German Chocolate Cake for My Sweetheart

Made my SO the “famous German chocolate cake.” The quotations have actually been added by my son. This was the cake my oldest son always requested for his birthdays, and the younger son even asked for it a time or two himself. It’s a great old three-layer recipe, a lot of bother with lots of egg yolks and whites beaten stiff then folded in. The frosting is cooked and stirred until your arm aches. But the trouble is worth it in the end, because the eaters usually brag and gorge on it once it’s served. It was a hit with the group once again. Even the SO’s granddaughter, who is a finicky eater, gushed, “That is sooooo good.”

We’re celebrating my SO’s birthday. It really isn’t until the 30th, but his son and daughter-in-law, and granddaughter are here this weekend. Everybody has big news. The son has been offered a promotion, however it means a move to New York City. A big change for them from Austin, but it’s evident that they’re proud to have this opportunity. The granddaughter, who lives with them and goes to junior college, will also have to make some changes. Everybody expects her to move in with her boyfriend down on the coast, and go to school somewhere down there. I had a talk with her last night, and told her not to give up on her education, no matter how “in love” she thinks she is. I felt I could speak from experience and maybe she would listen because of that. Don’t know if it registered. She doesn’t seem as focused on her education as I think she should be, but that’s easy enough for me to say from my vantage point in life. 

But I do enjoy having them, especially her, almost as much as my SO does. In fact, it’s me who often ends up sitting late with them, telling stories and laughing after he's gone off to bed. We will miss them once they move away. Seems there is less and less keeping us in this hot climate. I sure wish I could stop obsessing about New Mexico. It's a really poor time with this real estate market to try to sell this house. We've done so much to it, and really ought to get top dollar when we are finally ready to make the dash for the mountains. Of course, because of that same lousy real estate market, places are really cheap, cheap up there. Sigh! 

Until yesterday, I have kept up the work on the novel, and will take it back up today once our company leaves. I’m still pleasantly surprised at what all is in the pages, things I had totally forgotten about, and lots of stuff I can build on. I have said before, and will say again, writing a novel for me has more to do with architecture than with form. I generally start with the characters, and maybe a situation, and a vague notion of the ending, but everything else is just as much of an unknown for me in the beginning as it is -- hopefully -- for a reader. I've been marking up pages and plan to take the whole manuscript with us when we head up to Denver.

Sat outside this morning in the quiet sunrise with just the kitty and watched the hummingbirds fight over the feeders. I have them spaced so far apart this time, that it really keeps the dominant males busy trying to fend off the other birds. They are such a joy to watch, and their little cheeps filled the air, along with a cardinal's song, and a hawk or two that passed over screeing. Nice way to start a day. I know when the day comes, it will be hard to part with this place. I do love it so much. But I also know that in time it will be more than we want to keep up, and the summers have become so brutal, it's hard to watch all our efforts through the rest of the year, dry up without any rain in the forecast.

Onward ....

High on Writing!

This is been a productive week. I have been working on the endless novel. Actually, what I’ve done is printed it out and I have been rereading it. Every day this week, from just after noon until four, I’ve tucked myself away and have thrown myself at the manuscript. It’s been more than three years since I’ve looked at it, and this is my perception so far: 1) It’s pretty darn good. 2) I need a villain. 3) The main character is not as in-focus as the secondary characters. 4) I’m surprised at how much work I had already done, well over 300 pages. And 5) What do you know -- I can write! 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but after the first day, I was really high about it all. Guess I was afraid if I sat down to read it, I would find it was trite and unorganized, or that I would see all the holes in it. But there aren’t many, and I’m delighted to find it’s not at all bad, and can probably be finished in short order if I just put my mind to it, and continue to work faithfully on it. Of course, once it’s done there’s no guarantee anyone will want to publish it, but that’s something I’ll worry about later.

In addition to reading the novel, I’ve also done some other things for my “writing career.” After a few back and forth emails with another writer-friend, I got online and researched getting the two books I have the rights on formatted for electronic readers like Kindle. Since neither one of these books is in digital form, it’s not an easy matter. They would have to be scanned and then converted, so I researched some places where that can be done. It isn’t dirt cheap to do, but I sent an email to one of the places inquiring about total cost. Haven’t heard back yet.

There’s something that bothers me about all this, though. Shouldn’t they be paying me, instead of the other way around? I’ve been paid for every other subsidiary right that was  sold on any of my books. There’s something about this that smells of vanity publishing, and it just isn’t going down my gullet well. I would like to get the books back in print, or circulation, of course, but do I want to do it THIS way? I can’t make up my mind.

I also found my old agent-friend on Facebook. He was once in hot pursuit of me, read the endless novel in an earlier draft, and also a YA I have a few chapters of written. I sent him a little message, just asking if he was still in the business. Might not be the right way to approach this, and I’m so anti-agent right now after my last one, but I figured I have nothing to lose at this point. Another writer friend of mine makes a trip to New York to interview agents when he finds himself without one. I think he’s probably got the right idea about the whole thing. But I’ve never had quite that much self-confidence. Probably that’s the reason I ended up with a crappy agent the last time. There’s just so much ego tied up with this whole business of writing, and I would really like to learn to separate that part. I imagine this is something all writers struggle with, though.

On the home front, my SO’s birthday is coming on the 30th. His son and daughter-in-law will be here this weekend to help us celebrate. I’ve been trying to decide what cake to bake. Probably a German Chocolate. I used to do those pretty well. Don’t know about dinner. I have a special gift to give him, and I’m trying to decide if I should give it while the kids are here, or wait until his actual birthday on Monday. I had a flag flown over the United States Capitol in honor of his father. It was flown on July 6th, and a certificate came from our Congressman with all this stated. Now, that I’ve done it, I’m not sure it’s such a great gift, and will probably find some other something to give on Saturday at any rate. 

Hummingbirds are trickling back. I have four feeders up and I hear them buzzing about when I venture outside, which I do very sparingly. It’s been over 100 degrees all week long! Will this summer never end?

Onward ....

Finding That Quiet Place

Yesterday, I read an article about a famous author, and in the interview he talked about finding that quiet place where you can work productively. It’s the same quiet place where your mind goes in order to read and comprehend something to its fullest. Writing is hard work. It takes a great effort to put down the thing that is in your head, and to have it come out anything resembling the dream you had when it was percolating. It occurs to me that it’s the quietness I have been avoiding. But I am almost ready to try to find it again. 

 I do realize that it’s going to take effort, that it isn’t something that’s going to just magically happen, that I have to make it happen. Creativity doesn’t just fall from the sky. A writer doesn’t simply channel her muse, although when it’s going well it sometimes feels that way. But to get it going well takes practice, and immersion, and getting quiet enough with yourself to hear yourself think. 

This part used to never take much work. I lived a lonely life, had plenty of time to listen to my thoughts, too much time, in fact. But man, was I productive. So it’s a tradeoff, and one that has been unappealing to me for quite a while now for a whole lot of reasons. But I have so much work upstairs to finish. So many things I don’t want to leave half-done. And I’m having spells of feeling unused and lazy, and it’s time to put what little talent I possess back to work. I may have waited too long, and in that case, I suppose I need to know. Maybe nobody wants to hear my stories anymore, or maybe I don’t have it in me to do it anymore. If either scenario is true,  it won’t be the end of the world. I’ve already accomplished far more than most people believed I ever would. 

So, beginning today, I’m going to take out some of these unfinished manuscripts, look at them with fresh eyes, and get back in practice. There’s lots of sorting and filing and arranging into some kind of order that needs to be done up there. And maybe, just maybe, the act of putting my office back together will spur something in me. Fingers crossed. 

Onward ....

Malaise, or Yearning for a Change of Scenery

Malaise: a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify. 


In other words "in a funk." That's where I seem to find myself. I haven't even wanted to blog or felt I had anything to say, this blue funk has been so heavily upon me. It began with the house in New Mexico, putting in the offer first, then not getting accepted second. I was starting to kind of come out of it when we left for a long weekend in DC to see the boys. But while we were there, here came an email from the people who own the house, dangling the possibility that they would consider selling it after all. The man's health is bad. I think the woman really wants to sell but he thinks he might get better, and they adore the place. I understand their dilemma, but they got my hopes up all over again.

After we were back home, I decided to talk to the mortgage company who holds our house here, just to see what we would be talking about on a monthly basis for that house up there. Well, it was way more than I had hoped. We could put up a bigger down payment and get the monthly payment down, but I'm not enthusiastic about letting go of so much liquid cash. I told the loan officer to close down the deal. And anyway, the people with the house seemed to be waffling again. But now I find myself feeling the blues over all this again. Dammit!

There's the problem of Daddy with this whole idea of finding a place there. I really doubt I could go off and leave him with him at his age and in his health condition. Not that he's terrible. He really isn't at all. His mind is sound, which is a big thing, but arthritis and kidney disease often lay him low. His hearing is rapidly failing. He'll be 86 next birthday, and I really feel like we are the only social life he has, which is his own fault. He's not like my SO's mom, who stays active in garden club and church, keeps in touch with old friends and family. Daddy has almost purposely let go of all his old friends, has turned down efforts made by possible new friends, and just generally sits alone in his house with his dog, or sits out in the yard with his dog and a beer or two. The conundrum is that I feel obligated to him, and yes, resentful about it, too, I'll admit. I'm no spring chicken myself, and wonder how long I can keep "punching the hold button" as my SO puts it, on my own life. I feel that I've already wasted a lot of precious years, and don't relish wasting many more. Sigh!

So, I find myself with this malaise. Unhappy with circumstances. It's kind of a habit of mine. I need to let it go but it's not always easy. Life is short. I have so many things yet that I want to do. I think a change of scenery, permanently, would do me a world of good. I might even feel inspired to write again. Ya think?

Onward ....

Temporarily Dissatisfied-- Oh, It's This Heat!

Just ended another hot, hot weekend down at the Coast. It's become drudgery for me to even go down there. I don't know if it was those two weeks in the mountains or what, but suddenly I'm just longing for a cooler place to live in the summer. We've had such fun down at the Coast before -- what has caused all this dissatisfaction? It's not just me who is feeling this either. My SO is also longing for a mountain place, although I think we have different ideas about what we want there. His standards are lower than mine are at the moment, and I really do believe I need to lower mine as well. It's always been hard for me to settle for less.

And yet, I still really love our place here. It was such a relief to come home as it always is. Both animals also love it so much here. They were both visibly delighted when we walked in the door. I'm tempted to initiate conversation with my SO about selling the Coast place but I don't know what the reception to that will be. It was his before he met me, and I know he put a lot of time and effort into making it into what it is, but he also doesn't seem to get as much joy from it as before. It's been a year now since he had the boat out of the storage building.

However, that said, I wonder if this dissatisfaction we're both feeling isn't a temporary state, caused by heat stress, or whatever. Or wanderlust, maybe. We both have that. Once the temperatures come back to bearable, won't we just be happy here again and forget about going into debt on a new place? We have enough trouble trying to maintain this place and the Coast place as it is. Why add another "place" into the mix? Our so-called troubles could be so much worse. We have great life. Especially when you compare to things other people are dealing with.

Our good friends, the ones who joined us for the trip to New Mexico, have real trials, life-altering ones, that they're dealing with, and I have to always keep in mind how much worse things could be, and also how quickly basic situations can change. His health is deteriorating rapidly. I talked to her on the phone over the weekend, and the reason we haven't heard from them in a while is because he sank into such a deep depression she got worried and took him to the hospital. Apparently, he was feeling suicidal. They did some brain mapping, the results of which won't be in until tomorrow, and tweaked his anti-depressant meds little. She felt like he was doing better, but the stress she's under is taking its toll. I could hear it in her voice, and later that was confirmed by a mutual friend who ran into her at Subway, and reported that she looked frazzled and out of sorts. We're all worried about them, and have to keep their situation always in mind when we become dissatisfied with our own lives.

We're going to see my son and his partner this coming weekend. It's sneaked up on me a little too quickly. I have so many things to do before we leave, or before I can start getting excited. As always, I would be much more excited if we didn't have to FLY to get there. Just hate dealing with airlines nowadays. Hard to believe there was a time when I actually loved to fly, found it exciting and sophisticated. Simpler times, those.

Have to go with Daddy to the doctor this morning, and guess I should get my morning started.

Onward ....

Painting and Cold Watermelon

Painting is no fun. I forget that every time I start a refurbishment project. This is one I have been putting off for far too long. It's the bathroom out in the detached guest room. At some point, someone put up some of that particle board stuff instead of sheet rock for walls. It's a bitch to paint, as we found out when we first moved in. We painted the bedroom out there a green so pale it's nearly white. We went through a gallon of primer and two gallons of paint doing that room. The unfinished wall boards soak up paint like a sponge. After that ordeal, we decided against painting the ceiling, left it the natural color, and I intended then to move on the the bathroom at once. I had a stupid idea that I would wallpaper, but found with the first sheet, that the walls were far too rough and splintery and would have to be sanded or replaced or smooth board tacked over it before wall paper could be hung. I gave up. Right there. For two years.

After we got back from the mountains I decided this job needed tackling again. I had gotten an idea from my doctor's office about using faux ceiling tile on the walls out there. I went to Lowe's and bought 14 sheets of the stuff. Supposed to be super easy to cut to fit and to apply. Not! This is all providing the walls are smooth and straight, and the walls in this bathroom definitely are not. After a couple of hours wrestling with this stuff, cutting it to fit, etc. I gave up once again. Monday I took the remaining sheets back to the store for a credit and decided on one of those faux paint finishes. I talked to the lady in the paint department, explaining to her how much I hate to prime and wished to use that new paint with the primer inside. She heard the kind of walls I was trying to paint and promptly told me I would definitely have to prime first, even if I did use the new primer included paint. What a disappointment. Ruined my whole day.

Tuesday, I put up painters tape. When this particle board stuff was installed, whoever did the job, added little strips of seam molding over each 4 by 8 joint, and all that molding had been stained and varnished, so there was a ton of stuff to tape up. On Wednesday, I primed. I was worn out by it, and didn't even go buy my paint. During the priming I realized that all those faux finishes that required circular rubbing or sponging just were not going to work on this super rough wall board. I decided to just straight paint the stuff with some really rich color. I chose one called Raspberry Cocoa. Went this morning and bought the paint. And I just finished, at least with the first coat. I'm blogging while the first coat dries. Then I'll see how much I have left to do. I'm anxious to be done. I hope it didn't come out too dark. Or too purple.

It's so damn hot, and painting in the bathroom, up on a ladder, even with a fan and music, I was sweltering. I know music doesn't make you feel cooler, but it helps in other ways. I came inside and my darling had cut our watermelon, the one we grew ourselves. A Charleston Gray like we both ate when we were kids. You can't buy Charleston Grays in the stores anymore. We had watermelon vines growing a maze out by the garden, but this is the only melon we got off the whole tangled mess. And oh is it sweet. And juicy. And cold. Big black spitting seeds. Deep red heart. Pale green, thick rind. Oblong shape. This is the kind of melon you can hold in your hand and chomp your teeth right into, brings back memories. Nothing like watermelon on a hot, hot August day.

Onward ....

Sweltering in Texas and a New Driveway

Damn it’s hot! We’ve been home from the mountains a little over a week and my internal thermometer has still not adjusted. More and more, I detest Texas summers. In fact, I wonder how I’ve stood them this many years. It seems to me that they’re getting hotter every year, even though I keep being reminded by people that this summer is so much cooler than last. But the difference between 98 degrees and 100 is so negligible it’s almost unnoticeable.

We made an offer on a house we found while we were up in New Mexico. We came home excited and nervous. I talked to the real estate agent on Friday and the people had decided not to sell, had pulled the house off the market. It was too good to be true anyway. Completely furnished. A doll house. They live in Florida and the man had had a heart attack last spring. His doctor told him to stay out of the mountains. I suppose they panicked and put their summer home up for sale. We fell in love with it, too, so I don’t blame them for having a change of heart. But the disappointment overwhelmed me for a few days.  Finally, my SO came to my rescue again, after getting a little miffed at the way I was acting. Disappointments like that have always affected my entire mood. But anyway, now  we’re back to perusing the internet, looking at other options. We really like that area and plan to revisit it again in September when we go back through there on the way to the SO’s Denver market.

A few  good things did come out of it, though. At least we found out our credit scores. And we know  we can get a loan. For some reason, it also made me get off my duff and get some things done around here that have needed doing. We had a construction company out to rebuild the road, or driveway. They came with a maintainer on Sunday, scraped the ground down, then brought in six loads of pea gravel. It’s a huge improvement, no more potholes to splash through. While the road crew  was here, we had them knock down the dirt pile that’s been by the fire-ring for two years growing weeds. That looks better as well. 

I’ve also scrubbed the marble shower stall in our bathroom until it gleams ... well, gleams as much as it’s capable of gleaming. It’s been scratched and scrubbed with too many aggressive cleansers in years past to truly gleam. The door leaks at the bottom and it’s caused the sheetrock on the wall between it and the jacuzzi to crumble and mold. I’m planning to call someone to come measure for a new glass shower door this week; the wall I will attempt to repair myself. Bought some dry wall patch and paint. It’s a small area. Once I get into it and see how much water damage there is, I may change my mind and try to find a handyman. The SO is not one. In fact, I think I know more about this sort of thing than he does, which is saying something since I know almost nothing. He can fix anything mechanical but really hates everything to do with construction or repairs of structure, if that makes sense. His father died when he was in his early 20s and I think that may have something to do with his lack of knowledge in this area. But there’s also a lack of interest. Daddy says he has no self-confidence about building or construction repair, and there’s probably some truth to that. Anyway, I’ve learned to tackle these tasks myself or they don’t get done without a fuss. I actually don't mind that kind of work, I just wish I knew more.

Meanwhile, the three little crepe myrtle at the end of the driveway seem to be thriving this year. I think they’ve finally put down deep roots and are ready to grow. They’ve been so busy surviving and rooting-in that they forgot to bloom. All over the countryside, the crepe myrtle have been spectacular because of the abundant spring rains. But these three skipped the bloom, and root growth is the only explanation I can come up with for it. There have been several times since we planted them that I thought they were dead, or dying, but they've hung on, with us hauling water down there to them when it didn’t rain. The effort has paid off. They will eventually, I believe now, make beautiful trees.

I do still love it here. But I will love it better when it cools off enough to get back outside and do some things. As it is right now, it’s all I can manage just to go out in the mornings and squirt around a little water. Come on autumn!

Onward ....