Darswords

I can’t believe we have been in this house for over a month now. Isn’t it funny how you fall into your rhythms again after being disrupted by a move or other trauma? There are still boxes in the living room. That’s the only room to have no furniture. (We need couches and chairs and a coffee table still.) So the boxes sit there until we can get around to them. Most of the boxes with my name on them are books. Since a couple of the bookshelves at the old place broke down we didn’t bring them along. So my boxes of books have no home yet. : -(

Can you believe I finally have an office/studio/craft room? I have my piano on an interior wall. I have my sewing stash, and crocheting/knitting stash, and scrapbooking stash, and bookshelves full of books, and a couple boxes full of books. My desk is a simple card table.That works for all my needs. There are two wonderful windows in this room. One faces north, where in the far distance I can see some hills that make the shape of one of those Easter Island gods laying down looking at the sky. And miles and miles and miles of sagebrush, and the wonderful sky. The other window faces west, and although I can see the sunset there, there is also a neighbor who lives very close on that side whose house blocks the view. He’s a nice neighbor so I can’t be too upset. As the winter gets colder, I appreciate that west window. It keeps the room warm from early afternoon until dark. It does get a bit of a glare, but I have curtains.

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween, Samhain, and a sacred All Hollows night and day.

Meaning no disrespect to you, who enjoy it from either point of view, but October 31st has been NaNoWriMo prep day for me for the last 14 years. In fact, usually, the whole month of October is NaNoWriMo prep. But somehow I couldn’t settle my mind and making an outline or create my characters until the last couple days. But make no mistake. I knew I was going to be doing this again. For some reason, I didn’t win last year. I don’t remember why. I just didn’t get that into it, I guess. I can’t even remember what last years’ was about. But I do remember getting into the one the year before. It was fun.

Funny how during Nano, I always seem to find other things to do besides writing. I seem to be so much better at housework. There’s always a lot of research to do. Oh, and look at me, I’m blogging! But I did reach 1767 words last night. I usually stay up until the witching hour to start on a novel. Last night I got sleepy! But around two o’clock I was awake again. So I crept into my wonderful office, put on my headset and started writing via Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I did have a chance in the quiet of the night, to start my outline and do better research on my characters. The sad thing is, my outline only took me to chapter 5. And last nights’ writing took me all the way through chapter 1. Oops! Guess I’ve got a lot more planning to do!

Oh! I meant to tell you about life in the country with no car. When we lived in Reno, we didn’t have a car for quite a while. Mostly it was due to not having the money to fix the car we had and then to the landlords who wouldn’t let us keep it till we did have the money to fix it. But that was okay, there.We have a lot of good businesses really close that we could walk to or take the bus to. We got ourselves a little shopping cart to walk back and forth to and from the stores. Worked out quite well.

But now we are 1.7 miles from the nearest store, a little farther to our little library, and 2.8 miles to the post office. They don’t have door-to-door, mail delivery here in Christmas Valley. I’ve never lived in a place where they didn’t have door-to-door mail delivery, so this is an adjustment. Taking a walk a couple times a week is healthy and gaining room in my waistband. And…If you don’t have a box at the post office and they seem to have run out, you must go after three o’clock to pick up your mail. Because that’s when they receive the mail for those who don’t have a box. Which during this first month has not been easy. This is the desert after all. From three o’clock through about six is the hottest hours of the day. So we took our time and made sure we had water with us and learned to wear a hat. Now that it’s getting colder and the days are getting shorter, it’s becoming the coldest part of the day. I’m learning to adapt.

There is a Senior bus here, and the kind of dial-a-ride for seniors or the disabled. The bus takes us to Bend or La Pine or other areas a little ways away. The dial-a-ride people, pick us up at home and take us to the bus, or take is to doctor’s appointments or even to go visiting if we call them soon enough. That makes not having a car a lot easier.I think it’s a feature of Oregon and other states need to do this, too.

I’ll bet you catch everybody up to date on my little corner of the world. Happy November, and good luck with your NaNoWriMo’s!