Retirement Looms

A few famous authors who were my peers back in the day have been announcing their retirement lately; I won't name names because I don't want to attract their fan bases here. Let me just say that I completely understand what it is to cope with increasing mental and physical limits due to age and infirmity, and how hard a hit the ego takes because of that. They have my sincere sympathy.

I don't have a retirement date set for myself just yet. It's getting closer, but I have not noticed any diminished capability on my part other than it takes me a little longer to get things done. I asked for and was given more time this year to work on my current big project for the day job. My editor and I have both acknowledged that we're in the winding down stage of the career, not that it matters when you're a writer for hire. No one knows that I'm the one writing these projects, so no one will miss the real me when I hang it up. Kind of nice that way.

After writing a body of work that remains unmatched among my peers I feel like I did not waste the chance I was given. I lasted far longer in the industry than anyone, even me, expected. When I was kicked to the curb, I got up, dusted myself off, fired my agent and began a very lucrative freelance career. It's now more successful than my time writing for NY.

Would I do it again if I could go back in time? Absolutely not. Knowing what I do now, and the amount of damage done to me because of it, I would never publish anything for any reason. Nor would I ever choose to meet other writers. I would be another Emily Dickinson, just with novels instead of poetry -- but I'd make sure everything got burned before I died. That would have worked out much better for me and my heart.

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Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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