Tag: birds

Spring

3pinkfish

I love May so much. I love the blue forget-me-nots that take over the backyard before the first cut. I love the new birds that discover our bird feeders (we had a rose-breasted grosbeak for the first time, it’s gorgeous!) I love the warmer temperatures and how my brain immediately starts planning for summer – strawberries, trips to the pool, the books I’ll read with iced tea in my hammock.

I haven’t written here in a long time but man, have I been writing! I have all but completed a draft of a novel written in stories. I have just over a month to clean it up before it gets handed in to the mentor of my dreams, Jessica Westhead. After five months of editing with her, I will hopefully complete it as the final project of my Creative Writing Certificate through Uof T. I am floating right now on excitement and lack of sleep and baked goods and most likely ridiculous delusions but I’m loving it. I am no tortured poet (except that of course I am).

My stories!

I’ve been getting up to write before six every morning for so long it used to be pitch black when I got myself and my coffee down to my desk. I love writing in the dark and watching the sky lighten through the big window over my desk.

Other wonderful things have been the books I’ve read, some of my favourites have been The Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, The Book of Love by Kelly Line which led to an obsession with her short stories and me attempting some wacky fantasy stuff of my own (which was a joy!), The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (swoon for her writing and The Lynx, her bookstore in Florida to fight evil!), James by Percival Everett, Wild Geese by Soula Emmanuel and The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch by Melinda Taub. I am deep in withdrawal of Canadian writing and will be inhaling nothing but for the months to come.

More joy has been my writing group! Us GEEKS have been together for over two years now and I couldn’t love them more, for their patience and brilliance and incredible writing and support.

I joined a writing accountability group led by the wonderful writer Edan Lepucki who I’ve been lucky enough to get to know and I love it and her! Definitely helps me get out of bed when the alarm goes off.

I love, love, love working at Words Worth! The staff are amazing and the events I get to sell at – including this week’s event for Iona’s Whishaw’s newest Lane Winslow – are nothing but good books and good people. The best.

Other good things: the way the sky looks through the sun roof of our car, the sun on everything, the amazing dinners Scott makes us, making book displays at work, going outside without a coat, homemade iced, and the way Rory decorated for our viewing of Taylor’s concert (he made me Taylor bunting!)

May

3pinkfish

May is a good month around here and this year we’ve got a kid turning 16, which is crazy seeming that he was only 14 when this whole pandemic thing started. The kids are doing alright, but we did figure out through hit and miss experiments that Rory is gluten intolerant, so we’ve been spending a lot of time figuring out what that means. It means he can’t eat many things. But he’s smart and we’re working hard to not only find good things to make but also what will work as excellent treats for this spring and summer such a place that sells gluten free ice cream cones and finding the perfect gluten free hamburger buns for Scott’s excellent burgers.

Other things it the robin’s next we were obsessed with. We could see right down into from our front window and from the eggs being laid to birds hatching, being fed and learning how fecal sacs work (google it!). We missed seeing the birds actually leave the nest which was heartbreaking after watching them for two weeks but there was a new robin checking out the nest this morning so we’re hopeful it could start again.

During my time away from here, I got up to 150 pages of a novel written but then realized a major plot point wasn’t going to work and I didn’t want it to, so I scraped a lot of it and now have just under 40 pages. Also in the time my laptop died, I got a new one, it died and I switched it for another one, a better one!.

We’re finishing up school, not too long to go now. Both boys are signed up for in-person school in September and both at high school which is so hard believe.

Writing this feels ridiculously rough but that’s why I’m doing it – a checklist of what is going on now. I’m so used to writing fiction everyday, up early and writing while they sleep has become something I look forward to, an absolute joy. The warmer weather this week along with time in the hammock has also helped lift spirits, not to mention mine and Rory’s love of watching The Circle on Netflix every evening.

We are at the stage in the lockdown that we are doing what makes us happy and gives us a break – all the good shows, all the ice cream, all the amazing books in the hammock and all the walks. We’ve been vaccinated once and the kids aren’t going to be as far behind us as we thought. Good things to look forward to is the way to go.