Fun, fulfilling. But I feel the need for deeper connections with humans, these days. More of them.
And, I suppose, within my own family. Yet at the same time, lethargy has set in. Day in, day out.

For me, maybe this is a “con” of the internet. I have dear friends in my life, and most of them do not live where I do. A small handful do, and I am thankful for that. But my tribe is so far flung, and I think it hampers my overall satisfaction with my connections with others. I have always had room in my heart for more than one person. I love many people, deeply. DLJ is the only one that this love translates into a physical relationship, and the commitments of a partnership, but I love others, too. Connections run deep across the planet for me, but I know it isn’t the same as being there. Lately I have been wanting more deep, meaningful relationships with others. I feel this is mostly a desire to have more feedback, more interaction. Meaningful interaction, not just daily conversations with adults, the way I would if I had a full time job.
I seek experience. I always have. As a Mom with a little dude, right now my outside experiences are very few, so I know I am wanting others to bring me their lives and stories, while mine is relatively in one place, stable. Domesticated, frankly.
I wonder what the future will be. Meanwhile, I should be more content with my present. It’s what I have now, it is what we all have, right now. But I am being coached to also dream of the future, and use that for present happiness now. Planning for later, now, so that I am ready for later, when it comes.
I really want a clone. There’s just too much I want to do, and not enough time, leniency, personal freedom to do it all. And that includes being a Mom, at home, as I am. I don’t want that to go away. Just…can’t do it all.
Grass is always greener.

Slowly but surely. The floor guys need to come back to finish the stair that goes into the sunken living room, but that is about it.

We had a birthday party to go to yesterday, and another one today. I am feverishly putting together inventory to put in a gallery tomorrow. And then I need to make MORE. MORE MORE MORE to fill out my offerings, and to put some others back out at the coast, and then try to get some up on Etsy, too. STUDIO TIME: NEEDED!

We said goodbye to a dear friend 2 days ago, our cat Lolita, who was 20. She moved in with DLJ years ago in Oakland, California. Her physical descent was quick into kidney failure and we brought her to the vet to stop her pain on Friday. It was a sad day, but I feel better knowing she is no longer declining. She wasn’t eating at all and every day looked worse and worse. She wasn’t Lolita as we knew her, so I know we were doing the right thing.

Life goes on. Halloween, we are finishing up Derek’s costume today, and need to carve one more pumpkin.
With that, we are quite busy today. I sort of envy the snow storm in the east, I know the power outages and such are not fun, but there is something cozy about a house with all that snow…. if you have power and heat somehow, of course.

Happy Halloween/Samhain!

I love my little dude!

I sold a lot of excess glass today, and my first flameworking torch. Sniff. But it had been sitting on a shelf. I repainted my studio Saturday, finishing up painting over most of the pale yellow areas a light blue. And now, suddenly, even though the paint job was quick and imperfect, I am on this minimalist kick in there. I took down posters, postcards, etc., in order to paint, and now I don’t want to put any of them back up. So for now they are stored away until I decide if I want anything in there again. Funny.

I just signed Derek up for his summer swimming lessons, so I think our summer schedule is now complete. A gym sports kind of class on Tuesday mornings, swimming on Thursday evenings, speech therapy on Fridays (he is doing very well with his stutter these weeks. Except when excited, it is almost nonexistent, which is very good progress and bodes well for the future with this and eliminating it completely) and then hopefully Friday playgroup. Oh, and a playgroup at his preschool in the forest on most Wednesdays. That leaves Monday for shopping, one day for a babysitter, and the rest of the time for playing with friends, hanging out at home, zoo, etc.

In other news, we bleached the hell out of our bathroom today. The shower pan is so old that the sealant is gone, and we can’t get it back on there (its a pebbled shower pan, huge and heavy.) So we can bleach it and leave it for two weeks. That means we shower downstairs for two weeks. Excitement around here, I tell you. Oh well, it will feel exotic, showering in a “new” location.

Thrilling, huh?

*Sniff*

I got the glider used myself, so I ended up breaking even on it.

How they grow. But Derek’s room looks nice, with lots more room with that big chair gone. Still. So many evenings, mornings, late nights…..listening to the guy deliver newspapers at 3:30 AM, when I was up night after night when he was….watching the seasons change from that chair….

Derek in the chair with Gram, just a few days old. Can’t see the chair but… whatever. =)

time. it passes. pay attention.

The rain is pouring down, I can hear it through the layers of wood and insulation that is the roof.

Our big project this weekend is Derek’s bed. He will be 4 in August, but still sleeps in his coverted crib, it just has a low bar along one side so he doesn’t fall out. He has been so happy in it over time we saw no reason to hurry to move to a twin size bed. I am sure he is the last of his friends to make the switch, but little childhood is so fleeting, we are in no hurry….but he is getting TALL. It’s time, soon he will be squished out of the bed anyway.

So I have been very mindful this past week at bedtime, at what it feels like to sit right next to him, holding his hand before we leave the room, what he looks like when we walk in to check on him, the size of him in this bed, his very first one, save for the sidecar crib we had next to me in our room when he was an infant. I am eager to make his new bed, but I am indeed taking the time to stop and reflect and enjoy these last nights and naps where I can sit right next to him, even lay down, my hand still holding his. I remember putting the crib together before he was born. It goes so fast…but not as fast as it would if I was hurrying to the next stage, and not stopping to reflect. The days are long, the years are short. I remember this every day.

His new bed is in the garage, ready to be built. We are making it ourselves, and it will have a jungle theme to it. I picked up the paint yesterday, the wood is all cut and just needs to be sanded. By the end of this holiday weekend, he should have his new bed, mostly. I have a few things I need to get for it still, but it will be read for sleeping.

I will be sure to post a picture when it is all completed.

Rock star start to the day.

At least the sun is out and I am about to brew coffee.

But right now…. sun and coffee.

I need to make the time to do it.

How did my days get so busy, so full, so hectic? Web stuff, straw stuff, preschool stuff, little boy stuff, house stuff, preschool auction stuff, health stuff, DLJ stuff.

Well, I must get back to the STUFF. I will try to write something with decent content in the next few days.

So we got everything out of the attic. Not that much stuff compared to most people, probably, but the camping gear, scuba/snorkel gear, a crapload of Thomas Dolby t shirts…..

Then DLJ took up the floorboards the previous owner had put in, planning to put them back in his own configuration when everything was done.

HAH.

Our insulation was so woefully thin….the new stuff … you can’t see the studs or where the floor used to be. At all. It looks like a 1 foot+ snowfall in the attic. Sweet, wonderful insulation to help us keep our home warm and hopefully bring down the overall heating bills.

But now we can’t put the wood, or any of the stuff….back. NOW what?

Not exactly a crisis….but a guestroom full of stuff.

This year it was special fun, since it was our first year since 2006. It was a nice end to 2010, which was in many ways not my favorite year of late. There were many good things, and in the big picture, not many bad, but….it was a mostly off-kilter year. Can’t win them all.

One nice bit, though, was making a new friend in the band’s trumpet player. For years I had admired his work (and that long hair) onstage and after over a year and a half of emailing, convinced him to hang out in early May. Since then, we have gotten pretty close as friends. He is not around much, with the touring and various other travels, so instead of seeing each other regularly we would carve out like, 8-10 hours in a day, and just do it all at once, roaming from activity to activity, meal to meal.

So seeing the band, and now, seeing a good friend up there, spending NYE with him from the darkened Schnitz, was a lovely ending, and beginning of 2011.

Today we took down the tree, after Derek and I had slowly removed ornaments during the last part of last week. DLJ says it’s too cold to do the outside lights, but I like work like that, so I will venture up the ladder tomorrow to get them off the house, so we can pack everything back away in the attic and I can turn my sights to Spring. I know, winter just started….but I am always eager for it.

In the world of glass, often one starts working in the colors of the future. If I made glass hearts, I would be well into that for Valentine’s Day, already. So Spring will come to me, soon as I shift my working colors, to a degree, to the vibrant new growth colors of the coming longer days.

Tonight, it is cold. Brr. I hope to get close to the end of a sleeve on a sweater I am knitting for Derek, perhaps a small cup of cocoa, and a little tidying up. I’m reading William Gibson’s latest effort and the first chapters were a tad confusing, but I am now hooked in for the ride. So a little nightly reading will end my first day of the this decade.

I have some “resolutions,” but I will post those in a few days. My resolutions are really more like goals, I guess. Not promises to keep, but things to work and strive towards with optimism.

May the new year be blessed for all of you!