Hello, dear friends!
Long time no hear from me, I know! Today is the first day of summer that I have truly had all to myself. Amelia is at pottery camp and Andy is at work. Agatha is doing her own crafts by throwing individual Perler beads to the floor from my ironing board, where they were awaiting ironing by Amelia. It is cloudy and cool here today, and that is always some of my favorite summer weather.
I never intended to be away from the blog for so long, but I developed thyroid eye disease over the past few years, and it has made taking photos with my big camera almost impossible. I don't have the words to go into the details and the details suck, anyway, but it's just been annoying and a big bummer and, yeah, pretty life-changing for me. It's also messed with my ability to see and do my embroidery as I used to do it, and I just find myself . . . not wanting to do it, which has messed with . . . oh, everything. Sooooooooo . . . yeah. BLAH. Not my favorite, as we say. It's hard to talk about this so I just haven't been able to.
I've been trying to give myself time and space and grace as I try to figure out a different way to still be myself in the world. I am still making books for other people and (mostly) loving that. I started writing a cozy mystery following the Save the Cat method and got to the Fun & Games phase, and couldn't for the life of me figure out where to go with it. I've been reading a lot, which has been really fun. I actually have read six books in July alone (and listened to one audiobook called Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister, which I thought was amazing), and I think that's got to be a record for me. I am usually a slow reader, and I watch more TV than I read, but my friend Rayna said she was going to try to read fifty books this year, and I wanted to try, too. I am only at nineteen books for the year so far (including three audiobooks—I only listen when I'm driving alone), but I'm feeling pretty good about that.
Andy and Amelia are well! Andy and I celebrated our twenty-eighth wedding anniversary this month. We all spent the day at Powell's bookstore and went to an Italian restaurant downtown (called Mama Mia) and had calamari and ravioli and fettuccine Alfredo (Amelia's favorite). Amelia has one more day of pottery camp tomorrow, then a week of nothing, then a week of musical theater camp (we don't know what musical they will be doing, but we're all hoping fervently for Hamilton—that would be amazing!), then a week of nothing, and then it's already back to school. She gave her first year of middle school a "10 out of 10," proclaimed to her pediatrician at a recent well-child visit when Dr. M asked her how her year had gone. I don't think she was mugging for the doctor, either, as she also proudly and without a moment's hesitation told her that she goes to bed at "at least 11 p.m." and has "two devices in my room all night," while I silently cringed beside her and tried to disappear into the floor. The doctor: "Hmm, well, I think that's a bit late to go to bed, and it's probably better to not have devices in your room overnight, ahem, ahem." Me, trying to communicate solely with multiple earnest and indignant facial expressions: "She doesn't! I swear! Okay, maybe sometimes! But rarely! Oh lord . . . help." Funny and embarrassing. Andy has been spending his days off crocheting creatures, and has so far made two eagles (our family was obsessed with the Big Bear Valley eagle babies this spring, so Andy crocheted versions of Jackie and Shadow), a space shuttle, a sting ray, and an octopus. They are all amazing.
Thank you for all of your kind words here and on Instagram (which I haven't been on at all in 2025, so I apologize for not responding to messages there). I hope you are all very well, and having a great summer! I will try to find my way back here a bit more, maybe with iPhone photos instead of big-camera photos. Until then, I wish you every lovely, late-summer pleasure as we soak up this last day of July. XOXO, a
***For some reason, Typepad has not been sending me notices of comments, and it also took an hour to upload three photos here. So I'm not 100% sure what is going on with Typepad, or if I have some issues or if everyone on Typepad is having issues (Kathleen, you asked about Typepad, and I have submitted a help ticket and will report back when I hear). And I'll try to respond to some comments here, as I don't have threaded comments available, either.
