Sandra Tayler's Blog, page 88

Family Reunion Saturday

Wrote up a post with lovely pictures I’ve taken in the last couple of days. Unfortunately the internet connection here chokes on uploading images. So I’ll have to post it when I return to my connection at home.

One of the nice things about my kids being older is that I can disappear into my bedroom for two hours and know that they’ll be fine. Having a movie, a laptop, and headphones is a lovely retreat. Afterward I’m ready to be social with my relatives again. Time to hand out glowsticks to children. The games will invent themselves from there.

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Family Reunion in Full Swing

The cabin is filled with voices, song, clanking of toys, beeps of electronic games, and the shouts associated with a group game. Family reunion is in full swing. I was in charge this time. I assigned out meals and spend time quietly making sure that things are going smoothly. I did not create a schedule of activities. The only fixed points are meal times because people get cranky if not fed on a regular schedule. The point is to put us all in close proximity with lots of options for activities. It is fascinating to see how the cousins will sort themselves one way for a set of activities and then a different way later. In general they group themselves by age, but not always. I was quite charmed to see Link bracketed by Nephew9 and Nephew5 as they snuggled close to watch him play a game on a handheld computer. Link paused to talk about the game when they had questions. Gleek spent hours leading a game among the trees for eight younger cousins. When she was getting frustrated I called her over, not to scold her for yelling, but to compliment her for doing so well at a task which is inherently difficult. Kiki has spent hours doing a puzzle with my Aunt, playing Uno, and then going on various errands with aunts and uncles. Connections and memories are being made. In the process we define ourselves as a family. It is good.

I retreat from it sometimes. I stepped outside and spent twenty minutes in the company of a squirrel who was determined to eat all the sunflower seeds in the feeder. She was a very good photography subject. I got my camera mere inches from her nose, and still she kept on eating. Other folks joined me on the deck and the squirrel chewed away. She only left when Nephew15 shouted to deliberately frighten her. Then she levitated straight up, spun in the air, and I swear she did that cartoon move where she ran in the air for several leg rotations before vanishing down the tree trunk.

We have two more days. All is going well. And I have decided that retreating into blogging or internet reading is as valid a way for me to recharge as spending time with a greedy squirrel. I sort my day into words. Then I’m ready to collect more stories to tell.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Night at the Cabin

The land of Cabin Without Internet has been invaded by a wifi hotspot provided by my father. For which I am quite grateful at 4 am when sleep eludes me. The room around me is dark and all the beds are filled with sleeping people. The only company I have is a ticking clock and a lonesome moth who thinks to be friends with my glowing screen.

Insomnia is a newer plague in my life. It travels with anxiety, and the past few weeks have been filled with needless anxiety. I have all this worry floating free in my head, just waiting for thoughts to which it can attach. This is one of the reasons that I organize, plan, and am so very good at my job. Knowing I’ve done all that I can do makes the ambient anxiety subside a little. On nights when I lay awake for hours–fretting over things that I know don’t need the attention–I ponder lifestyle and medication. Because one solution would be to restructure my life to eliminate anxiety triggers. The other would be to decide that for whatever reason my biology has deviated far enough from the norm that medication is required for me to be able to support a normal life. Then of course I can spend a long time pondering normal.

Mostly what I truly need is to get out of the dark hours of the night and into the next day when things are invariably better. For tonight this means emptying my brain of a few things by writing them down.

***

I looked at the map of where I was to go. It was a wiggly line right through a green patch of national forest. The much straighter road was closed due to fire and landslide. Google maps gave me two different sets of instructions neither of which matched the verbal instructions offered by my aunt. But we drove anyway, trusting that where there were roads we could at least find our way back. Driving an unfamiliar route makes me a little nervous. Canyon roads with steep drop offs require focused attention, not only to keep the car on the road, but also to keep my imagination from supplying imagery of what would happen if I drove carelessly just there. Throw in an intermittent torrential rain, and the last hour of my drive was quite interesting. But we found the cabin and all is well.

***

“You have to come see this Aunt Sandra!” Three sets of eyes were focused on me. Gleek, Niece7, and Niece7A all were quite intent upon showing me their fairy circle. I was given a tour through the enchanted grove, the fairy circle, the boundary, and led to the place where a deer died some years ago leaving only bones behind. The girls were solemn as they showed me the bones. They informed me that the rain was because the sky was crying over the deer. Then they dashed back through the trees to their fairy circle. For them the trees around the cabin are a magical realm. They become fae, fairies, and mermaids. I shall be quite interested to see the game involve to include additional cousins as they arrive. Gleek shapes the game, names the places, makes declarations. The younger girls are quite happy to be led and add their own embellishments. They are going to have a magical weekend. I watch the three of them together. Gleek is a head taller than the other two. She is eleven and it is quite possible that this summer is her last one as a child. Some girls still play pretend at twelve, but for this summer I am glad to see that Gleek can still imagine a whole realm into existence. I wish I could photograph the woods as she imagines them to be.

***

I rather like the quiet and the dark now that I am being awake in it instead of fruitlessly attempting to sleep. It is almost like I can absorb the solitude into my skin like a balm. I feel it soak in, and something coiled tight begins to unwind. For this hour I am free of expectation. I do not disappoint anyone, not even myself. It is strange that this freedom is so tangible even when I know that most of the weight I feel from expectation is things I put on myself. I am the only one who expects me to get everything right all the time. Perhaps the insomnia is my inner self rebelling against all the things I assign myself. It seeks the quiet dark which is timeless and alone. Dark is not required. I find some of the same feeling when I sit on my front porch in the evening or my hammock swings at any time of day. It is probable that a good portion of my summer stress is merely introvert starved of solitude.

***

My thoughts unwind and slow. Perhaps sleep will come to me now that I’ve slowed down enough for it to catch up.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Offline for the weekend

Today I’m headed off to the land of Cabin Without Internet. I shall be spending my time there bonding with relatives and helping coordinate the family reunion activities. Sometimes it is good to walk away from my online life. I will chant that any time I feel withdrawal symptoms or anxiety over the quantities of mail that will be waiting for me upon my return. I have to remember that Howard will keep his eye on things. All will be well.

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The Space Between Keeping Secrets and Telling All

This year Howard and I will celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. Of course by celebrate I mean that we’ll probably remember to tell each other that we’re glad about it, but only probably. Sometimes we forget the anniversary because we’re too busy getting on with being married. Whenever Howard and I are asked for advice on being married, we share something we learned early. Don’t keep secrets. Anything you’re afraid to tell your spouse must be discussed as soon as you can arrange a quiet and uninterrupted time. Short term surprises are fine, long term secrets will fester and poison everything else. Lately I’ve found a corollary to that advise. Don’t tell everything. This advise seems to contradict the first advice, but it doesn’t.

A few months ago we opened the pre-orders on Sharp End of the Stick. The particular blend of stresses involved in the pre-order process always trigger fun blends of anxiety in both of us. I was trying to maintain a very zen approach to the whole thing, not checking on numbers. Howard was watching numbers, doing calculations, and making contingency plans. He was really stressed, so he came to me and spilled all of his fears in detail. At bedtime. I then fretted all night. The next couple of days Howard felt much better and went about his normal things, while I checked numbers, did math, and made contingency plans based on worst case scenarios. Then I came to Howard and spilled all of my anxiety and fear in detail. At bedtime. Then Howard had a turn to fret all night. I think we repeated that cycle one more time before recognizing that we were playing a horrible game of anxiety-and-depression hot potato. Fortunately pre-orders only throw us off balance for awhile. We managed to extend the experience by throwing each other off balance, but things got better. Sometimes the telling of something does more harm than help.

Yesterday was not an emotionally good day for me. I don’t really know why, because nothing is actually wrong. In fact, I can point to a dozen things which are going really well. Yet I was feeling like it was all futile and doomed to failure. This was true no matter what you substituted for “it” in the sentence. My writing was pointless. The finances were constantly returning to ebb points. The kids needed stuff which they would just need again later. The laundry. I really wanted to corner Howard and explain all of this in detail. Surely as Husband it was his job to listen and make it all better. Except that I knew some of the things in my head would definitely punch Howard’s anxiety and/or depression buttons. A round of anxiety hot potato was guaranteed to make the entire week miserable. I needed to not tell him, yet I needed to not keep secrets.

I found Howard and gave him an extremely sketchy outline of how I was feeling. It was enough to let him know “hey, I’m struggling today and need extra hugs.” He supplied the hugs and the support, then we went our separate ways. Howard headed off to draw comics, because completed work reduces our stress levels. I watched kids, assembled bundles, and stared at the huge pile of ripe apricots that I had no desire to make into jam. More important, I assigned my oldest kids to watch their young cousins, then I got out of the house for an hour.

By evening my mood was better and Howard had not been distracted from his important creative work. The concept is applicable in other situations as well. Some things have to be talked through in completely honest detail. Other things don’t need to be said.

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Kitty is Dismayed

Niece7 and Nephew5 arrived the other evening, the influx of little voices caused our cat to bolt upstairs and ask to go out. She knows that little voices are accompanied by little hands. Fortunately for her the problem of small people interested in cats is a familiar one. Gleek is not so little, but frequently wants to love our cat more than our cat would prefer. We’ve set up designated safe zones, places where the cat is to be left alone: Howard’s office, her basket, the chair in my office. Many times I’ve seen her dash to one of these places and hunker in them very deliberately, rather like a child reaching home base in a game of hide and seek.

“See. I’m in the safe place. No touching.”

From her safe places, our cat likes people. She watches or just hangs out nearby. She particularly likes sleep next to people who are working quietly on computers. That way people are readily available for petting, should she want some, or door duty, should she desire to go out. Normally our house is the perfect haven for her. Summer is a bit harder with her increased exposure to bored children who have ideas about snuggling. This new influx of extra small people has her dismayed. last night the door to Howard’s office was closed, she batted at it with a paw until I opened it for her. She’s also identified Howard, Kiki, and I as people who will make the small ones give her space. She hovers near one of us whenever she is indoors. As a system, it works. Soon the extra small people will end their visit and our kitty will not spend so much time being dismayed. Until then, she’ll be in my office hiding on her favorite chair.

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Some Days I Really Rock the Parent Gig. Or Not.

Forty minutes after Patch’s Lego Brick Camp ended, I got a phone call from the teacher.

“So, um, are you going to come pick up your child?”

At which point I apologized profusely, promised it would never happen again, and barely took time to hang up before grabbing purse and keys to drive very fast. The place is only five minutes from my house. All the way there I berated myself, felt horrible, and worried that Patch would be distraught at being forgotten.

I arrived and Patch was happily helping clean up bricks and put away chairs.

“Some other parents were late too,” The teacher said as I apologized yet again. “Then I got talking with them until I realized you weren’t here yet, so I called. It was no trouble.”

“I told him you’re late sometimes.” Patch volunteered.

I’m late sometimes. A part of me dies inside that my son knows and believes this about me. Surely part of being a mother is being reliable. My other kids would have panicked if I’d been forty minutes late. I wasn’t late for them. Patch has a different mother than they did at his age. Patch’s mother works. He’s learned that sometimes I’m late and the world doesn’t end if that happens. which is actually a good thing in some ways. Patch is more self reliant and confident than my other kids were.

Yet I don’t have “flaky about afternoon appointments” in my self image. In my head I’m reliable. Mostly. I’ve been memorably late twice in the past year. Both times I was focused on a computer task and was too far away from my cell phone to hear the alarms I set for myself. I set those alarms on purpose…because if I don’t, I’ll forget. So, yes, I’m flaky. I’ve developed systems to handle the flakiness. Most of the time they work and no one can tell. Then I can pretend to myself that I’m completely reliable, when actually I’m human and prone to make mistakes.

Patch and I made a joke out of my lateness all the way home. We laughed together about it, which is probably a healthier way to approach things than for me to plunge into guilt-driven despair. However both Patch and Howard independently arrived at the conclusion that my contrition for being so late ought to extend far enough to spring for Wendy’s. So I did, and all was well again. I’ve also set more alarms for tomorrow and made them much louder. Once can be funny, more than once is bad.

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My Self Publishing Experience Thus Far

I wrote myself a royalty check last week. It is the first time I have ever done so. With the creation of Cobble Stones, and Hold on to Your Horses finally being profitable, I realized that it is time for the publishing company I run to be paying me as a writer. So I did the spread sheet, calculated the numbers for last quarter, then wrote the check and signed it. Right afterward, I flipped it over and signed the back so I can deposit it. Before I tell you how much money, let me tell you a couple more things.

Hold on to Your Horses took me a month to write. Granted, I probably only worked for about 10 hours of that month, but during that month I wrote little else. Finding an artist to work with used up at least 30 work hours. Back and forth with the artist took 40 work hours over three months. Layout and design took at least 40 hours, this includes the hours I spent curled into a ball crying because I was sure that I’d completely ruined the project and would never be able to make it work right. I had to wait three months to get the books. Then I took the books with me to every convention I attended. I talked about them to customers over dealer’s room tables. I did that over and over again for four years. I talked about Hold Horses on the internet. I did interviews on local television, radio, podcast, and the internet. Howard blogged about the book to all his readers. The project finally broke even financially last year. It has now paid my artist a fair rate and paid for printing costs. My royalty check for this month, the first money I’ve ever made on the project, was $15.

Cobble Stones is newer. It took me 20-30 hours to edit, layout, and create. I paid someone to help me put it into kindle and ePub formats. I spent at least 30 hours making the cover through trial and lots of error. I don’t know how many hours went into the original essays. I haven’t spent much time marketing it yet. The release got swamped by the Sharp End of the Stick pre-order. It was more a kick-this-thing-out-the-door-to-fend-for-itself than a celebratory release. I find it amusing that I co-own the publishing company, but my book got sidelined by a big money maker. There is a lot more work I can do to promote this book, but the truth is that my profit margins on it are very slim because it is a Print on Demand book. It will never make very much money. My total royalty on this book is $9.

I give all these numbers because people considering self-publishing should know. It eats a lot of time and usually does not pay a lot of money. I’m not sorry I did the projects. I continue to hope that they will earn more in the future, but they have not even begun to pay me back for the financial value of my time. Emotionally both projects are paid in full and then some. Except, perhaps, in the moment when I hold a $24 check and think “that’s it?”

The Schlock books are also self-published. They support our family as well as allow us to hire a colorist and an occasional shipping assistant. Neither Howard nor I has been able to leverage the fervent Schlock audience into sales for my books. The works are too different. My writing has to find its own audience, and I’m working on that slowly. I’m treating this first $24 check as a promise to myself. It is a starting point from whence I can grow. It certainly beats the zero dollars I was getting before. Self publishing is a long game, I need to be willing to keep working at it for years to come.

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Managing the Summer Schedule

The plan was to be getting everyone out of bed by 8 am because sleeping late in the summer causes us all to sleep through some of the best work hours of the day. Except the best outdoor hours of the day are 8-10 pm. Those are the cut-the-lawn, work-in-the-garden, go-ride-bikes hours. If we’re outside until 10 pm, then the younger kids don’t go to bed until 11 and the older kids until midnight. Seventeen years of mommy radar training makes it very difficult for me to fall asleep while kids are still rattling around the house, even when those kids are teenagers. I get to bed around 1 am. This makes getting up at 8 am…unlikely. We can do it. I make efforts, but when I do get up early, the house is so lovely and quiet. “I can get work done in peace!” I think to myself. So I do. Then I hear kids rummaging in the kitchen for breakfast and realize that once again it is 10:30 am. The pattern is more or less working, but all my roles run into each other. Also, I’m not getting enough sleep, not even on the days when I catch an afternoon nap. The lack of sleep further erodes my ability to compartmentalize my roles. My life feels much nicer when each day clearly divided in to mom focused time, work focused time, house focused time, and relaxation time. In summer those things all dissolve into each other so that I always feel like something is getting neglected. The best I can do is declare “house stuff comes first today” and then plan for a more work focused day later. The good news is that all of the critical tasks are being accomplished even though everything feels like a big muddle.

Things will change (again) tomorrow evening when Niece7 and Nephew5 come to stay with me for five days. Those number designators are ages, and no their parents aren’t going to be here. I’m re-entering the world of 24 hour preschool child care. Yes I expect it to make just about everything harder. I’ve planned for that, but my sister is moving so I’m watching her kids. Then there is a family reunion, and then a different sister is coming to stay with her kids. The family part of my brain is very happy and excited. The business side of my brain worries a bit, particularly about the next week, because I’ve got to get books shipped off to GenCon soon.

I write all this out, and it feels like I’m repeating myself. Which I am. Because I face similar challenges every summer. Part of my brain feels like I should have figured this out by now. Surely it is a solvable problem. Yet the best I can manage is a solution that feels like muddling through.

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Taylers at the Water Park

We left the water park when I realized that the best time to leave was an hour ago, before the crowds got so bad and the kids were cranky. I suspect this is a typical departure time. This was my first venture into a water park in ten years or more. I gave them up when I realized that taking young children into such places was signing up for five hours of Where’s Waldo when Waldo might drown if you can’t spot him quickly enough. Today was nothing like that. My children have reached the age where I can say “We need to stay together” and they do. I say “sure, swim ahead of me in the lazy river, but wait for me at the exit” and they will. Or even “I’ll wait here, once the waves in the pool stop, come back” and they arrive right on schedule. It was lovely all morning. By afternoon everyone was a bit tired, but not admitting it, and the crowds had increased to the point that they interfered with everything. So the negotiations for One More Thing were a bit heated, but compromise was found. The kids are full of plans for how things should go next time. Since we have summer passes, having a next time is probable. More importantly, I can picture a trip to the water park as something fun instead of hours of exhaustion, frustration, and tantrums. I like parenting for older kids.

For now I will pay attention to the parts of my skin that are screaming at me. 5 hours of direct sun does a really good job of showing me my sun screen blind spots.

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