domestic

My father is ill. Very, very ill. He probably won’t last out the year. More likely, he’s already seen his last holiday season. I’ve been dealing with this on an intimate level for months. My writing and my mood have suffered. My sister and Mom have been dealing with it up close and personal for much longer than that. They’re suffering, too. But we’ve all been taught to “do what you have to do when you have to do it.”

My father has end stage idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis AKA his lungs don’t work and he’s not a candidate for a transplant. I visited him over Memorial Day weekend. Despite how he looked shocking me, it was a good visit and he was doing great for the time I was there. Once I left, though, he went downhill bit by painful bit until “worse” became the new normal. He was put on palliative hospice care.

Last week, Dad was moved to a hospital bed in the house. The last bed he will ever be in. His literal deathbed—and figuring out if that was one word or two really sucked. He can’t really walk anymore. His blood oxygen level fluctuates too wildly, too low. Even when he’s just sitting there. I saw him have coughing/panting fits. I thought they were bad. According to my family, no, they weren’t. At all. They say watching him in a “real” coughing fit is like watching him drown in slow motion (another phrase I never wanted to understand). It also sounds like dementia (it runs in my family on my father’s side) has kicked in.

I work to be there for my sister. She vents to me. We cry together. We support each other. I let her (and Mom) know they’re doing a good job. As much as it hurts to hear the latest update—he can’t work the TV remote anymore, he has a hard time following conversations, he gets angry and confused, he’s lashing out physically—I want to hear them. It helps me process the current and forthcoming pain. It’s giving me a thicker skin. (poetic words here about salt from tears building a scab…)

Yesterday, my sister let me know that we’ve gotten our last StoryWorth story from Dad. He needs to be medicated to such a degree that makes it impossible  for him to continue. If he’s awake and aware enough to answer questions, he gets upset because he doesn’t understand what’s happening. He doesn’t want to answer questions and he doesn’t form many coherent sentences. Still, we got 18 stories from him. 18 out of 52 is better than 0. I’m glad I discovered StoryWorth before it was too late. I have 18 stories and a bunch of pictures that will be put in a book. Memories for the future.

My grief comes in waves like the tide. My father, who has always been one of the strongest people I know, is failing. The man I grew up with is hidden within the shell of a little old man and only comes out to visit on rare occasions. I’m happy he still finds joy in small things…his Neil Diamond CDs, his Astérix & Obélix comics that we were introduced to when we lived in Belgium, my sister and mom bringing out his silly side. But I’m sad, knowing how near the end is.

I’m limiting my time online these days as much as I can. I only have so many emotional spoons to give and they are reserved for my family and my writing. So, that’s my life for the moment.

Declutter Monday started over the weekend with decluttering the art in my bedroom, bathroom, and office. I have a LOT of art on the wall. When I go to conventions, I need to know where art is going in the house before I buy it. The Husband is very good at moving around artwork and hanging it. He gets out a level and a tape measure to do it. It makes everything look fab.

Thought 1: In the past, I’ve bought a lot of artwork on impulse. I don’t do that anymore. Not only do I not have space, my tastes have changed. I won’t say it’s become more refined, but I will say I’ve become more particular. I no longer keep artwork I don’t love.

Thought 2: I’ve bought a lot of artwork from friends to support them and help their conventions be better. Artwork I haven’t particularly liked. It’s okay to get rid of it now. My friends have the money. They won’t be heartbroken because I no longer have the print of that sketch they’ve sold hundreds of copies of. Don’t keep artwork that you don’t love.

Thought 3: It’s better to leave an area blank than fill it with crap. I love artwork. I find my wall-full of artwork inspires me and makes me smile. It helps my mood. But, a piece of art I don’t care for has the opposite effect. It’s taken me a long time to learn this lesson. I no longer keep artwork I don’t love (I have to keep telling myself this).

Thought 4: Random revisits will happen and you will change your mind. After 10+ years of having a Keurig, we have given ours away. The Husband doesn’t really drink coffee and I’ve been drinking my instant, imported coffee. Less mess, less waste, better taste. I was happy to give the machine to a neighbor whose Keurig was dying and they were considering a new one.

Thought 5: Some of the most unexpected things need to be decluttered. Our game table, ubiquitous and ever-present, I was blind to it until the Husband said something that made me think we needed to look at our dice collection and he suggested we clean out the game table. 

Thought 6: I have a lot of dice. A whole lot of dice. A lot of very pretty dice I’m not willing to part with. I did bag up a bunch of dice to share with my D&D group, though. So I feel virtuous. Plus I only kept sets of dice.

The more I get into the general living areas, the harder it is to be concise on where I’m decluttering. There’s also a lot more organizing and cleaning in Round 2 of decluttering than there is of actual decluttering. I am not a minimalist. I just want to be more intentional about what we have in the house and what we use.

Next week I’m going to tackle the family room and the cat products.

Declutter Monday started over the weekend with the master bathroom, round 1 and ended on Monday with my office, round 2. That meant the bathroom was easy and the office was hard. It’s usually easier to declutter something for the first time. Especially when you have help. It’s always harder decluttering something for the second time because you don’t have the easy stuff to fall back on.

Thought 1: Pretty fades fast. The first thing we did was change out the shower curtain rod. The one we had was really pretty but it wasn’t stable. It kept falling on us. We switched it out for a simple tension rod with a holding bracket. Now it isn’t pretty but it doesn’t attack us. Pretty things need to be stable and functional.

Thought 2: Closets are a magnet for stuff. So much stuff that you don’t know what’s in there. Example: we found four Costco-sized bottles of the Husband’s shampoo. Mostly because he never knew what we had and couldn’t remember if we had shampoo. The answer is yes. Probably enough for the next two years.

Thought 3: Clean closets with enough space to store everything (while still being able to see it) lend themselves to more/better organization. The Husband surprised me and decided he wanted to clear 90% of the stuff on the sink and store it in the closet. Lucky for us, I already had the perfect organization solution for that. Now, he has only the stuff he uses on a daily/near daily basis out and the rest is at eye-level in the bathroom closet.

Thought 4: My office. What a rollercoaster. Declutter, round 2, of the office was hard. Some things were very easy to declutter like letters from 1991 from people I couldn’t remember, didn’t care to remember, or were no longer the same people they once were. It is always a pleasure to shred. On the other hand, I couldn’t get rid of my leather boots. I kept both pairs because they both looked good, felt good, and would last. Apocalypse Girl doesn’t care that I didn’t wear them at all this last winter. I might need them someday. Then again, I did get rid of three pairs of sandals I haven’t worn in ages.

Thought 5: While the closet, cubbies, and bookshelf were pretty decent to give another go over, I realized that I’d never dug into the boxes I had on my desk and cubbies. Why should I? They hid the mess. My desk boxes were fine. They still served their purposes. But the cubby box was just depressing. It was hard to force myself to go through the process of finding a home for everything that didn’t fit in the box.

Thought 6: The more you clean/declutter, the more you see what needs help. With this round 2 of my office, I’ve realized that I want to do a complete reorg of all my artwork. This time with intention. That, however, is a project for another time.

This time on Declutter Monday, I tackled the hall closet, the cat room, and my jewelry box. We were supposed to do the Master Bathroom, but we didn’t because of reasons (life). I’ll try to get that done for next week.

Thought 1: Round 2 of any declutter seems to fall into one of two categories: really hard or really easy. Hard, because you’ve already done the easy decluttering. All that’s left is the hard stuff—high quality, sentimental, unique. Easy, because you’ve already done all the hard work. What’s left is a bit of organization—now that you have space and a new eye.

Thought 2: My jewelry box fell into the hard category. I had already gotten rid of the trash, the mis-matched, the tarnished, the stuff not worth saving. I was down to good stuff I had a hard time donating. Suddenly I understood some of that need to pass it (whatever it is) on to family and friends. However, one of my sisters-in-law whom I recently re-met has almost exactly the same taste as me and is more than happy to take my good jewelry off my hands. That made the task of sorting, keeping, purging, and packaging it up so much easier.

Thought 3: The hall closet fell into the easy category. It had already been worked to death. All it needed was a bit more organization. I got to move some stuff out of the cat room now the closet had space. A place for all things. That’s the nice bit about the closet. I know what is on each shelf.

Thought 4: When decluttering a place like the cat room where you don’t want to have to dig the cat(s) out of the closet, there are some steps you need to take. Step 1 is to close the room door before you get into the closet. Step 2 is to make sure there isn’t a cat already in the cat room, hiding. Steps 3 and 4 is to close the closet door before the cat gets in and remove the cat. Then you can get down to the looking, staring, and organizing.

Thought 5: The cat room was easy. Mostly because I avoided the “office/convention” shelves. All of them have been cleaned up but not perfectly organized. Since I’m about to destroy it by going to Gen Con in a couple of weeks, I decided I would do the official clean and declutter of that one bit of the room in August after we got back.

Thought 6: In truth, I think the hardest thing to declutter was my jewelry box—made easier by knowing who those pretties were going to. Yesterday’s  Declutter Monday focused on areas that have been cleaned and organized and not actively used in a general sense. They are not “lived in” areas. So, there wasn’t much to do. Mostly, after a bit of thought, clean and straighten.

Next week will be a different story. Sunday will be the Master Bathroom with help from the Husband (unless life) and Monday will be my office. I’m really not looking forward to my office. All that’s left is the hard stuff to think about. We’ve already bought me a new shredder in anticipation. My last one died a horrible death yesterday. Then again, it was twelve years old.

This time on Declutter Monday, we tackled the Husband’s closet and drawers (Sunday) then my bathroom (Monday).

Thought 1: When encouraging your partner to declutter, be the change you want to see. It took about a year to convince the Husband to tackle his closet. (It’s open to the bedroom. I look at it every day. So does he.) Most of the convincing was me doing my decluttering and exclaiming how awesome it was, the relief of knowing what was in my closet and loving everything therein. My closet is not perfect but it is a 1000% better.

Thought 2: If your partner has a block, see if you can figure out what it is (use your words, make observations) and suggest a solution, then let it go. His block turned out to be the second shelf that the cats liked to climb on and hid in his shirts. It (and the shirts) was SO full of cat hair, it seemed like too big of a deal. I suggested we get rid of that shelf. After a week, he agreed.

Thought 3: Don’t do the decluttering for your partner unless they ask. Be there to support them. Fetch and carry, express an opinion, but let them do it themselves. This is stuff that belongs to them. They get to decide what they want to keep, what they love, what is too sentimental to let go, and what to get rid of.

Thought 4: Revel in the new found space and hidden gems (Gothic Hawaiian shirts). Celebrate with your partner. Understand when they want a sentimental t-shirt drawer. They have the space now. Listen when they ask for a specific type of help. Do that and nothing more.

Thought 5: Decluttering my bathroom, Round 2, wasn’t hard this time but it was a lot more thoughtful. It’s been six months. This time, I didn’t have anything expired, but I did have stuff that I hadn’t used and wasn’t thinking of using in the near future…but…I grew up very poor and had a rough patch in my 20s. Some of these things are hard habits to break: Hotel shampoos. Hair/face products that came with what I actually bought. A birthday gift. In the end, I got rid of most of the excess stuff I just won’t use. I also rediscovered some stuff I use all the time in travel size and moved it up to where I would use it when not traveling. (I keep a separate packed toiletries bag now—it will get a declutter in Jan 2020.)

Next week’s decluttering will start on Sunday, too. The Husband decided he wanted to be part of the master bathroom clean out. I said I would do it without him. He didn’t want that. I didn’t touch this room last time, so this isn’t actually a round 2 on it. Since the Husband wants his two cents worth on it, he gets it. That bathroom closet needs help in a big way. After that, it’s the hall closet and another look at the cat room.

I’m not a natural redhead. I had a lot of red in my hair (part of my Scottish heritage) when I was younger. I used to put a gold-blond dye on my hair and came up a deep strawberry blond. Then I dyed my hair purple-red. Then I settled into a nice burgundy-brown; redder than my natural color but not too red.

Now my hair is starting to gray. I can’t tell how much of my hair is gray but I’d say 10-20%.  It makes keeping up with the hair dye a bit more noticeable. At least to me. I really don’t like the skunk look next to the vibrant red-brown of the hair dye.

Recently, I visited with my family. Both my sister and mom have their natural hair color and it’s a beautiful brown. All their red has mostly vanished. I’ve decided I want to see my natural hair color again. To see how much of my gray is silver versus pewter and how it looks in general. The problem is the transition. I’ve tried to shift from a full dye to a highlight. It didn’t work. Mostly because of the contrast between the red and the brown made my hair look dirty all the time.

I worry about this because, as obscure as I am (as most authors are), I’m still a semi-public figure in the fact that I am an author. I do speak at events. I do attend conventions as a GoH. I’m expected to be presentable. I’m expected to let people take my picture and/or record me at readings. I do have a lot of pictures of me floating around the web. I want to maintain some level of professionalism while I go back to my natural hair color.

I’ve starting investigating “easy” ways to go gray naturally. Spoiler alert: there is no easy way. I’ve considered the following:

1. Shaving my head. Yep. Seriously. There’s no transition line for me to worry about. While there’s a whole host of cons involved in this one, but who hasn’t wanted to shave their hair at least once in their lifetime just to see what it’s like?

2. Strip the dye out of my hair with something like Malibu CPR or Rusk ELIMIN8. This still damages my hair but not as bad bleaching it would—which seems to be a favorite tactic. I don’t know about this one.

3. Try to dye my hair the color of my roots. Pull in fake gray highlights. This is a maybe. Could be a disaster. Could be perfect.

4. Go for the “Short Hair with Side Swept Bangs + Half Shaved Head” hairstyle that’s so on trend right now. Let my natural hair grow in as the rest of the red (or dyed brown) grow out. This would be a drastic hairstyle change. One I’m kinda leaning towards.

5. Pixie cut for the win! Let my hair grow long roots and do the pixie cut thing with tipped ends. I’m not sure I want to go for a pixie cut. This might be as bad as the shaved head thing.

Yes. As much as I hate it, authors have to care about their looks, too. At least female authors. We get judged by our looks all the time. I notice a difference in how the public treats me as a professional when I’m wearing a little makeup versus when I’m not. So, of course, this hair issue is going to weigh on me.

Fortunately, the Husband doesn’t care what I do. “I married you, not your hair. Do what you need to do.” I really lucked out with him, didn’t I?

Guess we’ll see what my hair dresser says.

So, life continues at a breakneck pace. I am grateful for all that I have and all the opportunities I’m pursuing. Sometimes, thought, it’s hard.

Travel: I recently returned home from North Carolina where I visited my family and had a very good time. I dislike the act of travel (especially planes), but I enjoy the visiting. Next up for travel is a whirlwind appearance at StokerCon for the banquet and ceremony. I won’t be on any panels (that I know of) and I don’t have a table in the dealer’s room. It’ll be strange to just attend the convention for a day and a half. The following weekend is Crypticon Seattle, the local premiere horror convention. Dealer only, but there will be much visiting to be had.

Writing: I got the official “Sekrit Project Alex” is accepted and checks are in the mail. Super happy about that. I’ve also turn in a short story and I’m about to return to Fever County. I was away a lot longer than I expected to be. Such is life. I also got interviewed by File 770. Oh, yes. I now have a local writing group for me and several work-at-home authors called Wit’n’Word (see what I did there?). It’s not a critique group. It’s a social writing group. We write. We talk. We play with kitties. We write some more.

Editing: Still dotting I’s and crossing T’s on the two anthologies I’ll be editing this summer/fall. The spin up part of anthologies is the hardest part. I’m looking forward to the editing part. Thinking of editing I’m processing the final proof notes for Ivan Ewert’s Famished: The Gentlemen Ghouls omnibus. It’s looking really good.

Domestic 1: I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos on minimalism and tiny houses. I don’t think I’d ever become a minimalist or live in a tiny house, but there’s a lot of good and inventive ways do de-clutter, organize, and pare down the things you don’t use or need. This has helped with my need to de-clutter and organize my house. We’ve been living here together for over nine years now. We both tend to packrat things for “just in case.” That makes it difficult to do things like use the closets efficiently.  Thus, I’m working on it. The Husband helps when I need him to. Mostly, this is one of those things I can control, thus I am. Each slain task feels like a real victory.

Domestic 2: We’ve decided that since this will probably be our house until we move to a retirement house (with no stairs), we’re going remodel and upgrade both upstairs bathrooms. We’d have to do it any way before we sold the place. Might as well enjoy the upgrades now. I suspect it is going to be an exciting summer for the cats.

Domestic 3: Thinking of cats… all of mine are doing well. They are fat and happy and demanding. I have an Instagram account that’s mostly cats. In the wild kingdom that is our backyard, a territorial hell beast of a bunny has moved in. This hellbunny has challenged and run off: other bunnies, crows, stellar jays, a pair of mated ducks, and a myriad of squirrels. They keep coming back. It’s a never ending battle and a never ending source of amusing cat TV.

I spent the last week in Ogden, Utah, visiting with the Husband’s family. I must admit, it was an eventful trip—mostly, but not all, good.

Visiting with the In-Laws: I like the Husband’s family. We stayed with his parents. They are so cool. And his 93 year old Grandma Ruby who is spry and talkative. We crocheted together. We spent a day with Jeff’s sister and her husband, who are, unabashedly, our favorites. The four of us get along so well. Thanksgiving day gathered the whole clan and spouses to an amazingly good meal. Got to see both brothers and spouses and the new baby. It was a really good afternoon. Full and fun.

Illness: My pink-eye from a couple weeks back returned with a vengeance. So, I had to stay well away from people. Fortunately, my MIL had antibiotic eye drops that fixed things up and made it so I wasn’t contagious. Bacterial pink eye sucks.

The stress that induced it: my mom ended up in the hospital with viral RSV that caused pneumonia and a host of other complications and bad things. For a while there, I thought I was going to have to fly out from Utah to North Carolina. Mom is doing better now but she’s still in the hospital. So, I’m still worried. Dad caught a really bad cold and my sister has been the champion keeping everything altogether between updates, visits, and making sure Dad eats. I’m grateful for that.

Travel: Travel there was a piece of cake. It’s a 14 hour drive with stops. I always start. I usually go about 4-5 hours. Then Jeff takes the rest of it. Going, there was a tiny bit of slush in the pass that made me tense. Driving it in the dark (5am start), around curves, means I need to keep all my concentration on the drive and feeling the wheels against the road. But, all in all, it was a really easy, pleasant trip.

Coming home was another matter all together. Utah has a post speed of 80mph on the highways now. That’s fast. Even through the winding passes. There was no ambient light. No moon. There was no messing around. At 80mph, coughing at the wrong time could get you killed. After white-knuckling it for an hour, I decided I had faced my fear enough and asked Jeff to drive we got to Oregon. Then I would drive through Oregon and he would take over at Washington.

We did that. But, oh man, am I ever glad that we left 30 minutes before we had planned. I fought the wind for the last hour of Oregon. Then Jeff fought the wind from the border of Washington (through a dust storm even) almost to Snoqualmie Pass, he had to fight with rain, sleet, and snow. If we’d been 30 minutes later, it would’ve been so much worse. But we made it.

Added insult to injury: my iPod nano died within the second hour of the drive home. Fortunately, my Windows phone has almost all my play lists.

Oh-So-Flat: As an aside, I cannot get over how flat Ogden is. It’s a huge lakebed surrounded by mountains. The whole city is set up on a very regular and logical grid. You drive down one road and you can see for miles down the side streets. Coming from the Bay Area and the Seattle area, this both amazing and freaky. I’m so used to hills and turns and one-way streets. No wonder people from Utah have trouble driving in Seattle when they first get here.

I was out to lunch with a friend of mine recently and we got to talking about how bad the dogwood was this time of year. I told him the story of the first time I’d seen dogwood.

There I was, walking down a Microsoft hallway that had a window at the end and I swore it looked like it was snow—heavily. I couldn’t believe it. I stopped at the window and watched. It overlooked a protected courtyard and the grass was white beneath me. I didn’t know what I was looking at and all I could think of was snow.

No one else was reacting to this at all.

My first thought, “Am I crazy? Am I the only one who is seeing this?”

Then I realized it was snow but something like industrial strength dandelion fluff. My second thought, and I kid you not, was, “Are we being invaded?” It’s because I had just seen a Darkside episode that involved invasion by sex and pollenization. Strange episode but it stuck with me.

Still, no one was reacting to this phenomena. So I went back to my first thought. “Am I crazy?”

So, I didn’t ask anyone. I was still not sure what was up. I waited until I got home and asked my roommate. I figured he wouldn’t think I was any stranger than I already was. “So… what’s with the white stuff?”

“The dogwood? Yeah, it gets bad. It’s going to get worse.”

I’m glad he told me. It was a lot worse the next day.

My friend laughed his butt off at me and my “Are we being invaded?” thought. Told me that it fit with who I am. I’m not sure if he was talking about Apocalypse Girl or the writer side of me. I suppose he could’ve meant both.

I adore my tax accountant but, crap, I feel like I’ve been beaten with sticks today. The worst part of being a 1099 (tax form) freelancer is the taxes. You get dinged twice on some taxes and, in general, it is hard on small business owners. We’re paying in the neighborhood of upper four digits this year and I’m a little freaked out. We can cover it but, when I saw the number, my first thought was, “Holy shit! We could buy a car for that.”

I grew up poor. I got in debt out of school. I fought my way out of debt to become debt free. I talked about all of this, and how I got out of debt, in my book, The Little Finance Book That Could. Getting out of debt is emotional as much as financial. So, while I’m freaked out right now, I know it’s a normal emotional. I also know we can handle this. We’ve planned and saved. Not easy but we’ll be fine.

But still. Beaten with sticks.