Tag Archives: personal life stuff

January 1, 2020 · 4:40 pm

Ten years, 2010 to 2020–teaching, writing, skiing, and other things

I reviewed my 2010 blog for the previous entry, and boy was it an eye-opener to see where I was ten years ago. Lots of changes have happened since then. A look at things, topic by topic.

Teaching

First of all, it was the beginning of the end of my teaching career. Serious cuts due to budget issues significantly impacted my little mountain school, and that was the first of three years where we went through a lot of principals in the building. My left foot developed capsulitis in a metatarsal joint, which has left an ongoing legacy of arthritis there. My hours were reduced to part-time from full-time. I ended up unofficially retiring from teaching except for substitute work in 2014, after applying at a lot of other schools. I suspect ageism but (except for a couple of interviews where it was blatant) could never prove it. Changes in teacher evaluation meant that as a special education teacher, I was penalized for poor student performance on high stakes assessment scores when it really wasn’t their fault. It was pretty darn obvious when I looked at my evals. Dropping caseloads also meant that if I tried to keep working for this district after that year, I’d be traveling to other schools–a miserable prospect when one considers that there were 20-30 miles between buildings.

So I retired in 2014. 18 months later, the district called me back, first to fill in by doing special education evaluations, then to work quarter-time online as a PE and Health teacher as a long-term sub. The eval work lasted for six months, the long-term sub for two years. It was the third time I’d been asked to help with evals beyond my caseload. The long-term sub made renewing my license easier, but I’m going to let it expire in the fall of 2021. I’ve done some substitute work in Wallowa County, but not enough to justify the hassle or renewal expense, especially since I’ll be 64 years old by then.

I’d also signed up for tutor work through a private company, but except for one client, nothing ever came of it. I enjoyed working with that student and clearly turned his writing around, which was a joy in itself.

I’d had hopes for more–perhaps research, perhaps consulting, but none of the prospects ever came together. Oh well. It has landed me some editing work, and I’m happy with that.

Writing

In 2010, I was almost at the point of having 20 stories out and circulating. I’d earned placements in Writers of the Future and another contest, I’d written several books that I was shopping around to publishers, and was exploring the prospect of writing blogs about teaching. That didn’t go anywhere. However, in 2011 I started self-publishing. After one fling with a now-defunct micropublisher, I kept my books and published them myself. I now have the Netwalk series completed, the Goddess’s Honor series almost completed (last book out at the end of January), and a couple of standalone books out. One of the books that I fought to get my rights back to, Pledges of Honor, is the “little book that could.” It keeps on selling, and in 2018 was a Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off semifinalist. That makes me very happy. So that’s about 13-14 books I have out right now (depending on how you count a couple of compilations).

The upcoming book, The Ruby Project, is probably one that I’ll ship out to see if there’s any interest. It’s sufficiently different that I have hopes it will catch the interest of a regional press, if the first one I queried isn’t into it. I am excited about it because it’s a near-future agripunk story that has some interesting elements in it.

I’ve yet to break into any big short story markets but at this point I’m kind of “meh” about the prospect. I’m an old white lady who doesn’t necessarily write what is currently popular–and honestly, I’m not into arm-wrestling with 40-something white male writers who beat their chest and whine about being pushed out of the market, so they target older white ladies as easy prey to shove out. Short stories aren’t exciting me right now, anyway–I’ve got lots of things to think about on the novel front and that’s where my energy is going right now. I’ve gotten a couple of professional-level payments but I’m not beating down the door to get into SFWA. At this time, I use short stories as a world-building tool. That may change but right now I don’t have a compelling reason to divert my attention from book projects.

I’m going to keep writing but at this point I’m rather cynical that I’ll be anything but a small fish. I’ve gotten praise for my work, including from a New York Times bestselling author that I workshopped with, but praise is nothing new and it’s not earned me a damn thing except misery over rejections afterward until I get my head back on straight. It will take a stroke of lightning and sheer luck for me to make it big in writing, and I’ve somewhat resigned myself to the prospect that I’m one of those “almost made it” types. Now I focus on telling good stories, not selling to the big markets or trying to land an agent. If it happens, it happens. Perhaps if I hadn’t had those last horrible years of teaching where I lacked significant energy to put into writing things might have been different. I’ll never know, and it’s not worth crying over what might have been.

Skiing

I don’t think I’m going to be skiing any more. My last year of a full season of skiing was 2014. 2015 was a low snow year and we were moving to Enterprise. I struggled with the foot and hip issues, and just could never get the rhythm going again. Last year we bought snowshoes and got some snowshoeing in. I’m sad, but one knee catches unpredictably, and I don’t trust it.

Horse

This almost deserves an entire post in itself. By 2010, Mocha’s training was to the point where I felt comfortable showing her. She responded positively to show life, and we had several great years with limited showing in the metro area until she developed a severe case of white line disease in January of 2014. That essentially took her out of commission until we moved her to NE Oregon in May of 2015. By then she was in significant pain from hock fusion, hoof issues, and the trauma of a drastically different change in life set her back for a while. She went from 24/7 stall life to living outside 24/7 and it was quite a shock to her. But between excellent pasture boarding care, excellent veterinary work, and excellent farrier work, she got past the pain and adapted. One discovery we made was that she needed a drastic change in shoeing because what looked to be the correct angle was in fact causing her pain, which we didn’t know until we x-rayed her feet. After a year of corrective farriery and several years of slow conditioning work, she’s now back to what she was in 2010-13.

We don’t do any shows beyond a local schooling show that’s a 4H fundraiser, but in 2018 they had Ranch Horse classes and we ended up as Ranch Horse Champions. Last year we were Reserve Adult Champions. She’s proven to be a good trail horse and road horse, even if she does silly stuff like adopting an elk calf as her baby. At almost 20, she lives in a big pasture 24/7 with a herd, and has no desire to go back to stall life (something she’s shown us several times). Heaven forbid I approach her with a blanket (she who used to be the Blanket Queen!) unless we’re prepping for a show and I want to keep her clean. The good grass she has here has put weight back on her and she’s happy.

We may take up barrel racing this year–it all depends on what happens with her soundness. At 20, you don’t take that for granted. But especially after reading my 2010 training blogs, where I see the seeds of her later problems, I think that with careful management she’ll be rideable for a few years more.

I’ve lusted after several young horses that have been raised at the ranch, but to date haven’t bought a replacement, simply because of expense. If the books sold better, that might make a difference. I have no idea how long we have together. She could drop dead tomorrow or she could keep on being a good riding horse for another 5-8 years if managed carefully. A couple of years ago I wouldn’t have thought it likely, but life on pasture with good grass really has made a difference with her.

Other

We had several tough years, family-wise and life-wise. I’m not going to talk about some of it because it’s private. 2012 was a particularly difficult year, because we lost several close friends, the son’s Crohn’s Disease progressed to significant surgery, the husband had problems with his blood pressure medications, and I was fighting with some difficult work situations. I was the skinniest I ever had been but it wasn’t a healthy loss. Once the stressors disappeared I gained weight.

One result of the tough times was buying the house in Enterprise, where we spend a lot of our time these days. We had dreamed of returning to this small community that we lived in briefly during 1981-82, but it wasn’t until the fall of 2013 that it even seemed possible. We found a nice small house in town with a mountain view, and spent a year fixing it up before hubby retired. The timing was perfect as we bought at the bottom of the market and before all the local contractors got busy.

We cultivated a garden with a friend in Clatskanie for four years, until the back and forth (6+ hours) became too much.

The son has a serious relationship with a woman who has two kids. She and her daughter now live with him in the Portland house, and we’re really happy about that. Plus suddenly we’re kinda grandparents and that’s fun. I sell books, quilted goods, and jewelry at some local bazaars. Both of us participate in local volunteer work and enjoy it.

That’s pretty much it. In ten years, I’ll be 72. If I make it to that age, I’ll have outlived my mother and will be approaching my father’s age. Who knows what will happen? In 2010 I was very aware that at 52, my mother had 17 more years left.

I don’t count like that any more.

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· 3:15 pm

Looking back ten years to 2010–writing, skiing, horse, and so on

Well, it’s the first of the year, and considering that the decade digit has flipped, a lot of folks are doing a retrospective of the last ten years (I’m not going to get into an argument about whether this is the 20s or not). So I went back to old blogs to get a better feel for what was going on, because as I’ve tried to remember things, I’m discovering that I have to think harder about what year it is. Age, or just a lot of stuff going on?

Ten years ago, I was having a gut attack but not so bad that I couldn’t join hubby at a New Year’s Eve concert, Railroad Earth.

I had bought the iMac I’m now using (which has outlived the printer I bought at the same time). I was also determined that I was going to do something with my writing. I was going to buckle down and get things done. Back then, I was convinced I couldn’t write a sf teaching story as well as Zenna Henderson. Still not sure about it, but Klone’s Stronghold was a solid attempt. I also attempted to write some blog content and teaching articles, but that fell by the wayside. Nonfiction is not where my heart lies. But I was writing short stories like crazy, and was on track for my goal to have 20 stories circulating. I was also working on Netwalk and sending it out for submission–not quite ready to take the leap into self-pub, which happened the next year.

Midway through my special education career, I was starting to detach myself from the label. The previous September was also the beginning of the three bad years of teaching, where we went through six principals in that time. But I was having good moments, especially (to my surprise, since I am notnotnot a math person) my Resource Math class. That class was actually at a higher level than previous classes I’d taught, so I was learning new things. It was, however, the year I was reduced to part time work starting in the fall. For some reason I thought I worked five years part time–no, only four. But my Resource English kids did well in their reading AND writing statewide assessments in the spring. Then the fall was the beginning of the really problematic period. At this time I was horribly burned out, taking coursework in interpersonal neurobiology/relational psychology and hoping to parley the combination of training in this field and special education certification into something more (which never really unfolded, in part because I was dealing with the work crap).

Mocha was favoring her right side and while her hock issues had been identified, I still had no idea about the issues with her front foot issues. But it was the beginning of the four years that I kept her barefoot, in hopes that would improve her hoof walls and overall hoof conditioning (which ended with the white line disease). I was working with her shoulders and starting to get a good floaty trot out of her. At that time she would arch her neck and raise her back to stretch when I started to put on her leg boots. I had started to introduce her to road riding (perfect location, with a 20 foot shoulder, the only way I would have done that on a road populated with homicidal cyclists in training, partying drunks racing between river parks, and general idiots). She had demonstrated her unflappableness by being one of the few horses not to freak out when a tree was fallen outside of the barn, and was also showing a lot of energy. I was clearly the high point of her day when she lived in a stall, though we are starting to get back to that now (working on it, probably will have a setback due to being sick and away from her for over a week). She went to her first big horse show and earned blues (and one red) in Dressage Suitability against more experienced horses, earning positive comments for her big gaits, along with mutters about “that reiner mare.” This was the show where she showed her competitive nature and focus, as well as her enjoyment of performance. We were finally figuring out training and she was settling into a groove.

2010 was one of my big skiing years, though I was fighting foot pain and cramping in between euphoric moments. That was the year I got cortisone shots in my left foot because of an inflamed metatarsal joint (I still feel that ache pretty regularly these days, a lovely teaching legacy–NOT). But I ended up buying boots that worked for me in February, which did well by me until I packed out the liners a couple of years later and started having problems again. This was also the year I saw the singing Scandinavian singer–from the blog, “Early on, there was one guy cruising down the Mile, singing at the top of his lungs as he danced with the flow of gravity. A respectable baritone, but the language most definitely was not English. It sounded Scandanavian, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if that were the case. Of course, Swedish and Norwegian ghosts probably stride those slopes; if not haunts, then memories from the early days of Timberline and European exiles wandering on Hood’s slopes. I heard the singing guy twice–once when he went down, the second, while I was skiing down and he was on the chair lift. Not hymns; not contemporary song, either. Not a drinking song. It was strong and rhythmic, matching the flow of gravity, celebratory in a marching way but not a militaristic tune, either. Whatever it was, it matched the setting. It was a skiing song, singing the snow and the sky and the clouds.” Still one of my favorite ski memories. That fall I got to ski on my late October birthday, which started the epic year where I got over 60 ski days in.

Beside the foot problem, this was the year that the zero-to-sixty UTIs in 2 hours started appearing. Several blogs about going into the ER at unpredictable intervals. I had dropped a lot of weight very quickly (probably tied to the UTIs and a long-term antibiotic I was taking).

This was the year that we started a four-year period of camping near the Oregon Country Fair and rediscovering our hippie selves–as well as going to several concerts at venues such as Red Rocks and Bob’s Ranch near Marcola. I was still a practicing Catholic, and confident enough to engage in faith discussions online.

Interesting to look back at those days. I’ll summarize what has happened over the last ten years in the next post.

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April 21, 2018 · 9:34 am

Well that was a week

An exhausting, at times exciting, but still tiring week. Husband had some eye appointments in Portland that bracketed the weekend, but there was enough stuff up in the air that I only could really plan one get-together with someone I’ve missed except for tiny grabs for the last few trips. It was probably a good thing I didn’t overplan the Portland time, as I ended up down flat sick from an allergic reaction to all the damn pollen. The same thing happened last year, and I had a less extreme reaction in March, so….yeah. I suspect this means that this is now a thing. On the other hand, I found a cromolyn sodium nasal spray and that’s really helping with things, much better than its steroidal cousin and much less harsh. So I now need to find someplace other than the Kaiser Pharmacy to buy it OTC.

We did spend two days skiing. The first day was lovely in spite of the stormy weather, and the second day was full of the heavy deep powder the Cascades is known for. Three runs and not only was my back done in but my knee was complaining. So we stopped. We’d considered skiing on our way home yesterday, but I was so tired and hurting that I determined it wasn’t a good idea. All the same, everything works really well on the slopes again. I’ve got my control back and I’m not struggling like I was so much of the time last year. I’m now thinking that everything I’m doing to address the lower back pain is paying off in this respect. Yay!

Then we spent two days hunting razor clams. OMG. Both days were hard clamming days. Lots of false shows to fake us out, which meant a LOT of digging. The first day wasn’t too bad as we were four clams shy of a full limit. The lot were amongst the biggest clams we’ve ever dug, though, consistently large. I found a medium-sized cockle on the beach, still alive, and claimed it. That day was also good for finding hermit crabs, a live snail, and sandpipers. At one point I stood still as the sandpipers scurried around me, several coming within five feet of me. Sweet.

It was also a lovely day for April on the Oregon Coast. Very light wind, sunny, and relatively warm. A good day to be down on the beach, but after the hard work clamming none of us felt like following up with fishing like we had planned.

The second day was tougher. We never did get any good clam shows, and ended up with just one limit between the three of us. It was another gorgeous warm day on the beach, though. Not as much bird action, nor did I find any crabs. My back ached so bad that I went back to the truck and brainstormed the latest rough draft work, including a quick sketch on a short story idea.

 

Then we packed up, went back to Portland, and headed back to Enterprise yesterday. Three short story ideas mugged me on the way back. I’m not sure why that part of my brain is waking up again–perhaps being finished with Netwalk, and two-thirds of the way through Goddess’s Honor is a factor? Dunno, but I’m not going to ignore it. I sketched the three stories out last night. They’re all tied to some other stories I’ve been working on, contemporary fantasy or Western fantasy.

And now for the first time in a week I’m not having to wake up and rush around to go somewhere. Later on today I’m going to introduce Miss Mocha to the wonderful world of saddlebags. But spring is erupting in Wallowa County and I’m itching to get on the front porch for a porch writing session. Ah. Lovely.

 

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November 22, 2017 · 9:45 pm

Busy week

Whew. It’s been a busy week with a fast trip to Portland for Orycon and early Thanksgiving. Tired but wanted to get something up. I’ll have more mindful posts later…especially Orycon, which was a very good convention this time around. Sold books, had good panels, saw lots of friends…all worked out pretty nicely. Then we went to Clatskanie to harvest more carrots and parsnips, and managed to pick a nice batch of chanterelles. Unusual for this late in the season but it’s been a mild fall with no frost.

And now we are back in Enterprise. I have a lovely new back massager that is making me very happy.

Me fall over now. Well, after I jot down the side story about what happened to Vered during the events I’m working on right now in Challenges of Honor.

You know it’s been a good convention when you come back itching to start writing.

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November 12, 2017 · 9:08 pm

Riding into fall and getting into the writing mode again

If someone had told me as recently as three years ago that I would be galloping Mocha in a stubblefield with gopher holes scattered throughout, I’d have said they were nuts.

So guess what I was doing today? Well, besides galloping, we did a bit of schooling. Little mare was energetic and ready to go, and we not only galloped but did some regular schooling. She was having problems with left to right flying lead changes in midsummer in the arena. Once she moved back down to the ranch and into the stubblefield pasture, I started working on some of our old schooling moves, including inside and outside bend in circles at the walk, two-tracking, and serpentines at trot and canter. Over the course of the last month, she’s gotten smoother and better at those changes.

I’m still trying to figure out what is going on with her. At one point I thought she might have a metabolic syndrome. These days, I’m leaning more toward a long-term, chronic pain problem caused by improper angles in her front feet and her SI joint and her hocks fusing. Somehow, last November, all of a sudden some movements became easier for Mocha and she’s now running sound on a regular basis. She gained weight back in her topline and she is relaxed and happy. I think everything stopped fusing and she finally remodeled her muscles to fit the new angles–whatever it is, I’m grateful.

She doesn’t necessarily act like a 17-year-old mare, except for the way she responds to schooling. Otherwise, the energy levels remind me of Mocha as a younger horse. I’m the one who has to remember to cool her out and spend time warming up. Left to herself, I think she’d take off and be a real wild woman at speed.

I also spend time trying to figure out what her herd dynamics are. She seems to be a lower-level trickster, liking to get her friends moving and stirred up when she feels like it.

All in all, though, it’s fun.

The last two weeks have played havoc with a lot of my writing stuff, as well as my recording of the books I’ve read on Goodreads. I met my reading challenge over there–150 books. I think that’s a bit of a push for me, but we’ll see what my final count for the year will be.

I finally sat down today and started fixing some of the short story submission stuff that got mucked up in the SpiritOne debacle. Fortunately, it appears that I got a bunch of stories rejected before the old email went belly up, which is good. The remaining market is…swamped, so I think I can assume a rejection. Whew. That’s back to normal. But it’s still just seven stories, so at some point I need to sit down and write some spec stories to be sending out to markets. Then I need to work on the anthology, as well as put together the Learning in Space: Bess and Alex compilation. At one point I thought I’d have that book ready for Orycon, but really? I don’t do a lot of sales there. If I can get it ready for even the last part of Jingle thru Joseph, that would be good. Otherwise…

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November 11, 2017 · 9:27 pm

Hurricane Creek hike

So today was pretty much a decadent, no craft, no writing sort of day. It was nice, sunny, and a bit cold. So we went up Hurricane Creek for a little hike of about six miles total, three out, three back.

I had to contrast today’s hike with what we were doing in the Southwest just two and a half weeks ago. Then, I struggled up slickrock to reach Delicate Arch, and fretted because my hips didn’t like me, my feet hurt, my knees hurt, and it seemed harder than it should be to make that climb with that elevation gain. It was a pattern that seemed to be constant in Arches National Park, and I eventually decided it must be due to the texture of the sandy portions and the nature of slickrock.

Today I hiked farther, in snow and ice, with much less effort even though there was a comparable elevation gain. The only touchy places were on the return, in several icy downhill pitches. My knee started aching a little, but overall? Much easier to hike three times as far than it was in the Southwest.

Still scratching my head over that. Granted, the last night in Moab, I had something weird pop up in my dreams–this is not your place. That floored me. I’ve liked the Southwest and it was a nice trip, with lovely fall colors against the red rocks and all. All the same, that dream kind of coalesced…something…that kept coming up even though I kept denying it. Granted, Montecello didn’t sit well with me for some reason, somewhat echoing the feelings I had there the last time we stayed in that town. But Moab? There’s a small literary scene, an art scene, I bought new snow boots at a serious discount in Moab…and yet there was that continuing theme throughout my dreams that night.

This is not your place.

Maybe that’s why Hurricane Creek felt so good, because since we’ve been back in Enterprise I’ve felt even more at home. My boots grabbed into the soil, giving me needed traction as we hiked along. I decided along the way that maybe I needed to invest in some hiking poles. But I didn’t struggle the way I did hiking in the Southwest. It was a perfect late fall day to hike up the creek, and we were far from the only ones hitting the trail. Patches of snow intermittently covered the trail, icy in places but nothing too bad. We examined the remains of the Falls Creek fire, studied several impressive avalanche remains, and otherwise had a nice hike.

In contrast, this is definitely my place. Not stark, steep red cliffs but rugged mountains with a whisper of snow on the tops. Gray, white, and brown cliffs with narrow ridged columns instead of flat iron-red slabs. Clouds skittering high over a narrow treed valley with baretopped mountains.

Hubby forgot the sandwiches so we only had a banana for lunch. That was okay. I forgot the big camera so no pictures.

And afterward, we did make one concession to craft and went to Joseph where I got more backing fabric for pillows. I’ll have pillows available to sell at Jingle thru Joseph, some Christmas-themed, others not. The first ones came out pretty well so I have hopes that I’ll have more nice ones.

A nice day. I probably should have worked on compiling Learning in Space but I didn’t.

Sometimes you just gotta goof off. After the past two weeks, I’ve earned this.

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November 10, 2017 · 9:47 pm

Contemplating a three day weekend

This morning I commented to the husband that it felt like I had finally come through the other end of a very intense and busy time. He looked at me. “You have been going full speed for the last couple of weeks. And next week is Orycon.”

Oh yeah. Orycon, then Jingle thru Joseph for two weekends, and then…it’s December, yeehaw!

But for some reason the past few weeks really feel nuts. Well, okay. Driving trip to the Southwest. Working while traveling. Trying to get the short story done for the anthology (for which I have to start doing edits). Facing this week of work, which involved cramming twice my usual work time into four days (thinking about this, um, yeah. 24 hours worth of work in 4 days is three days worth of a full time schedule. And I was sick two of those days. So. Yeah. Guess things have been a bit intense). And then last week was getting back from the Southwestern trip, getting ready for the Harvest Sale, then doing the Harvest Sale…okay, I can see why I was feeling a bit stressed and crazy. DUH.

The brief flirtation with snow appears to be fading. Oh, there’s still bits of snow and ice around, but it’s warmed up outside. Mocha worked up a respectable sweat but part of that was looking for an excuse to be Miss Drama Queen because she hadn’t been ridden in five days, and it was nippy. Her new pasture friend is clingy but…when I call, she comes to me and brings Mocha. So I give her a cookie. The two of them seem to have a nicely mellow friendship, though it’s hard to say for how much longer that will go on. All the same, they seem to be positive buddies. Mocha called to her when I turned Mocha loose, and her friend answered. Mocha galloped halfway out and her friend galloped to meet her. They sniffed noses, walked around a bit, then settled to graze. One of the two geldings in with them decided to come join them, while the other gelding who’s been a butt to Mocha was odd one out.

Riding today was pretty decent, at least until we went off on a new direction and Miss Drama Queen decided she needed to be…well, Miss Drama Queen. Not sure what set her off but she was skittery at a lot of stuff. I ended up taking up contact and making her collect up, which I usually don’t do when road riding.

Ah well, it’s good that she’s sparky and energetic at her age. It gives me hope that we’ll be riding together for a few more years.

Then home, and making two pillows.

But I’ve lost one of my SW Native American horse earrings. I had to search and search to find that pair. Went to brush my hand across my ears while at the computer earlier…and one earring was gone, the other one partially out. I hope that means I lost it here in the house and not at the barn or on the road. Darn it. It’s annoying because it is damnably hard to find Native horse figures, and I can’t seem to hand onto them (a turquoise pawn horsehead ring disappeared, too. A sign?). I looked and looked on our Southwestern trip, and the only thing I could find were horrifically spendy turquoise pendants, which weren’t what I wanted…I wanted a nice little pair of silver earrings like I have. Had.

Sigh.

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November 9, 2017 · 10:05 pm

Good intentions

So here we go again. I had good intentions when I was trying to churn out a post a week about writing. And then…well…the heat and smoke of August this year wrapped around me and I just couldn’t get to it. Of course, then what happens is that the intentions of blogging pile up, and up, and up…yeah. So here we are in early November, almost three months since I last blogged. That’s been one of my longest periods without blogging.

What got me started again was a discussion on one of my writer Facebook groups about blogging–how much, when, and where. One person commented that he blogs daily, at the end of the day, as a brief rumination as well as the cultivation of a habit. I thought about this. When I was blogging regularly, I was doing it first thing in the morning before work, after getting words down. I’d also been blogging my ski excursions. Then stuff happened. LiveJournal went weird. Jay Lake died–Jay had been one of my inspirations for regular blogging. I semi-retired from classroom teaching, we bought the place in Enterprise, and since then I’m finding that writing in the morning isn’t always a reliable thing.

So I’m going to start trying to blog more frequently, every night if I can. I figure that might be more doable than the mornings, especially now that we’re getting into winter and daylight hours are already a premium.

We’ll see what happens.

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June 27, 2017 · 11:22 am

Lots of stuff going on….

As usual, June is flying by. Between MisCon and 4th of July, it always seems like I’m flying around getting things wrapped up for the end of the school year and then jumping into summer stuff. It’s no different now that I’m working online instead of in a classroom. OTOH, I’m less tired from working online, so that’s a win.

The late spring meant we’ve been dragging on getting the garden running and getting in the wood. But at last, we got the garden finished off in early June and it is happily growing at our friend S’s place in Clatskanie. This past week in Enterprise, we did get two loads of wood hauled, plus horse show stuff…

But there’s so much to blog about and I keep putting it off because, well, who wants to spam the linkage? I’m thinking now that I need to write some things but just not publish them. The alternative is not blogging at all…and I am discovering that I really don’t like that option, either.

So yeah. Time to start writing blog posts and timing them. I will post one soon talking about the two short pieces I have available on preorder right now. I also want to post about politics, because I’m contemplating a few things. I also want to write and post something about a few things I’ve been considering about writing process that has solidified to some extent by now. And then I also want to blog about the horse.

Meanwhile, I’m putting this one up. Hopefully we’ll see a flurry of posting soon.

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April 25, 2017 · 8:27 pm

Back on the planks again

Skis, that is. It’s been two years since we went skiing. The first year, we had our Fusion passes ready to go, but no snow. Last year, because of my fall with Mocha in the summer, I couldn’t get my injured foot in my ski boot and I lacked confidence in the strength of my ankle. I missed skiing not just at Timberline but at Ferguson Ridge, the little ski area in Wallowa County.

This winter was and still is epic snow. Nearly 200 inches at Timberline right now. But I still couldn’t get my feet into those damn boots. So I finally broke down and went to the chiropractor for two sessions of footwork that my massage therapist recommended. After the second session, I shared with the chiropractor that I still couldn’t get my feet into the boots.

He frowned, and had me sit down so he could examine my feet further. “It shouldn’t be a problem,” he said. “Your feet are flexing properly. Go talk to a boot fitter.”

So I called down to Portland to a boot fitter, and the boot fitter recommended exposing the boots to heat. Given that it was still winter, and the wood stove was burning, I parked the boots by the wood stove. A few hours later–et voila! I could jam my feet into the boots. I followed a further recommendation and yanked the tongues out as far as I could to see if that would also loosen things up.

Next, it became a question of when in a busy Portland schedule we could fit skiing in. By this point it was mid-March and the Timberline spring passes were on sale. But I knew from bitter experience that Spring Break at Timberline is total chaos, so…we didn’t go.

The stars finally aligned. I had started questioning if I wanted to ski again, but figured well, give it a try. I have a lot of things I’m wanting to do these days and not many of them are in Portland. Still, it seemed to be a good idea to give it a try, especially how epic this winter has been. Plus with the latest cold and wet spell, there’d been a fresh dump of snow in the Cascades.

We didn’t race up the hill like we had when cramming skiing in during time off on weekends, or like I did when skiing before work. All the same I had a brief sinking sensation in my stomach as I came down Cherryville, and had to remind myself that I wasn’t going to work, I was just going skiing and having fun.

The lot was almost full, which surprised us. It was as slick and icy as ever. Fortunately, several months of life in the snow and ice meant we were a bit more skilled at navigating the parking lot ice rink. Despite the full lot, we were able to get our passes quickly, then go back to boot up and unbag the skis. As I wrenched my snug boots on, I heard the whoosh from the wings of a parking lot raven flying low. I decided that was a good omen because I’ve always enjoyed watching the ravens play at Timberline. It was easier to walk back to the lodge in ski boots instead of my other shoes. I had some trepidation as I stepped into my bindings–woman, are you crazy?!!–but told my inner chicken to shut up and pushed off. It couldn’t be any worse than taking Mocha back out on the roads this spring after a layoff.

Lordy, I’d forgotten just how tight those Dalbello Electra boots are. And I gave myself a serious case of thigh burn overcontrolling every turn down the first slope to West Leg Road, and the relief of an easy glide to Stormin’ Norman. The second slope down to Norman was shorter and easier, and I found the whisper of a flow to my movement.

We hopped on the chair and rode to the top of Norman. It had changed since the last time we skied there, with a lot of big, big jumps. But the snow was powdery even though there were snowboard divots we had to work through to get to the really good part of the run.

I had to stop twice on the first run because my feet were still screaming about those tight boots. But I told myself to ignore it because tight is better than loose. I had a bad fall from packed out liners in soft boots so I’m paranoid about that now. My thighs were also unhappy because–again–I was overcontrolling and not skiing relaxed.

Everything clicked on that second run. The boots loosened up and I found myself able to use my feet more effectively. My arms and shoulders rotated from turn to turn as they should. After that first run, my thighs stopped aching so bad and I was able to pick up a little speed.

We decided after four runs that this was good for a first day. We both had more in us, but I knew that if something funky happened I was just tired enough to cause me problems. And after all, it was on par for what we’ve done in the past for our first days skiing. So we glided back to the lodge, and I had a wonderful glide down the bottom of the Magic Mile to the lodge.

And oh yeah, we did a selfie in front of the lodge. Because we could, and because this really was the first ski of retirement. Two years late, but we finally made it.

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