar class.

4. I keep my taskbar at the top of my screen.

5. I've lived in several states, but we've stayed in North Carolina since I was seven. Moving to Missouri is going to be crazy exciting and scary. I'm not even entirely sure how to do it, and we still don't know what's going to happen with our trailer here. That's often our MO (har har), so I'm just hoping it falls into place the right way. Of course, last time we were this unprepared was our wedding, and most of you saw how that went.

6. Josh is super excited about becoming a farmer. I really hope we can swing self-sufficiency, because I'd hate to see him have to fight for jobs in the middle of nowhere, MO. I think he'd make a great farmer though. I'm really glad I ended up with a man who shares my crazy dream.

7. Eden is excited too, but Ivy is very nervous and scared about moving. She's really grown up a lot this past year, and I'm glad she can share her feelings so clearly nowadays. I'm trying to help her through it, as I did this a lot growing up. I understand. I think they're most upset about leaving lahermite and her kids. I am too.

8. Supposedly, we'll be getting a new dog with our new house. It's a white shepherd (the owner said German Shepherd. I'm not sure, but then I've never seen a white one either). Its name is Jasper. That's the name of Josh's old dog, from Achaiah's litter, who was poisoned a few years back. At the time, we thought it was parvo, but then several dogs in mom's neighborhood had been poisoned, and we'd stayed with her at the time.

9. I've been feeling my mom a lot lately. I don't know if it's because of Grandma's passing, or the thinness of the veil around Halloween. I didn't do a real ceremony, but I opened up myself for a journey as I laid in bed on Halloween. I got to visit mom. It seems like she's been staying around a bit more since then.

10. Last night, my NaNo wordcount was 18776. I'm doing better this year than I have any of the others. This is my third attempt at the WonderSaga, though the first one was half-hearted, and I'd actually done about 2,000 words on an unrelated story the year before that. I guess that would have been 05, and I'd just learned about NaNo in October. Last year, I went all month long for the first time, even though I didn't hit 50k. I think I might actually win this year, if I stay on track.

11. I think the reason I'm not on track right now is because I slept in, and now I'm not dressed to the shoes. I'm still trying to be a decent flybaby (it's my only hope for moving and doing NaNo at the same time). Now that Josh isn't working, he's actually giving silent prods when I forget, by getting his shoes on and making the bed. He encourages me to work on NaNo as long as I want, but we get into a good routine together. I love him! Things are going to work out fine. Time to get my shoes on and help make it happen.

I'm off to a good start! Day 1's word quota is 1667, and I'm already at 2221. Not as far as I wanted to be, but I'm on a pretty good roll. I hope to knock out as much as possible today, with a personal goal of hitting 5,000.

I'm going to share an excerpt! I'm making it public since some non-livejournal friends would like to read it. Livejournal buddies, please let me know if you want on my NaNo filter, because the rest of it will likely remain locked, if I post any more.

Remember, NaNo is about quantity and not quality. You are forewarned.

( Click for (a short) Chapter 1 )

Three hundred years after a near-apocalyptic world war, the people of Earth have created space habitats in order to survive the death of the planet. In 2626, the world's first generation ship is completed. The WonderSaga follows the 223 people who leave our solar system for the very first time.



I believe this is my third go round on the WonderSaga. Last year I made about of 35,000 words, which I'm pretty sure is the most I've ever written on anything. Given what a hard year last year was, and since I wrote all through November, I consider 2008 my win for my goal of “completing National Novel Writing Month.” This year, my goal is to win National Novel Writing Month. Despite the fact that we're supposed to be moving to Missouri, I really think I can make 50,000 words by the end of the month. *knock on wood*

I think I know my characters pretty well (the main ones I worked on last year, anyway), and this time I actually have some broad plot lines worked out. I've been piddling around on backstories and bios for two years now, so I'm really excited about writing and not wandering this year.

My cursor on my new laptop seems to spontaneously jump into the middle of paragraphs I've already written, so that will add an extra little dollop of challenge.

I've updated my super awesome NaNo Space Soundtrack. I've gotten profiles for everyone, I think, who volunteered their names for characters in this post.

Is anyone else participating? Or if you'd like to follow along as a supporter, let me know and I'll add you to my NaNo filter. If you can see this post, you're already on my filter. (Feel free to also let me know if you want off.)

Thank you all for all of your prayers and well-wishes.

My grandma's service was lovely. I hope to get some time to do a proper post. There's a lot to get out.

I miss her.

We packed up Tuesday to head home, and then we realized that our farm closing was this Friday. Today! So we headed to Missouri to be there in person. We even made it in time for Josh to be present for the inspection. Our most major issue is that we'll have to redo the septic. I can't seem to get away from the icky streams! We're still going to buy it...today at 4 pm central time. Woot.

I'm glad we're here in person, but I really wish it hadn't taken grandma's death to get my ass out here. :/

Well, just thought I'd keep you posted. Hopefully I'll see everyone again soon.

Well, looks like it's a no-go with our first choice. They weren't willing to pay the closing costs if we accepted their full offer, and we weren't willing to pay our full budget for a house where we'd still need to build outbuildings and an addition.

So, time to regroup and refocus. We have two second-choices, so now we have to decide which to offer on. I guess I need to call and make sure they're both still available. I do feel confident that we'll get a farm. If those fall through though, I'll just focus on finding a cheap lot for this trailer and getting that set up. The rest of my money can grow for a while, and maybe we'll be able to afford more on the next go round.

Either way, I still see this working for us. Thank you guys so much for all of your support!

Here is a post that is not just about finances or house buying. I've been preoccupied lately, so I'm trying to stay connected.

* They say money doesn't buy happiness, but since we've gotten the money and started shopping for our dream-farm, I have to say that my depression is waning. I still get very sad and feel guilty about being excited. I'm also sad & feel guilty that I never got to go do the vision quest I was planning, and now suddenly it's fall here in the mountains. I'm going to start meditating again, and I think I'm going to make Josh take us up to Sam's Knob and let me have at least a full day walking around by myself before we leave.

* I've gotten the house mostly back in order from our trips, and I've been a good little Flybaby each day while Josh is as work. I'm culling through our things and we will soon (today?) be in the packing stage. I'm being optimistic and seeing the house thing go through.

* Amidst all this madness, I'm considering trying NaNoWriMo yet again. I've never hit 50,000, but I've always had fun and gotten a bit further in my WonderSaga. I would hopefully be in the throws of moving, but we'll see.

* It occurred to me that if my story were ever a movie, I'd want that guy who plays Sam Winchester to play my favorite character. Now I'm fangirling over my own character.

* I did an intro post in the NaNoWriMo community, and I wrote the sentence “I'm recovering from grief by making all of my dreams come true.” I think this is very apt, and it might become my new mantra.

* If this Missouri house thing doesn't work out, it will be time for me to register our homeschool here in NC. I've been holding off, hoping we'd move first. Eden is six and a half now, so if we don't move in the next month or two, I'll have to go through the red tape here.

* She just showed me her drawing notebook. She has lots of pictures of the family, including all the animals. She also has lots of pictures of me and Josh riding motorcycles. I thought that was awesome.

* I feel mom a lot lately. Nothing specific; I just feel her around. I'm glad for that.

I just posted to my new finances filter. If you can't read that post and would like to be able to, please let me know.

This is the rundown. Pics will come later.

* Missouri is gorgeous. We definitely want to move there.

* The house we originally went to see was somewhat misrepresented. It looks like there's just way too much work needing to be done to make it worth the asking price, and the owner is apparently not as willing to negotiate as she said she was over the phone. We came away from that feeling very sad.

* We came back through and visited three more properties on the way home. One is seriously under consideration, although both the neighborhood and the entire town were awfully littered with trash. I mean debris piles abandoned everywhere and the woods appear to be a favorite trash can for pop bottles and old tires – and worse things at one of the homes. Josh would really like to live in the one nice house we found (10 acre, 3 bd, 2 ba permanent MH with additions), but I'm not sure I can get past the massive trashiness of the general area.

* We will probably be looking online for more Missouri properties and planning another (better prepared) trip out there for viewings.

* So looks like I'll have to up my housing budget if we want any kind of good home. That sucks, because I need money for other things like fixing our teeth and the trailer we do have.

* Grandma seemed much better after we arrived. As Josh put it, she got her rosiness back and a bounce in her step. He's agreed to let me look for a cheap fixer-upper in her area of IL, so I can have a place to go stay closer to her more often.

* She is getting much worse with her memory, which saddens me. Grandma was always so sharp. She still is, to an extent. I don't mind hearing the same stories several times in a row. She has awesome stories.

* Grandma finally admitted that she thinks she had a mild stroke while she was down here while mom died. She described what happened to her, and it broke my heart. I am praying that she recovers better. I'm really afraid of what happens if her memory worsens instead of improves.

* She can tell you anything that happened fifty years ago or more, though. Twice, she told us about some lady who pissed her off sixty-five years ago, and I finally understand where I got my temper from.

* I will never attempt another vacation with my sister. It was actually one of the worst vacations we've ever had, until she went bat-shit for no good reason and caught a plane home. Things immediately improved for us. That makes me sad. She didn't even show any gratitude for any of the stuff we went out of the way to do so she could come. She just bitched and was disrespectful to all of us the whole time. We probably won't be speaking for a while, to be honest.

* On the plus side, my other sister had her offer on a house accepted during the week! She's waiting for the inspection to go through, and then she should be closing early next month. She'll be in Wilmington, but she's always wanted to live at the beach and so I'm happy for her. She's still not happy for me and Missouri, but oh well.

* Babyface, the new outside cat, had her kittens while we were gone. Josh will have to find them. We think they're up under the shed, which means that it'll need to be emptied out and somehow jacked up so he can get to them before they go feral. On the plus side, now that I have some cash, I'll be able to get Babyface fixed just as soon as allowed after having her litter.

* Bikers in Illinois do not wear helmets. It scares me to no end. I kept getting flashbacks of poor Momma's head. Even if I lived there, I would never travel seventy miles an hour with no helmet. I was seriously so scared the whole time, and they were everywhere.

* Some asshole at the knife store (Davis Specialties, I think) in Clinton, Iowa had the nerve to call me a bad mother – directed at Eden! They had each taken one of his lollipops and we were fixing to go eat lunch next door, so I told them they couldn't have a second. He gave one to Ivy behind my back, and I saw her opening one and took it away. She started crying, so I led her out the door, since that's what I do when my kids start pitching a fit in public. As I was heading out, I heard him say, “She's a bad momma, huh?” or something like that (might have been “isn't she?”) I yelled, “Excuse me?” and then hollered for Josh to get Eden, as I would have gone on a rampage and unplugged his oxygen tank and thrown it in his face. Josh didn't buy anything, and he'd been wanting to go back to that store since we found it two years ago.

* Lyz then started shit with me for actually getting upset about that, so then she and I got into a fight. A few days later, Josh convinced me to go back to that store and promised that he would defend my honor and give that guy a stern talking to. He ended up spending 45 minutes browsing and then telling dude on the way out that his wife was mad about what he'd said the other day (without even mentioning what that was, by the way). This caused an enormous fight between us. I still haven't forgiven him, and likely never will. This makes three or four times that someone has seriously insulted me and Josh never defends me.

* My kids, who had been having some behavioral problems in the weeks leading up to the trip, only got worse on the trip. They don't listen for shit anymore. Things did improve though once Lyz left and we didn't have her constant bitching and passive-aggressive whining egging them on. They're both still getting physically violent, though. Two nights in a row I grounded them and we didn't get to swim in the pool they made me shell out for.

* This means I don't want to take anymore family vacations for a very long time. So we'll have to find a babysitter for several days if Josh and I want to go look at more properties. It's hard concentrating on the houses when I'm having to corral the kids and keep them acting half-way decent.

* There were other issues that I may address in a friends-locked post. This was seriously not our best vacation ever, but Grandma asked me to hurry and I went straight there as soon as I could. I don't regret it. Visiting my family really helped recenter me and allowed me to regroup a little bit in ways that I haven't been able to since my mommy was here. I really need to be closer to them. Even when it's bad, being with them so helps my sanity. Grandma means the world to me, and my cousin Cole has been one of my best friends forever. My aunts and uncles are legion and the coolest.

x-posted

I joined the gardening community not too long ago, and it's been inspiring me to get back on track with my garden. I've been sharing our adventures with my facebook friends, but I thought I should share here on lj too.

Right now we live in Western North Carolina, in a mobile home that's on roughly a half acre lot. We're using the smaller side of our yard for our garden. I've tried and failed at gardening several times over the years, but I've really tried to buckle down this past year. We're currently in the process of trying to buy a home. Our dream has always been to have a self-sufficient farm, so it was really important to me that I harvest something besides way too many radishes (my only success until now). Our children are old enough that they've been a big help, both in the garden and in making sure I get out there regularly. I haven't been working this past year and we unschool, so we've had a lot of time to devote to it.

We started planting right at the end of March, and then the last snow hit on April 1. We covered the onion bed and the salad bed, but the salad bed didn't make it. It took me three more tries, with inside germination, before we finally got that salad bed to take. Our tomatoes and peppers are pretty late, but we've had plenty of lettuce. I also learned to stagger my lettuce planting from now on, because we're running out just as the cherry tomatoes started ripening.


( Quite a few pictures )

Tomorrow through Saturday, circletpress will be having an author chat with Elizabeth Schechter.

I have read Circlet Press and I have read Elizabeth Schechter. Good stuff! I can even happily claim to have written with her, and she is loads of fun. Check it out.

Go, ladysmith!

I would love to hear what your favorite manifestation technique is.

I'm a very visual person, so I like making vision boards & manifestation grids. Vision boards are basically like big collages of things that symbolize your goals. A manifestation grid is the same thing, with the addition of adding reiki symbols. You can draw symbols (CKR & DKM are the ones I usually use, though often I will throw in a HSZSN vertically and horizontally). This also prompts you to put added energy towards your goals every time you pass by or glance at it.

What do you do when you really want to see something come to fruition in your life?

Our wrongful death case is officially settled.

Legally, I'm not allowed to speak about specifics. I will say it was less than we hoped, but that's part of the whole 'mediation' thing. We're all just glad it's finally over and done with.

Next week we go to speak to someone about structured annuities, which would give us money every year and help keep that money tax-free (as opposed to if we just took a lump some and invested it ourselves). Josh and I have some decisions to come to before then. Mainly, I think we want to move. Our neighborhood has been getting steadily worse since new landlords took over, so we need to get out. I need to get away from this place, because everywhere around Asheville is just too full of mom.

But we have time.

Thank you guys so, so much for all your prayers and support during all this.

♥

Has anyone here visited Rheims, or are you particularly versed in the area? I need to pick someone's brain (very lightly) for my story.

Thanks!

I love my daughters. Eden and I just had the best conversation about floss.

"Mom! Mom! Look at this! There's a pulley inside here. You see? And you pull the floss, and then it has this thing over here, which is kinda like scissors but you don't have to snip. You just pull and...Snap! Presto! You have a piece of floss! Isn't it amazing? It's got simple machines inside."

"That really is amazing! I'm glad you like flossing so much."

"Yeah, cause a pulley is a simple machine. And look, you stick it in your teeth and wiggle it, and it's kinda like doing the wedgie dance in your teeth."

I've had my bike for two weeks now, and it is officially my ride. I'm fairly good on it at this point. Other bikers give me the neato biker wave. I'm a happy camper, but she still needs a name.

The bike needs a name. I'm still a bit bumbly on her, so I don't feel we're really speaking to each other yet. Josh is threatening to name her out from under me. I'm improving though, so I think she'll have a name soon.

My learning-to-ride saga has been fun. I'll admit, I was quite scared. Everybody asked me, “Well, have you at least ridden a dirt bike or Josh's mini-bike or anything?” Nope. I never even got the hang of roller blades. Balance and me have never done well. I would have started learning on Josh's mini-chopper, but it's broken.

My bike is nice though. When I first sat on it to try everything out before we bought it, I was surprised at how light it is. It's a Honda Shadow just like Josh's, but Josh's is much heavier. We thought this was a pretty good bike for me to learn on. My feet sit flat on the ground when I'm on her, and she's all dented up so I don't have to be too afraid of learning on her (unlike Josh's mint-condition bike). I thought it was light, but boy, my upper body has been feeling the work-out of learning to hold her up and steer her!

The first day was, well, I sucked. By the time we got it home and got me out on it, it was already pretty late. I only had about half an hour or forty minutes to play around before it got dark. Josh taught me the basics, and I'm pretty sure he was surprised at just how basic my lessons needed to be. Josh had at least ridden one once and looked at magazines for years, so he knew pretty well much how they worked. He had to teach me how to turn it on, the brakes, I didn't even know motorcycles don't have reverse (which is why it's such a work out pushing that thing around). So yeah, my first day sucked hardcore, but at least Josh was nice and patient about it. Keia laughed a lot, but Josh said he didn't do much better the first time he road Josh's mini-bike, and he'd also ridden dirt bikes before.

So anyways, day one was a lot of start-stop, start-stop. I couldn't control how much gas I was giving her, so once I started going, I was going. Then I'd get scared and slam the hand brake, then I'd bow up like a dog taking one, then struggle to keep the bike up &/or not hitting anyone. Finally, we just kept it in neutral and Josh held on to the sissy bar like he had to do with Ivy on her bike, and I practiced trying to steer and keep her up as we went down the driveway. Then he'd walk me through turning her around, and I'd actually drive back up the driveway. I got okay controlling the gas if I was driving up our slight little incline, but since I couldn't really stop, I could not give her gas while going downhill. It wasn't bad for the first day though, even if I felt bad about Josh holding on to us. He didn't want me to crash first thing though, and I did eventually get better at steering.

The second day, we felt comfortable enough to practice on the long stretch of dirt road just below our house. I had to get better at stopping somehow, and I needed more room to work than our driveway gave. At first, I just practiced going slowly with my feet hanging down, so I could just stop with neutral & my feet. Eventually, I got comfortable enough controlling the throttle to be able to put my feet up. I even managed to stop on my own just before getting to the hilly part of the road. Then I put it in neutral so I could coast down the hill again, and that's when we went down. It had rained the night before and washed a little groove between some rocks on the dirt road (mountain dirt roads, for those not familiar with them, always wash out in even the slightest rain). I hit wet sandy dirt and lost control. I felt myself lose control and panicked, slamming the handbrake. I went down hard on my knee (on a rock), and the bike landed on me.

We hadn't even been out there an hour before I laid her down. Only problem is, she'd been laid down several times before (all those dents that made it a good “learning bike” ), so the foot peg was a little loose already. Well it did some funky bending thing into my gears and stopped wanting to go into neutral. I was hobbling and hurt fairly decently – although going down was not near as bad as I thought it was going to be, at least not at that speed – but Josh wanted to take it into the shop to make sure it was okay. I wanted to keep going, but even he was having trouble with neutral, and he flat-out refused to let me back on it til we were sure it was safe. I'm not normally the type of lady who lets her husband make flat-out refusals on my own things, but I actually found it incredibly sweet.

So I followed him up to the closest bike shop, where we'd bought supplies but, so help me, I will never take it there for work again. It had only messed up with neutral once on the way up, but Josh still wanted to get it looked at. It was pretty busy, so they guy said we'd have to leave it. It was 24 hours before they even put it up on their rack and looked at it, and I had stopped by and called to tell them I'd pay whatever for overnight shipping on parts or whatever so I could get my bike back right away. I was so pissed when I called the next morning and they hadn't even looked at it yet. We went to go pick it back up, because I'm not putting up with that shit, and they'd looked at it and said there was really no problem. Whatever. The guy's a punk. We took it across town to MR Honda and bought some of those crash bar things, just in case, and the guy there looked at it and in like two minutes of wiggling told Josh that the connector pad thing was just rusty. He came home to put the crash bar thing on and just had to take a little sandpaper to the pad before he put it back together. Bike worked fine.

I had no idea how expensive bike stuff is, either. Ten dollars for oil? Two hundred for the piece of metal you put on just to dent up, instead of the bike? Ridiculous. I'm glad Josh already had me a helmet, and I was able to find boots on sale at K-mart for fifteen bucks instead of a hundred and fifty. It's insane!

Anyway, my pretty little bike is back and wasn't even really messed up to begin with. And I'm barely limping, so back to riding! After Josh got my training wheels crash bar situated, we went up to a wee little community center over the mountain from our house. It's one of those tiny things way out in the boonies where there are rarely cars and I've never seen a cop that far. This is my practice lot. I practiced first gear and stopping, and the dreaded turning. I say dreaded because leaning over on those things really scares me. Since it's a small lot, too, I don't have any room to get out of first even though I now want to, so doing slow turns was tricky. I mastered that shit last night, though! I am now ready to find a bigger parking lot and move up to shifting. Hopefully I can still do all right stopping when I'm moving much faster. We're going on recon today to find a suitably large and abandoned lot, so wish me luck on that for 4th of July Saturday. Ha! I may have to just wait until next week, since I was unable to make it to the DMV for my permit yesterday like I thought I would.

That's where it's at. I've gotten exponentially better each day, and I've really only spent an hour on it most the longest time. Pretty soon I'll be ready for riding the road! We're both looking forward to being able to ride together. It's been a dream of ours for years. It's going to be another year or so before we can afford sidecars, which are also way more expensive than I expected, but at least Josh and I will get some practice riding together before we attempt to take out the girls. They're anxious too, though. We can't wait! I'm so glad we're actually on our way to getting goals accomplished. It's a good thing right now.

My facebook friends already know what I've been up to, so I thought I'd better share with all my friends. Guess what I did!

( I got a motorcycle! )

I really enjoyed Naamah's Kiss. I especially liked seeing Moirin's childhood with her mother, and getting more insight into the Maghuin Dhonn.

( Discussion – Spoilers!! )